Posted inPeople
The Perfect Prince of Paradise
As the Valley begins a new chapter with Mehbooba Mufti, another one from history is still open. The yearning for Yusuf Chak, Kashmir’s first crusader for autonomy, hasn’t abated.
Posted inPeople
Bollywood’s Mr Brightside
Ranveer Singh has played the self-aware clown in Bollywood’s self-aware circus. This reckless unpredictability has defined his career.
Posted inPeople
MC Tod Fod: Musician, Wordsmith and Eco warrior
Dharmesh Parmar was not just a singer, but also a philosopher, an environmentalist and the rarest of all, a principled artist.
Posted inPeople
Your Uber Will Be Striking Shortly
As commuters, we go off on frequent rants about how Uber and Ola drivers are always late, how they can never find the destination, or how rude they can be. But your Uber drivers are people too. And if the ongoing strike is any indication, they’ve had it with the app.
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Meet Menaka Guruswamy, the Wonder Woman Who Helped Win the 377 Case
Seven decades ago, one generation of freedom fighters drove British colonisers away from this country. Today, another generation has seen one of their lingering relics off for good. Menaka Guruswamy is one of the many participants who’ve helped win us the right to love who we want.
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Inside the Secret World of a Beef Dealer
With gaurakshaks determined to stem the trade of beef at any cost, beef sellers like Quasim walk a fine line every day. Once wholly legit businessmen, they have now joined the ranks of my hash dealer.
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My Short Love Story for Arundhati Roy
When Arundhati Roy asked the class to submit a short story, I saw my chance. I realised that there could be no direct route to attention. And wrote the worst short story ever.
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Talk Me Off the Ledge, Please
In a city that crushes many a dream, the line between life and death is gossamer thin. In Mumbai, a group of selfless volunteers keeps the distressed on the safe side of this line.
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Revisiting Kalpana, Uday Shankar’s Film that Cost ₹22 Lakh in 1948
I was 11 when I first watched Uday Shankar’s Kalpana, an experimental dance-drama, in a Calcutta theatre along with the illustrious Shankar family. I thought it was long and obscure. But as I revisit the film, decades later, I read deeper into the narrative of the artist whom James Joyce described as someone who “moves on the stage like a semi-divine being”.
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Kamala Das: The Poetess Who Taught Me It Was Okay to Not Sound Perfectly English
When I made my foray into the poetry writing world, it was Kamala Das’s style that spoke to me. It had no airs about it, no wish to sound perfectly English. Like her, I spoke a cocktail of languages – Hindi, English, Punjabi, and Marathi. So when she wrote about the language she speaks, “It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest…”, it is something I could relate to.