Trance-Migrations: Stories of India, Tales of Hypnosis, Siegel. Mother of 1084, Devi, Bandyopadhyay. Old Women, Devi, Spivak. The Calling of History: Sir Jadunath Sarkar and His Empire of Truth, Chakrabarty. Genderscapes: Revisioning Natural Resource Management, Krishna. When the River Sleeps, Kire. A new manuscript of 'Inayatallah's Bahar-i Danish. Shaikh ‘Inayatallah Kanbu of Delhi finished his romantic tale the Bahar-i Danish (‘The Springtime of Knowledge’) in 1651, a collection of Indian tales held together by the frame story of the romance of Jahandar Sultan and Bahravar Banu. No early illustrated copy seems to have survived. A previously unknown manuscript of the text illustrated with 118 miniatures appeared recently at auction from the collection of the Duke of Northumberland (Sotheby’s, London, 8 October 2014, lot 275). Although undated, this manuscript goes some way to fill the gap in Mughal manuscript illustration between the end of the reign of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) and the revival of the imperial Mughal studio in the 18th century.
There are very few good quality Mughal manuscripts from the latter half of the 17th century with which this manuscript could be compared. The Emperor of Hindustan supplicating the pure-minded for a son, which bore fruit eventually in Jahandar Sultan. Further Reading: Beach, M. Pedro Machado, "Ocean of Trade: South Asian Merchants, Africa, and the Indian Ocean, c.1750-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2014) The Great & Beautiful Lost Kingdoms by William Dalrymple. Buddhism Along the Silk Road, 5th–8th Century an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, June 2, 2012–February 10, 2013 Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, Fifth to Eighth Century an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, April 14–July 27, 2014 Catalog of the exhibition by John Guy.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 317 pp., $65.00 “People of distant places with diverse customs,” wrote a Chinese Buddhist monk in the mid-seventh century, “generally designate the land that they admire as India.” Xuanzang was a scholar, traveler, and translator. For most of its later medieval and modern history, it was India’s fate to be on the receiving end of foreign influences.
If the scale and breadth of this extraordinary cultural diffusion is not as well known as it should be, that is perhaps partly because of a tendency to perceive and study this process as two separate disciplines, each the preserve of a different group of scholars. Postcards from Empire. In the photograph a young woman poses against a stately painted backdrop, a balcony with elegant fretwork and a sylvan view. She cocks her head demurely to one side, a solitary finger touching her jaw. A rose-patterned garment moulds her figure and covers her head, but her feet are bare. An elaborately braceleted arm closes around her waist, almost defensively. The unnamed woman’s eyes gaze softly back at the viewer, a faint smile playing on her lips. Victorian-era photographs of Indian women in the West Indies advertized their beauty and their prosperity. I discovered these photographs on tourist postcards while researching the repressed history of Indo-Caribbean women for Coolie Woman, a book that doubles as a family history.
Often, the postcards carry captions or even hand-written notes suggesting how people may have identified or perceived the portraits at the time. Only two memoirs about indenture exist; both were authored by men. Still, some photographs show signs of resistance. Colonial Photography in British India. Violence and the Archive: Colonial Photography in Nineteenth-Century British India My research deals with some of the more extreme elements of nineteenth-century imperial visual culture: photography’s documentation of, and its implication in, acts of colonial and (more rarely) anti-colonial violence in South Asia.
The camera’s engagement with the executions, imprisonments and punishments of Indian people living under the British Raj pushed against the limits of acceptability and legality. In doing so, it created a body of imagery that was the source of both intense excitement and deep anxiety for Victorian-era colonials, and which remains an ethically and politically sensitive subject matter for post-colonial scholars, publics and archives. Photographs of graphic violence, far from being pervasive, were outliers within an imperial visual culture that was dominated by picturesque landscapes, portraiture and ethnographic studies of Indian peoples and places. J O S T A M O N - Sarla Thakral, first Indian woman pilot (from... The Henry Ginsburg photo collection: an insight into a curator’s life and work.
Henry David Ginsburg (1940-2007), the former Curator of the Thai, Lao and Cambodian collections at the British Library, started work at the British Museum Library in 1967 as a Special Assistant. He spent his entire life conducting research on Southeast Asian arts and cultures, but passed away in 2007 without finishing his last two research projects, on Thai banner paintings and the Chakrabongse Archive of royal letters held at the British Library. Henry Ginsburg left behind a huge collection of books, photographs and art treasures, which he had collected over forty years through personal and professional contacts. He was friends with several members of the Thai royal family, as well as with scholars, private collectors, and colleagues from a variety of institutions all over the world. As a curator Henry was well-known for his specialism in Thai manuscripts and manuscript painting, but his interests and expertise were far broader than this.
