But this little plaque is no bigger than a couple of paperback novels placed spine to spine. It is white with a black border and has no more than five lines of text on it.

Partigiano
Walter Stefani
Di Anni 25
Caduto il 20-09-1944
I Compagni Del Rione

Not only is the plaque quite small, but it is also mounted high up on the wall between a barred window and a small mailbox. Unless you look up as you walk past under the portico, there is little chance you’d spot the memorial to Walter Stefani who died in 1944 aged just 25.

And even if you did spot it, the chances are you really wouldn’t care. There are bigger, brasher, more luminous things to look at in Bologna.

But I was suddenly taken by this young man. Who had died during the second world war. And was some kind of partisan. Who was Walter Stefani, I asked the lady who manned the hotel reception. She shrugged her shoulders. He must be one of the boys the Germans shot during the war she said.

So I googled him up. One Walter Stefani was a writer from Vicenza had just died recently. Not him. And another Walter Stefani was a plastics entrepreneur. Not him.

And then I finally found him. Walter Stefani. On the ‘Storia E Memoria De Bologna’ website, a portal on the ‘history and memory’ of Bologna run by the city municipality. Walter Stefani. Son of Ernesto and Ida Zani; born on 2 December 1919 in Sasso Marconi, a town 17 kilometres southwest of Bologna. 

There is precious little about Walter Stefani available online. And the little there is mostly in Italian. Running the handful of sources through Google Translate tells the story of a simple man who went out in a blaze of heroic glory. Walter Stefani was a young man who was a fan of Bologna FC in his childhood. For several years, according to more than one source, he was Bologna Football Club’s ‘first mascot’. It is unclear what this means. Regardless Stefani was associated with the club when it was going through its brightest patch. They became national champions twice in the late 1920s. And then after the establishment of the Serie A, they won four more times before the onset of World War 2.

Stefani was a delivery boy or a bellboy, or both, at the outbreak of the war. Then on the 1st of May 1944, he joined one of the many Italian resistance groups that sprung into action following the 1943 armistice between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies. The Germans responded to this perceived treachery on the part of their erstwhile allies by turning on Italian troops and eventually invading and occupying Italy. All over the country resistance and partisan groups began to sprout up and engage the Germans. Bologna became one of the main cauldrons of this resistance and witnessed some of the most significant engagements between German troops and resistance fighters anywhere in Europe.  And as the Allies took Rome and marched northwards, these resistance fighters were further motivated to do their part in undermining German resistance.

Stefani himself joined one of the most storied partisan groups that functioned in the Emilia-Romagna region around Bologna. Called the Stella Rosa (Red Star), it later became known as the Stella Rosa Lupo brigade after its leader Mario Musolesi aka ‘Lupo’ or the wolf. The charismatic Musolesi had put together the brigade from a ragtag group of fighters with diverse political beliefs and even some Allied POWs who had been freed from captivity. 

Surely the most remarkable of these fighters has to be Sad Singh, a Sikh officer from New Delhi. Attached to a tank regiment in the British 8th Army, Sad Singh had been captured by the Germans during the Allied invasion of southern Italy. But Singh escaped, hid aboard a train from Florence to Bologna and then joined Stefani’s Red Star Lupo brigade. Perhaps he fought shoulder to shoulder with Walter Stefani. 

If Lupo’s fighters were looking for a chance to hurt the Germans they soon got it. In August 1944 the Germans drew up a defensive line in the Monte Sole regions south of Bologna. This was precisely where the Red Star Lupo fighters were ensconced. The Germans knew they had to neutralise the partisan and resistance fighters in order to keep their lines intact. But what they eventually carried out was nothing short of a war crime: a massacre of the villages of the Monte Sole. Of the 2000 population of these villages the Germans killed some 800 including h216 children, 316 women and 142 ‘elderly people’.

According to one website that studies the history of the Monte Sole atrocities, these massacres have “been transformed by public memory into an epic history of the Resistance. The extreme violence against the people of the region employed by Nazi Army, the complicity of local Italian fascists and the role played by the partisans have been transformed into a collective public myth: the martyrdom of an entire people for the sake of the liberation of Italy.”

Walter Stefani himself did not die in Monte Sole. Instead, he was captured and taken prisoner. Then on 20th September 1944 Stefani along with ten other prisoners were taken to a shooting range on the Via Agucchi, to the northwest of Bologna not far from where the airport is located today.

Twenty-five year old Walter Stefani was executed. Four days later a local newspaper reported his execution and declared that all eleven victims had confessed to acts of terror against German soldiers. Stefani’s remains are interred at the Ossuary Monument to the Fallen Partisans, inside the monumental Certosa Di Bologna cemetery complex.

Today there is a plaque outside a house on a narrow little alley in Bologna that reminds us of the supreme sacrifice young Stefani made for his country and his beliefs. His life as a partisan was short. He signed up in May 1944 and he was dead just four months later. On 21st April 1945, Bologna finally passed into Allied hands.

When we read great histories of the Second World War, or indeed any great endeavour, we are often swayed by the portraits of the great men and women. The presidents and generals and dictators and emperors. The lives of the small men and women often pale in comparison. Walter Stefani is no Eisenhower.

Thevarthundiyil Titus, Anand Hingorini and Ratnaji Boria are but minnows next to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Yet if they hadn’t been amongst the first 80 to march alongside Gandhi, his Dandi March may have hardly become the turning point in Indian history that is.

But this is not just a matter of remembering the forgotten. Small plaques outside obscure homes on narrow alleys are also objects of empowerment. They remind us that sometimes giants stand on the shoulders of minnows.

Walter Stefani helped defeat fascism.

"Wake up Sidin wake up wake up wake up wake up. Enough of sleeping like a wild buffalo. Wake up wake up."

As far as I know my Malayali family has never owned a wild or domesticated buffalo. Cows? Yes. Chickens? Very much. Rabbits? For a brief period. Turkeys? Yes, and hilarious. Venomous snake in the copra warehouse? Unintentionally.

But buffalo? Never. We've never owned them. And I highly doubt if my mom ever spent any time observing their sleep patterns. And yet here she is insinuating that I sleep like one.

But uniquely, on that night, I woke up instantly. We rushed to the living room, switched on the TV, and promptly sat down to watch West Germany versus UAE at the 1990 World Cup. My mom and I were excited beyond description. UAE. UAE! Our UAE! At the football world cup! And playing against Germany! How is this possible?

Is this real life or just fantasy? Etcetera. We were super excited.

