On the first page of City of Fear the author enquires, ‘Exactly what did Octavio Paz mean when he said, “We are condemned to kill time, so we die little by little”’. He never finds the answer even when an earthquake strikes and blood-thirsty mobs surround him.
Home Products, Amitava Kumar’s first novel, is a story of two stories, the story that the words on a page tell us and the other, often more interesting one, the story about the story; that is the way it reaches its readers, the traces of its scaffolding visible, made visible on purpose by the writer who almost in a late modernist gesture, takes us to that great workshop, the writer’s mind, his table and on it, an open exhibition of his wares.
With an opening reminiscent of the famous scene in Wuthering Heights where a ghost puts its icy hand through the window to the accompaniment of the howl of a hard-blowing winter wind, Brinda Charry’s novel grips you from line one:
Why do we read fiction? Because we want to learn more about our- selves; because we enjoy being with people the likes of whom have inhabited this world, past and present, and with whom we can, to a certain extent, identify.
Tradition holds Kalidasa to be number one while some may contest this honour for Bhavabhuti or Bhasa. But, asked to name the four best dramatists of Sanskrit literature, most knowledgeable readers would doubtless complete the list with Sudraka, an adaptation of whose work is the subject of this review.
It is with such a sense of gratitude that one picks up A.N.D. Haksar’s latest translation titled Subhashitavali. Haksar has offered such treats before, with the last one being the enjoyable rendering of the popular tale of Madhav and Kama.
Whom to Tell My Tale is K.S. Duggal’sautobiography. When in 1985, Duggal published this autobio- graphy in Punjabi (Kis Peh Kholon Ganthdi) it was appreciated in a comparative way, because Amrita Pritam’s, Sant Singh Sekhon’s and Ajit Kaur’s autobiographies had already created a discussion about the genric developments.
Evocative, esoteric and enchanting. Amrita Imroz—A Love Story is more than what the title suggests—is a love story with a difference. A slim volume, the book is reminiscent of Erich Segal’s one-time best-seller The Love Story both in terms of the name and size. But the similarity ends there.
The enigmatic title of this book is taken from a beautiful verse that best reflects the spiritual and humanist vision of the Adi Granth, the holy book of the Sikhs. Na ko bairi nahi bigana, sagal sangh ham ko ban ayee.
The question of identity of different religions, minorities, regions are becoming more and more complex and contentious in the contemporary world. Political, social, economic relations of mino-rities and religious groups vis-á-vis the majority is always strenuous specially if the grievances are nurtured over time and have varied hues.
Friends and admirers of Indu Banga have come together to offer her a ‘bouquet’ of scholarly articles as a homage for her contribution to the history of India and the history of Punjab. Reeta Grewal and Sheena Pall in 2005 published these articles in two volumes.
History has morphed enormously from a mere reconstruction of battles and icons into a social science with multi-dimensional tropes, so historians are in the pursuit of a specific trope which eventually becomes their area of expertise.
I bring from the East what is practically an unknown religion’. This is what Max Arthur Macauliffe wrote in his Preface to The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors, first published in 1909. While the Sikhs and their religion are no longer unknown as a result of worldwide dispersal of the Sikh community and the distinct markers of identity that they carry with them,
Dhadhi parampara, according to Nijhawan, is ‘a tradition or genre of bardic performance that constitutes one of the extant forms of oral epic performance in South Asia. The contents of dhadhi song and narrative are mostly heroic tales of legendary and historical figures’.