I do not understand why ‘Thoughts on Pakistan’ is now marketed as ‘Pakistan or The Partition of India’. Does it have to do with the controversy it generated in the tumultuous decade of its publication? It was first published in the early 1940s after the Muslim League Resolution had called for the creation of Pakistan,…
Category: Literature
Kenneth Anderson’s Tales from the Indian Jungles – The Best of Shikar Literature
Sample the prose- “The man sits with his back to a tree and the light from the campfire waxes and wanes, throwing him into sharp relief along with the tree-trunk against which he rests, to fade the next instant into obscurity and gloom. Leaning against the tree beside him is a .405 Winchester rifle of…
Vijay Gokhale’s Tiananmen Square – A Diplomat Looks Back & Exposes the Hollowness of Western Propaganda
Tiananmen Square is in the city centre of Beijing, located near the City’s Central Business District, and named after Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) which separates it from the Forbidden City. The western part of the Forbidden City houses the Chinese Communist Party HQs, and is known as Zhongnanhai. Tiananmen Square has an area of…
Andrey Kurkov’s The Gardener from Ochakov – Are you a Gardener or a Forester?
Andrey Kurkov was born in St. Petersburg in 1961, and has worked as a translator, journalist, prison warder as well as a film cameraman. He is a Ukrainian, and it is there that his stories are based, but he writes them in Russian. I was introduced to his writings with Death and the Penguin, and…
Manoranjan Byapari’s There’s Gunpowder in the Air – On an Attempted Jailbreak
The doyen of Bangla literature, Mahashweta Devi, once hailed a rickshaw-puller who was engrossed in reading a book. Reluctantly, he agreed to drop Didi home. During the ride, he pleasantly surprised the ‘vidushi’ by asking the meaning of the word जिजीविषा. From that moment began the literary career of Manoranjan Byapari, whom Didi asked to…
दूर हटो – हम सबकी कहानियों पर तुम्हारा कोई कॉपीराइट नहीं !
ओ दुमका वाले नीलोत्पल मृणाल भैया ! ओ एस्पिरेंट्स के लेखक दीपेश सुमित्र जगदीश जी ! दूर हटो, साला ई सिविल सेवा की तैयारी करने वालों की कहानियों के कॉपीराइट्स से । अब सिविल की तैयारी के लिए अगर कोई कहीं जाएगा है तो दिल्ली ही न जाएगा । आईआईटी के लिए तो फिर भी…
SL Bhyrappa’s Gruhabhanga (गृहभंग) – The Tale of a Woman’s Struggle against Poverty & Plague in pre-Independence Mysore
Bhyrappa’s semi-autographical masterpiece, Gruhabhanga, was published in 1970. In scope of its tragedy, and depth of the characters, the novel is perhaps unsurpassed in modern Indian literature. Gruhabhanga is the story of the heroic struggle of a woman, Nanjamma, who refused to give up in face of adversity and apathy. She battled against poverty, epidemic,…
Deep Halder’s BENGAL 2021: An Election Diary – Masala Peanuts as Pastime till May the Second
Deep Halder appreciates the pressing need of poll junkies to keep themselves up-to-date, or rather one-up over their adda members in the countdown to the Bengal polls, and has come out with a brief overview of the state’s politics. Of course, the common issues are covered- the promises of development-employment-quotas, election sops, Sarada-Narada-Rose Valley, Syndicate,…
SL Bhyrappa’s SAKSHI – Where has Dharma vanished in the Age of Arth and Kama ?
A Preta finds himself in Yama’s court where he is grilled about his suicide, and directed to return to earth as a Sakshi (Witness) to read the minds of, and understand what goes on in the lives of the people he has left behind. The deceased was an embodiment of Dharma, a practitioner of truth…
भगवतीचरण वर्मा की प्रतिनिधि लघु कहानियाँ – चित्रलेखा और कबरी बिल्ली के प्रणेता
प्रेमचंद की बोलचाल वाली उर्दूयुक्त हिन्दी के युग में संस्कृतनिष्ठ,इतिहासपरक चित्रलेखा लिखने का साहस प्रदर्शित करने वाले भगवतीचरण वर्मा हिन्दी साहित्य के एक स्तम्भ रहे हैं । 1934 में लिखे गए चित्रलेखा ने उन्हें अमर ख्याति प्रदान की । ‘भूले बिसरे चित्र’ ने उन्हें साहित्य अकादमी अवार्ड दिलवाया । साल 1971 में वे पद्म भूषण…
Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s NIZHALKUTHU (SHADOW KILL) – Who Bears the Sin of a Hanging?
Who bears the sin of a hanging? Why should any sin be accrued if the sentence is just? How much is the culpability of a hangman, and to what an extent is the judge or the King responsible? How can anyone but the accused be held accountable for his karma? The Malayalam film Nizhalkuthu (Shadow…
SREE IYER’s WHO PAINTED MY MONEY WHITE? – Subramanian Swamy Unplugged!
Sree Iyer might be a gossipmonger-cum-conspiracy theorist but not everything that he hints at or alleges in “Who Painted My Money White?” is a result of the flight of his fancy. His revelations and innuendos regarding ISI’s three-pronged strategy of weakening India through fake currency racket, drug trade and love jihad are rooted in reality….
Abhinav Pancholi 