Jumping from A Clockwork Orange which works on an indexical and direct presentation of voyeurism, we move to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), which is submerged in dealing with how cinema is a powerful medium because it addresses the most intimate in you and yet it’s a public
"So long as a woman refrains from unsexing herself, let her dabble in anything. The woman of genius does not exist. When she does, she is a man."---A 19th century commentator Feminism as we know it today, or the ‘second wave’ of feminism as an ideology, developed
The School of Arts and Aesthetics in Jawaharlal Nehru University (J.N.U.), Delhi, recently invoked the mysticism, iconography, and complexities of the period most popularly known as the “Swinging Sixties”. The two-day conference at the university, titled The Global Sixties and Its Cultural Afterlife, saw eminent intellectuals and academicians
The Fakir is a fictionalised biography of Lalan Fakir, the great mystic poet from Bengal. The famed novel, written by popular novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay, was recently translated into English by Monabi Mitra. The story takes us back to 19th century Bengal, a land that was once feudal and oppressive. The
As you go through the pages of this book, you are introduced to a world called ‘Room’. A 11' by 11' hole where Jack lives with his Ma, who is unnamed throughout the novel. You are hooked on immediately as you wonder why they are living there, and
On Two Feet and Wings is Iranian-born lawyer, actor, and producer Abbas Kazerooni’s debut novel. As a young boy of 10, Abbas had to escape from Iran, following the ousting of the erstwhile Shah, to Istanbul where he had to learn to make his way around alone in a
Journalism can be broadly described as watching life through someone else’s eyes. We read about what happens in the world, and witness it through another person's perspective. A similar explanation can be given for our experience when we read a story, in which we get to know
At the crack of dawn, as a city sleeps, a visual of a group of hundred-odd enthusiasts greet you. On your ever-expanding, forever flattening television set---wrongly called the idiot box---you see these enthusiasts screaming their guts out as they realise that the camera has captured them in its frame. Welcome
Having lived in Delhi for more than a year now, the city seems to me to be contemporary in the singular nature of her oldness. Her density in terms of time; the multiple eras that have passed through her walls and streets---one might ask, how is this relevant to us
En route from Bangalore to Coorg, there’s a slice of Tibet hidden away in Karnataka. Highways lined with ‘Saravana Tiffins’ and the like that boast of serving up the hottest sambar within minutes suddenly give way to open meadows with bursts of colourful prayer flags and the occasional monk