Known Turf

If you run an online search for good roads in India, you might come upon a question someone asked on Quora: Why aren’t the roads in India...

केदारनाथ सिंह की आज बहुत याद आ रही है। ये कविता आज ख़ास सुनने का मन किया। "ईश्वर को एक भारतीय नागरिक के कुछ सुझाव" ईश्वर, अगर ...

Odisha was in the news for a good reason recently. It was named best state for promotion of sports at the Sportstar Aces Awards, on account...

We all maintain an internal list of things that happen to people out of luck. Things too awful to contemplate: hunger, arrest, getting beat...

Days before being slandered as a university of terrorists, Aligarh Muslim University was in the news for a letter written by the local unit...

I don't know what made me think of pedal-boats. Perhaps it was the whiplash of January rain. Perhaps it was the feeling of being cram...

It had begun at Rajiv Gandhi’s funeral, when pictures of the grieving family were published in every newspaper and magazine across the coun...

I don't know what made me think of pedal-boats. Perhaps it was the whiplash of January rain. Perhaps it was the feeling of being cram...

There is a rumour afoot that the authorities – in Delhi at least – might do something about parking norms, like insisting that people par...

If I was a builder who built a sub-standard building that collapsed and killed a few people, or if I was an engineer who inspected and cert...

There is a curious object available online these days. “Hitler Germany” is a cheap plastic electric extension board. The company selling it...

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 ...