Known Turf

Well, we are all doomed to turn into the thing we turn up our noses at. And besides, I did not necessarily enjoy all those non-discriminat...

October 2. I was almost content to let it pass without comment or angst. But I read three morning papers and none had a front page or half...

SIX O’CLOCK ON a winter’s morning. I was kicking myself for promising to show up at the Chhotu Ram Stadium in Rohtak. The sky was still da...

Instead of building up to a climactic event, this novel seeks to examine a tragic chain of circumstances that leads to a young mother’s ult...

I was asked recently to write about my own relationship to a city. I spent much of my childhood in small townships that qualify neither as ...

Tabish Khair has written a fine new novel about Islamic terror and what draws young girls, especially those living in relative comfort in ...

A long review of Afzal Ahmed Syed's urdu poetry, translated into english by Musharraf Ali Farooqi and published in India as the collect...

I HAVE A clear memory of the buttons – large, translucent-white plastic – and the teacher’s fingers unbuttoning the first one. She was sho...

At 57 kilos, Sandeep Tomar is one of the slighter athletes in the akhada, but has earned respect by throwing Commonwealth Games gold medal...

I've often wondered how we've managed to avoid thinking about power supply. I mean, electricity. As consumers, we like to buy ever...

Missing Person Report When you went missing, Nilofer, we didn't think we had anything to do with it. We thought of accident, ra...

It is curious, this idea of who is a law-abiding person and who isn't. There is a crush of voices around me talking about how 'we...

December 2012. India woke up to the shock of sexual assault that was so violent, it turned our collective stomach. For a while, our outrag...

Are you one of those people who has too many fancy clothes, and yet, never enough? Do you struggle to keep track of which outfit you wore a...

देश प्रेम पे ध्यान - १. पुर्ज़ा-पुर्ज़ा कोई बेचना चाहे, बेच सकता है - इंसान का समय, उसका ख़ून, उसकी आँखे, गुर्दा, गर्भ, यहाँ तक की उसका दिल...

पुर्ज़ा-पुर्ज़ा कोई बेचना चाहे, बेच सकता है - इंसान का समय, उसका ख़ून, उसकी आँखे, गुर्दा, गर्भ, यहाँ तक की उसका दिल. सब बिकता है, या छीना जा स...

First of all, Bharat Mata ki Jai. Offering to put a bullet into them, hanging, beating them to death - this is not how we deal with ...

कल अख़बार देख कर मेरी माँ ने कहा, अगर शनी मंदिर में औरतों को जाने की इजाज़त नहीं है, तो ना जाएँ। क्या फ़र्क़ पड़ता है? एक पल को मैंने भी सोचा,...

I made a documentary film last year. Here's a link to the trailer: Here's a piece about it in The Hindu : “This film is no...

Here's something I wrote about my great discomfort with the state having absolute access to my data with zero accountability or guarant...