Epis-too-late

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When was the last time you wrote a letter? A real letter, in your own hand? Not since boarding school, in my case — although there was one, just for fun, sent to a friend last year. It took 10 days to reach Mumbai. Even India Post seems to have lost its faith in letters. If I become famous in my declining years, even if only by mistake, that friend will have a sample of my state of mind circa 2008 to offer my biographers.

Letter and spirit

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Deprived of finer speech, my chief utterance during the time I spent reading van Gogh’s letters was: “Oh, this is brilliant… this is brilliant… brilliant…” It isn’t as often as one would like that one’s reading matter is of such quality as to interrupt one’s respiration, and even less often that form, substance and function come together so satisfyingly as they have in the latest, and finest, edition of the great artist’s collected letters.

Asterix in history

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“I think of Asterix as a comic version of wily Odysseus,” says the brilliant translator Anthea Bell of the subject of her best-known work, the ancient Gaulish warrior whose village, frozen in 50 BCE, still and forever holds out against Julius Caesar’s Roman legions.

Princely portrait

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If Dara Shikoh was such a wonderful prince, why is he not more warmly remembered? There are some things going for him: he was the eldest son and possibly his father’s favourite, his brother was one of the great baddies of Indian history, his defeat was tragic and precipitated by betrayal and poor advice more than impatience or stupidity, and he was a scholarly fellow with unorthodox religious views — views which place him in line with his great grandfather Akbar, the Great. Yet, unlike Akbar, Dara wins our sympathy, not our affection.

Men of mêtis

An American archaeologist reveals Athens’ navy as the engine of that city’s golden age

Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy
John R Hale
Penguin Viking
pp xxxvi + 396

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Sparta is now remembered chiefly as the arch-enemy of ancient Athens, not so much for its own achievements. The entire story of the Persian Wars, during which the quarrelsome Greeks united against Darius and Xerxes, of the Peloponnesian and Spartan Wars, which saw Athens and Sparta locked in a bloody, costly, decades-long struggle, and the wars thereafter which precipitated Athens’ slide into naval oblivion, was written by Athenians and Athenian sympathisers. Today, we acknowledge our debt to golden-age Athens every time we speak, study, represent our universe through art (in the Western tradition, at least) and, of course, congregate politically. Athens is the capital of modern Greece; Sparta isn’t even a noble ruin.

Window to the world

Embassy cultural centres actively promote film, but audiences, though die-hard, are not growing

Everyone knows that Indians love movies. Most of what they watch may be crowd-pleasers from Bollywood or Hollywood, but there is also a tiny yet determined audience for quality cinema from other parts of the world and in other languages, including documentaries, art and non-commercial films. This market too must be fed, and the chief quartermasters to this small army of aficionados are the cultural centres run by the embassies of various countries in India.

Top-class moves

Classical dancer Prathibha Prahlad bridges worlds, and makes us a lasagna

Last winter the city came alive with a blaze of banners and posters announcing the second Delhi International Arts Festival (DIAF). The person behind the spectacle was bharatnatyam and kuchipudi dancer Prathibha Prahlad, festival director and head of the Prasiddha Foundation.

Critical mess

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In the last few days a handful of writer-reviewer spats — nasty, as they usually are, but also unsatisfyingly brief and lowbrow — have washed up in the books sections of major English-language papers.

Delhi has Seoul

Mi Ran Lee makes an Indian success of Korean food

If location is everything, Kumgang’s Gonie Korean restaurant is possessed of a mixed blessing. The good aspect is that it is in the Ashok Hotel in central Delhi, within easy reach of its corporate and diplomatic clientele. The not-so-good aspect is that to get to the restaurant a visitor must trudge down two long corridors, one lined with guest rooms, the other with slightly dingy shops apparently devoid of customers. It’s not an effective appetiser.

But there are counterweighing advantages, chief among which is the admirable lady who owns this restaurant.

Palace of allusions

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A TV ad for home security systems a few years ago showed the youthful father of a good-looking nuclear family turning on the home alarm at night. As he did so, from the keypad a host of 0s and 1s spilled out in all directions across the wall, around corners and onto ceilings, until all surfaces of the house, and thus the family within, were protected by this flickering binary mesh. It was sufficiently disquieting to remain lodged in the memory — and I was reminded of it recently, while reading about new discoveries at the Alhambra, the castle-palace of Granada in Spain.

Life lines

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When Luca Signorelli visited the Casa Vasari in Arezzo, Italy, he met the then-young Giorgio, a child (says Vasari) of eight. The encounter was apparently a memorable one, for when the boy grew up and wrote his collection of Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550, revised 1568, generally known as Lives of the Artists), he described it, and the old master, with the greatest affection and respect.

No more sacred

BS blog 2

When the tide rose high at Mamallapuram, the tourist guides told us, small sluices used to be opened to allow sea water into the Shore Temple. Then the reclining Vishnu in the garbha-griha, lit by lamps, would appear to rest on a sheet of water.

Inky pursuit

Penguin India chief Mike Bryan links his work in publishing to his passion for antique fountain pens

“I’ll leave you boys to it, then,” says Heather Adams, as her husband enters the living room carrying three or four long, flat, felt-covered boxes. She departs quickly. Was there a hint of relief in her tone?

Wasting the family jewels

Fabergé’s wonders don’t shine in this rare exhibition at the National Museum, Delhi

“ICCR didn’t have to spend anything, they brought it all from Russia,” said a curator at the National Museum, walking her friend through the ongoing exhibition entitled “Fabergé: Precious Jewellry of the Russian Empire” (note the spelling mistake). It’s the “culmination” of the Year of Russia, according to ICCR director-general Pavan K Varma — a year that seems to have passed largely unnoticed.

Political sound bites

Pakistani multimedia artist Bani Abidi plays a chicken and eggplant game

“She says this is Bengali. That’s completely spoiled my exotic Persian appeal.” We’re standing around offering help and hindrance to Bani Abidi, artist and Pakistani living in India, as she makes the eggplant-and-curd dish which drew that comment. The kitchen is no wider than a millionaire’s double bed, so we have to step around a bit as we chat about Obama’s promise and Sarah Palin’s looks. Serious topics like Pakistan and geopolitics are reserved for after lunch.