Category: English Compositions

• June 9, 2016

  The Neem Tree — Flash Fiction # 2 (Transcreation)

  Some are tearing away leaves for grinding. Yet others are frying them in oil. To apply on ringworm afflicted skin. A panacea for a variety of skin ailments.
• June 9, 2016

  Floral Design — Flash Fiction #1

  The two of them came out of the Coffee Shop on the other side of the street …
• May 9, 2016

  Naiveté of Civil Society and the Bengal Elections

  The Holy Roman Empire – which, according to Voltaire, was neither “Holy”, nor “Roman” nor an “Empire” – lasted for a thousand years. And it took an insatiable Napoleon Bonaparte to bring it to its knees. By comparison, three decades and a half of Left rule in the state of Bengal would appear to be…
• February 21, 2016

  Once Upon a Time a Girl: Not to Speak of the Cats and the Skull

  Spring, it would appear, is invariably followed by summer and summer in its turn by autumn, and so on and so forth. No wonder therefore that as the spring moonshine girl receded into the past, other seasons invaded. And I grew older. And older. Though not quite as old as I am today. In fact,…
• December 30, 2015

  Investigating Investment

    Published in The Telegraph, Kolkata on 30 December, 2015. Listening to the acrimonious debates surrounding West Bengal’s inability to attract high profile investments, an economist ought to ask two important questions; ques-tions which might even appear to contradict one another. First, why are investors reluctant, if they indeed are, to invest in the state?…
• June 3, 2015

  Spring Moonshine

  Instead of proceeding southwards at the crossing of Manoharpukur Road and Rashbehari Avenue and arriving at the now vanished patch of green I once pondered over, if you were to make a right about turn and retrace your steps along Manoharpukur itself, all the way towards its crossing with Lansdowne Road …
• May 27, 2015

  Yellow House

  By the field, the mason deftly made The yellow house, with a modest strip of a yard
• May 16, 2015

  Presidency’s Dilemma

  Intriguing things are happening in Presidency University once again. Students laid a night-long siege, demanding from the vice chancellor and other officials a uniform procedure across all disciplines for entry into the university. Having grown up in a world where infants barely out of their cradles are subjected to admission tests, their demand can hardly…
• April 10, 2015

  Troublesome landing — They don’t grow land anymore

  Singur, the potato bowl of Bengal, appears to have landed in trouble again. Not on account of unwilling farmers grieving over their lost assets, but on account of overproduction by the ones who didn’t lose their land. Excess supply of the crop has pulled down prices, leading indebted farmers to slither down the precipice. According…
• March 10, 2015

  The Growth Narrative

  …The net effect is not obvious, needless to say, but if the markets expand, the credit will go to the Central Bank’s discretionary as opposed to non-discretionary monetary policy, rather than the fiscal stance of the Central budget.