Mohua Das

The Times of India • 2nd January 2022

When Kal Penn made MILF jokes in the White House, and other funny stories

When Kal Penn, born Kalpen Modi, decided to split his first name and add an extra ‘n’, it wasn’t an actor’s obsession with numerology but a brown person in America taking a subtle jab at Hollywood’s fixation with hokey accents and turbans. “I joke that the ‘n’ stands for ‘not going to play a stereotypical cab driver.” Frank and refreshingly free of movie star airs, the 44-year-old Indian American actor spoke to Mohua Das about some honest and wildly funny stories that have gone into the making of his memoir You Can’t Be Serious

The Times of India • 25th July 2021

‘Using my own life for scripts is like standing naked on a road'

Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra talks about journeying through life with his films

The Times of India • 11th July 2021

I am always going to speak up, even if I feel terrified inside: Disha Ravi

Perched outside her house in north Bengaluru, climate activist Disha Ravi is suddenly aware of just how many birds her neighbourhood has. “Their chirping gives me great pleasure. I enjoy watching mundane activities, there’s comfort and joy in that,” she says. Her world wasn’t as tranquil just four months ago when she was whisked away by a posse of police officers, slapped with charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy for editing and sharing a social media toolkit in support of the farmers’ movement.

The Times of India • 13th June 2021

Covid origin: ‘If nothing went wrong at Wuhan lab, then why the obfuscations?’

Under the cover of a Chhau mask, an interview with the nameless-faceless ‘The Seeker’ who is at the centre of DRASTIC, short for Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating Covid-19, begins almost like a blind date.

The Times of India • 11th April 2021

Kabir Bedi discusses the things he wants to set the record straight about

In a candid interview, actor and now, also an author Kabir Bedi talks about his book. He says that he wrote the book during last year's lockdown. He also talks about the things he wants to set the records straight about.

The Times of India • 30th November 2020

Meet the 'salty' Poonam Pandey who turns controversy into currency

In a country which is still prudish about sex, Poonam Pandey, a middle class girl from Thane has unashamedly built a thriving business as an erotic star

The Times Of India • 16th August 2020

Kerala is one of the most exciting culinary destinations, says chef Gordon Ramsay

Just weeks before the world was turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, British chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay was in Coorg climbing trees of peppercorn and catching karimeen in Kannur’s backwaters. A chat with one of food television’s most recognised faces offered a glimpse of what keeps bringing him back to India, brain food, women’s place at the table and his friendly charm, a far cry from his barbed tongue. Excerpts...

The Times Of India • 19th March 2020

Meet the Indian bat-man part of Canadian team of scientists that isolated Covid-19 virus

“I’d always told my friends, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a guy who gets called in if there’s an outbreak’.”Arinjay Banerjee, a Kolkata-born and Mumbai-bred virologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, had prophesied some years ago before he actually got called in last month to join the team of Canadian scientists that has managed to successfully isolate a strain of the coronavirus and grown samples in a lab to help study the pathogen responsible for the global outbreak of Covid-19.

The Times Of India • 9th February 2020

Blues do live here, because Buddy the legend says so

Buddy Guy, pioneer and last living link to the storied history of the original Chicago blues, doesn’t seem to mind when you try and tease the personal out of him. As he returns at 83 to perform at the tenth edition of the Mahindra Blues Fest, the painfully shy legend — who was born George Guy to a sharecropper’s family in a small town near New Orleans and who fashioned his first guitar out of wood and his mother’s hairpins — lets TOI in on everything from his secret debutante tears to his prefered form of liquid courage.

The Times Of India • 5th December 2019

Sweden’s royals believe in keeping with the times, lead by example

Given how royal protocol is almost a law unto itself that extends much further than common courtesy and governs simple things like not touching the monarch to more complex rules, Swedish Royals King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, could be measured by their informality and the way they redefine social barriers between monarchy and the masses.

The Times Of India • 6th June 2019

Sadhguru brings rally for rivers back to Maharashtra with revival plan for Waghari

Every five minutes that he looks out of the window for a bird's perspective when flying across the country "a brown desert" is what the sprawl below looks like to , the modern-day spiritual guru whose 'Rally for Rivers' cry for a green cover around the country's depleting rivers drew nationwide attention a year ago and earned a Rs 415 crore cabinet approval for the revitalisation of Waghari River in Yavatmal district . spoke to the bike-riding mystic on his visit to Mumbai on Wednesday. Excerpts...

