Sonal

The Great Defender

Appupen’s Rashtraman comics use ribald humour to reflect political reality ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. On November 28, Appupen put up an installment from his new comic book Rashtrayana II: Divide and Fool, which is being serialized on Brainded, the website and collective he co-founded five years ago. The chapter featured …

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Bold and Brassy

Review: The Brass Notebook by Devaki Jain ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. In her landmark 1962 novel, The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing explored what it meant to be a ‘free woman’, while acknowledging the irony built in to the phrase. ‘Free women’, says the protagonist ‘wryly’ and with anger, ‘They still …

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Bringing Home the Bacon

India is seeing the emergence of an enthusiastic culture around pork ♦ A version of this story was originally published in India Today. Being in a close relationship with a pork lover isn’t something you take lightly. Once, at a party, a large ham made a brief appearance before the guests prior to being whisked …

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Eating Clean

Theatrically sanitised restaurant meals, untouched by human hands and wrapped in meters of plastic are our new food fetish. ♦ This story was originally published in The Indian Quarterly. For as long as humans have recorded images of the world around them, they’ve recorded images of their food and diet. The earliest figurative cave paintings …

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When YouTube Gets Your Goat: E-Commerce, Eid and the Bakrebaaz Life

India’s goat farmers aren’t kidding around when they say they’re having a bad year. The months leading up to Bakr-Eid are typically the most hectic season for the business, and the bulk of sales happen at bakra mandis – special markets that come up weeks in advance of the date – in cities across the country.

Dystopic Living

Author Samit Basu lays out Delhi’s best-case scenario in his sci-fi novel, and it is horrific. ♦ Originally published in India Today. Dystopia is pornographic,” says one character to another in Chosen Spirits. “You see it and shiver but it’s also kind of fun because it’s happening somewhere else, to someone else, you know? It …

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To Educate or Operate: The Big Question of Rural Reproductive Rights

Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ In December 2018, Khabar Lahariya reporter Suneeta Prajapati arrived at the Community Health Centre in Kabrai, Mahoba to cover a sterilization camp, a routine feature of rural healthcare in these parts of Bundelkhand, especially during the winter. She was taken aback to …

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Provisioning During a Pandemic

Gourmet ingredient delivery around India ♦ Originally published in India Today. Not too long ago, “gourmet” was synonymous with imported. Foreign products occupied the shelves of our loftier kirana dukaans, bearing unheard-of brand names and amusing MRPs. Still, with international shipping curtailed through the lockdown, India’s gourmands might have felt their absence. (But maybe not; …

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A Mask Crusader, a Virus-Killing Bracelet, and a Medical Motorbike

Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ June 18 was a typically busy day in India. In the morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his latest scheme, the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan (loosely translated, Poor People’s Welfare Employment Campaign), this time to benefit migrant workers. Before noon, he had …

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