He and She

She ran after him and they looked like two small kids playing in the water.

Notes from the Sunderbans

Same place, different times. And now we are told that they may vanish below the surface of the Bay of Bengal in the next few years.

Muslim Profanities

I look at pictures of the ravaged Al-Askariyya dome, and I want to know: what is the religion of a mosque-destroyer? Does a bomber say Fatiha over the people he’s killed?

Involuntary Closure

I have been scarred and disillusioned by this whole process and I think I will need therapy when I get back home.

Outside the Military Hospital

The sun is equally unkind to them all
And God is equally forgiving. And that’s the way it’s always been
Despite fifty years and as many leaders in between.

A Personal Connection

“Please save my baby. He is all I have got. I lost my seven-year-old son to the sea and my baby is dying in front of my eyes. Please, sir, save my baby.” Her plea was impassioned. There were no tears in her eyes, just despair and a faint ho

The Monsoons are Coming

Bitch sessions consist of relief workers sitting around, exchanging one frustration after another. The average time is that of three cigarettes and one Lion Beer per frustration.

Volunteer Sri Lanka

Report on the Tsunami: Cuddalore

I thought all India needed was ten Anu Georges in each district to modernize it. Right now, altruism, however politically motivated, has met the idealistic civil servant and that had made the relief efforts possible.

EMACE

It has been two days since I arrived in Sri Lanka as a volunteer for the post-tsunami rebuilding efforts.

Rantings of an Aid Worker

I am of course, in this mindset that once D and I leave and the structures that we will set up will collapse. How the fuck did I get so colonial? What is the middle ground here for me?

Report on the Tsunami: Kanchipuram District

Part I of a first-hand report on the tsunami in South India

Aftermath

Home for the holidays, the last thing I expected was to be greeted by an earthquake that hit 9 on the Richter scale.

The Tsunami Disaster

If the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) officials are unable to protect their own men and machines from a natural disaster, how on the Earth are they going to protect us, evacuate us, rehabilitate us and safeguard our safety and security from possible at

Tsunami

Let us then pray for those who are lost, and those who are suffering, and contribute what one can.

When the Sea Swallowed a City Whole

Where the river Kaveri drains into the Bay of Bengal, there once was a city that was the setting for two famous ancient Tamil epic poems, Silappadigaram (“The Anklet Story”) and Manimekalai.

Would 30 January Elections Make or Break Iraq?

Like Pakistani military did not allow a Bengali to become the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Iraq’s Sunni leadership, with enough funds and experienced and trained men at its command is not going to give up its long established right of being the rulin

Sunset

There is a beginning
after the end!

You Failed Us Mr. President

In the words of great Martin Luther King Jr.: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice' and justice we demand from you sir.

Ashura: Atonement, Mourning and Return

Someone’s holy work is death, I register. And someone else’s is reporting that 150-word story for the AP. And someone else’s yet again is that bold typeface. This is it. This is grief for the electronic age.

On Tolerance

Everyone cannot kill a human being. But do you support the people who say that Shiites are not Muslims?