Editorial: Sunil Sharma

Sunil Sharma
And now the end of September.

The last day of the rainy month coinciding with the iconic Dussera festival that marks the triumph of good over evil---an oversimplification, of course, of a grand spectacle rooted in the psyche and imagination of a nation for hundreds of years now, and, popular abroad as an epic and as the folk and commercial theatre forms with a mass appeal unrivalled---an enduring message, civilizational in nature, in India on the cusp of change. Like every other nation on the march to the drums of relentless history, India is both ancient and modern, in simultaneity of its moment and movement forward.

Heritage continues to inform the collective consciousness and Dussera nudges Indians towards the right path. The ethical dimension is provided by the deathless arts. Epics contain entire cultures within and point us towards a code of conduct essential for meaningful living.

On this occasion, Setu wishes its readers a happy Dussera! Let us all regain agency and reclaim moral vision to defeat evil in its various manifestations.
Let the Lord Rama be our inner guide and source of strength in this ceaseless fight against the forces inimical to a just society!

Let epics be a change agent like any other serious writing.

In this issue, Sparsh Sharma from Canada conducts a Skype interview with the editor-in-chief Anurag Sharma based in Pittsburgh, USA, on his recent award from Mauritius and travel there. The video interview revisits that invigorating moment for all his admirers and unfolds the mega event in Anurag’s soft voice and a smile that lights up millions of hearts.

This time, the gifted Abhay K Kumar, posted in Brazil, is featured as the Author of the Month. The diplomat-poet from India has earned global fan following for his erudite views, scholarship, stunning poetry, restive styles and fine editing of mega poetry books involving the most happening voices from across the world. Somehow, Abhay reminds readers of Neruda in his varied pursuits.

Canada is the current flavor of the month through the poetry and pictures by the noted poet Ryan Quinn Flanagan who has created a niche for himself for the same in the teeming cyberspace.

Regular contributor from Mauritius Vatsala Radhakeesoon has rendered immense help by reviewing a monumental collection of world poetry called Capitals; translating French poetry Martine Rouhart and Manuel Renaud and sending her own poetry. Her association with the journal continues to pay rich dividends.

Another ally, the prolific Turkish author, Hilal Karahan gives a delightful translation of the poetry of W. B. Bayril.

Reputed artist Selwyn Rodda and versatile poet Scott Thomas Outlar have graciously curated individual sections on contemporary art; poetry and publication for those interested in the mapping out of such rich and intersecting sectors---arts; their material production and distribution in the market circuits. Scott unravels the connections between reading, writing, distribution and reception of texts, both as a consumer and producer, in this inaugural piece---very much like the mobile encyclopedia on fine arts, Selwyn, who picks up the best of such interrogations of reality from the realm of the visual arts and serves them up as apt commentary on our times.

Senior academic and administrator V. Adigal takes a hard and critical look at the Brexit in a polemical essay backed up by data. The veteran economist decodes the entire political movement affecting Europe and the rest of the interconnected world in this excellent analysis of the forces of globalization and its altering contexts, calling the whole process of Brexit as paralytic to the body politic of the West and by implication to the rest of the world. The reality check is part of our theoretical engagement with the socio-political realities of a shifting political order leaning towards the extreme right.

Young scholar Srishti Sharma comes up with a nostalgic album of China. The collection of the pictures by her records an eventful year-long stay there, as a student of the Chinese language on state scholarship. Her camera captures the current face of a major power and its changing culture, generally inaccessible to the world outside the bamboo curtain. Her brief note gives a personal account of such an exotic encounter available to a minority only.

The regular fixtures---reviews, interview, prose and poetry---further enhance journal's regular fascination for its loyal reader.

Enjoy, please!

Editor, Setu, English

Mumbai Metro Region,
Maharashtra (India)

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