It was the blood that had got Kabir interested in the man. Not the word but the stain on his letter. No one would believe him at first. Had he imagined it? Missing is Sumana Roy's debut novel (Purchase) The archives, especially the colonial archives, had been ordered
My father has been bald for the entirety of the time that I have known him. Modest Bengali mothers like to call their husbands “sunchho”, but my mother endearingly calls my father “takla” [bald man]. His bald patch glistens with sparse hair on the fringes and leaves him utterly conspicuous,
In his classic essay about walking in the city, French philosopher Michel de Certeau discussed the significance---both architectural and psychological---of vertical urban growth in modern societies, and the reasoning behind modern society’s obsession with skyscrapers. “The pedestrian’s elevation transforms him into a voyeur,” he wrote, “It transforms the
Things We Found During the Autopsy is the second short-fiction collection from Winnipeg-born, Bangalore resident Kuzhali Manickavel. Rather, perhaps ‘anti-fiction’ would be a better way to categorise this book. Things We Found During the Autopsy by Kuzhali Manickavel (Purchase) George P Elliott describes this genre well: “Anti-fiction may include a
Sujata Massey’s A Murder on Malabar Hill is the perfect kind of crime novel. At its centre is a cozy mystery that is extremely satisfying to its conclusion. And it is a social crime novel, which is best described by Dirk Gently’s maxim that to solve a crime,
'Woman in Charge' is a new series on Helter Skelter that explores the life of a female Pradhan in a Kumaoni village. Mountain traditions run deep in her veins, and yet she desires progress for her family and community. The stories are based on true events. Tara walked
Swati Chaturvedi, in her introduction to I Am A Troll: Inside the Secret World of the B.J.P.’s Digital Army, lays out her professional background and experience as an investigative journalist who has been fighting hard for her freedom of expression, while also being at the receiving end
First off, Slow Startle is a book about death. Rohan Chhetri does not make any bones about it. Chhetri’s poetic world is a hologram of memory, it shudders with a wind breaking on his face, and enters his poems (like violence enters his poems), they seem as though they’
'Woman in Charge' is a new series on Helter Skelter that explores the life of a female Pradhan in a Kumaoni village. Mountain traditions run deep in her veins, and yet she desires progress for her family and community. The stories are based on true events. “There are
My boyfriend’s---let's call him R---flat is right next to the office of his apartment building's society committee. On Sundays, when the Uncles, and one Aunty, meet, I can hear everything that they discuss. I know how much it costs to paint all eight buildings in
When Shakespeare wrote King Lear, he deviated from his source (Holinshed’s Chronicles) in two ways---he changed the climax from a happy one to a tragic one and he added the subplot of the Earl of Gloucester and his sons Edgar and Edmund. In the Holinshed timeline of events, King
Now more than ever, it seems as though all the world’s a hashtag. While most of us are happy to react to increasingly ridiculous happenings from around the world---often with an emoji, occasionally with the odd heartfelt rant-essay---one brave, anonymous soul decided the only way to deal with their