Its strange how sometimes you stumble upon some forgotten nook and cranny that few people would give a second glance, which can throw up some words that stick with you and sets off a chain of thoughts… I came across a marble slab engraved on the side of the entrance of the Delhi Public library in Old Delhi. I had gone with G since she wanted to get some books reissued. I was standing outside my head full of the music pouring out my...

Salvor Hardin, a character in the "Foundation Trilogy" by Isaac Asimov, once remarked that "its a poor sword indeed, that does not cut both ways" Looking at the Gujjar agitation to get the benefits of "backward caste" tag attached to their CV, I am reminded of those words.   Its a case of the chickens coming home to roost. Just like the Pakistan establishment never thought that the Islamic militants they...

The title, of course, takes its name from the famous suicide note of George Eastman when he wrote the reason for taking his life as “My work here is finished, why wait?” I have often wondered at the irony. Almost all of us blunder around life trying to find a reason for all that we do. Looking as an outsider at the melee that our life, haven’t we all, in secret or in the open, despaired at finding some purpose in what we do. If we...