bookduniya

2009-10-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH DVD COLLECTION

Religious fundamentalism and extreme nationalism are dangerous. Most of us know that. But perhaps more dangerous than these is our own collective ennui at social and political injustice that prevents our protests and voices as groups or nations. You are rocked by this feeling a thousand times over with the Human Rights Watch DVD Collection, showcasing documentary films that deal with abuse and violation throughout the world. The seven films in this collection span the globe to reveal glimpses of the provocative stories from far-flung lands: Tibetan refugees in exile in India, young workers in the silver mines of Bolivia, young men and women in the by-lanes of the Middle and Far East, and horrific killings of ordinary people by powerful regimes.

But first the story of the protesters. In 1971, a group of twenty-eight people called America's Conscience broke into a New Jersey draft board office to destroy government draft records that identified young men for military service. Arrested because of betrayal by one of their own, these people were labeled Camden 28 by the U.S. government. A court case followed in which judge and jury made a landmark decision and returned a verdict of not guilty. The Camden 28 is this story.

In Jihad for Love (Dangerous Living), gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma travels through the Islamic world to unveil the hidden lives of gay and lesbian Muslims, many of who have no choice but to leave their home and land for safer shores. Yet others choose to stay behind and fight for a life of dignity and social acceptance. Despite threats, imprisonment and castigation, they carry on, confident that things will eventually change.

From director Sabiha Samar of Pakistan comes Silent Waters, a film set in the days of dictator Zia-ul-Haq's rise to power. The lives of a mother and son living peacefully in a village become intertwined with fundamentalism, and long-forgotten events and scars from the past suddenly threaten the future. The film juxtaposes the events of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan with the Islamic fundamentalism in the '80s. With the rise of fundamentalism, the horrors of Partition are almost revisited.

Equally horrific are the scenes from S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine. Director Rithy Pahn takes us into the world of the Khmer and their murderous inhumanity through the eyes of a survivor who finally confronts his captors. This is a difficult film to watch: staring at the face of the men who killed millions in cold blood is never easy.

Dreaming Lhasa presents one face of a Tibetan world, that of exile in Dharamsala, India. Directors Ritu Sareen and Tenzing Sonam's film is the story of Karma, a Tibetan filmmaker in New York who travels to Dharamsala to make a movie about exile. While filming her subject, she meets a monk from Tibet who is searching for a particular man. His search symbolizes Karma's own journey to come to terms with her legacy. Through the monk and their trip to meet other Tibetans by traveling across India from Dharamsala to Delhi to Rajasthan, one sees through the prism of the exiled.

Another poignant film in this collection is The Devil's Miner, the story of young brothers Basilio and Bernardino, who work in the Bolivian silver mines of Cerro Rico. Living under the yoke of poverty and grave danger, these brothers follow in the footsteps of other miners who believe and pray to the Devil they believe watches over them. Statues of devils across the tunnels of the mines and offerings made to them are the only source of comfort for these boys. Yet, despite the poverty and danger to their lives, these children have hope for the future - a future where an education funded by their earnings from the mine will bring a new and better life.

Equally affecting is the story of Jean Donovan (Roses in December), a young American missionary who was brutally slain by El Salvador's military. The film chronicles her life, her upbringing in Connecticut, and her desire to join the Catholic Church and work amongst the poor El Salvadorians at a time when leftist rebels were fighting the military regime. The church became a target for the military junta because of its anti-poverty programs, and Jean and three American nuns paid for their idealism with their lives.

The films contained in the Human Rights Watch DVD Collection, most of them multiple award-winners from various film festivals and organizations, faithfully represent the partnership between Human Rights Watch and the socially conscious filmmaking from First Run Features in their partnered effort to open the eyes we try to keep shut tight against ongoing depravity and inhumanity in a world we share with too many unluckier than we.

2009-06-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS
Daniyal Mueenuddin
W.W. Norton
Hardcover
256 pages
February 2009

Pakistan is in the spotlight. The war against terror that rages on its terrain, to the accompaniment of political machinations and a gloomy economy, threatens to ravage this land wedged between the large India and the small violence-rocked Afghan state. Almost to coincide with this world attention, Pakistani Writing in English (PWE), or Pakistani Anglophone Writing (PAW) if you prefer, is suddenly gaining visibility as a deluge of authors such as Mohsin Hamid, Mohammad Hanif, Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam, Aamer Hussain, Shahbano Bilgrami, Azhar Abidi, Musharraf Ali Farooqi and many others make their mark on the international literary scene. Daniyal Mueenuddin is the latest addition to this star-studded gallery.

Mueenuddin’s unconventional life is the stuff of fiction. Born of a Pakistani father and American mother, he grew up in Wisconsin and Lahore, attended Yale and Dartmouth, then gave it all up to live at his ancestral farm in rural Pakistan. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, his debut collection of short stories, is a glimpse into this world where the trajectories of the old and the new, urban and rural, rich and the poor, landowner and tenant, intersect.

In an interview at a literary festival held at Jaipur in India, Mueenuddin pointed out that although it is necessary to highlight the diversity of Pakistan, he wasn’t keen on being political at all. Indeed, as the stories in this volume show, this world is much like any other, where people struggle for existence, recognition and acceptance. It is also hierarchical; like everyplace else, people jostle to reach the top where there is room only for a very few. And each person’s place and position in the ladder is unique. In the title story of the volume (all stories in this collection are interconnected), there is the rich and powerful K.K. Harouni thinking of Husna, a young women belonging to a distant branch of his family:

She behaved and spoke unlike the women he normally met, for she had always inhabited an indefinite space, neither rich nor poor, neither servant nor begum, in a city where the very concept of a middle class found expression only in a few households, managers of foreign banks and of the big industrial concerns, sugar and textiles and steel.

Husna, on the other hand knows that there are ways to improve her lot.

Seeing a girl her age stepping from a large new car in Liberty Market, among the expensive shops, or glittering in a pair of diamond drops, at a wedding, Husna’s mind would hang on these symbols of wealth, not letting go for hours. She sensed that all this might come to her through Harouni, if she became his mistress.

But there is a price to be paid for it. A price that is often very steep.

In the Old City where she grew up, the neighborhood pointed at shaming fingers at women from less than respectable families who were kept by merchants. The eyes of these creatures glided over the crowd as they rode on tongas, emerged untouched from dark streets where sewage flowed in the drain, prominent as targets in brightest red silk, lipstick, gold. Husna’s mother ground out remarks of the price that had to be paid, broken relations with family, broken old age.

Goodbye to the life she would never have, a life, economies that she would never make as she cooked and kept house for a clerking husband in the Old City, one of the boys who might have accepted her hand.

It is also a world where one is rooted. This comes at a price: when one wishes to shake off the shackles, they are too strong to come off. In “Our lady of Paris,” Sohail, a young Pakistani, introduces Helen, his American girlfriend, to his parents in Paris. Sohail’s father, when asked where he would like to be born, says

The only thing I’ve missed, I sometimes feel, is the sensation of being absolutely free, to do exactly what I like, to go where I like, to act as I like. I suspect that only an American ever feels that. You aren’t weighed down by your families, and you aren’t weighed down by history. If I ran away to the South Pole some Pakistani businessman would one day crawl into my igloo and ask if I was the cousin of K.K. Harouni.

Sohail’s mother, in her conversation with Helen, puts it in a roundabout way: You would hate Pakistan. You’re not built for it, you’re too straight and you don’t put enough value on decorative, superficial things-that is the only way to get by there.

In the last story of the volume, “The Spoiled Man,” old Rezak - homeless, penniless and without a family - finds employment at the farm house of Sohail Harouni. Sohail is now married to Sonya, an American lady who

has made Pakistan her home and who did fit in more than most foreign women, she studied Urdu, to the point where she could communicate quite effectively, made an effort to meet Pakistani’s outside the circuit in Islamabad. Even her husband’s catty aunts admitted that she was one of the few foreigners who wore Pakistani clothes without looking like either an Amazon or a Christmas tree.

The newly hired Rezak, paid and fed well, works in the gardens tending to the apple and peach trees that his master’s American wife has gotten from her country. When, during a picnic, Sonya greets Rezak, his heart, his soul melted, as if a queen had spoken to a foot soldier. It is a feudal world where the landowner’s largesse is matched by the intense loyalty of his minions.

Readers from South Asia will identify with many of the characters and incidents. The Ghulam Rasools and Rezaks and Nawabdins could easily have been a part of my own world. For others, too, Mueenuddin’s fiction opens the gateway to a dynamic place; it would be a pity to capture it within the twin stereotypes of oppression and terrorism.

2009-03-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

STUDIO ONE ANTHOLOGY
Actors: Jack Lemmon, Eva Marie Saint, Charlton Heston, Eddie Albert, Laurence Olivier, Art Carney

Directors: Paul Nickell, Franklin Schaffner
Distributor: KOCH Vision
DVD release: 11 November 2008 Runtime: 982 minutes(6 discs)
Format: Box set, Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC

What better way to bring back the yesteryear than black and white and sepia. Especially if these happen to be teleplays of a bygone era. And lest we forget the era, commercials for Westinghouse refrigerators and washing machines (ancient mammoth looking appliances) are inserted between the plays.

The Studio One Anthology showcases television dramas that are more than 50 years old. Seventeen of these plays, telecast between 1948-1958, are now available in this set of 6 DVDs. Several of these - Wuthering Heights, Julius Caesar, 1984, etc. - are literary classics; others, like The Remarkable Incident at Carson Corners and An Almanac of Liberty, are vignettes of happennings in ordinary life. Some, including Arena, are political plays. Still others (notable among them Twelve Angry Men) are plays that became inspiration for Hollywood.

The first offering of the collection is Medium, which originally aired in December 1948. Marie Powers' role as Madame Flora, who cheats her grieving clients by fake seances and her nemesis as she is driven to madness by a seemingly real presence, is beautifully portrayed. However, the technical limitations of the camera prevent many a powerful performance from reaching its zenith. Julius Caesar on the same disc suffers from the same problem. Theodore Bikel is Julius Caesar who, despite Calpurnia's (Maria Britneva) entreaties, arrives at the Senate on the Ides of March. Absent from the play are the huge canvas, theatrics and fluorish that a Shakespearean production of Caesar requires. Philip Bourneuf as Brutus does a reasonably good job, though I didn't care much for Alfred Ryder's Mark Antony. His piece de resistance - "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears" - is far too weak and stilted. Almost a damp squib.

The war plays fare much better. Notable is The Strike of the doomed patrol in Korea. The commanding officer realizes that he must give the go-ahead for an Air Force strike with the knowledge that his own men, sent there earlier, will face certain death. The poignant portrayal of his stoic stance despite his inner conflict is the highlight of the play. Another well-staged Korea-themed play, The Death of Life of Larry Benson, centers on homecoming after war.

There are several Reginald Rose and Gore Vidal plays in this collection. Perhaps most famous among them is Rose's Twelve Angry Men, which shows how after a murder trial, the conflicting opinions of the jury members can be dramatically reversed. The other Rose play, The Remarkable Incident at Carson Corners, is also the story of a trial. Here the accused is a caretaker on trial for having murdered a child. The play ends with the father saying, "I forgive you. Please, someone forgive me." No other words could better capture the tragedy.

Gore Vidal's complex Dark Possession, the story of a woman's multiple personalities and the scene of a murder, is interesting, but Geraldine Fitzerald as Charlotte doesn't come across as convincing in the role. The other characters, too, lack depth. In contrast is Vidal's Summer Pavilion. That a daughter's struggle to extricate her life from her mother's (superbly played by Miriam Hopkins) hold can unleash such devastation is gripping to watch.

Charlton Heston makes a good impression in Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte's famous romantic novel. My personal favorite of the collection is Pontius Pilate. His one word may have changed the course of history, but in this play his own life portrays the fate of those who sacrifice their principles for smaller goals. Geraldine Fitzgerald gives a memorable performance as Procula, Pilate's wife, who joins the Christian order. As the play concludes, the narrator voices takes over the screen.
"For the crucifixion still goes on. Every hour of every day the agony is reenacted. This is the season of reminder to look to ourselves. The guilt or innocence is in our hearts. For anyone today, as then, who lives in fear. Anyone who could secure his own well-being by sacrificing his principles."
It is then that one realizes that the passage of time does not really change everything, and this collection bears further testimony to that.

The teleplays in the collection are:
The Medium
Julius Caesar
June Moon
Wuthering Heights
Pontius Pilate
The Storm
1984
Confessions of a Nervous Man
The Remarkable Incident at Carson Corners
Dark Possession
The Death and Life of Larry Benson
The Strike
Twelve Angry Men
An Almanac of Liberty
Summer Pavilion
Dino
The Arena

2009-02-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

AND THE WORLD CHANGED

With Pakistan in the spotlight, the timing is just right for the deluge of writings from Pakistan that are making their mark on the international literary scene. Pakistani writing in English (PWE), often called PAW (Pakistani Anglophone writing) is making it possible for readers worldwide to gorge on fiction from this part of the subcontinent. The Bapsi Sidhwas and Kamila Shamsies have now been joined by a formidable array of writers like Mohsin Hamid, Mohammad Hanif, Nadeem Aslam, Shahbano Bilgrami, Moni Mohsin, Azhar Abidi and most recently Daniyal Mueenuddin.

And the world changed is a wonderful addition to the gems that are flooding the PAW bookshelves. Edited by Muneeza Shamsie, this collection of twenty five short stories showcases contemporary writings by Pakistan women. So that while the narratives abound with the obvious themes of violence, class conflict and hierarchy, the experience is exclusively through the eyes of women. Women writing in English are without exception the anglicized, upper class ones who by virtue of their education and social standing are anything but deprived and may not be the best spokespersons for the real Pakistan. And yet these are also the very people that inhabit a special world, one that allows a Pakistani experience within a global and often an immigrant and multicultural context. As Muneeza Shamsie says in her introduction to the volume:

Pakistani women who employ English as a creative language live between the East and West, literally and figuratively, have had to struggle to be heard. They write from the edge of both English and Pakistani literatures.
Although many of the writers included here are well known, the goal of this pioneering anthology is to reveal how Pakistani women writing in a global-albeit imperial-language, challenge stereotypes that patriarchal cultures in Pakistan and diaspora have imposed on them, both as women and as writers.

Diaspora and patriarchy also brush shoulders with war, displacement, immigrant woes and social hierarchy. Interestingly, marriage (and relations with men), the context within which women negotiate their own destiny plays second fiddle to violence and conflict. Interesting, too, is the fact that the violence that forms the leitmotif of the volume, is mostly in the context of partition and the wars with India. Indeed, the first story of this collection by Bapsi Sidhwa is about the horrors of partition. It is decades after partition in Houston, yet the wounds are still raw, as we can infer from Ammijee’s heart wrenching screams "I will never forgive your fathers! Or your grandfathers! Get out, shaitans! Sons and grandsons of shaitans! Never, never never!”

Roshni Rustomji’s Existing at the Center brings together incidents of violence across the continents where she has lived. Once again, there is the pain of partition,

“my friend Asha told me about how her favorite aunt had wept as the red tilak on her forehead and the red sindhur in the parting of her hair were rubbed off when she was widowed. All that red of marriage and of families joining together turned to blood across the land.”

which Rustomji weaves in with violence across other countries where she has lived, such as the blood and gore of Lebanon’s civil war. Lebanon, the land of heartbreaking beauty.

“where I saw a boy his face masked with blood, leap from a balcony moments after men in uniform had entered the building. The mother had screamed at the corpse of her son, not only for dying but also for having killed other mothers’ sons. Later I heard the same story during the Nicaragua war between the Sandinistas and the Contras, and during the Zapatista uprising for justice.”

The same violent motif goes through Vietnam and Afghanistan and she rants

“Mad? As I see bombs falling from the sky and listen to the young men and women ready to unleash their terrifying technology onto those they dare not think of as being human, I am reminded of history of this particular war” I remember the words of Euripides “Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”

Although class, hierarchy and multiculturalism often form the basis of the story, the backdrop is mostly violence and war. The title story by Sabyn Javeri-Jilliani is the multicultural world of Karachi just before the 1965 war with India. In a typical mohalla where people yearn for news outside of what is provided by the state radio, arrives the Voice of America broadcast provided by Uncle Bobby’s car radio. But these broadcasts also bring news of the Indo-Pak war and gradually tense relations between the Hindu and Muslim that had lived side by side for ages in these communities. Where violence is not a result of strife or war, it is rooted in the social order. Feryal Ali Gauhar’s Kucha Miran Shah is a horrific story of honor killing that occurred in the protagonist’s childhood. And yet amidst the violence that percolates through generations are also these islands of gentleness and decency as seen in the gentle romance of this young man with a mute woman.

That there were fewer stories on women’s negotiation of power within marriage and patriarchal structures came as an initial surprise to me. After all this is something that most of us have come to expect from women’s narratives. It escaped me that in the aftermath of violence, the havoc that is wreaked on women, their bodies, their families, their livelihood and their communities; all these have far greater ramifications on their survival than social negotiations within a marriage. Marital relations do feature in some stories. Bina Shah’s The Optimist is the portrait of an arranged marriage between a Pakistani man and an expatriate girl. Another view of the expatriate world is shown in A Pair of Jeans where jeans symbolize decadence in a young girl in the eyes of her future Pakistani parents-in-law in Britain. Tahira Naqvi’s A Fair Exchange, is a world where a woman’s devotion to her husband can come through sacrifices offered to God in return for favors granted in life. It is also a commentary on how the intersection of religion and hierarchy can often take on bizarre forms.

Patriarchy is South Asia has a wonderful legacy in the form of solidarity amongst women. This is poignantly depicted in Fehmida Riaz’s Daughters of Aai where rural women spearhead, in their own silent way, a revolution where solidarity intermixes with superstition in a tale of sexual exploitation. In Excellent things in Women, Sara Suleri Goodyear writes about her growing up in Pakistan in a household where her Welsh mother’s quiet nature acts as a foil to her Dadi or paternal grandmother’s strong personality. Together with her sisters Tillat and Iffat, this is a world of women and their affection, gentleness and understanding across the cacophony of generations and cultures.

The stories are chronologically arranged according to the authors’ ages, so that younger authors are toward the end of the volume. It is appropriate then that the last story of the volume, is on multiculturalism. Nayyara Rehman’s Clay Fissures deals with identity in an increasingly convergent world. Here we see through the eyes of a young Hindu Pakistani albino boy, who has never been at home in his country or elsewhere. Years later, he finds himself in Balochistan conducting research on a erupting volcano. Around him are foreigners, investors in Pakistan’s refineries.

But the discrimination also taught me that the only place where color really matters is in a rainbow.
We hugged and shook hands and cheered. Europeans, Chinese, and Baluchis; Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, and a Hindu all brought together by circumstance.

A fine glimpse of what would be our future in the globalized world.
First published at sawnet website

2009-01-18T18:19:00.000-08:00

HISTORIC SPEECHES

Barak Obama's upcoming inaugural address brings to mind some of the greatest speeches in history.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN"S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

Fellow-Countrymen:

At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 1
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. 2
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 3
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU"S FREEDOM AT MIDNIGHT SPEECH

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrowstricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.

We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom

that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.

The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.

We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.

JAI HIND.

2009-01-15T20:49:00.000-08:00

A POSTHUMOUS EDITORIAL
Lasantha Wickramatunge

And Then They Came For Me

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader's 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognising the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic... well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you'd best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let's face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka's ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing expos‚s we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.

What is more, a military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government's sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President's House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.

You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.

Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.

As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niem”ller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niem”ller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niem”ller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.
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Lasantha Wickramatunge, the chief editor of the Sunday Leader, was shot and killed by hired gunmen in Colombo on 8 January. Sri Lanka has the notoriety of being the worst place in the world for murdering journalists who do not support the government. The Sri lanka Editors' Guild blames the Mahinda Rajapakse government. Rajapakshe had earlier threatened Lasantha with death.

2009-01-13T20:03:00.000-08:00

HITLER: LAST TEN DAYS

April 20, 1945. A beautifully baked birthday cake comes out of the oven to the sounds of staccato gunfire. The place is a bunker in subterranean Berlin, and the huge explosions a sign that the Allies are close. The birthday boy, as you might have guessed, is the German Führer, Adolf Hitler.

The Soviet army is only a day or two away from the bunker, but the inmates seem to be oblivious to their future. At the Führer's birthday celebrations, we see Hitler's cronies (among them Alfred Jodl and Joseph Goebbels) vie to gift the best to their leader. However, closer scrutiny reveals that the truth of Germany having lost the war has dawned on the Führer's men. The generals and senior staff know what is in store, but Hitler's maniacal tendencies and paroxysms of rage prevent them from confronting their leader with the truth. The false games of deifying Hitler continue as the men mock the the cigar-smoking Churchill in the Hitler's presence, but out of earshot, they voice their concerns about theirs and their nation's future.

