Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He produced some sixty collections of verse, nearly a hundred short stories, several novels, plays, dance dramas, essays on religious, social and literary topics, and over 2500 songs, including the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
Translated into English by William Radice , Gitanjali a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore known for their unmatched style of presentation, fresh poetic structure and spiritual musings.
Here are some of our favorite quotes from Gitanjali.
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Quotes from Kalidasa’s Ritusamharam That Will Make You Fall in Love with All Seasons
Perhaps the most lively and exuberant of Kalidasa’s extant works, Ritusamharan is a glorious ode to nature’s bounty and the enduring emotional response it evokes in mankind as a whole. It is perhaps the simplest and lightest of the great poet’s seven extant works, which include two each of epic and lyrical poetry, and three dramatic plays.
Ritusamharan is a collection of subhashita, or ‘well said’ poetic epigrams about the different seasons according to which ancient Indians divided the whole year, with a supple and spirited translation by A.N.D. Haksar.
Here are six poems that are sure to make you fall in love with all seasons.
The Tremendous Transformation of Indian Media- from 1947 to 2017
In seventy years of Independence, India’s people have experienced varying and uneven benefits, but what is unquestionable is that their media world- their ability to communicate- has been transformed.
Check out how this tremendous transformation took place during the seven decades of Independence.
Macbeth by Jo Nesbo – Excerpt
When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath, it’s up to inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess. He’s rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They’re all within reach. Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He’s convinced he won’t get what is rightfully his.
Here is an excerpt from Jo Nesbo’s new thriller, Macbeth
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The man hadn’t shown himself for months, but only one person owned that helmet and the red Indian Chief motorbike. Rumour had it the bike was one of fifty the New York Police Department had manufactured in total secrecy in 1955. The steel of the curved scabbard attached to its side shone.
Sweno.
Some claimed he was dead, others that he had fled the country, that he had changed his identity, cut off his blond plaits and was sitting on a terrazza in Argentina enjoying his old age and pencil-thin cigarillos.
But here he was. The leader of the gang and the cop-killer who, along with his sergeant, had started up the Norse Riders some time after the Second World War. They had picked rootless young men, most of them from dilapidated factory-worker houses along the sewage-fouled river, and trained them, disciplined them, brainwashed them until they were an army of fearless soldiers Sweno could use for his own purposes. To gain control of the town, to monopolise the growing dope market. And for a while it had looked as if Sweno would succeed, certainly Kenneth and police HQ hadn’t stopped him; rather the opposite, Sweno had bought in all the help he needed. It was the competition. Hecate’s home-made dope, brew, was much better, cheaper and always readily available on the market. But if the anonymous tip-off Duff had received was right, this consignment was big enough to solve the Norse Riders’ supply problems for some time. Duff had hoped, but not quite believed, what he read in the brief typewritten lines addressed to him was true. It was simply too much of a gift horse. The sort of gift that – if handled correctly – could send the head of the Narco Unit further up the ladder. Chief Commissioner Duncan still hadn’t filled all the important positions at police HQ with his own people. There was, for example, the Gang Unit, where Kenneth’s old rogue Inspector Cawdor had managed to hang on to his seat as they still had no concrete evidence of corruption, but that could only be a question of time. And Duff was one of Duncan’s men. When there were signs that Duncan might be appointed chief commissioner Duff had rung him in Capitol and clearly, if somewhat pompously, stated that if the council didn’t make Duncan the new commissioner, and chose one of Kenneth’s henchmen instead, Duff would resign. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that Duncan had suspected a personal motive behind this unconditional declaration of loyalty, but so what? Duff had a genuine desire to support Duncan’s plan for an honest police force that primarily served the people, he really did. But he also wanted an office at HQ as close to heaven as possible. Who wouldn’t? And he wanted to cut off the head of the man out there.
Sweno.
He was the means and the end.
Duff looked at his watch. The time tallied with what was in the letter, to the minute. He rested the tips of his fingers on the inside of his wrist. To feel his pulse. He was no longer hoping, he was about to become a believer.
‘Are there many of them, Duff?’ a voice whispered.
‘More than enough for great honour, Seyton. And one of them’s so big, when he falls, it’ll be heard all over the country.’
