A Central Banker's Miscellany

The Victoria Students Hostel

“In great cities, the great buildings tell you things you don’t know and remember things which you’ve forgotten. It’s a collective wisdom, an engine superior to your own intelligence. Architecture is the biggest unwritten document of history.”
—Daniel Libeskind, We mustn’t forget the deep emotional impact of the buildings around us – Special to CNN – 7/1/2015

“One century’s building is another century’s useful aberration.”
— Jane Jacobs, The Life and Death of Great American Cities

When great cities forget their great buildings, it evokes images of falling giant trees, burning libraries, blue whale victims losing their grips over ledges, abandoned parents, distant wails of unborn children, and wasted memories. A visit to the Victoria Students Hostel was one such experience, aberrations from the past. Continue reading “The Victoria Students Hostel”

The Nobel Week

I spent five days from 7 to 11 December 2019 at Stockholm, attending the Nobel Prize events. An article on my experience at these events was published in the OPEN magazine. A link is given below:

https://openthemagazine.com/features/five-days-abhijit-esther-stockholm/ Continue reading “The Nobel Week”

Menon and Menon

Against the background of two recent biographies, of V.K. Krishna Menon, by Jairam Ramesh (A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon, Penguin, 2019) and of V.P. Menon by Narayani Basu, I wrote an article in OPEN magazine titled “A Tale of Two Menons”. You can read it at the link below. Continue reading “Menon and Menon”