The Gorkhalis of Myitkyina: Irrawaddy Magazine

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Check out my article "The Gorkhalis of Myitkyina" in Irrawaddy. It was initially published by Himal South Asia in November 2011.

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REVIEW: Bitter Gourds Short Story Collection

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The jyotish astrological analysis of Robin Williams' death

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I took a look at Robin Williams birthchart through the jyotish system of astrology today (note this is NOT the same system as the horoscope people read in the newspapers, which is sun sign based astrology.) There is really nothing surprising about his suicide once you see the chart. Williams has a formation that’s common for celebrities: His Moon is with Rahu, in lagna, or ascendant. Rahu signifies great fame, glamor, and also electrical lights and methods of communications. Rahu also signifies alcohol and drugs. Together with Moon, it often signifies mental illness as well. Rahu matures, or shows its full strength, at age 42. Actress Catherina Zeta Jones, who came out saying she had bipolar manic-depression at 42, is one of many other celebrities who manifest this.  When Rahu is placed in the First House, Ketu falls in the Seventh House, the house of marriage and relationship (Rahu and Ketu are always 7 houses away from each other). Ketu is a signifier for detachment and
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Anzaldua at the liminal edges of identity

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BORDERLAND CONSTRUCTING AUTOBIOGRAPHY: ANZALDUA AT THE LIMINAL EDGES OF IDENTITY SUSHMA JOSHI A shorter version of this was published at Mosaic Literary Magazine Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands: La Frontera is a book that transcends all boundaries of genre and style. A text that includes poetry side by side with fragments of mainstream history, and intermixes them with personal and collective testimony, memory, revisionist history and journal entries, the closest description of it could be a poetic-political auto-ethnobiography. At once dialogic and polyvocal, the book has been one of the seminal texts in expanding notions of self-representation, and ways of formulating identity in late twentieth century America. In this paper, I look at some of the ways that Borderlands influenced and expanded the genre and conceptualization of autobiography. Anzaldua is clearly writing herself into existence through her act of creativity, and in this process she acknowledges and brings int
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