Jan 28, 2017

SAMPURNA CHATTARJI ‘Why does it have to be a poet?’   A piece dedicated to all the poets I have read, translated, loved   Space Gulliver’s sadness is monumental Monumental her desire for friends Who…

Jan 17, 2017

EDM, as you would know if you are young, ( and are behaving young anywhere in the world), is a happening thing. However, if you are young in Bengaluru or in Mumbai, you would know…

Jan 09, 2017

TRUE LIES Anil Dharker   A new year is a time of look forward to new beginnings, new adventures, new explorations. It says something about human beings’ innate optimism, that however bad the previous year…

Jan 09, 2017

Bombay Diary January 9, 2017   About a month ago, the Maharashtra government changed the name of Mumbai`s Central Railway terminus and its international airport. Again. To recap, the railway terminus at Bori Bunder, a…

Jan 04, 2017

Bombay Diary January 2, 2017   Resuming this column after a mere six weeks, I find that the whole world has turned topsy-turvy. For starters (and middles and enders), Donald trumped Hilary. And Narendra Modi,…

Dec 26, 2016

The road to new Medina. THE YEAR 2017 will mark the 70th anniversary of the birth of India and Pakistan. While official Independence celebrations will no doubt be organised on both sides of the Radcliffe…

Dec 07, 2016

To Kill An Arab A Short Story by Sándor Jászberényi   We put the two machine guns on the kitchen table. “I’ll take them to headquarters,” said the colonel to the boys, who then stepped…

Dec 03, 2016

This article was originally posted in The Huffington Post on 17th November 2016   Anybody who’s somebody in India’s sprawling literary world — author, auteur, acolyte — will be at, or will want to be…

Dec 01, 2016

Shakespeare   Raise the curtain, Shakespeare, Your characters wait in the wings, Adorned in their costumes Their make-up done Their lines memorized – Lines that resonate Four-hundred years later With the same conflicts: To be…

Nov 30, 2016

THE SAME NEWS   Every day the same newspaper column Gulps of the same brackish news Every day the same mouthful of promises; Sentences dissected Each word chewed again and again   How long can…

Nov 05, 2016

Shobhaa De: I will always remain a curious journalist, permanently in search of a story (Interview by Prayag Arora - Desai on November 5, 2016)   You can’t talk about literature in the city of…

Nov 04, 2016

On Stage November 2016   Every November, Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest attaches itself firmly to almost all venues of NCPA. That`s because Mumbai’s international literary festival is not just a Literature Live! event, or a Tata event,…

Nov 01, 2016

Tata Literature Live 2016! will host a series of workshops for adults and children. The workshops feature International and Indian writers, poets and journalists. Limited seats for each, so don't miss out on the opportunity.…

Nov 01, 2016

Tata Literature Live 2016! will host a series of workshops for adults and children. The workshops feature International and Indian writers, poets and journalists. Limited seats for each, so don't miss out on the opportunity.…

Oct 28, 2016

1st Prize - Existentialist Conspiracy Club by Kalpak Bhave   Yesterday, I saw you look at the stars, Our bottoms cold on the marble floor, A garden of light above our head, None of us…

Oct 26, 2016

1st Prize - “LORD OF THE RINGS AN UNTOLD STORY” (parody) By Aditya Mewati and Isha Mahajan The irony of life is that everyone is going to die but unexpected things tend to occur at…

Oct 21, 2016

Dad's the Word (Excerpt from the Fatherhood Memoir)   I was sitting in the rocking chair that no longer rocks, twisting myself around so that my book caught the best of the light from the lamp…

Oct 19, 2016

Reading to Borges   THROUGH a series of strange circumstances, I had the opportunity as a  British schoolboy to read aloud to Jorge Luis Borges. I was 16 when I first climbed the staircase to…

Oct 17, 2016

In the 2016 edition of the Tata Literature Live MyStory Contest, we had over 1850 entries and 30,000 votes. Below are the five winners picked by our jury on the basis of merit. They are…

