-Oishee Bose What made people spend time braiding, oiling, winding, braiding again, knotting and adorning hair across centuries until whole guilds of specialists existed to do it for them? Hair reveals much about one’s age, lineage and care and unlike clothing, it cannot be changed by a single purchase. In South Asia, hair became a […]Read More
-Prachurya Ghosh There are objects in human history that refuse to stay silent. Long after the hands that touched them have turned to dust, these objects continue to gather stories around themselves whispers, warnings, justifications. Diamonds belong to this category, but black diamonds more than any other. They are not merely admired; they are suspected. […]Read More
-Aritra Biswas Roman Empire consisted of one of the largest civilizations ever in the world history. Rome was a small town founded in the heart of Italy but grew over the centuries to conquer most parts of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Its emergence was due to well organized military structure, good governance and […]Read More
-Aritra Biswas The position of Archangels is special and elevated in the religious tradition, as they represent the intervention of God, moral strength, and spiritual guidance. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, angels are viewed as messengers of God, although archangels are thought to have exceptionally great duties. The most revered and well-known among them are […]Read More
-Oishee Bose For centuries, Timbuktu has lived in the global imagination as a contradiction. On modern maps and in popular speech, it is invoked as a synonym for remoteness, a place at the edge of the world, distant from centres of power and thought. Yet the manuscript record left behind by its scholars tells a […]Read More
-Oishee Bose The popular Bengali lullaby, “Khoka ghumālo, pāṛā jūṛālo, Bargi elo deshe” sounds like an ordinary domestic verse. However, the lines carry a weight: a mother’s low voice folded over the image of a ruined harvest, vanished savings and a threat that arrives with the night. This lullaby is not merely a song to […]Read More
~ Debashri Mandal The name of Shiva isn’t unknown to the world. People from the various corners of the earth have known him for ages and generations, irrespective of their religious values and communal beliefs. Lord Shiva, known as Devo ke Dev: Mahadeva, means the God of the Gods in Hindu scriptures such as the […]Read More
-Oishee Bose For many observers in the mid-twentieth century, Japan presented a convincing image of social discipline: regimented schools, deferential workplaces, and a tightly policed public morality that valued conformity, hierarchy, and a narrowly circumscribed feminine ideal. That very culture of visible order and predictability makes the sukeban phenomenon all the more contradicting. From the […]Read More
-Aritra Biswas The post of INS V Kaundinya holds a unique position in the Indian Navy not only as it fulfills the role of its work but also as the name itself has a strong historical connotation. The vessel is a symbol of a rare intersection between the Indian traditional nautical culture and its modern […]Read More
-Oishee Bose Sources, memory and the problem of visibility In many conventional accounts of Indian history, Lachit Borphukan’s narrative lies on the margins not because of his lack of merit and accomplishment but due to how Indian historiography developed. Lying apart from the Indo-Gangetic political centre that dominated Mughal records and subsequent colonial historical writing, […]Read More