When news broke last year that Kevin Joseph, a 23-year-old dalit Christian youngster had been killed by the family of his newlywed wife Neenu, Malayalis didn’t initially suspect that it was a case of ‘honour killing’. They had associated the term mostly with villages in...
I’m not going to argue that the reading down of IPC Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is not an important milestone for LGBTQIA+ people in India. Of course it is. It is a very small thing we asked for — the right to...
As someone who often struggles with the question: ‘Who am I?’ meeting Rohingya refugees at the camp that currently serves as their shelter, hit me hard. I couldn’t find an Uber to Balapur, in the Old City, in Hyderabad, where the camp is located. Not...
Calcutta in the 1880s —cultural, artistic, revolutionary. A well-connected class and caste of reformers made waves through India, and the Indian revolution, for generations. One small part of this story, lost in our revolutionary nostalgia, is the nascent formations of the Indian circus — specifically,...
It was one of those rainy nights during the Mumbai monsoon, the sky outside seemed angry with the city… thunder, lightning, trees falling, random politico-religious songs playing in the background — you get the picture, right? Somewhere in some part of this large metropolis a...
IN Indian films, the roles that mothers played, until recently, were mostly stereotyped. They were always shown as the caregivers who presented themselves at the drop of a hat to solve the problems of their children. It didn’t matter if the children themselves were in...
The land owner of the place I am currently staying at, Mr Raju, is a nice man. We have had a long association. I am the oldest tenant in this particular building, and he does not want me to leave his house. Why? I will...
As one enters Chennai from the Bangalore highway, one cannot miss Dr. MGR Engineering College standing tall and welcoming everyone to the city. The college also stands tall for being one of the few educational institutions in the city that embraces and adapts to new...
A BEACH BABE WITH A PURPOSE If you’re looking for a great story, it’s usually a tale from the past or well, from science fiction. Nobody ever speaks of great stories from today. Stories created every day by ordinary people around us. One such story...
If you are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, or interested in its history and activism, you have probably heard of Hoshang Merchant. He is one of our most famous poets, critics, academics. In 1999, he edited the first mainstream publication of gay writings in...
