Darpan letters
- The sun takes water only to return it
No. 19 · 9 October 2026 On a GST Council that chose trust over the threat of arrest, a monsoon that fell short by 12.6% before a strong El Niño, Kālidāsa’s picture…
- Even a little is not lost
No. 18 · 8 October 2026 On sixty-one more tahr in a year, vultures returning after a drug was banned, a Nobel for small biases that grow, and Kṛṣṇa’s promise that…
- In due course of time
No. 17 · 7 October 2026 On a merit list allegedly priced by a candidate’s chance of selection, a disease that keeps moving behind a number declared won, and…
- As if by force
No. 16 · 6 October 2026 On a voter asked to sign that he is applying “for the first time”, three bodies moved before the police came, and Arjuna’s question about…
- A rule is a lamp, not a cage
No. 15 · 5 October 2026 On notice cases cleared without a hearing, a visa that is no right of entry, and the first Agniveer batch, the Gītā’s warning against…
- Seventy empty chairs
No. 14 · 3 October 2026 On seventy doctors dismissed for absence and two health centres with no doctor, the Gītā’s steady worker who does the duty that must be…
- The ambulance, the convoy, and Gandhi’s mother
No. 13 · 2 October 2026 On Gandhi Jayanti, an ambulance stopped for a convoy, the Gītā that Gandhi called his mother, the thunder’s three syllables in the…
- A hundred years, and one blank column
No. 12 · 1 October 2026 On the UPSC’s centenary, a molestation FIR that named the accused as “unknown”, the Gītā’s skill in action and its worker who does not say…
- Words spoken in fear
No. 11 · 30 September 2026 On a detention built on a confession made to the police, Tulsīdās’s warning about counsel given in fear or hope, the Gītā’s mind that knows…
- The tool is not the doer
No. 10 · 29 September 2026 On a State poll chief who asks the software to return a discretion the law already gave, the Gītā’s five causes of every action, the golden…
- The one fear worth keeping
No. 9 · 28 September 2026 On a former election commissioner who asks public servants to act “in fear of their conscience”, Arjuna’s honest confusion on the field,…
- Half of a split pea
No. 8 · 26 September 2026 On a father drawn at the stove in a Class 1 textbook, Yājñavalkya’s image of the two halves, the Gītā’s reminder that even the body’s…
- The eye that does not shrink
No. 7 · 25 September 2026 On a man kept out of a park and a man freed too late, the Upaniṣad’s eye that does not recoil, the Gītā’s equal seeing, and the old promise…
- Bear your own heat
No. 6 · 24 September 2026 On a heavy morning’s news, the threefold suffering of Sāṅkhya, Patañjali’s four attitudes of mind, and Kṛṣṇa’s answer to the student who…
- Reflect fully, then act
No. 5 · 23 September 2026 On a silence the Bench would not punish, dissent kept on file, the Vedic prayer to speak together, and the Gītā’s last word to Arjuna
- Give the hetu
No. 4 · 22 September 2026 On a judgment that asked for reasons in writing, the oldest Indian school of argument, and why a claim without grounds is only half a…
- The lump of clay
No. 3 · 21 September 2026 On Śvetaketu’s homecoming, the assembly trap, and knowing the one thing through which the many are known
- Reserve, but do not hoard.
No. 1 · 19 September 2026 On the difference between equity and oligarchy.
- How do you know what you know?
No. 1 · 18 September 2026 On the four pramāṇas, and why an aspirant's first discipline is epistemic