One of the disadvantages of being in South India is that you get the New Indian Express instead of the Indian Express. Missing Tavleen Singh and Jerry Rao’s columns is a gigantic opportunity loss. Especially when Jerry Rao writes columns like this one:
As writers, Rudyard Kipling and Salman Rushdie are far apart in time and style. And yet they share something in common. The underlying theme of their great novels Kim and The Moor’s Last Sigh is the same. The theme quite simply is India itself.
…
Whether he acknowledged it fully or not, Kipling was a child of India and his writings are literally drenched with India. Kim can be seen as the retelling of the Krishna legend.
The nice thing about Jerry Rao is that he manages to approach stuff from completely fresh perspectives. So even if you disagree with his conclusions, you’ve broadened your horizons a little bit. It’s like he adds new tools to your intellectual toolbox, instead of sharpening the ones already there.
The edit page of IE and NIE are usually same. Previously Jerry Rao’s articles used to come on the edit page, now they have become Op-Ed, slisha woresht wonly.
I didn’t know that. But I dislike the NIE’s typeface also.
yes…i remember he had come to College to speak on the BPO he was heading then–what struck me was how genuine & how much of a gogetter the man is–we were unable to ask him any meaningful questions, being handicapped by a lack of sectoral knowledge–but he encouraged us to ask all questions, however uninsightful they were. I bought stocks then- but he sold the company- Mphasis- n then they took a nosedive:) thereby proving the man maketh the company he keeps:))
Aadisht,
I hope you were being sarcastic. The man has been writing absolutely idiotic bullcrap for some time, salvaged every once in a while by something that makes a little sense.
Ritwik,
I was not. Anyway, as I mentioned, what I like about him is not so much his content, as the fact that he comes up with new ways of thinking about something.
[…] on Jerry Rao’s funda of Kipling and Rushdie having a Vaishnavite and Saivite view of India, I think it is good and worthwhile to apply this concept across the board. Especially to […]