C-H-A-M-M-I. Chandima Rajapatirana’s first word, painstakingly spelled out, letter by letter, was a revelation. He had had no means of communicating in the 17 years that led up to this moment. Few suspected he had anything worth saying. Raised by his Sri Lankan parents in the US, he was first diagnosed with autism at the … Continue reading
Somewhere, halfway through Yasmin Khan’s wonderful new book, I go looking for a picture of Aruna Asaf Ali, née Ganguli. I have only the vaguest recollection of her, but the woman Khan describes is entirely fascinating. When we first meet her, Aruna, the wife of Congress party member Asaf Ali, is “more noted for her … Continue reading
Anuradha Roy’s opening line in Sleeping on Jupiter soon proves itself a lie. Her protagonist, Nomita tells us: “The year the war came closer, I was six or seven and it did not matter to me.” But the reader knows better than the little girl — the proximity of conflict always matters. Nomi lives in … Continue reading
Simon Singh is immediately recognisable in a crowd — his dramatic haircut riffs on a Mohawk and his oval, gold-rimmed glasses glint in the light. One of Britain’s leading science communicators, Singh left Cambridge with a PhD in particle physics and followed that with a stint at CERN. He then joined the BBC as a … Continue reading
Bettany Hughes was once described as the ‘Nigella Lawson of History’. Ask her about it now, and she bursts out laughing. In that moment, the similarities between the two women could not be more obvious — vivacious, uninhibited and good looking, both exert a magnetic pull on TV viewers across the world. However, the focus … Continue reading
How do you find lesbians in 19th-century London? For her first book Tipping the Velvet, three-time Man Booker Prize nominee Sarah Waters went looking for women cross-dressers in police and prison records. There was other evidence too: medical histories, love letters, records of women living together as long-term companions, all of which provided rich fodder. … Continue reading
\All week, the 2015 Zee Jaipur Literary Festival has been churning out headlines – from the announcement that Amish Tripathi’s much anticipated new book The Scion of Ikshavaku will be about Lord Ram, to the cordial meeting of the once bitterly-estranged writers Paul Theroux and VS Naipaul. The last drew some of the biggest crowds … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 