humour - Comfortably Numb

Feature: Do men read romance fiction?

Real Men Don’t Read Romantic Novels. Or Do They? I`m a writer, and my stories usually carry more than their fair share of darkness. I don’t know why, that’s just the way they are. Then, I wrote a romance, a light-as-air, sweet-as-rock-candy tale. And when that love story went out into the world a…

Humour: Indians lazy? How dare you!

The flip side of laziness A new study recently dubbed Indians the laziest people in the world. Sheila Kumar attempts a languid rebuttal What is this, I say. Why has this magazine study said that we are the laziest lot in the world? Do not believe this for a moment. The matter is deeper…

Humour: Confessions of a Steal-dealer

Confessions Of A Steal-Dealer I am a steal-dealer. You wouldn’t know it from looking at me. On the outside, I look like any other reasonably sane, reasonably intelligent, reasonably content Indian woman — but show me a certain kind of deal and watch the Ms Hyde in me push down Dr Jekyl with…

Humour: My life as a romance writer

My Long and Winding Road to Writing a Mills & Boon-Style Romance The romance bug bit me when I was in class eight and it bit hard. I became addicted to Mills and Boons. Back then only M&Bs qualified as true-blue romances. Oh, there was Barbara Cartland, but no self-respecting girl would admit to…

Feature: The importance of humour

Laugh your way to joy! As we celebrate World Laughter Day tomorrow, Sheila Kumar explains how humour has indeed become the best panacea of our times Can you do a piece to coincide with World Laughter Day, my editor asks me. Much mystified, I go online to dig up some information about World Laughter Day,…

Feature: The new face of humour

As the times rapidly change, the rich seam of humour we tap into is also rapidly changing. It`s black humour, but of course. The other good-natured, gentle ribbing really would not stand up to what we are seeing and experiencing in life these days. It`s black humour and it is everywhere; it has…

Book review: Mrs Funnybones by Twinkle Khanna

Neat cute Mrs Funnybones by Twinkle Khanna (Penguin ) does that difficult to do thing: it sheds the baggage naturally accruing to a book written by a former starlet now star wife. What`s more, it sheds that weight while not repudiating a single fact of the author`s life and lifestyle. Meaning, it isn`t quite tales…

Book review: Return of the Butterfly by Moni Mohsin

Return of the Butterfly by Moni Mohsin I just made the acquaintance of the Butterfly. She knows all of Lahore, half of Isloo (er, Islamabad to us ?), half of Dubai and a good spattering of Delhi also; her understanding of world affairs is not too nuanced, she mixes her metaphors all the time but…

Book review: How to Make Enemies and Offend People by G Sampath

How to Make Enemies and Offend People by G Sampath. Penguin/Viking publications. This is just the book one needs to dip into when the weight of the world`s misfortunes seem to, strangely enough, land heavily on your shoulders or in your head. Don`t ask `why me?` Grab Sampath`s book instead. Readers familiar with the veteran…