Known Turf

So, starting this year (2018), I had begun to feel nervous about saying things out loud/in public. This wasn't just the nervousness of ...

Double sighted After years, I hopped onto a double decker bus. I'm not sure why I say “hopped”. Hopping was as unlikely as gr...

Three of the plays I've written over the last decade have now been published in one volume. They include the first full length script I ...

Can’t say I wasn’t warned. Friends who’d been to Dhaka before told me not to make elaborate plans; the traffic wouldn’t allow me to get aro...

Some of the braids draw inspiration from nature: crabs, flowers, rain that comes cascading down over the ears. But many styles also docum...

I stopped to stare at another of Tiepolo's paintings, “The Finding of Moses”. The story is that Moses was a foundling. He was rescued ...

I attended a girls' college where most of my batchmates were bouncing between three or four options – MBA degree, teaching with a B.Ed...

At a literary conversation (about a year ago?), the audience expressed fear and helplessness about violence, rifts in the citizenry, prejudi...

India went to the movies though, despite the rats, the torn seats and the hazards. We went because it was a now-or-never situation. If you ...

Respect is hard. I don't just mean that it is hard to win the respect of others, or to hold onto your self respect. It is also hard to...

The paths of glory, a poet has said, lead but to the grave. What the poet may not have imagined is the path that leads to the actual graves ...

Growing up, I never heard anything about who belonged in the kitchen. My mother didn't stay any longer in the kitchen as was necessar...

यूँ तो प्रेम का मामला हमेशा नाज़ुक ही होता है, लेकिन कुछ प्रेम कहानियाँ इतनी नाज़ुक होती हैं कि जैसे ही उनका ख़ुलासा होता है, प्रेमियों की सम...

A few months ago, I had the good fortune of being invited to the Women of the World Festival, held in Brisbane this year. Because it fo...

A script I wrote recently, Untitled 1, has won The Hindu Playwright Award for 2018. I am glad and grateful and feel very lucky.  Here ...

My grandfather was once in jail. As a kid, I’d pronounce this with a little flush of pride.  My  grandpa! Way back in 1939. As a young...

There was something odd about the way he wore the rubber slipper on his right foot. It was half off all the while he kept his foot presse...

Consider the difference between watching a film in a foreign language and trying to read a book in that language. The film will still give...

One of my favourite experiences while traveling in more developed nations is the button you can press whenever pedestrians want to cross ...

Somewhere in the Haryanvi village of Mughwali, there is a little acquifer. That is to say, there is a hole in the earth, bricked around, a...