• John Lang and Wanderings in India: How the 19th-century British Travelled in the Subcontinent

    John Lang and Wanderings in India: How the 19th-century British Travelled in the Subcontinent

    John Lang (1816-1864), a lawyer and Australia’s first native novelist, was born at Parramatta, Sydney. He later went to Cambridge in 1837 only to qualify as a barrister and return to his home country. In India, John Lang is known for his career as a solicitor, particularly, when he was defending the Rani of Jhansi… Read more

  • The Algebra of Writing a Joke

    The Algebra of Writing a Joke

    Jokes work not because of the details in the stories themselves, but the order in which they are revealed. There really is an order of elements in comedy just like there is an order of operations in algebra. Try telling a story from the other end and what you will end up with is just… Read more

  • A Fascinating Story on Human Biases

    A Fascinating Story on Human Biases

    In 1894, a cleaning lady in the German embassy of France found something in a wastebasket that would throw the entire country into chaos. It was a torn-up memorandum — and the cleaning lady was a French spy. She passed the memo on to senior staff in the French army, who read it and realised… Read more

  • Ruskin Bond’s Reflections on Writing

    Ruskin Bond’s Reflections on Writing

    My theory of writing is that the conception should be as clear as possible, and that words should flow like a stream of clear water — preferably a mountain stream. You will, of course, encounter boulders, but you will learn to go over them or around them, so that your flow is unimpeded. If your… Read more

  • Is Everything Islamophobic?

    Is Everything Islamophobic?

    So many things are Islamophobic now that for Islamophobic people (which has the potential to be all non-Muslims) it is hard to speak or move — let alone leave the house — without committing a whole slew of Islamophobic hate-crimes. You can be an Islamophobe if you attend the wrong opera (a production of Idomeneo… Read more

  • How to Write for the Right Audience

    How to Write for the Right Audience

    As a writer, you would want to be read, wouldn’t you? Your reader is the reason you write, especially if you write professionally. It could be one person, or two, or a million — that’s beside the point. The important thing is that you offer a beautiful reading experience to the reader. Therefore, it is… Read more