How do you translate a first love into a profession? How do you become a writer once you set your heart on it? Susmita Bhattacharya, who once worked as a graphic designer in Mumbai, now teaches the basics of English to newcomers to Britain and is also a creative writing tutor. Her first novel The Normal State of Mind was published earlier this year after a grim battle with cancer.
Here's the latest news from the world of glamour and fashion.
'Young Indians are reading, but the wrong stuff.' 'They are reading and sharing Pappu jokes, Alia Bhatt memes and all the irrelevant material online.' 'My aim is to get them interested in books.'
More noticeable than the hue of his shirt was his mast style in the witness box. He seemed to be reinventing the truth every few minutes. He yarned on and on, navigating his testimony further and further away from the facts, but he never lost his aplomb.
On Election 2014: 'So far it looks like a one horse race. The difference between the first and the second challenger is so large that if the first one looks back in the last round, he'll probably not see the second one anywhere.' On the AAP prospects: 'They should be happy if they're able to open their account.' On Rahul Gandhi: 'He has a confused message. His campaign is in the abstract. And his campaign has nothing to offer.' Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley in a free and frank conversation with Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
'It was difficult, but we wanted to show an honest portrayal.' 'I was not trying to tear him apart.'
'When I was in Shrirampur I thought I would make it to the Indian team. There were a series of events that happened, and even if one link was missing, I don't think I would be here.'
'In the long term, the party that is going to be irrelevant is the Left.' 'It seems absurd that the people of Kerala are the last ones to wake up to the reality that this kind of discredited dogmatic ideological politics has no place in the modern world.'
'He never went to the Bombay industry.'
Prince William and Princess Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, collected quite a few Mumbai hearts on a hot two days in April.
Welcome to the weekly fashion round-up, where we bring you the latest on supermodels, style, designers and everything in-between!
'If tempers all over the country are so fragile that they can be lost because a couple of film stars give their child the same name as a 14th-century warlord, exactly what sort of compromises can be palatable,' asks Mihir S Sharma.
Dubbing artiste Meghana Erande talks about some of her most important projects and how she found success in a niche industry.
'The optimistic advice might be "fasten your seat belts" and the pessimistic one might just turn out to be "brace for impact",' says Claude Smadja.
'If Indian armed forces entered Pakistan and succeeded in inflicting major damage on the Pakistani army and occupied territory in the Pakistani heartland, there is reason to think the Pakistani military would use some nuclear weapons against the incoming Indian forces to compel India to stop.'
'When you come to Delhi, you see that there are many Kashmirs here -- the Dalits, Muslims, women, bonded labourers.'
James Wilson explains why Indians are destined to silently suffer the cash shortage for half a dozen more months.
'A vote for Hillary means a vote for endless wars of trying to overthrow governments and rebuilding foreign countries.' 'A vote for Bernie Sanders means an end to these interventionist wars, and instead spending our money and precious resources rebuilding our own country,' Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, the only Hindu-American in the United States Congress, tells Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com
Sikka has influenced the company to break away from the old mould in more ways than one.
Sukanya Verma lists the lessons Bollywood taught us this year.
'For years American academia has used the concerns about Hindutva in India to almost completely trash the concept of Hinduism.' 'In the American debate, Wendy Doniger's point of views perpetuated Hinduphobia.' 'Americans were willing to change... Indian intellectuals let us down badly.'
'Compared to other social groups, managing the Muslim constituency has always been easier for the secularists.' 'Just some symbolic measures and window-dressing would keep the Muslim flock together.' 'Having been betrayed by all the supposedly 'secular' political parties, Muslims should turn into citizens without any ascriptive identity marks,'says Mohammad Sajjad.
'When corporates have a stake in the government through contributions to political parties, democracy, which is supposed to work for the common man, doesn't.'
'If the State does want to come after you, in India, it can do pretty much anything. And often it isn't as though the orders are coming from the President or prime minister, no, the systems have been built in a way -- or we have allowed them to be built in a way -- that almost encourages crushing of liberties.'
Whose political stock is likely to rise and which leader is most likely to make an impact in the coming year?
A cow that speaks, a question on patriarchy and the story of a 17th-century poet - Sanskrit filmmakers are finding new ways to revive the 'dying' language.
'Slightly more than 50 per cent of all Keralites are Hindus. If we can unite as many as we can, we can create a huge difference in the political scene in Kerala.'
For some, he is a visionary who grew his one-channel firm into a media giant by the sheer dint of his courage; for others, he is a compulsive risk-taker.
Savouring Spielberg's fierce, fine movie; salivating over MAMI's line-up; gobbling a Shrek cake; visualising a desi Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants with Alia, Bhumi and more in Sukanya Verma's Super Filmi Week.
Saundarya Rajesh has helped more than 8,000 women get back to work.
'It is the regional parties and their leaders who are the ones we have to watch.'
'It will be interesting to see how Dr Patel handles gadflies with the maturity of egregiously petulant three year olds.' 'That Dr Patel does not, in so far as we can tell, cause society matrons to gush like hormonal teenagers can only be a good thing for him.' 'Look where their febrile imaginations and breathless prose took his predecessor.'
Son of a mechanic from the Public Works Department, Ayush Sharma has not only won admission to the undergraduate programme at the prestigious American university, but also a full tuition waiver.
Full text of Kevin Pieterse's Pataudi Memorial Lecture in Bengaluru
On the occasion of Chinese New Year, we bring you a look at what 2015, the Year of the Sheep has in store for you!
'The chair is a referee in a match, whether this side is playing better or that side is playing worse is no concern of the chair.'
'Rajan brought in a healthy air of competition in the banking sector.'
'Narendra Modi is single-handedly changing the formula to win elections. With money, human resources, mobile technology, the Internet, advance planning and tremendous confidence, he has spread his image more in UP villages than in urban areas.' Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reports from Lucknow on how Team Modi is changing the rules of the election game.
Nitish 'sent his emissary, Prashant Kishor, to me on five different occasions.' 'Kishor seemed to indicate that if I were to assure in writing my party's support to the JD-U, the latter would pull out of the BJP alliance and rejoin the Mahagathbandhan.' A revealing excerpt from Lalu Prasad Yadav's Gopalganj To Raisina: My Political Journey.
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