‘The Hindus’ – 1
‘The Hindus’ by Wendy Doniger tells ‘an alternative history’ of the Hindus from c.50,000,000 BCE to 1500 BCE to the present. Considering this claim, 700 pages are rather modest. Doniger clarifies that she doesn’t believe that any one person can tell the story of Hinduism. Perhaps this is also one reason (amongst others) why she…
Spirit sans Spirits
I found myself sitting shoulders tense and raised, forefingers plugging my ears as hard as I possibly could. Damn – I’d forgotten my earplugs, even though I knew I was going to ‘The India Fair’. On stage the singer, a young man, yelled into the mike – ‘volume, volume’ and the volume rose even higher.…
Jai ‘Gobar Rashtra’!
IYD is not the same as DIY. It is a name given by the BJP, and sometimes used to keep the memory of P alive. A strong leader (otherwise called ‘the watchman’) knows how to do this. The important thing about YD is that you have the most benefit from it if you DY yourself.…
“Falling Star”
My mother in law asks me if the exhibition that I am about to go to contains paintings and when I say no, I don’t think so, she wants to know what then? Well, I tell her, Monali Meher is a performance artist, and with growing curiosity, I go to see ‘Falling Star’. The ‘performances’…
‘Speakability’ – Dutch style
A few seconds after I have been overtaken by a lady wearing impressive goggles, a memory of a couple of years ago drifts through my head. I had stopped in front of a jet of water gushing out of the swimming pool wall to get a back and neck massage as I sometimes do at…