Oct 28, 2022 Was Rajaraja, the imperial Chola king, now better known as Ponniyin Selvan, thanks to Mani Ratnam’s grand film, a Hindu?
Jul 27, 2022 Our classical texts are replete with many different examples of friendships, from Andal to Kamban, Valmiki to Ghalib
Jun 23, 2022 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
Oct 13, 2021 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.
Jun 10, 2021 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…
Jul 31, 2020 This tribute to lower caste Mrdangam makers, who had an unequal relationship with Brahmin artistes, is an important social history of music
Feb 05, 2020 A Tamil classic doesn’t extol the central act of class violence; it speaks of life and futility
Oct 23, 2019 The winds are favourable...Savarkar is enveloped in a biographic embrace. Sampath is digressively elaborate; Purandare is concise and critical. Both are sympathetic.
Sep 26, 2019 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
Oct 17, 2018 Accessible, humane, unsparingly critical—this is a clear-headed account of the years that made the Mahatma, with a few curious absences
Aug 29, 2018 The Bahmanis, Vijayanagara, Shivaji...a fine history of the Deccan bristles with cruel and grand potentates, frustrated Mughals and snooty Persians
Jun 20, 2018 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.
Dec 21, 2017 Sangam-era violence was of tribal variety. Later it was between religions. Today, it’s caste riots that mostly erupt in Tamil Nadu.
Sep 29, 2017 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.