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the dancing cobras

April 7, 2017 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Every writer on assignment ends up accruing tales that don’t fit the purpose — but that are still worth telling. Such is the inspiration behind the new magazine Off Assignment, where “the detour is the story.” I just had the pleasure of writing a piece for their Letter to a Stranger column, inspired by Pico Iyer’s quote: “…And writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.”

Mine tells of a candlelit evening in South Asia and a man with a half-century-old story to tell about when he saw the cobras dance…

Read (and listen to me read) it here.

Filed Under: journalism, travels Tagged With: breakup, india, love, Off Assignment, snakes, stranger, travel

Amazing things happen… (in the most polluted city on earth)

January 25, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

#HelpDelhiBreathe protest. Photo by Meera Subramanian

#HelpDelhiBreathe protest. Photo by Meera Subramanian

In which I report for Vice magazine from New Delhi, which the WHO determined to be the most polluted big city on the planet. It sure feels like it. 

New Delhi is choking on its own air.

On January 1, India’s capital made an attempt to address its status as the world’s most polluted big city, according to the World Health Organization, by implementing a temporary “odd-even scheme” for automobile use. Private vehicles could only be driven on days that matched their plate number or risk a $30 fine. There were loads of exemptions, including the two-wheelers that dominate the roads, hybrids, and cars driven by VIPs or women (with no men in the vehicle). There were jokes about “men riding in the dickey” — the trunk — of cars and more serious conversations about immediately buying a second car to get around the restrictions. But after the 15-day plan came to end, overall sentiment was high as researchers rushed to declare it a success or failure.

Read the rest at Vice.

Filed Under: journalism, travels Tagged With: air, energy, india, photography, pollution, science, travel

hitting the road soon

August 26, 2015 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Lots of book tour events are lining up. Check the calendar here for all updates & details.

ARRABooksSuitcase

  • Wed., Sept. 2 (7:00 pm): Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
  • Thurs., Sept. 3: WCAI The Point with Mindy Todd (Cape Cod NPR)
  • Sat., Sept. 5 (11:15 am): AJC Decatur Book Festival, Atlanta GA
  • Wed., Sept. 9 (7:00 pm): Falmouth Public Library, Falmouth, MA
  • Thurs., Sept. 24 (7:30 pm): Wellfleet Preservation Hall, Wellfleet, Cape Cod, MA
  • Wed., Sept 30 (12:30 pm): UVA Medical Center Hour, Charlottesville, VA
  • Tues., Oct. 13 (3:00 pm): Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC
  • Thurs., Oct. 15 (6:00 pm): NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, NYC, NY
  • Sat., Oct. 17: Texas Book Festival, Austin, TX (details TBD)
  • Oct. 23 – 25: Indo-American Arts Council Literary Festival, Hunter College, New York, NY (details TBD)
  • Sun., Nov. 1: The Axe & Fiddle, Cottage Grove, OR
  • Mon., Nov. 2 (7:30 pm): Powell’s on Hawthorne, Portland, OR
  • Tues., Nov. 3 (7:00 pm): Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA
  • Thurs., Nov. 5 (7:00 pm): San Francisco World Affairs Council, San Francisco, CA
  • Tues., Nov. 17 (6:30 pm): Sturgis Library, Barnstable, Cape Cod, MA
  • Sat., Nov. 21: Miami Book Fair International, Miami, FL (details TBD)

Hope to see you. If not, there’s always this. 🙂

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india, readings Tagged With: A River Runs Again, Elemental India, events, readings, travel

getting my bearings straight

July 22, 2015 By meerasub 3 Comments

2015.07.22Fairbanks-6

Strolling through Fairbanks, Alaska is the Chena River, all glassy and glorious beneath a sky miraculously scrubbed of smoke from the fires that clouded it a day before I arrived. A visit to Alaska has been a wish for quite a long time and it’s great to finally be here on my way to Toolik Field Station as a Logan science journalism Arctic fellow with the Marine Biological Lab (MBL).

The first part of the MBL fellowship took place [Read more…]

Filed Under: journalism, photography, travels Tagged With: Alaska, Arctic, MBL, travel

garden city indeed

December 11, 2013 By meerasub

2013.12.08BloreWlks-27

Bengalaru, nestled in the Deccan Plateau in the center of southern India, is known as the Garden City. On Sunday morning, I set aside the work that brings me here, set aside the old name of Bangalore and the new moniker of Garbage City (this IT capital doubled in size in the last ten years, to 8+ million, but never quite got a sanitation system in place. And don’t get me started on the traffic…). Instead, let’s just revel together in the presence of Vijay Thiruvady, who led a group of us on a tour of the Lal Bagh Garden as part of Bangalore Walks. History! Culture! Discovery! Gorgeous, oxygen-producing greenery. I drank and drank of it. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Fulbright, photography, travels Tagged With: india, Lal Bagh Garden, travel

remember, again & again

December 9, 2013 By meerasub

2013.11.29Anchetty-188

Breyten Breytenbach, in tribute to Ryszard Kapuscinski:

Listen: you must continue traveling because the earth needs to be discovered and remembered again and again, cyclically, creatively, with her season and her sounds, with the warm breath of hospitality, with the healing touch of strangeness…lest it become cold and impenetrable — a barren place of power and politics.

Filed Under: travels Tagged With: india, quotes, travel

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