(Maruti Suzuki has stopped production of the iconic Maruti 800. A piece I wrote in 2009, when Maruti first announced that it has begun the process of withdrawing India’s first hatchback) In an indication of a changing India, two lifestyle products that defined Indian middle class existence and aspiration in the 1970s and 1980s will…
Author: Siddharth Srivastava
Journalist
Aam Aadmi Party needs to succeed
(Arvind Kejriwal has threatened to resign. Re-posting this piece I wrote last month) Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is focused on setting right government functioning that I believe will go much beyond shunning red beacon lights on official cars and bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi. If they are able to fix just this and nothing more,…
If Tiger Woods had crashed in India
(Tiger Woods was in India this week. Re-posting a piece I wrote about the golfer in 2009 when he was in news for his personal life) In an Indian environment, the Tiger Woods saga perhaps would have been a little different. When the golfer crashed his vehicle outside his house, the police and ambulance would…
India’s two most eligible bachelors flounder
Over the last few days Rahul Gandhi and Salman Khan, often mentioned as the two most eligible Indian bachelors, though in their 40s, have been in the news. Gandhi featured in his first face-to-face one-on-one interview on TV during which he mostly looked away from Arnab Goswami, the Badshah of Indian news channels. I have…
Nothing to be gay about
(Re-posting a piece I wrote recently, in the wake of the Supreme Court refusing to review its decision that criminalizes gay sex) Vikram Seth has spoken eloquently about gay rights; Rahul and Sonia Gandhi have spoken about need to legalize consensual sex among same sex adults, while Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP’s) Rajnath Singh, not surprisingly,…
An Offbeat Story
Spotted An Offbeat Story at the book shop next to Barista, DLF, Phase-1 Plaza, Gurgaon. Not in the Indian Classics section, but at the bottom shelf on Indian writers…
A Driving License without bribing
I renewed my driving license (DL) recently without paying a tout, the usual route advised by my gym trainer, ex-colleague and many others. As I found out (first up, I googled: how to get DL in Gurgaon, Haryana), some e-savvy touts advertise online. The promotional literature describes (in very bad English) dealing with a government…
An interview with Rahul Gandhi
(Re-posting a piece I had written in March last year in the context of the Congress party deciding that Rahul Gandhi will not be PM candidate for 2014 elections) The following is an imagined, though candid and freewheeling, interview of Rahul Gandhi, by yours truly, following the Congress leader’s categorical statement that he neither wants…
The making of a rapist
(Re-posting a piece I wrote earlier in the wake of the attack on the Danish survivor near the New Delhi station yesterday) My attention would not have been drawn to 10-year old Kaku under usual circumstances. It did, as our collective consciousness has been seized by the recent Shakti Mills gang rape in Mumbai and…
Aam Aadmi Party needs to succeed
Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is focused on setting right government functioning that I believe will go much beyond shunning red beacon lights on official cars and bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi. If they are able to fix just this and nothing more, it would be a massive achievement. I have selfish (survival maybe a more…
Siddharth Srivastava 