First poetry book in Tamil, 1959 »
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This was my first poetry book in Tamil published in 1959 while I was in England. Like all first poetry books this is a thin volume of few pages got together by a few friends [...]
Life and Art of C N Vasudevan »
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This was a rare book that brings to light what the outside world does not know about how Rabindranath Tagore’s arts, in particular the famous Santiniketan, style of dancing was evolved. Tagore was infact lucky [...]
Congress Election Manifesto 1967 »
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The Congress Manifesto for the 1967 General Election was prepared by a team with which I was entrusted the job of the final copy and bringing it out of the press. The brains behind this [...]
Oxford and other essays on education »
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This book was composed in the year 1984 and contains autobiographical recollections of my years at Oxford. The other essays deal with my educational activities and experiences. One article sums up my establishment of a [...]
Decline of the West? Or Descent of the West? »
New Books on India and the Western domination
The Scandal of Empire:
India and the Creation of Imperial Britain by Nicholas Dirks
The British Empire and the Second World War by Ashley Jackson
Published by Hambledon Continuum
Harvard University Press
The History of British Empire by Niall Ferguson
The War of the World:
History’s Age of Hatred by Niall Ferguson Allen Lane
There are [...]
Bharati’s life and times »
His daughter’s writings reveal unknown facts!
Thangammal Bharati Padaipukal Centenary publication, Amudhasurabi, Chennai,2004 pages 472, Price Rs.200.
Mahakavi Bharati’s poetry is well-established. Not only in Tamil but at the all India level. Quoted and written about in all Indian languages. He lived only 39 years. He also wrote much that was traditional. What makes Bharati stand out, [...]
Spectator, my favourite English magazine »
Heard of Spectator? Perhaps not. This is a famous English weekly magazine I have been reading, almost all my life. This magazine is not available in India, I read it regularly in the British Council library whenever I visit it, be it in Chennai or in Bangalore or wherever I find myself. Even when I [...]
All the guilty men of India’s Partition! »
Shameful Flight, The Last Years of the British Empire in India,pp 231,OUP, 2006, where historic photos mislead us!
India’s Partition and why we feel shy to avoid the topic?
This book by a serious scholar of India’s modern history, an authoritative writer on Gandhi and Jinnah has now produced a book that would give us, Indians of [...]
Buy more books for public libraries! »
Buy more foreign magazines for libraries!
Free speech, free press? Good questions, good rhetoric. Somehow, there are obstacles in India too much! Citizens empowerment is a concept that had not received the attention of our politicians. Our people must be enabled [...]
We learn from books, learn from others’ lives »
I have been reading Bertrand Russell all through my life. I started with his” Problems of Philosophy”, sometime in the Fifties, on the suggestion of a friend who said” that might be useful for your exam for Oxford”. That was at a time when the Oxford College (New College) asked me to do some essays [...]