LATEST FROM YODA PRESS

The Clash of Chronologies shows the crucial value of the ancient period of Indian history for understanding India's deep history, through studies of theories of time and history, patterns of kinship and marriage, relations of languages and nations, legacies of Orientalists and Orientalism.

 

This unusual yet engrossing volume is an exploration of how three English writers - Edward Carpenter, E. M. Forster and Christopher Isherwood - who shared a similar sexuality, sought in Hindu spirituality one way of achieving personal autonomy and fulfillment. Tackling the themes of the guru-disciple relationship, their quarrel with Christianity, relationships with their mothers and the problematic feminine, the tensions between sexuality and the attraction of Hindu mysticism, this fascinating work follows the three writers on their intriguing personal quest.

ISBN: 978-81-906668-2-4
Extent: c.336pp.
Price: c.Rs350
Binding: Paperback
Size: Royal
For sale only in South Asia

 

Sunil Gupta stands at the forefront of that creative ‘migrant’ generation which first exploded on the visual art scene in the 1980s. Pictures from Here and There is a memoir in photos by this important photographer of Indian origin for whom home is where he finds himself at a given moment. In this thought-provoking work, the personal becomes political without guile or inhibition as the photographer explores contentious terrain such as sexuality, gender and racism. His courageous engagement with the issues which have shaped his experience and practice has given decisive shape to the contemporary debate about difference.

 

These vivid and compelling portraits reveal the lives of eleven ordinary Indians utterly different in class, occupation, language, and regional identity yet sharing the same hopes, fears, and life-challenges common to us all. The volume challenges the crude, monolithic stereotypes of Islam so often heard today. It is a timely and much-needed contribution.
Richard M. Eaton, Professor of History at University of Arizona, Tucsona.

In this captivating new volume, 13 anthropologists present a set of vivid portraits of Muslims in India today. Each of the contributors has had a long-term research interest in Muslim societies in India, but in these essays they profile one single individual whom they have met in the course of their research and whose story they found compelling. The subjects of this volume live in different parts of India, like Bhuj, the mountains of Kashmir, Hyderabad, Androth Island, and Lucknow, they speak different languages, eat different foods, are engaged in various kinds of work, but are all Muslim. Zooming in on individuals who have normally stood cheek-by-jowl with hundreds of others in a large canvas, these portraits focus attention on them in a separate frame, revealing their stories, predicaments, and realities, the aspirations they nurture and the impediments they overcome to attempt to achieve these. In doing so, they highlight the sheer diversity which lies hidden under the seemingly homogeneous category of the Indian Muslim, and shatter stereotypes. Intimately told and stripped of jargon, yet nuanced and incisive, this is a valuable addition to the corpus of books on the Muslim community in contemporary India.

Mukulika Banerjee is Reader in Social Anthropology, University College London. She is the author of The Pathan Unarmed (2000) and The Sari (2003; co-authored with Daniel Miller).

 

This anthology of Indian Writing in French, brings together texts from Pondicherry, Karaikal and Mahe, the erstwhile French territories in India. It also includes writings from Goa, a former Portuguese colony, where French was widely used in literary circles. Some of the writers whose texts appear in the anthology are Toru Dutt, Sri Aurobindo, M. Mukundan, Paulino Dias, Léon Saint Jean and so on.

Vijaya Rao is Associate Professor at the Centre for French & Francophone Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she teaches French and Francophone literature.

Extent: c.200pp.
Price: c.Rs225
Binding: Paperback
Size: Demy Octavo
For sale only in South Asia

 

For all those who grew up in seventies and eighties middle-class India, Amar Chitra Katha, or ACK as it was popularly referred to among friends, was an important influence if not an iconic cultural artefact. Published at a time when ACK appears to be on the verge of a second lease of life, this compelling new book draws our attention to the stimulating and troubling potentials of Amar Chitra Katha as a force in modern Indian history. Based on a reading of visual practices and the complicated art history informing the comics, the book delves into core issues of communalism, history writing and the ways in which middle-class India negotiates the consumption of products of popular culture to suit its ideological moorings.

During her research the author found that the creators of ACK amalgamated both local art traditions as well as a realist aesthetic borrowed from the calendar art-derivative style of Ravi Varma to produce an evocative yet sober style, appropriate for a largely middle-class, child audience. This was supposedly distant from the “vulgar” Hindi film posters, yet in practice it was completely immersed in the techniques of larger-than-life hyper-representation characteristic of the commercial Hindi film aesthetic. This technique succeeded in furnishing the reader with a visual imaginary of a mythological Hindu past that could at once blend into a real historical continuum, stretching from the ancient past to modern India, rendering myth historical and history mythological.

A provocative and cleverly argued monograph, this book is a must-read not only for scholars and students of modern Indian history, contemporary culture and politics, but also for everyone who grew up with, loved or hated Amar Chitra Katha.

Nandini Chandra teaches English at Hansraj College, New Delhi.

 

In January 2004, the Tourism Ministry of the Government of India announced its plan of developing a 100-acre strip of land on the banks of the river Yamuna into a riverside promenade with parks and fountains which would be marketed as major tourist attractions. At the time this plan was unveiled, the riverbank and bed along this stretch was occupied by the Yamuna Pushta ‘jhuggi-jhonpdi’ colony, a string of settlements home to around 35,000 working class families - more than 150,000 people – some of whom had lived here for over three decades. In February and April 2004, homes and community buildings along the banks of the Yamuna were razed to the ground in several 24-hour long operations. Having followed the events leading up to the so-called ‘voluntary’ demolitions which exploded into intense protests and forceful and violent suppression by the authorities, the authors of this present volume decided to expand the scope of their research and undertake a comprehensive household survey to map the situation on the ground in one of the relocation sites, Bawana, with respect to the commitments made in key policy documents. In carrying out the household survey, they chose women as their primary interlocutors since they are ideally situated to unravel and expose the interconnections and synergy between patriarchy and other systems of domination and inequality.

A critical exposé of a travesty in the name of urban development, Swept off the Map raises uncomfortable questions about the collective responsibility of authorities and all citizens in ensuring that uprooted communities such as the one from Pushta live with dignity in the face of the repeated assaults on their identities, homes, rights and lives.