The Letter

The post office in Pallavur never had its own building. I have not figured out why, perhaps nobody would sell land to the postal department. Anyway, right from my childhood, I have seen it as a transient affair, first it was somewhere near the lower primary school, then it moved to houses across the...

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Horse trading and Politics

This brief study started as I was reviewing Portuguese interventions into horse trading during the 16th to 18th Century in South India. While it was somewhat slow going, I noticed that horse trading was starting to get a bad rap. We all know that over time it got linked to politics and voting, so...

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A Chikmagaluru Sojourn

And a little tribute to VG Siddhartha Hegde CCD The idea of spending a few days at Chikmagaluru at a resort in the middle of a coffee estate sounded alluring, and my partiality to estates, considering my birth in one, perhaps nailed it. Some asked why I was going to a place which is quite similar...

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MacBook in the hamlet

This is an incident which amazes me each time I think about it, for it shows me how small the world has become these days; how small the distances can be and how opportune life can be. How a dream can so easily become a reality today, how the borders we once had, with haves and have nots, castes,...

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