This collection of Sashi Kumar's contributions to various journals and magazines for over three decades is informed by his exposure to, quest and passion for, practice in, and contemplation on the media as a broad category of culture and the ecology, and including film, print, television, radio and the net. It is informed too by the author's brief engagement, in between, with advertising across different media, and an entrepreneurial phase of establishing and running a satellite and cable television enterprise at the cusp of the transition from the analogue to the digital. This is broadly a reflective collection of essays on the media, mediated culture and film/cinema that is Indian and international in its scope. It is not, or about, daily retail journalism. It provides perspective to the agency of the media; aspects of freedom of expression and creativity; coercive and persuasive forces at work in the media and in culture; filmic genres and the oeuvre of distinctive filmmakers; the art, craft and aura of cinema; the emerging media ecology; cognitive shifts triggered by technology; the push and pull of convergence and digitization; the rampantly unequal media order and the rise of digital capitalism; and the new mutuality of the writerly, readerly, aural and oral.

Panchavadyam is a work on temple arts of Kerala. It is an introduction to the most popular temple arts of Kerala. Among the Talavadyas (percussion ensembles) of Kerala Panchavadyam is the most popular among the temple arts of Kerala. Pancha means five and vadyam refers to the musical instruments. Even though five instruments are listed above, justifying the name panchavadyam, a sixth instruments namely, Shanku (conch) also forms an integral part of the panchavadyam performance. Chapter I, concerns its origin, its historical reference, its old and new forms and other instruments that come under the name panct6havadyam. Chapter II, deals with the construction of musical instruments like Timila, Maddalam, Idakka, Kombu, and Elattalam. Chapter III, describes the training of these musical instruments and the institutions imparting the training. Chapter IV, is mainly based on the performance of panchavadyam, its notations, number of musicians present in the concert. The final chapter is concerned with famous musicians of this art form.