Category: Features

Once deemed the most handsome man in Bollywood, Sanjay Khan’s tryst with fame and stardom led him to many adventures across the world. He is best remembered for his performances in films like Ek Phool Do Mali and Abdullah as well as his portrayal of the great Tipu Sultan on television.
60 episodes of Tipu Sultan were aired from 1990 to 1991. Here are seven important mentions from the show, that are touched upon in his autobiography.

Bhagwan S. Gidwani, author of The Sword of Tipu Sultan

“The book was in its forty-fourth edition and had sold more than two million copies. Bhagwan had specialized in the technical, economic and legal fields of civil aviation, acted as the counsel for India in the International Court of Justice and had served India in many other responsible positions.”

 Lata Mangeshkar

“The nightingale of the Indian screen at the time was Lata Mangeshkar who sang for many of my films. I am very proud that her last song for television was for The Sword of Tipu Sultan.”

 Bob Christo as General Matthews

“He was an ex-Australian army commando, who had served in Vietnam, and had worked as Paul Getty’s bodyguard. Bob was an excellent singer and turned out to be a very good actor.”

 Mysore as Sultanat-e-Khudadad

“We decided to shoot the series in Mysore, because it was the centre of Tipu’s empire, which was called the Sultanat-e-Khudadad (The Kingdom of God).”

 Mysore cavalry horses and 19^th century cannons

“The Mysore cavalry had provided 100 of its best horses and the chief of the Archaeological Survey of India, who was in charge of the palace and the historical artefacts in Mysore, had been persuaded to allow us to use the twelve nineteenth-century cannons in the palace. On location, we actually fired them with blanks—probably the first time in 100 years.”

 The Great Mysore Fire Tragedy

“We had a cast of hundreds, elaborate artwork, fabulously ornate and historically accurate costumes and sumptuous sets. But on that fateful day, either by an act of God or man, the set was consumed by an inferno. Fifty-two members of my crew lost their lives.”

Sanjay Khan: ‘A Phoenix from the Fire’

“I was producing, directing and acting in the historical serial The Sword of Tipu Sultan.” Critically injured in the fire, “I had suffered 65 per cent third-degree burns. For a man aged forty-nine to survive such severe burns was unimaginable. Surviving the trauma of sixty-five per cent third-degree burns combined with over seventy operations can only be described as a miracle.”

Literally forged in fire, out came a classic The Sword of Tipu Sultan. Read more about Sanjay Khan in his autobiography, The Best Mistakes of My Life.
 
 

By Manasi Subramaniam

What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape comes at a time when we have just begun to talk – actually talk – about rape. There is a great danger in referring to such a book as ‘timely’. Not only does that seem opportunistic, it also trivializes and oversimplifies sexual violence entirely. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that this book could have been published at any point in time since the dawn of civilization (or at least since the invention of the printing press) and it would have been just as timely and relevant. If the #MeToo discourse has taught us anything, it is this: violence affects all of us, and we need to be able to talk about it.
And yet, if I’m being honest, I’ll admit that I am terrified of robbing the debate of nuance by anything that I myself say. If I have enjoyed any clarity of thought on any subject in the world, it has always been through my reading. And working in publishing has offered me the good fortune of devising and disseminating the wisdom of others in the medium I have the most respect for. All of which is really a rather roundabout way of saying that this is a book I published because it was a book I wanted to read.
And so it was that I asked Sohaila Abdulali to write this book. She is a survivor herself, and she is thoughtful and brave and wise. These were the things I knew she would transfer into her book. And of course she did. But she did one more thing – a thing that I never expected. She made this book funny. Given the difficult subject it deals with – not to mention some of the details it contains – Sohaila did something extraordinary by keeping the tone light (but never unserious) and open (but never apologetic). It is the truly unique strength of this book that one comes away from it feeling empowered rather than broken.
Which is not to say that she does not have rage. She does. But she coolly channels all of it in this book with absolute precision. And the thing about her openly expressed fury is its rawness and its power and its capacity to encompass aggression and compassion. Page after page, I marvelled all the things that this book was doing, all the ways in which it was helping me structure my incoherent anger and helplessness.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a book that injects sensitivity, empathy and candour into the conversation surrounding sexual violence. It is entirely my privilege to have been a part of its making.

Writing from the viewpoint of a survivor, writer, counsellor and activist, and drawing on three decades of grappling with the issue personally and professionally and her work with hundreds of survivors, Sohaila Abdulali, in her book What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape looks at what we-women, men, politicians, teachers, writers, sex workers, feminists, sages, mansplainers, victims and families-think about rape and what we say.

