The old suspect, A.K. Ramanujan emerges out of the woodwork on Outlook’s pages. The magazine’s leader to this article says:
…in a pocket of the Delhi University, right-wing student activists have taken exception to this essay by the celebrated scholar A.K. Ramanujan, on the many Ramayanas living across languages and narrative genres, each different but no [...]
Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.
It’s pretty easy, but I’ll still ask: who said this? No Googling.
This post is partly a response to several comments I received on my posts related to the Ram Sethu project. The greater part, however, is my education, an attempt to trace the Rama (and Ramayana) consciousness in Tamil Nadu.
My literary tastes have turned more classical nowadays. That hasn’t however, dimmed my fascination for Byron. For some reason, he’s like a powerful spell not in the least because Don Juan was one of the poems that has influenced my growing-up years.
Anyway, here’s a superb review of Byron’s biography. The biography be damned, I loved [...]
To me, the chief value of reading the Upanishads is simply the amazing stories that I find buried beneath layers of terse philosophical expositions. This is one of the several reasons why I hold the self-affirmed conviction that the Upanishads has something for everyone.
One such story is–for want of a better title–the story [...]
Blogger Amardeep Singh was featured earlier on this blog. His prose is interesting and I have only the deepest respect for his erudition in literature.
But I do certainly have issues when I read a post approving Pankaj Mishra. I’d have ignored him if he was just another blogger, the likes of I-have-a-PC-and-Internet-access-so-I-blog. But Amardeep Singh [...]
I haven’t followed any Girish Karnad plays after the horrendous Agni Mattu Male (The Fire and the Rain). But it is nice to learn that his plays still enjoy enormous fan following in the circles that matter.
To my knowledge, Karnad has written at least three plays after Agni Mattu Male. All three have expectedly received [...]
Here is good and bad news, both in the same package.
Arundhati Roy is to return to fiction writing, 10 years after winning Booker prize with her first novel, The God of Small Things. In an interview, Roy said she would ’stagnate’ as a writer if she were to continue to publish only non-fiction.
Congratulations on winning the Booker. I’ve never read any of your books so it’ll be unfair to comment on the literary worth of your Big One.
My only request: please don’t let this prize metamorphose you into another [tag]Verbal Terrorist.[/tag]
[tags]Booker Prize, Kiran Desai, Literature[/tags]
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Sunday Slug Fest: Anantha Murthy and Bhyrappa
This was waiting to happen.
Prof U R Ananthamurthy has declared he will not take part in literary functions in future.
The decision came in the wake of strong criticism for his reaction on S L Bhyrappa’s controversial novel Aavarana that appeared in a section of the media. Prof Ananthamurthy said he was “misquoted” and in the [...]