Harish Nambiar

The Heart of Starkness: Naga Diaries 4 Dec 31, 1969

The emotional issue of the state and also the region, was ticking next to us in the vehicles we used, in the trains we traveled, and hotel rooms we shared. Amlan was actually both an Indian and the Naga. Conflicted, tinder box and unpredictable

The Trapdoor Opens: Naga Diaries 3 Dec 31, 1969

Mao's father was a GaoN bura. The villagers were often rounded up, forced to sit in an open space. His father himself had been kidnapped. Then the icing on the cake, 'Resentment against the Indian government is in our blood.'

Infections and Infectiousness: Naga Diaries 2 Dec 31, 1969

The liberalism that was part and parcel of the tribal value system, where a child was the most revered thing, was also fraying. Sex among youngsters is not considered a moral issue

A Sculptor of Parachutes: Naga Diary 1 Dec 31, 1969

True or otherwise, this story is a metaphor for all the issues that coalesce into what the Naga situation is. Nationalism. Right over land. Guerilla warfare. Army repression. Fight against colonialism.

Invisible Immigrations, Furtive Bleedings Dec 31, 1969

Unfortunately, the ghetto is moving into the city. The city is bleeding into the ghetto...Destinies are converging constantly and very swiftly in the globalised and globalizing world.

A Drunken RSS Man in Jassema Dec 31, 1969

The feelings slowly churning in his head, the various ideas randomly laid out on the table, all coalesced into a look of deep pain. His eyes were speckled in fierce glints of pain and alarm. It was as if he was actually living with the situation of his me

Arabs, Jains, Mammon and Osama Dec 31, 1969

There were two kinds of immigrants who washed up on the west coast of the sub continent.

A Moses on his Harley Davidson Dec 31, 1969

In an act of symbolic irony, in September, precisely three months before communal riots erupted on December 6th 1992 in Bombay, the Dawood gang or D company as it was called, had accomplished its last secular killing.

The Instinct to Upgrade Dec 31, 1969

The political empowerment of the backwards in these two states (Uttar Pardesh and Bihar) could not directly confront the social backwardness. These two states have the most feudal and caste ridden societies, but the political clout of the backwards have n

Cardamom Cloud over Coffee Dec 31, 1969

Indians have so many divisions, and one of the divisions between North and South India is the preference in beverages. Tea is the preferred drink in the North of India, while South Indians love coffee.

Do riot children smell fear in parent’s sweat? Dec 31, 1969

And yet, they go back to their insular neighbourhoods. Will the school triumph over the whispered prejudices of their neighbourhoods?

The Open Circle Dec 31, 1969

All religions subsist on some kind of faith, and a set of rituals. The more well-defined these rituals, as well as the rubric of do’s and don’ts, the more tightly bound will be the religion.

’Dangerous like my English teacher’ Dec 31, 1969

Surekha’s home, which was half arborium. Three years ago that house was an unkempt one. She managed to keep it exactly like that three years thence.The house had a personality, a confident casual rakishness that hated grooming. A reflection of its o

’Our Shiv Sena’ Dec 31, 1969

Is it a case of the Stockholm syndrome working late? As a young wife and mother she was a victim, ever fearful, of the terror of the Shiv Sena in Bombay. And the real fear of physical attacks. Thirty years later, she called the Sena “ours.”

The Soldier who Annexed 3 States for 3 Daughters Dec 31, 1969

A veteran of both the 1965 and the 1971 wars against Pakistan, retired Hawaldaar Ramaiah was a fat man with a handle bar moustache that his wife trimmed in the night while he was asleep.

Destinies, dynasties, and upstart pickpockets Dec 31, 1969

We had stepped into another zone of assault; another variation of the mini theatre where Indian regional identities, destinies and politics clashed...

