Known Turf

I was interviewed recently by Saumya Kalia for Outlook magazine. One of the questions she put to me was taking off on something I said after...

From my essay on learning from the lockdown and the new normal, published in The Indian Express: In the new millennium, I saw new kinds of i...

A short passage from an essay I wrote about Indian writing in English, and the insinuation that it was an elitist club: Occasionally, I also...

We do the work of creation in the hope that it achieves something in our communities. Something gentle, or fierce, or resplendent. Something...

The meaning of spit changes with context. Literature is full of spitters and the spat upon, from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice to Khushw...

Yes, yes, Facebook. Carry on spying. I visited Lithub. Show me all the Lithub you've got now. The worst material there might be on Lith...

New book, published by Cambridge University Press. Out today. A brief extract is available here: https://ninedotsprize.org/extract-f...

Behind all funerary efforts and expenses is the urgent need to confront the loss of someone with whom you had (and continue to have) a uniq...

Here's a new short story, recently published in The Charles River Journal. The story is called 'Jhimmi'. It was written after I...

One thing is clear. No heroes wear capes. They wear makeshift masks, often just a kerchief folded over and tied around their noses. Slender...

I walked away that afternoon with a heavy heart. When I looked around the building, I saw an open terrace where laundry was drying, and lar...

My eyes barely left my phone screen. It was like being in a tunnel where the roof has fallen in, our collective hands bloodied from trying ...

There's been this saree tag doing the rounds on Facebook. I was tagged too. I am not in a mood to post happy pictures. However, since m...

My mother attempted to buy vegetables last week, right outside the gates of the housing complex, and she witnessed police officials prevent...

When was the last time there was a massive public uproar about our leaders concealing truth, or flip-flopping on facts presented in court, ...

We like to believe that justice is served when a murderer goes to the gallows. Death offers closure. It also shields us from the awful trut...

मेरे नाना साहब की लिखी एक बहुत पुरानी नज़्म. उस ज़माने में वो लखनऊ यूनिवर्सिटी में पढ़ रहे थे. उम्र क़रीब 22 साल रही होगी (नज़्म पे तारीख़ 1938 ल...

In other news, Facebook has finally successfully figured me out. It has my profile down pat:interested in literature (writing), films, cult...

Somebody on Twitter called me a 'corona virus ki shakal ki...' (other words followed) It was obviously meant as an insult. Made me...

Less going out of the house (which I do reluctantly at the best of times) means more reading. Over the last few weeks, between deadlines, a...