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Nathaniel Edward Kindersley (1763-1831), employed by the East Indian Company’s civil service at Madras, promoted to be the collector of South Arcot later, made a small but significant contribution to Tamil studies by translating certain sections of Thirukkural, presenting it as secular literature, and the story of Nalan with explanatory notes;

In their Foreword, Thamizhacchi Thangapandian states there is no fullness in the writings by men because they don’t have subtlety in showing the pain, agony and mental stress of women while Jayanthi Shankar calls for a similar record in all languages to show how feminism has evolved as a philosophy.

Another important aspect weaved into the novel is of the skewed gender relations between the mother and father. Gender stereotypes are highlighted as the narrator’s father talks sharply with the mother, makes fun of her family and has a sense of entitlement when it comes to her brother. Amma too would scream at him and is suspicious of his generous attitude especially with respect to women—‘He never told her anything about the rice mill, to whom he had given a loan, from whom he had borrowed—nothing…Just as he never told her what he was doing, he did not ask her what she was doing.’

The poor, itinerant lives of the bards are a literal metaphor for the intimacy and alienation that characterizes human lives, of especially those who are dependent on others for their own survival. For Kolumban’s family, the conflict between sharing a life of poverty with loved ones and leading a lonely life of relative comfort in a foreign land is partially resolved by their passing intimacies with other communities they encounter on their journey.

The title story, ‘The Phantom’s Howl’ is in a different sub-genre of ghostly tales. In the trope of a lost traveller being given night shelter in a haunted mansion, certain hair-raising details may be expected but here the violence is blood curdling and almost kills the protagonist. The savage ghouls, denied rightful revenge, continue their search for victims and some living beings succumb to their macabre attack.

Sandipan’s roots reach into the avant-garde, cultural-literary Hungryalist Movement of Bengal initiated in the early decades of the 1960s. This was a distinct impetus to uproot conventional ways of looking at themes, especially those of love and desire. The opening story, ‘With Ruby in Diamond Harbour’, engages with Arun’s extra-marital affair summarized by himself for his wife, Ranu, whose face turns ‘pale as a seashell’, her expression frozen. Yet the one-night stint happens thereafter and ‘Ruby keeps talking.

The most common thread in this collection is of the highly suspicious nature of men regarding their wives or girlfriends, of whom they are never sure, sometimes rightfully, many times because of their lack of confidence in their own attractiveness. ‘Yet Again’, ‘Chance’ and ‘God’s Good Man’ are three such illustrative stories. Destroying domestic harmony, fragile male ego plays havoc in couples’ relationships. ‘You have poison in your gaze,’ (p. 17) aptly summarizes Leena, the wife in ‘Yet Again’.

It is daunting to tell a multilayered story through the thinly disguised characters drawn from a middle-class family headed by an avowed patriarch of his time, Ram Mohan, who is essentially a man of consequence. In the mid-seventies, India was rocked by issues such as popular unrest in Gujarat, the JP Movement, the imposition of Emergency, the defeat of Indira Gandhi, Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the spurt in caste policies and the emergence of Kanshi Ram, and the bloodstained agitation for reservation. They created an air of unease, desperation, moral outrage and reprobation.

At the centre of Oberoi’s novel is the voice of a dead young mother, for the most part housed on an old torn suitcase in a dusty little storeroom containing cupboards full of her now unused things: fine saris, jewellery, knickknacks and baby clothes. Her narration of small events, tidbits about her two adorable daughters’ infancy and childhood is interrupted by mournful visits from the now grown-up elder daughter whose grief is compounded by a falling out with her younger sister.

The identity of the blacks and the browns on the Matilda is distinctly diasporic West African. The women on the lower deck whisper about Juju, and Aster’s friend, Giselle, sharply asks her as she writes down a list if it is juju. Juju, a form of spiritual power in African belief systems, often involving the mediation of spirits, ancestors or deities, was an integral part of the lives of enslaved Africans.

