Beniprasad Chowdhary aka Ben believes that if life has to be lived anywhere on this earth, it has to be the U.S. But his wife, Veena, thinks otherwise. Ram Govardhan tells the story of Ben and his determined wife.
THE LOUNGE | THE INNER JOURNEY When Arjuna, the third of the five Pandavas, was confused whether he should fight the Mahabharata war against his own teachers, relatives and friends, Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita to help him achieve clarity in thought and fight the war. One of the oft-asked questions, therefore, in this context is, ‘Does the Bhagavad-Gita Advocate War? Is it a violent scripture?’ Hari Ravikumar and Koti Sreekrishna attempt to answer these questions in this piece by digging deeper into the context of the Mahabharata war.
THE LOUNGE | SLICE OF LIFE As the nation recovers from India’s loss to Australia in the cricket World Cup, Parth Pandya, a devoted fan, remembers the other unsuccessful tales of the Indian cricket team in the biggest cricket tournament.
We are happy to present to you Spark’s March issue “Woman: Facets and Forms”. A fiction and poetry special, we have truly explored myriad perspectives of what a woman could be, ranging from mythological fiction to letters to the future to poetry about a woman about to give birth. We are also proud to present a feature on a programme by the ICRW called Parivartan, that aims to reduce gender-based violence by working working with men and boys through cricket!
Sita, the heroine of Ramayana, is the symbol of an ideal woman in India. But what if she had a chance to be a little less ideal? In this mythological fiction penned by Bhargavi Chandrasekharan, Sita questions her life choices, discovers her repressed dreams and busts her own myths.
Fighting gender-based violence requires women to be empowered, but equally important is encouraging men to never resort to violence against women. Parivartan, an ICRW programme, aims to reduce gender-based violence by working with men and boys through cricket. The results are encouraging, as Madhumita Das of ICRW says in an interview to Vani Viswanathan.
For a woman, the sadness that comes with parting could be as traumatising as a snake twisting and turning in her belly. Sukrita Paul Kumar captures the feelings of a pregnant woman about to deliver her baby.
Lopa Banerjee presents the little wonders, the fumbling, the falling and the rising of a girl on her physical, psychological, spiritual journey of attaining maturity through a poem.
A professor finds himself in the house of the local garbage collector, a foul-mouthed woman he would rather not be seen with. But there are surprises in store for him, as he discovers the layers defining this woman. Vidya Panicker tells the story.