Rabindranath Tagore

Dear Reader, Jaipur: Visitors at the Jaipur Literature Festival, in Jaipur, Monday, Feb. 5, 2024. (PTI Photo) (PTI02_05_2024_000381B)(PTI) I can’t believe I am in Jaipur. I almost didn’t get here. Experience Delhi’s rich history through a series of heritage walks with HT! Participate Now My mother is ill and I have been spending my weekends flying to Delhi, as part of the take-care-of-Mum roster. Then my daughter offered to go to Delhi in my stead. So here I am on a Thursday evening– at Hotel Clarks Amer in…

“Bhanu was a true blue designer. What we have now are mere stylists,” said Zeenat Aman, the sassy seductress of the Hindi cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, at the launch of the exhibition, Bharat Through the Lens of Bhanu Athaiya, organised by luxury auction house Prinseps at Aguada in Goa’s refurbished cultural hub inside the Port and Jail complex in Candolim. Zeenat, who broke the mould with her edgy onscreen sartorial choices, recalled several anecdotes from her collaborations with Bhanu, including the most memorable…

Today, Tapan Sinha’s name may sound rather obscure to most. Even after a fairly intense Google search, only a sketchy, half-hearted Wikipedia page and a few academic essays appear. In contrast, there is voluminous material available on Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. Perhaps 2024, Sinha’s centenary year, will put the spotlight once again on the filmmaker who has been unjustifiably overshadowed by his three Bengali peers. PREMIUM Film director Tapan Sinha in a photograph dated 22 October 1989. (HT…

It is hard to tell whether Bengali author Krishnagopal Mallick (1936-2003) wrote to celebrate homosexuality, shock bhadralok sensibilities, titillate those in need of erotic entertainment, or give free rein to his creative expression without caring about the reception. Rather than analysing his motivations, it might be more useful to examine what his writing stirs up in us. His fiction is now available in English translation, thanks to Niladri R Chatterjee, professor of English at Kalyani University, West Bengal.…

A thought-provoking book, The Scientific Sufi takes readers on a journey through the life and experiences of Jagadish Chandra Bose. The title suggests that Bose believed in the coexistence of contrary things and the book itself is a profound exploration of the man’s personal growth, familial bonds, cultural influences, and dogged pursuit of knowledge. Meher Wan’s evocative storytelling leaves a lasting impact and his attention to detail immerses readers in Bose’s world. PREMIUM Jagadish Chandra Bose demonstrating…

Organized by the Publishers and Booksellers Guild, the 46th International Kolkata Book Fair began on the 31st of January and concluded on the 12th of February. The slogan for the 13-day event was Boi Porun, Boi Kinun, Boi Upohaar Din (Read Books, Buy Books, Gift Books), a message that seems to have been taken quite seriously by Kolkatans, who thronged the event in large numbers. All previous records were broken as more than 26 lakh people visited the venue and books worth more than ₹25 crore were sold. At a time when all…

Ironically, it was on a flight to Thailand that I happened to re-read Rabindranath Tagore’s Where the Mind Is Without Fear, written over 120 years ago. It was a poem I was familiar with, as it was part of our school curriculum... The poem “continues to exhort people – particularly in conflict zones across the world – to seek fearless truth, progressive thoughts and actions,” said Dr Badrul Hassan, a recipient of the Pablo Neruda Prize for poetry, in a write-up for the Reader’s Digest May 2020 issue. It was a “hymn for…

It is not often that a solitary article spawns two international seminars, and two excellent edited volumes. But Mukul Kesavan is exactly the kind of thinker who can set off big intellectual currents with throwaway remarks. His 1994 article Urdu, Awadh and the Tawaif: the Islamicate roots of Hindi Cinema provided the impetus for Ira Bhaskar and Richard Allen’s 2009 collection Islamicate Cultures of Bombay Cinema which studied Bombay cinema through the lens of the “Muslim Social, the Historical, the Courtesan film and the…

In his book, Other Minds - The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life, author Peter Godfrey-Smith describes meeting an octopus as “meetings across the tree of life”. The last time we had a common ancestor between the human and an octopus may have been 600 million years ago. But octopuses are intelligent, displaying curiosity and varied problem-solving ability. And thus, Godfrey-Smith writes that an octopus is the closest we will ever come to meeting an “intelligent alien”. 205pp, ₹499; Penguin Random House…

Poet, philosopher, author, painter, and singer -- Rabindranath Tagore was creativity personified. In fact, his contributions to Indian literary culture is unforgettable. There has hardly ever been a poet in the history of India who has so beautifully and lyrically given words to those feelings which we often yearn to describe but fail miserably to explain. Even after his death, Tagore continues to inspire generations of writers, poets, and musicians. From Pablo Neruda to Gabriela Mistril, many have also been inspired…