The Beacon Webzine | Page 5 of 13 |

Testimonies: When Peasants Speak, the Earth Rumbles: Gandhi in Champaran

May 2, 2022 Tridip Suhrud 0

Bookshelf

Peasants in our colonial and pre-colonial pasts didn’t write, they were written about. In 1917 Gandhi arrived in Champaran, Bihar and the indigo peasants speak for the first time; their recorded testimonies foreground Gandhi’s own destiny. Shahid Amin, Tridip Suhrud and Megha Todi offer us a glimpe into the archives of peasant articulation. …[Read More]…

Mochiram, the Cobbler. A Poem by Dhoomil. Translated from Hindi by Alok Bhalla

May 2, 2022 Alok Bhalla 0

Literary Trails

“No man is greater than the size of his shoes” says the cobbler Mochiram in Dhoomil’s eloquent poem, a testimony to subaltern wisdom and humanity reflected in his desire to repair/heal. Translated from Hindi by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…

Exercising a Right Not Seen in Decades in America: Workers Strikes’ Set the Tone

May 2, 2022 Kshama Sawant 0

That’s Life!!!

The strike is the sharpest tool labor has to fight for its collective interests, and American workers are beginning to organize in their workplaces with an energy not seen in decades notes Kshama Sawant.…[Read More]…

Farmers’ Protests as Sites of Grassroots Secularism

May 2, 2022 Manoj Kumar 1

Between The Lines

The struggles against the farm laws did not just end in the farmers pushing back corporatized farming. They were the sites for an expression of religious fraternity, a secularism enshrined in the Constitution but also engraved in our hearts and minds writes Manoj Kumar…[Read More]…

Cry,The Beloved Earth And Sky! Visions of Arpana Caur

April 22, 2022 Arpana Caur 1

Visual Spaces

In a world where apocalypse seems destined as the fate of all life, the artistic creations of Arpana Caur speak on behalf of the earth with a moral force so essential and urgently essential to embrace, says Guest Editor Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…

(On Earth Day) SONG OF PRAISE & Other Poems by Shanta Acharya

April 22, 2022 Shanta Acharya 0

Literary Trails

In the midst of violence and war, a persistent pandemic and a looming environmental apocalypse Shanta Acharya’s poems both remind us of the gratitude we owe to this Earth and the ineffable beauty of its creative mysteries…[Read More]…

Altered Visions: Parables of Environmental Crises in Amitav Ghosh’s Works.

April 22, 2022 Suhasini Vincent 0

Bookshelf

In Amitav Ghosh’s fiction and non-fiction, parables as an art of rhetoric work to reconfigure official Western versions of history, politics and culture. Suhasini Vincent looks at his work as an alternative site for a new epistemology of the environmental crisis confronting the world.…[Read More]…

CLOUDS by Intizar Husain. Translated by M. Asaduddin

April 22, 2022 Intizar Husain 0

Literary Trails

Intizar Husain captures the mysterious evocation of Nature’s ways viewed through the bewildered and wondrous innocence of a boy bursting with curiosity. Translated by M. Asaduddin …[Read More]…

The Jungle of the Gonds. Intizar Husain. Translated by Alok Bhalla & Vishwamitter Adil

April 22, 2022 Intizar Husain 0

Literary Trails

The jungle and its inhabitants the Gonds serve as the backdrop to this tale of post-partition unrest and tension across the border in Intizar Husain’s tale of looming apocalypse. Translated by Alok Bhalla & Vishwamitter Adil. …[Read More]…

Poems as Parables for An Endangered Earth. Guest Edited by Alok Bhalla

April 22, 2022 Alok Bhalla 0

Literary Trails

Alok Bhalla, Vinod Kumar Shukla and Asghar Wajahat articulate their visions, paying tribute to this Earth in the only way poets can, through slanted truths. Guest edited and translated by Alok Bhalla.…[Read More]…

