Punes cultural landscape is often overshadowed by that of Mumbai. Slices of history peek through the modern vista in this city, but are also balanced by a youthful urban population. We took a short two-day trip to stay at the newly opened The Ritz-Carlton, Pune, the second one in the country, and we packed in a bit of what Pune has to offer.

The pleasures of the city start as soon as you enter, as the airport is a mere 15-minute drive from the hotel, a welcome change for us coming from Bengaluru. Flanked by the Poona Golf Course, the hotel makes for a striking sight.After being greeted by the staff,we made our way to our room, that oozed luxury. A glorious view of the golf course, a king-sized bed, a huge TV and a walk-in closet: what more could we ask for!

Steeped in Our Friday afternoon began with a high tea at their Tea Lounge. Fine China graced the table as weselected our brew. On offer were Chinese floral and fruity teas, but we stuck to the traditional English Breakfast. It paired excellently with the cucumber sandwiches and array of tea cakes. Sitting under the glittering grand chandelier, this meal truly made us feel royal.

Our next stop was the spa. We were ushered into the room for a signature treatment a full body massage with black pepper and eucalyptus oil. The warm oils and the expert masseuse eased awayall the tension from our body. The cherry on top was the steam and sauna room you can unwind in after the massage.

Dinner was at Three Kitchens and Bar, a buffet restaurantoffering the best of world cuisine. Fresh pastas, breads, Asiandelicacies and Indian classics were just some of the options that caught our eye. Holding fort Saturday promised an exciting itinerary for us a tour of some of the historic landmarks of the city. We started with the fort Shaniwar Wada, famouslyfeatured in the movie Bajirao Mastani. Although a lot of the structure burnt down in a fire in 1828, some of the gates andfountains still stand and impress with their grandeur. Another place to visit is the Aga Khan Palace, built by the Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan III, that served as a prison for Mahatma Gandhi and his wife in the 1940s. A walk into the local market, Tulshi Baug, proved more fun than we expected. Although super crowded, the street side shops here offer everything from miniature kitchen sets for kids to counterfeit Kylie lip kits.

And, naturally, we also dug into some of the local snacks while on our day out. Sabudana vada is highly recommended, of course. We wrapped up the outing with a traditional thali at the famed Maratha Samrat restaurant. Back in the hotel, we donned our swimming costumes and headed to the pool, for a post-lunch dip. The infinity pool overlooking the busy street and lush greenery just does the trick when you want to relax.

Of sake andscallops The highlight of our trip, and we saved the best for last, was our dinner at Ukiyo, the fine-dine Japanese restaurant. Named after the Japanese word for a certain kind of pleasure seeking lifestyle, the modern restaurant was pure decadence stone walls lined with their sake selection, a robatayaki grill and the most exquisite dishes made of choicest produce. We dined on the fresh flavours of seafood and delicate sushi, accompanied by carafes of sake. A customary slice of Japanese Cheesecake and sesame ice cream brought our meal to an end, and unfortunately our holiday as well.

The next day, a quick taste of the regional and international breakfast at Three Kitchen and Bar later, we headed to the airport, bidding goodbye to the city, of which we saw a new side on this holiday. The Ritz-Carlton, Pune pampered us with its ornate decor, warm hospitality and unmatchable culinary offerings.

.............xx...........

Tuck in Here are some must-tryeateries in Pune: Vaidya Upahar Gruha:A 105-year-old institutionthat serves the best andmost authentic misal and pohe in town, were told. What sets them apart is their green misal due to the addition of green chilies. At Budhwar Peth

Maratha Samrat: Gostraight for the thali at this restaurant and top it up with a glass of solkadhi. The thali, available in vegetarian, mutton and fish options, comes with dishes such as bhakri, tambda rassa and stickyIndra rice. At Camp

German Bakery:You cant miss the famous Shrewsbury biscuits from this bakery if youre in Pune. Located near the Osho Ashram, this was also the site of the 2010 bomb blasts.At Koregaon Park

At Yerawada, Pune. The writer was at The Ritz-Carlton, Pune by invitation.

anagha@newindianexpress.com @anaghzzz

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A historic and cultural glimpse into Pune, from the lap of luxury - Indulgexpress

Amy Winehouse's personal items will be offered to benefit her foundation. Getty Images; Julien's Auctions

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Hundreds of dresses, shoes, jewelry, and accessories, worn by the late British singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse during some of her most iconic performances will be sold by Juliens Auctions in Beverly Hills, Calif., in November 2021, with all proceeds to benefit her eponymous foundation.

This will be the first time the most personal items of the five-time Grammy-award winning music star will be auctioned, according to Juliens Auctions. The sale will coincide with the 10th anniversary of the singers death in 2011 at age 27.

The pop diva toured and performed in numerous headline performances and ion various festivals.

