flâneur

Neelabh Srivastava

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on the atlas — 3

highlights — 9

  • “To the writer, the painter is a fortunate alter ego, an embodiment of the sensuality and exteriority that he has abjured to pursue his invisible, odorless calling.”
    Amitava Kumar: Why Don’t Books for Adults Use Pictures? - The Atlantic
  • create a dialogue with images that resist rather than surrender to easy interpretation.
    Amitava Kumar: Why Don’t Books for Adults Use Pictures? - The Atlantic
  • Visual art has the powerful ability to complicate truth without obscuring it.
    Amitava Kumar: Why Don’t Books for Adults Use Pictures? - The Atlantic
  • Death provided a normalizing context for everything that was being done. No act appeared outlandish because it had a place in the tradition, each Sanskrit verse carrying an intonation of centuries of practice. And if there was any doubt about the efficacy of sacred rituals, everywhere around us banal homilies were being offered to make death appear less strange or devastating. The bhajan that had been playing on the loudspeaker all afternoon was in praise of fire. Death, you think you have defeated us, but we sing the song of burning firewood. Even though it was tuneless, and even tasteless, t…
    Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine
  • Ramanujan was making a point about the discipline of anthropology, about the ironies of our self-discoveries in the mirror of Western knowledge, but the story tugs at the immigrant’s dread that distance will prevent his fulfilment of filial duty.
    Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine
  • In my notebook that night I noted that my contribution to the funeral had been limited to lighting my mother’s funeral pyre. In more ways than one, the rituals of death had reminded me that I was an outsider. There were five hundred people at the shraadh dinner. I only knew a few of them. I wouldn’t have known how to make arrangements for the food or the priests. Likewise for the shamiana, the community hall where the dinner was held, the notice in the newspapers about the shraadh, even the chairs on which the visitors sat.
    Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine
  • As I listened to my sister, I understood that even in the midst of profound grief it was necessary to find comfort. One needed solace. It was possible to hold despair at bay by imagining broken bangles and the destiny that my mother had escaped. I would have found the sight of my mother’s bare arms unbearable.
    Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine
  • Having touched Ma’s body, I also felt I should wash my hands.
    Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine
  • Grief makes you a stranger to yourself and I was struck by this person that I saw pierced with loss. I was taking notes so that I could remember who I was in those days following my mother’s death.
    Pyre | Amitava Kumar | Granta Magazine