The Times Of India • 28th April 2019

You’re always told you can’t be queer and a politician. That needs to change, say creators of Pink List

There’s a rainbow wave sweeping the electoral map this time with a record number of LGBT individuals in the poll fray. A young trio comprising Anish Gawande, a Columbia University graduate and director of the Dara Shikoh Fellowship, journalist Devina Buckshee and freelance designer Smriti Deora have banded together to create The Pink List, a guide to candidates who have publicly supported queer rights. Anish Gawande, 22 spoke to Mohua Das about their resolve to lead change by making queer issues a political imperative.

The Times Of India • 17th February 2019

In this age of short-term memories, it’s important to keep oral storytelling alive, says Booker-winning writer Ben Okri

It was his mother’s style of reprimanding him as a child using metaphors and oblique references that Ben Okri credits for his craft. “It used to confuse me and stir my imagination. I still haven’t figured a lot of what she used to say without actually saying it!” he laughs. At 32, the London-based Nigerian poet and novelist became the youngest Booker Prize winner in 1991. Recently in India, he gave Sunday Times a peek into the inner workings of his creative activism as well as his half-tilted beret.

The Times Of India • 10th February 2019

'I'm either very joyous or really depressed'

It's a bit startling when a singer-songwriter who has been a Grammy nominee, routinely topped the Billboard, performed to a packed Royal Albert Hall, and was nominated for three awards by the Blues foundation last month says that she's "nervous" about taking centrestage before a live audience in Mumbai on Sunday.

The Times Of India • 9th February 2019

‘Blues, it’s your buddy when you’re up and comforter when you’re down’

It’s only been a few hours since harmonica veteran Charlie Musselwhite has touched down after a 20-hour-long flight from Los Angeles but the 75-year-old, dressed nattily in black, his silvery mane neatly combed back and his eyes smiling from his cheek, looks not the least bit tired of granting back-to-back interviews at a terrace lounge under an overcast sky on Friday.

The Times Of India • 28th January 2019

BJP cannot teach women where and how to pray, says Salma

It’s almost ironic how the din at the Jaipur Literature Festival almost drowns out Salma’s soft voice, a voice that has become a rallying cry for Muslim women in south India helping them shed the sense of shame, fear and allegiance to demands that society makes on them.

The Times Of India • 27th January 2019

Science is male dominated. To shift culture, demographics need to shift, says astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan

Some 30 years ago, a wide-eyed member of an amateur astronomers club stood behind a telescope at the Nehru Planetarium and watched the Halley’s Comet zoom by. The fascinated teenager is now a 'Black Hole Hunter' and theoretical astrophysicist at the Yale University. Priyamvada Natarajan spoke to Mohua Das at the Jaipur Literature Festival about the importance of storytelling in science.

The Times Of India • 17th December 2018

A chance encounter shot this once-rickshaw-puller to fame

There are writers and then there are Dalit writers who challenge and break down literary conventions. So, it made for charming disruption of social etiquette when Bengali Dalit writer strolled onto the Litfest stage with his jhola of books, a gamchha coiled around his neck and announced with candid ease: “People don’t usually like to listen to stories of pain, poverty and illness. So, if you don’t like what you hear from me and if you have rotten eggs and tomatoes, please raise your hand!”

The Times Of India • 2nd December 2018

Why does the MeToo buck stop at Bollywood, asks Priyanka Chopra

‘I think I’ve regressed!’ laughs Priyanka Chopra, sitting in a Juhu hotel. Startling for an actor at the top of her game. ‘I’ve become a bit more childlike... at a point where I’m really enjoying life,’ explains the 36-year-old who’s earned a spot under the Hollywood sun and just tied the knot with singer Nick Jonas. Piggy Chops talks to Mohua Das about turning star power into social good

The Times Of India • 25th November 2018

Anne Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip: Transgender from Thailand recounts struggles of transition

Anne Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip has all the attributes to pass off for a model. She is tall and slim with porcelain skin and wide-set eyes, an hour glass frame and a poise that would make you want to straighten your spine. Ask her for her secret and the 39-year-old flutters her thick eyelashes and reveals: “It’s more water, less oil, lots of sleep and loads of laughter.” If there’s anything that could give her away, it’s only the voice. “That’s something I’m never going to change. It’s me, a part of my identity,” she says in her deeply masculine tone.