Those familiar with his column would nail the lie in the title - apparantly a publisher’s ploy. Mr Prakash is anything but clueless about California. He is as knowledgeble about the prime dosa joint in San Francisco, as he is about the city’s connection with the Gadar movement. I have read his engaging piece on a philosophy teacher’s take on Silicon Valley (Mr Prakash, M A in Philosophy, taught at Mysore Maharaja’s College before joining Indian Foreign Service); on the allure of MBA, and about his re-discovery of the US in the company of Dr Kalam.

Invited to preside over a Stanford University music festival at which A R Rahman was honoured, Mr Prakash did his home work so thoroughly that he used the material for a Rediff.column, with knowledgeble references to the Bollywood Khans, Aishwarya Rai and the then popular Rahman numbers – Chaiya, Chaiya, and Taal Se Taal Mila.

His column gives one an insight into the man, his flair for writing and his mundane interests. Mr Prakash watches “a fair amount of TV, all kinds, movies, series, news, views, sports and scandals”. Mr Prakash’s recent piece - Is Hard Work Worth It - is a study on hard work, viewed from the perspective of a Wall Street hedge fund manager (an endangered species) and a German house painter. I picked up from his column this German word - schadenfreude — which means ‘deriving satisfaction from the misery of others.’ Mr Prakash had, presumably, picked it up when he was sent to Germany, at our foreign office expense, as a language trainee.

Cross-filed from My Take