The Moor in the Idol Junkyard Dec 31, 1969

It was as if Bhubhaneswar was one vast battlefield strewn with mutilated beauty in stone. And all responsibility for this senseless act of violence and vandalism is Kaala Pahaad. The legend of Kaala Pahaad is the medieval missing link that connected the A

Sense and Sensibility Dec 31, 1969

At Delhi's Pragati Maidan, a lady asked me whether I could depict Krishna and Radha in forms and actions other than what I had ever done. I said yes. And she said to depict Krishna bowling to Radha, while Radha was batting. Bhaskar was blushing...

An Iranian Exile in Sambhalpur Dec 31, 1969

The VHP issue had taken a more serious turn, filling Sister Miriam Morris, the Christian nun who headed St Joseph, with panic.What had happened was really macabre. One of the children attending the medical camp was given a tonic, which was past its expiry

Manto Strikes Dec 31, 1969

The smoke had reached an alarming proportion, and the whole chawl would be up in a minute, since chawls have a habit of being burnt down before one can say “damn your blouse.”

The Covered Trucks Dec 31, 1969

PART II - We left Vapi the next morning, March 3. We started out towards Nasik, back into Maharashtra. Nasik was a four hour ride through rugged low lying bald hills, taking the full blast of the March sun’s fury blazing away...

Intimacies Remapped Dec 31, 1969

Part one of a series on my travel through a major part of India during the Gujarat riots ... my journey away from the blood and gore of riots to questioning my role, and the roles of others like me, in an India seemingly fast polarising along communal lin

South Asia’s Ride On The Video Tiger Dec 31, 1969

Satellite television is another tiger that South Asia is firmly riding; getting off perhaps is not too much of an immediate concern. Regulation, benchmarking, calibrating debates with nationalistic undercurrents, codes of conduct will evolve.

Book: Maximum City - Bombay Lost and Found Dec 31, 1969

A sensational debut, and simply mandatory reading for those who salaam Bombay.

Sharded Past Dec 31, 1969

When guests go
And I return to me
I’ll cure the hangover

Wannabe Haikus Dec 31, 1969

Please oh please hurl
Bricks at institutions,
Else children will grow up
Thinking bricks only make walls.

Shiners versus Whiners; it’s Economics, Stupid Dec 31, 1969

After all the hype and hoopla about India Shining, the results are a clear indicator that the BJP-led coalition misread public perception completely.

Politics of the Leg and the Peg Dec 31, 1969

To an Englishman, bars do not dance, period. But, dancing bars, as people from Mumbai understand it, do rock. To those who live in this metropolis, bars where young girls and women dance, are characteristic of their city.

A Strip of Road, a Bulb of Light, a Bucketful of Water Dec 31, 1969

We are getting reported in the US as “women are moving up in India” even in the notoriously backward and casteist cowbelt. This might be seen as good omen, the external push to internal determination for aspirants of mud and thatch paradises.

Farzana and Me Dec 31, 1969

Yours is the impotency of the minority, mine, the infertility of the majority.

Teaching journalism Dec 31, 1969

Once I asked if any in the class wanted to become foreign correspondents. Almost the whole class chorused, but of course, muffled by the loftiness of their stated agreement. Then I asked them if they liked Henry Kissinger, and virtually none of them had h

Widows of Banares Dec 31, 1969

The tradition of widows gathering, sometimes willingly, other times unwillingly, is based o the Hindu belief that those who die in Kashi, or Banares will go to heaven.

The Kal Aaj Aur Kal of Secularism Dec 31, 1969

There is a generation growing distant from religion, and yet engagingly indulgent of it. Not so much as a pathway to salvation as much as a familiar lane of the past.

Dhirubhai Ambani: The Heathcliffe of Indian business Dec 31, 1969

In the death of Ambani, Indian sensibility might have changed course from ...

Buddha of Rumtek Dec 31, 1969

Black sun, briefly breached

An Insight Into the Way Shiv Sena Functions Dec 31, 1969

This political sex appeal of Thackerey is the reason that Shiv Sena shakhaas have sprung up in Haryana and Punjab

An Indian salute for President Musharraf Dec 31, 1969

On January 12, President Musharraf exhibited the moral courage of the man with character who has been called by destiny to the antechamber of history.