by Iffat Fatima and Syeda Saidain Hameed

Khwaja Ahmed Abbas donned many hats in his lifetime which includes writing poetry, short stories, novels and making films. For the uninitiated, K.A. Abbas was an active member of PWA and one of the founding members of IPTA. With the corpus of 74 books, 40 films, 89 short stories and 3,000 or so from his column writings, Abbas Sahab’s writings constitute a treasure-trove of information on the evolution of the idea of India. At the time of writing one of his last columns for the Blitz, Abbas Sahab makes an important observation about the then budding journalist P. Sainath—the proof of his astute reading of the media in general and politics in particular.


Reviewed by: Moggallan Bharti
By Shafey Kidwai

Shafey Kidwai’s book is true to its title and it delivers what it promises. The chapters in this book may have been written over a long period of time but probably the book was waiting for a time when the distinction between literature and nonliterature (read journalism) is not so sharp. A different context would make earlier journalistic writings appear as literature. How do we read the essays of Addison, Matthew Arnold or Sir Syed Ahmad Khan today if not as literature? The two components of the book, literature and journalism, are defined by their textuality, a major point of debate in critical theory today.


Reviewed by: Mohammad Asim Siddiqu
Rajen Harshe

The  Gypsy in the World of Ideas by Rajen Harshe is a successful attempt at addressing the issues of Indian society, politics, intellectual history and institutions through the perspective that developed consequent upon Harshe’s longstanding experiences as an academician and institution builder. We can find here idea and praxis mixed together creating thoughtful reading for the readers. Breaking the conventional formats it ardently depends on the use of metaphors and poetic symbols.


Reviewed by: Badri Narayan
By Rajib Dasgupta

Let me introduce the book to the readers with an anecdote concerning the subject matter of the book. I joined as a medical undergraduate student at the Delhi’s University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) in 1986, which by that time had shifted just adjacent to Shahdara in eastern Delhi, within the newly constructed campus of Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital (GTB). Having passed through the humdrum of Shahdara or other crowded and maddeningly chaotic localities of East Delhi to reach the GTB campus, its spacious locale and high rise buildings of the campus were bound to make an impression on any visitor.


Reviewed by: Vikas Bajpai
Amartya Sen

This is a recent offering by Amartya Sen, who currently teaches economics and philosophy at Harvard University. He was earlier Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and is a Nobel prize winner.The book contains 13 essays, selected and organized by the editors of The Little Magazine, (TLM) who have resisted the urge to make them ‘contemporary’. They are presented in a chronological manner, covering the broad fields of culture, society and policy. An intimately warm, yet gently provocative, foreword by Gopalkrishna


Reviewed by: T.C.A. Ranganathan
By Bianca Brijnath

Unforgotten is the product of Bianca Brijnath’s doctoral research at Monash University. It can be considered as a significant contribution to anthropological literature on ageing, dementia and its care in India. Though her research is limited to urban middle class (which she acknowledges as a limitation), it is truly revealing in terms of the confined participants and their lived experience with dementia and sevâ. Sevâ a concept which Brijnath explores in all its forms and layers as care work is shaped in everyday family life centred on cooking, feeding and eating; in doctor shopping and looking for an ilâj or cure; and bearing the attended expenses.


Reviewed by: Anindya Das