So Close To Life

Reading Elizabeth Strout makes you realise just how tough it is to be simple. Her prose is precise to the point of austerity, but she still manages to create richly evocati...

Marriage-Go-Round

The North Indian pre-wedding ritual of the Ladies Sangeet, at which women gathered together to sing (some raunchy songs) an dance, minus the men. The cus...

The World According To Gabriel

Every year around June or July, Daniel Silva’s latest Gabriel Allon novel is published and shoots right up to the bestseller charts.

For those who haven&...

Papa Don’t Preach

What would happen if two cantankerous, cricket-crazy men, one from India and the other from Pakistan were forced to share an apartment?  Bedlam, that’s what.

The Sad Clown

There is a condition called the sad clown syndrome, which states that people who make others laugh, are often unhappy or depressed. That’s probably why a traditional ...

Women Of Music

The multi-talented Purva Naresh, brings her knowledge of dance, music and drama into her productions. Her latest play Bandish 20-20,000Hz is the third of a trilog...

Cowboys, 'Injuns' and Bones

We associate the American Wild West with the hundreds of Westerns about cowboys and Red Indians. But life was tough for early settlers and gold rush prospectors. The native...

The Times Are Changing

Those familiar with Gujarati theatre would know that, by and large, the audience favours family dramas and social comedies. However, there are always exceptions to the rule...

No Way Out

Of all the characters in the Mahabharat, it is perhaps Abhimanyu who most strongly personifies the futility of war, and the toll it takes on the young and innocent, who are...

Long Arm Of Fear

It’s taken a while for this 2012 to come out in an English translation, but it was worth the wait for readers of Japanese crime fiction (Keigo Higashino is already a ...