How do tourist guides explain (away) the erotic sculptures of Khajuraho to inquisitive visitors?

An excerpt from ‘The Sacred and the Profane: Experiencing Khajuraho’, by Trisha Gupta, from ‘Where the Gods Dwell: Thirteen Temples and their (Hi)stories’.

Trisha Gupta

· Nov 30, 2021 · 08:30 am

Anuja Chauhan’s new novel may be a whodunnit, but its people are its pleasure, as usual

In ‘Club You To Death’, the popular writer with a perfect ear for conversation uses crime as a vehicle to portray the ‘beautiful people’ of Delhi society.

Trisha Gupta

· Apr 10, 2021 · 05:30 pm

What would human history look like if told through our relationships with animals?

Simon Barnes’s ‘The History of the World in 100 Animals’ is a unique way of looking back – and around.

Trisha Gupta

· Feb 20, 2021 · 12:30 pm

This study of archaeologist MN Deshpande’s work highlights the integrity and zeal of a true scholar

MN Deshpande was someone whose respect for the past was supreme.

Trisha Gupta

· Feb 07, 2021 · 12:30 pm

This novel self-reflexively explores how a Kashmiri Pandit crafts the narrative of his life and loss

In ‘A Bit of Everything’, author Sandeep Raina travels with questions of memories and victimhood.

Trisha Gupta

· Jan 30, 2021 · 08:30 am

What the burqa and the bindi (and the hijab) stand for in our books, and in our current lives

‘Among the fascinating ways in which women have chosen to express cross-community solidarities these last few months is the interlacing of burqas and bindis.’

Trisha Gupta

· Mar 28, 2020 · 08:30 am

Poomani’s ‘Heat’ is a vivid novel concerned with the central difference between law and justice

Much of this Tamil novel, now in an English translation, unfolds in flashback. Read backwards, it might even be seen as a revenge saga.

Trisha Gupta

· Jun 22, 2019 · 07:30 am

With his new novel ‘Jasmine Days’, Benyamin once again skilfully presents fiction as fact

The Malayalam author’s new novel is told in the voice of a young Pakistani woman in an unnamed Middle Eastern country.

Trisha Gupta

· Sep 08, 2018 · 12:30 pm

Upamanyu Chatterjee’s new novel is a minimalist study of revenge (and features Agastya Sen’s father)

A tightly woven story goes much deeper and wider than the slimness of the novel would suggest.

Trisha Gupta

· Aug 04, 2018 · 07:00 am

From English to Kannada to Kannada to English: Tejaswini Niranjana’s mirrored path to translation

An interview with a polyglot cultural theorist on the practice of translation.

Trisha Gupta

· Jun 17, 2018 · 05:45 pm

Meet the American who translates some of India’s finest Hindi writers into English

‘I was tired of translating detailed descriptions of male desire and women’s breasts.’

Trisha Gupta

· May 13, 2018 · 08:30 am

Kannada writer Jayant Kaikini’s evocative stories are infused with the body and soul of Mumbai

Set in Mumbai, and translated into English, this is an insightful, illuminating, and powerful collection.

Trisha Gupta

· Mar 25, 2018 · 08:30 am