A Bangalore, Global View On The World Of Culture

Into The Minds and Crafts of The Heady Greats.

Known, Unknown, Heard, UnHeard. Then and Now

What They Mean to Us Today and The Day After

Opinions-Perspectives, Interviews-Conversations, Features, Portrayals that Surprise

Hey Lennon, ‘Nothing to kill or die for, And no Religion too’ is the Song Sung best at NYC’s Madison

Today, Saturday, we have a speech on oneness and unity by a public figure at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In the night, NYC’s Madison Square Garden is breathtaking, walking around it or looking at it from the heavens. The lighting, massive space and design inside is just right for huge audiences – whether it’s a speech, a concert or a basketball game. The Garden will be remembered for three great acts, John Lennon’s Imagine, where he pleaded for peace and a world without Religion and Borders, Muhammad Ali smashing Joe Frazier’s jaw in what was described as the ‘bout of the century’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’, a cryptic, apocalyptic narrative about impending change, societal tension and the quiet before a storm. A line in that song, ‘There Must Be Some Kind of Way Out Of Here’ will stand the test of the cosmos. Political figures have spoken here, but it’s been Music and Sport most of the time. Today, Saturday, we have a speech on oneness and unity by a public figure at The Garden, precisely the moment to call for ‘Lennon’s Oneness’, as the ‘Way Out For The World’ as Bob Dylan sang here. Music and Sport are Politics too, but the compassionate ones make all the difference. Given The Garden’s Reach and Aura, Music and Sport Should Always be What It Hosts, Writes Dr Praveen Grama from the USA. In the image above, you see John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Zakir Hussain, Muhammad Ali, and the Metropolis Halo of Circular Garden in New York’s dramatic night.

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Today, Saturday, we have a speech on oneness and unity by a public figure at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In the night, NYC’s Madison Square Garden is breathtaking, walking around it or looking at it from the heavens. The lighting, massive space and design inside is just right for huge audiences – whether it’s a speech, a concert or a basketball game. The Garden will be remembered for three great acts, John Lennon’s Imagine, where he pleaded for peace and a world without Religion and Borders, Muhammad Ali smashing Joe Frazier’s jaw in what was described as the ‘bout of the century’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’, a cryptic, apocalyptic narrative about impending change, societal tension and the quiet before a storm. A line in that song, ‘There Must Be Some Kind of Way Out Of Here’ will stand the test of the cosmos. Political figures have spoken here, but it’s been Music and Sport most of the time. Today, Saturday, we have a speech on oneness and unity by a public figure at The Garden, precisely the moment to call for ‘Lennon’s Oneness’, as the ‘Way Out For The World’ as Bob Dylan sang here. Music and Sport are Politics too, but the compassionate ones make all the difference. Given The Garden’s Reach and Aura, Music and Sport Should Always be What It Hosts, Writes Dr Praveen Grama from the USA. In the image above, you see John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Zakir Hussain, Muhammad Ali, and the Metropolis Halo of Circular Garden in New York’s dramatic night.

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In The News

Something to think about

Creativity is the power to reject the past
to change the status quo
to seek new potential

-Ai Weiwei, Chinese contemporary artist

The Many Hues

Hey Lennon, ‘Nothing to kill or die for, And no Religion too’ is the Song Sung best at NYC’s Madison

Today, Saturday, we have a speech on oneness and unity by a public figure at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In the night, NYC’s Madison Square Garden is breathtaking, walking around it or looking at it from the heavens. The lighting, massive space and design inside is just right for huge audiences – whether it’s a speech, a concert or a basketball game. The Garden will be remembered for three great acts, John Lennon’s Imagine, where he pleaded for peace and a world without Religion and Borders, Muhammad Ali smashing Joe Frazier’s jaw in what was described as the ‘bout of the century’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’, a cryptic, apocalyptic narrative about impending change, societal tension and the quiet before a storm. A line in that song, ‘There Must Be Some Kind of Way Out Of Here’ will stand the test of the cosmos. Political figures have spoken here, but it’s been Music and Sport most of the time. Today, Saturday, we have a speech on oneness and unity by a public figure at The Garden, precisely the moment to call for ‘Lennon’s Oneness’, as the ‘Way Out For The World’ as Bob Dylan sang here. Music

