Kumar Shahani’s Cinema: How the Avant-garde Filmmaker Crafted Meaning Through Movement, Silence and Form
I am no film critic. I have had the privilege of being Kumar Shahani’s friend for over 20 years and have seen almost all his well-known films. I also had the privilege of talking to him about his films. He was deeply interested in the nuances of language, its sounds
Why Millennials and Gen Z Swear by Sally Rooney
In one of the early chapters of Sally Rooney’s new novel, Intermezzo, the protagonist, Ivan, a 22-year-old chess player, invites Margaret, a 36-year-old programme director at the arts centre hosting an amateur chess tournament-cum-workshop, to the house where he has been put up by the organisers. As Margaret weighs in her
William Radice, Renowned Tagore Translator and Bengali Scholar, Dies at 73
William Radice, the English poet, Tagore translator, and scholar of Bengali language and literature passed away on November 10. He was 73. I was his oldest Bengali friend, but I never worked out what led him to make Bengali the focus of his life’s work. I honestly can claim no
Book Review: ‘Toward Eternity’ sees Celebrated Translator Anton Hur Coming into his Own As a Writer
In physics, singularity is the point where known physical laws break down and predictions become impossible. The Big Bang theory suggests our universe emerged from such a singularity. That is an infinitely dense, hot point which expanded and cooled. At this moment, conventional concepts of time and space lose meaning.
Manoj Mitra (1938-2014), the Doyen of Bengali Stage and Screen, Passes Away
Manoj Mitra was equally at home writing a hundred plays, teaching philosophy at university, performing in folk theatre or acting with his expressive eyes for Satyajit Ray and Tapan Sinha | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement When Banchharamer Bagaan (The Garden of Banchharam), Tapan Sinha’s dark-comic masterpiece, was released in
Coolie
The story is from the book, Distant Traveller: New and Selected Fiction by Attia Hosain Source link
Why Anti-Hindi Protests Shaped Tamil Politics For 60 Years – And Still Matter Today
The 1960s were a time of student uprisings across the world. Militant socialist students in Europe, especially in France and West Germany, staged protests with the aim of bringing about revolutions in their countries. Anti-war students and “hippies” in the US opposed the military intervention in Vietnam. There were student
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
Shibpur Botanical Garden Crisis: Great Banyan Tree, Heritage Under Threat from Climate Change, Urban Sprawl
On October 25, the severe cyclonic storm Dana struck the eastern coast of India, bringing torrential rain and high-velocity winds that uprooted trees and electric poles in Odisha and West Bengal. It brought back memories of Cyclone Amphan, which caused massive damage in 2020. West Bengal’s Shibpur botanical garden, one
Actor Vijay’s TVK Party Launch: Star Power Meets Ideological Confusion in Tamil Nadu Politics
When Tamil filmstar “Thalapathy” Vijay, or General Vijay as his fans fondly call him, stepped on to the podium on October 27 to deliver a 45-minute speech, he was greeted by roars and applause in a charged and theatrical event that opened yet another exciting chapter in a State where