Manvasanai
Bharathiraja’s rural cinema becomes a way of thinking about landscape, honour, gender and love—and about whether Muthupechi is allowed a voice of her own.
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Tokyo Olympics Reflection
Tokyo Olympics has come to an end. We waited eagerly and watched every event in which India participated. Although India could go past the highest medal tally of six medals achieved in 2012 London Olympics, we could inch up to only one more medal in Tokyo. There was heartbreak for the Women’s hockey team. They were on the brink of creating a fantastic finish to their campaign.
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Red Sorghum, Soul Mountain & A Thousand Splendid Suns
From the novels written by Indian writers, I have planned a small detour to desribe three novels which I had the opportunity of reading. All the three novels are from the East and each of them has valuable insights into the art of writing fiction. Red Sorghum Red Sorghum is an intense novel from China…
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A Passage to India
E.M.Forster’s novel ‘A Passage to India’ narrates the social and political condition of the days of the British Raj and the relation between the colonial masters and their Indian subjects. The relationship was strained and fragile. The novel presents the fractious and mistrustful sentiment that permeated this unequal relation and even gestures or attitudes which…
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Catcher in the Rye
The digression on the length of a novel may be continued for a few more pages, to support my argument that it is not the length that merits the reading of a novel more than once. J.D. Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’ is a short novel but requires a lot of reader engagement because of…
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Agnes Grey
I had no idea about this novel. I should have read it long ago but it has been reserved for me after I have read the other Bronte novels; Villette, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte Bronte. This is my first novel of Anne Bronte and I have ‘The Tenant of…
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Setting in Fiction and Film
The setting in film Noir movies of Hollywood of the 1950s and 60s, portrayed the cynical attitude and dark motivation of the characters. The “Wrong Man, Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Maltese falcon, The Woman in the window, Scarlet street, Detour, Touch of Evil, Diabolique (French), The Stranger, The Innocents (British), Woman on the Run…
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Showing and Telling in Fiction
“ Showing” as it is called is obviously more difficult than merely “Telling” because while telling, the novelist can narrate from experience, render judgment, analyze and objectify motives, vent anger and frustration at a degenerate world and assume the position of anything that he or she desires: A sympathizer, a castigator, a Judge or a…
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The Discreet Hero
If I were to describe the Discreet Hero by Mario Vargos Llosa, I would call it contemporary. Don Ishmael Carrera and Fanatio Yanaque, both prominent businessmen face a threat and a challenge of sorts from their children. Betrayal, deceit and incest are common and these old men; harbingers of hard work and examples of dedicated…
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A Village Fair ( A Shandy)
It has been a long time since I have left my village to live in a city. A city dweller left without anything to do has to find ways to consume time. A village has its charms and interests which give a feeling of time standing still and an unchanging scene. After a long time I made a chance visit to a village and could see a fair.
