Known Turf

I have put together a new digital anthology: a set of 11 essays about famous Indian ladies (who also happen to be married to famous Indian ...

A rape story Annie Zaidi It's not science fiction and it's not the nation's growth story. It's the rape story ...

There they were, coming apart right in front on me. A man wearing a moustache, walking fast, turning around to spit out angry words. A har...

If you can measure yourself with the eye scales of the woman who survived your enemy If you can hold the woman you had leane...

People had forgotten, he muses, that it is also possible to read through one’s ears. After all, that is how most of us begin to receive sto...

A narrow lane requires a great deal of adjustment. It can be something minor, such as needing to twist your torso as someone approaches fr...

I recently led a discussion on democracy at the immensely successful Community Library Project, at the Deepalaya/Shiekh Sarai library in De...

शायद आप में और मुझ में इतना ही फ़र्क़ है, जितना सपना और स्वप्न में। या शायद इतना, जितना सपने और ख़्वाब में. इतना फ़ासला नहीं, जितना अच्छे और बु...

Awadh’s distinct culture was the result of generations of cooks, dressmakers, perfumers and masons transforming their art in response to ro...

It’s a pleasant idea to contemplate—a track that runs like a divider down the road, protected by metal obstructions on either side and shad...

There was a poet who said once your talk is the talk of flowers. He said it in Urdu of course, so perhaps this is not what he meant. To ta...

A set of five poems inspired by newspaper headlines in recent times. Five Newspaper Reports Re-written for Greater Clarity 1.   A...

Sometimes I wonder, what would happen if we collectively gave up on dust. What if we just let the city sink under the dust for a whole mont...

A couple of decades ago, however, someone high up in the municipal corporation of Mumbai must have decided to try something new. Interlaced...

Just a few days ago, I was having a cup of coffee with a friend and like all good Indians, we discussed politics. Lots of breast-beating (m...

Women of all religions should worry. A majority government can change laws so that women no longer inherit land, widows no longer remarry,...

I had shared some thoughts on the debate around Triple Talaaq and Uniform Civil Code with the newspaper Sakaal Times:  - Women are not pa...

I have a fantasy about cities of the future. I’ll be walking on air. Well, almost. I’ll be high up, fifty feet above street level, using my...

Worse, every car sitting out on the road is a thief of opportunity. There could have been a fruit cart sitting there instead and it would b...

There's a photograph I love to think of. A moustachioed farmer, dressed in a white shirt and a dhoti, is running down the highway wit...