The lace was itchy, the elastic was uncomfortable and I couldn’t breathe. “I hate it!” I told her.
“They’re French!” she said, shocked. “How can you hate it?”
“I don’t care where they were made,” I insisted stubbornly. “I hate them.”
She fiddled with the straps and pushed and pulled (not that there was much at the time [...]
Archive for August, 2008
‘The State is secular, are you?’
Published by August 31st, 2008 in Caste, Democracy, Prejudice, Religion and Secularism. 0 CommentsSuparna Sharma says ‘the Constitution of India drops secularism at our doorstep’ leaving us ‘to behave appropriately or otherwise — in our private lives’:
Uma Bharati, Bharatiya Janshakti Party leader, said: “Shabana Azmi is lying. Actually, many people don’t respect actors and don’t want to give them their houses. Everybody watches Shabana Azmi’s movies, not just [...]
A Novelist’s Perspective on Pakistan
Published by August 31st, 2008 in Books, History and South Asia. 0 CommentsCHUP! (’Changing Up Pakistan’) interviews Bapsi Sidhwa:
Lenny is very different from me. If she was like me, I would have been very self-conscious and couldn’t have written the book because it would have become autobiographical. Someone once said that autobiography is always sort of a lie, whereas fiction has much more truth. You lose your [...]
Nimmy deplores ‘war through women’:
Kashmir is place which is turning out to be goldmine for army and politicians. They need to ensure that the state of trouble remains the same, atleast for their life span as to make the most out of it for selfish motives. Militants on the other hand keep the area [...]
Scott Rothstein reviews Dr. Stephen Huyler’s Daughters of India:
Dr. Stephen Huyler, an American art historian, cultural anthropologist, photographer, and author introduces twenty of these women in his new book, Daughters of India. Huyler, whose mentor was Beatrice Wood, first traveled to India over 37 years ago on her recommendation. Since that first visit, he has [...]
What’s the difference between Jammu and Kashmir?
Published by August 30th, 2008 in India. 0 CommentsSuyog shares a very interesting aspect of Jammu & Kashmir.
Back in our engineering days, we had a guy from Jammu who quickly became our good friend. Those days we would call him “Kashmiri” as a nickname. It was a nickname just given to him because he was the only guy we knew who was from [...]
Nita protests against bandhs:
The bandh culture is a peculiar hodgepodge of democracy and communism. Communist regimes do not allow such nonsense, but a democracy allows freedom, a freedom misused by the communists to impose on the common people. It is ridiculous that bandhs are actually used to tom-tom a “people’s cause” completely disregarding the fact [...]
Paras pays tribute to singer late Mukesh with a duet song. Listen to Ye Mausam, a song from the Hindi movie Modern Girl. She sang this song with Dinesh, who has posted so many Mukesh songs in his music blog. Go check that out too.
Every photograph comes with a story
Published by August 27th, 2008 in Photography and Spotlight Series. 2 Comments[ This is Essay No. 32 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
Every photograph comes with a story
By Neha Viswanathan
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It’s a ritual with my mother. When I was younger, I used to cringe when she brought out old family albums. As an adolescent, I found nothing precious in those photographs. To me, many [...]
After a recent trip to Istanbul, Szerelem writes about the city and its music.
Music is heard not only late at night, at the tiny bars which take over the streets in summer and the meyhanes, but at all times of the day, especially on the weekends. One of my favourite films, Fatih Ak?n’s ?stanbul Hat?ras?: [...]
Niti Bhan writes a letter to the National Institute of Design:
Dear NiD,
I walked out on you without a word of explanation just over 18 years ago, one day. Perhaps the time has come to talk about many things, as the Walrus said, including cabbages and kings. And eventually, meander in my own circumlocutory way towards [...]
Anna has a different perspective on the film.
The curious thing, I found, about Nair’s film is that it seemed to be a subtle tussle between the story of the wife/mother & the story of the son. Which was the one I was supposed to be guided by? The title of the film implies the son. [...]
