Culture & Heritage
12 min read
149

Kumar Shahani’s Cinema: How the Avant-garde Filmmaker Crafted Meaning Through Movement, Silence and Form

November 24, 2024
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I am no film critic. I have had the privilege of being Kumar Shahani’s friend for over 20 years and have seen almost all his well-known films. I also had the privilege of talking to him about his films. He was deeply interested in the nuances of language, its sounds

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
96

Book Review: ‘Toward Eternity’ sees Celebrated Translator Anton Hur Coming into his Own As a Writer

November 21, 2024
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In physics, singularity is the point where known physical laws break down and predictions become impossible. The Big Bang theory suggests our universe emerged from such a singularity. That is an infinitely dense, hot point which expanded and cooled. At this moment, conventional concepts of time and space lose meaning.

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Culture & Heritage
1 min read
101

Coolie

November 12, 2024
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The story is from the book, Distant Traveller: New and Selected Fiction by Attia Hosain Source link

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Culture & Heritage
13 min read
144

Why Anti-Hindi Protests Shaped Tamil Politics For 60 Years – And Still Matter Today

November 11, 2024
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The 1960s were a time of student uprisings across the world. Militant socialist students in Europe, especially in France and West Germany, staged protests with the aim of bringing about revolutions in their countries. Anti-war students and “hippies” in the US opposed the military intervention in Vietnam. There were student

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Culture & Heritage
10 min read
154

Shibpur Botanical Garden Crisis: Great Banyan Tree, Heritage Under Threat from Climate Change, Urban Sprawl

November 10, 2024
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On October 25, the severe cyclonic storm Dana struck the eastern coast of India, bringing torrential rain and high-velocity winds that uprooted trees and electric poles in Odisha and West Bengal. It brought back memories of Cyclone Amphan, which caused massive damage in 2020. West Bengal’s Shibpur botanical garden, one

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Culture & Heritage
8 min read
194

From People’s Festival to State Spectacle: Delhi’s Phool Walon Ki Sair Loses Its Grassroots Soul

November 2, 2024
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“Phool Walon Ki Sair is not just a festival; it is a testament to Delhi’s Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb,” said Delhi’s Chief Minister Atishi on October 26 speaking at the closing night of the festival at Lodhi-era Jahaz Mahal, Mehrauli. Held on the cusp of winter each year, the Phool Walon Ki

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Culture & Heritage
8 min read
170

Exploring Love Across Divides: The Complex Lives of Hindu-Muslim Couples in India

October 29, 2024
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What is it like to be a Hindu married to a Muslim or a Muslim married to a Hindu in a country like India where families are deeply involved not only in wedding ceremonies but also in the everyday life of the newlywed couple? Why do they choose to marry

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Culture & Heritage
11 min read
132

How Private Archives are Making Indian History More Accessible and Inclusive

October 29, 2024
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It was research for my historical novel, Wanderers, All, that led me to the police headquarters in Mumbai. My enquiry about the Bombay Police Gazette from 1911, among other information, was met with a blank stare. A helpful constable then led me to the in-house library that comprised a large

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Culture & Heritage
8 min read
244

Short Story | ‘No one like Appa’: A Tamil story in translation

October 28, 2024
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Translated from Tamil by Prabha Sridevan. An eccentric father mentors his family, ignoring societal norms.  Appa was a strange person. My thatha, my grandfather, said that his strangeness was due to the fact he had left home when he was sixteen and wandered around before returning. But that was not the only

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
129

Abu Abraham (1924–2002), the political cartoonist who bore witness

October 28, 2024
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In the world of journalism, there is enough scholarship on the role of reporting as bearing witness, investigative journalism, design elements, editorial judgment, and the balance between the public interest component and another powerful component called “what the public is interested in”. If this scholarship has to be more effective,

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