City City Bang Bang

Weekly Column

The 10 Minute Question

There is an unusual conversation that is taking place around the question of 10 minute deliveries. Unusual because otherwise all manner of technological advances have been welcomed. If anything, there is an expectation that every few months the technology-assisted habitat we live in gets upgraded. So why should the idea of quicker deliveries become the… Read more »

Questioning the Commute?

As we experience an easing of the restrictions that were put in place because of Covid and as offices return to a semblance of normalcy, a somewhat unexpected phenomenon is unfolding. Many employees are showing a marked reluctance to return to the physical workplace. The idea of attending office every single day is simply not… Read more »

A Resignation Foretold?

Virat Kohli’s resignation from the captaincy has been in the works for a while now. It has been clear for some time that his relationship with the BCCI has soured, and that his departure was only a matter of time. His ouster from ODI captaincy was handled in an unsavoury way; hardly the kind of… Read more »

The Forgotten Afternoon

The afternoon attracts no poetry. It lies as a forgotten part of the day, a forlorn bridge between the bits that excite our imagination. We might be morning or evening people, but no one talks about inspiration striking them at 4:30 pm. In truth of course, many great discoveries or artistic epiphanies might well have… Read more »

Patenting A Crisis?

Why should the world suffer the ravages of a pandemic when we have vaccines that can mitigate a lot of the suffering? Admittedly, they are not perfect, but they cut the risk of severe disease and hospitalisation by a considerable degree.  Currently, the disparity in vaccine distribution is striking- on the one hand, we have… Read more »

Why We Need 1983

The live telecast was interrupted, as was the custom those days, by the regional news. At the time of the interruption, the match was going according to script. India had been bowled out for 183, and the West Indies were comfortably ahead, having lost only 1 wicket with 40-odd on the board. Vivian Richards, in… Read more »

The Market(place) view of the world

The coming of marketplaces have changed our lives in significant new ways. Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Zomato, TripAdvisor and its ilk has at one level dramatically democratised access on both the supply and demand side. A marketplace is open to anyone who wishes to use it and hence is inherently inclusive. The e-commerce marketplaces… Read more »

The Mamata Experiment?

It takes about 30 seconds after landing in Goa to figure out that there is a new political player in town. Mamata Banerjee is everywhere- her visage along with a line that promises a new dawn in Konkani beams down at passersby regularly as one makes one’s way from the airport. It is an intriguing… Read more »

Writing Orally?- The Changing codes of language

If texts were human beings, they would be the kind that back slap everyone around them ceaselessly. There is a level of exclamatory enthusiasm that one displays while communicating digitally that has no parallel in the real world. The overuse of the exclamation mark is rampant- and we don’t stop at one; we often need… Read more »

In praise of Pagdandis & Dusty Trails

One of the pleasures of travelling outside urban centres is to wander off the beaten track and go where one’s feet take you. But even in remote places that are sparsely populated, there is always the pagdandi to guide you. A road beaten into the earth by the tattoo of thousands of footsteps that have… Read more »