Essays
Modernism and Modernity
The modernist turn to Indian photography may have been chronologically belated but its practitioners were pioneers, creating works that were uniquely hybrid, ‘unruly and layered, global and local, colonial and postcolonial’, write Nathaniel Gaskell and Diva Gujral
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Mud
At her home in the mountains, Anuradha Roy watches the snow and rain, considers warmth and the stirring of new life in the earth
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Sweat Symbols
How have Hindi films treated heat, asks Jai Arjun Singh. And what of the effect of heat, literally, on the making and preservation of those films
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The Hunger Artists
At the unlikely venue of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Revati Laul found a serious attempt to engage with agrarian distress. Perhaps our politicians should take a look
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The Anger Games
From the bully pulpits occupied by TV news anchors and politicians, rage has been the rallying cry. What is the effect on our national health, asks Shougat Dasgupta
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The Spice Imperative
From Mexico, Michael Snyder traces the history of the chilli pepper and reflects on prandial ties, forged under the colonial yoke, with India
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India’s Great War
Millions of colonial subjects fought alongside their ‘masters’ in World War I. Long ignored by both coloniser and colonised, are these forgotten soldiers now getting their due, asks Vedica Kant
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A City Speaks
Banaras is so old, so steeped in its own legend, that we forget it still breathes, that life goes on and that it has new stories to tell, argues Shreevatsa Nevatia
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Let’s Talk About Sex
In India, #MeToo has been criticised as urban and elite, irrelevant to the lives of most women. But can it force a public conversation on topics that were once taboo, asks Iona Italia
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Precious Pulp
Urdu writer Ibn-e-Safi’s highly popular crime novels remind us of a lost fantasy—a world of unlikely internationalism, glamorous intrigue and deep secularism, writes Rakhshanda Jalil
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