Mukul Kesavan – Author, NDTV.com

Opinion: A Butterfly In Brisbane And India's Magic - by Mukul Kesavan

Mukul Kesavan | Wednesday January 20, 2021

The newspapers have been full of the rousing backstories of India's novices: their journeys out of poverty, their personal tragedies, their sacrifices. We should be careful not to patronize their purely cricketing achievement by sentimentalizing it, but it's hard not to be moved by the human dramas that came together in this crescendo of a contest. Deprivation out of ...

Opinion: The Importance Of Being Shubman Gill - by Mukul Kesavan

Mukul Kesavan | Thursday December 31, 2020

Is Shubman Gill for real? After his cameos in the Melbourne Test, I called clued-up cricketing friends for a reality check. Was he, in fact, the best desi prospect since Tendulkar? Or even, touch wood, the most highly finished debutant in whites since Sunil Gavaskar took guard at the Queen's Park Oval half a century ago? Or was I dreaming?

Opinion: India's 36 Shocker At Adelaide - What Went Wrong

Mukul Kesavan | Saturday December 19, 2020

To be clear, no one died. It wasn't a day-darkening, world-ending event...even if I did want to stab the screen with a breakfast fork when Captain Kohli sliced his drive to slip. A total of 36 is a cricketing shocker, but in the larger scheme of things, it is rather less important than your second cousin twice removed coming down with Covid. Pandemics bring perspectiv...

Opinion: Bihar Result Throws Up A New Fact - How To Ally With Owaisi

Mukul Kesavan | Thursday November 12, 2020

You can no more be nearly Chief Minister than you can be nearly pregnant. But as a public display of political muscle, as a platform for future alliances, Tejashwi Yadav made an extraordinary debut.

Opinion: Is Kamala Harris Suppressing Her Tambram Origins?

Mukul Kesavan | Saturday August 22, 2020

Kamala Harriss selection as the Democratic Partys vice-presidential nominee excited Indian Americans. The fact that her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was an Indian Tamil enthused Indians and Tamils in India and the diaspora.

Opinion: Sachin Pilot Likely Sees Rahul Gandhi As A Cautionary Tale

Mukul Kesavan | Thursday July 16, 2020

The political importance of the sacking of Sachin Pilot is obvious: it paves the way for another defector-driven change of guard in a state the BJP wants to reclaim. It's also sociologically interesting for the insight it offers into the political preferences of India's English-speaking commentariat. I should specify that the reference here is to commentators and anc...

Opinion: What Modi Signalled With Excursion To Nimu - by Mukul Kesavan

Mukul Kesavan | Monday July 06, 2020

The Prime Minister's instinct for the public mood might have been the motive force behind his visit to Nimu; only time (or the next election) will tell if he achieved his domestic objectives. But if the visit's foreign policy outcomes are limited to India appearing provocative (when the Prime Minister was trying to avoid that implication), or seeming hamstrung (in his...

Opinion: My Covid-19 Experience - by Mukul Kesavan

Mukul Kesavan | Thursday July 02, 2020

I tested positive for Covid-19 on June 6 after two and a half months of a fairly rigorous quarantine. The first question that people who test positive ask themselves is, how did this happen despite my precautions? This is especially true of middle class victims of Covid who have the online connectivity and financial reserves to shield themselves from the outside world...

Opinion: The <i>'Paatal Lok'</i> World And Its Big Truths - by Mukul Kesavan

Opinion: The 'Paatal Lok' World And Its Big Truths - by Mukul Kesavan

Mukul Kesavan | Saturday June 13, 2020

In terms of genre, Paatal Lok is a world-building exercise. It aims to be a squalid epic and the dystopia it creates to house its characters is a version of Delhi set within a very particular idea of India.

Opinion: When India Was Obsessed With Another Moon Landing

Mukul Kesavan | Saturday July 20, 2019

For a 12-year-old schoolboy, Armstrong's moonwalk couldn't have been worse timed. The summer vacation had given over in the middle of July and for desis, the Eagle landed- given the time difference - on a Monday. That wouldn't have been so bad if Armstrong hadn't taken hours - bloody hours - to undo the hatch and climb down the ladder. The Lunar Module (it was capital...

Opinion: No, England Did Not Win The World Cup

Mukul Kesavan | Monday July 15, 2019

Forget the Super Over for a moment: the prior question is how did England even get to that daft tie-breaker?

Opinion: Bad Selection, Kohli-Dhoni Bond Cost India The World Cup

Mukul Kesavan | Sunday July 14, 2019

After Shikhar Dhawan's injury, the Indian team eventually settled on a batting line up that consisted of three top-order batsmen, three wicketkeeper batsmen and a floating all-rounder. Two of the non-keeping wicket keepers were drafted in as replacements for two batsmen-who-could-bowl.

Opinion: The Dhoni Problem - And Let's Not Deny There Is One

Mukul Kesavan | Thursday July 04, 2019

Dhoni's curiously inert performance in the closing overs of the match against England has attracted slanderous commentary. That's not surprising: online experts and social media trolls are generally the same people. Their bloodlust can't be slaked by the small beer of cricketing decline: it needs a darker brew.

Opinion: How India Can Beat England At Test Cricket Every Year

Mukul Kesavan | Friday September 14, 2018

There's nothing like an English tour to make me feel young again...by the time it ends, I always regress to the teenaged troll I used to be. Which is why I know someone's to blame for this 4-1 hammering, only I can't decide who.

Opinion: The Perverse Pleasure Of Championing Pujara - By Mukul Kesavan

Mukul Kesavan | Monday September 03, 2018

I could watch Pujara bat all day. He's such a barnacle that every time he steps out of the crease into his cover-drive, it's like watching a rooted thing become nimble. And then before settling into his guard again, he'll grip the bat in both hands, hold it up in front him and shake it a little. I like to think that he's testing the splice in the way anxious boys used...

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