Moments in Arts and Sports of Independent India

On August 15th, 2022, independent India will be 75 years old. That is old age for a human being but for a nation, it is about when maturity dawns. Politics is its driver but what gives it direction, pointing to the virtuous route, is the sphere of culture. Our moment of freedom was heralded by the shehnai of Bismillah Khan playing from the Red Fort. India’s march to itself had begun. It has been a journey of self-awareness and imagination. From the roiling that accompanied the birth, as told in the pages of Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar (1950), to the magical half-autobiography of a nation in Midnight’s Children (1981). It is the story of scale and craft, the line that goes from Mughal-e-Azam (1960) to Baahubali (2015). Of strength, from the near-miss of Milkha Singh to the Olympics gold of Neeraj Chopra. No country can be contained in 75 moments, but these remain milestones of the work in progress.

August 15, 1947: Bismillah Khan plays at the Red Fort

On independent India’s first day, the mellifluous and auspicious tones of the shehnai filled the ramparts of the Red Fort in anticipation. It was Ustad Bismillah Khan performing his way through the pains of history, calling forth a new moment.

August 12, 1948: India beats Great Britain at the Olympics hockey final

India had won three gold medals in hockey before, but this was more special. Kishan Lal & Co beat Great Britain in Britain 4-0 at the finals to register independent India’s first gold at the Olympics. It wasn’t just a salve over the wounds of history, but also helped a new nation discover its identity.

1950: Amrita Pritam’s Pinjar published

Amrita Pritam is best known for documenting the traumas of Partition in both prose and poetry. She was one of the first and only writers to talk about Partition from a woman’s perspective, as seen in her novel Pinjar. She is also one of the first, and well-known woman writers in Punjabi.

1951: Nirad C Chaudhuri’s The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian published

Nirad C Chaudhuri’s novel described “the conditions in which an Indian grew to manhood in the early decades of the last century.” Written by a self-confessed Anglophile, it received appreciation in the West and flak in India, but continues to be heralded for launching the Indian English novel.

December 14, 1951: Awara releases

Its sensational success not just in India but abroad—in the Soviet Union, especially—marked the beginning of both Raj Kapoor as Bollywood’s preeminent mogul and of movies that captured the issues new India would be reeling under: poverty, socialism and the promise of the youth as both vagabond and builder of new destinies.

July 23, 1952: KD Jadhav wins India’s first individual Olympics medal

An achievement whose value would dawn in later years, KD Jadhav won India’s first individual medal—a bronze—at the Olympics. A slight wrestler who outwitted his competitors on the mat, despite the limited access to coaching and facilities, Jadhav would have to take loans to finance his trip. No Indian would win another individual medal until 1996.

October 17, 1952: Parasakthi releases

Written by M Karunanidhi, and which launched Sivaji Ganesan into superstardom in Tamil Nadu, the movie would epitomise the cultural and political winds changing Tamil Nadu. It added fuel to the anti-Brahminism and rationalist movement that would become the defining identity of Tamil Nadu politics up to the present.

May 29, 1953: Norgay & Hillary summit Mount Everest

Humans had reached every corner of the earth—even begun work on space travel—yet its highest point had remained insurmountable. Tenzing Norgay, a Tibetan-Nepali mountaineer living in Darjeeling, changed all that. Along with Edmund Hillary, he showed that nothing was out of bounds for humans, not even the tallest mountain.

August 26, 1955: Pather Panchali releases

Satyajit Ray’s directorial debut was the birth of a new cinema—of sophisticated cinematography and social realism—the so-called New Indian Cinema. The first Indian film to attract the attention of frontline Western critics, Pather Panchali was also a box-office success. Ray emerged as one of cinema’s most accomplished auteurs and sparked the coming of age of a new generation of serious Indian filmmakers.

February 14, 1957: Mother India releases

The movie, ostensibly a story of class oppression and honour, became an allegory of the mother as the new nation itself. Nargis immortalised the main character of a woman who is willing to even kill her beloved angry wayward son—played by Sunil Dutt—when the choice is one of the greater good.

