Features Archives - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Feature: Shailaja Padindala, profiled

Shailaja Padindala, founder of Mustache Under My Nose Ring, speaks on non-binary dressing and her new, dark comedy on queer expression in a heteronormative world. “The beauty of some women lies in their unacknowledged mustache,” Padindala tells me earneslty. Sitting across me at a table in the canteen of the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath in…

Guest column: The kindness of strangers

The kindness of strangers Sometimes, when times are bad, we are comforted immeasurably by the kindness of strangers…. To begin, a quote from the Dalai Lama. “ When we face some tragic situation, it reveals the deeper human values of compassion. Usually people don’t think about these deeper human values but when they see their…

Guest column: In the end, who will we be?

In the end, who will we be? Even as the old normal returns, will we do a recalibration of our old selves? So, now is a good…

Feature: Walking a virtual Camino

Doing a virtual pilgrimage One of the few highlights of this long lockdown period (and I was in lockdown mode from 16 March 2020) was a virtual Camino I went on, for 36 + 3 days, starting early April. The invite came from our Camino leader Amy Gigi Alexander, she who has walked more than…

Guest column: Staying stylish in Covid times

With Covid blowing about in the wind, has style gone with the wind? I find myself gazing repeatedly at this photograph of a corona party (cue eye-roll), a Whatsapp forward I`m weirdly unwilling to delete. What I`m looking at is this pretty young thing in a canary-coloured miniskirt dancing madly, her Goth-black nails on defiant…

Profile of a Malayali Nurse – Sr. Florrie (Nightingale) Thomas

On the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale, and the year of COVID-19, the spotlight falls on the life-saving force that is the Malayali nurse. Meet Sr. Florrie (Nightingale) Thomas We are back to singing the praises of our homegrown Ladies in White, our newly consecrated frontline COVID-19 warriors. In the usual scheme of things, in…

Guest column: Distancing? Perish the thought!

Home Magazine Voices Distancing? Perish the Thought Now here’s the thing: distancing is not only an alien concept to us Indians, it also goes against our grain. Migrants who arrived from Maharashtra by a special train follow social distancing after deboarding at Charbagh railway station during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown in Lucknow. (Photo | PTI) Now…

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…

Feature: The SRK revelations, a fangirl story

This ran in FEMINA, where I was working at the time I met the Bollywood superstar who is the subject of the story that follows. 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…