Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile presents a collection of compelling essays which interrogate a variety of Indian texts and contexts along intersecting axes of gender, nation, and desire. The primary theme that weaves these varied essays together, written at different points of time with varying focal points of interest, is intertextuality. Vanita examines the way in which medieval texts speak to each other and draw on earlier canonical works, rewriting and transforming narrative in a spirit of respectful conversation. She also looks at modern texts, such as nineteenth-century poetry and twentieth-century fiction and cinema, as they converse with each other and with older texts. In doing so, she tries to explore how such pre-modern and modern texts and received in later periods or by other cultures in the same period. These captivating and intensely thought –provoking writings demonstrate the author’s superb ability to turn the norm, whether Right-wing or Left-wing on its head, and find a fresh way to appreciate diversity ad change, and the valuable dialogue they give rise to.
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