Sudhir Kapoor & Sunil Kapoor

The Peacock Feather is a collection of ten short stories by Sudhir and Sunil Kapoor, who inform us in the preface that they are monozygotic (identical) twins. They believe that monozygotic twins have a telepathic connection which has led them to this joint writing project wherein they have drawn from shared real life incidents ‘blending them , with some fictional and imaginary happenings to inculcate some twist, turns and morals in them’ (p. viii).


Reviewed by: Mala Pandurang
P.V. Pillai

The subtitle to this book explains the precise perspective, namely, an analy­sis of attitudes towards political power in the two countries between the seventh and second centuries B.C.This is clearly an ambitious undertak­ing, for it is easy enough to compare superficial similarities but more difficult to assess the historical mainsprings of particular patterns…


Reviewed by: Romila Thapar
Kalindi Charan Panigrahi

The theme of Matira Manisha (Born Of The Soil) by Kalindi Charan Panigrahi, was inspired by Gandhian thought and principles. Published in 1931, it is regarded as a modern Odia classic and one among a few seminal novels written in the first half of twentieth century Odisha. When one talks of Matira Manisha one is reminded of The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, also published in 1931.


Reviewed by: Manoj Kumar Jena
Kuppili Padma. Translated from the original Telugu by Alladi Uma

There is an old world charm about Kuppili Padma’s short stories collected in English translation as Salabhanjika And Other Stories. But, this oldness does not go back to the 50s or 60s. It takes time for the fact to register that there are no cell phones in her stories. A bit shocking when we discover also that there is no Facebook or Twitter or Messenger.


Reviewed by: Ravi Shanker N.
Uma Kaura

This book is one among a number of recent publications dealing with various aspects of the origin and development of Muslim communal politics during the national movement. Many of these—for example, Sheila Sen’s work on Bengal, A.K. Gupta’s book on the N.W.F.P and Francis Robinson’s…


Reviewed by: Shri Prakash
Ambikasutan Mangad

In its skeletal form Swarga is the story of an environmental crime that occurred in Kerala; an account based on the author Mangad’s observations. It is a true story of the horrors inflicted on the environment by the official use of endosulfan—a banned insecticide and acaricide—that was sprayed to destroy the ‘tea-mosquito’ a nonexistent pest that supposedly destroyed plants. The real reason was that endosulphan was beneficial to the growth of Kerala’s lush cashew plantations, all of them owned by the higher echelons of society.


Reviewed by: Meera Rajagopalan