Böcker av Shanta Gokhale

'You cannot catch a city in words. You cannot catch a city at all,' write the editorsof this anthology. So how do you get the spirit of India's great metropolis, theMaya Nagari, the city of dreams, between the covers of a book? Shanta Gokhaleand Jerry Pinto decide to bring together their favourite short stories about thecity they call home, and hope that a narrative will emerge. And it does-a rich,varied, vibrant portrait of the republic that goes by many names-Bombay,Mumbai, Momoi, Bambai and many others.In the twenty-one stories of this collection, there is the city that labours in themills and streets, and the city that sips and nibbles in five-star lounges; the cityof Ganapati and Haji Malang and the Virgin Mary; the city that is a sea of peopleand speaks at least a dozen languages. There are stories translated from Marathi,Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, and stories written originallyin English. Among the writers are legends and new voices-Baburao Bagul,Ismat Chughtai, Pu La Deshpande, Urmila Pawar, Mohan Rakesh,Saadat Hasan Manto, Ambai, Jayant Kaikini, Bhupen Khakhar, CyrusMistry, Vilas Sarang, Tejaswini Apte-Rahm and Anuradha Kumar.Maya Nagari is a majestic book on a majestic city. It will be read and cherished foryears.

Two plays exploring the dark side of power and the human cost of injustice.   What is the fate of justice when morality is subservient to power? What happens when people in power lose their moral compass, and truth becomes a casualty? This volume brings together two recent plays by eminent Indian theater personality Shanta Gokhale that address these burning questions. Maili Chadar; or, The Stained Shawl: A Tragedy in Four Acts traces the regression of the protagonist from the idealism of his youth to the cynicism of a man who has but one goal in life-power at all costs. Along the way, he develops a megalomanic sense of destiny for which he is willing to lose all that he has ever loved, in the process becoming an exemplar of the proverbial worm in the apple called democracy. In Truth and Justice: Four Monologues, women from different places and times speak of what men in power have done to them in the name of their hatred for the other-from the Dreyfus affair that rocked France in the nineteenth century to the deadly communal riots in Gujarat and the Sri Lankan Civil War in the early twenty-first century.

One of the finest and most unusual autobiographies written in contemporary India.In this unusual, extraordinary autobiography, Shanta Gokhale-writer, translator and one of India's most illuminating cultural commentators-traces the arc of her life over eight decades through the progress of her body, as it grows, matures and begins to wind down. Starting with her birth in 1939-in philosophic silence, till the doctor's slap on her bottom made her bawl-she recounts her childhood, youth and middle and old age in chapters built around the many elements and processes of the physical self: tonsils and adenoids, breasts and misaligned teeth; childbirth and fluctuating weight, cancer and bunions. And through these memories emerge others, less visible but just as defining: a carefree childhood growing up in a progressive Marathi household in Mumbai's Shivaji Park; the pleasures, in adolescence, of badminton, Kathak and hairdressing; the warmth of friends and an almost love in cold England; finding and losing a mate-twice-and bringing up her children as a single parent; the great thrill of her first translation from Marathi into English; nursing her mother, dying of cancer, as she would a baby; surviving cancer herself, and writing her second novel through the recovery.Told with effortless humour and candour, One Foot on the Ground is the story of a life full of happiness, heartbreak, wonder and acceptance. It will rank among the finest personal histories written in India.

A collection of writings by an incandescent and gloriously eclectic intellectual of contemporary India.For over four decades, Shanta Gokhale has entertained, informed and challenged us with her insightful, witty and forthright writing in both English and Marathi. With rare objectivity and consistency, Gokhale has tried to decode our unique social etiquette while subtly exposing our hypocrisies, and celebrated tradition-defying women while forcefully criticizing the patriarchal and misogynistic structures of society. Her essays on theatre not only illustrate its evolution in India, but also provide arresting portraits of theatre personalities such as Satyadev Dubey, Vijay Tendulkar and Veenapani Chawla. And her detailed yet accessible articles on Indian classical music are a delight to read.In her short stories, she shapeshifts effortlessly from old men to teenage boys and college students. And finally, her two takes on Shakespeare show us how the Bard's ideas continue to remain relevant and, more importantly, how little attention he paid to his women characters.Candid, intense and often humorous, The Engaged Observer is also an invaluable record of the social, political and cultural changes that have taken place in Bombay, Mumbai and beyond.