Nirvana!

The first time I heard about RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) was during my engineering college days, mostly during a quiz competition if my memory serves me right. Like most, I too had a romanticized view of intelligence agencies and espionage, mostly because of our exposure to Ian Fleming novels, James Bond and espionage movies. This view continued for long until a few years ago when I read 'Spycatcher' by James Wright, a former MI5 officer. The moles within, inter-agency rivalry, bureaucratic shackles, political interference, were all laid bare by Wirght in that book. I naturally searched more about our own RAW, MI, IB and all I got were newspaper reports which mostly talked about the intelligence failures leading to 1962 debacle, Kargil war, Samba Spy ring, Rabinder Singh case and likewise. It was then I wondered how does our intelligence apparatus really work and who are the people to run it on a daily basis.  These doubts remained as almost nothing is freely avail

Ramayana is not just a part of our ‘itihasa’ but a part of our civilizational conscience. Though it is said that there are numerous versions of Valmiki’s Ramayan, people in different regions of this land have broadly accepted one of the three versions viz., Original Valmiki’s epic, Kamban’s version and Tulsidas’s retelling. Despite these numerous versions having differences in sub-plots and interpretation of incidents, none of them alter the purport of the epic or tweak around with what Valmiki conveyed in the original. Scion of Ikshvaku by Amish Tripathi is one such retelling which interprets the Ramayana through the lens of the present worldview and without harming the base intent of the original. One of the problems parents and elders today face in narrating our ‘itihasa’ to children is that, the children would have heard or seen a version through various mediums which reduces their interest or hearing or reading it again. The challenge remains to retain the interest of th