March 27, 1957: Maya Bazaar releases

NT Rama Rao, the superstar of Telugu movies who would go on to become the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, derived much of the melding of his screen and political image from the virtuous mythological characters he portrayed. Maya Bazaar, in which he played Krishna, was the earliest. The movie’s success became a milestone of the Telugu film industry.

August 5, 1960: Mughal-e-Azam releases

Made at a phenomenal budget and with the biggest of stars, including Dilip Kumar, Mughal-e-Azam brought the idea of scale—8,000 took part in a battle scene including real soldiers requisitioned from the army—to Bollywood. It was a doomed love story within an empire at its peak and the movie got it all right, from the spectacle to the music to the pathos.

September 6, 1960: Milkha Singh loses the 400m race by a whisker

India’s first sporting superstar competing in what would turn out to be the country’s biggest sporting heartbreak. In the Rio Olympics 400m race that would culminate in a photo-finish, an error of judgement would find Milkha Singh short of a bronze medal by just one-tenth of a second.

1961: VS Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas published

Described as an “ecstatic evocation of Caribbean life,” by Nigerian-American author Teju Cole, the novel was considered a masterpiece on its release. It continues to be hailed as one of the twentieth century’s finest novels, for being an exploration of one man’s quest for autonomy against the backdrop of post-colonial Trinidad.

January 26, 1963: Lata Mangeshkar sings “Aye mere watan ke logon”

Just two months after the India-China war, Lata Mangeshkar stood at New Delhi’s National Stadium on Republic Day and sang “Aye mere watan ke logon”, melting everyone present, including Jawaharlal Nehru, it is said, into a pool of tears. Penned by Kavi Pradeep, the song became an instant classic urging a wounded country to rise in solidarity for their dead.

1964: Girish Karnad writes Tughlaq

Tughlaq can be seen as India’s own Hamlet, a landmark play about a dreamer king, Muhammad bin Tughlaq. The play has been staged repeatedly down the decades for its political and philosophical import. Girish Karnad’s second Kannada language play “used historical material to try and reveal new layers of the truth”, as Kannada critic and writer Kirtinath Kurtakoti said.

1965: UR Ananthamurthy’s Samskara published

Samskara is a masterpiece of modern world literature. Set in Durvasapura, a small south Indian town, it tells of a renegade Brahmin, Naranappa, and what must happen to him after his death. Ananthamurthy’s most controversial and celebrated work, it “takes readers closer to the Indian idea of the self,” as author VS Naipaul stated.

August 19, 1965: Chemmeen releases

Long before Malayalam movies became avant-garde, it came of age with Chemmeen. Already one of the greatest novels of the language, the movie became just as iconic with haunting songs that music director Salil Chowdhury, a surprise revelation for Keralites, brought to the tragic story.

October 23, 1966 : MS Subbulakshmi sings at the UN General Assembly

The famous Carnatic vocalist became the first Indian to perform at the UN General Assembly. The performance, hailed as one of her greatest, was part of a nearly two-month-long concert tour of the West, and included the debut of one of her most famous pieces, a hymn on universal friendship and global peace converted into the form of a raga.

1967, Vijay Tendulkar writes Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe

The play marked the start of Vijay Tendulkar’s illustrious career as a playwright and screenplay writer. He went on to write landmark plays such as Ghashiram Kotwal and Sakharam Binder and films like Aakrosh and Ardh Satya. Tendulkar was an institution in Marathi theatre for over five decades.

February 29, 1968: Pandit Ravi Shankar wins a Grammy

Amidst the drug-fuelled counterculture and rock and roll scene, stood the unusual figure of the sitar-playing Pandit Ravi Shankar. India’s most recognisable export of that era, influencing everyone from The Beatles to The Grateful Dead, it was through him that Indian classical music burst into the pop scene. Unsurprisingly, he landed India’s first Grammy.

February, 1968: The Beatles arrive

When a spiritually drained Beatles turned to an ashram in Rishikesh to rejuvenate themselves, they triggered a major media event. Although the trip ended on a sour note, with sexual misconduct allegations against the Maharishi, their time here marked one of the band’s most prolific periods, yielding numerous songs, apart from engendering an enormous interest in Indian culture.