The Book of Malcolm: A Review and Remembrance of Fraser Sutherland

April 18, 2022 Mayank Bhatt 0

Bookshelf

Mayank Bhatt reviews Canadian author, poet, editor, lexicographer Fraser Sutherland’s memoir about his son’s unsuccessful battle with schizophrenia, and recalls a few anecdotes that made Fraser at once endearing and infuriating to his friends …[Read More]…

The Unbearable Loneliness of a Cluttered Mind

April 10, 2022 Bibhu Padhi 1

Personal Notes

How to turn the usually sticky, bubble-gum-like mind into the solidity of objective space, true in its opacity, or into the fineness of ether with its true openness? So that thoughts, doubts, fear do not haunt and inhabit it? Bibhu Padhi searches for this state of grace.…[Read More]…

Ami kaan pete roiⁱ: Epistolarities Reinvented. Reading Leela Majumadar’s Manimalaⁱⁱ

April 10, 2022 Nandini Bhattacharya 0

That’s Life!!!

Radio communications made their appearance in India in 1929 with the British – controlled Indian Broadcasting Company, and with emergence of regional centres such as the Calcutta Radio Station. Against this backdrop Nandini Bhattacharya examines the importance of Manimala, the epistolary novelette by Leela Mazumdar in a dialogic format produced by the structure of letters to the radio hosts seeking advice, guidance companionship …[Read More]…

Historic Farmers’ Class Struggle in India: An Overview

April 10, 2022 Ashok Dhawale 0

Between The Lines

The unprecedented farmers’ struggle that began at the borders of India’s capital Delhi on November 26, 2020, and which won a historic victory over corporate communalism a full one year and fifteen days later was by far the largest, the longest and the most powerful nationwide farmers’ struggle in history. Ashok Dhawale on its distinctive features…[Read More]…

Excerpt from Tomb of Sand/Ret Samadhi: Geetanjali Shree

March 28, 2022 Geetanjali Shree 0

Bookshelf

Geetanjali Shree joins the longlist for this year’s international Man Booker award with her novel Tomb pf Sand translated by Daisy Rockwell in a first for a Hindi –language fiction to be considered for the prestigious award. The Beacon republishes the extract from the translation that appeared last November. Get a glimpse of its unique flavor!…[Read More]…

Madhavikutty Returns to the Soil: Paul Zacharia Remembers A Courageous and Gifted Poet

March 28, 2022 Paul Zacharia 0

Between The Lines

Paul Zacharia remembers Kamala Das (March 1934-May 2009) as not just a major poet in both Malayalam and English but a fierce iconoclast whose feminism shocked conservative opinion as did her conversation to Islam. …[Read More]…

A Two-Minute Silence and other Poems by Kedarnath Singh. Translated by Alok Bhalla

March 28, 2022 Alok Bhalla 0

Literary Trails

Kedarnath Singh (1934-2018) wrote poetry in deceptively simple language encompassing within his imagery the complexity of our troubled times and language itself, offering the reader a lot to think about even while savouring his sparse elegance. Translated from Hindi by Alok Bhalla. …[Read More]…

Kalyani: Short fiction by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. Translated by Malashri Lal

March 28, 2022 Malashri Lal 0

Literary Trails

Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s story reveals the complex fate of a young widow who can neither express her sentiments nor withhold them. Society looks upon her with opprobrium while those who know her personally, fear both her power and her reticence. Malashri Lal translates from Hindi. …[Read More]…

On the Stuff Dreams Are Made of: From the Archives of a Cinéphile

March 28, 2022 Darius Cooper 0

Visual Spaces

Darius Cooper, poet and author of works on Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt remembers the birth of his passion for cinema from what he calls the golden age of world cinema screening in seventies Bombay. …[Read More]…

Hijab: Wearing It or Not “…Are Both Important Resistances…”

March 10, 2022 Izza Ahsan 1

Between The Lines

To homogenise the hijab into one single idea is to homogenise the entire population of Muslim women and to betray and deny their lived experiences as both hijabi and non-hijabi Muslim women, argues Izza Ahsan…[Read More]…

