Monthly Archives: February 2018

Perspective, Society

How I learnt to love this city, bit by bit and on my own

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By Anamika Chatterjee

Four years ago, my personal Mills & Boon romance came to life when I got married to someone who was well worth the plunge. Marriages, as many romantic novels — except 50-Shades-of-Absurdities — will have you believe, are the beginning of happily ever afters. Turns out marriages, more often than not, are  the beginning of the hunt for a happily ever after, especially when they entail wrapping up your life of 28 years in two suitcases and moving to a new country. It’s that feeling of graduating from a journalism school and finding yourself editing readers’ queries on romance in your first job. Continue reading How I learnt to love this city, bit by bit and on my own →

Social Media, Technology

The young are leaving FB and the old are hopping on board

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By Harveena Herr

Haven’t you heard? Print is at its last gasp. The entire world is moving to the digital space and the cosy camaraderie you enjoy with your newspaper every morning along with a steaming cup of tea or coffee is about to crash into oblivion… But here’s another story that I bet hasn’t been put out by the purveyors of fake news. Continue reading The young are leaving FB and the old are hopping on board →

Opinion, Perspective

Why is this an everyday experience for women?

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By Suresh Pattali

My daughter just joined the #MeToo movement.

Sadly, the incident happened while the ink of a column I wrote in this space was still wet. It was headlined: When will they learn, women are not their birthright? There were letters of angst, agony and shock from our readers after reading that article. And one of them, Sherley A Varghese, a mother so paranoid about her ward’s safety, wrote: “Every word sent shivers down my spine. I refuse to send my daughter to India for doing her undergraduate course.” Continue reading Why is this an everyday experience for women? →

Famous Personalities

Asma Jahangir, an inspiration for those she’s left behind

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By Zebunnisa Burki

On Tuesday, the people of Pakistan — men and women, the under-privileged and the elite, lawyers, artists, journalists, political workers — stood together and gave Asma Jahangir what can only be called a people’s farewell. While the images of this beautiful goodbye that flashed across our TV, laptop and smartphone screens may become iconic due to the sheer power of what they showed, how does one really say goodbye to someone who can only be called a force — fierce, angry, and strangely beautifully unaware of her own special kind of charisma. Pakistan lost 66-year-old lawyer, activist, our very own superhero Asma to a cardiac arrest this past Sunday, a shock we are all still struggling with. Continue reading Asma Jahangir, an inspiration for those she’s left behind →

Humour

For the love of language, these are a few of my fave words

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By Bikram Vohra

More people speak English in India than in any other country. We speak Dickensian English. We can chat in fruity Etonian English. We can make Winston’s stirring speech come off pale and milky and can fling the Wren & Martin grammar book at any native English speaker (since writing is not their forte) with aplomb and destroy them with a deep dissertation on past participles and ‘clause’ analyses, parts of the language that have no relation to the fat man coming down the chimney once each year. We can even imitate cockney and Geordie and at a pinch go American or Aussie on the world.

Continue reading For the love of language, these are a few of my fave words →