Rakhshanda Jalil's blog from IBNLive.com http://ibnlive.in.com/index.html Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:46:31 +0530 IBNLive.com IBNLive.com en-us http://ibnlive.in.com/pix/common/ibnlogo.jpg http://ibnlive.in.com/index.html Feed provided by IBNLive. http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64533/the-legacy-of-shamshad-begum.html There was a time in the history of Hindi cinema when the singer was the song, when the persona of the singer did not exist; the listener heard and was editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:42:26 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64466/nadeem-aslams-the-blind-mans-garden.html Every now and then you read a book that surprises you by its combination of contraries. No matter how rich a lode of raw material a writer may have struck, editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:26:34 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64421/khudgarifta-poems-of-selfconfinement.html Zehra Nigah, the pre-eminent poet today, once made a very interesting observation in the course of a conversation during one of her frequent Delhi visits. She pointed out for me editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 19 Mar 2013 02:33:57 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64381/international-womens-day-subcontinents-women-writers-in-english.html Published in 1895, Saguna is said to be the first autobiographical novel in English written by an Indian woman; its author was Krupabai Satthianadhan (1862-1894), the daughter of a first editor@ibnlive.com Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:54:32 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64368/book-review-of-flame-the-inspiring-life-of-my-mother-shahnaz-husain.html Engaged at 14, married at 16, mother to a little girl at 17, Shahnaz Husain's life is an inspiration to those who passionately want to turn adversity into success. Losing editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:45:55 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64324/a-review-of-saba-naqvis-in-good-faith.html While much work has been done on exploring and exposing communalism in India, relatively little attempt has been made to understand its conjoined twin, secularism. Is it because communal forces editor@ibnlive.com Wed, 13 Feb 2013 05:54:41 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64255/eidemiladunnabi-when-poetry-meets-piety.html By the late 11th century veneration of the Prophet had begun to assume a visible form in different parts of the by-now burgeoning Islamic world. Celebrations of maulid, the day editor@ibnlive.com Fri, 25 Jan 2013 01:38:26 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64231/khushwant-singhs-freethinkers-prayer-book-a-review.html I must begin this review with a confession: I am an unabashed admirer of Khushwant Singh. I have known him for years and enjoyed many a delightful evening in his editor@ibnlive.com Wed, 16 Jan 2013 01:02:54 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64207/the-bad-girl-of-urdu-literature-dr-rashid-jahan.html Rashid Jahan was a woman of many parts: a brilliant and hardworking doctor, a dedicated member of the Communist Party, a committed political organizer, a founder-member of the Progressive Writers' editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 08 Jan 2013 12:19:13 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64151/main-chalta-phirta-bumbai-hoon-manto-and-mumbai.html Saadat Hasan Manto went to Bombay (as Mumbai was then called) in search of work sometime in 1936, landing a job as editor of a weekly called 'Mussavvir'. The glamour editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:55:57 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64115/huma-kidwai-elegy-to-a-vanished-world.html Not since Attia Hosain have we had a chronicler of Muslim life in English. There was Anita Desai's 'In Custody' and Shama Futehally's delicately nuanced 'Tara Lane', but such depictions editor@ibnlive.com Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:25:36 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64082/symbols-of-a-composite-culture-prof-gopichand-narang-and-urdu.html A recent recipient of the Moortidevi Award given by the Bharatiya Jnanpith as well as the Sitara-e-Imtiaz given by the Government of Pakistan, Prof Gopichand Narang is no stranger to editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:13:50 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64060/i-am-a-guest-of-allah.html I am a guest of Allah - one of three million people who have gathered in the Baitullah, or the Home of Allah in Mecca. I am one of the editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 12 Nov 2012 01:49:26 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64025/echoes-of-a-living-past.html Legend has it that sometime in the 10th century, shiploads of Zoroastrians, fleeing persecution in their native Iran, landed on the coast of Saurashtra in Western India. They met the editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 30 Oct 2012 04:26:59 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/64004/in-memorium-hajira-masroor.html A long time ago, there was a Muslim middle class in India. With one or both parents educated and the father employed in government service, the daughters of such homes editor@ibnlive.com Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:49:50 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63966/ah-ambursar.html Once there were wells of fresh sweet water. The scent of wildflowers wafted from the fields and meadows that ringed the city. Plentiful fish were found in its crystal clear editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 08 Oct 2012 01:01:42 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63944/the-writer-as-voyeur.html Some writers have the spirit of