The Blissful Centre and Other Poems: Bibhu Padhi

March 10, 2022 Bibhu Padhi 0

Literary Trails

A constant and tranquil voice in Indian English and Odia poetry collected in several volumes, Bibhu Padhi expresses the ineffable in calm and gentle tones, at times melancholic but with hope and yearning as the “earth sits still/on its own ground “ and solitude is a memory that “does not belong to you” …[Read More]…

Excavating a Forgotten Site Called John Lang

March 10, 2022 Mridula Garg 0

Bookshelf

John Lang (1816-1864) was a man of many parts: wanderer, slanderer, lawyer for the Rani of Jhansi and a prolific writer of travels and fiction. Amit Ranjan’s book probes those parts. Mridula Garg reads and offers her own insights from her excavations into the site called John Lang. …[Read More]…

Deafness in Hubris: Ukraine Pays the Price of the West Not Listening

March 10, 2022 Ashoak Upadhayay 1

Between The Lines

If we are to call out Russia’s actions as pre-emptive war, how should we view the West’s invasions of Iraq, Syria Afghanistan and other sovereign states? What role does language and hubris play in justifying such wars of terror asks Ashoak Upadhyay.…[Read More]…

Krishna Sobti, Partition and the Politics of Religious Identities: A Few Notes & a Conversation

February 26, 2022 Alok Bhalla 0

Between The Lines

Krishna Sobti had a lot to say about the tangled interweave of religion, politics, Partition in the lives of the communities they affected and still do. Alok Bhalla offers a critical preview of her vison followed by extracts of his conversation with her that is remarkable for its relevance today.…[Read More]…

Krishna Sobti: Fearless Spirit, Dancing Dervish, Monumental Muse

February 26, 2022 Geetanjali Shree 0

Literary Trails

With her fearless spirit that exuded an irrepressible and bold articulation of freedom, and a fierce commitment to her vocation, Krishna Sobti (February 1925-Janury 2019) was a rare fusion of monumental writing and a monumental personality, remembers Geetanjali Shree…[Read More]…

Krishna Sobti (February 1925-January 2019): The Unceasing Genius

February 26, 2022 Sukrita Paul Kumar 1

Literary Trails

Krishna Sobti’s contribution to modern Hindi fiction is seminal with her works reflecting pulsating characters, each carving out her own destiny, mirroring the author’s own feisty autonomy. Sukrita Paul Kumar writes…[Read More]…

I Will Come With a Lighthouse by Sayan Aich Bhowmik. A Review

February 26, 2022 Bhaswati Ghosh 0

Bookshelf

This debut collection of poems by Sayan Aich Bhowmik is marked by an aesthetic of dewdrop gentleness, often turning to absences — of people, places, memories and even a self in search of its own skin. Bhaswati Ghosh reviews this slim but not insubstantial volume …[Read More]…

City of Incident. A Novel in Twelve Parts by Annie Zaidi: A Review

February 12, 2022 Annie Zaidi 0

Bookshelf

Annie Zaidi sets new trends in the genre of the city novel with her mode of presentation that interweaves the lives of six women and six men in ways that none of the nameless protagonists could have imagined but may have foreseen. A review by Ashoak Upadhyay …[Read More]…

From Vanishing Words by Sukrita, Four Poems

February 12, 2022 Sukrita Paul Kumar 0

Bookshelf

A selection of four poems from Sukrita Paul Kumar’s latest collection, Vanishing Words that betoken the disappearance of words when verse transcends meaning and emerges as pure experience, lingering silence. Accompanied by her own artwork.…[Read More]…

The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Vol 2: A Review

February 12, 2022 Shweta Khilnani 0

Bookshelf

This volume of south Asian Science Fiction with its hybrid, genre-bending stories and poems adds a new dimension to the corpus of south Asian literature with their attempt to represent the contemporary moment with all its myriad nuances finds Shweta Khilnani…[Read More]…

