When a Big Tree Fell
Nilakshi’s poem about the fall of a big tree acquires a new dimension. Simple and soulful verse, it operates at many layers. My mother often saidWhen a big tree...
…And Two Women Suffered
She was a slim, tall, elegant woman, too pretty to be a cook in our house, but as she was not very young, my mother kept her immediately. She...
Tagore, Ray and Basu: The Broken Nest, Charulata, and Stories from Rabindranath Tagore
There are many admirers of Satyajit Ray’s film, Charulata (1964), which is often seen as a retelling of the story of Rabindranath Tagore’s own time spent with his elder brother...
Serendipity
An evocative love poem by Nilakshi for Different Truths. It was a year or two before That I felt that sense of being left out That abnegation… When the favourite colour of...
Loving You
Here’s an intense love poem by Nilakshi, in Different Truths, that catalogues her love. Let me talk of love… Of Fossil fragrance Of rock-hard chest Of ponytailed haze...
Us, just us
Here’s an evocative love poem by Nilakshi, as we celebrate the season of fertility and bounty, with the festival of colours, in Different Truths. Will there be a time ...
Meghashyama, the Sari, brought big Cloud Burst!
In Madhya Pradesh, Maheshwar is the place for Induri and her older and richer sister Maheshwari. It’s a soft, soft, soft cotton with stripes all over, sometimes little butties, and different...
The Parsi Connection: The Déjà vu of Sari, Furniture and Food
This story is as much a sari story, as it is a story of furniture – a Parsi obsession and feature of their traditionally elegant homes. Nilakshi remembers Gustad Noble’s...
The Tyranny of WhatsApp
Our life is more and more dependent on social media sites and apps. Here, Nilakshi verses about the pulls and pressures of WhatsApp tongue-in- cheek, for Different Truths. The dancing...
A Saree called Suhasini: I smiled and draped it on Nuptial Night
Suhasini is a Tangail cotton with mooga stripes across her, some paisleys carefully woven like an alpana across the threshold, when you welcome Goddess Lakshmi or a bride to the household. Suhasini...