Essays

Flaunting the Write Look

Annie Zaidi

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

Mihir Bose

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

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

arindam

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

Atreyee Majumder

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

Sohini Chattopadhyay

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

Ghulam Mohammad Malik

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?

Ethan Casey

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

Non-fiction is Dead: Long Live Belles-lettres

Arpita Das

What’s so ‘non’ about literary work that is based on reportage and commentary? Let’s stop subordinating this genre with the term ‘non-fiction’

The Road to Freedom

Gopal Kaushik

What assures a man his freedom? Gopal Kaushik tried running away from home, even adopting a life of crime. But he remained miserable—until the day he bought his bike