70,000 copies of 'Heart Lamp' reprinted in 2 months, says Deepa Bhasthi
Bhasthi said that permission has been given to translate the work into Malayalam, Assamese and Oriya languages and requests from other languages have been coming in too.
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Deccan Herald
4 hours ago
- Deccan Herald
70,000 copies of 'Heart Lamp' reprinted in 2 months, says Deepa Bhasthi
Bhasthi said that permission has been given to translate the work into Malayalam, Assamese and Oriya languages and requests from other languages have been coming in too.
Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
A Stitch Across Centuries To Sail Across The Sands Of Time
The Goa-made stitched ship, Kaundinya, inducted by the Navy refutes the colonial claim that Europeans taught the world to sail. The vessel demonstrates how India built seaworthy ships thousands of years ago. A 15-member Navy crew is expected to take the motorless vessel to Muscat, following age-old trading routes In one quiet corner of Goa's Divar island, chisels ring out like ritual gongs. The thick scent of fish oil hangs in the air — acrid and unmistakable — seeping into skin, cloth, and memory. Woodchips carpet the floor, mingling with the discarded strands of coir rope, and somewhere in the din, the low murmur of Malayalam swirls between bursts of drilling and the slap of waves beating against timber. In the middle of it all, Babu Sankaran works quietly. His hands, callused by decades of labour, move out of muscle memory — steady, precise, unhurried. He crouches low, chipping away at a wooden pulley he has carved earlier with his hands. Sankaran wears what looks like the same overalls he had for years — frayed at the edges. Once a deep blue, it is bleached by sweat and sun into something paler. Navy's antique armour On May 21, when the yacht was commissioned and inducted into the Indian Navy, Sankaran stood on the pier to take in the INSV Kaundinya. The 20-metre wooden yacht is stitched together like a suit of wooden armour, lashed with coconut husk rope soaked in fish oil and tree sap called kundroos. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like A stress-relief game that everyone around me is playing Elvenar - Play on Browser Learn More Undo There are no nails. No bolts. Just knowledge passed from father to son, from generation to generation, now mostly forgotten. But now, that legacy will sail from the brink of oblivion to the centre of the international seafaring spotlight. The ship has no modern trappings, no creature comforts, and certainly no engine. After all, this is no ordinary ship. It is the result of a 'completely crazy project' dreamed up by a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Sanjeev Sanyal. He was inspired by the painting of a 5th-century vessel painted onto the ancient rock walls of the Ajanta caves. Shipwrights and artisans use the 'I-X' pattern to stitch the planks together, similar to the cross-stitch technique in embroidery, where the 'I' represents a straight stitch and the 'X' represents a cross stitch India, a Sailing Guru A 15-member Navy crew will command the vessel — not with modern motors but under full cotton sails, aided only by winds and trailing oars, as it was done centuries ago. 'When we really attempt to sail it, we will have to really relearn the art of sailing the square, trailing oar, flexible hull ship, something that no living being knows how to do,' Sanyal said. 'This ship is a unique piece of equipment that we have not sailed before.' Indeed, the tradition defies time. Indian sailors have known for millennia how to read the monsoons and how to shape a hull that could rise with the tide and bend with the waves without breaking. 'We must challenge the narrative that Europeans taught the world to sail and travel,' said naval historian Commodore Srikant Kesnur (retd). 'This endeavour could be seen as the revival of cultural memories of India's maritime past. When the crew of this ship sails to various ports and nations, it will arouse curiosity and interest in the name of the ship, the unique form of the ship, and its link with civilisations of the past. ' Ancient ingenuity unsinkable 'This project is a resurrection of the past, a past that for the last 1,000 years was forgotten. It lived etched on coins, on paintings in caves… that ends now. We have India's own stitched ship,' said Prathmesh Dandekar, the managing director at Hodi Innovations, a shipyard at Divar. The Indian Navy and the Union ministry of culture jumped on board and roped in Hodi Innovations to turn the dream into a floating, ocean-going objective: retrace the maritime legacy of ancient Indian seafarers. 'If you see today, we don't have any written information about these kinds of boats. And unfortunately, we have not found any shipwrecks,' Dandekar said. 'So, the whole idea for us is to sail this ship on those ancient trade routes to showcase that back in the day, India could build seaworthy ships and was a big maritime power.' This vessel is expected to sail from Mandvi in Gujarat to Muscat in Oman, following the age-old trading routes that once ferried spices, ivory, cotton, and ideas across the Arabian Sea. Babu Sankaran, master craftsman of stitched ships, has been working on wooden ships for 45 years Rich travel history The art of stitching, with a rope and hands, kept the hull flexible — able to absorb the ocean's fury without splintering. In the ancient days, it allowed Indian ships to reach Arabia, East Africa, and Southeast Asia. That knowledge now rests in a handful of men like Sankaran — 61 years old, invisible in a crowd, his eyes trained to squint against the sun. 'At the age of 16, I went to Oman to work. I've been working on wooden ships for the past 45 years,' Sankaran said. 'There are others in my hometown of Vadakara in Calicut, but we are the last of this generation. This could well be the last ship I have stitched.' He runs his hand along the INSV Kaundinya as it lies moored at the Karwar naval base. Every knot is an act of remembrance of ancient techniques. Every pull of the coir rope is a tug — not just towards the ocean, but towards the past. Sankaran will soon fly to Abu Dhabi to work on another wooden dhow. 'They don't want a stitched ship. They will use nails,' he said. The INSV Kaundinya's voyage may be months away. But the journey has begun to reclaim old knowledge and to again value labour done by hand. The skill, once orally passed from father to son along the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, is now documented for posterity.
