Polycoloniality

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Polycoloniality

Author : Saugata Bhaduri
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9389812569
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (898 download)

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Book Synopsis Polycoloniality by : Saugata Bhaduri

Download or read book Polycoloniality written by Saugata Bhaduri and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polycoloniality is a study of the activities of non-British European powers and players - primarily the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, the Danish, the 'Germans' (representatives of the Austrian and Prussian empires), the Swedish and the Greek - in Bengal from the late 13th to the early 19th century, and their role in shaping Bengal's brush with 'colonial modernity' prior to, and possibly more foundationally than, the English. Much of the traditional historiography of colonialism, in South Asia in general and Bengal in particular, and the resultant postcolonial commonsense, is woefully mononational, with the focus being almost exclusively on England and its colonial exploits. This is obviously factually incorrect and inadequate, with the multiple European nations named above having had simultaneous colonial contact with Bengal from the 16th century, and there having been a steady flow of Europeans, primarily Italians, to Bengal from at least the late 13th century. More importantly, it is these multiple European players, rather than the English, who can be credited with the setting up of the first cosmopolitan cities in Bengal, its first colleges and universities, the beginnings of print culture in Bengali, the foundations of the modern linguistic, literary and cultural registers of Bengal, the first instances of social and political reforms, etc. Apart from an elaboration of all the above, can Polycoloniality, or a re-look at Bengal's colonial history through the lens of plurality, also offer a template to understand the multinational forms of current new-imperialism more fittingly than postcolonial commonsense can?

Mapping the Postcolonial Domestic in the Works of Vargas Llosa and Mukundan

Author : Minu Susan Koshy
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1527563847
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (275 download)

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Book Synopsis Mapping the Postcolonial Domestic in the Works of Vargas Llosa and Mukundan by : Minu Susan Koshy

Download or read book Mapping the Postcolonial Domestic in the Works of Vargas Llosa and Mukundan written by Minu Susan Koshy and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-16 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is among the first works to engage with postcolonialism through the lens of the domestic in its totality, encompassing multifarious aspects such as domestic space, objects, family and servitude among others. The study foregrounds the inadequacy of Western theories on the domestic in explaining the postcolonial situation, and proposes alternate methods of analysing the ‘inner’ realm of colonial experience. Structured within the framework of comparative literary studies, the work serves to contribute to the tri-continental model of comparative literature, establishing mutually illuminating connections between the continents. The study provides scope for a widening of the epistemological base of critical inquiry, especially in the domains of postcolonialism, area studies and comparative literature. It explores new avenues in cross-cultural studies, contributing to the transnational diffusion of cultures and literatures, by focusing on what has been termed ‘minor’—the domestic and its rhythms in postcolonial cultures.

Globalization and Sense-Making Practices

Author : Simi Malhotra
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000953017
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Globalization and Sense-Making Practices by : Simi Malhotra

Download or read book Globalization and Sense-Making Practices written by Simi Malhotra and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-11 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a critical analysis of sense-making practices through an exploration of acoustic, creative, and artistic spaces. It studies how local cultures of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch are impacted by global discourses and media, such as television, popular music, digital media, and literature. The authors look at sense-making practices and spatial discourses through an interconnected discussion on thought and experience that seeks to present a multidimensional cartography of the global, the local, and the glocal, to closely analyze the phenomenon of globalization. The volume is an investigation of the possibilities of alternate, sustainable modes of being and existing in a world which requires a unified, ethical, biopolitical worldview that challenges the disparity of its fragments while speculating on their synesthetic conditionality. A unique contribution, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of English literature, media studies, cultural studies, literary cultures, post-colonial studies, globalization studies, philosophy, critical theory, sociology, and social anthropology.

Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible

Author : Mark G. Brett
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198883048
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible by : Mark G. Brett

Download or read book Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible written by Mark G. Brett and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-09 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Christian imagination of colonial discovery permeated the early modern world, but legal histories developed in very different ways depending on imperial jurisdictions. Indigenous Rights and the Legacies of the Bible: From Moses to Mabo explores the contradictions and ironies that emerged in the interactions between biblical warrants and colonial theories of Indigenous natural rights. The early debates in the Americas mutated in the British colonies with a range of different outcomes after the American Revolution, and tracking the history of biblical interpretation provides an illuminating pathway through these historical complexities. A ground-breaking legal judgment in the High Court of Australia, Mabo v. Queensland (1992), demonstrates the enduring legacies of debates over the previous five centuries. The case reveals that the Australian colonies are the only jurisdiction of the English common law tradition within which no treaties were made with the First Nations. Instead, there is a peculiar development of terra nullius ideology, which can be traced back to the historic influences of the book of Genesis in Puritan thought in the seventeenth century. Having identified both similarities and differences between various colonial arguments, and their overt dependence on early modern theological reasoning, Mark G. Brett examines the paradoxical permutations of imperial and anti-imperial motifs in the biblical texts themselves. Concepts of rights shifted over the centuries from theological to secular frameworks, and more recently, from anthropocentric assumptions to ecologically embedded concepts of Indigenous rights and responsibilities. Bearing in mind the differences between ancient and modern notions of indigeneity, a fresh understanding of this history proves timely as settler colonial states reflect on the implications of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). Brett's illuminating insights in this detailed study are particularly relevant for the four states which initially voted against the Declaration: the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

Indians in London

Author : Arup K. Chatterjee
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9354354092
Total Pages : 570 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (543 download)

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Book Synopsis Indians in London by : Arup K. Chatterjee

Download or read book Indians in London written by Arup K. Chatterjee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1600, Queen Elizabeth and London are made to believe that the East India Company will change England's fortunes forever. With William Shakespeare's death, the heart of Albion starts throbbing with four centuries of an extraordinary Indian settlement that Arup K. Chatterjee christens as Typogravia. In five acts that follow, we are taken past the churches destroyed by the fire of Pudding Lane; the late eighteenth-century curry houses in Mayfair and Marylebone; and the coming of Indian lascars, ayahs, delegates, students and lawyers in London. From the baptism of Peter Pope (in the year Shakespeare died) to the death of Catherine of Bengal; the chronicles of Joseph Emin, Abu Taleb and Mirza Ihtishamuddin to Sake Dean Mahomet's Hindoostane Coffee House; Gandhi's experiments in Holborn to the recovery of the lost manuscript of Tagore's Gitanjali in Baker Street; Jinnah's trysts with Shakespeare to Nehru's duels with destiny; Princess Sophia's defiance of the royalty to Anand establishing the Progressive Writers' Association in Soho; Aurobindo Ghose's Victorian idylls to Subhas Chandra Bose's interwar days; the four Indian politicians who sat at Westminster to the blood pacts for Pakistan; India in the shockwaves at Whitehall to India in the radiowaves at the BBC; the intrigues of India House and India League to hundreds of East Bengali restaurateurs seasoning curries and kebabs around Brick Lane... Indians in London is a scintillating adventure across the Thames, the Embankment, the Southwarks, Bloomsburys, Kensingtons, Piccadillys, Wembleys and Brick Lanes that saw a nation-a cultural, historical and literary revolution that redefined London over half a millennium of Indian migrations-reborn as independent India.

Modern Indian Literature as Cosmopolis

Author : Didier Coste
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1040130429
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (41 download)

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Book Synopsis Modern Indian Literature as Cosmopolis by : Didier Coste

Download or read book Modern Indian Literature as Cosmopolis written by Didier Coste and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-09 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book redefines modern Indian literature from a cosmopolitan comparative perspective inclusive of literature in English from India and the diaspora, in native languages, and works by non-Indians. It shows how, since the mid-19th century, Indian literary modernity pursued the conjunction of the sensuous and ethical/spiritual that characterized its three traditions (Sanskritik, Persian, and folk culture) while the encounter, both receptive and oppositional, with “the West” vastly expanded the Indian literary sphere. Aesthetics and ethics are not antithetical in the Indian cultural space, but the quest for an exclusive Indian identity versus universalist approaches offsets concerns for social justice as well as enjoyable embodied communication. The literary constellation, in many languages, now formed in and around India can be better apprehended as a virtual Cosmopolis, a commonwealth of elaborate emotions. The versatile figure of Hanuman metaphorically flies across this Ocean of Stories to make us discover new worlds of experience.

