Manu S Pillai @UnamPillai Twitter profile

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@Proskala

Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Just received the official notification of the award of my PhD 🙌 Don't have a picture of anything specific to the process, so here's a picture of me with a great old tree instead.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Apparently I am "Sagar Chauhan", senior frontend engineer. Not the first time this is happening. Somewhat miffed that I have such a generic face, it gets lifted for all kinds of random advertisements 😅

Gaurav Munjal

@gauravmunjal

1 year

Credentialing is broken. We still rely on random Degrees and Certifications to measure how good someone is for a particular Skill. And LinkedIn feels like a Product from early 2000. It’s time to change all of this. NextLevel is launching next week.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

"Bajaj is also the rarity in India - an industrialist who has never met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an era when most other biggies make quiet pilgrimages to South block and the PMO."

I don’t want my child to inherit an India built on hate, says Rajiv Bajaj

Rajiv Bajaj pulled ads from three televisions because they promoted toxic content

gulfnews.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

"By the time we are halfway through The Kerala Story, it is hard to decide who is more brainwashed - the protagonist or the makers of this insidious film...The writing is consistently cringeworthy...The script..an act of cinematic terror."

The Kerala Story Review: The Writing Is Consistently Cringeworthy, The Acting Is No Better

The Kerala Story Review: A film so bad that its incompetence would have provided some entertainment had it not played so loose and fast with facts.

www.ndtv.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Father passed away this morning. And before grief, it is paperwork and bureaucracy one has to negotiate. Only positive glimmer was when a lady asked if we'd like to donate his eyes--and so there was one paper I was happy to sign on one of the most hideous days in my life.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

KK Shailaja deserves to be in the Kerala cabinet. Thoroughly disappointing news about her exclusion. I hope they reconsider. There is a whiff of sexism to this. Even with the criterion that besides the CM, cabinet will be all new faces, I think ShailajaT merits an exception.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Paternal grandmother Padmavathi Pillai passed away this morning, on her 99th birthday in Kerala. She was alert till just before the end, telling everyone that her mother Kalyani Pillai had come to fetch her and that she had to go.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

'When you’re running through decades of history without commenting on it, what you choose to mention or omit becomes of great significance. Every tumultuous event of the last 40 years is included..Everything, that is, except the 2002 Gujarat riots.'

Laal Singh Chaddha review: Old ideas, new failings

A distractingly eccentric Aamir Khan headlines a ‘Forrest Gump’ adaptation with little independent thought or moral courage

lifestyle.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Shiva and his armless Muslim friend; a goddess with a Buddhist retinue; Christians joining Hindu festivals; a 20th century rani commissioning both a temple flagstaff and a silver cross--the "Kerala Story" *I* prefer to tell. In today's Times of India.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

11 months

Ahilyabai Holkar is an icon, but Ahmednagar was established by *Ahmed* Nizam Shah. The Nizam Shahis are as integral a part of Maharashtrian history as the Holkar queen who was born near the city generations later. Regrettable that one must be eclipsed to celebrate the other.

Hindustan Times

@htTweets

11 months

#Maharashtra 's #Ahmednagar is set to be renamed as #AhilyaNagar , Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde announced at an event in Ahmednagar Read more-

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

On Eid, here's a picture of the Mishkal Mosque in Calicut, built originally by a Yemeni in the fourteenth century, destroyed by the Portuguese in the early sixteenth, and reconstructed a few decades later by the Zamorin Rajah.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

"For all advertisers promoting the BJP, Facebook charged an average of 39,552 rupees ($517) for one million views for an ad, but for all advertisers promoting Congress, it charged an average of 52,150 rupees ($681), nearly 32 percent more."

Facebook charged BJP less for India election ads than others

The cheaper rates allow the BJP, Facebook’s largest political client in India, to reach more voters for less money.

www.aljazeera.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

This is my new book :) @juggernautbooks @gitanjalimaini

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Wrote in the TOI about kingly violence, feat. amputated noses, human beings ripped apart, butchered religious leaders, etc. The point being that kingship as an *institution* was linked to violence. Brutality wasn't purely a Mughal monopoly as some believe.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

"It is ironic that the Bengaluru police suddenly found the show to be a threat to law and order, when Munawar has performed the same show thrice in the past year in Bengaluru. In fact, on August 28, he performed the same show..at the same..auditorium."

Munawar performed the same set in Bengaluru thrice before: What got the cops this time?

