Naiyar Masud: The Storyteller of Lucknow

About finding and reading the Urdu writer Naiyar Masud.
The Octoclause of Doom

A mysterious amendment to an obscure clause in the Indian copyright act threatens the already slim-profit margins of local publishers.
Rendezvous with Rama

On the strange hero of Valmiki’s psychological masterpiece.
Reason & Religion: Odd Couple Redux

Reza Aslan and Sam Harris discuss religion and reason. Let’s hug it out, bitches.
YoungUncle Wins The ALA Notable Award

Vandana Singh’s book “Younguncle Comes To Town” wins the ALA’s Notable Book Of The Year award.
The Politics Of Captain Nemo

On Jules Verne’s strange hero Captain Nemo and how Nemo’s radical history was suppressed by English translators.
Thomas Barnett: Mapping The Next Neo-Snafu

Parsing political futurist Thomas Barnett’s semi-moronic blueprint for creating the next American century.
Review: 20 Cases Suggestive Of Reincarnation by Ian Stevenson

Reincarnation is one of those ideas that refuses to die. A review of Ian Stevenson’s empirical studies.
Stanislaw Lem: The Aesop Of Machines

Stanislaw Lem, the incomparable author of The Cyberiad died on March 28, 2006. A cheeky tribute to our modern Aesop of the Machines.
William Makepeace Thackeray: The Indian In The Closet

Miscegenation — racial mixing — is a recurring theme in Thackeray’s works. Strangely enough, the most obvious explanation is also a plausible one.