How Fiction Works
Good critics, it seems to me, are as rare as good artists, and for some reason their skills rarely coincide in a single person. At the very least, a good critic situates the work in a larger context and challenges us to read more closely and to demand more from art....

Putty in Her Hands
Sasha calls on Saturday afternoon, 'Are you free?' Sasha is a Russian escort, 28, slim, dark-haired, with dreamy green eyes. She needs a ride in an hour to Plaza Hotel, downtown. After a three-day break, she accepted a two-hour job today, but her car will not start. 'I'll make up to you,' she adds suggestively....

A Qawwali Concert
A year or so ago, I attended an open-air Qawwali concert by the famous Sabri Brothers, who claim direct descent from Mian Tansen himself, the legendary ...

Second Date
On their way to China Town, they pass an area with red curtained massage parlors and hookers pacing the streets in tight clothes. They stop at a red light behind a BMW. A hooker approaches its curbside window, talks to the driver, and then hops in. Ved notices Liz shaking her head in what appears to be disapproval....

Trying is All We Have
Another day, she set off on the youth-obsessed American culture and the skinny ideals of female beauty manufactured by the consumer industry-a conspiracy, she insisted, to keep women down. 'The truth is,' he argued, 'that there will always be some power that will try to contain us, define us, or gain from us. In this culture....

Peter Brook's Mahabharata
Earlier this year I saw Peter Brook's Mahabharata for the third time in fifteen years. Each time my admiration for it has grown. I consider it one of the greatest dramatic productions of all time. Its notable lack of appeal to Indians, except to a sliver, may be ...

On Telling Stories
On Telling Stories
We often ask what it is that makes us human, and much has been written about the unique (or not) gifts of humankind: our fully opposable thumbs, in-line toes, upright stance, tool use, large brains, reason, language, self-awareness....

Advice to a Young Artist
The idea for writing this came to me from an interview in which an author was reverentially asked, ‘Sir, what would be your advice to a young artist?’  The author turned his nose up and gave a pat, patronizing answer but the question stayed with me. How would I answer it?