"Amy Winehouse is one of the rare and remarkable music icons whose incredible power and soulful expression in every word and note she sang with her distinct voice remains unmatched by no other artist in music history, Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien's Auctions, said in a statement.

"We celebrate her singular talent and iconoclastic style in this collection of her most personal artifacts and wardrobe worn in her career defining moments," he said.

Born and raised in a family of professional jazz musicians and jazz music lovers, Winehouse taught herself how to play and write music at 14. In 2000, she became a featured vocalist with the prestigious National Jazz Orchestra at age 17.

She released her first album Frank in 2003, but it was her second album in 2006, Back to Black, that raised her to international stardom. The album, which contains classic hits such as You Know I'm No Good, Rehab, and the title song, Back to Black, sold close to 10 million copies worldwide.

Highlights from the sale include a few pieces by Italian couture brand Dolce & Gabbana. A mohair blend cardigan with leopard style pattern and self-tie belt worn by Winehouse has a presale estimate of between $1,500 and $3,000. She was photographed wearing the cardigan leaving the Hawley Arms Pub in Londons Camden neighborhood on March 3, 2011.

A Dolce & Gabbana knee-length leopard print pencil skirt that was hiked up into a mini skirt and worn by Winehouse for her performance at the 2008 BRIT Awards has a high estimate of $5,000; and a floral gold lam gown with fitted bodice is expected to fetch up $7,000.

Other iconic pieces include a stretch cotton Karen Millen dress with tropical print worn by Winehouse during her 2007 European tour, estimated at between $5,000 and $7,000; a pink-and-white gingham halter mini dress worn by the star during her 2011 Brazilian tour, with a high estimate of $7,000; and an oversized black patent Giorgio Armani handbag together with a card addressed to Winehouse from Armani, which is estimated to sell for between $1,000 and$2,000.

All proceeds from the sale will benefit The Amy Winehouse Foundation, established by her parents Mitch and Janis Winehouse on Sept. 14, 2011, which would have been her 28th birthday. The foundations mission is to raise awareness and support young adults with addiction problems.

Highlighted items will be on a global tour, debuting in Los Angeles on Jan. 17, 2020, and ending in Beverly Hills on Nov. 1, 2021. Other destinations include Santiago and Regin Metropolitana, Chile; London; and Ireland. Exhibition dates and details will be released at a later date.

The items will be offered at live auctions in Beverly Hills, Calif. on Nov. 6 to 7, 2021, and online at juliensauctions.com.

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Amy Winehouses Personal Property to Be Auctioned - Barron's

Zoe Comerford, Executive Sports Editor|December 28, 2019

Markus Howard (0) drives to the paint in Marquette's 106-54 win over Central Arkansas Saturday afternoon.

Photo by John Steppe

Markus Howard (0) drives to the paint in Marquette's 106-54 win over Central Arkansas Saturday afternoon.

Photo by John Steppe

Photo by John Steppe

Markus Howard (0) drives to the paint in Marquette's 106-54 win over Central Arkansas Saturday afternoon.

Jack Phillips

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Eight days after Markus and Jordan Howard became the No. 1 brother scoring duo in NCAA history, the Golden Eagles dominated Jordans alma mater, the Central Arkansas Bears, 106-54 Saturday afternoon at Fiserv Forum in Marquettes final nonconference game for the 2019-20 season.

The 52-point victory is the sixth-largest winning margin in program history and the biggest in head coach Steve Wojciechowskis tenure. The last came Nov. 18, 2001, when Marquette beat Chicago State by 53 points.

Obviously (we) played well, got a big lead and then to maintain that lead throughout the game with just a couple lulls here and there was a good performance for us, Wojciechowski said.

It was all Markus early as he had 14 points in the first five minutes, shooting a perfect 3-for-3 from the field, all 3-pointers. With his first three, Markus passed Steve Novak for the all-time 3-point leader at MU.

As a team, Marquettes offense was on fire and shot 80% from beyond the arc in the first five minutes. MUhad a 21-point lead by the 9:46 mark in the opening half. That advantage only grew as the Bears could not stop the Golden Eagles hot shooting.

The Golden Eagles took charge of the first half, shooting 52% from the field including 8-for-14 from 3-point range along with six steals and eight assists.

MU went into halftime up 57-24. Markus, who had more points than the whole Bears team, sparked the offense with 25 points, three assists and two steals.

Weve been sharing the ball and thats working a lot for us, Torrence said. The more we share it, the happier we feel, the more fun were having on the court and the more wins were going to get.

Central Arkansas had no answers for MU in the second half as the Golden Eagles controlled every facet of the game from shooting to pressure defense.

For the majority of the second half, Marquette shot 62% from the field, and Central Arkansas deficit was at least 47 points.

Meanwhile, nothing was going right for the Bears. UCA had struggled from beyond the arc in the first half, going 1-for-10. It did not get any better after the break, finishing 20% from 3-point range.

