Known Turf

The street is an eternal shapeshifter. It transforms quickly, urgently, and then collapses back into its grey, rough stillness at ni...

I have just finished reading a biography of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan by Rajmohan Gandhi. I started by wanting to share some snippets from th...

Journalists quoting chauffeurs, cab or auto-rickshaw drivers has become a bit of a cliche. After the last election, there was a f...

Here's a twist on the Ship of Theseus paradox. The original paradox is this: if a ship has been restored or fixed after having all its ...

Last week, I was very upset with Kirron Kher for shifting blame onto a gangrape victim, suggesting that she shouldn't have gotten into...

At 18, you are expected to bear children, keep them healthy and craft a judicious citizenry. You are expected not to die in the process. A...

I had been in the hills a few weeks ago, wandering around with a notebook. One afternoon, I went to a little restaurant on a highway and d...

I am not overfond of long car rides, especially not in cities. Most people aren’t. What’s called a ‘drive’ in other locations is ‘the damn ...

I've been racking my brains for the English equivalent of 'sannaata'. More precisely, to try and translate the idea of '...

One of my favourite travel stories is from a reporting assignment in rural Rajasthan. For trips into rural areas, I'd usually have to ...

A lot of floodwater had entered the apartment while it was empty last month. Lots of damage to clothes and papers. I opened an old...

तोड़ दो पिंजरा, फोड़ दो भांडा! यही न कह कर थे बहलाए? रहना भीतर, यही भला है? समझो अब असल अभिप्राय। बात ये है, उनसे न होगा!...

I was brought up short the other day at the entrance to the housing complex where I live. There was a fat little cake of slowly dessicatin...

There are days, running into weeks, when the city dresses up. In a general way, of course, you could say that big cities are always dresse...

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 ...