Thakazhi's troubled gaze at '40s India, in a patchy translation
Sunil Menon
Editor
No recordings of his exist, but every classical musician bows to Ustad Alladiya Khan. In plain vanilla format, here's why.
What an option it might have been! A Sanskritised landscape! Taporis spouting Kalidasa...LS debates in devabhasha (Krama! Krama! Aham Somanatha Chattopadhyaya vadaami!...)
The '90s in meltdown. Then an apparition in print. The story, from the gut.
Everything, it seems, has a limit. Why does the media start haemorrhaging at the prospect of India's fringe breaking its silence? Are we afraid of our democracy?
The film song is mass hypnotism, an aid to help us forget. But the past never leaves.
Making bold to explore a humbler method to crack the dimly understood laws of international relations. An unofficial oral history of geopolitics.
"Sir, what is the time?" Man 2, glancing at watch, gravely, "It’s too late." Too late for what? "Too late for you and me."
Pakistan’s again at what hacks love to euphemise as an "inflexion point" in its history. Nawaz Sharif is again the paragon of liberty..One feels sorry for Musharraf...
So we don't just live next door to Absurdistan, it's in our marrow. As Advani once said, "Desh ka vayumandal kharab hai". (He wasn't talking carbon emissions.)
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