How The Live Love Laugh Foundation is living up to its name
The three verbs in the name of this organisation founded by Indian film actor Deepika Padukone appear to have been chosen with thought, care and deliberation, to send out a message to all concerned that any conversation around mental health is pointless without
Those who are eyeing the spoils of this pandemic
In a Covid-19-hit world, there is a whole new parallel socioeconomic ecosystem that is emerging, and in a way that is turning more than our health system on its head. We now have a mask for every occasion and dress type, a sanitiser
A circle of whys
None of us can ever be sure to see the next morning, or the next hour even. So why this compulsion to be adamant? Why so smug about humiliating others, so righteous about one’s own religion and dismissive about another’s, so careless about
Sugarcane everywhere, but where are all the stars gone?
Cartload upon cartload of sugarcane dominates the narrow roads of Bazpur until Kashipur (in Uttarakhand, as you leave the mountains behind). So much sugarcane, you exclaim and wonder. For all the sugar in our processed food products, you soon realise. Sugar, the modern-day
The cacophony of a system that is us
The siren of the ambulance mixes with the incessant horns of bikes and less-incessant horns of cars and I realise that that aggression is feeding some aggression inside me and I honk in turn at a random bike rider, thinking I am teaching
This, too, is not too much
Child, I wish life was more than about moving on, getting by, letting go, living on, letting this and that pass, finding peace, finding acceptance, resigning to the ways of the world, and so on. Today I am feeling the shock of
Brother, I am taking you to the cops
Am I not glad for having dragged this errant-driver-cum-errant-and-foul-speaking-man to the police station today? And he thought he could get away with a) taking a turn on my side of the road while entering the colony gate, landing in front of my car,
Daydreaming about corporate social responsibility (CSR)
[dropcap size=big]C[/dropcap]orporate social responsibility (CSR), or the fact of CSR becoming a sort of law, has bred a strange phenomenon (are all phenomena strange by default?) of companies going into self-denial mode. In what sense, one may ask. Do they behave as if
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and the idea of sanitation
Okay, the government has promised a Clean India by 2019. And it has asked corporate groups to pitch in. It’s not a random mandate, by the way. Contributing to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan qualifies as legitimate corporate social responsibility (CSR) spend as per the
Religious structures: Free to be anywhere
The Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath has declared that giving ‘legal sanction’ to all religious structures in Delhi is ‘part of our community service’. Temples, mosques, gurdwaras and other places of worship built prior to 2007 and are on land that is