Between the second coffee and the first drink: essays in the wrong order, notes, arguments, and whatever I overheard on the way.
most recently poured
Geneva16 poursExplained
For 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.
Explained
Geneva30 poursArguments
One 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.
Arguments
Geneva8 poursExplained
The 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.
Explained
Lima3 poursArguments
Che 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.
Arguments
Macaé10 poursOverheard
On 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.
Overheard
Rio de Janeiro9 poursExplained
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.
Explained