Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Column: Widen your circle of friends

Widen that circle and you`ll be happier A couple of things I read recently has stayed with me. One is an Eli Shafak quote which goes  like this: humans think they know with certainty where their being ends and someone else`s starts. With their roots tangled and caught up underground, linked to fungi and bacteria,…

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Column: Let`s cut the ostriches some slack

Let`s cut the ostriches some slack You know the ostriches I`m talking about. The moment the topic turns to something deeper than if Dunki is a hit or if the southern part of the country is indeed having a mild winter, some people get an uncomfortable look on their faces. They shrug, they smile painfully….

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Column: Do You Still Call On People?

Do you still call on people? It was a quaint custom, one handed down to us via our colonial masters, one we faithfully, happily followed. It involved people getting dressed up, not necessarily to the nines, but quite definitely in their Sunday best. They then went around to other people`s places, rang the doorbell and…

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Column: Deadlines and a Couple of Cappuccinos, Please

Coffeeshop chronicles: How WFC works for some, not all Soon  after WFH became the ante-Covid and post-Covid norm, WFC — Working from Cafes — got  its moment in the sun. WFC always had its devotees who had been quietly slipping into the nearest café, there to set up their notebooks, laptops and smartphones, order a…

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Column: Love makes the world go round? Says who? 

Love makes the world go round? Says who?   So here`s the thing. Despite the edgy love stories Malayalam cinema regularly puts out (anyone seen Mammooty`s Peranbu,  where he settles down with a transwoman at the end?), despite the love songs our singers soulfully sing, the truth is that many people in Kerala are stuck in…

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Guest column: Why are we so loud?

Why are we so loud? I recently watched a video, purportedly a spoof, where an Indian aunty adopts a hectoring tone and shows us how ginger tea is brewed back home in India. I say `back home` because the woman is standing in an American kitchen, heaping much unbridled derision on Americans. Personally,  I found…

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Guest column: Selective offerings in the time of cancel culture

The art vs the artiste: that old divide The other day, I revisited that classic, Gerald Durrell`s My Family and Other Animals, an old-gold favourite. After the read I fell into a rabbit hole of info on the Durrell family, and  was dumbfounded to find that much of what I had devoured as the —…

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Guest column: In praise of gratitude

Gratitude comes with side benefits now Gratitude, thankfulness, an awareness of received grace. From time immemorial, this sentiment`s virtues have been extolled far and wide. On the ground though, we all know it is but a fleeting emotion, which sweeps over us  at the time of the received grace but doesn’t stay too long afterwards….

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Guest column: Don`t Tar All Media with the Same Brush

Don`t tar all media with the same (grimy) brush  You know how people constantly, relentlessly, moan about how terrible the media is, how it exists only to spread fake news, how it polarizes people? Well, you know what? India is still a free country, last time I checked. We don’t need to consume the kind…

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Guest column: NRIs and the art of gifting

NRIs and the art of gifting With  India having undergone a major transformation in the last three decades or so, some of our NRI brethren are a confused lot now. Even as Smart Cities came into being (inside the heads of planners, if not on the ground), even as unicorn startups sprouted alicorns aplenty, even…

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