The beguiling world of kama, presented around the Western world's Christmastime.

"Our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness," wrote Vladimir Nabokov in the opening lines of his memoir, Speak Memory.

Nabokov believed that human beings are more afraid of the abyss after death and viewed the one before birth more calmly.

By Sanjaya Baru

The road to sustainable markets

THE IDEA THAT an ancient Indian concept, dharma, might offer insight into the nature of the competitive market is, on the face of it, bizarre. But this is precisely what I intend to show in this essay. Dharma is a difficult word to translate into English. Duty, goodness, justice, law, and religion have something to do with it, but they all fall short. For our purposes, however, think of dharma as doing the right thing, both in private and public life.

The much-maligned caste system and the training it provided to budding entrepreneurs may have played a crucial role in India's growth story.