Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani
"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…
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October 7, 2013
Happy Birthday
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…
August 24, 2013
Reach for the Sky
Last weekend, I went to a trunk show of jewelry crafted by my friend Anubha Jayaswal. She's a friend from my hometown, Kolkata; her husband Vishal loves Bengali food more…
August 12, 2013
Kaka
Kaka, standing on the balcony of the housein New Alipur in the 1950s.When I was a little girl, we lived in a house my grandfatherbuilt. It was common then for…
January 25, 2012
Kolkata Hipstamatic
Life on the streets of Kolkata can be an assault to the senses for someone unaccustomed. For me, it's home. The vendors, the noise, the traffic, the smells, the sounds.…
January 24, 2012
I am born
To borrow from Charles Dickens: WhetherI shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will beheld by anyone else, these pages must show.…
October 13, 2011
Balaka
It's done.The flat in the building called Balaka (which means swan in Bengali) at 68 B Ballygunj Circular Road is no longer my home. After nine-and-a half years of caring…
October 27, 2010
Coming home
The taxi refused to take the Eastern Bypass -- too dangerous in the wee hours of the morning before the sun comes up and lights up the despair of Kolkata.…
October 25, 2010
Bangla kobita (poetry)
This poem is written by one of my favourite Bengali poets, Joy Goswami. It loses in the translation, of course. And yet...In the evening sadness comes and stands by the…
August 17, 2010
Loadshedding
India has come a long way since my childhood. And not.This week's headlines: Celsius rises, so does loadshedding. In American English, this means temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and…
April 8, 2010