The Telegraph Interview: Stories connect people, be it in Venice or the Sunderbans
CLICK HERE to read the interview
Chronicling the other Bengal
CLICK HERE to read in The Daily Star, Bangladesh
A Times of India podcast
On Why Bengali writer Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay missed Nobel Prize for Literature
CLICK HERE to listen..
Interview in The Telegraph
Video Interview in The Print
Online Masterclass at Krea University
CLICK HERE to attend...
Before the pandemic and (maybe) after: A catalogue of what cities lose
In March last year, my world shrank inside the walls of my home. As death began to cast its long shadow, one day I looked around my bookshelves and saw the titles I was yet to read. These were books I had collected over the years, tickled by whims or obscure goals, books I had been meaning to read but had never managed to, books that were like unfamiliar names in my phone’s contacts list. Suddenly I had the realisation that even if I lived through this pandemic, and a worsening climate crisis, even if I was granted a long full life, I shall probably never read all the books I have collected...
CLICK HERE to read in Scroll.in
Unlock Diaries: My Home as a Blue Kite by Parimal Bhattacharya
Oh, to step out into the city with more hope than worry, if only to return home and rediscover the repose it gives after a long hard day.
CLICK HERE to read in Hindustan Times.
An Interview in Live History India
The Story behind the Story, by Akshay Chavan, followed by a long interview with the author. ... CLICK HERE TO READ
Book excerpts
Kinthup's story
Published in Caravan Magazine. Click here to read...
Fate of a Spy
Published in Scroll. Click here to read...
In the Abode of the Thunderbold Sow
Published in The Bengal Story. CLICK HERE to read...
The King and the Mystic
The Other Silk Route : A Panel Discussion
The Other Silk Route : A Panel Discussion
A new book talks about the lesser-known story of the romance between Alexandra David-Neel, who was the first woman to cross over into Tibet, and Sidkeong Tulku, the king of Sikkim... Narrated from 'Bells of Shangri-la' in Mumbai Mirror.
Click Here to read.
The Other Silk Route : A Panel Discussion
The Other Silk Route : A Panel Discussion
The Other Silk Route : A Panel Discussion
Panelists: Prof. Siddiq Wahid, Parimal Bhattacharya, Diki Sherpa. Moderated by Gitanjali Surendran. Held at India International Centre on 3 February, 2018.
Click Here to download the ArtEast Journal 2018
Trouble is Brewing in Darjeeling
The Other Silk Route : A Panel Discussion
The Tailor Who Solved the Riddle of the Tsangpo
On a hundred days' bandh in Darjeeling. Published in a special issue of India Today.
Click Here to read.
The Tailor Who Solved the Riddle of the Tsangpo
The Tailor Who Solved the Riddle of the Tsangpo
The Tailor Who Solved the Riddle of the Tsangpo
What did a barely literate tailor from Darjeeling have to do with the McMahon Line? ... Published in Mumbai Mirror (also Pune Mirror, Ahmedabad Mirror...)
Click Here to read.
The Spy Who Came From the Cold
The Tailor Who Solved the Riddle of the Tsangpo
The Spy Who Came From the Cold
How did a middle-class Bengali become a British agent for the forbidden kingdom? ... An excerpt from the Introduction to Sart Chandra Das's Journey to Lhasa : The Diary of a Spy.
Click Here to read.
Under Tiger-striped Skies
The Tailor Who Solved the Riddle of the Tsangpo
The Spy Who Came From the Cold
'I don’t know how fear, like an enzyme, triggers a chemical reaction of memory and imagination. Perhaps it plays such tricks... Fear alters the past in more insidious ways than a battery of lathi-wielding fanatics in a museum.' [Excerpted and translated from Dyanchinama]
Click Here to read.
Crows in the Mist
Portrait of a Village in Darjeeling Hills
Sweet Water, Silvery Ilish
' The thuds and plops of fruits dropping on the green, fecund earth of Bengal have echoed in the collective memory of generations of Bengalis... In the late 1960s, another sound was added to the acoustic memory of Calcuttans: that of youthful human bodies dropping on the Maidan, the wide parade ground in the heart of the city.'
Click Here to read.
Sweet Water, Silvery Ilish
Portrait of a Village in Darjeeling Hills
Sweet Water, Silvery Ilish
A translation from Abdul Jabbar’s Banglar Chalchitra, a collection of vignettes that capture the sights and sounds of south Bengal, its people and places, the dialects and daily rituals.
Click Here to read.
Portrait of a Village in Darjeeling Hills
Portrait of a Village in Darjeeling Hills
Portrait of a Village in Darjeeling Hills
No food, no medicines, no essential services, no internet, no power — this has been the situation in the Darjeeling hills over July-August 2017. How did the one million plus people who live in the hills cope? News still trickles in from the towns — but what about the villages? And excerpt from No Path in Darjeeling is Straight.
Click Here to read.
The Speaking Mirror of Bharati Das
The Speaking Mirror of Bharati Das
Portrait of a Village in Darjeeling Hills
The refugee influx into West Bengal, especially by the once powerful caste group, namashudras, continues to be ill documented . Through the narrative of a young caregiver, we hear a marginal voice. An excerpt from Apur Desh, translated by the author.
Click Here to read.
Time to Leave the Planet
The Speaking Mirror of Bharati Das
Time to Leave the Planet
An excerpt from Satyi Rupkatha [ A True Fairytale]
Click Here to read.
Under construction
The Speaking Mirror of Bharati Das
Time to Leave the Planet
Please check back
NEWSPAPER COLUMNS/ OP-EDS - A SELECTION
Children | Learning
Kolkata | Urbanization | Ecology | Deindustrialisation
Kolkata | Urbanization | Ecology | Deindustrialisation
- In spite of increased enrolment, why are children in state-funded schools not getting quality education? ... Click here to read.
- A recent survey in India shows more than half of young girls want to be boys. Why?... Click here to read.
- A strange blend of poverty and deprivation ensures that girls outnumber boys in schools in the Sunderbans. ... Click here to read.
- Urban, upwardly-mobile families may not want girls, but that does not prove that the backward classes do. ... Click here to read.
Kolkata | Urbanization | Ecology | Deindustrialisation
Kolkata | Urbanization | Ecology | Deindustrialisation
Kolkata | Urbanization | Ecology | Deindustrialisation
- Can the popular attention the Ramsar status has given the East Calcutta wetlands save them from the jaws of development ? ... Click here to read.
- On a visit to townships that were once abuzz with industrial activity, I meet people who no longer dare to hope ... Click here to read.
- Image is all and hand-pulled rickshaws must go. But what of the other sordid sights that Calcuttans must live with? ... Click here to read.
- The emerging urban dream that produces private persons at the cost of individual public. ... Click here to read.
Society | Language | Culture | Politics
- Be it in Bhopal or in Calcutta, culture policing through brute force is a crazy project that has to be resisted at all costs . ... Click here to read.
- The countdown has already begun for Bengalis to noisily display their love for books and start their yearly exercise in self-delusion. ... Click here to read.
- Be Indian, Think Indian, but read only Indian English. ... Click here to read.
- How the diktat on traditional attire violated the spirit of the Gorkhaland movement. ... Click here to read.
More coming...