Under The Sun
Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t the only Indian who inspired the world with his experiments in alternative lifestyles. Rabindranath Tagore inspired Leonard Elmhurst, the son of an English clergyman and his American wife Dorothy, one of the world’s richest women, to buy an estate in Devon for an experiment similar to that in Santiniketan. Now, to mark the poet-philosopher’s 150th birth anniversary, their Dartington Estate is holding its own Tagore Festival next month. The seven-day festival will feature 100 performances and recitals of Tagore’s works by speakers, artists and performers from the UK, US and India.
Table Art
Vikram Seth’s fascination with calligraphy is well-known. He had a charming tale to tell about the maulvi who teaches him Persian calligraphy. Vikram invited his devout Persian teacher and his wife to his estate in England, cooking them one of his famous meals. He’d taken care, of course, not to serve pork or ham, but what he forgot was to ensure the meat was halal. The dinner would have been ruined except for the exquisite courtesy of the maulvi’s wife, who proceeded to eat the non-halal meat as if she’d been eating it all her life. Vikram was so bowled over by her grace, one wouldn’t be surprised if she is immortalised in his writings.
Across a Stockade
In case you were wondering why it’s been quiet on the books front for the last week, it’s not just cricket fever. March-end is when publishers stop work for their annual stock-taking. Come April, bookshops start looking alive again, as fresh stocks come in.
