tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20397987012783758232024-03-13T21:47:55.557+05:30Stree-Samya BooksStree-Samya Books, KolkataMandira Sen http://www.blogger.com/profile/06035822200150463580noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-66488712847288405212015-05-13T11:39:00.001+05:302017-09-18T15:00:19.039+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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REVIEW OF SHAPING THE DISCOURSE BY RINA MUKHERJI:</div>
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Mandira Sen http://www.blogger.com/profile/06035822200150463580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-9750678505993770442015-03-13T12:56:00.002+05:302015-03-13T12:56:49.327+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-size: 14.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Our author, Dr Rani Bang, wins the coveted <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-size: 14.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">Times of India</span></i></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-size: 14.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"> Social Impact Award 2015<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #ff3399; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">PUTTING WOMEN
FIRST: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #ff3399; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">WOMEN AND HEALTH
IN A RURAL COMMUNITY<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Rani Bang</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> with <b>Sunanda Khorgade</b> and <b>Rupa
Chinai</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Foreword by<b> <i>Rahul Goswami</i></b></span><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #31849b; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">8.5”X5.5” hb, 312pp, ISBN 81-85604-96-1 £50<b><i><span style="letter-spacing: -.3pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Trained in India and at Johns Hopkins
University where Dr Rani Bang and her husband, Dr Ajay Bang, studied public
health and research methodologies, the couple returned to India to set up a
health clinic in Maharashtra’s neglected Gadchiroli district, about 170 km from
Nagpur, where the Gonds are the dominant tribal group. Dr Rani Bang and her
husband started the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community
Health (SEARCH) and to practise medicine that explicitly catered to the tribal
and non-tribal poor people who live in the area. Rani Bang’s research found
that 92 per cent of women had no access to treatment for gynaecological
disorders in the absence of women doctors. In their own way, the Bangs have set
in motion a revolution that equips people, communities and administrators with
the tools to build an indigenous expression of development.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Rani Bang </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #002060; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">has run a health clinic in Gadchiroli
for over twenty years; <b>Rupa Chinai </b>writes on developmental journalism
with a focus on health; <b>Sunanda Khorgade </b>works with the women’s health
programme at SEARCH; <b>Rahul Goswami </b>is a policy analyst and writer, based
in Goa and Delhi</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: -.3pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="background: white; color: #8064a2; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">TOI Social Impact
Awards 2015: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #8064a2; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background: white;">Thank goodness, these men &
women make a difference<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-4cRqiWh3mydhqJKs-PNWrD5zYbzn1jt-coHEnnvL2oEQpOu4d8ylN-Hfrq_Zd7BD30_ZQxy-gxXyOdrbSxOUnEjoY3GUSlmOafcmXHSYT6LFb1R2MpGUoajempvH__11to9rm19DqTc/s1600/putting+women+first.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-4cRqiWh3mydhqJKs-PNWrD5zYbzn1jt-coHEnnvL2oEQpOu4d8ylN-Hfrq_Zd7BD30_ZQxy-gxXyOdrbSxOUnEjoY3GUSlmOafcmXHSYT6LFb1R2MpGUoajempvH__11to9rm19DqTc/s1600/putting+women+first.jpg" height="200" width="152" /></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="background: white; color: #8064a2; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%;">TNN<span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">|</span>Mar 9, 2015, 02.10 AM IST</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #8064a2; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #757575; font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-no-proof: no;">Lifetime achievement: By taking neo-natal care to the doorstep of the poor,
the doctor-couple of Abhay and Rani Bang have managed to control infant
mortality in 39 villages of the Naxal affected district of Gadchiroli, where
they have worked for nearly 30 years. The Bangs’ model of home-based newborn
and child care is now being practised across India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan
and in African nations such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="background: white; color: #8064a2; font-family: "Garamond","serif";">A
doctor couple who have revolutionized the delivery of healthcare to tribals in
Naxal-hit Gadchiroli district, a civil hospital in Ahmedabad which defies
stereotypes about state-run institutions, a government programme to take
science to children who live in the forgotten interiors of the country, and a
corporate's effort to bring the girl child into the warm, nurturing embrace of
education were among the path-breaking initiatives and inspiring human
endeavours and that got the nod from the high-powered Jury that met to choose
the 2014-15 winners of the Times of India Social Impact Awards.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>In its third edition, the SIA has become
the gold standard for socially empowering work as evidenced by its 1,100
entries.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #8064a2; font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br />
<span style="background: white;">The Jury, chaired by Naresh Chandra, ex-Cabinet
secretary, governor and ambassador to the US, had the unenviable task of
choosing the most deserving from among the 40 finalists shortlisted for their
consideration, after multiple rounds of elimination. The Jury rose to the
occasion, spending the next three hours in intense discussions and even
resorting to a vote a couple of times. The eight-member Jury, which bonded over
a light vegetarian lunch before starting discussions, looked for impactful,
scalable work, especially in remote corners of the country or aimed at
vulnerable social groups like the girl child, manual scavengers and leprosy
patients.The tone for the afternoon was set by Times Group CEO Raj Jain.
