Cultural Press

In this book that he has, curiously, curated, graphic storyteller Vishwajyoti Ghosh has attempted to ‘redraw’ the map of Partition. The hyperbolism of the statement can be tempered if we take the literal meaning of the word re-draw, which is to illustrate once again the fault-lines of Partition. This collection of collaborative graphic texts is no less than that. It returns to the event of the biggest forced migration of humanity’s recorded history and tries to re-imagine it through a…

Pablo Bartholomew. Boy jumping off the roof of the Chinese Temple, Tangra, Calcutta. [1978]…

Nemai Ghosh. Ray on the beach while shooting the documentary Bala [1976] Nemai Ghosh. A still from Satyajit Ray’s Jana Aranya [1975] Nemai Ghosh. A still from Satyajit Ray’s Ghare-Baire [1984]…

Soumitra Chatterjee on stage as Lear in Raja Lear. How an actor’s never-ending quest for the perfect role produced a lifetime’s worth of great cinema. 1959. APUR SANSAR. A man in his early 20s, a loner and drifter, a struggling writer, a reluctant father and a fretful widower, finally finds home in his estranged little son. His departure into the horizon with his son on his shoulders is also the moment which marks his arrival on the scene. 2011.

Fools of the full moon. photo by author On 5 May, Eden was the place you would die to be at. I mean we generally pine to make it to the heaven in case we perish, but that day the rush was a bit too much, somewhat ‘hellish’, to put it mildly. No, really, we are not talking about jihad here in which ascending to heaven is taken at face value. We are against violence of all kinds, especially those…

Sachin Tendulkar of India takes a breather during the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2003. Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images and is under copyright. Sachin Tendulkar’s nomination for Rajya Sabha has created the desired effect for the Congress, at least across the cyberspace and the various media platforms. For the last week or so, nothing else has generated more debate across the public forums as this piece of news. The reaction, on the whole, has been hostile towards the proposition…

Poster of Aparna Sen’s 1981 debut film 36, Chowringhee Lane. ON THE EARLY MORNING of 25 July 1980, Bengali matinée idol Uttam Kumar’s unexpected death at the age of 54 shook West Bengal. By the following morning, it seemed all of Calcutta was on the streets. Howling millions followed the vehicle carrying his remains. Not far from the scene, in a closed room filled with cigar smoke on Alimuddin Street, the headquarters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Pramode…

Reflections of a typical neighbourhood in Calcutta’s south. Photo by author. Farewell, my city…show us the way Asian women, show us the way to bitter exile. Agave in Euripedes’ The Bacchae                                                The entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained…