Vandals Of History Afghanistan's Taliban regime remains undeterred from its hard-line agenda of destroying historically valuable Buddhist idols. A look at the present regime and its slide to orthodox fundamentalism at a time when a drought has ravaged its economy and people.

Taking On the Family
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Yadav is once again facing a tough fight for survival--this time prompted by a near revolt in the RJD fuelled by rumours of a dynastic takeover. Ranjan Yadav has emerged as a potential rival to Rabri Devi, enjoying the support of both the party rebels and the NDA allies.

Chennai Confusion
The upshot of the great Tamil circus: Jayalalitha needs Moopanar, but not the Congress.

Creepy Acquisition
With Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha determined to bring corporate payslips comprehensively into the taxman's dragnet, the salaried class is having a few palpitations. For them, it means that a long era of tax-free emoluments is coming to an end.

"Indians lack unity"
Two of cricket's finest brains met for a rare conversation:Bishen Singh Bedi takes on the role of interviewer for Aaj Tak, seeking to get into the mind of Australian captain Stephen Waugh.

Revenge Of the Bears The sudden fall in share-prices points to yet another rigging controversy, and raises questions about the efficacy and credibility of SEBI as a regulator.

BOOKS

The Village is Elsewhere

By Harish Trivedi

Ashis Nandy, curator par excellence of the modern Indian self, describes the theme of his new book as the real as well as mythic journey between the village and the city. The village may have been for Gandhi the key locale and constituent of India, but there has since occurred
"a radical and legitimate rejection of the village as that part of one's self which has outlived its utility", Nandy argues, so that "the colonial city is now us, the non-village". Nandy quickly adduces four classic representations of the old village before it ceased to engage our imagination-Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, R. K. Narayan's Malgudi Days, M. N. Srinivas' The Remembered Village and Raj Kapoor's Awara and Shri 420, both of which turn the underbelly of Mumbai effectively "into a friendly village neighbourhood".

An Ambiguous Journey To The City By Ashis Nandy Oxford Price: Rs 345 Pages: 146

Most readers of this book would have been happy enough to have an analysis of these classic and eclectically chosen texts as illustrations of Nandy's thesis that the Indian village as seen in them has now been forgotten.

But Nandy too forgets them nearly as soon as he has named them. Instead, he strikes out to talk in loving detail of P. C. Barua, the actor-director of Saratchandra Chatterji's first legendary film Devdas, of Mrinal Sen of Akaler Sandhane and Khandhar, and in an unwieldy last chapter, of the flavour of the last half-decade, Partition. Clearly, the problematic is no bar to Nandy, ranging as sweetly and widely as he pleases. He ends up writing not an integrated book with all its ends neatly tucked in but instead (in Tagore's title) Char Adhyay, four chapters, which his creaky thematic frame does not even seriously seek to hold together.

Which is however no loss but a blessing, for Nandy has now arrived at a stage of puckish unripe wisdom and footloose reflection where whatever he touches glitters and often even turns to gold. The two middle chapters on Barua and Sen are marvels of compassionate evocation of the human tragi-comedy, little biographies of two little regarded cultural heroes, deftly and engagingly narrated as to provide a model for aspiring novelists.

And throughout "this intriguing little book", there are strewn numerous insights quite exquisite and even exhilarating in their epigrammatic acuteness. "Ours is the age of the homo psychogeographicus." "Race (in Nazi Germany) was very nearly a sexually transmitted disease." "Especially among the Bengali elite, tuberculosis was as much a personal statement as a medical diagnosis."

Bengal, during Sen's early career, "was dominated by a comic tinsel Leninism."

Bengal indeed dominates this book, except that it is sometimes assumed to be "pan-Indian" and even more often renamed as that new psychogeographical kid on the intellectual block, "South Asia".

Nandy's ambitious foray into comparing Partition violence with the Jewish holocaust (possibly the chapter was initially a lecture he delivered in Jerusalem) does not work out, but that's a rare false step. On the whole, this entrancing little book blithely confirms Nandy's stature as probably the most suggestive and accessible, the most insightful and delightful of our resident Indian intellectuals.

MetroScape
Triple Act
What I would love to do more than anything else in the world is to write another play," says Gurcharan Das. "But I don't know if I have the courage." He should have dollops of it, going by the audience reaction to his 9 Jakhoo Hill--performed to mark the release of Three English Plays by Das --at Delhi's India Habitat Centre
last week.
more...

Looking Glass

Delhi and Mumbai: Adventure One Sport

Mumbai: Smooth Bar

Delhi: Good Earth Showroom

Polo, like many other events, is bringing about the resurgence of the almost forgotten royals. A chance, writes INDIA TODAY's Principal Correspondent Anshul Avijit, to say Maharaja again with an unctuous post-modernist gusto in Despatches.

"The only obvious competition is in bhangra," say the Pakistani duo of the music group, Strings, in conversation with INDIA TODAY's Sonia Faleiro in
Interviews.