Features - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

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…

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…

Feature: Those Little White Lies

Little white lies! Men and women tell lies to each other, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unwittingly. There’s a reason behind the pile of untruths. No one wants to tell lies, we promise you that. Sometimes, it is to cover up an error, at other times, to spare someone from getting hurt. What we are dealing…

Feature: Hair Attack!

Hair Attack! Your hair really is you. So what happens if it is wild and unruly, with a mind of its own? Sheila Kumar takes you through her tress trauma. I watch Madonna with a fixed intensity. I have been doing so for years now. You may think I’m a die-hard fan of the…

Feature: Can That One Drink Hurt You?

Can that one drink hurt you? Drinking, even light, social drinking, carries its own baggage. Just as long as you know. The thing is, we have evolved enough not to mistake light drinking for alcoholism. So. What is light drinking? To be exact, it’s having 1.5 ounces of hard alcohol each day, or 5 ounces…

Feature: Listen to the Poet

As new forms of stress keep mutating, it really is time to press the pause button. So. Listen to the poet. Which poet, you ask? Why, the one who asked us to stop and smell the roses. To which, we shrug and say, “All very well, but who has the time?” Or we smile in…

Feature: It`s Party Time!

It’s party time, from now till New Year! A woman can drown in all the information on grooming, beauty aids, on looking good. Here’s to looking great in the festive season and what’s more, looking good for a long, long time after that, too. A good skin care routine. Invest in expensive creams, moisturisers. Check out…