India, June 8 -- A civil rights lawyer by day, an author by night, Vaishnavi Patel constantly challenges the mainstream. Her first book gives us a contrarian version of the Ramayana-letting wicked ste... Read More
India, June 1 -- Dear Reader, These days I am either waiting for electricians or stonemasons or plumbers. Building a house in the mountains sounds romantic I know -but wait until you spend long momen... Read More
India, May 18 -- Dear Reader, This is my week of non-reading. I've been forced into literary rehab. As someone who spends all their free time between the pages of a book, this is pure torture. The o... Read More
India, May 10 -- Dear Reader, Amidst all the tense talks of war, I find a quiet spot. A blaze of blue and yellow before me is Zubeida Mahal. Beside me, the Parel Railway Colony. And in the distance,... Read More
India, May 4 -- Dear Reader, China doesn't feel repressive. We are on Nanjing Road in Shanghai, crowded with couples, young families and tourist groups. The horizon is filled with futuristic looking... Read More
India, April 27 -- Dear Reader, I feel grateful for my travel reading, for stories on politics, history and culture that help me seek truths in the spaces between texts and landscapes. And for all th... Read More
India, April 20 -- Dear Reader, "I forget poetry, but it doesn't forget me," says Raju Tai. Speaking with 34-year-old poet Raju Tai, I realise I forget poetry too. When was the last time you let a p... Read More
India, April 13 -- Dear Reader, Summer isn't what it used to be. Sitting at my desk, with a list of jobs on the whiteboard before me, I miss the summer holidays of my youth, days when everything slow... Read More
India, April 6 -- Dear Reader, At 2pm on a Tuesday, as MBA students slump post-lunch, guest speaker and Bollywood scriptwriter Atika Chohan does the unexpected-she questions her own presence. 'Why i... Read More
India, March 30 -- Dear Reader, We are almost at the end of lunch when Rohini opens her backpack to retrieve two copies of her book. It's a blue paperback titled "What's In Your Backpack," an explora... Read More