Whose Gandhi is it anyway?
Once a year, the sleepy village of Sevagram shudders into wakefulness. On 2nd October. Gandhi Jayanti. When hundreds of politicians and their minions extract their white kurta-pyjamas from their cupboards, shake the dust off their Gandhi topis…
Pyjamas are forgiving: Twinkle Khanna’s third book
The only reason I ordered Twinkle Khanna’s third book ‘Pyjamas are forgiving‘ online in haste, was because a friend had sent me a message saying that the protagonist in this book was called Anshu! Else I would…
Clarity and the big chair
I’m reminded of a story I read somewhere. A traveller met a man who was chiselling stone blocks. He looked very sad. When asked what he was doing, the man said, “I have been told to carve…
The colour of skin
We were sitting under the stars, on a pile of cool sand. We’d just had dinner together in the hostel mess. But we had skipped our usual post-dinner walk. Although there was lots to talk about, we…
Pause. Rewind. Play.
It is way past midnight. I should have been asleep hours ago. But the mind is turbulent. I can almost hear the whirring and creaking inside my head. After two hours of tossing and turning in bed,…
Come September
I exit the gates of the building and walk to my scooter in the gentle drizzle. The two-wheeler parking lot has been so thoughtfully shifted to the middle of nowhere by the college authorities. There is no…
Nostalgia and the Indian Coffee House
One of my most endearing memories of Government Medical College (GMC) Nagpur is that of the Indian Coffee House. Bustling with energy, the fresh fragrance of South Indian coffee and the annas clad in their white uniforms still lingers on in my memories.…
Anand Niketan: A school which prepares you for life
Schooling in India often strips students of the joy of learning. Children are pushed to be hyper-competitive. In a world where each school competes to market itself as the next assembly-line producer of academic toppers, I discovered a…
Manmarziyaan: The evolving notion of love
Anurag Kashyap’s new release Manmarziyaan explores love in the age of evolving social mores and morality. The first voice in the film sings: Kaala na safed hai, Ishq da rang yaara, Grey wala shade. And this sets the…
