Section 377, a “crime against the order of nature,” was introduced by the British in 1860 in India and 42 colonies worldwide primarily to persecute British homosexuals who had left Great Britain for the colonies for fear of punishment. It is the only law in the Indian Penal Code that identifies that a crime has been committed when there is no victim. Here “nature” has been defined as the victim to justify prosecution by the authorized.

I am very sad to learn of Rajesh Khanna’s passing. I was Rajesh Khanna’s heroine in his first released movie Aakhri Khat. He was a real super star and one of my favourite co-stars. I am reading My Magical Palace written by Kunal Mukherjee, my sister’s son who is very close to my heart and […]

I am devastated by the loss of Rajesh Khanna, the actor and film star who had no parallel and never will. The special and extraordinary adoration of his fans was bestowed on no one else. His charm and mannerisms crafted a generation. My Magical Palace is at its heart the ode of a young boy […]

Papita or Papaya, is one of the ubiquitous treasures of the tropics, but nowhere so revered and exalted as in India. Its medicinal qualities and benefits to health and digestion are legendary. It was also the reason for my first sex education talk at the age of eight.

All through summer, my father bought raw papayas from the market. I loved papaya chutney made in the Bengali style in the early summer months. Thin slices of raw papaya were cooked in light sugar syrup with a little fresh lime juice. It is a very simple dish, and is delicious when eaten with the curries of the summer season when the weather is very warm.

That is what it feels like, to go to India. A psychic friend once told me that fish always prefer to go back to the temperature of the water they were born in and that we humans tend to do the same, on a metaphysical level. Not sure how scientific that observation was, but I will admit that it takes just a day or two of being back in India before I settle down comfortably in an environment that could not be more different than the one I live in. Pleasantly tolerant of non-stop honking of cars and noisy traffic, breathing nonchalantly the fumes of pollution, looking at strangers in the eye for no reason at all and feeling unaccountably connected to them—my old habits come back to me so quickly. Jay walking? No problem.

After years of reworking the manuscript of My Magical Palace and a shifting publish date, it was anti-climactic to finally reach the first critical publishing milestone—sending the final copy to the printer. Years seem like small leaps when looking back at endless writing, editing, re-writing, consulting, work shopping, book ending, plot redesigning, transition re-building … you get the picture.