Ideas travel further than the people who had them.
Essays that follow a few of them forward: Indian thought, history, science, and the machines we now ask for answers.
Featured essay
At Their Feet
Walking from Machhapuchhre Base Camp to Annapurna Base Camp, and the thought that turned two camps on a map into the feet of two gods.
More from the library
Recent writing
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Before the Kakatiyas: An Evening at Nandikandi
Another journey into Hyderabad before Hyderabad: a star-shaped Chalukya temple at Nandikandi, an inscription of 1014, and a regional chief named Pampa Permanadi.
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The History of Velimela
An inscription from 1121, wells dug in 1319, and a name on an 1842 map: what the records still keep about the village I moved into.
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If AI Does the Work, What Does the Work Do to Us?
Work leaves behind two things: what we produce, and what we become able to do. AI can deliver the first without the second.
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Hyderabad Before Hyderabad
A search through inscriptions turned the western edge of Hyderabad, and the place I call home, into a much older neighbourhood.
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When everyone can create, what makes creation ours?
I rebuilt this website by describing it to an AI. It wrote most of the code, and I still hesitate before saying I built it. Where does authorship sit now?