I was born in the Gond Adivasi community in Wardha, Maharashtra. I am the eldest of my siblings—three sisters and a brother. My parents are farm labourers who work in fields that belong to other people.
“This is Asur Akhra Radio, we will dance… we will play… we will sing…” In the bazaars of Latehar and Gumla districts, some 200 km from Ranchi, Jharkhand, the energetic beating of drums and the collective voices of women draw market goers towards them.
Biksu is a graphic novel that has enjoyed unparalleled success in the Hindi reading world. It tells the story of the late Vikas Kumar Vidyarthi aka Biksu and is based on a dazzling letter he wrote to his cousin, artist Rajkumari.
How do objects become precious to us? How can one object hold the multitude of our desires, dreams, fears, aspirations and inhibitions– sometimes pushing us away and sometimes propelling us towards itself?
Aashiyan has the air of a scout. Squeezing through gullies lined with garbage, whizzing past the worn-out, exposed brick-and-cement houses, she, along with around 15-20 other girls and women of Welcome Colony, Shahadara, looks at her neighbourhood anew.
Of course, it was the perfect beginning: a group of deaf children showing off some exceptional drumming, and that too related to Carnatic classical music.
In 2013, Nirantar produced a short documentary on the non-binary experience in schools. Featuring Nrrups, Sunil and Rajarshi, the film travels from Kolkata to Bengaluru to Thane to meet people for whom school was the brutal part of their childhood.
The first time the idea of recording the night was floated to the DE’s was during a workshop in Delhi, where on a cold November morning in 2021, the DE’s were asked – What is it we can see at night? What is it that happens at night that reveals something new to you about where you live?
For Du Saraswathi, writer, theatre person and Dalit activist, the community and the self are twin constituencies. Her theatre and poetry reveal the making of an individual through historical, political and cultural forces.
We learned about photosynthesis five times. Every year, from Class 6 to Class 11, I forgot the exact definition so I had to relearn it even though I knew the concept. In the same way every year, I had to relearn that the boys in my class would sniff me out.
