Ananya Bhattacharya has covered news for nearly a decade, from sex trafficking in the tea gardens of Dooars to terrorist attacks in Assam, to the Bengal Assembly Elections. She works out of the India Today office in Noida. Her heart lies back in North Bengal. When not chasing a story, she is busy planning her next trip.
Last afternoon, when we got to Naples, the fervour was tangible. There was a pulse in the air. It was raining quite heavily, and football fans were all perhaps praying to Maradona for the skies to clear up. There was a football match that no one wanted to miss.
...Full StoryIt doesn't matter how many Akira Kurosawa or Stanley Kubrick films you spend your time watching, if there's Mehendi Lagake Rakhna playing outside the house as someone's baaraat goes by, you will still do a little jig. No Spielberg can take that away from us.
...Full StoryShould we look to ChatGPT or a Bing bot for answers on the most elusive questions on love and death?
...Full StoryThe third year of the After-Covid era, the skinny is back with a vengeance. Forget the mom jeans and the boyfriend jeans and the in-betweens.
...Full StoryCan Digi Yatra help solve the problem of rush at the Delhi airport? My experience says it perhaps is the only way to navigate the chaos.
...Full StoryGermany, the country of precision engineering, crazy-good automobiles, and order and punctuality, is a superpower with a lot to be envied. But there are some things even all that super power cannot seem to fix.
...Full StoryFar from the flock of tourists and your usual touristy places lies The Kumaon, a sustainable resort in Kasar Devi, Uttarakhand.
...Full StoryThe Trinamool Congress is back. The big BJP leaders have all left Bengal. The khela is on. The BJP groundworker has but nowhere to escape to.
...Full StoryThe virus is now being taken to rural Bengal via helicopters and rally Raths.
...Full StoryWith painstaking research and rich detailing, author Madhav Hada delves deep into the Meera that he knows, the Meera that we know, and the Meera that has mostly stayed buried deep in the recesses of history.
...Full StoryCoronavirus climbed the charts and got itself a name: Covid-19. It is '21. The virus, as we know it, isn't going anywhere. Life, as we know it, isn't returning to where it was.
...Full StoryCan you separate the art from the artist when the artist happens to have raped someone? Reading Pablo Neruda in 2021 feels like cheating. A betrayal.
...Full StoryLeave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam is almost the chronicle of a disaster foretold. Except, in his book, we never really know what the disaster is.
...Full Story2020 made a sticky mess out of all our dreams, achievements, plans, hopes and thoughts for a future.
...Full StorySiddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi's new book Loss burrows into your very being.
...Full StoryTogether is Better by Simon Sinek is just the antidote to 2020 you need.
...Full StoryFor most of the world beyond Bengal and Bengalis, Soumitra Chatterjee was synonymous with Apu, the role he played in Apu'r Sansar (The World of Apu), the Satyajit Ray masterpiece.
...Full StoryOur Apple Cinnamon Smoothie is a perfect ode to your laziness and the perfect end to those leftover apples.
...Full StoryFor women across the world, Kamala Harris's win is cathartic. Her win is another smirk wiped off, another taunt silenced.
...Full StoryIf lost love is what haunts you, you will find The Haunting of Bly Manor just the perfectly splendid series to binge on.
...Full StoryYes, Hilsa tastes good. But have you seen the sheer amount of tiny little bones that this treacherous fish comes with?
...Full StoryJohn Zubrzycki's fascinating inside story of India's most glamorous royal family, The House of Jaipur, breaks quite a few of the myths that anyone who has read about Gayatri Devi, came to believe in.
...Full StoryThe stinging reality about justice is that Sushant Singh Rajput will never get any. His fine legacy has been soiled beyond recognition.
...Full StoryRain is the only constant in my part of the country. That's how it is with the foothills.
...Full StoryNearly three years had passed by and a virus had shut everyone in. The world was locked. The fragrance of bakeries were a thing of the past.
...Full StoryFronting mental health to avoid a conversation about the harsh realities of Bollywood is a copout that will dismantle many more fragile minds of many more Sushant Singh Rajputs.
...Full StoryThat cooking is an essential life skill, never quite cut through to me before these few months. It was almost as if another life began for me during the lockdown.
...Full StoryThe government left North Bengal a long time ago. A pandemic is not going to bring it back.
...Full StoryIt was the monsoon of 1993, and two districts of North Bengal were reeling from the horror of a flood that had left it crippled.
...Full StoryRuskin Bond's stories are fragrant with the memories of home. His words are understandable. They are as accessible to someone with a PhD in English, as they are to someone who can understand just the basics.
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