Indian Society/Culture

World Environment Day: Indian consumers may not make choices based on company’s green outlook

Currently environmental concerns are not an issue in India for two reasons. First, India has a lot of things on its plate and this is just one of them. In the West, the problems are of having developed and seen the cost of it. And guilt since multinationals are exporting this; the responsibility becomes domestic,… Read more »

Why do we fear caste?

There is a large section of India where caste continues to matter a great deal; indeed caste can sometimes become a matter of life and death. But there is another India, albeit a small one, where caste or at least any reference to it is difficult to find. For people living in this ficult to… Read more »

Haalo, This Is Kalol Calling

The faded wall-painting in Raipur is for an event management company called Crazy Chaps. Only one part has been repainted, the only bit that matters: the mobile phone number. In a small but telling way, it speaks of the centrality of the mobile phone in India; it is as if almost every aspect of one’s… Read more »

The Revenge of the Vegetarian!

The image of the Gujarati within the country has undergone a sea change As a Gujarati growing up in Delhi, one didn’t really feel any weight that an outsider usually feels in a setting removed from home. For being a Gujarati was seen to be a harmless affectation; a declaration that one was not from… Read more »

The Tyranny of Labels

Liberalism accompanied with a surge in conservatism It is increasingly difficulty to escape labels. One is either a liberal or not, and along with that description comes a whole set of readymade beliefs. The very act of being able to slot yourself in these neat categories, brings along with an ability to exude certainty from… Read more »

Sweating The Big Stuff

WRITING ABOUT India is never easy; it is too large, too diverse and, in general, is given to cussedness of a kind that makes assertions of any type difficult. Insiders writing about India take too much for granted and outsiders extrapolate too much from limited forays into a wide-eyed form of cultural tourism. In this… Read more »