Explorer of Experiences

In the past two years, I have met some famous and very interesting people in Dubai. It is not everyday after all that you can say you've met the world's happiest man or one of the world's most creative person. So I decided to jot down my brief yet treasured interactions with them, so you can read about it, and I can reminisce a few years down the line. SHASHI THAROOR  [Former Under-Secretary General, UN, Author and Politician] I met Tharoor shortly after I finished a heavy read of his book Inglorious Empire (read my thoughts on it here ) at the Emirates Literature Festival in February 2018. I patiently made my way towards him in a snaking long queue but it was worth it because I even got snapped with him. Tharoor is highly educated, articulate and has an impressive body of social work. But he also has a long list of things he has been criticized for and accused of. Yet, in his numerous TV interviews, I have never seen him frazzled but always patient and calm in ...

This painted mural at the Jallianwala Bagh Memorial depicts the horrors of April 13, 1919 99 years ago on this very day, thousands of innocent Indians were shot and killed by armed British forces in Amritsar, and to date there has been no formal apology from Britain. So what really happened... The ground zero was Jallianwala Bagh. Around 15,000 men, women and children had gathered at this open public space on Baisakhi Day to protest the Rowlatt Act (an Act that empowered authorities to imprison without trial). Upon learning of this gathering, General Edward Henry Dyer rounded up a troop of 50 men armed with 1,650 bullets who were instructed to fire at the chests of the Indians until the last bullet was fired. They sealed the only two exits of the Bagh, then the size of three football fields surrounded by homes. Without any warning, rounds were fired and with all the exists sealed by the troops, to escape the bullets, many died jumping into a well or in t...

It was August 15, 2016, I was having lunch with someone. Gazing at the news on the television screen behind me, she asked, "It's India's Independence Day today! Independence from whom?" Independence from the British, I answered, shocked. Shocked, because this someone in question was British and she had not a clue about the crimes of her country's colonial past.  Like millions of Indians and non-Indians , I was left aghast and despondent when I heard the viral Shashi Tharoor Oxford Union debate  (if you haven't seen it yet, you've been living under a HUGE rock, and I suggest you watch it before you proceed to read the remainder of this blog). Tharoor  in all his articulate and intellectual glory spoke in motion for Britain owing reparations to her former colonies. Tharoor's well-researched facts on the brutality of British rule in India for over two centuries left me astounded, and a sense of shame dawned on me - I knew so little about my countr...