Kamala Das, during her Madhavikutty days, reminds me of the actress Jalaja. I think it is because they both remind me of childhood afternoons spent watching slow Malayalam movies on national television. Maybe, even then, I realized that I could understand a language that was not native to the Tamil land I inhabited and that... Continue Reading →
Samanth Subramanian's book, This Divided Island, is a brave attempt at chronicling a savage period of Sri Lankan history. It is not a commentary about the war. It is a journalistic narrative of the author's quest to record the events of the war. Samanth, in recording the stories of the dead and survivors, stays at... Continue Reading →
How much a book impresses or affects me depends, quite obviously, on when I happen to read the book in my journey as a reader and individual. There have been lesser books that I have picked when I was starting out, when my ideas were nascent, that have had a much larger impact than more... Continue Reading →
Biting arctic winds swept down from the north across the great lake and Chicago froze last week. I landed in O'Hare airport just as Chicago was thawing, on Monday, the week after the polar vortex hit. It was still cold but some semblance of balance had been restored. Chicago was back to being warmer than... Continue Reading →
I have often stood for long stretches at the corner of East 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue, letting my eyes roam over Grand Central Terminal. It amazes me that before this structure existed, the classic facades and heroic sculptures that adorn the building's exteriors, the cavernous interiors with its vast ceiling of mirrored constellations, and... Continue Reading →
I stay in Park Slope and for the longest time, I did not understand a strange pedestrian phenomenon that was observable outside my apartment. People walking down the street from one direction mostly scowl at me and people walking from the other direction invariable wave and nod at me. I put this down to my... Continue Reading →
Google Maps says that if I walk for 30 minutes due southwest from my workplace in midtown Manhattan along Park Avenue, I shall reach Union Square. I generally manage the walk in 20 minutes. It is a bracing walk in the evenings in summer and during the daytimes in winter. I mostly do it after the... Continue Reading →
I find Indian political history immensely fascinating. I missed recording some of the reads on the subject from before I started maintaining this blog. However here are some posts dealing with the subject. Freedom at Midnight looks at the freedom struggle from an imperial viewpoint. I read somewhere that the account was written as an image... Continue Reading →
There is a zen to life that cannot be communicated if asked to share it. It can only be sensed. It is almost like a yoga pose where one slowly contorts into the posture, and with eyes closed, settles into the trance. The pose itself might be static, but the state of holding that pose... Continue Reading →
Luckily I was so uninterested in Les Miserables throughout my life that I went in blind. Very rarely do I have the opportunity nowadays to experience anything at this scale without any introduction. I tend to research anything that comes to my mind, so much so, that I am constantly tunneling through a wonderworld of... Continue Reading →
Impersonally Personal Stories.
my love affair with Russian literature
Pandora's Box for Art Lovers and Beauty Seekers
Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue is a lesfic author at amzn.to/36DFT2x. Sign-up for her newsletter at higginbothampublications.com
As I navigate through this life ...
Epic Literary Reviews & Insights
The Reluctant Book Worm 
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