Bookshelf
Radhavallabh Tripathi’s novel, self-translated from Sanskrit is dedicated to Salim Ali and forms a parable on our degraded environment for children to hear and pay heed to. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
When religions divide hearts and hearths, love can flourish only if both remain open to vaad-samvaad; in life and death. Zakia Mashhadi’s fiction translated by Faruq Hassan and M. U. Memon throbs with contemporary relevance. …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Darius Cooper does a deep reading of Booker prize winner Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand in translation by Daisy Rockwell and ends up with a lot of sand. …[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Extra-judicial killings in ‘encounters’ draw applause on social media (and indifference among the general public) especially when the target is from the minority community. Mohd Asim Khan finds recent Bollywood films playing a major role in creating endorsements of the ‘trigger-happy cop’ …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Radhavallabh Tripathi shows how vital vāda – the practice of debate, dialogue and discussion — has been, not only for the growth of our knowledge systems and ideologies, but for our socio-political fabrics as well. An excerpt.…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
In this excerpt from Meeting Lives, Tulsi Badrinath hones in on the fraught relationship between a son and mother, a son who would go on to become Swami Vivekananda and what it means to the protagonist.…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Bharani Kollipara reads The Gita and begins his review of Allah Baksh’s miniatures put together by Alok Bhalla and Chandra Prakash Deval with the observation that these paintings unlike others of the same genre, draw their meaning from the propositional content expressed in a couplet. …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
The Mewar Gita (1680-1698) is an incomparable visual assemblage that demands a compelling attention and an immersive response to its stunning visual schema (the festivity of colours), the delicate and effortless carve of the figural contours, embodiment of actional figuration, finds D. Venkat Rao in this deep reading of Allah Baksh’ rendition of the Gita and Alok Bhalla’s commentary on them. …[Read More]…
Between The Lines
While celebrating the birth of their daughter Zahra, with jalebis, Architect-Poet-Calligrapher H Masud Taj had an epiphany… …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
From the 16th century onwards, a tremendous misconception has prevailed: there is something called ‘Hinduism’; that it is a religion and that Indian civilization is really Hindu religious civilization. Chaturvedi Badrinath avers that the central concern of all Indian thought is dharma, the concept enshrined the totality of the Indian understanding of man. To understand India is to ask: What is dharma? Not what is Hinduism?…[Read More]…