Essays

Tango’s First Steps

Shyamant Behal

How the Great Depression, Juan Peron and the brothels of Argentina influenced the creation of one of the world’s most vibrant forms of music

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Anil Budur Lulla

Abdul Wasey Mirza has survived two bomb blasts, one in Hyderabad in 2007 and another in the same city in February this year. Hundreds of pieces of shrapnel lodged in his body are proof of the ordeal, but what he wants to rid himself of are the scars of being branded a terror suspect

My Adventure with Bluetooth

Sumana Roy

Sumana Roy spends an afternoon in the company of a smuggler

Genes and Sneakers

Akshay Sawai

As Arjun Tendulkar takes baby steps in competitive cricket, Rohan Gavaskar talks about the challenges of stepping into a famous dad’s shoes

The MGR of Chepauk

Akshay Sawai

The eccentricities of MGR devotees are many. Ask TR Kailasam, who has been playing his lookalike since 1996, black wraparound sunglasses and fur cap included. When he dresses like MGR, says Kailasam, he ‘sees’ him

How I Became India’s Only Wildlife Taxidermist

arindam

Veterinarian Dr Santosh Gaikwad is the country’s only taxidermist who preserves wild animals. Completely self-taught, he has stuffed several animals over the years, including lions, tigers and snakes. An elephant head too

How Life Happens

Anuvab Pal

Twelve years ago, Anuvab Pal’s home was invaded by a mouse named Arthur. This made him write a play about two people throwing a cricket ball at each other. A year later, a drunken impulse made him check the voicemail of a job he had quit six months earlier. Then all these dots connected, and he became a stand-up comedian

My Name is Gandhi

Aanchal Bansal

For Amrita Gandhi, being Mahatma Gandhi’s great-granddaughter is as casual a fact of life as the Rs 30,000 she’s not entirely sure of spending on redoing her couch. She admires Bapu’s frugality, but it so happens that her calling in life turned out to be tracking the lifestyles of India’s erstwhile royals

The Crumbling Ground

Tridip Suhrud

Ananya Vajpeyi’s book Righteous Republic is a reminder of the moral quest that set the tone of the freedom movement, of leaders whose lifelong aim was to deny violence legitimacy. Sadly, our political parties have seceded from this moral realm