War stories, particularly of World War II, keep me both enthralled and horrified. I thought the human race had learned lessons from the dark times of our history, but alas, it is not so, going by the present state of affairs. Hence, the movie, White Bird- a Wonder...
The term “Etymology” is the study of the origin of words. The practice of etymology is uncovering the truth by tracing the root of a word and its evolution thereafter. English as a language borrows heavily from other languages. These lexical borrowings or loan words...
Long, long ago, many years ago, all around us, families were running away, carrying whatever they could. The rumour floated around that "Nagarjuna Sagar dam has broken, and we are going to be swept away." My mother stood on the balcony with her brood of three, and I...
Francis Bacon once remarked, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” What better way to chew and digest a book than marginalia? Throughout my school life, I had made do with second-hand textbooks. And if the...
Who hasn’t gone into peals of laughter when someone slips on a banana peel? Fortunately, we outgrow this stage. But, maybe not. Particularly when a person whom we don’t like slips on the peel! Haven’t we been happy when someone overtakes us in a...
When I learned that the word rife had appeared in 276 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, I did a deep dive into its use. That is when I came across the sentence: English is rife with words that have been handed down to us from Old...
The metro zipped over the familiar names and not-so-familiar names. When my father and his colleagues from AG’s office built his house in Yousufguda, Hyderabad way back in the 70s and for the next decade or so, we shared space with some goats and cows...
I recently watched the latest Harlen Coben series, Run Away, on Netflix. In the series, the father, while searching for his young runaway daughter, accidentally meets her in a park. While he is chasing her to get her back and see sense, her boyfriend stops him, and...
Once a little boy went to school. One morning The teacher said: "Today we are going to make a picture." "Good!" thought the little boy. He liked to make all kinds; Lions and tigers, Chickens and cows, Trains and boats; And he took out his box of crayons And began to...