A text popped up on my WhatsApp group. My wife’s cousin asked “Is it a safe area”. He was referring to a neighborhood around Columbia University where his daughter was coming soon to start an internship from UC Berkeley, California. New York is still the big bad city from a…

It was the 12th of March 1983, my sister came home thrilled, as she had an autographed copy of the Midnight’s Children in her hand. Salman had visited her campus in Hyderabad, India on his book tour. I was in my early teens and barely read anything other than comic…

The day I watched in horror, a marauding mob storming the Capitol building, I expected to see smoke rise from its windows. Watching the frenzied attackers make their way into the building breaking glass and spilling blood, I was more than certain something devastating was to come. As I saw…

War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil. — Pope Francis A Ukrainian friend of mine in Brooklyn, texted me yesterday, saying her aging parents and her brother and his wife and children were in a shelter spending…

These days when I drive down a highway or walk down a street, I find my attention drawn to the back of cars to spot if they have tailpipes. In New York City I rarely find one without. Two months ago I bought my first electric vehicle (EV). I never…

Twenty years ago a person leaped from a skyscraper in the hope of flight, as fire engulfed everything above and below. As an army transport plane ascended into the skies above Kabul, a spec fell off the fuselage. …

In a nation where people barely eke out an existence, the pandemic has dealt a devastating blow. Things have become so desperate, that something unusual and extraordinary happened in July. People across Cuba poured in to the streets to protest. Their living conditions had become untenable. In a country known…

I came across a friend at the corner store. I had not seen him in a while. Invariably my second question to him was, “Did you get your vaccine?” Other than the fact that he was deliberating on getting one, he was waiting to see which one would be ranked…

I was born in a country that was ripped apart by the violence of religious tribalism. In 1947 the British ended their colonial carnage by drawing a line and dividing a people, leading to unimaginable slaughter and animosity. Seven decades later, the wounds are still fresh, and the status quo…