Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Guest column: You Are The Sky

When an attempt to imbibe serenity brings about more confusion. This is a Covid-19 quarantine story. It dates back to early April, a fortnight or so after we were first initiated into the art of hunkering down at home. This was a time when everyone was sending out helpful and useless tips to each other,…

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Humour: The Song That Reduces Anxiety

                                  Weightless worries during Covid times In which soothing music increased, not decreased, worry My sleepless nights are getting to be a matter of concern for my kith and kin. I`m a certified worrywart and the Virus-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named has worsened my…

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Feature: The SRK Revelations, a Fangirl Story

This ran in FEMINA, where I was working at the time I met the Bollywood superstar.  I cannot, in all honesty, say that meeting Shah Rukh Khan changed my life. But yes, it shattered some long-held myths and reinforced  some others. The meeting occurred when SRK was shooting in my office for his home production …

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Humour: The South Indian Sari Blouse

The South Indian Sari Blouse Blouse. The very word is, oh I don’t know, blowsy. It carries within it the faintest suggestion of something racy, something naughty, and something bawdy. But the blouse is what we who live south of the Vindhyas call the sari accoutrement. These blouses, a strange mix of kitsch and colour,…

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Humour: Me, my Husband and Mari Kondo

Me, My Husband And Marie Kondo Now that Marie Kondo’s been and gone, I will tell you a story. At the time when she was a veritable whirlwind swooshing her way through the entire world, leaving neat piles of TK (to keep) and TC (to chuck) items in her wake, there were some people who…

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Humour: Fashion sure is an enigma!

  From the ramps to the roads I remember my first fashion faux pas like it was yesterday. I was working at the country’s leading women’s magazine. I went up to the editor and asked if I could do a ‘slightly different’ fashion piece. What about, she asked. Why, I said breezily, how fashion is…

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Humour: Where has the word `taken` gone?

Where has the word `taken gone? How the writer has stumbled upon a conspiracy to remove a key word from the English dictionary. Now I don’t for a minute want to ring any alarm bells. I don’t even want to imply that I have stumbled on a Yossarian-like campaign to slowly, inexorably remove words from…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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