Welcoming the distinguished Jury, he said, "We believe the Social Impact
Awards is the most significant professional work we do at The Times of India."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Mandira Sen http://www.blogger.com/profile/06035822200150463580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-16727384998607578392014-09-02T13:51:00.001+05:302014-09-02T14:07:46.593+05:30Review of Bengal Marxism: Early Discourses and Debates<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="userContent">A review of our title, <i>Bengal Marxism: Early
Discourse and Debates</i>, by Anuradha Roy, in 'Pustak Parichay',
<i>Anandabazar Patrika</i>, 30 August, 2014, by Sobhanlal Datta Gupta.<br /> "Historian Anuradha Roy's prime subject of investigation is the history of cultural practice a<span class="text_exposed_show">nd its philosophical discussion. Those who are familiar with her
work will recognize from the very title that this is a new and expanded
articulation of her own research. Even the readers who are not familiar
with her work would unanimously acknowledge that while the importance of
the subject under scrutiny is undeniable, the task of philosophically
dissecting cultural practice is a genuinely complex one...It can be
said, without a doubt, that the volume will be treasured by intelligent
readers. It will reveal to enthusiastic researchers of the future the
path ahead." <br /> As Sobhanlal Datta Gupta rightly comments,
"...Anuradha has written the book after painstaking effort and having
consulted many documents...I eagerly await her next work."</span></span><br />
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Mandira Sen http://www.blogger.com/profile/06035822200150463580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-49259604081496721862014-07-28T13:19:00.000+05:302014-07-28T13:19:05.078+05:30Review: Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial Bengal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Review of Deboshruti Roychowdhury's <i><b>Gender and Caste Hierarchy in Colonial Bengal: Inter-caste Interventions of Ideal Womanhood </b></i>by Sarmistha Dutta Gupta<br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Stree, 2014<br />ISBN <b>978-93-81345-05-4<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt;">demy octavo pb; 256 pp </span></span></span><br />Rs 600</span></span><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></div>
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<![endif]-->...The author Deboshruti Roychowdhury shows that the upholding of the caste-Hindu notions of <i>adarsha nari </i>or
the ideal woman did not remain a prerogative of the high castes in late
nineteenth and early twentieth-century Bengal. Linking ideology to
materiality, she expounds how the upwardly mobile among the low
castes—who found it materially more beneficial in appropriating
high-caste gender norms—contributed in no small measure in the making of
the ideal woman. The book thus is an attempt to resist the
universalization of the construction of such an ideal only in terms of
high-caste existence.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Focussing on certain everyday aspects of women’s lives, the book throws
light on the way people with social agency amongst the low castes tried
to socialize their women according to high-caste norms, thereby gaining
status for their castes and at the same time helping preserve the caste
hierarchy fundamentally through control of female sexuality. The tracts they
wrote, the journals they produced and the caste associations these
aspiring groups ran, also reveal how an almost homogenous ideal of
womanhood was produced across caste and how such an ideal was
instrumental in maintaining both caste and gender inequality....</div>
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Read full review in Kindle Magazine (July 2014 Issue) <a href="http://kindlemag.in/gender-caste-hierarchy-colonial-bengal-inter-caste-interventions-ideal-womanhood/" target="_blank">visit</a>: <a href="http://kindlemag.in/gender-caste-hierarchy-colonial-bengal-inter-caste-interventions-ideal-womanhood/" target="_blank">http://kindlemag.in/gender-caste-hierarchy-colonial-bengal-inter-caste-interventions-ideal-womanhood/ </a><br />
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Mandira Sen http://www.blogger.com/profile/06035822200150463580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-10257599385997255742014-07-28T13:17:00.000+05:302014-07-28T13:17:40.042+05:30Review: Shaping the Discourse <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Review of Ipsita Chanda and Jayeeta Bagchi (eds.)<span> <b><i>Shaping the Discourse: Women’s Writings in Bengali Periodicals: 1865-1947</i></b></span></span> </b>by Epshita Halder</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i> "Threading together possibilities of an ongoing multi-layered and
multi-textured social conversation on women’s issues within a period
that spans decades"</i></span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stree, 2013<br /><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: small;">ISBNs <b>978-81-906760-5-2</b>; <br /><b>81-906760-6-9</b></span></span></td></tr>
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...[T]he collection neither presumes the absence of the slips between
discourse and practice nor a relative autonomy, it does try to
conceptualize gender at multiple levels—personal identity, principle of
organization of social structures and basis of normative value(s). In their bid to chart out a ‘literary history’ of gender as a category,
the editors have tried to show how this category is constructed through
belief, reason and emotion, expressed through a particular genre and
medium. Threading together possibilities of an ongoing multi-layered and
multi-textured social conversation on women’s issues within a period
that spans decades, the articles help readers trace the dynamics of
change in positions and strategies on women’s education, child marriage,
widow remarriage, seclusion, ‘reform’, self-help, patriotism and its
practice and so on....</div>
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Read full review in Kindle Magazine (July 2014 Issue) <a href="http://kindlemag.in/shaping-writings-bengali-periodicals/" target="_blank">visit</a>: <a href="http://kindlemag.in/shaping-writings-bengali-periodicals/">http://kindlemag.in/shaping-writings-bengali-periodicals/</a><br />
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For more information <a href="http://stree-samyabooks.blogspot.in/2013_12_01_archive.html" target="_blank">visit</a>: <a href="http://stree-samyabooks.blogspot.in/2013_12_01_archive.html" target="_blank">http://stree-samyabooks.blogspot.in/2013_12_01_archive.html </a></div>
Mandira Sen http://www.blogger.com/profile/06035822200150463580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-28070620195121972002014-03-31T12:28:00.002+05:302014-03-31T12:34:31.974+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: yellow;"><b>LATEST REVIEW OF </b><b>DR JAYANTI BASU'S</b> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: yellow;"><i>RECONSTRUCTING THE BENGAL PARTITION</i>: </span></b></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-61492767472036079942013-12-19T16:00:00.000+05:302013-12-19T16:00:16.087+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: medium;">NEW RELEASE December 2013 Nonfiction</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #ff9900; font-size: medium;">Shaping the Discourse: Women’s Writings in Bengali Periodicals (1865–1947)</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #ff9900; font-size: medium;"><b>Edited by Ipshita Chanda and Jayeeta Bagchi</b></span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">8.5”x 5.5” pb, 466 pp, ISBNs 978-81-906760-5-2; 81-906760-6-9 Rs 550;</span> </span></b><b><span style="color: #4f81bd; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">£40.00</span></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusVFtOVd4PA1PIlmW7pIiH6VwF_VcMzfKM-Gnmyr7zFL-g15RVaJr4DyDFFfTb9uMh2T2r_j0G0tCHjXlrpKJJk1L8tXKG0mLQ-AhihbnONI8A2xmpLeFei2TomnpW48Pb6VBeJXhTHw/s1600/To+be+uploaded+in+the+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusVFtOVd4PA1PIlmW7pIiH6VwF_VcMzfKM-Gnmyr7zFL-g15RVaJr4DyDFFfTb9uMh2T2r_j0G0tCHjXlrpKJJk1L8tXKG0mLQ-AhihbnONI8A2xmpLeFei2TomnpW48Pb6VBeJXhTHw/s400/To+be+uploaded+in+the+blog.