Unidentified stone inscription. References: Ritu G. Khanduri, "Caricaturing Culture in India: Cartoons and History in the Modern World" (Cambridge UP, 2014) What Is the Line Between Cultural Respect and (Mis)appropriation? One of the major topics of debate in the South Asian American community is the issue of cultural appropriation. What is the line between cultural respect and (mis)appropriation? As so much desi culture becomes co-opted by Americans, particularly whites, and the foods, clothes, and traditions are copied and then infused with other beliefs and practices, a parallel debate rages about whether those that “borrow” from South Asia are doing it out of genuine respect and interest, or out of classic exploitative capitalism.
What is the difference between my white masseuse at Massage Envy greeting me with a “Namaste” and a black hip hop duo sampling Pakistani qawwali music? One aspect of this discussion that often gets left out is how much South Asian cultural practices tend to not only become replicated by Americans, but also transformed, and how these new hybrid practices, subsequently engender changes back in the countries of origin. Rating: Shyam K. Borderlands. All national borders are imaginary. But some are more imaginary than others. And perhaps some nations are more imaginative too. Somewhere in the labyrinths of the New Delhi bureaucracy, tucked within the recesses of the Ministry of Home Affairs, is a bureau called the Department of Border Management. The DBM, sometimes with just the flourish of an ink pen, conjures the sinuous, unsteady line that separates the triangle of the subcontinent from the mass of Asia. Travel along the border districts of the east and you will see it unfurling slowly through the simmering green farmlands of Bengal, turning the territory into a map at last.
This imposing national installation is still a work in progress. Whatever its inadequacies, it is already the world’s longest border fence by any measure.Tweet Whether this is an appropriate or proportionate response to India’s perceived problem with its smaller neighbor is less certain. And you will realize, sooner or later, that they were all right. India's Dying Well of Death | Travel. People's Archive of Rural India. Pictures: What goes on under the bridges of Delhi. My journey as a documentary photographer took off almost two months ago when I held a digital SLR, or single-lens reflex, camera for the first time in my life. With some scepticism about the project I decided to explore the bridges of Delhi. But a whole parallel world emerged. I noticed a lot of peculiar things happening around bridges but also took cognisance of our indifference to what exists there. People's lives there are confined to a few square feet. But I also found hope. The view of Rajesh and his unique school receded as I steered toward the Modi Mill Flyover, where children have become accustomed to the honks of cars and rattle of trains.
You cannot escape history in India's capital. Mirza Arif Beg is pursuing a Masters in Convergent Journalism at AJKMCRC Jamia Millia Islamia. Losing a city. Newspaper nameplates - an album on Flickr. Nicholas B. Dirks, "Autobiography of an Archive : A Scholar's Passage to India" (Columbia UP, 2015) Samir Chopra, "Eye on Cricket: Reflections on the Great Game" (HarperCollins India, 2015) The 12 Most Popular Travel Bloggers From India. With stunning beaches, a rich culture, ancient heritage buildings, majestic temples, impressive mountain ranges and much more, India is an enthralling country to visit. But it is also such a vast country that travellers do benefit from a little guidance suited to their ambitions and taste.
We have listed the top 12 Indian travel bloggers which convey the true sense of India, follow them for inspiration and ideas. Shivya Nath Shivya Nath is a young female adventurer on a mission to inspire other young women to travel solo and be independent. That is exactly what she does through her award-winning blog called ‘The Shooting Star’. Anuradha Goyal Blogging since 2004, Anuradha Goyal has been sharing precious information about her two biggest passions which are travelling and reading.
Karthik Reddy After completing his MBA in 2012, Karthik Reddy decided to leave his comfort zone and travel instead. Lakshmi Sharath Lakshmi Sharath is a person you would a multi-talented world traveller. Arnab Maity. The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam. On the night of 7 January 2012, a stationmaster at a provincial railway station in central India discovered the body of a young woman lying beside the tracks. The corpse, clothed in a red kurta and a violet and grey Puma jacket, was taken to a local morgue, where a postmortem report classified the death as a homicide.
The unidentified body was “a female aged about 21 to 25 years”, according to the postmortem, which described “dried blood present” in the nostrils, and the “tongue found clenched between upper and lower jaw, two upper teeth found missing, lips found bruised”. There was a crescent of scratches on the young woman’s face, as if gouged by the fingernails of a hand forcefully clamped over her mouth. “In our opinion,” the handwritten report concluded, “[the] deceased died of asphyxia (violent asphyxia) as a result of smothering.”
A fevered investigation began, and hundreds of arrests were made. And then, as the investigation widened, people started dying. But what of the deaths? Indians think Africans are “frauds and prostitutes”—so why do they still come to India to study? Bengaluru, India/Dar es Salaam, Tanzania On the morning of Feb. 06, a few hundred African students gathered on the steps of Bengaluru’s Town Hall, a striking, colonnaded building at the heart of the sprawling metropolis best known as India’s Silicon Valley. Holding posters, some printed and most handwritten, and shouting slogans, they were protesting the assault on a Tanzanian student who had alleged that she was stripped and beaten up by a mob on Jan. 31.