a voyeur. Perhaps none exemplified it better than Graham Greene, the British novelist, playwright and critic, who delighted in his lifelong role of the editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 01 Oct 2012 05:32:25 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63925/cooking-in-the-age-of-homogenisation.html In a world of falling standards, nothing has been worse hit than good ol' fashioned home-style cooking in Muslim homes across Upper India. I was struck by the full import editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 24 Sep 2012 05:26:27 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63887/taiwan-an-idea-that-works.html There is the Taiwan of popular imagination: an economic giant despite its tiny size, an Asian Tiger revelling in its formidable clout, an export-driven economy churning out cheap commodities ranging editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 10 Sep 2012 01:32:46 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63849/kuldip-nayar-beyond-the-lines.html Kuldip Nayar is the grand old man of Indian journalism. His is the classical post-1947 Indian Success Story. He arrived in India, having travelled from his home in Sialkot across editor@ibnlive.com Wed, 29 Aug 2012 12:16:11 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63825/eid-the-sighting-of-the-moon.html I cannot imagine Eid without the nervous anticipation of the previous night. Nor the beginning of Ramazan without the nail-biting tension of not knowing. Does one fast the next day, editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 21 Aug 2012 12:11:27 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63770/the-bad-mad-world-of-ibne-safi.html I remember my father having a stack of dog-eared Jasoosi Duniya novels on his bedside table; he was a doctor. Several other older relatives too spoke of their addiction to editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 07 Aug 2012 12:24:17 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63750/on-the-compulsions-of-being-gloria-steinem.html 'If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?' --Gloria Steinem Gloria Steinem, feminist writer and editor, is a most uncommon woman. An untiring activist for women's editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 31 Jul 2012 05:45:04 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63724/fasting-feasting-foods-for-the-faithful.html The holy month of Ramzan is a period of fasting and prayer, charity and piety, retreat and abstinence. Lasting one lunar month (roughly 29 or 30 days), it culminates with editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 24 Jul 2012 09:59:45 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63694/jashnekhusrau-and-urban-renewal-at-basti-nizamuddin.html In a rare example of a fruitful public-private partnership, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) in collaboration with the Archaeological Survey of India, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the editor@ibnlive.com Sat, 14 Jul 2012 11:09:55 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63669/all-ye-who-sleep-tonight-remember.html As I walk into my mother's home, I am assailed by the wonderfully nutty aroma of semolina (sooji) being roasted on a slow fire. She is busy stirring the contents editor@ibnlive.com Thu, 05 Jul 2012 01:44:20 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63664/once-upon-a-time-there-used-to-be-a-monsoon-season.html Once upon a time, till not very long ago, we used to have the Monsoons. Now, barring coastal areas, in most cities across Upper India, we have the Rains. The editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 02 Jul 2012 03:27:59 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63649/beautiful-country-stories-from-another-country.html Syeda Hameed brings a rare quality to the Indian bureaucracy - a humanity tinged with scholarship. Having worked on the selected writings of Maulana Azad, translated IsmatChughtai, been a lifelong editor@ibnlive.com Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:46:22 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63618/with-mehdi-hassan-there-were-no-false-notes.html Ahmad Faraz, the Urdu poet, told me an interesting anecdote. Once, he was very late in catching his flight back home from Delhi. The airport staff, on the verge of editor@ibnlive.com Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:03:24 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63602/literary-voyeurism-in-the-writings-of-ismat-and-manto.html The two enfant terribles of Urdu literature - Ismat Chughtai and Saadat Hasan Manto - delighted in being provocative, outrageous, even blasphemous; both were tried for obscenity. This year, as editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 11 Jun 2012 01:53:30 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63583/kohsamui-far-from-the-madding-crowd.html Rattling around the world on your own has its own charms but it cannot match the joys of a family holiday, especially an extended vacation taken, perforce, in the summer editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 04 Jun 2012 04:16:31 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63549/forgotten-foods-memories-of-summers-past.html April is a cruel month, said T S Eliot. It mixes memory with desire. For those of us living in Upper India, it is an especially cruel month for it editor@ibnlive.com Mon, 28 May 2012 03:57:31 +0530 http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/rakhshandajalil/3279/63530/javed-akhtar-talking-cinema-songs-and-the-state-of-urdu.html The Hindi film industry and its sorority of regional-language sister industries in the sub-continent has elevated the song-and-dance sequence to a rare art form. Inspired partly by turn-of the-century stage editor@ibnlive.com Wed, 23 May 2012 11:03:47 +0530