Features Archives - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Guest column: Prisoners of the Algorithm

Prisoners of the Algorithm A quick question: What`s to stop us even as we hurtle to hell with our fingers poised to click? The answer is: nothing but our self-control/willpower/ self-discipline. And if you are rolling your eyes at that answer, well, so am I. I came deliberately late to two docudramas fast acquiring cult…

Guest column: Stardust on the console table

Stardust on the console table I read about the Khans, Shah Rukh and Gauri, entering into a collab with Airbnb, to throw open the doors of their Delhi house to all and sundry. All and sundry of the paying population, of course, and the partnership begins with winners of a contest being selected…

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,…

Sangeetha Shinde Tee talks about The Naked Indian Woman

The naked truth Sangeetha Shinde Tee talks about the journey and purpose of her book, The Naked Indian Woman, and the lifetime that went into the making of it. What set you off on this particular quest? For as long back as I can remember, I have been told to be silent. My parents…

Guest column: Travellers from Hell

Travellers from hell Is it in some DNAs to be horrendous tourists? For far too many years to count, us Indians have won the Terrible Tourist sweepstakes, hands down. We are the group of travellers who point at the short skirts of the cabin crew and snigger. Who settle a chubby teenager on our lap…

Guest Column: To Mask or Not to Mask, That Is NOT the Question

Let`s face it, masks R us, for now and the foreseeable future. A fresh slew of reports have come to the consensus that masks do a first-rate job of protecting us, as well as curbing the spread of Covid. This does not, of course, mean we can jettison the other safeguards like hand hygiene, physical…

Guest column: Worrywarts or neurotics?

Worrywarts or neurotics, the jury is still out There is absolutely no shame in admitting that the pestiferous pestilence has brought us to our knees, felled some of us, left us bewildered, flailing and crushed under the weight of our helplessness. One side effect is this state of mind the experts are calling `worried wellness.`…

Feature: If She`s Malayali, She Loves Gold!

Gold is a Malayali woman’s BFF. But don’t be misled into thinking it’s just an expensive indulgence. The latest scandal down south involves the state of Kerala, a woman named Swapna Suresh and 30kgs of smuggled gold. Not surprisingly, the incident has led to snide comments yet again on Kerala’s gold-love. Actually, we need to…

Feature: Where have all the editors gone?

Where have (all) the editors gone? First a hark-back, to Delhi, circa the late Nineties. At a dinner, I found myself on the receiving end of some trenchant criticism regarding the many errors that appeared daily in the newspaper I worked for, arguably the country`s largest- selling daily. I smartly lobbed the criticism over to…

Guest column: If we must travel…

Even as we clip our wings and stay hunkered down, our imagination is already soaring. In the proofreading manual we editors turn to, we have a term called `stet,` which mean to let things stand, to ignore any attempt to make a change. That stet is what I am afraid of when it comes time…