"There was a bard of great fame/'Sacrifice-King' was his name/Artists make a living/use his kriti-s for singing/But he gets no fee, true to his name!/(No royalty to a raja? Is it not a shame?")

Full text of the Nobel Lecture, December 7, 2001: "...as a child I had this sense of two worlds, the world outside that tall corrugated-iron gate, and the world at home - or, at any rate, the world of my grandmother's house..."

Many current practices are relatively modern and rarely entirely indigenous. The foreign origins of coffee is bad enough but one can really ruin a Tamilian's breakfast by quoting the very convincing conjecture of food historian K T Achaya that the steamed idli is also am imported idea. The short-listed entry in the third Outlook-Picador Non-Fiction Contest.

Is it an international or a religious problem? One involving self-seeking politicians? Of a piece of real estate? Or a problem of the people and their aspirations? A Kashmiri perspective.

If there's life outside the urban North jungle, Outlook missed it

Rajiv has a tendency to switch horses in mid-stream. We ride together, with different emphases, on the problem of peer-review or establishment-review. Then, as we seem to be in agreement, Rajiv jumps on another horse, on whose side is emblazoned the words - Western Theory. Seventh piece in the continuing dialogue.

In the Great Indian Tea Ceremony, you might see something very strange going on under the ghoonghat across the table, but must never say anything in public

A Sachin innings is so sublime an intersection of passion and skill that it might be said he brings a shine to the statistics

We bestow ‘greatness’ easily in India. What makes a person great, do we really need great people, and drawing a lakshmanrekha for it in every life.

Time touches a city after its own manner, often unaiding memory. Still, I remain a Chennai boy.

Uptight ’n canny, today’s brand delivery boys are no sex gods