May 12, 1969: Bhuvan Shome releases

Considered the beginning of the Indian New Wave, it depicts the changes in character an individual undergoes through the theme of solitude and company while exploring deeper social realities, such as the rural-urban divide in India. Based on a Bangla story by Banaphul, this Hindi-language film by Mrinal Sen marked the second major shift in Indian cinema after Pather Panchali.

September 27, 1969: Aradhana releases

The phenomenon of Rajesh Khanna was unleashed with Aradhana, and Hindi movies would never be the same again. The days of the old were over and movies would now appeal to a new upbeat generation in love with love. Khanna redefined everything and romance became the golden coin of movies.

November 12, 1969: OV Vijayan’s Khasakkinte Itihasam published

The novel still marks the acme in Malayalam literature in terms of intensity of vision and inventiveness of language. It tells of protagonist Ravi’s arrival at Khasak and his encounters with its people and myths. Immersed in magic realism, it revolutionised Malayalam literature.

May 11, 1973: Zanjeer releases

The angry young man arrived with Zanjeer. Amitabh Bachchan was on the periphery of the film world until in Zanjeer the oeuvre was found. It would take a few more years to reach the top, but in the protagonist’s rage as reflecting the nation’s anger, he had optimised the hero of the times.

August, 1974: Mahasweta Devi’s Hajar Churashir Maa published

Mahasweta Devi was one of India’s foremost literary figures. An author as well as a prominent social activist for the rights of Adivasis, she wrote numerous novels, plays, essays and short stories but is most celebrated for her Bengali novel Hajar Churashir Maa, which foregrounds the Naxalite revolution in the seventies.

August 15, 1975: Sholay releases

What many still claim to be the most successful movie of all time did everything antithetical to the prevalent formula and it was all so original and entertaining—from characters to dialogues to dry humour to the villain—that no one who saw the movie couldn’t not be hypnotised. Its influence still pervades Bollywood.

January 1, 1976: Arun Kolatkar’s Jejuri published

Arun Kolatkar wrote irreverent and unblinking verse in English and Marathi. His collection of poems Jejuri won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1977. As one of the pioneers of modern poetry in India, he continues to be celebrated as the reclusive genius poet.

March 23, 1980: Prakash Padukone wins All England Championships

In a period where India was starved of any sporting glory, a 24-year-old shuttler beat Liem Swie King at the All England Championships. The tournament was then badminton’s most prestigious event, and King, its two-time defending champion. Prakash Padukone had already won two other big tournaments, the Danish and Swedish Open titles, and he quickly rose to World No 1.

July 29, 1980: India wins Olympics hockey gold for the last time

An achievement made significant by the drought that followed, Indian hockey won its last gold—and, in fact, any medal until last week’s heroics—when it beat Spain 4-3. Indian hockey was already in decline by 1980 and the team benefitted from the absence of top teams. But the triumph halted the decline, albeit temporarily.

July 31, 1980: Mohammad Rafi passes away

By the time of his death, the signature voice of popular Hindi movies, for most of the decades after Independence, had been eclipsed by Kishore Kumar. But the world of popular Hindi music couldn’t do without him, evident in the number of those who sang in his style persisting after his death. None matched up to the original.

April, 1981: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children published

Salman Rushdie’s second novel, Midnight’s Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981. Its position in history was cemented when it was deemed to be “the best novel of all winners” on the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the Booker. It is a historical chronicle of modern India and tells of the linked fates of two children who were born at midnight on August 15th, 1947.

November 30, 1982: Gandhi releases

Ironically, a filmmaker from the UK would make the defining movie on Gandhi and it was also a British actor who played the Mahatma himself. But Ben Kingsley brought such felicity to the role, that his portrayal became the image of Gandhi for Indians. It won a slew of Academy awards and is still mainstay on television on every anniversary of the great man.

November 19-December 4, 1982: India broadcasts the 9th Asian Games on colour TV

The 9th Asian Games may have marked the moment where China supplanted Japan as the Asian sporting powerhouse, but its lasting legacy was felt most by Indians. It was the first time that colour TV was introduced here. The Games had nearly been cancelled, but a new Government and a change in heart saw India vault itself into a new age.