Sir Alec Guiness does a splendid job portraying the Nazi dictator, not merely in his staccato speech, chest thumping and theatrical demeanor, but also in conveying the essence of his power. However, with the spotlight on him alone, the film becomes a mere highlight of Hitler's terrible rage and his consequent alienation from his own inner circle.

It is impossible to watch this film without switching to comparisons with Bernd Eichinger's Untergang (Downfall), where Hitler is less of a monster and more of a maniac wavering between tenderness and madness. He towers like a colossus over his coterie; their devotion to him and belief in his world is so complete that most of them plan to die with him.By contrast, Hitler: The Last Ten Days paints the dictator with a stronger brush. More than a dramatized record of the last few days of his life, it becomes a showcase of Hitler's constant rage and insanity that turns everyone - including his wife, Eva Braun (Doris Kunstmann) - against him. So complete is his alienation (as the last scene depicts) that when his death by suicide is announced, the inmates of the bunker light up cigarettes - Hitler had banned the use of tobacco in the bunker.

2009-01-10T15:51:00.000-08:00

A MERCY

A mother begs at the feet of a man she has seen moments ago.
I knelt before him. Hoping for a miracle. He said yes.

Four women are paid for by a man. The first, Lina, a Native American, serves his land.
Together they minded the fowl and starter stock; planted corn and vegetables. But it was she who taught him how to dry the fish they caught; to anticipate spawning and how to dry the fish they caught.

The second, Rebekka; he paid for her voyage to her father. So that he may get a wife in this godforsaken land.
From the moment he saw his bride-to-be struggling down the gangplank with bedding, two boxes and a heavy satchel, he knew his good fortune.
Following him, feeling the disabling resilience of land after weeks at sea, she tripped…..He did not turn around. He would offer her no pampering. She would not accept it if he did. A perfect equation for the work that lay ahead.

The acquisition of two more girls follow. One in exchange for lumber, and another as repayment of bad debts.
From the moment Rebekka and Lina set eyes on one another, there was an immediate hostility. But on a land that is harsh and demanding there was no place for enmity or jealousy. As they work together planting seedlings and raising animals, and keeping the foxes away, Rebekka gives birth only to bury the infants in the next season.They soon become friends. Not only because somebody had to pull the wasp sting from the other’s arm. Not only because it took two to push the cow away from the fence. Not only because one had to hold the head while the other one tied the trotters. Mostly because neither knew precisely what they were doing and how.

These vignettes of life in seventeenth-century America through the kaleidoscope of Toni Morrison's A Mercy reveal a new land with "forests untouched since Noah, shorelines beautiful enough to bring tears, wild food for the taking." Law and society were still fluid, as were claims on land. Black men, most of them free, worked side by side with the newly arrived whites, and Native Americans escaping fire and disease and war joined them.

It is 1682, and Anglo-Dutch trader Jacob Vaark is settling down in a small landholding in Virginia. He is persuaded to take a small slave girl as partial payment for a debt that an older plantation owner owes him. Although unwilling to take such a young child, Jacob agrees when the girl’s mother, also a slave, falls at his feet. So does little Florens come to live in his farm.

As Florens is raised on the farm, loved by Lina and others, Jacob starts living the life of a trader. His absences become longer and his fortune bigger, propelling him to build a huge mansion; midway, smallpox strikes the farm. As they struggle and against death and disease, Florens sets off to find the young blacksmith she loves; he can get medicine to cure her mistress, Rebekka, from smallpox.

The manner in which Morrison structures the narrative can leave readers perplexed, lost and disoriented. The story is told from the points of view of six different characters, and events are often non-chronologic. This feeling, too, will pass as the plot gradually unfolds. Morrison’s portrayal of this vast, limitless world of sweat, grime and hard work, disease, death and destruction, and all the people jostling and struggling to live and be heard is so real and palpable that I wished for this to be a magnum opus instead of a short novel.

I’ll refrain from disclosing any more of the plot, but Morrison’s grand finale brings us back into the pivotal act of the story: that of a woman giving her daughter away as an act of mercy, a great monologue in the mother's voice of an act that can tear and explode the human soul:

It was not a miracle. Bestowed by God. It was a mercy. Offered by a human. I stayed on my knees. In the dust where my heart will remain each night and every day until you understand what I know and long to tell you: to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing.

2009-01-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

Here's wishing my readers a very Happy New Year. This is a pic of a small kid selling toys in a night bazar in rural Thailand. He is only three years old and altho' he looked a bit scared as the flashlights came on he put up a brave front. Later he sat looking so solemn that I went and tickled his tummy. At first he gave a shy giggle, then laughed heartily and soon gurgled with such joy that i said 'to hell with his smelly clothes and dirt streaked face and flowing nose' and picked him up and gave him a good squeeze and cuddle. He responded so beautifully; it will always be a memorable moment for me.

2008-10-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

DER UNTERGANG (DOWNFALL)

During the last days of World War II, as the Russian Red Army approaches Berlin and Germany's defeat seems imminent, Hitler and the elite of the Third Reich escape to the Reich's Chancellery bunker in subterranean Berlin to make plans and strategize. As reports of the war filter in, it is obvious to Hitler's generals and top officials that the war is lost, yet they are reluctant to show him the real situation. Terrified of Hitler's manic burst of rage, anger and theaterical chest-thumping, these men indulge the Fuehrer to the end in his fantasies of overturning the present situation and ultimately winning the war.

Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Der Untergang (Downfall) is told from the point of view of Traudl Junge, Hitler’s secretary during his last days. The film opens to a interview of the real Traudl Junge, an elderly lady who, as she reminisces about her days in Hitler's bunker, gives us a peek at those last days of Hitler's life. Later in life, Junge went on record (and this is shown in the film) to say that she had no idea then that Hitler and the Nazis had perpetrated such heinous crimes; despite being just a lowly secretray with no real role in the scheme of things, she felt bitter and angry at herself for having been part of Hitler's staff. She also said that the Hitler she knew was very different from the maniac the world saw. That, in a nutshell is the main theme of Der Untergang : that the Nazis, too, had a human face, and that men who can make others commit heinous crimes often have their own ways of conveying inspiration, tenderness and understanding.

Bruno Ganz is absolutely brilliant in the role of Adolf Hitler. He wavers between softness and tenderness (the scene where he sings with the Goebbels' kids, and his understanding toward Traudl) and maniacal tendencies. We see a childlike demeanor when he sets eyes on a miniature model of an opera house and his fragility at his last hour, when he stands broken, defeated and shattered. One wonders why director Oliver Hirschbiegel drew so much flak for this humane, balanced treatment of the characters. Nowhere in the film do they arouse any sympathy in us. On the contrary - watching a maniac being capable of kindess and tenderness is a bit unsettling.

We see Hitler’s complete lack of compassion toward his on people, yet it is strange that the same people are inspired by him. There is this scene where Hitler steps out of the bunker to award medals to young kids for valor. It is Hitler's decision that these teenage boys and girls, or "Hitler youths," fight a losing battle against the Russian army across the bridges in Berlin. But these kids are in awe of him and worship him. Later, we see how Hitler doesn't blink before ordering the flooding of the underground system to halt the unstoppable Russian Army, despite knowing that all hospitals with injured men operate underground. The film then cuts to a character saying “der Fuehrer is der Fuehrer.”

The serious, somber film has its share of light moments. Himmler's line “When I meet Eisenhower, should I give him the Nazi salute or should I shake his hand?” had me chuckling.

Der Untergang has a fabulous score, touching and melancholic. Obviously with a subject matter such as this, one does not expect anything joyous. Stephen Zacharias' musice, while restrained and unobtrusive, still conveys the bitter tragedy. While the opening cue of "Des Fuehrers Sekretaerin" captures this feeling of despair beautifully and sets the tone for the whole film, I was particularly moved by the "Eva Brauns letzter Brief," a lovely movement carrying strains of poignancy and sadness. The last part of the score and my favorite, "Spaete Einsicht" has traces of some buoyant feelings, probably to capture the sentiment that the end of a war is also the time for a new beginning.

The film ends with brief information on what happened to the others in the bunker. Traudl Junge eventually escaped past the Soviet lines. Of the more famous ones, Himmler committed suicide during his imprisonment and trial; Jodl was hanged after the Nuremberg trials.

Der Untergang is an absolutely must-see film, revealing the human face of tyrants and maniacs, a face that can inspire, cajole, and force people to commit horrible acts, believing them to be for the greater good. What can be more chilling than Magda Goebbels telling Hitler of her decision to leave her six young children dead than live without National Socialism and the Fuehrer?

2008-10-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

SEA OF POPPIES
Amitav Ghosh

For me, the topic of displacement of people with the rise of empires almost always brings to mind The Glass Palace, where Amitav Ghosh’s King Thebaw watches the milling crowds at the Rangoon harbor and wonders

“What vast, what incomprehensible power, to move people in such huge numbers from one place to another-emperors, kings, farmers, dockworkers, soldiers, coolies, policemen. Why? Why this furious movement-people taken from one place to another, to pull rickshaws, to sit blind in exile? And where would his own people go, now that they were a part of this empire.”

Ghosh continues building his oeuvre with Sea of Poppies, a tale of mass migration and displacement of Indians with the rise of British power. Set in 1830s, this is the story of the people on the Ibis, a ship that will sail from the Bay of Bengal to Mauritius. Originally a slave ship, the Ibis has undergone a bit of a transformation after the abolition of slavery. When the story begins, a refurbished Ibis - minus the earlier shackles and chains - is ready to transport indentured labor to British colonies, its cargo men and women from agrarian Eastern India and Bengal who will sail to Mauritius to work as labor on plantations. Called girmitiyas (a corrupted derivative of the English “agreement” that they have signed to work as labor), these people will by sailing the Black Waters (Kaala Pani) lose not just their hearth and home forever, but also what is most precious to the Hindus of the time: their caste. Why, then, would they want to leave their land for the unknown?

This is India in the 19th century. The East India Company’s hold on Bengal is complete, and the eastern provinces beyond Bengal are also under the purview of the Company Bahadur’s rule. With policies that enforce opium cultivation and destroy indigenous agriculture and trade, this rule spells havoc for India’s villages and towns. Bearing testimony to this is the motley crowd on the ship, all products of the disaster brought on by opium cultivation and trade.

There is the young mother Deeti who, having lost her husband and her fields to opium, is now on the ship to escape her fate. Forced to cultivate opium as part of the Company’s colonial policy, Deeti and other rural folk have abandoned centuries-old agricultural traditions. Their land yields no grains or fruit, and they have no control over their opium produce either, as it is procured by factories at arbitrary prices. One of the accomplishments of this Deeti character and indeed a major highlight of this book is the detailed description of the Ghazipur Opium factory through Deeti's eyes, based on an account by one J.W.S. McArthur, a superintendent of the Ghazipur Opium factory in the 19th century. His book “Notes on an Opium Factory” couldn’t have been put to better use. The narrative sees Deeti on an errand to the factory into a world of “the uniformed burkundazes at the gate and the stacks of poppy flower rotis” (we are told elsewhere that these are used to package the opium). We see, through her eyes, the huge sheds with lofty ceilings and gigantic scales to weigh the raw opium and “bare bodied men sunk waist deep in tanks of opium, tramping round and round to soften the sludge. Their eyes were vacant, glazed, and yet somehow they managed to keep moving, as slow as ants in honey, tramping, treading.”

It does not escape Deeti’s notice that “the assemblers’ hands moved with dizzying speed as they lined hemispherical moulds with poppy-leaf rotis, moistening the wrappers with lewah, a light solution of liquid opium.”

Further ahead, Deeti crosses into the most sacred sanctum assembly room, where husband Hukam Singh works and where, as per the regulations laid by the East India Company, each package of opium “consists of exactly one seer and six-and-a-half-chittacks of poppy leaf rotis, half of fine grade and half coarse, the whole being moistened with no more and on less than five chittacks of lewah.”

On the ship, too, is Raja Neel Rattan Haldar, the zamindar of Raskhali. In their heydays, the Raskhali rajas were sought and courted by company officials to obtain finances for opium trade with China. As Neel faces financial ruin, the company’s officials bring charges of forgery against him, leading to a deportation sentence to Mauritius. If the Raja’s fall from grace and the deplorable treatment as a common criminal seem too far-fetched, we need only to look into the history of colonial Bengal. Readers with any interest in the history of the time will recall Raja Nand Kumar’s treatment at the hands of the British. In the late 18th century, Raja Nand Kumar fell out of favor with the East India company governor Warren Hastings; Nand Coomar was charged with forgery and kept in jail under pitiable conditions. It is said that Hastings’ closeness to Sir Elijah Impey, then Chief Justice, saw Nand Kumar to the gallows at a time when forgery was not awarded capital punishment.

Also on the Ibis are Pauline Lambert and Jodu. Pauline, the daughter of a French botanist, is raised by an Indian nanny whose son, Jodu, is almost Pauline’s twin. Pauline catches the fancy of Zachary Reid, an octoroon who has sailed with the Ibis from Baltimore. Zachary has by dint of luck and labor moved up the ladder to become the second mate of Ibis on his second trip on it.

Then there are the Englishmen, who seem quite tame in comparison and who (when they aren't going about some nasty business, as company official Mr. Burnham often is) are happily conversing in a Hobson-Jobson kind of language. This is immensely entertaining (“Is this little Rascal your Upper-Roger?”) with tidbits such as "tumashers in the sheeshmulls," "domepoke and chitchky of pollock-saug" from the "bobachee-connahs." Mrs. Burnham gets to mouth funny lines like “there isn’t a rootie in the choola, is there?” and “there is paltan of mems who’d give their last anna to be in your jooties.” Meanwhile, the locals fill the narrative with sprinklings of bhojpuri aisan mat kara and dekheheba ka hois while the seafarers (lascars) have their lascari lingo. This is a wonderful literary device by which as many languages as people inhabit the text.

Of the few reservations I had is the somewhat Bollywood-esquethe handling of villainous character Bhyro Singh's arrival on Ibis. And although zamindars flew kites in the 1830s, how many would, in the slow and easygoing days of early 19th-century Bengal, where time almost stood still, stop to ask for a "ten minute" break (p 155)? Also discussing the price of Patna opium in dollars “four hundred and fifty dollars a chest” (pp239) in the 1830s did seem a bit out of place. These are very minor points, of course, and the fact remains that the Sea of Poppies is a hugely entertaining and enjoyable read - and an absolutely un-put-down-able book. The next two parts of the trilogy will be eagerly awaited.

First Published @ Curled Up with A Good Book

2008-10-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

DINNER WITH THE PREZ.

Watch Pervez Musharraf in conversation over dinner.

2008-07-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

ESCHER's WORLD
By guest blogger Subhasree Basu

"Individuals of different worlds,
Vertical,Horizontal,Diagonal...are we,
Topsy,turvy the world seems,
When into each other's conceptions we see...."

2008-06-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

DAM STREET

So strong are the vignettes of small town life in Dam Street that I found myself transported to the India of the 80s. The opening scenes are of a love affair in school that gets a teenaged Xiao Yun pregnant. This is China in the early 1980s.
And the town is conservative. For Xiao Yun and her family the consequences are disastrous. Both she and her boyfriend are expelled from school and their families ostracized. In the scandal that follows, the boyfriend is sent away by his family while Xiao Yun gives birth to a baby that her mother puts up for adoption.

Cut to many years later. Xiao Yun is now a singer and earns her living by working for a local singing troupe. Her mother continues to teach children and Xiao often finds little Xiao Yong, her mother's student spending time at their home. A wonderful bond of friendship affection and trust develops between the two. Xiao Yong lives with his single mother and Xiao Yun's teacher mom goes to meet them in secret. Who really is Xiao Yong? No prizes for guessing that one!

The beauty of Dam Street is its wonderful portrayal of small town China; the people that inhabit these towns, their grim, tough and humdrum existence. And providing a perfect foil to this environment is the gentle and kind affection between a ostracized woman and the small boy.

2008-05-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

THE CROW EATERS
Bapsi Sidhwa

Faredoon Junglewalla, his wife Putli and his mother-in-law Jerbanoo, ensconced amidst the Toddywallas, Bankwallas, Botliwallahs and Chaiwallas, form the wafts and the weaves of the tapestry of the Parsee community of pre-partition Lahore and India.

Years ago, during the last years of the 19th century, Faredoon or Freddy as he was called had decided to uproot his family from a nondescript village in Central India and move north to greener pastures. His destination was Punjab, the fertile land of five rivers and the holy Sapta Sindhu of the ancient Zoroastrian texts. And so the young Freddy with a pregnant wife, young daughter and mother-in-law in toe, had set off in a bullock cart to Lahore.

With help from the local Parsees, Freddy settles down in Lahore. What follows is a cat-eat-mouse game between him and his cantankerous mother-in-law Jerbanoo. Old Jerbanoo is often greedy. And much to Freddy’s chagrin, this fact goes almost unnoticed by his wife Putli, who is now busy taking care of their expanding family. Interspersed in their family saga are the stories of the Parsee community, their births and weddings, the customs and traditions and their copings with the recent brush with modernity. The normally liberal Freddy’s discomfort at his son’s love for a non Parsee girl is very apparent.

“I am not saying that only we have the spark. Other people have it too; Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, they too have developed pure strains through generations. But what happens when you marry outside your kind? The spark so delicately nurtured, so subtly balanced, meets something totally alien and unmatched. Its precise balance is scrambled. It reverts to the primitive”

While the plot revolves around the Junglewalla clan, other characters and events shed much light on the spirit of oneness and the solidarity amongst the Parsees. Yet with this book Sidhwa has drawn a lot of flak from Parsees for her depiction of community. The title too (anyone who talks too much is said to have eaten crows) had created a furor of sorts. But the feeling of oneness is beautifully depicted in the narrative.

“Visiting Parsees are rare. When they did steam into the city station, the community mood became festive. The Toddywallas, the Bankwallas, Chaiwallas, Bottliwallas and Junglewallas vied with each other in making the visitors welcome. They were wafted from home to home for breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea, drinks and dinner. The morning after, fortified with enough roasted chickens and hard-boiled eggs to feed an entire train, the hung-over wrecks were seen off at the station. Grandmas, grandpas, aunts, unless and children waved until the little fluttering handkerchiefs faded from view.”

Through the characters are mostly loud and boisterous, Sidhwa’s writing has a wonderful quality of restraint in it. At places the narrative is so quotidian and that one is often reminded of Rohinton Mistry. Was it a coincidence that Mistry’s world Firoz Shah Bagh was also a portrayal of the Parsees!

Humorous and witty, Sidhwa’s tale of the Junglewalla dynasty is an entertaining read.

2008-04-03T12:47:00.001-07:00

DRESDEN

Dresden, 1945. The Second World War is coming to an end as the Allied and the Red Army close in on Germany. In the city of Dresden, Anna Mauth works as a nurse at a Red Cross Hospital. Devoted and loyal to her duty, Anna's off days are also spent tending to patients. That her father is the director of the hospital and equally committed the welfare of his patients, is an added bonus for Anna. At the same hospital is Dr. Alexander Wenninger, Anna's fiance, in a match that is heartily endorsed by both set of parents.

As one of the largest cities in the German army’s Eastern command, Dresden needs to be destroyed so that Stalin’s troops can march into Berlin. The RAF bomber command has plans to annihilate Dresden’s military base. On the night of February 13, as British Lancaster bombers hover over Dresden, they are shot down. One of the bomber pilots, Robert Newman survives. Shot and wounded he hides in the basement of the hospital and is discovered by Anna. Anna mistakes him for a deserter from the German Army. And she knows the fate of such people (earlier we are shown a horrific scene where a woman who hid her deserter husband is executed on the hospital premises). Anna keeps silent and helps Robert recuperate. As they fall in love, Robert’s true identity is revealed to Anna but not before she becomes aware of shady wheeling and dealing going on in her father’s world.

Shocked and outraged, Anna has to decide where her loyalties lie. Is it to her country, to her family or to her lover? Amidst her torment, arrive the bombers and the sudden indiscriminate bombings completely destroy her city.

A brilliant film, Dresden portrays the true ramifications of war. It shows how war is not merely blood and gore or rubble and ruins. And while these may be the most visible post war vignettes, what we cannot see is the destruction of human values and spirit. But the silver lining is that amidst the wreck and destruction, there are those few who will always rise to the occasion and show extraordinary courage in the bleakest moment. In them rests the hope for humanity.

2008-02-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

THE JEWISH AMERICANS
This piece was first published in Curled Up with a Good Book.

This documentary which runs in three episodes chronicles 350 years of Jewish history in the United States. Emmy award winner director-writer David Grubin takes us on a historical tour that begins with the first Jewish settlers that arrived in this country in 1654. Over the centuries, fresh waves of immigration followed and as Jews assimilated into their new country they had to do a constant balancing act between their national and Jewish identities. And although they participated in the American war of Independence, and later in large numbers in the Civil War (where they fought both as Union and Confederate soldiers), it would take more than a century for them to establish their identity as "Jewish Americans".

