Known Turf

Citizens old enough not only to vote but also to marry and have children (some of them even old enough to contest parliamentary elections) ...

Another proscribed poem credited to Bismil in the collection 'Zabt Shuda Nazmein'. About this poem, the editor has added a note say...

Ghazal Poet: Ghani Surat-e-barq tadap jis ghadi dikhlaoonga Tere phande se main sayyaad nikal jaaoonga Larzish paa hoon gar dast-e-k...

Words like “party” are slowly being leached of meaning. What does it mean to vote for a party when the person you vote for ceases to repres...

Another proscribed poem. The interesting thing about it is that the poet 'Bismil' (Ram Prasad, or Azeemabadi? As mentioned in the l...

Had reviewed Amitabha Bagchi's beautiful novel 'Half the Night is Gone' last year. Thinking of it again today, with admiration ...

चर्चा अपने क़त्ल का अब यार की महफ़िल में है देखना है यह तमाशा कौन सी मंज़िल में है देश पर क़ुरबान होते जाओ तुम, ए हिन्दीयों ज़िंदगी का ...

'Jallianwala Bagh' Poet - Sarju Begunaaho.n par bum.on ki be'khatar bauchhar ki De rahe hain dhamkiyaan bandook aur talvaar...

कड़ी धूप अब के धूप कड़ी है, यारो! ज़हन जहाँ तक जा सकता है, तप्ता रेगिस्तान है, यारो! आशाओं की लू चलती है सन-सन जैसे आग दहक रही हैं मन...

Sometime I think of democracy as a giant, never-ending public participatory art project: a people throwing themselves into the creation of ...

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...