Opinion

"Karl Marx was right: socialism works. It is just that he had the wrong species," wrote the sociobiologist, E.O. Wilson, the world's leading authority on ants. But it's really a little more complicated than that, and now is a good time to discuss it, because the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth passed recently.

New India is newly minted; it has no history. Or, rather, its history has to be written from scratch. What is needed for that is an aggressive ignorance that sees only black, white and the red of fury, and uses the word 'anti-national' as a cleansing weapon. 

There is no longer any bridge over troubled waters. Not after the collapse of a portion of an under-construction flyover in Varanasi - the parliamentary constituency of none other than the prime minister, Narendra Modi -which resulted in the death of at least 25 people and the injuries of about a dozen. 

Laudable effort

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Rude behaviour

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Wasteful ways

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I watched Mughal-e-Azam again a month ago. 'Mughal-e-Azam' - the great Mughal. The film is one of those antediluvians, marked not only by their extinction, but by both their long duration and the grandeur of their theme. Like most historical films, it is three-quarters fiction. One isn't meant to respond to it by checking facts, but by becoming entangled in a love story, between Prince Salim (later the Emperor Jahangir) and a character who exists only in legend, Anarkali, a slave girl who became a court dancer. Their love is thwarted by Salim's father Akbar, the Mughal emperor best known for his tolerance and intellectual curiosity.

The priest who used a protected snake at a religious rite to honour his parents brought tradition into conflict with a science-based law

Lost magic

The power of youth

Keeping the flock together

Haste makes waste

This remains. The bow-tie. This little but singular piece of the attire of the fashionable man. Or, in our context, or, to be more precise, the context into which we find ourselves thrust, the cow-tie. It awaits attention.

Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, is dead. The news of Sudan's passing brought to my mind the life of Gnore, one of Jaldapara's famous rhinoceroses. Gnore - rhino in the local parlance - used to begin his day when the sun was on the wane. Each evening, at sunset, with the forest bathed in shadows and light, Gnore would make his way out of the tall elephant grass and head towards a muddy watering hole. Then, he - this was before India was being whipped to become Swachch Bharat - would enter the mud, his horn sticking out of the muck like a stubborn submarine that refuses to go under. That proud, protruding horn was the signal for Gnore's fans, noisy visitors on elephant back, to reach for their cameras. And Gnore would oblige them each evening - I was the recipient of his kindness many years ago - till darkness made it difficult for the paparazzi to differentiate the animal from a lifeless trunk that floated next to him.

A Horse A HorseWhinny, vidi, viciSuggestio falsiYea or neigh?