By Kazi Nazrul Islam. Translated from the original Bengali by Radha Chakravarty

It is unfortunate, but not totally surprising, therefore that some jealous people strove to create a rift between Islam and Tagore. In the poem ‘Kandari Hushiar’, which we have mentioned earlier, Islam used the word ‘khoon’ for blood. This was objected to by a number of writers associated with the magazine Shanibarer Chithi. In this context Tagore also critiqued Islam’s frequent use of Arabic and Persian words in Bengali poetry. He was deeply hurt and reacting to this controversy, wrote the essay, ‘Borar Piriti Balir Bandh’.


Reviewed by: Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee
By Gurcharan Das

Parents influence our thoughts and reactions—and actions—to a very large extent, perhaps much more than we realize, and their respective beliefs of what constitutes life which sometimes may be in conflict with each other, often define our life and enclose it in a figurative pair of parentheses. Although there can be no doubt as to their good intentions regarding their desire to see their child succeed in life, they may both not necessarily envisage the same sort of success. And neither of them might subscribe to the ideas that their child has about getting on in life, of embarking on their own quest,


Reviewed by: Malati Mathur
By Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’. Translated from the original Hindi by Gautam Choubey

The book begins with ‘Sukul’s Wife’, a story of vidrohi tevar (revolutionary zeal). While celebrating the idea of a choice marriage between an inter-faith couple, it is traversed by organized orthodoxy—there is much discussion on choti­—the tuft of hair epitomizing exalted caste, female autonomy, gastronomical preferences, the psyche of man-woman relationship, and so on.


Reviewed by: Umesh Kumar
By Vinod Bhardwaj. Translated from the original Hindi by Brij Sharma

The book reads like a collection of salacious and malicious gossip hung from the washline of a drab and nuanceless narrative voice to look like a novella and seductively titled as a ‘diary’. It is neither literary, nor anti-literary. The characters—artists, curators, gallery owners, critics, art dealers, models and maids—are cardboard figures. Only dogs and mice have some life and seem interesting.


Reviewed by: Rajesh Sharma
By Nanak Singh. Translated from the original Punjabi by Navdeep Suri

Satnam’s ideals are also shaken and tested by his response to the brutal reality he confronts almost daily and the tragic story of the young refugee Krishna and her old Babaji who have lost everyone in the carnage which erupted in Punjab in March 1947. Ironically however, it is Krishna’s views on communal amity and the teachings of the Tenth Guru to ‘recognize all of humanity as a single creed of mankind’, which pull him back from the path of retribution and vengeance.


Reviewed by: Ranjana Kaul
By Harekrishna Deka. Translated from the original Assamese by Navamalati Neog Chakraborty

In a similar vein, the text also serves to convey a merger of the canonical and kitsch: ‘My acquiescence to the belief of these innocent people in the hands of a divinity sending this book for their spiritual solace, got a rude jolt. What the priest believed to be a religious book was in fact a book of pornography!’ (p. 47; translator’s italics). By enacting such reversals, the novel emerges as a specimen of the postmodern critical enterprise that seeks to uncover the ways in which artefacts acquire cultural underpinnings.


Reviewed by: Ajitabh Hazarika