MAHINDRA BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR WINNER BHARATH DINGRI WILL TALK ON TAMATE, MAKE IT SING AND PERFORM, WITH TRANSLATION FROM S R RAMAKRISHNA, WATCH THIS, IMEM, JP NAGAR, AUG 29, 4 pm

TAMATE, A Drum of the People, a lecture-demonstration and Drum Circle with Bharath Dingri and Halgi Culture will be seen on August 29, 4 to 5 PM, and a Performance, Drum Circle, at 5.30 pm, at the Indian Music Experience Museum, Brigade Millennium Avenue, JP…

MAHINDRA BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR WINNER BHARATH DINGRI WILL TALK ON THE TAMATE, MAKE IT SING AND PERFORM WITH TRANSLATION FROM S R RAMAKRISHNA, WATCH THIS, IMEM, JP NAGAR, AUG 29, 4 pm onwards

Tamate: A Drum of the People, a lecture-demonstration and Drum Circle with Bharath Dingri and Halgi Culture will be seen on August 29, 4 to 5 PM, and a Performance, Drum Circle, at 5.30 pm, at the Indian Music Experience Museum, Brigade Millennium Avenue, JP…

1947, A TUNE FROM THE RED FORT THE WORLD AWAITS FROM THE CHILD OF BENARAS

Bismillah Khan is a persona for all seasons, people and geographies. Three days ago, Ustad Bismillah Khan, 20 years back, Aug 21, 2006, when he was 90, left for the after-world. Now is the time to recall the many people he loved and the many…

How She Taught Us To See The World. Sudha Sitharaman and The ‘Bearable’ Lightness of Being

Dr. Sudha Sitharaman’s is a Story and Legacy of Rich Intellect, Music, A Critical Eye, and a Fair and Just Vista for the Nation. These are tumultuous times and you need the right people to keep you calm, steady and fair. She is that Go-To-Person. Sudha Sitharaman is not only Bangalore’s remarkable, deeply learned, insightful, acutely perceptive and knowledgeable Intellectual-Scholar-Academic-Sociologist, who has collaborated with Nationally and Internationally renowned Scholar-Intellectuals and travelled geographies in India and Abroad, she also has a superlative, detailed and expansive grasp of music and musicians from K V Narayanswamy to Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, and most importantly, a clear, absolute and perfect sense of what is fair, right and just, risking herself actively in trying to protect the liberties and rights of so many, alongside some of the country’s self-less and fearless rights thinkers and practitioners. And yes, Sudha is also someone any student can run to, ‘surrender’ and ‘share’ even the deeply personal realm and she won’t judge you. Infact, you’d emerge comforted. Finally, we see Religion has become the country’s ‘public mainstay’ for certain people in the quest for power and Thought-Control and if you ever wanted clarity on why this is happening and

HANUMANTHAIAH’S EDIFICE ECHOES STING – BE YOURSELF NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY

Sting’s number Englishman in New York is beautiful to listen to. The one line in the song that captures the spirit of our times is really, ‘Be Yourself, No Matter What They Say’. This is truly the moment when all of us need to be everywhere no matter where you come from – just be nice, be good to people, be polite, enjoy the good things of life. Yes, humans by nature have issues, but we need to scale beyond, be Statesmen in Everyday Life, and certainly in policy-making and politics. Freedom Habba at the Vidhana Soudha was the first-of-its-kind, citizen-led public carnival organized by the Karnataka government to celebrate India's 80th Independence Day. The milestone event transformed the iconic Vidhana Soudha premises in Bengaluru into a massive open celebration space on August 15, 2026. Visually the Abode of God’s Work was a Marvel and opened up the Pillars of Freedom. The festival focused on the theme "Namma Ooru, Nimma Ooru, Ellara Bengaluru" to showcase the rich cultural and regional diversity of Karnataka and India. Deferring from traditional ceremonial formats, it invited the general public to actively participate rather than just watch. Around 40 diverse contingents showcased traditional art forms

