It’s a book. Not a boy or girl. I am the father of two daughters. Writing and publishing a book was more like becoming a mother. It stayed with or rather within me for nearly a year, when I keyed in the novel, usually after a long day working, earning my livelihood, again mostly on…
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An Offbeat Story in bestselling list
An Offbeat Story in bestselling list About six weeks after its launch my novel An Offbeat Story features in Top 20 (among 180,000 books) in bestsellers list (literature & fiction) on Snapdeal. Check it out: http://bit.ly/1fq0Nm4 Buy copy (paperback) here: http://bit.ly/MqORFs Also available, Ebook. An Offbeat Story has been described by a prominent book critic as one of the…
Flying high on cricket in India
Indian cricket stars make a lot of money, recently reinforced by the IPL auctions. Yuvraj Singh will be paid Rs 14 crore, Dinesh Karthik will pocket a cool Rs 12.5 crore for a few weeks of effort on the field. The two are not even regulars in the Indian cricket team anymore. Each minute on…
The Dubious Hanging of Afzal Guru
(Re-posting this piece in the context of the possible release of those convicted of killing Rajiv Gandhi, one of the few Indian politicians I really admired) There have been extreme reactions to Afzal Guru’s hanging in India. While there is anger and resentment in the Kashmir Valley, many see it as justice finally delivered. Over…
End of road for Maruti 800
(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…
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,…
Siddharth Srivastava 