The Hindu
2 days ago
- The Hindu
Malayalam writer Benyamin: Our scriptures have a lot to tell us
'All religious scriptures have something to say.' Author Benyamin, who won the JCB Prize for Literature in 2018 for his book, Jasmine Days, adds that this is what inspired him to write the The Second Book of Prophets, translated by Ministhy S and published by Simon and Schuster. The original, Pravachakanmarude Randaam Pusthakam (Malayalam) was published in 2007. The book delves into the 1940s-50s discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls (a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts discovered in 11 caves near the ruins of Qumran, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea) and the Nag Hammadi Library (a collection of over 50 early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered in Upper Egypt near the town of Nag Hammadi in 1945). Born into Christianity, Benny Daniel from Pathanamthitta, Kerala, grew up reading the Bible. 'When you read it as a religious text, you don't notice the characters or attempt to understand them. But, when one reads it as an academic text, you notice them, maybe think of their back stories,' he says. 'Bearing in mind that the Bible has been interpreted in several ways, with this reinterpretation, I hope, the reader is able to find new meaning and understanding of the scripture,' says Benyamin, a former NRI (non-residential Indian) or a pravasi as he likes to call himself. Growing up in a fairly conservative Christian household, he was expected to go to church every Sunday and pray every day. Nonetheless, Benyamin always viewed the religious text with an objective eye. 'The more you read, the stronger your base; the different themes and layers within the scriptures have a lot to tell,' he says. His 2008 Malayalam-language novel Aadujeevitham, was published by Green Books Private Limited, Thrissur. The book won him recognition in the form of bagging the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for novel in 2009. It was translated into English and German in 2012, and later to Arabic in 2014. In 2024, it was adapted into a Malayalam-language biographical survival drama film, titled The Goat Life, directed, and co-produced by Blessy. Still basking in the success the film, Benyamin says it is simply awe-inspiring to be recognised by readers across regions. If, in the Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis humanises Christ by showcasing his tryst with various temptations. Benyamin, goes a step further and paints Christ as a revolutionary in The Second Book of Prophets, as someone who stands up to autocracy and class divide. 'Bearing in mind that the Bible has been interpreted in several ways, with this reinterpretation, I hope, the reader is able to find new meaning and understanding of the scripture,' says Benyamin. The incidental writer A mechanical engineer Benyamin Daniel, began his writing journey in 2000, with the publication of a collection of short stories. Benyamin is an incidental writer. His words — whether in Nishabda Sancharangal (Silent Journeys) or Jasmine Days — dig deep into the psyche of a reader. And this is what he hopes his latest work can do too. 'Readers reflect on the struggles that often form within a rebellion — the difference in opinion among the rebels — in this case, among Christ and his disciples, like Lazarus being ratted out, Judas' betrayal of Christ, and the conflict the leader himself faces from within when faced with temptations.' Talking about his style of writing, Benyamin says displacement and migration, whether literal or spiritual, are the themes of his books, because he feels that migration and embarking on a journey, is what life is all about — be it moving for for a job, trade, family. Constant movement has always been a part of man's evolution. 'Displacement is not a new phenomenon. It has been happening since the beginning of human history: war, slavery, natural disasters, and riots have all caused it. One of the main prayers of the Jews in the Old Testament was that they be delivered from exile. Even after reaching their dreamland, they could not experience freedom. The Romans conquered them. When telling the story of the struggle against them, it is natural that the sorrows of displacement will be embedded in it.' Discussing the years he spent in Bahrain as a mechanical engineer Benyamin says. 'I left my home and country and lived in a foreign land for two decades. I have experienced its loneliness, isolation, numbness, and existential problems very well. So, I can go ahead and write about that topic in depth.' 'Understanding the lives and struggles of migrant communities, their politics, circumstance and so on, is a part of studying humans, making us better humans,' Benyamin says. 'Also when we as readers traverse with them (the characters) through the story to his or her destination, whether physical or spiritual, it gives a reader satisfaction, the sated feeling one gets from reading a piece of good literature,' he adds. Each book by the author has been distinct from one another. 'Non-linear writing; that is how I approach putting a book together,' Benyamin says. He says he does not believe in sticking to formulaic writing. 'I don't create a mould and fit my story around it. I have a story in my head — I start by writing what I know about — be it a character or a scene and take it from there,' he says. He compares it to construction of a highway, say from Ernakulam to Thiruvananthapuram. 'The work for the highway can begin from anywhere, maybe Alappuzha, maybe somewhere near Thiruvananthapuram, but as long as there is a plan in place, the project will be done.' The author says that he looks up to Malayalam writers like OV Vijayan, Mohammed Bashir and M Mukundan, and enjoys reading classic and contemporary writers like Orhan Pamuk, Georgi Gospodinov, Nikos Kazantzakis, and Kafka. Speaking of future projects he says, 'I have just completed a novel, which will be published in July. Shelvy (Raj) was an editor and poet who played an important role in the history of Malayalam publishing. The novel is based on his life.' The Second Book of Prophets priced ₹599 is available on Amazon and all major bookstores
