Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Book review: Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors

TEEN COUPLE HAVE FUN OUTDOORS by Aravind Jayan. Serpent`s Tail Books. September 2022 release. Think Holden Caulfield. Think a slightly older Holden Caulfield transplanted to Trivandrum, living in a regular middle class locality with his father, mother and elder brother. Then, one not-so-fine day, said brother Sreenath`s sex tape with his girlfriend Anita goes viral….

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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 …

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Guest column: Patriarchy in the land of matriarchy

Patriarchy in the land of matriarchy Even as Kerala tops the list on the human development, literacy, low infant mortality, high life expectancy indices, it remains at par if not worse than other states in one respect: the disrespect of women. The empowerment of Malayali women has been slowly eroding over the years, and this…

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Feature: If She`s Malayali, She Loves Gold!

Gold is a Malayali woman’s BFF. But don’t be misled into thinking it’s just an expensive indulgence. The latest scandal down south involves the state of Kerala, a woman named Swapna Suresh and 30kgs of smuggled gold. Not surprisingly, the incident has led to snide comments yet again on Kerala’s gold-love. Actually, we need to…

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Travel: Palakkad`s agraharams

A Way of Life in Palakkad Huge banyan and peepal trees, rows of close-set, small, tiled houses, a pair of temples on either side of the village, women drawing kolams (rangolis) in front of their houses at dawn, the strains of nadaswaram music from the temples – these are sights and sounds particular to the agraharams of Palakkad, villages,  which still…

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Book review: A Secret History of Compassion by Paul Zacharia

  Sending up everything and everyone A scathing look at life. The reader`s first reaction on reading A Secret History of Compassion is to muse over the probability that Paul Zacharia wrote up the story,  then dipped it into a vat of caustic soda. Everything is grist for his mill, or rather pen, here: writers,…

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Book review: The Town That Laughed by Manu Bhattathiri

THE TOWN THAT LAUGHED, ALEPH BOOK COMPANY. Manu Bhattathiri`s debut novel is so steeped in a kind of malayalitvam, that if you are from God`s Own….,  you start to substitute Malayalam words for English ones, as you read! People remembered the times when unemployment was quite a pleasure. The times when young men woke up…

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Book review: A House for Mr Misra by Jaishree Misra

Trivandrum Diary A House for Mr Misra (Westland) This slim volume is the ideal  read when you are between books that tackle matters of a more serious, even grim nature. Or in my case, a break from editing a turgid manuscript. Written rather like a Trivandrum diary fleshed out in engaging detail, it keeps the…

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Photo Feature: An Eden with a serpent in Konni, Kerala

  From lush greenery to pristine rivers, the stunning beauty of Kerala’s Konni Even given Kerala’s propensity for verdant vegetation, one could well believe that this is some part of the Amazon rainforest! All photos by Sheila Kumar and subject to copyright. Sheila Kumar / September 27, 2017  Konni is a hill town in Pathanamthitta district,…

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Travel: Konni, Kerala

  ROAD LESS TRAVELLED  Eden, with its own river   Everything is  so green that it could hurt the eye of a non-Malayali. But then I`m a Malayali and in the interests of full disclosure,  this is a coming- back- home trip for me. This  homecoming is happening after more than two decades and Konni…

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