It was a heartfelt outcry over violence against Africans that is becoming all too commonplace in India. But there was also a strange air of amusement and bewilderment at the protest site. The policemen sniggered, speaking among themselves. Some passersby openly laughed, entertained by the sight of a group of agitating African students. Others simply walked by, unperturbed. “They think Africans are into fraud and prostitution” “My experience was not bad,” she told Quartz, “50-50.” “I came to India because I love India. What happened to the women who graduated from IITs in the 90s? Munmun Mukherjee is a good patient. She lies quiet on the white stone delivery table of the government hospital in Kolkata, but for an occasional low moan. Even this is muted, the edge of her voice flattened, as if she knows that she needs to be on her best behaviour.
A slim, dusky woman, she looks tidy even in her tired, crumpled nightie. It is late January, and the reluctant Kolkata winter has already slipped away. Deep in the fold of the evening, there is a warm traffic of activity inside the labour room of this large hospital. The ancient ceiling fans hum like an order of monks. The table alongside Munmun is empty, a brown blood stain in the middle has seeped in so obstinately that it looks like a marbled pattern. Munmun is the only patient in the room, her stone table is hard and cold to the touch. “Please daktaar babu, ami aar parchhi naa [Doctor, I can’t take it any more],” she says.
“Tchaak,” he says crisply. The stories of giving birth in a public hospital are troubling. Indian Women In Science | January 19, 2009 Issue - Vol. 87 Issue 3. Lilavati’s Daughters: The Women Scientists of India, edited by Rohini Godbole and Ram Ramaswamy, Indian Academy of Sciences, 2008, 368 pages, $25 paperback (ISBN: 978–81–8465–005–1) INVESTIGATING SCIENCE COMMUNICATION IN THE INFORMATION AGE: Implications for Public Engagement and Popular Media, edited by Richard Holliman et al., Oxford University Press, 2008, 320 pages, $30.90 paperback (ISBN: 978–0-19–955266–5) A collection of newly commissioned chapters by leading science communication scholars. The book addresses current theoretical, practical, and policy developments in science communication, including recent calls for greater openness and transparency, as well as for engagement and dialogue on the part of professional scientists with members of the public.
ENTERPRISE EXCELLENCE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO WORLD CLASS COMPETITION, by Normand L. THE GREAT EQUATIONS: Breakthroughs in Science from Pythagoras to Heisenberg, by Robert P. Even the title tells a tale. Darshan Ranganatahn. The Cultural Politics of Shit: class, gender and public space in India | Assa Doron. In other words, the story told by the idealized and aestheticized Zurich instal-lation is not simply one that the West tells about the non-West. It is equally a storyabout the West itself and its understanding of what constitutes a crisis of sanitation,how technologies of waste management should function, and meanings attached to private and public spaces.In the Western world, as Gay Hawkins has argued, publics don t shit onlyindividuals do, and in very particular ways: engaging in secret rituals of self main-tenance that, in turn, guarantee public health and civic order.
Waste , she con-tends, functions as a marker of the structural differentiation between the realmof intimacy and public life. In our defecatory social order, we simply fl ushand forget . Ect on the cultural history of human waste and the political economy of its manage-ment. S conclusion when he sums up his comparison of British, French and German toilets with the claim that as soon as you Publics that shit : a cultural interpretation fi. Drishyam, or Women’s Rights in Indian Pop Culture.
India and South East Asia face a problem: men use their mobile phones to film girls and women secretly, both in public and in private. Drishyam (2013) is a recent Malayalam film by Indian director Jeethu Joseph that explores the issue of secret and private footage in India, as well as its consequences, faced by an average family. Manzar Samii discusses the film and its powerful message. The fact that Drishyam is the highest-grossing film in Malayalam cinema is no small feat. In fact, the film is exceptional not only because it topped the charts, but also because it attempts to represent a contemporary family that is faced with real issues.
As opposed to romance movies with cheerful dance numbers or fast-paced action films filled with drama, Drishyam focuses on a surprising turn of events for one family in a small town in Kerala. Even though the film is substantially dramatic, it highlights an important social issue not only in India, but also across Asia in general. 'Court' Is a Wise, Incisive Contemplation of India's Institutional Mechanics. The 12 Best LGBTQ Films From Across India. A New Superhero Is Battling Sexual Violence in the Most Kick-Ass Way Possible. Inside India's Deadly Sand Mafia. Untouchable Voices: Resisting the Violence of Caste. Farewell, Maestro: Rituparno Ghosh (1963-2013)