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  Kanchipuram, Temples and Textile Motifs   Kanchipuram, as the name conjures up images of the towering temples and rustling silk, it is inevitable the connection between the two is made. Etched in stone and inscribed on slabs the stories of the temples, their makers, the donors makes it possible to discuss the evolution of the temple art and architecture, the festivals, rituals and the continuity of that over millennia. The underlying connection between the temples and the Kanchipuram silks in some ways is one – the divinity and the royalty. The vishwakarmas who built the large and small temples in the town, once a towering capital of the Pallavas, as well as the weavers who predominantly come from the Padma Saliyar, Pattu Saliyar, Devanga communities trace their evolution to divine command. Communities followed the principles that had a common basis. That the art is divine and they are ordained by the Gods to create, weave. The temples were made for the Gods and the robe...

  Writers have an agenda, who on earth would still be parroting the lines of Wordsworth even for poetry which he himself had contradicted. Modern writing and publishing should be more of “emotion recollected in tranquility” rather than “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. The reader too can belong to multiple categories, as the world of “ideological” literature would want us to be – divided and agenda driven even as readers, not just as writers. No, this isn’t some inane and long drawn intro, this is my view of looking at certain books that I have been forced to read for the sake of controversies the books or the writers are involved in, that I have to choose whether I am a “lay” reader or an “ideological” reader. It is a divisive world, with those who chose the labels deliberately driving it to be so. When news which is supposed to “neutral” has by far turned agenda driven, responses in terms of independent bloggers, tweeples, facebookers all are obviously going to be agen...