Ranjit Hoskote

Oct 18, 2024 | scroll.in | Ranjit Hoskote

We zigzag across wide geographical expanses and journey from the sixth century B.C.E. to the 19th century CE as we traverse the extracts gathered in this anthology, beginning with the Therīgāthā, the songs of the earliest women to enter the Buddha’s community of renunciates as nuns, translated from Pali by Charles Hallisey. These songs celebrate the transition from worldly life to spiritual renunciation and, compressed as they are, convey the richly detailed experience of the female questor.

Oct 16, 2024 | frontline.thehindu.com | Ranjit Hoskote |Amitabha Bagchi |Pragathi Ravi |Mitul Kajaria

Let me admit that I am a votary of the following falsifiable proposition that is almost a cliché among those who follow Urdu poetry: A great poet creates a new idiom for the language. This proposition yields the following corollary for the translator: The translation of a great poet, especially a translation that positions itself as a presentation of the great poet to the target language’s audience, must create a new idiom in the target language.

Aug 23, 2024 | scroll.in | Ranjit Hoskote

jahāñ shatranj-bāzandah falak ham tum haiñ sab muhre ̤ basān-e shāt̤ir-e nau żauq use muhroñ kī zad se hai When the sky plays chess, you, me, we’re all chessmen. Like every beginner, it enjoys breaking the pieces. Poets, like sovereigns, can suffer under the grandiloquent titles thrust upon them by their votaries. As we have seen, Mir has been assigned the laudatory title of Khudā-e Sukhan, the “God of poetry”.

May 22, 2024 | thehindu.com | Ranjit Hoskote

The furore over a recently unveiled portrait of King Charles III seems to belong to a previous century, when sovereigns could exercise real powers of life and death over their subjects and painters could play the part of public figures moulding opinion or, sometimes, prejudice. Strictly speaking, of course, this is not a royal portrait.

Feb 16, 2024 | scroll.in | Ranjit Hoskote

This is a slightly edited transcript of the author's keynote address delivered at the 12th edition of the Goa Arts and Literature Festival on February 15. I would ask you to join me in a prayer for the children of Gaza. Children who have been slaughtered by relentless aerial bombardment and artillery shelling. Children who have been buried alive under the rubble of what used to be their homes, their schools, their libraries, their hospitals.