Markus exited the game a minute later with 30 points on 9-for-13 shooting, five 3-pointers, five assists and two steals.

Its about building habits. You never want to play the score, Wojciechowski said. You always want to be up 53 points. We take that every day. But the reality is, you need to build good habits and maintain habits in order to prepare yourself for whats coming. And whats coming is the gauntlet of the BIG EAST, the top conference in the country.

Central Arkansas was plagued with foul trouble, ending the game with 27 personal fouls. Meanwhile, MU finished with 17.

Markus notched his fifth 30-point game of the season. Theo John had a season-high 12 points while Sacar Anim and Ed Morrow finished with 11 points each. Torrence, Brendan Bailey and Greg Elliott all put up nine points. Jamal Cain, who received his first start since November 2018 against Louisville, contributed eight.

Koby McEwen did not play due to a right thumb injury.

In 27 minutes off the bench, Torrence scored a career-best nine points, adding four assists and four rebounds.

Coach just said we have to have more guys step up, Torrence said. My role didnt change. Im a pass-first point guard. I get guys involved, and thats what Im going to do every time I get on court.

Marquette (10-2) does not play again until 2020 as the Golden Eagles begin BIG EAST play in the new decade, traveling to Creighton Jan. 1. Tipoff is slated for 8 p.m. Central Standard Time.

The Golden Eagles head to Omaha, Nebraska, having won eight of their last nine games.

This is a really (big) confidence booster, Torrence said. These games right here, were playing them to get ready for the BIG EAST.

This story was written by Zoe Comerford. She can be reached at isabel.comerford@marquette.edu or on Twitter @zoe_comerford.

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Howard powers hot-shooting offense past brother's alma mater - Marquette Wire

The Gloaming: theres something strange in the neighbourhood. Photograph: Bradley Patrick/Stan

Every once in a while a film or television series comes around with an aesthetic so eye-watering it makes plaudits such as evocative or painterly seem manifestly inadequate. Occasionally as is the case with Stans eight-part mystery-drama The Gloaming, from creator and writer Vicki Madden the visual oomph of the production seems to manifest as a kind of viscous residue, sticking to your psyche the way a sweat patch clings to your armpit.

Take a bow, Marden Dean: the shows gimlet-eyed cinematographer, who also shot Breath, Boys in the Trees and The Infinite Man. The Gloaming is the latest in an emerging trend of Tasmania-based productions that view the island state as a place of terrible beauty, located somewhere south of the mainland and west of hell following on from Jennifer Kents period piece The Nightingale, Foxtels gothic drama Lambs of God, and another series helmed by Madden: the terrific, darkly ravishing 2016 disappearance thriller The Kettering Incident.

Like Kettering, The Gloaming is bathed in frosty moonlight and ensconced in fog and haze. It has a Scandi-noirish atmosphere and a plotline drawn from a more defined genre playbook: the police procedural thriller. A twisty narrative involving deaths and disappearances is led as is customary by a pair of good-looking detectives who discover the case they are working on Is Personal and may connect to a crime committed many years ago.

We see vision of events related to that crime in a surreal introductory sequence depicting young teenagers Jenny McGinty (Milly Alcock) and Alex OConnell (Finn Ireland) venturing towards a big old creepy house, past a forest of tall, bony trees and a collection of grimy tombstones. The propertys occupant is less than thrilled to see them and fires a shotgun at Jenny at point-blank range. This moment is depicted in a way that obscures the face of the attacker and the impact of the bullet.

Alex grows up to be a police detective played by Ewan Leslie delivering another highly effective, twitch-inducing performance following recent appearances in The Cry and Safe Harbour. Alex is directed to partner up with Molly, who is played by Emma Booth: a very commanding presence, here and in the icky 2017 horror-thriller Hounds of Love. The pair havent seen each other in a couple of decades and share some kind of a past although, three episodes in (the first three eps form the extent of this review) its not clearly exactly what.

Molly is called in to inspect a corpse at a crime scene early in the first episode, in a creepy and surreal moment, like a David Lynch production, and, like Twin Peaks, involving a body found near water in this instance, a very cinematic-looking waterfall in the background. This body has not been wrapped in plastic but wrapped in rather gnarlier barbed wire.

The significance of the barbed wire is one of several points of discussion. Many things are unclear, though its obvious that if youll pardon the Ghostbustery parlance theres something strange in the neighbourhood, with potential links to occult practices. Grace Cochran (Rena Owen), leader of the local church community, looks more than a little suspect. And the mentally unhinged young man Freddie (Matt Testro) is a dark horse: forever one step away, it seems, from taking the story to very twisted places.

