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About Me


The son of a Naval officer, I grew up around military bases. Frequent transfers meant a lonely childhood with fleetingly transient friendships. The base library with its shelves of yellowing dog-eared books was more of a constant.

This early love of reading led to a career as a professional wordsmith; spanning the diverse worlds of journalism and marketing/corporate communications.

These days I'm writing more about diverse stuff that really interests me - like good books, essays and short stories - rather than material dictated by clients.

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Book Review (Fiction) - Bad Dad

Bad Dad David Walliams Illustrated by Tony Ross HarperCollins Children’s Books 2017                                                   422 Pages           There once used to be a preachy school of sententious Victorian children’s fiction wherein the bad boy was eaten up by a lion for his wickedness; whilst the good boy came into deserved fame and fortune, before being drawn up to heaven by God and his angels. Thankfully, kid lit had come a long way since those awful days. Bad Dad is gleefully anarchic, but no less moralistic, plentiful comic havoc notwithstanding. The “Bad Dad” of the title isn’t really bad; he’s a racing champion crippled after a horrific crash and bla...
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Book Review (Fiction) In The Valley OF Shadows

In The Valley Of Shadows Abhay Narayan Sapru Chlorophyll Books 2017                                             170 Pages The long guerrilla war waged against the British state by the IRA in Northern Ireland spawned a new literary sub-genre, “the troubles thriller” as practiced by authors such as Chris Petit ( The Psalm Killer ), Stephen Leather ( The Chinaman , The Bombmaker )  and Gerald Seymour ( Harry’s Game , Field Of Blood ) . The current conflict in Kashmir, with Pakistan-sponsored terrorist proxies attempting to wrest the state away from India, seems all set to follow suit .  Some of the growing tribe of authors in this nascent sub-genre have backgrounds in journalism covering the valley or have actually served in the Indian Army there. ...
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A Decline In Violence?

I’ve recently read “The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined” by Stephen Pinker. The author’s contention is that a plethora of civilizing influences such as the rule of law replacing vendetta, humanistic education and the complex socio-political inter-relationships caused by commerce have caused a general decline in violence worldwide. Your chances of getting murdered were much more in 1700 than today. While this may be hard to believe, given the accounts of sexual assault and homicide that greet us in the daily newspapers every morning, I think that Pinker might be on to something.  To be fair, the author makes explicit that social violence has declined, but not uniformly worldwide, and is still far from completely extinct. The level of decline also depends on how evolved a society is and how far removed from tribalism it is. Pinker also makes the point that if the conditions that caused this decline are reversed, violence could well enjoy a late resurg...
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