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Microcosm
Read more: MicrocosmThe ghats are where the action is. Walk alongside and you will find kids playing cricket on each stretch. In the evenings, a premier league, replete with commentators, and a crowd you have to zip past to avoid being hit. Afternoons are about cards with tea. Also, to repair the boats that will be pushed…
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Becoming a child at Kahani Tree
Read more: Becoming a child at Kahani Tree“Aaaaaaaaccchhhooooooooooooooooooooooooo” Blork! Bluurf! I seem to have caught Gajapati Kulapati’s cold. Just wait till I catch hold of that elephant again! I feel a little biffsquiggled with this cold to be honest. But what I was saying was…when I walked in to Kahani Tree, an independent bookstore in Prabhadevi, I had but a few cats in…
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A bibliophile’s guide to the city’s bookstores
Read more: A bibliophile’s guide to the city’s bookstoresThe last time I visited a bookstore (which was just last week), I sat down to read Neil Gaiman’s The View from the Cheap Seats: incidentally, a chapter wherein he talks about his favourite bookstores. It ends like this: “Writing this, all those bookshops come back, the shelves, and the people…I wonder who I would have been,…
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Walking back in time
Read more: Walking back in timeIt’s 1874. Mumbai’s first tram has just pulled away from Parel TT towards Colaba. As the horse-drawn carriage trudges ahead, a turn of the head reveals a stepwell, wide enough to accommodate the horses. Remember it is the age of nobility. Little wonder then that the news of Prince Albert’s arrival a year later has…
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Treasure trove
Read more: Treasure troveThis time I was in the desert, watching the story of Dodola and Zam unfold from a distance. From the ruined ship to the Palace grounds, I saw fate tear apart the lives of these child slaves, their changing relationship and perpetual struggle to build a world for themselves. A few months prior, I was…