In his essay The Ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi (New Yorker, July 1995), Amitav Ghosh introduces the reader to the Bosnian writer Dževad Karahasan and his ‘remarkable essay called Literature and War (published…in the collection Sarajevo, Exodus of a City), which ‘makes a startling connection between modern literary aestheticism and the contemporary world’s indifference to violence.’ GhoshContinue reading “Amitav Ghosh And Dževad Karahasan On ‘An Aesthetic of Indifference’”
Tag Archives: new delhi
The US Information Service and the Power of Air Conditioning
Shortly before my teen years commenced, my parents arranged a library membership for me at the American Library in New Delhi. (The library was administered by the United States Information Service; its membership rules only allowed adults as members, but my parents spoke to the librarians, signed up for two library cards, and handed themContinue reading “The US Information Service and the Power of Air Conditioning”
A Failure of Kindness
The George Saunders graduation speech currently making the rounds of the Internet reminds me of a failure of kindness of my own. I have committed many, of course, too many to remember or recount; I pick on this one, because, quite frankly, besides being memorable in all the wrong ways, it is a little lessContinue reading “A Failure of Kindness”
Memories of Hot Summers Elsewhere
Talking about the weather is supposedly a concession, an admission that a conversation has run aground, spun off into irrelevancies; nothing, it seems, quite shows the lack of an agenda for an exchange of words like a discussion about the heat, the cold, the rain. Well, I admit defeat; I admit I’m tongue-tied and incoherent.Continue reading “Memories of Hot Summers Elsewhere”
The Sunday Evening Movie, Blues-Killer Sans Pareil
It’s a strange business to have written about ‘The Sunday Evening Blues‘ on this blog, in such plaintive fashion, because for many years, Sunday evening was the time of the week that promised a very particular form of entertainment: the Sunday evening movie, for many years, an institution in the life of any Indian householdContinue reading “The Sunday Evening Movie, Blues-Killer Sans Pareil”
Pearl Harbor and Tora! Tora! Tora!
Today is the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the US fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. My intention today is not to talk about the attack but a cinematic depiction of it: the US-Japanese production Tora! Tora! Tora! directed by Richard Fleischer and released in 1970. I saw TTT with my father and brotherContinue reading “Pearl Harbor and Tora! Tora! Tora!”
Samir Chopra 