Posted inLove and Sex
My Teacher, My Lover
KS taught me in high school, playing Higgins to my Eliza Doolittle. Over time, though, we became intimate. I now wonder about the moral and legal boundaries of that experience.
Posted inPOV
Loan-Waiver Schemes Got 99 Problems. And Implementation is One
As Madhya Pradesh CM Kamal Nath announced loan waivers for his state's farmers, the demand across the country has only gotten louder. With the general elections a few months away, the governments might just cave in. But while farm loan waivers might make good political sense, do they make good moral and economic sense?
Posted inVice
Inside the World of Pimple Porn
Pimple-popping is part of a whole subculture, something much larger than I could have ever imagined.
Posted inPOV
Smog Crisis: Delhi is Not Poisonous, Its People Are
Delhi gears up for winter like heroes in sci-fi films prepare to enter cities that have been struck by epidemics – with masks, but raring to go into battle. The Capital’s terrible air quality is due to a combination of reasons – but at this point, Dilliwalas, did you really need a cracker ban to stop yourselves from worsening it?
Posted inPOV
How to Win a Reality Show: Forget Your Talent, Surrender Your Dignity
I was a behind-the-scenes volunteer at Indian Idol auditions a few years ago, and had to prompt awkward aspirants to say cheesy things like “Humari zindagi badal jayegi show jeetne se.” Reality shows can be toxic places, where everything from a person’s disability to lack of talent, is fair game for exploitation.
Posted inPeople
Black Nights Matter
Tucked away in a corner of Bangalore, a cosmopolitan night club appears like a safe zone for Africans, but like the rest of India, even this is not.
Posted inAnimals
A Dog Experiences War. We Call it Diwali
We are under attack. Almost every minute a bomb goes off. From the window I can see children with guns and soldiers running around yelling code words at each other, “Happy Diwali! Happy Diwali!”
Posted inFashion
The Dawn of “Protest Fashion”: What India Wore to the Anti-CAA Protests
The anti-CAA/NRC protests that have gripped the country in the last two months, is testament to the fact that fashion and revolution have gone hand in hand. Several images have stood out during the protests – from Chandrashekhar Azad’s blue scarf to the women who’ve worn the hijab as a political statement.
Posted inFirst Person
How Delhi Power Cuts Shaped Our Childhoods
Anyone who has lived in Delhi of the 1980s and ’90s, will remember the legendary load-shedding power cut that used to be a way of life – and how it characterised our adolescent days. Power cuts were to Delhi what traffic was to Mumbai.
Posted inPop Culture
PewDiePie vs T-Series: No Matter Who Wins This Scrappy Internet Brawl, We Lose
When did YouTube become a battleground between PewDiePie, a Swedish man-child who makes memes for a living, and T-Series, an implacable corporation that relentlessly polices social media?