Top reads
- Bhoochakara Gadda, the mysterious Indian street food that has baffled botanists for decades. It’s also called Ram Kand and Kanda Mool. (Atlas Obscura)
- Mental health of a photojournalist covering the pandemic non-stop for a year from the frontlines. (InOldNews)
- Indian students enrolled in Chinese universities are stuck in India since Jan 2020 because of travel ban. (Moneycontrol)
- Video story: Living with a rare disease in India. (101Reporters)
- Profile on young activist Disha Ravi from Bengaluru. (NewsLaundry)
Deccan Herald (July 2021 onwards)
News features
For Metrolife, I cover stories Bengaluru and Bengalureans, spanning arts, culture, civic issues, activism, legal matters, digital concerns, and trends. Link to all stories here.
Experiential stories
I anchor The Saturday Story page, which brings out long-form first-person narratives that are rooted in experiences, experiments and lived realities. My stories below:
- A colleague and I visit the oldest mortuary in Karnataka to bring an account of what happens there a regular working day.
- My colleagues and I took one of the longest bus rides in Bengaluru with a historian and a nostalgic citizen. The odyssey shows how much the city has changed.
- My colleague and I drove around Bengaluru in police patrol vans to see how they respond to distress calls.
- My colleague and I walked 60 feet underground from MG Road to Shivajinagar in Bengaluru to see how underground metros are built.
- My female colleagues and I decided to linger and loiter in male-dominated spaces for an experiment. A commentary on women’s leisure.
- I learnt urban foraging from a farmer in Bengaluru, and then went solo.
- What happens inside a weather office? My account.
As a freelancer (June 2020-July 2021)
Moneycontrol
- What is India doing on Clubhouse?
- Indian students going to the UK have to pay Rs1.2-1.8 lakh towards quarantine. Can’t afford, they say.
- Indian students enrolled in Chinese universities are stuck in India since Jan 2020 because of travel ban.
- US-bound students struggle to get visa slots due to the pandemic.
- India’s first female skateboarder on the first desi film on the sport, the need to enlist more girls and more. An interview with Atita Verghese.
- Cloud appreciation/watching/drawing is the on rise, thanks to the pandemic.
- In the wake of the Budweiser Messi mural fracas, we ask: Who owns street art? Who protects it? And more.
- Do you love window watching? Now peek out of a stranger’s window via this website.
- This amputee girl in a new McD ad is winning hearts. Here’s why.
- Ameya and Pallavi from Delhi run a podcast to talk about fat acceptance and beat fat shaming.
- This Tamil Nadu man has found a vegan, zero-waste answer to the coveted Cashmere. He makes it from a roadside, desert weed called Calatropis.
- Ol’ Smoky: Bengaluru brand Maverick & Farmer launches what is possibly the world’s first cold-smoked coffee.
- Indian photographers are doing photoshoots over video calls via Zoom, Google Duo, Facetime, WhatsApp and webcam. The age of virtual photooshoots.
InOld News
- Video story: Mental health of a photojournalist covering the pandemic non-stop for a year from the frontlines.
- 7 transcription and speech-to-text apps and digital tools that journalists can use.
Vice
- India has got the world’s oldest functional cyclotron (nuclear particle accelerator). It is running in the basement of Panjab University, Chandigarh.
- From broken bangles to a suicide letter, this is India’s Museum of Conflict.
- The Tandem cycle is the secret sauce to the happy marriage of this Bengaluru couple.
FirstPost
- Virtual escape rooms spin out pandemic-related games.
- Shakuntala Devi’s family on the genius.
- Toronto-based, Tamil rapper SVDP fled from Sri Lankan Civil War as a four-year-old. He retells the stories of atrocities meted out to him and his community in a new powerful song.
The New Indian Express
- More adults in India are listening to bedtime stories to beat pandemic anxiety and sleep better.
- Bengaluru teenager and Stanford University student is trying to create a Wikipedia for Water. An interview with the water activist and innovator, Sahithi Pingali.
- Makers of the Malaylee-Irish ‘Maharani Gin’ on why it’s going viral.
- Decoding the science of Indian cooking.
- Royals of Mayurbhanj, Gwalior and Jaisalmer have joined hands to revive their regional handlooms. More on The Karkhana Chronicles.
- First woman head of a major temple trust in India, the Simhadri temple.
- When Indians rose up to fight the 2nd wave of COVID-19 on social media (Contributed)
- Zero-waste dishes from the watermelon rind.
Sunday Herald, DH
- Gothic puppets join Bengaluru’s busking scene.
- The age of telemedicine: Not just techies, even doctors are upskilling themselves.
- Tips to go on bike trips during the pandemic.
- From guavas to watermelons, any fruit can be pickled.
- Make way for passion economy.
- Mum-daughter from Chennai make food miniatures of idli-dosa, choley bhatura, chicken lollipop.
The Chakkar
- Scriptwriter Kuldeep Ruhil stayed at 11 ashrams and deras in North India to research why devotees are drawn magnetically to self-styled Babas. An interview.
- Kerala-based band When Chai Met Toast talk about their first Hindi song Kahaani and new album When We Feel Young.
- IThe pandemic forces India’s Rambo Circus to go online and innovate for survival.
- Bengaluru through the pages of time.
- A deep dive into the plight of the unsung heroes of live shows (technicians, backstage coordinators, tentwallahs and more) who have been rendered jobless since the lockdown.
- How happy is your timeline? As the second wave of Covid-19 crushes India, I explore the dilemma: If it’s a good time to post happy snippets of our life on social media?
Gaon Connection
- Have you heard of the summer Ramleelas? Here’s a lesser-known secret of the mountain state of Uttarakhand.
- Companies would not give Prem Sankar a job because he is autistic. So he started an enterprise to build professional websites
Science
- Did you know some marine bugs breathed through their legs? (Truly Curious)
- The fish that use GPS. (Truly Curious)
- Eyes can reveal whether a person has suffered trauma in the past. (Self published)
Journalism
- Why news bylines are becoming dispensable? (Catharsis magazine)
Covid-19 lockdown
- Cop who drove 420km to deliver cancer meds
- Self-published: Bengalureans make masks to plug the shortage
- Self-published: Apartment complexes in B’luru support their frontline staff with resources and stay
- Ground report: Weekly haats are back in Odisha
- Eroticism in times of social distancing
- Vmic-related gaHome is home, office is office – A lockdown story
- Quarantine birthday ideas
- Should you watch pandemic movies now?
- Eye care vs screen time
- A lockdown Ugadi
- As India relaxes COVID-19 norms, these bikers share tips to go on short and long journeys.
Rural stories
- Villages revive the tradition of kitchen gardens during lockdown
- Weekly bazaars make a comeback after the lockdown in Odisha
Brand features for Hindustan Times
- Samsung Phone Galazy M21 Whattamonster
- Ronnie Screwvala’s interview for UpGrad
- OPPO launches the trendsetter Reno4 Pro with 65W SuperVOOC 2.0 at ₹34,990
- You need India’s most loved Luxury Limousine, Mercedes Benz E-Class
- The future of home entertainment is here with Samsung 2020 QLED 8K TV
- Here is why you should own a Contactless Visa SBI Credit Card!
Diaries of a dreamworm 