"Choosing what books to read becomes itself a moralistic enterprise, a form of atonement. One must read postcolonial literatures to pay the guilt tax. It is a reading toll that the student of the White Literature syllabus is not asked to pay."
"Of all the literature courses students take, the texts they study are supposed to be illustrative: they are used to critique some kind of -ism that is being scolded or praised by the course instructor."
"Postcolonial texts in English literature seem to have two jobs in these syllabi: they either negatively illustrate some form of moral or social misconduct, or they positively represent a “marginalized” culture or geography."
"The Indian writer’s responsibility to represent their nation had metamorphosed, here, into the “marginalized” writer’s responsibility to represent their “local culture.”
Kiran Manral, an Indian writer of several novels in a genre that the snootiness of publishing calls “commercial fiction,” once asked this question in a Facebook post: “Why am I unable to enjoy or finish any of these books that are on long lists and shortlists of literary prizes?”
"What I am seeking is for the postcolonial literature reading list to be liberated from its current status as “minor literature", where it is not studied merely as "ur-manifestos and histories of repression and suffering".
"Looking at the syllabus of the postcolonial literatures, I feel the need, as a postcolonial citizen and subject, for our literatures to be read for more reasons than the Guilt Rasa."
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"The construction of a mosque on a spot regarded as sacred by the conquered population was meant as an insult… an insult to an ancient idea, the idea of Ram.”
"A convert’s deepest impulse is the rejection of his origins.”
In an interview published in Outlook magazine, Naipaul had said;
"You say that Hindu militancy is dangerous. Dangerous or not, it is a necessary corrective to the history I have been talking about. It is a creative force and it will prove to be so."
"So in India at the moment, you have a million mutinies - every man is a mutiny on his own - and I find that entirely creative. It's difficult to manage, it gets very messy, but it is the only way forward."
Ancient Indian texts (Upavana Vinoda, Kathasaritasagara etc.) talk about two types of gardens.
One attached to a royal place and one that was a public garden.
These gardens were spaciously laid out to include water tanks, flowers, orchard, etc.
Then our historians made Mughals synonymous with gardens in India.
Kautilya's Arthasastra confirms that an expertise in planting trees, shrubs and curating gardens was recognised.
Such plantings are also extolled in the Matsya Purana, in the form of dramas, epics, and poems that contain references to well laid out gardens.
Vatsyayana, in his Kamasutra, the 2nd century Sanskrit text, talks about creating a garden around a house with fruit trees, vegetables, flowering plants and herbs.
The 3rd-4th century Sanskrit text Vrikshaayurveda of Parasara classified plants in considerable detail.
Reflections on schooling and learning by Mundiya Kepanga, the chief of the Huli tribe in Papua New Guinea.
It is westerners who have invented schools with tables, chairs and boards and diplomas. But in my tribe, we had a traditional type of school called Iba Gidja.
For weeks, we grew our hair and, at the same time, learned the rules and how to respect others. We learned to live together in harmony and take care of our planet.
Edwin Lutyens, who was largely responsible for architectural design and construction during the British Raj, when India was a part of the British Empire, had fairly negative opinions about Indian architecture.
"Personally, I do not believe there is any real Indian architecture or any great tradition," he wrote. "They are just spurts by various mushroom dynasties with as much intellect in them as any other art nouveau … And then it is ultimately the building style of children."
He once wanted to buy a Buddha for his wife, but nothing came up to his standard. 'Lord, how ugly everything Indian and Anglo-Indian is . . .' he despaired.
The history of "Made in Sweden" safety matches in India dates back to the late 19th century.
In the 1880s, a Swedish inventor named Gustaf Erik Pasch developed a safer alternative to the traditional friction matches, which were prone to accidental ignition and caused numerous… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
In 1891, the Swedish safety match company, Jönköpings Tändsticksfabrik, started exporting these safety matches to India under the brand name "Swedish Safety Matches."
The matches quickly gained popularity due to their improved safety features and reliable ignition.
However, in the early 20th century, an Indian businessman named Sivakasi Narayana Ayyar recognized the potential of the matchstick industry and established a match manufacturing unit in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu.
Indonesia reached its peak of glory during the era of Hayam Wuruk (also known as Rajasanagara or Bhatara Prabhu), a Javanese Hindu emperor of the Majapahit Empire.
According to the Nagarakretagama, written in 1365, Majapahit was an empire stretching from Sumatra to New Guinea.
Its borders included modern-day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, Timor Leste, and the southwestern Philippines, and it is regarded as one of the greatest and most powerful empires in Indonesian and Southeast Asian history.
The Majapahit period is regarded as politically and culturally formative by Indonesians. For later generations, "Majapahit" became a code word for the source of all civilisation.
Pic: The graceful Bidadari Majapahit, a golden celestial apsara in Majapahit style.