On Damon Galgut’s beautiful novel. A very short piece for Outlook Traveller‘s Classics section.
For Intelligent Life magazine
As women’s boxing joins the Olympics, Rahul Bhattacharya profiles the phenomenal Mary Kom—five-times world champion and mother of two—who has had to battle against far more than just her opponents in the ring…
An essay I did for the new edition of Sachin: Genius Unplugged, Westland books, edited by Suresh Menon.
‘A hundred international hundreds, split almost evenly between Tests and one-dayers, tells us something about his all-encompassing range, of watchful first mornings and exhilarating floodlit nights, of victories seized or defeats delayed, of white and blue, of Cape Town and Sharjah . . . It matters because, as with Grace, it hadn’t been considered possible. Indeed, it hadn’t been considered at all.’
An essay I wrote on India v Australia for Christian Ryan’s gorgeous large-format book, Australia: Story of a Cricket Country, Hardie Grant Books. Contributors include one JM Coetzee.
‘There is something ethereal about cricket at dawn; staying up late is a lesser magic. Indians turn to cricket from England and South Africa after lunch, from the West Indies before dinner. New Zealand is so far ahead that it is still our night. We only rise to cricket from Australia.’
‘The other day, on an idle afternoon, casually intrigued by the old trading links between India and Africa, I thought I would like to go to Kenya.’ A short piece for The Hindu.
Where ‘writers look back on a day that changed their life’. For the Observer.
A few of the many songs that went into the novel, and some which didn’t. For the Booknotes feature of the music and books blog, Largeheartedboy
On the ma of cricket semi-finals, India v Pakistan in Punjab, for the Hindustan Times op-ed page
The Great Indian Election Tamasha
Covering the Chandni Chowk constituency, Lok Sabha, 2009, for Outlook
A collection of monthly cricket columns I did for Mint Lounge