The Radical in Ambedkar: Critical Reflections edited and introduced by Anand Teltumbde and Suraj Yengde, establishes B.R. Ambedkar as the most powerful advocate of equality and fraternity in modern India. This remarkable volume seeks to unpack the radical in Ambedkar’s legacy by examining his life work from hitherto unexplored perspectives.
Read on to learn why Ambedkar is one of the most significant advocates of equality.
His belief in moral and ethical behaviour of people, not only the state, to achieve liberty and equality
“Aside from rationality, Ambedkar felt that democracy required ethics, or what he called morality. One aspect of this is the importance of ‘constitutional morality’, that is, of abiding by the spirit of the Constitution and not just its legal provisions. Going beyond this, Ambedkar felt that morality, in the sense of social ethics, was indispensable for the realization of liberty and equality. In the absence of morality, he thought, there were only two alternatives: anarchy or the police.”

~

His emphasis on international solidarity in combating social inequality
“Ambedkar explained that he had been a ‘student of the Negro problem’ and that ‘[t]here is so much similarity between the position of the Untouchables in India and of the position of the Negroes in America that the study of the latter is not only natural but necessary’.”

~

His vision of democracy and a ‘good society’
“Ambedkar’s vision of democracy was closely related to his ideal of a ‘good society’. He was clear about this ideal: on many occasions, he stated that he envisaged a good society as one based on ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ (today we might prefer to call this ‘liberty, equality and solidarity’). Democracy, as he saw it, was both the end and the means of this ideal.”

~

His struggle for basic human rights in civic law and practice
“Dr Ambedkar continued to build up a civic notion of rights to challenge both religious democratization and a colonial order rooted in custom and identity. This is clearly demonstrated in his leadership in the Chavadar Tank agitation in the late 1920s. In 1927, Dr Ambedkar led a satyagraha to gain access to water from the tank, exercising a right to the public resources maintained by the state, which was guaranteed by the Bombay legislature but not enforced due to social sanction. The satyagraha was met by violence, and upper-caste Hindus filed a court case arguing that the tank was private property.”

~

His path-breaking legal argument for the independent agency of sex workers
“The Bombay Prostitution Act of 1923 did not abolish prostitution but sought to end its organized version and criminalize those who brought women into prostitution. In this case, the accused owned a house where the prostitute in question had met clients for a few hours. Ambedkar attempted to argue that the prostitute was an independent agent as evidenced by her short stay at the brothel and that the accused merely kept a brothel and was not a procuress. While Ambedkar’s own views of sex work are complicated, in the court he did make an argument for the independent agency of sex workers.”

 ~

His efforts to include oppressed communities across the spectrum in the Dalit struggle for justice
“In the Bombay Presidency, the differences and inequalities among Dalits came frequently in the way of Ambedkar’s struggles. Ambedkar, being a visionary with a strong support base of Dalits across India, particularly the Mahars in Maharashtra, attempted to address the issue of intra-caste conflicts. He also tried to build a broader platform for all Dalits by attempting to include non-Mahar Dalit castes into his organizations, the All India Scheduled Caste Federation, the Independent Labour Party, etc.”

 ~

His delineation of the government’s role in eradicating inequalities and in safeguarding the fundamental rights of citizens
“True to the basic principles he had publicly upheld for over two decades, Ambedkar proposed that the Constituent Assembly proclaim a set of fundamental rights ensuring equal civic rights and the right to vote of all citizens, freedom of religion, and the legal prohibition of discrimination and forced labour or involuntary servitude. He also suggested that the new Supreme Court be given adequate powers to protect these fundamental rights of citizens.”

An extraordinary collection of immense breadth and scholarship that challenges the popular understanding of Ambedkar, The Radical in Ambedkar is essential reading for all those who wish to imagine a new future.

Everybody’s favourite Regency comedy of manners-Emma is coming to South Delhi in Mahesh Rao’s Polite Society! While Jane Austen’s Emma poked gentle fun at the little foibles and economic exigencies of the exceedingly polite middle-class and county gentry in Regency England, Polite Society reimagines Emma in contemporary Delhi to portray a society whose polished surface often reveals more than is intended.
Both Emma and Polite Society explore social mores through the overconfident yet inexperienced eyes of young women coming of age in an ornate world. As twenty-one year old Emma Woodhouse ‘handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition’ and Ania Khurana- the ‘young beautiful and rich’ resident of Prithviraj Road, attempt to amuse themselves by applying their exceptional industry to their pet projects, they realize that youth, wealth and beauty will take you far in polite society but cannot influence individuals to your liking.
Emma and Ania are both incredibly blessed by both nature and society and thus have the benefits and pitfalls of a plethora of choices.
“The real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.”
-Emma
“It was not unusual for Ania to contemplate drastic hypothetical choices in this way. The comforts of her own life meant that she was seldom called upon to discriminate or restrict: in the Khurana household, they usually ordered four of everything. As a result, this kind of grandiose conjecture had always come to her as something of an exertion but also a thrill.”
– Polite Society

