Between The Lines
Folklore is the artifice of enchantment; liminal, it includes the sites of both sorrow and joy; death and life but boundaries are fluid, forest-covered, unmapped. Alok Bhalla on folklore as gateway to life’s renewal.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
A searing allegory of the way women are treated in a society governed by misogyny, lax moral codes and a political discourse that sanctifies both. Asghar Wajahat translated by Alok Bhalla.…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
In dialogic encounters that recall a ‘looking glass world,’ Asghar Wajahat conjures up a grim reality where words and meanings are their own masters, painting the grotesqueries of our contemporary landscape. Alok Bhalla translates.…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
The miniature paintings of The Gita by Allah Baksh, from the late 17th century Mewar. commissioned by Udaipur’s Maharana Jai Singh. Allah Baksh’s luminous work on the Gita has no precedent in India’s art tradition. He has illustrated Krishna’s ecstatic song, verse by abstract verse. His images, meditative and unostentatious, are free from both heroic posturing and spiritual pride points out Alok Bhalla in this perceptive Introduction to the volume he edited with Chandra Prakash Deval…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Considered a “poet’s poet” for the standards he set in the genre of Hindi-Urdu modern progressive poetry, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, in this poem translated by Alok Bhalla from Hindi, draws sly distinctions between faith and religion.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
A story of foredoomed love, Nirmal Verma’s short story was originally titled Terminal in the collection Sookha Tatha Anya Kahanniyan 1997. Translated from Hindi by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Alok Bhalla pays tribute to Edward Lear (born May 12 1812), fittingly by composing nonsense verses inspired by Lear’s nonsense images. The comedy of nonsense verse, Bhalla notes demystifies those who claim glory and glamour; it also makes the earth we live on livelier and less burdensome by inviting the entire creation to be part of its joyous carnival. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
“No man is greater than the size of his shoes” says the cobbler Mochiram in Dhoomil’s eloquent poem, a testimony to subaltern wisdom and humanity reflected in his desire to repair/heal. Translated from Hindi by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Alok Bhalla, Vinod Kumar Shukla and Asghar Wajahat articulate their visions, paying tribute to this Earth in the only way poets can, through slanted truths. Guest edited and translated by Alok Bhalla.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
The jungle and its inhabitants the Gonds serve as the backdrop to this tale of post-partition unrest and tension across the border in Intizar Husain’s tale of looming apocalypse. Translated by Alok Bhalla & Vishwamitter Adil. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Kedarnath Singh (1934-2018) wrote poetry in deceptively simple language encompassing within his imagery the complexity of our troubled times and language itself, offering the reader a lot to think about even while savouring his sparse elegance. Translated from Hindi by Alok Bhalla. …[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
In this beautifully sorrowful elegy to the peacock as bird of Paradise, Intizar Husain delves into the state of human consciousness bent on destruction of life and bemoans the impossibility of composing his Morenama, seeking clues (solace?) in Indic epic tales. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
In this “hermetically sealed nightmare”, Intizar Husain has three anonymous, faceless men describe their barbaric acts of rape and endless killing to each other, realize they are horrors with nowhere to flee or even bury their own corpses. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Intizar Husain tackles the theme of Man’s fall from grace and the Flood through the creation myths of various faiths in a brilliant weave of our contemporary condition of human vanities and planetary destruction. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Drawing from the Jatakas, Intizar Husain tells us the story of a young Bhikshu with a begging bowl seeking grace through the Buddha’s teachings of renunciation, entranced by the temptation of earthly pleasure, aware sorrowfully of his failings. Curated and translated by Alok Bhalla. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Kunwar Narain’s long narrative poem Kumarajiva is an imaginative meditation on the life of Chinese scholar, teacher and translator of Buddhist texts, Kumarajiva, born in 344 CE. In it the poet attempts to imagine a society where a people could learn to pay ‘mindful attention’ to all sentient beings. Alok Bhalla translates. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Alok Bhalla, translator-poet’s brief and poignant salutation to life and its infinite possibilities to be sought and savoured. …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Allah Baksh’s critically distinctive and inspired engagement as a later-day reader and painter of Vyasa’s text is that he creates scenes framed like sacerdotal space or a mandala. Alok Bhalla and Chandra Prakash Deval curate a painter’s imagination alongside the poet’s song. …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Bharani Kollipara reads The Gita and begins his review of Allah Baksh’s miniatures put together by Alok Bhalla and Chandra Prakash Deval with the observation that these paintings unlike others of the same genre, draw their meaning from the propositional content expressed in a couplet. …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
The Mewar Gita (1680-1698) is an incomparable visual assemblage that demands a compelling attention and an immersive response to its stunning visual schema (the festivity of colours), the delicate and effortless carve of the figural contours, embodiment of actional figuration, finds D. Venkat Rao in this deep reading of Allah Baksh’ rendition of the Gita and Alok Bhalla’s commentary on them. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
The Beacon decided to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the City Lights Publishers and Bookstore in 1953 in San Francisco by Lawrence Ferlinghetti by putting together four introductory essays on four Beat writers by some of the best critics of their work. Alok Bhalla introduces the issue curated by Jennie Skerl…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Some of the poems of Pat Matsueda are about lives of unbearable violence; about our willingness as human beings to inflict pain on others. But then there are poems that are sad, yet touched by the grace of acceptance and gentleness. A selection from Bitter Angels. With an introductory note by Alok Bhalla. …[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
