Tales of a Voyager – Travel, Adventure, and Learning
Divya Shankar reviews Tales of a Voyager, written by Syed Mujtaba Ali in Bengali and translated into English by Nazes Afroz (Published by Speaking Tiger, 2023) Sometime between the two World Wars, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Bengal’s most popular travel writer, set out on a ship from India to Europe via Sri Lanka, Suez, and Africa. […]
Terminal 3: A Captivating Montage of Life in a Strife-torn Zone
Divya Shankar reviews Terminal 3: A Graphic Novel set in Kashmir by Debasmita Dasgupta, published by Penguin India, 2023 The freedom of your dreams means ‘your’ freedom. Freedom of every girl who dares to dream in the ‘Valley’, in this world’. The world that says, you can’t do this because you’re a woman. Freedom to […]
Meeting Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Mohandas Gandhi in this historical fiction novel
The Map and The Scissors is a searing portrayal of the lives of two powerful men, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The two men, a ‘scaffold of bones’ in appearance, were unbreakable with a steely resolve. Both dreamt of freedom from British rule but in irreconcilably different ways. An incisive analysis of their […]
Revisiting 1984 with Two and a Half Rivers by Anirudh Kala
When the slain Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son remarked ‘when a big tree falls, the earth shakes’ in wake of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, little did the people of Punjab know that the earth would give way to a wide chasm that would swallow thousands of them. Anirudh Kala’s Two and a Half Rivers is […]
Girl made of Gold by Geetanjali Kolanad
What could a man do when even Gods were helpless and drunk with desire, a desire that Devadasis were adept at kindling and keeping ablaze in the bodies of men who sought them? Amrapali declared as a nagarvadhu, is the earliest known devadasi in recorded history. Dedicated to a temple, married to its deity, devadasis […]
Undertow by Jahnavi Barua
Undertow by Jahnavi Barua, a family saga spanning three generations, explores love, kinship ties with a mother-daughter relationship at its fulcrum and loss – of identity/belonging against the backdrop of volatile state politics in Assam. “Kinship ties were never felt more keenly than on days they were loosened or severed”. Plot Points First, the Exile […]
Bedanabala by Mahasweta Devi
“If the sky were sheet of paper/ If every blade of grass on earth were pen/ If the seven seas were awash with ink/ If all of that were used up even then/ It would not be enough for their history to be written.” The popular adage “The pen is mightier than the sword” stands […]
3 stories by Manik Bandopadhyay
Translated by Arunava Sinha The happiness of finishing a task begun is real and immense. That’s probably why short stories are very popular and many resorts to them, especially when hard-pressed for time. It can be relished quickly, whereas a novel, however interesting, may go unfinished for lack of time or reading habits. Bee Books […]
Listen Girl (Ai Ladki) by Krishna Sobti
Translated by Shivanath Listen Girl, originally, Ai Ladki, written by Krishna Sobti and translated from Hindi by Shivanath is a conversation between a daughter and her bedridden mother in her last days. During the long period of Sobti’s mother’s illness, she referred to Sobti as ‘Ai Ladki’ (hey, girl or listen, girl) as if creating […]
Her Stories 20th Century Bengali Women Writers
Her Stories is a set of eight stories by eight eminent Bengali women writers translated by Sanjukta Dasgupta. It is a collection of short fiction centred around women, where some reconcile with and some fiercely resist patriarchy. The unique thing about Her Stories is that each story is preceded by a brief introduction and a […]
