When we introduce my teacher, we always talk about the prestigious Iyal Isai Nadagam award that she received. We have so many things to say about her, about countries she’s toured and things she has achieved. This time, we had the privilege of being present when Guru Mythili Raghavan received an award from the Pune […]
PMC Award!
A Mouse Called Wolf
Whenever I read Dick King-Smith, I think about C.S. Lewis’s oft-quoted “A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.” How true it is! Whoever heard of a singing mouse? From the single line on the book cover, reading the book is like a joyful […]
Simon the Coldheart
What is it about Georgette Heyer that she can turn imagination into language so brilliantly? I reread another Georgette Heyer, before reading Simon the Coldheart, and found myself skipping large sections of it. I think time has made me a little uncomfortable with the romance that she portrays. I squirm more than a little, and run […]
British Library Workshops
As part of the Reading Challenge organised by the British Library, I will be conducting four workshops! Age-group 5-7 Read Aloud and Colour your Thoughts! 12th January, 2014 Stories are always more fun when they have pictures. When they have more pictures, they are more interesting! So read a story, or listen to a story […]
The Worry Tree
I remember having a conversation with a friend about the challenges faced by each generation. “Our grandparents had to work hard – physically,” I said. “My grandmother has so many stories of how difficult it was to make dosa batter and things like that. Our parents had financial difficulties, more than anything else. What about […]
Pegasus
What a mixed bag of emotions! Pegasus was wonderfully imagined. I loved the ideas of feather-tip fingers, strong human hands and flexible wrists, being bound to the pegasi of the sweet green land… Beautiful! There was a kind of raw beauty that reached out and touched me, page after page. The beauty of the Caves […]
Con Person
I felt like a con-person the other day at the airport. Every con-artist finds a way to function; I could have stumbled upon one too. I was in the car, dropping my grandparents to the airport. As soon as we reached, I jumped out of the car, ready to go to the airline counter to […]
Chocolate Mousse!
Making something delicious is uniquely delightful! I discovered that as a teenager when I used to beat batter well to get all those awkward emotions out of me. It’s wonderful what 3 eggs, 250 grams of chocolate, 250 grams of cream, 2 teaspoons of rum and a few spoons of sugar can make. God bless […]
No School
Winter is here! Cold face, cold hands, cold feet… Ah! It’s lovely! The first morning that fog descended on our school was almost surreal. It was not Pune; it could not be Pune! Cold face and all the rest, sure, I knew all that. But that kind of fog? It was as if we were […]
Performed Yesterday!
There’s nothing in the world like the thrill of performing. Even if it’s just a tiny performance at my teacher’s place. Nothing much went wrong. There were no black-outs, but that was okay.I was to sit on a small wooden stool for one scene, but no one but I seemed to know where the stool […]
Performing on Tuesday
The thrill of performing is here again! A little performance, a private performance this time – not on a stage, and for barely twenty people. “We’ll do it in a very simple way,” said my teacher. “Those who are playing boys will dress in salwar-kameez. The girls will wear practice saris.” Doing it at my […]
11.12.13
The date today made me think of something that always made me feel special. In many ways, I know I was a strange child. When I was about nine years old, I discovered two extraordinary things. The first was that when I turned ten, I would have a double-digit age for a very long time […]
Examinations again
It’s time for some more of those gems – … he just wants to say that they are too nervous to make good but is describing by writing so many words for it. The poem has very shocking connotative and also short story plot used. The priest was just chilling out. (Commentary on The Eve […]
Radha and Krishna – the eternal romance
Radha and Krishna sit together in the forest, making sweet small talk. The trees, creepers and deer are all around. It’s beautiful. A dancer and I sat together on a small wooden table, getting into the mood of the moment. Dancers surrounded us, creating the atmosphere of trees, creepers and deer. A peacock was supposed […]
The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club fits so perfectly under the heading ‘unusual’. It’s unusual in every way. The language is unusual. The structure is unusual. The name is unusual. I love the idea of stories of motherhood, and I love stories that do not have a simplistic conclusion. Each story in this collection is […]
On Two Feet and Wings
I’m a slow reader. Despite the fact that I love reading, I take my time over books. Sometimes, I take weeks to finish a book, even one I enjoy. On Two Feet and Wings was not like that. I would never have expected a book based on a true story to have transported me into a […]
Responses to Ethics
Delighted with the response! In addition to many, many mails, this is on the “Ethics” on worldcitystories.com. Waiting for reviews like this on The Story-Catcher!
On the long list again!
Yes, it’s a grand year! Toto Funds the Arts Creative Writing (English) long list for 2014 is here! Twenty-two applicants are on the long list for the Creative Writing (English) Toto Awards 2014. They are: 1. Shalini Jagadish, Bangalore. 2. Dion D’Souza, Mumbai. 3. Mihir Vatsa, Delhi. 4. Rohan Chhetri, Gurgaon. 5. Ronaan Roy, Mumbai. 6. […]
Indian Summer
As I read Indian Summer by Pratima Mitchell, I kept oscillating between approval and disgust. There were parts that were so real that they reached out to me and made me think, “That’s exactly, perfectly captured!” And there were parts that were so real that they made me curl my lip and think, “Why do […]