June 25, 1983: India wins the Cricket World Cup

The Indian cricket team left Indian shores with little fanfare and returned to a country gone delirious with cricket. Kapil Dev & Co pulled off one upset after another, eventually defeating the mighty West Indies, to chart India’s neurotic craze with cricket.

August 8, 1984: PT Usha misses an Olympics medal by a whisker

When Milkha Singh lost by one-tenth of a second, it was expected no one would come so agonisingly short of an Olympic medal. Until two decades later, when PT Usha came 1/100th of a second short of a bronze at the 400m hurdles race. These losses captured the nation’s imagination in a way very few later wins did.

January 25, 1987: Ramayan serial broadcast

Ramayan did not just tell India about the power of television—entire towns would empty out when it was being telecast—but it changed the politics of India itself, as a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party used its popularity to propel the Ram temple movement.

March 7, 1987: Sunil Gavaskar breaches the 10,000-run mark

The 10,000-run mark stood like the Mount Everest of Test cricket. No one had climbed it, let alone know that it could be done. Sunil Gavaskar, who played against cricket’s most frightening bowlers, had already broken several records. When he breached the 10,000-run mark, he triggered a new hunger for individual sporting glory.

January, 1988: Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August: An Indian Story published

English, August has been hailed as India’s Catcher in the Rye, and with reason. It removes the stuffiness of India’s bureaucracy and tells the tale of a slacker official, high on intoxicants. It remains a classic today because in its fictional town of Madna, it gives the reader “authentic” India.

August 15, 1988: “Mile sur mera tumhara” broadcast

Indians heard it first after the prime minister’s Independence Day speech and they have never stopped humming it. In a less polarised age, its enormous popularity became the testament of music as the great unifier in a country of a million differences.

October, 1988: The Satanic Verses Banned

The Satanic Verses, which was inspired in part by the life of Prophet Muhammad, was published in September 26th, 1988 and was banned soon after as it was considered blasphemous by certain Muslim communities, which led to a fatwa against Rushdie on February 14th, 1989. While the threats forced him into hiding, the controversy ensured that the book sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

October 2, 1988: Mahabharat serial broadcast

Impossible as it was to encapsulate the Mahabharat, with the enormous number of characters in it, in a television story, the serial did more than justice with a neat storytelling device of making time itself as the main narrator. Much more polished than the Ramayan serial, it matched in popularity and became an addiction for all of India.

August 15, 1992: AR Rahman arrives with Roja

It was not his first movie as a music director, but the enthralling medley of Roja’s songs catapulted AR Rahman into national consciousness. It would begin a long career spanning decades in which he would delight India and the world with his genius.

March 25, 1993: Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy published

Deserving of the epithet of “The Great Indian Novel”, A Suitable Boy uses the plot of an eligible girl seeking a suitable boy to narrate the growing pangs of a newly independent country. At 1,300-plus pages, it remains the longest English novel published in a single volume, and a $1.7 million advance for the sequel was unheard of at that time for an Indian writer. Written as a roman-à-clef, its scale and scope remains unmatched in India.

October 20, 1995: Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge releases

After Sholay, DDLJ would become the next big thing of Bollywood. It became the archetypal love story for an entire generation even through the conformism that it preached. It made Shah Rukh Khan a superstar and he came close to the mantle left vacant by Amitabh Bachchan.

October 28, 1996: MTV launches in India

The channel would go on to be the mainstay of the urban Indian youth. In its long tenure, it would evolve its focus from Western to Indian music, and then to reality shows reflecting the changing interest of the young generation and the fallout of mobile technology on music consumption.

November 1, 1996: Michael Jackson performs in Mumbai

As much a political event—for the Shiv Sena that ruled Maharashtra a feather in the crest—as a musical, the performance of the greatest pop star of the time was yet another signal of India not being the backwaters of the music world. The show was sold out and it also showed that events on a mega scale could be staged here.

April, 1997: Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things published

The Booker Prize-winning novel made a star of its debut novelist. Its language was as lush as the paddy field in Kerala’s monsoon. It has been hailed as a masterpiece for grappling with nationality, caste and religion, within the confines of a family in a village.

