Culture & Heritage
7 min read
345

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
4 min read
355

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
6 min read
361

Game Changer Review: Is the 2-Hour Film Starring Ram Charan for the Instagram-Reel Generation?

January 24, 2025
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To watch films like these is to see cinema emerge not from the scene but as some haphazard, cumulative, misshapen thing. In picture, director Shankar and actor Ram Charan from the sets of the film. | Photo Credit: BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT Riddle me this. You say you are making a

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Culture & Heritage
4 min read
355

Manu Pillai: How the Roots of a Defensive Hindu Identity Developed | Frontline At 40 at The Hindu Lit for Life 2025

January 20, 2025
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Manu Pillai in conversation with Vaishna Roy at The Hindu Lit for Life festival 2025 held at Sir Mutha Concert Hall in Chennai on January 19. | Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B “The ease and enthusiasm with which Hindus in India were able to appropriate that term [Hinduism] shows that

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Culture & Heritage
1 min read
366

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
387

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
2 min read
71

New Books on the Shelves

January 15, 2025
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Scarlet Sands Udayan Mukherjee Picador Rs.450 The second instalment in the Neville Wadia Mystery series is set in Goa. The body of a British journalist washes up ashore on Anjuna beach, leading to an investigation by Neville that uncovers a corrupt nexus, a mysterious cult, and some dark truths. ___

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Culture & Heritage
7 min read
91

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
110

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
10 min read
92

INTERVIEW | Through Paintings, I Tell Stories of Those Who Are Being Erased from the Dominant Narrative: Labani Jangi

January 12, 2025
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Labani Jangi says her award came at a time when she was being questioned by many about the validity and nuances of her art. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement Labani Jangi was born in Dhubulia, a village about 40 km away from Plassey, in the district of Nadia in West

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