Blogs

As the sun sets on the year 2025 and we enter 2026, I reflect on a thought. No, it is not about the charade of making new year resolutions which I have never followed. It is about a different thing. This afternoon, while sitting at my neighborhood cafe (most of you now know that this…

Most of us hear “gut health” advice all the time. Eat more fiber. Take a probiotic. Cut down on junk food. What rarely gets explained is why any of this matters beyond digestion. In this blog post (#62), I get into the basics of butyrate, a small molecule made in the gut that influences inflammation,…

It has been said that euthanasia is often discussed but seldom acted upon. The reason for lack of substantive action on ground is that, in spite of debates there is no repartee to the quip: “What is the cost of euthanasia. You are.”  The term “euthanasia” itself does not enthuse much confidence. Pearl Buck was…

Hemi’s Bawa’s glass odyssey at Travancore House in Delhi was a curatorial delight in terms of the way it was divided and displayed at this majestic space in New Delhi. Curated by India’s internationally known curator Kristine Michael it reflected Hemi’s iconic journey with glass as a sculptural form. Hemi is considered a pioneer in…

Experiential is what we can easily do, but we don’t do. It is easy to start practising but difficult to understand or learn. I say learn because it is what I do all by myself. So this can’t be learned from others, or no one else can teach it. It is entirely personal. However, if…

Yesterday being a Tuesday, we had a power cut across Udupi and surrounding areas in coastal Karnataka. This happens most Tuesdays for almost the entire day, for reasons best known to KEB (Karnataka Electricity Board). When all electric thingummies shut down at 9.00 am on the dot, we mutter, oh there we go … it’s…

Hello and welcome to the last Weekly Vine of the year. This is the week when editors everywhere are expected to turn briefly into poets. To summon W.B. Yeats. To cast a cold eye. To pretend that twelve chaotic months can be neatly flattened into insight. It is a noble impulse, and like all noble…

As every year, the alarmingly high air quality index (AQI) continues to torment people in Delhi-NCR. The stubbornness of air pollution in winters is the consequence of two causes: wrong, misleading diagnosis; and incompetence and worse of the authorities at all levels. A section of environmentalists has succeeded in peddling the myth that vehicular emissions…

There was a time when thinking was our strength, a way to reason, create, and understand. Today, it feels more like a burden. We’ve entered an age where thoughts don’t guide us; they chase us. Every decision, conversation, and feeling becomes an endless internal debate. Overthinking has quietly turned into the new epidemic of modern…

By Sivakumar Sundaram There is a peculiar kind of tiredness that has nothing to do with physical work. It arrives when life suddenly promotes you into the role of ‘in-charge’. A parent, elder or mentor is no longer around to steer the ship. And what used to feel like routine now feels like ‘heavy weightlifting’….