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Comprising translations of women’s writings of Brahmo, Hindu and Muslim writers of undivided Bengal (involving present-day Bangladesh), which were published in well-known Bengali periodicals (between 1865–1947), such as </span><b><i style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bamabodhini Patrika</i><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </span><i style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Prabasi</i><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </span><i style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Antahpur</i><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </span><i style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bh<wbr></wbr>arati</i><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">, </span><i style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bangadarshan</i><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">,</span></b><i style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Bharatlaks<wbr></wbr>hmi, Saogat, Nabanoor</b>, </i><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">and so on, this volume is the third reader compiled by the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, for the new Masters’ level courses in women’s studies. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"> Focussing on a period, of reform, conflict, change and debate, the reader explores the multi-layered social conversation about women’s issues and maps the changes in the life practices and beliefs of women as reflected in their writings with the progression of time. While there is Taherannesa writing in 1865 in <i><b>Bamabodhini Patrika</b></i>, and appealing, ‘O civilized men do not remain neglectful of educating women’, there is Saratkumari Chaudhurani’s article in <b><i>Bharati</i>, </b>published in 1914, where she upholds the initiative of Swarnakumari Devi’s Sakhi Samiti for spreading education and literacy amidst women, helping widows, aiding orphans, and so on. Hence, the discourse that surfaces also follows the path of a historical narrative.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"> This volume traces issues like relations between men and women, and amongst women themselves to more ‘public’ concerns like women’s education and employment; child marriage, seclusion of women and the position of widows. It upholds the dichotomy between the private and the public, and the <i><b>prachina</b></i>, the traditional, and the <i><b>navina</b>, </i>the ‘new<i>’</i>, with the emerging woman proposing an alternate way of life, thereby extending the woman’s question beyond every aspect of women and men’s social existence; putting these writings in a larger context of reform, change and conflict; and projecting the discourse on gender issues as shaped by power relations between classes, castes and communities cohabiting in society.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #ff9900;">Ipshita Chanda</span></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <span style="color: blue;">is Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University;</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #ff9900;">Jayeeta Bagchi</span></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #ff9900;"> </span><span style="color: blue;">is Assistant Professor in English, National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi.</span></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-75275250654284792702013-12-12T16:33:00.002+05:302013-12-12T16:33:55.250+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><b><span style="color: white;">NEW RELEASE December 2013 Nonfiction</span></b></span></h4>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Shaping</i></span><b><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> the Discourse: </span></i></b></span><b style="line-height: 18px;"><i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Women’s Writings in Bengali Periodicals (1865–1947)</span></i></b></span></h2>
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<b><i><span style="background-color: black; line-height: 18px;">Edited by Ipshita Chanda and Jayeeta Bagchi</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: white; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="color: white; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="background-color: black; line-height: 18px;">8.5”x 5.5” pb, 466 pp, ISBNs 978-81-906760-5-2; 81-906760-6-9 Rs 550; £40.00</span></i></b></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-47792613997177362122013-11-26T09:31:00.002+05:302013-12-12T16:48:16.904+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background: black; color: white; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;">A write-up on
Shoi Mela where Urmila Pawar's autobiography 'The Weave of My Life' (Stree
Books) was awarded:</span><span style="color: white; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Picture by Sayantan Ghosh<span style="background-color: silver; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;">| </span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;">Tuesday , November 26 , 2013</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"> |<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;">Spotlight on women writers<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;">SUDESHNA BANERJEE<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td align="left" class="story" style="font-size: 9pt;"><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"><tbody>
<tr><td><img align="left" alt="" src="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1131126/images/26metsoi_195114.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: silver; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">(From left) Amala Shankar, Mahasveta Devi, Nabaneeta Dev Sen
and Soi Samman winners Urmila Pawar and Shashi Deshpande at the inauguration of
the book fair at ICCR on Sunday. Picture by Sayantan Ghosh</span><span style="background-color: silver; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: silver; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<br /><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">“Soi Mela is a forum
for creative women in India. We highlight women’s writing, especially in regional
languages, as well as other forms of creativity like photography, painting and
sculpture,” said Nabaneeta Dev Sen, president of Soi, before the inauguration
on Sunday.</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">At her call, writers
flocked from across the country. Mridula Garg, who has liberated Hindi writing
from the shackles of romance and introduced irony and wry humour, came from
Delhi. From the south came Kannada writer Janaki Srinivasan Murthy who goes by
the penname of Vaidehi and poet Mamta Sagar. From neighbouring Odisha came
Jnanpith awardee Pratibha Ray, a strident voice against social injustice and
corruption. Representing the Northeast were Arupa Patangia Kalita who writes of
the downtrodden in Assamese, Thounaojam Chanu Ibemhal writing in Manipuri as
Memchoubi and Krairi Mog Choudhury of Tripura, who writes in her mother tongue
Mog other than in Bengali and English.</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">In the 13th year of the
women writers’ association and at the third Soi Mela, Dev Sen fulfilled what
she said was a dream of hers – hand over Soi Samman, carrying a prize value of
Rs 1 lakh. “It took us a while to get the money but when we did there was
enough to felicitate two.” The inaugural awards went to Shashi Deshpande and
Urmila Pawar.</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Explaining the choice,
Dev Sen said that unlike other Indians writing in English with an eye on the
West, the Karnataka-born Deshpande wrote in English for Indians. Indeed, the
lady would later joke, “I don’t earn in dollars and pounds.” Praising the Soi
logo of a woman reading a book, she pointed out that in reading others’ works
started the process of writing. “The faint voice of Indian women is becoming
distinct over the past few decades. For years we were seen as outsiders,” said
the author of <i>That Long Silence</i>. “A society needs to listen to its
writers because we have something to say,” she added.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Introducing the Marathi
author of the poignant autobiography <i>The Weave of My Life</i>, Dev Sen
pointed out: “While the rest of us found support in our formative years, Urmila
came up from a place where society was trying to put her and her people down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Pawar’s words, simple
yet strident, held the mirror up to what it meant to be a Dalit. “Women of our
earlier generations have survived by picking up undigested seeds from cowdung
and making rotis of them. One found a human tooth amid the food she collected
from the leftover dumped at the streetside. Yet hunger made her carry on
eating. My father made my mother promise that she would educate her five
children even if he died. She kept her promise by weaving baskets which I sold
door to door. She could not fight the insults hurled at her, so she wept to let
people know what happened. Her tears were her weapon.” One had to be a Dalit to
know of the kind of sexual innuendoes that a woman would have to endure. “I
started writing pushed by this compulsion to protest the injustices I have seen
and felt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Hearing her on stage
was a grand old lady who has been fighting for a down-trodden tribe herself,
“head <i>soi</i>” Mahasveta Devi. “I can’t afford to think only of women.
