The title of this novelistic memoir written in Hindi is a variation on a formulaic puranic phrase which was used to start stories and legends; it means, ‘Here begins the tale of Prayag’. This little Sanskrit flourish is apt for a story set in a hallowed city long.
2020
In these volatile times, when every word written is scrutinized for any hint of religious fundamentalism, it is difficult to assess a book like the present one. Its very title is bound to raise the hackles of those who read anything that has the word ‘Jai’ in it with the Pavlovian…
Manav Kaul is not a regular writer in a sense, so one can call him a Sahityakar in Hindi. He has a creative mind and experience of working in the vast field of theatre, cinema and allied arts, including writing. It makes him a perfect artist. He writes stories and poems…
2019
Gyan ka Gyan is a multi-nodal intervention in the academy of Vedic studies, or Vedic ontology to be precise. The Vedas, Rigveda, Samveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda, in that order, are one of the most ancient sources of knowledge. From the four Vedas essentially .
2019
Coolie Lines is an extensively researched non-fiction which narrates the untold saga of migration. Around two hundred years ago, the British had sent millions of Indians as indentured labourers to countries like Mauritius, Fiji, Surinam, Trinidad and South Africa.
Can the centuries old song of a humble washerman, Chikkiah, speak to us in contemporary India today? If that song could be heard today, how would we comprehend the world which shaped the song? Would we hear the echo of Chikkiah’s struggle for freedom and be able.
Synapse: Ratan Oak Stories is my first encounter with the fictional world of Kalpish Ratna, about whom frankly I knew nothing before this book came to me. Their works ‘explore the interface between science and humanities’. Ratan Oak and Ramratan Oak, his grandfather.
In July 1947 an accomplished lawyer from England made his first, and only, visit to India. When he left after five weeks he left behind a boundary line which created two new countries. The Partition would result in the largest communal massacre and human migration.
When I began reading this novel, I realized the novel gave access to its readers into the lives of those living in the slums of Bangalore. Two books that I had read years before, came to my mind: Shantaram, a 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts that depicted.
Richard Sike’s achingly beautiful poem ‘Scheherazade’ lends not just its breathtaking lines, scattered through Dharini Bhaskar’s consummate debut novel, but also its unique style—half facts, half metaphors, half desires and half fantasies—to mesmerize her readers.
Reading Anamika is like getting back to a world of memories, fun filled laughter, aspirations of a young adolescent female who enjoyed being in the company of trees and streets, books and beats. Anamika is a recipient of several literary awards like the Kedar Samman in 2007.
2019
Many novels portray changes which have occurred in different periods and their impact on the lives of various sections of society. The novel Maila Aanchal by Phanishwar Nath ‘Renu’, for example, depicts the changes in grassroots politics, contestation of moral values…
2019
Bhalchandra Joshi’s Hindi novel Jas Ka Phool (2019) addresses the contemporary shifts in India, particularly linked to the issues of communal conflicts and urban imagination, which are incessantly reproducing/negotiating/challenging narratives.
Pankaj Subeer’s novel Jinhe Jurm-e-Ishq pe Naaz Tha is a colossal project that seeks to set right the religio-cultural, political and historical violations of the last five thousand years of human civilization. The novel centres on the narrative of Rameshwar.
2019
Keelein (Nails), a collection of short stories, reaffirms SR Harnot’s merit as an important literary and political voice from Himachal Pradesh. Deeply rooted in the contemporary milieu, the collection brings together one previously unpublished story and six stories.