Profile of P.A. Krishnan
Was Rajaraja, the imperial Chola king, now better known as Ponniyin Selvan, thanks to Mani Ratnam’s grand film, a Hindu?
Our classical texts are replete with many different examples of friendships, from Andal to Kamban, Valmiki to Ghalib
Our history books have to do justice to every region of India — but only for the sake of truth and for acquiring a balanced knowledge of our great land
In this concluding volume of his sympathetic biography of the RSS icon, Vikram Sampath focuses on the Hindu Mahasabha’s role in the freedom movement and the Gandhi murder trial.
Not the ‘LA International Airport’ of Susan Raye fame. The only sound was of the trolley wheels. 'We are in a deep hole,' said the lady at the counter. 'How’s India doing?' Well…
This tribute to lower caste Mrdangam makers, who had an unequal relationship with Brahmin artistes, is an important social history of music
A Tamil classic doesn’t extol the central act of class violence; it speaks of life and futility
The winds are favourable...Savarkar is enveloped in a biographic embrace. Sampath is digressively elaborate; Purandare is concise and critical. Both are sympathetic.
Not as famous like a Jinnah or Ambedkar, Periyar fervently criticised Mahatma Gandhi but his extraordinary journey is not well documented, writes Tamil author PA Krishnan
Accessible, humane, unsparingly critical—this is a clear-headed account of the years that made the Mahatma, with a few curious absences
The Bahmanis, Vijayanagara, Shivaji...a fine history of the Deccan bristles with cruel and grand potentates, frustrated Mughals and snooty Persians
A lucid book on this greatest of Indian philosophers is to be lauded. But the attempt at a scientific validation of the assertion about Brahman falls flat.
Sangam-era violence was of tribal variety. Later it was between religions. Today, it’s caste riots that mostly erupt in Tamil Nadu.
For a book set during the times of Rajendra Chola, Empire teems with the most ghastly anachronisms. Yet it tells an engaging story with some verve.