By Namrata Chaturvedi

An ordained sister in a nun’s habit, she was seen going for lessons in Hindustani music to Ustad Latafat Husain Khan, who was from the Agra Gharana of Hindustani classical music. Her Ustad had composed many poetic pieces (bandishes) under the pseudonym ‘Premdas’. In her own words, it was music that became her main means of entering into meditation. Vandana Mataji also wore saffron robes and maintained that she was a Christian. Through Vandana Mataji’s story, Chaturvedi notes that one can be born Zoroastrian, become Christian and practice Hindu sannyasa and nama japa.


Reviewed by: Juanita Kakoty
Translated by Maria Heim

As such, Milindapanho is historically significant as evidence of vibrant inter-civilizational exchange in the ancient world, albeit historians are still uncertain as to the historicity of this particular event. For Buddhists, of course, the conversion of an initially sceptical Menander/Milinda into a committed Buddhist by the end of the dialogue serves as an example of the rigour and refinement of the Buddhist philosophical understanding of the nature of reality.


Reviewed by: Maya Joshi
A Retelling by Meena Arora Nayak

Nayak rightly says that ‘Those of us who grew up listening to or reading Vikram and Vetal stories have a mental image of the Vetal. For some of us, that image derives from the popular television series, Vikram aur Betaal that aired on Doordarshan in 1985-86. In this series the Vetal is shown as an old man with scraggly white hair and an evil grin under a long witchy nose, riding on Vikram’s muscular back.’ (Not to mention the orange-red lipstick that the Betaal wore!) Nayak calls the Vetal a shapeshifter and so could be defined in many ways, however, she draws a close association between the Vetal and the ‘shadowy ghoulish creatures such as bhutas, pretas and pishachas. The former two are spectral remains of people who have died….


Reviewed by: Sudhamahi Regunathan
By Anamika

The opening section sets the tone for this method as, through Saroj, the novel returns to the domestic and emotional underside of literary reputation. Nirala appears not as a monument but as a man caught in affection, loss, poverty, and eccentricity. The section on Miraben and Kasturba Gandhi complicates the familiar Gandhian moral grammar. Anamika highlights the complex relationship between the two women, shaped in part by Gandhi’s controversial experiments with celibacy and the public scrutiny surrounding his closeness to Miraben. Without reducing the relationship to scandal or sentiment, the novel quietly raises questions about how public perception may have influenced the emotional dynamic between the two women. Anamika approaches these relationships with restraint and psychological nuance.


Reviewed by: Tarika
By Rajkamal Choudhary. Translated from the original Hindi by Mahua Sen

Later, after her death, she seems to carry the legacy of sexual promiscuity and is a prime example of how a woman’s reputation is shaped, created and navigated in a man’s world. Her daughter, Priya, comes to terms with her own sexuality and sexual identity much later, but strangely when sexually assaulted, the act of violence is deemed to be a necessity to ‘make her a normal straight woman again’ (p. 156). One must read this in the context of the social fabric of the 1960s but also realize that such prejudice and ignorance about gender roles and sexuality are prevalent to this day.


Reviewed by: Sayan Aich Bhowmik
Edited by Hmingthanzuali and Mary Vanlalthanpuii

The first few essays focus on women’s fashion in Mizoram, early Mizo songs, the gender imbalance in the production and consumption of food, folklore and trailblazing women such as Nuchhungi Renthlei who became the first Mizo to document Mizo folktales in the Serkawn Graded Readers, a reader that has enabled young schoolgoers to become familiar with their own cultural past. The pursuit of this cultural materialist approach is indicative of a growing interest amongst Mizo scholars in both tracing shifts in their culture and understanding how these changes have shaped their identity or influenced their relationship with tradition.


Reviewed by: Shibani Phukan