"The Maratha Military Landscapes of India have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as India's 44th World Heritage property." 🔴 BREAKING! New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Maratha Military Landscapes of India, #India 🇮🇳. ➡️ https://t.co/seTyyVu3sT #47WHC pic.twitter.com/mEpa6RWLRx — UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳 (@UNESCO) July 11, 2025 That simple announcement from UNESCO filled me with immense pride. It is not every day that the world pauses to recognize a part of our collective history, and this recognition is long overdue. As someone who now lives in Mumbai, and proudly traces his roots to Maharashtra, these forts are not just monuments on a map. They are familiar silhouettes on the Sahyadri skyline, stories narrated by grandparents, and enduring symbols of courage and resilience. They have shaped the identity of this region for centuries. Yet, alongside that pride, I feel a sense of disappointment. Within hours o...

Image Credit: Photo by Raneesh Ravi on Unsplash I am a dad - twice over now - and I have years of experience of being the son of my dad. So, I can claim to possess a reasonable level of experience on the subject of fathers and emotion management - and my verdict is that All Fathers are, in general, very poor at emotion management? To begin with, look at the very characteristic constipated expression of the Dad in the photo above. I am sure he is so elated, happy, his heart palpitating, but his face betrays all of that - the contrast being the expressions of the kid on his lap. But many of you in general would agree that most of your dads would be the same - their happiness would be subdued, so would their sorrow; at best some dad's are good at showing off their anger - we often label such dad's as toxic, but I believe (or at least sincerely hope so!) that these are far fewer than the good dad's out there, who are even incapable of dealing with anger as an emotion. As I sto...

As I was idling on Social media over the weekend, I chanced upon this video of BR Chopra 's interview with his younger brother Yash Chopra where he talks about the only remake in his lifetime - Dastan , which was a remake of his own movie Afsana . And that took me down the rabbit hole ...   As I researched more about Afsana, I discovered that it was a trend setter in many ways: first of ' double role ' with identical twin brothers separated in childhood, an oft-used plot in Indian Cinema;  second one of the first to use the international literature [notably its plot is inspired by The Corsican Brothers ]; and third, a pioneer in Film Noir category in Hindi cinema. What impressed me is that the movies were so well integrated with what was happening on the global scene (even though adapted to the Indian audience). I set out to search more on this subject of how Indian cinema was inspired by literature and film making of the rest of the world. So let me take you through my...

Photo by  Sandy Millar  on  Unsplash In recent Whatsapp discussions about work-life balance with a few college friends, an interesting claim was made, suggesting that women professionals are most productive after the age of 45. The indirect point being made was that, women usually remain busy with 'family responsibilities' aka child rearing until 45, after which they become more productive at work. I found this very objectionable stereotyping of both women, but also men. This statement was also tacitly claiming that men did not have 'family responsibilities' in their lives, and that men did not get busy with the birth of children. I do not deny that our societies are still far from being gender egalitarian - patriarchy is rampant and implicit even in modern society. However, that does not mean that the stereotype of an alpha-male who 'earns the bread' and beta-female who prioritizes 'child-rearing' needs to be perpetuated! There are enough men and women ...

Banksy Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash Justice BV Nagarathna of the Supreme Court of India was recently in the news for being the dissenting voice on two key judgments of the Supreme Court. The first was a verdict on whether Demonetization by the Modi Govt in 2016 was legally valid, and the second was about whether a Minister in the Government is (or not) entitled to 'Hate Speech' in the name of freedom of speech. Justice Nagarathna is, of course, no ordinary judge - she may go on to become the first female Chief Justice of India - and is the daughter of former CJI ES Venkataramiah. But this post is not about Justice Nagarathna, it is about dissent, and especially for the ilk who lament that small dissent in face a powerful lobby is useless. I've heard this often that dissent does not make a difference, especially from people do not wish to engage in socio-political debates; some well wishers also advise against making dissent publicly known for 'one's own safe...