On Mafia and Meditation

.Reading time 16 minutes.

I saw how perfect and uniform all of the red fruit were, but I was more preoccupied trying to remember how many of them I would need for the various recipes I would exact. It might have been that same subliminal suspicion that had made me separate, but not read, an article on the global Italian and Chinese mafias for tomatoes.

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Hypocrisy today

.Reading time 2 minutes.

There is a profound difference between religions that demand an allegiance to a single story and those that demand nothing

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Book review: Albert Camus’s “L’Etranger”

.Reading time 7 minutes.

The Outsider? The Foreigner? The Stranger? One would expect more consensus regarding the translation of the title work of a Nobel prize-winning author. However, just the title of Albert Camus’s 1942 classic novel, L’Etranger, provokes reflection, as does every page of his terse prose

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Mexican rajma chawal

.Reading time 4 minutes.

I mean, I assume you’ve already gotten rid of all the other aluminium in the kitchen, right? Right??

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How to kill Dracula

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Garlic at your own risk It has enough garlic to kill Dracula. There should be no reason that pasta aglio e olio couldn’t kill a sinusitis, right? That’s why it was part of my battle plan for the day after I arrived back home, a trip that required two excruciating intercontinental flights. Besides, why else […]

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The Sabarmati Ashram

.Reading time 4 minutes.

by Ricky Toledano When not in jail or walking around to unite India, this is where the Great Soul lived, founding the SATYAGRAHA movement, the unwaivering, unshakable commitment to Truth: that which cannot be defeated; that which is invincible. I held back tears when I saw his desk, the place where Gandhi sat, writing and […]

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Walking the Old City

.Reading time 4 minutes.

Gujarat has been at the crossroads of civilizations for longer than memory. Its most iconic city, Ahmedabad, still holds its unique architectural mix of Jainism, Hinduism and Islam. The comparison was inevitable: the old city was much cleaner and more preserved than my beloved Chandni Chowk in Delhi. Then there was the woodwork and the […]

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