Street Cafe

NB: May 15 is the eighteenth anniversary of my father’s passage into eternity. He died in the Research and Referral Military Hospital in Delhi on this day in 2007; and was given a military funeral at the Army cremation grounds. Scores of his old students, many of them senior military and service officers were present… Read More Street Cafe

Castles in the Sky

Castles in the Sky: by A Flock of Seagulls I used to want to touch the sunBut it can’t be done, you can’t touch the sunI used to want to walk on the moonWhat a fool, I can not walk on the moon WhoaJust building castles in the skyWhoaYou never know until you try You… Read More Castles in the Sky

Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Chronicle of a Relationship 1882

Robert S. Leventhal Lou Salomé was undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and articulate women of her era. Her own writing, especially her essays on sexuality and erotism, have value not merely in their historical reflection of the era in which they were written, but in their own right as documents of radical femininity in the… Read More Nietzsche and Lou Andreas-Salomé: Chronicle of a Relationship 1882

La Paz

Sam Himself: La Paz I’ll ride into town on an old truck from JapanAcross a dead dust desert where the heat rots everythingThrough a cold sweat jungle where the leaves whisper the nameOf the first place I’ll lastI’m never gonna leave again When I go to La Paz to dieFor a while I’ll scale any… Read More La Paz

Ordinary Love

Song by U2 The sea wants to kiss the golden shoreThe sunlight warms your skinAll the beauty that’s been lost before wants to find us again I can’t fight you any more, it’s you I’m fighting forThe sea throws rock together but time leaves us polished stones We can’t fall any further ifWe can’t feel… Read More Ordinary Love

‘This is what it means to be from Gaza’: Poet captures people’s stories of life, love and loss

By Francisca Marques and Elizabeth Wells Mosab Abu Toha’s voice is smooth and melodic when he recites his poetry from his new home in New York. But when the Palestinian poet describes the people and the moments that inspired his writing, it turns raw with emotion. “We are breathing on the outside, but inside, we are… Read More ‘This is what it means to be from Gaza’: Poet captures people’s stories of life, love and loss

Daniel Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism Dies at 94 (2016) / Catonsville 9 Statement written by Dan Berrigan, S.J.

First posted May 01, 2016 NB: The Berrigan brothers represent the best in the tradition of non-violent resistance to war and bellicose nationalism. Here is what they said in a public statement issued at the height of the Vietnam war, in 1968:  “We confront the Catholic Church, other Christian bodies and the synagogues of America with their… Read More Daniel Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism Dies at 94 (2016) / Catonsville 9 Statement written by Dan Berrigan, S.J.

Map-maker

Keki Daruwalla Perhaps I’ll wake up on some alien shoreIn the shimmer of an aluminium dawn,to find the sea talking to itselfand rummaging among the lines I’ve drawn;looking for something, a voyager perhaps,gnarled as a thorn tree in whose loving hands,these map lines of mine, somnambulant,will wake and pulse and turn to shoreline, sand. The… Read More Map-maker