Samaresh Bose (Kalkut)

The Kumbh-mela is one of the major Hindu religious pilgrimages and festivals. It is celebrated in a cycle of approximately twelve years, to commemorate every revolution Brihaspati (Jupiter) completes, at four river-bank pilgrimage sites across India: Prayagraj or Allahabad (at the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati), Haridwar (Ganges), Nashik (Godavari) and Ujjain (Shipra). The mythological story goes that after the churning of the ocean, the gods found the nectar for immortality


Reviewed by: Somdatta Mandal
Debarati Mukhopadhyay

Happily, over the last few years there has been a boom in English translations of Indian language literatures. Among other publishers, HarperCollins India has been bringing out interesting books from different regions of India, focusing on contemporary fiction in various Indian languages.  Chronicles of the Lost Daughters, a translation of Debarati Mukhopadhyay’s Bengali novel Narach, is part of this exciting exercise. In the hands of Arunava Sinha, one of our best translators, this critique of 19th century Bengal comes alive in English as a gripping, engrossing text.


Reviewed by: Antara Dev Sen
Ivy Imogene Hansdak

The Prism of Life is a collection of poems in English by Ivy Imogene Hansdak, published by Writers’ Workshop in 2022. Having completed her higher education from Jawaharlal Nehru University, she currently teaches English in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. In the poetry collection under review, the poet reflects upon the various shades of life and in doing so, aims to connect with the readers, which is evident in the beginning where she dedicates the book to ‘all those who have walked like me through the many shades of life’.


Reviewed by: Kanu Priya
Shilpa Gupta and Salil Tripathi

Shilpa Gupta’s sound installation, For, in Your Tongue, I Cannot Fit, is a result of years long research on persecuted poets across time and geographies. It was first shown in 2018 at the Edinburgh Art Festival and Yarat Contemporary Art Space. There are over a hundred microphones suspended from the ceiling and an audio loop of snippets of poems is played; the book is a result of that powerful endeavour undertaken a few years ago.


Reviewed by: Semeen Ali
Tarana Husain Khan

That the faculty of taste is fundamental to meaning making practices is now a commonplace idea. For instance, some food items make us salivate in desire, the consumption of which brings pleasure. On the other hand, we turn away from food that disgusts us, often refusing to ingest it. However, desire and disgust are only some of the feelings that arise upon an engagement with food.


Reviewed by: Sakshi Dogra
Sonal Chowdhary and Dr Asghar

In The Ayurvedic Kitchen, Sonal Chowdhary and Dr Asghar discuss how Ayurveda approaches food, rather well-being. They emphasize the practical aspects by giving actual recipes. Our ancients looked at systems holistically and approached problems with combination solutions, not single molecules to target a single issue.The book builds up these concepts: the need to recognize the body type of each individual—is it the prakriti vata, pitta, kapha, or a combination?


Reviewed by: Anju Virmani