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Shreya Sen-Handley

Our response to voices is reverberatingly complicated. There is, for example, this deeply unfair perception that lighter voices belong to intellectual lightweights. Photo by arrangement.

Shreya Sen-Handley | Speaking in tongues: The gift of accents

English spoken in any accent other than their own can have the British flummoxed, or worse — scrambling to correct your pronunciation

21 May 2023 12:10 AM

To some, including author James Baldwin, home doesn’t require external trapping.

Shreya Sen-Handley | What does home mean to you?

Think about what you’d rescue in a residential fire and you’ll know what home is

23 Apr 2023 12:05 AM

Jetsetting is no longer fashionable. Why not fly less to save the planet? (Photo By Arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | Jetsetting glitzy no more, try the 'flycott'

Far from the glamorous mode of transportation it once was, not even catering for basic human needs, air travel is now officially hell

19 Mar 2023 12:10 AM

A winter night sky from the writer's window. (Photo by arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | Don’t lose sight of starry, starry nights

After all, can anything be more arresting than the night sky?

05 Feb 2023 12:56 AM

What say we take a leaf out of the blissfully ignorant book of the most average Joe of all, Joey Tribbiani? (Photo By Arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | At the end of this year, hit refresh

In the year’s dying days, let’s celebrate the life we’ve shaped. Commemorate the things we got right, and discount our mistakes

25 Dec 2022 9:32 AM

Any parent with a teen or two under their rooves will have dealt with this accelerated development — this transformation of their tender tots into fully-formed individuals in the blink of a bleary, parental eye. (Photo By Arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | Smells like teen spirit? Don’t sweat it, step back

The fallout is an odd mix of terror at losing control, excited anticipation at what comes next, and even relief

27 Nov 2022 12:05 AM

Who wore the nattier mourning hat — Kate or Meghan? (Photo By Arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | What Chucky did next, and other regal musings

Pointing inquisitors to this column every time a royal question is popped, I’d be at liberty to return to my pleasantly royalty-free life

02 Oct 2022 12:15 AM

What is it that makes our ties with our country of birth so strong? The clue’s in the name I reckon, with our “birth” linking us to places with an invisible umbilical cord. (Source: Pixabay)

Shreya Sen-Handley | To India, With Love

To paraphrase that popular maxim, you can take the girl out of India, but you can’t take India out of the girl!

21 Aug 2022 12:17 AM

A still from the Welsh National Opera’s 'Migrations' which depicts the experience of Indian doctors working in the NHS featuring Natasha Agarwal as Neera and Jamal Andreas as Jai. (Credit: Craig Fuller)

Shreya Sen-Handley | The unsung benefit of pursuing the arts

The arts and sciences aren’t combatants. When born of creative minds, they are complementary

17 Jul 2022 12:15 AM

I padded about happily on my naked-as-the-day-they-were-born feet, as if on a sunny beach, and felt an incredible sense of freedom that no censorious glance could stymie. (Representational Image/ By Arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | The happy ‘looser’s cheerful musings

Let sandals snap and house keys hide, false friends fall away and gossip abide

29 May 2022 12:29 AM

Incapable of such eloquence ourselves, we can certainly see how this month, with all the beauty and fresh infusions of natural life that it brings, rejuvenates us too, putting a spring in our steps and stirring hope. (By Arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | April showers bring bunnies and flowers

Knowing that all’s not lost encourages us to pull up our socks, and set the world to rights

17 Apr 2022 12:03 AM

Some of us, you see, have been left with Long Covid, and almost all of us with Long Anxiety, which is not just another fallout of the pandemic, but a pandemic in its own right. (Photo by arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | Mothers’ dreams, and why they must be taken seriously

The climate crisis, the pandemic, this new war, are REAL, and so’s the anxiety!

20 Mar 2022 12:29 AM

Strictly speaking then, what afflicts men in midlife isn’t menopause. Instead, they are men-who-pause. Pause in their middle years to upturn their lives. For better or worse. (Image by Arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | The good, bad and ugly of midlife blips

With never enough money to research ‘women’s troubles’, this island of no-return is relatively unexplored yet

30 Jan 2022 2:06 AM

So, what does 2022, the Year of the Tiger, promise?

Shreya Sen-Handley | Steve, Chom-chom, other name games people play

At birth we’re given hopeful names by our generally well-intentioned parents, with which we develop a love-hate relationship as we grow

26 Dec 2021 3:08 AM

About three per cent of the UK, five per cent of the US, and 12 per cent of Finland, to name just a few, suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder in the winter! (AFP Representational Image)

Shreya Sen-Handley | Season’s affect and the comfort of darkness

In this first month of winter, in the colder reaches of the world, the nights draw near, and the days are hauntingly short

14 Nov 2021 2:42 PM

The difference in heights between the two stars, Sushmita and Riya Sen, is intriguing, to say the least.

Shreya Sen-Handley | Heightism — the long and the short of it

Some refer to us as ‘vertically challenged’ when trying to be polite

10 Oct 2021 9:10 AM

The anger of men remains more acceptable than that of women, especially women of colour. (Twitter)

Shreya Sen-Handley | Square up in Kabul, look forward in rage

Behind every successful pacific political movement, there’s controlled, empowering anger

05 Sep 2021 2:41 AM

Erik Renssen, Woman writing a letter, 2018, renssenartgalley.com

Shreya Sen-Handley | Unfriend social media, it is time to get ‘real’

It reduces interaction to likes and emojis, quantity, not quality, with little distinction made between genuine buds and pure acquaintances

01 Aug 2021 7:33 AM

The author in her garden, showing off her purple streaks.

Shreya Sen-Handley | The wonder years start at 50

But if growing up is getting to fifty then it isn’t miles away, and with my two left feet, dancing’s not on my bucket list

27 Jun 2021 12:10 AM

On solo commutes, we should cycle everywhere we can, switching to green public transport where cycling might be hazardous, with the occasional use of an electric car when transporting the whole clan. (By arrangement)

Shreya Sen-Handley | Back to ‘the future’, with a ticket to ride

This pandemic has opened my eyes to what’s essential in my life; that which provides long-term joy over short-lived superficial pleasure

30 May 2021 7:44 AM

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Columns

Abhijit Bhattacharyya