W.E.B. Du Bois’ Enduring Admiration of Mahatma Gandhi Stems from a Shared Belief of Nonviolence
In May 1929, Gandhi received a letter from W.E.B. Du Bois, the Black American scholar and civil rights activist, via British missionary C.F Andrews. Du Bois expressed his pleasure at meeting Sarojini Naidu and Andrews, requesting Gandhi to contribute a message for Black people in his magazine, The Crisis. Gandhi
Kris Kristofferson Dies at 88: Country Music’s Revolutionary Songwriter and Actor
In 2015, during his MusiCares Person of the Year speech, Bob Dylan declared: “Everything was all right until Kristofferson came to town. Oh, they ain’t seen anybody like him. He came into town like the wildcat that he was, flew a helicopter into Johnny Cash’s backyard, not your typical songwriter.
Tolstoy’s Letter and Gandhi’s Insights on Love, Nation, and Politics
Two years before Tolstoy passed away at the age of 82, he wrote a letter, “A Letter to a Hindu”, dated 14 December 1908, in response to a letter from Tarak Nath Das, a Canadian immigrant from Bengal who ran the newspaper, Free Hindustan. The letter gained historical significance when
Nobel Prize in Literature 2024: Is the Jury Set to Move Away From Choosing Yet Another Eurocentric, Male Writer?
Since its creation, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been a Eurocentric, male affair. Of 120 laureates, only 17 have been women, with eight of them in the past 20 years. | Photo Credit: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP The Nobel Prize in Literature has honoured predominantly Western writers since it was first
O.P. Sharma Photography: Pioneering Indian Pictorialist’s Artistic Vision and Legacy | Retrospective Exhibition 1950s-1990s
The first thing you saw at the retrospective titled “O.P. Sharma & the Fine Art of Photography: 1950s-1990s” (September 5 to October 3)—organised by the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in collaboration with Art Heritage, at Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi—was not a photograph. It was a watercolour,
Ahead of Her Times: Freedom and Feminism As Seen Through Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s Eyes
Autumn 1947, New Delhi. British rule in India had ended. Cyril Radcliffe had drawn a line dividing the subcontinent into two. In the violent Partition riots that ensued, half a million people died and 10 million fled. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay arrived at the newly created Relief and Rehabilitation Secretariat in New
Book Review of 2024 JCB Prize Longlist The Distaste of the Earth
Exotic Landscape (1910), oil on canvas by Henri Rousseau. | Photo Credit: Wiki Commons Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih’s enigmatically titled new book, The Distaste of the Earth, retells a Khasi folktale of star-crossed love. Similar to Funeral Nights (Context, 2021), which offered a documentation of the Khasi people’s traditional stories and cultural practices tied around
The restless traveller: A vignette | A Bengali Story in Translation
He was walking through an impassable thorny way. At one stage he turned back and saw millions of steadfast gazes fixed upon him. An incandescent lustre of seething excitement and expectation radiated from those gazes. It filled the traveller’s heart with an intoxicating pride. With a smile of profound satisfaction,
Bookshelf | New Books on the Shelves This Fortnight (November 1, 2024)
Francis Itty Cora T.D. Ramakrishnan, translated by Priya K Nair HarperCollins India Rs.399 This Malayalam classic is a genre-bender combining history, myth, mystery and magic. Set in present-day Kerala, war-torn Iraq, ancient Alexandria, and Renaissance Florence, the novel is a romp through history. ___ Jahanara Sukumaran Eka Rs.399 Shah Jahan’s
Ranjit Hoskote’s Translation of Mir Taqi Mir: An Attempt of Failure
Mir Taqi Mir in 1786. | Photo Credit: Wiki Commons Let me admit that I am a votary of the following falsifiable proposition that is almost a cliché among those who follow Urdu poetry: A great poet creates a new idiom for the language. This proposition yields the following corollary