Culture

Jul 1, 2007

Boundary buster commemorated

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 1 July It’s rare that a fashion item makes the slightest impression on me, but I have to confess to being childishly delighted by a purchase I recently made over the internet. It’s a tee-shirt emblazoned with CLR James’s ever-pertinent rhetorical question: What do they know of cricket who only… Read more

Feb 25, 2007

Blurred at the edges

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 25 February A reference in my last column to Moses Maimonides as a “12th century Arab Jewish theologian” has perplexed some readers. An Arab and a Jew? Can such a hybrid exist? Like all ethnic designations, both terms are problematic, blurred at the edges. But in the case of Maimonides,… Read more

Jan 28, 2007

Unreality TV

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 28 January ALL words can be cheapened by misuse, especially when they are misused by the powerful. The reality they refer to is disguised, rather than revealed. But what happens when the word in question is “reality” itself? On his visit to India, Gordon Brown, still the bookie’s favourite to… Read more

Dec 17, 2006

A rasika’s tribute

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 17 December HERE I am in London and the December season is underway in Chennai. To the unconverted, Carnatic music is staid, forbiddingly technical, repetitive, elitist. And some of its devotees do seem determined to live up the stereotype, preoccupied with tradition, treating the music like a zone of purity,… Read more

Dec 3, 2006

Beyond polarities

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 3 December IN the Draa Valley, in southern Morocco, flanked on one side by an oasis densely planted with date palms and on the other by the high crumbling mud walls of what had been the Jewish quarters of an old and now abandoned village, I read about the Israeli… Read more

Nov 1, 2006

Veiled threats

Red Pepper, November 2006 Open hostility to multi-culturalism used to be the preserve of the nationalist right, but since 9/11, it’s flooded the mainstream and bamboozled more than a few who proudly declare themselves liberals. In recent months, it’s been noisily blamed for homegrown terrorism and the alleged “self-segregation” of minority groups, damned as a… Read more

Oct 15, 2006

Starbucks goes to India

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 15 October STARBUCKS, the world’s largest coffee retailer, recently unveiled ambitious plans for expansion into major new markets, including Russia, Brazil, Egypt and, of course, India. By the end of 2007, the company will boast 20,000 outlets in 41 countries. Starbucks is, among other things, a symbol, a superstar performer… Read more

Oct 6, 2006

Double Jack’s standards

Comment is free, The Guardian, October 6 It has become routine in this country for those who wish to give vent to prejudice to insist that they only wish to start a “debate”. How could anyone object? Debate is always a good thing. But when the premises informing the putative debate are riddled with double… Read more

Sep 17, 2006

His will is only iron

A poem by Mike Marqusee published in Babylon Burning: 9/11 five years on, poems in aid of the Red Cross, edited by Todd Swift His will is only iron The hosepipe snakes through lawns, green on green. The tank churns its dust- penumbra. At leisure, under licence, indecently arrayed in the cat-suit of decency, striding… Read more

Sep 3, 2006

The voice within – a pilgrimage to Walden Pond

LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 3 September ON a recent visit to the United States, I made a pilgrimage to Walden Pond, a glistening body of water prized for its depth and clarity (only 20 miles from Boston) as well as for its association with the visionary writer, Henry David Thoreau. From July 1845 to… Read more