The new issue of Himal South Asian presents a group of articles covering the current situation in Nepal. Kanak Mani Dixit’s lead article, “Two Chairmen and a people,” argues the following: “The journey through the labyrinth of Nepali politics is complicated by a three-way tussle that makes difficult the search for a way out. The first challenge is to force the royal regime in Kathmandu to capitulate; the second is to put a government of political parties in place; the third is to engage the Maoists in dialogue; and the fourth is to start the march to rehabilitation, reconstruction and economic revitalisation, writing a new constitution along the way. The irony of it is that restoring peace and reinstating pluralism in Nepal requires nothing less than having faith in the leaders of a vicious rebellion and defeating the agenda of an autocratic ruler.”

Kutti Revathi’s feminist poems in Tamil, translated by N. Kalyan Raman. Here’s a note from the “India — Poetry International” website: “When Kutti Revathi’s second book, Mulaigal (Breasts), was published in 2002, it evoked a storm of protest from the conservatives of the Tamil literary establishment. A group of outraged male film lyricists damned the book. The debate was not limited to the parameters of cultural debate: obscene calls, letters and threats ensued, and comments on the author’s morality and sexual frustration were freely aired. While one lyricist demanded that writers of her ilk be slapped, the other exhorted the public to burn them on Chennai’s Mount Road.”

“Eleven Scenes that Help Explain Why They Pulled the Plug on M. Night Shyamalan’s Cinematic Adaptation of Life of Pi” by Stephen Ausherman. (E.g. “A precocious but pensive boy explains that Pi was dead all along and that the tiger is really Bruce Willis.”) More here. Via Maud Newton.