― George Orwell, Why I Write
Indranil Banerjee‘s essay: Listening with Sarayia
Cricket lovers of the yesteryear can never get over their nostalgic attachment to the radio broadcast of the test matches. The fact that those words from the commentators created the essential visuals that were happening on the ground, somehow impacted the minds of those cricket lovers in the most immaculate manner. The radio commentators enjoyed…
Chandraneev Das‘s essay: Why I would re-visit Agra.
People from across the world visit India for a couple of reasons. Two of the primary attractions being: the chance to see a cow on the streets of a large metropolitan city, or, experience one of the ‘Wonders of the World’ – the Taj Mahal. Both these objectives are successfully met in the city of…
Tanima Dey‘s essay: Emotions on Display: Feelings not Found!
When I first let myself be intrigued by the comparatively new method of studying history, history of emotions had sailed through many trajectories, for almost two decades, taking into its boat psychoanalysts, sociologists, linguists, scientists, neurologists, and historians for the new journey ahead. I was already a decade late in fathoming the incredible and fantastic…
Indranil Banerjee‘s essay: Oval Test Victory, Indelible Memory In Indian Cricket’s History
Indian Cricket, as we see it today as a mark of financial and administrative power in the form of BCCI, or a bank of unbelievably talented group of individuals both in the team and the bench, came through its own journey of slow starts, huge losses and of course marvellous moments of glory. There were…
Ujjaini Roy‘s essay: Random Thoughts
My mother and I are on the front porch, in one of my earliest memories. It was the end of December. Her tiny palms cupped the tinier orange in the hope of making it warmer. At around 2 in the afternoon, this was a sort of ritual, she lovingly stuck to. A neighbour or two…
Pawel Markiewicz‘s essay: The broken soul in my homeland
Do you know where this world has got so much evil in it? When I was in the Osuszek-grove for the first time, I was fully grown. I went there on a bike after finding out about it on the internet, a few years ago. I drove south through my whole town, on the road…
Anissa Sboui‘s essay: Othello: The Black ‘Other’ within a White Venetian Society
There are Westerners, and there are Orientals. The former dominate; the latter must be dominated, which usually means having their land occupied, their internal affairs rigidly controlled, their blood and treasure put at the disposal of one or another Western power. (Said, Orientalism 36) Abstract During the Elizabethan era, European nations have realised “the potential…
Sambuddha Sanyal‘s essay: Defining One Kilogram In Modern Times
How much is one kilogram ? It is not a question that we ask often to ourselves but we accept a standard answer in the form of a piece of metal that we see everyday in the grocery shops. However in this article I will try to link this question to some of the latest…
Hargun Gujral‘s essay: Listening From The Counsellor’s Desk
Early in the morning, while queuing up to punch in the identity card at the school gate, a seven year old who’s seen walking in, in the most leisurely fashion is hurriedly stopped by the guard “I-Card dikhao” (show me your I-Card) he says. Much to his amusement, his response, “dekh lijiye, kal jaisa hi…
Niño Saavedra Manaog‘s essay: Turning Japanese
UNTIL NOW, I still feel conflicted about the Japanese. Who wouldn’t be inspired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who in the past year resigned his post due to his failing health, once again raising the ethical bar for public servants and government officials? If the Japanese come out on the news these days, they often…
Indranil Banerjee‘s essay: Caught Kirmani – Bowled Kapil Dev
The idea of a partnership transcends all possible genre of human activities. And in sports we, perhaps have seen the most iconic examples of camaraderie or partnership between individuals who are masters themselves. There is a lesson of life that one gathers from those instances and that lesson is of the need to find an…
Indranil Banerjee‘s essay: Salim Durani, The undisputed Prince of Indian Cricket
The sport of cricket, if not anything else, had always promised grace and style in its execution and form. In the modern formats of quick entertainment the fast pace and result-at-any-cost have taken over that charm, but yet the romanticism of a graceful exhibition of the skills have kept the oldest format alive. The rhythm…
Anirban Ghosh and Sharmili Bhowmik‘s essay: Inception – The Art Exhibition
This reportage is about a recent endeavour of Pexel SQ holding on to that vision of the founders. Pexel Square is a platform for passionate and enthusiastic artists from India to show and exhibit their Artwork. Our mission is to primarily promote emerging and talented artists, including painters, sculptors and photographers. Keeping that vision in…
Prachi Srivastava‘s essay: Why do Children not respond well to scolding?