Oct 16, 2016

Mountain Echoes (Written for Dhaka Tribune on September 5, 2016) Nothing quite prepares you for the magical landing in Paro; one of the world’s most dangerous airports. It’s breathtaking setting amid green peaks of Bhutan’s Himalayan range…

Oct 15, 2016

Amish Tripathi: In our culture, we've always believed that even the Gods cannot judge (Published in FirstPost on October 15, 2016, Written by Prayag Arora - Desai and Sohini Guha)     Since his unprecedented…

Oct 13, 2016

Paws for thought Could feeling for one stray cat foster a community in our oft-hard hearted city? By Gauri Sinh   Come to think of it, I cannot even recall his colouring. He came into…

Oct 12, 2016

Something of Nothing (Written for London Library magazine) Rakesh winced as the car lurched into a pothole. A tremor of annoyance radiated through the hand that he rested on the steering wheel. He had taken his…

Oct 10, 2016

In the 2016 edition of the Tata Literature Live MyStory Contest, we had over 1850 entries and 30,000 votes. Below are the five winners picked by our jury from the 25 entries with the maximum…

Oct 10, 2016

By Shivani Bhasin The house was like one of those picaresque models – huge, bubble-gum-like and easily spotted on the covers of magazines like good housekeeping. It was an incogious sight in a city like…

Oct 10, 2016

The Buzzkill By Suneha Sethi Young Joe sat painting in the yard, His brush birthed the boulevard, And tinted blue the morning sky And golden rays the clouds belie, When startling him so, buzzing hard.…

Oct 09, 2016

The Journey is the Destination © Ashwin Sanghi (Written for the Times of India - Speaking Tree)   What is spirituality? Numerous sages, philosophers and thinkers down the ages have attempted to answer that question. Many…

Oct 08, 2016

Coffee and the Writer   Can it be Tuesday ??  The years days and seconds roll into one as I sit in a small hotel room in Delaware and my non conforming memories try to follow the…

Oct 06, 2016

Patna Roughcuts (Written for Granta on March 31, 2015)   1 When I was a boy in Patna in the seventies, the Boring Road crossroad boasted two businesses that were popular among the locals. One was Quality…

Oct 04, 2016

The Many Faces of Lord Ganesha(Written for The Taj Magazine  in the First Quarter, 2002)     The remover of all obstacles and bestower of wishes, he is worshipped in myriad expressions of form and material…

Oct 02, 2016

Secular Confessions (Written for Mint  on July 8, 2016)   I push open the door of dark, weathered wood. There are always a few seconds of suspense before you enter an unfamiliar church. What exactly is…

Sep 30, 2016

All that Matters (Written for Times of India  on July 31, 2016) For Swachh Bharat, we must teach our kids to pack light, flush right   Dear Mr Modi, I admire the Swachh Bharat campaign. I'm…

Sep 29, 2016

The 'I' in Eve (Written for The Hindu  on April 30, 2016) Why should women artistes be apologetic about the use of the first person singular in prose and poetry? At a recent literature fest, a…

Sep 29, 2016

The Lore of Renuka (Written for mid-day  on April 22, 2012)     A sacred narrative needs to be distinguished from a parable (story with moral ending), a fable (story with animals that express human emotions),…

Sep 27, 2016

Set Kanhaiya Free, Dissent is not Anti - National (Written for NDTV.com on February 24, 2016)   A great deal has already been written about the arrest of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar and the ensuing national…

Sep 25, 2016

Dear Kanhaiya Kumar (Written for scroll.in on March 16, 2016)     Post Script This is first time I am starting a letter with a Post Script instead of ending with one. Dear Kanhaiya Kumar, I finished…

Sep 23, 2016

LOUNGING ABOUT It's important to be lazy ! To make room in one's life for periods of laziness .. not weeks or months (necessarily) but at the very least happy little blobs of time that are sufficient…

