Tag: tipu sultan

Hyder Ali and the American Revolution

Uff, the efforts I made along with my colleague, playwright Vijay Padaki, to create a university student-involved creative project around the topic over the past few years but, alas, we got zero interest from students. Maybe it was us. Maybe we did a poor job of pitching it.

I then pitched it as an America 250 article to Smithsonian Magazine and got no response.

Now this fascinating history is in a terrific New Yorker story by Ishaan Tharoor. As a writer, you win some, you lose some. I’m just glad to see more Americans made aware of India’s connection to the American Revolution.

/

RRR is historically significant – and not because it smashed box office records

I’m grateful to have been offered an opportunity to write about the international Indian (Telugu-language) hit film RRR for Contingent Magazine, whose mission statement is “history is for everyone.” They purposely waited until 15th August (India time), India’s Independence Day, to publish the article as their lead story today.  What does RRR have to do with my Kolkata theatre research as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar?  You’ll see. And be sure to read those footnotes.

The article begins below:

Sure, George Washington was a good war strategist, but could he pick up a motorcycle by one wheel and swing it around in battle? Or how about if Martin Luther King Jr. had busted Malcolm X out of prison by carrying him on his shoulders and dodging gunfire while hopping across rooftops, and together they took out J. Edgar Hoover? These events could not, and never did happen, but would be pretty cool to see in a big-budget historical fantasy action flick.

Cont’d at https://contingentmagazine.org