I go to remote areas plagued by poverty and illiteracy. When you see children
going without food, your views change,” said the octogenarian. Keeping her
company on stage was 95-year-old dancer Amala Shankar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">The three-day event features author interactions, play reading, poetry
performances and storytelling — all by women.</span><span style="color: white; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">A signature and a
girl’s female friend. The dual connotation of the word <i>shoi </i>in
Bengali found complete embodiment in and at the Soi Mela. The festival of
women’s literature in India brought together friends and colleagues from across
the country as well as their writings in the form of a book fair being held at
ICCR till Tuesday.</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">“Soi Mela is a forum
for creative women in India. We highlight women’s writing, especially in regional
languages, as well as other forms of creativity like photography, painting and
sculpture,” said Nabaneeta Dev Sen, president of Soi, before the inauguration
on Sunday.</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">At her call, writers
flocked from across the country. Mridula Garg, who has liberated Hindi writing
from the shackles of romance and introduced irony and wry humour, came from
Delhi. From the south came Kannada writer Janaki Srinivasan Murthy who goes by
the penname of Vaidehi and poet Mamta Sagar. From neighbouring Odisha came
Jnanpith awardee Pratibha Ray, a strident voice against social injustice and
corruption. Representing the Northeast were Arupa Patangia Kalita who writes of
the downtrodden in Assamese, Thounaojam Chanu Ibemhal writing in Manipuri as
Memchoubi and Krairi Mog Choudhury of Tripura, who writes in her mother tongue
Mog other than in Bengali and English.</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">In the 13th year of the
women writers’ association and at the third Soi Mela, Dev Sen fulfilled what
she said was a dream of hers – hand over Soi Samman, carrying a prize value of
Rs 1 lakh. “It took us a while to get the money but when we did there was
enough to felicitate two.” The inaugural awards went to Shashi Deshpande and
Urmila Pawar.</span><span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Explaining the choice,
Dev Sen said that unlike other Indians writing in English with an eye on the
West, the Karnataka-born Deshpande wrote in English for Indians. Indeed, the
lady would later joke, “I don’t earn in dollars and pounds.” Praising the Soi
logo of a woman reading a book, she pointed out that in reading others’ works
started the process of writing. “The faint voice of Indian women is becoming
distinct over the past few decades. For years we were seen as outsiders,” said
the author of <i>That Long Silence</i>. “A society needs to listen to its
writers because we have something to say,” she added.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Introducing the Marathi
author of the poignant autobiography <i>The Weave of My Life</i>, Dev Sen
pointed out: “While the rest of us found support in our formative years, Urmila
came up from a place where society was trying to put her and her people down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Pawar’s words, simple
yet strident, held the mirror up to what it meant to be a Dalit. “Women of our
earlier generations have survived by picking up undigested seeds from cowdung
and making rotis of them. One found a human tooth amid the food she collected
from the leftover dumped at the streetside. Yet hunger made her carry on
eating. My father made my mother promise that she would educate her five
children even if he died. She kept her promise by weaving baskets which I sold
door to door. She could not fight the insults hurled at her, so she wept to let
people know what happened. Her tears were her weapon.” One had to be a Dalit to
know of the kind of sexual innuendoes that a woman would have to endure. “I
started writing pushed by this compulsion to protest the injustices I have seen
and felt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">Hearing her on stage
was a grand old lady who has been fighting for a down-trodden tribe herself,
“head <i>soi</i>” Mahasveta Devi. “I can’t afford to think only of women.
I go to remote areas plagued by poverty and illiteracy. When you see children
going without food, your views change,” said the octogenarian. Keeping her
company on stage was 95-year-old dancer Amala Shankar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: black; color: white; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-highlight: black; mso-shading: white; mso-themecolor: background1;">The three-day event features author interactions, play reading, poetry
performances and storytelling — all by women.</span><span style="color: white; mso-themecolor: background1;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-27149261613477161792013-11-12T13:42:00.000+05:302013-11-12T13:42:26.895+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: normal;">Review of Kancha Ilaiah's</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;">Untouchable God</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-weight: normal;">by</span> </span>THE HINDU :</h3>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3taoef1numAlVXI8-OFkkkjHgjlLIohD07DaX4WxLS2zNgVoEsihyw6Mrfx-Yl-pvZrBT3Q9_vCiYUTkPhPsDKk1QeEtAGMk8mnpF3BfAjPp3Rb-jhhfwhyphenhyphen90LlDpDz_Nsb97x66_CrY/s1600/IMAGE.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3taoef1numAlVXI8-OFkkkjHgjlLIohD07DaX4WxLS2zNgVoEsihyw6Mrfx-Yl-pvZrBT3Q9_vCiYUTkPhPsDKk1QeEtAGMk8mnpF3BfAjPp3Rb-jhhfwhyphenhyphen90LlDpDz_Nsb97x66_CrY/s1600/IMAGE.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h3>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>UNTOUCHABLE GOD</i>; Kancha Ilaiah, Samya, Rs.350</span></h3>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Sowmya Sivakumar:</h3>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><u>An uncensored portrayal of the interplay between caste, gender and religion in India.</u></span></i></div>
<div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An unwritten disclaimer to Kancha Ilaiah’s novel <i style="outline: 0px;">Untouchable God </i>could have read: </span></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The characters in this book may be fictitious but any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely deliberate. Which begs an additional tagline: This novel is not for faint-hearted, humourless Brahmins, especially those with an inability to laugh at themselves.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From a scholar whose books have been loved and despised, depending on which side you are; Ilaiah’s ‘fictionalised’ uncensored portrayal of caste, gender and religion and their nuanced interplay through the lives and manoeuvres of six Brahmins living in an India blistering for freedom from ‘the other’ is refreshingly non-pedagogical, yet steeped in history. It is intensely satirical and plants a giant slap on the faces of those who not only profess caste, but also those who like to believe that it no longer exists.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ilaiah’s narrative comes alive in the stories of the slimy six — Veda Shastry of Tamil Nadu, Banerjee Babu of Bengal, D.C.Tilak of Maharashtra, Krishnamurty of Karnataka, Namboodri of Kerala and Appa Rao of Andhra Pradesh — culturally diverse zealots connected by the overarching camaraderie of being born Brahmins. As the stories unfold, Ilaiah peels off the layers of hypocrisy and strange schizophrenia that infests the world of upper castes to whom the very physical existence of untouchables is despicable but whose own existence inextricably depends on preserving the untouchables in their shit.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whether it is D.C Tilak’s declaration (see quote) or Krishnamurthy’s and Appa Rao’s rather unsuccessful attempt to plagiarise a Dalit poet’s fiery works, the book effectively stereotypes just how devious Brahmin/upper caste minds work.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But <i style="outline: 0px;">Untouchable God </i>is not just about an older generation of upper caste male Hindu bigots. Their relationships with, treatment and repression of women is a recurrent theme, whether through Namboodri’s sexual <i style="outline: 0px;">sambandham </i>with a lower-caste Nair woman, the outburst by an unnamed young woman in Veda Shastry’s kitchen, the widows of Benares “who have to give themselves to the ‘priests’, their guests and friends” or the traded freedoms of an apparently poised upper-caste researcher Mala who grapples to shake off her own chains. By corollary, there are powerful characters like Sakku Bai and Saraswati and, later, references to the indispensable role of women in the American civil rights struggle, suggesting the inevitability of women’s liberation for striking at the foundations of caste.