At the outset, let me admit I enjoyed reading the book: it makes for a pleasant change from the weakly researched but pretentious High-Church-academic treatises on music it has been my lot to review recently. Much of its content conveys the impression of being honestly felt, which makes even its many shortcomings relatable. That said, it is not an easy book to categorize.
The edited volume makes a significant intervention in the hitherto extant discourse on tribal/Adivasi literary studies in India. As Prem Kumari Srivastava states in her introduction, ‘this book debates and discusses tribal literatures and oral expressions that have long been surrounded by silences, even though they embrace us all the time’ (p. xiii). The contributors to the book make it a point to unfold these silences, probing the narratives of pain, deprivation and dispossession that lie therein. Srivastava highlights the theme and tenor of the book in the introduction asserting that the tribal writings symbolize a revolutionary spirit against the established culture.
As the title suggests, this work is a popular encyclopaedia, which attempts to compile narratives on ghosts, demons, and monsters from the Indian subcontinent. Edited by J Furcifer Bhairav and Rakesh Khanna, this book excavates the ‘spooky’ stories of mythical, tribal and contemporary origins. It constitutes 332 entries with multiple sub-entries, and its lucid writing style is supported by detailed illustrations, inviting a wide range of readership. A significant contribution of this work lies in tracing the micro and macro tales from Assam to the Konkan coast, Kashmir to Odisha, and Tibet to Lakshadweep.
Allahabad has had its share of books. From literary anthologies to histories to the fascination with the Kumbh Mela, this city, where the rivers meet has attracted the attention of insiders as well as outsiders. Huien Tsang, the Chinese chronicler, writes that he visited Prayaga now officially called Prayagraj in 643 AD, during Harshvardhana’s reign.
Craig Storti’s ambitious book is a unique addition to the sagging shelves of literature on the world’s most famous mountain. Where most Everest books begin with the exploratory expedition to the peak in 1921, Storti’s story spans the seven or so decades before that pioneering venture.Mountaineering lore holds that Radhanath Sickdhar (sic), a ‘computor’—as number-crunchers were known in those days—working for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, burst into the room of his boss one day in 1852 exclaiming: ‘Sir, I have discovered the highest mountain in the world.’ What was visible from Darjeeling as a mere smudge on the mountainous horizon was now ‘the third Pole’.
The 2014 elections witnessed an unprecedented performance by the BJP in Assam. This was further followed in the Assembly elections of 2016 which saw the Party come to power in the State for the first time. Similar electoral victories were registered in the Parliamentary elections of 2019 and the Assembly elections of 2021. Akhil Ranjan Dutta in Hindutva Regime in Assam puts forth an elaborate account of this rise of the BJP in the State.