Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

This book belongs to the genre of Hajar Churashir Maa by Mahashweta Devi and Uttaradhikar-Kalabela-Kalapurush—trilogy by Samaresh Majumdar,

When, almost fifty years after the first daguerreotype arrived in Europe, George Eastman invented the small ‘brownie’ camera, he brought photography into homes worldwide.

The three books reviewed largely deal with the representation of history—partly (as in the first book) or exclusively (as in the other two books) through the medium of historical architecture.

Laila ke khutoot, literally meaning ‘Let- ters of Laila’, is the story of a prostitute, her perspectives on men and the idea of conjugal love revealed through the letters she wrote to one of her lovers.

Questioning the Muslim Woman by Nida Kirmani is a remarkable piece of work in which she tries to deconstruct the category ‘Muslim women’ through the narrative approach.

In many general and not particularly well- informed opinions on Islam there is an instinctive tendency to view it as hopelessly out of date and fossilized. Such opinions are often the product of hastily formulated media reportage.

This book draws one into the world of rekhti (Urdu) poetry in the late 18th and 19th centuries and brings to attention the ground issues of gender and sexuality in those times.

There is a reason why this book is called Degree Coffee by the Yard. With an interesting word play on ‘yard’, it automatically evokes one of the many sensibilities that create and sustain Chennai:

Lhasa,Tashkent, Gobi, Xian, Samarkand, Syr-Darya, Kashgar, Heaven Lake, Taklaman, Bukhara.