Horse-latitudes
Amitav Ghosh‘Horse-latitudes. A space between the westerly winds of higher latitudes and the trade-winds, notorious for tedious calms. The name arose from our old navigators often throwing the horses overboard…
Debbie’s book
'The Convert' just released in New York. 'Mesmerizing' - New York Times Book Review. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/books/review/book-review-the-convert-by-deborah-baker.html?_r=1&ref=review
Stand corrected
Re my last post: Thomas Abraham writes: 'Don’t know if you’ve seen this but saradindu badyopadhyay was published by Puffin –quite some time ago, when I was at Penguin. http://www.bookadda.com/product/band-soldiers-saradindu-bandyopadhyay/p-9780143335085-0143335081'…
Two Bengali Writers
It’s clear that the emergence of a vibrant new industry of translation is transforming the literary landscape of India. At an airport bookshop the other day I was delighted…
Foreign Devil
Top-hatted, tail-coated temple guardian, Phnom Penh, 1993.
Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew was the Studs Terkel of the 19th century: I find his ‘London Labour and the London Poor’ (published 1851) more interesting even than Orwell’s Down and Out…
Mekong Journals – Jan 9, 2003
In January 2003 I accompanied an expedition that was conducting a survey of river dolphins on a stretch of the Mekong River in Cambodia. The expedition was led by Isabel…
Ends and Beginnings
Today, with the Left Front being voted out in West Bengal, after thirty-four years in power, there is much being said about the bloodletting at Singur and Nandigram and…
India’s Birthplace
Geology is full of surprises. Who would have guessed, for example, that the undersea feature that marks the birthplace of the Indian subcontinent would be named after a brand…
Bird Prevents Ship Murder
A tale of a lascar and an unidentifiable bird: the ‘minka’ mentioned in the news report was probably a ‘myna’. From, The Washington Post, Feb 20, 1908. …