In a world where apocalypse seems destined as the fate of all life, the artistic creations of Arpana Caur speak on behalf of the earth with a moral force so essential and urgently essential to embrace, says Guest Editor Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Krishna Sobti had a lot to say about the tangled interweave of religion, politics, Partition in the lives of the communities they affected and still do. Alok Bhalla offers a critical preview of her vison followed by extracts of his conversation with her that is remarkable for its relevance today.…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Alok Bhalla looks back at Partition as “borders of sorrow” created by violence bred by intolerant religious identities. Partition literature however comes across differently: not as dossiers of hatreds but as chronicles of yearning for that “good civilization” that once was and could be. …[Read More]…
Visual Spaces
In this imagined dialogue between Intizar Husain and artist Akhilesh , words and colours are like nomads transgressing boundaries with impunity. By Alok Bhalla. Paintings by Akhilesh. …[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
South Asian SF Dialogues series, curated by Tarun K. Saint for The Beacon continues with Tashan Mehta, who holds that SF/fantasy help explore the realities of disenfranchised groups. Her debut novel, The Liar’s Weave, was shortlisted for the Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award. Alok Bhalla joins in.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
History, myth, fact and fable merge in Ashgar Wajahat’s story. In Afzal Ahmed Syed’s short poem words can stem an apocalypse of the dagger, herald a promise. Both translated by Alok Bhalla
…[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Curated by Alok Bhalla, for The Beacon, ‘Asians in Africa’ offers glimpses of a diasporic existence as seen by various writers; experiences that carried the promise of belonging and the prospect of loss and flight. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Pash comes to life as the poet talking back to the demons of our imes in these fresh translations from his work by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
In late 17th century Mewar miniaturist Allah Baksh illustrated the Gita. K.P. Shankaran reviews Alok Bhalla and Chandra Prakash Deval’s book that puts together for the first time the artist’s luminous work .…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Manto weaves a shocking tale of human grossness out of a chapter from our inglorious history that foretold the horrors of partition, in this translation by Alok Bhalla …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
In a deconstruction of Manto’s short fiction about 1919, Alok Bhalla offers an elegant yet forcefully insightful, studied but not ponderous alternative reading of South Asia’s ‘vile’ histories …[Read More]…
Personal Notes
Of this exquisite meditation by Krishna Sobti on her mother, translator-poet Alok Bhalla says it is revelatory of her own personal integrity and of the stoicism she admired in her women characters. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
A little known tale by Saadat Hasan Manto on partitions that continue to rupture languages, identities and people. Translated by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…
Between the Lines
Those who arrange languages into structures of hierarchy obscure the distinction between words and daggers, making us, rues Alok Bhalla, “hard-bristled, sharp-fanged, knife-clawed creatures with merciless fires in our eyes.” …[Read More]…
Personal Notes
How to explain the spiritual homelessness of the rooted, of one who has never left his home? Nirmal Verma on the consequent ‘loss of self’ and the place of literature in describing it. Translated by Alok Bhalla.…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
In the Adi Parva, Vyasa comments on the nature of the epic he has composed, its structure and its intention. Addressing Brahma, Vyasa says that he has ‘imagined’ a ‘poem’; a visionary ‘history…’ Allah Baksh’s Mahabharata neither begins by illustrating the long prelude about the visionary form and ahimsic intent of Vyasa nor by first visualising some act of heroism and sacred revelation.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
A short fiction by Mridula Garg, rendered into English by Pooja Sancheti that opens the doors to differing perceptions on life-expectations, and nature’s vicissitudes leading up to a denouement that reflects the whimsical nature of male behaviour …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Don’t look back at the twentieth century alone to ask: what brought on so much tyranny, violence bigotry because such heinous inhumanity continues and we are still, if not more, indifferent. But the voices of the victims, of the courageous reach out to us in the poems of Frank Stewart, as cracks in this gloating darkness …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Intizar Husain captures the mysterious evocation of Nature’s ways viewed through the bewildered and wondrous innocence of a boy bursting with curiosity. Translated by M. Asaduddin …[Read More]…
Between The Lines
Intizar Husain (21 December 1925-2 February 2016) was a writer whose sensibilities were formed in the fires of the 1947 Partition but equally in the myths and memories of a ‘good’ life, Uprooted, he remained a rooted cosmopolitan feels Ashoak Upadhyay…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
,An anthology of Punjabi plays from both sides of the border that recall the horrors of Partition and the binding cordiality that persists amongst Hindus Muslims and Sikhs in divided Punjab. Extracts from the Introduction by Atamjit …[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
Manjula Padmanabhan, playwright, comic strip artist, writer and columnist based in Delhi, India and the USA also writes literary and SF/speculative fiction converses with Tarun K. Saint who curates this series for The Beacon. …[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
This session features Sami Ahmad Khan, writer and SF critic/scholar from Delhi, India who teaches a course on this genre in conversation with Tarun K.Saint who curates this series for The Beacon. …[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
South Asian SF Dialogues series, curated by Tarun K. Saint for The Beacon has Vandana Singh, physicist and writer of speculative fiction engaged in a conversation on the importance of speculative fiction in re-imagining our world with alternative futures…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
The archetypes in the Gond Ramayani are borrowed from the repertoire of Gond narratives, rituals, belief systems and socio-cultural moorings, It is not just a “Ramayan in inverse.” argues Molly Kaushal.…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
Curated by Tarun K. Saint for The Beacon, South Asian SF Dialogues series continues conversations about SF from the subcontinent, with authors who have helped shape the genre such as Anil Menon
…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
Curated by Tarun K. Saint for The Beacon, South Asian SF Dialogues series continues conversations about SF this time with M.G.Vassanji. Followed by an extract from his novel, “Nostalgia”
…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
Curated by Tarun K. Saint for The Beacon, South Asian SF Dialogues initiates conversations about SF from the subcontinent, with the authors who have helped shape the genre in recent times Here’s Bina Shah …[Read More]…