Latest news with #Krishnan
Scroll.in
5 hours ago
- General
- Scroll.in
‘White Lillies': An intimate chronicle of a woman through terrains of loss, grief, and enduring pain
What happens when you lose the one through whom you learned love? And what if you lose not one, but two such anchors? What do you do when you are left with holes of their shape in your heart? How do you move forward when the only desire left in you is the longing to have loved them just a little harder, held them a little longer? White Lilies: An Essay on Grief by Vidya Krishnan is a tender yet aching meditation on these questions – an intimate chronicle of her journey through the terrain of loss, grief, and enduring pain. An unending loss In August, when the marigolds were in full bloom, Krishnan did not return to Delhi. Instead, she flew to Chennai to be with her dying grandmother – the woman who had raised her, fed her, and loved her with the quiet fierceness only grandmothers know. As she watched her haemorrhage before her eyes, Krishnan could do nothing but hold her wrinkled hand, the same hand that once comforted her in childhood. They cremated her on a Sunday afternoon. By Monday morning, Krishnan was back in Delhi. Grief-stricken and trying to move on, though barely. Her partner, Ali, had dinner plans that evening. He offered to cancel them, but she asked him to go, gently reminding him to bring soup on his way back. He never returned. A car hit him. And then another. In the span of a single weekend, Krishnan lost two of the greatest loves of her life – her grandmother to time, and her partner to a random, fatal accident. For years, she reeled from the double blow – mourning, disbelieving, grappling with the sheer absurdity and finality of death. A seasoned journalist long accustomed to reporting on illness, accidents, and loss, Krishnan found herself unarmed when death arrived at her doorstep. 'The thing about death,' she writes, 'is that the loss you feel the day a person dies is simply an inciting event. If you live long enough, you lose them repeatedly, for as long as you live and they do not.' In White Lilies, Krishnan brings forth a searing anatomy of grief, laying bare its raw, unyielding presence in the body. She writes about how grief is not simply an abstract emotion, but a physical invader; how it takes root in your memory and personal space, burrowing itself into the very fabric of your existence. It lives in you like a parasite, gnaws at your stomach, and refuses to be sated. The smallest reminders about those now gone only deepen that pit, transforming every corner of life into a shadow of loss. 'No one ever warns you about days like these,' Krishnan writes, 'when hell resides in the pit of your stomach, when you must breathe through a bottomless black hole.' Grief, in her telling, is as real as the teeth in your mouth, as tangible and inescapable as the air you breathe. It is not a metaphor, but a relentless force that takes hold of the body, creating a space where memory and suffering converge. Delhi, the city of Death She tries to make sense of it in every way she knows – in science, in religion, in recurring patterns, in the minutiae of daily life, in the mysteries of the afterlife – until she finds someone to blame: Delhi. Krishnan writes the city from the vantage point of the inevitable – Death. She lends material weight to the spectral cityscapes of Anisha Lalvani's Girls Who Stray and Ranbir Sidhu's Night in Delhi, both of which render Delhi as a city simmering with pain, silent suffering, insecurities, stark inequalities, and a brutal power imbalance – where the rich rule over the poor, and people can die arbitrarily, abruptly. She does all this while grieving. White Lilies offers a succinct and devastating commentary on the classist nature of Delhi, as seen through its roads, its traffic, and the reckless rhythms of driving. The traffic in Delhi, as Krishnan astutely observes, is not simply a logistical challenge. It is governed by the petty yet insidious dynamics of power. The streets unfold as an intricate 'dance of dominance,' where hierarchy hums in every revving engine and screeches through every abrupt brake. This relentless choreography of movement, filled with anger and disregard for life, reflects the unspoken 'class warfare' that defines the city. The powerful navigate the roads with impunity, their status allowing them to bypass the rules, while the powerless cling to fragile aspirations of breaking the rules, crossing lines, in a desperate attempt to taste power, even if just for a fleeting moment. It is in these small, everyday (mis)adventures that the stark inequalities of Delhi's social fabric are most acutely felt, where the struggle for power plays out on the most ordinary of stages – the road. Delhi, with its heartlessness, its endless history of death and renewal, stood as the perfect mirror to her mourning. But in this unforgiving metropolis, she also found a companion – a voice that could speak to her grief with a language both bitter and beautiful: Mirza Ghalib. In the midst of her own sorrow, Krishnan found solace in the city's echoes of Ghalib's ghazals, as if his poetic legacy held a secret truth she had been searching for. 'In his lifetime, grief did not diminish him. It expanded his capacity to hold infinite beauty.' Krishnan brings Delhi to life through the dead – those who have passed, but whose presence continues to haunt the city's streets. She traces a historical narrative of Delhi's own suffering, its cycles of destruction and rebirth. From the Mughals to the East India Company to the British colonial period, and then swiftly to the present, she paints a poetic yet painful account of how much the city, and more so its residents, have endured. Through these centuries of ruin and renewal, Krishnan evokes the city not just as a geographical space, but as a living entity – one that has absorbed and reflected the endless pains of its people, yet has always, relentlessly, risen again. White Lilies is a devastatingly honest meditation on the unyielding finality of death, written by someone who has spent years trying to make sense of its silences. Krishnan's exploration of grief is anything but abstract; it is raw, lived, and searing. She meets loss not from a distance, but up close – touching its jagged edges, tracing its contours through memory, regret, and the stubborn persistence of love. Grief, in her hands, is not a solid entity but a mosaic that is fragile, luminous, and alive. This is not merely a book about death, but about surviving its aftermath, about learning to live alongside absence, and about discovering what it means to live with life, with tenderness, with regard, for oneself and for others. It is an invocation of how to carry the dead within us as quiet companions on the road ahead. Powerful and quietly shattering, White Lilies does not offer closure – it offers companionship. And in doing so, it gently, insistently asks: how do we grieve, how do we remember, and how do we begin again?
