Category Archives: About Books

Kotal Kahini by Biswanath Lahiri

Posted on June 7, 2021 by secondsaturn

Biswanath Lahiri. Kotaal Kahini. Dey’s Publishing. Calcutta. 1971. When I was growing up in the early 1970’s, I often heard Madhuri mashi, whose death anniversary is today talk of Kotaal Kahini as though it were a novel. Only last week … Continue reading →

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Michael Madhusudan Datta – Miusunderstood by Mediocres

Posted on April 2, 2021 by secondsaturn

Betrayed By Hope. A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Namita Gokhale and Malashri Lal. Harper and Collins. New Delhi. 2020. Betrayed By Hope is a slim volume consisting of a single play that seeks to investigate the … Continue reading →

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15th September, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee

Posted on September 15, 2020 by secondsaturn

Today is the birth anniversary of Sarat Chandra Chattpadhyay, the greatest novelist that India has ever known, perhaps the greatest in the world, if the impact factor is taken in. He wrote in Bengali and has been the world’s most … Continue reading →

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Padmavati

Posted on December 27, 2017 by secondsaturn

Finally I read through Malik Muhammad Jaisi’s epic work, Padmavati. Written in 1540′ Padmavati predates Tulsidas’s Ramayana by about 40 years. Both are experiments in Awadhi poetry and represents milestones in writing in the vernacular. Like Tulsidas   decades after … Continue reading →

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Doyen of Kallol _Premendra Mitra

Posted on August 21, 2017 by secondsaturn

Premendra Mitra   Premendranath Mitra is a popular novelist, poet, film script writer and director and is considered as a doyen, among others, of the Kallol movement. He can be credited with nearly a hundred composition in terms of novels, … Continue reading →

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July For Julius Caesar

Posted on July 7, 2017 by secondsaturn

I have a mental block against Shakespeare; I have decided that I do not understand him. While I can approach the bard intellectually I can hardly see the point why he is so vital so as to have retained his … Continue reading →

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Bonophool … The Nihilist From The Wilderness

Posted on January 23, 2017 by secondsaturn

Ohetuk Adda on the 21st January 2017, Bonophool Bonophool, which means wild flower, was the pen name of Dr. Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay, a pathologist by qualification and a practicing medical doctor. He shot into prominence as a novelist, poet, playwright … Continue reading →

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Death Comes To Pemberley – P.D.James, 2011

Posted on January 22, 2012 by secondsaturn

For persons like me who are die hard Pride and Prejudice fans and love PD James, and look at texts critically, Death Comes To Pemberley is a dream come true. PD James is an established detective fiction writer who is … Continue reading →

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Edmund de Waal – Hare With Amber Eyes, A Hidden Inheritance

Posted on November 6, 2011 by secondsaturn

Karl Marx wrote his essay, On The Jewish Question in 1844 to contest a thesis by Bruno Bauer how Judaism as a religion directly conflicts with the interests of a modern and free political society. Judaism is a religion of … Continue reading →

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Bhaskarjyoti Basu (ed) Explorations in Economic and Social History 1200 to 1900. Viswabharati. 2008.

Posted on April 25, 2011 by secondsaturn

24th April 2011   Dear Prof Bhaskarjypti Basu, I have just finished reading your edited volume Explorations in Economic and Social History 1200-1900 all in a day. I could not put down the book once I begun reading the papers … Continue reading →

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