Visual Spaces
Perhaps the only resolution of grief over loss that can neither be shaped nor be recovered is profound melancholy that carries away every dream into emptiness. Geeta Patel on S.L. Parashar’s portraits of Partition’s victims.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Translating his own poems from Urdu, Riyaz Latif offers a poetic vision of an odiferous Wasteland in which metaphor is meaning, Time space, permanence nothingness, and desire is death . …[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
After all that book-learning, what do you get? Massive shots of macho-nationalist adrenalin to help ease into unstable jobs that nurture helplessness and hatreds says Aneel Simran.…[Read More]…
Between the Lines
A new report blames urban consumption for GHG emissions and the planet’s woes. Hey! Tagore and Gandhi said as much a century ago, says U.R. Sane.…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
Meta-narratives that merge the folk, the tribal and the mainstream in people’s memories rephrase binaries of good and evil, high and low, godly and demoniac says Murali Sivaramakrishnan.…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Two postcards describe the way democracy is mauled in the name of its preservation points out Vinay Hameed . …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Asif Raza translates his own poems from Urdu in this collection that reverberates with loss, remembrance and apocalypse as time itself collapses.…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
It’s bad enough that the punitive powers of the State have been unleashed on Julian Assange. Worse, the mainstream press, ‘guardian’ of free speech has thrown him under the bus, says Padmaja Challakere. …[Read More]…
The Missing Part!
Bookshelf
In the conversations between Gora and Gandhi over the existence of God we missed out one important participant. U.R. Sane points out the importance of K.G. Mashruwala’s Introduction to that dialogue. So here it is.…[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
In RitwikGhatak’s films, punishments and deaths move us, elicit our mourning and tears because victimization is presented in its most radical forms, says Darius Cooper in the second part of his meditation.…[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
In Ritwik Ghatak’s films, punishments and deaths move us, elicit our mourning and tears because victimization is presented in its most radical forms, says Darius Cooper.…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
The conversion of 1956 was not just a rejection of Hinduism but an embrace of Buddhism, ‘reformed’ by B.R. Ambedkar for a moral recovery of Dalits says Hemant Devasthali.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
A short story by Gangadhar Gadgil , of communal riots in a Mumbai chawl, profiles the rot within ordinary individuals, succumbing to the spectacle of mob violence, bigotry and predatory instincts in this translation from Marathi by Keerti Ramachandra. …[Read More]…
Between The Lines
The victory of aggressive macho nationalism taps deep into the Indian male psyche with its bubbling cauldron of anxieties, inadequacies fears and feelings of helplessness Rakesh Shukla about the stunning verdict. …[Read More]…
Personal Notes
Raga Malkauns’ aural trajectory becomes an arch, stringing mutually unknown planes into each other. Its sounds and the ghosts it evokes outline the singular ineffable unity of all things finds Riyaz Latif in this tribute.…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
India just voted itself into tears, fears, nullity; the ‘festival’ of democracy says Sarosh Bana ends in a toxic blend of personality and poisoned nationalism.…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
The ‘festival of democracy’ has turned out into a demonic nightmare of lynch-mob discourse and a spectacle of lies, says Ashoak Upadhyay.…[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
Anand Patwardhan offers up Vivek/Reason that reveals the shift towards fascism and the resistance to it in the last four years, in everyday life and in our institutions. It’s an epic film says Jyotsna Kapur; it places that history in the longer history of human desire for individual freedom and an egalitarian society.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Diving into the imaginary of poetry, the “interiors of alphabets” Ashwani Kumar searches for the character that could have written those mythic-realist poems about Banaras and the Other and discovers they are his heteronyms. …[Read More]…
Between The Lines
For B.R. Ambedkar, the personal was embedded in the political, each defining and redefining the other; the real challenge of social change was the self’s inner transformation. This, says Mihir Shah, was his most radical contribution; his “most forgotten legacy” .…[Read More]…
Personal Notes
Never before has India witnessed such an “Organization of Hatreds” targeting minorities and the questioning, disobedient mind. Writers across languages and genres appeal for change. …[Read More]…
(Who’s Singing in the Bathroom? Sobbing at the Sink?)