Time of India
7 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
IT ministry mulling to fund 2D material research project
New Delhi: Electronics and IT ministry is mulling to support research on 2D material and planning to float expressions of interest to select the project, senior officials said on Friday. 2D materials have the potential to produce over 10 times smaller chips than silicon-based chips being developed at present. "We have volunteered and come forward to support programmes... with ANRF - which means putting our own research money alongside what ANRF does and trying to encourage the industry to come forward. One of the early ones that we are pushing in that space is a 2D research centre," Meity Secretary S Krishnan said while speaking at the Tec-Verse event. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) was established by the government to seed, grow and promote research and development (R&D) and foster a culture of research and innovation throughout Indian universities, colleges, research institutions, and R&D laboratories. A team of 30 scientists from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has submitted a proposal to the government for developing technologies using a new class of semiconductor materials, called 2D materials, that could enable chip sizes as small as one-tenth of the smallest chips currently in global production and develop India's leadership in semiconductors. Krishnan said that efforts should be made to collaboratively develop technologies that are supported with public funds, and duplication of projects must be avoided. "We are in the age of Deepseek (Chinese AI platform)...building on each other's efforts to go forward. This may not be pure greenfield research. A lot of it is innovation (and ), a lot of it is building on existing models on things which we can take forward. Ultimately, the test of the pudding is in what we deliver, what it is people of the country are able to benefit from," Krishnan said. Ministry of Electronics and IT, Additional Secretary, Amitesh Sinha said the role of materials in semiconductors is very important. "Earlier, everybody was focusing on electronics and communication, but now material science and chemical engineering are all very important," he said. Sinha said that Meity is mulling to float an expression of interest to select the project for funding support. PTI
Economic Times
12 hours ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Meity secretary calls for greater collaboration among govt, industry, academia
Greater convergence and synergies among government agencies, industry and academia will be key for India to leapfrog in its technology evolution, S Krishnan, secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), said Friday. 'We are in the age of DeepSeek,' said Krishnan, referring to the frugally built open-source artificial intelligence model from China that took the tech world by storm in January. He said a lot of work in AI and innovation would be on building on existing models and efforts to take things forward rather than greenfield research. 'It's an interesting balance between… doing the whole thing ourselves as against making sure that we collaborate with the right partners to make sure that we are able to leapfrog,' the official said. He was speaking at TecVerse, an exhibition of work being done by Meity's R&D arms Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology and Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research. A memorandum of understanding between software exporter Tata Consultancy Services and C-DAC was announced at the event. The two will partner on an Indian sovereign cloud platform. The ministry is looking to jointly fund a research centre on 2D materials with the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, Krishnan said. Initiatives by other arms of the government, such as defence and pharmaceuticals, are also tapping into various R&D infrastructure and resources funded by Meity, he added. Meity on Thursday made a presentation before the parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology on the impact of the emergence of AI and related issues. Ministries of defence, home affairs and power also made presentations on the topic.
Time of India
12 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Meity secretary calls for greater collaboration among govt, industry, academia
Greater convergence and synergies among government agencies, industry and academia will be key for India to leapfrog in its technology evolution, S Krishnan , secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ( Meity ), said Friday.'We are in the age of DeepSeek ,' said Krishnan, referring to the frugally built open-source artificial intelligence model from China that took the tech world by storm in January. He said a lot of work in AI and innovation would be on building on existing models and efforts to take things forward rather than greenfield research.'It's an interesting balance between… doing the whole thing ourselves as against making sure that we collaborate with the right partners to make sure that we are able to leapfrog,' the official was speaking at TecVerse, an exhibition of work being done by Meity's R&D arms Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology and Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research.A memorandum of understanding between software exporter Tata Consultancy Services and C-DAC was announced at the event. The two will partner on an Indian sovereign cloud ministry is looking to jointly fund a research centre on 2D materials with the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, Krishnan by other arms of the government, such as defence and pharmaceuticals, are also tapping into various R&D infrastructure and resources funded by Meity, he on Thursday made a presentation before the parliamentary standing committee on communications and information technology on the impact of the emergence of AI and related issues. Ministries of defence, home affairs and power also made presentations on the topic.
The Hindu
a day ago
- Health
- The Hindu
College students take pledge against drug abuse in Tiruppur
College students took pledge to combat drug abuse and got their certificates of participation downloaded from the Central government's internet portal, while observing the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking at Chikkanna Government Arts College on Thursday. At an awareness seminar organised jointly by District Legal Services Authority of Tiruppur district (DLSA) and Vizhuthugal organisation, students learnt about the utility of Free Legal Aid Centre and toll-free number 15100, to combat the crime, said college principal Krishnan and Director of the organisation M. Thangavel. In her key-note address, Sub-Judge and DLSA secretary, Tiruppur district, Mohanavalli, cited data to highlight the link between drug abuse and heinous crimes. Rampant drug-abuse by youths and students was a cause for concern. Laws and sentences against drug abuse were very stringent, as terrorism across the world was mostly funded by the illicit money generated by drug mafia, the DLSA secretary said. Shajitha Rahima, Mental Health Counsellor, explained the importance of safeguarding mental health, while elaborating on how drug abuse caused deterioration of health of individuals and society at large.
