September 2022 | The Beacon Webzine

Apotheosis of a Reservoir: Meditations on the Stepwell

September 20, 2022 Riyaz Latif 0

Visual Spaces

Stepwells are subterranean water structures – vavs, baulis and so on – that dot India, (especially western India) quite prolifically. The pre-modern vavs (stepwells) in Gujarat, however, are distinctive for their spatial, functional as well as ornamental refinement. Riyaz Latif ruminates on one of these structures, the exquisite stepwell at Adalaj (ca. 1499), in close proximity to Ahmadabad.…[Read More]…

Looking Through the Glass of “Rushdie Affair” & the Free-Speech Trojan Horse.

September 20, 2022 Padmaja Challakere 1

Between The Lines

Late August, Salman Rushdie was subjected to a near-fatal knife attack by a Lebanese-American. That incident raises the ghost of the fatwa on Satanic Verses and the West’s sense of Muslim ‘fanaticism’ and its own fealty to ‘free speech.’ Padmaja Challakere critiques both as ‘lazy‘ binaries, evidence of liberalism’s own failings. …[Read More]…

The Big Myth About Inequality: It Just Happened!

September 20, 2022 Dean Baker 0

Between The Lines

Zooming inequality in America in the last forty years is an unfortunate outcome of technological change; what can one do? Economist and public commentator Dean Baker breaks this popular consensual view down to show how workers are getting shafted. …[Read More]…

China Forgives 23 Loans for 17 African countries…Yet Again!

September 20, 2022 Ben Norton 0

Literary Trails

China recently announced it would forgive 23 interest-free loans to 17 African countries and redirect $10 billion of its IMF reserves to nations on the continent in addition to a series of cancellations and restructuring of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. This disproves the West’s accusations of China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ says Ben Norton …[Read More]…

A SONG FROM THE RUINS & Other Poems: K. Satchidanandan.

September 10, 2022 K. Satchidanandan 0

Literary Trails

From K. Satchidanandan, songs of hope, verses of despair, and the faith of love like the light that gets in through the cracks of the gloating darkness.. Self-translated by the poet from Malayalam. …[Read More]…

Indira Goswami: Margins and Beyond Namrata Pathak & Dibyajyoti Sarma. Review by Jahnavi Gogoi

September 10, 2022 Jahnavi Gogoi 0

Bookshelf

Indira Goswami author, peace activist and passionate critic of women- disenfranchisement is much read in her native Assam but needs to be read and re-read widely in this world of toxic divisiveness says Jahnavi Gogoi reviewing the edited volume on the author-activist by Namrata Pathak and Dibyajyoti Sarma. …[Read More]…

The Questing Spirit, The Restless Inquiry: India’s Greatest Minds. Spiritual Masters Philosophers. Reformers Mukunda Rao. A Review

September 10, 2022 Ashoak Upadhayay 0

Bookshelf

In this age of falsifications of India’s cultural multiverse to the point of a violent toxicity and homogenizing banality, India’s Greatest Minds by Mukunda Rao offers a glorious restorative narrative of the South Asian ‘dialogic’ tradition.…[Read More]…

H. Masud Taj Contemplates Kahani Calligraphically

September 10, 2022 H. Masud Taj 0

Visual Spaces

H. Masud Taj ponders the verse “Kya pata hum mein hai kahani/Ya hain kahani mein hum?” The word “kahani” appears twice: which of the versions is true? Language is linear, one meaning follows another. Calligraphy like architecture, he holds, turns word-meanings spatial and simultaneous. …[Read More]…

The Edict Project | T.M. Krishna | Ashoka Edicts | Edition 2

September 10, 2022 TM Krishna 0

Between The Lines

The Edict Project, by TM Krishna, in collaboration with Ashoka University aims at creating vibrant academic, socio-political and aesthetic conversations around the edicts of Ashoka. The first edition came out in 2020. In this Edition the theme of Ashoka and Memory is explored through T.M. krishna’s musical enditions, conversation with historian, Professor Nayanjot Lahiri and a play by MK Raina in Kashmiri shot in Kashmir that reimagines Ashoka’s words. …[Read More]…