Nahin hain phool to kharon ko cher sakta hun If there are no flowers, I can flirt with nettles In the heart of autumn, I can flirt with vanished blooms I can flirt with the vanity of saints Holding the whole galaxy in their embrace The poet’s vision can scan anything I can flirt with […]

My poetry predates my appearance as a poet. While I was yet a child, my mother and other members of my family noticed that I refused to go into the lap of an ugly woman or an un-handsome man. I detested not only physical ugliness, but showed an intense dislike for oddities of dress, conduct, […]

It is difficult for me to write about Firaq Sahib entirely objectively. I was his student at Allahabad University even after he had officially retired. My association with him was confined not merely to the classroom – where he often spoke on a variety of subjects – but extended to his residence on Bank Road, […]

Now that the Indian film industry has left its infancy, many people are talking about whether respectable women should be allowed to participate in it or not.  Many believe that they should be strongly encouraged to join in order to cleanse the film world of “impure” women, but there are also those who believe that […]

For a long time I’ve wanted someone to ask me why I don’t go to the movies.  At home I’ll get asked over and over why I don’t eat okra, and my friends have long wanted to know why I don’t wear Western pants.  Then both at home and elsewhere people have asked me why […]

This happened back when I was dirt poor.  I was paying nine rupees a month for a room that didn’t have water or electricity.  The building was horrific.  Gnats fell from the ceiling in the thousands, and rats were everywhere, bigger than any I’ve ever seen, so big that cats were scared of them. There […]

It was the beginning of the racing season in Pune when Aziz wrote from Peshawar, “I’m sending Janaki, an acquaintance of mine.  Get her into a film company in Pune or Bombay.  You know enough people.  I hope it won’t be too difficult for you.” It wasn’t a question of being difficult, but the problem […]

In 1936 Manto arrived in Bombay; he was twenty-four years old.  Nazir Ludhianvi had called him there to work at the Clare Road offices of his weekly, The Painter, and Manto slept in the paper’s offices until he had enough money to rent a room in a squalid tenement nearby — a two-story building with […]

1. भोपाल भ्रूण उस बोतल में जिसमें एम्नियोटिक तरल नहीं दस प्रतिशत फ्रॉर्मलडीहाइड सॉल्यूशन है, भोपाल त्रासदी के इक्कीस साल बाद भी, ज़हर से मरा हुआ एक भ्रूण है अपनी फॉरेन्सिक जाँच की रहस्यमय स्थिति से मुक्त होने के इन्तज़ार में आश्चर्य, कि बीस से अधिक वर्षों के बाद भी किसी ने ध्यान नहीं दिया […]

कवि चित्रकार-अनुवादक-फिल्मकार दिलीप चित्रे) दिलीप चित्रे की कविताओं को पढ़ना जीवन के दुरूह बीहड़ से गुजरने जैसा है। जीवन के जिन ऊबड़ खाबड़ और दुर्गम रास्तों से कवि गुजरा है उसी से उसने अपना सत्य, अपना अस्तित्व तलाशा है। चित्रे की कविताओं का जगत उलझनों, गहरी पीड़ा, आक्रोश और मांसलता का कार्यव्यापार है जो मृत्यु  […]