Anecdotal Evidence

 In the original story of Sakuntala, as told in the Mahabhratha, there is no ring. Sakuntala appears in Dushmanta's court with their son and requests Dushmanta to declare him the heir to his throne, as he had promised her, before their gandharva vivāham. Though Dushmanta very much remembers their encounter (and thus recognises legitimacy of the claim), he still pretends not to remember and asks her provocative, insulting questions in his court.  But he is ' being cruel only to be kind '. For, this sets the dramatic stage for  a fine articulation of her case by Sakuntala, which ends in the divine voice from the sky, declaring her to be true and for Dushmanta to accept her and their son. And then, Dushmanta tells his courtiers that he always knew but his word would have been insufficient proof to the court. We are of course, more aware of the storyline of KāLidāsa's play abhijñānasākuntalam, where the poet made significant departures. The elevation of the 'word/memory...

Milan Kundera's passing took me back to the time I discovered - by sheer chance - his novel 'Life Is Elsewhere '.  The impact it had on my twenty year old self was nothing like anything felt from any other novel before - or since. It is easy to say 'before'.  But admitting to 'since' is an admission to inadequacies in tastes and maturity. Surely his Unbearable Lightness...  is a better novel. Surely there are greater litterateurs. But this is the novel 'spoke to me' the most. A feeling I sought in the other works I came to read later and was unable to connect with as well. But did you read 'Life is Elsewhere' again to see if your impression has changed over time? Or did you not do that, precisely because you worried it may not hold up? This may be fair gotcha questions to be ask about many other novels. But not about this one. For this novel is about maturity itself.  There are many works of art whose appeal to the reader's exaggerated s...

Background For long, KamalHaasan’s classic Thevar Magan has been subjected to criticism that it was insufficiently aware of how the film - despite its patronising and pontifical tone - would be received with a warm glow of pride by the Thevars. Indeed, there is no contesting that ‘potri paadadi ponne’ - a Thevar paen - has come to become a peerless anthem of sorts.  While the extent of ‘out-of-context’ celebration may have been surprising, one cannot lose sight of the fact that song itself realised a specific purpose within and for the film first: within the film’s narrative and for, one reasonably assumes, the film's commercial prospects then. To imbue the makers in the business of mainstream films with virtues of thorough naivete is unnecessary. That said, over the years, the criticism has gradually escalated to the absurd heights of accusing him of gross social irresponsibility for not anticipating everything that the song has come to stand for. This type of reductive engagemen...