Grubin takes us into the early 19th century in Charleston, S.C., which was the first major Jewish settlement. It was here that large numbers of Jews prospered and participated in public life, promptly them to call Charleston their Jerusalem and Palestine. We are told the story of Judah Benjamin, a Charleston native, who attained the post of attorney general in the confederacy. However his fall from grace and escape to Great Britain also indicates that all was not well. The oldest synagogues reiterate the same tale. Newport’s Touro synagogue, one of the oldest existing synagogues in America resembles a typical colonial building. This, says, architect James Polshek meant "You should be like everybody else on the outside and express your Judaism, your faith, on the inside."

Although America had no official religion and citizens had the right to practice their own religion, the states states had the power to prevent Jews from voting or holding public office. In Maryland it required a special piece of legislation the "Jew Bill" to change the status. Even as late as the early decades of the 20th century, discrimination against Jews remained rampant. As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg reminisces, "Many publics places had the signs that read Dogs and Jews not allowed."

Toward the end of the 19th century and soon after with World War I, huge waves of immigration was soon to change the structure and attitude within the Jewish community. Yiddish newspapers such as Forward (Forverts), literature, films and theatre flourished drawing attention to contemporary topics such as immigration, assimilation, economic welfare, rights of workers and women. From then on Jewish identity was also linked to social movements in America, of which the alliance with the Civil Rights movement gained great prominence.

In the past few decades, the rise of Zionism in America ("Palestine and extension of the American dream") and the 80s movement to support the Jews in USSR, show that American society is open to Jews and Jewish problems. Yet many Jewish Americans wonder about how their future generations will perceive their heritage and identity. As Hassidic rapper Matisyahu who tries to find his Judaec roots through music says, "We don't have that same struggle, it is a different struggle now. And the struggle here is fighting a silent death, a spritual sleep, to try to waken up."

A fascinating story of Jewish struggle, this is ultimately a chronicle of immigrant experience too. An experience that has shaped generations in America and eventually made this nation into a melting point of various cultures from all over the world.

2008-02-15T11:03:00.000-08:00

THE TYRANT'S TERRAIN
By Guest Blogger Subhasree Bose

Resting my head,
On my weary hands,
I sit alone in the corner of the lane.
Gazing and gazing in the darkness,
I sit starved ,for food ;
And a roof to rest.

Helpless am I, sitting lonely,
Surviving cold that tears me,
I fight for an inch of life,
For another time, another chance to revive me.

Surrounded by riches,
I ruled some years ago,
Making puppets of human beings, I know.
Greed vanity, jealousy was bathed,
In every mind, that I had met.
Laughter was filled ,in life that thrilled,
While sorrows peaked to make its way.
Carved in gold my spectre lay,
On the head that shattered hopes.
Plenty I saw wherever I went,
But starved were they,
For whom I did not care.

I Trampled souls,
In the path of my glory,
And adorned my rule,
With carcasses of many.
Cursed was I ,to the core of my breadth,
But arrogance had never left.

A calamity ,I am,
A curse,I am,
For time has now, made its say…

2008-01-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

SORRY FOR THE LONG HIATUS

.....but work and play kept me away. Will start posting more often now. Meanwhile check out the pictures from my December trip to Thailand.

2007-10-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

FROM DORIS LESSING'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY "UNDER MY SKIN"

It is, I have observed, a rule that people who have been on the periphery of events or a life are those that rush forward to claim first place: people who do know often say nothing or little. Some of the most noisy, not to say noisome, scandals or affairs of our time, that have had a searchlight on them for years, are reflected wrongly of the public mind because the actual participants keep their counsel, and watch, ironically, from the shadows. And there is another thing, much harder to see. People who have been real movers and exciters get left out of histories, and it is because memory itself decides to reject them. These instigators are flamboyant, unscrupulous, hysterical, or even mad, certainly abrasive; but the real point is that they are apparently of a different substance from the smooth, reasonable and sane people who have been inspired by them, and who do not like to remember temporary submersions in lunacy. Often, reading histories, there are events which stick out, do not make enough sense, and one may deduce the existence of some lunatic, male or female, who was equipped with the fiery stuff of inspiration-but was quickly forgotten, since always and at all times the past gets tidied up and made safer.

2007-10-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

I HAVE BEEN TAGGED!!!
With deadlines in a row and no time to spare, O lord how unfair is that!!!

For the last few weeks I haven't had the time or inclination to check my blog, leave alone post on the site. And altho' a number of half written posts are lying around, none have seen the light of the day. Things have gotten so hectic at work that I wasn't planning on posting soon.

But that was not to be. Because Naughty Notti Nautilus has me tagged!!! Now consider two things. One, silence was never my forte. And two, I have yet to reach THAT nirvan"ous" state when all you do upon being asked about yourself is give beautific smiles.

Plus there's this other thing that not answering a tag is rude and all....and that's not a very nice way to be, is it? (Note to self: All this certainly sounds less pompous than "I just couldn't give up a chance to yak about my great self".)

Put simply, I had no option but write this post. I couldn't give up that!

What then could I give up? Well, perhaps I could omit tagging others, since most bloggers I read have been tagged on this.

And now without much ado, here goes;

8 random facts about myself

1. I am addicted to books. In fact I read as tho' my life depended on it. And no! I don't have my list which I must carry with me to THAT stranded island. I read almost anything! (On the subject of book and stranded island, I prefer Stephen Wright's lines anyday: "A lot of people ask me if I were shipwrecked, and could only have one book, what would it be? I always say 'How to Build a Boat'")

2. And it was to be 3-4 books at a time; all of them lying around different points in the house. And me often getting worked to a frenzy if I can't locate them. (OK enough about books, but you get the pic)

3. (Now here comes the embarassing part that I wanted to save till the very last, but might as well get it off my chest now)
I love Bollywood movies....(wait it isn't over yet)....of the David Dhawan kind. Those Govinda, Mithuda starrers with their low brow humor and constant guffaws. (And this is a secret I guard zealously from my avant garde filmi club friends who poo poo at Hollywood. Poohing at Hollywood! huh!!! Imagine that. However, I am not really in a hurry to discover what these folks would do if they saw Govinda's gyrations.

4. I love BONG food. I know the greatest cuisines of the world are all waiting to be discovered but I still love my shorshe ilish with bhat. Period. (Oh and it must be eaten in Bong style, that is after being mashed till kingdom come.)

5. Likewise I love the old DADU, his poems, his music, his dance dramas, his philosophy, his stories, his politics. I know there's been a ton of talent to follow and spring can just as easily herald the buying of mutton as the coo-ing of birds, but I prefer the latter (with apologies to the poetic Aaji ei boshonter diney, bari firi mangsho kine).

6. I have a terribly bad form of sweet tooth. Chomchom to creme brulee anything goes.

7. Every morning, come rain or shine, I must listen to music the first thing in the morning with a steaming cuppa in my hand or my day is "barbad".

8. I do most things on the 11 th hour, which is why my whole timetable is in a mess before any deadline!! Try as I might I can never get things done in advance and when I do, I end up rewriting or revising most of it closer the the deadline.

2007-09-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

THE 2007 BOOKER SHORT LIST IS OUT

Check out the six novels that made it. Boy, am I unhappy that Nikita Lalwani's Gifted didn't make it?

2007-08-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

THE BOOKER LONG LIST IS OUT...

...out too are the literary stars from the list. Read here.

2007-08-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

....IN ANOTHER CITY

Imagine four young women. Vivacious and lovely, educated, modern and fashionable. When they meet, it is to party and share their innermost secrets. When they shop, they buy till they drop dead. When they dine, they eat and drink till they are ready to burst. There cellphones ring constantly proclaiming their popular status. Then there are the heartbreaks; the men they love may be dashing and handsome, but they are often the cause of tears and sorrow.

Is this Sex and the City in a new avatar? A story four women in New York? Or Paris or any other fashion capital of the world?

No. Guess again. In fact you are allowed to take a few more guesses. For a hint squint at the pic below.

For the setting is Riyadh, one of the most conservative and restrictive capitals of the world. Where women are forbidden to drive. Forbidden to appear in public without covering their bodies in the tent-like abaya. Also forbidden is mixing with the opposite gender. If all this appears dull and claustrophobic, just flip through Rajaa Alsanea's Girls of Riyadh to get a picture that is a complete turnabout.

Gamrah, Sadeem, Lamees and Michelle (or Mashael) belong to the elite Saudi society and are at ease in both worlds. However, their ambitions are often in conflict with the desires of their conservative families. At trying times such as these, it is their friendship that provides succor.

Their stories appear as a series of posts on an Internet forum by an anonymous narrator. As the events in the girls' lives unfold in weekly installments, there is a tremendous response from the subscribers to the group. Week after week, like a modern day Scheherazade, the narrator weaves these questions, queries and thoughts of the readers into her story. What we have, then, is a wonderful kaleidoscope of enchanting dreams and ambitions, friendship and understanding, romance and bitterness and all that young women the world over experience as they come of age.

Apart from the huge controversy generated in Saudi Arabia by religious extremists who demanded and obtained a ban on the book (the ban was recently lifted), the author has faced harsh criticism for portraying a Saudi world of the wealthy and elite - a world so rich in opportunity and luxury that the women characters are shown to holiday in Europe and elsewhere to mend their broken hearts. This is somewhat justified as the book does or says nothing for the majority of Saudi women for whom social injustice and lack of economic opportunities prevent a decent life.

Frivolous and funny; yet sad and poignant in places, this tale of four friends as they jostle between tradition and modernity and find their own balance in a conservative society can become a zeitgeist for Saudi women to recognize human needs above tradition.

(Some recommended readings on abayas, veils, niqab and burkinis.

2007-07-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

INGMAR BERGMAN

Ingmar Bergman passed away today.
One of my favorite scenes from The Seventh Seal is when the knight meets Death for the first time.

Who are you, asks the knight to the man in the black robes. I am Death, he answers. The knight then challenges him to a game of chess to stall death. And no matter how well he plays, the result is a foregone conclusion.

Farewell, celluloid knight.
More on The Seventh Seal in the next post.

2007-07-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

NO...NOT AN EUNUCH

You Are 50% Feminine, 50% Masculine

You are in touch with both your feminine and masculine sides.
You're sensitive at the right times, but you don't let your emotions overwhelm you.
You're not a eunuch, just the best of both genders.

Are You Masculine or Feminine?

Hmmm....a PG-13 for the blog and a 50-50 for the author.

2007-07-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

PG-13

In case anyone is wondering why a site that features books, films and the odd play should have a "Parents strongly cautioned" tag, it is because of the use of words
bomb (4 times)
death (2 times) and
murder (once).

2007-06-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

FIRE AND SKIN

Can pictures tell the truth about a conflict ridden world? Does a single photograph have the power to convey the misery, dread, death or even of hope in the midst of violence. Or are such photographs a mere mass marketing strategy.

It is true that lenses have captured the pain of Phan Thi Kim Phuc or the quiet strength of Sharbati Gula for posterity. But how far have they helped the victims? The image that can be used to draw international attention to conflicts can also be used to catapult a photographer and his newspaper to fame. When does a victim's poison become the media's meat. How does one draw the line.

These are precisely the questions that "Skin in Flames" which plays at Adrienne forces upon the audience.

The setting of the play is a war torn country now on its path to peace. The rebels factions are still in armed conflict but a new democracy is slowly taking shape. The new government has initiated a peace process with the rebels. Into this country invited by the new government, arrives Frederick Solomon, a foreign photojournalist. Solomon's photograph of a small girl flying into the air with a book tucked under her arm as a bomb hit her back, shot two decades earlier, had brought international attention to the region. As a result of which the country is finally getting conflict free and is on its road to peace. Now that there is peace at last, Solomon is being bestowed an award by the government.

Solomon arrives in his hotel room accompanied by a journalist, Hannah. Hannah works for a local pro-government newspaper and wishes to interview him. As Solomon settles into his room he looks out of the window to see the sounds and sights of the city he knew so well. What he sees instead, is the body of a young woman lying on the streets. Hannah tells him that this is a fairly common occurrence, given that the hotel is the tallest building of the country. "People seeking a quick painless end, often come here", she says.

But as the interview proceeds and Hannah begins to question him about that event which shot him to fame, it becomes apparent that she knows more than she should about that small girl from the photo. Who really is Hannah?

In a parallel plot that has occurred in the same room some time ago, a young woman Ida is in an compromising position with a UN diplomat, Dr. Brown. Ida gives sexual favors to the doctor in return for the medical treatment of her daughter Sara. As he undresses her the audience gets a glimpse of her burned and disfigured back. Ida carries with her a book of animals. Though we are told that this is Sara's book, Ida enjoys reading it to herself; in fact it is the only time that she looks genuinely joyful. This partly burnt book she keeps hidden under the pillow in the hotel room.

Sara's medical expenses continue to climb and Dr. Brown assures Ida that he would send the girl to America. In return he demands that Ida satisfy his sadistic urges. Ida endures the misery for her daughter's sake.

Meanwhile tempers flay in the course of the interview and as Solomon gets more and more suspicious, Hannah takes off her blouse to reveal her burnt back. But Solomon is not convinced. Hannah then recounts her story of the morning of the bomb attack when she, a 7 year old was on her way to meet her friend Ida, a girl from another school, nearby. Hannah had Ida's animal book that she had to return to her. As she entered Ida's school, the bomb siren sounded. Hannah panicked; she knew she had to go to a bomb shelter but she was suddenly afraid. She went into the toilet to hide but left her book outside the door. As the planes came close, she ran out. She saw no Ida; the streets were empty and she was lost. She saw noone save a man with a camera, wearing a yellow jacket and bloodied armband. Up above the sky, the planes droned in circles. And then there was darkness.

Who was the girl Solomon photographed? Was it Ida or Hannah?

Solomon gets ready for the ceremony to receive the award. He intends to take Hannah with him to finally reveal before the world his long lost subject. With a sardonic smile he softly tells her that her story has two errors; he wore a white jacket with no armband on that fateful day and the planes had not circled the school before dropping the bombs. But she would still do as his "small girl from the bombing" story.

Ida worried about her girl, tries to give Dr. Brown the animal book so that he may request the hospital nurse to read it. It is here that Dr. Brown informs Ida that Sara has died the same morning in the hospital. Ida is overcome with sorrow and doubles in pain on the floor.

As Solomon moves toward his bed, he notices a book under the pillow, its covers somewhat burnt. Inside is the picture of a small girl. This girl is Sara, Ida's daughter who probably is in the image of the mother. There is a flicker of recognition in Solomon eyes. In another time in the same room, the devastated Ida moves toward the hotel room window. And for a moment it seems that Solomon and Ida transition the time and space between them, and see and acknowledge each other.

But only for a fleeting second before Ida hurls herself from the high rise window.

2007-06-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

NEVER LET ME GO
Kazuo Ishiguro

From the outset, there seems to be something not quite right in Never Let Me Go. The story’s narrator is Kathy H., who we are told is a carer, and although she cares for “donors”, it is not quite apparent what this caring job involves. We are also aware that Kathy H’s donors “do much better than expected” and that “hardly any of them have been classified as agitated, even before fourth donation.” But a sense of foreboding pervades the plot.

Kathy’s past is rooted in Hailsham, a private school where she spent her younger years and made friends with the two other main characters of the story, Ruth and Tommy. As she reminisces and her school days unfold before us, we get the feeling again that something sinister is going on. But Ishiguro has so horrific and terrifying a secret that no amount of guessing by the readers will help uncover it before its time.

One of Hailsham’s goals is that its children are exposed to the world of art and literature and kept healthy and fit. Yet the obsession with health strangely assumes gargantuan proportions. There are regular weekly medical checks; smoking is considered criminal. It is at this point that one starts to wonder what Hailsham sees these kids as - individuals or machines. The fog begins to clear when we read one of their teachers telling them “That's what each of you was created to do.” And even as they meet their very end they are simply called “completed”, as any mission should be.

Revealing too much of the plot would be a sin; suffice to say that Ishiguro achieves what he sets out do to in his characteristic slow, gentle, and unobtrusive way. At the heart of the shocking tale of exploitation, extreme cruelty and brutality, lies the understanding of what it really means to be human. As Kathy H. holds her imaginary baby close and croons “Baby, never let me go,” we get a glimpse of how human frailties, follies and warmth can be found in the most unexpected of places.

2007-06-08T16:02:00.001-07:00

ELIZABETH AND FITZWILLIAM DARCY AT PEMBERLEY

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a married man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a son and heir".

Thus begins Emma Tennant's Pemberley, a sequel to Jane Austen's most popular novel Pride and Prejudice. Almost two centuries after its first publication in 1813, Pride and Prejudice continues to be a much loved book. (In fact a recent poll conducted by BBC in Britain showed it to be the second most popular book in that country.)

No wonder then that two dozen or more sequels have followed over the past few decades continuing the saga of the Bennett family. Inspired by the characters (Mr Darcy takes a Wife, Darcy and Elizabeth, Mrs Darcy's Dilemma, Mr Darcy's daughters) or the estate (Pemberley, Days and Nights at Pemberley) or a word play on the original (Desire and Duty and its palindromic twin Duty and Desire, Vanity and Vexation, Trust and Triumph) these sequels are centered around the married lives of the sisters. Austen had ended Pride and Prejudice with the marriage of three of the five Bennett daughters, giving ample opportunity for expanding on the new Mrs. Darcy, Bingley and Wickham. Some stories have Kitty and Mary playing larger roles as they are wooed, betrothed and eventually married. Yet others went on to the next generation with the readers getting a glimpse of the world of the pretty Miss Darcys' and Master Bingleys' and their romantic trysts. For instance in Darcy's Daughters, the parents are off on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople, while their five daughters amuse themselves in London. The eldest two, Letitia and Camilla enjoy the social scene, Althea engages in perfecting her music while the twins Georgina and Isabelle indulge in mischief.

Of the few that I've read, my favorite is Pemberley. Perhaps it seems to blend effortlessly with the original because it stays closest to Austen's style and sketch of characters. Right from the opening lines (that pay obeisance to Austen's universally acknowledged truth 'that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife') a great deal of the book is so Austen-esque that it almost seems like a continuum.

Pemberley is set a few years after Darcy and Elizabeth's wedding. In the intervening years, Mr Bennett has died, the Wickhams have expanded to a huge brood, Jane and Charles Bingley's sweet toddler, Emily is the apple of her aunt Elizabeth's eye. Darcy has by his ever increasing kindness found himself a staunch ally in mom-in-law Mrs. Bennett. Meanwhile, the property at Longbourne, by virtue of being entailed to a male heir, has passed on to Mr. Collins, a cousin of the Bennett sisters. Had Collins been wedded to Elizabeth, he would as he had promised, kept the Bennetts under his roof after Mr. Bennett's death. But as Elizabeth declined, Collins went on to marry her best friend, the quiet and docile Charlotte, and upon Mr. Bennett's passing inherited the Bennett family home. Aided by Mr. Darcy's generosity, Mrs. Bennett and her two unmarried daughters Kitty and Mary now live in nearby Meryton Lodge.

As Elizabeth gets comfortable in her new role as mistress of Darcy's family estate Pemberley, she wishes to throw open their home to her mother and younger sisters for Christmas. Ever indulgent husband Fitzwilliam Darcy happily agrees. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, Mrs. Bennett is planning her family reunion at Pemberley and has invited the Bingleys (Jane's family) and the Wickhams (Lydia's family) there. While Charles Bingley and Darcy are friends, the same cannot be said of George Wickham. Indeed Wickham is undeserving of any kindness from the Darcy family. To complicate matters, Darcy's insolent aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh, invites herself to Pemberley for Christmas. The no love lost status between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth (from Austen's original) has hardly changed. Darcy's aunt abhors the Bennetts and has made no bones of the fact that she considers a Bennett presence "polluting for the shades of Pemberley". As if all this were not enough, Mrs Bennett invites to Pemberley, a suitor in the form of a Colonel Kitchiner to check if he meets her daughters' approval.

With a house full of people to be entertained and fed (and Pemberley is known for its hospitality) Elizabeth is on tenterhooks. The atmosphere is vitiated by the constant bickering between Lady Catherine and Mrs. Bennett. While Lady Catherine looks disapprovingly at Elizabeth's ways, her own mother makes embarrassing and unsophisticated remarks and her younger sisters overstay their welcome. Darcy is often aloof, distant and cold. And Elizabeth grateful and beholden to him for his kindness and generosity toward her family, finds it difficult to confront him when he ignores and upsets her.

