Ajachi Chakrabarti joined Tehelka as a correspondent in July 2012. His journalistic career came at the end of four surreal years spent studying mechanical engineering at BITS Goa (and constantly having to explain to people that yes, people do study in Goa), at the end of which he decided to follow his first love: writing. He reports largely on public protests as well as social and policy issues. He is based in New Delhi.
“I am now in this place where you should never come. We call it Onkalo. Onkalo means ‘hiding place’. In my time it is not yet finished, though work began in the 20th century, when I was just a child. Work will be completed in the 22nd century, long after [...]
“It’s a weird and wonderful world if you come from Wimbledon.” John Motson’s words from 1988, when the “Crazy Gang” from Wimbledon FC beat the “Culture Club,” Liverpool, in the finals of the FA Cup, couldn’t be further from the truth on Sunday evening, when one of the biggest sporting [...]
I met Sandeep Kumar in the sea of muck that was Ramlila Maidan. Indra had not been kind to Baba Ramdev the day before, raining on his latest hunger strike with all his might. As he had once again postponed announcing his future plans in the morning, I’d been sent [...]
There are few things I will consent to wake up for before 7 AM. The Boxing Day Test (if India or England are playing), a situation where there’s a present waiting for me (though my snarky comments questioning the existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy put an end [...]
Yesterday, I went home after work and curled up in bed with The Glittering Man. All day, I had been trying to battle through writer’s block and produce yet another blogpost critiquing Manmohan Singh’s somnolent address to the nation. Then I found The Glittering Man. Unlike the others in the [...]
There are far worse ways to spend a Wednesday night than attend a student union presidential debate at the People’s Republic of JNU. Once it does start – wisely, the organisers did not advertise a start time, only saying it would start “after dinner”, thus eliminating any chance of being [...]
It is 11:20 pm at Sapna Cinema. I have decided to watch and review Raaz 3D (the things a cub reporter has to do to earn a living!) at a single screen theatre because (1) I’m completely broke and cannot afford to watch it in, well, 3D, and (2) The [...]
Perhaps the thing that troubled me most about Lance Armstrong’s capitulation to the USADA is not that it is an implicit confession to doping, but that he gave up. The man who had said “Pain is temporary; quitting lasts forever,” had quit. And it will last forever. I was 10 [...]