Gujarat-based comedian Munawar Faruqui’s show at Good Shepherd Auditorium in Bengaluru on November 28, Sunday was cancelled after the Bengaluru police objected

www.thenewsminute.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

On Savitri,a Brahmin woman who in 1905 was tried for adultery in princely Cochin.She replied "like a barrister" &didn't go quietly--recalling dates,listing marks on the bodies of her lovers,she took 65 men with her, remembered since as a goddess of revenge

Opinion: A Brahmin woman of scandal

In 1905, a Namboodiri Brahmin woman called Savitri caused an unparalleled scandal among her milieu in Kerala Her story inspired a novel by Matampu Kunhukuttan, among others, which is being re-issued...

lifestyle.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

"Fight staphylococcus, not students. Use Vancomycin, not violence." Medical students before a protest this afternoon in Pune 🙌

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Village scenes, Kerala.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

On Raja Ravi Varma's birth anniversary, here is my favourite portrait by him: Mahaprabha of Mavelikkara, his imperious mother in law (who in 1862 was embroiled in a murder case where one of the weapons of assault was, allegedly, a giant jackfruit).

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

And now this 1870s Ravi Varma (featuring an unusually old and slight Hanuman, and Sita with her arm protectively around Rama) was sold for Rs. 7.3 crore. It belonged to a Travancore prince who left it to his adopted son. And for nearly a century hung over a doorway in Trivandrum.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

"We are labourers, not beggars, sir; if we must battle hunger, we will do it in our village, along with our own people, not in this strange city."

The challenges of providing for our stranded millions

Masses of migrant workers have been reduced to destitution and starvation by the Great Lockdown. We must act in their favour.

www.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Re #SareeTwitter : here is Kalyani Pillai (1839-1909), very likely the first Malayali woman to wear a sari in 1868. Wife of the maharajah of Travancore, she was first married to a Kathakali star, and went on to establish herself as a playwright and poet in the 1870s.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

This interesting person is Uthram Tirunal of Travancore, who reigned between 1846 and 1860. I begin my book 'False Allies' with his story simply because of how arresting a character he is. A short thread.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Central government has taken the wrong note then because the tragedy occured in Palakkad, not Malappuram. The Information Minister opens himself to suspicions of *disinformation* and dog whistling. He should delete this tweet and hire better sources of news and information.

Prakash Javadekar (Modi Ka Parivar)

@PrakashJavdekar

4 years

Central Government has taken a very serious note of the killing of an elephant in Mallapuram, #Kerala . We will not leave any stone unturned to investigate properly and nab the culprit(s). This is not an Indian culture to feed fire crackers and kill. @moefcc @PIB_India @PIBHindi

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Went to the ancestral home of the mathematician Sangamagrama Madhava in Irinjalakuda, Kerala. Pity there is no state aid to maintain the place. Also went to the family shrine--the arm of the idol in the third image was chopped by Tipu Sultan's invading soldiers.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

Malik Ambar's is one of the most fascinating stories from the early modern Deccan, and he was a clear hero to the first Maratha Chhatrapati, Shivaji, whose court poet pays homage to Ambar in the Sivabharata (1670s).

Tunku Varadarajan

@tunkuv

2 years

Malik Anbar, an Abyssinian who became commander of the armies of Ahmednagar. A Deccan miniature from c. 1610. National Museum, Delhi

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Happy Onam! Happy Maveli dinam! 🙌😊🌻🥥🙏

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Protests outside Calicut airport today meant people had to walk 400 metres with luggage. Not easy but no big deal when the protest is about something so critical. What was sweet was how they had volunteers to guide passengers through the crowd, offering even to carry bags 🙌

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

In the past I have been Mohit Gaur who liked to make free pdfs.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

This is incorrect. Dalit castes were attached to land &sold and bought with land in Kerala. They could even be mortgaged. Travancore rajah's govt owned slaves who were liberated in phases from 1812. In 1847 they still had 15,000 Pulaya, Paraya slaves leased out to bidders.

Sankrant Sanu सानु संक्रान्त ਸੰਕ੍ਰਾਂਤ ਸਾਨੁ

@sankrant

5 years

@ClaraJeffery India did not have slavery. “Dalits” were not bound in any way. There was free migration. The “explanation” produced about the caste system is that clever Brahmins magically hypnotized everyone to agree to this system with them on top. 😏 Yes, this comes from Christian theology.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Interrogating Brahminism is not "Brahminphobia". Interrogating Brahminism is what Phule and Ambedkar did. And with good reason--and results.

