Guns, Germs and Steel is a seminal book by the ethnographer Jared Diamond. At its core, it is a multi-disciplinary study of why the west has overtaken the world. Jared Diamond starts off with a simple question—one that was posed to him by a Papua New Guinean politician, Yali—”Why is it that you white people … [Read more…]
The idea of playing a cover of “Arriving Somewhere but Not Here” by the venerable Porcupine Tree was by our very own Shounak Roy. Fresh off a college gig where he had played some of the introductory keyboards and most of the guitar parts for the same song, he suggested that we try it out … [Read more…]
Amongst all the books on Tibet (and Tibetan Buddhism), Tibet, Tibet holds a very unique position. It’s part travelogue, part history text and part socio-political analysis. Patrick French—in a very risky fashion—ventured into remote locations of Tibet. With all the security and the active efforts of the Chinese troops to veil their internal situations to the … [Read more…]
Short background: I intend to document a series of quick dishes that are conducive to the survival of a lazy guy, something that can preferably be done under twenty minutes. I call this survival cooking. In part, it will help some of my friends and in part, I would be less inclined to eat outside food … [Read more…]
A new lineup Our last show with Korak was in November, post which he left to pursue his post-doc. After the show, I was out of Bangalore to enjoy my yearly, month-long vacation. Once I was back in Bangalore, we were frantically looking for a drummer. Sudipto did most of the work in connecting with people … [Read more…]
If there is one word that describes The Castafiore Emerald, it has to be deception. This is one Tintin album that is not like any of the other Tintin albums. There is no villain, no adventure, no travel, no action, or anything else that can be remotely associated with the hallmarks of a typical Tintin album. This … [Read more…]
About an year ago, I embarked on updating my hybrid with a better groupset (Deore M61x). It was during that time that I had observed that the braking surface on my rims were absolutely gone. The nail in the coffin came with a nail in my rear tyre. This insignificant piece of rusted object lying … [Read more…]
One last trip around Dehradun As soon as I got up, I went towards the bus terminal. The board showed that the first bus left at 6:30 AM and the last one at 7:30 PM. I knew that I couldn’t take the first bus and make it in time for my 8:00 AM flight. Instead, I … [Read more…]
If I had done Har-Ki-Doon, today would have been the day that I would have descended from Sankri to Dehradun. The shorter Kedarkantha trek gave me a window to explore Yamunotri. The earliest bus to leave for Dehradun was scheduled at 7:00 AM. Shubhajit, Mahavir and me freshened up, packed our bags and woke Mohit … [Read more…]
During winters, the hotels do not have adequate staff to take care of the few rooms that are kept open. The room in which Mahavir and Gautam slept smelt a bit funny. Mahavir, who was in general a very well-dressed, cleanliness-seeking guy, complained about the smell. There wasn’t much that could have been done. We … [Read more…]
