For the full (lighthearted, for these cold, dark months, and yet making a few points) article, please read here
(Image: Not in her pyjamas for a change))
Featuring Rahul Dravid, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar, toilet bowls and marathon men, the article captures (as the newspapers have put it) the ‘highs and hilarities of cricket’. Read here
(Image: At Trent Bridge with kids, taken by Stephen Handley)
“…chill out we must. Make the best of a bad job. Get our heads down and plough on. That I can do, and have always done, but this unwinding malarkey — how on this storm-tossed earth does one do that? Should I phone a friend? Ask the audience? Can Pink Floyd help me get comfortably numb?
My bestie said looking forward to his retirement sustained him. But the average age of retirement in most countries has been pushed to seventy, which seems too distant a prize to even contemplate! Gone are the days, even in prosperous western states, when you could retire in your fifties with a pension that kept you in clover for the rest of your life. A subject so triggering for France this year, that a million would-be-pensioners fought over it with the gendarmes, up and down the Champs Elysees!
How about a ‘mini-retirement’ Gary-Neville-style? We cackled when this millionaire footballer waxed lyrical about his ‘new’ idea; a centuries-old concept everyday folk call a holiday! He might be better acquainted with it in practice, however, as we plebs could do with a proper break. The average American, often working two jobs, gets ten paid annual holidays, whilst the rest of us, marginally better off, are too beset with health, financial, parental, and other problems to relax.”
Please click here to read the article in full
‘Banquets and Brickbats for Crumbling Kolkata’ is this month’s column for The Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle.
“…f I crane a little from our back-bedroom window, it’s still possible to spy swaying fronds of palm and coconut trees. The sun too seems to slant into this room the way it did in our childhood, illuminating its new walls of calming azure. In the quiet of the afternoon, the tap-tap-tap of a kingfisher or ledge-loping monkey can sometimes still be heard. Even the hubbub of the local bazaar is a pleasantly muted rhythm when filtering in from afar…”
Please read it in full here
(Image: Holding forth at the inaugural Auroville Literature Festival, organised by Auroville and Government of India’s Ministry of Culture)
To read her column for August in The Asian Age and the Deccan Chronicle, please click here https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/190823/shreya-sen-handley-south-asian-marvels-but-can-they-last.html
Enthusiastic reader feedback on this piece includes, “Thank you for a BRILLIANT article! It was funny, engrossing and SO original!”
Printed in The Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle, please read the full column here
“There are only two Indians- author Amit Chaudhuri and poet Jeet Thayil- who have written librettos till now. And now joining them is Shreya Sen-Handley, who becomes the first Indian woman to write a libretto for an international opera…”
Click here to read the full article
“She’s had two books published by HarperCollins, written for international media and was even the regional head of a television channel at the age of 25. It’s fair to say that there are achievers in this world, and then there’s Shreya Sen-Handley. And if that impressive CV wasn’t enough, she’s now become the first Indian and South Asian woman to write a Western, international opera, called Migrations. We catch up with the multi-talented writer to find out more…”
Click here to read more
Shreya Sen-Handley 