Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Travel: Bhoganandeeshwara Temple, Bangalore

A treasure trapped in time The entrance gate is old, time-worn and not the most impressive. You step in and green lawns bask lazily in the early morning sun. There are dogs playing about, a magnificent chameleon perched on a chariot wheel, and a couple of women sweeping the perimeter of the complex. The laburnum…

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…

Book review: Akbar the Great Mughal by Ira Mukhoty

This is more a brief take than review. Akbar the Great Mughal by Ira Mukhoty. Aleph Books. Such a good read. The picture of the protagonist that emerges from Ira Mukhoty`s book on Akbar is an illuminating one: a man of modest build, sharp intelligence, quick temper, a fondness for taming elephants (he knew the…

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…

Book review: A Burning by Megha Majumdar

This is more a brief take than review. A Burning by Megha Majumdar, Penguin Hamish Hamilton Books. A story soaked in sorrow, it tells of a young girl from the slums and more importantly, from `the` minority community, who, late one night, gives in to a moment of indiscretion via a Facebook comment, in the…

Book review: Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena

Enter the Star Warrior A prophecy. A child with a scar. A villain slated to be killed by said child. Tanaz Bhathena’s Haunted by the sky, a YA fantasy fiction, shares these plot points with Rowling’s Potter series. There are other similarities too, but then the template of good versus evil, or even of a…

Book review: Wild Himalaya by Stephen Alter

Wild Himalaya by Stephen Alter. Aleph Books. Stephen Alter, our go-to Himalaya man, has delivered up a real treasure trove with this book. It is divided into eight sections dealing with virtually all aspects of the mighty mountain range: orogenesis (the process by which the Himalaya was formed through deformations in the earth`s crust), the…

Photo Feature: Parks visited before Covid

This is a wistful post. A plaintive post. A post featuring parks, meadows, downs, fields, trekking routes I`d give anything to revisit, like RN. All photos by Sheila Kumar and subject to copyright. Mysterious Ritigala in Sri Lanka , where you walk and walk and walk amongst venerable trees and shrubs, stone bridges…

Book review: The Last White Hunter by Donald Anderson with Joshua Mathew

The Last White Hunter, Reminiscences of a Colonial Shikari by Donald Anderson and Joshua Mathew, Indus Source Books. This was a book I was meant to read two years ago but stuff happened, and I couldn`t/didn’t. So, when I cracked it open just a few days ago, only to fall headlong into the story and…

Book review: Azadi by Arundhati Roy

This is more a brief take than a review. AZADI by Arundhati Roy. Penguin Books. This one`s a keeper. Roy touches on all the old familiar topics: Kashmir; communal rioting; lynchings including lynchings-by-TV; the manipulation of the populace for electoral gains; rape and other attacks on the weak, the marginalised, the ghettoised; the less than…