Culture & Heritage
8 min read
151

How Kashmir’s Sufi Shrines are a Reminder of an Accommodative Islam That Once Existed in the Valley

January 8, 2025
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Kashmir has a rich Sufi heritage, which is enshrined in the ancient tombs and hermitages (or khanqahs) that dot its landscape. Its encounter with Sufism started in the 14th century, when wave upon wave of Sufi theologians from former Mongol and Timurid territories migrated to Kashmir. Historically, six Sufi monastic

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Culture & Heritage
10 min read
160

M.T. Vasudevan Nair: The Chronicler of Kerala’s Inner Conflicts

January 8, 2025
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He was officially M.T. Vasudevan Nair, but peers close to him and friends of the same or older generation called him Vasu; others generally used his initials “MT”. He chose the last for me when, in the 1980s, I wrote to him from Delhi to ask how I should address

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
134

Delhi’s Historical and Cultural Legacy Inaccessible due to Pricey Heritage Walks and Privatisation of Monuments

January 1, 2025
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At the first interactive session on Delhi’s heritage, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), as part of its inaugural heritage walks and talks initiative held at Town Hall, Chandni Chowk, experts delved into the mystery surrounding the grave of Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and

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Culture & Heritage
9 min read
157

Tribute | Zakir Hussain (1951-2024): An International Music Phenomenon Who Remained Rooted in the Classical

December 26, 2024
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As tributes overflow for tabla maestro and composer Ustad Zakir Hussain, who passed away at 73, on December 15, contrarily, words seem to leave me. The only thing that occupies my mind is that an effervescent life was snatched away prematurely. How does one pay homage to this remarkable man,

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Culture & Heritage
13 min read
150

TRIBUTE | Shyam Benegal was a Diverse and Inclusive Filmmaker

December 25, 2024
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Shyam Benegal’s love for films started when he was a child. His appetite for them was voracious. When he couldn’t afford to watch them, he befriended the projectionist of his local cinema and watched them through his window. Sometimes he and his friend wedged the door open a crack so

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Culture & Heritage
32 min read
146

Frontline’s Library of Legends – Frontline

December 25, 2024
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Frontline’s Books and Culture pages have featured a dazzling array of authors and artists over the years. A guided tour. 1984: R.K. Narayan The legendary writer has been associated with Frontline since its inception. The second issue of the magazine in 1984 introduced his column “Table Talk”. An excerpt from

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Culture & Heritage
2 min read
147

Frontline At 40 | ‘Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are the only record of old Tamil’: Interview with Iravatham Mahadevan

December 25, 2024
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Iravatham Mahadevan, an epigraphist of international repute. | Photo Credit: T.A. HAFEEZ Iravatham Mahadevan was an administrator-turned-scholar who did acclaimed work on the Tamil-Brahmi and Indus scripts. His Early Tamil Epigraphy, published in 2003, was based on 40 years of labour on Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions. His earlier work Corpus of Tamil-Brahmi

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Culture & Heritage
10 min read
151

The State of Indian Art: How Cultural Freedom Survives Despite Government Control

December 25, 2024
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Some time ago (in September 2024), government-friendly news portals exerted a lot of energy “fact-checking” and, in the process, denied a viral social media post that claimed that the gigantic “Statue of Unity” sculpture of Vallabhbhai Patel had developed “cracks” and was in danger of collapsing. It was also reported

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
133

Shyam Benegal, The Last Great Auteur of India’s Parallel Cinema Movement, Exits the Stage

December 23, 2024
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Shyam Benegal, who heralded a new era in Hindi cinema with the ‘parallel movement’ in the 1970s and 1980s with classics such as Ankur, Mandi and Manthan, died on Monday, December 23, after battling chronic kidney disease. He was 90. The filmmaker, a star in the pantheon of Indian cinema’s

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Culture & Heritage
10 min read
152

Book Review: In ‘Nehru’s India’, Aditya Mukherjee Counters False Narratives About India’s First Prime Minister

December 10, 2024
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At a time when the forces of Hindutva are relentlessly denigrating Jawaharlal Nehru’s contribution to the freedom of our country and the first 17 years of nation-building in independent India, the historian Aditya Mukherjee brings welcome clarification to the debate largely by citing Nehru’s own words and expanding on their

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