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Home / Author / K Narayanan

K Narayanan

K Narayanan

Articles by K Narayanan

This Wiki, that year: The world’s online encyclopaedia turns 25

What Wikipedia is to the world of facts and information, Wikimedia has been to art, heritage and natural history. Seen here: Images of John Singer Sargent’s 1918 painting, Gassed; a necklace dating to 1800 BCE Egypt; and a Eurasian hoopoe.

Updated on Jun 26, 2026 12:06 IST

The Marilyn we never knew: Looking back on Monroe in her centenary year

Posing for a portrait in Palm Springs, California, in 1954. (Getty Images)

Updated on Jun 12, 2026 12:38 IST

Hidden charges: Sven Beckert discusses the surprising history of capitalism

(HT Illustration: Rahul Pakarath)

Updated on Apr 3, 2026 14:15 IST

Signature ’toons: The claymation studio behind Wallace & Gromit turns 50

A still from Robin Robin (2021), in which a robin is raised by a family of mice.

Updated on Mar 7, 2026 14:39 IST

CAPTCHA games: Slay imps, monitor stocks to prove you are human

There’s a kind of CAPTCHA in which the user plays Doom to pass the bot check. The premise is simple: kill three enemies.

Updated on Feb 20, 2026 14:36 IST

Proof of life: How CAPTCHA changed the internet

(HT Imaging: Rahul Pakarath via ChatGPT)

Updated on Feb 20, 2026 14:33 IST

Read receipts: K Narayanan writes on growing up with Christie

A collection of Christie titles. ’The books were a window into middle-class England through the 20th century, as the old certainties of Empire gave way to the pessimism and paranoia of war,’ Narayanan says.

Updated on Jan 24, 2026 09:14 IST

Murder, she wrote: Agatha Christie celebrations around the world

In Torquay, Devon, on the Agatha Christie Walking Trail. (englishriviera.co.uk)

Updated on Jan 24, 2026 09:13 IST

How Agatha Christie inspired thrillers in cultures around the world

The 1987 Soviet-era film Desyat Negrityat (10 Little Negroes) uses the bleak, original ending of And Then There Were None (1939), a tale set on an island where people are being picked off one by one.

Updated on Jan 24, 2026 09:10 IST

And then there were more: The long arc of Agatha Christie remakes

Daniel Craig is Benoit Blanc (2025) in Glass Onion, the second film in the Knives Out franchise inspired by Christie’s work.

Updated on Jan 24, 2026 09:07 IST

How to get away with murder: A look at the magic of Agatha Christie

A still from Kenneth Branagh’s retelling of Murder on the Orient Express (2017). (,)

Updated on Jan 24, 2026 09:03 IST

A 10,000-year clock, a future library: Grand creative projects set in the future

Inside the Clock of the Long Now, being built in Texas. Designed to keep time for 10,000 years, its century hand will advance once every 100 years.

Updated on Jan 10, 2026 15:54 IST

Swords drawn: K Narayanan on 2025 and the world of videogames

A still from Ghost of Yotei.

Updated on Dec 27, 2025 10:06 IST

Frankenstein, Skynet, Ultron: Sentient machines in pop culture

In Arthur C Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the supercomputer HAL prioritises mission objectives over the lives of crew members.

Updated on Oct 24, 2025 11:52 IST

Welcome to the party: This Diwali, a look at the ancient history of celebration

A painting dated to the 1700s shows Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah watching a fireworks display. (Wikimedia)

Updated on Oct 17, 2025 13:51 IST

That’s going to leave a mark: How the world of punctuation is changing

(HT Illustration: Puneet Kumar)

Updated on Sep 26, 2025 11:42 IST

Surge pricing: Decoding the rising cost of our digital lives

. (HT IMAGING: PUNEET KUMAR VIA CHATGPT)

Updated on Sep 20, 2025 08:21 IST

Across the Jordan: K Narayanan on his love affair with the Wheel of Time books

Updated on Sep 13, 2025 11:58 IST

Wolf pack: 80 years since the death of Hitler, why does his legacy endure?

Adolf Hitler at a meeting of the Hitler Youth, in 1938. (Above right) The first Nazi concentration camps were built for political prisoners, in 1933. (Getty Images)

Updated on Aug 30, 2025 10:18 IST

If there is a ‘father of conservation policy’, it is Julian Huxley

Huxley also ushered in CITES, 50 years ago, a global trade agreement that is still saving species from extinction. (Wikimedia)

Updated on Aug 15, 2025 08:42 IST

Wild card entries: Check out 5 species saved by the CITES agreement

Overfishing had nearly wiped out the humphead wrasse, in the oceans of the Indo-Pacific. (A single fish can still fetch up to <span class='webrupee'>₹</span>75,000.) (Wikimedia)

Updated on Aug 15, 2025 08:38 IST

Jeopardy!: See how a global agreement is quietly helping save rare species

Spot: The red panda, Asian black bear, giraffe, common ostrich, tiger, rhinoceros, Humboldt penguin, Nico-bar pigeon, rufous-necked hornbill, Indian python, panther chameleon, and grey- headed flying fox. (HT Imaging: Puneet Kumar)

Updated on Aug 15, 2025 08:36 IST

The adorable trolls behind the memes: Enter the world of Tove Jansson’s Moomins

The books feature a recurring cast of characters: young Moomintroll; the affectionate Moominmamma; the adventurous Moominpapa; cowardly little Sniff; carefree Snufkin; and Hemulen, the family friend from a collection-obsessed species.

Updated on Jul 25, 2025 15:06 IST

Our world on autoplay: K Narayanan writes on 20 years of YouTube

SPOT the first-ever video, the ice-bucket challenge, Justin Bieber, Moo Deng, MrBeast, Dhanush and Kolaveri Di, Pomplamoose, Logan Paul, Charlie and his brother, SNL’s early viral Lazy Sunday sketch, Hanumankind, Baby Shark, PewDiePie, Jamie Oliver, Psy, and Tay Zonday singing Chocolate Rain.

Updated on Jun 20, 2025 08:06 IST

Pentagrams, flames, runes: How come the same rules apply to all the demons?

A still from the TV series Supernatural (2005-20).

Updated on Jun 6, 2025 08:13 IST

In India, the ‘Lost Generation’ was actually a generation that found its voice

Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru addresses the midnight session of the Constituent Assembly on August 15, 1947. (HT Archives)

Updated on May 30, 2025 14:14 IST

The peak before the fall: Jazz, glamour, Gatsby and a short-lived Golden Age

A still from the series Fellow Travelers (2023), set in a fictional speakeasy called The Cozy Corner, in the 1940s.

Updated on May 30, 2025 14:13 IST

Trapped between two wars: The art of the Lost Generation

A still from The Great Gatsby (2013).

Updated on May 31, 2025 13:20 IST

Jane character energy: How are Austen’s novels still the stuff of blockbusters?

The Bridget Jones franchise is the story of Pride and Prejudice, retold. Watch the fourth instalment, this year’s …Mad About the Boy, for the way it moves its characters beautifully into uncertain middle-age.

Updated on May 9, 2025 08:08 IST

The rapid-fire Hitchcock quiz

Updated on Apr 25, 2025 08:11 IST

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