Abert Luthuli:: A Man of Hope

February 12, 2022 Christopher Lee 0

Bookshelf

Albert Luthuli (1898-1967) became South Africa’s leading advocate of Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent civil disobedience techniques, framed apartheid as a crime against humanity. Robert Vinson’s biography hints at how liberation histories might be reframed to better address the problems of the present. Christopher Lee reviews …[Read More]…

Borders of Sorrow: Violence and the Politics of Religious Identities in Partition Fiction

February 2, 2022 Alok Bhalla 0

Between The Lines

Alok Bhalla looks back at Partition as “borders of sorrow” created by violence bred by intolerant religious identities. Partition literature however comes across differently: not as dossiers of hatreds but as chronicles of yearning for that “good civilization” that once was and could be. …[Read More]…

Ruins: A Requiem for the Fragment

February 2, 2022 Riyaz Latif 0

That’s Life!!!

Riyaz Latif ruminates on ruins in which the very incompleteness of those architectural fragments, a broken arch, stones released from their regimental composition evokes an entropic materiality reposing in the arms of earth and grass, nourishing itself on its own organic unraveling. …[Read More]…

Satyagraha – An Answer to Modern Nihilism

February 2, 2022 Dilip Simeon 0

Personal Notes

In this second part of his meditation on violence and modernity, Dilip Simeon traces its roots and finds in Gandhi’s satyagraha an answer with a noble, Socratic tradition of piety and truth-telling.…[Read More]…

To Kill A Democracy: India’s Passage to Despotism: A Review

February 2, 2022 Ashoak Upadhayay 1

Bookshelf

Chowdhury and Keane take us on a detailed excursion into the heart of India’s darkness, its slide into what they term elective despotism. Illuminating surely but does it spell democracy’s failure? Ashoak Upadhyay doesn’t think so. …[Read More]…

Intizar Husain in Pilgrimage and Exile: Geetanjali Shree Remembers

January 22, 2022 Geetanjali Shree 1

Personal Notes

Geetanjali Shree, Hindi novelist and essayist, remembers Intizar Husain whose death anniversary falls on February 2nd as an affectionate friend with a disposition that helped him cross cultural boundaries in dialogic immersions. ..[Read More]…

Genre Fluid | Marlon James & Shalini Puri in Conversation

January 22, 2022 Shalini Puri 0

That’s Life!!!

Jamaican writer Marlon James speaks with Shalini Puri at the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai International Lit fest November 21 2021 on the dynamism and range of Caribbean and other postcolonial Englishes, the search that led to James’ current trilogy, the importance of myth, debates about cultural appropriation, and Marlon’s advice to writers. …[Read More]…

Geet Farrosh (the Song Seller): Bhawani Prasad Mishra translated by Yashoda Nandan Singh

January 22, 2022 Bhawani Prasad Mishra 0

Literary Trails

Bhawani Prasad Mishra (1913-1985) was one of the finest Hindi poets of the last century. His verses have local color, are earthy, and have pace and jingle. That is what endears him to Yashoda Nandan Singh who translates two of them…[Read More]…

MUSKEG : Short Fiction by Cyril Dabydeen

January 22, 2022 Cyril Dabydeen 0

Literary Trails

Canadian writer of Indo-Guyanese origin Cyril Dabydeen fuses myth, folk lore, memory, white and subaltern cultures in this call- of-the-wild tale set in Northern Ontario, Canada.…[Read More]…

A Cancer Patient’s Inevitable Dénouement: A Bad Scan Result

January 10, 2022 Mayank Bhatt 15

Personal Notes

Mayank Bhatt faces his first bad scan results after eighteen months of chemotherapy kept a fragile status quo. Navigating sombre thoughts about his treatment, he continues to explore love and relationships, friendship and forgetting, dates and deadlines...[Read More]…

Two Fistfuls of Earth: Short Fiction by Vishwas Patil. Translated by Keerti Ramachandra

January 10, 2022 Vishwas Patil 0

Literary Trails

A heart-rending story of the impact of Nature’s fury on a village girl’s ambitions to do good by her folk in the flood –prone districts of western India. By Vishwas Patil. Translated from Marathi by Keerti Ramachandra.…[Read More]…

Under the Ancient Sky and Other Poems: SHAFIQ FATIMA SHERA. Translated by Riyaz Latif.

