It’s not easy to be funny. Honestly, it’s easier to scare audiences or to evoke their tears, than to make them laugh, page after page. Moni Mohsin pulls off an impossible writerly feat. She actually had me cracking up at the vapidly societal Butterfly,
Recently, I visited a photography exhibit at Gallery G hosted by Sandeep Maini, Honorary Consul for Mexico in Bengaluru and the Sandeep & Gitanjali Maini Foundation.
Chronologically ordered, the stark black-and-white images depicted Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera through various phases in their life,
… Continue reading “Visiting The Diego and Frida Life Chronicles at Gallery G”
About Hannah Kirshner
As someone who grew up on a farm outside Seattle, and then studied painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, Hannah Kirshner might not have predicted the manner in which her life was to be braided into another culture and country.
… Continue reading “A Brooklyn-based Artist Dives Into Japanese Crafts”
As the oldest of four children, Priya Paul, Chairperson of Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels, was certain, from a young age, about wanting to work in the family business. Stirred by talk around the dining table and at various family to-dos,
At one time, Amitha Pai was on the path to a rewarding corporate career. With pedigreed qualifications – an Engineering degree from Manipal, an MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB) – and a stint at the competitive Aditya Birla Leadership Program,
… Continue reading “From A Corporate Career To Founding a Social Enterprise”
Kieran Setiya: Reaches Out to a Parched Public
There was a time when philosophers used to tell us how to live. How to deal with hardships, circumvent obstacles, conquer grief and usher joy.
… Continue reading “A Philosopher’s Take on Riding Through Life’s Roughs”
When studying an intensely public figure like Gandhi, one wonders, as one often does with contemporary celebrities or bigwigs, about his behavior in the private sphere. Restless as Mercury offers glimpses into the leader that only those in the closest circles were privy to: namely,
… Continue reading “Lessons that Gandhi Absorbed From His Grandfather and Father”
Let’s start by putting this out there. Danielle J. Lindemann is a sociologist and an Associate Professor at Lehigh University. On her website, the “About Me” page ends with the following line: “In my downtime,
At 55, I find myself increasingly drawn to people who achieve remarkable physical feats. Like sportspersons, amateur athletes, fitness enthusiasts, marathon runners or mountain climbers. So it was really enthralling to meet with 34-year-old Shreyas Hosur,
… Continue reading “Lessons From India’s First Civil Services Officer To Complete the Ironman”
Marshall Poe is a rare academic who has managed to achieve something that most professors would find formidable: establish a wildly popular platform that hosts sparkling conversations about books. I have been listening to episodes from the New Book Network (NBN) ever since the pandemic shuttered us into private spaces of our own making.
… Continue reading “A History Professor Launches A Thriving Book Podcast”
All businesses are rife with risk. But more so the entertainment business, subject to shifting audience whims, competitive pressures and the commercial imperative to deliver returns on huge production costs. It’s hardly a sector for the faint-hearted.
… Continue reading “Sustaining Creativity Inside Organizations: Lessons From Pixar”
Forging Communities Inside Salons
Sandhya Sharma, 45, set up her own small parlor because she was married off too early – at 11 – to a man twice her age. Not only did she have to grapple with motherhood too soon,
A Cosmopolitan Childhood
Arundhati grew up with a sense of needing to excel in everything. Whether it was academics, dance, drawing or swimming, she always set up reach goals. Maybe this was partly inspired by her “helicopter” Mom.
Beauty Diplomacy: The Story Of The Book
Oluwakemi M. Balogun, Associate Professor at the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Oregon, was fascinated by how beauty pageants were not just reshaping contestants in Nigeria but also changing notions of the country.
… Continue reading “When Beauty Contestants Become Diplomats”
I have never attended the Jaipur Litfest (JLF). But I have been intrigued, like many other writers, by the manner in which the JLF has reshaped the Indian literary scene. Sparked off in 2006, as a smallish event with about 100 attendees,
… Continue reading “A Witty and Piercing Take on the Jaipur Litfest”
Gandhi in Durban: Sticking To His Turban
When Gandhi reached Durban in 1893, he was just a recently graduated newbie lawyer. In his own words: “I was just a boy returned from England wanting to make some money.” But he already bore a remarkable degree of self-confidence in himself and his culture.
… Continue reading “Reading Gandhi: Channelizing Anger To Change History”
A recent article in The Hindu featured three artists who have painted murals at Indiranagar in Bangalore. Figures depicted on their colorful wallscapes include the mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, the religious teacher and educational philosopher J.
… Continue reading “Reading Gandhi: Understanding The Nation’s Founder”
The Author’s Backdrop
The Telugu author, Varalakshmamma, was born in 1896 in Andhra Pradesh. She was a zealous member of the freedom movement, who was galvanized by Mahatma Gandhi. More impressively, she was a feminist who urged other women to assert their rights and to join Gandhi’s movement,
… Continue reading “Reading Telugu Stories: A Deputy Collector Regrets His Working Life”
Of late, there has been a slew of books that critique higher education in the U.S. Many of these written by American scholars and pedagogical practitioners who are intensely invested in the system delivering better learning outcomes.
… Continue reading “When Educational Ideals Are Overtaken By Commerce”
Krishna Gowda of Bookworm, one of our city’s prominent literary advocates, alerted us to a lovely set of books. Published by Aleph, these books carry English translations of the greatest Indian language “stories ever told” – for instance,
… Continue reading “Reading Telugu Stories: Chalam explores forbidden desires”
Brinda S. Narayan
