This guest post was sent to us by SHASHI K JHA, an independent researcher.

These days I am reading E. M. Forster’s ‘Two Cheers for Democracy’- one of his last collections of essays. This book is a treat to read as it seems to me a display of the author’s personal memorabilia about people, places, art, literature and discourses around his time. Many of us would well remember one of his essays on India which we read during our school or college days. Yes, I am talking about ‘India Again’ which he wrote in 1946, during his third visit to India after a long gap of 25 years. This essay, along with Pearl S. Buck’s rather less telling travelogue ‘India through a Traveler’s Eye’ was always a favorite pick for our old aged teachers to make us read and reread. For last few days, I was out on a hunting spree to find these two essays again from our old textbooks of our school days which finally ended up on a totally different planet. While the scanned copy of Buck’s essay was e-mailed by one of my jugaadoo friends in Bihar; Forster’s essay was really a challenge to find.

Continue reading Forster’s Times and Our Times: Shashi K Jha →