Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

2

Guest column: Sin City Blues, Bangalore through Kerala`s eyes

Sin City Blues Bangalore is home for me, and for upwards of 10 lakh Malayalis. Now, I don`t know about the other Malayalis in the city but it took me a while to realise just what Bangalore  stood for in my home state of  Kerala. The multiple mentions the city receives in multiple Malayalam films …

Continue Reading

Opinion: 21 Things that Got Me Good and Mad in 2021

Twenty-one things that got  me good and mad in 2021 The anti-conversion Bill, with its implicit threat to religious freedoms, looking for passage in the Karnataka Assembly, on the ominous lines of similar laws passed in  Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Consistent spurts of vandalism in places of worship, usually of the minority…

Continue Reading

Opinion: The complexities of complicity

The complexities of complicity  The most recent backstory in a woefully long line of back stories to this particular topic concerns the sometime Bollywood actress turned dance show jury member, married to a man of mysterious wealth. The man gets arrested for making porn videos, the actress immediately pleads ignorance. Then there is the Hollywood…

Continue Reading

Feature: The Mita Kapur Interview

`I think the pandemic really drove home the fact that literature and art are more than just for leisure; they are necessary to fully appreciate life and keep sane in difficult times.`    Mita Kapur took over as Literary Director of the JCB Prize for Literature just a few months before the pandemic  wrapped  itself around…

Continue Reading

Feature: The Book Cupboard

The book cupboard A coming- of- age story featuring the writer and a cupboard. To all intents and purposes, it was an ordinary cupboard. Made of some indeterminate wood, maybe teak, given a light varnish, adorned with an incongruous bright blue doorknob, the cupboard sat in a  corner of the formal drawing room in my…

Continue Reading

1

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…

Continue Reading

Feature: Where have all the editors gone?

Where have (all) the editors gone? First a hark-back, to Delhi, circa the late Nineties. At a dinner, I found myself on the receiving end of some trenchant criticism regarding the  many  errors that appeared daily in the newspaper I worked for, arguably the country`s largest- selling daily. I smartly lobbed the criticism over to…

Continue Reading

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…

Continue Reading

Guest column: Hikikomori or Modern-day Hermits

Pulling inwards: The modern-day hermits Hikikomori is a severe withdrawal from love, from life, from people. The concepts have come from Japan, wrapped in words, sometimes uplifting, sometimes baneful. There is Shinrin-yoku or forest bathing, an abstraction every bit as delightful as it sounds. There is Kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery by mending…

Continue Reading

Feature: The Tea-times of Childhood

  Remembrance of teatimes past  Looking back at 4 pm food memories It is a truth universally acknowledged, that young persons forced to spend a whole hot and humid month in their `native place,` will be forever restless, forever hungry. Back in the Eighties, our large brood of siblings and cousins were no different when…

Continue Reading

1 2 3 16