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There’s an artisan-like air to the image of a female writer. A certain fragility and an odd strength that the pen lends her, coarse suggestiveness of phallic symbolism aside. There is a delicateness about the female writer. Hearty broadstrokes are usually in rare supply. The writing doesn’t leave deep vigorous impressions on paper, it simply whirls around the page smokily. And gentle persuasion often outweighs enthusiastic opinionatedness. There is also an anonymity about the female writer. She’s rarely visible. Sometimes out of choice, others enforced.

It’s the latter that forms the catalyst for this piece. That, along with some article here at PFC a couple of months ago by an aspiring writer that implied how much easier it is for the female of his species to get work, thanks to her ‘assets’. I am a little at sea about how acquiring a 34-25-34 figure (that’s the new 36-26-36, guys, now …

Parents, they never really leave us. They’re always there. In the book that lays face down, turned in the dust on the table. They watch over us. Replacing that rambling tree, its branches protectively splayed over your house. They still walk us and settle our playground squabbles. Like that blind mirror that sees it all but shows us only what we want to see. Their protective shield is all around. In the recomposed clouds and the rocks that shift out of our way. But this post isn’t about parents. It’s about children. Like always, I guess I’ll get to my point via a circuitous route. ‘What the hell is this post about?’ will be answered. Not just yet, so do humour me while I recount a little story.

Recovering from pneumonia at the age of seven, rusty breaths disintegrating in the winter air, I was feeling uncharacteristically restive and teary. …

Evil is the ultimate ambiguity. When handled with insouciant dexterity, it can reach this delicious plateau that Simone Weil described as ‘the monotony of evil’, condemned to a false infinity. The world thus painted is so saturated with the mutating snowballing nature of evil that it becomes palpable and no one really needs to call it by name. And the ‘good’ man, the ‘natural’ man trapped in this world hopes to reach a point at which evil turns into innocence. Sriram Raghavan’s ‘Johnny Gaddar’ carves a blazing trail of evil and the demiurge. Of Crime and its Punishment.

On an uncharacteristically quiet afternoon, a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from Sriram wanting to know if I could recommend a writer who would do English subtitles for ‘Johnny Gaddar’. I said I did know a writer who knew passable English. Me. I don’t think I really gave …

A thin black column of dazzle takes wing. As the first words form on the blank sheet of paper, I feel an incipient thrill. It’s that magical moment of realization of being in love. The beginning of every piece of writing recreates that affluent warmth, that heightened exhilaration. It’s a headlong freefall, no parachute, no safety net, just a blissful weightlessness. Heedless, uncaring of whether the feelings will be reciprocated or wrapped in the night and tossed into the air. All that matters is me, what I feel, what I can do. The other side, at this point doesn’t even exist. He loves me, he loves me not.

I trespass stupidly. Wildly hopeful. Words fall onto paper, tumbling with abandon, a cascading brook – sparkling, lacking restraint, over-enthusiastic. The rhythm of the heart echoes the tapping on the keyboard. The cardiograph scrawls in tandem with the scratch of the pen. A …

We boil at different degrees. But the bubbles are always there, beneath the surface calm. Waiting for the right temperature or the wrong provocation. My threshold varies. There are mornings when, like Kilgore, I love the smell of Napalm. I want to get blown up, teeter on that edge and fall off into a glorious abyss. And then there are days when I’m weaker than English tea, and the provocations in form of insults flung by aliases and pseudonyms shake the very root of my faith. The many manifestations of rage.

But, before I spew any further, let me answer the ubiquitous questions that assail all of my writings. ‘What the hell is she writing about?’ I’m writing about anger. ‘What’s the point of this post?’ It’s an attempt to analyse why we usually fire all our rage in the wrong direction. ‘Is she trying to be clever or sarcastic?’ …

Portrait of a Critic

The angle, it makes all the difference. Subtracting depth, magnifying dominance. I paraphrase, leading you through this maze. ‘I am the North, the South, the East, the West. The Monday week and the Sunday rest.’ Sharp, incisive like a rapier. Objects in my mirror are smaller than they appear. From up here, I rule the world. Sitting in judgment of all I behold. The air is dry, my horse is high, the halo round my head holier than thine. I cast these stones for I’ve never sinned. I judge because I’ve never erred.

So, there he is, this guy called A. Fevered, feverish, yet light as day. He soars vertical, adorns the sky. Back here, there’s just my article and I. His heart, they say, bleeds onto the paper, blubbery breaths of joyful vapour. Who the hell does he think he is? Master, monarch of all …

Considerning my lifelong quest for irony, there it is. ‘Black’ may (or may not) be beautiful (and I know I risk opening a frightening can of worms here), but white happens to be my favorite colour. Pristine. Unsullied. Receptive. Conjures beautiful images. Of clouds. The moon. Virginal doves and Yash Chopra heroines. A flag symbolising peace. But just now, this moment, I’m fighting the colour. As a teenager, I recall arguing with my mother over the abundance of white in my wardrobe. Why would anyone pay money and buy a non-colour, she’d question in exasperation. But I loved it. It made me disappear. And yet now, as I sit watching the white screen stare unblinkingly at me, I hate it. I’m almost afraid of it. It makes me frighteningly visible.

What a stew. Over a colour, too.

But anyone who has stared at a blank document or sheet — waiting, …