July 3: 1998: Satya releases

Satya had no major stars. Its director was totally new to Bollywood. And yet, Ram Gopal Varma did not just pull off a phenomenally successful gangster flick but changed the very culture of Bollywood as he began to introduce a whole new set of creative filmmakers. They pulled away from the stock formulas of the industry with cutting-edge filmmaking, often on shoestring budgets.

June 6, 1999: Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi win the French Open men’s doubles

There are few sporting moments from the 1990s as iconic as the Paes and Bhupathi chest-bump. The two had individually tasted successes before, but it is as a pair that they became Indian sports’ poster boys. After reaching three Gland Slam semifinals and an Australian Open final, the two finally chest-bumped their way to the French Open.

July 3, 2000: Kaun Banega Crorepati first episode broadcast

The idea of getting one crore rupees, an impossible sum for most Indians, made a nation tune in to a quiz show. It was the Ramayan moment for private channels, when it came to reach. It was also a new beginning for its host Amitabh Bachchan, who rose again from near bankruptcy and loss of superstardom.

July 3, 2000, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi first episode broadcast

The serial from the stables of Ekta Kapoor heralded a new genre that would go on to captivate the minds and hearts families, especially women. Soon, there would be similar serials in regional languages and melodramas between in-laws would be the favourite viewing at homes.

September 19, 2000: Karnam Malleswari wins a bronze in weightlifting

India’s improved showing at the Olympics over the last two decades is as much a story of its female athletes as male. And for that we owe our gratitude to Karnam Malleswari. When she became the first Indian woman to win an Olympics medal, she changed perceptions and transformed the Indian sporting landscape.

December 24, 2000: Viswanathan Anand becomes India’s first World Chess Champion

At a time when no Indian sportsperson dominated his or her field, except for the tragic figure of Sachin Tendulkar usually unable to get his team through, India awoke to the news of Viswanathan Anand being crowned the World Chess Champion. It was a spectacular moment that heralded a new moment in Indian sport.

March 13-15, 2001: Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman script an epic partnership

Two batsmen, one underrated and the other out-of-form, played one of the greatest Test match partnerships of all time. With 274 runs in arrears against Australia, the best team in the world, Laxman and Dravid batted for an entire day and more, stitching a 376-run partnership, to enable India to win after following on.

June 15, 2001: Lagaan release

Movies, cricket and nationalism melded to create an iconic movie that now belongs in the same club as Mughal-e-Azam and Sholay. Set in colonial times, through a cricket match between villagers and Britishers, Lagaan spoke of wide-ranging issues from caste to resistance. It was also terrific entertainment, making it a blockbuster.

October, 2002: Mary Kom wins the first of six golds at Women’s World Boxing Championships

When the 19-year-old Mary Kom won her maiden world title, it announced one of the most celebrated sporting careers in Indian sport. Women’s boxing may have had little attention then, but Kom changed that. Her six world titles, an Olympic medal and several other wins, a career that neither motherhood nor age could quell, made the world take notice.

August 17, 2004: Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore wins India’s first Olympics silver

India had won only three individual medals since its Independence—all of them bronze—when a soft-spoken Army colonel who had once served during the Kargil War, won India’s first Olympics silver. His win would lead to shooting emerging as one of India’s strongest suits, and inspiring another to be better than him.

August 18, 2004: Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City published

This nonfiction epic by Suketu Mehta was narrative reportage at its finest. It humanised Bombay, while maintaining the complexity of the metropolis. The city unspools before us as we gain entry into the lives of gangsters and bar dancers, Bollywood stars and Jain ascetics. It remains the most comprehensive portrait of an Indian city.

October 30, 2004: Indian Idol broadcast

There had been talent shows on television before, but nothing that compared to the fervour that Indian Idol aroused. From then on, young boys and girls from small towns and villages with music in them, began to believe they had a shot at national renown.

December 1, 2004: Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone: What Not to Do at IIT published

Chetan Bhagat’s debut launched his bestseller career and also set off a furious debate on “literary merit”. Whatever the naysayers might say, Bhagat has volume and fans on his side. Thousands of readers gravitate towards his novels, which recount the perks and perils of youth.

September 21, 2005: Mahisasura sells for over $1 million

We had heard of fantastic amounts for Van Gogh and Picasso paintings at auctions but it was only after Christie’s selling Tyeb Mehta’s Mahisasura for $1.54 million, the first time an Indian work had crossed the million-dollar mark, that the country’s art seemed to be finding its true value.