~

Emma and Ania barely remember their respective mothers. The most significant (though very indulgent) maternal figures in their lives are a charming governess–Miss Taylor and a maiden aunt–Renu Bua respectively. Both get married and move away at the beginning of both books (largely thanks to Emma’s and Ania’s matchmaking.)
“Even before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.”
–Emma
“While Ania loved her bua’s presence in the house, finding in her someone even more indulgent than her father, she was stricken by what she saw as the tragedy of Renu’s life.  A firm believer in the elemental nature of soulmates, Ania felt that it was never too late.”
-Polite Society

~

Mr Weston, formerly of the militia, cheerful, popular and well-liked, marries Miss Taylor and could be the Regency twin of the genial Colonel Suraj Singh Rathore who marries Renu Bua.
“He quitted the militia and engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in London, which afforded him a favourable opening…He had, by that time, realised an easy competence—enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining Highbury, which he had always longed for—enough to marry a woman as portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of his own friendly and social disposition.”
-Emma
“Colonel Suraj Singh Rathore, formerly of the Garhwal Rifles Ania discovered over the course of the afternoon that he was widowed, with no children, and owned a few bungalows scattered around the Kullu and Kangra valleys of Himachal Pradesh.”
-Polite Society

~

Harriet Smith and Dimple are Emma’s and Ania’s friends//protégés. Harriet is the illegitimate daughter of a tradesman and a student at a nearby school. She is starry-eyed at being taken up by so great a personage as Emma Woodhouse. Dimple is a small-town girl working for a PR-start up in Delhi, Dimple can’t believe that she has actually made friends with Ania Khurana who seems to move in a rarefied and almost surreal atmosphere of wealth and elegance.

“She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging—not inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk—and yet so far from pushing, shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of everything in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense.”
–Emma
 “Dimple almost glowed with pleasure. She had only met Ania a few months ago at a PR event and was still unaccustomed to the idea that she could be privy to plans involving the Khurana family.”
-Polite Society

~

The patronizing benevolence that governs Emma and Ania’s friendships towards Harriet and Dimple respectively

“‘She would notice her; she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good society; she would form her opinions and her manners’.”
-Emma
‘In some ways, Ania’s initial interest in Dimple’s affairs could be placed on the same spectrum of charitable instincts as the one that led her to the animal shelter…But over time she had become genuinely fond of Dimple and didn’t see why the girl shouldn’t reap the rewards of a superlative Delhi social life just because of her unfortunate beginnings.’
-Polite Society

~

Robert Martin, the kind local farmer, and Ankit–resident of Lajpat Nagar and owner of Tip-Top fashions are perfectly likable but highly unsuitable (in Emma’s and Ania’s opnion) suitors of Harriet and Dimple respectively.
“His appearance was very neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no other advantage; and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen, she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet’s inclination.”
–Emma
“Dimple would defend him, it was in her nature: he had a lovely face, but more than that, he was respectful and honest; she owed the family many kindnesses. Besides their business was doing so well; in fact, they were opening a second branch of Tip-Top Fashions soon. But poor Dimple, it would all be such a terrible waste.”
-Polite Society

~ 

The persons of dubious character that the equally naive Emma and Ania find suitable for their protégés: Emma attempts to bring Harriet to the notice of Mr Elton, the local vicar just as Ania tries to set up Fahim, a rising journalist with Dimple. However these are serious miscalculations as both men don’t seem to notice the match-making efforts going on, and think that that the heiresses are romantically interested in them.
“‘She found her subject cut up—her hand seized—her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known, hoping—fearing—adoring—ready to die if she refused him; but flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short, very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible.  Without scruple—without apology—without much apparent diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself her lover.”
-Emma
Fahim meanwhile thinks “‘Ania’s pursuit had been relentless. When he thought about the public praise, the constant communication, and the welcome into her home, it seemed almost starry-eyed. He was surprised by the awkward use of Dimple as some sort of fig leaf. He had never imagined that a girl like Ania would need the presence of an inconsequential friend to maintain a sense of propriety.’”
-Polite Society

 ~

The insufferably perfect paragons of perfection that Emma and Ania compete with (although they would never admit it) are Jane Fairfax and Kamya Singh-Kaul

“Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her.”
-Emma
 “Also lying there, in plain sight, was a copy of Kamya Singh-Kaul’s book. Her own novel, which she had introduced into conversations with such confidence a few months ago, now felt like a burden that oozed reproach, a secret failure that precipitated a rush of anxiety and hopelessness every time she thought about it. She picked up Kamya’s book and felt an unpleasant contraction in her chest as she read the cavalcade of breathless quotes from distinguished authors. Her author photograph—dark lips, cheekbones, the glaze of a museum piece—was exactly what Ania would have expected.”
-Polite Society

 ~

And finally, the significant others-to-be! Mr George Knightley, a family friend and relative by marriage is as dependable, intelligent, and unconcerned about appearances as Dev Gahlot, family friend and relative of Ania. Although both Emma and Ania often trade barbs and spar with Mr Knightley and Dev respectively, they also value their opinions the most.

“Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome.”
-Emma
 “The same jacket day after day, the satchel with a broken zipper, the fraying above the shirt pocket, she was convinced it was all an affectation, a way of indicating to the world that their owner concerned himself only with matters of sublime worth and not mere flummeries. They had practically grown up in each others houses and she could almost predict his every gesture.”
-Polite Society

~

Both Mr Knightley and Dev are quite clear-headed and warn Emma and Ania respectively about the dangers of treating their friend’s like improvement projects.
“How can Emma imagine she has anything to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that she cannot gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit with all the other places she belongs to.. I am much mistaken if Emma’s doctrines give any strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally to the varieties of her situation in life.”
-Emma
“‘I made her feel uncomfortable? It’s not me who’s using her for my own purposes, adopting her for some kind of mission civilisatrice.’”
–Polite Society

Keenly observed, sharply plotted and full of wit and brio, Polite Society reimagines Jane Austen’s Emma in contemporary Delhi to portray a society whose polished surface often reveals far more than is intended

Krishna Trilok’s Notes of a Dream records the life and music of one of the most celebrated musicians of India, A.R. Rahman. Based on interviews between the author and the musical maestro, this book brings forth the heartwarming story of a remarkable artist that makes for an inspirational read. Trilok’s achievement lies in his ability to draw out a reticent man like Rahman. Here are a few things to know about the about the man behind this wonderful biography:





 
Featuring intimate interviews with the soft-spoken virtuoso, as well as insights and anecdotes from key people in his life, this balanced, uplifting and affectionate book, Notes of a Dream is the definitive biography of A.R. Rahman—the man behind the music and the music that made the man.
 

The spark of life, fount of emotions, house of the soul – the heart lies at the center of every facet of our existence. It’s so bound up in our deepest feelings that it can physically change shape when we experience emotional trauma.
For most of human history, the biological function of the heart was a mystery. Here is a timeline of the heart, quoted from Sandeep Jauhar’s new book titled Heart: A History.
Ten thousand years ago, Cro-Magnon hunters in Europe knew about the heart – they engraved curlicue pictures of it on the walls of caves – but they had no clue about what it did.

Seven millennia later, the ancient Egyptians devised surprisingly prescient theories about the heart’s purpose. They believed the heart was where the soul resided, of course, but a classic document, the Ebers Papyrus, also described the heart as the center of the blood supply, with vessels directed toward the major organs.

Three thousand years later, the ancient Greeks had a mostly symbolic understanding of the heart. They believed the heart’s central location in the body meant that it was the center of life and morality.

Drawing conclusions from surgeries on wounded gladiators, as well as vivisection on an array of animals, Galen – a Roman physician – proposed a scheme in which the liver converts food into blood that, like water in an irrigation ditch, travels one way into the body to be absorbed and disappear, never to be used again.

Galen’s theories were accepted as the final word on cardiovascular – indeed all human – anatomy in the West. Through the Middle Ages, his writings were scripture, immune to questioning.

Physician Ibn al-Nafis wrote Commentary on Anatomy in 1242. In it, he wrote that the ventricles receive nourishment from coronary vessels – not, as Galen had claimed, from blood deposited inside their chambers – and that the pulse is due to the force of cardiac contraction, not as Galen contended, because of innate arterial contractility.

Perhaps no thinker of the Renaissance period did more to advance knowledge of the heart that Leonardo da Vinci, who considered it “an admirable instrument invented by the Supreme Being.” Among many of Leonardo’s anatomical illustrations, a great many are devoted to the cardiovascular system. Like his predecessors, he used natural phenomena and analogies to elucidate the workings of the heart.

Before a century had passed, raucous crowds were gathering at the University of Padua for public dissection. It was here – the center of European anatomy, where the world’s first anatomical theatre housed galleries for spectators – that perhaps history’s greatest surgeon, Andreas Vesalius, worked.

In De humani corporis fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body), published in 1543, Vesalius corrected many of Galen’s mistakes about the heart and also reinforced some of his erroneous conclusions.

It wasn’t until William Harvey, the brilliant English anatomist who studied at Padua in his early twenties, that Galen’s theory of circulation was fully upended. Although Harvey discovered the mechanism of circulation in 1615, he waited thirteen years before publishing the results. He feared for his safety; challenging Galenic dogma was considered sacrilegious.

On a summer day in 1893, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a surgeon at Provident Hospital in Chicago conducted, what is believed to be the first open-heart surgery.

Affecting, engaging, and beautifully written, Heart: A History takes the full measure of the only organ that can move itself.