The higherverve.com is a Bangalore (India)-Headquartered Global Cultural Website and Digital Platform focused on Writing and Reporting on Culture and Cultural Domain from India and Around the Globe that includes Reporting on Music, Cinema, Travel and Tourism, Books, Intellectuals-Thinkers, Theatre, Sport, Photography and Photographic Stories and Profiles of Interesting People from around the World. The Website-Digital Platform is founded by Authors, Writers and Journalists Prashanth G N and Shantheri Mallaya, who are based out of Bangalore and travel now and then. The Platform, founded in 2026, covers 16 Global Cities and has Writers sharing their thoughts from all these Cities on Culture in their Geographies. The Website has already covered major Events including World Cup Football 2026 Live from USA and will continue to Report on interesting Happenings, Events and People from around the world that includes India, USA, Europe, Australia, Africa, Russia, Latin America and Canada.

Pixxel World, Some lovely notes

1947, A TUNE FROM THE RED FORT THE WORLD AWAITS FROM THE CHILD OF BENARAS

Bismillah Khan is a persona for all seasons, people and geographies. Three days ago, Ustad Bismillah Khan, 20 years back, Aug 21, 2006, when he was 90, left for the after-world. Now is the time to recall the many people he loved and the many who loved him, the many places he performed across the world, the camaraderie he had with Varanasi of the old, Benaras.

THE medley

Tracing the superhit cult classics – from Devdas to Dhurandhar

Hindi cinema has never been short of cult classics - movies that redefined cinematic storytelling and moviegoer experience. From Himanshu Rai’s Bombay Talkies down to Aditya Dhar’s B62 Studios, these powerhouses have unleashed 70mm creations that have decisively changed the way the movie goer looked at specific narratives or themes, regardless of messaging and intent, writes Shantheri Mallaya.

S R Ramakrishna: The half-sleeved genius in the shadows

Incisive personas should be catapulted into broad daylight because many of us can learn a great deal. He’s out there, but his presence can amplify. Ram’s the guy, writes Prashanth G N
Bob Dylan at 85: An American Voice That Has Endured

Bob Dylan at 85: An American Voice That Has Endured

Garud Iyengar, Avanessians Director of the Columbia Data Science Institute, New York, and Professor Columbia University, Stanford University Phd, featured and appreciated by The New York Times, writes, that in an era dominated by curated identities, Bob Dylan’s refusal to become predictable is almost radical. Dylan’s nasal, imperfect, unmistakably individual voice, says Garud, hailing from Bangalore’s Malleswaram, carries an implicit lesson: authenticity matters more than polish. Garud’s natural versatility takes us to a very crisp, sharp, incisive and fascinating insight into the American icon and world's only music Nobel Laureate, Bob Dylan.

Authors | Editors

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Prashanth G N

Bangalore

Prashanth G N is An Author, Journalist, Columnist, Strategist in Frontier Technologies, has been a Communications Advisor and is an Academic with a Master of Philosophy in Sociology from the University of Hyderabad. He is a Science Fellow, IAS-MIT, Massachusetts, Robert Bosch Fellow, Geneva, Copenhagen, Dublin, Torino, UGC Fellow, worked at The Times of India, International Business Times, The Hindu, The Deccan Herald, Talk, and at The Indian Express. This journey offered him opportunity to travel and meet exciting people across the world including US, Europe, SE Asia, Asia Pacific and S Asia.

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Dr. Praveen Grama

Seattle

Dr. Praveen Grama, a Texas A & M PhD, having moved on after admission to the prestigious IIT-Kanpur, is now Lead Aircraft Structural Engineer at Boeing, Seattle. His exemplary, sustained research and sharp problem-solving capability in Aviation naturally won him the ‘Boeing 787 Engineer of the Year’, and 'Meritorious Inventor Award' at Boeing for crucial inventions in finite element modeling. Praveen holds 3 major Patents and 1 Trade Secret, knows plenty about aircraft engines, wings, airframes, fuselage and what not. He’s also very well-versed in football having played at school, music, food and films from multiple cultures and has travelled across the length and breadth of the world from Moscow to Melbourne via Bangalore, his natural pit stop! His Phd work on super-elasticity, modeling and materials is vital and fundamental to aircraft dynamics and operations. It's a matter of saving lives.