The jarring note in the book comes in the form of Elizabeth's unhappiness at not being able to provide Darcy with a heir. This and her nagging fear that perhaps her husband does not want an heir at all, and we almost lose the spirited Elizabeth of the original. She is also terribly juvenile when the appearance of a small boy with a dead French mother, sets her wondering about Darcy's past and running away from Pemberley.

2007-06-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

THE 2007 ORANGE PRIZE

....goes to CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE for her novel Half of a Yellow Sun. Readers of her first novel Purple Hibiscus will testify to how her powerful writing brings to life, the culture, politics, customs and above all the food of Nigerian society.

Haven't got around to reading Half of the Yellow Sun yet, but it is on my ever increasing to-do list. Here's a snippet from Random House.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.

Extremely promising.

2007-06-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

PLAIN TALES FROM THE RAJ (Ed. CHARLES ALLEN)

Growing up, one of my favorite pastimes was foraging the neighborhood kabari stalls. This, of course, was much before any fancy shmancy bookstore chains had dotted the landscape. And long long before one could buy a book, hardbound, paperback, old or new by a mere click of a mouse. Had they existed, they would have been no match for the raddiwallah of those days who offered everything at ridiculously low prices. Besides providing at no cost the challenge of unearthing anything worthwhile from several mounds of paper.

Often the afternoons spent furrowing through piles of GrihaShoba and Sarita would yield nothing. But once in a while, a Ruskin Bond or Rudyard Kipling would emerge quietly from between the colorful covers of a Pyaar ki Jwala and Agnipariksha ke Din. From books on the Second World War to the Art of Origami, they were all there for the taking if only you could find them. So you see the possibilities were endless.

One such find was Plain Tales From the Raj. I have not quite unearthed how this book, now perched on one of the bookselves at home, has remained with me over the years and across continents when hundreds of others that figure higher on my list are now gathering dust in India (though truth be told they are dusted with alarming regularity) or are inhabiting the black hole of the storage dungeon. But that can wait!!

I was reminded of this book quite by chance today when the subject of British India came up today in a converation with a friend. Frantic search followed as did a renewal of the resolution to arrange everything according to the alphabet (never mind that it disappeared as soon as the book was located).

Anyway here are some enjoyable snippets from the book:

'When I brought my two children home,' remembers Kathleen Griffiths, 'we got into the train and the younger one, aged five, piped up in front of a carriage full of people, "Mummy why hasn't the guard come along and asked your permission to start the train" and I replied "Darling we are not in Daddy's district now! They do not come along and ask me if they may start the train here. This is England and we must get used to English customs here."

..........................

'One of the most charming things I had ever seen,' declared Reginald Savory, 'was the ayah squatting down on her haunches on the verandah with a child and saying the nursery rhymes together. Most of them they had translated into a curious Anglo-Indian patois. There was "Humpti tumpti gir gaya phat". Then there was Mafti-mai; Muffety mother was eating her curds and whey on grass. There were also the Urdu songs and rhymes that Ayahs sang to put their charges to sleep and which many never forgot:

Roti makan chini
chota baba nini

Talli, talli, baja
ucha roti chat banaya
Tora mummy kido
Tora daddy kido
Jo aur baki hai
Burya ayah kido

.........................

When giving a dinner party you always consulted what was called the Blue Book. You had to do this most carefully as they all had definite precedence. I've seen memsahibs extremely annoyed when they thought they were being put in the wrong place. John Morris was once inadvertedly placed on the wrong side of his hostess and next day received a note from her apologizing for 'not realizing that I was senior to the other man and for having put me on the wrong side'.

..........................

There was no kitchen as such in a British officer's bungalow because the cooking was all done by natives in the cookhouse. The food had to be brought in from there and kept in a hot-case in the pantry which was in the bungalow. In Eastern India where rainfall was frequent, a covered gangway ran between the kitchen and bungalow. Elsewhere a hazardous gap remained. 'We were having duck for lunch,' recalls Rupert Mayne, 'but when it reached the table there was a mound of chips but no duck because a kite had swooped down and gone away with it.'

2007-06-03T22:59:00.000-07:00

BURNING BOOKS: THEN AND NOW

One of the earliest historical records of a large scale destruction of books by fire is of the Great Library of Alexandria. Founded by Ptolemy II, this library contained rare manuscripts of the ancient world including that treatise on the Mauryan Empire, Megasthenes' Indica. What caused the fire is unclear but most historical sources including Plutarch mention that it spread across the docks into the library building, destroying a large part of its collection of 1 million scrolls.

Alexandria was the not the first time books were burnt. As early as the 2nd century B.C., the Emperors of the Qin dynasty in China had issued royal decrees to burn books along with their authors. It doesn't take great genius to conclude that these books were the ones that didn't kowtow to the Imperial order.

Through the middle ages, thousands of books and scrolls were set on fire and entire libraries destroyed if they fell in the path of marauding armies. Religious literature faced the worst. The wars with the Catholic Church cost many faiths their entire literature. When the Cathars of France were vanquished by the Church in the 13th century, almost all their works ended in bonfires. Then came the great Spanish Inquistion that saw more destruction of books than ever before. Jewish literature, had often faced indiscriminate destruction in Europe and it is a marvel that anything of worth has managed to survive till date. Ironically it was Chengis Khan, that genocidal general and maniac warlord who left human skulls in his wake, who forbade his soldiers from destroying libraries and burning books.

Revolutions were sparked by grand ideas and thoughts but that didn't change the fate of books and libraries. The people who proclaimed Liberté, égalité, fraternité weren't any different from medieval warlords and soon the royal libraries in Paris were set on fire. Centuries later the revolution that ushered in the "dictatorship of the proletariat" indiscriminately burnt libraries from Moscow to Vladivostok and books pertaining to non Communist thought, such as books on profits, freedom, economy or royal history were set on fire.

Less than two decades later in 1933, the modern world would see another such spectacle, as Nazi Germany sent thousands upon thousands of books into flames at a huge celebration in Berlin's public square amidst nationalistic chants.

In recent years, Indonesia under Suharto's regime burnt an entire library of the dissident author Pramoedya Ananta Toer . And in 1992 Serbs burnt Bosnian libraries at Sarajevo during the Bosnian civil war.

But why am I suddenly blogging about burning books? Because it is in news yet again. This time as a symbol of protest. Tom Wayne of prospero books in Kansas city has set a few hundred books to flame to protest against the current downward spiral in reading. Said Wayne as he lit the first books, "this is the funeral pyre for thought in America today".

2007-05-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

"O BEWARE, MY LORD OF JEALOUSY

....It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on."

One of Shakespeare's most ironic lines in Othello mouthed by the villanous Iago who while warning Othello of the perils of jealousy also plants in him a dangerous doubt which in time will metamorphose into a monster to consume and wreck them all.

This emotionally wrenching and heartbreaking play was again brought to life at this season's rendition of Othello by Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival.

The play starts with Iago (Karl Hanover) declaring his hatred for Othello (played by Brian Wilson), a Moor general of the Venetian forces. This hatred is further spurred by Othello's favoring of young Cassio (Damon Bonetti) over Iago for promotion. Iago then sets about plotting revenge by ruining Cassio's reputation in the eyes of Othello, and manipulationg Othello to believe that his wife, the sweet and beautiful Desdemona (Christie Parker) is betraying him with Cassio. Othello seized with furious rage and jealousy smothers his wife dead. When the truth is finally revealed by Iago's wife Emilia (Teresa Castracane), Othello filled with overwhelming sorrow and remorse, kills himself.

Othello's fatal flaw was his jealousy. I have often wondered how the play would be received had Othello been unrepentent after Desdemona's murder. Would he then be called a skunk and no tragic hero! Is rage and jealousy more forgivable than meanness?

Shakespeare based his Othello on a story by the Italian poet Giovanni Battista Giraldi . Giraldi's Hecatommithi had several short stories of which two (Othello and Measure for Measure) had influenced Shakespeare. In Giraldi's plot, the Moor is unrepentent and together with the Iago equivalent escapes justice.

Director Carmen Khan, who has been at the helm of the Festival for the past decade, guides another magnificant performance. The two pillars of the play, the mean yet mischievous streak in Iago and Othello's passion and emotion in love and jealousy, were particularly powerful and dynamic. It was also touching to watch Desdemona's sweet and soft demeanour and Emilia's devotion to her, particularly in the scene where she prepares Desdemona for bed.

Khan's productions always boast of unusual props and here they were in the form of rectangular boxes serving diverse functions as tables for a drunken brawl,a pulpit for Othello and Iago, and a ship for the Venetians.

These also served as the bed where Othello throttles Desdemona and later kills himself out of repentence. Although I would have preferred him unrepentent. But a hero is allowed only one fatal flaw.

2007-05-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

WEEKEND MOVIES: REVISITING TWO MASTERS

Incidentally, Ray was posthumously awarded the Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1992.

2007-05-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH AND HIS TRADITIONALLY BUILT LADY FROM GABORONE (1)

Welcome to the world of Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's only female detective. Precious or Mma Ramotswe as she is called is the daughter of the late Obed Ramotswe, Botswana's famous cattle owner. So knowledgeable was he about cattle (2); so kind, dignified, and wise, that Mma Ramotswe holds him in the highest regard and considers herself privileged and lucky to have been born of such a father. Besides Obed, there's one other person whose memory Mma Ramotswe worships. And that is Sir Seretse Khama, the good man who founded Botswana from Bechuanaland Protectorate, and who, Obed had had the singular good fortune of having shaken hands with, eons ago.

Mma Ramotswe runs her The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency from Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. Originally her office was at Lobatse Road but since her engagement to J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe has moved to Tlokweng road and now shares her office with J.L.B Matekoni's Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors garage. About Matekoni, the finest mechanic of cars, it can safely be said (at least as far as engines go) that he's scaled heights of excellence similar to that of Obed Ramotswe's in matters of cattle. While the professional arrangements have changed for Mma Ramotswe post engagement and marriage, the domestic front has not. J.L.B Matekoni has left his old house to live in Mma Ramotswe's lovely home on Zebra drive. Here along with the couple live their two adopted kids, a wheel chair bound quiet and dutiful daughter and a boisterous son. Evenings are family time when Precious Ramotswe cooks pumpkin and meat and fish. While her daughter often helps with the cooking, J.L.B. Matekoni attends to odd jobs at home and takes care of the garden.

The other important person in Mma Ramotswe's life is her able assistant Mma Makutsi. Mma Makutsi is a record holder, a 97% er in short, from the Botswana Secretarial College. She is very proud of it too. And rightly so. After all, how many girls from such backwaters as Bobonong can claim to have made it to the capital's popular detective agency. And so her degree with the clearly legible 97% hangs right above where she sits, putting most visitors at unease.

The two sleuths often get very busy with cases that range from finding lost American men (Tears of the Giraffe) to handling errant husbands (The Kalahari Typing School for Men) and truant businessmen and intruders (In the company of Cheerful Ladies). Amidst all this, there is the hullabaloo of adopting the two children, Mma Makutsi's budding romance with the kind and nice, stuttering and stammering Phuti Radiphuti and Mma Ramotswe's dark secret from the past in the form of the jazz musician, Note Mokoti.

Alexander McCall Smith has come in for a great deal of criticism for his portrayal of this simplistic life in Botswana. For inventing a land where people take endless tea breaks, watch lovely sunsets, and spent hours upon hours ruminating on life.

True, these are simple lives led at a slow leisurely pace. And there are no major twists in the plot, no complex characters. Not much of literary worth either. Why do thousands of readers, like myself, enjoy the series, then? The answer lies in the comfort, joy and succour such stories of ordinary humdrum existence can bring to most of us leading a harried overworked life.

As for me, Mme Ramotswe and her ilk bring back memories of those sunny winter afternoons spent with a book in hand. They remind me of the cacophony of the other kids playing around while I watched, the sun streaming on my face and hair. Of the gentle chatter of mothers and aunts while their knitting needles went clickety-click. And above all of that all pervading fragrance. Of oranges. Yes, that would be oranges.

(1) With thanks to AT for introducing me to this series
(2) McCall Smith probably missed telling us this; but had circumstances permitted, Obed would easily have authored the one and only encyclopedia on cattle. And thereby in one stroke, have put Botswana on the bovine map of the world.

2007-05-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

OF SHAMANS AND PRISTINE LANDSCAPES AND A YEARNING FOR THE PAST
KHADAK 2006

In one word, Khadak is a film about nostalgia. Nostalgia for the pristine beauty of a land untouched by modernity and for a way of life that is gradually becoming extinct.

Bagi, a teenager lives with a nomadic life in Central Asia with his mother and grandfather. This idyllic existence is disrupted when officials of the state arrive in a convoy of trucks and declare the region to be under the threat of plague. The family along with others is relocated to a new mining town and their way of life completely altered. While the mother is employed in the mines, Bagi gets a mailman's job. Bagi's grandfather who enjoyed his animals now spends his days cooking potatoes in salt for the family.

Bagi is epileptic and during his seizures in the desert his grandfather would consult a shamaness. This woman who brought back Bagi's wandering spirit to his body after every fit also tells the old man that his grandson's destiny is to become a shaman himself. The film uses Bagi's epilepsy as a window for his soul searching, a tool for his metamorphosis and also as conduit through which multiple plots progress. Each epileptic seizure is a series of dreamlike sequences. During one such experience in his new mining surroundings, he is able to "see" through a coal dump, a young coal thief buried and choking under a mound of coal and dust. He rescues the fellow and meets a girl who also works in the coal theft gang. A series of new experiences follow as this gang is arrested and Bagi is put into a forced labor camp.

Soon his epileptic seizures are detected and this time he is put in a hospital where doctors correctly diagnose his illness. But Bagi's destiny is different. The shamaness returns in his dreams and Bagi starts to accept his fate.

It's easy to empathize with Bagi, his family and the hundreds of nomads from Mongolia hauled up from their home in Gobi desert to be placed in a neo-industrial landscape. The lovely backdrop of the desert and their life in the tents amidst the livestock seemed far more picturesque and romantic when compared to the concrete Communist era structures they later live in. But this romantic picturesque also eclipses the harsh side of a life tethered to the elements of nature.

In this respect I am often reminded of the Spencer Tracy character in Inherit the Wind; as a lawyer defending the right of his client to teach evolution he repeatedly points to how modernity comes at the cost of leaving some abstract romantic notions behind (something to the effect that while the mail and telephone make communication easy, they take away the romance and pain of separation).

In other words, nostalgia or not, life for Bagi and his people would become easier even if they have to leave a few romantic sunsets on the Gobi behind.

2007-05-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

THE LIGHTHOUSE: AN ADAM DALGLIESH MYSTERY
--P.D. JAMES

To be honest, a regular whodunit is not my cup of tea. One is thrust into the guessing game very early on, the detective always gets his culprit, and this person is the least likely suspect. As a genre, the detective novel is conventional and predictable and does not often make for a good reading experience. An exception to the rule is P.D. James. Anyone who has read A Time to be in Earnest will testify to the wonderful charm of the long bygone era her work evokes - a world of fine taste, lovely autumns, and summer houses in Scottish coasts. And yet it is grounded in reality with complex characters and circumstances that fit into a contemporary setting. Indeed, it is a testimony to James’ genius that her plots, centered on death ‘n’ detection as they are, turn into fine literary pieces. James, however, has never been too concerned about defending or legitimizing detective stories as a genre and considers them merely as another form of fiction. Words from an earlier interview come to mind:

The mystery is an artificial form, but then all fiction is an artificial form. All fiction is the rearrangement of the author's compulsions, visions, ideas in what the writer hopes is a compelling and logical form.

A major attraction of her work is, of course, Commander Adam Dalgliesh. This charming detective is also no-nonsense and practical, yet there is a quiet, deeper, introspective side to him. James’ creation is also a multifaceted complex personality; while day-Dalgliesh heads the Scotland Yard Special Investigation Squad, night-Dalgliesh is a poet.

In The Lighthouse, Commander Dalgiesh finds himself in an unusual situation. The murder site is remote and inaccessible, forensic help isn’t very forthcoming, and he suddenly takes ill. The scene of the crime, Combe Island, is off the coast of Cornwall, a reclusive private island offering the rich and famous an escape from their high-powered lives. In the midst of this peace and tranquility is found the corpse of renowned author Nathan Oliver. Dalgliesh is summoned almost immediately, and James teams him up with Inspector Kate Miskin and new recruit Benton-Smith. Miskin’s initial professional discomfort with Benton-Smith moves into easy camaraderie; soon, with Dalgliesh falling ill, the mantle is thrust upon these two to solve the case.

Everyone on the island seems to be a suspect, and most alibis are weak at best. There’s Oliver's daughter, Miranda, and her lover Dennis Tremlet, a match of which Oliver didn’t approve. Many of the staff are openly antagonistic toward Oliver. Even the staid and matronly Mrs. Burbridge and Mrs. Plunkett seem to have hidden secrets. To make matters worse, Dalgliesh is in love and very jittery, having just proposed marriage to his lady by mail. As he waits for her reply he has to, with Miskin and Benton-Smith's help, solve the murder.

2007-05-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

THE UNTOUCHABLE aka L'UNTOUCHABLE

OR HOW TO MAKE A FILM ON INDIA

If it is India, the setting must be Benaras. Or the forts of Rajasthan. If these don't work, any random place can be filmed as long as the Taj can be made to figure in every alternate frame. Not be forgotten of course are the camels and bovine creatures with their respective dungs scattered around.

Benaras must at all times be referred to as Varanasi. And this V word must be uttered on screen to the accompaniment of soft strains of sitar in the background. To break the monotony it is allowed to loan a few bars from Zakir Hussain. For better effects, the sitar-tabla drill can be substituted by a deep OM that must seem to emanate off a sadhu from the depths of his dark cave.

Of course with a subject like India, can words like "caste" "half caste" "untouchable" be far behind. Never mind that in public spaces, nobody goes around checking people's castes. For instance when was the last time an airliner checked your caste! One can only guffaw at the idea of Air India hostesses serving the twice born better. In fact the mere thought of those hostesses serving anyone well, is worth a lot of guffaws. Thus in matters of service to the public the Indian state apparatus and allied machinery are truly egalitarian. Which means that everyone gets equal BS, unless of course one is a minister's nati. In which case things are different.

Now that Varanasi and music have been suitably dealt with, welcome to the ghats. Obviously this implies the burning ghats by the Ganges. For anyone thinking of those obscure mountain ranges, let it be known that while they may be able to drench India they have zilch potential when it comes to dunking the screen in nirvana, moksha, karma, dharma, gyana, Om and what have you! For that one has to turn to Ganges ghats.

Then of course, the Western belle must meet the Indian man. But wait! she must first be introduced to the "kaalchaar" and "bhelues" of the Indian family. These two words are shorthand for:

a. saying namaste every 5 secs.
b. eating with your hands
c. showing a wedding that absolutely MUST be an arranged one (no ifs and buts here)
c. women getting bedecked with zari, gold and nagra jooti for aforesaid wedding while men sport smart achkan-churidaars
d. a wedding decor that is actually a borrowed set from Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana
e. elephants (and some cell phones thrown in for good measure ostensibly to show the ancient-modern dichotomy)

After all this it is time to head back to the paschim but not before that mandatory vedic oil massage with a bunchful of agarbattis going hyperactive in the background. The sound track in the meantime has been handed over to our sadhu from the depths of the cave!!!

HARI OM

Inspired by The Untouchable and Wainaina.

2007-05-04T02:42:00.000-07:00

THE CLAY SANSKRIT LIBRARY

Sanskrit lovers the world rejoice! You have nothing to lose but some $$$ and the lost world of 100 old texts to win.

For the Clay sanskrit Project has undertaken an enterprise which when completed will result in the translation of countless old Sanskrit texts. Among them two of my all time favorites: Dandin's Dashakumaracharita (What Ten men did) and Vishakadatta's Mudrarakshasham (Rakshasa's Ring).

A few years ago I came across Dashakumaracharita in a book titled Three Novels from Ancient India. Translated by Vishwanath Naravane this volume contained, apart from Dandin's work, Subandhu's Vasavadatta (not to be confused with Bhasa's Swapna Vasavadatta) and Banabhatta's Kadambari.

I remember quite enjoying Dandin's plot. In contrast to the trials, travails and tears of separated lovers of the other two works, Dasha.... is a refreshing take on life in the 6-7th century. Easy and witty, Dandin's language and world both seem eons away from Subandhu's Vasavadatta. However nobody could be a match for the ornately decorative that is Banabhatta's Kadambari where every sentence, para and stanza seems to bursting with all that is excessively ornamental and highly artificial. A simple scene of maidens working in a palace thus becomes a delightful display of the richness of imagination.

That is not to say, of course, that Dandin wasn't a master of ornamental or stylish prose. In the introduction to the translated work, Naravane tells us how in one of the chapters of Dasha...., the narrator's lips are bruised from kisses of his beloved; so Dandin has him telling his story without a single word containing pa, pha, ba, bha. Yet the language flows so freely that this omission would easily escape the reader.