Mohandas Pai

@TVMohandasPai

5 years

What a shame; How can people put such a hate poster and malign a community: @jack How can you as ceo of @twitter be party to this kind of hate? Shocking; this is @brahminphobia of the worst kind

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Kozhikode ❤

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

All the power in the world, and yet the authorities show themselves as bullies in keeping a man of 80 in prison, with his health in pieces. Transferring him to hospital would not be unusual kindness as much as basic decency. I hope the state is shamed into learning some.

Meera Sanghamitra

@meeracomposes

4 years

#PressNote from Hemalata, W/o Poet & Activist #VaraVararao and his daughters Sahaja, Anala, Pavana calling upon the Govt. to immediately ensure full #medical & #healthcare to the under trial prisoner who has been jailed since 22 months. They appeal that #RighttoLife is paramount.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

Once upon a time in Golconda.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

"Often, Kerala’s success has been attributed to its literacy. That may be a factor, but literacy is no substitute for collective common sense, and a well defined political culture." @sugataraju

Kerala and the corona crisis - Column by Sugata Srinivasaraju

In this hour of Corona crisis, three stunning innovations that Kerala has done deserve more than just platitudinal admiration.

mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

An old photograph of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. (About which I wrote in The Hindu today: )

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

@advsanjoy @amir19621962 A bit tired of this "breast tax=tax on upper garments" claim. First image is Cochin rani less than 100 years ago; second is a Brahmin family. People were topless in Kerala, across castes.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Went to Hyderabad to launch new book. But first zoomed straight from the airport to the old Qutb Shahi tombs, which I last saw in 2016.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

R. Regunatha Naidu, c.1893. This painting has been auctioned as "The Abduction" but it seems more to depict the destruction of an asura (predictably shown as dark) by the Kerala deity Vettakkorumakan. The lady with Vettakkorumakan doesn't quite look "abducted".

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

"The Police do not have any video evidence as Munawar had not even started his show or uttered any jokes. As it stands today, a young comedian is languishing in prison for jokes he had not yet uttered."

Munawar Faruqui's Case- Misuse Of Section 295A Of Penal Code And An Aggravated Insult On Free Speech

Having regard to the ingredients of the offence created by the impugned section, there cannot, in our opinion, be any possibility of this law being applied for purposes not sanctioned by the...

www.livelaw.in

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

11 months

The @IndianExpress asked me a few questions about this sengol business. My answers:

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

In addition to my usual column, I have this little essay in Mint today on looking at history not through the eyes of "great heroes" and events always, but through women--courtesans, goddesses and their legends, and more.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Perfectly disgraceful.

ANI

@ANI

4 years

As soon as #COVID19 vaccine will be available for production at a mass scale, every person in Bihar will get free vaccination. This is the first promise mentioned in our poll manifesto: Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at the launch of BJP Manifesto for #BiharPolls

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

In my book 'False Allies' I use Ravi Varma as a means to tell the history of the Indian princely states. But some interesting (hushed up) personal details around the artist also emerged in the course of research, including, weirdly, a murder featuring a jackfruit--and this lady.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

6 years

On Ambedkar Jayanti, here's the story of Ayyankali who started his journey to smash caste prejudice in 1893--on a bullock cart, with a dagger in his hand and turban on his head.

The leader on a bullock cart

Were it not for this crusader on a bullock cart, taking head-on the mighty and powerful in 1893, generations might have passed before the Pulayas decided, at last, that it was time for them to rise...

lifestyle.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Well at least the authorities are now transparent that "questioning the RSS" offends the government. Half a point for honesty. Meanwhile more power to @asianetnewstv & @MediaOneTVLive journalists. This ban is a badge of honor in these obscene times.

Malayalam channels Asianet News, MediaOne banned for 48 hours for Delhi riots coverage

Malayalam channels Asianet News and MediaOne have been barred for 48 hours by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for their 'coverage of the Delhi riots'.

www.thenewsminute.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

On Kabir, the Muslim weaver who sang of Rama, scoffing at Brahmin and Mullah alike, leaving a message that attracted everyone from the Sikhs to Christian missionaries, despite a streak of misogyny and worldly imperfection in his character and thought.

