Catfish| A Hindi Story in Translation
They were catfish. Seven catfish thrashing about in a flat tray made of white Styrofoam. Their skin was dark grey and smooth, their moustaches big and black. They were huddled close together, tail to mouth, moustache to back, their movement arrested at the edge of the tray for they could
Geetanjali Shree Interview: Language as Protest in ‘Our City That Year
Geetanjali Shree’s 1998 novel, Hamara Shahar Us Baras, rendered into English by Daisy Rockwell as Our City That Year (Penguin, 2024), is the story of a communalising city as experienced by a vulnerable narrator grappling with the task of lending language to the self-estrangement of her secular friends. The narrator, who is not
How Colonial Rule and Christianity Transformed Modern Hinduism – Interview with Manu Pillai
Magisterial in its sweep, Manu S. Pillai’s Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of The Modern Hindu Identity journeys through 400 years of colonial rule, examining how India’s encounter with Europe catalysed shifts in Hinduism, in theory and practice. Scrupulously researched and narrated with an authoritative ease, the book explores
Avtar Singh’s Into the Forest: An Exploration of Isolation, Loneliness, and Human Fragility During the COVID-19 Pandemic
A homeless person sleeps on a storefront during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Lyon, France, in 2020. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/ iStock There is a moment (around the 40-page mark) in Avtar Singh’s new novel, Into the Forest, that does not directly engage with the COVID-19 pandemic but
Freedom at Midnight Review: Book vs Web Series-Partition Through Two Lenses
Inside 10 Downing Street, the rhythms of a relentless clock fill the air. “May I have time to think?” Lord Mountbatten pleads, facing the burden of a crumbling empire. “You may,” Prime Minister Clement Attlee responds, “but be warned, Mountbatten—time is the one thing we’re running short of.” The ticking
Review: Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light’ Challenges Traditional Film Criticism
Sometime in late November, you can feel Mumbai entering winter. Many can point to the exact day, the exact moment. It could be midnight at home when the skin suddenly prickles in the cool wind. It might be the night-time desire to actually cover yourself with a sheet. It might
“Past in Present: A Journey Through Downtown Srinagar” | A Frontline Perspectives Documentary
WATCH | Past in Present: A Journey Through Downtown Srinagar | A Frontline Perspectives Documentary This documentary offers a comprehensive look at Downtown Srinagar, a place of great significance for anyone curious about South Asian heritage, urban evolution, or the intersections of culture, politics, and art. | Video Credit: Reported,
Book Review: Manu Gandhi’s Diary is a Quiet Chronicle of the Final Years of the Mahatma
In the months before Partition, Mahatma Gandhi travelled across India trying to prevent communal violence and what would become one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies. Among those who witnessed his ultimately futile mission up close was his grandniece, Manu Gandhi. Her diary captures an intimate portrait of hope against
No Other Land: How A Banned Israeli-Palestinian Documentary Exposes Fear Behind Film Censorship
A film that is censored is a film that is celebrated—because the state today is such that to be a thorn in its side is to bloom. When No Other Land, the documentary by Palestinian activist Basel Adra and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, was denied permission to be screened at both