Aug15

Happy Independence Day!

Here’s wishing a Happy Independence Day and Yaum-e-Azadi Mubarak to all Indians and Pakistanis around the world. And here’s hoping that, as two countries in their 60s, India and Pakistan can run their affairs with the wisdom and sagacity that should come with age.
 
We, who come from these great countries, are justly proud […]

Aug12

An enduring love affair

I have written in the past of how, in many things, we desis remain unabashedly Anglophilic. Of course, the fascination is mutual, even if it is unequal. From the days of Richard Burton (who introduced straight-laced Victorians to Vatsyayana) and Rudyard Kipling (whose Mowgli and Kim remain the gold standards of impish boyhood) […]

Aug8

That’s nang, innit bredren?

Aficionados of the Queen’s English (does Her Maj qualify any longer?) might balk at the news that an Englishman opines that English is now spoken better by ‘foreigners’ than by the English! Poor spelling and grammar are, according to a university lecturer, all too common among native British students. It has been claimed […]