Opinion | The poet who built bridges

To most, of course, Kabir, icon of Bhakti is a champion of Hindu-Muslim unity, his Arabic name sitting cheerfully alongside the chant of Ram

lifestyle.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

#MinnalMurali is amazing.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Good morning. This is my new book :) Now in all good bookstores and on Amazon, with two lovely covers.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

On Chand Bibi, the charismatic Deccan queen who fought the Mughals (and who was married to an equally interesting sultan, who read a great deal, ate 12 eggs for breakfast, but was sadly murdered by two of his sister's court eunuchs).

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

'False Allies' turns one year and three prints old today. Thank you to everyone who read the book 📚

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

"Shailaja was already a celebrity..before Covid19. Last year, a movie called Virus was released, inspired by her handling of..Nipah in 2018. She found the character who played her a little too worried-looking; in reality..she couldn’t afford to show fear."

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

On the last king of Burma who spent 30 years in exile in Ratnagiri, with his once formidable but now depressed wife, & four lonely (Marathi speaking) daughters, the oldest of whom caused scandal by having a lovechild (Baisubai/TuTu) with their gatekeeper.

Opinion: A Burmese king in an Indian exile

King Thibaw of Ava came to power through palace intrigue and lost it a few years later after a hopeless war against the British He spent the last 30 years of his life in exile in India, divested of...

lifestyle.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Had an amazing day yesterday, hopping from one temple to another around Kozhikode with @sruthinlal , tracing their distinct histories (and stories), the transformations of their gods and legends, and simply staring in awe at some of these shrines.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

"Four months have passed since the launch of Covaxin in India. Over 21 million doses of the vaccine have been administered, and yet, Bharat Biotech is yet to publish its phase 3 efficacy data. Nor has the firm shared any effectiveness data."

How Covaxin became a victim of vaccine triumphalism

Many believe that the hastened approval of Covaxin hurt the reputation of the Make-in-India campaign, instead of bolstering it

www.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

As a six or seven year old I met RK Laxman at a family friend's house. There were three of us kids there and he sketched something for each one. I had no idea who he was and was most annoyed when he drew me a rat, because the others got 'better' animals. Tore up the rat next day.

Lauren Modery

@Hipstercrite

2 years

Tell me the strangest interaction you've had with a celebrity.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

This glum looking man is Ayilyam Tirunal, maharajah of Travancore (1860-80). In my new book #FalseAllies I make the case for looking more seriously at the Indian princely states and their histories during the Raj. Ayilyam Tirunal, for example, was no meek ally of the British..

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

The Maharani of Travancore, Madras, 1957. Today is Sethu Lakshmi Bayi's birth anniversary and also, as it happens, the day when four years ago I announced my first book, The Ivory Throne, after six years of research and writing :) Basically a decade since it all started.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 months

"At a fundamental level, there is a disquieting unnaturalness about MPs terminating, through a voice vote, the membership of a fellow MP elected to the House by two million people."

Mahua Moitra’s disquieting, unnatural expulsion from Parliament

The legislature can punish its members for wrongdoing, but when such punishment is given through a majority decision, it is absolutely essential to ensure the integrity and fairness of the procedure...

indianexpress.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

The seat of the Alumoottil Chanars, an Ezhava family of great wealth & standing in Kerala. A story tells how in the early 20th century they owned a car but their low caste status prevented them from using many roads. Master got off at such points, while highcaste driver drove on.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

I wrote for @CNTIndia on the founding of the town of Bidar in the 15th century--a story featuring bullocks, a murdered sultan, a Russian traveller, & the typical infighting that ruined empires. This is the first in a 5-part series on cities of the Deccan.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

6 years

On Sabarimala, and similar objections made against temple entry in the 1930s."Ayyappan did not go away when custom was broken to bring Dalits before his gaze..hardly likely He will cease to be celibate bcz women behold him, after years of being kept away."

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

"What makes India’s tragedy so much harder to accept is that govt had plenty of time & opportunity to prepare for these challenges. India escaped the first wave of the pandemic last year without overwhelming suffering; there were long months to prepare".

Opinion | Opinion | How Modi led India into a COVID catastrophe

***

www.haaretz.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

On crime, sex, & city life under the Peshwas where custodial death could lead to the lynching of a policeman, fashion threw up rat-skin shirts, husbands were punished for marital rape, and wives could murder their other halves with poisoned sweet potatoes.