The this time its personal connections that make the case of heightened interest to Molly and Alex, as well as some stilted dialogue, occasionally give The Gloaming a whiff of all-too-familiar dramatic contrivance, antithetical to its otherwise thrilling air of surprise and intrigue. Given the shows genre framework, you wouldnt call it strikingly original, but it sure is striking: particularly as a work of atmospheria.

Does Madden write the appearance of mist into her scripts? Did she breathe down the necks of Dean and the directors (Michael Rymer, Greg McLean and Sian Davies), reminding them to fog up the lens? Legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa extensively used wind machines, intensifying the environment and infusing his films with symbolic visuals: the winds of change, the winds of good and bad fortune, the winds signifying chaos and tumult. Madden is doing something similar with mist, here as in The Kettering Incident. Its menacing and mysterious qualities thicken up the frame, covering it with a kind of enigmatic, semi-translucent vapour.

In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens described a steaming mist in all the hollows as a force that roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. He called it a clammy and intensely cold mist that made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do.

Roaming forlornness, an evil spirit, an unwholesome sea: these feel like apt words to describe the brilliant brume of The Gloaming. Certainly better than evocative or painterly.

All episodes of The Gloaming are available to screen on Stan on New Years Day

The rest is here:
The Gloaming review shades of Twin Peaks in fog-swamped crime drama - The Guardian

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Will 2020 be the year of enlightenment?

President Trump has requested an immediate impeachment trial. Will the Senate deny him this opportunity to provide witnesses and give his side of the story?

My suggestion would be (if necessary) to exempt from prosecution Pence, Bolton, Mulvaney, Barr, Pompeo, Perry and anyone else testifying on behalf of the president. This will eliminate the need for evoking executive privilege, the fifth or stating, I dont recall.

What more vindication could the Republican House/Senate members and the president receive than the truth being told by his inner circle on the world stage? Would this not allow for his accusers to be exposed?

If the impeachment accusations are proven false, President Trumps reelection would be a slam dunk. Now is a good time for the Senate to restore some credibility to its chamber.

Excerpt from:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Will 2020 be the year of enlightenment? - SCNow

by Stan Cutler

Ive been to the new central libraries in Seattle and Austin. The experience of traveling on the escalators in those buildings got me thinking about our work as library volunteers. Those libraries are gorgeous public places that proclaim the culture of those cities. I believe Philadelphia should emulate them.

Our culture is rapidly evolving, adapting to cyber media. Most people nowadays use personal devices to experience a joy that was once unique to libraries the opportunity to browse, to wander through a collection, to freely pick something to read. A kid with a smartphone can tap a finger and access millions of books and articles. As we knew them, libraries are obsolete. I want to build something new. My focus has shifted from preservation to creation.

Nostalgia is one of the reasons people become library volunteers. We love our old buildings, even Central, our white elephant on The Parkway. In our neighborhood, Chestnut Hill, we have a fine old Carnegie building with tall Palladian windows, lovely wooden tables, shelves of books, each spine an invitation. Certainly, we want to preserve them and improve them. But we mistake our purpose if preservation is our primary goal.

We believe in the lofty mission of the Free Library of Philadelphia, to advance literacy, guide learning, and inspire curiosity. Its vision is to build an enlightened community devoted to lifelong learning. How can we succeed with such a grand mission? I dont think we can unless we think big, unless our aspirations are as grand as the goals.

Our vision must not be limited to libraries we know. Rather, we should be inspired by the challenge of building the greatest public media system in the world. At its center should be a beautiful building that reminds us of Enlightenment values a building that glorifies our desire for knowledge, truth and wisdom. Before seeing the great libraries of Austin and Seattle, I was thinking too small.

One of the things I noticed in those wonderful buildings was how many young people were patronizing them. The childrens sections, with kiddy workstations on every table, had almost as many moms and dads as kids. The parents were switching off, allowing first one, then the other, to leave for their favorite places in the library, to look for the latest books on their passions. Multilayered, open architecture, light-filled and adorned with great art, is an invitation to investigate, to discover and to enjoy our minds. If we want young people in our community to join us in our struggle to extend the Enlightenment into the 21st century, we need to give them a goal not a memory.

What if we sought enormous contributions, great sums, hundreds of millions of dollars, to build a great library? What if we gave famous architects a chance to offer masterpiece proposals? What if we enlisted every man, woman and child in our great city to participate in the project? Let us be like the people of old Chartres, inspired to spend a generation creating a cathedral. We can do it if we want to.

. Bookmark the

.

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- Can Philadelphia build the greatest library in the world? - Chestnut Hill Local

On the drive up Highway 1 along the Sonoma County coast, the road eventually begins to twist and turn and the landscape grows ever craggier, dotted with wind-battered homes. In the coastal hamlet of Jenner, about 80 miles north of San Francisco at the mouth of the Russian River, a quaint, shingled building with a sign that says Russian House #1 is perched along the road. Is it a restaurant? A community center? An experiment in spiritual development?

