Posted inPOV
Grief in the Age of Social Media
Modern grief, the kind that lives on the internet, is a whole world away from old-world grief, the kind you preserved inside of you. The modern take on grieving is to share and tweet about it.
Posted inSports
What Team India’s World Cup Defeat Taught Me About Grief and Loss
For my best friend, who lost his mother recently, the World Cup became an antidote. With every Team India victory, I believed that its only purpose was to make my friend feel again. But when the team crashed out, we sensed an ending. It reminded us that the pain of losing a loved one is real – nobody could, and should, take it away.
Posted inPOV
Who Will Be the Villain in the Biopic on Mumbai? Terrorists or Potholes?
Congratulations, Mumbai, your apathy truly deserves an applause. Your tax money is used to build roads, repair them, so when there are pothole-related casualties, you are paying for your own death. The biopic on the city should ideally be titled “Bombay, the City that Never Feels”.
Posted inPeople
The Wait for Death at Varanasi’s Mukti Bhavan
In Varanasi’s death hostels, the hope of achieving nirvana keeps alive people like Gulab Bai, who have been staring death in the face for decades.
Posted inPop Culture
How Game of Thrones Made Me Lose Faith in the Idea of Love
Game of Thrones has painted perhaps the glummest picture of love ever conceived in popular culture. Love does not last or make us better persons. Instead, it corrupts, handicaps, and burdens as much as any other responsibility in the world.
Posted inGender
What’s Making Us Happy: The Decline in India’s Maternal Mortality Rate
Here’s a reason to cheer on a gloomy day: Our Maternal Mortality Rate has dropped by 22 per cent. That means nearly 1,000 fewer women die because of pregnancy-related complications in the country each month.
Posted inEarth
Toxic Air Killed 1.2 Million Indians in 2017. Why Are We Still Celebrating With Firecrackers?
From inaugurations of events like the IPL to star-crossed lovers in our films staring dreamily into the distance as the sky lights up with fireworks, we’re hostage to the belief that no celebrations are complete until a few rockets have been fired into the night sky.
Posted inModern Family
My Sisters and I Cremated Our Father. And Every Daughter Must Be Part of their Parents’ Final Journey
I struggle to understand people’s apprehension toward daughters performing the last rites of their parents. The act of seeing the last physical trace of your loved one be engulfed in the fire is essential to getting closure, to realising that we will never see them in the physical realm anymore.