Essays
Everyone Knows Everyone in Firozsha Baag
Revisiting a Bombay neighbourhood through Rohinton Mistry’s story collection I have a soft spot for books that engage in storytelling for the sake of it. No plot as such. Just a writer at their desk, writing about people they see through their window. The window this...
The Game That Never Happened
AI says that the Leafs game in the 1960s never happened but Jim Sugiyama was there with his dad and remembers every goal. This morning I am thinking about Dad. Yes, it’s three days after official Father’s Day, but truth be told, there isn’t a day that goes by during...
Our Guest is a God – Atithi Devo Bhava
(Taittiriya Upanishad, Shikshavalli I.11.2) Great India #1 Nanda Devi from the Himalayan Writing Retreat I have just returned from nearly a month spread between Delhi and The Himalayan Writing Retreat. The first morning I woke to the screaming chirps of ten green...
Words, Words, Words VI : Watch Your Language
Peter writes his sixth essay on the 'abusage' of language, an affliction all too rampant today. Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my...
RAMBLINGS #11 – Mañana
A rambling on language, leisure, beauty, and the business of accepting what we can't control. Some things we think about, some we ignore. And some are more important than others. Does it matter if we fight against the inevitable? Or should we just accept it? Apse of...
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS V: On Reading (Part Two)
Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. What follows is a review of two outstanding recent books on the value of reading, which...
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS IV: On Reading
Peter writes his fourth essay on the love of reading and the perils of speedreading. Read on! Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my...
Irony Club Open Mic III with Mayil Alfaaz | 26 July 5:30 pm
Alfaaz means, simply, words. And words, read aloud and in good company, are the whole of what we’re after this month. On the evening of July 26, The Irony Club is opening the mic again, and this time we’re widening it considerably. It will run the way an open mic...
From San Blas to Oxford: A Review of Shooting Up
A missionary family raises four boys in one of Madrid's most drug-ravaged neighbourhoods. Jonathan Tepper's memoir traces an extraordinary journey. Jonathan Tepper’s Shooting Up is much more than the account of four brothers in a missionary family growing up in Spain...