Wednesday, May 16, 2012 8:01 PM IST

'Taliban Cricket Club' is a novel with a twist

Writing a novel about Afghanistan can be a difficult, unenviable undertaking.
Ideally, the result will be well-informed, nuanced, stylishly written, surprising and free of cliches. At worst, the book will simply perpetuate stereotypes, even "good" stereotypes that to this day frustrate and confound Afghanistan's relations with the world.
Timeri N. Murari's attempt at the Afghan no ..More

‘Chennai is married to tradition'

Chennai is known as conservative and orthodox. Yet almost every modern Indian institution — from army to judiciary, medicine to engineering — traces its roots to Madras’s Fort St. George, which was built when Delhi had just become Mughal India’s capital and Kolkata and Mumbai weren’t even born. Bishwanath Ghosh, the author of Tamarind City, talks to Yogesh Vajpeyi.

What prompted Tamarind City?
Modern India began in Chennai; in Fort St. ..More


The full circle of reason

Marina Lewycka’s fourth novel, Various Pets Alive and Dead, brings together the unlikely world of hippies and yuppies....more

Timeri N Murai
‘I wanted to write on tyranny’

A decade ago, a news snippet on Taliban’s keenness to promote cricket in Afghanistan intrigued Timeri N Murai. After...more

View from the local train window

The maiden ventures of Grey Oak publishing, a joint venture with Westland Books, are a worthy if slightly uneven...more

A New York Sheikha in a Yemeni Diwan

An American Journalist in Yemen, is a memoir of the time :...more

‘We have roles to play in correcting imbalances'

Taking a leaf from Edmund Burke, lawyer P V Jois took a sabbatical from practice to play a proactive role in India’s

MUSHARRAF ALI FAROOQI

‘Translation taught me a lot about writing’

With old-world characters of great wrestler Ustad Ramzi and courtesan Gohar Jan in the twilight of their lives,

INTERVIEW

‘Lankans want to deny their past’

Son of a locomotive driver, 77-year-old Carl Muller survived three school dismissals, the Royal Ceylon Navy and Army,

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INTERVIEW
'Encouraged to numb pain'

“If we understood loss better, perhaps we could accept it better, and understand that loss and reclamation are ...More

Psychological residues of the cell

Peter Hobbs In the mountain foothills of northern Pakistan, near the snow-capped Afghan passes with their “fluid and ...More

Archipelago of brutality

Shin Dong-hyuk, the real hero of Camp 14, after his escape to the West ‘1984 is possibly the dystopian novel, set in a world ...More

FLYING MAN
One luggage carousel too many

Most authors use writing as a form of personal exorcism. Unfortunately, all demons and angels aren’t interesting. ...More

BALASARASWATI
The last devadasi of Thanjavur

Balasaraswati on stage (File photo) When once asked how she’d like to be remembered, the great Bharatanatyam danseuse Balasaraswati reportedly said ...More

SANKARA NETHRALAYALA
A vision for compassion

(File photo) This is the story of the dedication and passion of one person, Dr S S Badrinath, the founder of the now ...More

BOOK REVIEW
King Duttha Gamini’s reign

(Illustration: Vineeth S Pillai) W here do I start reviewing a work whose author, no academic or historian, sets out all the same to record the ...More

ARTIST, UNDONE
Sanjay Kumar’s debut

V Sanjay Kumar Like contemporary art, V Sanjay Kumar’s debut — Artist, Undone — demands a little patience from its readers. ...More

BEAUTY OF BOOKS
Heterogeneity over homogeneity

Most people wouldn’t list Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life and Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and ...More

NOTES FROM WHERE
The indignation of imagination

My late friend, the choreographer, Chandralekha, used to speak a great deal about indignation—how she could ...More

STUPID GUY GOES TO INDIA
The story of the rising son

In 2004, having never left Japan before, 56-year-old manga author Yukichi Yamamatsu travelled to India, armed ...More

AYODHYA
Margins of the promised land

The business and accoutrements of religion have always dominated Ayodhya’s public space, and pilgrims and tourists ...More

SECOND INNINGS
Rasam noir revisted

After the resounding success of the first volume of Blaft’s anthology of Tamil pulp fiction, the editors are ...More

COMMEMORATING VICTORY
Rider on the storm

June 6, 1934. The event : the Epsom Derby. The winner : Maharaja Sir Vijaysinhji of Rajpipla. Commemorating ...More

Interpreter of royal heritage

Indra Vikram Singh in Delhi. (Photo/Ravi Choudhary) It is on a chilly forenoon that I met Indra Vikram Singh in Delhi for a chat. With no airs about him, the scion of ...More

REVIEW
Journey into Indian maleness

The act of sex is a major part of the characterisation of sexuality. We are delineated by who, or what, or how ...More

REVIEW
Prisoner of fate

Jeffrey Archer’s The Sins of the Father picks up where the first edition of the series, Only Time Will Tell left. ...More

MIDDLE AGE
‘Sunlit upland of experience'

The 5th and 6th decades of human life have a bad reputation. From Terry and June to Homer Simpson, pop culture tells ...More

THE END OF ILLNESS
The road to good health

The End of Illness by Dr David B Agus, on how to lead a healthy and disease-free life by using medicines to ...More

BOLLYWOOD'S TOP 20
When stars come marching in

Poster of Durga, starring Devika Rani There was a time when the sophisticated and erudite members of India’s middle class used to snigger at ...More

THE NEWSROOM MAFIA
Gravedigger’s ball

Unlike other major film industries of the world, the link between Bollywood and any literature has always been ...More

 
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