When in doubt of your mettle, Rimli Gupta’s book, Karno’s Daughter makes for a good litmus test. If you feel exhausted on reading it, you are a wimp, but if the trials and tribulations of Buttermilk the protagonist buoy you, there is hope for you.
Have I died and gone to Heaven,’ I wondered. ‘I have been asked to review a detective novel my most favourite reading nowadays!’ And what a novel at that! The first book published by the author, it tells a gripping story in the manner of …no, no.
2019
In 1958, a young boy from a small town in Madhya Pradesh failed in Hindi in the school final examination, because of which he had to enrol in an agricultural college where there was no Hindi. He completed the course and taught in an agricultural college for many years after.
2019
Memento Mori is Latin for ‘remember you must die’. The recognition of mortality and the reiteration that life is lived in the midst of death is part of an old tradition iterated in cultures across the world through music, art, poetry, philosophy and writing.
Iqbal, aka Sufi and Aabid, the author, grew up in different households in Dongri, went to the same school and faced nearly similar circumstances at home. Their lives never intersected, and they did not witness each other’s trials and tribulations. Iqbal’s father.
There are not many fictional characters that acquire lives of their own. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind, as do Rumpole of the Old Bailey, Don Quixote, Cyrano de Bergerac and the inimitable Jeeves. The most recent entrant to this exalted and much-loved hall.
The title and subject of the book stirred up a deep sense of nostalgia in me. My siblings and I grew up in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra in our formative years. The names of dishes in this book—Kaande pohe, thali peeth, varanbhath, etc.
Capitalized SAADAT HASAN MANTO, printed against strands of jet black hair that have escaped the floral edge of a burqa, which reveals more than it conceals; arched eyebrows, large and thickly kohl-lined eyes, the partial tantalizing glimpse of painted lips.
Urdu fiction is mostly known for its realist, humanist approach. Even in its most experimental incarnations, Urdu writers did not make any radical break from the modernist aesthetics. Mirza Athar Baig, a revolutionary in this sense, has been hailed as a pathbreaker who with each.
2019
After Tagore and Premchand, if one can think of a literary figure who has had a national reach in India, it is UR Ananthamurthy (1932-2014). URA was no doubt the most influential Kannada writer of his times. But he was, equally, an inspiring teacher, creative administrator.
2019
Pulayathara was published in the year 1962. It was the first novel in Malayalam to give a graphic description of the Dalit Christian condition. The novel was largely ignored by the reading public and critical establishments. However, the scorching issues of land, labour and faith that the book sought to project, continue to haunt millions.
The Solitary Sprout is a treat to read. This will come as no surprise to those familiar with Chudamani’s books. Like the others, this book contains no violence or sex, preaches no doctrine, upholds no morals……just twenty simple tales of the everyday life of mostly Tamilian families.
The first Kannada novel, Indira Bai or The Triumph of Truth and Virtue, has been recently translated into English, for the second time, by Vanamala Viswanatha and Shivarama Padikkal. Originally published by the Basel Mission Press, Mangalore, in 1899 the novel was first translated into English.
2019
‘I was my mother’s boy.’ ‘Amma took this shy, introverted child by hand and pushed him out into the world.’‘I was forty-six the year Amma died. Even today, I inhabit the world she created in those forty-six years with me.’
In November 2019, the Tata Literature Live Festival, held in Mumbai, conferred a lifetime achievement award upon Shanta Gokhale, recognizing and acknowledging her long and distinguished career. Reading her delightful memoir, we can understand.
We know a lot about the British who explored and mapped India in the nineteenth century, with a scientific rigour that Indians have never possessed. As a matter of fact, till the Mughal time geography was not even taught in schools and we were too scared of losing.
As our Republic turns 70, there is a distinct anti-intellectual wind blowing in the air, by which I mean not merely a certain wariness often bordering on suspicion of ideas but outright disrespect for ideas that are not popular. Ideas that question or point to flaws.