The Power of Pie

“I just love the idea of cooking,” a friend said to me last weekend. “But I don’t think I like cooking very much.” "What? That's a really honest admission. I love cooking!" "Really? What kind of stuff do you cook?" "Erm..."

The Causes of Blindness

The scarlet jewellery box was shaped like a closet. Inside, the indigo blue velvet that lined it had an indefinable fragrance that I longed to smell again and again. I did not have a name for it and so I could not call it up with words, necessitating frequent nuzzling

Inside the Kaleidoscope

Annie Zaidi reminds one of a gypsy whose adventure unravels as you count the number of colourful hats she has donned. A journalist, playwright, essayist, poet, and storyteller, her ability to express variedly in multiple voices is laudable. It also reflects her honesty and sense of commitment to the subjects

The City Speaks #7

Tall Tales Is Looking for Storytellers in Mumbai

Started by Michael Burns and Kaneez Surka, Tall Tales is a live storytelling initiative in Mumbai that aims to showcase first-person stories "from Mumbai and beyond". An American documentary filmmaker and university instructor, Burns recently moved to Mumbai and works with the Y.M.C.A.'s

Letters of Love

Better known as Luna (or mentalexotica), Mahinn Ali Khan is a writer, archivist, and innovator. Her Twitter account and web site double as troves for writings on love; both others's and her own. Uniquely preoccupied with the nature of love, Mahinn has initiated many crowdsourced projects built around

The City Speaks #6

Northern Lights

“Welcome to Sweden, you lunatic,” says Karl. I’ve just landed in Stockholm, the 'Capital of Scandinavia', where the temperature is a bracing -19 degrees. Karl is a Swedish-Syrian architecture student. I know him from Hyderabad, where he had spent many uproarious years. “Come on, let us get

Skrat to Kick Off the Purple Fest in Chennai

Chennai Live 104.8 FM is the only private radio station in the city that plays music by independent Indian artists. This month, the radio station, in association with Clementine Studios and IndiEarth, (re-)introduces The Purple Fest, a series of fortnightly gigs to promote live music in Chennai. Skrat

In Pune: Amruta Patil to Discuss Her Work and Creative Process

Amruta Patil. Amruta Patil, author of critically and popularly acclaimed graphic novels such as Kari (2008) and Adi Parva: Churning of the Ocean (2012), will be in Pune this Monday to talk about her work and the process that drives it. Largely acknowledged as one of India's first

The City Speaks #5

Book Review: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

I first read Mohsin Hamid at high school at the insistence of a Pakistani friend. The year was 2006 and initially I was sceptical---of South Asian English literature in general, which I found tentative and unstimulating, ceaselessly cast into stereotypes; of the recent flood of largely forgettable first novels; even