India and the Traveller

Author : Rita Banerjee
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9354355153
Total Pages : 356 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (543 download)

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Book Synopsis India and the Traveller by : Rita Banerjee

Download or read book India and the Traveller written by Rita Banerjee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-18 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: India and the Traveller: Aspects of Travelling Identity, a collection of essays on travel writings related to India, focuses on the evolving persona of travelers to India as well as Indians journeying to other lands or within India. It examines India as a space, reflected on and interrogated by others, as also people associated intrinsically with this space, who move in and out of it. The essays focus on the self-fashioning of the traveller - Buddhist pilgrims of Asia, European visitors to the Mughal court, the British colonizer, the Indian anthropologist, historian or whimsical civil servant, the wanderer seeking spiritual insight in nature, and the woman traveller with her distinct perceptions and sensitivities. Engaging with issues related to identity, this book explores the need for cultural accommodation by African and European travellers, the discovery of affinity by Asian travellers, the instability of postcolonial selves and travel as a means of negotiating complex problems of fashioning personae in literary works.

Adam’s Bridge

Author : Arup K. Chatterjee
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1003859127
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis Adam’s Bridge by : Arup K. Chatterjee

Download or read book Adam’s Bridge written by Arup K. Chatterjee and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-03-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adam’s Bridge offers the first comprehensive transdisciplinary study of the famous eponymous tombolo (also known as Ram Setu) combining its sacral, historical, geological, political, performative, and heritage aspects into one framework, viewed under the critical lenses of island studies and cultural theory. The book elucidates the entanglement of Adam’s Bridge’s discursive history with India’s colonial history, contemporary geology, domestic politics, and the nation’s emerging position in a complex geopolitical order in and around the Indian Ocean region, vis-à-vis increasing Sino-American involvement in Indo-Sri Lankan relations. Without foregrounding any absolute scientific claims on the location of the sandbars that inspired sage Valmiki’s Ram Setu and the Ramayan legacy or hindering narratives of religious faiths and folklore revolving around the structure, this intellectual historiography traces the parallel evolution of traditions of compassionate questioning and devotion for Indic sacred beliefs among commentators across the millennia from both Indian and non-Indian spectra, seen in juxtaposition with the biotic and abiotic diversity of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay. Looking beyond secular-versus-religious debates, this book will be of interest to scholars of ocean and island studies, coastal economies, archipelagic geographies, environmental history, heritage studies, colonial studies, and cultural theory. Adam’s Bridge unifies a consortium of themes, ranging across ecological and livelihood sustainability, environmentalism, soteriology, economic and geostrategic history, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in conceptualizing a compellingly nuanced chronicle for India’s enchanted ‘bridge.’

Transcultural Negotiations of Gender

Author : Saugata Bhaduri
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 813222437X
Total Pages : 223 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (322 download)

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Book Synopsis Transcultural Negotiations of Gender by : Saugata Bhaduri

Download or read book Transcultural Negotiations of Gender written by Saugata Bhaduri and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-18 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transcultural Negotiations of Gender probes into how gender is negotiated along the two axes of ‘belonging’ and ‘longing’– the twin desires of being located within a cultural milieu, while yearning for either what has passed by or what is yet to come. It also probes into the category of ‘transculturality’ itself, by examining how not only does it pertain to the coming together of cultures from diverse spatial locations, but how shifts over time and changing performative modes and technological means of articulation, within what may be presumed to be the same culture, can also lead to the ‘transcultural’. The volume comprises four sections. Part I, ‘(Be)longing in Time’, examines negotiation of gender through transcultural acts of myths, rituals and religious practices being revised and revisited over time. Part II, ‘(Be)longing in Space’, studies how gender is renegotiated when people from different spaces interact, as also when public spaces and domains themselves become sites of such negotiations. In Part III, ‘Performing (Be)longing’, such transcultural negotiations are located in the context of changing modes of performance, considering particularly that gender itself is performative. The final section, ‘Modernity, Technology and (Be)longing’, traces how gender becomes transculturally negotiated in a space like India, with the advent of modernity and its companion technology.

