Aditya Mani Jha

2 weeks ago | t.ly | Aditya Mani Jha

MANY INDIAN NOVELS in recent years have involved people “retreating” from society and heading towards the forest for philosophical reasons; VJ James’ Dattapaharam: Call of the Forest (2023), Anupama Mohan’s Where Mayflies Live Forever (2023), Sundar Sarukkai’s Following a Prayer (2023) et al. All three books engage (either ironically or in earnest) with Hinduism’s tradition of ‘vaanprastha’ or ‘retiring to the forest’, the penultimate among the religion’s four designated stages of life.

2 weeks ago | openthemagazine.com | Aditya Mani Jha

MANY INDIAN NOVELS in recent years have involved people “retreating” from society and heading towards the forest for philosophical reasons; VJ James’ Dattapaharam: Call of the Forest (2023), Anupama Mohan’s Where Mayflies Live Forever (2023), Sundar Sarukkai’s Following a Prayer (2023) et al. All three books engage (either ironically or in earnest) with Hinduism’s tradition of ‘vaanprastha’ or ‘retiring to the forest’, the penultimate among the religion’s four designated stages of life.

3 weeks ago | thehindu.com | Aditya Mani Jha

In 2021, I watched the comedian Varun Grover perform in New Delhi. As per usual, he had the audience in the palm of his hand. About 10 minutes in, Grover said (in Hindi), “Please understand the chronology. First, I tell the joke, then you laugh and finally, I go to jail.” The laughter was muted, not because people didn’t understand it, but because they understood it a little too well.

4 weeks ago | openthemagazine.com | Aditya Mani Jha

Art & Culture Myna Mukherjee explores longing and belonging in a multidisciplinary show A Muslim Andy by Shiblee Muneer AMONG THE FIRST works to catch one’s eye at Desh-Pardesh— At Home in the World, an ongoing month-long “multidisciplinary arts exposition” organised by Engendered and curated by its founder Myna Mukherjee, is a pair of untitled pieces by Seema Kohli.

1 month ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Vaishna Roy |Aditya Mani Jha

Amitava Kumar’s latest, The Green Book: An Observer’s Notebook, is the third in a trilogy he has been working on these last few years, following The Yellow Book: A Traveller’s Diary (2023) and The Blue Book: A Writer’s Journal (2024). These thematic “notebooks” come illustrated with Kumar’s own drawings and paintings. They combine several strands of his life and work: his novels, his travels, and his work as a professor of writing.