• The Art of Essay-Writing

    Arthur Benson, in his essay The Art of the Essayist narrates a short story to make an interesting point about essay-writing. It goes something like this. An itinerant sign-painter comes to a village inn whose sign-board he has had his eye for some months and has watched with hope its rapid progress to dimness. But,…

  • A Bachelor’s Guide to Counter Married Folks

    If you are a bachelor, this is what the married people would almost always tell you: you are missing out on the superior pleasures of life which we can neither articulate nor display, but they are there. There is usually a sigh after that, god knows why? How do you respond to such a clever…

  • An Introduction to Zen

    Just as it is impossible to explain the beauty of a sunset to a man blind from his birth, so it is impossible for sages to find any words which will express their wisdom to common folks. For the wisdom of sages is not in their teachings; otherwise anybody might become a sage by simply…

  • The Story of Indian Origins of Ayurveda

    We all know that Yoga and Ayurveda are integral part of traditional Indian culture. That’s how so many people around the world know India today. So, how did it come to be? How did Ayurveda thrive in an ancient civilisation? There are two answers proposed to this question by Dr G. G. Gangadharan in his…

  • The Art of Finding Happiness

    The purpose of our existence is to seek happiness. The modern mind is quite sceptical about this statement, however commonsensical it may seem. Some feel, it’s not attainable. Others suggest, it might turn one into a self-centered maniac. Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, denies both these claims. In his book The Art of Happiness,…

  • 300,000 Years of Indian History

    In his book Early Indians, author Tony Joseph focuses on the ancestral history of the people living in the Indian subcontinent today. Clearly, there is a lot of ground to cover, and the story begins in Africa, 300,000 years ago, where the earliest remains of Homo Sapiens have been found. What happens after that? This…

  • Tiny Tales of Mullah Nasruddin

    Mullah Nasruddin is a character who often comes up in Islamic folk stories. These stories are full of wit, brilliance and wisdom. Which is why, they are told, retold and recreated not only in the Islamic world but outside too. Now, you might ask, who was this Mullah Nasruddin? Nasruddin Hodja, better known as Mullah…

  • Introduction to the Yoga Philosophy

    Millions of people practice Yoga all over the world. However, most of them treat it as an exercise routine, without really caring to understand the Yoga philosophy. This is like smelling a cup of coffee and not actually drinking it — nothing wrong with it, just that, you miss the real thing. What is the…