India’s Path Was Paved by Soviet Fall
Letter from India, The International Herald Tribune With all the attention being paid this month to the fall of the Berlin Wall, I’ve found myself thinking of how much India has changed over the last 20 years. Most of the media coverage has, quite understandably, focused on Europe. But the tremors from Communism’s collapse […]
Exchanging One Cliché for Another
Letter from India, The International Herald Tribune PONDICHERRY, INDIA — My first memory of being Indian in America was being called an “injun.” This was around 1980. I was visiting my grandparents in rural Minnesota. The boy who called me an “injun” punched me in the stomach; later, his friends would call me a […]
A Roadway From Hope to Sorrow
Letter from India, The International Herald Tribune PERUNTHURAI, INDIA — E. Vinayagam remembers when the country road outside his village ran through a forest. When Vinayagam, born in 1947, was a boy, he and his friends were scared to go to the road at night; the forest was thick, and it was rumored to […]