A list of good reads
- Sarover Zaidi’s essay in Scroll is prone to the density of language that makes academic writing difficult to understand. But it makes some very good points about how we destroy our past and our history—by destroying its architecture, be it in the name of modernity or politics.
- Samrat Choudhury in Firstpost has a very good piece on “punishment transfers” (or exiles) within the IAS—and why it is time to get rid of them.
- Namrata Zakaria in The Hindu writes of the Aditya Birla World Academy’s uniform policy—which allows a male-at-birth child to choose to wear a skirt.
- This SlashFilm piece is dated but still very useful—and explains why it is harder than ever to understand movie dialogue. And how to fix it. No you’re not going deaf. (h/t founding member Harini Calamur)
- TIME magazine has an excellent feature on how India’s obsession with Western architecture is making heatwaves even more of a nightmare.
- Ágnes Heller in Baffler riffs on memory—the rote kind not the nostalgic version—and why it matters.
- This is not pleasant reading for cat lovers. Hakai magazine explains why Iceland is imposing bans and curfews on outdoor cats. TLDR: They are a menace to wildlife.
- An astronomer in The Atlantic explains exactly what happens in Mercury retrograde—which is dreaded by every astrology devotee.
- Speaking of astrology, the New York Times looks at new dating apps that match your astrology compatibility. Indian pandit-jis, please note the money to be made from Tinder kundalis.
- This older Huffington Post deep dive is disturbing but also very, very, timely. It explains exactly what being shot does to the human body.
- Can watching the sun rise and set help improve your mental wellness? The Cut investigates.
- Shashi Tharoor in Malayala Manorama makes an argument for Malayalam as India’s link language. As he puts it: Why not?
