John Steinbeck’s 1958 Letter On Falling In Love Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) might be best-known as the author of East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, but he was also a prolific letter-writer. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters is an alternative biography of the iconic […]
Category: Love
Love Is Not Enough
One of these two men had a clear and realistic understanding of love. One of them did not. One of these men idealized love as the solution to all of his problems. One of them did not. One of these men was probably a narcissistic asshole. One of them was not. In our culture, many […]
I Chose A Lovely Fig
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was […]
No More Tears In Heaven
Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees Time can break your heart, have you begging please, begging please Beyond the door there’s peace I’m sure And I know there’ll be no more tears in heaven At around 4am on 27 June 2017, my late dad’s 72-year-old best friend of 40+ years lost […]
Happy Father’s Day
If you had asked me before I lost my father on May 24, 2017 how I would cope, I would have said that I would be rudderless in life. He was my touchstone, and the conversations I had with him as a child, an adolescent and young adult were the mirror by which I came […]
Till We Meet Again
Even in his late sixties, my father made trips on his bike from Bangalore to his home town 70kms outside the city almost every month to see his aging mother. Being a rough-and-tumble sort of guy, he often overlooked his diabetes, blood pressure and diet. A self-made man with a passion for education, travel and […]