Somnath Batabyal Occidentally Yours The poor rich kids jump into a land battle: Greater NOIDA By Somnath Batabyal Lately, it has been impossible to miss how the hearts of the scions of the big political families are bleeding for the poor farmers of Uttar Pradesh. They even evade their own security team, who usually protect them from public ire, amongst other things, to sit as one with the oppressed and then happily court arrest. The media too, in the last week or so, as the babalogs started spewing venom about political systems that oppress the poor, gave admirable column space and devoted ample... 

Somnath Batabyal Occidentally Yours British Pubs: once working class havens, now turning into stylish bars! By Somnath Batabyal A bit of good news travelled through in the evening after the day had been spent in barely subdued irritation. It is the 1st of May, celebrated throughout Europe as ‘Worker’s Day’. In Heidelberg, where I am now, there were parties, dinners and dances the night before and the Neckar riverbank swelled with revellers until late at night. I honestly found it hard to join in. Trawling through the alternative news websites, Facebook links and accounts of... 

Occidentally Yours Somnath Batabyal How I became a television expert Somnath Batabyal It was an uneventful sort of day. I must have done the usual things; go to the University in the morning, read in the library for a while, and then in the late afternoon after a game of squash, come back to the room, hoping to get some writing done. London was freezing and the thought of going out in the evening was hardly inviting. I had settled down with a book when my mother called on the phone, hysterical. Have you seen the news? No, I replied, slightly panicky. Mumbai is being attacked, she said. The present...