There is a photograph of Romila Thapar smiling that you see as you open the book. She is sitting at the entrance of a cave site in Maijishan in China and it was taken when she was a twenty-six year old postgraduate student. Most of her reading public and scores of her students…
When a pioneer of the women’s movement in India opens up the window box of her memories, one can expect some startling revelations and some valuable historical perspectives. Devaki Jain delivers on both counts, making this candid and charming book an inspiration for its readers…
Why I am not a Hindu Woman is Wandana Sonalkar’s autobiographical reflections on Hinduism as a religion, as an upper-caste Marxist feminist, and in the context of India’s socio-political journey in the last seventy three years, particularly in the shadow of Hindutva majoritarian politics…
These lines of John Donne may sound hyperbolic to the modern reader. However, they define like no other lyrics can the enchanting love-story of Krishna Paul and the celebrated writer Joginder Paul. A story narrated through conversations between Krishna Paul and Chandana Dutta…
‘A definitive biography’ is how author Ira Mukhoty introduces her work…
Instead of newspapers, books, journals and pamphlets that documented the development of the Swadeshi movement in Bengal during the first decade of the twentieth century, can the idea of nation or nationhood be interpreted through the intricacies of performative mechanisms?…
This book is about nationalism, a phenomenon that, as Tharoor points out, emerged on the world stage as recently as the mid nineteenth century, but has proven to be an enormously potent political force. When the power of a ruler was no longer enough to hold a territory together..
In the year 1974, when the womenfolk and children of village Reni, under the leadership of the gutsy Gaura Devi were chasing away labour contractors and their crony forest officials bent upon felling trees for commercial exploitation, writing perhaps the most glorious chapter in the history …
Studies on tribes range from colonial misrepresentation to critical processes of identity formulation against forces of dispossession. The most recent trend, however, is that of self-representation and search for adivasi epistemology[1]. Though tribes of India are no longer considered a stagnant community…
Havan, the English translation of the novel by Mallikarjun Hiremath, is a well-told story. Mostly linear, the novel does veer off this track occasionally, to recall stories of ancestors, or perhaps to narrate a lore. In the Author’s Note, Hiremath speaks of his attraction to the Lambada tribe from his childhood…
Rumble in a Village is an entertaining addition to literary representations of twentieth century rural India. In some ways reminiscent of Sri Lal Shukla’s Raag Darbari, this novel is a collaborative effort of the Belgian born Indian economist Jean Drèze, and his friend and writer Luc Leruth…
Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.- Italo Calvino, Invisible CitiesDo the cities with their sensorial excesses of sights, sounds, smell, and touch shape the way writers experience their quotidian lives or do the bodily experiences of writers as inhabitants…
The Courage to Exist: A Philosophy of Life and Death in the Age of Coronavirus was published in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The book suggests that the pandemic has lain bare the limitations of modern socio-political institutions as well as those of modern technology and science in protecting the lives and securing the well-being of human beings…
A real translation is transparent; it does not cover the original, does not block its light, but allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully. (Benjamin, The Task of The Translator 162)Distinguished writer, editor, memoirist, and translator, Poonam Saxena, wears many hats with élan. Besides launching Hindustan Times’s Sunday magazine, Brunch, her distinguished writing…
‘People put birds in cages for their own amusement. Well, I was like a caged bird. And I would have to remain in this cage for life. I would never be freed.’This quote is from Rassundari Devi’s autobiography, Amar Jiban. Written in 1876, this book is considered the first autobiography written by a Bengali woman. I mention this book because of the echoes that one finds occasionally…
A late bloomer, the Indian novel at the turn of the nineteenth century was a form in transition. As it started to edge away from the dominant themes of romance and domestic bliss, it became both socially engaged and self-conscious. Interestingly, these two divergent trends…
For detective fiction lovers September 2020 was a month of exceptional anticipation. Robert Galbraith a.k.a. Joan K Rowling was scheduled to launch the fifth novel in the Strike series. Given her outstanding reputation, the Troubled Blood predictably grabbed the headlines and quickly made it to the top of bestseller lists across the world…
The patient pulls out his/ her reports, and there are the problems: the blood sugars are high, the blood pressure readings are high, the obesity is worsening, and oh, the cholesterol level is high too. The worry about kidney failure and blindness is topped with the sad, frustrated plea, ‘have stopped eating sugar and sweet things…
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a grave illness, if not diagnosed and treated early in life. It is a form of chronic anxiety, where a person has recurrent disruptive thoughts (obsessions), which result in repetitive behaviour (compulsions), anxiety about thoughts or rituals, over which he/she has little control…
The last decade has seen a meteoric rise of technology companies especially in the context of market gains and economic growth1. The top five publicly listed technology giants (as per the NYSE) are Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (now Alphabet)…
Still a child at 66, I was thrilled to get my hands on this beautiful book and sorely tempted to get the crayons on to it. Its large size made it easy to hold and the paper, including the flexible but tough cover material, most suitable for fingers, little or gnarled…
