Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Feature: That Room Of Our Own

Virginia Woolf revisited For all the much-vaunted freedoms, Indian women are still seeking their niche. In the autumn of 1928, Virginia Woolf delivered an essay full of thought-provoking, even groundbreaking ideas underpinned with wry humour, to the students of the Girton College for Women at Oxford. It was a rambling discourse but it was by…

Feature: Pets are Fantastic Destressers

Pets keep you perpetually sorted out! Pets are the ultimate destressers. There can be no argument about the fact that pets are great company, wonderful partners in fun and grateful recipients of your affection. A lesser-known fact is that pets play a central role in the state of your wellbeing and help you keep stress…

Travel: The journey back home

The journey back home When a professional assignment turned personal Photo: Anil Kumar Ezhuthachan/Palakkad Trails. As assignments went, it was a fairly routine one. I was doing the area map-makers termed South Malabar, comprising Palakkad, Guruvayoor, Trichur and thereabouts, for a travel book. The idea at HQ was to send people to cover areas they…

Feature: Indiranagar re-invented

Indiranagar re-invented Yesterday’s wilderness is today’s haute haunt. A look at the area’s changing face. It happened so fast that residents of Indiranagar still haven’t had time to come to terms with what’s hit them. Some are agape with delight, others with dismay. From a sleepy tree-lined locality that attracted more…

Travel: Andaman Islands

Paradise islands More than a year after the tsunami, the Andaman and Nicobar islands are seeing a new rush of visitors. Sheila Kumar is among them The tsunami of December 2004 savaged the Nicobar Islands, and did not spare the Andamans either. A series of unrelenting tremblers inflicted damage on roads and buildings, submerged lighthouses and…

Travel: Srirangapatna, Karnataka

In Srirangapatna, the evidence of grandeur and past glory is everywhere. Tourists invariably make Srirangapatna a transit stop en route to the Ranganathittu bird sanctuary or as an early stop before Mysore, just 13 km away. That’s good because it enables this quiet little town to retain its air of secluded privacy. But it’s also…

Travel: Burano, Italy

Drenched in colour SHEILA KUMAR drinks in the sights on the gorgeous Italian island of Burano The profusion of colour in Burano seems to follow no set colour codes; it just celebrates something intangible Sometimes, Venice tends to overwhelm with its sheer uniqueness, its grandiose, decaying beauty. You visit Venice and feel it’s a sort…

Feature: The Bet Julian Simon Won

Doomsayers and doomslayers On the 25th anniversary of Julian Simon’s famous bet on the future of the planet, a look at the ways in which we see our tomorrow. IN August last year, Matthew Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert, laid a bet with John Tierney. Simmons predicted that oil prices will soar into the…

Travel: Venice, Italy

Photo: Yaj Malik Magic, pure and simple Venice is so breathtaking, it is impossible to be objective about it ALL of Venice is ablaze with lights at night. The dark emerald waters of the lagoon lap against decrepit walls. As our vaporetto (water taxi) glides past old palazzos, open windows permit us to look directly into…

Travel: Ross Island, Andamans

Where time stands still Ross Island is a jaw-dropping walk down the Raj lane. The Andaman group of islands has a lot to offer the visitor, from the Cellular Jail, where sadness seeps from the stones like something out of a Marquez novel, and coves and beaches where you find shells of rare and luminous…