Revati Laul has been a television journalist and documentary film maker for most of her 16 year career. Ten of those were spent in NDTV where her reports included everything from the aftermath of the Gujarat riots to following truck drivers into ULFA infested Assam. Then about a year and a half ago, she decided to tell her stories in indelible ink instead. Most people said she made an upside down decision but she firmly believes she's found food for the soul. She was hired by Tehelka to write on politics. For her this does not mean tracking the big fish but looking closely at how the tiny fish are getting swallowed and by whom. On most days though, she can be found conversing on her other two favourite subjects - fornication and food. Fiction is another friend of hers. A short story she wrote called `Drool' was published in an anthology of young fiction by Zubaan. She is also founder member of the NGO 'Tara' that looks after underpriviledged children.
I am a 70s kid, which means that by the time I could watch movies, it was about 1977.A time when Hindi movies showed rape scenes as both provocative and tantalising. So much so that I used to play with my cousin and we wore our toy saris and I’d [...]
For a country that has countless traditions to help people cope with death, from pujas to death ceremonies; each time a public figure dies, we go into collective denial and amnesia. With only one sensory perception working, death equals eulogy. And so, for an entire day and a half, television [...]
Winter sickness can be seriously psychologically damaging, especially if it means you end up on your parents’ couch to recover, instead of your own; on a day when the US election results are declared on TV. And as you and your mother concur with, “Thank God Obama won,” and your [...]
This blog has been withdrawn by its author as it did not sit within the framework of Tehelka blogs - Editor
On any given day, you’ll find me flopped out on my bright blue couch at home wondering, 16 years of media and writing in, what the hell I’m doing, whether I should just switch tracks and enter the Masterchef contest instead. Or play the piano. I read so sporadically, I [...]
“I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me just because of what I said about Pakistan,” said a hysterical 25 year old who I had just broken up with. It was the year 2001 and he had texted me from Bombay, half in jest, at a time when relations between [...]
At a Cambridge University summit, a fiery Brinda Karat shot daggers at the Pranob Sen of the Planning Commission, saying all they were about is lies, lies and statistics. Outside the icy cold corridors of power and the Taj Hotel where the summit took place, another web of lies, lies [...]
There are some stories in the life of a reporter that they wish they never had to tell. In June this year, we all lost a colleague and friend at Tehelka. Even though I didn’t know him well, what I did know was beautiful and precious, and inexplicably snuffed out. [...]
There are two things about me that hit a stranger first. I’m fat and I have a very loud mouth. But the rest of my face somehow always gets ahead of these two things and shoots out an instant message: You can say anything! This space is yours! A fortnight [...]
