Home > Vikas Datta
Tragedy of Syria and of wars
21 March 2016 1:49 AM ISTThe worst wars are where a regime turns on its people and/or outsiders jump in to make their point. Syria is a classic case. Protests for rights...
Hitches of getting hitched
14 March 2016 1:16 AM ISTHumans have a penchant for entertainment spectacles in which some of the participants may disagree with the definition of entertainment. The ancient...
Braving brute prejudice
23 Feb 2016 4:14 AM ISTBesides that both were authors, and both died recently, there seems nothing in common between a reclusive American and an outgoing Italian...
From Athens to Silicon Valley, a quest to understand genius
22 Feb 2016 2:06 AM ISTCalling someone a genius may be a subjective opinion but you are unlikely to go wrong with the likes of Socrates, Michelangelo, Adam Smith, Beethoven,...
A Chinese hat-trick in Bollywood and other villainies
8 Feb 2016 1:48 AM ISTOut of all actors, those portraying villains have it the hardest. They usually get their just desserts onscreen but the odium around them doesn’t...
‘Travel writing may change, but will never die’
1 Feb 2016 12:46 AM ISTIts demise was predicted back in the 1930s but it endured, and even in our day, despite the Internet and Google Maps allowing us to access any part of...
The life, craft and paradox of Suchitra Sen
11 Jan 2016 3:36 AM ISTHer forte was Bengali films, usually opposite Uttam Kumar, and she only appeared in a handful of Hindi films out of her 60-odd before retiring into...
Mastering motherhood
4 Jan 2016 1:37 AM ISTIt usually involves pain, discomfort, lack of sleep or rest, being ready to face the unexpected or the unreasonable anytime, leads to crankiness and...
A consummate politician, an ‘Atal’ jewel of India
28 Dec 2015 12:41 AM ISTHe was often called “a right man in a wrong party”, but the label, though snappy, couldn’t have been more wrong. Atal Bihari Vajpayee never repudiated...
Investigating murder and adventures of a Mughal nobleman
21 Dec 2015 2:13 AM ISTHuman life was likely to be “nasty, brutish, and short”, said 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in the absence of a political community,...
An apsara and her divine, difficult loves
14 Dec 2015 2:17 AM ISTForever young and beguilingly beautiful, capable of swaying gods, men and demons alike from their resolve, they are the Hindu pantheon’s most alluring...
Forests in literary imagination
30 Nov 2015 1:47 AM ISTFrom Snow White to Tarzan, Robin Hood to Alice, Lord Rama to the Pandavas, Ali Baba to Winnie the Pooh, Dorothy (of Oz) to Harry Potter, from works of...