Monthly Archives

April 2014

Doda in these parts is not just for the anchorite or the ailing, it’s for everybody. It is a permanent fixture in riyan or ceremonies like weddings or housewarming and shop inaugurations. It is indispensible in sabhas or community meetings called to settle issues. For generations doda has played the role of icebreaker and relationship-cementer, has been instrumental in resolving spats and has injected newfound warmth to embraces. Upped gaiety and community quotients. And in recent poll times it has even propped up Barmer in Rajasthan – the second largest

Angrezi babuls scramble from both sides eager for a prickly embrace, turns around with a ‘whoa’ just as you pass. We sped along a spit of a tarmac flanked by bristly rows of the shrub towards Khamblighat railway station; the train had to be late by at least 10 – 15 minutes if we were to get on it. But my host Thakur who was driving didn’t seem to be worried. “These were brought from Africa.” Thakur said with a vague nod. For a moment I thought he was talking

Decapitated, defiled or deified, the human body has always enjoyed centre stage in Indian art. Whether the unabashed exploration of the sexual we see in the cave temples of Khajuraho or the unrelenting pursuit of the sacred depicted by the stupas of Bodh Gaya, the body has been the faithful transport. Quite understandably it is the pivot of celebrated ancient Indian treatises on desire and rejuvenation – the Kamasutra and Charaka Samhita, a basis of Ayurveda. And of course the medium of that ‘union with the divine’ the greatest Indian

Around this time two years ago Katrina Kaif sat languid, sated, gazing out of her boudoir, a reveur, across the floodplains of Betwa. Following her gaze through the viridian penumbra that gleamed off the landscape, we were treated briefly to an array of elevated dome-shaped pavilions, solemn sentinels along the Kanchana Ghat. The scappled-gold morning light radiated desire, her four-poster bed hugger-mugger. There was promise of more liaisons in the air. Giving wings to our hopes, she took off her chudis – bangles, an auspicious symbol in Indian marriages –

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