One of my uncles recently told me to read up the Longer Telegram and do a blog article on the subject. As to what is the Long Telegram, it was an 8000 word telegram sent (in 1946) by a US diplomat posted in the USSR and it gave the intellectual framework that formed the US […]
Author Archives: nikhilmg
My Reading Habits
I am 56 years old as of Sunday and have only the fact that I like reading books to point to as being an achievement of mine. So I thought that I should write about why and how I read. Perhaps it will be of use to some youngster who is making his (or her) […]
The Arabian Nights and Romantic Movies
I am reading The Arabian Nights after having bought the book more than 10 years ago. And it is a completely different point of view to the modern view of equality of the sexes and in particular, the stories that we see in romantic movies – both Bollywood and Hollywood. I will not address the […]
India’s Test Series win in Australia
This has nothing to do with the main topics I write about in this blog but I can’t resist writing about our test series victory in Australia. The reasons why this victory is special are threefold: firstly, it was an overseas win; next it was against a full-strength Australian team which is one of the […]
The Self Immolation of Thich Quang Duc
I had written an article last in April last year on why there is suffering in this world. Here is a link to that article Responding to that my niece sent me a WA message. Here is the message and my response to it My Niece: I would argue that suffering is a human construct. […]
Our Duty in Life
It is not my job to tell you what your duty in life is. As Emerson says in his essay on Self Reliance there are always people who think they know what your duty is better than you know it yourself. I do not wish to add myself to that number. I am assuming you […]
Why I believe in Traditional Religion
When I was young I did not believe in traditional religions or God. I was a fan of Bertrand Russell and thought myself to be an agnostic. That is, I was of the view that the existence of God cannot be proved one way or the other and it was best to keep an open […]
More thoughts on my Meditation Practice
This article is a continuation of my previous blog post. Link to that is below Quoting from the article above there is a key passage: Be without preferences or judgments as regards the arisings of the mind. The path is the goal. Respond with equanimity and empathy to the arisings of the mind. Now I […]
An Eye for an Eye and Mahatma Gandhi
It is written in the Bible – An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth. I hesitated for some time before writing this article as I am going to criticize the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. But I told myself that Gandhi had given this country its freedom. God has given […]
Some Thoughts on my Meditation Practice
I have decided that for the time being I will not overthink the articles in my blog and will write about my day to day thoughts and challenges. So these are my thoughts for today as regards my meditation practice. I had earlier put up a post with a lot of points that I expected […]