Thursday 10 March 2011

http://www.caravanmagazine.in/

The Caravan Magazine
A Journal of Politics and Culture

In 1940, when the entire Indian subcontinent was rising in the independence struggle against the British rule, the late Mr. Vishva Nath, the founder of "Delhi Press", launched The Caravan. With its nuanced political and literary journalism, The Caravan became, in many ways, the cradle of development for English magazine journalism in India. It inspired and engaged more than three generations of political, academic and social thinkers in India, and carved a special space for itself as the magazine for intellectuals and activists.

In 1988, The Caravan was renamed as Alive, a magazine that continues to be published today. Over the years, "Delhi Press" has become the largest magazine publishing house in the country. Today we publish 31 magazines in nine languages, including popular titles like Woman's Era, Grihshobha, Sarita, Saras Salil and Champak.

The Caravan is still fondly remembered in the senior intellectual circles of the country. The magazine has now been re-launched with the same journalistic spirit of our first publication, and as a magazine dedicated to narrative journalism.


Goodbye to Ballimaran
By NABINA DAS

I’ve heard about riled up days that despised names of verses
they preferred riding set-jaw jeeps over the back of old town Dilli
earlier than the rooster, stopping for certain numbered doors

Possibly, those sweaty days turned swear words into Molotovs
charred down bamboo screens after summer’s whimsical rain
left a few blackened posts under roofs where couplets had lived

Possibly I imagined my footsteps would precede yours there
even now, waiting, a pastured horse munching tender rhymes
your leftover half-ghazals, their florid maktas, for this was love

Didn’t Ghalib live here? My rickshaw man pedaled and smiled:
He bought his quarter peg here every evening, walked from there!
No wonder, I imagined your beard hair on the banister, wind-tangled

If you still exhaled behind that cindered verandah I would not know
holding broken bangles, pieces of a departed love, post intermission —
Alvida, you must’ve said in a sad refrain, adding in English, “So long.”

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