Letter from America

(With respectful acknowledgement to Alistair Cooke who made this phrase his virtual copyright with his illuminating weekly broadcasts on the BBC World Service for the last 58 years, retiring finally on doctor’s orders at the age of ninety-one, having recorded...

Mr. Dutta’s Private Army

L.O.C/ Kargil I have just been to see the film L.O.C./Kargil, directed by J.P. Dutta. It is about the exploits of the Indian Army in retaking the heights of Kargil in the Himalayas, treacherously occupied by “the enemy”. I will have more to say about the...

Seven Days with Firaq

One of the many good things that Allahabad, the city of Jawaharlal Nehru, gave me when I was an undergraduate there in the late 30s and early 40s, was the chance to get to know Raghupati Sahai Firaq, the famed Urdu poet who had become a legend in his lifetime, and who...