Lonely boy and his scribbles

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Andaman, Bose and the Bloody Blunder: Why all that could've been, shouldn't be

For Indians of today, the history of Andaman and Nicobar islands usually spring up as an aching and relevant memory for very particular reasons. The notorious cellular jails of Kalapani operated by the British and the atrocities and controversial political developments associated with them are not mere footnotes in Indian history. They reverberate to this day in nationalist politics and propoganda. However, what's often looked over is the fact that the Andamanese people too, whether the natives or the descendants of the settlers from the colonial period, had stories to tell. Stories of oppression, liberation, manipulation and collective trauma. Interestingly, that story cannot be solely narrated through the usual critiques of British imperialism. This time, we shall look eastward, and witness the consequences of the blazing sun rising in the Andaman Sea. The year was 1942, a momentous period that saw the epitome of Axis aggression in both the Pacific and Atlantic fronts. The seco...

Dragons in Malabar: The Story of a Ming Protectorate in Kerala

Cheena vala (Chinese nets), Cheena chatti (Chinese wok), Cheena bharani (Chinese pots), Cheeni mulaku (Green chillies)... The handshakes between the Keralites and the Chinese have a history spanning no less than two thousand years. A bustling trade hub even during the Sangam period, the Malabar coast used to boast about some of the important Sea ports on the ancient and mediaeval world maps. However, although a truly cosmopolitan series of coastal trade pockets in the beginning, the split and eventual weakening of the Roman Empire would cause these locations to be under the influence of only two major groups. The Chinese and the Arabs. This shift in character transformed the chaotic bustling of Kollam , Kozhikode (Calicut) and Kochi (Cochin) into an economic AND political theatre of trade wars, well into the period of the European reemergence. And bustle they did. From horses and spices to silk, jewellery, precious stones and even exotic animals, there was barely anyt...

One Enticing Flute: The Unspoken Dimensions of Krishna Worship in Ancient India

Unlike the cosmic, aniconic beginnings of many Hindu deities whose origins are obscured by layers of mythology, Krishna, particularly as Vasudeva Krsna, stands out as perhaps the only major Hindu deity whose worship can be historically traced in identifiable, datable stages. His early connections to the Vrsni lineage, his gradual transformation from hero to deity, his adoption into a sectarian Bhakti cult, and finally his integration into the Vaishnava cosmological system offer us a rare, layered view of religious evolution within the subcontinent. In other words, Krsna, like many other subjects of apotheosis, is not merely legendary. He is partly historical, cultic, and political. A figure who inspired coinage, architecture, and cross-cultural diplomacy. Therefore, the rise of the Vrsni-Krsna cult from its tribal roots through its post-Mauryan efflorescence and eventual absorption into pan-Indian religious ideology must be analysed with an emphasis placed on archaeological, num...

History Hijacked: The Original Sin of Presupposition

Bodhidharma; Yoshitoshi, 1887 "As we move, the story travels. But if you misunderstand a story for history, then that’s pathetic." - R. Balakrishnan, Indologist There is something profoundly human about wanting our stories to be real. Not just meaningful or metaphorical. Real. As in datable, documentable, diggable-from-the-earth real. Somewhere along the line, meaning ceased to be enough. Somewhere, we began to look at myth, the shimmering, breathing soul of every civilization, and say: “Prove it.” This demand, this quiet, almost innocent insistence, is where presupposition of historicity begins. Not with dogma, but with longing. I have seen it in the eyes of those who mean no harm. An Indian Christian, young and devout, beams as they point to the Book of Kings, convinced that the phrase “distant lands of gold” must be India, the forgotten land of Ophir. Not because archaeology says so. Not because it changes doctrine. But because the need to be included eclipses the cauti...

The Tragic Gilgamesh of China: Qin Shi Huangdi and the Question of Death

What should I do, and where should I go? A thief has taken hold of my flesh! For there in my bed‑chamber Death does abide, and wherever I turn, there too will be Death. — Gilgamesh, Tablet XI Men have always had but one death. For some it is as weighty as Mount Tai. For others as light as a goose‑feather. The difference lies in what they make of it. — Sima Qian, Shiji Long before the Hebrew Bible thundered its warnings of divine wrath, before the Matsya heralded a new Yuga, before Athens wrote its tragedies or Confucius laid down rites, there stood Gilgamesh — part man, part god, and fully mortal. The Epic of Gilgamesh is not simply the oldest surviving written story in human history, it is the oldest surviving confession. It is a king’s admission that all his power, cruelty, beauty, and conquest are nothing before the slow certainty of death . Gilgamesh begins as a tyrant of Uruk (Sumeria), a man who built walls high enough to insult the sky,...