Humour

Why are male virgins worth less than female ones?

Is the discount on male virginity the result of oversupply or low demand?

Why Sumukhi Suresh can't help but leave a bit (or a lot) of herself in her fiction show and stand-up special

Comic Sumukhi Suresh discusses presenting a rare female 'stalker' in her Amazon Prime Original Pushpavalli, and why she refrains from big-girl jokes now.

Inside Abish Mathew's mind: Comedian reflects on early days of Indian standup, discovering his voice

Abish Mathew claims that by the virtue of being an experienced stand-up comedian, he gets the room he wants to perform in, but often ends up taking his career for granted.

Parashar Kulkarni on debut novel Cow and Company, fiction writing as therapeutic, and the language inequality in India

Author Parashar Kulkarni talks to Firstpost about his debut novel Cow and Company, his approach to fiction writing, and the language inequality prevalent in India.

War and Peace, and the dying reading habit in court: A case for why we should judge less harshly

There was much amusement in the press and on social media today about an innocent query by a High Court judge, seemingly regarding Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It now emerges that the book in question may not have been the Russian classic, but apparently War and Peace in Junglemahal by Biswajit Roy. But I would not be very surprised if in the future some learned judge were to ask quite seriously, if Anna Karenina was a foreign spy spotted in Junglemahal.

Prompt Twitter: The best of school slam books, the old Internet, and note-writing in ancient Kyoto

These past few months Prompt Twitter has made an otherwise often-depressing website an enjoyable place in a way that it has never been enjoyable for me | Nisha Susan writes

Hi, Hitler: What creators looking to satirise the Führer must remember about the perils of parody

There’s a sense of inevitability about the internet and Hitler jokes, one would argue — at this point, the phenomenon is approaching axiomatic status.

Game of Thrones season 8: Letters to Jon Snow, from his willfully ignored direwolf Ghost

Location: Somewhere in the extreme North of the Seven Kingdoms. A lone direwolf (some call him Ghost) sends missives to his neglectful master, Jon Snow. To be read to the tune and rhythm of Eminem's 'Stan', from whose lyrics these letters *may* have been adapted.

Of 'miserable Hindoo ladies' and barbaric tribes: Reading Favell Lee Mortimer's 'educational' book on India

According to Mrs Mortimer, mothers were the bane of Hindostan. Remember, she was never here and it can be safely said that she was never a Hindoo mother herself but again, she doesn’t let that stop her.

Favell Lee Mortimer's Far Off: How a 19th century Englishwoman wrote about India — without having seen it

The author of Far Off, Favell Lee Mortimer, was best known for a book called 'The peep of day, or, A series of the earliest religious instruction the infant mind is capable of receiving' which has been called “one of the most outspokenly sadistic children's books ever written”.