The Poet’s Song

Author : Priyanka Basu
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000960889
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis The Poet’s Song by : Priyanka Basu

Download or read book The Poet’s Song written by Priyanka Basu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-08-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the ‘folk’ performance genre of Kobigaan, a dialogic song-theatre form in which performers verse-duel, in contemporary West Bengal in India and Bangladesh. Thought to be a nearly extinct form, the book shows how the genre is still prevalent in the region. The author shows how like many other ‘folk’ practices in South and South-East Asia, the content and format of this genre has undergone vital changes thus raising questions of authenticity, patronage and cultural politics. She captures live performances of Kobigaan through ethnographies spread across borders — from village rituals to urban festivals, and from Bengali cinema to television and new media. While understanding Kobigaan from the practitioners’ points-of-view, this book also explores the crucial issues of gender, marginalization and representation that is true of any performance genre. Drawing on case studies, it underlines the issues of artistic agency, empowerment, cultural labour and heritage, ritual, authenticity, creative industries, media, gender, and identity politics. Part of the ‘South Asian History and Culture’ series, this book is a major intervention in South Asian folklore and performance studies. It also expands into the larger disciplines of literature, social and cultural movements in South Asia, ethnomusicology and the politics of performance.

Ocean as Method

Author : Dilip M Menon
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000575314
Total Pages : 110 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Ocean as Method by : Dilip M Menon

Download or read book Ocean as Method written by Dilip M Menon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-04-21 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ocean as Method presents a new way of thinking about the humanities and the social sciences. It explores maritime connections in social and humanistic research and puts forward an alternative to national histories and area studies. As global warming and rising sea levels ring alarm bells across the world, the chapters in the volume argue that it is time to think through oceans to realign discourses which better understand our future. The volume: • Engages with the paradigms of oceanic narratives to identify connections between continents through trade, migration, and economic processes, thinking beyond the artificial distinctions between the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans; • Discusses oceanic travel accounts by Muslim travellers to counter the idea that the colonial era was marked by European travel to Asia and Africa, without a counterflow of “native travel”; •Examines the connections between South Africa, South Asia, and South East Asia through histories of Indian indenture and the slave trade, and engages with the idea of the ocean and enforced movement; •Compares and connects recent scholarship in the social sciences and the humanities centring the ocean to break away from inherited paradigms which have shaped world history so far. As a unique transdisciplinary collaboration, this volume will be of much interest to scholars and researchers of history, especially oceanic history, historiography, critical theory, literature, geography, and Global South studies.

Polycoloniality

Author : Saugata Bhaduri
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9388271424
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (882 download)

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Book Synopsis Polycoloniality by : Saugata Bhaduri

Download or read book Polycoloniality written by Saugata Bhaduri and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-31 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polycoloniality is a study of the activities of non-British European powers and players - primarily the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, the Danish, the 'Germans' (representatives of the Austrian and Prussian empires), the Swedish and the Greek - in Bengal from the late 13th to the early 19th century, and their role in shaping Bengal's brush with 'colonial modernity' prior to, and possibly more foundationally than, the English. Much of the traditional historiography of colonialism, in South Asia in general and Bengal in particular, and the resultant postcolonial commonsense, is woefully mononational, with the focus being almost exclusively on England and its colonial exploits. This is obviously factually incorrect and inadequate, with the multiple European nations named above having had simultaneous colonial contact with Bengal from the 16th century, and there having been a steady flow of Europeans, primarily Italians, to Bengal from at least the late 13th century. More importantly, it is these multiple European players, rather than the English, who can be credited with the setting up of the first cosmopolitan cities in Bengal, its first colleges and universities, the beginnings of print culture in Bengali, the foundations of the modern linguistic, literary and cultural registers of Bengal, the first instances of social and political reforms, etc. Apart from an elaboration of all the above, can Polycoloniality, or a re-look at Bengal's colonial history through the lens of plurality, also offer a template to understand the multinational forms of current new-imperialism more fittingly than postcolonial commonsense can?

English Studies in India

Author : Banibrata Mahanta
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9811315256
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (113 download)

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Book Synopsis English Studies in India by : Banibrata Mahanta

Download or read book English Studies in India written by Banibrata Mahanta and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-11-03 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a collection of scholarly papers that explore the complex issues concerning English Studies in the present Indian context. The discussions in this volume range from historical perspectives to classroom-specific pedagogies, from sociological and political hierarchies to the dynamics of intellectual development in the English language environment. Interrogating both policy and practice pertaining to English Studies in the context of Indian society, culture, history, literature and governance, the chapters seek to formulate contemporary perspectives to these debates and envision alternative possibilities. Since the introduction of English to India more than 2 centuries ago, the language has transmuted the very fabric of Indian society, culture, history, literature and governance. The idea of India cannot be conceived in its entirety without taking into consideration the epistemological role that English has played in its formation. The present globalized world order has added dimensions to English Studies which are radically different from those of India’s colonial and postcolonial past. It is therefore imperative that the multitudinous shades and shadows of the discipline be re-examined with inputs drawn from the present context. This volume is for scholars and researchers of English literature and language studies, linguistics, and culture studies, and others interested in exploring new paradigms of engagement with the disciplinary formulation of English Studies in India.