Now this expatriate excitement no doubts seems a bit strange. I mean UAE is hardly a paragon of human rights, religious freedom, labour law enforcement, workers welfare etc. But as NRIs who grew up there in the 1980s may tell you, you felt a certain fondness for the place. Because you lived in it. (And what, really, is patriotism but just finding yourself somewhere and thinking what the hell why not.)

So some 1980s-NRIs might remember a time when policemen used to speak a bit of Hindi and a little Malayalam. And when the emaraati at the customs counter would ask you if you had 'coconut halwa' in your luggage, and when they trusted the Indian fellow in accounts--aka Dad--so much that they let him draw up all the cheques, which they would sign with merely a cursory glance.

True story from 1978-79:

Dad: "Please sign here sir."
Ancient bedouin boss uncle whose Welsh-educated kids ran the company, but who still insisted on dealing with all money himself: "Oh Mr. Sunny very big amount eh? Very very big..."
Dad: "Sir, that is the date. This is the amount."
Boss: "Inshallah company is in your hands Mr. Sunny."

So anyway. We were unbelievably excited.

And on June 15th the UAE faced West Germany. They'd already lost to Colombia previously. But a match against West Germany? United Arab Emiridiciulous level of hype.

The Germans quickly put two past UAE goalkeeper Muhsin Musabah. Did this do anything to undermine the electricity coursing through the veins of mother and son? Absolutely not. I vividly recall sitting on the edge of our sofas, mom and me, waiting for a moment of magic from Adnan Al Talyani (UAE Legend, UAE Player of The Century).

And then in the 47th minute a moment of magic came, not from Talyani (Legend etc.) but Khalid Mubarak (Firefighter from Dubai). Who took advantage of a spot of bad defending, and scored a really fantastic goal.

Boss, we lost our minds. Mom and I just completely and utterly lost our minds. We were bouncing off the walls. Hugging. Punching the air. UAE had scored! UAE HAD SCORED. AGAINST GERMANY!

Twenty-eight years later I still remember that moment quite well. Was mom wearing a nighty with little blue flowers? Yes, I think so.

Or at least I think I remember that moment very well. I try hard to remember it. Periodically I tell myself: do not forget that moment. Save it. Stash it away. The goal. The moment. The celebration.

That is because two and a half weeks later, on the 4th of July 1990, my mother had a heart attack. That morning we were on our way to the airport, to catch a flight to Trivandrum. We were going on NRI summer vacation trip to Kerala. All the luggage was carefully placed in the dickie of a friend's car. Mom came hurrying down the stairs. And just as we were about to step into the car, she said she felt ill. Dad told my brother and me to wait in the little Malayali hotel nearby and rushed her to hospital. She didn't make it. She passed away in the car. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Perhaps it had something to do with her thyroid problem.

The next few days are a blur. I remember very little of it. I recall our house being full of people. Everyone was talking all the time. Because, I think, that is how Indian families cope with stuff. They talk and talk. First, they talk of the tragedy of it all. Then they talk about funny memories and laugh until no one can stand it any more and then everyone cries. And then when everyone is done crying, they talk. And then they eat. They eat all the time.

At some point, someone came and told my brother and me to go play. Something. Somewhere. Don't just sit here and watch the grown-ups. Someone went and bought a toy helicopter for us. The only problem was you aren't supposed to play in a house in mourning. So eventually someone suggested we could sit in the bathroom and play. And that is what we did. We played with our helicopter in the bathroom.

Four days later we were in Kerala. Driving around inviting people for the funeral. At some point, late in the night, we were driving back home when the driver of the Ambassador taxi suggested we drop into his house. "It is the World Cup Final," he said. "You can't watch it in your home because of the mourning. But you can watch it in mine."

So we sat in the driver's house and watched that very bad, very very bad, final. Almost as if the football too was in mourning.

Sometimes people ask me why I like football. Or why I support Arsenal and so on. And I find this a funny question. Nobody asks this when I say I love aubergine. (I love aubergine.)

I like football for many reasons. So many reasons. Last night's free kick, for instance.

But I am also thankful to football for one very important memory. There are many different ways in which we remember someone... for the last time. In which we capture a snapshot that we will then carry with us till we run out of snapshots ourselves, so to speak.

And UAE's goal against Germany in 1990 is a moment I will carry with me forever.

Anyway. Enjoy the world cup. You never know when you'll need the football to help you remember.

And England will win. Mark my words.

Other people have lucrative investment portfolios, expensive cars, high metabolisms, statuesque physiques, healthy BMIs, and a capacity to sleep on planes during long flights. Very good. Congratulations. But I have hair. Quite tremendous hair. My hair is thick and dark and even. There is, I admit, the occasional grey strand. One cannot resist the ravaging of time, but one can succumb to it with style.

But otherwise, my hair is really quite exceptional. Apply a little Brylcreem—Red—and it will stay in place like a Studds helmet. No wonder attractive ladies in business school used to run their fingers over my head and whisper ‘So dense, so thick’.  Many still want to, but their bald husbands will get jealous, what to do.

Having said this, you will be surprised to know that I have only ever had two hairstyles in my entire life:

• Mild ‘Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men with left partition’, 1979 - 1989
• Mild ‘Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men with right partition’, 1989 - present

What happened in 1989, all those years before the 2014 elections, for my hair to suddenly move from left to right?

Friends, please sit down, it is a short but good story.

It was, if I recall, a Thursday morning in Abu Dhabi. Thursday was the first day of the weekend in those days in Abu Dhabi. Dad was getting dressing in his Thursday casuals for work. Mom was in the kitchen experimenting with some recipe from Vanita magazine no doubt. Chicken sambar or pineapple puffs or some such nonsense.

My brother was watching some WWF wrestling on TV. And I was lying on the floor of the living room, propped up on my elbows, reading the newspaper. I was 10 years old at the time, my brother was six.

I was a 10-year old who spent most of the weekend reading the newspaper. I was, and still am, considered to be a very cool person within very limited social circles.

As I was reading the paper or doing the crossword or some such, I noticed a toothpick lying under the sofa. I remember this very distinctly. It was inside a Kentucky Fried Chicken wrapper. Perhaps the remains of a weekend fast food meal the evening before. 

For reasons I just do not have, I reached for the toothpick, unwrapped it, and began to just look at it. 

Why? No idea. I just said no, boss!! I have no reasons. 

At that exact moment my brother leapt off the coffee table and onto my back like some stupid WWF wrestler. He was so enthralled by the program on TV he had decided to produce what I believe is called ‘user-generated content’.

For a moment I was just mildly irritated. And then I saw the drops of blood on the newspaper. And then I noticed that the toothpick was no longer in my hand, but sticking out of my head, near the hairline on the right side. (My right, your left.) Panic ensued. I tried to pull it out, the toothpick broke in half, leaving around an inch still embedded in my head. I ran to the bedroom. 

