Peggy Mohan, linguist and historian, argued that language is a powerful way into history and not an ‘adult’ subject. Teaching ten-year-olds about migration pushed her to rethink assumptions, from why farmers migrate to how ‘surplus males’ reshape linguistic landscapes. Children’s questions about Ashokan Prakrit or Devanagari sounds have sparked some of her deepest research. She emphasized, ‘Kids don’t want to be patronized. They can do the more difficult things that sometimes we can’t do.’


Editorial

Manu was part of The Book Review family since he could read and write. He began by writing reviews as a child for the Children’s special issues. As he grew up, his intense passion for drawing led to his designing brochures and covers for The Book Review, and one of them was for the January 2016 issue when TBR turned 40. Uma had asked him a few months ago to design the cover for the January 2026 issue when TBR turns 50,


Editorial
By Sanghamitra Chakraborty

There is hardly any enigma in the life and professional career of Soumitra. A consummate actor, equally proficient in cinema and theatre, Soumitra knew the difference that these two art-forms demanded. He was also fortunate to have been mentored in his early years by Natyacharya Sisir Kumar Bhaduri who gave a new life to Bengali theatre, and later by Satyajit Ray.
Satyajit-Soumitra collaboration has been much discussed in discourses on cinema.


Reviewed by: Amitabha Bhattacharya
By Pratik Majumdar

1975 marked the rise and decline of leading stars and ‘super’ stars. The ‘anti-hero’, ‘rebel’ image caught the imagination of the audiences, in particular the youth. The characterization and portrayal of heroines underwent a significant change from the stereotypical signifying the changing, modernizing influences affecting the till-then conservative society. They could be shown as having a distinct personality;


Reviewed by: TCA Rangachari
Edited by Ashok Vajpeyi

An interesting aside: when my father, TCA Rangachari went to Paris as the Ambassador of India in the mid 2000s, he made it a point to call on Raza. The practice till then was to invite artists to ‘meet’ the Ambassador. My father thought otherwise—after all, such artists were themselves ambassadors of India, though of a different kind.


Reviewed by: Gayatri Rangachari Shah