The Water Cooler

  • Thailand’s Great Flood awaits Noah

    By Yahoo! India News | The Water Cooler – Thu 3 Nov, 2011

    For Thailand, 2011 has been a year of hell and high water. Those who believe climate change is the misbegotten brainchild of a bunch of paranoid environmentalists must now be flushing down their words with barrels of flotsam-choked river water. Bangkok, a city that climatologists have warned for years to be sinking, appears to be yielding to the river — and the rumors.

    Floods ravage a Buddhist temple in Thailand

    As Bangkok river swells, people flee to higher ground


    An area the size of Kuwait has been underwater. Over four hundred people have reportedly died since the massive post-monsoon flooding began in late July. The primary culprit, ironically, is the river that is also Thailand's lifeline. Floods are no strangers to the Chao Phraya or Mae Nam, which runs a course of 372 kilometers through the country before entering Bangkok and emptying into the Gulf of Thailand. But the second spell of floods this calendar year has left the northern and western parts of the city waterlogged and its

    Read More »

  • Should firecrackers be banned?

    By Suma Nagaraj | The Water Cooler – Fri 28 Oct, 2011

    I dread the Diwali season. Not only does the smoky haze in the air make me sick and the loud booms cause me to go into fight-or-flight mode, I abhor the gleeful indulgence in throwing a lit firecracker at someone's feet (okay, mine) and seeing them almost jump out of their skin (okay, me) that strangers seem to think as laugh-out-loud hilarious.

    I gave up on firecrackers at least two decades ago. When I was a child, the only things I'd help myself to from the giant bag of fireworks that would land up in the verandah were the sparklers and the snake pills. Remember them? The trail of ash they left behind looked like a long column of egestive material that was as long as the snake it came out of and smelled even more vile. But back then, life was all about symbolism and we'd burn those darn things in order to say goodbye to evil spirits, bad omens and the year passed.

    Many people are suggesting that this year's Diwali has been rather 'mute', for want of a better word, but before I'm

    Read More »

  • Reactions to ‘Namma Metro’

    By Suma Nagaraj | The Water Cooler – Fri 21 Oct, 2011


    As of yesterday, Bangalore has joined the ranks of those cities with the metro rail. The fond epithet given to the city's Metro, Namma Metro (Our Metro), became the talk of the town as well as a trending topic on Twitter, where the predominant sentiment was awe and delight.

    The first phase of Namma Metro, running from MG Road to Byappanahalli, a gargantuan 5-years-in-the-making exercise, was made open to the public at around 4 pm, but the anticipation started building up from early morning, when it was inaugurated with dignitaries and the first run was exclusive to journalists and photographers. Freelance journalist @drvivekm captured the mood of the day with his photostream.

    Bangalore's jubilant nature knew no bounds with @praxprasanna tweeting 'antu intu Metro bantu' - roughly translates to 'finally, the Metro arrives' in Kannada rhyme. A highly charged @KiranKS attributed the launch to BJP's relentlessness and also put up Namma Metro's route map. @Iamvinays fondly reminisced his

    Read More »

  • The former Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, now reported to be dead (see video) gave news editors a lifetime of nightmares with the stubbornly variable spellings of his last name. Variously spelled Qaddafi, Ghadafi, Gadafy and Kadafi, the confusion has not been cleared by the fact that his official website (link broken) spells it "Al Gathafi".

    But don't let such trifles stop you from being a Gaddafi expert. Here are ten cool facts about the late dictator. Flaunt them at will and power your way through a water-cooler conversation.

    Too bad we can't promise you a free return ticket to Tripoli — they aren't exactly in the mood to receive guests there right now.

    Gadhafi captured, possibly killedOfficials in Libya's transitional government say Moammar Gadhafi has been captured and possibly killed in the fall of his hometown but there is no confirmation from the country's most senior leaders. (Oct. 20)

    1. The dictator took his last name from Qadhadhfa, the name

    Read More »

  • Don't be thrown when Julian Barnes pops into cafeteria conversation. This handy guide will instantly upgrade your Barnes quotient and show off your newly acquired wisdom. Just remember to thank us when you shine. And maybe read a Barnes novel or three when you find the time.

    1. Julian Barnes is an English writer. He is 65 years of age.

    2. He won the Man Booker Prize for 2011 for his novel The Sense of an Ending, which The Guardian described as a "highly wrought meditation on ageing, memory and regret."

    3. He has been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times previously for Flaubert's Parrot (1984), England, England (1998) and Arthur and George (2005).

    4. On finally winning the Booker, Barnes remarked, "I didn't want to go to my grave and get a Beryl," he said. He was referring to Beryl Bainbridge, the English novelist who was shortlisted five times for the Booker but never won. She received a posthumous Best of Beryl Booker prize. Ironically, Bainbridge had been named among the "50Read More »

  • There's much rejoicing in Karnataka over the announcement of the Jnanpith for poet and playwright Chandrashekhara Kambara.

    Kambara's work draws on the folk idiom of the Belgaum region, and examines myths, modernity, sexuality, and even contemporary politics in a style rich in music and symbolism. (He is now planning a comedy on the life and times of the bandit Veerappan).

    We bring you a transcript of one of Kambara's lectures, where he talks about how a fear of ghosts and the British provided the inspiration for his early writing.

    My life, my writing
    Chandrashekhara Kambara

    Ghodgeri is our village. The Ghodgeri I came away from still exists. But the village I knew and grew up in does not. Boys of our village now come all the way to Bangalore. We notice many changes in the way they speak and live.

    Belgaum was just a story to me until I actually went there. We were terrified of the place. The British had a camp there. Their army also camped at Gokak, 12 km from our village. The British

    Read More »

Pagination

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
(123 Stories)

Columnist Profiles

Follow Us on Facebook

Blogs