Everything so far The full run
In the order it was poured. Search the lot, or narrow it to one kind of evening.
Lausanne3 poursExplained
Nobody Can Be Argued Into Loving YouRelationships take work, but there are two kinds of work, and from the outside they look the same. One is the effort two people put into something they both want. The other is the effort one person puts into making someone want it. Why the first keeps love alive, and why the second never works.Geneva16 poursExplained
One Must Imagine Me HappyFor most of my life the next exam told me what to do. Then the exams ran out, the salary arrived, and a question nobody had set turned up anyway. What brain science, therapy and three thousand years of philosophy say about happiness and purpose, and why I ended up with a man pushing a rock up a hill.Geneva30 poursArguments
The Elephant Who Says Pehle AapOne in every six Indians lives in Uttar Pradesh. It gave the country most of its prime ministers, both of its great literary languages of the north, the city where Hindus go to die and the park where the Buddha first taught. It also gave it Hashimpura, the Babri Masjid, a vocabulary of gangsters and a word, "bhaiya", that other Indians do not always mean kindly. A long, personal look at the state I grew up in, and at what it made of me.Geneva8 poursExplained
My Kitchen Is a War MuseumThe microwave, the tin can, the duct tape and the map on my phone all came out of war. Heraclitus called war the father of all things. From a ten-thousand-year-old massacre to the drone and AI wars of 2026, and on into the biological century now beginning, this is an audit of what war actually invents, what it only buys, and who has always settled the bill.Lima3 poursArguments
The Doctor and the BarristerChe Guevara and Gandhi sit next to each other on my bookshelf as a joke. Over the years the joke has turned into an argument, and the argument has turned out to be useful.Macaé10 poursOverheard
Love, ArrangedOn an Indian overnight train, strangers will eventually ask the question every young Indian is asked. Behind it are two thousand years of law and scripture, a colonial courtroom, a republic's promises, Bollywood, the internet and a very large amount of family. A long look at how India chooses who marries whom, what each way gets right, and what it costs.Rio de Janeiro9 poursExplained
Dostoevsky, What the Fuck, Bro?A young writer is sentenced to death and pardoned at the last moment, by an order signed the day before. He spends the rest of his life writing about murderers, holy fools, and the best argument against God anyone has ever made. He believed in God anyway. This essay tries to work out how.New York6 poursArguments
Why I Am, TwiceA prisoner's short essay and a politician's long book both begin with the same three words. One answers them with God, the other without, and reading them together is the most useful argument about religion I have had with anyone.Geneva8 poursArguments
Three Ways to Count a PeopleIndia asks almost a billion people once every five years. America asks too, then passes the answer through states, districts and electors that its founders built to check the majority. Switzerland asks its citizens four times a year while a quarter of the country looks on. On India's Independence Day, a look at why each system is shaped the way it is, what it needs to work, and who it has always left out.Geneva6 poursExplained
The Two ChurchillsBritain voted him the greatest Briton who ever lived. In Bengal, Nairobi and Cork he is remembered differently. Both memories are accurate. This essay tries to explain how that can be true.