THE INDIAN COMMENTATOR

The Commentator says;   If you read teachers, I mean, not the profession or system of teaching, but the individual human being who performs the roles of the teacher, you'll find it very awkward and boring. They are just as human as any other person sitting next to them in the local bus or train. The game changes when they are brought within a classroom environment. Like a piranha in a tropical lake, they suddenly attain an unprecedented ferocity, both in their dealing with students as well as any other realm of intellectual activity. Perhaps the only form understanding of cognitive psychology is that which deals with students or in general, the learner. What about the teacher? The commentator wonders if there exists a branch of psychology that deals with the teacher and his mind. Investigating the faculty hideouts, places innocently termed as faculty rooms, one may locate the fact that many of the ferocious piranhas in classrooms are actually silent guinea pigs. Like all...

The Commentator says; The Dance of Durga is a novel with its plot set in India. Its appeal, though, is universal. The present body of Indian English Literature is mostly set in urban centers. This trend has set in motion a new feel to the Indian English literature, a new set of vocabulary too. The Dance of Durga is different in that this novel overcomes the obsession of the writers in India writing in English to downplay Indian-ness for a sweeping monolithic urban aesthetics. Kanika Dhillon has a voice that takes readers to the villages of Northern India, a voice that is captivating. Although the chapters in this book move chronologically, the story moves with seasons. The Commentator felt imbued with the spirit of the summer and the chill of monsoon through the pages of this book. The Commentator has recently been under a literary fervor to read and explore whatever that is ‘Indian’ that has appeared in stories over the years. And two writers have bonded with the Commentat...