Culture & Society

Vijay Narayanan on April 20th, 2009

The trouble with people like Arundhati Roy is that they are capable only of being rabble-rousers. I refer specifically to this opinion piece of hers in the Times of India that I read belatedly berating India for not doing enough about the war in Sri Lanka. She ends her piece with an impassioned appeal to [...]

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Vijay Narayanan on March 30th, 2009

Sundara Kaandam is considered by many as among the most beautiful sections of the Ramayana. Indeed the title itself serves as an adjective (sundara = beautiful), while another meaning could be that it is the set of chapters about Hanuman (Sundara being one of his names). One of the most celebrated sections of the Sundara [...]

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Vijay Narayanan on March 9th, 2009

Whichever lesser mortal coined the term “Mozart of Madras” to refer to A.R. Rahman did, in three short words, a great disservice to Mozart and Rahman both. So he / she would do well to step forward, accept his / her mistake and take it back. Carlos Queiroz, former assistant manager at Manchester United had [...]

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Vijay Narayanan on December 15th, 2008

… that celebrates bad behavior.

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Vijay Narayanan on October 14th, 2008

(Warning: Lotsa brackets, like this one.) Back in 2001-02 (ah, the good ol’ days), when the stock markets recoiled after the dotcom bust and thousands of people found themselves out of a job in Silicon Valley, thousands of miles across the face of the earth, the impact was felt in Chennai. The great Indian IT [...]

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