Dad, I said, there is a toothpick in my head. 

Shut up Sidin, Dad said, don’t make fun of such things. One day it will really happen and then nobody will believe you. 

Dad, oh my god Dad, Dad there is a toothpick in my head.  This is not a drill.

My dad ran his fingers over the skin of my scalp and recoiled in horror. The inch-long piece of toothpick was stuck between the skin of my scalp and the bone of the skull.

All this is completely true.  Completely.

We rushed to the hospital. (New Medical Center, Abu Dhabi. )

One doctor came and checked and said, wait one second I need to call another doctor. Then another. And then another. Until there was a small group discussion around my head. The problem, they said, was trying to figure out how to approach the piece of toothpick. Apparently, the foreign object was moving around between the layers of skin and bone.

Dad: “Look is he safe? Doctor, is anything going to happen to my son?”

Doctor: “Absolutely no problem Mr. Sunny. He is 100% safe. We are just discussing how to remove this without causing too much scarring or physical disfigurement...”

Typical Indian Dad: “Thank you Jesus. What scarring doctor, as if he is going to look handsome like Rajiv Gandhi or Prem Nazir when he grows up. You just take it out. If there is any problem he can wear a cap for the rest of his life.” 

After two or three hours of this nonsense, they finally decided to operate. The operation itself took no more than an hour or so. There was a lost of unpleasant tugging and pulling and stitching. Did it hurt me? Well, I don’t have any strong feelings about that question... because they used local anaesthetic.

Ha ha ha. Classic. 

After applying a massive—and I mean massive—bandage around my head they said I could go home.  The doctor asked me if I wanted to go to school the week after. Of course, I said, I am participating in a poetry recitation competition.

Doctor: “Are you sure? The bandage will distract from the poetry...”

Sidin: “Not at all doctor, let this bandage be a strong message to other students about the value of safety and a culture of precaution in the...” 

Doctor: “You want to get extra sympathy marks in the competition?” 

Sidin: “Correct, can you make the bandage a little bigger?” 

This proved futile as that stupid Andrew M with his voice like melted Amul butter sliding off a silver spoon into a pool of melted chocolate won the contest. (Bloody fool won every single year throughout my time in that school.) I got third prize I think.

The stitches and scarring meant that I had to switch my hair partition from left to right. For years afterwards I used to impress people by showing them the scar in my hairline. This scar has now vanished. But I don’t need it anymore. Why would I need it?

I have my fantastic hair. And people are always impressed. 

View fullsize

Where did it come from?

In Switzerland, a woman collapses in the arms of an Indian journalist, her body disintegrating into a puddle of gore. She is the first victim of a monstrous disease that will soon kill hundreds with relentless fury . . .

Who will it kill next?

Unsuspecting men, women and children are ravaged by a killer that experts have never seen before. As the outbreak wreaks its bloody havoc—killing rich and poor, young and old—thousands try to flee . . . including the most powerful man in India.

Can anybody stop it?

All that stands between Mumbai and the apocalypse is a desperate team of doctors, civil servants and scientists. But can they do anything to save this city from the greatest, most horrific crisis it ever seen?

But these days, when the weather is beginning to get a bit warmer and then sun a bit more forthright, I step outside and sometimes just stand there listening to the birdsong. Birdsong, I suppose, is a bit like love or hunger. You don't notice it until you do. And then you notice nothing else.

A few weeks ago, now that life seemed to have returned to a semblance of normalcy, I decided to go and see my local club play football. Frequent visitors to this blog will recall that once upon a time I used to live right outside Arsenal's Emirates Stadium. I now live a twenty minute walk away from Bomley FC's Hayes Lane ground. It is impossible to exaggerate the difference between the two venues. 

This plan had been forming in mind for many, many weeks. What greater sign of commitment to your local community is there than to go and see the local football team play in the fifth tier of English football. Bromley FC play in the Vanarama National League.  

Arsenal play in the Premier League. Then there is the Championship, League One, League Two and the National League. Confusingly enough the National League is what many people here call 'Non-league Football'. Because it is semi-professional at best, and a bunch of barbers and school teachers and accountants at worst.

Bromley FC, the night I went to see the Ravens for the first time, were sitting somewhere in the middle of the National League table. Which is not bad for a team that had only recently been promoted up to this level of football. (Organized English football, I am told, goes down fourteen levels. Crazy.) 

The club, however, was coming off a somewhat bad run of form. They had just lost 4-0 in their previous game. And I was hoping my presence would perk things up. After all, in seven years of watching Arsenal play live at the Emirates infrequently, my club has won every single time. Really. It is a great record.

So the missus dropped me on Hayes Lane, and I walked down a dark path to the ground. Which wasn't too bad at all. Comparable to a good college football ground in Kerala in every aspect except for the excellent pub and the green pitch. I showed my ticket to the cheerful girl in club colours at the gate, walked up to the pitch, had a look around, nodded in self-satisfaction, and then went to the pub for a pint. Inside my jacket pocket I carried enough cash to procure a burger, chips (french fries) and tea at half time. It was a very cold night. But I soon found a vacant seat and sat down to enjoy...

Bromley conceded a penalty after five minutes. Braintree Town scored. 1-0. There was a murmur of disapproval in the stands. (Later I was informed that less than 500 people attended the match. More people get arrested for anti-social behaviour at each Manchester United game excluding players. However the murmur was strong.)

Then Bromley's Lee Minshull was sent off in the 16th minute. 

In the 32nd minute Bromley's Daniel Johnson was also sent off. And in the ensuing brouhaha Bromley manager Neil Smith was also dismissed. 

One minute later Bormley conceded another penalty. 2-0. 

And just before half-time Braintree scored again. 3-0. 

At half time I walked over to buy my burger, fries and tea in a mood that can only be called "Bencho yeh kya ho raha hai". 

I was fully expecting to come back to my seat for the second half expecting to find the crowd in a violent mood. Instead I spent the next 45 minutes enjoying exquisite gallows humour. Resigned to humilation, the Bromley FC fans were indulging in some comedy to somehow get through the next 45 minutes. Memories of IIT-JEE papers came flooding back.

Braintree scored twice more by the 73rd minute.

I have never, in all my life, witnessed a more one-sided sporting event. (I have participated in a far more humiliating contest. But that is another story.) 

When the final whistle was blown some fans stayed back to applaud the Bromley players back into the tunnel. The referee walked away to resounding boos. I applauded and booed respectively, had another drink, and then went back home. And then after thirty minutes of waiting for the missus to stop laughing I went to bed. 

