BEYOND THE HERO

Reclaiming the Collective Story of War Indians are hero worshippers. They cannot help it, it’s inherent in their genes. That’s one of the reasons we find a string of war movies streaming out of [...]

Film Review Bravery is not too challenging for a body of soldiers when they are winning a battle. It is when you are losing one and fighting with your back to the wall that the true bravery of [...]

Humour in Uniform The travel tales of Phulana Singh, our genial senior officer who always found pretty females for company whenever he travelled, often made popular topic for parody among us [...]

Humour in Uniform There are umpteen ways to get into trouble for a young officer in the army, especially in the cavalry. At least it was so in the 1960s and 70s. I don’t think it could have [...]

At the outset, one has to say that the movie, Ikkis, generates a lot of hope on the way Indian war movies are gradually evolving. Mercifully, it is void of the chest-thumping jingoism that [...]

Let’s skip the rhetoric of calling Donald Trump the world’s worst bully for his Venezuelan adventurism, and think about how it concerns India, because, unless we can call his bluff, he would keep [...]

English and India’s Colonial Hangover The last time I was in Kerala, my home state, despite myself, I happened to get into a silly argument with a guy who denounced English education and upheld [...]

The air was hectic at the War Office in London with the Allied Landings of D-day just about two weeks away, when a telegram arrived at 8 a.m. on Sunday, 21 May 1944 from the British Military [...]

Bridging the Gap between Soldiers and Society A common question many of my civilian friends ask me, for being a war veteran, is whether I felt scared in combat situations. My stock answer has [...]

Why India Must Embrace Covert Elimination of Terror Leaders Post Operation Sindoor, there is far too much of jingoistic posturing going on between the Indian and Pakistani media. Maybe, it’s the [...]