Cat in the Agraharam
The wealth of contemporary Tamil literature has always been just out of reach for readers like me who speak the mother tongue well enough but tend to stumble over the printed word. But you don't…
The Bird That Changed a Canal’s Course
In 1836, T.C. Jerdon, a 25-year-old surgeon, arrived in the Madras Presidency. After training at the General Hospital, he was sent to treat troops battling insurgency in a district nearly halfway to the Calcutta Presidency.…
Coded Bias
IN HER first semester as a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, Joy Buolamwini encountered a peculiar problem. Commercial face-recognition software, which detected her light-skinned classmates just fine, couldn’t “see” her face. Until, that is, she…
Meenakshi and The Supernumerary Nipple
Meenakshi I am a green goddess.My name means Fish-eye:like a fish-mother, whose eyes never close,I'm always watching over my children. Yes, fish eat their young - I do that too.I protect the city, I destroy…
Girl, Decoded
Rana el Kaliouby sketched by R. Rajesh of The Hindu As she sat in a taxi headed to Cairo International Airport in September 2001, Rana el Kaliouby remembers thinking, “Am I really going through with…
Veet — A Brick
And so the talk turned to sons who don't take as good care of their ageing parents as they should. The blame shifts to the daughter-in-law. The son gets off the hook -- old story.…