Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life by Upamanyu Chatterjee
“To everything, turn, turn, turn,There is a season, turn, turn, turn,And a time to every purpose under heaven.” This song by The Byrds, which I’ve always loved and happen to be listening to as I write, came back to me as I turned the last page of Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life. To embrace […]
Poetry like a painting: Firefly Memories by Jonaki Ray
E.E. Cummings once wrote, “since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you.” Years ago, when I first read this poem, I was struck by the metaphor of emotion over reason, substance over form, and feeling over the prescribed “syntax” of how a poem should be […]
These Hindi to English short stories are not for the emotionally soft folks
A Bouquet of Dead Flowers is a collection of ten Hindi to English stories by Swadesh Deepak, translated by Jerry Pinto, Pratik Kanjilal, Nirupama Dutt and Sukant Deepak. This story collection is the second work by Deepak to appear in English after Maine Mandu Nahi Dekha (I Have Not Seen Mandu), a memoir which described […]
Stories from the Northeast: Exploring a land and its people
As someone who has spent many years in the north-east India, I have long been fascinated by the region’s complex history, its diverse geography and culture, and stories from the northeast. The title From Sylhet to Shillong instantly brought to mind memories of my own drive from Shillong to Cherrapunjee, where, at one bend in the road, […]
Want to read translated Hindi stories? Pick this book
The nine stories of Chandan Pandey and Sayari Debnath’s The Keeper of Desolation are stories coming together, translated hindi stories that show us a different India; one we may not necessarily meet every day. Of the men whom we may only read about in the newspapers Not the newspaper that you open on an app; […]
Exploring Dalit Literature: A Legacy Of The Indian Anti-caste Movement
[First written by Rupal Vyas, updated and expanded upon by Prakruti Maniar] Stories are not just child’s play; they give us our voice, our place in history, our identity. A story, is powerful, because who writes it, whose story gets represented and recorded has shaped history, has shaped how we look at the world, at […]
Sadness and Silence: The World of Woebegone’s Warehouse of Words
Woebegone’s Warehouse of Words is a dystopian fantasy where humans are the Speakers but rendered mute. Must you speak? Then buy a Word. Yes, the Words are all stacked up in the titular Warehouse, manned (rather worded) by Woebegone, who itself is a Word. There is a zoo next door where Thesaurus Rex lives in […]
Tragedy shrouds this fantasy; the story of Kashmir goes on
Shortlisted for prestigious JCB Award for his 2021 novel ‘The Plague Upon Us’, Shabir Ahmad Mir now brings a story of Kashmir replete with the land’s folktales: ‘The Last Knot’. Based in a Kashmir of 19th century but also a Kashmir of stories and legends, The Last Knot brings a gore-flecked reality of a tragedy […]
Living in a world where Artificial Intelligence is everywhere
Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI by Madhumita Murgia dissects the ‘artificial’ of AI i.e. the artificial intelligence that’s rapidly taking over the world even as we breathe and eat and do other mundane, regular things. She traces this ‘artificial’ in a 3-D sort of way, turning inside out for her reader. For […]
36 weird Tales from the Mahabharata in Wendy Doniger’s book
In the content warning for ‘The Goddess of the River’, Vaishnavi Patel writes that Mahabharata has every terrible act ever imagined. In The Dharma of Unfaithful Wives and Faithful Jackals, Wendy Doniger lays this truth threadbare. Read this book, full of weird tales from the Mahabharata, with a sack of salt propped by your bedside […]