Yes is the answer.

Russian House #1 has no menu and no set prices for food. Its founders, Tatiana Ginzburg and Polina Krasikova, were inspired in part by their experience at Burning Man in 2014, where they witnessed an intricate barter economy in action. The restaurant also has no paid kitchen staff. Krasikova cooks most of the food and is chiefly responsible for the kitchen, though she relies on a revolving cast of volunteers. Some are neighbors. The owners do not use the word donation. Its not charity, Krasikova says. You pay according to your own sense of fairness. Some visitors pay with labor, staying to clean or chop vegetables.

In Russian Houses five-year history, Krasikova and Ginzburg have welcomed friends from all over the world, so the days flavors are liable to change depending on whos in the kitchen. Theyve hosted French, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Indian, and Armenian friends. They cook whatever they want, she says.

Sonoma County may seem like an unlikely place to pass a sign reading Pirozhki to go, but Russian House is ten miles from Fort Ross, a rustic Russian outpost where fur traders settled in the nineteenth century. The compound is now a National Historic Landmark that draws visiting Russians and other tourists passing along this picturesque stretch of Californias coast.

The bright, windowed space inside Russian House has a grand quality, owing largely to the majestic view of the Russian River, where geese frolic. And though visitors are likely to get a good meal, Krasikova admits that eating is not the whole point here. The food, however good it is, is secondary to dialogue and communication. Thats what we want. People come for food and stay for something else.

That something else is hard to pin down: The place hosts philosophy and physics lectures and holotropic breathwork workshops, and a poster made by Ginzburg starkly lays out steps toward unleashing human potential. Its a sensibility that seems to combine 19th century Russian mysticism, a Soviet penchant for grandiose acts of bureaucratic classification, and a post-Soviet interest in New Age self-discovery. But the extra-culinary offerings can feel opaque, even to visitors well versed in West Coast wellness culture. One would have to really join the community to ascertain whether it delivers on its self-stated goal of global enlightenment.

That said, a spirit of playfulness is alive throughout the space, where complex wooden puzzles hang along the wall of a corner pantry designed to look like an old-fashioned Russian stove. Matrioshki Russian nesting dolls of various sizes and a miniature balalaika stand sentinel on a shelf above a poster featuring an 80s-style image of a matrix that says Meaning. Binders full of flyers for past events and one-day menus sit on a table near the entryway. The papers reflect the wit and humor that undergirds the Russian House project as well as a charmingly faltering grasp of English. Classical Piano Concert is Quite Possible reads one. An old menu for the Week of Consciousness Expansion lists food for the intellect (riddles and puzzles) as well as earth food (the actual buffet). Another from a past Labor Day lists prices for activities: the right to clean the floor in the kitchen costs $1; the right to bake one pirozhek costs $5; and doing a puzzle with Tatiana would run guests $10,000.

When guests arrive, they take a plate from the mismatched stacks below the table and serve themselves from a motley assortment of chafing dishes and ceramic bowls. A large insulated pot of steaming ukha Russian fish soup beckons as an obvious first course. The clear broth, flecked with dill, maintains its lightness in spite of large chunks of potato and cod.

Though Krasikova draws on traditional recipes, she spent her St. Petersburg childhood cooking and baking alongside her mother, who liked to experiment, and she calls the food she serves fusion. We get tired of cooking all the same all the time, she says, so we always experiment. She enjoys using seasonal vegetables and playing with ayurvedic spice combinations. Krasikova sometimes looks up classic Russian recipes from one of the vintage cookbooks she keeps on a bookshelf off the main room, but adds touches she thinks Californians will appreciate.

For example, when she realized guests didnt love plain kasha (or buckwheat groats, a staple grain dish in Russian cuisine), she added capers and seaweed. Instead of typical blini with buckwheat flour, she uses almond milk to make a lighter, crepe-like version. The resulting pancakes have an injera-like sponginess, and are delicious served lukewarm with a dollop of cold sour cream and a spoonful of raspberry jam. A tart cabbage-and-carrot sauerkraut (made by a neighbor) cut both the blandness of a medley of stewed vegetables and the richness of a braised dish of pork medallions and greens that Krasikova conceded was not very Russian.

Taken together, however, the meal felt Russian: heavy as a woolen blanket, warm, comforting, and filling. It was served with Ivan tea (made from fermented fireweed), an erstwhile export of the Russian empire, in delicate cups from St. Petersburgs Imperial Porcelain Factory. Krasikova refilled the cups as soon as they were emptied.

In a moment when Russian political intrigue dominates the news, it can feel quite radical and nourishing to spend a few sunny hours soaking in a spirit of Russian joy. That rare experience is whats on offer at Russian House #1, even if it isnt exactly for sale.

