Uma Dasgupta, Iconic Child Actor of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’, Dies at 83
A young Uma Dasgupta in Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement One important aspect of Satyajit Ray’s great craft was that he would not begin a project until he had the right faces for the characters of his film. He was stuck while preparing for his masterpiece, Pather
Booker Prize 2024: British Writer Samantha Harvey Wins For Space Novel ‘Orbital’
Samantha Harvey poses with the trophy and her book Orbital after winning the Booker Prize award 2024, in London, on November 12, 2024. | Photo Credit: AP British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on November 12 with Orbital, a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International
Quincy Jones Dies at 91: The Producer Who Reshaped Music from Jazz to Pop, Sinatra to Michael Jackson
Sometime around 1944, an 11-year-old boy, growing up motherless and wild in Seattle, broke into a military store to steal some food. Prowling about inside he spotted a piano in the supervisor’s room; he was about to move on, when a childish instinct (which he later referred to as “God’s
Cacophony of Democracy: A Reflection on Safdar Hashmi’s Legacy
Safdar Hashmi in “Aya Chunav”, Janam’s first political play performed in Hissar, Haryana, in 1981. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is
Exploring Love Across Divides: The Complex Lives of Hindu-Muslim Couples in India
What is it like to be a Hindu married to a Muslim or a Muslim married to a Hindu in a country like India where families are deeply involved not only in wedding ceremonies but also in the everyday life of the newlywed couple? Why do they choose to marry
Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and the Golden Age of Indian English Literature
In the summer of 1997, a gathering of 10 leading Indian novelists was “herded” into a small New York studio for a group photograph. The New Yorker was putting together a special issue to celebrate India’s golden jubilee—its 50 years of Independence from British rule—and this photograph was to be the centrepiece
How Private Archives are Making Indian History More Accessible and Inclusive
It was research for my historical novel, Wanderers, All, that led me to the police headquarters in Mumbai. My enquiry about the Bombay Police Gazette from 1911, among other information, was met with a blank stare. A helpful constable then led me to the in-house library that comprised a large
Short Story | ‘No one like Appa’: A Tamil story in translation
Translated from Tamil by Prabha Sridevan. An eccentric father mentors his family, ignoring societal norms. Appa was a strange person. My thatha, my grandfather, said that his strangeness was due to the fact he had left home when he was sixteen and wandered around before returning. But that was not the only
‘Hindi filmmakers should go back to the drawing board’: Manoj Bajpayee
The team of The Fable was jumping up and down—for joy and for Instagram—in the mid century modernist foyer of Berlin’s Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts) building. Manoj Bajpayee, 54, stood graciously for the first few photographs, and then sat down a little to the left of where his
It is time we made a truce with that reviled vegetable, cabbage
Cabbage must be the most deeply loathed vegetable on the planet. Condemned as vapid and tasteless, it is the acknowledged saboteur of a home-cooked meal. Bought for bulk and plonked on the kitchen counter with an air of atavistic triumph, it is a leafy cranium, freshly harvested off the enemy.