COVER STORY
Mapping Cacophony... And Silences
India's linguistic landscape cuts up the people into ever so smaller allegiances. But language, through its speakers, finds its own resolutions.
Outlook Magazine - 20 August 2001
The Buffalo's Unholy Milk
All the intellectuals of India seem afraid that a proposal for discussing the question of caste at a UN forum might make it into a global talking point...
Thank You, Peter Sellers
The Indian identity may be difficult to define, but its existence is a joyful reality verifiable on a daily basis
When Time Kills
Vested political interests have made FIs like IDBI and IFCI anachronistic in the post-liberalisation scenario. And they run the risk of going the UTI way.
Many Wrinkles In History
Indianness cannot be a fixity or a dogma. It remains with us as a magic puzzle
Golden Age Hallucinations
Indian civilisation derives from no utopian ideal; it was founded on, and as, a crossroads
The Buffalo's Unholy Milk
All the intellectuals of India seem afraid that a proposal for discussing the question of caste at a UN forum might make it into a global talking point...
Thank You, Peter Sellers
The Indian identity may be difficult to define, but its existence is a joyful reality verifiable on a daily basis
Not Riding Into The Sunset Yet
The PM is willing to do battle, and the odds are still with him
When Time Kills
Vested political interests have made FIs like IDBI and IFCI anachronistic in the post-liberalisation scenario. And they run the risk of going the UTI way.
Lot More Dirt Under The Trust Carpet
Damning revelations but the CBI's brief may limit the probe
Many Wrinkles In History
Indianness cannot be a fixity or a dogma. It remains with us as a magic puzzle
Golden Age Hallucinations
Indian civilisation derives from no utopian ideal; it was founded on, and as, a crossroads
OTHER OUTLOOK MAGAZINE STORIES
The Eternal, Ephemerised
Is it a time, a place, a culture or a look; or does being Indian have to do with intensity?
India Quiz
Participate and win exciting prizes - just an e-mail away.
Lingua Indica
An irreverent glossary
'It Was India's Good Fortune To Be A British Colony'
The man who once called India a functioning anarchy, John Kenneth Galbraith, in conversation with Arun Venugopal
A Mess Compounded?
Dr Abdullah stands forgiven, but not Advani for his decision to declare Jammu a disturbed area
The Babu's Printed Word Atop The Tower Of Babble
'Native' literatures run close to the living nerve, but English too must find its way to Imagining India and, in the process, enrich itself by looking beyond its class horizons
'No More Potty, Dotty'
Historian John Keay in conversation with Sanjay Suri
'Nehru Was The Worst Disaster To Ever Hit India'
The man who first broke the news of Gandhi's assassination, in conversation, speaking on India, Indians and Indianness.
Indices
Sex, violence, wars, communalism, attitudes, grim gender and ground realities ... how do we measure up?
'No Gate Can Withstand The Crush Of The Hungry'
Gunter Grass, the 1999 Nobel laureate for literature, in conversation with Subhoranjan Dasgupta
Dong
At 1,240 metres, Dong is located at the confluence of the rivers Lohit (a tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra) and Sati, strategically placed at the tri-junction of India, China and Myanmar...
3 MDM
Where, one, people sneer at you if you ask them if they feel any pride for having made the first sacrifices for India's nuclear programme, and two, they are reeling from a two-year-long drought...
Turtuk
It is a bold experiment, and the effects have been dramatic. Every little problem is getting a compassionate response from men trained to kill.
Kanyakumari
How does it feel, how does it feel, how does it feel, I ask all of them, to stand at India's edge? But none of them feel anything much...
My Land's End
To seek truth at the extremities of the Indian experience, correspondent Sandipan Deb and photographer Prashant Panjiar travelled to the corners of the country. They found faith, bitterness, patriotism, and complex questions of identity.
Travel On Two Boats
The journey itself is not as important as the dilemma it creates and dynamics it unleashes in our cultural and political life
How Small Were We
The Indian small town has been wiped off the map, the measured hopefulness of its middle class replaced by an acquisitiveness unchecked by social concerns, propelling itself on the twin cylinders of fundamentalist politics and global capitalism
Visualising Politics
When extraordinary levels of violence are systematically inflicted on the same people, it makes them more visible, where previously they were not noticed
The Square Rectangle
Cricket is now a very Indian game. It is as Indian as the Taj Mahal, the Lok Sabha, or the English language
Sar Pe Lal Topi Parsi...
I was hurt that the contribution of gays was not acknowledged during the 50th anniversary of India
Just A Legal Indian
It is today politically fashionable to speak of a certain community and its culture as truly Indian, but the fact is that there are no pure native Indians, or any pure native Indian culture
Seeding The Topsoil
I find it hard to take seriously the view that Indian civilisation is faced with the imminent risk of losing its identity
The Waiter's Late Too
To be an Indian these days is to have precious little to cheer about. There is the occasional victory when the Indian cricket team has its collective ass saved by Sachin
Billboard Bacchanalia
Mainstream cinema sates our appetite for moral certitudes and linguistic surfeit
Utopia, Family Album Size
The tinseltown candy factory is brimming over with syrup-dipped perversities
'To Be Indian Allows You A Distinctive Place'
Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, who studies the interplay of global and local, in conversation with S. Anand
'The Educated Have Lost Touch With Their Local Almanac'
The Jnanpith award-winning Kannada writer-critic in a free-wheeling interview
Cliche
Land of spiritualism, Maharajas, Snake Charmers and the Great Indian Middle Class
This Happens Only In India
Yo Sadhus, Hair Jordans, Wall Pissarios & Graffiti, Plantain Platters ...
One Of Us
The Siddhis, Gujjars, Khasis, Bondas ...
Indianama
Top-Ten Indians who are, well, somehow Indian But For ...
What Is Indian?
Yoga, Fans, Paans, Bidis, Kohinoor, Tandoor, Kabaddi, Mehendi ... et al
Liff Laff
Funny? You call this funny? Well, whatever. Don't say we didn't warn you.
India: As They Saw It
Quotable Quotes? Apollonius Tyanaeus, Will Durant, Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw
Thirukural
Perhaps the only ancient secular text from India that has been translated into 60 languages the world over...
Kama Sutra
Like all fountainheads of great Indian wisdom, the poet of Kama Sutra was never the involved party...
The Epics
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata ... more than myths and mythologies.