Several Things

Via Wood s Lot: Serving the Guest: A Sufi Cookbook & Art Gallery: A cookbook with essays and anecdotes on the historic and contemporary role of food, cooking, meals and hospitality in Sufism, the mystical tradition of Islam. Featuring a gallery of Islamic art. By Kathleen Seidel.

Thanks to self-winding, a link to Intimate Worlds: Masterpieces of Indian Painting at the Seattle Art Museum, with an interactive section on Krishna. (I think there's something wrong with the card game, though... but there's an audio narrative of stories from Krishna's life, illustrated with details from the beautiful miniature paintings. Good background music.) Thanks, Anna.

Via Open Brackets: After decades, a Sanskrit dictionary grows — and grows — in India

PUNE, India — For three generations, they have compiled and argued, agonized and transcribed — toiling in monastic tedium to turn an intricate 44-letter language into six volumes, so far, of word after long-forgotten word.

They have delved into the grammatical roots of "antahpravesakama" and debated the pun hidden in "anangada."

They’ve done a brain- numbingly complete dissection of "anekakrta."

Now, 55 years after a group of scholars began composing the authoritative dictionary of Sanskrit, the long-dead language of India’s ancient glory, they are almost done — with the first letter....

Via Elsewhere, an interesting blog that I'm dipping into for the first time: Tha Kita Thaka: Postcards From India, by Barbara Henning. Poetry and photographs, with an attractive site design.

Today's New Indian Express has a piece (I couldn't find it online) about Arvind Iyer, a website designer who has done sites for Santosh Sivan, cinematographer (for Mani Ratnam, among others) and director (notably The Terrorist); actor Raghubir Yadav; dancer Anita Ratnam; director Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Devdas -- the glittery remake of 2002, not the classic starring Dilip Kumar); cinematographer Binod Pradhan (Devdas, Parinda, etc.); director Vidhu Vinod Chopra (Parinda, 1942 a Love Story -- which had wonderful music, especially Ek Ladki to Dekha, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. It was the last film the great R.D. Burman composed for before he died.); costume designer Ashley Rebello; cinematographer Kiran Deohans (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham); and others. I couldn't find the one for actor Manoj Bajpai, and there's one in the making for the actress Tabu. They're all very beautifully done, at least at first glance.