Shobhaa De

Mar 31, 2010
SHOBHAA.JPG

Shobhaa De

Clean bowled

Of course, the joke’s on us! The biggest one! A smaller version was enjoyed earlier this week in a brightly lit cricket stadium. The other one has been running for nine years.

Lifestyle crimes

Aditya Rankha, aged 13, was assaulted with a kitchen knife, stabbed several times and finally burnt to death a little outside Mumbai after a ransom plan didn’t pan out the way his assailants had planned it.

Cannes glory for Delhiite

Delhi-based director Durba Sahay, 50, is wondering what she should wear to the Cannes Film Festival this year when she goes there to showcase her third short film — The Mechanic. “This will be my third visit to the festival. I had showcased my earlier two films in the short film corner,” says Durba, who turned to direction after spending many years writing books, short stories and fiction in Hindi.

The Gandhi vs Gandhi show

In what is being seen as a masterstroke by Narendra Modi, Varun Gandhi, the volatile and articulate son of Sanjay and Maneka Gandhi, has been promoted to Class Monitor, after being treated as the Class Bully. There is good reason for this altered status. For one, Varun has done his share of standing on a bench in front of the principal’s office. For another, he is a chip of the old block (blocks, actually) and carries his Gandhi legacy with as much arrogance and chutzpah as his parents.

Ex-minister, wife held for dowry

Former Orissa law minister Raghunath Mohanty and his wife Pritilata Mohanty, who face dowry torture charge levelled against them by their daughter-in-law Barsha Showny Mohanty, were on Saturday morning arrested from Shalimar area in West Bengal’s Howrah district.

The tidings of March 8

Year after tiresome year, women the world over believe the 8th of March is “their day”, that some sort of miracle will take place and hey, presto, it will be a beautiful world for women. This past year has been particularly awful for us.

The Modi chronicle

Lit Pests and Lit Fests go hand in hand. That’s what makes them so much fun. I do hope some well-meaning idiots don’t try and sanitise these literary carnivals anytime soon. What’s a Lit Fest without at least one juicy controversy?

Coronation of a prince

Now that the deed is done, let’s pump the lad’s hand and get on with it. Wait a minute. Did I just use the word “lad”? Ooops. Rahul Gandhi at 40 plus is no lad. Laadla, yes. Not just his mother’s, but, as the Congress grandpas are hoping, of the entire nation’s too. Don’t laugh. It may yet happen.

Rapes and rakhis...

Quick… give me a rakhi… I’m being raped!”
It cannot possibly get more bizarre. A nasty four-letter word called R-A-P-E has polarised, even pulverised Indian society. And it refuses to go away. It is not just about the nameless 23-year-old girl’s brutal sexual assault any longer. It is about us. How we, as a people, respond to one of the most heinous crimes in the world.

Sharam can be lethal

A couple of days after the news of nurse Jacintha Saldanha’s tragic death in her quarters near the King Edward VII’s Hospital in London, I was having dinner with two very bright Australian ladies.

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.

Horoscope