fiftytwo

sabah virani

Sabah Virani is a researcher, writer and editorial assistant at All Things Small.

Stories sabah has worked on

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Season One

Kingdom

Aristocrats, enigmatic wives, and spymasters in the drama of Sikkim’s merger with India
16 Oct 20
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Season One

Powder

From an English chemist to YouTube cooks via refugees from Rawalpindi, how custard changed India’s sweet tooth
23 Oct 20
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Season One

Shift

A personal history of how the internet came home, became magazine fodder, and changed a life
30 Oct 20
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Season One

Milk

For a few days in 1995, many Indians believed a religious idol had developed a lifelike ability to drink milk.
06 Nov 20
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Season One

Power

An open letter to the Supreme Court changed the way many Indians thought about women’s rights. The rest should be history.
20 Nov 20
Accord - Week 8 on FiftyTwo.in - Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Accord

From the jungles to the negotiating table, a short history of India’s longest-running insurgency.
27 Nov 20
The Woods - by Mohit Rao, illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

The Woods

One man’s quest to save a Nilgiris forest, and how it changed Indian environmental law.
04 Dec 20
Gallops - Arun Janardhan for FiftyTwo.in; Illustration - Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Gallops

Name, place, animals: the things that keep horse racing alive in India.
11 Dec 20
Kamla — by Chinmay Tumbe; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Kamla

She was shunted out of the history of India’s most prestigious business school. On her birth centenary, a researcher redresses the record.
17 Dec 20
Labels — by Meher Varma; Illustrations by Pia Alize Hazarika
Season One

Labels

It’s shopping season, and you’re buying the same thing over and over again.
24 Dec 20
Asylum — Alok Sarin & Sanjay Jain; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Asylum

A brief history of the Tezpur mental hospital through epidemics, wars and partitions.
08 Jan 21
Whitewater - by Shail Desai; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Whitewater

Exactly thirty years ago, an Indo-Japanese contingent set off on an audacious rafting trip on the Brahmaputra.
22 Jan 21
Succession - Aathira Perinchery; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Succession

Evolutionary ecologists keep finding new species in the Western Ghats. Here’s how it happens.
29 Jan 21
Reels - Vinay Aravind. Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Reels

The changeover that revolutionised the Indian movie theatre, and the projectionists who watched it happen.
19 Feb 21
Walkover - Deepti Patwardhan; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Walkover

In 1974, India boycotted the most consequential tennis tie in its history. It was a moral victory, but it took its toll.
26 Feb 21
Fissile by Urvashi Shankar; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah on FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Fissile

India has big plans for new nuclear power plants. What does it plan to do with the old ones?
05 Mar 21
Ballot - Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar and Srinivas Bhogle; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah
Season One

Ballot

Everything you wanted to know about election forecasting but were afraid to ask.
19 Mar 21
Masters - Aditya Shrikrishna; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah on FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Masters

Politics, social tensions, and comedy all found a home in Tamil cinema. The Tamil meme needs all four things to work.
26 Mar 21
The Dig - Sowmiya Ashok; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah on FiftyTwo.in
Season One

The Dig

The Keeladi excavations may alter the world’s ideas about the earliest Indians. But progress hasn’t been smooth for one of the country’s most sensational archaeological projects.
02 Apr 21
Hathi by Supriya Roychoudhury; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah for FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Hathi

Millions suffered through terror and upheaval in the turbulent years following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. One of them was a baby elephant from India.
16 Apr 21
Coupling by Joshua Muyiwa; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah on FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Coupling

Stories from the spectrum of queer marriage in India, beyond the pale of law and identity.
23 Apr 21
The Cure by Kiran Kumbhar; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah for FiftyTwo.in
Season One

The Cure

When it comes to life-saving, even India’s jingoists take modern medicine for granted. This is how that happened.
30 Apr 21
The Testimony by Monica Jha; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah for FiftyTwo.in
Season One

The Testimony

Hundreds of children from Bihar's Gaya district had been trafficked to Jaipur's bangle workshops. Then, a group of boys escaped against all odds.
28 May 21
Scales by Kamakshi Ayyar; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah on FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Scales

Over 50,000 Indians die of snakebite every year. We know how to save these lives—but producing the cure is easier said than done.
04 Jun 21
Ambassador by Narayani Basu; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah for FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Ambassador

She aced independent India's first civil services examination. Then she made history by exposing the misogyny of the country's elite diplomatic corps.
25 Jun 21
White by Dilip D'Souza; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah for FiftyTwo.in
Season One

White

Indian scientists have been going to Antarctica for four decades. What exactly do they do there?
02 Jul 21
Tornado by Annika Taneja; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah on FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Tornado

Long before the people of Delhi had to worry about the climate apocalypse, a twister ripped through its university campus.
09 Jul 21
Hi, Dear by Rega; Illustration by Akshaya Zachariah for FiftyTwo.in
Season One

Hi, Dear

The internet was meant to transform how India falls in love. Instead, it revolutionised how we creep each other out.
16 Jul 21