Ramachandra Guha is one of the few historians to have considered with any degree of seriousness the role of the Hindi film in keeping the chaotic diversity of India together. Kaveree Bamzai’s engaging book under review extends Guha’s basic premise by examining the making of a shared cultural space, even as it traces compellingly the journey of the three Khans through the Hindi film industry and a globalizing India.
To miss making one’s way through Sukrita Paul Kumar’s Vanishing Words and to forgo being absorbed into the vortex of its supraconscious stillness would be, for any reader of poetry, a serious deprivation. Many layered, teasing in its apparent simplicity, and haunting in its profundity, this slim collection of thirty-four poems interspersed with artwork by the poet herself, is dedicated to ‘all those who are struggling to survive the onslaught of disease and the loss of dear ones in the recent times.’
On reading the poems in Speak Woman! what comes up powerfully is how the world is perceived and made visible through the eyes of Agarwal. She is visible in her poems and makes sure that her presence and that of other women are not reduced to being in the background in comparison to traditional forms of writing where one is supposed to remove oneself from actively identifying with their works.
Jhilam Chattaraj is a Hyderabad-based academic and poet. Her debut poetry collection, Noise Cancellation, covers wide-ranging themes, including, but not limited to, food, politics, memory, and the body. In addition, the poet employs, in a versatile manner, disparate styles to explore, sketch, and examine these themes.
Sanjeev Sethi’s fourth collection of poetry, Bleb, depicts the transcendence of human soul from self-love to spirituality and detachment. Bleb explores varied aspects juxtaposed with love—sexual exploration, paternity, spirituality, and death. The providential merges with the personal, the everyday with the unusual, offering life lessons to artists and lay readers alike.
I have read many of RK Narayan’s stories and novels. To me his books epitomize the adage ‘Simple Living-High Thinking’. His words flow like soft rain, gentle and beautiful, bringing to life dormant thoughts and emotions in the reader’s mind. The quirky people of Malgudi—the loving ayah, shrewd matchmaker, naughty Swami and his friends are all like family for avid readers India of the 80s.