It is this breezy witty and easy going style of Dasha.... that makes it enjoyable even today. The story revolves around the adventures of Prince Rajavahana and his nine friends. In the course of their exploits which take them into different lands within Bharata or Aryavarta, we get a glimpse of life in the 6-7th century A.D. Interestingly the figures in this kaleidoscope are not limited to kings, princes, sages, ministers, singers. There are thieves, killers and cheats. Women figure prominently throughout the stories, as courtesans, prostitutes and also as virtuous characters. None of these are mutually exclusive categories either. For instance one of the young men Apaharavarman falls in love with a Rajamanjari, the daughter of a courtesan and sister of another. However despite of being born in a courtesan's home and performing music and dance for all she is a virtuous woman and "is indifferent to money and insists that she will not allow any man to hold her hand except in marriage".

Another prince Upaharavarman falls in love with a queen married to an evil king. These men are shown extolling the virtues of their beloved but not before dashing off a silent prayer to Madana, the god of love. So here we have Upaharavarman reeling off to Kalpasundari,

"The curve of your eyebrows is more enchanting than his (Madana's) bow; your lips are prettier than his saffron coloured flag; your slender arms are more graceful than his staff of flowers. Your glances are more powerful than his flowery arrows, your curls than his bowstrings. Moreover your fragrant breath is sweeter than that of Cupid dearest friend, the south wind. "

The other young men in the story, sons of the king's ministers and counselors, with such sweet sounding names as Pramati, Mitragupta, Mantragupta, Vishruta, Arthapala, Somdatta amd Pushpodbhava all have stories to recount. Each man different, each experience distinct. In a world full of opportunity. It is a world where young people (read men) set out to win battles, enjoy new surroundings, indulge in romance, make wealth albeit by dubious means, satiate their senses with food and drink and music and dance and licentious relationships. And all this without a single rant on ethical values or religious compunctions.

2007-05-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

A VILLAGE GIRL, A HUNTER FROM THE CITY AND...

.....and the birds.

Check out this gem of a movie.

2007-04-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

TWO MEN, TWO LEGACIES
Voltaire and Mishima

Yukio Mishima, one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century, is perhaps unique in that more has been written about the manner of his spectacular death than on his literature.

In 1970, Mishima committed seppuku or hara-kiri, the Japanese tradition of suicide by disemboweling. Over the years, there have been many speculations and theories on why Mishima did what he did; no clear answer emerged. Now Christopher Ross who set out to understand Mishima, his life and experiences, may with Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend have shed light on the author's death. Says Ross,

Nihilism was, for Mishima, both a personal issue, an insight or even simply a nagging doubt that his life had meaning, and a more general concern, a manifestation of yukoku, a state of regret about the decline of spirituality of Japan. In Mishima's view nihilism was the inevitable result of abandoning the Emperor as a divinity, and hence as a centre of ultimate value, a source of immutable otherness: a focus of meaning in an otherwise meaningless world of transitory things. I began to wonder whether by his death Mishima hoped to stimulate a return to the values of a Cultural Emperor.

Ross, a travel writer clearly fascinated and awed by Japanese tradition starts his quest for the metaphysical and spiritual with the material and tangible: Mishima's sword, that which was used by his assistant to decapitate him (in hara-kiri, the man disembowels himself while a follower cuts off the head in a single stroke).

This journey takes him from Buddhist temples and press archives (for news clippings of the suicide) to museums and through history and the legacies of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Meiji emperor, and the fierce Samurai class. Interspersed are stories of Ross' own childhood and his love for Eastern martial arts, as are delvings into Mishima's life, his delicate health in his childhood, his homosexuality and his ultimate decision to end his life.

Ross does not find the sword easily, and when he does it is rusted and somewhat damaged. He is a bit disillusioned until realization dawns:

Mishima's sword, was, I realised, more real to me as an idea., an archetype for some quixotic grasp at a fantasy part, and didn't seem to need to exist as two feet or so of decaying edged steel.

The last thing that Yukio Mishima wrote before leaving his home to commit suicide was a short note : Human life is limited, but I want to live forever. Perhaps in these words more than in the sword lies the answer to the mystery of his death.

Voltaire

Born Francois Marie Arouet on November 21, 1694 in Paris, Voltaire’s extraordinary intelligence, talent, wit and style made him one of Europe’s most famous thinkers. Much has been written about his contribution to the Renaissance in Europe, but there has not until now existed a detailed documentation of his last years. With Voltaire in Exile, Ian Davidson, a former Paris correspondent for the Financial Times, gives us a portrait of Voltaire's final years spent in exile.
These years are particularly significant, as it was during this time that his writings championed the causes of equality, justice and democracy. Voltaire published most of these inflammatory writings anonymously, prompting castigation from many of his critics. But it is easy to see that the harsh punitive measured adoptive by the French monarchy toward dissidents may have been the cause for his silence. What is less known about Voltaire is that he was also a prolific litterateur, but his dramatic works, plays and volumes on history have been overshadowed by his treatises on justice and equality and his passion, later in life, to see justice delivered to ordinary Frenchmen.

Davidson's narrative begins with Voltaire's birth and his ascent to wealth, riches and fame in Parisian society. In 1734, his Lettres Philosophiques caused a furor in Paris as his praise of English tolerance was construed as an attack on French absolutism. Voltaire fled Paris and from thence on would spend his time in Versailles or in eastern France, returning but intermittently to the French capital. In 1754, after several years in Prussia, he left for Geneva. It would be here that he would live out the last twenty-five years of his life.

Davidson’s description of these years is based largely on the enormous correspondence that Voltaire maintained with other famous figures of the time. One of his masterpieces, Candide, written in his Geneva years, reveals his commitment toward justice, his concern for the oppressed, and his fight to reform the penal system. To ordinary Frenchmen, Voltaire’s name became synonymous with the struggle against the absolutism of the French monarchy. Later, revolutionaries saw him as the harbinger of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, the slogan that marked one of the most bloody and tumultuous periods of European history. Through Davidson’s prose, we ultimately see Voltaire not just as a great thinker and intellectual but also as immensely compassionate and practical, one who used his years in exile to launch a vociferous attack on injustice.

It is no coincidence that the French revolution followed his death (in 1778). His principles became the guiding force behind the Revolution and eventually behind the dawn of enlightenment in Europe and the rest of the world.

Originally published at Curled Up With a Good Book (link 1,2)

2007-04-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

TIME FOR A BIT OF TAMASHA

Post on artsy film to follow soon to compensate for this kowtow to bollywood kitsch :-)))

2007-04-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

NOT ON THE CHEEK PLEASE

Some comments on the Gere-Shetty calisthenics

We’ve always known Shilpa Shetty is a pretty woman, but now we have an official endorsement from a visibly smitten Richard Gere. via rediff

I think they’re jealous. They wish Richard Gere had kissed them instead of Shilpa. via india uncut

What of course is strange is that no one talked about the charity event or poor Sunny Deol who was there to interact with the truckers! link

It's important these organisations (Shilpa Shetty Fan Club and Vande Mataram Sanghursh Samiti) bring forward the fact that kissing on the cheek is totally against Indian culture. Everytime you glance through the Kamasutra it's always complete with outrageous sex in a million funny positions. But never any kissing on cheeks. (posted on the comments section of an internet site)

2007-04-08T22:58:00.000-07:00

WEEKEND WATCH
Philadelphia Film Festival

ON A TIGHTROPE (dir. Petr Lom)

As dawn breaks at the Yengisar State Orphanage in Xinjiang Province of China, we are made to follow a bunch of orphans belonging to the Uighur community, a Muslim ethnic minority group in China. Over the past few decades, the policies of the socialist and anti-religious Chinese state have ensured that the loyalty of the Uighurs lies more toward the communist party and less toward their own ethnic traditions.

One such tradition is tightrope walking, that has existed for hundreds of years amongst the Uighurs. This practice of walking and doing acrobatics on a rope tied between two poles was, we are told, perhaps an import from the Arab world. Brought over by the Mongols to this part of China along with the faith of Islam, both survived several centuries. But in the relentless pursuit toward a model of an uniform nation state, the religious and cultural traditions of the Uighurs are under threat.

In 70+ minutes of this documentary, we see how the old adage "catch 'em young" has been suitably harnessed by the state apparatus. At the orphanage school, the day begins with the endless reciting of oaths by the students stating their allegiance to the nation, the communist party and to science. When this was followed by a classroom scene with a teacher talking about the first law, I naturally assumed that here would be the elementary physics info of the matter can neither be created nor destroyed sort. Big disappointment. For all the rhetoric on science and rational thinking, the first law turned out to be an oath to refrain from religious and other allied activities and show loyalty to the communist state. How all pervasive the state is, is very obvious by the graffiti that reads "the communist party is our mother and father"; this on the walls of the orphanage.

The film follows a set of orphaned kids, the 11 year old Jumakhun, a 14 year old Sargul, a 12 year old Aijamal and the 10 year old Abliz and their efforts to learn tightroping from a local instructor. Some of these kids are more determined than others, some are more physically fit and agile, while others like Abliz though lacking in the fitness department are endowed with immense vocal talent. Of the lot, it os only Jumakhun who eventually makes a career out of tightroping and is, we are told, being trained by a world class tightroper today.

MAINLINE (dir. Mohsen Abdolvahab) screened as part of the Philadelphia Film festival turned out of a honest and sensitive depiction of a family trying to come to terms with the daughter's heroin addiction and her attempts to clean up her act. Set in contemporary Iran, this rare glimpse of urban Iranian life was so refreshing that one was left wondering how such strong story telling and cinematic traditions survive and flourish in a nation that isn't exactly the mecca for openness or progressiveness. Mainline shows an Iran where cocaine and heroin change hands in the flash of an eye at crowded shopping malls while the youngsters are on alert to avoid the police.

At the centre of the story is the young Sara, who tries to free herself of her addiction as her wedding day approaches. In this she has the help and support of her mother who is taking her on a journey to visit a friend who may be of some aid in the de-addiction process. Once on the road, she finds it extremely difficult to keep away from feeling high; both mother and daughter realize how the monsters of her addiction are not so easy to frighten away.

There was nothing contrived about the film; not a scene seemed out of place or irrelevant, not a snatch of dialogue exsited that didn't belong, and no noise or melodrama where the scope didn't exist. In short, a portrayal that is sincere and brutally honest and mature.

For the past three or more decades since the advent of Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Khiarostami on the scene, Iranian cinema has faithfully churned out thought provoking and insightful films about its people and problems that plague Iranian society.

And assisted partly by the Philadelphia film festival and partly by the odd video libraries around, one has, over the years, become addicted to films from Iran. An addiction that parallels Sara's own. Well, almost!!!

PS. Iranian cinema: some recommendations
Where is the Friends Home
The Wind will carry us
Ten
The cyclist
Kandahar
The Day I became a woman
Marooned in Iraq
Time for Drunken Horses

2007-03-30T18:45:00.000-07:00

FLASHBACK TO THE 50s (PART VII)
KAAGAZ KE PHOOL (1959)

Right off the start with an opening shot of a decrepit old film director entering the gates of his erstwhile studio while a giant statue towers over him, the pace is set for the strangely surreal shots and unconventional camerawork that inhabit the rest of Kaagaz Ke Phool. In many ways this opening scene is reminiscent of Citizen Kane, the 1948 Orson Wells classic that employed the concept of gigantism (if anyone remembers the camera panning the huge gateway to a gargantuan gloomy palace of the fallen from grace media moghul) to underline the insignificance of the personal and the mortal.

This liberal borrowing from a Hollywood classic was not at all unusual for the time. Hindi cinema had always looked to Hollywood for inspiration and technique. Also the fifties were a decade when Indian cinema was struggling to carve its own niche. A niche that, as the subsequent decades would show, stuck to storytelling in the old melodrama-musical format while borrowing heavily from Hollywood and Italian neorealism.

After decades of telling tales of gods and goddesses, kings and noblemen, the 50s saw Bollywood celluloid showcasing the struggles of the ordinary man; the Awaara, the 420, the Pyaasa, the Do bigha-owning peasant and the all sacrificing Mother (India). And in telling these new stories more effectively, cinema had to adopt to new modes of expressions and techniques; scenes had to be composed with more care and plots had to be restructured around the dance and music. Overall these led to major changes in filmaking styles from 30s and 40s. Guru Dutt, one of the leading filmmakers of the time, played a major role in this metamorphosis.

In an earlier film Pyaasa, the audience got the first glimpse of Dutt's experimentation with the plot and technique. In this unconventional story of a misunderstood poet, Dutt showed the poet's relation to fame, his romance with a nautch girl and his ultimate rejection of society as he walked away with the girl. For Hindi cinema, hitherto, given to Devdas-esque rejection of a prostitute, this treatment was refreshingly new. As was the depiction of the romance. For something that was quite centerstage to the story, the romance was underplayed. And yet it was very touching and endearing. Dutt had folk singers sing of Radha's yearning for Krishna, while Waheeda playing the prostitute Gulabo, looked on with a smile laced in melancholy.

In Kaagaz Ke Phool, the story of the fall of a film director, it wasn't the plot or characterization or the format alone that set it apart; Guru Dutt also made major technical improvisations. These would be easily obvious even to a less discerning eye especially in the picturization of the songs.

Technically there was a lot going for Kaagaz.... For starters, it was the first film in India to be shot in cinemascope. Then, there was V. K Murthy in whose hands the camera and stock came to life (1). And nowhere was this more evident than the Waqt Ne Kiya picturization. Here, with Murthy at the camera, and S.D Burman's music blending with Kaifi Azmi's lyrics while Geeta Dutt poured molten gold over the soundtrack, was born the rarest and most beautifully shot song sequence of Hindi cinema. It was another matter that an equally complex tale was being played out in real life too, as husband Guru Dutt was using Geeta Dutt's mellifluous voice to woo the beautiful Waheeda with the song.

This has often been called the beam effect scene; the shaft of light that served to light Waheeda's face also served to signify the passage of time, dim and disappear as it did with the protagonist's exit from the scene.

For a film that had so much going for it, Kaagaz...'s characters were not very well sketched out. And that was perhaps the film's greatest drawback. Dutt is said to have realized this later and accepted that while it was brilliant in parts there were reels where the screenplay dragged or was irrevelant.

In the story with had autobiographical shades, the protagonist film director Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt) is estranged from his wife and child. Sinha meets a young lady Shanti (played by Waheeda Rehman) on a rainy night and parts with his coat since she is wet and cold and poor as well (sardi zukaam muft mein milte hai par garam coat ke liye paisa lagta hai). Shanti comes to his studio to return the coat, and inadvertently walks into a scene being shot; the director upon seeing the rushes is convinced of her histrionic abilites and persuades her to enter filmdom. Gradually a romance develops between the middle aged director and young Shanti. When this features in gossip magazines, the director's daughter implores Shanti to leave her father. Which she does. But in the legal battle for his daughter's custody director Sinha loses to his wife. From then on Suresh Sinha's life takes a downward spiral, his films flop and he takes to drink. Shanti pleads with him to make a comeback with her (she is still a popular star) in a new film but his pride comes in the way. At the end of his life he becomes a loner, an impoverished man, working as an extra and living a vagabond existence.

And yet in his fall and in the ignominy of his defeat, there is a grace and a ethereal quality, that never quite allows the viewer to wallow in his sorrow or proclaim him a failure.

1 Talking about V. K Murthy's camerawork, one can never forget the playful light and dark oscillations between the dancers and their shadows intersecting with the pillars casting their long shadows, in Sahib Biwi Ghulam's "Saaqiya aaj mujhe neend nehi aayegi", another classic song picturization of Bollywood.

2007-03-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

FLASHBACK TO THE 50s
(PART VI)
KANOON (1959/60)

A few years after his directorial debut Afsana, and his mega hit Naya Daur, B.R. Chopra made an odd film. Odd by Bollywood standards, that is. For one, it was a suspense filled court drama. And, more importantly, it was a film sans song-and-dance. In an era when the fortunes of a film rested largely on the strength of its music and dance, this was a significant departure. Yet Kanoon kept audiences glued to their seat for the three hours that they waited for the identity of the murderer to be revealed.

Bollywood plots have had a long relation with the largely ineffective law-order problem and judicial systems, having portrayed over and over how the andhaa kanoon lets the criminal go scot free and often punishes the innocent and the meek. (Plots aside, Bollywood films have had a more direct and practical relation with law and order too; that a large slice of film production is financed by dubious sources is well known but that's another story!).

But in the Bollywoodian world of scripts and plots, the inability of the law to deliver justice and punish the culprits has been highlighted time and again. As early as 1942-43, movies such as Kismat showed how lack of evidence or insufficient witness could land an innocent man in trouble. A spate of such films followed in the 50s and 60s. Notable among them was Dev Anand's Kala Bazaar that showed how innocent lives could be wasted in jail. This trend continued into the 80s with Insaafs, Insaaf ka Tarazu-s and all those films filled with Karz-s and Farz-s and Andhaa Kanoon-s. Then came the late 80s that heralded the age of the gangster movies, when the protagonist could administer law and order without the state machinery. And thus engaging with the courts or the judiciary became completely irrelevant.

But the world of the 50s when Kanoon was conceived and made, was still a period of engaging the state apparatus. Indeed it is a member of the establishment, Judge Badri Prashad, deeply disturbed by the flaws of a system that proscribes punishment based on the witnesses, who sets the plot in motion. So here we have Ashok Kumar who plays the Judge, unabashedly declaring his reservations on the manner in which justice is doled out. His premise is that the law is blind insofar as there no witnesses to come forward and shed light on the scene of the crime. With such a huge flaw in the system, capital punishment should be outlawed. In a discussion with a colleague, a fellow judge, Badri Prasad goes so far as to bet that if he quietly committed a murder, making sure that there weren't any witnesses around, he was sure to go free.

As the story progresses a murder is committed. The victim is a rich moneylender who a few townsmen would gladly see dead. There are multiple motives including a thief apprehended on the site of the crime and a nautch girl in the picture. To compound matters, there is also Badri Prasad's son Vijay (played by Mehmood, who along with Shubha Khote adds a bit of comic relief) who owes a large sum to the moneylender. Meanwhile the judge's daughter Meena (Nanda) sends a young lawyer Kailash (Rajendra Kumar) to the moneylender to plead on behalf of her brother. Kailash happens to be Meena's love interest (without the stipulated song and dance but with the requisite pails of tears) and is close to the Prashad family; indeed he looks upon the judge as a father figure.

At the moneylender's place Kailash tries to reason with him but the debts are quite large and the fellow threatens to have the judge's home auctioned off to extract his dues. As Kailash turns to leave he hears footsteps. Hiding behind the curtains he witnesses the murder of the moneylender. But so shocked is he by the identity of the murderer that he almost passes out.

The murder would remain unsolved except that a poor thief is caught. Unwillingly to let an innocent suffer the young lawyer takes up his case and finally tries to bring the culprit to book. In the process he loses the support of all those he loves. Meena, Vijay and eventually Judge Badri Prashad.

And yet as we see in the last scene it was a case of mistaken identity. Proving Badri Prashad right; that the Kanoon is as andhaa as the witnesses allow it to be.

2007-03-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

A LETTER TO A VICEROY

Your Excellency,
The enormity of the measures taken by the Government in the Punjab for quelling some local disturbances has, with a rude shock, revealed to our minds the helplessness of our position as British subjects in India. The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilised governments, barring some conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terribly efficient organisation for destruction of human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification. The accounts of the insults and sufferings by our brothers in Punjab have trickled through the gagged silence, reaching every corner of India, and the universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers- possibly congratulating themselves for imparting what they imagine as salutary lessons. This callousness has been praised by most of the Anglo-Indian papers, which have in some cases gone to the brutal length of making fun of our sufferings, without receiving the least check from the same authority, relentlessly careful in something every cry of pain of judgment from the organs representing the sufferers. Knowing that our appeals have been in vain and that the passion of vengeance is building the noble vision of statesmanship in out Government, which could so easily afford to be magnanimous, as befitting its physical strength and normal tradition, the very least that I can do for my country is to take all consequences upon myself in giving voice to the protest of the millions of my countrymen, surprised into a dumb anguish of terror. The time has come when badges of honour make our shame glaring in the incongruous context of humiliation, and I for my part, wish to stand, shorn, of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance , are liable to suffer degradation not fit for human beings. And these are the reasons which have compelled me to ask Your Excellency, with due reference and regret, to relieve me of my title of knighthood, which I had the honour to accept from His Majesty the King at the hands of your predecessor, for whose nobleness of heart I still entertain great admiration.
Yours faithfully,
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Calcutta,
6, Dwarakanath Tagore Lane,
May 30, 1919

Check out this documentary by Satyajit Ray.

