nilanjana s roy

Month: July 2012

  • Shiny new website…

    …over at nilanjanaroy.com. It is Kolynos Kleen, Kolynos Bright, Kolynos Super Sparkling White: go visit. Thank you 🙂

  • The Wildings: Excerpt

    From the blurb: In the labyrinthine alleys and ruins of Nizamuddin, an old neighbourhood in Delhi, lives a small band of cats. Miao, the clan elder, a wise, grave Siamese; Katar, loved by his followers and feared by his enemies; Hulo, the great warrior tom; Beraal, the beautiful queen, swift and deadly when challenged; Southpaw,…

  • Timeline of censorship

    Poster by Sanjay Sipahimalani Timeline of book bans/ challenges and censorship in the arts in India An indicative list of key bans and challenges in India since Independence, with an emphasis on writers and literature. This timeline will be updated as information becomes available, and is a work-in-progress. 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s…

  • Blogs, chai, gupshup

    (From Edward Lear’s poems) Blogs and random conversations: The Kitabkhana Archives Run by Hurree Babu (I stole him from Kim, assuming Kipling wouldn’t mind one cunning Bengalee borrowing from another), Kitabkhana was a first-generation literary blog. It ran for several years, until the Babu’s dhoti was (metaphorically speaking) pulled off and he was formally outed,…

  • Gender: Selected columns

    Selected columns: 2004: The twilight gender (The Kolkata Telegraph) “Because the state doesn’t recognise the existence of a third gender—there is no box marked ‘other’ next to the ones marked ‘male’ and ‘female’—to be a eunuch is to be less than human. Members of the third sex cannot vote, cannot legally marry, cannot adopt children…

  • English Vegetables, Desi Steak

    Galangal and lemon grass were piled up in hillocks. The mushrooms were fresh and came in four varieties-white, dried dhingri, dried shiitake and dried, slightly dubious porcini. “Madam,” said my old faithful vegetable seller, “aur bhi fresh-fresh aaye hain, English vegetables.” I came back with the usual urban load of fancy ghaas-phoos: borkoli, snaw piss,…

  • Welcome!

    The Wildings, published by the Aleph Book Company.

  • Sangam House residencies: last date July 31

    The applications for the Sangam House Residencies for 2012/ 2013 are online. The last date to apply is July 31. I spent two weeks at their Tranquebar residency last year. It was a beautiful place, and we were lucky enough to have huge rooms at Neemrana’s Bungalow-on-the-Beach. I wrote all day, and went for long,…

  • Anthologies Etc

    Flipkart page: Civil Lines 6: New Writing From India Infibeam page: A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Writing On Food (limited copies available) Children’s stories: Scholastic page: Bewitched: Stories of Witches and Wizards Scholastic page: 7: Science Fiction Stories

  • Delhi: Literary Map

    (This was commissioned by Raghu Karnad for Time Out Delhi, and created by Akila Seshayee, who patiently accommodated a growing list of quotes. The great Dilli novel may remain elusive, but the city has always been home to all kinds of writers. Nayantara Sahgal mapped Lutyens’ Delhi just after Independence. Ghalib watched the kite-fliers and…