Annie Zaidi's Blog, page 28

And what if you could fly

Haven't you wished you could escape the road traffic jams and commute in the sky overhead, instead? 


Here's a new comic I wrote for The Big Picture in Mint 

and what if plants had the power of speech?

I've often thought about what everyday life might be like if plants could talk to us? This comic with some beautiful art by Vartika is the result of that pondering:
http://mintonsunday.livemint.com/news...

Some reviews and interviews

About the new anthology 'Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian Women's Writing'

I wanted to keep it wide open, to be as inclusive as possible while also being selective from a literary viewpoint. I was not commissioning fresh work but choosing from what’s already out there. So I had to think not only about which particular writer to represent, but also which poem, what passage from which story should

A review of 'Sleeping on Jupiter'

At the heart of the story is an ashram that was led by a powerful, politically linked guru, and the abuse and torture of orphaned or war-affected children who were being brought up there as his wards. The connivance of many other adults who are not merely mute witnesses but active participants to this torture, puts a gruesome, frightening edge to the story. There is an excruciating feeling that

Honestly speaking

Have you never wondered what exactly goes into your food, and where it comes from, and what it does to you? What if your food actually gave you all the facts about itself?

Here's me doing some dreaming:
http://mintonsunday.livemint.com/news...

An excerpt from the Introduction to Unbound

Editors and writers, male and female, have equated domestic themes with dullness, or the lack of imaginative daring. In fact, there was a time when I (and I’m squirming as I write this) used to say that I didn’t care much for ‘kitchenized’ fiction. It took me over a year of exclusively reading women writers to realize how deep and strong the roots of my own bias were and how foolish our

A new anthology is out

For over two years now, I have been looking for and reading Indian women writers across genres as part of my research for a new anthology, which is now out as 'Unbound'. Here's the cover and (below) some links to interviewswhere I try and explain the processes, choices and motivations that drove me as I put together this manuscript.





From a piece about the book in the Bangalore Mirror:

"It

Book review: City of Spies

Decades have passed since the 1977 coup in Pakistan but the forces unleashed as a result have had such a devastating impact on the nation that it still continues to struggle with the legacy of the “Zia” years. Pakistani artists and writers have recalled those years of military dictatorship, the growing influence of the secret service, the bypassing of democractic and human rights, and the

A stained culture of menstruation

Despite advertising hinged on 'change'
and girls growing wings, I still see women – some of them educated
women in metros – who are embarrased about taking a used (wrapped
up) sanitary napkin to the dustbin. I've seen women concealing it in
the folds of their dupatta or saree pallu. I've talked to women in
small towns who don't throw sanitary napkins in their dustbin at
home; they walk instead

Registered Post: a short story

It was 7.30 in the morning and my alarm hadn’t gone off when Suhail showed up. I was still in my nightie when the bell rang and I was just looking for a dupatta to throw over my chest. But Shahryar said he’d get the door, so I settled back into bed. 



A whole minute passed. The silence outside was making me nervous. Nobody who comes to our door in this town leaves without saying a word or two