The Indian Quarterly - July - September 2018

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In this issue, the authors take readers into the deep, dark woods, allowing us to experience their many moods and avatars—in the distant past and the present.
Arshia Sattar reminds us that our epic heroes were banished to the forests and didn’t go there to seek the meaning of life—quite unlike the peaceful dwelling places of the sages depicted in the Upanishads. Whereas trees spring from the soil of the mind in A Ramachandran’s paintings, creating an idealised mythical universe of the Bhils near Udaipur, Jaya Jaitly traces the evolution of Indian heritage crafts from nature, including materials derived from it. In Suprabha Seshan’s intimate musings on her life in the forest, it is difficult to tell where the forest ends and she herself begins. Anita Roy searches for artist David Nash’s monumental work in a wood in Wales. While Dileep Prakash’s pictorial essay portrays dak bungalows in the forests at night, Ishan Tankha captures villagers and insurgents resisting the police and politicians in the forests of Chhattisgarh. Sampurna Chattarji recalls the enchanted forests of children’s literature and Sharif S Elmusa laments the burial of a Palestinian settlement under picturesque trees planted by Israel.