“The Lovechild of Anaïs Nin and Johnny Cash. Pure Sin on Amphetamines.”*

(Or, Contrary to popular belief, I am not in love with the sound of my own voice.)
But I enjoy using it, especially in artistic expression. And there is some evidence (occasionally culled from speaking to distracted drivers from the backseat…) that shows that there are folks out there who kinda like it too.
No hidden brag [...]

Flash Fiction: The Woman Who Feared The Sea

I wrote this a few days ago, and today being Tell A Fairytale Day, thought it appropriate to post now.
—
The Woman Who Feared The Sea

The woman who feared the sea loved the sea. She loved it so much she saw its ugliness. Its deep, dark deep-dark. Her love, unlike most loves, was honest. Prying. In [...]

A Valentine To The City

When Blogbharti approached me sometime back to commission a piece for their Spotlight Series, I really wasn’t sure what to write about. Then Kuffir, the website’s editor, mentioned that he missed “the fiery poet” who seemed absent from this new blog. For reasons that will be obvious to those who followed me here from [...]

Italian Intrigue

The editors of the Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore emailed me a few days ago to say they had received a note from the Italian journal Buràn which said that they had published a translation of the excerpt from my novel-in-progress, Constellation of Scars, that QLRS had first published in 2006.
Neither QLRS nor I had [...]

Why I Dropped Out of Kitab 2008

When I was 17, I was a much more ambitious person than I am now. I wanted not just to write and create, to love and to live, as I do now – I was firmly committed to being the change I wanted to see in the world. It was, perhaps oxymoronically, altruistic ambition that [...]

Friday’s Reading — Cancelled

Please note that the reading, in the post below, has been cancelled due to unfortunate circumstances. More soon.

Kitab 2008 in Mumbai This Weekend

I have been wanting desperately to announce that I will be doing the opening event of this year’s Kitab Festival ever since I was asked to!
The schedule on the website is subject to update. All events are free and open to the public except for the nightly parties.
Me, me, me time: I am on at [...]

Ugo Untoro + How To Eat A Wolf

I never did blog about the Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale 2007, and neither did I blog about the Singapore Writers’ Festival 2007 — both festivals which invited me and took care of me and fed my stomach, literary appetite and ego very well in all. Blogging about the first was sidetracked by preparing to [...]

Cell Block Tango from Chicago

This song found its way back into my head yesterday, and I remembered that the clip below is one of my all-time favourite music/dance sequences in a film (that credit does not go to Bollywood, believe it or not!). I adore its wickedness. Female aggression — one of my favourite topics. I don’t really think [...]

The Foreword

The foreword to Witchcraft, my forthcoming book of poems from Bullfighter Books.
…
BY INDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM
“There’s a ghost of/another language/shadow-dancing/under my words,” says Sharanya Manivannan in one of the several powerful poems in Witchcraft. Manivannan dances herself both on stage and throughout these pages. By dancing I refer to all sorts of movement: linguistic, emotional, religious. [...]

Strange

Four months since I came back.
I have not been to the Marina once.

Beyond Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: Abortion in India

I’m now a regular contributor at Ultraviolet, the only (and possibly first) Indian feminist collablog. This post was cross-posted there, so comments are off here.
Not all of us may agree on whether or not abortion is ethical. Some may feel that it is sinful, but a subjective choice nonetheless. Others may approve in theory but [...]

The Cover

The famous photographer has declined. His agency gave the reason as his decision to not allow the use of that particular image for any book cover.
Okay. As an artist, I completely respect that.
What this means, then, is that I’m now on the lookout for a new cover. I’m veering toward photography and not a painting [...]