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Shantheri Mallaya

Bangalore

Shantheri Mallaya is a senior journalist with over twenty years in writing, editing, leading editorial teams, leading discussions and thought leadership in technology. A driven person, she puts in her energy to anything she does. She has worked with some of the world's best-known media and consulting conglomerates and has briefly been an entrepreneur and is a global traveller.

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Pradeep Narasimhaprasad

Moscow

Pradeep, a Techie, has worked in top-flight global companies and has travelled the world from Mexico to Moscow, Finland to Vietnam and everything in between and brings a phenomenally rich perspective on the beauty and pleasure of those geographies and the little things we can learn back home. He is attached to the Radio which is where he began listening to songs from all over the world. He is of the conviction that discipline and fitness gives you space to focus on things you like.

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Giridhar Khasnis

Bangalore

Bengaluru-based Giridhar Khasnis is a senior art writer, curator, columnist and author of Kannada micro-fiction. A former banker, he has written more than 1,200 articles on art, literature, photography and world cinema for leading newspapers and magazines. Alongside his writing, he has pursued photography and photo-collage for over five decades and has curated sixteen art exhibitions. Khasnis served as a jury member for the Tasveer-Toto Photo Awards in 2013 and 2014, and in 2017 he was invited to participate in the International Curator-in-Residence Programme in South Korea. His solo photography exhibition, ‘Of Silence, Solitude and Slow Time,’ was presented in April 2019 at Gallery Manora in Bengaluru.

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Uma Shankara Sharma

Bangalore

Uma Shankar Sharma has a diverse and multi-faceted pedigree. His father Chandrashekar Sharma worked in the film domain with greats like Dr Raj Kumar, Dr Vishnuvardhan, Kalyan Kumar, Uday Kumar, and the charming Shankar Nag to name just a few and hence Uma’s understanding and insight into the lives of these film greats is rich. Uma has also been creating platforms and spaces for great musicians for very long which includes artistes like Parveen Sultana, Trilok Gurtu, Santoor wizard Rahul Sharma, Flautist Rakesh Chaurasia and many other renowned personalities. Uma has also been an entrepreneur, having launched firms in different verticals and has the experience of building something on his own. He has also worked at highly reputed global conglomerates like American MNC Applied Materials, picked up learning and development and Human Resource Management expertise there and managing multiple operations at the other MNC Tata Tele Services. He later went into Marketing for a reputed global Neuroscience company articulating the need for neuroscience technologies for patients in the domain of healthcare. Uma has also been articulating the needs of renowned foundations and corporate companies in the media and strategizing their operations through rich Public Relations experience. He has seen it all – journalism, Public Relations, Media Consultancy, Concert and Artiste Management communications, HR, Management Information Systems, Project Management entrepreneurship, L and D, music, cinema, dance and more.

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Coby Mathew

Barcelona

Coby’s a highly driven Journo, a native from God’s Paradise, Kerala, who’s part of global conglomerates now and while he loves literature, film and writing of many hues, he never misses an opportunity to drive, which in itself is a pleasure especially if you have good roads, pleasant weather and light rain, especially in Europe. He’s been in London, that energetic locale where everyone in the world comes to. Coby has been writing on a variety of domains that cover automotive, defence, politics, tourism, and cultural matters. He has the remarkable significance to grasp in an instant that which is valuable and priceless and can articulate this in seconds in crisp grammar that is so easy to read. His capacity to read widely and sustain endless curiosity ensures he’s at the cutting-edge of thought and ideas.

