On the life and philosophy of the Rāmakiṅkara Beija, 1906-1980, Indian sculptor and painter; transcript of the author's conversation with the sculptor.
An enchanting and joyous exploration of life and creativity at the geographical edges of the modern world Who is a provincial? In this subversive book, Sumana Roy assembles a striking cast of writers, artists, filmmakers, cricketers, tourist guides, English teachers, lovers and letter writers, private tutors and secret-keepers whose lives and work provide varied answers to that question. Combining memoir with the literary, sensory, and emotional history of an ignored people, she challenges the metropolitan's dominance to reclaim the joyous dignity of provincial life, its tics and taunts, enthusiasms and tragicomedies. In a wide-ranging series of "postcards" from the peripheries of India, Europe, America, and the Middle East, Roy brings us deep into the imaginative world of those who have carried their provinciality like a birthmark. Ranging from Rabindranath Tagore to William Shakespeare, John Clare to the Bhakti poets, T. S. Eliot to J. M. Coetzee, V. S. Naipaul to the Brontës, and Kishore Kumar to Annie Ernaux, she celebrates the provincials' humor and hilarity, playfulness and irony, belatedness and instinct for carefree accidents and freedom. Her unprecedented account of provincial life offers an alternative portrait of our modern world.
When she lands in Calcutta's Sealdah railway station on a humid day in 1949, Amala Manna has managed to flee from the communal violence in her village, but not from all her trials. Within moments of crossing over to India as a refugee from East Pakistan, she loses Kartik, her younger brother. Thanks to a group of young volunteers, Amala finds her way to a refugee camp in Gariahata where she meets Manas Dutta, who is the leader of the volunteer group. Despite the sordid camp life, Amala finds sustenance in her quest to find Kartik and the new familial bonds the camp allows her to forge with complete strangers. With dwindling official support, the situation in the camp deteriorates, and the refugees take things into their own hands. They establish Bijoy Nagar - literally meaning Victory Colony - by occupying a zamindar's vacant plot of land. This dramatic event is a harbinger of radical shifts in Amala's personal life. 'A compelling story, set against a Calcutta that's vividly depicted in the smallest of details.' - Madhulika Liddle 'Bengal comes alive in all its sensory immediacy.' - Neelum Saran Gour
Delhi heritage top 10 Series is a comprehensive guide to Delhi heritage icons and architectural gems. The first volume in the series delves into the fascinating history and the great significance of forgotten, subterranean, man-made water structures, commonly known as baolis or stepwells. The book walks us through the top ten baolis, with two special mentions at the end. Besides giving a vivid description of the functioning and revival of the baolis, the book also focuses on the social importance of each structure. The work is an outcome of a three-year-long research from various archives and contains historic as well as modern photographs along with architectural drawings. The Foreward has been written by Prof. Sohail Hashmi.
Taking as its starting point Ramkinkar Baij's 1938 "Santhal Family"--widely considered the first modern public sculpture in India--this book combines critical and fictional texts with specially commissioned pages by leading artists from India, Europe and the U.K.
In 2018 India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, inaugurated the world's tallest statue: a 597-foot figure of nationalist leader Sardar Patel. Twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, it is but one of many massive statues built following India's economic reforms of the 1990s. In Gods in the Time of Democracy Kajri Jain examines how monumental icons emerged as a religious and political form in contemporary India, mobilizing the concept of emergence toward a radical treatment of art historical objects as dynamic assemblages. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork at giant statue sites in India and its diaspora and interviews with sculptors, patrons, and visitors, Jain masterfully describes how public icons materialize the intersections between new image technologies, neospiritual religious movements, Hindu nationalist politics, globalization, and Dalit-Bahujan verifications of equality and presence. Centering the ex-colony in rethinking key concepts of the image, Jain demonstrates how these new aesthetic forms entail a simultaneously religious and political retooling of the “infrastructures of the sensible.”
A brief, poetic, poignant memoir from one of India's greatest writers. "Like a dazzling feather that has fluttered down from some unknown place. . . . How long will the feather keep its colours, waiting? The 'feather' stands for memories of childhood. Memories don't wait." In Our Sanitikentan, the late Mahasweta Devi, one of India's most celebrated writers, vividly narrates her days as a schoolgirl in the 1930s. As the aging author struggles to recapture vignettes of her childhood, these reminiscences bring to the written page not only her individual sensibility but an entire ethos. Santiniketan is home to the school and university founded by the foremost literary and cultural icon of India, Rabindranath Tagore. In these pages, a forgotten Santiniketan, seen through the innocent eyes of a young girl, comes to life--the place, its people, flora and fauna, along with its educational environment, culture of free creative expression, vision of harmonious coexistence between natural and human worlds, and the towering presence of Tagore himself. Alongside, we get a glimpse of the private Mahasweta--her inner life, family and associates, and the early experiences that shaped her personality. A nostalgic journey to a bygone era, harking back to its simple yet profound values--so distant today and so urgent yet again--Our Santiniketan is an invaluable addition to Devi's rich oeuvre available in English translation.