Travancore, CP and the Monazite sands

Many of you would have seen the Petromax or used one at home or seen it at the many festivals of Kerala on pole tops or ledges. Today its place has been taken by rechargeable lanterns and the such from the gelf, or the esteemed tube light. The gas lamp of these old times had what we know as a hanging...

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VP Menon – The Architect of Modern India

Bringing order from the nightmare of Chaos Introducing - Rao Bahadur Vapal Pangunni Menon. While perusing the stories of Nehru, Krishna Menon and many others I had covered in these blogs, I came across VP’s name now and then. And like the man he was, he and his character were such that they remained...

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The Story of Babul Mora

The other day we all listened to a sonorous recital of the famed ‘Babul Mora’ in the Saigal style by our good friend Subash, during our music Samaroh session. As I had the responsibility to introduce the song, I did a little digging and come up with the brief background. The song took us back many...

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A Story from Appenzel

The story of Heiden’s Room 12… You’d have also felt sometimes that some people believe that they are always very correct and well, I’ve come across some Germans who belong to that category. Like the other day (well actually it was many years ago) I was flying Lufthansa from Zurich. I had settled down...

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