Essays

Diary of a Thin Girl

Atreyee Majumder

The American medical establishment was unnerved by her body measurements and threatened ‘tough decisions’ if she didn’t reform herself. Casting directors find her ideal to play domestic-abuse victim. But cabbies carry her luggage to the door. Always.

My Friend Guru

Dev Anand

Upon a chance meeting, a first-time hero and an assistant director made a lofty promise to each other. That promise culminated in a noir-styled movie, Baazi, in 1951. Its inimitable hero, Dev Anand, remembers his troubled and only true friend Guru Dutt

Tips of the Trade

Chandi Deitmer

Along with balancing gooey cheese burgers and bottles of beer, a waitress often has to deal with formidable high school rivals and persistent pick-up calls

Of Scrubs and Girls

Atreyee Majumder

Still new to the West, Atreyee Majumder wonders what it is that so affects her when a maid bends under her chair at home in India to scrub out a speck of dust, while a janitor in uniform evokes no feeling at all

Adil Hossain versus AMU

Mohammad Adil Hossain

When Mohammad Adil Hossain was banned from campus on charges of ‘internet activism’, he promptly took his university to court, and argued his own case. After a harrowing ten-month legal battle, he is back on campus

My Grand Uncle Sálim

Rauf Ali

The grand old bird man of India had no problem eating chicken, or any fowl for that matter. And even when he was well into his eighties, he would take a rifle into his garden to shoot crows. Rauf Ali introduces his grand uncle Sálim Ali the way he knew him, a man who was completely deaf in one ear, yet mortified by snorers

Kalari and I

Gitanjali Kolanad

Tired of the silk and jewellery of Bharatanatyam, Gitanjali Kolanad discovered the martial art Kalaripayat in her thirties, a little late in life. Yet, once in the pit, soaked in sweat, she found herself absorbed by it. And years later, when a man groped her, she had the retributive satisfaction of landing a blow at a perfect marma point