A 70-year-old shop is expected to wallow in its past. Yesterday must always be richer than today and tomorrow should be forever uncertain. If it’s a photo studio, the tragedy has to be weepier. After all, who needs to go to photo studios now? Read more

Her talk is hardly different than that of most grandmothers – all about ‘our days, your days’. “Call me narrow-minded, but today’s newspapers carry such vulgar ads,” says Santosh Puri, the director of Central News Agency, one of Delhi’s biggest and oldest companies that distribute Indian as well as foreign newspapers in the Capital. Her family owns it. Read more

On 9.07am, July 7th, 2009, Dr. Gandhi in his sparse-looking clinic, tucked next to a Costa Coffee outlet, in Bengali Market, diagnosed me with chicken pox. Since it’s a highly contagious, air-borne disease, I’ve been grounded for at least ten days in my library in Nizamuddin Basti. At the time of writing this piece, my scalp, forehead, cheeks, nose, neck, chest, stomach, arms, back, palms, fingers, groin, balls, thighs, legs, feet are dotted with blisters. Read more

Qasim Ali, a resident of Daryaganj in Old Delhi, a trainee journalist with Hindustan Times, an occasional photographer and my friend died on March 29, 2009, aged 25. Early this month he was diagnosed with leukaemia. Thereafter he was admitted in Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute, Rohini, from where he was not able to return home. Read more

Kareena, my kudi, my karisma, my chameli. She was plain Geet in Jab We Met, Pooh in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham but in my Dilli she was just Bebo.

Aaj first time itne near se dekha. Film shoot was on. Spotted on the front seat of a red car at Connaught Place’s F-Block, opposite Qba, she looked just as she looks on screen – sexy. Read more