Blog | Tulsi Badrinath

Master of Arts-A life in dance

I began learning dance when I was eight. During the day I attended a convent school, happy in my blue scalloped pinafore worn over a starched white shirt, my long plaits secured with white ribbons.

Madras, Chennai and the Self Conversations with the City

The earliest friends my father Chaturvedi Badrinath made, when he came to Madras as a bachelor, were M. Krishnan, India’s most eminent naturalist and his wife Indumati Krishnan. Their home, Perunkulam House or PH, was a second home to me. In a city where we had no relatives, theirs was the closest I had to a grandparent’s home.

Fresh edition of Swami Vivekananda: The Living Vedanta by Chaturvedi Badrinath

Delighted that Penguin India has brought out a fresh edition of my father Chaturvedi Badrinath’s book Swami Vivekananda: The Living Vedanta. It celebrates the twentieth year of its existence. My preface, written for this edition, describes the difficulties my father had in trying to compress the wealth of material and the extraordinary life-story of the […]

My session at the Goa Arts and Literature Festival 2026

I had a wonderful time at the Goa Arts + Literature Festival, making new friends and learning a lot about Goan history on a walk around Panjim. It was very interesting talking to Mini Krishnan, pioneer in the field of translation from Indian languages into English, about her career, the joys and frustrations of being […]

Excerpt from Man of A Thousand Chances by Tulsi Badrinath

A brief introduction and a vivid excerpt from Man of A Thousand Chances, capturing a Chennai morning shaped by scarcity, waiting, and hope.

Meeting Lives: the challenge of finding one’s identity as a mother and as an individual

A mother is born at the same time her child is born. A woman’s life is defined by this stage, separating those who have had children from those who have not. An experience both unique and fundamental to women, it is assumed that this experience is rewarding and fulfilling. When I had a child, and […]