Click here to read The Tea Party (Part 1). It was the day before my birthday and I was expecting my friends at 7 p.m. for what I’d promised would be a really cool---I don’t do elegant very well---high tea party to bring in my birthday. “Are
It was late summer. One of those warm, balmy New York nights where you stand outside of the bar chatting for an hour instead of going home. Or you walk idly, perhaps taking the long way. Sometimes, when I was younger, on evenings like this, my girl friends and I
Headed by singer and songwriter Vitek Goyel, Slow Down Clown is a four-piece alternative rock outfit from Bombay whose first music video 'Stupid Sea' recently went live on YouTube. Resplendent with Bombay street art, the video marked a decided milestone for the band, and was soon followed by
Today, I am visiting Hipti. Remote and inaccessible, I am narrated enough tales from expert trekkers to know it is going to be a difficult climb. Hipti does not find particular mention on any of the tourist maps that the Leh Bazaar sells in profusion. It even causes some Ladakhis
'There are some things your forefathers didn't want you to forget,' begins the first installation of a series of graphic novels based on the Mahabharat, as Amruta Patil sets out to tell what she described to Paul Gravett as the story of "every human preoccupation
It is that time of the month again. The sideburns are skewed. Stubborn locks refuse to budge from the forehead, well on their way to assuming grotesque forms. The scalp is getting itchy all over and my concentration is waning. The mirror does not lie. My immediate response is to
As a child, I remember how my parents couldn’t function without a cup of tea. On Sundays, before the four of us could hop onto the Bajaj Vespa (I stood in the front and pretended it was an airplane); at story time on Saturday mornings; during the make-believe school
Classified as a horror novel, Arnab Ray's The Mine was not only one of the first books in its genre in India (in English), but also one of the first to release a visual trailer of the book months before its release. A prolific tweeter and celebrity blogger,
Parismita Singh’s work has been featured in Time Out, Sarai Reader, Katha Prize Stories, Tehelka, The Little Magazine, and most recently, The Pao Anthology. Her debut graphic novel The Hotel at the End of the World was published by Penguin India in 2009. Her work draws from folklore and
How do you best challenge the fact that in India, finding a woman in a position of power at her workplace is almost always---your short-haired, handloom-wearing principal notwithstanding---the exception to the rule? How best to use the propelling power of one of India's largest publishing houses to make
The first time I watched The Burning Train, I didn't sleep all night. My mum tells me that I was so taken aback by the film, I kept asking her questions about how a train operates and why it was so difficult to stop that train. At that
Another Country is Anjali Joseph’s second novel. After her critically acclaimed debut Saraswati Park, Another Country is the story of 21-year-old Leela in---you guessed it---other countries. The story follows Leela through her sojourns in Paris, London, and Bombay, as she grows up through experiences both awkward and lovely in