“At the current rate, 3 billion people will still be living without safe toilets, 2 billion will be without safe drinking water and 1.4 billion will lack basic hygiene facilities by 2030.”[1] Every year, on 19th November, ‘World Toilet Day’ is observed in a bid to awaken every citizen of this world to the alarming…
Originally posted on RIC Journal:
Stillness is the only loyal companion in purgatory. Purgators do not get to choose companions, anyway. Both were artists. She wrote bad poetry. He drew crooked lines. Both were artists. She liked dancing in the rain. He blew out rings of smoke in the winter air. Both were artists. She…
Originally posted on RIC Journal:
Borders have been sealed. An unknown virus has entered our kingdom. It refuses to leave. We have been locked inside our homes. They say, if we dare venture out, the virus will get hold of us. So, we are locked in. But what about those who have been locked out?…
Ruby Hembrom is a name to reckon with in the Indian publishing industry. Her unconditional and undying love for the Santhal language made her quit a well-paying job in the IT sector and start her own publishing outfit. Ever since its inception in 2012, Adivaani has published 19 books with 35 authors and illustrators on…
“I should warn you that I might write again in the future—‘My Autobiography, Part II’!…I will keep on telling you the story of my life.” These were the last lines Nalini Jameela wrote in the Afterword of her autobiography Oru Laingikatozhilaliyute Atmakatha (2005). Thirteen years have passed since she created a storm with her story. Sex worker…
Bambooka. That was what the passengers’ ship was called. The name was rather odd, or maybe it wasn’t. Why is it that something that we hear for the first time strikes us as ‘odd’, ‘peculiar’ and perhaps ‘weird’? Labelling the unheard and the unread an ‘oddity’ is such a natural response. Frowning upon the unknown…
Originally posted on I was not born in English:
Love: always disproportionate — Magda Kapa (@MagdaKapa) January 25, 2013 In 2013 I spent a whole year on Twitter exploring the meaning of “big” words like life, death, love, sex, pain, pride, violence, hope… When I started writing these “definitions” in January that year, I had…
Faiz, Ghalib and Iqbal by MF Husain.
Years and years ago when Baba brought new calendars home, my excitement would know no bounds. With much alacrity, Baba would unpin the previous year’s calendar hanging from the wall and gently install the new one in its place. In this annual ritual of bidding farewell to the bygone years and ushering in the changed…
The following interview was published in Times of India (Online) It was at the stroke of midnight one Friday last April when a Tokyo bookstore opened its doors to more than a hundred people who had queued up to grab a copy of their favourite author, Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His…
The following interview with author Michelle Cohen Corasanti was published in Times of India (Online) Book: The Almond Tree Author: Michelle Cohen Corasanti Publisher: Fingerprint/Prakash Books India Pages: 352 Intolerance is a human being’s biggest weakness and finding peace, his greatest strength. This journey from intolerance to peace is the search for freedom. In her…
The day was sunny like a winter morning, Afternoon reminded me of your hug from last autumn. Evening came as though you returned to kiss me one spring night, When night fell, how I wished to forget the summer goodbye.
A blank page. An empty road. A cup, no coffee An open sky Today’s newspaper has no headlines. A knock on the door, no one outside. Where’s the wind? Asks the wind chime. Chairs are arranged, is anyone coming? Your Knight’s in distress The Bishop, a lone ranger Queen is indebted to the Pawn And…
The bed would creak in the middle of the night every time I got up to use the washroom. I am a self-confessed insomniac but I do not conspire to disturb another’s well deserved sleep. I would carefully tiptoe through the darkness on my way back to the bed but that was useless. With apologies…
When I woke up this Saturday morning, it felt I had woken up to a similar morning in the month of April a few years back. As I sit up gently rubbing my eyes, I see the sun rays streaming in through the netted window, and, I quietly admire the inanimate objects perched on my…
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