Culture & Heritage
5 min read
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BOOK REVIEW | A Dark Tale from Cottonwood Grove is a Story of Love and Betrayal

January 27, 2025
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As in Indonesian folktales, moments of beauty and darkness are woven together in the novel. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStock The silky filaments of cottonwood seeds float across the dark Javanese landscape of Mahfud Ikhwan’s mysterious account of a murder foretold with teasing tenderness and underlying savagery. It is a

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Culture & Heritage
5 min read
46

BOOK REVIEW | Samantha Harvey’s Orbital’s Pertinent Political Point is Held Back by a Weak Narrative

January 27, 2025
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Six astronauts circle the earth aboard the International Space Station. How do they feel and what do they see in the course of one earth day? This is the premise of Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, which won the 2024 Booker Prize. A slim 136-page affair set in space, it is neither science

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Culture & Heritage
4 min read
49

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
55

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
61

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
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
5 min read
67

The Role of Women in the Rise of the Chola Empire | Book Excerpt from Anirudh Kanisetti’s ‘Lords of Earth and Sea’

January 20, 2025
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Women had played a central role in the rise of Chola power but as their power faded, so too too did the status of their women. Chola royal women practically disappeared from the historical record from the early twelfth century, as the dynasty shifted from a sprawling empire to a

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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
2 min read
53

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
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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