Video | “Santali language and the music are the two important life lines for the existence of the Santal tribe in the modern world”: Gai Gupi Kada Gupi (The story behind the song) by Boro Baski

By Boro Baski The first ten years of my childhood were the golden time of my life. Those were my herding days where I used to tend the cows and goats in the fields, in the nearby jungle and by the river side with the girls and boys of my village. Those were the days, … Read more

Future in the making – Kanavu Kerala Culture Club

‘Kanavu’ means ‘dream‘. It is exactly a dream, an initiative of the alternative educational vision of K. J. Baby and his like-minded friends. The inception of the idea can be traced back to Maveli Manatram (1991), Baby‘s novel that was honoured on many stages including the Kerala Sahithya Academi Award of 1994. ‘Mantram’ is ‘tribe‘; … Read more

Video & free eBook | India’s first female comic book superhero challenges misleading information: “Masked Indian comic superhero fights Covid-19 fear”

In Priya’s Mask, due to be launched on 2 December, the comic crusader joins hands with Jiya, the “Burka Avenger”, a popular character from a Pakistani cartoon show, as the two go about trying to tackle the pandemic – and also the “infodemic”, a major proliferation in fake news surrounding the coronavirus. With more than … Read more

Interview on the award winning documentary “Have You Seen The Arana?”: A sojourn that takes you through the crests, troughs and flats of Wayanad – Kerala

Though Ningal Aranaye Kando has a bleak premise, filmmaker Sunanda Bhat injects it with the lightness of everyday occurrences, simple slice-of-life moments and hope for the future, finds Catherine Rhea Roy. […] It is a woman’s disquiet over the disappearance of medicinal plants from the forest, a farmer’s commitment to traditional methods of farming and … Read more

Is “brick house” the only sign of development? – West Bengal

Dr. Boro Baski; translated from Bengali to English by Asha BaskiOriginally published in Anandabazar Patrika (India’s most widely read Bengali daily) I was born in a Santal village in Birbhun District. In my childhood I saw how my mother cleaned the courtyard every morning with cow-dung mixed with black charcoal and water, and how she … Read more