The settler makes history and is conscious of making it. And because he constantly refers to the history of his mother country, he clearly indicates that he himself is the extension of that mother country. Thus the history which he writes is not the history of the country which he plunders but the history of […]
Someone threw an egg at historian Wendy Doniger during a lecture in London in November 2003. Seven years later Wendy Doniger threw a book back at them. But more about this scholarly debate in a bit. — Reading Raymond Schwab’s masterpiece The Oriental Renaissance: Europe’s Rediscovery of India and the East 1680 – 1880 one […]
In the world there are invisible ladders, leading step by step to the summit of heaven. There is a different ladder for every group, a different heaven for every path. Each one is ignorant of the other’s condition in this wide kingdom which has no end or beginning. This one is amazed at that one […]
The only man I have ever felt envious of was a ‘celebrity’ documentary filmmaker who once told an interviewer that his success was a result of his complete lack of introspection! Introspection has been the bane of my existence. I heard Faiz Ahmed Faiz before I ever read him. His poem ‘Don’t Ask Me for […]