A Polyphonic Chorus Bhaskar Parichha Earth and Embers: South Asia in Verse , edited by Rachel Bari , Ishmeet Kaur Chaudhry , and Shweta Rao Garg , stands as a significant and timely contribution to contemporary South Asian literature. Ambitious in both scope and intent, the anthology seeks to gather a wide spectrum of poetic voices across borders, languages, and generations, and in doing so, it succeeds in capturing the restless, layered, and often volatile spirit of the region. At its core, Earth and Embers is not merely a collection of poems but a carefully curated literary space where multiplicity is both method and message. The editors, each accomplished in their own right, bring to the volume a deep engagement with language, history, and culture. Their combined editorial vision ensures that the anthology resists the temptation of presenting a singular, homogenized “South Asian experience.” Instead, it embraces plurality of voices, forms, and sensibilities—all...
Posts
Story of a Social Reformer Bhaskar Parichha Bindeshwar Pathak: A Renaissance Man by Awadhesh Kumar Sharma is a deeply admiring and insightful tribute to one of modern India’s most transformative social reformers, Bindeshwar Pathak. The book positions Pathak not merely as the founder of Sulabh International, but as a rare figure whose life and work straddle multiple domains—science, spirituality, literature, and social justice. Structured across eleven compact yet thematically rich chapters, the book unfolds as both biography and reflection. Sharma’s long scholarly engagement with Pathak lends the narrative authority and depth. One of the book’s greatest strengths lies in its contextualization of Pathak’s work within India’s entrenched social realities. The practice of manual scavenging, rooted in caste hierarchies, is explored not just as a sanitation issue but as a profound human rights crisis. The author effectively demonstrates how Pathak’s innovations—particularly ...
A Magnificent Biography of Lhasa
Old Lhasa: A Biography M A Aldrich Speaking Tiger New Delhi Lawyer and author M.A. Aldrich's Old Lhasa is considered the most thorough account of Lhasa available in English, as it skillfully merges extensive historical research, travel narratives, religious inquiry, and perspectives on daily culture, vividly bringing the city to life for its readers. The book encompasses a wide range of topics, from ancient traditions and everyday practices—such as the spinning of prayer wheels and the offering of juniper incense—to significant landmarks like the Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, and prominent monasteries. It chronicles the city's development, its festivals, and its evolving role in both Tibetan and global history. Aldrich weaves together legends, historical stories, and personal reflections, shedding light on both major occurrences and the importance of seemingly minor details—right down to the narrow streets and shrines that many visitors tend to overlook. Says the...
Travel Paves the Way to Freedom
BOOK REVIEW Journeys to Nirvana: Travel Opens the Path to Liberation Vivek Bammi Aleph Books New Delhi ‘Journeys to Nirvana: Travel Opens the Path to Liberation’ presents a captivating exploration of the world, featuring countries as diverse and far-flung as Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, India, China, Japan, Laos, Spain, the United States, Italy, Taiwan, France, Denmark, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, and Cambodia. In elegantly crafted prose accompanied by stunning photographs, traveler and educator Vivek Bammi discusses the impact of travel on the human spirit. The book takes us through the six stages of existence that travel enables: awe and humility, wonder and catharsis, endurance and efflorescence, solitude and resilience, fluidity and transience, and ultimately, emptiness and release. Each stage is influenced by the emotional and psychological impacts that travel has on a person, serving not merely as an escape but as a means of discovery and enlightenment. ...
‘Locking Down the Poor’ / Review
Exactly a year ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown to check the spread of Covid-19 in the country. That was the most severe and largest restrictions on the movement of people seen anywhere in the world. The lockdown confined over a billion people within their homes, shut down businesses and left lakhs of migrant workers stranded in cities with no means to return to their homes. Imposing lockdown resulted in a big humanitarian crisis as lakhs of migrant workers were left stranded in metro cities without food, money and shelter. A near-total ban on public transport forced these hapless migrants to take the road on foot. Streams of migrant workers poured out of cities desperate to reach their native villages. The government’s hasty implementation of the lockdown was severely criticized for its lack of planning and heavy handedness. Although many books have been written on the migrant crisis post-lockdown, this is by far the hard-hitting one. ...
The Indian Boss At Work - Review
What does it take to be a boss in India? Some years back, an ASSOCHAM Survey revealed sixty-two percent of Indian employees had abusive bosses. Bulk of the employees quit jobs because of bad bosses rather than to seek better employment opportunities. Employees were moving because of bad management, bad supervisors and bad work environment. It is difficult to say whether the situation has changed since that survey. But the fact remains that Indian bosses are a lot to be desired. In that pitiful backdrop, here is an exciting book. ‘The Indian Boss At work–Thinking Global Acting Indian’ by Steve Correa (SAGE Publications India/ New Delhi) which is a journey into the kaleidoscope of Indian business. It explores the ‘context and forces’ besides documenting worldview of Indian leaders. It ‘unravels the secrets to building successful companies based on generational learnings, attitudes and capabilities.’ Correa has three decades of corporate experience in HR and has worked...
A Dominant Character - Review
“When JBS Haldane died in 1964, in Bhubaneswar, he was an Indian scientist. He had a passport, but he also had a deep and abiding love for the country’, reads the blurb in this fascinating biography. Haldane’s move to India was an eventual act in his brisk life. A geneticist and firebrand, Haldane wrote his first scientific papers in the trenches of the First World War. A card-carrying member of the Communist Party, he went to Spain to fight the Fascists during the civil war. Haldane was under heavy suspicion of being a spy for the Soviets; courted trouble and ticked off the establishment repeatedly. All this and more have been put together in this sparkling life story. ‘A Dominant Character – The Radical Science and Restless Politics of JBS Haldane" by Samanth Subramanian (Simon & Schuster, New Delhi) examines the radical research and writing of scientists and philosophers. Haldane’s immense contribution to genetics and Evolutional biology is legendary. He was t...