Arts & Culture
Thomas Crowley

Of Chachas and Chamchas

  The Internet has not been kind to Pahlaj Nihalani. As chief of the censor board, Nihalani has been at the center of controversy after controversy. First, it was his very appointment to that position, which was seen as one

Politics & Society
Paramita Banerjee

‘Maps on our backs/Long way from Home’

Refugee is a political term, connected to, but not quite the same as, a person seeking refuge. The term ‘refugee’ is inseparably connected with international borders and internal strife in the country of one’s birth. In the 1951 Refugee Convention,

Filter Coffee
Deepa Bhasthi

Halfway Homes

Come this May, it will have been a decade for me, living in this big city. Ten years since university, ten years since moving to neighbourhoods larger than my whole district, ten years of navigations and heartbreaks and loves and

Politics & Society
Soumabrata Chatterjee

Lost and Found: Notes from a Migrant’s Diary

  “See how your world has cracked. Why aren’t you here? Where are you? Come back. … Is history deaf there, across the oceans?” —Agha Shahid Ali, A Pastoral   To talk about the act of migration is to speak

Politics & Society
Ajachi Chakrabarti

The State of Statelessness

I Farid Ahmad looks upon me with polite contempt. He greets me when I am introduced to him at the camp for Rohingya refugees at Balapur, a suburb of Hyderabad, with an affable as-salamu alaikum, but once he finds out

Politics & Society
Nitasha Kaul

Being Human

  “We do not care— That much is clear. Not enough Of us care Anywhere. We are not wise— For that reason, Mankind dies. To think Is much against The will. Better— And easier— To kill.” —Langston Hughes, ‘Wisdom And

Politics & Society
Azad Essa

Out of Africa

I In early April last year, 32-year-old Amuri Djuma was attacked outside his small furniture store in Isipingo, south of Durban. A group of men raided his store and looted most of the goods, leaving him financially devastated and homeless.

Politics & Society
Christoph Trost

German on Paper Only

Around a shabby table in a sports centre of a university, an interpreter, a civil servant and a humanitarian worker—myself—have dinner with the residents of a temporary refugee camp. Rock-hard bread, cheap cheese, plastic knives. Germany in October 2015. Since

Arts & Culture
Devjani Bodepudi

Making Space

I ready Skype in anticipation. I want this interview to go well. Anders Lustgarten has become somewhat of a hero for me, after I heard his Soho Theatre play, Lampedusa, on the radio. After a couple of initial glitches, I’m

Cinema
Ajachi Chakrabarti

What Is Love?

  Dilwale Director: Rohit Shetty Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Varun Dhawan, Kriti Sanon Rating: 1/5 Bajirao Mastani Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra Rating: 2/5   In Calcutta, you can tell that winter is coming