The first thing I saw on my morning Facebook dive was a beaming Kunal Kapoor wishing himself a happy birthday from a lamp post in Mumbai. A celebrity garlanding himself on public property is not new in this country; what was new is that Kapoor did it knowingly, deliberately, and, to his credit, hilariously. Hoardings…

If political irony needed a brand ambassador, Prashant Kishor has just walked onto the stage, shook hands with the audience, and dissolved his own organisation before delivering the keynote. Jan Suraaj, the grand experiment that was supposed to usher in ‘good governance’, has now been swept away like monsoon water, swiftly and silently. After polling…

Rahul Gandhi has a remarkable talent for turning elections into performance art. His latest Bihar escapade took him on a literal ‘fishing expedition’, leaping into the water from a boat in the hope of catching fish with the locals. The optics were all there – the cameras, the choreographed spontaneity, the trademark earnestness – but…

For nearly a decade, Prashant Kishor sold victory like a commodity. He stitched alliances, polished images, massaged egos, and handed out political makeovers with the confidence of a man who had cracked the algorithm of Indian democracy. After years of scripting other people’s wins, he decided Bihar needed his own brand of ‘jan suraaj’ (people’s…

T.S. Eliot found April to be the cruelest month. Of course, that was for a different reason. Now, November seems terrorist friendly. Here, a curious and pattern and perhaps an alarming symmetry is emerging. Consider a few dates: the 9/11 attacks (September, yes – but in the northern-hemisphere autumn), the 26/11 Mumbai attacks on November…

Rahul Gandhi does it again – bowls another no-ball of logic and follows it up with a long appeal. This time, the self-appointed umpire of morality questions Jay Shah’s elevation as ICC chairman, wondering aloud how someone who is not a cricketer can head the game’s highest body. He sounds genuinely offended, as if cricketing…

Delhi’s air-quality index (AQI) drifting in the 350-400 range is not a statistic – it is a lifestyle. For three straight years the capital has been wrapped in a toxic haze so opaque that even sunlight seems to need permission to shine. Hospitals are reporting rising admissions of women and children with respiratory distress; oncologists…

The Congress once styled itself as the custodian of every Indian – every faith, every creed. Somewhere along the way, it put one faith on the deferred list. In the name of secularism and social balance, the party has treated the Hindu ethos like old furniture – too large to discard, too shiny to polish….

Hyderabad Press Club elections 2025 seemed nothing less than civic polls, minus the EVM glitches. I have never been a member of the Press Club – whether at its earlier address near Basheerbagh or its present location at Somajiguda. Distance was the main concern, not that I am allergic to ‘clubbing’. Once a retreat, now…

There was a time when a man of sixty looked every inch of it – silver hair, sagging frame, and a face that told the story of ration queues, monsoon fevers and the price of kerosene. Today’s sexagenarian, however, turns up at the airport in jeans and a smartwatch, returning from a yoga retreat in…