According to Oxford dictionary, scolding means “an angry rebuke or reprimand”. When our children don’t meet our expectations we reprimand them in different ways and the most common style is by pasting labels to their ‘Entity’. We don’t want children to repeat any mistake and ‘always’ be on the right track. Screaming, lecturing & name…
Ndaba Sibanda‘s essay: Dudula Is A Sad Symptom of Unresolved Perennial, Colonial And Political Issues
The author was inspired to pen his thoughts down following the recent resurgent spates of xenophobic attacks, threats, deaths and persecutions. This time around these terrible turbulence, protests and afrophobic attacks are initiated, directed and executed under the banner of the Dudula Vigilante groups or the so-called Dudula movement. Roots and Rules Dudula means to drive…
Ujjaini Roy‘s essay: Toeing Lines
“We live on a mountain Right at the top This beautiful view From the top of the mountain Every morning I walk towards the edge And throw little things off Like car parts, bottles and cutlery Or whatever I find lying around It’s become a habit, a way to start the day I go through…
Victor Mukherjee‘s essay: Reinterpreting ‘Mohamed Singh Azad’: The Politics of Resistance and Religious Syncretism in Shaheed Udham Singh
New religion…. for the whole world… firmly founded on a behalf on the One God, the same in the Vedas, the same in the Old, the same in the New Testament, the same in Koran, the same also in the hearts of those who have no longer any Vedas or Upanishads or any Sacred Book…
Sambit Roychowdhury‘s essay: On Fatherhood
A bohemian person like my father should probably have never married and settled down. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy that he did so – I am positively chuffed to have existed than not to. What I mean is that my father was not equipped with the calculating mind that the bread earner…
Arjun Shivaji Jain‘s essay: On Success and Failure
I haven’t written an ‘essay’ like this in years — haven’t taken out the time to clarify, in words, I mean, such reflections that are in fact ever ongoing. Last I did, it seems, was in August 2020, when I tried to answer for myself, in quite a fit of despair, why precisely I continued…
Indranil Banerjee‘s essay: Eknath Solkar, the unforgettable doyen of Indian fielding history
The recent crop of excellent fielders in the Indian cricket contingent includes very famous names. There was a time though when the Indian team’s fielding prowess was considered much less in comparison to the likes of South Africans, Australians or English cricketers. There were though some shining names, gracing the cricket field in whites and…
Cherilynn Fiver‘s essay: You’re Only as Sick as Your Most Shameful Secret
It was the early 80s, so I must have been seven or eight, making my brother five or six. Our mother seemed to always be in her room, preoccupied with the college classes she’d never completed. My little brother’s dad worked full time as a pharmacist. Our mom used to work at the same pharmacy,…
Yaaminey Mubayi’s essay: Hussainiwala Bridge: A Spectator of History
The land lies, dry and dusty, witness to the rise and fall of empires, the making and breaking of nations. They say past events, if sufficiently intense, leave behind impressions as deep as footprints on the fabric of time. Ferozepur has witnessed some of the most evocative scenes in the recent history of the subcontinent.…
Sanil M. Neelakandan‘s essay: Republic of Barriers
Colonial and postcolonial questions have been haunting India over a long period of time. Diaspora of academic communities are articulating the question of colonialism and they are creating the field of postcolonial critiques. At the same time, there are majority of high priests of post-colonialism and minimum supporters of colonialism. Majoritarianism and minorities in the context…
Svetlin Trendafilov‘s essay: On optimism and art
An old saying goes that the optimist invented the plane and the pessimist – the parachute. There are optimists and pessimists in life. Some people want to fly, while others are afraid of the mere thought of flying. Some are ready to change the world and others feel nervous of the things life offers. In…
Paromita Goswami‘s essay: Hijab ban? What about Christian cross or Sikh turbans? Identity and Consumption Angle to Dressing
still telling women what to wear facepalm -Anannya Dasgupta, 27 Feb 22 From skirts to ripped jeans to hijab-women’s clothing is not their choice. The recent hijab and saffron scarf ban in Karnataka has been in media highlight of late. There is a difference between saffron scarves and hijab though. Saffron scarves are not something…
Shreya Kulkarni‘s essay: Men- (s)- t -(ru) -al Health
“What are the layers of epidermis?” Prof repeated the question but my mind wasn’t in the right place. I have always been an absent minded kid but it has now begun to interfere with my final year viva. It was for the first time I noticed something was up with me. Premenstrual syndrome was exponentially…
Shreya Kulkarni‘s essay: An ode to a feeling which you haven’s felt in a long long time.