January 10, 2022 SHAFIQ FATIMA SHERA 0

Literary Trails

Often drawing from Arabic and Persianate cultural traditions, poems by Shafiq Fatima Shera (1930-2012) abound in rich metaphors and textured imagery, the lexical as well as imaginative fabric of her poems tends towards an evident expansiveness. Translated from Urdu by Riyaz Latif.…[Read More]…

Siting the Indian Writer in Translation: The ‘Writer in Context’ Series

January 10, 2022 Sukrita Paul Kumar 0

Bookshelf

Sukrita Paul Kumar introduces the reader to a forthcoming series on Indian writing, ‘Writer in Context’ she is co-editing with Chandana Dutta. The first two volumes, on Krishna Sobti and Joginder Paul respectively are out …[Read More]…

Intizar Husain, Rooted Cosmopolitan: A Tribute

December 22, 2021 The Beacon 0

Between The Lines

Intizar Husain (21 December 1925-2 February 2016) was a writer whose sensibilities were formed in the fires of the 1947 Partition but equally in the myths and memories of a ‘good’ life, Uprooted, he remained a rooted cosmopolitan feels Ashoak Upadhyay…[Read More]…

When Stories, Colours and Ideas Cross Borders like Vagabonds: An Imagined Dialogue between Intizar Husain and Akhilesh, the Painter

December 22, 2021 The Beacon 1

Visual Spaces

In this imagined dialogue between Intizar Husain and artist Akhilesh , words and colours are like nomads transgressing boundaries with impunity. By Alok Bhalla. Paintings by Akhilesh. …[Read More]…

Chronicle of the Peacocks: Intizar Husain. Translated by Alok Bhalla

December 22, 2021 The Beacon 0

Visual Spaces

In this beautifully sorrowful elegy to the peacock as bird of Paradise, Intizar Husain delves into the state of human consciousness bent on destruction of life and bemoans the impossibility of composing his Morenama, seeking clues (solace?) in Indic epic tales. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…

The City of Sorrow: Intizar Husain. Translated by Alok Bhalla

December 22, 2021 The Beacon 0

Literary Trails

In this “hermetically sealed nightmare”, Intizar Husain has three anonymous, faceless men describe their barbaric acts of rape and endless killing to each other, realize they are horrors with nowhere to flee or even bury their own corpses. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla. …[Read More]…

The Boat: Intizar Husain. Translated by Alok Bhalla

December 22, 2021 The Beacon 0

Literary Trails

Intizar Husain tackles the theme of Man’s fall from grace and the Flood through the creation myths of various faiths in a brilliant weave of our contemporary condition of human vanities and planetary destruction. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla …[Read More]…

Leaves:Intizar Husain. Translated by Alok Bhalla

December 22, 2021 The Beacon 0

Literary Trails

Drawing from the Jatakas, Intizar Husain tells us the story of a young Bhikshu with a begging bowl seeking grace through the Buddha’s teachings of renunciation, entranced by the temptation of earthly pleasure, aware sorrowfully of his failings. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla. …[Read More]…

Plays from a Fractured Land: Edited by Atamjit

December 12, 2021 The Beacon 0

Bookshelf

,An anthology of Punjabi plays from both sides of the border that recall the horrors of Partition and the binding cordiality that persists amongst Hindus Muslims and Sikhs in divided Punjab. Extracts from the Introduction by Atamjit …[Read More]…