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Pay-What-You-Can Russian House #1 in Jenner Is One of Californias Most Eccentric Restaurants - Eater SF

A Silicon Valley-based friend, who heads a tech giants in-house academy for its engineers, has been trying to inculcate the habit of reading among his students. Last week, he mailed me, asking for suggestions, especially since apps like Blinkist and 12min now offer the gist of important non-fiction books in text and audio form that you can gulp down with a cup of coffee, and be/appear more knowledgeable.

Fact is, we were already short on time, and now, we also have Netflix and Amazon Prime, so it really helps when someone tells you that the 816-page Capital In The Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty can be summed up in one line: The rich have been getting richer at a rate faster than world GDP, and thats not fair."

But some books need to be read in full. They cannot be summarized. So, here are five (actually six) that I loved reading this year (not all of them are 2019 publications).

Enlightenment Now: In his most ambitious work till date, Harvard professor Steven Pinker tackles every big issue that humanity facesthe environment, wealth inequality, sustenance, peace, terrorism, democracy, equal rights, happinesswith clean data, multi-disciplinary expertise and powerful logic. He has been criticized as being too optimistic, but he sees some existential threats" as figments of cultural and historical pessimism", and the genuine ones not as apocalypses in waiting, but as problems to be solved" through three weapons: reason, science and humanism.

War Or Peace: Prof. Deepak Lal is a formidable scholar. War Or Peace is a magisterial steeped-in-history analysis of current geopolitics, with the US resigning from its globo-cop" role, China pushing for global hegemony, wannabe imperial powers like Russia and Iran flexing their muscles, and India, another aspirant, caught in the middle. Lal even considers the possibility of a Third World War, and ends with his views on how India can cope with the new global disorder. This is a profound examination of the threats that the democratic world faces, and how they can be countered.

Savarkar: We badly needed an un-biased biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkarneither a hagiography nor a leftist hatchet joband journalist Vaibhav Purandares deeply researched and tightly written book is just that. Sourcing a wealth of new material, including previously untranslated Marathi documents, Purandare shines clear light on many controversies: the mercy petitions, Savarkars call to Indians to join the British Army during World War II, his decision to have the Hindu Mahasabha join Muslim League-led provincial governments, his views on the cow. Here is the charismatic visionary with all his quirks and wartsshort-tempered, stubborn, miserly when paying his eternally loyal staffers and, though acquitted by the court of any complicity in Mahatma Gandhis assassination, perhaps bearing some moral responsibility for it.

The Coddling Of The American Mind, and Woke: Im clubbing these two books together because both deal with the current wave of identity politics and social justice" sweeping a section of the worlds educated population, especially the young. Fed by theories of post-modernism and intersectionality, wokeness" sees the world only in terms of victims and aggressors, believes that feelings are more true than facts, often sees speech or content expressing opposite views as violence, supports actual violence to respond to such speech, and revels in cancel culture", where un-wokes are ostracized (the definition of un-woke" is broad: for example, if you are homosexual and dont feel you are a victim, you are a fake gay").

In Coddling, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff offer a sobering account of how fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play where the child has to take responsibility for the outcomes, the omnipresence of social media and a college system where dogmatic left-liberals, who have a stranglehold on the humanities and social sciences, indoctrinate rather than encourage openness to ideas, have created a fragile and angry generation with strong cognitive distortions. While Coddling deals only with the US, its insights and lessons are equally valid for India.

Woke, by Titania McGrath, the parody Twitter alter ego of British commentator (and fake gay") Andrew Doyle, is satire at its most biting. Samples: Socialism has been an unqualified success wherever it has been implemented. In Venezuela, a 2.4-kg chicken is currently worth a whopping 14,600,000 bolivars. So much for socialism making people poorer." My friend Tabitha has recently given birth to a baby boy After birth, one of the very first things this organism did was cry to be fed. Thats the kind of male entitlement were dealing with. Straight out of the womb, and its all me, me, me." Woke is the funniest book Ive read in a long time.

The Wandering Earth: I was also lucky this year to discover the Chinese science-fiction writer Cixin Liu. Earth comprises ten longish stories. Rock-solid science, dazzling imagination, sublime philosophical queries, and one hilarious end-of-the-world comedy. Sci-fi seems to be yet another field where China is ahead of us.

Sandipan Deb is former editor of Financial Express and founder-editor of Open and Swarajya magazines

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Opinion | A collection of year-end reads to give you food for thought - Livemint

The strains of the Indian freedom struggles picked up dramatically when Gandhi made the call 'Quit India'. Till then, it seems to me, Gandhi was soft peddling/ negotiating/ speaking, but his patience was being misused. So he decided that now, there will be more than local satyagrahas and dialogues, and that he will generate what in fact could become conflict. Hence the 'Salt March' and the 'Civil Disobedience method, where picking up a state owned product like salt as a form of breaking the law changed the course of the freedom movement.