Bromley are playing at home again on the 25th.  

I am conflicted.

P.S. I am hopeless at this blogging thing no? But I am rectifying this.

One thing led to another and by August 2015 I had admissions to the MA History course at UCL and the MA Historical Research course at Birkbeck. Both, obviously, as a part-time student. (Not that the full-time course was impossible. It is just that I didn’t want to take a risk. I am an Indian journalist you see. It has been years since I did any actual work. So I decided to complete my MA over a less hectic 24-month period.)

I finally chose Birkbeck and have had the time of my life ever since. It has been very challenging. The average class requires some 200 pages of reading and plenty of thinking. And this is if you just restrict yourself to the compulsory readings. Optional readings often run into hundreds of pages more. Per lecture. Crazy. There are no examinations to pass, thankfully, as each module is evaluated via the submission of a 5000-word essay.

Which is what I wanted to blog about in the first place.

For my first module, on the theories and methods of historical research, I submitted an essay on the declassifications of Soviet archives on the Space Program and the Nazi-Soviet Pact. How did these declassifications take place? How did Russians receive these declassifications? How did they react afterwards?

(Why did I choose this topic? Two reasons. There was an excellent exhibition on the Soviet Space Program taking place at the Science Museum when I was choosing topics. And secondly the Netaji Bose files were being debated at the time. Click. Click.)

You can download and read the essay PDF here. I am happy to report that essay was marked well and I passed the module.

But ever since the essay I have been fascinated by a particular aspect of post-Soviet life in Russia: public memory and collective memory. How do Russians, old and young, process their past history?

No-one, I think, has asked this question better than Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich. Her latest book is Secondhand Time. Lithub ran an excerpt from the book this week:

“So here it is, freedom! Is it everything we had hoped it would be? We were prepared to die for our ideals. To prove ourselves in battle. Instead, we ushered in a Chekhovian life. Without any history. Without any values except for the value of human life—life in general. Now we have new dreams: building a house, buying a decent car, planting gooseberries… Freedom turned out to mean the rehabilitation of bourgeois existence, which has traditionally been suppressed in Russia. The freedom of Her Highness Consumption. Darkness exalted. The darkness of desire and instinct—the mysterious human life, of which we only ever had approximate notions. For our entire history, we’d been surviving instead of living.”

You can read more here. You can also read an interview with Alexievich here.

I cannot wait to read Secondhand Time.

Anyway… more on the MA and my experiences going back to university in future posts. Cheers chaps.

“In between P.V. Sindhu’s and Sakshi Malik’s triumphs, the Olympics helped to generate great levels of national self-indignation. And this, inevitably, led to Indians—you, me, Shobhaa De—indulging in what I think is a particularly Indian form of solutionism.

What do I mean by this? Firebrand technology writer Evgeny Morozov is a staunch critic of modern-day technological solutionism, something The Guardian defined as “the idea that given the right code, algorithms and robots, technology can solve all of mankind’s problems, effectively making life “frictionless” and “trouble-free”.

My definition of Indian solutionism is slightly more global in terms of agency but local in that I confine it to Indian problems. Indian solutionism is the idea, perhaps increasingly widespread, that all of Indian problems boil down to one or two drivers that can easily be rectified if only certain agents would modify their behaviour. We see this solutionism in play during every moment of national indignation.”

More here.

"MARTENSITE! MARTENSITE!" I would scream, bounding down the steps, thus saving everybody in the stadium and subsequently appearing on News Hour.

The closest I've ever come to doing anything remotely heroic is staging a walkout from my class in engineering college. Not because I am Malayali--*laughter*--but because the night before somebody fell off a hostel terrace and died, and the authorities were trying to hush it up by acting as if nothing happened. Oh and I also broke a story on CWG 2010 corruption long before it became cool to do so.

Anyways. I digress. This is a story of a true hero.

But then Norman did something else. “I believe in what you believe. Do you have another one of those for me ?” he asked pointing to the Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on the others’ chests. “That way I can show my support in your cause.” Smith admitted to being astonished, ruminating: “Who is this white Australian guy? He won his silver medal, can’t he just take it and that be enough!”.

Smith responded that he didn’t, also because he would not be denied his badge. There happened to be a white American rower with them, Paul Hoffman, an activist with the Olympic Project for Human Rights. After hearing everything he thought “if a white Australian is going to ask me for an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge, then by God he would have one!” Hoffman didn’t hesitate: “I gave him the only one I had: mine”.

I've read this story many times before in different places. And each time I am moved tremendously.

The White Man in That Photo

You will not read a better long-form piece on Indian sports anywhere. Ever. The kind pf piece they should teach at journalism school. Brilliant. Sensitive but detached. Here.

ORTHOFER: Underrated, I would absolutely think the regional language and literature of India. I think surprisingly, even though, perhaps, English is the main literary language of India and a great deal is locally translated, even there much of the vernacular literature still isn’t available in English.

What one can see of it and also in part hear about it — we’re missing an awful lot. There is a literary culture there, especially, for example, in Bengali, but we’ve had that since Tagore. One of the remarkable things is Tagore won his Nobel prize over a hundred years ago, and there are still novels by him which haven’t been translated into English. He is really a very good novelist.

It’s truly worthwhile, and this goes for many regions. The southern region of Kerala where they write in Malayalam — there’s remarkable literary production there, and we just see so little of it. Also, what is available, because a fair amount is — it tends to be underappreciated, especially in America and the United Kingdom. It hasn’t really reached these shores.

More here. The whole collection of Conversations are great and are also available in podcast form for on-the-go listening.

1. Perhaps they think I can help them get mileage or visibility in mainstream or on social media.
2. Perhaps they think that my own personal and professional experiences enable me, in some way, to assist or educate them on starting up, taking risks, self-promotion and so on.
3. Or perhaps their start-ups are associated with media, publishing, history, Raveena Tandon or any of the other topics in which I have slightly more experience and insight than the average person on the street.

I am always, always happy to help. Indeed I am tremendously in awe of start-up entrpreneurs. With each passing year since my graduation from business school I have developed a greater and greater appreciation of the sheer challenge involved in setting up, running, and making successes of businesses. It is very, very hard. And I don’t really think I have the bottle to do anything like that.

Typing for hours everyday and then getting ravaged in book reviews is the most risk I want to take, thank you very much.

Some people think that quitting a job to, say, run a cafe or a mobile gaming company is in some way similar to the act of chucking a career in management consulting to become a writer cum columnist cum social media timewaster. 

