Wake up in the virtual world as Gregor Samsa, not only late for work but transformed into a giant insect, read the invitation from the Goethe Institut, Calcutta. I was intrigued. The event was called...

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” This is not just the famous last line from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. It also capt...

One of the things I love about old cities like Calcutta or Chennai is what I call the availability of eccentrics. These are outstanding, outspoken people who have lived a full life and now play philos...

Personal correspondences can, at times, capture myriad facets of writers’ personalities which could have otherwise been lost to the world. Rainer Maria Rilke, born this month 143 winters ago, was an...

A blank page is every author’s nightmare. But do authors always dare to put their nightmares on the page? For instance, Hans Christian Andersen — he was born this month — was a prolific writer f...