I am an independent Indian writer and critic. I have been writing since 2007.
I most frequently comment on films and literature, but have also written a fair bit about built heritage, art and architecture, photography, theatre, food, travel and the environment. What brings these seemingly disparate writerly subjects together is my training in history and anthropology, and my sustained interest in the cultural politics of urban South Asia -- especially issues relating to language and translation, gender and class and the complex interplay between history, tradition and modernity.
From April 2014 till August 2021, I wrote a weekly column on cinema for the daily paper Mumbai Mirror (for the last seven months of that time, it also appeared in the subscriber-only website TOI Plus). My topics were often drawn from popular Hindi cinema, and I sometimes wrote about a recent release. But the column ran the gamut from the work of KA Abbas to the closure of Delhi's Regal Theatre, and occasionally ranges further afield, taking in other cinematic traditions: regional Indian cinema, documentary, 'world cinema', general arthouse stuff, old Hollywood and more rarely, contemporary Hollywood. It allowed me space to meditate on subjects as varied as older women owning their sexuality, the Indo-Pak relationship on film, or how the trappings of technology have us in thrall, from Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake to the lovely Marathi film Lathe Joshi.
From April 2014 till August 2021, I wrote a weekly column on cinema for the daily paper Mumbai Mirror (for the last seven months of that time, it also appeared in the subscriber-only website TOI Plus). My topics were often drawn from popular Hindi cinema, and I sometimes wrote about a recent release. But the column ran the gamut from the work of KA Abbas to the closure of Delhi's Regal Theatre, and occasionally ranges further afield, taking in other cinematic traditions: regional Indian cinema, documentary, 'world cinema', general arthouse stuff, old Hollywood and more rarely, contemporary Hollywood. It allowed me space to meditate on subjects as varied as older women owning their sexuality, the Indo-Pak relationship on film, or how the trappings of technology have us in thrall, from Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake to the lovely Marathi film Lathe Joshi.
As a book critic based in India, my published literary criticism has a special focus on South Asia, engaging with writing from the region published originally in English as well as in English translation. From July 2019 to February 2021, I wrote a monthly books column called Shelf Life for the website 'The Voice of Fashion', looking at clothes through the prism of literature. I read authors as various as Vinod Kumar Shukla and Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Christopher Isherwood and Sarah Waters, Anita Desai and Aruni Kashyap for the role clothes play in their work. My columns addressed such questions as why fictional Urdu poets always seem to wear white kurta-pajama, what makes hand-me-downs so complicated, and how silk became the fabric of fantasy.
From March 2014 to Feb 2017, I wrote a monthly column called Picture This, for BL Ink, the Hindu Business Line's Saturday paper. That, too, was on cinema. I've written about how Satyajit Ray adapted Mahanagar, or recent Marathi cinema, or watching Naseeb in times of demonetisation, as well as such important things as stealing film posters.
From June 2012 to September 2015, I wrote a fortnightly culture column for the Sunday Guardian, called 'Post Facto'. I wrote about whatever took my fancy -- from what it means to have servants, to my thoughts on tea-drinking, from gardens in Lutyens' Delhi to the many meanings of the dupatta.
Other than this, I have published interviews and book reviews (for Scroll, India Today, Mint Lounge, BL Ink, Open and The Asian Age, among others); travel pieces (for Outlook Traveller and NatGeo Traveller India); op-eds (for the Indian Express and Business Standard); and features, long-form essays and profiles on art, photography, literature and cinema (for India Today, the Indian Quarterly, The Caravan and Open, among others).
I have previously been a weekly film critic for Tehelka, the Sunday Guardian and Firstpost.
Before turning freelance in 2010, I worked at Time Out Delhi (as their Theatre Editor), Tehelka (as a features writer) and the literary journal, Biblio (as a consultant editor). I also worked for a time as Associate Editor of the bilingual literary journal Pratilipi, where I commissioned and edited a special themed issue on freedom in 2013, featuring writers like Ratika Kapur, Aruni Kashyap, Ambarish Satwik, Parvati Sharma, Nisha Susan, Sumana Roy and translators like Daisy Rockwell, Lakshmi Holmstrom and Arunava Sinha.
I have a BA in history from the University of Delhi, and an MA and an MPhil in cultural anthropology from the University of Cambridge and Columbia University respectively.
I live in Delhi, and can be reached at trishagupta@yahoo.co.uk