There are some, slim similarities in terms of estimating risks, networking with people and institutions, being self-critical, promoting one-self, learning to be self-reliant, inculcating a thickness of skin, handling family, and so on…

But, once you go in deeper into the process of succeeding and failing, being an entrepreneur is entirely different from being a freelance writer or an author or journalist. Let me oversimply by saying that most entrepreneurs have to deal with ultimate business upsides and downsides that are vastly greater, in both directions, to those enjoyed by people like me. Bad journalists and authors, in other words, can make a decent living. I don’t think bad entrpreneurs can.

Having said that there is one piece of advice I give EVERY entrepreneur who every appoaches. Even if they don’t ask me for insights at the ‘business model’ level, I still butt in and give this piece of wisdom anyway.

And I was reminded of that wisdom when I read a piece on the QZ India website titled: “How my startup lost Rs15 lakh and shut down before its first anniversary.”

Pardeep Goyal writes:

I thought I would make millions of dollars through my startup, but I failed miserably.

I had read amazing stories of startups like Flipkart and Zomato, but nobody told me that 90% of new companies fail within two years of taking their initial steps.

I failed in my first year.

It is a great piece and well worth reading.

That piece of advice I always give, that essential wisdom, is also the first of the lessons that Goyal took away from his experience: Know your customer before building your product.

The point should be clear by now. We built our product based on the assumptions and feature lists of our competitors. We should have talked to our customers before building our product.

We should have convinced two to three schools of different sizes to test our product. In exchange, we should have provided a lifetime free product and support for early-adopter schools. I should have validated my product before leaving my job.

On the face of it, this is entirely basic stuff. Why would you start making a product or designing a service before you’ve spoken to your customers? Shouldn’t phoning up a potential customer or client be the first ‘start-uppy’ thing you do after buying turtleneck sweaters and blue jeans?

And yet at least 85% of the budding entrepreneurs I speak to, perhaps even more, don’t seem to do this till they are well into the entrepreneurial process. By which point this dialogue can be very, very upsetting and unsettling.

Let me draw a parallel with something budding writers and columnists do when pitching stories. Or, to be more accurate, what they don’t do: read the publication they are pitching for.

Again at least 85% of everyone who talks to me about writing for Mint, Mint Lounge, Mint On Sunday, Cricinfo, Scroll etc. don’t spend much time on reading these publications before pitching. They have no idea what they publish, the kind of topics they cover, and the kind of columnists they commission.

This was one of the first lessons I was taught when I transitioned from blogger to writing-for-a-living-er.

It has important implications for entrepreneurs as well. Please try to talk to potential customers. Even if you’re unwilling to reveal your secret plan, figure out if the problem you’re trying to solve actually exists in the real world. And if it does, figure out if there are people who are willing to part with money for solutions.

Let me give you an example of a conversation I had with someone some years ago. This budding entrepreneur wanted to set up a company to help kids in Mumbai indulge in more sports and games and get more exercise. His solution was led by the internet and social networking, and he had spent some months on it. I thought it made sense on paper/powerpoint. 

Also he had spoken to both kids and schools and they all seemed enthusiastic. 

“What about parents?” I asked. (This was not some kind of business bolt of lightning. But something I had come across often in the Mint newspaper. Parents are, generally, decision-makers when it comes to most kids' products and services.)

“Parents?” he said looking at me with furrowed brow as if he had been downloaded whole from the internet on his date of birth instead of having been reluctantly presented to the world by a very, very annoyed woman.

“Yeah man. They will have to pay for your services no?”

“Yeah…”

“You really need to speak to the parents in Mumbai man. You need to talk to the people who are going to pay you.”

As we sat in that Costa Coffee I saw a cavalcade of emotions pass across his face. Most of them troubled. In the six months he had worked on the project he hadn’t spoken to any parents.

I wished him well. And I did this sincerely. But I haven’t heard from him or his company since. (Again, there is no schadenfreude here. I assure you.)

Why does this happen so often? Why do so many people forget to ask these basic questions or engage with the consumers as an exploratory measure?

There is one theory I have. I think it has to do with the way problem-solving is taught in schools and colleges, and generally framed in popular culture. (I don’t say ‘Indian’ schools or colleges, because the problem seems universal.) 

I think there is excessive focus on problem-solving instead of problem-identification. And this bias, if you will, is magnified by examination and evaluation driven systems. Take the IIM system. I think it is safe to say that the most open-ended problem-identification and problem-solution experience most IIM grads go through is that group discussion round during the admissions process.

Once they make it through, they are faced with an avalanche of tests and exams that, usually, extend very little latitude for the identification of problems. (In my experience there was some latitide, but little incentive to unpack a problem in this way.)

At the risk of stretching a parallel to breaking point, I want to say that journalists also face this problem. Journalists too often assume the existence of a problem, then assume the social/political need for a response to this problem, and then go to great lengths to analyze and write about the desperate need for that solution. This has the terrible impact of making every issue sound like a life-and-death struggle.

RBI rate-cuts, international trade MOUs, egovernance, and especially digital solutions of any kind—each of these are often portrayed as being the only thing standing between chaos and Utopia. And yet time and time again we find that there are other problems and other life-and-death struggles actually standing between us and a Keralotopian nation.

All this is reinforced by the media’s inexhuastible appetite for moments of crisis and, dare I say, solutionism.

But back to entrepreneurs. Yeah. So if you’re planning to start-up anything please talk to your consumers first. Just have a free-wheeling conversation about issues and problems and solutions and purchase decisions.

It may be useful. Also, if you’re planning to ask me for help, it will help shave off the first five minutes of our Skype call.

Best of luck to all start-up types. Feel free to ping. Happy to help

More here in this essay for Mint On Sunday. You should read Mint On Sunday. It is quite good.

p.s. Planning to do this more. And in general blog a little more. I miss it very much. Used to be fun.

What I am saying is this: I miss Sachin.

I miss waking up on the morning of a cricket match and thinking, before anything else, "Oh baby Jesus please take care of him today and make him score a lot and don't even think of making him walk back to the pavilion with his head hanging..." Only after this did I move on to other thoughts such as: "Also it would be ideal if my parents have not been killed in their beds by an axe-murderer."

Of course I never wanted to be in a position where I had to choose between my parents and Sachin. But if push came to shove I may have gone with the best cover-driver in the room. 

I miss going to school, on the school bus, mentally preparing myself for a Sachin failure. This is true. I would actually make a list of convincing reasons for why Sachin failed in a match EVEN BEFORE THE MATCH HAD EVEN TAKEN PLACE. We all did. Admit it. Not because we had to fend off Sachin haters. (This was before Sachin-hate had been invented in West Bengal.) But so that we had something to cling on to when he wafted outside off-stump or mistimed a...