Visual Spaces
The deafening emptiness of ‘Vikaas’ defines this misguided, mistreated Republic, dotted with blood-dripping embattled trees. After five years of poisoned seeds, strange fruits is all we have. And yet the light gets through the cracks……[Read More]…
Personal Notes
The letters exchanged between Gandhi and Nehru late 1945 reveal free India’s rejection of a radical utopian vision in favor of a practical modernity. Time we returned to that vision of another future.…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
The ‘iron cage’ of rationality, utility and control has stripped learning of creativity, Ananda and the play of imagination says Ashoak Upadhyay. And yet, in this ‘nullity’ you can hear voices of resistance and recovery as wisdoms of alternative futures.…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
The Vikalp Sangam process is a platform to bring together movements, groups and individuals working on just, equitable and sustainable pathways to human and ecological well-being. It rejects the current model of development and the structures of inequality and injustice underlying it, and searches for alternatives in practice and vision. Over 50 movements and organisations around the country are involved.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
On the 26th November 1946 J.D. Bernal (1901-1971) Irish-born scientist and communist , delivered this lecture at Birkbeck College, London. Seven decades later it’s theses are still relevant.…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
In the conversations between Gora and Gandhi you can hear the sounds of empathy, mutual learning and respect for diverse paths to a common humanity. …[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
Loius Malle’s film first shown on TV in 1969 was frowned upon by Indian officialdom. Fifty years on, Darius Cooper finds its dialectic and dialogic magic between camera and subject still resonates. …[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Critical issues of domination, discrimination and gender find powerful articulation in the expressionist imagination of dalit artist, Savindra Sawakar . His work traces the dense contradictions and acute sensuousness of social worlds, past and present, says Saurabh Dube. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Tagore’s short fiction about birds that only want to sing and the attempts to “school” them is a savage allegory on our education as “thought control” and what we do to young minds. …[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
A visual representation of alternatives to the development model that hold out hope for a better future; compiled by Kalpavriksh.…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
In “Almost Home” Githa Hariharan in “one of the most militarized places in the world” meets a cross section of Kashmiris and gathers shades of absences–of azaadi, of choices—and the presence of armed intruders, burnt houses, rigged elections. …[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
The years 1913 through 1923 represent a very significant period in B.R. Ambedkar’s life marked as it was by passion for learning and a dawning inclination for activism. The decade can be divided into four segments that reflect these two impulses driving self-definition.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Girijaa Upadhyay’s short fiction takes us back to the private moneylender early consumerism and the love of cooking. ..[Read More]…
Literary Trails
In the first of two short fictions Mayank Bhatt’s protagonist recalls Dadi, his “only parent” as his greatest teacher who taught him nothing. ..Read More…
Personal Notes
Theologian and activist, Riffat Hassan recalls and reflects on her involvement with inter-faith dialogue and its pitfalls in a fissured world..”…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
What are we running away from? Aseem Srivastava asks this question and reaches out to Tagore’s work “Creative Unity” for illumination. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
With his control over Urdu language and the modernity of his ideas, Sarwat Hussain was one of the most distinguished poets his life tragically cut short by a train accident. Ten poems translated by Riyaz Latif. …[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
In the two films, Darius Cooper locates the markers of spirituality to which the technology of cinema surrenders.…[Read More]…
Personal Notes
Each of us has multiple Ramayanas circulating in our imagination. Some are befriended in childhood, others come to us through the arts, few through political associations and yet others we create.…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
The recent verdict on Aadhaar sanctions various forms of ‘terror’ on the vulnerable—exclusion, deprivation, all in the name of a digital ‘fundamentalism’, says Ashoak Upadhyay.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
With the release of Nandita Das’ biopic on Saadat Hasan Manto we felt it pertinent to offer Muhammed .Umar Memon’s meditations on Manto’s creative obsession “with women who practice the oldest profession.”…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
In this apogean vision of possible futures Kothari and Joy offer imagine a world in the next century. Dare to dream!…[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
Somendranath Bandopadhyay offers a glimpse into the inner world of Baij (1906-1980) as he grapples with Santhal Family in Shantiniketan in this evocative translation by Bhaswati Ghosh.…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
In this review of “Alternative Futures” G Sajan surveys the dismal present and finds hope for better futures in the viewpoints that cover a wide spectrum of possibilities. …[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Civilization demands that love and pleasure be confined by moral custom and juridico-political law into service of an economic order. But pleasure can transgress that order says Saitya Brata Das . …[Read More]…
Personal Notes
Through three queer lives lived on the margins of the societal consensus, Arvind Narrain explores the notion of love for one person and the idea of love for justice as empathy for the suffering ‘other.’ …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Each passing day provides us appalling and tragic evidence of shackled humanity and incurable traumas. Does the future mean more of the same? In this collection of essays editors Kothari and Joy bring together themes of alternative futures, traces of which were and are, already upon us. Their Introduction maps out the visions of possible futures and redemptive choices.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
For Ritwik Ghatak, contemporary historical reality could only be portrayed through characters slowly becoming abstract archetypal figures. The mythic method allowed him to cope with and portray this “deceived age.” …[Read More]…