-
Teaching the Ghazal in Class
Last week I was subbing at the Vrije Universteit for the Genre, Literature and Analysis class for the Bachelor First Year course. I was teaching the villanelle and ghazal, which involved aspects of the forms as well as close reading. I found myself in a room full of bright, intelligent, engaged, and wise students. They…
-
Art when Dark: Museum Night 2017
Is it art viewing? Is it a nightclub? Should we dance? Let’s grab a drink! Wanna hang out? Oh look, that’s a Rothko! This year the Museum Night in Amsterdam was outstanding. The transformation that the museums underwent was fascinating, dramatically turning from once strict sterile environments to wild psychedelic night clubs. We combined the…
-
Day Two: Visit to the Kroller Muller museum
On the second day of our weekend in Oosterbeek we went to the Kroller Muller museum. Set in the Hoge Veluwe forest, the museum is in my opinion, the perfect way to view art. It houses the second largest Vincent van Gogh collection in the world: “almost 90 paintings and more than 180 drawings.” Along with…
-
Learning how to THINK: review of Bitasta Roy Mehta’s book Have a THINK
I applaud Bitasta Roy Mehta for hitting the nail directly on the head when it comes to people management, be it in organizational practices or as individual parts of the fabric of society. What am I talking about? A book called Have a THINK. I needed this book at this juncture of my career and…
-
A trip to NEMO and Sea Palace restaurant
I wanted Bambi to do something constructive (parent mode on) with his free time so we went to NEMO, which is a short walk from Centraal Station. On this trip we managed to finally get Bambi his museumkaart. The museumkaart is such a wonderful way to enjoy the museums in The Netherlands. If you have…
-
It depends on how you see things
I see little things. M. Night might be from my neck of the woods but, I do intentionally mean every word when I say I see little things. I have Anisometropia, which means my one eye is long sighted while the other is short sighted. This refractive error should have been corrected in early childhood…
-
Living on the intersection of India and The Netherlands – learning from Erin Meyer’s “The Culture Map”
This is a post about an article written by Apoorva Mathur that throws light on work place cultural nuances along with disparity between the Dutch and Indians. I enjoyed the manner in which he places emotions alongside tasks and relationships, without dealing with them as the “other” or the “elephant in the room” or something that is…
-
Dangal and the Phogat Sisters – A Tale of Many Struggles: Praveen Verma
Guest post by PRAVEEN VERMA Dangal literally means the Indian style wrestling competition for male pahalwans (wrestlers). Dangal has been an important form of entertainment for ages, especially in … Source: Dangal and the Phogat Sisters – A Tale of Many Struggles: Praveen Verma <—click link for the Kafila article.
-
To tell you the truth
I have been writing poems a lot more than I usually do and reworking drafts of old poems. Perhaps due to my PhD work on the ghazal I tend to spend more time on structure and sound. Strict metrical scales and working with rhymes, refrains, provide me with an effective tool to have a dialogue with…