Sep 22, 2016

Evelyn Waugh: 50 years on   In 1933, a group of naked Amazonian Indians who had never before seen a white man encountered a young traveller from North London wrapped in a red blanket, lame…

Sep 21, 2016

Rituals of Writing (Written for Hindustan Times  for May 3rd, 2015) I am writing this on a train. It is dark outside, the dark window reflecting the interior of the bright-lit train car, the beige plastic…

Sep 20, 2016

The sanctioned, sleeping beauties awake (Written for Gateway House  on June 2nd, 2016) There is something about American sanctions on countries. They are thorough. They are brutal. They strangle the financial system and beggar the population,…

Sep 19, 2016

A conundrum called Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. Kiran Nagarkar (Written for Sueddeutsche Zeitung)   Let me start with an anecdote. Just a few months after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India,…

Sep 16, 2016

The cause of problems - What some Kashmiris owe other Kashmiris (Written for The Telegraph on September 3rd, 2016)   I was reading a recent interview with Adonis, the great Syrian poet who is frequently mentioned as…

Sep 16, 2016

Too many mistakes - What the rest of India owes Kashmir and Kashmiris (Written for The Telegraph on September 2nd, 2016)   In the late summer and early autumn of 2010, the valley of Kashmir was gripped…

Sep 16, 2016

Happy Under the Padishah (Written for Outlook India Magazine)   It’s a measure of Tipu Sultan’s charisma that, two centuries on, an Australian histo­rian has spent most of her academic life studying the man and his reign.…

Sep 16, 2016

The Man Who Invented Poetry The violence and passion of Afzal Ahmed Syed (Written for Caravan Magazine on June 1st, 2016) My first encounter with the work of the Karachi-based Urdu poet Afzal Ahmed Syed left me…

Sep 15, 2016

THE GALLIC SHRUG SURVIVES IN NORTH AMERICA ! How cool it is to see people talking on their mobile phones in the province of Quebec, here in Canada. The only thing that seems to be moving when…

Sep 14, 2016

10 rules of Writing (Written for The Indian Quarterly) Illustration by Hazel Karkaria When I was promoted to the rank of professor, the library at the university where I was then employed asked me to…

Sep 13, 2016

A Lovely Wedding (Written for Day of Reckoning)   There were times when words seemed to have lost their meaning. This was one of them. Vira was on the phone telling Priti about the lovely wedding…

Sep 11, 2016

HANGOVERS (For Independent dated December 13th, 2014) According to Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man Despite authorities tightening their grip on the causes of hangovers, the hangover itself enjoys halcyon days. It can only mean one thing: authorities…

Sep 10, 2016

Australian genius Christina Stead showed me what a novel is for. Anna Funder   Only children can see their parents from the inside. This is what novelists never grow out of: sitting quietly in the…

Sep 09, 2016

Harsingar Catapult - Feb 29th, 2016 “I didn’t want him to be the one who was disrobing Zeenat Aman. No one who was even half-literate in Hindi in the early seventies would have missed the…

Sep 07, 2016

Requiem for the BDD Chawls Kiran Nagarkar (Originally pulished in The Hindu on Jan 24th, 2016) Illustration - Satwik Gade It appears that by now it’s well nigh impossible to de-link my two protagonists, Ravan and…

Sep 05, 2016

Literature Live! is excited to announce the second edition of our Creative Writing Contest - Story and Poetry Writing! Come on over and show off the writer that lives inside you. - Participants will be…

Aug 31, 2016

In her younger days, my sister Minal Dharker was an accomplished Bharat Natyam dancer. Watching her practice, rehearse and perform with her guru, Kubernath Tanjorkar, I became reasonably familiar with the idiom of Bharat Natyam.…

Aug 24, 2016

Regular readers of this column will know that Literature Live!, the little organisation I started, runs the annual Mumbai International Literary Festival every November. In addition, there are fortnightly Literature Live! Evenings when writers talk…

Aug 19, 2016

Students at SNDT College, Churchgate were delighted to be introduced to Literature Live! workshop on Narrative Conflict. Despite the capacity of 25 people, double the number showed up, actively participating in the workshop.