</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="outline: 0px;">Untouchable God </i>rips apart hypocrisies at various levels. It mocks the dichotomous existence of the<i style="outline: 0px;">bhadralok </i>communists represented by the lives and inner conflicts of junior Banerjee and the play-acting Gayatri Roy, just as it exposes the insidious seepage of caste into other religions in India.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The closing chapter places all these home truths on an international stage, by bringing in an African-American appropriately named Isaiah who travels to India inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Ambedkar to draw parallels with his own struggles with race. Of course, the book does not explain everything. The helplessness of the Dalit Ezhumalai, as he says, “do not do this thing, Isaiah, we will have to pay for it later when you are gone” contrasts with Isaiah’s own account of his family and the courageous black movement in America and questions about Buddhism are left unanswered.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The language is raw, provocative, scathing, dark, honest and firsthand. Through the lens of caste and religion, the story is actually a fine work on human behaviour in a stratified but interdependent society. At a time when Mirchpur and Dharmapuri are today’s realities, the novel is a disturbing reminder of how little has changed, amid how much. It makes us sit up, confront, laugh, question, hope, and hang our heads in shame, all at once.</span></h4>
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="outline: 0px;">Extract:</i>…we are men of mind. Where are our hands? I tell you, our hands and instruments must be the Shudras and the lower castes. We must make them beholden to us.</span></h4>
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<a href="http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/home-truths/article5335252.ece">http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/home-truths/article5335252.ece</a></h4>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-76370238400483399112013-09-10T16:04:00.003+05:302013-09-17T15:21:16.981+05:30Review of Sharmistha Dutta Gupta's "Identities and Histories: Women's Writings and Politics in Bengal" by Professor Aparna Basu in the JNU journal 'Studies in History'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"Sharmistha Dutta Gupta focusses on the writings of middle class Bengali women in six or seven literary and political journals between the 1920s and 1950s - 'Probasi', 'Saogat', 'Jayashree', 'Mandira', 'Ghare-Baire' and 'Swadhinata'. Each of these represented a different political ideology and the author explores how this influenced the policy of the journals and women's writing... the book reveals that women were not politically passive and that these journals contributed in creating political awareness and a space for women to debate and write on these issues which were not purely domestic." <br />
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Read the full review here:<br />
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Read the full review here:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Sharmistha Dutta Gupta,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><b><i>Identities
and Histories: Women's Writings and Politics in Bengal,</i></b><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Stree, Kolkata, 2010, pp.294, Rs.700<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> DOI:
10.1177/0257643013482407<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">When I first became interested in women's
history in the 1970s, we, in India were still hunting for sources. Now, thirty
five years later, scholars have come a long way. Those engaged in research have
uncovered autobiographies, ( read the rest from the pages attached below)</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-13475690195115846652013-09-05T12:14:00.001+05:302013-09-05T12:14:33.846+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9lSQFPcG22JbG9HNDZUQWozOUk/edit">https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9lSQFPcG22JbG9HNDZUQWozOUk/edit</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-79654503107975314222013-08-29T16:04:00.002+05:302013-08-29T16:05:30.582+05:30Review of Jayanti Basu's 'Reconstructing the Bengal Partition' in Ananda Bazar Patrika<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-1365855966500824072013-08-29T12:27:00.001+05:302013-08-29T16:01:28.927+05:30Review of Jayanti Basu's ' Reconstructing The Bengal Partition - The Psyhe under a Different Violence' <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #fff2cc;">"Published by Samya the book has tried analyzing the
complex feelings of hatred and longingfor the homeland that has contributed to
shaping </span><span style="color: #fff2cc;">the
personalities of a generation of people who were forced to migrate under
the shadow of a fear that they could not fathom, much less comprehend....</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #fff2cc;">Dr. Basu draws on her experiences as a psychoanalyst, and tries
to delve deep into the events of the greatest migration in history through the
collective memories of her patients...</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #fff2cc;">... book also dwells on the anti-Muslim violence and the
ferocity of Hindu anti-socials in Kolkata during the riots, and helplessness
and gulit teenagers witness to the killing of innocent Muslims harboured for
years. Even as it turns to look back objectively at an event that geographically
redrew boundaries, and created divisions where there were none, this
captivating document demands that we learn from history. It is also an appeal
to recognize our common legacy in the wake of the myriad problems the partition
created."</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #fff2cc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Georgia, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">Reviewed by: Rina Mukherjee</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #fff2cc; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Georgia, Times New Roman, Georgia, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">Read the full review at: </span></span><a href="http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1778">http://www.d-sector.org/article-det.asp?id=1778</a><br />
<b style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #fff2cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px;"><i style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></i></span></b>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-55449729037895664092013-08-01T15:28:00.000+05:302013-08-01T15:30:44.518+05:30Review of 'Sketches of Hootum the Owl' in Frontline<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Sketches of Hootum the Owl: A satirist's view of colonial Calcutta</b><br />
<b style="font-family: sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Author:</b><span style="font-family: sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><span style="font-family: sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><b>Kaliprasanna Sinha; translated by Chitralekha Basu</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Price:</span><span style="font-family: sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><span style="font-family: sans-serif, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Rs.800</span></b><br />
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Hootum Pyachar Naksha presents a realistic picture of 19th century Calcutta and weaves in thinly disguised references to real-life personalities of the times. By SAYANTAN DASGUPTA</h3>
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A CITY peopled by quacks who claim to have magical powers, moneylenders who are more resilient than leeches, and absentee landlords who fritter away their wealth by maintaining hordes of sycophants and by organising rooster fights, animal weddings and titillating <i>khyamta</i>dance performances. A colonial capital in the throes of monumental change. A space of intellectual ferment where debates over widow remarriage, English education and Brahmoism evoke strong emotions.</div>
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All these aspects of 19th century Calcutta are captured with finesse by Kaliprasanna Sinha in his <i>Hootum Pyachar Naksha</i>, which was first published in Bangla around 1861. The work has remained extremely popular in its Bangla avatar down the ages, perhaps as much for the sarcasm, irreverent humour and bawdiness it embodies as for the way it documents Calcutta of the 1850s and 1860s. It is also a work that has defied being bracketed as any one of the better known genres. <i>Hootum Pyachar Naksha </i>presents a realistic picture of contemporary Calcutta and weaves in thinly disguised references to real-life personalities of the times. It thus straddles both fiction and “non-fiction” and qualifies equally as “sketch”, satire and documentary.</div>
