Culture & Heritage
7 min read
36

In Mumbai, An Exhibition of Atul Dodiya’s Paintings Revives the Golden Era of Hindi Cinema

January 27, 2025
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In the 1949 film Dulari, India’s beloved playback artist Mohammed Rafi sang: “Suhani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge” (The golden night has faded, who knows when you will arrive). While a salve for the pining heart might not have been found as yet, the artist Atul Dodiya has

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Culture & Heritage
9 min read
41

Interview with Srikar Raghavan: Exploring Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka in Rama Bhima Soma

January 27, 2025
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Author Srikar Raghavan reveals that the book is a personal journey more than a comprehensive survey. | Photo Credit: Faisal Ahmed Rama Bhima Soma: Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka by Srikar Raghavan is a work of astounding audacity as it delves into the complicated cultural world of modern Karnataka, using a

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Culture & Heritage
4 min read
50

Republic Day: How Does the Nicobarese Community Celebrate It? All You Need to Know

January 25, 2025
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Removing fibres by running a thread through the dough made from pandanus pulp. | Photo Credit: Rishika Pardikar “Can you video call me? Mummy is making pandanus. I will show it to you,” Solomie Joora (38) tells me over a phone call. “I’ll come there?” “Yes, come.” Joora is a

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Culture & Heritage
1 min read
64

INTERVIEW | We Wanted to Understand the Civilisation we Come from: Minister Thangam Thennarasu

January 20, 2025
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WATCH | R.K. Radhakrishnan in conversation with Minister Thangam Thennarasu Minister Thennarasu says the younger generations of Tamil Nadu are keen to know about their history. | Video Credit: Interview by R.K. Radhakrishnan; Camera: Mridula V and Samson Ronald K.; Editing by Samson Ronald K.; Produced by Saatvika Radhakrishna On

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
72

Book Review: “Theyyam: Indian Folk Ritual Theatre” is a Guide to North Malabar’s Captivating Folk Ritual

January 18, 2025
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Theyyam, a captivating folk ritual of North Malabar, encompasses hundreds of variations: most performed annually, others intermittently, and a few as rarely as once in many decades. Deeply rooted in Malabar’s folk religion, this belief system involves local deities and spirits manifesting on earth by possessing men. This belief system

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
58

BOOK REVIEW | The Genesis of Indian Environmentalism in Ramachandra Guha’s “Speaking with Nature”

January 13, 2025
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Tagore was one of the founders of Indian environmentalism,” Ram Guha told me, when I had finally managed to grab a seat near him and start a conversation. “Really?! How so?” I gasped. “You wait till my next book comes out,” he said. This was at a lit fest in

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
60

The Disposable Woman: How Indian Cinema Uses Sexual Violence to Build Male Heroes

January 13, 2025
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A girl gets raped in Baby John, the Hindi remake of the Tamil film Theri, a crime that is repeated in Bagheera, Kannada cinema’s most successful film this past year, as also in Maharaja, starring Vijay Sethupathi, another Tamil blockbuster. In the Rajinikanth-starrer Vettaiyan, again, it is a woman who is assaulted, raped, and murdered. In Pushpa

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Culture & Heritage
15 min read
57

Bengal Biennale Breaks Art World’s Cloistered Walls

January 12, 2025
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The recently concluded Bengal Biennale has been remarkably successful in its very first edition. Organised in tandem in Santiniketan and Kolkata, it ran from November 29 to December 22, 2024, in Santiniketan, and from December 6, 2024, to January 5, 2025, in Kolkata. Since the required infrastructure for holding such

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Culture & Heritage
4 min read
53

How Jules Verne’s Visionary Works Inspired Modern Technology and Innovation

January 6, 2025
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When French author Jules Verne died in 1905, powered air flight, which he put at the centre of his 1886 book Robur the Conqueror, had moved from fiction to reality. Just two years earlier, the Wright brothers had achieved the first manned air flight in human history. Yet more of

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
65

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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