The Good Life

Author : Jay McInerney
Publisher : Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 0307278395
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis The Good Life by : Jay McInerney

Download or read book The Good Life written by Jay McInerney and published by Random House Digital, Inc.. This book was released on 2007 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gensyn med nogle af personerne fra romanen "Brightness Falls" (1992), som nu 10 år efter oplever 9/11 på nærmeste hold, en begivenhed som ændrer deres liv for altid og får dem til at reflektere over tilværelsens virkelige værdier

Immigrant, Montana

Author : Amitava Kumar
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0525520767
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

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Book Synopsis Immigrant, Montana by : Amitava Kumar

Download or read book Immigrant, Montana written by Amitava Kumar and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-07-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK ONE OF THE NEW YORKER’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Carrying a single suitcase, Kailash arrives in post-Reagan America from India to attend graduate school. As he begins to settle into American existence, Kailash comes under the indelible influence of a charismatic professor, and also finds his life reshaped by a series of very different women with whom he recklessly falls in and out of love. Looking back on the formative period of his youth, Kailash’s wry, vivid perception of the world he is in, but never quite of, unfurls in a brilliant melding of anecdote and annotation, picture and text. Building a case for himself, both as a good man in spite of his flaws and as an American in defiance of his place of birth, Kailash weaves a story that is at its core an incandescent investigation of love—despite, beyond, and across dividing lines.

Translating Power

Author : Saugata Bhaduri
Publisher : Katha
ISBN 13 : 9788189934248
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (342 download)

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Book Synopsis Translating Power by : Saugata Bhaduri

Download or read book Translating Power written by Saugata Bhaduri and published by Katha. This book was released on 2008 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Translation of short stories from Indic langauges.

The Great Indian Railways

Author : Arup K. Chatterjee
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9388414233
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (884 download)

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Book Synopsis The Great Indian Railways by : Arup K. Chatterjee

Download or read book The Great Indian Railways written by Arup K. Chatterjee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-25 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following an experimental railway track at Chintadripet, in 1835, the battle for India's first railroad was fought bitterly between John Chapman's Great Indian Peninsular Railway and Rowland MacDonald Stephenson's East India Railway Company, which was merged with Dwarkanauth Tagore's Great Western of Bengal Railway. Even at the height of the Mutiny of 1857, Bahadur Shah Zafar promised Indian owned railway tracks for native merchants if Badshahi rule was restored in Delhi. From Jules Verne to Rudyard Kipling to Mark Twain to Rabindranath Tagore to Nirad C. Chaudhuri to R.K. Narayan and Ruskin Bond-the aura of Indian trains and railway stations have enchanted many writers and poets. With iconic cinematography from The Apu Trilogy, Aradhana, Sonar Kella, Sholay, Gandhi, Dil Se, Parineeta, Barfi, Gangs of Wasseypur, and numerous others, Indian cinema has paved the way for mythical railroads in the national psyche. The Great Indian Railways takes us on a historic adventure through many junctions of India's hidden railway legends, for the first time in a book replete with anecdotes from imperial politics, European and Indian accounts, the battlefronts of the Indian nationalist movement, Indian cinema, songs, advertisements, and much more, in an ever-expanding cultural biography of the Great Indian Railways. Dubbed as 'one of a kind' this awe-inspiring saga is 'compulsive reading.' 'In this fascinating cultural history, Arup K Chatterjee charts the extraordinary journey of the Indian Railways, from the laying of the very first sleeper to the first post-Independence bogey. It evokes our collective accumulation of those innumerable memories of platform chai and rail-gaadi stories, bringing alive through myriad voices and tales the biography of one of India's defining public institutions.' – Shashi Tharoor, Author, M.P., Lok Sabha 'The Great Indian Railways is a fascinating and well-researched cultural biography of the Indian Railways-those intricate arteries of the soul of India, as have been experienced, written, filmed, and dreamed. We cannot all travel by rail to know India, as Gandhiji did, but we can and should read this book!' – Tabish Khair, Author, Professor