Of course many people have written about Gandhi's skills and intuition in knowing what would be the mesmerizing project or process. Picking up salt from the beaches, easily accessible over miles of coast, and in some sense privatizing a state owned essential commodity was nothing short of genius. But there was more to the Quit India Movement.

It was a peaceful resistance to the state and galvanized another section or slice of the Indian population- these were the students. Quit India resonated with them in ways beyond the various satyagrahas and other efforts. Students all over India, used the slogan 'Quit India' and marched and held meetings and gave the movement an extraordinary strength and voice. Simultaneously they, the students got politicized. The two words- Quit and India had the tang in them which touched the spirit of the young.

So while the act of civil disobedience spread, simultaneously India's students rose to the call Quit India in a way similar to what we see in India today. For students to rise as a political force there has to be a morally compelling call which can be adopted across difference. In India we are blessed, at the same time stressed by enormous diversity- language, religion, practice, everything varies to multiple amounts/ numbers.

Quit India resonated with the students, -strong, full of power like the voices today resonating, Azaadi. The word, the sound of the word as it is voiced, is so powerful .It has become the strum of the student uprisings in India today as was Quit India in the 1940s.

However what we are missing,- and that absence or empty box must be filled - not only because it would be a form of appreciation and reward for the persistence, brilliance, commitment, understanding of India and its Constitution by the students. It is also for the bigger or more formal reason that it represents the heart of India.

Much has been written and with great detail and with expertise on exactly how the CAA and the NRC contravene the principle and the spirit of the Constitution. So I will not go into that. But what needs to be thought out deeply by others, for example "the eminent persons and academicians" that have been recording their anxiety and disapproval of this initiative by the Modi- Shah combine, is how to channelize this extraordinary wide- awake knowledgeable community,- students from across India, into regenerating the 'India of our dreams'.

Yes, we had an India in our dreams. 'We' meaning the before midnight's children. People like myself engaged with India as adults in the early 50's. So I came to Delhi to work for an organisation which was building cooperatives and then joined the University and there were hundreds of people like myself.

What did we experience?

We experienced, to use a new term that has come into fashion now i.e. a Resurgent India. Across the country there was solidarity in affirming not only our freedom but drawing on our civilizational and economic experience. Gathering the resources that we possessed into a wide range of domains- culture, economic progress, political and social institutions and so on. However on reflection, we have to recognize that we do not have that icon- that North Star that would capture the Quit India Movement and translate it into affirming our freedom. Gandhi. A person or an institution that can engage and respond to the current articulation of the masses/students is needed.

This is a gap which has to be filled now, soon, if we are to give due respect to these brilliant, courageous, informed student communities of India. How to capture the space they have made in what looked like a rock which could not be cracked, and enter through that space into a wholesome democratic and enlightened India as designed and articulated by the Fathers and Mothers of the Constitution and the immediate descendants of that era.

This question requires immediate attention and needs some form of construction if we wish to respect and encourage the students. Otherwise the students protest, courage, fearlessness, and brilliant articulation of what is wrong and what needs to be corrected, can be swept away by a brutal government and by those sections of the society which have not had the experience of enlightenment.

So this enlightenment that came to us as a result of the attempt by the current central government to infiltrate/ corrupt our beautiful democracy needs to be a serious consideration. The 600 intellectuals who signed the letter, the other several hundreds who have come together in various ways to express support - civilians need to find the political platform on which the brilliant students efforts can be mounted.

This is the urgent need of the day. We have no Gandhi now nor do we have a Jayaprakash Narayan, nor can we suddenly bring out an individual as a pole.

It is not enough that many governments now will not be BJP. We can see the tumbling down. It is not enough to think that if the Congress party still appears here and there, when the citizens wish to reject BJP and its allies, it can lead this nation. We have to think of citizens forums, the movements coming together into some form of political formation and then bringing in leadership which is not yet there, but which could be brought out.

A challenging task but what the students have done cannot be allowed to go unrewarded.

Devaki Jain is a reputed development economist

Original post:
Quit India Got Students on the Streets as CAA Has Now - The Citizen

The question I ask myself as we witness the assertion of the ideology of Hindutva and its resultant fear among minorities is this: Is it possible to have yet another reading of my religion or the experience of religiosity and take part in a collective movement for creating a society filled with love, empathy and pluralism? This is both a sociopolitical and an ethico-existential question. At a time when the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019 has caused fear and existential insecurity among the minorities, there is a danger of the movement against the discriminatory nature of the CAA degenerating into violent communal politics. Therefore, it is important to introspect and redefine ones politics, culture and religiosity for a collective struggle.

