Category: History
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Here is yet another little known segment of India's 20th – 21st century colonial and post colonial history. The emigration of a tiny Indian community from Kerala that began more than two decades before the India-Pakistan divide has now acquired a new trajectory due to the recent political developments in the Indian subcontinent The tiny Malayali community in Karachi has shrunk over the years. Those who remain wait in vain for…
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Elatia explains: The Warburg Method teaches us that devotional art is not only not always beautiful, but rarely beautiful — because it is deeply coded and the untutored eye doesn't always get it. Is not intended to get it. This is true across civilizations, not just true in the Western painting tradition. As the blogger…
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Believe it or not there is a blog devoted entirely to this unusual subject. The comments accompanying the images may be on the juvenile side but the paintings are real. More than a decade ago, my sister and I suffered from paroxysms of hysterical laughter in front of a Biblical painting containing an incongruously mature looking Baby Jesus in Mary's…
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A pleasant blast from the past for some WWII veterans. The story in the Houston Chronicle. The postcard arrived in Ed Denzler's mailbox in Pearland last month, a mystery from his past nestled among the routine bills and coupons. Addressed in neat block letters to Denzler, the handwritten note reads, in English: "It takes a strong man…
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A forthcoming expedition to Everest aiming to establish what exactly happened is just the latest in a series of attempts to solve the puzzle. But despite the continued speculation, many of those with a stake in the mystery hope it will never be resolved, fearing the prosaic truth could never match the legend.
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As a child growing up after India's partition, Kashmir to me was always a part of India. Only in middle school did I begin to realize that it was considered "disputed territory" by much of the world, the sentiment being especially fierce in neighboring Pakistan. The map of India that we studied in school showed Indian Kashmir as a larger territory than what was actually under Indian…
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The remembrance would have been uncomplicated and even calming if we could just recall and mourn the horrific events of the tragic Tuesday exactly ten years ago. But as we well know, the aftermath of the terror that struck at the heart of our collective psyche did not stop at righteous anger, sorrow, reflection, or a thoughtful response to the mindless violence that was wreaked upon thousands of innocent citizens,…
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Watch this narrated photo essay of the People and Towers of the World Trade Center. It’s beautitful. It’s triumphal. It’s heart wrenching. It’s horrible. It’s sad. It’s reaffirming. It’s rebuilding.
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Shangri La commonly evokes images of easy utopia that don't quite describe the barren and rocky desert like character of Ladakh and the hardscrabble life of its cheerful inhabitants. Nevertheless, the awesomeness of its rugged terrain is breathtakingly beautiful and amidst the solitude and thin air, peace prevails. The amazing sky, the eerie silence on the high mountains and the shock of stumbling upon a green valley beside a…
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