Akshaya Mukul

Mar 31, 2024 | outlookindia.com | Akshaya Mukul

The alignment of wild women with sacred poetry promises a delectably dangerous ride through a territory usually marked by sonorous calm. Arundhathi Subramaniam means to challenge and oppose traditional understanding and it is remarkable how brilliantly she wins the reader over to her side in redefining the sacred feminine.

Mar 30, 2024 | outlookindia.com | Akshaya Mukul

Pogrom: February 24th, 2020, DelhiThe man in the photo is deadMoments before its openingThrough the mind, through & through. As a seed reaches its bloomThrough the mind, through & through—His blood on my hands, his red rind. Like a seed reaching to bloom,I know we are separate & the same,His blood in my hands, his red rind,His body a mosque dismembered of God. We know we are separate & the same,We who are Muslim, who kneel to prayIn his body—a mosque dismembered of God—Ididn’t ask for answers.

Mar 30, 2024 | outlookindia.com | Akshaya Mukul

I found Akshay Mukul’s Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya while I was looking for some non-conformist individualist literature in the Indian literary universe after completing Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse last year. The enormous tome meticulously records many lives of a stalwart litterateur who was the first polymath and polyglot of Hindi literary world. Mukul has covered the minutiae of Agyeya’s life in 565 pages of biography and 200 pages of reference material.

Mar 29, 2024 | outlookindia.com | Akshaya Mukul

Swadeshi Steam: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle against the British Maritime Empire by A.R. VenkatachalapathyPublished by Penguin, December 2023V O Chidambaram Pillai was from a non-descript town in the southernmost corner of India. A fierce nationalist and an admirer of Balgangadhar Tilak, this leader made both ends meet by fighting petty cases in local courts. But he dreamt big.

Mar 21, 2024 | epw.in | Akshaya Mukul |Supriy Ranjan

Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya by Akshaya Mukul, New Delhi: Penguin Random House, 2022; pp xxiii + 779, `999. Biographies have always garnered a huge readership internationally. In contrast, biographies make up a small portion of the Indian publishing market. However, this trend is seeing a sharp shift. In the last decade or so, the Indian reading public has steadily warmed up to good biographies.