January 1, 2008: Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger published

The Man Booker Prize-winning novel exposed a reality that is seldom acknowledged, the difference between “the haves” and “the have-nots” in India. It laid bare the grinding poverty of millions, and the privilege of the upper echelons. It continues to divide opinion, but it did catapult its writer (rightly) into the limelight.

May 1, 2008: Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies published

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008, Sea of Poppies was the first volume of Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis trilogy. The trilogy was an ambitious work of historical fiction, chronicling the Opium Wars and colonialism, written in the finest prose, by a master storyteller.

August 11, 2008: Abhinav Bindra wins India’s first individual Olympics gold

The absent gold in individual sports even 61 years after Independence hung like a millstone around the country’s neck. It was what you read, almost like a taunt, at the start of every Olympic campaign. Until Abhinav Bindra. Participating in the 10m air rifle category, he became India’s first and, until recently, only gold medallist.

August 20, 2008: Sushil Kumar wins a bronze in wrestling at the Olympics

Indian wrestling was never the same after Sushil Kumar’s first medal. His win kickstarted a medal-winning tradition in the sport for India, with every Indian Olympic contingent returning with at least one medal-winning wrestler since then. His recent infamy aside, he is also India’s most decorated Olympian along with PV Sindhu, having won two medals.

February 22, 2009: Slumdog Millionaire sweeps Academy awards

It got eight Oscars in total, for a story that, even though made by a foreign filmmaker, was totally Indian at its heart. It included two for its music score, helmed by AR Rahman, who reached the apogee of his career. In addition, Resul Pookutty got one for sound mixing.

February 1, 2010: Amish Tripathi’s The Immortals of Meluha published

The first book of Amish Tripathi’s Shiva trilogy spurred on the entire movement of popular mythological writings. The Shiva trilogy has sold over two million copies and has made the kingdom of Meluha a household name.

April 2, 2011: India wins the Cricket World Cup

When MS Dhoni hit that famous six to win the World Cup, it had the feel of a prophecy coming true. The venue of the final was Mumbai’s Wankhede, Sachin Tendulkar was playing his last World Cup, and the Player of the Tournament, unknown to him, was suffering from cancer. India was a cricketing superpower; and now there was a title to go with it.

March 16, 2012: Sachin Tendulkar makes a hundred centuries

No sportsperson has probably found his country so hitched to his fortunes like Sachin Tendulkar. It was always clear Tendulkar would own many batting records by the time he retired. But there was one he and most Indians came to covet: the 100 hundreds. He finally got there and the country heaved a sigh
of relief.

August 4, 2012: Saina Nehwal wins India’s first badminton medal at the Olympics

Saina Nehwal’s emergence reinvigorated the Indian badminton scene. The sport was dominated by the Chinese and other East Asian countries, but with Nehwal, an Indian shuttler kept gatecrashing their parties. More Indian players, both male and female, including PV Sindhu, followed suit. And in London, Nehwal became India’s first Olympic medallist in badminton.

July 10, 2015: Baahubali release

The two-part movie, made on a humongous budget, broke all the box-office records of Indian movies. It was a rage in every language it released in, including Hindi, even though its star was known only in Andhra Pradesh. But the sheer spectacle, backed by riveting storytelling, made it a household name.

January 19-23, 2017: Ten years of the Jaipur Literature Festival

The Jaipur Literature Festival has grown bigger every year and has encouraged offshoots across the country. But it continues to hold its own in terms of the volumes of interested listeners it draws and the quality of its speakers.

August 7, 2021: Neeraj Chopra wins India’s first gold in athletics

Neeraj Chopra was not expected to win the javelin gold. He was supposed to scrap for a lesser medal. Johannes Vetter, with a personal best of 97.76m, who throws 90m for fun, was the hot favourite. Chopra’s best in comparison is 88.07m. Yet, on the big day, where Vetter unravelled, Chopra held his composure and won India’s first gold in athletics.

(Compiled by Madhavankutty Pillai, Nandini Nair, Lhendup G Bhutia, Sudeep Paul and Antara Raghavan)

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