By Riti Das Dhankar
Be it the Ice Bucket or the Rice Bucket, the challenge is not to unwittingly imitate. True challenge lies in understanding the ideals, the needs, and the causes behind the issue and, then, to do the bit that would actually make a difference, irrespective of the ‘views’ or the ‘likes’ or the ‘shares’ that happen on the social network.
By Safia Begum
In the month of Ramadan, she was observing fast and stitching the heavy dining-table cover. Since the new academic year has started, she has to pay for her children’s school fees and buy books for them. Her husband asks her to stop the girls’ education as they can’t afford to pay so much money. With a salary of three-thousand-rupees per month, she barely manages to pay for their education.
By Achyut Dutt
That was the fun side of Nemo, but there was another side, the one he was trained to be. A killer. That was something everyone who came in contact with him had to remember, including his handler, me. Nemo was trained to be a cold-blooded killing machine when the order was given. And the kill order was usually a terse, “Get him!” Unless he happened to be a very good shot and quick on the draw, the other guy wouldn’t survive the encounter.
By Lopa Banerjee
I look at the steep movement between the mountains, the soft, sensuous light trailing through the silvery mountain bends. I read their curves, bends and slopes like books of sonnets and stories, tracing each page in its sacred solidarity, as the curved landscapes ramble, roam, and converge with each other like enchanted lyrics.
By Concerned Citizens for Salman
We strongly condemn the arrest and inhumane treatment of Salman Zalman at the hands of the Kerala police and call for his immediate release. We consider the charging of IPC 124 A (sedition) on him as a gross over stretching of the sedition act to encroach into the rights of a citizen to criticize the nation.We also condemn the abusive campaign that is being conducted on Facebook against him and the discriminatory nature of the media reporting, which is aiding such human right abuses.
By Sowmya Dechamma
For a moment, I imagined medieval royals enjoying a pleasant sunny day. It was sunny and I let the sun fall on my back. I could hear a bird – loud and shrill, and tried unsuccessfully to spot it. As I listened it became louder and shriller, shutting out all other sounds of insects and birds. It took me some effort to focus my ears onto the other sounds.
By Mosarrap H Khan
The unbearable pain of others might make us numb and fatigued, inducing moral resignation. As it happened in the case of a woman from Sarajevo during the Serbian War, who switched channels unable to consume an ‘oversaturation’ of images of the destruction of Vukovar.
By Bhaswati Ghosh
Given the ongoing nature of personal histories forged by the Partition of India, re-storying seems not only a worthwhile but even a necessary exercise, if one is to make sense of the histories that stitch the lacerated subconscious of the populace scattered over India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
By Amber Webb
The mishandling of Gaza is nothing more than tragic and shameful. However, recognizing and validating the reasons for Israel’s insecurities opens the space to understand them as mutually vulnerable, and, possibly, creates a deeper understanding and will to cooperate.
By Lopa Banerjee
Exuding a raw energy and supreme power of art, the entire Apu trilogy, on the surface level, traces the epic journey of the protagonist, Apu, from his impoverished rural boyhood to his years in Baranas and Calcutta and, finally, to his marriage and fatherhood. On a more metaphysical plane, the three films depict the unique life of the protagonist in various stages, repeatedly facing deep spiritual questions centered round the vision of death.
By Achyut Dutt
Oblivious that the traffic had now started moving once again and some very angry folk were blaring their horns behind him, Arjun kept his foot jammed on the brake pedal and stared back at the lovely face of Nandini Shyamrao. She had known he was in Pune but hadn’t told him she, too, had connections with Pune. Far as he knew, her folk were spread over Bangalore and Chennai.
By Achyut Dutt
It was a strangely exhilarating moment for me too, one that I have had the honor to live through and experience, as a 14-year old. During that time, I was in a harsh boarding school, against my wishes. A scrawny shy kid, easily bullied, who had decided to curl up within himself and shut out the reality of a nightmarish Darwinesque existence inside the dorms.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 