This book is a necessary compilation that comes from an embattled republic of letters in a nation slowly being desiccated by the philistinism of its politics. The great merit of the book is its comprehensive nature as it focuses expansively on many themes. There is the question of the economy being roiled by adverse global headwinds that the ruling dispensation seems to be gloriously inept at handling.
From India’s most clear-headed political theorist Neera Chandhoke (a former Professor of Political Science at Delhi University), comes a new page turner—an extraordinarily accessible and yet tightly argued monograph on the nature and value of contemporary India’s plural democracy. Anyone familiar with Chandhoke’s earlier works such as Democracy and Revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury, 2015)
Francis Fukuyama needs no intro- -duction. He shot into prominence with the publication of his widely read book, The End of History and the Last Man in 1992. In brief, Fukuyama had put forth the thesis that with the collapse of Communism ideological wars have come to an end and the future belonged to liberal democracy, which—in a Hegelian sense—was the culmination of all human associations, and indeed, its very pinnacle. Fukuyama’s contention was problematic and in a short period it became widely apparent that liberal democracy faced severe challenges from within.
‘Storytelling is a simple make-believe but she has a knack for making her tales absolutely irresistible to young readers—her specific descriptions of food were the same. The specifics she mentioned are not elaborate—but opposite in fact—but the sheer pleasure she takes and everything from sardine sandwiches to cherry cake sings out of the pages,’ says Allegra.
Raminder Kaur and Saif Eqbal take on the mammoth task of analysing and categorizing the immense corpus of the north Indian vernacular superhero and adventure comics published by popular comic houses such as Indrajal, Raj Comics, and Manoj Comics.
2019
Professor CT Indra has, over a period of time, evolved as a committed translator, covering a wide range of genres that include plays, novels and short stories. Internal Colloquies, a translation of selected poems from Thangapandian’s Vanapechi is, by her own admission, Indra’s ‘maiden attempt’ at translating poetry.
Basanti, the protagonist of the novel is a misfit in conservative, pre-Independence rural Odisha not only because she reads and writes on her own choice, but also because she marries out of love a man not belonging to her own caste and in spite of confronting regular conflicts with her conservative mother-in law, manages to run a girls’ school in the village. Suppressing her liberated values, she sacrifices her life for the well-being of her new home ‘through sheer will power’
Two books translated by Haksar have been released in quick succession. They share something in common in that they both have been translated from Sanskrit into English. Otherwise they are different in perspective and context. One was Ritusamharam, reviewed recently* and the other is Three Hundred Verses, a translation of the famous Trishatakam by Bhartrihari.
2016
That’s the denouement of one of the characters of Mridula Garg’s new novel––she dances and dies. Ratnabai begins as a minor character, a household help in an upmarket middle class neighbourhood in New Delhi, in Vasu ka Kutum, and ends up with one of the most powerful scenes in the novel––performing the dance of death, more vigorous than Nataraj himself, as the author puts it.
At its most basic level–and it has many levels of engagement–the book under review is about Maithili folk songs as well as living and dying. Dev Nath Pathak tells us that the folksongs in Mithila he focuses on are mostly sung by women. And they tend to be associated with cyclical events, rites of passage, and quotidian situations of ordinary life.
Shakespeare and India…
Spirits in a Spice Jar by Sarina Kamini is a book about finding oneself, about reinterpreting faith and recording the poignant, emotive and deeply personal role which food can play in the life of an individual and a family. The autobiographical narrative is interspersed with traditional Kashmiri recipes but these are recipes tempered by the experiences and individuality of the protagonist.
To anyone who says vegetarian food is boring, offence taken! I’m not a vegetarian. I love meat, but raised by a vegetarian mother, I grew up with a healthy appreciation for vegetables and the various ways in which you can tease out their flavours. In most cases, leaving vegetables alone and using a light hand with spices and herbs does the trick.
There’s something dangerous about theatre. People pretend to be who they are not, in settings that are fake, and speak words that do not come from their own minds. It excites passions, both in the people performing, as well as in the people watching.
Picture postcards, i.e., cards that have pictures on them and can be sent by post, came late to India, probably only in 1896, years after their launch in Europe. However, millions of postcards showing views of India were sold in the years that followed, especially during their Golden Era, which lasted till around 1915.
The Central Board of Film Certification, popularly known as the Censor Board, requires the members of examining/revising committee to satisfy themselves that ‘pointless or avoidable scenes of violence, cruelty and horror are not shown’ in a film. Arguably, this official undesirability of horror in Indian cinema was complemented by the notoriety of the horror films and their status as ‘not quite cinema’.
In the age of Social Media and constantly Tweeting political leaders, the art of diplomacy seems like a quaint, bygone craft. The days when ambassadors were truly the only liaison with a foreign country, before technological advancement and the 24/7 news cycle resulted in a hyper connected world of instant communication, seem dinosaur years away.
Here is an example of a filmy situation where a simple logic resolves a complex situation: ‘Mantri: Ye kanch bulletproof hai tum mujhe chu bhi nahin sakte (This glass is bullet-proof. You can’t even touch me). Prabhuji thinks for a moment and then smiles: Ye kanch bulletproof hai magar patthhar proof nahin. (This glass is bullet-proof, but not stone-proof).
2018
Gautam Bhatia can very easily be misunderstood. The Delhi-based artist and architect’s discomfort with mediocrity in Indian architecture has been poured out through scathing critiques over the past decades. One could dismiss Bhatia as being cynical if not for his prolific inspired artistic and architectural output that counterbalance the despondency found in his literature.
Yashica Dutt’s compellingly gritty tale offers points of identification for probably scores of third or fourth generation Dalits today, who are ‘new’ arrivals in public/professional spaces, as well as those from other marginalized, minority communities. Her memoir is a conscious exercise in reminiscing and examining lives and events, personal and communitarian, including that of her own as a student, as a journalist, and, most germane to this narrative, as a Dalit.