Whose war is it, anyway?
Arundhati Roy quotes my interview with Maoist supreme commander Ganapathi in her latest essay.
View ArticleSomewhere, anywhere
As long as there is fire the mosquitoes keep away. But as soon as the embers begin to die, they come back. And so does the pain in the knee. I sit on the rooftop, alone, caressing a drink, as the smoke...
View ArticleThe Khaki Fidayeen
The Khaki Fidayeen: Five policemen from Kashmir who have broken the back of militancy in the valley. Read here.Pic: Shome Basu
View ArticleJourneys
I am writing today because my body is sort of forcing me into it. I have this sinking feeling that refuses to go away, and I think writing – punching the keypad hard – would at least partially take...
View ArticleTrader of stories
It is 3.45 am. Give me some coffee. Or, can I have some silence, please? I am tired of the noise around me. It makes my head spin. I can feel the bile in my mouth. The noise enters my body and hides in...
View ArticleMy name is Dharmendra Kumar
The media is overwhelmed with Shahrukh Khan. I mean, I care a damn if his film does not work. Or that the multiplexes are not able to run his film. In any case, the government is so pusillanimous that...
View ArticleTimes of Parting
Love dies slowly. Like an ember. More strands of hair have turned grey – the right temple looks like a blooming cotton field. There is dust on bookshelves. Pens look pensive. Empty notebooks lie...
View ArticleEverything ends with Formalin
The police arrived and went straight to Bajirao Potawe’s house and beat him up. “With their boots and lathis,” he says. “They said bad things to my mother and sister, called me a bastard, and said how...
View Articleबारिश का एक दिन
आज बारिश बहुत हो रही थी. तुम भीगते हुए पहुंची और कैफे के दरवाज़े पर मुझसे लगभग टकरा गयी. मैं वहां खड़ा तुम्हे दूर से आते हुए देख रहा था. बहुत सुन्दर लग रही थी तुम... मन हुआ तुम्हारे बाजू पर स्माल पोक्स...
View ArticleThe Absent State
My book, "The Absent State" (with Neelesh Misra) is out in book stores now. Hachette India has called it the non-fiction book of the year. It has already topped the non-fiction list of The Hindu. Here...
View ArticleAmong the guerillas
With Maoist guerillas somewhere on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border
View ArticleThe Long March
Walking with Maoist guerillas along a flooded river, somewhere along the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border
View ArticleFever is a jilted lover
It is so tough to unsettle the haze, he thinks. The haze inside his chest. Sometimes it scares him. And then he has to close his eyes and imagine light - red light - surrounding him, like some sort of...
View ArticleHemlock Destiny
“Why do you say every man is a planet?” the demon asks him, licking his scalpel. He lies on the ground, wounded, bruised, tattered, crippled, fragmented, nauseated, destroyed. He passes a faint smile...
View ArticleThe Unsaid Words
A woman remembers her best friend, a man dubbed a Maoist and killed by the Republic of India. He happened to be her journalist husband “For the first time in my life,” says Babita Pandey, “I had a...
View ArticleIn Pursuit of a Collector | OPEN Magazine
In Pursuit of a Collector | OPEN Magazine (Pic by Ishan Tankha)
View ArticleMuchiness
Long time ago I used to know this woman who was much older than me. We met at a bar one cold winter night where we sat at different tables, both of us alone, and both of us nursing the same brand of...
View ArticleHello, Bastar
PRAISE FOR "HELLO, BASTAR":"Rahul Pandita had done something unusual - He had studied the Maoist movement at ground level for more than a decade, growing ever more interested in the way it functioned,...
View ArticleGuerilla in the forest
This girl is a member of the Chetna Natya Manch, the cultural troupe of the CPI (Maoist). Along with other members, the girl travels from village to village in the guerilla zone. If need be, she can...
View ArticleThe Autumn of Hypocrisy
Tonight, they will raise a toast. Tonight, they will pat one another’s backs, and, in the confines of their apartments in New Delhi and elsewhere, may even take out victory marches. Someone might even...
View ArticleThere never has been a home
“But is it wrong for a man to make a house, a place where he can return in the evening?” – The Journals of John Cheever There never has been a home. He thought of it many times. In the cacophony of...
View ArticleThere Are No Attendants
Every man is an island. That is what I was told when I arrived in this city as a new migrant. But even when I knew nothing about its machinations, I did not believe in the aloofness of the human soul....
View ArticlePuncturing the separatist discourse
The following post by Sualeh Keen, my friend from the Kashmir Valley, should not be seen as a review of Gowhar Fazli's review of my book, "Our Moon Has Blood Clots." I see it as a needle that has...
View ArticleMy response to the CRPF IG's so-called clarification
My former employer, The Hindu, in its January 4 edition, has published a so-called clarification from the Inspector-General (Operations) of the CRPF in Chhattisgarh, Mr. HS Sidhu, over my report...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....