Avay Shukla

Now that Woman’s Day has been commemorated suitably – by Ms Ambani coiling the GDP of Pakistan around her shapely neck at Jamnagar, and the Didi from West Bengal staging another march to honour the rape victims of Sandeshkhali instead of promptly arresting the rapists, and our Prime Minister gifting housewives a one hundred rupee […]

Ensconced in my tiny village near Mashobra in the Shimla hills in the summers, I feel like Raja Hari Singh Katoch of Kangra when he was besieged in the Kangra fort by Jahangir in 1620. Worse, actually, because the stalwart Raja had to put up with the inconvenience for only fourteen months whereas I have

Even as I write this piece, a lion-lioness pair in a national park in Tripura is going through a severe identity crisis: named Akbar and Sita respectively, they have now to be given new names as per an order of the state High Court. Apparently, a VHP outfit had objected to the names, though it

It should come as no surprise that, under the influence of our latest soul-mate Israel, Raisina Hill has now become our version of Mount Sinai, from where regular proclamations are issued by the presiding Prophet. The latest- that BJP shall win more than 370 seats and NDA 400+  in the coming Parliamentary elections- is, however, 

I’m finding that, as I get along in years, I’m becoming more and more of a contrarian, preferring to don the mantle of an “advocatus Diaboli” than an “advocatus Dei”. And the reason is simple enough: one can no longer trust what one hears, or believe what one reads. The obvious is often misleading, as

Notwithstanding the sustained efforts of our neo-colonial rulers to “decolonise” our mental spaces, some vestiges of it remain. Have you noticed how, the moment someone is given a uniform, or a baton, or a public office, he starts wielding his “authority” with indiscriminate abandon and capriciousness, as if to make up for having been at

When the epitaph of Shimla is written in the not too distant future, as is inevitable, it will be recorded that its death warrant was issued on the 11th of January, 2024, when the Supreme Court chose to go by legal technicalities and assurances of the state govt. rather than on merits of a case,

There could be no better-if that is indeed the right word-  indication of the  progressive decay of the ethos of our civil services than a Facebook post this week by a very senior IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre. One Manisha Patankar Mhaiskar, Addl Chief Secretary, in a very opportunistically timed post after the consecration

This last week has established that plumbing the depths of the ridiculous and the bizarre is not only our national pastime, it is also now the leitmotif of our society and ruling regime. The other day I decided I needed a “kurta”, not one of those fancy and expensive Myntra creations, but something more befitting