-Oishee Bose If you turn up at Tiretta Bazar early, you feel like you’ve stumbled into somebody’s memory. Steam climbs from aluminium steamers, a vendor nudges a bamboo basket across a wooden stall, a little kid tugs an elder toward a stall that smells of pork buns and moong dal, and the city’s different tongues […]Read More
-Prachurya Ghosh Introduction: A Woman Who Defied Her Age In the story of late eighteenth-century India, one would indeed be remiss not to mention the extraordinary life and contributions of Begum Samru, a woman who defied almost every social, political and gendered norm of her time. Rising from extreme poverty to become one of the […]Read More
-Prachurya Ghosh Introduction: A Forgotten Woman of Empire Susanna Anna Maria occupies a distinctive yet largely forgotten position in the social history of colonial India. Known historically as Begum Johnson of Calcutta, she belonged to the early generation of Eurasian Christian women who emerged in eighteenth-century Bengal, at a time when colonial society was still […]Read More
-Prachurya Ghosh Print culture refers to the complex system through which written texts are produced, circulated, consumed, and interpreted within society. It includes not only books and newspapers but also pamphlets, posters, journals, advertisements, and all other forms of printed material. The history of print culture is therefore not simply a technological story about the […]Read More
~ Debashri Mandal In 1872, British surveyor Alexander Cunningham uncovered a small clay seal at the ruins of Harappa. It showed a deeply incised bull (no hump) facing right, and above it six short symbols that he could not recognize as any known Indian script. “They are certainly not Indian letters,” Cunningham wrote – he […]Read More
-Oishee Bose How did a rough Siberian peasant gain the trust of a mourning empress and grow into a man whose words could influence who entered and left governmental institutions? The answer is not in a lone theatrical moment or a secret plan. It rests in a gradual collection of fear, confidence, belief, speculation, and […]Read More
-Aritra Biswas According to Hindu philosophy the Shivling (Shiva Linga) is one of the oldest and most sacred symbols where Lord Shiva, the supreme power of destruction, transformation and regeneration resides. Even further than a mere physical object, the Shivling represents the all-embracing cosmic energy that is the source of creation, and into which it […]Read More
-Prachurya Ghosh Introduction: Time as a Colonial Inheritance When people think about British influence on India, they usually imagine railways, English education, legal systems, or political institutions. Very few think about holidays. Festivals feel ancient, emotional, and rooted in religion or tradition. Diwali, Eid, Durga Puja, Pongal, Baisakhi—these seem untouched by colonial rule. Yet one […]Read More
-Prachurya Ghosh The World That Never Imagined Her Razia Sultan was born around 1205 CE into a political system that had no conceptual space for her future. The Delhi Sultanate was still in its infancy, barely three decades old, and already marked by instability, violence, and elite rivalry. Unlike ancient Indian monarchies rooted in myth […]Read More
-Oishee Bose A Woman Made Dangerous: Crime, Gender, and Survival in Colonial Calcutta The usual narrative point to Jack the Ripper as the world’s earliest and most infamous serial killer. A careful look at colonial records and detective memoirs shows that at least seven years before the London murders, a woman in Calcutta named Troilokyo […]Read More