Monthly Archives: June 2017

This is a splendid volume that brings to- gether the recent approaches and researches around the theme of Indian Painting in honour of Professor B.N. Goswamy who continues to inspire and motivate potential scholars of art and history in various capacities and contexts.

Any discussion of traditional art forms in India would not be complete or possible without stepping into the realms of the narrative painting tradition. Indian Painting: The Lesser-Known Traditions edited by Anna L. Dallapiccola presents a bouquet of twelve incisive essays elaborating on these lesser known traditions of India.

To assess music as the purveyor of the spiritual is Antony Copley’s project in this compelling and erudite study. He undertakes his exploration by approaching the music of 20th century Europe through the biographical, cultural and philosophical planes. He tackles his mission as Everyman, he emphasizes apologetically…

The book in reference is a coffee table, well-illustrated memoir entitled The Master Through My Eyes. It is by Saswati Sen, herself a well-known dancer and prime disciple of Birju Maharaj for as long as thirty years and more. She has spent this time, from her initial baby steps in Kathak with Guru Reba Vidayarthi…

This episodic narrative meanders charm- ingly while the authors digress to regale us with myths and legends, with no particular historical perspective. The spatial emphasis renders chronology irrelevant. But, interestingly, like any epic narrative, this formidably researched riparian saga uses a common literary…

In the early twentieth century, K.C. Bhattacharyya underlining the cultural enslavement of India proposed that it is in philosophy, if anywhere, that the soul of India could be discovered.

On 15 August 1947, from the depths of his Ashram in Pondicherry Aurobindo sent a celebratory message across the airwaves to the free nation. He was quick to point out, however, his own place in this epoch-making historic event.

This book is not a summary of any of the well-known Ramayanas; it is a full-fledged re-telling of the great epic . Indeed, as Shubha Vilas tells us , his friend ‘em-boldened’ him to ‘rewrite’ the Ramayana. A little later the author does clarify, ‘This book keeps Valmiki’s Ramayana front and centre, yet explores other versions…

Kanchana Natarajan’s discovery of an old Tamil text comprising Vedantic songs by Avudai Akkal at the Divine Life library at Rishikesh retraces a journey started by Avudai Akkal in the eighteenth century.

The indefatigable A.N.D. Haksar pulls out another gem from the Sanskrit texts that were composed in Kashmir around the turn of the last millenium. He returns to the irreverent and wickedly transgressive Kshemendra and this time, gives us a translation of Samaya Matrika or ‘The Courtesan’s Keeper’.

For someone not adequately apprised of the scholarly interests of its editor, the title given to this volume may prove somewhat ambivalent and open ended. After all, ‘devotion’ and ‘dissent’ are also broad sociological responses that could be revealed and read outside the domain of religion, as say in politics or everyday social relationships.

The Colour Book is mesmerizing. It invites you into a here-now, gone-now world that you dipped into happily as a child but which may have evaded you as a greying adult. A heady mix of poetry and science, The Colour Book evokes long-buried memories of the colours you once discovered.

Alice fell down a rabbit’s hole and discov- ered a wonderland! Neverfell fell down into Caverna and found a world of darkness that is strangely exquisite, of sinister characters that have a hundred faces without souls and a grotesque underbelly of faceless poor!

There is a Bengali social institution called an adda that is very hard to capture in mere words. It is much more than a conversation because usually at least three people are talking at the same time. It is at times a debate but then some of the debaters are liable to argue for both sides of the subject if they are feeling particularly excitable.

If I lived in India, Delhi would be my city of choice. During frequent bouts of daydreaming, I often fantasize about how I would spend my days there. Of course, as required of any half-decent fantasy, I ignore the heat and the dust, and instead focus on the bright side.

When I began reading Soonoo Tara- porewala’s biography of Fateh Singh Rathore, I thought I would right away begin encountering thrilling tiger tales. I was disappointed. I trudged on, nevertheless, wondering when I would sight the tiger.

Fascination with ‘Otherness’ manifests it- self in many ways; whether it is the intrepid 16th century European explorers embarking on dangerous journeys time and again to find strange new lands, or writers travelling across cruel landscapes to meet new people and create new genres or painters reaching out to exotic settings and subjects for their art.

Lakshmi Kannan’s volume of translated short stories contains selections from her previously published stories. In the author’s note Kannan explains her reasons for choosing these stories: they were the ones that elicited the strongest reactions amongst her readers and often generated controversy.

The Progressive Writers’ Movement stands out among the literary trends in Indian literature because it came as a breath of fresh air in a literary scenario that was struggling under the onslaught of western values.

As a dance critic, I came to know of the work of Bhanu Bharti, through his friend and celebrated director Ratan Thiyam. Bhanu’s adaptation of K.N. Pannikkar’s Malayalam play Pashu Gayatri, a community theatre of the Bheels of the Mewari region of Rajasthan had drawn the attention of serious theatre practioners.