Cultural Press

কেমন ছিলেন ব্যক্তি উত্তমকুমার, মৃত্যুর চার দশক পরে সেটা নিয়ে কিছু বলার চেষ্টা প্রয়োজনহীন। মানুষ উত্তম মিশুকে; বন্ধু উত্তম আড্ডাবাজ, পুত্র উত্তম মাতৃভক্ত; ইন্ডাস্ট্রির ‘বড়দা’ উত্তম দানশীল; প্রেমিক উত্তম মেদুর; শ্বশুর উত্তম স্নেহশীল; অগ্রজ উত্তম অভিভাবকসম; পেটুক উত্তম ভোজনবিলাসী ইত্যাদি অজস্র আদিখ্যেতা উত্তমকুমারকে নিয়ে ছড়িয়েছিটিয়ে আছে। গত দু’বছর উত্তমকুমারের সিনেমা নিয়ে একটি বইয়ের গবেষণায় বার বারই চোখে পড়েছে এই রকম গদগদ অসংখ্য স্তুতি। সত্যি বলতে, ঘরে ঘরে এ রকম অনেক ব্যক্তি আছেন, যাঁরা দাদা, সন্তান, শ্বশুর, প্রেমিক হওয়ার বিভিন্ন পরীক্ষায়…

The Novel Reader by Vincent Van Gogh So little is known about Shakespeare that there are perhaps as many biographies of him as there are biographers. Scholars often read back into his life from either his plays or other extant reports of 16th century London life. One such was Columbia English professor James Shapiro’s powerful study: The Year of the Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, which has resurfaced recently. Why? Because 1606 was also the year of the plague. Shapiro writes:…

Photo by Md Shairaf on Unsplash AAP’s post-ideological vanity is far more damaging when it stands on the face of a gargantuan right-wing machinery at these times. The Aam Aadmi Party’s blitheness about the Delhi riots has tempered the trust of much of India, except perhaps those who thrive in a bloodbath. So has its decision to allow prosecution against JNU students in a four-year-old manufactured case of sedition. In its defence of the first case, the party…

রাজধানীতে ভোট ঘোষণার পর জানলাম, সরকারি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে অধ্যাপনার সূত্রে নির্বাচনে একটি বিশেষ ভূমিকা পালন করতে হবে—একজ়িকিউটিভ ম্যাজিস্ট্রেটের ভূমিকা। এই কাজের সূত্রে রাজনীতি নামক বস্তুটির একটা ‘রিংসাইড ভিউ’ পাওয়ার সুযোগ হল। নির্বাচনের কাজে বেরিয়ে তাই দেখার কৌতূহল হল যে আপ-এর মতো একটা আঞ্চলিক ছোট দল কী ভাবে বিপুল ধনী এবং সর্বশক্তিমান একটি সাম্প্রদায়িক মেশিনের সঙ্গে পাল্লা দিচ্ছে। অরবিন্দ কেজরীবালের স্বচ্ছ ভাবমূর্তি তো ছিলই, সঙ্গে ছিল গত পাঁচ বছরের কাজের খতিয়ান। দিল্লিতে যাঁরা বসবাস করেন তাঁরা একমত হবেনই, আপ শুধু যে বেশ…

Protest drawing of a student at Shaheen Bagh, December 2019. Photo by author. The Young Against The New Partition: Why The CAA & NRC Are The Biggest Tests For Independent India Several public intellectuals, commentators and those who contribute to public opinion in India have compared the current political crisis in India as the biggest test facing us since Independence. At the heart of this crisis is the newly-minted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which proposes to give sanctuary in…

A promo still from the film Uri, 2019. Once upon a time in Hollywood, socially conscious cinema would be frowned upon. It was a standing joke in Hollywood that a studio-era executive, on hearing a sober, earnest script with deep substance would swoop down on the table and say: “if you want to send a message, use Western Union.” (Westwell 2013). While the humour drives home the apathy, it also draws attention to the nature of cinema itself. Cinema…

Biplab Sarkar, Be Waiting. Watercolor and pen on paper, 2019. Shot by the author at the Art Fair, Delhi, 2020. (co-authored with Rajendran Narayanan) The prime minister has taught people to measure their state exclusively against others’ miseries, tricking them into forgiving his many sins – from demonetisation to jobs to Swachh Bharat. There’s an old folktale that goes like this: to redeem his ills, a man prayed hard and long. His prayers bore fruit when god appeared and granted…

A painting titled Typewriter, 2019. (co-authored with Rajendran Narayanan) In spite of his so-called popularity, Modi has never been the Prime Minister of India. And now, he is not even pretending to be one. A senior functionary of Boston Consulting Group India, Janmejaya Sinha, wrote a piece in the Indian Express last month extolling the virtues of Narendra Modi as a political leader. He has wallowed in Modi’s capacity to lead, to take strong decisions and to instil confidence in the citizenry.

A painting by Laluprasad Shaw It would be wrong to say that the BJP is taking the Left’s place in Bengal. (co-authored with Anirban Biswas) Jayanta Ghosal’s article ‘Among the believers in Bengal’ (IE, March 26) is so full of cocky generalisations and mistaken observations that it needs a riposte. To begin with, his argument bestows a monolithic identity on the “Bengali”, while using bhadrolok and “Bengali” as interchangeable nomenclature. To remind that within the overarching umbrella of the linguistic…

Pandora’s Vox What if the EVM could approximate voter behaviour? Your cheeky editorial about the speaking, pontificating, buttoned-up voting machine (‘I, EVM,’ IE December 12) gets it mostly right except that one, nagging doubt: If the EVM can be spoken on behalf of, can it not be thought-controlled too? The editorial claims that the EVM is, after all, the messenger of people’s will and not the will itself. Is it? What if, just what if, the EVM has grown a…