Opinion: The Peshwas and their capital

Pune during the Peshwa period, is also an interesting study in the management of life under indigenous governments before the Raj. The Peshwa-era elite, like their counterparts elsewhere, lived in...

www.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

As a 13-year-old I loaned my Vishu kaineetam money to mum on interest. Kept doing so for a year till it reached a total of 30,000 (my interest rate was 25%). At that point it was loaned out again, but mum went mum about repayment. And that is how my first "business" folded 🙏

Ravina Rawal

@RavinaRawal

3 years

“I’m a serial entrepreneur” “How old are you?” “20.” Young people are terrifying.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

Kathmandu this morning 🙌

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Came back to the authors' section at the @KeralaLitFest after my final session, and found that a reader, Aseefathima, had left a special present for me 🙌

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Kerala has been doing well in the fight against Covid but also in everyday democratic practice despite the crisis. The Opposition asks pointed questions on procedure &propriety and the CM addresses press conferences & answers them. Nobody delegitimises the other as anti-national.

Live Law

@LiveLawIndia

4 years

BREAKING : Kerala HC stays for two months the Kerala government order regarding deferment of 6 days' salary of all government employees for five months from April 2020. The bench observed that the order was not supported by any provision of law.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

This man with the fancy moustache is Krishnaraja Wadiyar III (1794-1868) of Mysore. His story, as related in my new book #FalseAllies , encapsulates the complicated internal politics of a princely state, where the British & ruler were not the only factors..

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

"As early as last November, a parliamentary committee had issued warnings of a second wave and urged the government to stockpile oxygen."

Modi Fiddles While India Burns

What’s unfolding in India is a devastating carnage precipitated by its self-enamored leader.

foreignpolicy.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

My book 'The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin' published by Westland will cease to be available from Feb 28. I am grateful to Westland for publishing it, taking it through several reprints, and helping me generally as a writer. I owe much to @karthikavk personally.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Paperback edition of Rebel Sultans releases today @juggernautbooks Do read :)

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

"So, not only did the anchor mistake the phrase “imma bounce” for a, umm, bounced cheque, he also sourced the said bounced cheque, which really makes us wonder about the quality of leaks and documents these guys have been accessing."

Look what bounced over Times Now’s head

The TV news channel is a gift that keeps on giving.

www.newslaundry.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 months

Hampi and the countryside 🙌

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

Jamnabai of Baroda (1853-98) was a woman of fierce personality. Daughter of a village headman (and born Tanhibai Mane), at 13 she was chosen as third wife to the childless maharajah of Baroda, some 25 years her senior. He died four years later and his brother, a shady type..

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

2 years

Thanjavur and Srirangam yesterday, including a very special visit to the Saraswathi Mahal Library, where they are doing such good work despite limited resources. This is what I suppose we call a 'humbling experience'.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Scattered father's ashes this morning in the sea. The ritual is to throw the pot over your head, not look back, and move forward.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

6 years

On Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, a thin man with a big head, who disagreed with Gandhi and Nehru, viewed the world unsentimentally through numbers and statistics, and was so exact in his manners that he wore a 3 piece suit even for a walk in his own garden.

Opinion | An unsentimental man of action

Engineer, scholar and statesman, M Visvesvaraya crossed several significant milestones in his 101 years

lifestyle.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Onam procession featuring Hindu god, the Virgin, and two popular comic book characters--a witch and a kutty devil. Peak Kerala 😊

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

Condemn this.

Live Law

@LiveLawIndia

3 years

[Breaking] @KeralaGovernor promulgates Ordinance which makes expressing, publishing or disseminating any matter which is threatening, abusive, humiliating or defamatory an offence punishable with imprisonment of term upto five years and/or upto Rs. 10,000/- fine. @CMOKerala

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Village life, part 2.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

He was also a successful entrepreneur in a time when there were few. After he died, his widow, Bhanumathi Amma, ran the factory profitably for decades, and showed that women in business was not an impossibility. Despite objections she also remarried and held her own as a person.

Advaid അദ്വൈത്

@Advaidism

3 years

Today is the 148th Birth Anniversary of Legendary Malayalam Poet Kumaran Asan. A great social reformer and a philosopher, Kumaran Asan revolutionized Malayalam poetry & wrote great works like Veena Poovu, a literary classic in Malayalam. #കുമാരനാശാൻ

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

I know the world is grappling with very many more significant things, but since thanks are due and several lovely people must be acknowledged, ANNOUNCEMENT. TLDR: Ending my column in Mint Lounge and will miss everyone there very much. @aninditaghose @somakghoshal @Mint_Lounge

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

When Mughal princes were made to dance in drag, an empress was stripped & left out in the sun, while emperor Shah Alam lost both his eyes (also featuring a court eunuch who first let the enemy in and regretted it when they nearly drowned him in excrement).

The Blinding of a Mughal emperor

The reign of Shah Alam, one the last Mughal emperors, was upturned by the Rohilla chief Ghulam Qadir.The vengeful treatment of the emperor caused such outrage that even the Afghan king offered to...

www.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

On a pregnant courtesan, her murdered lover, and a trail (and trial) that led back to a royal capital, toppling the throne of one of India's most prominent maharajahs.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

Shaniwar Wada in Pune this afternoon 🙌

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Good morning. I have just given myself a "clean chit" in the matter of having failed all my deadlines yesterday #whenwillthiselectionend

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Today in Padmanabhapuram Palace, with structures from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. Photography is not allowed in an upper room where lamps are lit, a state sword is placed, and the walls are covered with the most exquisite murals. (Kalabhairavan is gloriously naked.)

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

'"It appears that the District Magistrate had selective reading and selective mention for few phrases from the speech ignoring its true intent," the Bench observed after extracting the speech of Khan in its entirety.'

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

This is now selling for TWENTY NINE rupees. Students and others who can't handle the 799 hardcover to please take advantage!

Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

If you are a Kindle reader, #FalseAllies is selling at a major discount. There was a glitch last weekend when the book was mysteriously unavailable--hopefully the discount will draw readers back to the ebook.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 months

Books I enjoyed reading in 2023. Full list, with recommendations by others as well, here:

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Humayun's Tomb this morning.

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Looking forward to seeing the word "Chanakya" in every second tweet today 😶

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

4 years

Kerala's success "relate(s) to two things: (i) genuine political competition–rival parties..having to show their achievements or be defeated; and (ii) literate women in the household & the workforce." Short but good interview by the excellent RobinJeffrey.

‘Biggest Drivers of Kerala’s Success are Women Empowerment and Political Competition’ - Open The...

Professor Robin Bannerman Jeffrey is one of the foremost authorities on Kerala’s development and politics. For decades, he has written about India, from Punjab to Kerala and on subjects as varied as...

openthemagazine.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

1 year

(Triggered by Instagram chatter about how the Mughals were terribly brutal but Hindu kings deployed violence only with great reluctance and circumspection etc. Was a bit alarmed by how many people seem to have a Bollywood-ised notion of the "noble" Hindu vs "barbaric" Mughal.)

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

So happy to see #FalseAllies in stores :) These pictures from Faqir Chand and Bahrisons in Delhi, and from DC Books (Kochi) and Modern Book Centre (Thiruvananthapuram).

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

Went to the small but old Anjengo Fort outside Trivandrum and did some generic posing against a handsome wall. This was one of the earliest English settlements in India, granted by the Attingal Rani in the 1690s (who, like many Indian rulers, soon regretted her generosity).

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

This whole thing is so utterly shameful.

Kunal Purohit

@kunalpurohit

3 years

Update: #MunawarFaruqui to spend at least 5 more nights in custody. The Indore Bench of MP High Court today rejected an application by Faruqui for an urgent hearing of his bail application. Next hearing scheduled on Jan 25. @Article14live

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

5 years

On Mary Poonen Lukose, Kerala's first woman graduate, India's first "lady legislator", deliverer of royal babies and promoter of midwives, and a woman who in the 1910s married a younger man she outranked officially--a judge who she called "Judgie".

Opinion | The good doctor of Travancore

Dr Mary Poonen Lukose was the first Malayali woman graduate who became a legend during her lifetime .She went on to study medicine in the UK and rose to eminence after she was employed with the state...

www.livemint.com

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Manu S Pillai

@UnamPillai

3 years

'The right wing will sell this as a “genocide” of Hindus, while others make it all about fighting feudalism. The truth, however, has many faces [all at once].' Old interview with thoughts on the Mappila Rebellion.

Variyamkunnath and nuances of the Malabar Rebellion: Author Manu S Pillai interview

The recent announcement that director Aashiq Abu and actor Prithviraj are coming together to make a film on Variyamkunnath, who was one of the leaders of the Ma

www.thenewsminute.com

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