Aug 19, 2016

Students at St. Andrews were delighted to be introduced to Literature Live! workshop on Narrative Conflict. Despite the capacity of 25 people, double the number showed up, actively participating in the workshop.

Aug 19, 2016

To those who are disappointed with India`s Olympic performance, I would say only one thing: what were you expecting? If you know anything about world standards in athletics and field games, you know that our…

Aug 09, 2016

In Bihar, drinking liquor is worse than terror,rape or murder. If that sounds like an outlandish statement, consider the Bihar Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016 and the revised Bihar Special Courts Act through which special courts…

Aug 02, 2016

Stratford upon Avon in the summer of 2016 is the place to be. After all, this is Shakespeare's birthplace and this is the 400th anniversary of his death. The Bard, as Shakespeare is universally known,…

Aug 01, 2016

Bombay Diary July 29, 2016 A few years ago, when for my sins, I was a member of the Bombay Gym`s Managing Committee, I tried to liven up the club`s library with ‘Meet the Author’…

Jul 26, 2016

When you see photographs of a former Chief Justice of India on the sports pages, it is a clear sign that judicial overreach has reached a new high in our country. From dictating the age…

Jul 22, 2016

Bombay Diary July 22, 2016 A friend said to me, “Your London Diaries are far more entertaining than your Bombay Diaries.” She then added a smiley to show this was a light hearted comment –…

Jul 20, 2016

Polaris kickstarts the Department of mass media festivals in Mumbai and is a much coveted one. This year Lit live! 360 @campus collaborated with them to hold a workshop on Writing Sonnets by Sampurna Chattarji…

Jul 18, 2016

ENGLAND DIARY JULY 15, 2016 "Sylvia and I are delighted to welcome you to our home for the 28th annual Celebrity Cricket Match in aid of Wellbeing of Women." So began the letter from Sir…

Jul 14, 2016

London Diary / July 9, 2016 July in England means the sun occasionally coming out of purdah, locals walking about in flimsy tee shirts while we jettison our overcoats for pullovers. It means children tugging…

Jul 14, 2016

Indian Express What is Brexit about? Is it about Britain leaving the European Union? Is it about the disruption this has caused in the world economy? Is it about hyper-nationalism and the fear of immigrants…

Jul 14, 2016

Bombay Diary July 1, 2016 If you go past Mumbai`s Brabourne Stadium, you will see a sign telling you that the offices of BCCI (Board of Control of Cricket in India) lie in the vicinity.…

Jul 14, 2016

Bombay Diary 24th June 2016 Many years ago, a British literary magazine held a contest for the most boring headline. The winner went something like this: SMALL EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE/ NOT MANY INJURED. What would…

Jul 14, 2016

Bombay Diary 17th June 2016 India must be the most movie-crazy, star-obsessed country in the world. Yet, how many books are there on Bollywood heroes and heroine? Very, very few. One of the reasons could…

Jun 20, 2016

Awards go a Long Way in Recognising Good Children’s Literature Summers are hot, humid and long in the sleepy town of Cuttack, in coastal Orissa. Even the birds fall silent. People take long siestas and…

Jun 20, 2016

Literature Live, in association with Theatre Group, calls for entries for playwriting for the Sultan Padamsee Award for Playwriting 2016, to recognize upcoming talent in the same field. For more details, write to theatregroup@shunyata.in .

