[First published in The Hindu thREAD on August 3, 2016] Though the writer is no more in the corporeal sense, her words, her thoughts, and the lives of those she touched will ensure she continues to live on in our midst. I can’t recall the exact date anymore. But it was for sure in theContinue reading “Mahasweta Devi is not dead”
Category Archives: Profiles
A Mosque of One’s Own
At Thandeeshwaram, a tiny village in Pudukottai district of Tamil Nadu, Sharifa Khanam is building her dreams brick by brick. The 42-year-old social worker has initiated the construction of a mosque here for Muslim women as a symbol of their struggle for equal rights in a male-dominated society. The first recipient of the Durgabai DeshmukhContinue reading “A Mosque of One’s Own”
The birdwatcher
One winter morning in 1968, on one of his weekend ‘birding’ trips, an unsuspecting Theodore Baskaran was crouching by the bund of the Devarayan Lake near Tiruchirapalli, when a skein of bar-headed geese emerged from the skies. Dropping their wings, they landed on the placid waters of the lake, a few meters from where heContinue reading “The birdwatcher”
Every refugee longs to return home
The Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfeRR) has completed 25 years of work among Sri Lankan refugees in the State who narrowly escaped from the ethnic war in the island nation. Its founder, S.C. Chandrahasan spoke to Vidya Venkat about the hopes of the refugees and the future he envisions for the Tamils, now thatContinue reading “Every refugee longs to return home”
Face of the third gender
Five years ago, transgender rights activist Priya Babu had filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court demanding voting rights for her community. Ahead of the next general elections, a majority of transgender persons in Tamil Nadu possess voter ID cards that designates them a gender of their choice. “That our community persons haveContinue reading “Face of the third gender”
An anthropologist among the journalists 