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Tabish Khair

Tabish Khair

tabishkhair@yahoo.com
Author is an Indian novelist, poet and essayist, currently working as an associate professor at Aarhus University, Denmark.

By Tabish Khair

Dear Hindus, Muslims and others, will you ever take your eyes off the magic mirrors?

Like Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, you all are prisoners of your own beautiful narratives, your perceptions of your perfection. This is harming you. And us. We need to look away.

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How a bomb in Iran and bombast from Donald Trump are part of the Pulwama backdrop

The US ‘condemning’ Pulwama is not enough. Given a range of complex new threats, India needs to keep its eyes, and its options, open.

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Dark Secret: Why Donald Trump digs coal

The 'cowboy of industrial capitalism', coal evokes a time when workers actually mattered. But for all of Trump's promises on bringing back those days, he has only helped finance capitalism get stronger.

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Why literature festivals, as a writer, fill me with utmost dread

The writer as a public figure is now seen as a performer for the crowds.

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This is how we're losing the joy of reading

Literature has never been only about getting to your destination.

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Why we must read stories to our children

One of the worst crimes parents are capable of is depriving their little ones of their inherent sense of excitement at being alive.

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What stops India from clinching medals at Olympics

Our authorities need to select sports and games in which money can go a long way.

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From Nazi horrors to genetic mapping, Siddhartha Mukherjee tells a great story

In 'The Gene: An Intimate History', the Pulitzer-winning author traces the tale of the gene from an obscure abbey in Moravia in 1856 to the present times.

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Are translations of religious texts demoting God?

If The Supreme is needed to be 'justified' in literature, it could also critique, deny and even replace Him.

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What Islamist, Hindutva preachers of hatred can learn from Gandhi

The ideologues of today cannot even come close to matching the Mahatma's humanity, political foresight and moral courage.

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Brexit marks the fall of UK

It isn't good news for a country when fear and ignorance are combined to decide its future.

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Dragging Trump out of the closet

If the US Republican president front runner wants us to take his concern seriously, he has to do more than blame 'radical Islam'.

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Akbar was Indian. He was not a coloniser

Calling the Mughal emperor an 'outsider' sends out a hidden signal.

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Importance of being Donald Trump

Some inconsistencies in the behaviour of the American voter almost make me like him.

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Why I don't care whether Modi's degrees are genuine

One is elected for their trustworthiness, not competency.

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Men cannot define what a woman can be

It is her own decision whether she wants to smoke or not, wear a sari or a skirt, go to a bar or stay in the kitchen.

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Behind Panama Papers lies big, dirty, dead money

Lawmakers and politicians have knowingly allowed the very rich to get away with hiding their wealth and evading taxes.

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Why is Islam being misused by psychopaths to turn into martyrs?

Every religious Muslim has to ponder over this.

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When people ask me what I think of Chetan Bhagat

The number of copies sold is no reason to call a novel 'pulp' or 'literary'.

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Muslims have only themselves to blame for Islamists

They need to show a lot more maturity.

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Violent vigilante mob is the biggest disgrace to Mother India

The only way to create a just society is to strengthen the hands of the law, not to take the law into your hands.

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Will elections in India ever signify anything?

The problem with empty, raucous electioneering is that it prevents a conversation from taking place.

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The lost culture of accepting the body of the stranger

We first create strangers by language. The body of this stranger is controlled, regulated or eliminated.

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Books I want to read in 2016

This is not a 'bestsellers' list.

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