ARTISTIC PRACTIce

2025. Cow and Court. Play 

2nd Prize, Sultan Padamsee Playwriting Award 2024. 

2024-25, Artist in Residence Fellowship, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, UCL

Note: An English judge presides over a trial in Bombay

High Court, where a Hindu priest is accused of inciting a deadly cow-protection riot. The cow is God and mother, beef and leather. Cow and Court plays at the blurred boundaries of crime, madness, and religion, revealing the perennial fragility of law. 

2024. “Darako” Penguin Random House. Novel.

Source: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/darako/

Note: On the first day, God spit!

Peter, a police informant stationed outside a paan shop in colonial Bombay, narrates the story of Bandu, Bhola, and Bulbul, and their search for an Afghani mystic that leads them to love, loss, and liberation.

2023. “The Birth of Bovine Rights” 10/23. The Sociological Review Magazine.  Short fiction.

Source: https://thesociologicalreview.org/fiction/the-birth-of-bovine-rights/

Note: The Court seeks to establish that a temple cow is not harmed and relies on a cow psychologist's ethnography as evidence. 

2023. “The Origin of Cow Therapy.” Boston Review. (Aura Estrada Short Story Prize, Boston Review 2022). Short fiction.

Citation

Congratulations to Parashar Kulkarni, whose story “The Origin of Cow Therapy” was selected by judge Jordy Rosenberg (Confessions of the Fox) as the winner of the 2022 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest! About Kulkarni’s winning story, Rosenberg writes:

“Cow Therapy” is a historical novel tunneled into the dazzling space of a short story.  A comedic send-up of psychiatric institutions and the self-important, ceaselessly speculating project of British hegemony, the story will have you thinking about its fully fleshed world long after you finish reading."

Source: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-origin-of-cow-therapy

2022. “Transcript of Sessions with a Cow Lover, Bombay, 1922. By Professor Guy Cowley (FRCBS, MRCV)” 09/22. The Sociological Review Magazine. Short fiction

Note: A professor imposes his own brand of psychoanalysis on a newly found patient to understand his cow-love. 

Source: https://thesociologicalreview.org/fiction/transcripts-of-sessions-with-a-cow-lover-bombay-1922-by-professor-guy-cowley-frcbs-mrcv/

2019. “Cow and Company” New Delhi: Penguin Random House (Viking). Novel

Note: The British Chewing Gum Company sets up shop in Bombay to introduce chewing gum in the colonies. They use a cow as their mascot. It is on all hoardings. A riot follows. 

Source: https://penguin.co.in/book/cow-and-company/

Select reviews and critical engagement: 

https://openthemagazine.com/lounge/books/anarchy-chewing-gum/

https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/books/2019/oct/06/cow-and-company-book-review-the-good-chew-2042815.html

https://www.firstpost.com/living/parashar-kulkarni-on-debut-novel-cow-and-company-fiction-writing-as-therapeutic-and-the-language-inequality-in-india-7386401.html

Kulkarni, Meenakshi. “GAU MATA: The Commodification of Cultural Iconography”. Shodhasamhita, vol. 9, no. 2, Oct. 2022, pp. 96-117.

https://kksushodhasamhita.org/index.php/sdsa/article/view/15

2019. “A Shock of Bhakti: The Devotional Songs of Ram Rahim” Ed. Gitanjali Kolanad. Seminar 716: 53 − 57. Short non-fiction

Note: Bhakti can be used for political power because we don't really practise bhakti in its most dynamic forms- music, songs, dance...

Source: https://india-seminar.com/2019/716/716_parashar_kulkarni.htm

2016. “Cow and Company” Granta. Fiction. 11 May. London (Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize 2016). Short fiction. 

Note: Employees of the British Chewing Company search for a mascot for their chewing gum.

Source: https://granta.com/cow_and_company/

Citation: https://commonwealthfoundation.com/the-commonwealth-short-story-prize-2016/

Parashar Kulkarni has been announced as the overall winner for the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for his story ‘Cow and Company’. The award was presented by Man Booker Prize Winner and former short story judge Marlon James at the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica on 5 June. The 2016 Prize attracted nearly 4000 entries from 47 countries. The global judging panel, representing each of the five regions of the Commonwealth – Helon Habila (Africa), Firdous Azim (Asia), Pierre Mejlak (Canada and Europe) Olive Senior (Caribbean), and Patrick Holland (Pacific) selected Indian author Parashar Kulkarni as the overall winner of the 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for his story ‘Cow and Company’.

Select reviews and coverage:

BBC:  https://youtu.be/2G3yU8DoKDg

Times of India: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/professor-parashar-kulkarni-becomes-the-first-indian-to-bag-commonwealth-short-story-prize/articleshow/52619158.cms

Guardian:https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/06/commonwealth-short-story-prize-goes-to-writers-first-tale

Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/parashar-kulkarni-is-the-first-indian-to-win-the-commonwealth-sh_n_10317908tps://youtu.be/2G3yU8DoK