A coal blackened board welcomes us as we drive through ‘Desh ki Koyla Rajdhani – Dhanbad.’ Coal and Capital. Our country’s current obsession. Just a few people shy of complete coverage of human rights issues in all of Jharkhand’s 24 districts, a colleague (at the time snoozing on the back seat) and I were travel-tripping […]
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Month: July 2014
Three Jewels of Meditation
An often repeated question raised during various meetings on meditation with people is: why should I meditate? My simple response is: if you are happy the way you are in this world, don’t meditate. Some baffled by the response, shy away. Others drift to another question: what are the benefits of meditation? My answer differs most times this question […]
Where Chinese Fishing Nets Catch The Sun
A visit to Fort Kochi in Kerala is incomplete without clicking a picture of the sunset behind the Chinese fishing nets. For us visitors, it is a photo opportunity but for the fishermen of Kerala, it is a lot of hard work. I am not sure exactly when the Chinese fishing nets came to India […]
Why Certain Stories Do Not Need Stars
The issue with the casting of Sanjay Leela Bhasali’s grand production Mary Kom is that it does not reflect what Mary Kom stands for. Does Priyanka look like Mary Kom? No, she looks like Priyanka Chopra with an accentuated pout and a lot of muscle. Do we need a North-Eastern face to play a North-Eastern […]
Rajat Kapoor: A Natural Storyteller
BANGALORE: Is Hamlet you and me and everyone in between? Is he, denuded of his geography and history, just someone torn between his possibilities and his realities? Aren’t we all? Is he a man of suppressed humour, someone craving to laugh at the injustice of it all, aching to discard the accoutrements of […]
‘A Woman Always Hears Footsteps Behind Her In The Dark’
Sometime around 1973, author Shashi Deshpande lived in the campus of the KEM Hospital in Mumbai and would often see a young, sprightly nurse pass by. Sometime later, she learnt that this young woman was Aruna Shanbaug. And that all the promise of her life had been snatched away by a ward boy who […]
The Fragrance Of Urdu Poetry
There was a time when young children in small Northern towns, regardless of their religious denominations, learnt Urdu. And when they grew up, many young men like my father could recite the Gita and write and read Urdu as if it was the most natural thing to do. ** The generation after his, caught up […]
Messages From The Other Side
1980 was the year when Khorshed and Rumi Bhavnagri, a Parsi couple living in Mumbai lost their two young sons Vispi and Ratoo in a freak, automobile accident. In the absolute heart of darkness, they stumbled upon, what to them became a new lease of life. They were facilitated by a strange turn of circumstances […]
Haven’t I Been ‘Here’ Before?
My emotions surrounding our move to the Pacific North West were not entirely pleasant. It seemed like I had just about perfected my rhythm in life when this blaring move came along and threw me out of balance. My blog was running along successfully. I had a part-time job that allowed me to balance work, […]
The Anatomy Of Sexism
It all started with the outlet tube of the washing machine snapping open at the joint, a couple of weeks back. The existing tape had to be removed, the outlet pipes fitted together again properly and taped up securely with insulation tape. Once I was done repairing the pipe, casual conversation led to me […]
Browsing Detroit’s Eastern Market
In the midst of ramshackle buildings in Detroit, a vibrant marketplace mushrooms every Saturday like a bold stroke of happiness and hope against the dreary canvas of poverty and neglect. Here, under a spotlessly blue sky, with the sun shining merrily upon the city, a large warehouse stretches across six blocks. Within its premises, hundreds of local […]
Say Yo To Sexism
Recently a young colleague wrote a Facebook post about being stared at for the way she dresses or even otherwise. The point of the post was that a woman’s body is her business. It is not an offering or a piece of public property. The post went viral and was shared by various websites and […]