Madhulika Liddle

2 months ago | frontline.thehindu.com | Vaishna Roy |Madhulika Liddle

What does a farmer look like? Turbaned, dhoti-clad, muddy-legged, and sweaty-browed? Driving a tractor or, an old-fashioned stereotype, ploughing a field with a pair of bullocks? A smiling face on a bag of organic grain or, another stereotype, a cheery figure, a sheaf of grain on one shoulder and a sickle in his hand? The Indian farmer, in a country that has long been agriculture-dependent, is the stuff of folklore, the hero of popular culture. The face of the countryside.

Jan 14, 2025 | scroll.in | Madhulika Liddle

She did not like the idea of going up to the man’s house. If he had been there when Shalu had given that instruction about the fennel seeds, it would have been a different matter. Now she would be obliged to go up to his home and tell him that she was here on an errand for which she had no proof. There had been something disapproving about him, as if he did not like her. A vibe. She found him brusque, and brusque people put her off. Besides, she didn’t like barging into people’s houses.

Jan 4, 2025 | newindianexpress.com | Madhulika Liddle

About midway through her book The Other Mohan in Britain’s Indian Ocean Empire, Amrita Shah mentions litigation in South Africa in the last decade of the 1800s. A prominent Indian trader, Dada Abdullah, sued a former business partner. Although Abdullah had white lawyers handling his case, the records of the transactions were in Gujarati; a bilingual lawyer was needed.

Nov 29, 2024 | openthemagazine.com | Madhulika Liddle

Books A portrait of India’s first woman anthropologist The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve Speaking Tiger 292 pages | ₹ 699 The cover of Urmilla Deshpande and Thiago Pinto Barbosa’s Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve bears an illustration, a portrait of Dr Karve, India’s first woman anthropologist. Stars are scattered across Karve’s saree, and stars, too, adorn the top half of the cover. Food for thought: Irawati Karve, after all, though a scientist, was no astronomer.

Oct 28, 2024 | htsyndication.com | Madhulika Liddle

Nepal, Oct. 29 -- In the heart of Rome's Piazza Navona stands one of the city's most famous fountains: Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, the 'Fountain of the Four Rivers'. Designed in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the then-Pope, Innocent X, the fountain depicts the major rivers of the four continents where papal authority had spread: the Nile, Danube, Rio de la Plata - and the Ganges. For the average Western tourist, it's an impressive sight, a grand spectacle.