Beggar Girl Playing The Flute

Ramnath Subramanian covers a wide range of topics in this collection—from a beggar girl playing the flute to the eccentric painter Niko Pirosmani; from a grackle in the backyard to his very “green” great-grandmother, Patitha—and in each instance, his insightful and incisive narrative marches with delight, and at other times moves like a minuet. With a keen instinct for storytelling and a keen eye for details, the author describes the world and his encounters therein with panache and verve. These short essays were culled from his weekly newspaper columns published in the El Paso Times between 1998 and 2019.