A son shoots his mother on Mother’s Day. Two brothers become sworn enemies over a narrow strip of farmland. An old woman spends her final years abandoned in the corner of a city flat, unwanted and unheard. A young corporate employee, crushed by loneliness, attempts suicide. These are not scenes from a dark television crime series. They are fragments of modern India’s unsettling social reality.

Read More

What happens to a society when the newspaper no longer lands with authority at the doorstep, and the television no longer commands silence in the living room?

Read More

Some songs allow a young person in love to hear the voice of their own heart, while someone who has lived through the experiences of age finds in them the ache of days gone by. The song 'Humein Tumse Pyar Kitna...' from the 1981 film 'Kudrat' belongs to this rare category. Its lyrics convey the depth of love, its melody carries an unspoken restlessness, and its singing has an emotional stillness that connects listeners with their inner selves.

Read More

The enchanting beauty of Braj Mandal, the Yamuna riverbanks, shaded groves, wandering peacocks, gentle cows, and the divine tales of Krishna have echoed for centuries through countless bhajans and folk songs. Devotional classics like “Shyam Teri Bansi Pukare”, “Radhe Radhe Barsane Wali”, “Maiya Mori” and “Jai Radha Madhav” still paint Vrindavan, Barsana, and Gokul as a spiritual paradise. Surdas's and Raskhan's verses remain soaked in the fragrance of Braj’s natural splendour.

Read More

For generations, India's lighthouses were places people saw from a distance. Standing at the edge of the sea, they marked dangerous stretches of coast and guided vessels through darkness. Their lights belonged to sailors. Their towers belonged to the landscape.

Read More

What's for dinner tonight? It is the most ordinary question in homes everywhere. Sometimes it's asked with affection, sometimes with impatience, and sometimes it becomes the last question anyone ever hears.

Read More

Moving beyond the bustle around Hawa Mahal, I entered Jaipur’s Jantar Mantar and immediately noticed a different atmosphere. Geometric shapes spread across the complex; towering walls, angular structures and enormous arches naturally arouse curiosity. It is neither a traditional palace nor a temple, yet the entire complex appears extraordinary in its own way.

Read More

If one day you find out that your city’s population has increased by millions, with school seats running out, long waits at hospitals, falling wages and increasing pressure on government programs, would you call it just a coincidence?

Read More

How does love really begin? Does it arrive carrying a bouquet of roses? Does soft music suddenly float through a moonlit night? Do flowers rain from the heavens while violins play in the background? Films and television would have us believe so.

Read More

Not long ago, vast stretches of rural India went dark after sunset. From the remote villages nestled in the hills of Uttarakhand to scattered hamlets in Rajasthan's deserts, nightfall meant dim kerosene lamps, unreliable electricity and lives governed by the setting sun. Children struggled to study. Farmers depended on erratic power supplies. Small businesses shut early. Darkness was not just a daily reality; it symbolised deprivation. Today, that picture is changing dramatically.

Read More