Amsterdam is like a mysterious package that materialises one fine morning at your doorstep, kind courtesy a secret admirer. At first, you are sceptical and a tad bit scared to open it but then curiosity gets the better of you. With a slight tug, the strings come undone and the flaps swing open. Upon peeking […]
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Month: September 2014
Taslima Nasrin: 20 Years After Lajja
Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja, one of the most controversial bestsellers in the world has turned twenty. As bibliophiles across the world celebrated the Banned Books Week from September 21-27, Nasrin, an award-winning author of 37 books, memoirist, physician, humanist and human rights activist looked back at the long road she has travelled with Lajja. Across continents, through death […]
Papa:The Complete Man
For most of my childhood years, I believed with a certain unwavering conviction (that only kids are known to possess), that Papa was no different than one of my bicycle riding, hop-scotch playing, squeals of joy producing little friends. There was something very light hearted and guileless about him that appealed immensely to us kiddies. […]
Parents Know Best
It was a dark and stormy night. Expectedly, there had been a power failure in the neighbourhood. A few houses were quiet while raucous singing erupted from others as each little family dealt with the situation in their individual ways. Transistors belted songs from old Hindi films and the sounds and smells of cooking became […]
The Joy Of Giving
I had the good fortune of knowing three very generous ladies. Two of them were my grandmothers and one was my ‘adopted’ grandmother. My Dadima (dad’s mom) was a businesswoman and she did really well selling cooking gas to households and hotels. Ganga (my adopted grandmother) lived with her and took care of the home, […]
Irene Dhar Malik: Editor’s Cut
Filmmaker Onir’s soon to be released film Chauranga taps into the prevalent politics over love and caste. It narrates the story of a 14-year-old Dalit boy in rural India who is killed for writing a love letter. Irene Dhar Malik, Onir’s sister and film editor, is busy with the post-production of the film and took […]
Kochi: Familiar And Unique
Kochi sits in the middle of the state of Kerala, in south-west of India. Kerala is ‘God’s Own Country’ as the marketing campaign has been shouting for years. That’s true. You go to Kerala to learn that there are more greens than just bottle green and olive-green. But no, Kochi doesn’t succumb to the rest-of-Kerala’s diktat. And […]
Nagpur: A Breakfast Story
We landed in Nagpur on our way to Kanha. Early morning flight on a low-cost airline equals ravenous travellers. We needed some food and quickly. but in Nagpur? Yes, we could have done the down-the-road Udupi thing but didn’t really feel like a dosa. so via Google, I chanced upon an article about THE BREAKFAST STORY… and […]
The Woman Beyond The Cleavage
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Especially, if you are a woman. A cleavage pointer is headed your way like a missile to show the world what it would have missed if it only looked at your eyes instead of your breasts. If someone looked in your eyes, really really long….they would not have seen what […]
The Truth is…
The truth is… Bitter A hard pill to swallow Harsh Scary Daunting Not something you want to hear. These are usually the string of words that follow the line nobody in their right mind wants to be confronted with, “the truth is…”. Ever wonder why from the very first time we hear the statement, it […]
URA And Pattabhi: The Unforgettables
Tom Cowan, the cinematographer of the 1970 classic Samskara, visited Bangalore in 2011 to collaborate with Konarak Reddy and Kirtana Kumar (the son and daughter-in-law of Pattabhirami Reddy) on a film project called Bangalore Love Story. Cowan had shared how it was artist S G Vasudev (also the art director of Samskara) who had told him […]
Khoobsurat: A String Of Selfies
Dr Mili Chakraborty likes to pose for selfies… perhaps that is why every frame she is in seems to be carefully composed for a snapshot. Her smile is always selfie ready and even though she says, “jo dil mein hai..wohi zabaan par,” nothing she says really come across as spontaneous. Not even her Skype conversations […]