If you have not yet read The Story-Catcher and that is holding you back from voting, click here to read some excerpts. Rivokids says: Votes are streaming in! Make sure you Vote. Every Vote counts. Vote now!
Parents Kids Choice Awards
I’m thrilled to be shortlisted for the Parents Kids Choice Awards! Those who have already voted, thank you, and please spread the word (before the 6th of May). Those who have not, please do vote! Here is how – 1) Click on this link – http://www.rivokids.com/pkca 2) Go to I want to vote for Age group: […]
Goodbye Gurukul
I had decided what I would write about today, but was moved to tears more than once by everything students and colleagues from Vishwashanti Gurukul said to me, wrote to me and gave me. One student said, “I used to hate Shakespeare, but you made me fall in love with Macbeth.” Another confessed, “I have […]
International Dance Day
It’s International Dance Day! The best day, perhaps, to pay tribute to my guru, Guru Mythili Raghavan. Nobody can quite understand why she means so much to us. Why is it that we spend odd hours at her place? Why do so many of the seniors’ parents comment that we listen more to her than […]
Thank you!
For all those who came and watched me and listened to me at Art Hop Pune, thank you! I began with almost no one in my audience. In five minutes, there were over twenty people – a large number in such a small place. And as I was doing my last piece, the place was […]
Lecture Demonstration at Art Hop Pune
Nritta is one of the two pillars of the magnificent structure called dance. Nritta is pure technique, with no hidden symbolism, no complex meaning and no detailed explanation involved. What is the purpose, then, of nritta? That’s one of the modules of today’s lecture demonstration at Oakwood Sen5es at 5pm. Be part of Art Hop […]
Fun 4 Kids
It’s workshop season! The Cultural Centre, Pune, is a new space in Mundhwa for different activities and programmes. “Fun 4 Kids” is a venture into a range of activities for children. I will be facilitating the ‘Literature’ activities with reading and writing workshops once a month. The poster says it all!
Workshop on Rasa at Art Hop Pune
I will be facilitating a short workshop on Rasa: Understanding the Aesthetics of Indian Classical Dance on Sunday the 27th of April, 2014, at Oakwood Sen5es at 5pm as part of Art Hop Pune. I hope to see you there!
Happy Birthday, Shakespeare!
An achievement I sometimes hide is that I won two medals for having topped a course on Shakespeare. I hide it because despite the medals, I can’t quite say that I know much about Shakespeare. It was a course where we studied about Shakespeare without studying texts. The thing about Shakespeare is that he’s such a grand […]
Website updated!
My website has been updated! Here’s what’s new – – My story Sacrifice is now on the home page as well as in ‘Published Work’. It’s now easy to access through my site! – For those who tried to read The Caravan of the Cultures of the World, the link to the story has been […]
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
“How about watching The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?” a friend’s mother suggested when I was about eleven. I giggled. “What a funny name! What is that?” “You mean you haven’t read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?” Eyes wide open in amazement. And that is how I came to watch the old BBC movie […]
The Red Dress
As a child, I did not like anything about anything awkward. I did not like dirt (even though I asked my father where the Famous Five went to the loo and how they had baths when they went camping). I did not find ‘dirty’ humour funny, even humour aimed at children. I liked politeness and […]
Voted!
It’s a duty, I know. It isn’t anything to be proud of. I should vote and I did. But hats off to those who took their duty seriously enough to come to Pune from places like Delhi just to vote. I just had to go down the road. And those who did not bother to […]
Hello? Is Anybody There?
If you go to the moon, you would go up. But when you reach the moon, you land. You go down. And if you are on the moon and you look up, you will see the earth. That means that somewhere between here and the moon, up becomes down and down becomes up. I started […]
Shadow Web
Everybody in the internet age does it at least once in a while. Type in ‘Varsha Seshan’, just to see what pops up. Don’t tell me you haven’t searched for yourself on Google. Jessica Allendon did just that. And the consequences were totally out of control. Shadow Web is not about time-travel. Time-travel is easy. […]
Parents and Kids Choice Awards – Last Day to Nominate
For once, I’m taking on the role of marketing my work! If you like The Story-Catcher, do nominate it for the Parents and Kids Choice Awards! Because this is one award that does not depend on sales, publicity or distribution.
Avameru
I began to read the book and licked my lips, wondering what I could say about it. A book by a dear friend can be a dangerous thing because you must have an opinion about it. With Avameru, the opinion was easy. I enjoyed it. Yes, in the beginning, I had thoughts in my head […]
Theory of Knowledge – Mathematics
Planning my Theory of Knowledge class on Mathematics as an Area of Knowledge, I realise again what a strange mixture of art and maths I am! How I enjoy mathematics! Yet, I realise how much can be challenged. Is mathematics associated with beauty? What is the focus of mathematics – reliability, validity, certainty or truth? […]
Women of Pride
Women of Pride unravelled a lot of questions before proceeding to respond to them, at least in part . There was so much about the devadasis that I did not know. Often in books I read, the history of these temple dancers was cheerfully summed up in a couple of sentences. The devadasis were nityasumangali […]
Ram Navami
Three years ago, we performed on a beautiful stage as part of the Kannada Sangha celebrations in Pune. I can’t quite believe that it was three years ago. Waiting to perform again!