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Sinha remains largely unknown outside the circle of Bangla-speaking readers. Perhaps part of the reason for this lies in the fact that <i>Hootum </i>is an immensely challenging text to translate. Chitralekha Basu’s translation is probably only the second complete English translation, the first one having been published as recently as in 2007. No wonder then that acknowledgment of Sinha’s literary contribution has remained largely peripheral, if not entirely non-existent, outside Bengal.</div>
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Sinha was born into a well-to-do family in 1840 and was only 30 when he died. Though he was well known for his support for social reform, his chief claim to fame in the field of literature rests on <i>Hootum</i>, a work in which he assumes the persona of an owl keeping vigil on and cataloguing the different aspects of the city, and on the multi-volume Bangla translation of the <i>Mahabharata </i>which he commissioned. Yet his position within the history of Bangla literature may have been different had it not been for the overwhelming influence of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. For <i>Hootum </i>ushered in a new literary register of Bangla. Sinha chose to write in the language of the street as Pyarichand Mitra alias Tekchand Thakur (<i>Alaler Gharer Dulal</i>) had done before him, weaving in onomatopoeic words and even coining new words every now and then as Chitralekha Basu points out in her note on the translation. Everyday language became the language of literature for Sinha. In that way, he signifies the road not taken—Bangla literature, of course, would choose to go the way of Bankim, basking in the comfort of chaste, Sanskritised Bangla. Had other contemporary writers chosen to follow in Sinha’s footsteps, the history of Bangla language and literature would have been very different and Sinha may have got the recognition he deserved for the pioneering role he played.</div>
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While no translation is ever finished or is entirely satisfactory to everyone, Chitralekha Basu must be congratulated on the very attempt to translate a text such as this. One may quibble over the efficacy of the attempt to lend some sort of completeness to the staccato sentences of the original through the insertion of parenthetical words and phrases—a strategy the translator employs, and one that does seem to distract the reader sometimes —and over the need for some of the annotations provided, but all in all the translation does manage to capture the flavour of the original and read well, too, and that is no mean achievement when it comes to a text like <i>Hootum Pyachar Naksha</i>.</div>
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<i>Sketches by Hootum the Owl</i> is based on the 1868 edition, which combined Part I and Part II (published separately in Bangla). It has 10 chapters in addition to the prefatory comments, introduction and annotations. The first is called “Going Round in Circles” and is based on the Charak festival as it was celebrated in 19th century Calcutta. It depicts the practice of devotees swinging from ropes with iron hooks embedded in their backs as part of the rituals, but describing them is not the only objective of this chapter. Charak only provides Sinha the occasion to explore a larger social context. Thus, this chapter doubles as a trenchant critique of superstition within contemporary Hindu society.</div>
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It is also unsparing in its satire aimed at the culture of sycophancy that had developed around the babus of Calcutta. Similarly, the narrator mocks the hypocrisy of some reformist Brahmos who vociferously reject the practices of orthodox Hindu religion and at the same time participate in the rituals because their “forefathers had been doing the same thing since the last seven generations”, and who “celebrated Durga Puja at home and yet visited the Samaj every Wednesday where they would close their eyes and howl like bereaved souls”. These are all themes that recur in many of the chapters that follow.</div>
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“The Baroyaari Pujas in Calcutta”, the largest chapter of <i>Hootum</i>, again serves to mock the wasteful expenditure and the vanity that were part and parcel of the babu culture of 19th century Bengal. Incidents of people cleaning their bottoms with rose water, spending a thousand on dogs’ weddings, throwing money at <i>jatra </i>performers and going to bathe in the river in a carriage drawn by four horses to the sound of trumpets are “few and far between”, Hootum remarks in his typical tongue-in-cheek manner. The chapter also catalogues the follies, foibles and failings of various well-known babus of the times and their “reformed” sons. In one particularly telling incident, a college-going son in a state of inebriation beats up his father and then says, “Long live Vidyasagar!... Now I will get you the kind of father with whom you and I could sit together and drink to our health. Let that old fool die. I want a father who is quite reformed!”</div>
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The clash of ideas Sinha’s age embodied is well manifested in the <i>baroyaari</i> Durga idol he describes —its frame was decorated with images of Scottish highlanders on horseback; “the idol’s face was that of a European woman”; Brahma, Vishnu and Siva could be seen putting their hands together and praying to her; little English fairies could be spied playing the horn above the idol, carrying the Union Jack!</div>
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Contemporary historical events work their way into Hootum’s narrative. Thus, the 1857 “Mutiny”; the “death” and return of Pratapchand, the Maharaja of Burdwan, which evoked immense interest and emotions in Hootum’s Bengal; the sojourn of the Badshah of Lucknow in Calcutta before he was to be exiled to England; the indigo rebellion—all of these find a place in this book. So does the coming of the Railways —and this is documented in one of the most hilarious chapters, where two devout Vaishnavites aiming to visit Benaras are forced to share a carriage with an inebriated Brahmo. But the element of the comic coexists with the tragic; the chapter goes on to paint a poignant portrait of the colossal insensitivity of the British rulers to Indians.</div>
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Among other things, the book documents the various forms of popular entertainment in 19th century Bengal; genres such as the jatra, the half-akhrai, the panchali, the khyamta and the <i>kirtan </i>all figure prominently in this text.</div>
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The narrator of <i>Hootum </i>is equally critical of the rigidity and orthodoxy of Hinduism and of the hypocrisy that often went hand in hand with reform, of revivalism, and of the blind imitation of the West. In his attempt to articulate this critique, he paints a fascinating picture of 19th century Calcutta, a picture that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking, and as farcical as it is tragic.</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.frontline.in/books/calcutta-of-yore/article4935078.ece">http://www.frontline.in/books/calcutta-of-yore/article4935078.ece</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-55020678866731495972013-07-11T12:15:00.005+05:302013-07-11T12:53:00.721+05:30Review of 'Reconstructing the Bengal Partition : The Psyche under a different violence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><b style="background-color: #990000;">OTHER SIDES OF MEMORY</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><b>THE TELEGRAPH</b> reviews Jayanti Basu's <i><b>Reconstructing the Bengal Partition</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">"...In the book, <i><b>Reconstructing the Bengal Partition</b></i>, Jayanti Basu has searched the depths of the human psyche to fish out what little of this inexplicable 'something' can be explained through psychoanalysis. although her discussion focuses on one particular historic event, it is actually much more than that- it is the beginning of quest to understand, or decipher, such layered words as pain, memory, fear, longing, rootlessness and nostalgia. Basu generously explains the methods she has employed to decode the interviews of people displaced by the partition of Bengal and of those who experienced it as a distant event. By analysing a collection of such interviews, she has explored the psychological impact of this unique and complex 'trauma' on the collective as well as the individual psyche..." </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #990000; color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">To read the complete review visit the webpage</span><br />
