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Don’t Spare Me, Shankar

In 1948 the cartoonist K. Shankar Pillai founded Shankar’s Weekly, a magazine of political cartoons. Jawaharlal Nehru launched it. He is reported to have told the cartoonist: “Don’t spare me, Shankar.” Nehru then appeared in more than 4,000 of Shankar’s cartoons.

The weekly closed in 1975, about two months after the Emergency began. When he closed it, Shankar wrote: “Dictatorships cannot afford laughter because people may laugh at the dictator and that wouldn’t do.” Sources differ on why he closed it. ThePrint reports that Shankar himself named the cost of running a weekly, not the Emergency.

The Drums at Dusk

A Kathakali performance in Kerala is announced by drums. In the Kelikottu, drums and cymbals are played at about 6 p.m. to announce the performance of the evening. The play itself starts later, often between 9 and 10 p.m.

Traditionally, a performance starts at dusk and continues through dawn, with breaks for the performers and the audience. Some plays ran over several nights.

Kumartuli

In Kumartuli in Kolkata, artisans make the clay idols for Durga Puja. In September 2019 the Millennium Post found them “working round-the-clock.” “We have to deliver all the idols before October 2,” said the artisan Indrajit Paul. The rush “begins on the day of Rath,” the chariot festival.

In June 2025 an artisan told the same paper: “Once Rath Yatra is over, we’ll have to start working double shifts to get everything done in time.”

The Conductor of the Dance

A Bharatanatyam performance has a nattuvanar. “In Bharatanatyam, the cymbals are used by the nattuvanar or conductor to keep time,” Sruti magazine explains. The nattuvanar also recites the rhythmic syllables of the dance.

A dancer’s blog describes the role in one sentence: “The Nattuvanar cues, shapes, and supports the dancer’s every move.”

The Silent Witness

R.K. Laxman drew the cartoon You Said It for The Times of India. Its best-known figure is the Common Man. “The Common Man generally acts as a silent witness to all the action in the comic,” Wikipedia notes.

Ready for the Stage

The dance historian Ashish Mohan Khokar writes that in earlier times “a guru decided when his or her ward – shishya – was ready for the stage.” A parent wrote in Deccan Herald: “We were told by our daughter’s guru that she was ready for her arangetram in 2019.”

Paid to Teach a Disciple

In 2003-04 India’s Ministry of Culture introduced the Guru Shishya Parampara scheme. Guru means teacher, and shishya means disciple. The scheme aims to “preserve and promote rare and vanishing art forms” in classical, folk and tribal arts. A master teaches pupils, and the guru receives a monthly payment under norms set by the ministry.

Patel’s Birthday

On October 31, 2013, Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, laid the foundation stone of the Statue of Unity, a statue of Vallabhbhai Patel. It was the 138th anniversary of Patel’s birth.

On October 31, 2018, Modi, now Prime Minister, inaugurated it. At 182 meters, it is the tallest statue in the world.

Pandavani

Pandavani, “stories of the Pandavas,” is a sung and acted telling of the Mahabharata from Chhattisgarh. The singer holds a tambura, which becomes Bhima’s mace, Arjuna’s bow or Draupadi’s hair as the story moves.

Teejan Bai learned the epic by listening to her grandfather recite it. She first performed in public at 13, standing, in a form that had belonged to men. She received the Padma Vibhushan in 2019 and died on July 5, 2026.

Four Kinds of Acting

The Natyashastra, the ancient treatise on drama attributed to Bharata, says that theater presents “the pains and pleasures of the world through the medium of 4 types of abhinaya.” They are angika, physical movement and gesture, satvika, inner states, vachika, speech, and aharya, costume.

The work is believed to have been composed between 200 BC and 200 AD.