By Harleen Singh

As the writer documents the various forces that are shaking the social foundations of Punjab and transforming them beyond recognition, he foregrounds the role of women as they participate enthusiastically and creatively, be it in the various reform movements like the Brahmo Samaj and Arya Samaj, or in the world of print media where they become increasingly vocal.


Reviewed by: Anjana Neira Dev
By Manzu Islam

The domestic world Bulbul inhabits is also one of fractured solidarities. The household is run by the formidable matriarch, Dadu, and supported by Kona Das, a Dalit Hindu woman. Their presence gestures towards the overlapping hierarchies of gender, caste and religion within a supposedly homogenous Muslim household.


Reviewed by: Parvin Sultana
Translated by Farrukh Dhondy

Though Rumi’s work is steeped in Islamic philosophy, such is the quality of his verses that they can appeal to a person holding very different religious beliefs. The recurrent Sufi idea of the merging of souls or spirits in his poetry can be interpreted in various ways. A devout Hindu can read the idea of permanence of soul and the notion of rebirth in the following verse:


Reviewed by: Mohammad Asim Siddiqui
By Simon Digby. Edited by David Lunn. With an Introduction by James Mallinson

Hagiography or accounts of saints canonized by a sectarian tradition is a special kind of memory making which is much drawn upon by historians but rarely studied as a genre of history writing. Hagiographies get written when a religious sect assumes social presence and seeks popular patronage, and finds it useful to doctor the memories of saints held high in popular esteem.


Reviewed by: CN Subramaniam
By Mitali Chakravarty

The first question is, how does one contend with the past? Poems such as ‘Ooh Calcutta!’, ‘Rumination’, and ‘Bengal Presidency’ remind us critically of the evolution of the Imperial Capital from its origin in a cluster of villages—a place chosen as a trading point by Job Charnock of the East India Company in 1690. While several conjectures flourish about ‘Kalikata’ being anglicized as ‘Calcutta’, there is no certitude about this baptism. In the poet’s voice, ‘Let me be free/ To write, to rewrite History/ No. That/ cannot be’


Reviewed by: Malashri Lal