When the author's mother passes away, he had no way to share all the pent up emotions, inside of him. The loss he had suffered, years of time spent with the person he loved so dearly and long years of his pedagogical upbringing comes together in this amalgamation of life, experiences, emotions through a weirdly quirky pedagogical point of view.

The story revolves around the reminiscences of Katyayani Krishnan, an NRI girl from Singapore, who comes to IIM Kolkata on a student exchange program. She is born to a Bengali mother and a Tamil Iyer father. A sarcastic interactive session with two IIM officials needles her to start questioning her identity. Furthermore, when her maternal grandfather introduces her to the norms of a patriarchal society, she reminisces about several incidents where her parents pedantically make her understand that she is a cultural blend and unique. Her cathartic journey continues when she meets her gamophobic cousin, Thia. A series of conversations makes Katyayani to reveal the nitty-gritties of an intercultural family, her learning process to speak a multitude of languages, how God provided her a channel to start eating non-vegetarian food, and most importantly her fun-filled journey amidst the behavioral and cultural differences between her bloodlines. The story continues with her past chequered love life with a Bengali cultural bigot, Sudhanshu, marking an attendance in her present. Amidst the god-fearing family members, Katyayani reveals her open relationship with God and her concept of spirituality to Thia. Even after knowing the minutiae of her life when Thia still questions her identity, she finds her mind free from befuddlement. She defines the true meaning of culture to Thia, she declares her accomplishments as her virtue and she redefines her identity as an outcome of true love and a cultural blend. This book is an effort to bring about the monumental change in humanity to grow and survive as homo sapiens and not to cling on to a particular language or culture to define ourselves.

The 1977 blockbuster Amar Akbar Anthony about the heroics of three Bombay brothers separated in childhood became a classic of Hindi cinema and a touchstone of Indian popular culture. Beyond its comedy and camp is a potent vision of social harmony, but one that invites critique, as the authors show.

‘Divya writes of difficult times with candour and heart-rending simplicity’ Shabana Azmi Capturing the beauty of a mother–daughter relationship, Divya Dutta in this moving memoir celebrates her mother’s struggles to turn her into the woman she is today. Divya walks us through the most intimate memories of her life, those that strengthened her relationship with her mother. The incredible bond she forged with her mother helped her through tragedies and difficulties, discouragements and failures and led her to become an award-winning actor of stature, both in the Hindi as well as the Punjabi film industry. Me and Ma is a celebration of Divya’s exemplary achievements. It is also an honest, intimate and heartfelt tribute to the force behind her success—her mother.

This book critically engages with the study of theatre and performance in colonial India, and relates it with colonial (and postcolonial) discussions on experience, freedom, institution-building, modernity, nation/subject not only as concepts but also as philosophical queries. It opens up with the discourse around ‘Indian theatre’ that was started by the orientalists in the late 18th century, and which continued till much later. The study specifically focuses on the two major urban centres of colonial India: Bombay and Calcutta of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It discusses different cultural practices in colonial India, including the initiation of ‘Indian theatre’ practices, which resulted in many forms of colonial-native ‘theatre’ by the 19th century; the challenges to this dominant discourse from the ‘swadeshi jatra’ (national jatra/theatre) in Bengal, which drew upon earlier folk and religious traditions and was used as a tool by the nationalist movement; and the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) that functioned from Bombay around the 1940s, which focused on the creation of one national subject – that of the ‘Indian’. The author contextualizes the relevance of the concept of ‘Indian theatre’ in today’s political atmosphere. She also critically analyses the post-Independence Drama Seminar organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1956 and its relevance to the subsequent organization of ‘Indian theatre’. Many theatre personalities who emerged as faces of smaller theatre committees were part of the seminar which envisioned a national cultural body. This book is an important contribution to the field and is of interest to researchers and students of cultural studies, especially Theatre and Performance Studies, and South Asian Studies.

The first book-length study to provide a detailed examination of a distinctive crossroads in the history of the left