Madhavi Menon

Menon covers an array of issues revolving around the idea of ‘desire’ through the paradigms of sexuality(s), politics, culture, and so on. Looking at how Indian law shapes our understanding and limits of desire and how desire has had a similar relationship with the law, creating normative and descriptive imperatives, she backs up almost every claim she makes by factual data in case law, historical evidence, or academic works, over the course of six chapters.  


Reviewed by: Anuraj Singh
Zarina Bhatty

A Portrait of Ageing is a collection of essays that are poignant ruminations on the process of ageing. Through narratives about one’s experience with ageing and stories about seeing loved ones getting old, these essays tenderly address the vulnerabilities of losing youth and approaching the evening of life. The essays are a call to acknowledge the frailty associated with losing physical vigour and a strong voice to accord dignity and not invisiblize the old in our society.


Reviewed by: Shazia Salam
Souvik Naha

Indian society is characterized by immense diversity, a fact which the public and scholars of all hues have never failed to acknowledge and remind us. This claim is undeniably true but what needs reminding too is the other parallel fact of unity. Among the various structural and socio-cultural traits which Indians across cultures, castes, classes and creeds share, it is the love for sport and in particular cricket which stands out.


Reviewed by: Nabanipa Bhattacharjee
Vinay Lal

In this age of the image, given that the use of the visual in academia has not been the norm, it is interesting to know how established scholars came to appreciate that there is now space for images. Well-known historian Vinay Lal’s thirty-year teaching experience in the US led him to believe that ‘the printed text is but a foreign object to most students.


Reviewed by: Malavika Karlekar
Nishat Zaidi and Indrani Das Gupta

Ever since his emergence on the political canvas in the early decades of the twentieth century, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), Father of the Indian Nation, has dominated politico-philosophical ideas and socio-cultural formations across space and time. Gandhi had become a legend in his own lifetime


Reviewed by: Somdatta Mandal
Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis

Dancing peacocks, sinuous Kalpavriksha Trees of Life laden with fantastical flowers, fruits and birds…We Indian textile buffs have all feasted our eyes, either in person or in books, on the fabulous painted and printed chintz textiles that were produced on the Coromandel coast in India and their embroidered counterparts for the English and European market during the 17th and 18th century.


Reviewed by: Laila Tyabji