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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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”’
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.