One section is devoted to the fascinating tale of the origin of Death (not ‘Evil’ as Doniger writes; from Shanti Parva section 238, not 283). Mrityu—Death is a woman, clad in black-and-red cloth formed from Brahma’s fury to lighten the over-populated earth, who obdurately refuses to kill. Her tears of misery become diseases that kill. There is an equally interesting tale about what sets a king apart from other humans.

The novel is divided into four parts, titled ‘Headwaters’, ‘Confluences’, ‘Rapids’ and ‘Delta’. The fated manoeuvres of the river become the signposts which structure this retelling in a way that signals the evolution of Ganga from a vociferous cosmic river to a fluid sense of being mortal, as she navigates Shantanu’s affection, the drowning of her children, the coming of Satyavati and the reluctant survival of Bhishma, who ended up pledging lifelong celibacy. Ganga feels, for the first time,

In the chapter ‘The Cry of the Oppressed’, the author recreates and reconstructs the scenes, the milieu and the ethos of Benegal’s films with great precision and felicity. The reader feels like watching a movie of the quintessential director, who indisputably occupies a unique position in the film industry of the country.

I dipped into the book with some hesitation, not because the book—designed also by Chaudhuri—is in any way intimidating or uninviting, but because its Foreword is written by her husband, Sanjeeb Chaudhuri—a choice that seems oddly hagiographic. Sanjeeb Chaudhuri is the chairman of IDFC First Bank and while banking, investment and art are bedfellows, especially in the first world, the reader must decide why his voice here is important.

Pathak admits that this book is an attempt to engage readers in a discussion about methodology by not reducing it to mere techniques, methods, tools and deliberations on the types of research. The aim is to address methodology for what it is—a discursive realm entailing myriad ways of seeing. In this, he makes room for the possibility of skewed vision, partial understanding, inclusion and exclusion, and pride and prejudices as he argues that this discursive realm should not rest on proving the already proven.

Rao asserts that a research institution must focus on enduring societal concerns such as governance and public welfare rather than shifting with the tides of funding. It should be fortified by extensive data repositories, skilled teams, and rigorous analytical tools. A strong field network, ethical review boards, and a culture of continuous methodological refinement further ensure its credibility.

In his substantial and in-depth Introduction, Professor Trivedi has explained with clarity and precision the overlap and differences between History and Literature, and has laid before us ‘the Mill-Macaulay-Macdonell Mockery’ that had such a debilitating effect on indigenous scholarship in this area. Almost all the essayists praise the grand achievement of Sisir Kumar Das, who created his own model for Indian Literary Historiography with the two volumes, A History of Indian Literature:
Volume VIII 1800-1910: Western Impact: Indian Response, New Delhi

Meena Pillai’s book, Translating Kerala, attempts to trace the traditions of translation in Malayalam with reference to their role in shaping new social imageries and literary practices. Though translation has a long history in Malayalam dating back to the 14th century, her focus is on the trends from early twentieth century onwards.

What gives the book its cutting edge, however, is the well-thought-out interpretative perspective that considers the subject of Odia literary modernity from multiple standpoints, thus providing a polyphonic picture of the phenomenon. The fact that the book is done in English redounds further to its credit, for this enables the local story to take its place under the sun and alongside other publicized stories of modernity in the Indian bhashas. Together these stories add up to a narrative totality of Indian literature in its diverse bhasha output.

The most prominent identification of Gagan Gill’s writings by commentators has been her Buddhist belief system. Several essays have engaged with this aspect of her writing commenting on her spirituality, her philosophical bent of mind and her meditative approach to the world. Radhavallabh Tripathi identifies the foundations of Gill’s writings to be the Buddhist principles of acceptance of suffering, searching the reasons for suffering, tearing off the illusion of craving and the concept of impermanence of the world. He notes that she belongs to the long intellectual tradition in India that after Buddha centres on suffering.