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Garud Iyengar

Columbia, New York

Garud Iyengar, Avanessians Director of the Columbia Data Science Institute, New York and Professor Columbia University and Stanford University Phd, and featured and appreciated by The New York Times is one of US and Columbia University’s meteoric, inspirational and exciting intellectuals, hailing from a Malleswaram home in Bengaluru. Garud’s research paper has been recognized among 50 landmark papers shaping 50 years of Operations Research. The paper is “Robust Dynamic Programming.” To mark its 50th anniversary, the senior editors of the leading journal, Mathematics of Operations Research (MOR), selected 50 landmark papers – one from each year – highlighting advances in the field over five decades. Garud Iyengar, Tang Family Professor of Operations, Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Columbia University, has also been an Amazon Scholar, Professor at Bangalore’s National Center for Biological Sciences, Associate Professor, at London Business School, and Professor, at Rockefeller University, New York, and Co-creator of a Coursera MOOC on Financial Engineering and Risk Management reaching thousands of students, Editor in Chief: Foundations and Trends in Optimization, and the holder of two prestigious US patents – Systems and methods for providing robust investment portfolios, and another, Determining load reductions in demand response systems. Garud Iyengar has been collaborating with the world’s leading thinkers, researchers, academics, industry pioneers and students in all of these domains, launching initiatives in institutions that have taken solid root and been path-breaking. Before getting to Columbia, Iyengar built an impeccable and flawless academic legacy – a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology – Kanpur, and an MS and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the iconic Ivy League, Stanford University. Alongside the positions he holds now, he has been a long-standing Simons Visitor at NCBS Simons Centre for the Study of Living Machines, NCBS, Bengaluru. Iyengar has also been awarded the coveted and prestigious CAREER Award of the National Science Foundation and earlier, the President’s Gold Medal at IIT, Kanpur. Garud Iyengar scored a perfect 10/10 CGPA all four years while pursuing B.Tech at IIT-Kanpur. This is a man always looking at what others are up to and what he can learn from them. His is an open mind that absorbs every idea, emotion, and affection to enrich himself – a great lesson for the millions aspiring to be in exciting careers and do exciting things in the one life we all have. Garud Iyengar has been scaling it all up these years – optimisation across diverse domains, mathematical strategies and applications, computational finance, biology, communication and information theory, risk and supply chain management, dynamics and memory of physical sensors processing information, thermodynamics of molecular sensing, cost of molecular memory during signaling, asset allocation, asset pricing, simulation, labour platforms, power networks, financial engineering, applications in diverse fields such as machine learning, systemic risk, operations management, sports analytics, and now the big thing, Artificial Intelligence. When in Bengaluru, the pit-stop at his Malleswaram home is natural – where he loves his thaiyar sadam (curd rice) with oorga (pickle) apart from our very own rasam or pulka with dal, or shavige paaisam (vermicelli sweet). Iyengar also loves making his own piping hot cappuccino with all its steam, fixes great vodka, brings veggies on his own, and makes absolutely crisp dosas. He doesn’t miss out on Bhagathram’s jamoons, samosas and kachoris, with their tangy sweet and chilli chutneys on Bengaluru’s Commercial Street. He also finds time for Fleetwood Mac’s and Stevie Nicks’ scintillating number, Thrown Down, looking down onto the sparkling Washington Bridge, a jewel in the night, over the Hudson River in Manhattan, Riverside, with a whiskey in hand – and then Beethoven and Mozart on the one hand and Carnatic magic on the other. He also loves jazz and Harlem where it all happened is something he has a grip on, rock, classical - western and Indian, American folk, Blues, Gospel (Aretha Franklin), and then ofcourse our own Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Bhupen Hazarika among so many. Iyengar doesn’t also miss out on New York’s famed Broadway musicals and theatre – whenever an outstanding one comes up – most are!

