Patralekha Chatterjee

Apr 26, 2010
Patralekha Chatterjee

Patralekha Chatterjee

Patralekha Chatterjee

From consequences to causes

Disaster means different things to different people in different places. If you are in Delhi, and avidly following the discourse of the day, you may be tempted to think that there are only two kinds of disasters: either not having foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail or having it.

Of patients, patents and profits

Most readers of this newspaper would not know what is “beta crystalline form of imatinib mesylate”. Many may take it as one of those jaw-cracking long names that only chemistry majors spell effortlessly and which leave the rest of us reeling.

Sing a song, make a fuss

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young Bengali girl will be asked to sing a Rabindrasangeet (song by Rabindranath Tagore) sometime in her life by a well-meaning relative, friend or neighbour. There is no getting away from it, and absolutely no use pleading that you don’t have a tuneful voice.

Healthy side of Assam

Kokrajhar is one of those places that don’t show up on the radar of middle-class India in normal times. The past few weeks, however, have dramatically changed that. The horrors of violence-wracked Kokrajhar have seeped into our living rooms. Suddenly, this backward district in Assam on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra seems not so far off.

Unsafe trains put our future at risk

Rail accidents can happen anywhere in the world. But it takes a rare kind of talent to reflexively see it as a puzzling “whodunit”, a possible murder mystery, when it is the nth such mishap in the country, when there have been umpteen reports about the urgent need for rail safety measures, and when wrenching images of death and devastation stare one in the face.

A tradition of abuse

Tradition is a tricky word. Many years ago, when my husband and I were making the rounds of various schools in Delhi for our daughter’s admission, one institution required parents to sit for a written test. The idea, we were told, was to gauge a couple’s compatibility with each other and with the school’s philosophy.

Green: Idea for future?

Slamming Rio+20 for being low on ambition and weak in specifics is going to gather momentum in the coming days. This should not surprise anyone, given the loose and non-committal language in the final document that came out of the meet, formally called United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.

Ismat, himmat, kismet

Thesaurus.com tosses up more than two dozen synonyms for “bad news”. If you are weary of “bad news”, try misfortune, problem, woe, difficulty, dilemma... But there are times when even Thesaurus.com cannot cope with the drip-drip of bad news.

Healthcare: Do or die

Nine years ago, on a sultry afternoon, inside an unused warehouse on the outskirts of the temple town of Tiruchirapally, I had a conversation with an young mother I will never forget.

Tap the public mood on food

If there is one mistake a politician or a public figure cannot afford to make these days, it is the food faux pas.

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.

Horoscope