Dheeraj Kalgutkar

Long long ago, in 1689 a Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō set out on an epic 1,200-mile journey through the then narrow roads of Japan. He wrote his travel account in the form of poetry (haiku) and also prose. This poetic travel works added lustre to his reputation which continues till today. Like Shakespeare for west, Bashō is to Japan. More so as everyone in Japan can recite at least one of Bashō’s poem by heart. The part of the route he traveled is traveled by thousands of people today in memory of the great poet. People go to pilgrimage at his birth and burial sites. Bashō today is part of Japanese culture. In his masterpiece, Oku no Hosomichi, or Narrow Road to a Far Province, as first entry Bashō writes, “Each day is a journey, and the journey itself home” That was 300 years ago. Today, Bashō is mostly remembered world over for Haiku. What is Haiku? It’s a Japanese form of poetry which uses few words to capture a moment into reader’s mind. Unlike other forms of poetry,...

Dear Human, This is your mother, not the one that gave you birth but the one whose nipples you pull hard early in the morning to have your glass of milk, my milk. It feels embarrassing though when you touch them in front of my hubby but we’ve grown used to it now after around 10,000 years. For those who don’t milk in the morning, we are four-legged creatures you see on Indian roads that block your horny vehicles. By the way, are you blind? Can’t you see our long ears? We can listen you honk; just that we don’t care. You pulled us from our homes to this disturbing world of yours, at least let us be. You know, around 10,500 years ago, we used to be in the wild. Then the moronic neolithic humans whose clan you are, caught us to domesticate, I mean to milk, kill and skin us for your kinds’ good. In the beginning it was Turkey and Pakistan but then it slowly spread all over the globe. There was also time when we were used as currency; what do you call it? Oh wait, B...

Sultan to sum in a single line is a film where underdog wins against all odds. But that's like saying, all superhero films are same where world is at the cusp of extinction and then a superhero arrives to fight all evil forces. Sultan has many side plots apart from the story of its protagonist Sultan Ali Khan (played by Salman Khan). Of the many plots, one that intrigued me was of female protagonist Aarfa (played by Anushka Sharma). Sultan is a breather in otherwise myriad number of Salman Khan movies where female leads are merely used to move their bodies to peppy dance numbers or say that one catchy dialogue (remember 'thappad se dar nahi lagta..' from Dabangg? ) and disappear. Just go away. But Aarfa had her share of the story and screen space which is otherwise rare in Salman's movies. She is not another ordinary village girl who in our films dreams to get married to dashing hero who comes on sports bikes with oiled muscles. In fact she wants them n...

Dear Modi supporters, Let me make it easier and clear for you. Remember the ‘Indira is India, India is Indira,’ cry of Congress. Well, you are increasingly imitating those sycophants. No matter who is the leader, India has been India, is and will remain so. Yes, Modi is the popular leader but there are still people in few (or most of) villages who don’t know who Modi is. So calm down. Here is something on Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), mocking India or celebrating India’s defeat in getting breakthrough at Seoul, banning Chinese goods to teach China a lesson they won’t forget and a bit more. First things first, yes China opposed India’s bid to become member nation of NSG but it was not China alone. In addition to China, Switzerland and Brazil, both nations which previously supported India’s claim, withdrew their support. Switzerland, in case you forgot, was the country which our respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a tour of. ‘Futile’ is the word you must be looking for. Ap...

In Raghuram Govind Rajan, we have lost not only a finest mind in the world of economics today but also a free-thinker who minced no words in calling a spade a spade. What you’ve heard enough is that Rajan predicted 2008 global financial crisis three years before in his 2005 paper, Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier? But what you’ve not heard is how he holds the record for being the youngest-ever Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) apart from IIT as well as IIM degrees. Time magazine recently included him in their coveted ‘The 100 Most Influential People’, it wrote , “ he steered India through the global crisis and fallout, playing a large role in making it one of the emerging-market stars of the moment”. Remember how social media was full of rupee-on-free-fall jokes? That’s when Rajan took the job of Reserve Bank of India Governor. Those were the days when rupee used to fall each day to new lows, jokes on ‘finest economist’ (then) PM Manmo...

Rana Ayyub says, the book is not just about Gujarat riots and fake encounters but also about Haren Pandya murder. It is a fact well known that not all drafts gets published and turn into books, and how publishers choose what they will print and what they won't. Most of the times their decisions are legit and have something to do with literary value of the draft at hand but not all the time. Stories may have been already said, might be similar to what is already published, readers don't find this interesting anymore, so on and so forth. But that is for fiction, what about non-fiction? Non-fiction is not about spilling your imaginative beans but telling a compelling story about what has occurred in fact, it is about what you have seen or heard, essentially it is about retelling a story or predicting the future on the basis of past events. Now, why would that be devoid of its right to get printed? Again, there are scores of reasons from the quality of content to impo...

internet image   Railway stations, bus stops are places where you find people from across the social fabric, from middle class to ultra poor to children and to old. So yesterday when I had to board one bus from Karwar to Goa, I found one old lady or rather she found me. I had seen her before sitting myself on the bench kept for waiting travelers as she boarded off a bus but didn't noticed much. It was not any rare sight to see people in their seventies and eighties traveling alone while their children kept themselves 'busy', we have all grownup watching such scenes. So I was sitting there talking to my cousin who had given me lift on his bike till there. In the middle of that conversation she came and sat beside me. Not that I was any special but coincidentally that was the only place available. So after a minute or so, she asked me if she can use my cellphone to make a call. The thing at that time was that I had two phones, one which is not so audible bu...

The world on Monday woke up to what could easily be called the news of our time. It was not another terror attack that shooks a certain part of the world cutting across borders or that news of economic meltdown which makes elite bite their nails, it was a leak bigger than that of Wikileaks that took world by storm. The sheer numbers are massive, more massive is their reach and the people they belong too. The leak unlike Wikileaks doesn’t revolve around United States anymore, it is engulfing the whole of world. It in a way unites the high and mighty in their dirty games. It strips the mask from the elite who boast repeatedly of integrity and other high terms. Panama Papers are but huge leak of confidential documents which reveal how the reach and powerful use tax havens to hide their taxes. At the heart of all this storm is a Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca with its 11.5 million confidential documents comprising detailed information about 214,000 offshore c...