“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” – Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus

On April 25, 2014 a slum settlement barely a kilometre from where I live got burnt to the ground.

As the political climate heats up, one man has been on the road non-stop for over a month, convincing voters in his state to choose a better alternative this time round.

In these dying days of the UPA regime, to make up for lost time, our opinion-makers are busy clearing a backlog. Hardly a day goes by without a valiant new signature campaign, or a last-gasp effort to save secularism for posterity, or recalling gas chambers and concentration camps.

I think he may have spotted me. Damn. I duck and take cover behind an Ambassador. A minute passes. What now? Is he looking at me still?

Every party manifesto contains an odd word or two that catches people’s attention. For the Congress, it is Secularism – frequent usage of which has obliterated its true meaning altogether.

The other day, I read Mihir Sharma’s recent column on crony capitalism, Thy hands, great oligarchs. “The takeover of India’s politics by its oligarchs is almost complete”, began Mihir, and once he picked up speed everyone from the Ambanis to the Tatas to the Rangarajans of the world – everyone except Manmohan – had come under his rampaging three-wheeler.

I am a doctor, one of 0.88 million who practice in this country. The general elections are here. My vote will not decide who will be our next Prime minister.

Victimhood is a shop round the corner and I want my daily bread.

There are many stories associated with Henry Ford, the inventor of the assembly-line, and one such merits retelling.

“I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will not rule, and also ruled I will not be!”

                                                                                                             – John Mackay

Ever since Arundhati Roy famously declared herself to be a Mobile Republic, I have wished to know what it’d be like to be one.

Hello, dear readers! Your uncle Rangarajan this side of the digital divide. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to offer you my jasmine-scented greetings but what to do? The omnipotent Balaji knows I am helpless.

Editor’s note: There’s a mystery to this article, so be sure to read till the end.

Narendra Modi is a man before his time. A couple of decades along, too late for him, there will be a bigger constituency in India for the anti-Muslim demagogue.