October 2022 | The Beacon Webzine

Thallumaala: The Tragedy of Insignificance & Repressed Male Love. Izza Ahsan reviews.

October 22, 2022 Izza Ahsan 0

Visual Spaces

Thallumaala is an action-comedy film loaded with ‘a string/chain of fights’. Izza Ahsan reads the film dominated by the male gaze, against prevailing hyper-masculinity and homoeroticism. What does a film fuelled by testosterone with a female face that has very little to do with the plot, add up to?…[Read More]…

Fieldwork on Religion in Turkey: An Indian Anthropologist Reflects on ‘Lived islam’

October 22, 2022 Smita Tewari Jassal 0

Literary Trails

During a stint at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, social anthropologist Smita Tewari Jassal held a variety of religious conversations in different contexts over six years seeking insights on how religious practices adapt to and accommodate with Turkey’s specific brand of secularism. Her focus? The headscarf, and a Turkish Islamic practice called sohbet. …[Read More]…

Pooja Sancheti: Reading Manjula Padmanabhan’s Harvest in 2022

October 22, 2022 Pooja Sancheti 0

Between The Lines

Manjula Padmnabhan’s play Harvest (first published in 1996) that won the first Onassis prize for the best new international play in 1997, is an exploration of the ways humans are commodified in biomedical and capitalist discourse. Pooja Sancheti offers a deep reading of its relevance today.…[Read More]…

Calligraphically contemplating Undivided India: H. Masud Taj

October 22, 2022 H. Masud Taj 0

Visual Spaces

Architect, poet and calligrapher H. Masud Taj dreams of an India that might have been. His art evokes a South Asian culture that is. …[Read More]…

H. Masud Taj: Ways of Remembering

October 7, 2022 H. Masud Taj 1

Visual Spaces

H. Masud Taj contemplates Gandhi’s last words with a Found Poem that draws an ironic and brutally honest take on our hypocrisies…[Read More]…

Amitav Ghosh: The Nutmeg’s Curse… Review by Pradeep Trikha

October 12, 2022 Pradeep Trikha 1

Bookshelf

Amitav Ghosh makes us aware of contemporary geopolitics regarding the environmental crisis and connects the dots drawing attention to the migrant experience during the Covid pandemic, the lives of people who suffered in the hands of market forces and European colonialism. Pradeep Trikha reviews..…[Read More]…

Amba Bhawani: Short Fiction by ‘Sundaram’. Translated by Hemang Ashwinkumar

October 12, 2022 Hemang Ashwinkumar 0

Literary Trails

In this riveting tale of life on the ghats of a lake, Sundaram, doyen of Gujarati letters, portrays more than just caste hierarchies as he weaves local myths and quotidian chores into gothic fantasy, laced with eroticism, tantalizingly ambiguous in its denouement. Translated by Hemang Ashwinkumar. …[Read More]…

If I Pray in Arabic… Shamser Bahadur Singh. Translated by Alok Bhalla

October 12, 2022 Alok Bhalla 0

Literary Trails

Considered a “poet’s poet” for the standards he set in the genre of Hindi-Urdu modern progressive poetry, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, in this poem translated by Alok Bhalla from Hindi, draws sly distinctions between faith and religion.…[Read More]…

Kohei Saito : Capital in the Anthropocene. A review by Ulv Hanssen

October 12, 2022 Ulv Hanssen 0

Between The Lines

A bestseller in Japan, bastion of capitalism no less, Kohei Saito’s work shows that capitalism’s perpetual pursuit of growth is the underlying cause of the intensifying climate crisis. He rejects the possibility of ‘green growth’, arguing that only degrowth – a planned reduction of material use – can ensure a sustainable future …[Read More]…

K . Satchidanandan: A DISCOURSE ON NON-VIOLENCE

October 2, 2022 K. Satchidanandan 0

Literary Trails

In this poetic dialogue with a marginalized present, Gandhi’s truth of ahimsa gets through to the unborn, holding out the promise of redemption. …[Read More]…

Racism, Nonkilling, and Shared Humanity

October 2, 2022 Bill Bhaneja 0

Between The Lines

Ending racism is essentially about making each person equal, respectful and dignified as the other. To achieve this to the fullest, the fight has continued globally in tackling racism at the international, national and individual levels. Bill Bhaneja provides an overview of anti-racism and peace-building through the lens of Universal Rights, Nonkilling and Human Dignity …[Read More]…

Conversations as Praxis: Gandhi and Gora, Believer and Atheist

October 2, 2022 The Beacon 0

That’s Life!!!

In an age of the atomized individual, where learning is stripped of moral values and respect for differences, the encounters between the atheist Gora and Gandhi the believer, provides a shining example of the power of listening to the ‘other.’…[Read More]…

Gandhi As Lantern in this Bleeding Darkness

October 2, 2022 Ashoak Upadhayay 0

That’s Life!!!

IIn this age of power politics that breeds delusions and falsehoods we dance to the roiling chants of communal hatreds and war, stripped of all humanity, Mohandas K.Gandhi, appears with a lantern. Do we see him asks Ashoak Upadhyay. …[Read More]…