Crossings

Avabai Wadia, 91, women’s movement pioneer who set up and did yeoman service at the Family Planning Association of India, passes away.

CPI leader and former Kerala CM P.K. Vasudevan Nair, 79, dies. A CPI member since 1945, he survived the post-Independence witch-hunt, was a model of probity in public life. A Left blinder: he was CM with Congress support, post-Emergency.

Claude Simon, 91, last Frenchman to win the Literature Nobel, dies. Part of the ‘new novel movement’ along with Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute. Works include The Wind, The Flanders Road etc.

Christopher Fry, 97, playwright, verse drama revivalist and Ben-Hur script doctor, dies. His play, The Lady’s Not for Burning, should find resonance.