When I was in my late teens, I used to read Punch magazine, and one of my favorite writers was Alan Coren, who published a humor collection titled Golfing for Cats. It turned out that the book had nothing to do either with golfing or cats; but golfing and cats were the two hottest subjects…

UPDATED Jan 15, 2016: These three books are very close to my heart. And I’m pretty much coming to the point where the last copies of the classic editions are running out (Please don’t buy the Avatar Prabhu U.S. edition (hardcover), unless you’re too poor to afford any other (I’d prefer a reader to money)–I…

This is a mini-blog: my own quick view about this: Possibly those people who, by virtue of their “caste,” have been suppressed and kept back for centuries … they must be helped with job and educational reservations, because it is much harder for them to catch up. However, ANYONE, regardless of class or caste, who…

Even in Cambodia, where I find myself until I move on, “Independence Day,” whether India’s or America’s, always excites me … as it did the crowds at the Red Fort on the night of August 14, 1947, and the framers of the American Declaration of Independence. When I was a kid, in the boarding school,…

Why does a writer write? Sometimes for love, sometimes for money, sometimes to impress someone, sometimes for fame, sometimes for revenge and/or justice. A true writer may also desire love, justice, and security (to do the work he/she loves best), but above all, a true writer writes because he can’t help it, because NOT to…

In The Revised Kama Sutra (various editions show some differences), I mention that the ancestors of the Konkanis (my linguistic and cultural group, now settled in Southwestern India) were Aryan invaders. Some years back, I was championed as a “courageous” writer by an Indian-American millionaire with a large following of Indian-Americans, mostly Hindus (if you’re…