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Manoj Mitra (1938-2024): Banchharam’s garden loses its creator, and Bengal a doyen of stage and screen 

His most enduring legacy is perhaps his role in Banchharamer Bagaan, considered one of the greatest performances in Bengali cinema.
Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay
Short Story

Coolie

The story is from the book, Distant Traveller: New and Selected Fiction by Attia Hosain
Attia Hosain
Counter Culture

Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again is an epic cop-out

The movie, a forceful, joyless retracing of the Ramayana does a disservice to the very thing it purports to be in service of: the police force.
Prathyush Parasuraman
ESSAY

How anti-Hindi protests of the 1960s created India’s most successful regional political movement

The agitation proved singular: it toppled a regime, rewrote India’s language policy, and established Dravidian party rule that continues even today.
Karthick Ram Manoharan

More stories from Arts & Culture

Quincy Jones poses after being awarded the Grand Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on October 6, 2014 in Paris.

Quincy Jones (1933-2024) showed the world that music speaks one language

How an 11-year-old’s break-in birthed eight decades of musical innovation, from Sinatra’s swing to Jackson’s pop revolution.
Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay
The Great Banyan tree, spread over 1.5 hectares with more than 2,800 prop roots, is one of the biggest attractions of the Indian botanical garden in Howrah, West Bengal.

Paradise in Peril: India’s great banyan garden fights for survival

The Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden, a living heritage site, is in desperate need of funds to sustain itself.
Soumitra Das
Film star Vijay addressing the inaugural political conference of his party, the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, held at Vikravandi in Viluppuram district, on October 27.

Thalapathy Vijay’s grand political entry stumbles on basic ideological contradictions

His attempt to merge inclusive “Dravidam” philosophy with exclusive “Tamil nationalism” reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of Dravidian politics.
Ilangovan Rajasekaran
This year’s Phool Walon Ki Sair featured cultural performances from Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. 

Delhi’s Phool Walon Ki Sair: A people’s festival dimmed by bureaucracy

It has transformed from a vibrant grassroots celebration into a state-managed affair. Local artisans, flower sellers are mere bystanders now.
Vitasta Kaul,Vedaant Lakhera
Safdar Hashmi in “Aya Chunav”, Janam’s first political play performed in Hissar, Haryana, in 1981. 

Safdar Hashmi’s transformative approach to theatre as a democratic force

Through plays like Hatyare and Aurat, Hashmi tackled communalism and gender issues while building an inclusive, collaborative artistic practice.
A. Mangai
A public protest against the proposed passing of laws against “love jehad” in Bengaluru on December 1, 2020.

Love in the time of ‘love jehad’: The complex lives of Hindu-Muslim couples in India

Ashis Roy explores the everyday challenges of urban middle-class Hindu-Muslim couples even as it deftly challenges toxic generalisations.
Chintan Girish Modi
The “Terrific Ten” who in 1997 were assembled by The New Yorker for the “Group Shot”: (top to bottom, first column) Amit Chaudhuri, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra, (middle row) Kiran Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Ardashir Vakil, Salman Rushdie, (last column) Rohinton Mistry, Anita Desai, and Vikram Seth. 

A photograph captured ten novelists who transformed Indian writing forever—and marked the end of an era

Revisiting The New Yorker’s iconic 1997 photograph of 10 “original gangsters” of the Indian English novel.
Shivendra Singh
Installation view, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. Exhibition: “Paper Jewels: Postcards from the Raj”, from the Omar Khan Collection and the Alkazi Collection of Photography, August 19-October 1, 2018.

Reimagining the past: Inside India’s archive revolution

How India’s private foundations transform historical collections into interactive experiences, bridging past and present through technology.
Janhavi Acharekar
An inscription in the 13th century Siddham script, from which the modern Odia alphabet has been derived, at Ananta Vasudeva Temple, Bhubaneswar.

What defines ‘Odia literature’? 

Is it the language, the land, or the cultural identity that makes literature truly Odia?
Sailen Routray
Scenes from daily life in Allepey, Kerala.

Stories that are close to the bone

From menstrual taboos to interfaith marriage: Shahina K. Rafiq’s unabashed collection reveals intimate truths of Indian women’s lives.
Chittajit Mitra
Watching a documentary film about a wrongly incercerated man caused participants in a study to be more supportive of reforms to the US criminal justice system.

Could watching a movie change your political views?

Watching a docufilm about a wrongly convicted man boosted empathy towards incarcerated people, according to a new scientific study.
Deutsche Welle
An artist in Florence, Italy, made a chalk drawing of the Mona Lisa using a sidewalk as a canvas.

ChatGPT novels and CG Mona Lisas: The digital deluge of mediocre art threatens to drown out quality work

Is the “unmitigated glut” of instant art erasing our cultural memory? Or are we witnessing the death of the starving artist?
Gautam Bhatia
SHOW MORE
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