Many years ago, as the final capstone project for a learning journey at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, I wrote something best described as “creative non-fiction”. It combined elements of autobiography with some ruminations on cricket and Indian identity. That project is presented below, unchanged.
Read MorePublic domain bios, such as on LinkedIn or a company web site, hide many stories. Here I want to drill into one of my personal transitions that reads a certain way, but hides a much more complicated reality.
Read MoreI have occasionally posted on social media about the Trump presidency, but haven’t felt moved to write something longer. I am doing so now because I feel it is important to “stand up and be counted” before the elections.
Read MoreThis past week I read The Odyssey, in Robert Fagles’ translation, and felt a bit like “stout Cortez” staring at the Pacific (note: I am not stout. At least not right now). In reading this brilliant translation from the Greek — with an introduction by Bernard Knox that is worth the price of admission in itself — I realized how much I had missed.
Read MoreGilgamesh is an ancient Sumerian epic, the oldest literature known. I found myself reading it recently, in the Foster translation, as part of a learning journey. I engaged slightly grudgingly with the text and emerged very moved.
Read MoreMy father died on June 16 at the age of 90. I have relied on his memoirs — the first, which covers the first half of his life, is a wonderfully evocative chronicle of a very different time and place — for some of what I write here.
Read MoreMost things in the public domain about onebagging are not geared at the business traveller. There’s reams of prose about strapping on a big honking 50L backpack and wandering through Southeast Asia on foot. Hence this essay — if you’re someone who routinely gets off a flight and goes to a meeting rather than following a Lonely Planet itinerary.
Read MoreIn 2000, I joined hands with Deval Sanghavi and formed Impact Partners, at the time the first venture philanthropy firm focused on India.
Read MoreBecause I do so much long haul travel, I feel somewhat qualified to opine on the United-Dao saga. The current narrative misses two key things. The far more important one is the fact that the TSA was handed sweeping authority over travel in the post 9/11 dispensation.
Read MoreI'm working on an intense blog post, and my recent essays have been quite heavy, so here's a break: my top three list for carry-on luggage!
Read MoreEarlier this week I took the GRE. I'm middle aged, not going to grad school (well, not any time soon), this is an extraordinarily busy time for me, it's several hours in the middle of the work day, so how did this make any sense? Three reasons (which may still not add up to much sense):
Read MoreMichael Clarke and his merry unchanged-throughout-the-series men have crushed England -- 5-0 in the Tests and up 3-1 in the one-dayers as of this writing -- and it is not too early for the Australian to envision a return to some kind of leadership, if not the dominance of the Steve Waugh era. This Aussie team is an aging one, but there is something about it that suggests the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
This most recent peak follows a trough whose marker, in my view, isn't the retirements of the all-time greats at the end of the 2006-07 Ashes. Rather the buoy marking the place where Australian cricket subsided the last time has the name of Peter Roebuck emblazoned on it. For it is Roebuck who called for Australian captain Ricky Ponting's head on a platter in a famous headline. "Arrogant Ponting must be fired" was the leader. From a member of the one-eyed Australian media, this was an unprecedented volley.
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