<a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130705/jsp/opinion/story_17076369.jsp#.Ud5SZDtczp8">http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130705/jsp/opinion/story_17076369.jsp#.Ud5SZDtczp8</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-40728826088861276542013-07-09T15:13:00.002+05:302013-07-09T15:13:31.791+05:30Review of Urmila Pawar's 'The Weave of My Life: A Dalit Woman's Memoirs' , trans. Maya Pandit, 2008, pp. 348 and Ravikumar's 'Venomous Touch: Notes on Caste, Culture and Politics', trans. R. Azahagarasan, 2009, pp. 298<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"The two volumes under review offer important insights into the lived realities of Dalits in contemporary India, though they each approach the issue from different angles. While Pawar's autobiography is at times unnervingly optimistic in tone, Ravikumar is withering in his criticism and his assessment of the Dalit condition.<br />
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... <i>Venomous Touch</i> is filled with blood curdling, stomach turning examples of the humiliations and travesties to which Dalits are subjected, as in this description of a brutal attack on a group of dalits who had dared to contest (and win) a local panchayat (village council) election...Worse was the seemingly nonchalant response of the Indian justice system, and the people at large, to such a massacre, and Ravikumar rails against this with a mix of despair and righteous indignation.<br />
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Pawar's memoir recounts her journey from a small hamlet on the West Indian coast to Mumbai where she has become renowned as a Dalit and women's activist and as a Marathi writer. The story is replete with instances of everyday violence.<br />
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... Pawar's tenacious resourcefulness makes her account the perfect complement to Ravikumar's observations, for it leaves readers with the scope to imagine a better future. It is, of course, up to readers to take up the cause. Both books need to be widely read."<br />
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Review by: Manu Bhagavan<br />
Hunter College and the Graduate Center<br />
The City University of New York<br />
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Read the full review at:<br />
The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49, 4 (2012): 591-612<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-85690185950485127942013-07-02T11:21:00.001+05:302013-07-02T11:36:12.706+05:30Review: 'Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India'. Edited by Kavita Panjabi and Paromita Chakravarti. Stree, Kolkata, 2012, pp. 381, Rs. 500.00 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;"><b>"...the finest scholarship has come out of the convergence of the women’s movement and women’s/gender studies research..." </b></span><br />
<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">"A few pioneering WS departments have also developed curricula and teaching-learning resources in different languages and for different levels of students. But there have been a few comprehensive publication projects. One such is that of the School of Women’s Studies (SWS), Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India is the second of a series of four Readers2 being published for SWS by the independent feminist publisher Stree, Kolkata. Samita Sen, Director of SWS and Series Editor, says the ‘enormous expansion in teaching’ WS in Bachelors’ and Masters’ courses, and even as a subject in the National Eligibility Test, ‘demanded a response from us’. As everyone engaged in the field knows, the finest scholarship has come out of the convergence of the women’s movement and women’s/gender studies research. As the editors of Women Contesting Culture Kavita Panjabi and Paromita Chakravarti remark, this is a matter of pride and celebration. The Reader reflects this celebration, even as it replays the fraught cultural politics of gender, marked by contestations, resistance and transformations over the last 25 years."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">Review by: Sumi Krishna</span></span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">The Book Review Literary Trust</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">VOLUME XXXVII NUMBER 2-3 February/March 2013</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Read full review at </span><a href="http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-1185/2013/februarymarch/2-3/documenting-research-and-action.html">http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-1185/2013/februarymarch/2-3/documenting-research-and-action.html</a></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-51988096375346970552013-06-24T11:56:00.002+05:302013-06-24T11:56:57.250+05:30Review of 'Joothan- A Dalit's Life' in Written Opinion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Joothan
literally means: food left on an eater's plate. This left over food meant more
than this. This Joothan was a lifeline to author's family and community during
rainy season and sweet for savouring during happy moments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Omprakash
Valmiki's life woven in these words and sentences, speaks truth and nothing
more than this. The words pierce forcefully in heart and mind of readers, jolts
readers conscience and asks does humanity exist? What equality means? Author's
account of his Dalit community through his life is heart-rending and put our
heads under shame and demands self-introspection from us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Read
full review at <a href="http://apnaharf.blogspot.in/2011/02/joothan-dalits-life-by-omprakash.html">http://apnaharf.blogspot.in/2011/02/joothan-dalits-life-by-omprakash.html</a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-46418283585352575062013-06-24T11:51:00.002+05:302013-06-24T11:51:19.542+05:30Review of 'Joothan- A Dalit's Life' at Shunya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s possible that I first reflected on the idea of untouchability only
in college, through art house cinema. Even so, upper caste Indian liberals made
these films and it was their viewpoint I saw. It is hardly a stretch to say
that the way even the most sensitive white liberals in the US knew and
described the black experience of America is partly why one had to read
Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, James
Baldwin, and other black authors. A similar parallel holds for Native
Americans, immigrants, and women, as well as the ‘untouchables,’ now called
Dalits (‘the oppressed’), numbering one out of six Indians. In recent years,
they have begun to tell their own stories, bearing witness to their slice of
life in India. Theirs is not only a powerful new currentof Indian literature,
it is also a major site of resistance and revolt. Joothan by
Omprakash Valmiki is one such work of Dalit literature, first published in
Hindi in 1997 and translated into English by Arun Prabha Mukherjee in 2003. It
is a memoir of growing up ‘untouchable’ starting in the 1950s outside a typical
village in Uttar Pradesh. Told as a series of piercing vignettes, Joothan is
also a remarkable record of a rare Indian journey, one that took a boy from
extremely wretched socioeconomic conditions to prominence as an author and
social critic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Read full review at <a href="http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/Joothan.htm"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">http://www.shunya.net/Text/Blog/Joothan.htm</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></em></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-40558537787131549172013-06-11T12:49:00.002+05:302013-06-24T11:38:56.178+05:30Another Review: Sketches by Hootum the Owl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Review in <i><b>The Hindu</b></i></div>
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<b>A new translation of
the iconic piece of Bengali literature by Kaliprasanna Sinha is as much a
revelation as the original.</b> Nidhi Dugar Kundalia.</div>
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Move back the clock to the time when Calcutta was a city like no
other. On its fringes were miles and miles of hamlets and rivulets. A massive
vitalised city of endless possibilities. Brimming with people, offering new
scopes and opportunities; where risks could be taken and not be mistaken for
brazenness.Those were the times that seemed on most occasions, a chaotic
merger of too many eras; old and new, ever-changing, yet custom bound.