2007-03-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

FLASHBACK TO THE 50s (PART V)
NAYA DAUR (1957)

During the first national elections in the early fifties as crowds cheered Nehru with Pandit Nehru Zindabad, he would stop them and urge them to say Naya Hindustan Zindabad instead. In tune with the times, it is this Naya Hindustan that formed the backdrop of many of the 50s and 60s films. The Nehruvian march toward modernity, with mega iron-steel plants and huge dams would come at a huge human cost as the new technology temples of modern India came up on agricultural lands and replaced the labor force with machines. Indian cinema reflected these trends; while Do Bigha Zamin showed the plight of those dispossessed of their agricultural land, Naya Daur's premise was the struggle of human labor against the onslaught of mechanization.

And yet Naya Daur does not pit man against machine or the haves against the have-nots. Indeed, it does not pit anyone against the other (at least ideologically it doesn't). As the protagonist Shankar (played by Dilip Kumar) says to the mill owner "garib ko to bus do waqat ki roti chahiye" and "apki jeb bhi bharti rahe aur gareebon ka pet bhi." And later "humko machine se koi bair nehi." In short, take the middle path. Keep both man and machine. Above all don't upset the apple cart.

That is not to say that the struggle that forms the plot of the film is irrelevant. Far from it. Naya Daur was probably one of the earliest films that juxtaposed class struggle with mechanization and modernization. That in the march toward progress, benefits from technology would be reaped by the few who could afford it in the first place. The mill owner of Naya Daur for instance.

Over the decades this theme would be taken up by Indian filmmakers, but the best works generally emerged from the world of parallel cinema. A classic film of this genre is Jahnu Barua's Hkhagoroloi Bohu Door (it's a long way to the sea) where an old boatman loses his livelihood when a bridge is built over the river on which he ferries passengers. The talented Barua tackled the subject with immense sensitivity. In the real world many ways of life do go extinct, and Barua did not falter to show the poignancy of the situation.

But Bollywood caters to a more varied taste!

Back to Naya Daur. The film is set in a basti where folks are in complete harmony with the benign landlord, a bespectacled bearded Nasir Hussain in dhoti and chadar, who doubles as a father figure to his subjects. These men are either employed in benign patriarch's mill or drive tongas for a living. No biradaris, unch-nich or jaat-paat. The people eat together, play together, even pray together. The basti thus becomes the microcosm for the Naya Hindustan.

In celebration of the pan Indian ethos running throughout the film, Vyjayanthimala can wear a half saree or thaavani and dance the bhangra. The dress code is a bit strict in the men's apparel section as the rural folks wear dhoti irrespective of their position and wealth, and the city bred are suited booted. But pro-progress suited booted is not necessarily anti-people. So as a foil to the patriarch's son Kundan (played by Jeevan) who swears by progress-via-machines, there is the city journalist Johnnie Walker. If Mr. Journo's appearance and English khitpit does not bother the bastiwalas it is because his dedication to their cause comes as a part of the package.

The idyllic life in the basti gets a jolt as the landlord's city bred son takes over the reins of the fiefdom. Obsessed with making more profits, he mechanizes his mills and fires his workers. He even gets a bus to drive passengers around, thus putting the tongas out of business. Challenged to a bus vs tonga race from the station to the temple, Shankar, the leader of the tongawalahs accepts and together with his people builds a short road with a bridge to the temple to win the race. Through all this he has the support of his lady love Vyjayanthimala, who not only lifts the first pail of mud on her head but also puts her own life on line and throws away the stick of dynamite that was intended to destroy the bridge.

But it was funny to see the lady's delicate hands (manicured nails, beautifully designed bangles et al) pick a bucket of shoveled earth and balance it on her dainty head.

Being part of mainstream cinema there is obviously no room to address the complexities and conflicts of class and modernization. It would be interestingly to see how these hierarchies intersect. Although the villagers are not the silent suffering types and do rise to the challenge, it is only inasmuch as their livelihood is at stake. Unfortunately an understanding of their collective power dawning on them is never explored. I know this is no place for comparisons but one is reminded of the Naseer character in the last scene of Manthan, where he gleeful proclaims "sosoty aapni hai" (the cooperative society belongs to us); this after realizing that the cooperative society belonged to him and others and not to the shahari babus.

No such fate awaits the bastiwalahs here. Nowhere is their love for status quo more evident as when the statue of a goddess (Maa to the villagers) is found buried in the road construction path. For all the talk of a new order, the villagers fear a curse and change the course of the road. Shankar does protest but the elders prevail. So much for the Naya order!!

2007-03-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

FLASHBACK TO THE 50s (PART IV)
AFSANA (1951)

It was while searching for Ashok Kumar starrers that I stumbled upon this oldie. But a few reels into the movie and the plot began to look vaguely familiar. Now a 1951 film can be a lift off from an older work, but my chances of having seen that original would be pretty remote. As things stand, my ten digits are sufficient to keep track of all the 50s films I've seen. For pre-50s, an ape hand would suffice.

If it wasn't an earlier version could it be a later one. It was, as I soon remembered.

Two decades after its release, Afsana went the way of many Bollywood films, that is to say it was recycled or remade. Called Dastaan in its new avatar, it, unlike other remakes, kept the plot and scenes almost unchanged. The new name, too, was a mere word play on the older one. Afsana, a Urdu word means a tale or a story as does Dastaan. The deja vu I felt was on account of having seen the remake many years ago.

Watching an original and a remake offer a marvelous opportunity to see first hand, the changes in styles of acting and film making in the intervening years. This is especially true if much has happened in those years that have shaped the entertainment industry. A peek at the Devdas series from Pramathesh Barua to SRK via Dilip Kumar can articulate the story of a voyage in film making better than any tomes on the history of the celluloid ever could.

Hindi Cinema of the early 50s carried many elements of the earlier decades. And Afsana was no exception. First, there was extreme awkwardness in all matters related to any emotion. Also the 30s and 40s had made it almost mandatory for the lead pair to look extremely uncomfortable with each other. This translated to zilch chemistry. Obviously there wasn't too much romance and passion on display; but even when there were such moments, the dialogues stumbled out of the actors' mouths as though the sole purpose of their existence was to be gurgled off at the first opportune moment. A fine example of this would be our own Dadamoni, Ashok Kumar singing Mein baan Ki Chiriya to Devika Rani in Achyut Kanya while both dangled from the branch of a tree.

And yet, decades later the same actor showed his fine mettle in an array of films. Whether he played the husband in the romance triangle of Gumrah, or the father in Mili or the aging grandfather in Satyakam, Ashok Kumar could always be depended upon to give a splendid performance.

Aside from the lead actor, the female counterparts in Afsana were endowed with a liberal dash of histrionic incapability. Then, came the bane of the 40s. The nasal tone. Watching this combination today, it is hard not to be amused by the scenes that were meant to be melancholic. When the small boy who grows to be Ashok Kumar is lost in a mela, or when he grows up to find his wife cheating on him; situations that could cull some empathy from the audience then, can merely garner a chuckle now.

In contrast to the gawkiness in acting, the fashion sense was fairly good. This is especially true of the women who, thanks to the styles of the day, were bequeathed with a timeless ageless look (if anyone's seen pics of Maharani Gayatri Devi of the 1930s, you'll get what I mean). In Afsana, both heroines wore short styled hair, exquisite jewelery, well cut clothes; an ensemble that wouldn't be out of place even today. This, however, is not surprising, as the trend for style in Indian cinema goes back earlier. As early as late 1930s, when Himangshu Rai had cast women in unconventional roles that demanded well cut and designed dresses with stylish accessories that were far beyond the times.

Cut to the story. Twin brothers (played by Ashok Kumar and Dilip Kumar double roles in the original and remake respectively) get separated in childhood in a mela. The twins have a friend in a small girl (played by child artiste Tabassum) who in a precocious form of Sati Savitri-esque is devoted to one of the twins. To make recognition easier, there is the birth mark on only one of the brothers. The lost twin ends up as a judge (he has also lost his memory in the meantime so he doesn't know where he comes from and who is pining for him) while the twin at home is a rich businessman. Tabassum grows up to be the actress Veena (Sharmila Tagore in the remake), singing and playing melancholic music for her lost love (lost twin) while the twin at home nurses a soft corner for her. Fates change and the lost twin and the pining girl get to meet whereupon she recognizes him from his birth mark. Songs and tears later, amnesia finally leaves him but there is still the business of sorting out his other life where he has a wife. To make matters easy this is an unfaithful wife who is cheating behind his back with a friend. Eventually justice is served and the good twin gets the pining girl.

Two decades later (decades that had seen more realistic acting, more melodrama, better camera work), the remake fares better than the original. For one, there is visible chemistry between the lead pair, Dilip Kumar and Sharmila. The pace is faster, the fight sequences are well shot and the sets are more convincing without the cardboard moons for the lovers to serenade. Taking advantage of all the realism (!!) Sharmila and Dilip Kumar actually do a good job of pretending to be in love and have some human rather than wooden moments. Obviously there is some excess in every department, so an overabundance of tears ensues with sudden bursts of music to underscore the high points of melodrama, just in case you miss it.

2007-02-25T22:28:00.000-08:00

FLASHBACK TO THE 50s (PART III)

New Delhi (1956)

The first ten minutes, and I begin to wonder if this film is not another Teen batti char raaste, that V. Shantaram production on national integration. Not that I have anything against "Teen Batti.....". On the contrary, it figures on my "to do" list of 50s movies that will appear shortly on this blog. But I don't want an encore on display, either.

Readers may have noticed that I've been intermittently blogging on black and white movies of the 50s. I chose Bollywood, because as a brand it has, like Khadi Gram Udyog and Lifebuoy, remained unchanged over generations. In other words, it is what is called rock solid dependable. No matter what the assortment or order, one can be assured that the blend of love, tragedy, melody and violence will, at the very least, deliver huge comic relief. Where in the world can the heroine's bachao bacho peacefully coexist with the hero's Maa ka ashirwad , behen ka mandatory meri izzat par haat lagaya to mein jaan de doongi and the love interest's compulsory item number that necessitates a chilly winter to sarkaye leo the khatiya.

When it comes to fumbling and bumbling in collage making, Bollywood wins hands down.

So as I was saying, in the course of picking films for the 50s list (suggestions welcome!!) realization suddenly dawns that what I have at hand is essentially an exhibition of exercises in lachrymal training!! So I step back, and pick the odd Kishore Kumar, the odd Shantaram and the odd this and that (thanks are due to Van Pelt Library). And that's how I landed New Delhi.

A few more minutes into the film (after the first ten) and my pick is not so bad after all. For one, the overabundance of cultural integration that was Teen Batti... is severely curtailed. Instead of the ambitious cultural merger across the subcontinent we are mercifully subjected to a smaller goal of achieving unity only in the northie-southie context. In other words, we are left with the Madrasi (this is 50s India, when the south of the Vindhyas was Madrasi territory) and the Punjabi. And what better than the nuptial knot to unite cultures!

So there's Anand (Kishore Kumar), a Punjabi from Jullunder who has to pose as a Madrasi to get an accommodation in the capital city. So provincial are the landlords here, that they look for renters from their own community, prompting Anand to ask yeh hindustan kahan hain and burst into an appropriate song extolling the virtues of the greater homeland.

Through his new Madrasi connections, Anand meets classical music teacher Janaki (Vyjayanthimala). Now with Vyjayanthimala around, can dance be far behind. So she becomes a song and dance teacher. (A word about the dances. They are simply divine.) But no sooner does their romance begin that Anand's father Lala Daulatram (Nasir Hussein) is transferred into the city. Comic scenes follow as Janaki's father wishes to meet him and Anand seeks the help of their gluttonous Madrasi servant in the masquerade. Soon he is caught red handed and in the me lee that ensues, Janaki tries to commit suicide by jumping off into a river (after uttering the stipulated number of nehi nehi-s).

In the city resides another Punjabi gentleman, a Sahukar who loves Janaki as his own daughter. He saves her in the nick of time, drills some sense into her head (if that's possible) and introduces her into society as his niece. A big black mole on her cheek, a salwar kameez-dupatta-paranda instead of kanjeevaram-pottu-flowers, the aiaiohh replaced with ithe-uthe (she even dances a bhangra pale) and she is so convincing that Lala Daulatram accepts her hand for his son. Mrs. Daulatram, too, is also going vari jaaon over her.

In a parallel plot, the Bengali angle is brought in (what after all is national integration if one leaves out the Bong) as Anand's sister falls in love with painter, Ashok Banerjee. Obviously, Daulatram would hear nothing of such an union and promptly arranges his daughter's wedding to a boy from his biradari. Just as the wedding is about to begin, the boy's family shows their true colors and demands a huge dowry. In contrast to their meanness (they also kick Daulatram-ji's pagri which in a mandatory beti ka baap scene he has dutifully deposited at the groom's father's feet) Banerjee, the bong, is an epitome of sainthood. He steps in to offer his wealth to get his beloved married to another man. And not just any wealth mind you, it's his dead mother's jewelery left for his to-be wife. (Oh! how I love Bollywood's penchant for spelling things out loud and clear just so that the audience is spared from exerting their pea sized brain that can be put toward more useful pursuits elsewhere. Thus the dead mother's jewels, in case you had a wee bit of doubt about Bong babu's kind soul.) Teary eyed, Daulatram is finally brought to his senses. The two pairs of love birds are united and the day is saved for cultural integration.

Despite the tried and tested portrayals and the standard dialogues, there are some funny and wonderfully comic moments in the film. Especially in the scenes involving disguise; Kishore Kumar as a Madrasi, his servant posing as his Madrasi father and Vyjayanthimala as a Punjaban. Needless to add, Kishore Kumar's comic timing is great even in the songs. The highlight song of the film is Nakhrewali where he appears in a Fred Astaire like look complete with hat and cane.

2007-02-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

WEEKEND READS

Revisioning the past
Early Photography in Bengal 1875-1915 (Malavika Karlekar)

The Zigzag Way (Anita Desai)

Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton)

The Emperor (Ryzard Kapuscinski)

2007-02-23T14:29:00.000-08:00

THE 12 SONS OF MANU

Aurasa: the son a man begets from his own wedded wife is the first in rank.

Kshetraja: the son begotten by the union of a wife with another man according to the peculiar law of the Niyoga.

Datrima: the boy (equal in caste) given away willingly by his mother or his father.

Gudhotpanna: the boy whose father is not known belongs to him of whose wife he was born of.

Apavidha: he who is received as a son, after he has been deserted by both or either of his parents.

Kanina: a son whom a damsel secretly bears in the house of her father belongs to him who weds her afterwards.

Sahodha: the son begotten of a bride pregnant at the time of marriage. If one marries such a bride, either knowingly or unknowingly, the child in her womb belongs to him who weds her, and is a son received with the bride.

Kritaka: the boy a man buys from his father and mother for the sake of having a son.

Paunarbhava: The son born of a woman who had been married earlier and has of her own accord contracted a second marriage and borne a son.

Swayamdatta: He who, having lost his parents or being abandoned by them, gives himself as a son to another man.

Parasava: The son begotten by a Brahman through lust on a Shudra woman.

In addition to these eleven, any man who participates in the funeral ceremony of a departed may substitute for a son

2007-02-22T22:19:00.000-08:00

STEVEN PINKER and THE BLANK SLATE

In his book The Blank Slate, Harvard Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Steven Pinker argues against the concept that all humans are born innately equal. His work has faced severe criticism, not the least because many social scientists fear that dogmas challenging concepts of equality may eventually shift the emphasis from environment to innate ability before the playing field is leveled.

Perhaps critics have been over reacting!

As an Editor of The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004, this is what Pinker had to say in his Introduction to the Volume.

"In anticipating a steady turning of science to the mind and its products I am thinking not just of fancy technologies but of an extension to human affairs of the scientific mindset itself. This does not mean reducing the human condition to genes or neurons or primate behavior but rather seeking to ascertain whether a claim about human affairs is consistent with the facts and with everything else we know about how the world works."

Isn't to "know how the world works" all about the environment and its role. Albeit in a roundabout way!

Here is Pinker on Colbert Report.

2007-02-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

FRANSHIP: IN THE WHEEL OF BOLLYWOODI TIME

Then

and now:

2007-02-20T10:40:00.000-08:00

POEM OF THE TIMES!!!

Leisure
W.H. Davies

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

2007-02-16T21:13:00.000-08:00

HAIRSTYLE ON DEMAND

2007-02-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

GLIMPSES OF A BUSY HOUSEHOLD

The maidens were busy with their household chores, and Chandrapida heard with delight the names of these lovely girls and the instructions given to them, such as -Lavalika, spread the pollen of ketaki flowers on the graden trenches; Sagarika, sprinkle jewel dust on the pools of scented water; Rajanika, go to the avenue of tamal trees and place jewelled lamps there; Kumudika, protect the pomegranate trees with nets, otherwise the birds will ruin the fruit; Nipunika, decorate the dolls with saffron marks; Utpalika, take that golden broom and sweep the emerald floors on the banana arbour; Malatika, go paint the roof of Kamadeva's shrine, Nalinika, it is time to feed the swans, give them lotus honey;Kadalika, see that the peacocks are taken to the bath-house, Kutalitika, offer these mango buds to the pigeons; Pallavika, pluck some leaves from the top branches of the pepper tree and give them to the partridges;Madhukarika, weave some garlands with flowers; Mayurika, tell those two kinnaras to stop their music now; Harinika, it is time for you to give the caged parrots their daily talking lessons.

Chandrapida was enjoying the bustle of activity in which these charming maidens were engaged. And then, suddenly, his eyes rested on Kadambari herself. She was reclining on a small couch covered with silk. Two maidens fanned her, and the rhythmic movement of their arms made it appear that they were swimming in the river of Kadambari's beauty.

From Banabhatt's Kadambari (tr. from Sanskrit by Vishwanath S. Naravane)

2007-02-02T22:51:00.000-08:00

FLASHBACK TO THE 50s (PART II)

DO BIGHA ZAMEEN (1953)

For me two scenes stand out in Do Bigha Zameen. The first, when the protagonist peasant discovers that his son has turned to theft in desperation and the anger, hurt and sadness that follows. And the second was at the very end when the rural family, comprising of said peasant, his wife and their son return to their village to find a factory chimney spewing smoke where their fields had once stood. They then take turns in pointing out to each other where in this large factory premises might have lain their erstwhile home, their fields, and their kitchen. As they turn to go away, the father thrusts his hand into the fence to grab a handful of earth from his land. But he is shooed away.

Heart wrenching though these scenes were, they gave an aura of dignity and stoicism to the persona of the dispossessed. The underdog who was honest and righteous, had to suffer. But this he did in silence with very little demands from society. No matter how dire the circumstances, for him there would be no deviation from the moral path. Hence the disowning of the son who steals but nary a protest when the state steals his land. Or when he is denied the right to keep a few grains of the earth from his own land, the land that his family had tilled for generations.

This simple categorization of the poor as good and the rich as greedy, corrupt and unfeeling in Do Bigha...may seem very naive today. But in 1952-53, with India's independence only a few years old, its masses in abject poverty, and its middle classes just getting by, this theme was probably a crowd puller. This was also an era when money making through private businesses and enterprise was looked down upon, associated as it was with dishonesty (Profit is a dirty word, Nehru had once said to Jamshed Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group of Industries) and didn't go too well with the righteous, middle class in the employment of the state. And so Do Bigha.... did very well at the box office.

The displacement motif was quite familiar too. The Jawarharlal Nehru government was on a industrialization spree on a series of five year plans, building mammoth iron steel and sundry other plants. Often these structures came up on large tracts of agricultural land but since these "temples of modern India" had the potential to usher in a new age, displacement seemed to be a small price to pay. So in that sense the plot was in tune with the times.

The story runs thus. Shambhu (Balraj Sahni) in Do Bigha....is a small farmer whose land holding happens to fall within the area planned for a huge industrial project. Like most farmers, Shambhu has taken loans from a money lender against his 2 acres of land, so that like the rest of rural India he in under debt. Normally this wouldn't mean a thing since he is able and strong and can cultivate his land to pay off his debt or a portion of it or at least the interest on it. However, now that building the factory depends upon acquiring his land, the contractors pressurize him to pay off his debts in three months.

For Shambhu handing over the title to his land is not merely giving away a piece of earth, it means an end to their way of life. (Since this is Bollywood it is also tantamount to selling one's mother!). But how to save his land from greedy clutches? After some thought he decides to leave for the city earn money by hard manual labor. In this venture he has the support of his wife Parvati (Nirupa Roy) and son Kanhaiya. While Parvati stays behind in the village, Shambhu and son go to the city. Here the duo toil very hard; while Shambhu pulls a hand drawn rickshaw, Kanhaiya polishes shoes. But a series of misfortunes follow and finally the family reunites and returns to their village in the last scene to find their land and home gone.

