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The sidewalk
I woke up to clear skies and the still-cool breeze of a summer dawn. There had been no storm the previous night, nor was there one brewing. Nothing prepared me for the devastation that lay ahead. For as I turned the corner, there they were, by the hundreds and thousands, thickly carpeting the sidewalk. Unclaimed,…
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A full head of hair
The long journey of evolution from ape to man was marked by conspicuous shedding of body hair. Why then did we retain a full head of hair? Was it just chance/ a mere roll of dice/ an evolutionary trade-off which endowed us with our crowning glory? Not so. It so happens that Africa, where we…
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The Flower of Autumn
The days turn shorter. There is a cool mist in the early mornings. An Indian autumn is in the air. A rather untidy, nondescript tree in a corner of the garden tentatively puts forth a cluster of blooms – white stars on jaunty orange stalks. The sheuli. Others may know it as the parijat, the…