RAJI WRITES

This piece was published in India West newspaper on May 16, 2018 Much has been written about the mind. It is mysterious. Sigmund Freud famously said “The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.” Its state can be altered with drugs. We can lose our mind, suffer a mental breakdown. Matters of the mind have always provoked my interest, curiosity, and compassion. All of us have friends and or relatives who have faced mental illness. My vivacio

A gift card to Kepler's! I was delighted and overwhelmed at this farewell gift from my colleagues. It was 1999. I had completed my fellowship and was moving on to my first job. Kepler's, iconic independent bookstore in Menlo Park. Absolute heaven for readers. Back then there was a large section on cooking. As soon as the idea struck me, I knew that was how I would use the gift card – on cookbooks! And what a pleasure it was to look through those shelves and select the tr

This review appeared in Outlook India magazine in February 2003. "‘Midnight’s Children’? Salman Rushdie’s book?" my friend in the mid-West asks me. It is the year 2003. I’ve called to wish her on her birthday on my return to the U.S. from London, having seen the play based on Rushdie’s masterpiece. It is a new adaptation for the stage by Simon Reade, Tim Supple and Salman Rushdie himself, based on his earlier adaptation for a television script, originally commissioned by the