Sorry. I cannot even imagine such terrible things. The Sachin in the real world may have retired. The Sachin of my head and heart has not.

I miss sitting on a train or on a bus and thinking: What if there is an alien invasion and earth is nearly destroyed and the aliens agree to let us be if we can beat them in a cricket match... and then we need twelve runs in the last over and Sachin is at the striker's end, and the first two balls are dot balls and then he adjusts his family-guard and looks up in the sky and then... drums violins...

Who will save the earth today in such a situation? Kohli? Nonsense. He doesn't have the focus. Dhoni? Dhoni is almost certainly an alien spy in disguise. Our only hope is that Sachin will come out of retirement and... 

Goosebumps everywhere.

I miss watching the toilet-end of an India-Australia match--when the Aussies need three runs, with five wickets and four overs in hand--and desperately, desperately wanting Sachin to be given the ball. I mean... what is the worst that will happen? He will bounce up to the crease in that jovial, benign way of his and deliver a cocktail of deception. Maybe he will get a wicket. Maybe he will not. Maybe he will slow them down. Maybe he will not. But at least you could go back to class the next day and have soul-soothing conversation.

"But anyway... at least Sachin tried."
"Yeah. That is there. It was nice to see him bowl."
"He should bowl more often. So nice to see."
"Oh he wants to. Ganguly doesn't let him."
"Really?"

I miss listening, mouth gaping, to old-timers from Mumbai talking about the time they saw him bat when he was in school. "Oh he was just something else..." they would say sitting back on the sofa, eyes glazed over, recalling some sunny day in Mumbai's past, the palms swaying, the crows kawing, the trains rumbling, the buses honking, the boy late-cutting.

I miss reading yet another profile in yet another issue of Sportstar or Mathrubhumi Sports Masika or Outlook and comparing our ages and thinking: "What the hell am I doing with my life? No really."

"What the hell are we doing with our lives?" we would murmur inside the TV room at REC Trichy as we watched Sachin during that tournament in Sharjah. "I have to forge an Electrical Engineering Lab report tomorrow," somebody would quip. And we would all laugh laughs of sadness and regret.

I miss, later on in his career, arguing simultaneously that while he was the best batsman in the world beyond any doubt, he was by no means the batsman in India.

Why not give the others a chance? But why? He is not clicking. So? Just because he is not clicking you will drop him? And replace him with some one-Ranji wonder from Chandigarh? Mad or what? You are mad. YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT CRICKET! Shut up man have you even lifted a bat in your life?

And this would go on till I found someone else to argue with instead of myself.

I miss hating Lara. Fool. Upstart. Selfish little... I still hate Lara.

I miss seeing Sachin take wickets or catches and then celebrate. Sometimes you could see, for the briefest nanosecond, a flash of aggression and the wrath of retribution. But then his middle-class upbringing would intervene and this flash would vanish and Sachin would be all fist pump and woo hoo.

So the point I am making is this: I miss Sachin. 

Anyway. Hope we win the World Cup.

Sister on WhatsApp: "Sidin chettan! How are things going?"
SV: "Things are pretty hectic. Desperately tryi..."
Sister: "Yeah all that is ok. Don't forget to bring a lot of Milka chocolate when you come ok?"
SV: "But let me fini..."
Sister: "YAY. Okie bye."

(One day before leaving for two week-long holiday to India.)

Sister on etc. etc.: "So how is your packing coming along? Hope everything is ready for India baby!"
SV: "Yes. So far so good. We are somewhat concerned about how the bab..."
Sister: "Good to know. Don't forget the Milka chocolates. MILKA. Under any circumstances Milka is compulsory. Don't bring Galaxy instead. I hate Galaxy. I only like Milka. All my friends are waiting for Milka."

(Hours before boarding the flight from Heathrow to Dubai.)

Sister-zilla: "Any updates on the Milka?"
SV: "I amputated my arm by mistake with the toaster."
Sister: "Excellent. See you soon. Don't forget the Milka chocolates. If there is sale in London then buy more and more Milka."

(Halfway from Heathrow to Dubai. Perhaps over Istanbul.)

Missus: "Where is that Milka we bought from duty-free?"
SV: "NOOOOOOOOO"

(Ten minutes later.)

Missus and SV: "NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM."

(Nary a millisecond after landing in Dubai for 2.5 hour layover.)

Missus wiping large chocolate stains off her clothes: "I think we should buy more Milka for your sister..."
SV: "Goddamit I think my next book is going to be about Milka. Bloody nonsense. Fed up."

(Hours later in Kochi as we line up at passport checking counters.)

Missus: "Look at that advertisement on the TV screen behind the counters."
SV looks and sees: "SPECIAL OFFER ON MILKA CHOCOLATES! BUY TWO GET ONE FREE! EXCLUSIVE KOCHI DUTY FREE OFFER!"

Sigh.

Two photos from Dubai Duty Free.

From left to right: Kerala Sheikh, Kerala Lake.

The Economy Class meal on board the Emirates flight from Heathrow to Dubai is one of the finest, if not the finest, meals I've ever eaten on a plane. Nonetheless the Kapoor-Vadukuts were feeling a tad peckish after landing in Dubai, and after due consideration we decided to partake of the excellent offerings of the McDonalds outlet inside the airport.

Oh McArabia Chicken! I have missed you verily.

There's more than one way to enjoy our chicken. And you'll like it like this! Two grilled chicken patties with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and garlic sauce lovingly folded in Arabic bread.

Not  just normally folded, my friends. But lovingly folded in Arabic bread. Shudder.

Whilst we settled into the food court, one of the cleaning staff ambled along and began to coo at Whataybaby. 

Staff chap: "How old is she?"
SV: "Nine months!"
Staff: "Awww! I have one back home who is a little older."

And then he went away, just as he had come along, like an enigma wrapped in a puzzle ensconced inside a private cleaning company's uniform.

So I told the missus about this funny thing that happened to me many years ago. This happened way back in the late 80s when we used to live in the small building on Abu Dhabi's Old Airport Road near St. Joseph's Church. One day the guy who runs the Malayali hotel downstairs knocked on the door. Or perhaps he rung the bell. I don't recall. My dad went through alternating bell-knocker phases. 

"Salaamalaikum Sunny chetta. Is your eldest son at home?" hotel uncle asked dad.

Turns out that it was hotel uncle's son's birthday. So naturally hotel uncle was planning to leverage core competency and throw a birthday party in the family section of his hotel. There was only one problem. His son was back home in Kerala. I don't recall if his son ever visited the gulf at all. I sincerely doubt it though. I don't think the hotel made very much money at all. Keeping family in the gulf has never been cheap. At least not for us brown folk.

