Lockdown Diaries: Harish Iyer helps sex workers and their families in Kamathipura
Harish Iyer espouses many causes. He was one of the few people who appealed to the Supreme Court against section 377, an archaic law criminalising certain forms of consensual sex between adults and one that was often used against the queer community. He is the only Indian listed in the World Pride Power List by The Guardian, among other...
Analysis: Super Cyclone Amphan brings massive destruction to the ‘storm breeder’ areas of Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal has long been known as a ‘STORM BREEDER' according to the British Meteorologist, Henry Piddington, who coined the word ‘Cyclone‘ in 1840. This was not for the first time that the city of Kolkata has been hit by a twin disaster. In October 1737 Calcutta was nearly obliterated followed by an earthquake, with an unimaginable scenario...
Lockdown Diaries: Remembering the quintessential charm of Tagorean music
A new realisation about life has dawned upon us over last few months, many of us are either loving or loathing it, but yet one for sure, all of us are doing – we are recalibrating ourselves. What we thought was taken for granted has suddenly betrayed us. We have been going through an emotional roller coaster of trials...
Open Oven: Baking it Even!
With the world witnessing a paradigm shift, food still holds fort as a constant source of relief. Entrepreneurial ventures stocking on comfort and utility food has become the need of the hour. One such immensely popular bakery in Kolkata, India is the Open Oven Bakery. Instituted by Reshma Sengupta, Open Oven has been supplying tasty and healthy baked food...
Lockdown Diaries: Migrants miseries multiply in India as government continues with its mum’s the word
The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the open secret of the Indian economy, and its inability and failure to support the backbone of the industrial prowess - the 114 million strong, ductile and undemanding work-force and migrant labourers that have been left in the lurch during the eight-week-long lockdown (as we go to print.) Mass exodus The workplaces are shut or denied...
Lockdown Diaries: The hope that makes us go on and on….dancing
We celebrated Mother’s Day last weekend. It was just another day in these times of Coronavirus-pandemic-related lockdown existence. My day to day routine at home revolves around balancing home, office, and the kids. It is quite a juggle, but not quite different from what most other mothers all across the world go through every day. Many of these mothers...
Of poetry and lockdown diaries
As a writer, raconteur and storyteller, I like to find my material, my stories in the real world. I then imbue them with a setting, a context and characters that find a voice to cut across the real and bring to life a message in my work that needs to be repeated constantly. My most recent work which came...
Lockdown Diaries: Director-Producer Faraz Ansari raises funds to support transgenders and daily wage earners in the film industry
The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the worst epidemics that the world has witnessed within living memory. The lockdown imposed by governments across the world has been a huge setback for industries across the world, and for many in the busy Bollywood industry, this shutdown has spelt doom for the thousands making their living out of it. Faraz Arif...
Lockdown Diaries: Festival Director Jitin Hingorani revamps South Asian Film Festivals, donates proceeds to charity
The Corona Virus is not just a pandemic, it is fast shaping the global economy and with it the fortunes of countless businesses and cultural events. Finding something frustrating and seeing an opportunity to make it better is what entrepreneurship is all about, says Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group, a British business magnate, investor, author and philanthropist. This...
Lockdown Diaries: Respecting the anxieties of a five-year-old during the prolonged lockdown period
I am keeping lockdown diaries of my five-year-old daughter Inishka Bhattacharya for research. I talk with her to understand the tensions that she is going through during the lockdown period. All the bits shared at the bottom are her words from my COVID-19 diaries. I thought it would be good to share these as it can help other parents to...
