A Handful of Stories

Reportage on health, science and politics. And some meditations on film

I won the National Award for film criticism at the National Film Awards for 2019, a prize given by the Government of India, handed out by the President or Vice President. I am also an award-winning investigative journalist and long-form feature writer. My book, The Day I Became a Runner, a women’s history of India seen through the lens of sport, will be published by HarperCollins India. I received the New India Foundation fellowship for this in 2021. 

Photo by Rohan Chakravarty/Quarter Melon Studio


My writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Guardian, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the South China Morning Post, Die Tages Zeitung, VOGUE magazine, Mint, The Hindu, The Caravan and several other leading publications. I received a merit citation at the Human Rights Press Awards at Hong Kong in 2019, the Bala Kailasam citation for reporting in 2017, the Ramnath Goenka award for feature reporting in 2015, and the International Red Cross and Press Institute of India award for humanitarian reporting in 2014.

In 2015, I was one of four nominees all-India for the ACJ Investigative Journalism Prize. I also won certificates for outstanding reporting at the national RedInk journalism prizes for 2015 and 2014

 

1. 100 years of filmmaker Mrinal Sen, moderated conversation with filmmaker-actor Suhasini Mulay and Kunal Sen, Sen’s son, at Seagull Books, Kolkata, 18 May 2023 + India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 6 May 2023

2. My career as a journalist and critic in India, invited address to MSc students at The University of Glasgow, October 2022 (via zoom), https://echo360.org.uk/media/053505e6-a3d1-4874-a611-94c7e4498b4e/public

3. How Sports Shapes City Culture, panel discussant, Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bengaluru, May 2022, link: https://youtu.be/usN8di7R5z0  

4. Death Labour and Death Technology, IIM Calcutta, PhD Cohort, July 2021, online, link: https://youtu.be/xk7n1XU_dZM

5. Speaker, International Association of Bioethics World Congress, Bengaluru 2018

6. Speaker at Human Rights in Childbirth conference, Mumbai 2017

8. Speaker at Difficult Dialogues conference, Goa 2017

6. Reporting on obstetric abuse, a talk organised by the Wellcome Trust of London and the British Council, Kolkata, 2016