The first image revealed by the Vera Rubin telescope shows the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae in the constellation Sagittarius 5,000 light years away. The stunning detail comes from its 3,600 megapixel camera
The W.B. Yeats statue by Rowan Gillespie in Sligo has Yeats's poems inscribed on it – over 150 "cuts" from his poems are imprinted in positive relief on the statue's surface. One notable inscription is "I made my song a coat"
Why do we advertise ourselves as “A group of readers of literature in English, poetry and fiction”? Is it because we wish to ignore other languages that flourish in India? Is it because our knowledge of other literatures is so slight that we dare not tread there?
Looking through the posts in our blog which have preserved a wealth of detail about our readings and discussions over the years, you will find poems and novels from all six continents – exhibited in English translation. It is not that we are ignorant of the riches in the original. You will find in the blog original translations of verse from languages like Urdu, Hindi, and Bengali. Readers have sung ghazals. There are even original translations from French and Spanish. We encourage readers to read in the original language, so long as a translation is provided into English for common enjoyment.
At KRG we have a great desire to know and appreciate the vessels that hold human culture, of which language, music, and art form an irreducible distillate. For us language is the primary vehicle through which we engage in that quest; finding pleasure in it, we sprinkle it from time to time with music and art.
Kamala Das - popularly known by her pseudonyms Madhavikutty and Ami. She is prominent in Indian literature for her poetry and short stories
There is a trend now among prominent politicians exuding an illiberal brand of ultra-nationalism to assert that Indians speaking in English will soon be cowering in shame. Presumably, reading is still okay, and if so, one cannot do better than point them to Kamala Das who wrote her short stories in Malayalam under the pen name Madhavikutty, and her poems in English under her own name. Here’s how she refuted critics of English in her poem titled Introduction:
… Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All mine, mine alone.
It is half English, halfIndian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don't
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware.