By Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
I am proud of being an Indian. I am a part of the indivisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to this noble edifice and without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete. I am an essential element which has gone to build India. I can never surrender this claim.
By Jaya Jaitly
In ten years, Dilli Haat became popular, both nationally and internationally. Lonely Planet and other guide books advised travellers to visit it. At one stage, impoverished Russians came in droves to buy inexpensive crafts, taking them back in gunny bags to sell in Moscow.
By John Stratton Hawley and Vasudha Dalmia
Ayodhya is being reshaped by a new kind of Hinduism: a syndicated, textbook Hinduism that offers a new sense of political agency to many in the majority who have so far felt left out. As this new Hinduism takes hold, the tomb of Sisle Hazrat Islam and all it stands for is in danger.
By N Ram
Politically, Vyapam implicates or features senior BJP and RSS leaders, including ministers, in addition to a vast array of bureaucrats, intermediaries, fixers, and the participant victims, many hundreds of students and job-seekers ensnared in the racket.
By Sameer Khan
Farhan had never been a practicing Muslim. He visited a masjid only to offer namaz for Eid or an occasional Friday namaz. But now he joined Suleiman often at the local masjid for prayers.
By Chanis Fernando Boisard
Book Excerpt: From Chanis Fernando Boisard’s ‘The Ayah and Other Stories’.
By Sameer Khan
He was ashamed that he had obstinately been blaming Jenny for spurning his love and held a grudge against her. On the contrary, she had loved him all those years and had now taken the audacious step because she loved him.
By Sumana Roy
Possessiveness was the other worry. I have been a possessive lover. Plant life, by its very biological nature, does not understand monogamy. Loyalty is an alien concept, adultery an everyday thing. How would I adjust to this new world after years—centuries?—of social conditioning?
By Trivarna Hariharan
These three poems are excerpted from Trivarna Hariharan’s collection of poetry, The Necessity of Geography. Reviewer Archita Mittra describes Hariharan’s poems as “the kind of poetry you read on a lonely night,” and that is as apt a description as any.
By Aroup Chatterjee
It is known that Princess Diana desperately wanted to meet Mother Teresa in Calcutta; nine times her office tried to bring the two together in Calcutta but nine times it failed because the nun was rarely there.
By Sameer Khan
There were a few boys, who were throwing red gulal (vermillion) on the mosque walls in a provocative manner. The crowd surged as we tried to move forward jostling amidst the many faces, laced with gulal. In the melee, someone hit me on the back and screamed, “Pakistan Murdabad” (Death to Pakistan).
By Sameer Khan
Wiping his face with his handkerchief, he looked to me and said, “The letter that I want to be written in Urdu is for my brother, Maqbool, in Pakistan.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 