Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Feature: Senthamarai`s Love Life

Her name was, inappropriately enough, Senthamarai. With a wiry frame the colour of polished teak and a pinched look on an unremarkable face, she was more a hill-flower than a lotus, a thamarai. She was the maid I’d inherited along with the bungalow, when I relocated to the Nilgiri hills. Clean as a pin,…

Humour: Stagey couture, a Mona story

Stagey couture Mona turns out to be a theatre buff …of sorts! “It`s theatre fest time,“ I told my friend Mona. She is an avid and regular theatre-goer, our Mona. “Of course, darling,“ she drawled. “Where else would I be, if not at the Chowdiah Memorial Hall all week long? Why, I have got seven…

Humour: The write choice

The Write Choice The moment I gave notice of my impending relocation to the Nilgiri hills, people set my future agenda for me. `Oh, going to write a…

Humour: My secret garden

My Secret Garden Along with a manor house of slightly more than modest proportions, we `inherited` a garden when we moved to the…

Feature: On Residential Schools

A Child`s Choice Hostel’s not a bad word if the child decides so. I didn’t send my daughter off to hostel. She went. There is a subtle distinction, only it is lost on most people. And, as soon as she went away to school, my husband and I have been tried and sentenced on the…

Feature: Professor Julian Simon, profiled

“People are the solution, not the problem” Professor Julian Simon, who teaches business administration at the University of Maryland is an economist with a theory, a theory that has environmentalists and population control experts reacting with outrage. Directly contradicting the Malthusian hypothesis, Prof Simon claims that more people and more wealth correlates with more, and…

Feature: AIDS and the Army

‘We are fighting to contain AIDS in the Army’ “The ideal I’m working towards is a zero-AIDS situation. As of now, I know that sounds like moonshine. However, to achieve something, you have to aim for the moon.” Lt General D Raghunath, Director General Armed Forces Medical Services, is not much given to mouthing moonshine….

Feature: Prasad Bidapa, profiled

The Style Maker Speaks Mention fashion and the mind immediately conjures up the name of Prasad Bidapa. An informal chat with the man who lives, dreams, eats and thinks fashion. It’s…

Humour: Designer talk

Haute Jargon (2013 disclaimer: This piece needs to be read with tongue firmly lodged in cheek. The author has been a fashion journalist and while not totally sold on all things haute couture, definitely knows her zardosi from her gota patti. ) Design: A strange fiendish cult perpetrated by strange fiendish minds, with even stranger…

Feature: Siachen`s meter keeps on ticking

Siachen’s meter keeps on ticking It’s another cold grey day. The weather has packed up for over 20 days now, and it doesn’t seem as if the weak sun will break through today. His fibreglass hut (FGH) is comfortingly warm and he doesn’t want to get out of his heavy-duty sleeping bag. But get…