Nostalgia
From Lahore to Delhi, Dinesh Khanna follows in his father’s footsteps to capture extraordinary images.
Scattered souvenirs from memory’s cache spread across Panjim, Sao Tome and Fontainhas, of growing up under Portuguese colonial shadow
Watching films in theatres in 1980s Kashmir left an impact on the audience few could anticipate.
The events entrenched in memory are all imbued with a tinge of grief. A medley of loss and tears in an insurgency-wrecked Valley.
Not only do they have indubitably unique sound, old vinyl records effortlessly summon up the past in a whirl of tactility and art.
No festival is complete without its own set of myths. Traditions invented for the relatively new Durga Puja invoke a community society chooses to forget.
From Partition to genocides in Rwanda and elsewhere, museums are important to understanding our fractured past.
Exalted achievements of yore are often cited by to rehash the story of past political icons.
The politics of nostalgia involves mobilising the masses around the yearning for a glorious past brought alive in imaginations of the future.
The past is a world before the pandemic, a place of happiness perhaps, of love, of togetherness. We want a romanticised past to become our future.
I never wanted to be an actor. Though I was always told that I am a good actress, I never took anybody seriously. Somehow, it happened to me and eventually I accepted it.
Romila Thapar’s account of a 1957 journey to ancient Buddhist sites in China, across swathes of Silk Route territory and modern cities, comprises both visitor’s gaze and historian’s introspection. The result is time travel with a continually shifting lens.
Postmen and women recall the days when the bearer of letters were served tea and snacks by grateful families.
Oh, to be able to return to the dank, muggy, single-screen theatres in dusty mofussil towns, and to relive the magic of Bollywood formula (Ssshhh… and some desi porn)
In circulation for centuries, such hair-raising stories were an integral part of the state’s oral literary tradition.
An NRI looks back with fondness, and a little bit of regret, at the time when the sea was part of her everyday life but didn’t matter as much as it does now.
Seema Guha’s recollections of the violent days in Jaffna in 1987. When a fragile truce between the Lankan army and the LTTE fell apart.
The sights and sounds that are jarring at home become sweet music. Longing for things lost is the essence of nostalgia.
Are your sweet memories as summer-centric as mine? One summer, I read through all my novels and comics. You see, I was bored.
Nostalgia is now widely commoditised and its political potential is sought to be neutralised into the service of a politics of belonging over that of longing.
Mukul Kesavan’s essay on middle-class nostalgia in India—looking back fondly at a time when Indians were worse-off than they are today.
For the moment, the Lakhimpur Kheri crisis appears to have been defused. However, this may not mean much relief for the Yogi Adityanath government in the state.
In case you missed it: News and newsmakers from India over the past week
