I have reported difficult stories before. It was never easy to tell tales of tragedy from places like Iraq. But a piece that published on CNN.com today is the hardest story I’ve ever told. Because it became very personal. Because it was raw. The producer, the photographer, the cameraman who went with me to Maharashtra …
Thinking of the 12 milion Indians who are bearing the brunt of Cyclone Phallin. Here is a piece I wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 1999, after the last deadly cyclone in the state of Orissa. November 25, 1999 Bhubaneshwar, India — I had been to Orissa before, lured by its ancient Hindu temples and …
Continue reading “India cyclone ravaged memories as well as land”
“When did you get home?” a friend asked me yesterday. “Last night,” I replied. “It must feel good to be back,” she said. The pause on the phone was long enough to be awkward. “Yes,” I said. I wanted the conversation to end. But what was home? That word has always been problematic for me. I …
I just returned from a short trip to a part of central India that was previously unfamiliar — Gadchiroli District in the state of Maharashtra. I was there to report a rape story for CNN and traveled with CNN cameraman Sanjiv Talreja and producer Harmeet Shah Singh. Photojournalist Vivek Singh also accompanied us. He’s a …
My mother would have turned 82 today. I would have picked up the phone and called her. 011-91-33-2247-6600. I would have said: Ma! Happy Birthday. I would have asked her what she was doing to celebrate. She would have said that my pishi (aunt) was coming over for lunch. Nothing special was planned. I wold …
It’s too bad “Midnight’s Children” was a bust at the box office. I’m thinking that Deepa Mehta was perhaps the wrong director to give us the celluloid depiction of Salman Rushdie’s terrific book, which won the Booker Prize in 1981. The protagonist and narrator of Rushdie’s story, Saleem Sinai, is born at the exact moment when …
One of the greatest musical talents of our time was silenced Tuesday. Ravi Shankar died at 92. His was a name I grew up with, a name that made me proud to be Indian at a time when my country was known mostly for human misery. I read the sad news of Shankar’s death Tuesday …
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