can ads change the world? i have no idea. should advertising, a clearly commercial pursuit, even venture into discussing things that matter a little more than buying the next thing… again, i don’t know. but as a copywriter, i often felt you could add something to your story… a little kindness, a bit of laughter, some protest even if the time for that had come. just a feeling. of course, there are public service campaigns, but i am speaking more…
ravan was chasing me. he had ten heads and ten faces and ten sets of teeth bared as he sprinted effortlessly, bow and arrow in hand. his skin was swarthy, his eyes bulged, his hair blew wildly in the wind. i could feel my breath getting shorter and shorter, till there was practically no breath left. my feet were tired. my head was hurting. how would i ever come out of this alive? then i remembered something. i stopped running.…
cap pistol (remember those?), rahul dev burman, new clothes, midnight movies, razia sultan, drumbeats, ghugni, exams, flowers in my clasped hands. the one with ten arms comes to my mind on many things. she’s been around for a long long time, quite taken for granted, part of life. to be worshiped, to be gazed at in awe, to be surrounded by noise and joy, to be danced and acted before, to be rejoiced with food and friends, to be prostrated…
steam rose in quiet swirls from the tea cup. the sky was cloudy, a faint hint of tea leaf in the air. it was almost 8am. allyrie swung past the second ellipse and turned toward trudon high. in the depth of her manah, she saw licks of myriad hues, a gushing sound came closer. was there a flood of vyrka on trudon high again? there was no time to ponder such things though, allyrie was on her way to…
i’ve burnt with you slowly, sustainedly in scorches, in conflagration in flames i have burnt with you incinerating cremating my remains watching the ashes fly the embers spark and call on cataclysm to catch fire and burn again i have burnt with you been torrefied and returned to original dust indrani’s index …
i don’t think the “god’s own country” campaign had started when i first went to kerala. it was in the summer of ’89, my first trip to south india; first bangalore, then cochin. i had no idea what to expect, but a malayalee friend would always speak of the different green of his state. his voice would definitely reflect a funny kind of pride when he mentioned that. being from bengal, another “green” state, with poets and lyricists devoting many…
i don’t look at you any more for i think you’re the same every day yet you aren’t, are you the light falls differently the colours carouse at their own will there’s purple and pink some day some day it’s less orange sometimes more red than you are in the mood for there’s ochre, mocha, and blue and the shapes? what are they called wish i knew streaks and billows shimmery peaks and meadows lashes of a riotous unfettered…
it looked like it was going to rain. flashes of lightning lit up the frosted window pane every now and then. the quiet but ominous rumbling of thunder could be heard, approaching. deepa typed away, her mind suffused with a world she had been trying to find words for the entire day. her fingers moved swiftly over the keypad, then halted as the letters began to form a word. no, it wasn’t right, it didn’t say what she was trying…
of course, i first heard about it on twitter. it started with all the talk of the m word. yes, masturbation. unbelievable, unheard of… literally a word never ever heard perhaps in the context of an indian film. what am i saying, a word never heard in the public space of the country… even at home, i mean really? that too, girls? right wing trolls went after swara bhaskar, also sonam kapoor, two of the lead actresses, both outspoken young…
“unpalatable to the lord of death! first among the monkeys!! you’ve seen five feet of the snake?? burnt face, extract of low stock!!” jomer oroochi! bandorer ogrogonno!! shaaper paanch pa dekhecho?? mukh pora, bodjaat!! the swear words flew fast, interrupted only by indignant breaths, equally rapid. the frail old lady’s voice got more stentorian with each word, the affront in it resounding. “return them this moment! return them now, i say!” she bellowed, her small frame shaking, her chest…