[ This is Essay No. 31 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
The Shampoo Sheikh
By Fëanor
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During the height of the Regency, it was the very thing to betake oneself to Brighton, there to enjoy the sea, dance with the best people, flirt with dashing Army officers, be introduced to the Princes Royal, and [...]
Nitesh Rohit writes about cinema, art and activism.
It is a constant struggle between truth and deceit, the boundaries are so thin that one can easily slip into the other territory, that is the reason giants of the art form are slowly becoming a rare species, since the “ struggle” to pull together each day of [...]
That’s Mid Day’s Graphics Editor Satish Acharya’s blog. The sidebar says:’I love to blog here because it connects me with the loads of non-midday readers too and helps me to get some desperate feedback. I love those comments, they help my cartoons shape up better’. The cartoons on the blog are very, very [...]
This illustrates two points, one that the Dalit movement is not simply a caste based ‘vote bank’ political gimmick, it is a dynamic self-awakening by a marginalized group to stake their claims to a society’s resources. Second, it shows how the general attitude of the upper caste Hindus has morphed from oppression to ignorance, they [...]
Rajesh Kumar predicts that iPhone will bomb in India!
Of course, the price, it is obscene(NDTV’s Vikram Chandra felt it was only ‘slightly expensive’ though!).
SMS is important for Indian mobile users, unlike the US where it is possible to come across many business executives who do not use SMS. The iPhone is not crafted for heavy [...]
Raju Narisetti asks whether the new weekly women’s page in HT is ‘a liberated ghetto for women?’
Dustin Harp of the University of Texas in Austin has done an interesting look at women’s pages in the US and notes that “after nearly a century of publishing explicitly named women’s pages, US newspapers starting in 1969 and [...]
The Hand That Wields the Pen
Published by August 22nd, 2008 in Art, Spotlight Series and Women. 10 Comments[ This is Essay No. 30 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
The Hand That Wields the Pen
By Anindita Sengupta
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Civilisations are judged and remembered not by their most successful businessmen but by the art they leave behind.
~ Kwame Kwei-Armah
That art is important for a civilization is undeniable. That it oils its rusty [...]
A Business Professor reviews Doing Business in India, by Professor Rajesh Kumar of Aarhus School of Business (Denmark) and Anand Kumar Sethi of Applied Technology Services- a book that offers some ‘understanding’ of the country, and also a few controversial claims:
It places the growth of India in a historic context, arguing that it was [...]
There are seven thousand Jews living in India wanting to come home to eretz Yisrael, they are the Bnei Menashe, the descendants of the lost tribe of Menashe (and some say Effriam also). This group has been lost to our people since the Kingdom of Israel was conquered and dispersed over 2,500 years ago. [...]
Starting tomorrow, Blogbharti will publish posts (on Friday, Monday and Wednesday) by three well known, and much admired, bloggers as a part of the latest, and unfortunately very short, round of the Spotlight Series (please click here for the archives). Your comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated.
I have to resort to Sen’s Spot again to bring a wonderful article about Vijendra Kumar, the BBC (Bhiwani Boxing Club) boxer talking to the BBC! Thanks Sen for compiling such arresting news stories and all the badminton videos too.
Let’s look at the others still in the fray.The best medal hope in boxing for india [...]
Balu goes to the Periyar tiger reserve and brings back mesmerizing photos of the paradise. But wait, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Read what he says..
A few meters into the slush, my shoes were wet and swarming with leeches. The socks were soaked in blood, and rest of the walk had to be done [...]
A Reader from India reviews Karan Bajaj’s Keep off the Grass:
I felt a vicarious thrill on reading the blurb Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Semifinalist on Karan Bajaj’s book Keep off the Grass. As an ABNA semifinalist, I had to buy the book. An old Tamil saying, “Feed the neighbour’s child and your children would flourish [...]
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