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Social Commentary Why Self-Love and “Main Apni Favourite Hoon” Should Die
Our cultural zeitgeist is the closest we have come to an epidemic of self-love. From frantically chasing body types in the gymnasium to manufacturing them on Instagram, the self-image is seminal. But we do little for the mind that suffers every day, except perhaps to bypass that question altogether.
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POV The Fake News Factory Must Shut Down: Here’s Where to Begin
Earlier this week, Narendra Modi withdrew an order from the I&B Ministry proposing to cancel the accreditation of journalists who were spreading fake news. But if we are serious about combating fake news, let’s begin with the IT cells of political parties.
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Pop Culture The Predictably Short Flight of Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig consistently understates the industry she inhabits, and remains herself, howsoever flawed or naïve. There must be a word that defines this lightness of being. Might we call her Lady Bird?
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Pop Culture A Good Time To Be Robert Pattinson
Pattinson’s live-wire turn as Connie in Good Time – his best showing by some measure – is the most tragic character played on film last year. But does it compare with the two leading contenders for the Best Actor Award at the Oscars?
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POV A Modern-Day Guide to Gandhigiri
How can one fit the Gandhian model to the average Indian millennial? Maybe the next time your Uber driver makes the wrong turn, think before you shout at his human fallibility.
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Social Commentary Why Rohith Vemula Will Never Be Forgotten
How did Rohith Vemula’s death galvanise a movement, strengthen a Dalit voice in the way that so many others could not? What stood out here was that the anger took birth in defeat, in the loss of the promise that a young boy held and the path he walked away from.
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Social Commentary How Men Talk When Women Aren’t Listening
Not all masculinity is toxic. But there is a sense of ease between two men, because they agree on one thing – the treatment of women. Overtly, and often, through a brotherhood of silence.
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Social Commentary Delhi Gang Rape and the Change We Need in India’s Sons
After the Dec 16 gang rape, change arrived, but not necessarily in the place it should have. The definition of rape expanded; punishment for sex crimes became harsher. Yet, this was merely a change of equipment. What needed to change was the substance. Not India’s daughters but India’s sons.
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POV Oymyakon and the Apocalypse in the Making
We’ve been taught by Nostradamus and science fiction alike, that the apocalypse is going to be a cinematic spectacle. But it is unlikely to be an event in the pipeline of history. The apocalypse is simply progression. Just ask the residents of Oymyakon.
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People India’s Angry Poet and Other Stories
While CP Surendran’s early work could be seen as the walk away, in his new poems he firmly occupies the inside of the fence, and looks prepared to observe and contemplate.
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POV Behind the Scenes at Delhi’s Madame Tussauds
Why does one go to a Madame Tussauds at all? The cult of celebrity drives many of us in this country, but what convinces us to spend money to indulge in what I can only explain to myself as necrophilia of the eye?
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People Nirmal Verma: Extraordinary Writer of the Ordinary
It has been 12 years since Nirmal Verma passed away. The novelist did not write characters. He wrote people: The ones who got left behind, the ones who were forgotten by the magnetic narratives of the city.
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POV U-17 World Cup and the Loneliness of Indian Football
Being a footballer in India is an exercise in loss. It comes burdened with aggressive cynicism. And the U-17 World Cup might match up to the spectacle of the IPL, but I wonder what it will do for the sport.
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Social Commentary The Future Speaks Through Films of Our Past
SNS Sastry’s 1967 film, I am 20, featuring ordinary Indians hopeful about India’s Independence, seems to belong to the future and asks the question: Might we at least get back the India we already were at some point?
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Social Commentary They Sullied My Shimla
With the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl, Shimla has collectively lost something – its innocence and sense of calm.
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Social Commentary The Train to Lynchistan
Violence, of the kind done to Hafiz Junaid, is our reality now. The normalisation of a warring approach to settle imaginary debts we believe are owed to us by history... this is us.
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Social Commentary Angry Indian Trolls vs “Power Bitches”
Why do we fear our female public intellectuals like Arundhati Roy? What causes us to direct personalised hostility and abuse toward them?
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Social Commentary What Millennials Aren’t Taught About Caste
Upper-caste millennials grow up cocooned, oblivious to how caste affects those around us, because we never have to confront it. We discount the role it plays in shaping our destinies.
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Politics The Swift Rise and Fall of Arvind Kejriwal
With great hope comes greater disappointment. The Delhi CM’s meteoric rise has been just as speedy as his fall appears to be, if the AAP routing in the MCD elections is any indication.
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Pop Culture When Sonu Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Sonu Nigam’s story could have been different. But over the years, Sonu Nigam, the flashy star, has effectively overtaken Sonu Nigam, the ethereal singer.
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