Tagore and I
Rabindranath Tagore – renowned poet and composer, writer and artist, philosopher and polymath – has always been revered as a God-like figure in city-bred middle class Bengali families, and ours was no different. As a child growing up in the US, my understanding of God was limited to Ma’s daily
Grief and Memory
Last summer, I went to a birthday party for my girlfriend’s two-year-old niece. The whole family was there, blowing out candles, taking pictures, and eating cake. But while they were celebrating life, I was busy thinking about death. In between smiling for photos and making polite conversation
Fragmented at Best
It is a strange day when Classics Twitter unites. Yes, you read that correctly: a subsection of the notoriously polemical app is given to the study of the Ancient World, dedicated to joking about the tragedians and assessing the new Pericles reference à la Johnson. What Classics Twitter does best,
Think of the Children
“The mechanisms of moral panic…lead to the emergence of an imaginary solution – in tougher laws, moral isolation, a symbolic court action…its victims left to endure the new proscriptions, social climate and legal penalties.” Jeffrey Weeks, 1985 Those who have transgender peo
My Mother, After
When my mother’s hair came back slightly thicker, she decided she wanted to dye it bright blue. My dad put on the colour as she sat with a towel wrapped around her shoulders in front of the bathroom mirror. I remember that when she turned to look at me: the frantic smudges around her hair [&hellip
Pest Control
Around mid-March, my mother developed an obsession with killing wasps. The weather was still cold and grey when I arrived home, the threat of the pandemic having driven me from my university accommodation, but as it began to brighten and grow warmer, a few sluggish and lazy queens found their
Vaslav Nijinsky
I often pretend to be in love with Nijinsky. It’s easier that way, I tell myself. Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950) was a Polish-Russian ballerino and choreographer who is often credited with the modernisation of dance. His most famous piece, The Rite of Spring, was so radical in its time that the audie
Observances
I was staring at the spidery print and into the fresh whiteness of my copy of Beowulf one Friday evening last September, while far away and unbeknownst to me, tales older and stranger had begun to sprawl inside my phone. A reticent but attentive member of an English freshers’ Facebook group, I scr