So he decided to have a real birthday party with a fake birthday boy who approximately as old and chubby as his boy back home.

Later that evening, for the first and last time in my life, I stood in for someone else's birthday party. I wore a good set of clothes, polished shoes and posed for photos and cut a cake, and awkwardly waited for a large crowd of hotel workers and other bachelor Malayali NRI types to sing a song to some other boy. Obviously my brother tagged along and insisted on helping me cut the cake.

I used to have a photograph of that somewhat strange birthday party somewhere.

"That is so sweet Sidin," the missus said. And you know what? It actually was. It was also a little sad. All those towers and parks and gardens and shopping malls are built on foundations of lonely lives all crushed together into soul-concrete.

But still! I made hotel uncle happy! Yay.

And then, with moist, thoughtful eyes, we boarded our flight to Kochi.

SV to Passport Checking Officer at Kochi Airport in order to appear jovial: "Hello. Good morning. Enthaanu visheshangal?"
SV after noticing that officer's badge says Gupta: "Oh. Sorry sir. I assumed..."
Guptaji: "Arrey kuch nahi sir. I can understand if you speak Malayalam slowly. After some time you learn these things. And madam..."
(A few moments of silence.)
Guptaji: "Aap Delhi se ho?"
(Miscellaneous North Indian utterings and pleasantries ensue. These people are so tribal I tell you.)
Guptaji: "Aur is Malayali ko kahaan se pakda? Ha ha ha ha ha ha."
Missus: "Ha ha ha ha ha."
Whataybaby: "My father is a Malayali???? LIES LIES SO MANY LIES!"

Finally! Home! Thrissur! Oasis Housing Complex! Numerous bottles of Slice in the fridge! 

You know what they say in Kerala?

They say "Home is where the elephant temple festival ornament hangs on the wall."

Oho! Already this blog post is spinning out of word control. Also I have some other things to do that actually involve income. So why don't we catch up on the rest of my trip in the second part of Notes From A Brief Journey?

I will leave you with this lip-smacking culinary item from local Thrissur restaurant.

Actually their food would prove to be most excellent. But rest all in next blog post.

Cheerio chaps.

There is really no such thing, ethnically speaking, as an Indian. We are all, every single one of us, the outcomes of centuries of civilizational upheaval. We are part-Greek, part-Mongol, part-Persian, part-British, part-Arab... part-everything. Indeed, a true Indian must be proud not of his or her identity but of the utter lack of identity. We carry in our blood not pure Hindu, Muslim or Christian platelets. On the contrary, an entire planet’s worth of history courses through our veins.

The average Indian does not need the complex education of a genetic scientist to appreciate this lack of identity. He or she just needs to look into his or her lunchbox...

India. A land where history, myth and email forwards have come together to create a sense of a glorious past that is awe-inspiring... and also kind of dubious. But that is what happens when your future is uncertain and your present is unstable—the past gets embellished until it becomes a portent of future greatness.

In The Sceptical Patriot, Sidin Vadukut takes on a catalogue of ‘India’s Greatest Hits’ and ventures to separate the wheat of fact from the chaff of legend. Did India really invent the zero? Has it truly never invaded a foreign country in over 1,000 years? Did Indians actually invent plastic surgery before Europeans? The truth is more interesting—and complicated—than you think. And, as you navigate your way through the amazing maze of legend and fact, you might even discover what it means to be an Indian today...

From the bestselling author of the Dork trilogy—and one of India’s most popular bloggers and columnists—this is a delightfully tongue-in-cheek yet insightful look at Indian self-perception and self-deception.

(Coming soon. In January. Ish.)

It is only in the last half decade or so that I really began directing some proportion of my lifelong interest in history, historical places and historical documents towards my own country of origin. For some reason--and some blame must be apportioned to the substance and style of my school history curriculum--I'd always been more interested in the military history of the Second World War, the Roman Empire, Byzantium and, more recently, the history of the British Isles. (All in a vague, amateur way of course. Just enough to do well in quizzes.)

In the last five or six years this has changed substantially. The books of John Keay, William Dalrymple, Abraham Eraly and Ram Guha have really opened my eyes to the limitless wonders of India's ancient, classical and modern history. (Before you leave enraged comments about Guha or Eraly, please give my ability to critically appraise what I read a little bit of credit.) And through them I've discovered other sources, authors and entirely new ways of thinking of Indian history. Access to the British Library since I moved to London has helped to slather on a foot-thick layer of information icing on my curiosity cake. The India resources are tremendous

Which is why I've become something of a painful bore these days during parties and get-togethers. Someone will ask me about what I am working on. Holycowabunga! I will instantly embark on long lectures on some intriguing little by-lane of Indian history that I may have stumbled across previously.

It is unreasonable, of course, to expect most people to know historical minutiae about the Hindu-German Conspiracy or the Anusilan Samiti or the Goan Inquisition and so on. But there are two elements of India's history the widespread unawareness of which always surprise me:

1. The Japanese occupation of the Andamans during the Second World War
2. India's substantial participation in the First World War

 At least 75% of Indian people I speak to have no idea the Japanese occupied the Andamans. And even fewer know how brutal the three-year long occupation was. The only book I have been able to source on this is Jayant Dasgupta's Japanese in Andaman & Nicobar Islands: Red Sun over Black Water. It is a very short book that does little more than push the door ajar on a fascinating chapter of Indian history. The period deserves much greater coverage and analysis. I am not exactly sure why it remains ignored. Perhaps because it happened at the fringe of an irrelevant theatre of war and had very little participation from the countries that dominate popular WW2 historiography.

From an Indian perspective I've been told by some people that the Andaman occupation remains ignored because of two inconveniences. First, there were at least some Indians who collaborated with the Japanese brutality during the occupation. And two, it remains a somewhat controversial part of the history of the Indian National Army. Both tarnish a narrative of India's participation and position during WW2 that has been carefully nurtured since Independence. And reinforced in our textbook, popular media, film etc. So the reluctance is understandable.

The unawareness of India's participation in WW1 is even more surprising. For one thing it involved a LOT of people. Over a million Indian soldiers fought the war. Their graves dot the globe from England to Iraq. Also it indirectly affected the lives of millions of Indians back home.  Secondly, the historical legacy leaves almost nothing that needs air-brushing. Millions of Indians fought a war that, at least at the outset, had nothing to do with them. They were all picked up from their villages and hovels and hamlets and, for all practical purposes, dropped into an entirely alternate universe for the purposes of the war. The weather was terrible, the food was terrible, the military leadership was terrible, the equipment was new and the warfare was butchery of the highest order.

