By Navras J. Aafreedi
Noticing my parents’ reluctance, when the official there suggested that they give me just any name if they did not wish to pass on theirs, my father perceived it as the expression of doubt on my legitimacy and gave my first name a couple of suffixes, my mother’s caste name, Jāt and the name of the Pashtun/Pathan tribe he comes from, Āfrīdī (He spelt it Aafreedi to emphasize the long vowels in it, and not for any numerological reason.).
By Jagari Mukherjee
I wanted to see the city which has been immortalized by poets and artists. I wanted to see the city which had formed the backdrop in works like Alexandre Dumas’ Camille, Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, and Sartre’s The Age of Reason, amongst others. I had watched and loved movies like Moulin Rouge (based on Camille) and Gigi (based on Colette’s novelette). As for me, my painting of Paris will be a work of Impressionism rather than Realism as I attempt to recapture its essence mainly through the perfumed mists of memory.
By Fayezah Iqbal
I sank in a bit more in my environs, inhaled more of that air and more of that soil, saw myself as one of those children frolicking, romping, and eating silently there during the recess. My present coalesced with my past.
By Ananya S Guha
The penchant of the media to rake this up as a Dalit issue is to politicize it and fit it into the overall politics of the country, where Dalits are attacked in various parts the country. It is not the case in Shillong. It is a local issue over a conflict of interest. It is also not an ethnic clash, because of the same reason.
By Michelle D’Costa
When they ask, you know any Konkani films?
Say, you’ve no clue. They’ll believe you.
Minorities have no music or cinema.
By Ananya S Guha
A lot of discussion on North East India is focused around questions of politics, identity, society, and even literature. Seminars are held all over the country generating debate and polemics. Many of the seminars and conferences only result in producing books, which publishers from Delhi, eyeing the academic market, take advantage of.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 