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The Modesty of Outrage

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My column which appeared in Mid-day today. I'm not linking to the website because they made a mistake and added a line from Devdutt Pattanaik's column to the end of mine, which sort of creates a misreading of the whole piece! THE MODESTY OF OUTRAGE On August 3 Vibhuti Narain Rai resigned from the Jnanpith Selection Committee. Rai, a novelist, former IPS officer and VC of Wardha Hindi University created a brouhaha with his sexist remarks to Naya Gyanodaya magazine, roughly reported in the press as: “women writers in Hindi are in a race to prove who is the greater prostitute” and the entire “feminist discourse has been reduced to one about the body by over-rated, over-promoted women writers.” The permanently hyperventilating press sought and received counter-remarks, petitions were drafted and Rai resigned. The truth triumphed? I wonder. The tone of many reactions was strikingly similar to Rai’s own remarks. How dare he insult women writers by calling them prostitutes! If

I'm lame like that

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Yeah it's kind of sad, that I have to pretend to update my blog by changing the template - to whom am I pretending? What do you call this sort of lameness? Thanks but that was a rhetorical question... Anyway, all the un-posted Mid day columns. Along with the resolve that one day soon a post will be only for the blog (to whom am I making these promises. sigh...) An ode to mmmm-mithun , which has proved to be a v. popular column which shows how much people love him... and that everything is not about being a rich girl with a 2 crore clothes budget or chiknu boys with waxed chests (SRK not included) And a complaint about said folks who have gone missing And maybe in New York-London-Tokyo they discuss the weather, but in Bombay we kinda talk about the traffic And always, but always, about the movies and of course, men :) Ok that's a month's worth but my excuse must be that I have been working hard and traveling - last to Japan - about which something some day. This will not ha

How to Be an Action Hero

Mid-day column from last Sunday

and it's still raining, though not stories

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Mid-day column for the last two weeks... it comes to an end soon - and the sub-editor is showing this by giving the last one a title they used for an earlier column already! Perhaps I should ask for that job... My friend P called up annoyed one day, scolding me for using a word she did not understand (au courant and pulchritude). I felt this was a good way for her to learn new words - but maybe the sub also does not understand some words and feels fed up and decided - yeh tou generally against normalcy type of character hai, so when in doubt let's just title the column Out of the Box. Anyhoo... Last Sunday's on Not Having The Number And the one before on Stories I'd Rather Not Have (or Longing for the Ones I'd Like To) Meanwhile here in Berlin it is summer. People have put TV sets out on the pavement and were watching the match on the street with beer in hand. I was told that if Germany lost the match yesterday, against Englad, there would be big, grown men walking down

Love and Rain

I used to think writing a column is like a little craft exercise - each time I've written one, I set myself a different writing task and try to keep at it. I find I get good at one thing - but often it becomes a kind of vice, a tic if I'm not careful. Here are my last three Mid-day Columns On archiving and film preservation in India On the AOL "assassination attempt" And on Love, when it's not turned out as we wanted Now I realise it is more like being a different part of your personality - as today I went looking for a very old column I wrote for Mumbai Mirror in 2005. One could argue that that's life anyway, trying on a different part of your personality in different phases of your life...anyway the search for the column was prompted by the weather which has been promisingly cloudy but which refuses to rain.. HEAVY CLOUDS BUT NO EGGS After the exalted sweaty suffering, when it rained last weekend, what could be better than to pile into a rickshaw and head t

Continuing Paro-normalcy

My column today on burqua brouhahahas http://www.mid-day.com/opinion/2010/may/230510-paromita-vohra-burqha-ban-france-islamic-women.htm And last week on discussions about politics http://www.mid-day.com/opinion/2010/may/160510-opinion-political-thoughts-naxalites-democracy-paromita-vohra.htm They persist in giving the dullest titles to the pieces - I'd like to think of good ones myself but mostly I'm just frantically screeching to a deadline. And anyway I'm sure they'd change it instantly from my frivolous ones to these extremely NCERT type ones. It's a losing game - if you write about political ideas (because it's not about politics as such the column) then people immediately become solemn and stodgy - and here you are trying to mix it up some and hoping to re-invest the discussion with some energy in your modest way. Maybe I'm delusional and the title writer is right. In which case it's a good thing I only have another 7 columns to go before we're

paro-normal Activity - 2

The bad thing about writing a column - you're constantly stressed out about what you'll write about. The good thing - you don' t have to be stressed about updating your blog. You can just link to This week's column Last week's column It's a good thing they rename the columns as the last one (now called Out of the Box) was formerly called Sex Sex Sex. It's my impression that columnists do not have to be like, imaginative. :)