Calcutta, in those times, cradled a world of its own and it needed to be
understood.The decadent <i>babu</i> -like characters, the moral infection
that plagued the society and the Indigo revolt of 1860 mentioned in the book
find an eerie resonance in today’s times. In the Government buildings being
painted white and blue, in freedom of speech being abused, and in the common
man becoming an easy stepping stone for vote bank politics. Just that it was
Calcutta then. It is Kolkata now.</div>
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Read full review at <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/books/the-night-owls-view-of-calcutta/article4273048.ece">http://www.thehindu.com/books/the-night-owls-view-of-calcutta/article4273048.ece</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-9143117611306783412013-06-11T12:44:00.004+05:302013-06-24T11:26:20.534+05:30Review: Sketches by Hootum the Owl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Review by Souvik Mukherjee in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i><b>Biblio</b></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Chitralekha Basu’s
translation of Hootum Pecha’r Naksha brings a classic of Bengali satire to
international audiences. The original written in 1860 by Kaliprasanna Sinha in
the persona of Hootum is a series of sketches (Bengali: naksha) about
Calcutta’s festivals and fairs; its people; random rumours and significant
events in Indian history. Sinha spares no one and British colonial masters and
Bengali peers are treated alike. The prodigal Bengali babu, typifying the
rising educated middle classes and their degenerate tastes is seen as the
epitome of the forces of cultural decline. Bathing the Goddess Durga in hot
water instead of the holy water from the Ganges, indulging in frequent bouts of
drinking, spending exorbitant amounts on trinkets and an insincere but
fashionable association with the Young Bengal movement or the Brahmo Samaj
seemed to be the chief traits of the Calcutta babudom. Similarly, Hootum
attacks the colonial British indigo planters and their racist corruption. In
the course of this commentary, the reader is taken to different parts of
19th-century Calcutta, jostling the festival crowd on foot and steering clear
of the litter or racing through the streets in elegant broughams and britzkas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Read full review at <a href="http://biblio-india.org/showart.asp?inv=17&mp=JF13">http://biblio-india.org/showart.asp?inv=17&mp=JF13</a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-75180295303710200132013-06-11T12:06:00.001+05:302013-06-11T12:38:49.794+05:30Review: Untouchable God<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #da9c3b;"><b>REVIEW</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #da9c3b;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<b>UNTOUCHABLE GOD: A NOVEL ON CASTE AND RACE</b></div>
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<b>Kancha Ilaiah</b></div>
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“Two very powerful
motifs run through the different sets of narratives here. One is that the
oppressed section of humanity has been given a voice. Prof. Ilaiah identifies
the categories of persons who are the social constructs resulting from
community practices, and closely examines those who touch “others” in intra
communal/caste and inter-communal/caste relationship. He uses event and
dialogue as representational platforms. What makes this fictionalised theory
very effective is its sardonic tone and use of irony that is thoroughly
sophisticated.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Prof. Ilaiah’s novel
shall remain in my heart for long for its harsh truthfulness and also for the
humane possibility it holds out. Problems are to be recognised; a single novel
cannot provide solutions. This novel is true to both the above truisms. But it
helps the reader to walk away, not with hatred, but hope in her/his heart.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b> </b>Amina Kishore: <i>The Asian Age,</i> January 30 2013<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-86055840234620846472013-06-10T11:39:00.002+05:302013-06-10T11:39:33.323+05:30NEW REVIEW: My Life as a Psychiatrist: Memoirs and Essays.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Ajita Chakraborty, <i>My
Life as a Psychiatrist: Memoirs and Essays. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Reviewed by Anindya Das, Government Medical College,
Haldwani, India. </div>
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Dr. Ajita Chakraborty is a noted authority in transcultural
psychiatry. While trained in traditional Western psychiatry, she has campaigned
for a culturally sensitive form of mental health practice better suited to
patients in India. </div>
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As mentioned in the Preface of the book, one of the author’s
aims in writing a memoir was to expose some of the barriers she faced while
establishing herself in the field of academic psychiatry, primarily due to her
gender. Chakraborty uses three different perspectives in her self analysis: a
personality disposition view, a social angle, and finally a psycho-dynamic
perspective to analyze the role of gender. The collection of essays provides
the theoretical and practical outlines of Chakraborty’s approach to general and
transcultural psychiatry. In her critique of modern psychiatry, she rightly
identifies its ideological biases. She invokes Foucauldian insights to show how
psychiatry is influenced by Western notions of liberal humanism which are
either alien to or have been slow to develop in Eastern societies. </div>
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The central argument in most of the essays revolves around
the importance of culture in the expression of self, identity, and
psychopathology. Chakraborty redefines psychotherapy as “care of the mind”,
drawing from Erna Hoch’s “care of the soul.” She urges us to understand the
variations in power differentials in a psychotherapeutic setting, and the
differences between Western and Indian contexts in the importance of the family
and social interaction for psychotherapy. </div>
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Chakraborty argues that the perception of identity and
definition of self is guided by the socially constructed nature of Indian-ness,
modernity and tradition. </div>
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Dr. Chakraborty has chosen a simple and direct style of
writing, shunning any pretence and revealing her socially engaged self rather
than the “technical psychiatric” self. The accessible language of the book
makes it very readable. Those with an interest in social science, particularly
gender issues in professional experience and mental health will get much material
for reflection. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2039798701278375823.post-69657354827748156802013-06-04T12:32:00.001+05:302013-06-04T13:19:56.599+05:30Reconstructing the Bengal Partition: The psyche under a different violence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>NEW RELEASE</b></div>
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<b>Reconstructing the Bengal Partition: The psyche under a different violence</b></div>
<b>By: </b><b><i>Jayanti Basu</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip4jeJv9OgWGg0fMz1lJuYo1NIDIBwZWayNKkFKdI8gXUyIvLInjcCOs1ctstaWdWizOFWDp3LaWpy7doqzyjT5DzP42lODnuEym9ZLWZNfheTHSQOe6K-jG5r1aojqjklxsLU3dvTn_0/s1600/New+cover+resized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip4jeJv9OgWGg0fMz1lJuYo1NIDIBwZWayNKkFKdI8gXUyIvLInjcCOs1ctstaWdWizOFWDp3LaWpy7doqzyjT5DzP42lODnuEym9ZLWZNfheTHSQOe6K-jG5r1aojqjklxsLU3dvTn_0/s1600/New+cover+resized.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMsGlw0_3R7RAQ3NGOMTXM1EiMYY5YdAUQs1fxvimXN9UITgKYYUKoEvLioO3HhyltO3ulXNxKIDdDQ4Xz5jVwue4HTZT6wE_0aIvrJuO0xphsqPvkK8pQqSX63KllljG4K6gmPgRg-KA/s1600/reconstructing+the+Bengal+Partition.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>Jayanti Basu’s book is a product of the dialogue between two minds’––the interviewee and herself. Basu says, ‘My focus is on the ‘subjective history’––I wanted top peep into the inner world that they possessed. It was difficult and risky. And it was fascinating . . . [but] I sailed into their subjective space with my own subjectivity. Indeed, the target persons of her study were those who did not undergo the bloody brutalities of the partition violence, but were forced by the circumstances of partition to migrate to India.<br />
Compared to the partition of Punjab, the violence had been less . . . did it mean that the pain was less? During the interviews, it has occurred to me that this is a different kind of trauma––I called it ‘soft violence’. A large portion of this book would be devoted to unfurling the psychological processes involved in soft violence.</div>
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<b>Stree</b></div>
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<b>ISBN Code: </b>978-81 906760-9-0, pb, 249 pp<br />
<br />
<b style="line-height: 24px; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt;">Enquiries: </span></b><b style="line-height: 24px; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt;">16 Southern Ave, Calcutta 700026 </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 24px; text-indent: -22.5pt;">tel:033 2466 0812/ 033 6519 5737</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 14px;">email </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 17px;"><a href="mailto:streesamya.manager@gmail.com"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 14px;">streesamya.manager@gmail.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 14px;"> <span lang="EN-GB">website: <u>www.stree-samyabooks.com</u></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0