'Three hotels with exceptional food left me hankering to go back to feast at their tables,' says Rahul Jacob.

Drawn in by fuzzy promises about unleashing the entrepreneur in each of us and the benefits of being one's own boss, people find themselves instead oppressed by an algorithm, notes Rahul Jacob.

In the past decade-and-a-half, sections of urban India have become much more liberal about accepting gay men and women than our colonial-era laws might have suggested, says Rahul Jacob.

'Our grandparents' generation knew one another.' 'In our generation, you could go a lifetime without meeting someone from the other country,' British Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie tells Rahul Jacob.

'In one mansion we visited, I was told the doors in the back courtyard had to be kept closed because to have the front and back doors open at the same time would result in Chettiar wealth flowing away,' notes Rahul Jacob after a memorable visit to Karaikudi.

... 'is long lives are generally the norm today,' says Rahul Jacob.

'"We want to get the learnings from Flipkart and take it to other parts of the world," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon was quoted as saying.' 'That is a very large tuition fee for an MBA in a country that outdoes Brazil and perhaps even China in busting multinationals' knees and sometimes their heads as they try to crack a market of mostly impoverished people run by a government that has never really given up the sadistic pleasures of administering the license raj,' notes Rahul Jacob.

'We must all commit to sharing less nonsense and quarrelling less on social media.' 'We could use that time instead to meeting and speaking to our friends and family instead of 'liking' their posts.' 'Zuckerberg will be the poorer for that, but our lives will be so much richer,' says Rahul Jacob.

'The American fear of the Chinese military is overblown. The countries that should be concerned are China's neighbours,' Jeffrey Wasserstrom tells Rahul Jacob.

Pierre Paganini may be the most important reason Roger has the best record in men's tennis in the past 12 months.

'Anantkumar Hegde will be pleased that those thousands who formed a long line to enter the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral on Christmas Eve night were both aware of their 'parentage' -- to use his insulting term -- and would describe themselves as Hindu,' says Rahul Jacob.

'Open defecation kills more Indians than any terrorist organisation could, but turning that around will take communicating that all Indians are created equal and that continuing this practice is anti-national,' points out Rahul Jacob.

You can return to Delhi even after 25 years and find that friends treat you as if you had never left, says Rahul Jacob.

'India, by virtue of its gigantic population and geography, stands at the very front line of this climate catastrophe.' 'But this is a threat that our easily distracted national mind is ill-equipped to think about, let alone plan for,' says Rahul Jacob.

GST, a much needed reform that widens the tax net, promises to strangle many legitimate businesses while they wait for the tax administration and systems to catch up, says Rahul Jacob.

'We are all members of a tennis paradise that this year improbably promises to last forever -- and we owe it in no small part to the two champions' parents,' notes Rahul Jacob.

And no, it doesn't begin with a W...

'In contrast to the generally buoyant tone of the Economic Survey in January, he sounds uncharacteristically pessimistic, saying that forces in the world economy -- slowing global trade, protectionism, robots -- will limit India's manufacturing to levels well below what propelled East Asia's economies decades ago.'

Distressing as the first month of the Trump administration -- with its missteps on matters of governance, ethics and protocol -- has been, it has been a comic opera of buffoons by comparison to the horrors that await us, fears Rahul Jacob.

'Not only are four of the top five fathers, but Federer famously injured a knee, weakened by years of twisting and turning on tennis courts, early this year while giving his elder pair of twins a bath.'