image source: resanskrit.com Scene I In my first post of the current series, a reader has asked about how Odisha fell from its high pedestals of fine arts, affluence, power and glory. The presence of large number of huge temples of architectural grandeur indicate to affluent times in the past and to be affluent the … Continue reading The Quitters of Hindustan
Tag: Indian History
The Odyssey of Odissi Dance
The first time I saw Odissi live on stage was in 1999. It was Kargil time. I was in active defense service and was posted in a forward position. We used to receive the love of citizens in many forms, one of them being an Odissi dance performance. Sonal Mansingh with her troupe had flown … Continue reading The Odyssey of Odissi Dance
The Liberals of Hindustan
Liberalism comes from the latin word libre which means 'free'. Libre is the origin for other words like liberal, liberty, libertarian, and libertine. It is also the inspiration for two of the most frequently used words in Indian social media these days : librandu and fiberal. Even though its popular use started in 17th century … Continue reading The Liberals of Hindustan
From Jagannath to Juggernaut
Google's dictionary gives the meaning of the word Juggernaut as follows: When you try to find out the word origin, the first page of google search results is full of links to sites run by established dictionary publishers like Macmillan, Webster etc. Of course wikipedia also finds a place. The explanation of wikipedia is much … Continue reading From Jagannath to Juggernaut
The Idea of India
If I were asked to have only one post on the current AtoZ theme, mera gaon mera desh, I would have this one. It is a book review of ‘India: a sacred Geography’. The book was written by Diana L. Eck - an award winning professor of comparative religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University. … Continue reading The Idea of India
The Missing History of Hindustan
In my first article of this series I have mentioned about the tradition of Boita Bandana and Bali Jatra that commemorate the glorious maritime adventures of Odias in South East Asia. The businessmen who engaged in such maritime trade were known as sadhabas. There is a popular folk tale in Odisha about one of sadhaba … Continue reading The Missing History of Hindustan
mera gaon mera desh
Having missed the theme reveal post as I was late in waking up to the AtoZ challenge, I hope this post would compensate for that. In almost all Indian languages, a village is called a Gramam or any of its minor variations. Same way the word palli and its minor variations (like in Kannada it … Continue reading mera gaon mera desh
munna bhai sadak chhap#2
Continued from Part-1 "Bapuji, one thing I have noticed is that your name has a Midas touch. Roads named after you are doing big business. Movies made on your name are doing big business. Even people who took on your title have done big business. I am not talking of your natural pro-genies though." "You … Continue reading munna bhai sadak chhap#2
Reading : Out of Love or Obligation?
I am writing this post as a response to the indiblogger prompt #indispire268 which goes as follows: It is not a difficult choice for me to list the three books that I want to read. In fact I wanted to read these books so desperately that I got them one month back from the library … Continue reading Reading : Out of Love or Obligation?