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What is Mahabharata? – The Underlying Philosophy of the Great Indian Epic
There are many ways to answer the question — what is Mahabharata? This is often the case with ancient epics, as there are several ways to interpret them. Mahabharata, being the longest of them all (it is ten times Iliad and Odyssey put together), tells the tale of a political struggle between two groups of…
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What is Mahabharata? The Underlying Philosophy of the Great Indian Epic
There are many ways to answer the question — what is Mahabharata? This is often the case with ancient epics, as there are several ways to interpret them. Mahabharata, being the longest of them all (it is ten times Iliad and Odyssey put together), tells the tale of a political struggle between two groups of…
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The Underrated Poetry of Tolkien
We remember JRR Tolkien for his Magnum opus The Lord of the Rings. We remember him through hobbits, elfs, dwarfs, orcs, trolls, wizards and dragons and… Gollum. But seldom do we talk about his poems and songs. The lyricism in his writings is quite extraordinary and must be appreciated. Which is why I have picked…
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What Schools Don’t Teach Us
It’s easy to complain about what schools don’t teach us. After all there are infinite things to learn, and a school — whether we like it or not — can only focus on a handful of them. Still, we can talk about some of the key ingredients of education which schools either leave out or…
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The Story of Indian Muslims Part 4: The Two-Nation Theory and Its Consequences
The fate of Indian Muslims was sealed in 1947 when, based on two-nation theory, they got divided in two countries: India and Pakistan, which later became three, adding Bangladesh to the list. It had come at the cost of bloody civil riots in which hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered and millions were left…
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Indian Mystic Poets and Their Poetry
India is known for its mysticism. Throughout ages, Indian mystic poets have created surreal poetry, taking us into the spiritual realm and treating us with their music and words. For instance, this is what Jim Corbett wrote in his book The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag: In India, where there are no passports or identity discs,…
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The Story of Indian Muslims Part 3: Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb
Indian history is coloured with endless stories of Hindu-Muslim conflicts, as we have seen in previous episodes. However, somewhere in the middle of it, there was a time and place when the two groups intermingled and created a culture which is known as Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb today. According to K. Warikoo, Professor at the Centre for…
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The Story of Indian Muslims: Part 2
Note: To read the first part of The Story of Indian Muslims, click here. The decline of the Mughal state provided “one of the strong boosts” to strengthening the hold of orthodoxy and hastening the pace of Islamisation. Muslim divines widely attributed the loss of Kingdom to religious and communal laxity and pressed for a…
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