Yet they fought with great valour and earned tremendous respect.

Earlier this year I spent a few months collecting books and research on Indian soldiers in WW1. Initially this was for the podcast. Later I was briefly in discussions with a publisher to write a short book about India during WW1. The original plan was to get it out in time for the centenary of the war next year. But then I shelved the idea when I simply ran out of time because of other projects. The research is still chilling on assorted hard drives though.

So who knows? Maybe I will revisit it in 2019 for the centenary of the Armistice.

Two of the books I enjoyed the most during the research was David Omissi's Indian Voices of the Great War. Soldier's Letters, 1914-1918 and Gordon Corrigan's Sepoys In The Trenches: The Indian Corps On The Western Front 1914-15.

Omissi's book helps to put in perspective what patriotism and national identity meant to many Indians a century ago. 

On 15th January 1915, a wounded Sikh soldier convalescing in England wrote a letter in Gurmukhi to his brother in Amritsar. From Omissi's book:

Brother, I fell ill with pneumonia and have come away from the war. In this country it rains a great deal: always day and night it rains. So pneumonia is very rife. Now I am quite well and there is no occasion for any kind of anxiety... If any of us is wounded, or is otherwise ill, Government or someone else always treats him very kindly. Our Government takes great care of us, and we too will be loyal and fight. You must give the Government all the help it requires. Now look, you my brother, our father the King-Emperor of India needs us and any of us who refuses to help him in his need should be counted among the polluted sinners. It is our first duty to show our loyal gratitude to Government.

At least in the early stages of the war, before enthusiasm has been dampened by the meat-grinder of the front, this is a recurring theme in the letters. Many soldiers were enthusiastic, and much of this enthusiasm came from a sense of patriotism that is hard for us to make sense of a century later.

Also it is important to keep in mind that in 1914 the Indian Army was perhaps the largest volunteer army in the world. Many were poor peasants who had joined for the pay and had been coerced by hunger rather than colonial exploitation. (This would change later in the war when local administrators, especially in Punjab, were forced to meet manpower quotas and intimidated, even blackmailed many young men into enlisting. )

Corrigan's book gives a narrative structure to the experiences encapsulated in Omissi's letters. It starts with clashes of civilisations as shiploads of sepoys are unloaded in France and then moves onwards to their staging areas. The French, it appears, welcomed these exotic, turbanned 'Les Hindoues' with tres enthu. Corrigan writes:

The reception given to the Indians by the citizens of Marseilles was ecstatic.... Although the war was but two months old the number of young women in widow's weeds was an indication of the scale of French casualties, and the Sikhs in particular were embarrassed by the number of even younger women, not in widow's weeds, who rushed into the marching ranks to embrace and kiss them...Unloading of the ships was carried out by regimental fatigue parties assisted by French labourers, and by the time it was completed some Indian soldiers, generally natural linguists, were beginning to pick up a few words of French.

The book then goes on to paint a very detailed picture of how these sepoys fought the war, how they worked with the British officers and how they coped with the misery.

By the end of the war between 1 and 2 million Indian soldiers fought on one of the fronts.  Around 75,000 of them died. Which doesn't seem much given that around 10 million soldiers died across both sides. But more Indians died than Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians and even Belgians--all countries that seem to do much more to commemorate their war dead than India does. 

(In fact now that I think about this... the Indian participation in the war is almost universally treated with unjustified lightness. Norman Stone's popular short history of the war has one reference to India. John Keegan's history has a handful but none of any great substance. However in the UK, at least, there is a growing sense of this oversight.)

I can posit many reasons for this oversight. The Indian presence on the Western Front--the one that posterity finds more sexy--was somewhat fleeting. And most Indian troops had been transferred to the Middle East by the end of the war. (Which is just as well. The mortality rates would have been immeasurably greater otherwise.)  Then there is the odd compartmentalisation of the history that is taught in our schools and accentuated in our media:

Time immemorial - 1526 AD: Ancient awesome

1526 AD - 1757 AD: Mughal mayhem

1757 AD - 1857 AD: Whiteman wankery

1857 AD: Brief hurrah starring Aamir Khan

1857 AD - 1947 AD: Resumption of whiteman wankery

1947 AD onwards - Jhingalalaho plus Sachin

Anything that does not fit into these compartments is left to fend for itself. 

Most importantly the real custodians of this history, the modern Indian republic, finds these stories somewhat troublesome to take ownership of, let alone commemorate, in a public fashion. The friend--Indian troops--of our enemy--colonial masters--is surely not our friend?

But I think we should remember these poor fellows. By any frame of reference that is cognizant of their reality, what they did was immensely brave and honourable. The dividing lines of nationality and the moral compasses of patriotism are all transient. We all like to think that we exist in static political enclosures that will always exist in glory. So did every generation before us going back centuries. They were all wrong. We will be wrong too. 

Much more permanent are the virtues of courage and honour. So perhaps we should do more to remember these chaps. They were mostly nice.

And if niceness is not Indian enough for you... then how about the sepoy's capacity for ingenious, 100% desi jugaad?

In April 1917 soldier Mahomed Khan of the 6th Cavalry fell in love with and married a Frenchwoman. This appears to have pissed off everyone including his fellow soldiers. But most of all it upset his family. So in June 1917 he wrote a letter home explaining how he was 'forced' into doing this. From Omissi's book:

I want to tell you my misfortunes. I was stationed in a village and was in a house where they were very kind to me. There was a young woman in the house and the parents were very pleased with me. She wrote to the King in London and asked permission for me to marry her and the petition came back with the King's signature on it, granting leave. But she did all this without my knowledge. The Colonel sent for me and asked whether it was true. I said it was, and asked his leave to marry, but said I must make the girl a Muslim. The Colonel then got very angry and took away my rank of Lance Dafadar, and said he would not give me leave to get married. When this came to the girl's ears, she sent another petition to the King and he gave leave, and said that directly the marriage was celebrated he should be informed. According to His Majesty's order, the wedding came off on the 2nd April. There was a General Sahib and a Muslim jamedar as witnesses. But I swear to God that I did not want to marry, but after the King's order I should have got into grave trouble if I had refused.

What nice, jugaadful boys they were. Let us remember them more. 

2. I getting too old to code and tweak CSS and engage in other such youthful activities. (Since October my nasal hair is out of control. And some nights I cry myself to sleep thinking of the 'ear-hair' gene that runs through my paternal lineage in thick, disgusting tufts.

3. Also new book is around the corner and we need plenty of gravitas for that.

4. So here we are.

5. I am going to blog more. God promise.

Bonus bulletpoint 6: That world famous Roman centurion is currently being serviced. And will return soon.