Wanderink

Gunehr is now on Google

The metallic clanging from the lathe shop falling oddly in step with the strides on the makeshift catwalk next to it could have been an installation. Then, this is what happens when daily life takes an arty turn. Or when you are impressively exposed to unusual attempts at reinventing space through creations that are not […]

Show the bird the bird

Dreaming of flying is apparently a sign of good tidings. Though I do not know any dream analyst to verify I will go with it. I have been dreaming of flying since I was five and all the good things – at least those I remember – happened afterwards: first glass of beer (age eight), […]

The pangs: Voices from a growing town

I am conscious of flux, of disorder; of annihilation and despair. If this is all, this is worthless. (Virginia Woolf, The Waves) The Master Plan occupied the centrepiece of every conversation and gathering. Or more specifically the Transport Plan which the Master Plan was chiefly about. It was an officious one, a protracted one, albeit […]

Thampanoor Terminal (New)

(June 2 is International Sex Workers’ Day. This is a prize winning story revolving around the adventures spanning an evening of Donna aka Devi, a fictitious streetwalker based out of the Thampanoor in Trivandrum, Kerala. Dedicated to all Donnas and Devis out there. May your profession be legalised and organised so that you can live […]

An evening in The Village

An idle mind is the devil’s workshop (Biblical)  You shall do no work on Sabbath (also Biblical)  Let there be no light What used to be a water tank for royalty thrives today as watering holes for the proletariat. There is one for every mood as long as it doesn’t involve bright. None of the […]

Partition and other sagas from Jinnah House

Compared to its Mumbai namesake Jinnah House in Delhi has shunned controversy and sits quietly away from public glare, behind man-high baroque iron gates in the middle of an expansive, well groomed lawn. The guards are armed and unseen, stepping out of their watchhouse only as your car approaches. They look surprised to hear that […]

Joe Bennett on good writing and where underpants come from

Tracing the largely unseen underwear to the land of its origin is probably the closest to discovery we can make these days. But for New Zealand columnist and travel writer Joe Bennett the reasons for the pursuit weren’t so illustrious: the measly price tag on the five-pack set from his local store made him wonder […]

Waking up Vembanad

Must have been the tempestuous night I started in the morning to a gentle wake. It took a while to collect my bearings: the thatched roof tapered towards the top, quartered window frames girded by coir, bamboo-matted partitions, wood slab flooring. An air conditioner thrummed somewhere. Unfamiliar contours. A throbbing head. The bed swayed. A […]

By the roadside

“There is a temple in the centre, around it is a mosque,” said Chotu (‘helper’) pointing through the spiny shrubs that separated the palisaded ASI monument and the reclaimed bog where the workshop stood. Once he was sure he had my undivided attention he went on to assure me that there was ‘firing and killing […]