Articles by: Soumyanetra Munshi

Menarche: Entering the Strange Land of Adulthood

Menarche: Entering the Strange Land of Adulthood

It was April and we were all getting ready for parents-teacher meeting in my daughter’s school, when I noticed her inner wear were smeared with red stains. She would turn ten the next month, so she wasn’t ten yet and she had started menstruating already. Her paediatrician later told me that this is natural nowadays. I was so unprepared as[Read More…]

by 23/06/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
For the times they are a-changin’: Of fishes, books and online transactions

For the times they are a-changin’: Of fishes, books and online transactions

Gobindo, the fish-seller, sat smoking bidis, amidst piles of silvery, shining fishes of different kinds, every evening, just where the street began as an off-shoot from the Lake Town main road, near the Lake Town bus stop in Kolkata. Not only did he sell the best quality ones, he customarily handled old customers and new ones with equal familiarity and[Read More…]

by 16/06/2023 Comments are Disabled India
Homo Deus: From Being Masters to Marionettes

Homo Deus: From Being Masters to Marionettes

Imagine this. You have to travel from one place to another. You have two options. Human driver driven taxi or an-AI-algorithm-controlled automatic taxi. You know the associated traits of each – the human driver wouldn’t accurately know the roads that will be congested, and may be tired or sleepy. The “machine” driver will exactly know that roads to avoid and[Read More…]

by 08/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Sapiens: Myth, Foraging and Agriculture

Sapiens: Myth, Foraging and Agriculture

“On a hike in East Africa 2 million years ago, you might well have encountered a familiar cast of human characters: anxious mothers cuddling their babies and clutches of carefree children playing in the mud; temperamental youths chafing against the dictates of society  and weary elders who just wanted to be left in peace; chest-thumping machos trying to impress the[Read More…]

by 15/11/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
WEIRDest People and Us

WEIRDest People and Us

When I first went abroad to the US for my PhD, I, like most other Indians, was very surprised by many of the customs and ways of life that I encountered there on a daily basis. For example, once when I went to meet our Statistics teacher, right at the beginning of the term, and addressed him ‘Sir’, like we[Read More…]

by 10/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Remembering Khudiram: The Smiling Young Martyr

Remembering Khudiram: The Smiling Young Martyr

The Statesman, May 2 1908: “The Railway station was crowded to see the boy. A mere boy of 18 or 19 years old, who looked quite determined. He came out of a first class compartment and walked all the way to phaeton, kept for him outside, like a cheerful boy who knows no anxiety… on taking his seat the boy[Read More…]

by 12/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
“Dancing on the heads of snakes”: A Glimpse into Yemen

“Dancing on the heads of snakes”: A Glimpse into Yemen

The other day I came across a copy of an old newspaper – The Statesman (Kolkata edition) of August 4th 1994. As I browsed through the headlines for a glimpse of the world twenty six years back,  the heading “Looting in Yemen continues after end of war” caught my attention, given I’ve seen headlines about Yemen being bombed etc., currently.[Read More…]

by 24/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
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