Week Fifty One
The Namesakes
The story of roughly fifty Sanjanas, how their parents decided to call them that, and the secret history of why Indians give their babies the names they do.
The story of roughly fifty Sanjanas, how their parents decided to call them that, and the secret history of why Indians give their babies the names they do.
Why does biryani mean so much to so many people on the Indian subcontinent? The answers may be found on the streets of one of the world’s food capitals: Karachi.
India’s marathon culture came of age thanks to liberalisation. It jump-started the career of many athletes, birthed new marketing strategies—and changed the lives of dozens of girls in a drought-prone village of eastern Maharashtra.
Liberalisation helped make India the world’s software capital. This is what it looked like to the men who built its most successful company, Infosys.
How the Cauvery was dammed, through the eyes of the project’s foremost champion, M. Visvesvaraya—and his fiercest critics.
For most of independent India’s history, President’s Rule was imposed on an average of 2.5 times a year. Now it’s rarely invoked. Here’s what changed the game for Indian federalism.
An Assam Border Police official and ex-serviceman, Mohammed Sanaullah was the model Indian citizen. Then his employers decided he wasn't.
Three boats, three men, and the Indian history of one of the world’s last great adventures.
A chef lifts the veil on his journey from home cook to TV stardom and the heat of the Indian restaurant kitchen.
For the nomadic Gujjar-Bakarwals of J&K, the abrogation of Article 370 came with a sliver of hope for their lands and livelihoods. But they’ve been losing both for years.
Not all new Indian cinema was born in Bombay, Calcutta or Madras. One pioneer helped build the Kannada movie world in Mysore. In the year of his birth centenary, this is the story of Shankar Singh.
The day India moved on from its national sport.
Monkeys and humans are fighting for space in Indian cities. Right now, it doesn’t look like a winnable war.
The internet was meant to transform how India falls in love. Instead, it revolutionised how we creep each other out.
Long before the people of Delhi had to worry about the climate apocalypse, a twister ripped through its university campus.
She aced independent India's first civil services examination. Then she made history by exposing the misogyny of the country's elite diplomatic corps.
Indian scientists have been going to Antarctica for four decades. What exactly do they do there?
Why Indians are still starving 75 years after independence.
Twenty years ago, a film about the bond between three posh Bombay boys changed the rules of Hindi cinema. Here’s an oral history of ‘Dil Chahta Hai.’
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.
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.
Many in Pakistan have considered the sari a foreign item of clothing. Generations of Pakistani women have insisted on wearing it anyway.
Firebrand revolutionary, renowned administrator, betrayed communist icon. K.R. Gouri will go down in history as one of the tallest leaders of her time and place.
When it comes to life-saving, even India’s jingoists take modern medicine for granted. This is how that happened.
Stories from the spectrum of queer marriage in India, beyond the pale of law and identity.
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.
The people of Banaras witness change coming to the city of ashes.
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.
Politics, social tensions, and comedy all found a home in Tamil cinema. The Tamil meme needs all four things to work.
Everything you wanted to know about election forecasting but were afraid to ask.
How cricket got over one of the biggest scandals in its history.
India has big plans for new nuclear power plants. What does it plan to do with the old ones?
In 1974, India boycotted the most consequential tennis tie in its history. It was a moral victory, but it took its toll.
The changeover that revolutionised the Indian movie theatre, and the projectionists who watched it happen.
How Prohibition came to Andhra Pradesh, and how it’s going.
An oral history of ‘Mundian To Bach Ke.’
Evolutionary ecologists keep finding new species in the Western Ghats. Here’s how it happens.
Exactly thirty years ago, an Indo-Japanese contingent set off on an audacious rafting trip on the Brahmaputra.
What it’s like to grow up in one of the chess capitals of the world.
A brief history of the Tezpur mental hospital through epidemics, wars and partitions.
She was shunted out of the history of India’s most prestigious business school. On her birth centenary, a researcher redresses the record.
It’s shopping season, and you’re buying the same thing over and over again.
Name, place, animals: the things that keep horse racing alive in India.
One man’s quest to save a Nilgiris forest, and how it changed Indian environmental law.
From the jungles to the negotiating table, a short history of India’s longest-running insurgency.
An open letter to the Supreme Court changed the way many Indians thought about women’s rights. The rest should be history.
From an English chemist to YouTube cooks via refugees from Rawalpindi, how custard changed India’s sweet tooth
A dog’s life in Gurgaon? It’s not for everyone.
For a few days in 1995, many Indians believed a religious idol had developed a lifelike ability to drink milk.
A personal history of how the internet came home, became magazine fodder, and changed a life
Aristocrats, enigmatic wives, and spymasters in the drama of Sikkim’s merger with India
Twenty-four years ago, two burning planes plunged into the mustard and cotton fields of a Haryana village. It changed the way we fly