Duff cleaned the condensation off the window. Ten nervous, sweaty police officers in a small room. Men who didn’t usually get this type of assignment. As head of the Narco Unit it was Duff alone who had taken the decision not to show the letter to other officers; he was using only men from his unit for this raid. The tradition of corruption and leaks was too long for him to risk it. At least that is what he would tell Duncan if asked. But there wouldn’t be much cavilling. Not if they could seize the drugs and catch thirteen Norse Riders red-handed.
Thirteen, yes. Not fourteen. One of them would be left lying on the battlefield. If the chance came along.
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Meet Judy Moody, The Queen of Moods!
Judy Moody is a third grader with plenty of attitude and a mood for every occasion. This delightful series, created by Megan McDonald, is loaded with laughs and moments of wisdom as readers follow Judy through her hilarious adventures.
The fabulous Judy Moody will delight any child who’s known a bad mood or a bad day—and managed to laugh and learn along the way!
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Rajesh Khanna: Enter into the Life of India’s First Superstar
In the 1970s, Rajesh Khanna achieved the kind of fame that no film star had ever experienced before-or has since. The actor is hailed as India’s first superstar after 15 consecutive solo superhits between 1969 and 1972.
Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India’s First Superstar is a riveting biography by award winning journalist Yasser Usman in which he examines Rajesh Khanna’s dramatic, colourful life in its entirety. What emerges is a tantalizingly written, meticulously researched chronicle of a fascinating and mercurial man-one who was both loved and feared by those closest to him. It is a story that encapsulates the glittering, seductive, cut-throat world of Bollywood at its best and its worst.
In it he includes little-known facts about his childhood – back when he was Jatin Khanna and years before he became the superstar Rajesh Khanna. Here are five things you should know about little Jatin Khanna.
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7 Quotes That Show Different Constraints Shashi Deshpande’s Protagonists Had To Overcome
Shashi Deshpande is the author of eleven novels, two novellas, and four books for children. Her short stories have gone into a number of collections and various anthologies, and her essays have been collected in a book, Writing from the Margin. Deshpande received the Sahitya Akademi Award for her novel That Long Silence.
Here are 7 quotes from Deshpande’s books- That Long Silence and The Dark Holds No Terrors that highlight the different struggles her protagonists experience:
Know the Creator of the Tintin series, Hergé
Hergé, most popularly known as the creator of the Tintin series is regarded as one of the most important and influential comic creators in history. Tintin’s 23 album titles have been translated into every language, and is one of the most successful European comic magazines of all time. Other series by him are Quick et Flupke and Jo, Zette et Jocko‘.
The Tintin series first appeared in French on 10 January 1929 in Le Petit Vingtième (The Little Twentieth), a youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century). Soon the series saw themselves as serialized strips published in Belgium’s leading newspaper and eventually spun into a successful Tintin magazine.
Here are six facts about the illustrator of this comic, Hergé.
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5 Things Every Bengali Intellectual Can Be Heard Saying
Sanjeev Sanyal, bestselling author of Land of the Seven Rivers, is currently the principal economic adviser to the Indian government. A Rhodes Scholar and an Eisenhower fellow, Sanjeev was named Young Global Leader for 2010 by the World Economic Forum.
Sanjeev’s latest book, Life Over Two Beers and other stories, promises to take readers on an entertaining and surprising ride through an India you thought you knew, with a collection of unusual stories.
We discovered 5 things every Bengali intellectual can be heard saying from the short story titled, “The Intellectuals”.
The spot everyone knows in the city:
Intellectuals in Calcutta are:
The Cultural and Intellectual Capital of India:
Intellectually always one step ahead:
Cricket is just a spectacle:
Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World
The terms ‘fuzzy’ and ‘techie’ are used to respectively describe those students of the humanities and social sciences, and those students of the engineering or hard sciences at Stanford University.
Having met with thousands of companies, Scott Hartley through his book, The Fuzzy and the Techie wants to share with India that no matter what you’ve studied, there is a very real, and a very relevant, role for you to play in tomorrow’s tech economy. Our technology ought to provide us with great hope rather than fear, and we require policymakers, educators, parents and students to recognize this false divide between becoming technically literate, and building on our most important skills as humans.
Here are some points he shares, to stress on the importance of the fuzzies.
Techies are evolving into becoming Fuzzies’ vital partners, and they too can and must drive the process of bridge-building between the fuzzy and the techie. Not only are techies crucial to this process, they will also surely continue to push forward with exciting technological innovations that haven’t yet been conceived.
