Posts from the ‘Department’ Category

Khair by Kartikay

The Urdu word that means “good”
and often used to say “well-being”,
is also used as an act of letting go

Kitchens Through Which I Have Traveled by Mehnaz Sahibzada

the haunted one in a crumbling haveli,
where I mistook my Dadi for a ghost,

the cube one in Taif where I fried peas
with cumin & ghee, listening to Arabic television,

the humid one in Tampa where we baked
a birthday cake for my toy donkey,

The last announcement in the metro before it was closed down by Harsh Anand

Owing to the pandemic,
we will be suspending our services
indefinitely.
We urge all of you
to look outside the windows
for the rest of your journey
before you forget what your
city looks like.

Final Cut by Saleem Peeradina

Reviewed by Samreen Sajeda

Telling the stories of household objects!

Collegiality & Other Ballads, edited by Shamayita Sen

Reviewed by Ghada Ibrahim

Seeking solidarity for women.

After I Was Raped by Urmi Bhattacherrya

Reviewed by Kinshuk Gupta

A corrective to media portrayals of rape!

Out of Print, edited by Indira Chandrashekhar

Reviewed by Sushumna Kannan

Able exploration of identities!

Selected Poems by Jayant Parmar

Reviewed by Rachita Swain

Dalit poetry at its best!

Shobana Nair

Thanmayee Krishnamurthy

J Is for Joker by Gargi Mehra

From the living room in Gurgaon, I leapt to the gambling dens of Pamposh Enclave and Tilak Nagar. There, in the seedy bellies of crumbling brick buildings, soaking in the stink of sweat and smoke and homegrown local beer, I played, I won, and I lost.

The Descent by Varadharajan Ramesh

For first timers, the descent into the looming valley beneath Suicide Point is a daunting task. Climbing down into the yawning void with its multiple rows of jagged rock teeth and crevasses that are not easy to spot has made many arpirants give up after half an hour.

Why Jaggery? by Mary Anne Mohanraj

The publishing world often tries to put its writers into boxes: easily-marketable boxes. You can’t really blame them, in some sense—it’s much easier to create a shelf in the bookstore, label it ‘ethnic literature’ and then put all the ‘ethnic’ writers there, than it would be to market each complex writer individually. The big publishers want a young desi woman to write an arranged marriage novel, because they know where the market is for those books. There’s a reason they keep putting red saris on our book covers; they know what sells.

Ask the Unicorns by Minal Hajratwala

A spoonful of hot ghee is nothing like unicorn blood; and yet it is a way of extending the life of the butter. … Now I’m going to tell you the secret to immortality.

Fasting for Ramadan by Kazim Ali

Reviewed by Rita Banerjee

In trying to grasp and define the contours of his own spirituality, Ali comes to some of the most startling and refreshing conclusions about his own religion and selfhood.

Karma Gone Bad: Or How I Learned to Love Mangos, Bollywood, and Water Buffalo by Jenny Feldon

Reviewed by Soniah Kamal

For an immigrant such as myself, who moved from a big city in a developing nation to battle the loneliness of living in the US, I was eager to read Jenny Feldon’s reverse experience…

The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry edited by Sudeep Sen

Reviewed by Divya Rajan

This anthology serves as a conglomeration of assertive, fresh voices, a long way off from the rich inherent, albeit stringent, tradition of Itihasas and Puranas.

Crossing Black Waters by Athena Kashyap

Reviewed by Mustansir Dalvi

Kashyap writes of sundering, separations, crossings, reunions,and uncertain reconciliations. The break with an imagined home is never forever; return is always a possibility yet remains unsatisfying whenever it occurs.

Freedom Colour by Sanchari Sur

… moments where the “play” that arises from the festival allows for a freedom of transgression between caste, class, and gender lines in India.

Indo-Caribbean by Preston Merchant

Indians have lived in the Caribbean since the mid-1800s, brought by the British as indentured laborers to work in sugar and rice plantations in Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, and other colonies.

Delhi Through the Night by Neha Chaturvedi

…the gaze of a middle-class, academically-oriented woman from a relatively small town, who feels more comfortable and safe behind a camera as she walks anonymous through the wide and narrow, intimidating and yet liberating streets of the capital city of Delhi.

Sacred Heart by Texta Queen

…delicate interplays between vulnerability and empowerment, intimacy and exhibitionism, and subjective and collective expressions of feminist, queer, and cultural identities.

Flying Saucers by Mamta Nainy

I took the glistening black vinyl out of its sleeve, removed the dust wrap, placed it on the turntable. … Lost in the grooves of these long-playing records is the history of discography, which began in 1902 with the founding of the Gramophone Company of India.

The Cab Driver and I by Samina Najmi

The driver freezes in the middle of his three-point turn. He gazes up into his rearview mirror for a better look at me. “You’re from Pakistan, and you teach Americans?” His frown is so concentrated that he looks angry.

Bitter Honey: Sexual Violence in Desi Hip Hop by Isaac Komalathukizhakkathil Oommen

Although generally approbatory attitudes toward sexual violence in music would not necessarily lead directly to rape, they create and reinforce a culture that allows rape, facilitates woman-blaming, and disempowers women. In the context of the Delhi gang rape case and the protests that ensued, it is important to note that this culture attacks women just for being women.

Race, Class, and Gender at the Margins: Exploring My Name is Khan by Ajay Parasram

Post-9/11 Islamaphobia, enveloping all brown-skinned people into one homogenizing dominant gaze, opens some room for mutual recognition of Otherness at the margins of American society.

what it’s like to be sri lankan in 2012 for those of you who aren’t by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

It’s going home to Jaffna if you’re young, Tamil and male and not automatically being snatched by either army. Maybe. For a moment.
It’s white vans.

Kalkatiya by Rajiv Mohabir

she asked the emissaries, “How much
for a day’s toil?” They carried us away to a dock
and locked us down. Paid in irons, we tore our throats…

At the Dancing Square —Chowk by Ranu Uniyal

Not all men are tone deaf unable to hear the call
of hunger. Body, bosom, bare hips, needless to say
bare feet. She cannot afford the luxury of sleep.

Model Minority by Simi Kang

the Punjabi slips
pungent
against my teeth, weeps
when I stumble
at its edges: arches
and whorls I cannot read.

Pickling by Sohini Basak

embalming mangoes in mulled mustard oil, she tells me
the best of the season must live longer. So each April
she carefully preserves. Pickles in glass jar churning…

Here Is a Red Cat and a White Cat by Karen Bradway

All these children with their dark glossy hair;
They sail on in their small shoes.
They are floating upward almost…

Boys Like That by Kuzhali Manickavel

Boys like that are ugly babies. They smile at everyone and offer wilted flowers to tables and plastic chairs. Nobody picks them up unless it is an absolute emergency.

The Summer of Young Uncles by Bushra Rehman

That summer, all of Saima’s uncles began appearing. They were like those Russian nesting dolls made out of the same mold: some with red moustaches, some with brown, some short, some skinny, some fat, but they all had the same look.

Amrikan Dreams by Mariam Pirbhai

Krishna held firm to the view that a traditionalist was a dependable man. A man of moral fiber who would never let a beautiful woman or wayward daydream distract him.