The book Three Men in a Boat makes for a good laugh, but three men on a single motorbike is quite another story. Adhish Halder, a friend and myself motorbike all the way from Ranaghat station to ...

When you meet Nick Rampal for the first time, you are a little surprised. He is a tall, handsome man in his 30s, with a smiling face, a booming voice and an excellent profile. He is also dishevelled a...

That evening, 40 people sat in the dimly lit room on the second floor of Park Mansions, as Malavika spoke to academician Julie Mehta about another time, another music. It seems Monica, the only daught...

She was hailed a giant-killer five years ago, when in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections Sushmita Dev defeated Kabindra Purkayastha, a BJP stalwart in the Northeast and a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpaye...

The Topsia Canal Road of south Calcutta is home to 4,000 ragpickers. Forty seven-year-old Ajmeri Khatun is not one of them anymore, strictly speaking. About 10 years ago, she purchased her first ricks...

At a time when race, religion, colour, caste, gender and nationality are so important in defining a person’s identity, the life of Freda Bedi, who broke glass ceilings and crossed boundaries at ever...

Before India’s Independence, Rampur used to be a princely state in Rohilkhand in western Uttar Pradesh. And the Rohila Pathan sardars were the rulers of Rampur. Qamar Zamani was the wife of Akbar Al...

Three pigeons peeped down from the upper reaches of Victoria Memorial’s Eastern Quadrangle as the ceremonial introductions continued. They would have been lost in the darkness but for the marble of ...

A series of events led to Anjum Zamarud Habib becoming the only woman leader in the Hurriyat Conference in Kashmir when it was formed. Anjum, in Calcutta to attend the People’s Literary Festival hel...

And the flowers too played along in the general scheme of ostentation, grinning in their papery gowns of mauve, magenta and maroon, often streaked through the middle or rimmed in white. The bulbous or...