Yes, there is a Left-Ambedkarite version of secularism, and many of us university-educated/metropolitan intellectuals and civil society activists are reasonably free from the burden of the conditioned mind that religious orthodoxy causes. Yet, a careful look at Indias culture and society would indicate that religion is all-pervasive: it can be seen in beliefs, rituals as well as in the dangerous stereotypes we nurture about others. Hence, the mere act of debunking religion will not help. We need to rescue religion from zealots and rediscover the spirit of religiosity as, to use Rabindranath Tagores language, our surplus. It is in this context that as someone born in a Hindu family, I would like to critique Hindutva or, for that matter, any deterministic/one dimensional doctrine of religion. This critique emanates not from scientism or soulless secularism, but from deep religiosity, the urge to transcend limiting identities.

The kind of Hindutva we see today is against some of the finest aspects of my religiosity that I learned as a Hindu. While the discourse of Hindutva with its hypermasculine nationalism is essentially monolithic and centralising, I have learned about the beauty of the elasticity of human consciousness and merger of multiple faiths and paths from the likes of Ramakrishna Paramahansa. While the doctrine of militant Hindutva is recklessly engaged in an act of othering and stigmatising Muslims, I have learned about love, empathy and listening from M.K. Gandhis remarkably nuanced engagement with Hinduism. Likewise, while Hindutva intensifies aggression, Miras bhajans teach me that love and religiosity are not separate. The character of Anandamayee that Tagore created in his classic novel Gora makes me see the enchanting power of maternity, the current that absorbs everything. And hence, I begin to see the hollowness in the assertion of brute masculinity seen in instances of mob lynching by zealots, which ruthlessly denies the possibility of an evolutionary journey towards what Sri Aurobindo regarded as the divine consciousness.

Yajnavalkyas conversation with Maitreyi in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad helps me conceive the depths of spirituality, the quest for the Eternal, and also helps me see the ugliness in a doctrine that reduces religion into mere identity politics, or a weapon for intensifying the narcissistic ego of the Hindu nation. Engagement with the Bhagavad Gita acquires a different meaning. I see the ethos of niskam karma (or the spirit of work as an offering without selfish interests) in Gandhis politico-spiritual pilgrimage to Noakhali in 1946, not in the calculative Machiavellian urge to build a temple at Ayodhya at the demolished site of the Babri Masjid. Moreover, there is a culture of conversation and argumentation in the broad tradition of Hinduism. While Nachiketa dared to converse with Yama, the proponents of Lokayata did argue with the followers of Vedanta. In a way, it is possible to be a Hindu with the spirit of pluralism and dialogue in our consciousness. Paradoxically, it is possible to be a Hindu, yet be a non-Hindu. This is why the ideology of Hindutva is not in conformity with religiosity as peoples inner quest for moving towards a world of love and togetherness.

We are passing through difficult times. First, as the CAA and the National Register of Citizens together indicate, the minority community has further been stigmatised. And in a society with a long history of the tension-ridden relationship between the two communities, the ghettoisation of space and mind has further erected a huge wall of separation. Hence, the danger is that the anger against the CAA might take a communal turn, and it is not impossible for the nationalist media to project it as a conflict between patriotic Hindus and problematic Muslims. From Seelampur in Delhi to Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, these Muslim sites might be immediately projected as war zones. And in a vicious cycle of humiliation and provocation, the minorities could feel more and more lonely.

Majoritarian Hindutva is not merely against Muslims; it is no less hostile to those Hindus who think and live differently while some would be castigated as leftists, pseudo secularists and urban Naxals, the rest would be regarded as effeminate idealists or Gandhian fools. Therefore, in such a situation, it is important to try to evolve a culture of communion between the two communities, and fight together for a better world. However, the discourse of communalism or a politics based on exclusivist religious identity (and even though majority communalism is immensely destructive, minority communalism is no answer to it) is essentially against this spirit of communion. Likewise, a soulless secularism which fails to deal with the religious/spiritual quest doesnt succeed much in touching peoples hearts for inspiring them to create a new moral politics for collective redemption.

In troubled and directionless times, Gandhi could tap the therapeutic power of religiosity and move towards this communion. He could be a Hindu; yet, dialogic, experimental and elastic. In a way, as Nathuram Godse might have thought, he was also a non-Hindu. Likewise, I would imagine that a Muslim with true religiosity is equally eager to resist the attempt by the orthodox clergy or the fundamentalist elements to hijack the religious sphere. He/she ought to be inherently against the Talibanisation of consciousness. Because true religiosity is the art of using the form in order to be formless. Imagine a world where Kabir and Rumi, Gandhi and Maulana Azad, and Tagore and Nizamuddin Auliya work with us, become our educators, and inspire us to heal the world through the power of love and understanding. Even though in the age of dystopia it may appear to be impossible, it is a challenging task we ought to strive for. This is precisely the most important sadhana, or the meaning of being a Hindu a seeker who seeks to break the iron cage of Hindutva or, for that matter, any other fundamentalist doctrine.

Avijit Pathak is Professor of Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

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Original post:
A Hindu critique of Hindutva - The Hindu