June’19 BC (Before Covid) You are at a restaurant- cum bar sipping cocktail with your close friends. You’re on “the” vacation, the one you planned for years and it’s finally happening, after few fuck ups and heated arguments and fellow feeling night stays. You’re meandering about how things work out and how lucky you are…
Sayari Ghosh‘s essay Celebrating Science
I have always been a fan of science, there is no doubt about that. My childhood dream was to be an astronomer and I spent long hours after dinner trying to stargaze in the smog filled polluted skies of Calcutta. I followed spacecraft launches, kept the whole family awake to watch the Leonid Meteor Showers,…
Indranil Banerjee‘s essay: Nightwatchman is cricket
Cricket is a sport that even after being played internationally in few nations among many, has been able to capture the human imagination in the most romantic way. The great cricket romantic and writer Neville Cardus once famously wrote – . “We remember not the scores and the results in after years; it is the…
Isha Pungaliya‘s essay: City centre
The sun sets late and allows for aimless wandering a little longer. A little longer is always better because there is an alley that you hadn’t noticed or a Sushi place or a pub with warm lights and happy faces. And they create impressions; personal, subtle yet intense; resembling none of the general categories of…
Sambit Roychowdhury‘s essay: Stardust
“Prthivyapastejovayuriti tattvani Tatsamudaye sarirendriyavisayasamjnah Tebhyaschaitanyam … … Chaitanyavisitha kayah purusah Sarirad eva” Earth, water, fire and air are the principles, nothing else Their combination is called the “body”, “sense” and “object” Consciousness arises/is manifested out of these … … The “self” is nothing but the body endowed with consciousness from the body itself 1 The above lines are…
Meghali Roy‘s essay: Other
‘Other’ this word elicits different ideas and reactions in everyone. As a Social Science teacher, every time when I hear this word, am reminded of different conversations that I have witnessed or have been part of. During a class discussion on the blatant display of economic disparity during the pandemic last year, one of my…
Hargun Gujral‘s essay: The A(c)rt of dressing up
Its 9:58 PM on a Sunday evening. Dinner is all wrapped up and after a long gap and a terrifying time of having seen family, friends and people we may know suffer in the second wave, we finally are “ready” to go back to physical school, the next day. The pressing concerns plague one’s mind-…
Isha Pungaliya‘s essay: The bay
Horse-shoe Bay: A terminal for Ferries; and according to Wikipedia the 3rd biggest terminal for British Columbia ferries. It is at the western tip of West Vancouver. Some would argue it is situated so extremely to the west that it practically is the east, courtesy the roundness of the world. I visited Horse-Shoe Bay when…
Shefali Chowdhary’s essay: When to stop worrying
Till the date I became a mother I did not understand the true meaning of worry. Yes worrying for an assignment not completed, exam preparation not being there etc but worrying about another being?? Nobody tells you that once a mother always a worrier! No it is not a typo, I do mean worrier and…
Stefani Fesora‘s essay: Self-love – 5 easy tools to integrate into your everyday life
If I loved myself, I wouldn’t be defensive, when someone criticises me. If I loved myself, I wouldn’t feel wrong, when someone makes a jokes on my account. If I loved myself, I would be full of love and understanding for myself and others. If I loved myself, I would look into the mirror and…
Sambit Roychowdhury’s essay: Of poets and emperors
“Saaghi haadise sarv-o gol-o laaleh miravad / Vin bahs ba salase-ye ghassaleh miravad …* O Cup-bearer, the tale of the cypress, the rose and the tulip is going on And even after washing down three cups, this conversation is going on …” So starts a ghazal, the first line above penned by Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah, sultan of Bengal during the last decade of the fourteenth…
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