Can you hear the Music of the Breeze? The Music of the Leaves? The Music made by Birds? The humming of the Trees? Can you hear your blood singing? Can you hear the heart pinging? On a machine that says you are alive, Can you hear your breath steaming? Can you hear the Earth thumping? […]
And it is better and it is safer it is certainly safer where the lights only glance off obscurity like the merest droplets bouncing off a ledge and on and away and it is safer not to peer up or down or away or within to settle in one’s own sedimentary layer to be gradually […]
How many times have you put off doing stuff just because the conditions weren’t as perfect as you wanted them to be? For the longest time I have wanted to do a yoga teacher training(YTT). I looked up several classes in the area. I looked up schedules and everything but always felt like it was a lot […]
The twin towns of Mussoorie and Landour are famed for their scenic beauty and the rare winter line phenomenon. However, not many people know that they have a rich literary heritage and highest density of authors anywhere in the world. While Landour is home to many writers, the most well-known being Ruskin Bond, who shifted […]
“Live Responsibly or Anticipate Death and Destruction” reads the title of an article on the death of model Sonika Chauhan. “We want ‘equal rights’ – we want to be able to go out late at night as men do, bar-hop, drink and relax, have several rounds of drinks. It’s our ‘right’. We too need to […]
“Job Offer” read the subject of an email I had been waiting to receive for over two months. I finally had a job in Bombay- a city I’d wanted to move to for two years. I was ecstatic, and then of course, terrified. You see, I have a special knack for always finding the bad […]
Penguin presents Reporting Pakistan by Meena Menon. While there are many similarities between India and Pakistan, comparisons, though inescapable, are odious . . . As sinister plots, spy games and terrorism continue, cloaked by attempts at bonhomie, the stories here centre on life, about ordinary Pakistanis and are not always about firing on the LoC or the Taliban, […]
Penguin Random House has announced the release of their new International title- Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran, author of an award winning novel The Prayer Room. Her work has also appeared in the Best New American Voices etc. A heart-wrenching novel that gives voice to two mothers: a young undocumented Mexican woman and an Indian-American […]
Certain books outlive their prime years not only due to their authors’ brilliance (which in this case was never in doubt), but also due to the core issues they analyze and address. The Shock Doctrine, currently in its 10th year of publication since its release in September 2007, falls in that category. Although yet to […]
Penguin presents The Glory of Patan by K.M. Munshi, translated by Rita and Abhijit Kothari. The kingdom of Patan faces an ominous future. King Karnadev lies on his deathbed. His son, Jaydev, is too young to ascend the throne. Rumours abound of scheming warlords intent on establishing their own independence and powerful merchants plotting to wrest control from […]
Years ago I watched the The Matrix and it seemed like a fantasy with no element of truth in it. But when I watched it when I was older, it seemed not too far fetched from the reality we wake up to every day. The daily grind. Put your nose to the grindstone and chug away. Work […]
About 20 kms off the pristine hill station of Chakrata in Uttarakhand, from the other side diagonally opposite to the entry from Kalsi, we hit the dirt road that would take us to the very historic city of Lakhamandal, situated on the banks of river Yamuna. The road, moderate in size, neither too tiny nor […]