Qaisra Shahraz

Typhoon is the story of three women with different backgrounds, though connected by the manner in which past plays a critical part in their lives. Naghmana is a glamorous woman from the city, Chaudhrani Kaniz, a land baron based in a village, and Gulshan, an innocent homemaker.


Reviewed by: Syeda Naghma Abidi
Aditya Sudarshan

Many years ago I was on a highway driving happily towards a friend’s house for dinner. Well into the trip I realized that I failed to come across any of the landmarks cited by my friend. When the friend called to enquire how I was coming along, I told him that I had good news and bad news. The good news was that I was making very good time, and the bad news was that I was horribly lost.


Reviewed by: Murali Iyengar
Shakeei Hossain

The book under review catalogues the exhibition with the same title held in 2013 in New Delhi, Rampur and Lucknow. This beautifully illustrated book brings together the rich diversity within Amir Khusrau’s work which is seminal in creating a sense of urban heritage.


Reviewed by: Semeen Ali
Rabindranath Tagore
..
2015

It is said that Rabindranath Tagore had himself remarked that his play Chirakumar Sabha could never be translated. According to him, audiences could misinterpret the relationships presented in the translated play.


Reviewed by: Sayan Supratim Das
Mamang Dai

Mamang Dai’s recent novel The Black Hill is fascinating. Written in the genre of historical novel, it is an account set in the middle of the nineteenth century among the Himalayan societies of present day Arunachal Pradesh.


Reviewed by: Manjeet Baruah
Kalyan Ray

‘And I quit life as I would an inn, not a home, for nature has given us lodging for a sojourn, not a permanent residence’. (Cicero) No Country, Part III, ‘Brendan: “Rose of Erin”’


Reviewed by: Priyanka Bhattacharyya
K.R. Meera

I kept the company of Hangwoman, a novel by K.R. Meera for more than two months, leaving it from time to time to attend to more worldly duties.


Reviewed by: Apoorvanand
Ziya Us Salam

The subject of films has been approached from the perspective of stars, auteurs and spectators. At other times the collaborative nature of the cinema is emphasized by bringing in the contribution, or noise, of other players which include, among others, story writers, lyricists, music directors, cameramen, fight masters, choreographers and even minor actors.


Reviewed by: Mohammad Asim Siddiqui
Madelaine Healey

Indian Sisters: A History of Nursing and the State, 1907–2007 is a comprehensive inquiry into, and, an analysis of the attractions and challenges of the nursing profession as it evolved in India over a century.


Reviewed by: Dhrub Kumar Singh
Suhas Palshikar

The two books under discussion here analyse the fifteenth (2009) and sixteenth (2014) general elections in India, and provide an insight that beyond the shifts in voting preferences, how preferences of the Indian citizens as well as the policy allurements given by parties and leaders transform both the power structure and institutions as well as political processes in the country.


Reviewed by: Ajay K. Mehra
Jyotirmaya Tripathy

The world today is probably far more complex than ever before. Several waves of global migration of populations have reshaped or altered ethnic composition and cultural make up of nationstates. In effect, many mono-cultural nation states have turned multicultural, multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic and multi-religious.


Reviewed by: Mohd. Sanjeer Alam
Joy L.K. Pachuau

The book under review examines the exclusion of Mizo in the national discourse of ‘diversity’ not only perpetuates their marginalization but also the creation of their identity in their own unique ways through vernacular Christianity and practices relating to death in a veng or locality.


Reviewed by: Maria L. Sailo
Veena Das

This is a book about how anthropologists seek to make sense of the social worlds they choose to understand. And then how they engage with philosophy, if they do at all. Not by looking up to philosophy as providing some kind of an overarching theory about ‘life’ or to anthropology’s claim to address the particularities of everyday life. Rather, the remarkable contribution this book seeks to make lies in Veena Das’s assertion that the ‘philosophical puzzles’ that philosophers like Stanley Cavell…


Reviewed by: Meenakshi Thapan
Akira Shimada

The site of Amaravati in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh has attracted a great deal of scholarly interest for over two centuries. The stupa that once stood here was among the oldest and most splendid in the subcontinent. Its structural remains and inscriptions constitute important sources for the early history of Buddhism and its exquisite limestone relief sculptures are considered masterpieces.


Reviewed by: Upinder Singh
Santanu Das

2014–15 is the centenary of the commencement of the commitment of India’s unsung heroes to one of the world’s greatest human tragedies—the First World War. A number of books have been published and a few high profile events have been conducted at India’s national capital to mark the event, principal among them being the efforts of the British High Commission, the United Service Institution and the Indian Army.


Reviewed by: Syed Ata Hasnain
Nandini Sundar

The book originated at a workshop in Delhi University’s Department of Sociology in 2010. Consequently it helps fill a gap in writings on internal security that are usually security related and state centric at that. The development perspective relying on human security and peace studies on conflict resolution frameworks are fast emerging as strong competitors.


Reviewed by: Ali Ahmed
justin Jones

The book under review brings together a selection of papers first presented at the conference ‘Contesting Shi’ism: Isna ‘Ashari and Ismai’li Shi’ism in South Asia’ held at Royal Holloway, University of London, in September, 2011.


Reviewed by: Amit Dey