Feb 17, 2016

For our next installment of LitLive Evenings — organised in partnership with Tata Trusts, the NCPA and Roli Books — we are proud to host Pramod Kapoor as he launches his book Gandhi: An Illustrated Biography , in Mumbai…

Jan 12, 2016

For our next installment of LitLive Evenings -- organised in collaboration with the Vinod & Saryu Doshi Foundation, and in association with the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture and Rupa Publications -- we are proud…

Dec 29, 2015

We're immensely proud to present our next edition of LitLive Evenings, organised in collaboration with the Vinod & Saryu Doshi Foundation, and in association with the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture and Rupa Publications. This…

Nov 25, 2015

Mumbai, November 25, 2015: 'There is nothing like first-hand evidence’ believed legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. Voted as the most desirable fictional character in the Tata Literature Live! Survey 2015, his words come to life with…

Oct 28, 2015

Here is everything you need to know about attending Mumbai's largest literature festival.   Passes to the festival are available from the morning of the day of the session. Register and collect your passes for…

Oct 22, 2015

Head over to our schedule and pick your literary workshop of choice! Register now as limited seats are available.  

Oct 19, 2015

BY MEGHA SOLANKI SOUND OK HORAN   Do you know that sound? The rumbling monster taking over. Mystical it looks,
Monstrous it feels; There's power in its body,
Force in its thrusts; You feel like ignoring it…

Oct 19, 2015

BY PRAKRITI VASHISHTHA LIQID TEA AVAILABLE HERE   Tea, for Dadi is milky but without the cream Dadi's son, however, relishes the aftertaste of cardamom. Dadi's better half, would deride the drink to be the…

Oct 19, 2015

BY KAAJAL AHUJA Thank You for the Inconvenience   I walked through a garden far somewhere A canvas painted in the month of May But the painting brought me no delight And each step that…

Oct 19, 2015

BY VAISHNAVI PATIL & RYAN D’SOUZA   “Swad Zindigi Ka”, she sighs as she licks away the last crumbs of chocolate layered wafers of her cornetto, lacing the tip of her weathered fingers. “Did you…

Oct 19, 2015

BY MAYANK SOOD AND TIGRAN WADIA   THE MAD MAN’S CONSPIRACY ‘‘Jaago grahak Jaago’’, screamt the mad man. Nobody paid heed to him. He continued with his endeavour. All would hear him, none would listen. Sujoy had…

Oct 19, 2015

BY SHASHWAT KARKARE & SAHEJ MARWAH   “Doodh si safai, corruption se mukti yehi mera vaada hai,”the candidate, Mr Goswami, said during his speech while addressing the huge crowd gathered before him commemorating the upcoming…

Oct 19, 2015

BY GIRISH RASAM & SAEE PATKAR   “Dimag ki batti jala de”, said Dr. John Waghmare while offering his joint to Shairlak Khan, the best consulting detective Bhiwandi  has ever seen.   Just this morning, Dr.…

Oct 19, 2015

BY AMALE NARAYAN & MAVIS RODRIGUES   “Thodi se pet puja karoge?” asked Elisabeth as Ramesh drove past her father’s office in Colaba. The Hindi words sounded heavy and uncomfortable on her British tongue. The…

Oct 19, 2015

So story? I've been thinking for two days about a story I'll write here, since I registered for the event. There's nothing interesting I can write and shoot a series of photographs for it. It…

Oct 19, 2015

A small story of a man, who came to Mumbai to make up his dreams. Works hard day and night, doing odd jobs but still have faith in himself. After struggling the whole day he…

Oct 19, 2015

Cindrella Paradie Cinderella in the modern world. He is the step brother of Sheldon, Zenior, Dylan and Calvin. Cinderella is burden with all the work at home and has no social life. He goes to…

Oct 17, 2015

Here’s the thing about smoking in Kasol. You shouldn’t do it.   He took three intermittent breaks to catch his breath, along the - what the locals typically called ‘Pandraha-foot maap’, or The Scale of…

Oct 16, 2015

Amar held my hand firmly. He had a charming smile. Baba trusted him- " You are meant for someone who will protect you." I was a ten year old girl and the only child of…

Oct 16, 2015

Meant for someone else by Sharon It was half past noon and I was lost in Fountainhas. The Goa Tourism brochure urged me to " explore the historic Old Quarter of Panjim on foot" but…

Oct 16, 2015

WALK AWAY by Shalini Mother was furious, he needs to listen to me! " I'm his mother, of course I know better than him...." Father tried his best to convince him, " Son, it's not…

