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French has been a South Asian language since the 17th century, when agents of the French East India Company and French travellers arrived in India.
Priya Sarukkai Chabria’s 'Sing of Life' reinterprets a classic through an innovative poetic apparatus.
The inaugural edition of the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial Prize celebrated the power of poetry Poets are good actors,/ Good actors as they say are fresh,/ They are elses to the part they play/ So I play out this frowning poet’s role/ And you look at me tenderly. — from Entr’acte by Deepankar Khiwani Deepankar Khiwani died at the age of 47 on March 28 last year. A fortnight before his death, Khiwani had shared his latest poems, where he describes art as “a dark condemned space with the door unlocked”, with Arundhathi Subramaniam. “I shall revisit those finely-wrought last poems, r...
A Poet Interprets an Interpreter's Diary This weekend's 'Verse Affairs' is a review of Arjun Rajendran's new collection of poetry, that takes off from a meticulously kept 18th century diary. Ananda Ranga Pillai, the 18th century interpreter. Photo: Public domain In a diary entry on November 30, 1745, Ananda Ranga Pillai notes: “This day, there was an event worthy of record. In the village⦠a church has been constructed by Kanakaraya Mudali⦠In honour of this, he invited, without distinction, all the Brahmans, Vellazhas, Komuttis, Chettis, goldsmiths, weavers, oil-mongers, and p...
*** Dated 1748 and set in the French colony of Pondicherry, Arjun Rajendran writes about the second hanging of a convict in the titular poem of his latest collection, One man: Two executions. When the noose breaks during the unfortunate incident, the priest orders the executioner to disregard this holy sign and hang the man whom divinity had spared. Such and many other incidences of bizarre nature are to be found in the Pondicherry of Rajendran’s musings, conjured against the backdrop of a province embroiled in the Carnatic wars. The Private Diaries of Ananda Ranga Pillai which chronicle t...