The Deep Cut

I have always been severely judged in the way that I talk. "What is that, a colonial hangover?" I've been asked. When I moved from a city in northern India to the eastern part of the country, my first reaction was "Wow! I can't have spoken secrets now. Everyone here speaks Bengali!" - which blew my mind. I suddenly found myself relatable to the kids in the neighborhood. They spoke the same language, confided secrets in similar tongues in to their mother's ears and listened to similar reprimands from their fathers, just like the 10 year-old me. I made friends - who quickly became my closest friends - perhaps because I connected with them more personally, our mother tongue being the common factor here. Soon I developed a childhood crush on this girl who, among other common friends back then, was the only one who spoke Bengali and we used to go out skating in the evenings, hide together for hide'n seek and row together on imaginary lifeb

The legal system back home in India has gone bonkers over the recent furor raised by some lame sexist comments made by a supposedly sexist scientist at a conference in South Korea. Taking cue from the swift judgment in this case, lawmakers are seeking to sign MOUs with the respective CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Tinder to fast-track the much needed improvement in the justice system of the country. Bright days ahead for the states, won't you say? As those connected to my Facebook profile and worldwide Twitter feed know, life took a darker turn recently for celebrated biochemistry researcher and failed stand-up comedian, Dr. Tim Hunt. But considering that he has bagged a Knighthood and the Nobel Prize in this lifetime, they say that this dark turn is perhaps only a couple shades darker in the array of all the 50 different shades of Grey. He would now retire and dedicate the rest of his life to growing quince trees in his backyard English garden. Or gingers, for the much-neede

Seriously, who the fuck is Charlie? And why the fuck am I being asked to be him?! I think I'm offended. You want me to say je suis Charlie..  ça me fait chier! The journalists at Charlie Hebdo - cartoonists, artists, media, idealists, provocateurs, obnoxious, anarchists and say what, in some ways -  extremists? As the publication is now being celebrated as heroic, and the slain journalists as martyrs on behalf of the apparent freedom of expression, the whole world rallies behind them in solidarity. One thing is factually clear in everyone's mind: "Cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo published some piece of art, however beautiful or enraging, and that they were brutally murdered for precisely that." Before I actually write about it, I should clarify one thing - there is no speech so hateful, no piece of art so offensive, no tweet so provocative and no music so enraging that it somehow would legitimize or justify the use of violence against them. And it also stands