Oct 16, 2015

THE QUICK STEP by Kelly Woller " But darling, I love you!" " Do you really expect me to believe that, you cheating scoundrel?" " Trust me when I say it's over" " She's here…

Oct 16, 2015

MEANT FOR SOMEONE ELSE. – Divya Samtani No amount of books on childbirth you memorise  can prepare you for the excruciating, body tearing pain that comes in the chance circumstance you push another human out…

Oct 16, 2015

ONE LAST DANCE by Lekha Nambiar My crane tipped junk into the landfill. The stench of decomposing waste filled the air. The sky was dark, for a 'bright' summer day. It started to rain- I…

Oct 16, 2015

Sowing and Weeping by Jai Subramanian The last time we met you’d said there was no way to fix something so far beyond dead. “Rotting” was the word you’d used. Rotting for the world to…

Oct 16, 2015

Faded Smiles by Ritu Poddar She sent her son, to far off lands for degrees & better tomorrows She lived alone, & aged alone Behind her wrinkles, hid the sorrows. Over the phone he said,…

Oct 16, 2015

The Heart Knows by Priyal Panchal Why don’t I ever bite that dog in return? Why is that spider spinning webs of sorrow never shun? Why do I give that parasite right over my body?…

Oct 14, 2015

Literature in the Australian Commonwealth characteristically expresses collective values, perhaps more so than in other parts of the world. Even the experiences of the individual are viewed through a representative lens, with the aim of…

Oct 12, 2015

It was more than two hours past midnight, yet Ramulu was unable to sleep. He has been a small scale farmer and the successively failing monsoon and mounting debts were pulling down his morale. Year…

Oct 12, 2015

They looked down upon him. All of them. His favourite time of the day was when the Sun stood behind him. He looked down then, at the ground, to see an almighty long shadow of…

Oct 12, 2015

Revathy "Amma", her voice goes as she strides barefoot towards the entrance door. The inkling of her silver anklets still echoing in the silent dark room. Her forehead kissed with a big red moon placed…

Oct 12, 2015

It is not just worn at weddings, parties and ceremonies It is also worn at a construction site Amidst the cement, sand, gravel Under the ruthless sun Over a parched throat and blistered feet It…

Oct 12, 2015

The pyre smolders wetly under the tin shed, from which grey afternoon rain still drips; echoing a family’s grief. sifting through grandmother’s still-warm ashes, my fingers taste the wood-smoke and sour-milk scent of funeral rites;…

Oct 12, 2015

It was a sultry Kolkata afternoon right in the middle of my summer vacation. The heat had climbed to a level that one might get a stroke just by poking his head out of the…

Oct 12, 2015

It was a sultry Kolkata afternoon right in the middle of my summer vacation. The heat had climbed to a level that one might get a stroke just by poking his head out of the…

Oct 12, 2015

2015: The Year in Literature  There's no denying it. It's been a busy year in the world of literature, and it isn't even over yet. The United States alone published more than 300,000 new titles…

Oct 12, 2015

Alanna Mitchell is an award-winning Canadian journalist and author, who writes about science and social trends. Her most recent full-length book, Sea Sick:The Global Ocean in Crisis, is an international best seller that won the prestigious US-based Grantham…

Oct 06, 2015

Dear Fellow Bibliophile, Would you rather read in your bathroom or a café? Which fictional character from a book would you date? Book crimes you have committed? We want to hear all about it from…

Oct 05, 2015

Arshia Sattar has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago's Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. Her translations of the Sanskrit texts Kathasaritsagara (1993) and Valmiki's Ramayana (1996) have been published by Penguin Books.…

Oct 05, 2015

Two venues: NCPA, Nariman Point and Prithvi Theatre, Juhu. Germaine Greer, Vikram Seth, Kiran Nagarkar and over 120 celebrated writers and thinkers from across the worl. Presenting seven literary awards. Media registrations open today. Entry…