Amitav Ghosh's Blog, page 23

Philip Hensher’s ‘Scenes from Early Life’

      I met Philip Hensher in 2008:   his novel, The Northern Clemency, was on the Booker Prize shortlist that year, as was my Sea of Poppies.               The Booker festivities are a bit like an Indian wedding: a giddy chukker of dressing up, eating and being [...]

Ludu U Sein Win and the School of ‘Feeling, Mood and Action’ in Yangon

    On Sunday June 17, the democracy movement in Myanmar lost one of its pillars, Ludu U Sein Wein.         Ludu U Sein Win was a writer, journalist, political activist and teacher. He ran a school that played a significant part in keeping the country’s intellectual and literary traditions alive through [...]

The ‘Red Mowlana’ and the Last Emperor of China: Part 6

    From Mao-Tse Tung-er Deshe (In ‘Mao Tse-tung’s Country’ by Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani), pp. 48-49   On May 1, 1962, Pu Yi married for the second time. Mrs Pu Yi is a nurse. Pu Yi receives a salary of 100 Yuan (almost 200 Rupees) and Mrs Pu Yi receives 50 Rupees. ‘My [...]

The ‘Red Mowlana’ and the Last Emperor of China: Part 5

    From Mao-Tse Tung-er Deshe (In ‘Mao Tse-tung’s Country’ by Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani), pp. 46-47   ‘But still I’ll tell you a few things about my life in those dark days,’ [said Pu Yi]. ‘When I was a ruler my movements were confined to the four walls of my palace. I had [...]

The ‘Red Mowlana’ and the Last Emperor of China: Part 4

  ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­   From Mao-Tse Tung-er Deshe (In ‘Mao Tse-tung’s Country’ by Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani), pp. 45-46   Pu Yi spoke of his days in the camp with intense feeling. In his voice there was not the faintest trace of disaffection or resentment. I said: ‘Pu Yi, you’ve told me about your days [...]

The ‘Red Mowlana’ and the Last Emperor of China: Part 3.

        ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ From Mao-Tse Tung-er Deshe (In Mao Tse-tung’s Country by Maulana Abdul Halim Khan Bhashani), pp. 44-45   ‘The veteran official then explained to us that the Communist Party would be generous with us and would give us every opportunity to examine and reform ourselves. The Party would not look too [...]

The ‘Red Mowlana’ and the Last Emperor of China: Part 2

      From Mao-Tse Tung-er Deshe (In Mao Tse-tung’s Country by Maulana Abdul Halim Khan Bhashani), pp. 43-44       I heard from Pu Yi’s own lips that the crown of China had been placed on his head when he was three years old and that he lost the throne three years later. [...]

The ‘Red Maulana’ and the Last Emperor of China: Part 1

    I met Layli Uddin in London, in the British Library. She is of Bangladeshi origin and grew up in England. She has an MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies from Oxford and has also studied at the London School of Economics and Harvard. She is now a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University [...]

Correspondence with a doctor

    Dear Amitavada, i don’t know whether this mail will reach you or not but i feel a tremendous desire to write to you.i am a specialist physician,working in princess royal univ hospital in london.recently i made a list of 30 books i hv loved in my life which included marquez,kafka,tagore,camus,jibananda das ,maurice materlink,tolstoy,dostoyevski,sukumar [...]

On Blogging:4 of 4

      For me the most direct aspect of the blog’s appeal is its hospitality to visual imagery. I am an inveterate snapshot-taker and have accumulated a large trove of pictures over the years. By no stretch would I call myself a ‘photographer’         – my pictures are at best competent [...]