Rotten roots
When people declare, “We want justice” which is the war cry that is rending the air today, I think it is more than punishment for the guilty who committed the heinous crime which has sunk people to the depths of despair and anger.
When people declare, “We want justice” which is the war cry that is rending the air today, I think it is more than punishment for the guilty who committed the heinous crime which has sunk people to the depths of despair and anger.
In an out-of-the-ordinary move, a theatre group’s cast and crew paid their respects to Tilottama, the rape-murder victim doctor from R G Kar hospital.
When I chanced upon the recently published anthology of Indian English poetry, The Violet Sun, what first struck me was the care with which it had been curated and crafted. Like any publication by the Writers Workshop, this volume was bound in exquisite Indian handloom sari cloth and had the title regally embossed in gold.
This English translation by Seema Jain of renowned poet and president of the Sahitya Akademi, Sri Madhav Kaushik’s long dramatic monologue comprising around 40 pages titled Listen Radhika (original Hindi title Suno Radhika) introduces readers to a unique voice of Lord Krishna as he implores the attention of his beloved, the playful, bewitching Radhika or Radha.
It’s the 30th day today. It has been exactly 30 days since a postgraduate trainee doctor in Kolkata was raped and murdered within the very walls she once treated patients.
Then, in 2002, the Man Group stepped in as the sponsor, and the prize came to be known as the Man Booker. The Booker Prize Foundation remained the managing body.
In this film he is remarkable as the protagonist Krishnakanta, the notorious and ruthless criminal, whom the whole of Kolkata knows as “King”. He is the quintessential Brechtian character, who is a product, a violently dangerous by-product of a cold, cruel, cut-throat capitalistic society.
As a sentinel of the time, The Statesman did an excellent job on this event. While other English and Bengali dailies in Calcutta covered the event with considerable importance, The Statesman on 29 February 1952 morning came up with a special 8-page broadsheet International Film Festival supplement, which was distributed free with the main paper.
Poetry, for the writer, is neither art for arts sake, nor mere cathartic selfexpression but an intense and intimate act of communication…A review.
Drawing on recent debates in history, memory and trauma, the book tries to uncover the afterlife of the Partition of 1947... A review.
