Drug addiction! Words we have always dreaded growing up. In the middle of this chaotic lock down which is turning our worlds upside down, have we thought about the addicts and how they are managing? Or even their families? We spoke to Advocate Renu Singh from the...
“Lakshman, taratari khete de!” (1) - was the chorus that was heard in our house almost every Ratha Yatra day, around 2 pm. We never had a holiday on Ratha Yatra. We would return from school, raring to start decorating our rath so that we could pull it to our mama-r...
While we were still reeling under the Corona storm, the Amphan Super Cyclone lashed out in Bengal and Orissa, to deal a harder blow on May 20th. Is it just coincidence or workings of some numerology that the year 2020 is playing Twenty-20 with us? We have to wash...
Every day, the newspapers and news channels are full of news about disasters. Both natural and man-made. But that’s all they are - news. They do not affect us directly…until they do. Through the news, I’ve witnessed the 1999 super cyclone in Odisha, the hijacking of...
Simla House. 85A Amherst Street, Kolkata. Now…Raja Ram Mohan Sarani. A decrepit mansion. Very few walls remained of the upper floors of the colonial Georgian style architecture. Creepers and banyan trees had taken over most of what remained. We went past it quite...
We had gone to visit my aunt one evening, and there was Meshomoshai, my uncle, sitting in his room and making a pencil sketch of a bald old man, with the most strikingly large pair of eyes which seemed to be looking straight at me…or right through me…! I don’t know...
Kobiguru Rabindranath Tagore was born during a sultry Indian summer, on 7th May or ponchishey boishakh (1) in 1861. There were times when he was known to have wrapped a blanket around him and kept the windows open to feel the intense heat of Bolpur, while writing his...
February 16th, 1980 – The first time I watched the sun’s rays getting totally covered by the moon, on Doordarshan, was also the first time I watched Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’ or Song of the Road. I was a mere ten-year old. However, both rays have...
As I talk about writing in the time of Corona, you, the reader, please do not think of Marquez and his celebrated novel! No, this is neither earth-shattering nor profound, just bits and pieces of self-deprecatory humor, laced with good, old-fashioned, maudlin...
The enduring Earth cried out in pain! When we set Her ablaze; Tried to wring out Her last breath - “Enough is enough!” she cried. She turned the tables with quiet certitude. To make us breathe in an uncertain world. To keep us distant in an uncertain world. To...