Audiobook review: The Past As Present by Romila Thapar
At first glance, a book on Indian historiography might not seem easily accessible to a general audience.
Yet, Thapar’s prose is lucid, and her tone remains conversational without losing its scholarly authority. Thapar connects arguments about the past to our present quite beautifully.
Audiobook review: My Broken Language by Quiara Alegría Hudes
This One Book book choice and its companions like the others before it reflect the diversity of this city. But it also shows how limited the resources truly are.
The Hadley brings vintage vibe to Park Towne Place
The first thing you notice about The Hadley restaurant is its vintage vibe. From the wood paneling that floats up the wall to meet tiered chandeliers to the heavy, cristal d’arques drink tumblers, every detail communicates mid-century design.
Review: Upstarts
Tell me if you’ve seen this movie before…. There are these 3 college friends. When the movie opens, your first thought is, “Arre, yaar, these guys are idiots.” Then you see the girl. Because there is always a girl, isn’t there? Naturally, things don’t go well, the lovers are thwarted, and the friends end up standing at a train station that’s supposed to be in UP, but strongly resembles a Mumbai local station. All before the opening credits. That’s when you realize that you’ve guessed the wrong movie name. This movie is Netflix India’s latest release Upstarts.
6 things I learned in 6 days at the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at Penn
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my two years in Philly, it’s the Power of Penn. Inclusion. Innovation. Impact. These three words underline Penn’s commitment to the community through collaboration and creativity. For 25 years, The Netter Center for Community Partnerships has lived this mission by “building a movement for democracy and social change.” That movement includes the Center’s Nonprofit Institute under the direction of Associate Director Isabel Sampson-Mapp.
Remembering and relearning at the American Civil War Museum in Richmond
“We didn’t wait for stuff to happen to us. But that story is rarely told. And so, for me, that’s an amazing story of men and women and children who seized their moment out of nothing.” — Christy Coleman, CEO American Civil War Museum
Overdoing it: Moving
I was born in Philly. For the first five years of my life, I lived just off Rising Sun Avenue. That changed when my parents loaded the three of us into a U-Haul and drove us nearly eight hours away to Akron, Ohio. Little did I realize at age five that I would move more […]
Reading Rupi: Translating English across cultures
Reading Indian writing in English represents an act of translation every time I read. Yes, even when the book is written in English, every book represents a journey through and across culture. It might seem strange to hear a native English speaker say that I read English in translation, but I do. Given the idiomatic […]
Shreya’s dream
The journey from Sikkim in the far north to Karnataka in the south isn’t just long; it’s arduous, entailing multiple long-haul trains. Such a journey would be difficult for a girl so young. I knew that. What I didn’t know is how to ask what I could not ask without asking.
Where do you belong to?: Homecoming and belonging in The Better Man
There she was, at the back of the shop, leaning against VS Naipaul. She’d travelled so far from her native place to reach mine. That we should meet here in my hometown just as I was trying to decide where to settle felt like more than kismet or fate. It felt like my own homecoming. […]