China
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View: The Beginning and End of Using Religion
Published on 6th February, 2021, in The Economic Times. When the Romans went about conquering, they did not destroy local temples or reject local gods. They simply demanded that those conquered owed libations to the Roman emperor, while carrying on…
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Hindu Parliament and Churning the Ocean of Milk
Published on 6th December, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. The design of the Parliament building in Delhi was based on yogini shrines of North India that were built over 1,000 years ago. They are circular without a central roof, very different…
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Mahasiddhas Of Tantrik Buddhism
Published on 6th December, 2020, in Mid-day. Buddhism has a vast history of 2,500 years. The earliest form of Buddhism is called Theravada Buddhism. Here, Buddha is visualised as a monk. Gautam Buddha was a prince, who abandoned his kingdom…
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Fox With Nine Tails
Published on 29th November, 2020, in Mid-day. In ancient China, the belief was that as the common red fox grew older, it would get supernatural powers. Its colour would change and its tails would multiply. Therefore, with the passage of…
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Ithasa As Propaganda
Published on 31st October, 2020, in Economic Times. If one travels to ancient Egypt, one sees gigantic monuments of Rameses II. These celebrate his victory against the Hittites, in Syria, in 1300 BCE, in the first real use of horse-driven…
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Menstrual Taboos Are Not Unique to Hinduism
Who is a Hindu? Menstrual taboos are not unique to Hinduism Published on 16th August, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror. In Kerala, there is the story of a group of boys who found a rock bleeding. Those who touched it died…
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How Was Hindu Rajdharma Different From Turuku’s?
Published on 26th April, 2020, in Mumbai Mirror People often speak of a civilisational rupture that took place when Islam came into India. The easiest way to understand this is to go back in history and figure out the different…
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View: Why Indians do not innovate
Published on 4th April, 2020, in the Economic Times Despite being highly creative, there are two reasons why Indians did not, and do not, innovate beyond the idea of ‘jugaad’ – contextual improvisations born of limitations that are generally not…
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So Many Buddhas
Published on 3rd February, 2020, in The Times of India Buddha was imagined differently by Ambedkar, Savarkar and Nehru. Ambedkar believed that Navayana Buddhism, rooted in social justice, was the only way to stop caste affirming Manuvadi Brahminism that threatened…
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Spot the difference between sign and symbol
Published on 16th December, 2019, in The Hindu The symbol of India in Indian passports and Indian currency notes has been a lion and a spoked-wheel or chakra, both from the Ashoka pillar. Now the government has introduced the lotus…
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Pakistani Mythology
Published on 3rd November, 2019, in Mid-day Pakistan was the first modern republic to declare itself ‘Islamic’. It imagines itself as the Eastern edge of Arab civilisation, when in fact, it is the Western edge of Indian civilisation. No Pakistani…
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Love in simplified Chinese is without a heart
Published on 18th October, 2019, in Economic Times In China, there are many dialects and a lot of diversity; however, everyone is united by the use of the single script. You can read the same script, in different languages but…
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Managing the boss in India
Published on 26th July, 2019, in Economic Times A friend from Southeast Asia once told me that the Chinese have had a civil service and bureaucracy for over a thousand years, complete with a civil service exam. The success of…
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Hinduism and Buddhism
Published on 28th April, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror. It was in the 19th Century that the wider world actually heard of the Buddha and Buddhism. Although Buddhism was practised for centuries in the Far East and Southeast Asia, people did…
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For all its noble aspirations, social media is pure business.
To make money, you need access to markets. To gain access to markets, you need to make sure that the controller of the market favours you. If the controller of the market shuts the door on you, you have no…
