Essays
Mimics and Models
Kalpish Ratna
Whatever Jane Austen might think, PD James’ Death Comes to Pemberley ranks among the finest examples of literary mimicry, a genre that has good reason to exist
Tears of a Bang Bang Man
The legendary Bang Bang Club photographers documented the end of Apartheid and the bloodsoaked birth of democracy in South Africa. One of them was killed by peacekeeping forces. One committed suicide. Greg Marinovich, one of only two still alive, bares what it was like in those brutal days
Flaunting the Write Look
In a world inundated with books, a female writer’s sexiness serves as a handy marketing tool. But, Annie Zaidi warns, this can prove counter-productive to a writer who wants to be taken seriously
The Big Lie of Sport
The notion that sport makes gentlemen out of men and promotes fair play is spin doctoring. A Victorian novelist called Thomas Hughes started it with Tom Brown’s Schooldays, says Mihir Bose
The Long and Winding Road
Ankur Rahman, along with his brother Rodin and their friend, Akhup Khom, push the idea of slow travel to its limit and decide to walk from Tezpur in Assam to Sela Pass in Arunachal Pradesh—a good 340 km away. Asked why, Ankur’s answer is “Why not?”
Confronting My Assaulter
One day in her teens, a man who she treated like her father tried to rape her. She escaped, but the next day, she looked him in the eye and made him apologise. This suddenly changed the power equation
Internet Rehab
When she realised she was checking Twitter before brushing her teeth in the morning, Atreyee Majumder figured she had to sober up. Especially if she wanted to finish her PhD thesis in this lifetime
Kitchen Confidential
Having spent three months snooping around a restaurant, Sohini Chattopadhyay reveals why even great recipes sometimes don’t make it to the menu, the food service industry’s unforgiving hierarchy, and other secrets
The Right Thing to Do
Even during Kashmir’s worst years of insurgency, says Ghulam Mohammad Malik, a retired Muslim teacher who has been protecting a temple in Srinagar for over a decade now, no one ever raised an eyebrow at his presence there
Has Pankaj Mishra Ever Been to South Dakota?
For a writer whose first book was a travelogue around small-town India, Pankaj Mishra seems strangely unwilling to engage with the complexities, or provincialities, of the United States. In his recent scathing review of Harvard historian Niall Ferguson’s book Civilisation: The West and the Rest, as in his other writings, Mishra seems interested in America only to the extent that he can caricature its ruling elite in order to knock them down, says Ethan Casey
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