Much ink has flowed in the academic debates about Indian writing in English and translations from Indian languages into English, the respective merits and demerits of each, their importance or lack of it,
Premchand occupies a unique position in Indian literature. He shaped the genre of fiction in two language literatures, i.e., Urdu and Hindi, by giving it a realistic base, diverting it of its preoccupation with the world of fantasy and romance.
Bama’s Vanmam is in many ways a marked departure from her earlier works Karukku and Sangati. Moving away from her earlier autobiographical mode Vanmam steers clear of the familiar confessional, conversational tone and adopts a linear, descriptive,
During the December 2007 music festival in Chennai, I attended a dance performance by Alarmel Valli. The programme included a short piece, based on a verse from Madurai Meenakshiammai Pillaittamil.
Three miraculous events have happened on this earth: the birth of three men of great purity of soul (mahashuddhatma), many years apart in time—and in countries far away from each other. They taught the world a mantra of immense significance.
Meera Kosambi’s earlier collection of essays, Crossing Thresholds: Feminist Essays in Social History (2007) had introduced us to the writer Kashibai Kanitkar (1861-1948). This reviewer had been particularly intrigued by Kosambi’s section on Kanitkar’s utopian novella Palkhicha Gonda (The Palanquin Tassel, written in the late 1890s but published in 1928).