A scene from Bicycle Thief

Do Bigha....was also one of the earliest movies in Bollywood to be influenced by neorealism. Director Bimal Roy borrowed heavily from DeSica's Bicycle Thief. It was no coincidence that Kanhaiya character was based on DeSica's Bruno, especially some elements of that heart aching innocence. Other themes such as the father-son team, the son watching the father in defeat (albeit handled differently in Do Bigha...Bimal Roy was too talented a director to be given to blatant lift offs) were so reminiscent of DeSica that I had to watch the masterpiece once more. (Will post on it soon!!).

The socialist message that Do Bigha...carried was almost a first in Bollywood cinema. Later, of course, through the fifties, there would be many more films on the subject, notably under the RK banner, movies ranging from Awaara to Jaagte Raho, all celebrating the underdog, and singing hosannas to the factory worker and the farmer, the inheritors of Marx's legacy.

None, however, would hold a candle to Do Bigha....where no matter the poverty, the loss and the deprivation (with small doses of melodrama Bollywood style which detracted greatly from the film) human dignity and righteousness are,for the first time in Bollywoodian celluloid,
in surfeit in the most unlikely of places and in the most adverse of circumstances. And that in itself calls for some celebration.

2007-01-30T20:40:00.000-08:00

FLASHBACK TO THE 50s (PART- I)

BAIJU BAWRA (1952)
by guest blogger Pia Sen

Plot summary -- Akbar's Delhi, with some weird law against people singing outside Tansen's house because it may disturb maestro's art. Baiju's dad is leading Kirtan group to that spot, get's stopped by guards, scuffle, dad is accidentally killed, boy Baiju swears revenge on Tansen(18 times, just in case you miss it).

Cut to youth -- Baiju (Bharat Bhushan) has been adopted by do-gooder villager in remote spot and spends most of his time cavorting with lovely Meena Kumaari, 3 very nice songs (Jhule me pavan, door koi gnaae, and the most exquisite Tu ganga ki mauj, mein jamuna ka dhara). Comic relief provided by a bad singer with aspirations to Meena K's love and hand-in-marriage.

Cut -- village raided by buxom female dacoit, Baiju's singing entrances her, she is willing to spare village if Baiju comes with her. Meena Kumari follows them as they go away, singing plaintively, then dissolves in tears.

Cut -- Baiju rejects female dacoits advances with heroic lines like "how do you call yourself an aurat? What do you know of pyar?", till dacoit confesses that her current career all to do with her dad having been killed --- twaanggggg, Baiju remembers HIS dad was killed, starts yelling 'revenge revenge' and runs off to Delhi, makes it right into Tansen's house (in spite of the 30 well-paid guards around) waving sword, dramatic confrontation with Tansen, with Baiju huffing and puffing that he's gonna chop off Tansen's head, and Tansen dreamily intoning that he can ooooonly be killed thru music....

Baiju stomps off to find suitable guru who'll make him such a maestro that he'll "kill Tansen via music", finds some nice Hindu swami type, long and painful scene with Baiju insisting that he will learn music for revenge, guru going on about how music is all about forgiveness and love, this is when I went off to get coffee, when I came back, Baiju is stomping through mountains with veena on his back and comes to this temple with big idol, and proceeds to start singing all kinds of ragas (all of which are symbolized by Meena Kumari in various revealing dresses).

Baiju is now maestro, he returns, and somehow miraculously cures guru's paralysis by singing "mana tarpata hari darshana", gets accepted as disciple. In meantime Meena K is pining and pining, daddy wants her to marry the other guy, she prepares to drink poison, except she takes so goddamn long to lift cup to her lips that dacoit queen appears, dashes cup from lips, and take her off to search for Baiju.

Baiju is now almost super-maestro, when Meena K shows up at doorstep. Tearful reconciliation scene for 3 minutes, then Baiju suddenly yells "no, revenge, revenge, no love, just revenge", and runs marathon all the way back to temple in mountain with Meena K giving chase. Next dramatic confrontation, Baiju giving big dialogues like he will put sindoor on no woman's forehead till he has finished 'badla' for baap ka khoon...he leaves, Meena K dissolves in tears, random snake appears hissing.

Guru comes and tells Baiju (for 98th time) that revenge is bad scene for music, learn the beauty born of pain and turn that into music.

Twaaang, Meena Kumari overhears (that mountian must have seriously amazing acoustics), gets MAJOR inspiration. She goes off and irritates the poor snake till, in sheer frustration, it bites her! Baiju in meantime for some inexplicible reason has decided that pyar can come before badla after all and is running back -- but dwaaang -- dramatic music -- she is DYING....tearful dialogues, tearful dialogues...she is DEAD (with Baiju yelling "I will NOT LET YOU DIE" rather than actually doing anything useful to help her. (Why do movie characters always do
that ?).

Baiju does headache-inducing imitation of gone crazy with grief, yells, cackles with laughter, cusses out poor dacoit queen who doesn't know what the hell is going on, finally tells dacoit queen that SHE can take care of cremation and other necessary things, he's going to just grow a long beard and rave and rant some more.

"Duniya ke raakhwaale" starts, all very beautifully, in front of idol, Baiju wandering through deserts, mountains, and...drama....

.....to Delhi, right in front of Tansen's house -- he is singing in the FORBIDDEN SPOT, and all that "maar daalo us-se" in background is Tansen's guards, but rather than maro-ing him, they just end up gagging him --BIG anti-climax. So now Baiju is in prison, and Akbar has decreed that he must compete with Tansen in musical contest, chop-chop for the loser. In meantime -- dramatic news comes -- Meena K is NOT dead, all it took was her being attended to by someone who actually knew what to do with snakebite victims.

Summary of rest of plot (since none of the other songs are particularly interesting), Baiju gets fresh inspiration hearing she's alive! But daddy decides she should marry guy he originally set her up with, Baiju defeats Tansen by singing so eloquently that he melts big chunks of marble, everyone weeps and sobs and Tansen hails him and Baiju shows magnanimity by asking Akbar to spare Tansen's life, and right when everyone's making long flowery speeches, Baiju suddenly remembers that Meena K is still alive and takes off running like Forrest Gump, shows up minutes before wedding is scheduled but now he's on wrong side of river and major storm is brewing, takes off across river in a boat still singing, Meena K hears him and runs off in all her bridal finery and jumps into river, boat capsizes he falls into river, half the village gathers on the bank to shout clueless instructions, they swim together, exchange highly sappy dialogues, and then drown while in each other's arms. Phew!

I go off to hunt for aspirin.

Pia

PS. Watch this space for more B & Ws from B- and H-wood.

2007-01-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

GAINS IN TRANSLATION

Six Acres and A Third-Fakir Mohan Senapati
Shah of Shahs-Ryszard Kapuscinski

The 19th century author, Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843-1918) is regarded as the father of modern Oriya literature. Born in a small village near Balasore, Braja Mohan, as he was called contracted a serious illness as a child. He recovered only after being blessed by a Fakir (muslim mendicant). Thus was Fakir appended to his name.

Rare though this incident was, Fakir Mohan grew up to be rarer author.

In the nineteenth century, vernacular literature in India revolved around the romance or chivalry of mythical and royal heroes. Literary works were either paens to heroic characters or embellishments of divine romances or homage to India's ancient past. The Western form of prose, the novel, was still in its infancy. And for those literary figures that had embraced it, it was still a vehicle for expressing the lores of the old.

Senapati, in significant departure from this tradition of his time, started writing about the common man. His novels were rural plots and had the farmer, weaver, and herdsmen as protagonists. In his world, the haves were the zamindar or the city bred babus of British officialdom. In another bold move for his time, his characters spoke in a form of Oriya that was entirely colloquial.

But why am I suddenly blogging about an Oriya author of the past?

Because, a few weeks ago I stumbled upon his famous work Chha mana Atha Guntha (Six Acres and a third). Set in rural Orissa, around 1898-1900, Chha mana.... revolves around an evil zamindar Mangaraj, and how he sets his sight on a rent free plot of land (six and a third acres in area) belonging to a weaver and uses guile, deception and the legal system to usurp it. The beauty of the plot is that although the exploitation of the poor is clearly centrestage, Senapati engages his readers into rural life with wit, sarcasm, and dry humor to wade us through the daily events, the squabbles and the gossip. Despite the banter there is the underlying irony of the hierarchy of exploitation. Of the landless by the zamindar, and of the zamindar by the colonial rule and policies. Mangaraj's devious ways ultimately lead to his nemesis but though his tale has a moral end, the same does not hold for his brand of exploitation.

"It was rumoured everywhere that the judge Sahib had taken away Mangaraj's zamindari and given it to a lawyer, and that this lawyer would come with ten palanquins followed by five horses and two hundred foot soldiers to take possession of it on the next Makara Sankranti. On hearing this the people of the village reminded one another. "Oh, horse, what difference does it make to you if you are stolen by a thief? You do not get much to eat here; you will not get much to eat there. No matter who becomes the next master, we will remain his slaves. We must look after our own interests."

The wit and irony throughout the plot is what makes this book immensely readable. For instance, take Mangaraj's portrayal as a miser:

Mangaraj treated his farmhands like his own children. Now, parents are never satisfied unless they personally make sure there children have eaten their fill. So as soon as his farmhands sat down in a row for their midday meal, the zamindar would call out: "Cook, bring the rice gruel. Hurry up. My boys are dying of thirst." The cook would then serve two large bowls of watery liquid to each one. And if a farmhand ever resented having to drink so much gruel before the meal, Mangaraj would deliver a long lecture on the health-giving properties, persuading them to drink up. Only after that would he arrange for rice to be served, and then go for his bath.

There were seventeen drumstick trees in the master's orchard, and their leaves possessed certain medicinal properties. They aided digestion, were nourishing and delicious; besides they helped restore sick to health. We do not know if books really claim such properties but then we have no expertise in this field. We have merely written down what we have heard from Mangaraj himself. Naturally enough, not a single leaf found its way to the market; they were reserved exclusively for the nourishment and well being of Mangaraj's farmhands.
People who are wise can effortlessly sort the good from the bad. They know that everything the drumstick tree produces is good, except, of course, the drumsticks themselves. Which is why Mangaraj never served those to the farmhands; those went straight to the market.

This great literary work is now available to us in the form of a translation "Six Acres and a Third" (by Rabi Shankar Mishra, Satya P. Mohanty, Jatindra K. Nayak and Paul St.-Pierre, with an Introduction by Satya P. Mohanty) that was published by Penguin Press in 2005.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Polish journalist and author, Ryszard Kapuscinski died last week. A foreign correspondent for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski traveled around the world in the 60s and 70s covering dozens of coups and revolutions. He wrote about these in a dozen or more books, approaching the situation through his own encounters.

He was in Iran in 1979 when the Shah was deposed and Khomeini took over power. In Shah of Shahs (Translated from Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand), he relates a small incident pertaining to language and words; and weaves around it the conflicts in new societies being shaped out of crumbling colonies.

"And now what is he saying?" I ask again, because I don't understand Farsi.

"He is saying," one of the young men tells me, "in our country there is no room for foreign influence."

Khomeini goes on speaking and everyone follows attentively. On the screen someone's trying to quiet a group of children at the base of the platform.

"What is he saying?" I ask again after a while.

"He is saying that nobody will tell us what to do in our own home or impose anything on us, he is saying 'Be brothers to one another, be united.'"

That is all they can tell me in their halting English. Everyone learning English should understand that it is getting harder and harder to communicate in that language around the world. The same is true of French and, generally, of all European langauges. Once Europe ruled the world, sending its merchants, soldiers, and missionaries to every continent, imposing on others its own interests and culture (this in usually rather bogus versions). Even in the remotest corners of the world knowing a European language was a mark of distinction, testifying to an ambitious upbringing, and was often a necessity of life, the basis for career and promotion, and sometimes even a condition for being considered human. Those languages were taught in African schools, used in commerce, spoken in exotic parliaments, Asian courts, and Arab coffeehouses. Traveling almost anywhere in the world, Eurpeans could feel at home. They could express their opinions and understand what others were saying to them. Today the world is different. Hundreds of patriotisms have blossomed. Every nation wants to control and organize its own population, territory, resources, and culture according to native traditions.

And some gems on development a la Shah of Iran style:

Development is a treacherous river, as everyone who plunges into its current knows. On the surface the water flows smoothly and quickly, but if the captain makes one careless or thoughtless move he finds out how many whirlpools and wide shoals the river contains. As the ship comes upon more and more of these hazards the captain's brow gets more and more furrowed. He keeps singing and whistling to keep his spirits up. The ship looks as if it is still traveling forward, yet it is stuck in one place. The prow has settled on a sandbar. All this, however, happens later. In the meantime the Shah is making purchases costing billions, and ships full of merchandise are steaming toward Iran from all the continents. But when they reach the Gulf, it turns out that the small obsolete ports are unable to handle such a mass of cargo (the Shah hadn't realized this). Several hundred ships line up at sea and stay there for up to six months, for which delay Iran pays the shipping companies a billion dollars annually. Somehow the ships are gradually unloaded, but it turns out that there are no warehouses (the Shah hadn't realized this). In the open air, in the desert, in the nightmarish tropical heat lie millions of tons of all sorts of cargo. Half of it, consisting of perishable foodstuffs and chemicals, ends up being thrown away. The remaining cargo now has to be transported to the depths of the country, and at this moment it turns out that there is no transport (the Shah hadn't realized). Or rather there are few trucks and trailers but only a crumb in comparison to the need. Two thousand tractor trailers are thus ordered from Europe, but then it turns out that there are no drivers (the Shah hadn't realized). After much consulation, an airliner flies off to bring South Korean truckers from Seoul.

Kapuscinski was often mentioned as a favorite for a Nobel Literature Prize. His new book Travels with Herodotus is due for release in March 2007.

2007-01-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

THE HUTCH CROSSWORD BOOK AWARD SHORTLIST IS HERE.

2007-01-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

AT LONG LAST!!!!!!
Bollywood film on Marriagedom is sans Karwa chauth, Pativrata lectures, Sindur and Mangalsutra: in fact it actually talks of (gasp!) love and understanding

Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna a.k.a. KANK

After every Tom, Dick and Harry and their dog, have seen commented and discussed KANK ad infinitum, it's would seem a bit too late (if not entirely irrelevant) in the day to state one's views on it. But when has lack of necessity ever deterred certain verbose souls (that would me, of course) from making their pronouncements on elements of popular culture. After all, given that man doesn't live by bread alone, a few cents gotta be spared for the glittery world of the Bollywood celluloid.

1. First things first.

KANK. Very suitable acronym for the 193 min of noisy clank (read: barrage of tears, endless arguments, screechy n sad songs and more tears). In fact so appropriate is the acronym that it is in danger of usurping the original. As for KANK's after effect, the feeling after the last scene could succinctly be summed up as...as KLPD (and for those of you sniggering! let it be known that this is an acronym for Kabhie Lambi Phillum Dekho-maat!!!)

2. The story:

Has been hashed and rehashed but for those poor souls who haven't got around to seeing it here's a summary.

Story is set in New York; later moves to city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. Anyone expecting any dose of brotherly love, please stay away. Besides it's not fair. After all a bharatiya filmmaker can't possibly tackle all taboo subjects under the sun in one shot (and thereby send a thousand year sanskriti for a chakka. And so (mercifully) only one subject is tackled. That of love, adultery, divorce, remarriage...in that order. For the brotherly love bit there would be other Bollywood productions, I'm sure.

Back to the story. In New York live couple no. 1 consisting of Dev (SRK...or Shahrukh K. for the uninitiated) and Priya (Preity Z.); and couple no 2. made up of Maya (Rani M). and Rishi (Abhishek B.). A bit of rubic cubing brings up a third combination; that of Dev and Maya. To enable this bit of swap, the story proceeds through the following stages; first, Dev and Maya are unhappy (somewhat!!) in their respective marriages; next, Dev and Maya fall in love...adultery sequences follow whereby everything including the fireplace is photographed through soft focus lenses (ah...such is the power of love!); then they leave their spouses and eggsxactly as you are getting ready to tear your hair after 185 min of agony, the duo get together and ride into sunset...oops..er into the train.

Interspersed are Big B as Rishi's father, Samarjit Talwar (a.k.a. Sam) who we're told is sexy. This bit of info is constantly hammered via a jingle that plays "sexy sam" in every frame that the bloke appears in. Given how pea sized the bollywood audience brain is said to be, obviously no one in their right minds would bet on their memory. And so there's the jingle, just in case you went away with the wrong message that Sam-jee in yellow jumper with red belt and black sunglasses was "un-saxy".

Then there's Kiran Kher as SRK's mom, who when she's not flirting with big B is giving a ton of advice on love, labor lost and every possible topic. To be fair though, the scenes between the older actors were quite welcome and refreshing. Sadly the same couldn't be said for their (screen) kids.

3. The foursome

SRK: True Shahrukh comes with his own brand of mannerisms....one knows and one is prepared....and often one loves it.....after all who can forget those K..k..k..k..Kirans. But beware of a SRK in a form of deep, abiding and understanding love. He then starts to remind you of a special variety of meat; one that rhymes with jam and is forbidden to a particular community. Now add to that big doses of nostril flaring and cheek quivering and squeeze or two of tears and you get the picture.

Rani: Tries hard to do a good job but such are the demands of her role (that of being in a perpetual teary eyed state) that it isn't easy. She does, however, despite bucketfuls of tears that she has to shed at regular intervals, manage to look nice, sweet and elegant (read: no runny nose and all). Which brings me to the moot question. Why don't Bollywood's crying babes ever have puffy faces, runny noses or smudged make up? Why is it that their lachrymal glands function as poetically and elegantly as a poet's pen or an artist's brush; manufacturing those round lovely drops of pearl which are never in a hurry, never in a rush, never jump the queue but just ever so gently (and that too in a single file) flow down the cheek landscape.

Preity: As SRK's wife she has the role of a gutsy woman and plays it with ease. Quite liked the scene at the breakfast table where she smartly slaps her hubby. No, no, I am not one of those worshipper-of-the-violent types, but surely 140 min of SRK ham should allow for a bit of anger.

Abhishek: To portray the discarded hubby of Rani was no easy task. But Abhishek mouthed his lines as well as the story/script would allow. Whether shy, reserved, sad or angry, this fellow's done a competent job. Remember the scene where he shyly asks Rani to attend his second wedding!!

4. The saving Grace

The only reason one can sit through the movie is the lack of all those sindur and mangalsutra ki saugandhs. Karan Johar could easily have had a few pativrata dialogues and milked them to their full potential, but thankfully he refrains. There is not a single dose of bharatiya nari-twa nor any spiel on her mahanta.

We are also spared from what (to me) seems to be the bane of Hindi cinema. The Karva Chauth spectacle. What began as an innocuous scene in those Jeetendra-Moushumi starrers, gradually grew in stature so that over the years (DDLJ and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam) we saw the lady loves waiting for their men to hand them food and water to end the fast followed by a song and dance sequence. Of late this spectacle has assumed gargantuan proportions. Not content at being limited to mere fasting, moon spying and song and dance; it now threatens to become Bollywood's symbol and statement on home and "femly bhelues" as well. Recall K3G where Jaya's advice and tips to daughter-in-law Kajol are all about "femly" tradition (obviously the in-law femly...what after all is a femly!!!) giving you the uneasy feeling that the transformation (and commercialization) of Karva chauth into Bollywood's parampara flag is now complete.

But Karan Johar spares us that. And for this alone I am grateful.

2007-01-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

MAHFOUZ'S BOOK IS A BESTSELLER FOUR MONTHS AFTER HIS DEATH

"Children of the Alley" first appeared as a serial in Egypt's leading daily newspaper Al-Ahram in 1959-1960. It tells the story of a family patriarch and his sons, who represent religious figures. The patriarchal father represents God and his sons are various Islamic prophets, such as Moses, Jesus and Muhammad.

As the state-run newspaper ran the excerpts, a representative of President Gamal Abdel Nasser contacted Mahfouz and advised not to publish the work as a book because it might infuriate Al-Azhar, the Cairo institute that is the highest theological college in the Muslim Sunni world.
...........................................................

The controversy emerged anew after the Nobel Committee issued a press release upon awarding Mahfouz the 1988 prize for literature. “Children of Gebelaawi” was one of five works the committee cited. At that time, according to Stewart’s introduction, President Hosni Mubarak let it be known that he would have liked to see the book published in Egypt, but with renewed opposition from Al-Azhar, the novelist himself “indicated that for the sake of peace he would not support publication.”

A more threatening twist developed just after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie in February 1989. In an interview published in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas, Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdurrahman (now serving life imprisonment in the U.S.) was quoted as saying that if Mahfouz had been punished for his novel, Rushdie would not have dared to publish “The Satanic Verses.”

