I always prided myself on being the kind of person who never judged a book by its cover until this overly righteous sense of self-worth hoisted me on my own petard (I have always wanted to use this strange phrase!) as I found myself unable to put

Haq achchha. Par uske liye koi aur marey toh aur achchha. The packed hall burst into laughter when chief guest Arun Shourie recited these lines by Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz which declare that it’s good to have rights but if someone else dies upholding them, it’s

What do you do when your teenage daughter tells you she’s just been raped? In Sohaila Abdulali’s case, her father gathered her into his arms and held her. Then he listened to how four men wielding sickles led her and her male friend up a mountain, attacked

I have been officially a ‘working woman’ for nearly 40 years, meaning I have woken up in the morning and gone to ‘office’. Most days, my handbag would hold, among other necessities, a book. Still, after all these years, I can count on the fingers of my

It’s a grey morning. The sky is overcast and it seems as though the rain will come pouring down any moment, but of course, this is Chennai where the sun is fiercely protective of its territory, so you never can tell. Still, the air is cool, the

American historian Audrey Truschke, the author of Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth, was on a lecture tour in India recently. Her lecture in Hyderabad was cancelled because some protesters had threatened to disrupt proceedings. As she posted on Facebook, the Hyderabad police apparently advised the organisers

A few months ago, my son mentioned that he had recently read and enjoyed Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge. Although I couldn’t recall what it was about, I was pleased that he had attempted to read Maugham, a brilliant writer believed to have been the highest paid

If you are a reader, you know that books can be your best friends. If you are not, know that books can be your best friends. Reading is a conversation conducted silently most of the time, but if you are in the habit of reading aloud it

My maternal grandfather was a doctor and after he retired from government service, he volunteered at the clinic run by the Ramakrishna Mission on Royapettah High Road in Chennai. I was in a boarding school in Chennai, and every time I visited my grandparents, either over a

I remember my music teacher once telling me, speaking about her daughter, “Oh, she’s a regular Aurangzeb.” Meaning, she didn’t like music, which clearly was upsetting to my teacher. Meaning, by extension, Aurangzeb disliked and discouraged music. That’s what we’ve been led to believe.

I love the Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren. She wrote primarily for children, but for many years she worked as a books editor, and was also a fearless political commentator. An official Swedish website has an article by David Wiles headlined: “Astrid Lindgren spoke, people listened.”