Brij Khandelwal

Brij Khandelwal is an Agra-based senior journalist.

The cinema hall falls silent. On the giant screen, gods and demons clash in a battle that shakes the heavens. Divine weapons streak across the sky, conch shells roar, and armies collide in a spectacle of fire and thunder. Then comes the decisive moment. Evil is vanquished. The demon falls. The audience erupts in applause. Some wipe away tears. Others leave the theatre with an unexpected sense of relief, as though justice has finally prevailed. It is more than entertainment. It is an emotional catharsis, as old as humanity itself.

Read More

From mobile screens to bedrooms, from commerce to politics: what exactly is s*x: pleasure, power, obsession, or civilisation's biggest fixation?

Read More

I first read Homer's The Odyssey as a student almost half a century ago. To be honest, I never fully grasped its depth then. Today, watching Christopher Nolan's magnificent screen adaptation, I was completely floored.

Read More

The wedding didn't begin at the marriage hall in Chennai. It began hundreds of kilometres away, on railway platforms across India.

Read More

Who keeps watch on the watchdog? That uncomfortable question hangs over modern journalism like a dark cloud. The profession that once challenged kings, exposed scams and rattled governments is itself standing in the dock. The watchdog has not merely stopped barking. In many places, it has learned to wag its tail.

Read More

​The country is wrestling with big problems: inflation, unemployment, pollution and failing infrastructure. Yet a controversy sparked by Madhurima, a Class 9 art textbook, has opened a fresh debate about education, history and culture.

Read More