By Sathya Achiya and Janan Abir

Technology and tradition unite in this picture book to inspire confidence in a little girl. Priya lives in the western world but is ethnically a Kodava from Kodagu in the lush rainforests of the Western Ghats. She has a dance recital coming and will perform as a ‘jungle dancer’ thanking


Editorial

The range of books on music reviewed brings into question the category of music itself, for it is difficult to define music in singular ways. Grappling the plurality of music has generated a range of approaches. The hermetic field of musicology has had to shed its exclusivity. Gone are the days when it was thought that the proper study of music and music criticism should address classical music only.


Editorial
By Patrick Olivelle

Many in India and worldwide make the language itself an object of study. Linguists study its grammar and syntax within the context of historical linguistics. Indeed, linguistics as a discipline owes its origin to the European discovery of Sanskrit in the 18th century and its family relationship to most European languages. Some study it for its beauty, its aesthetic qualities. Sanskrit poetry and plays have been read and studied in the same way that we read the works of the English poet William Shakespeare, the French novelist Victor Hugo, or the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Yet, for many of us who are primarily historians, Sanskrit opens the door to messages from the distant past in the form of texts and inscriptions


Editorial

Words have the unique ability to transcend time, space and geographies—with the written word especially; this was evident at a recent exhibition held at the India International Centre, New Delhi, titled ‘Evam Vadati Pustakam:So Says the Book’ to showcase select manuscripts from South Asia covering a rich and varied field.


Editorial

A delightful if apocryphal story involves the legendary Hindustani vocalist Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan switching off the radio halfway through a Lata Mangeshkar broadcast, muttering to himself ‘Kambakht ladki besur hoti hi nahin hai!’ (The accursed girl doesn’t strike a single false note anywhere!). This facile technical perfection was in a sense deceptive. It…


Editorial