Here is a story of two virals.   Separated by a border, two very different videos went viral in the last two months of 2011. Both shared so much in common and were oh so different   Probably what goes viral depends on the current cultural temper of that country. What it considers as an echo of its voice, however subconscious or sublimal   One viral goes on to become a case study in IIMs and goes into the handbook of aspiring...

So Amy Winehouse is dead..at the incredibly ominous age of 27, the age which claimed Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison and Cobain…While that age number merits an all new blog article of its own, this post is about a small thought I had when I read about the Amy’s death in the papers today… In space of about a week, NOTW died and then Amy died…almost coincidentally symbiotic… The media that pushes them to stardom, only to earn profit by...

I remember a childhood story that i remember affected me profoundly. The story was of the Koh-i-noor diamond and how we lost it to the Britishers. The Brits were the ‘bad guys’ who looted the best things that this country had to offer and how they obscenely display the Koh-i-noor, something that they stole from us. It was a story told with much pain, a pain which I could articulate later as born out of impotent helplessness. At that...

I am fine with religious functions and events as long as they don’t disrupt ordinary people’s lives. The tradition (newly revived during the BJP government rule) of kawariyas carrying Ganga water from Hardwar and transporting them on foot to their respective places definitely don’t fall under this category of personal religion. For a month, they disrupt roads and create a ruckus wherever they go. And like it happened in Punjabi Bagh...

There was once a rebel poet-singer who modelled himself on the traditions of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and early Dylan. He sang songs that cut through the baggage of Bengali music that had stagnated for over two decades. He sang songs of protests, of frank love, of yearning, of rage and of revolution. He sang songs of the man on the street and his life. His voice and lyrics reminded us of the best traditions of Bengali music –...