Comfortably Numb - Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

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…

Book review: Behind the Wall by Colin Thubron

Just when the first lockdown was enforced, I started on one of my fave travel writer Colin Thubron`s 1988 China travelogue, Behind the Wall. And I only just finished reading it. It`s not an easy book to read, and it`s even more difficult to review. Oh, Thubron is at the top of his game…

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…

Book review: Memory of Light by Ruth Vanita

A poignant passion A febrile strand of melancholia runs through the story, adding heft to a tale rich with detail, feeling and emotion In corona times, along comes a book that is best read slowly, leisurely, a meditative reflection on a found, lost, then recaptured love. Sumptuously descriptive, this love story has stately Lucknow, the…

Guest column: Distancing? Perish the Thought!

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 here’s…

Book review: Revolutionary Ride by Lois Pryce

Revolutionary Ride by Lois Pryce. Hachette india. About halfway into this book, an account of the author`s foray into Iran in 2011 on her motorcycle, I realised the book was less travelogue and more a political account of modern-day Iran. However, I had no grouse with that because Pryce stays on-point all through, and the…

Photo Feature: Ullapool on Isle of Skye, Scotland

Sometimes, you pull out a plate to heap sliced tomatoes on, and it opens the door immediately to a Nostalgia Trip: to Ullapool, a fishing village on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. All photos by Sheila Kumar and subject to copyright. The crockery cupboard at the charming B & B, Rosslyn Cottage, where…

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. 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 was shooting in my office for his home production …

Book review: Hurree Jamset Ram Singh in the Billy Bunter books

I wonder if anyone else on here was as conflicted about the character Hurree Jamset Ram Singh of the Billy Bunter books, he of the supposedly sage and incomprehensible pronouncements like “the wishfulness of the jug that goes to the well is terrific.“ Apart from the confusion regarding that name, which inferred the character was…