Love and courtship – a motivating force

“Why d’you write on Isolation, loneliness and solitude?” “Why shouldn’t I?” “There’s plenty of it in life and it is depressing. Please write on sunnier subjects.” “Here in the tropics, do you need more sun?” “Do write on happy and jolly events so that we can laugh and be happy when reading them.” So said friend Carmen and that is how I decided on this topic. The whole world it is said, loves love stories and everybody loves a lover too.

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Encounters

An architect of modern Chinese cinema

Modern Chinese cinema had attracted worldwide attention thanks to the efforts of such filmmakers as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Jia Zhangke. In this column, I wish to focus on a Chinese filmmaker who has played a seminal role in the creation of what we generally refer to as modern Chinese cinema.

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Cultural Diary

Early texts in Hindi literature

Continuing the series on Hindi literary culture, in this week’s column I further explore the evolution of Hindi language and the early Hindi texts that led Hindi to become a literary language. As discussed in the previous week’s column, a seminal text in the early stage of evolving Hindi is Daud’s Candayan.

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