True Life

Praising the Bar

Akshay Sawai

It was a boyhood fantasy to disrobe the glittering 5 Star and devour it. I dreamt, I salivated, I even stole money to get my fix.

My Father, Alyque

Quasar Thakore Padamsee

For years, they met for half an hour daily. Later, it was the lunch slot, a business meeting almost. It took a while to sort it all out, but one holiday and the birth of his sister changed it all. He’s never been much of a dad but Quasar Thakore Padamsee says he couldn’t have asked for a better friend than ‘AP’.

Zen by the Mandovi

Sudeep Chakravarti

One Goa port-soaked afternoon, I signed up for karate lessons and my daughter sniggered. A year later, as I scales walls Crouching Tiger style to save stranded cats, I’m the ‘cool’ dad.

JNU Blues

Rahul Jayaram

The Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi turned 40 last month. But for all its political trappings, the one emotion that defines the forest-surrounded campus is romance—or the lack of it.

Director’s Cut

Mahesh Nair

Making a movie is all about having the patience to endure long intervals. This author has taken eight years, with several abandoned projects in between, to debut as a director in Bollywood.

Foot Soldier

Jarnail Singh

For 25 years, journalist Jarnail Singh awaited justice for the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. Then, something snapped and a shoe flew out towards Home Minister P Chidambaram. He’s lost his job, and regrets hurling the shoe, but certainly not standing up against injustice

Mr Creepy Crawly

Varad Giri

Disappearing for days into the Western Ghats, this man looks under rocks, sifts through piles of leaves and generally gets his hands quite dirty looking to discover new species of amphibians and reptiles. In fact herpetologist Varad Giri is a pretty rare creature himself: a researcher who can’t have enough of the creepy crawlies