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S R Ramakrishna

Bangalore

The Journalist - Professor - Columnist - Translator - Musician and Composer S R Ramakrishna (Ram), from US-based Yahoo!, The Deccan Herald, The Express Group, Talk, Mid-Day, the Asian College of Journalism, hailed by the BBC and followed in the US in the 1990s for co-founding his pioneering music platform The Music Magazine (themusicmagazine.com) and now Founder-Editor, HiT Music Magazine (hitmusicmag.com) is inspirational, intense, spectacularly knowledgeable, perceptive and empathetic in unconventional ways. Ram is a thinker-journalist, thinker-writer, thinker-musician, thinker-translator, thinker-humorist and a traveller from off the beaten track geographies like Baku to celebrated California. Over the years, Ram has been working with very important Journalists-Thinkers-Artistes like the renowned Vijaya Bhaskar, Hamsalekha, Nataraj Huliyar, Devanuru Mahadeva, Supriya Raghunandan, M D Pallavi, Inchara Rao, Joe Anthony, Bageshree S, Deepa Ganesh, Sugandhi Ravindranathan, C K Meena, Girish Kasaravalli, A R Rahman, Neecia Majolly, R K Padmanabha, V Manohar, Caleb Alexandar, Manoj George, Bruce Lee Mani, Shubha Mudgal, Trilok Gurtu, the exciting Global Composer and Pianist Yanni and many more. He has also translated into English works of pioneering and revered Kannada intellectuals who expressed thought that was also global. S R Ramakrishna is also a pioneer in music journalism. He co-founded The Music Magazine (or themusicmagazine.com), a first of its kind online Indian music publication in the late 1990s. It was notable for being one of the first, if not the first, Indian music websites to provide in-depth, high-quality audio and editorial content on Indian classical and popular music. The website, launched around June 1999 in Bangalore, focused on various genres, including Indian classical (Carnatic and Hindustani) and film music and had hundreds of followers in USA, India, and other geographies. The BBC had infact ranked this music website and platform among the top 10 platforms in Indian music moving online. Ram had launched it to create a platform that offered in-depth music journalism that included reviews, interviews that you wouldn’t find in mainstream publications at the time.  Ram also founded The Music Mint, a studio based in Bangalore, that produced original music, including projects like “Song of Every Life” (lyrics by Nagathihalli Ramesh) and Vachana compositions. The studio has created popular tracks like ‘Ninna Nenapu’, Song of Every Life: A musical album featuring vocals by actor-singer Sunil Raoh and Aradhana Mokashi/Supriya Raghunandan, and musical interpretations of Akka Mahadevi’s Vachanas sung by Faiyyaz Khan. Interestingly, a great number of recordings of R K Srikantan, the Carnatic maestro, and the renowned Shubha Mudgal have also been undertaken at The Music Mint. Ram has also collaborated with the very well-known versatile award-winning singer-composer-actor M D Pallavi on multiple musical projects. Ram and singer Supriya Raghunandan also founded the THE VACHANA BAND (also known as Mantapa: The Vachana Band) and has been integral to The Vachana Band, a musical group that performs 12th-century Kannada spiritual poetry (Vachanas) in a contemporary, often rock-influenced setting. The band, which has also featured musicians like Neecia Majolly, aims to bring the philosophical insights of the Sharana movement—originally created by thinkers like Basavanna, Allama Prabhu, and Akkamahadevi—to modern audiences. And while a good bit of this is self-taught, Ram has also trained with Jim Satya, the popular Music Producer, who’s collaborated with A R Rahman.  Ram has also translated some great Kannada works into English that include the autobiography of poet Siddalingaiah, (titled Ooru Keri in Kannada) as A Word With You, World, the very exciting translation of the experiences of the adventurous wildlife photographers, Krupakar and Senani, who were held captive by Veerappan, titled, Birds, Beasts & Bandits: 14 Days with Veerappan, the autobiography of the distinguished Kannada writer and public intellectual U.R. Ananthamurthy, Suragi, the Wedding Lamps on Holeya Street, a translation of N. K. Hanumanthaiah’s poem of the same name, which was anthologized in Steel Nibs Are Sprouting: New Dalit Writing From South India, and he has also contributed translations to an anthology of P. Lankesh’s short stories, titled, When Stone Melts and Other Stories, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award and then the searing writer Devanuru Mahadeva’s work on the RSS into English, ‘RSS: The Long and the Short of it’, introduced by Ram Guha and After Worded by Yogendra Yadav. This work by Devanuru sold lakhs within weeks. Ram also carries a great sense of humor and has been articulating a humor column for years together, ‘Ayyo Rama’, a continuous commentary on the happenings of the day from all around the world. At heart, Ram is a thinker and experimentalist – thinking through writings, novels, stories, music, journalism and composing all of this into a world view that is fair, exciting, informative and versatile.  

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