India, The Church of Our Lady of Hope
Words and images by KANYA KANCHANA
AŚĀNTI/DISQUIET
October 1, 2020
Lusosphere, Studio
All posts tagged: India
The House on Altamount Road
December 5, 2019
Essays
By DIANE MEHTA
Rain pelted down onto Altamount Road below, the delicate en pointe technique of a thousand ballerinas rumbling across a stage. Earlier, the sun had exploded into full bloom for an hour, after which rain clouds shuffled in again. I was resting on a single bed as mid-afternoon light filtered through the darkening clouds and cast the sky in an impressionistic purple-gray hue. In this unfamiliar guest room with its pomegranate-velvet Victorian sofa, I listened to the soft violence of the monsoon shower through the flung-open windows. The same sound had been a steady backbeat to my childhood years in Bombay. Then, just as quickly as the rain shower had come, it disappeared.
The Y-Gene
October 28, 2019
Issue 18, Issue 18 Poetry, Poetry
My friends were aware of the wish I nurtured.
If I had a daughter,
I would name her Srividya!
I was not influenced by any actor.
Our prayer room hosted a dazzling
crystal Sri Yantra on the holy altar.
Thirty-One Things About the Lime of Control
August 27, 2019
Essays
Three weeks ago, my 11-year-old Indian American cousin woke me up with a series of heartbreaking text messages. Didi you up? Mom dad and everyone else can’t stop watching the news. Theyre thrilled. Kashmir sounds like kishmish. Whats the lime of control btw? Why do hindus dislike muslims? I had not yet gotten out of bed in my small, sleepy university town in Western Massachusetts. But my aunt and uncle were up early in the morning as friends and neighbors, fellow upper-caste pajama-clad Indian Americans with unbrushed teeth and undemocratic hearts, had gathered in their New Jersey apartment to watch the Home Minister of India officially and unilaterally revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, live from the parliament.
Part of what makes Jammu and Kashmir special is what makes India special. As a kid, I used to mug up from my school textbooks that India is the land of festivals, colors, dances, languages, religions, so on and so forth, but I was unable to appreciate the water in which I was a fish. Now when I go for months without hearing words that I don’t understand, as every cashier in every store asks me to ‘have a good one’ in the exact same tone and pitch, I have to listen to a Rajasthani or a Tamil song just to reorient myself. I need to know that there will always be so much that I don’t know. Therefore, I must constantly remember India, much of which is sort of me but not quite me, because it makes me feel bigger than myself.
Ask a Local: Snigdha Poonam, Delhi, India
October 25, 2018
Interviews
Snigdha Poonam at a 14th-century stepwell behind her 18-story newspaper office in the heart of Delhi. Photo by Ravi Choudhary.
Your name: Snigdha Poonam
Current city: Delhi
How long have you lived here: Nine years
Three words to describe the climate: hot, cold, extreme.
Best time of year to visit: October-March
September 2018 Poetry Feature: CP Surendran
September 28, 2018
Poetry
Poems from Available Light: New and Selected Poems
By CP SURENDRAN
In advance of the U.S. publication of AVAILABLE LIGHT: New and Selected Poems (forthcoming from MadHat Press), we welcome CP Surendran to The Common.
Ask a Local: Anjum Hasan, Bangalore, India
May 31, 2018
Interviews
With ANJUM HASAN
Your name: Anjum Hasan
Current city or town: Bangalore
How long have you lived here: Twenty years
Three words to describe the climate: Mostly quite pleasant
Best time of year to visit? October to March
Siliguri: My Found Town
December 13, 2017
Dispatches
By SUMANA ROY
It is only appropriate that I have no memory of my first journey to Siliguri—I have no memory of my journey to this world either. I make this equivalence without sentimentality—I have lived here, in this small sub-Himalayan Indian town, for most of my life. And even when I haven’t, I’ve been aware of its grainy centripetal force. I was three—I trust my parents, particularly my statistician father, on this. My brother was one—which means he didn’t actually exist, except in the laps of our parents. Three days after arriving from Balurghat, I left home.
Data Recovery
April 26, 2017
Dispatches
The US of A finally stamped its visa in my black pocketbook. Jazz fusion played in my ear, songs from an album fittingly titled This Meets That. I floated out of the document collection center in Nehru Place, New Delhi.
The Bill
March 1, 2017
Fiction
By BIPIN AURORA
From Notes of a Mediocre Man: Stories of India and America
Ramesh Thakur had three houses—one in Defence Colony, one in R.K. Puram, and one in Malviya Nagar. But he was not happy.
“So much dusting, Chandar. I go to each house once a week. I dust, I dust. The sofas, the tables, the mantelpiece. I do not forget anything.
“But it is hard work, Chandar. It is not easy.”
But still I was happy for him. He was retired, he needed something to do. This kept him busy. He had three houses: there was security in that. He had some place to go three days a week: this kept him busy, there was security in that as well.
