Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Travel: Chez Jane Austen

Actually, right now we are having a break from the Austen machine. The past couple of years were basically one long Austen carnival, as devised deftly and wonderfully, by Hollywood, and ably assisted by the doughty BBC. There were a couple of interpretations of Austen’s all-time classic, Pride and Prejudice (and no, I’m not including…

Book review: Jesus by Deepak Chopra

The itinerant’s tale An easy reader on Christ’s early years. Deepak Chopra follows up his book on Buddha with this account of Jesus Christ’s unknown years. Not quite fiction not quite fact, Chopra’s Jesus wanders about known lands… Nazareth to Jerusalem to Galilee to Damascus. No, he doesn 217;t come to India, at least not…

Feature: Lift That Chin Up! Shore up Your Self-esteem!

Chin up and stay happy! The key to maintaining healthy self-esteem is the ability to distinguish between a basic sense of one’s worth and one’s reactions to external forces. YOU ARE SPECIAL. Be aware that you have many good things going for you. It doesn’t take much to bring an already fragile sense of self…

Feature: A Temple for Troubled Minds

Faith Fatale The Chottanikkara temple, near Kochi in Kerala, is a place that attracts the mentally disturbed, who seek solace here when all else fails. I’m standing with scores of people facing the closed doors of the Shiva shrine, awaiting darshan. Suddenly, without warning, it starts. A handful of women begin moaning. It is an…

Feature: Indian Men and the Fifty:Fifty Syndrome

Fifty-fifty Indian men are an odd mix of the deeply conservative and the half-hearted liberal. The saas-bahu serials, with their painted women who deliver painfully long sermons on emancipation, continue to draw eyeballs. Metroplex films dealing with prickly issues such as wife swapping, living together and love in the times of intolerance, draw their own…

Feature: Quit That nagging!

Quit that nagging! It’s time people realised that nagging gets them nowhere. I have a friend, male, of course, who insists nagging is in women’s genes. It seems that haranguing comes naturally to women only because it is hardwired into their psyche. While I definitely do not agree with the friend’s theory, there is no…

Book review: Feminism and Contemporary Women Writers: Rethinking Subjectivity by Radha Chakravarty

Feminist voices An in-depth account of how six women writers view women vis-a-vis the world. There had to come a time when our post- colonial, post-Modern, post-feminist sisters would actually ask, “What is feminism?” That time, sadly, may be now. After the glorious age of Millett, Steinem, Friedan, Wolf and Co., the Movement continues to…

Feature: Tamil Cinema, That Vicious Circle

The vicious circle When it comes to Chennai city, is it art imitating life or the other way around, asks Sheila Kumar. Reel to real The other day, someone close to me was accosted on a dimly-lit lane off Greams Road. The road was deserted, and the young woman was returning home when a motorcyclist…

Feature: When Jethro Tull Rocked Bangalore

Rock and roll will never die For days before the show hit town, there were groups of people going around Bangalore with a beatific ‘It’s-a-miracle -no-less’ look on their faces. The group gathered others like them, who gathered others like them and then, a few thousands in strength, they shuffled…

Feature: Ageing Gracefully

Grace while greying Ageing is not all bad news because the years also bestow certain attributes. Praise it or blame it on the times we live in. Ageing can be retarded, arrested, prevented in many ways, ranging from top-draw and extremely expensive lotions and potions, Botox and fillers, myriad surgical interventions, and the like. And…