The Indian Quarterly - October - December 2016

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Today, we worship at the altar of the body. The obsession with the body has never been as intense or widespread as in our narcissistic age. Gym-sculpted bodies proliferate, as if emerging from 3D printers. Perfect bodies occupy our screens, our magazines and aspirations.

The Body is the theme this issue. With mordant wit, surgeon Ambarish Satwik looks back at his lessons in anatomy, while Sandip Roy traces the fascinating story of Bengali machismo. Paromita Vohra traces the “evolution” of the Hindi film hero, now primped and hairless; and Shougat Dasgupta laments the commodification of sportsmen and growing soullessness of sports. Manjula Padmanab- han’s hilarious take on learning about the human body has a personal twist. And Leela Samson writes about the equilibrium between the body and mind in dance.

Elsewhere, Prashant Panjiar's quixotic photo essay captures the “we-are-like-this-only” aspect of Indians. Kishore Singh explores the connection, if any, between where an artist lives and his work. In a particularly rich fiction and poetry section we have the last poem by the celebrated French poet, Yves Bonnefoy, written shortly before he died this year.