The Idea of India
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Forever Spring: Ghalib’s Benares
Forever Spring: Ghalib's Benares

Varanasi, as Benares is now known, is a Hindu city. That is how I had known it, and it was not until I arrived here that I started to see a different side of it. And it happened because I could not find a hotel room! The hotel I had booked a room at refused […]

A Mosque Too Far: Rusafa On The Barbarian Plain
A Mosque Too Far: Rusafa On The Barbarian Plain

The first time I saw the image I did not realize that it would significantly change the way I looked at the world around me. It was a drawing of an 8th century shrine to a Christian saint somewhere deep in the Syrian steppe, then known by the Greek speaking world as ‘The Barbarian Plain’. […]

The Persistence of Ayodhya: Wounds & Resistance
The Persistence of Ayodhya: Wounds & Resistance

I was asked to remain confined to my room. The men from Indian intelligence were polite but firm. As they questioned me in a small tea shop in a neighbourhood adjacent to where the Babri mosque once stood, I could see they were unsure about precisely what I represented. I looked Indian, spoke Hindi, and […]