Explore categories
-
A Food History of Calcutta
Calcutta was a city certainly befitting royalty during its tenure as the capital of British India from 1772 to 1911. Law and order were excellent and the city was at the heart of a thriving economy. Migrants from other parts of the country and from foreign lands came to the city. Expatriate communities, including Armenians… Read more
-
Reading the History of South India
South India. What does the term remind you of? The food? The culture? The ancient architecture? Or simply the better part of India? Although no political realm named South India ever existed, a cultural, geographical and geopolitical space of that description has been there in common parlance. In fact, it was long recognised in history… Read more
-
What Happened to Prophet Muhammad on Mount Hira?
Perhaps it could only have happened when he was forty, given the auspiciousness of that number throughout the Middle East. For the Beduin, for instance, it is a healing number — one that saves life. A common cure-all is called al-arabin, the forty, a blend of herbs in olive oil and clarified butter. Traditional healers… Read more
-
Mark Twain Explains the Humorous Story
What’s a humorous story? In the same way, you might ask, what’s a comic story? Or a witty story? Are they any different? Mark Twain, the great American writer, threw some light on it when he wrote an essay titled How to Tell a Story. The humorous story is AMERICAN, the comic story is ENGLISH,… Read more
-
Women in Ottoman Empire
How did the women in Ottoman empire look like? What did they do? When we ask these questions we are essentially talking about the medieval period in Turkey when the Islamic empire flourished. It’s interesting to note that while women in Prophet Muhammad’s time in Arabia played a key role in religious as well as… Read more
-
Mao Zedong and China’s Cultural Revolution
China’s Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, would not have occurred if Mao Zedong had died before 1966. Mao planned it, launched it and had a greater hand in directing it than anyone else. In Mao’s view, China’s Cultural Revolution lasted from 1966 to 1969, when the changes it had brought… Read more
