About seventeen years ago, I started a project translating a collection of the Hindi author Upendranath Ashk’s short stories. The project has had a checkered career but is finally coming to fruition in March 2013 from Penguin India. The collection will be called Hats and Doctors, and two excerpts are now available online, one from [...]
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Tentative title: The sentimental and the melodramatic: exploring Partition aesthetics We seek essays for a volume (Routledge) looking at the sentimental and melodramatic aesthetics of images, art, gossip, and writings that remind us of the unspeakable acts of 1947 and their political and cultural aftershocks in Punjab and Bengal. Critics who have variously written about [...]
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For your reading pleasure, a list of our favorite books from 2012–books that we read in 2012 that is, because we reject the Cult of the New and don’t care when they were published. Sepoy’s Six: Herein no particular order are some books that caught attention and didn’t let go. They may or may not [...]
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1. All Hail Salman Rushdie. All Hail Joseph Anton. At times, when she was reading the memoir, she was reminded of that cherished moment in her youth, when she had first read prose in Latin class. That too was a memoir, as it happens, and one also written in the third person singular. Gallia est omnis [...]
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A snippet from my new Bookslut column by me in which I review Marina Warner’s Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights: Said’s thesis has unfortunately made little effect in the US outside of the academy. The greatest ostensible change seems to be on the use of the term “oriental” for persons of Asian [...]
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[A guest post by Tipu Sultan] Once, I Was An Oil Drop I was taught that oil was the most glorious thing that had ever happened to humankind. My first memory of this education was at age six. I was inducted into the girl-scouts, along with some of the other girls in the corporate-garrison town-city [...]
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I. Years ago, while writing my dissertation, I stepped out one evening to one of those enormous drug stores that are open all night in cities. I browsed idly among the nail colors, wondering if I should consider adding layers of glitter to my already elaborate manicure. The aisles of women’s products were full of [...]
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My review of Habibi is out in The Sunday Guardian today. It was originally longer. The full piece is below: I. Hating Art I have hated many pieces of art in my life. An Italian restaurant I used to go to was decorated with enormous abstract oil paintings. The paintings were so aggressively bad they [...]
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This Friday (February 3rd) come to my book launch and art opening in Philadelphia at Twelve Gates Gallery. The paintings in question will be mostly South Asia related, with the centerpiece being my series of watercolors of Jackie Kennedy’s visit to the Subcontinent. Dedicated CM readers will recognize this series instantly from my old but [...]
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Sepoy insists that I share this painting of Nehru by my grandfather. He also has asked me to share my thoughts and feelings. Here they are: When I painted Nehru, I didn’t realize, at least not consciously, that my grandfather had painted him. When I found out, it made me feel kinda funny. Look at [...]
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I have a review of Granta’s ten years post-9/11 issue up on The Sunday Guardian (New Delhi). When I first wrote my draft, I sent it to Sepoy, because I was worried it was too much of a screed. Sepoy, upon reading it, was disappointed in the lack of screedishness of the review. He had [...]
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I have a new piece up at Caravan on Yashpal’s great Partition novel, Jhootha Sach. It’s very nicely reproduced, though I seem to have missed the weird new title during the editing process (“Night Smudged Light”). My title, “Late for the Party,” must have seemed too cavalier. Here’s an excerpt: Jhootha Sach, first published in [...]
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One thing that the First World really gets right is good dental care. The more money you have, the better the teeth. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we Americans (at least those with good dental insurance) have some of the pearliest, straightest teeth in the world, we are seldom grateful for this gift. The word [...]
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I. A Terribly Attractive Man I probably first heard the name Qaddafi on the radio, from NPR, an always present background noise in my childhood. But the name only acquired meaning when I heard it uttered by my Great Aunt in a stage whisper to my mother: “That Mr. Qaddafi is terribly attractive!” She hissed, [...]
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You fill the air with smiles For miles and miles and miles Though you’re no Mona Lisa For worlds I’d not replace Your sunny, funny face I love your funny face Your sunny, funny face You’re not exotic but so hypnotic You’re much, too much If you can cook the way you look I’d swim [...]
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My new show, Political Animal, opens in White River Junction, VT, at the Main Street Museum this Friday, April 15th, 5-7 PM. Here is a sneak preview of what will be exhibited, for those of you who, ahem, might not be in the neighborhood. First, the Inqilab series: Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR. And second, my [...]
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Our hardworking judge, the illustrious Kuzhali Manickavel, has pored long and hard over all the submissions for our flash fiction contest. She has selected one first place winner, and two entries are tied for second place. She found the decision very difficult and hopes that everyone enjoys the results. In first place, we have a [...]
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For my recent column on Bookslut, I approached the worrisome task of writing about the most exalted stars in the Bangla literary firmament gingerly and with some trepidation. What if my reverence was insufficient? What if I missed some important salient details? Was I even qualified to write about Bankim and Tagore at all? It [...]
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