Modern Mythmaking

  • The Unpredictable Animal

    The Unpredictable Animal

    Relationships are never predictable. And this has been the bane of the corporate world…

  • New White Man’s Burden

    New White Man’s Burden

    It demands a better understanding of cultural history…

  • On Stories we Tell

    On Stories we Tell

    Humans tell stories, because we need to. They tell us who we are in this world by giving the world a structure. Stories transform us into heroes, villains, victims and martyrs…

  • Violence and Gita

    Violence and Gita

    Ramayana and Mahabharata valorise not war so much as the pursuit of social obligation, even while engaging in long discussions on the morality of war…

  • New avatar for old crusades

    New avatar for old crusades

    For the Muslim world secularism, rationality, liberalism and democracy are just new avatars of their old Christian foes…

  • What’s your Sanskaar?

    What’s your Sanskaar?

    Sanskaar refers to upbringing in India. It is the Key Performance Indicator of parenting to most Indians. It is an indicator of family values. It shows how civilized and cultured we are…

  • Ramayana when it Rains

    Ramayana when it Rains

    In Kerala, the traditional month of Karkidakam that falls in July-August is associated with heavy rains. It used to once be a time of scarcity, wetness and disease. There was no work in the fields and staying at home doing nothing meant boredom and quarrels for no reason. To cope with this, people began reading…

  • Karta versus Yajaman

    Karta versus Yajaman

    The two words are often used interchangeably but they mean very different things. They represent two levels of leadership…

  • Butter is now Out of Reach

    Butter is now Out of Reach

    Butter, like love, must be shared, not locked away from people…

  • Differential Values

    Differential Values

    Everyone assumes they have values. Problem is that their values are different from other people’s values…

  • Objective fact vs subjective truth: A textbook fight

    Objective fact vs subjective truth: A textbook fight

    A quick look at some (not all, one must repeatedly clarify) of recent books about Indian culture authored by Western scholars reveals a rather disturbing tilt in the interpretations of objective data…

  • Never-complete and Ever-Changing truths

    Never-complete and Ever-Changing truths

    The world is constantly changing. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing is fixed. Seasons change. Societies rise and fall. Contexts change. Reasons change. Values come and go. Meanings shift. So ‘the truth’ is never complete and always changing…

  • Pink Things to Good People

    Pink Things to Good People

    We are conditioned to believe the mythology of ‘fairness and justice’ popularized in recent time, and yet despite the complex of well-meaning laws, bad things continue to happen to good people…

  • Dating the Divine

    Dating the Divine

    Reason matters less and belief matters more…

  • Cradle of Monotheism

    Cradle of Monotheism

    When empires came into being, emperors believed their god was the greater god, and he was the chosen man, and his people were the chosen people…

  • Check-list vs. To-do-list

    Check-list vs. To-do-list

    Which list is better? This or that?…