Screams in the NightBy SMI PuffinPrice: Rs 99A motley groups assembles in a Himalayan hill town, inhabiting a fraying hotel bursting with ghosts from the Raj and discussing the faultlines showing up in India and the world beyond. From those talks during a retreat at Landour are crafted a series of essays, drawings and fiction. Tanuja Chandra wonders about a film-maker’s worth in a society routinely torn apart by war and riot. E.P. Unny uses the cartoonist’s art to evoke a confrontation between the colonial ghosts at Mussoorie’s Savoy and an invading army of intellectuals from 21st century India. Mushirul Hasan examines the imperfections in past and present by inquiring into Hyderabad’s history. Sheela Reddy lets her imagination roam as she chances upon a sculptor’s existence in an overgrown cemetery housing graves of footsoldiers of the British Raj. The result is a jigsaw image of the uncertain times we live through.
