Dear Mr/Ms Politician I just wanted to remind you that Mumbai bled last week and lay helplessly maimed and crippled. The pictures went out everywhere of a city unable to protect herself, overrun by a clutch of only ten terrorists, too ashamed even to whine or whimper. The world watched her moments of painful embarrassment for more than three eternal days. Mr Politician, I have to remind you because your memory has been playing truant ever since 24/7 television channels began dominating our lives. You seem to forget even the immediate past once the camera lenses disappear from the terror-ravaged spots. Mr Politician, you display remarkable sensitivity when you escort Bollywood to the hotel where terror challenged the very essence of life and human existence. You are known to be a patron of the arts and you have been encouraging the fledgling career of your actor son for a long time now. So, there's nothing wrong if you accompany a director who...

A blast is a blast is a blast. Let's not forget this fundamental premise when we get into a post-encounter discussion on the Delhi blasts. The facts are too cold, too bloody to be ignored. The death toll stands at close to thirty; we don't have a definite calculation of how many have been maimed or crippled. A blast goes against the very essence of life and the living. It's a lust for blood for reasons that are worse than obscurantist. Neither should we arrive at a conclusion on the police encounter. We don't have the wherewithal to crosscheck the police story and, therefore, we don't have the right to jump to conclusions. There are a few gray areas which we can talk about later; but definitely, not now. We are all aware of the kind of voices on the streets, depending on the neighborhood where we are. And that ominous geography of varying opinions is seriously worrying. As an individual...

Aarushi Talwar's gruesome murder in the hands of her father is not a bizarre, isolated case. It is the result of a deep social malady. Such a murder was waiting to happen. You cannot walk into the twenty-first century with a mind that belongs to the dark ages. Honour killing is what happened in primitive societies when women were not allowed to be conquered by invading forces. Honour killing shouldn't happen in a family where both parents share the same profession and often the same dentist's chamber. Honour killing can happen only when men believe that their wives and daughters are nothing more than trophies, toys, commodities. Therefore, don't make the mistake of dismissing the Aarushi Talwar case as an inexplicable twin murder where the father had a strange, twisted mind and the daughter was weird, probably even promiscuous. And please don't be judgmental either about Dr Talwar's extra-marital affair or the fourteen-year-old's sexual daring. Sexual mores are no longer cast...

Once upon a time, the ruling class wanted to gift its progeny the right to enslave others. What was meant to be a rationally thought out equitable division of labour became a rigid hierarchy, cast in stone for an eternity. The poorest castes were reduced to untouchables. Even their shadows couldn't be trampled upon. Brahmanism ruled for more than two millennia. Move away from that sepia-tinted photograph, which has stagnated in our lives for centuries and walk into Thakur Arjun Singh's lair. He has successfully pushed through a solution, which is based on the simplistic logic that one wrong corrects another. So, we have a reverse caste system in place. Zoom out of this picture and fast- forward yourself a thousand years hence to Circa 3008 AD. Visualise this portrait of the Indian society in the distant future. Brahmins are pleading with the government of the day that the OBCs should be displaced from the sanctum sanctorum of the elite, that there should be...