Poems

After Vibha Batra’s grandfather passed away, she chanced upon his work Ishaavaasya Upanishad, which combined philosophy, mysticism and spirituality. Intrigued and fascinated by what this book had to offer, Vibha began translating it, and despite working as a full time copy writer she stayed at it. Though this task got too time consuming and hectic she feared, feared that she will never be able to complete the task.     So to ensure that this book saw t...

An avid blogger, a stickler when it comes to editing copies, a dreamer who writes on love, life and everything in between and an experimental photographer. That’s Naman Saraiya for you. He loves each of these roles and hopes to reach a stage where he can say it's a perfect balance between all these. Ambitious and a multi-tasker is what we shall like to add to this long list of epithets that best describe him. The stories he contributed for Urban Shots ...

Some authors write after calculating how commercially successful a subject would be, while some write for the pleasure of expressing and sharing their feelings/observations. For some, writing is as natural an activity as eating or sleeping. And one such contemporary writer is Sweta Srivastava Vikram. Sweta began writing chapbooks titled  Because All Is Not Lost, Kaleidoscope: An Asian Journey of Colors, and Beyond the Scent of Sorrow and has now released her...

  Not many authors choose to write for a cause. While most fiction writers are happy talking about relationships and other humdrum stuff, Saptarshi Basu, is a new author who is writing to make a difference. Through his writings Basu is determined to make things better for people around. His latest book titled Autumn In My Heart, touches upon the sensitive issue of student suicide.     Bookchums chats up with the author of Love, Logic And The God's A...

  How well can you translate Gulzar’s works into English? Pavan K.Varma has walked the tight rope and gone on to do so. As a result, in a brand new bilingual poetry collection, we have Gulzar’s Hindi originals on the left side of the page, to Varma’s English translations of the same, on the right.   The story behind the book title goes like this: One day, after a long gap, Gulzar abruptly called up Varma and told him, “As several of...

    Some weeks ago, I attended a retrospective on Amma (Kamala Suraiya nee Das) at which Suresh Kohli screened a video interview of hers, where she spoke of her grandmother and her great-grandmother. I told Suresh that this was typical of Amma, for to her by far the most important influences in life came from the maternal side. She never let me and my brothers forget how disappointed she was that all her children were male, or how happy she was in being bor...

Deepti Naval is a celebrated actor, photographer, poet and painter. She made her cinematic debut with Ek Baar Phir and has done more than 60 films since then. She has starred in Chashmebaddoor, Kamla, Mirch Masala, Ankahi, Main Zinda Hoon, Panchvati, and more recently in TV serial Muktibandhan. She has authored Lamha-Lamha and Black Wind & Other Poems and a short story collection The Mad Tibetan that was released last year. We talked to her about how she gives...