writings, musings, ramblings, snapshots

Welcome

Welcome to my digital archive

This site is mainly a collection of my writings over the past 32 years. (I've been writing for longer than that, but this record of my digital life began at Princeton in 1986).

The easiest way to find something here is to use the search box. Type in a subject and chances are I've written about that at some point.

I appreciate feedback. Feel free to message me on twitter or email kanthan dot pillay at gmail dot com. If you find anything here to be useful, feel free to share it.

What I wrote on this day years ago...

Only victims, no glory in Gaza

21 November 2012

Flashback to the 80s: So Van was watching the 8 o'clock news on TV at a bar and the camera hones in on a guy standing on a building roof about to commit suicide.

"Bet you 10 rand he jumps," says the bartender to Van. "Done," says Van.

Seconds later, the jumper comes to a messy end. Van hands over his ten bucks to the bartender who chuckles and confesses: "I knew it all along because I saw it on the 6 o'clock news."

"So did I," says Van, "but I didn't know he was going to do it again after that."

My favourite writings...

Angels in desolation

6 August 1999

'In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty,' Phil Ochs once said ...

DAWN was breaking over the magnificent desolation of the Karoo landscape as cats eyes flung themselves towards me along the road pointing toward an infinite horizon.

The butterfly that stamped

24 September 1999

This is the 9th month of the year 1999. There are 99 days to go to the last year of this century. Do you feel a sense of destiny?

A BUTTERFLY flapped his wings in East Timor, setting up gentle spirals of air currents that grew as they intersected harmoniously with others nearby. He lived gloriously for a few short hours, mated, and died. Night fell and the remnants of his wings tossed and turned, no longer with life of their own, in the now strong breeze.

The stars looked down silently upon the scene. They had seen it before.