Awareness in the Eyebrow Centre

She used to eat Upma. My first yoga teacher. And she used to eat it in class. With this really passive, resigned expression as though it had no salt in it but what the hell, that was the state of her life anyway. I think her name was Janini but the truth is that all I…

Who are we reading?

Week Four: The Hindu

Who are we reading?

Week One: The Times Of India

As a kid when I opened the door every morning to collect the newspaper, I’d stare at the TOI on my neighbour’s doormat and lust after their wonderfully satisfying Page Three, before drearily picking up The Hindu from…

Who Are We Reading?

Meanwhile in digital news

Jayalalithaa: Welfare vs Power

My distant uncle has a collection of 1003 Ganeshas in his house. Statues, pictures, little ones made of clay, larger ones made of glass, some carved in wood, others staring out of calendars. He also holds, if I remember correctly, the Limca record for having the most number…

Who are we reading?

Week Three: Hindustan Times

If Ramnath Goenka was the big name behind The Indian Express, the one behind the Hindustan Times is Shobhana Bhartia. The first ever woman chief executive of a national newspaper, she was on the Forbes Most Powerful Women…

Who are we reading?

Week Two: Indian Express

If you found the TOI’s profit driven approach to journalism disheartening, here’s a newspaper with a truly dramatic, “We stand by the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” type history. Set in a world where…

In Solidarity with Ramjas College

Sometimes, when I try to talk about a social or political issue that I believe is extremely important, there is this unshakable feeling that I am too young to be talking so seriously and definitely too young to be taken so seriously. Irrespective of how much the issue…