Undaunted, Mahfouz refused police protection and continued to go about his life as usual, remaining unscathed until one Friday night in 1994, when he was stabbed on a Cairo street. Thirteen men confessed under interrogation that they were trying to execute Sheikh Omar’s fatwa and were found guilty for the attack.

2007-01-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

KAALCHAKRA
The wheel of Bollywoodi time

1950s:
Hero's father, Pitaji, is informed of his son's romance. He summons the girl (heroine).

Pitaji: Ladki, mein nehi janta tuney mere bete par kya jadu chalaya hai, lekin ei samaj le ki tuj jaise ladki se woh kabhie pyar nehi kar sakta. Aur agar pyar kiya bhi to shaadi to kabhie nehi. Aur iske bawjudh agar woh shaadi karta hai to usey iss khandan ko chorna hoga, iss ghar to chorna hoga, uski zindagi barbad ho jayegi.

Heroine: Nehi Nehi..pitaji eisa na kahiye. Maine aapke bete se pyar kiya hai. Sachha pyar. Yeh sirf mera dil janta hai, yah mera bhagwan. Mein usey barbad nehi dekh sakti. Mein hi chali jati hoon. (note :all nehi-s to be uttered exclusively through nasal route)

Heroine leaves. Song follows, in the line of dil/sapna/zindagi toot gaya.

..........................

Cut to next decade
1960s:Hero brings girlfriend home to daddy.

Hero (introducing his gf): Pitaji yeh Sunita hai. Sunita pitaji ke charan chuo.
Sunita bends down to touch dad-in-law's charan. Dad steps back.

Dad (or Pitaji): Nehi, yeh hamare khandaan ki bahu nehi ho sakti.
Sunita sobbing so hard that a pail needs to be brought to hold tears.

Hero: Pitaji aap eisa nehi kar sakte. Sunita ke saath mera janam janam ka bandhan hai.

Pitaji: Janam ke bachhe.....nikal ja mere ghar se. Tuney hamare khandan ki izzat to mitti mein mila diya. Tere liye mere ghar mein, mere dil mein koi jagah nehi. Aaj se mein samjhunga ki mera koi beta tha hi nehi.

..................................
and next:
1970s
Hero (Suresh) brings girlfriend (Geeta) to mom.

Hero: Maa dekh mein aaj tere liye kya laya hoon.

Maa (coming out of the kitchen wiping hands on pallu of nice sari...er correction: if Nirupa Roy, sari torn and tattered): Kya hai beta.
Then sees the girl.

Hero: Geeta maa ke payer chuo.
Heroine (Geeta) moves toward Maa but Maa catches her before she bends.

Maa: Aare dekho to mera Suresh kise laya hai. Arre beta teri jagah mere charano mein nehin mere dil mein hai.

So saying hugs heroine, who now pretends to look shy, fails and so pulls pallu over her head.

Maa (looking lovingly at new acquisition): Lo mere sab arman purey ho gaye. aab to mere Suresh ka ghar baas jay to mein ganga naha loon. beti, aab to tu apna ghar sambhal hi le. mein to chali.

............................
And next:
1980s
Heroine (Mala) and hero mein misunderstanding; fanned further by any arbit character (preferably heroine's dad). They almost break up. Enter hero's mom.

Mom (red eyed, obviously from crying): Beta, kisi tarah tu usey samjha buja ke le aa. Wohi is ghar ki laxmi hai.

Hero: Maa!!....woh mujshe pyar nehi karti.

Mom: Agar Mala ka dil kisi ke liye dhadka hai to sirf tere liye. Mein janti hoon beta, mein saab samajhti hoon. Akhir mein maa hoon. Ja tu usey le aa. Mera ashirwad tere saath hai.

Then taking off her bangle with a fluorish she says,
Aur usey yeh kangan bhi pehna dena. Isme iss ghar ka ashirwad hai.

.............................
And next:
1990s
Hero (Anil) and heroine meet hero's dad (pitaji).

Pitaji to heroine: Bete, Anil ne mujhe tumhare baare mein sab bata diya hai. Aaj sey tum iss parivar ka hissa ho. Ise apna hi ghar samjho. Aaj se iss ghar mein hi nehi, iss karobaar mein ki tumhara hissa hai.

Heroine (smiling coyly): Mujhe sirf aapka ashirwad chahiye pitaji, karobaar nehi.

Pitaji: Mujhe Pita kehti ho....aur itna bhi nehi samajhti ki ek baap ko haq hai apni beti ko bahut kuch dene ka.

Heroine rushes toward him and hugs him (who wouldn't if they were inheriting millions!)

Pitaji (looking heavenwards): Bhagwan tuney mujhe sirf ek beta diya tha par aaj mujhe apni beti bhi mil gayi.

Heroine (sobbing): Pitaji!!

..................
2000s

Hero and heroine to each other:

Hum to khud hi dhoom macha sakte hai, who needs pitaji and mom!!!!

2007-01-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

MOHANDAS: A TRUE STORY OF A MAN, HIS PEOPLE AND AN EMPIRE by Rajmohan Gandhi

For those who can never picture Gandhiji or Bapu as anything other than a super thin, super frail man sitting at the charkha, and taking on the British Empire (all the while singing Vaishnava Jan), here is a book that does a better job of bringing out the man in flesh and blood than any of his earlier biographies did. Written by grandson Rajmohan Gandhi (son of Devdas Gandhi and Lakshmi Rajagopalachari [for Gandhi family tree click here] a scholar and professor of South Asian politics, the highlight of this new book is the long concealed romance between Gandhi and Tagore's niece, Sarala Devi Chaudhurani. A firebrand feminist and nationalist, Saraladevi played a very important role in furthering the cause of women's education in Bengal. Besides, she wrote extensively, edited several journals of the day and in 1910 founded Bharat Stree Mahamandal, the first women's organization in India.

Some excerpts about Saraladevi from Outlook

In 1905, in Bengal a year of tension over its partition, she married Rambhuj Dutt Chaudhuri of the Punjab, already twice a widower, and an Arya Samajist.This she did at the instance of her parents, who may have felt that in Lahore their daughter would be safe from the arm of Calcutta's police. At 33, Saraladevi was older than most brides of her time, and her husband apparently called her "the greatest shakti in India".
How much of her career between 1901 and 1919 was known to Gandhi is unclear. When visiting Lahore in 1909, (Henry) Polak [1] stayed in the home of Saraladevi and her husband (where many a visitor to Lahore was put up), but we do not know that Gandhi suggested this arrangement.
On October 27, 1919, within days of his arrival in Lahore, Gandhi would write to Anasuyaben in Ahmedabad: "Saraladevi's company is very endearing.
She looks after me very well." The following months saw a special relationship that Gandhi called "indefinable" after its character changed in June 1920. In between he had not only overcome his caution regarding exclusive relationships but even thought of a "spiritual marriage", whatever that may have meant, with Saraladevi.

It was by no means a mere physical tryst.

....at 47 her frame held no lure, to Gandhi she conveyed an aesthetic and political appeal around which Eros too might have lurked. Cultured in both Indian and Western terms, she wrote and spoke well and had, in Gandhi's view, a "melodious" singing voice. Politically, she could be imagined as embodying not only the prestige of a Tagore connection but also the spirit of the presidency of Bengal, and, in addition, the strand of violence in India's freedom effort. A merger with her might bring him closer to winning all of India to satyagraha. Whether or not he consciously toyed with such considerations, they probably influenced him.

Why then was Gandhi so enamoured of or taken by her?

Another element may also have been at work: perhaps this "endearing" woman and aesthete who "looked after" him "very well" gave Gandhi an emotional support that he, a man who in his world was always on the give, seldom received but always needed, whether or not he or others in his circle of followers and associates recognised the need. The supremely self-assured founder and general of satyagraha carried more aches in his bosom than he or those around him realised, and if India and truth spoke to him, so did his very human, if also greatly subjugated, self.

But why lay the facts bare now? Why expose the secret affair decades later? What does this do to Bapu's image. Says Rajmohan,

After the detailed account presented in Mohandas, I expect many to recognise that the episode actually enhances Gandhi. Not only will people feel closer to him in his humanity, they will admire him the more, for it is nobler to fight great battles when temptations tug at you.

Of the hurt and pain in portraying Gandhi

Thrills and hurts marked the journey. Often I cried in pain, shedding actual tears, for example when facing Gandhi’s seeming sternness with Kasturba and their sons. At other times I literally shot my fist into the air with excitement. These moments of wonderment outnumbered the moments of pain. As when I found in a 23-year-old Mohandas in South Africa a mastery of tactics on top of a firmness of resolve. Or when, at 27, he faced with cool courage a white mob that wanted to lynch him in Durban. And when at 40, while on a ship from England to South Africa, he penned a winning strategy for India’s liberty, and again when, five years later, he sailed for India with a perfect confidence that he would implement that strategy.

Hmmm, great men and their feet of clay!!!

2007-01-01T23:45:00.000-08:00

2006 ROUNDUP of MY FAVORITE READS
in random order

1. The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
Scientist, biologist, champion of evolution, Richard Dawkins has, since the last three decades, showcased the concept of scientific reductionism for the general reader. In book after book, starting from his Selfish Gene, Unweaving the Rainbow, Blind Watchmaker and the last offering The Ancestor's Tale , he has sought to explain natural selection and evolution and of how natural selection works through genes and leads to evolution.
In his latest work, Dawkins calls god a delusion, and religion a virus. A delusion that billions believe in despite a total lack of evidence. And a virus that has and will continue to have negative connotations in the form of violence and religious unrest. Don't miss this superb read.

2. Breaking the spell: Religion as Natural Phenomenon
-Daniel C. Dennett
Another book that asks us to jettison religion? Not quite. Daniel Dennett takes a very rational and scientific approach analyzing the demand and requirement for religion and how religious behavior is also a phenomenon that needs to be studied and understood dispassionately.

3. The Lighthouse- P. D. James
Whodunnits have ceased to be my cup of tea. Unless the words flow from the pen of P.D. James. As anyone who's read her A Time To be In Earnest will testify, her work evokes the wonderful charm of a long bygone era of classical England. The world of fine taste in dining and music, of lovely autumns, and of summer houses in Scottish coasts. And then there is her charming Scotland Yard detectice Commander Adam Dalgliesh. Here she has Adam teaming up with Inspector Kate Miskin and new recruit Benson-Smith to solve the murder of a renowned author on a reclusive island off the English coast. Making matters more complicated is the fact that Dalgliesh is now in love and has just proposed marriage to his lady. As he waits for her reply he also has the solving of a murder on his hands. Very entertaining.

4. Inheritance of Loss- Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai's booker winner work is going to be my all time favorite for years to come. Here's the review from The Hindu.

5. Absurdistan: A Novel- Gary Shteyngart
After the huge success of Shteyngart's Russian Debutante's handbook, it is wonderful to see him in form yet again with in this latest offering filled with sharp, glib humor and satire. Absurdistan is a country being made in the sliver of land between Russia and Iran by Russian gangsters working for Golly Burton, a large America Corporation. To get the American government to pour billions of dollars into Absurdistan, these gangsters hatch a plan for war that misfires. At the heart of this hilarious plot is Misha Vainberg, son of the 1238th richest man in the world and product of the new Russian oligarchy. A comic drama full of caricatures, Shteyngart's prose is indeed a treat.

6. The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East- Sandy Tolan
In 1967 when Bashir knocked on the door of his home in Ramle in Israel, two decades after his family had fled from it, the door was opened by the new occupant Diana. Diana's family had arrived from Europe after the Holocaust and made Bashir's abandoned house their home. For Bashir, the house with the lemon tree in the backyard signifies the dispossession and rootlessness of his own people but for Diana it means acceptance, homecoming and nation building of a new country and society. On the basis of their shared home, Diana and Bashir, an Israeli and a Palestinian start a journey of friendship amidst all the strife and war of the Middle East. Based on conversations with the real people involved, Tolan shows how victory and defeat are faces of the same coin and how reconcilation is possible in the bleakest of moments.

7. Alentejo Blue- Monica Ali

8. Barefoot Contessa at Home- Ina Garten
Want to make your home comfy, your food appetizing and dinner setting charming? Want quick tips to entertain in style and on a budget? Know to make a grocery list? Or make beetroot salad in minutes? Or skewer delicious lamb kebabs on a bed of couscous? No sweat. Dash out for Ina Garten's book that shows you how to. Caesar Club sandwich, garlic coutons and many many more recipes that look divine. Gorgeous pictures and easy to follow instructions make this an absolute must for the kitchen.
Quick and easy never had so much style.

9. Blind Willow, Sleeping woman- Haruki Murakami
This review from Guardian says it infintely better than I could.

10. The Janissary Tree-Jason Goodwin
Since this is a random list, take no note of this book appearing at the bottom of the pile. In fact it was one of my top faves of the year. Goodwin, a Turkophile given to writing tomes on Ottoman emperors finally writes a beautiful piece of fiction set in Istanbul in 1836. The central character is Yashim, a stylish and dapper man, who is in fact a Court eunuch. Yashim works as a detective for the Empire and is summoned when a young officer of the westernised New Guard is found dead in a pot with his face sliced off. As more officers go missing, Yashim searches desperately for clues among the harems, mosques and lanes and bylanes of the Palace and the city. Intermittently there are short escapades with a Russian beauty but our hero keeps his lust under check (he is after all a eunuch!!) by his reading and cooking. A great read, don't miss this one.

2006-12-31T20:26:00.000-08:00

BEST WISHES FOR 2007 (forwarded by a friend)

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter/summer solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect to the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make this country great (not to imply that it is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

Disclaimer: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

2006-12-29T23:25:00.000-08:00

THE INHERITANCE OF NICHE

Early on in the Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai has the cook lighting a small fire to boil water for tea. She has him so scared of those plump scorpions in the wet firewood, that he uses a stick to turn the damp wood pieces on the pile. For an odd moment, this setting with the kettle of boiling water hissing in the dark, dank kitchen of a dilapidated, dirty and grey home in Kalimpong, seemed strangely reminiscent of another world; a world created by another Desai in another day and age.

That was more than two decades ago. The protagonist sat drinking chai at a teashop on a wooden bench. The book was In Custody and the writer was none other than Kiran's mother, Anita Desai. The protagonist, as you may have well guessed by now was Deven, the lecturer of a college in Mirpore, on his way to interview the great Urdu poet Nur Shahjahanabadi in Delhi's Chandni Chowk. Tired after a bus journey, he had stopped for a cup of tea on the roadside. The plot highlighted a world where there was talent, fame, sensitivity on the one hand, while on the other was genteel poverty. Perched in the wedge between the two, one could distinctly recall the same dark, dank slice of life that the Junior Desai now portrays in her new book: the world of doubt and shadow, of identity and inequality and of diffidence and unfulfillment, that almost always accompanies the sense of loss or unbelonging.

When I first "discovered" Anita Desai's works it felt like seeing India through a new lens. The steady diet of Jeeves and Reginalds and the antics of the three men in a boat, which I had hitherto been raised on, was never my world. Make no mistake though- I am a great fan of P.G. Wodehouse, my love for H.H. Munro (Saki) 's brand of subtle humor still endures, and I can't remember a time when I didn't laugh my head off at Jerome K. Jerome's comic prose. However, it was also a world I could scarcely identify with. It needed huge doses of imagination to picture their royal highnesses, those dukes and duchesses in full regalia who sat in lovely manicured lawns where the afternoon teas were served to the accompaniment of buttered scones by gloved butlers. When came the time for their lordships to depart, they would do so in their buggies after having successfully negotiated the carriage steps with the liveried coachman's help.

This world encompassed us so totally that even after 35 years of independence most Indian-English fiction still reeked of the Raj. We were still feasting on Kipling and Forster and when we wanted a respite, out came the Jane Austens and Bronte sisters. For the highly cerebrals, there were always the family of the Stuart Mills. Something had to be said for the fact that in the creative writing courses we had in school, almost everyone wrote about this Anglicized world. I remember how our annual school magazine short stories were more about Counts and Countesses than schoolteachers, clerks or regular people. And how the dum aloo subzi we young girls ate at home, miraculously transformed into baked potato Vichyssoise with red caviar once it reached the fictional dinner tables of our characters.

True, there was R.K.Narayan, but his Malgudi,though geographically in India's perimeter, lacked its earthiness. The characters were Indian, wore Indian clothes and ate Indian food, but there was a strong Anglicized upper class ethos overall. Then there was the other founding father of the Indian English novel. But Mulk Raj Anand's India of Bhangis like Bakha (The Untouchable), touching and poignant though their tales were, needed a different sort of imagination to figure out. That left Nehru and Gandhi and the whole freedom fighter clan of erudite writers, who we did read now and then. But in the winter of 1984, the worlds of the Lahore Congress and Quit India Movement and the Round Table talks seemed equally alien.

In the meantime, unbeknownst to our group of friends, Salman Rushdie had arrived with his Midnight's Children in 1981. Thanks to the Booker, we did hear his name, though it would be many years before I could lay my hands on his first book. I am glad it happened when it did and not earlier, because Rushdie's was hardly the sort of fiction for young readers to cut their teeth in, much less comprehend.

But Anita Desai's was not. It was a treat to read of the Devens and Murads and the Nur Sahabs and of their sadness, tongue tiedness, pushiness, meanness; to see them scoop subzi with a roti and eat radishes with relish. Why, even their dals, like ours, came loaded with small stones (this is the mid-eighties when dals came from ration shops and weren't perched on fancy supermarket shelves). It was quite reassuring to see their roads littered with cows and cowdung (with the former around can the latter be far behind) where one could easily be hit by a rickshaw if one wasn't careful. Dust and grime were omnipresent, as were blaring loudspeakers. Road side stalls sold oily food in dirty dishes wiped dry with equally dirty rags. And when the characters were distraught, the cause was usually more genuine than not wearing matching pearls to the Viceroy's ball or missing the tiger's forehead by a tiny inch in last shikar. In short, Desai Senior's rare eye for detail and fine minutiae captured what was so uncannily and quintessentially Indian that I yelped with joy. It seemed that the soul of India lay bare before us. A soul where beggars, clerks, shopkeepers, teachers, poets, learned men (may be even men of royalty) all jostled for their place. And each came away with their own sense of unbelonging in the context of the whole.

It is precisely this feeling that resonates through the Kiran Desai's Booker winner work. Her characters, too, live in various degrees of unbelonging. If the Anglophiles of Kalimpong with their Swiss cheese and broccoli, and Mark and Spencer's underwear don't belong, neither do the Nepali insurgents who live and work in poverty. Neither does Sai, the young protagonist, who by virtue of being raised amongst the elderly and being home schooled, does not quite belong to the world of the young. In distant New York too, where the cook's son, Biju, works in restaurants and saves money to send back home, there is the same sense of not quite belonging to the new world order set by immigration laws, work permit papers and quick profits.

The era of Unbelonging is no longer caged in any time or shore. It is now a zeitgeist. And Kiran Desai has none other than her mother to thank for that.

2006-12-19T15:51:00.000-08:00

Your diamonds are forever but are they conflict free
It is 1999 in Sierra Leone. The country is in the midst of a horrific civil war with the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front or RUF fighting the government forces. Ruthless and brutal, the RUF sweep the countryside looting, killing and hacking off limbs.
In a quiet village in Sierra Leone, it is early dawn. Fisherman, Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) is up and getting ready to send his son Dia, off to school. A school means an education that could help Dia live a life of comfort and dignity. Already Solomon has dreams for Dia. He wants Dia to grow up to be a doctor.

These dreams are soon shattered as their village becomes the target of an RUF attack. Young boys and men are either killed, maimed or captured. Although lucky to be alive, those captured must either fight with the RUF or work on diamond fields, panning diamonds from water. These diamonds are the sold to buy weapons to fight the the civil war.

Danny Archer (Leonardo Di Caprio) is a white Rhodesian turned South African, involved in diamond smuggling and arms dealing. He is in cahoots with the Colonel Coetzee (Arnold Vosloo), an army bigwig who while running army operations as a peacekeeper is also intricately linked to the arms-diamond trade.

Solomon and Archer come together in their quest for a pink diamond which Solomon accidently stumbles upon while panning the water. For Solomon, the diamond is a means to save his wife and children including Dia who now works as a soldier for the RUF; while for Archer it is his passport out of Africa.

There is also the journalist Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly) who want to expose the nexus between the armed struggle and diamond merchants in Europe and show the world how conflict diamonds are fuelling civil wars in Africa. With her help, Solomon and Archer, undertake a journey to find their stone.

Although a well made film, Director Edward Zwick has, in parts reached the zenith of melodrama. When the Archer-Solomon duo along with Dia are about to escape in a helicopter after finding the diamond, Zwick milks the wounded Archer for some sentimental moments. If this seems too out of place, wait till you see Archer gasping like an asthmatic patient after (more spoilers!!!) being shot and waiting to die and then spouting all those softie dialogues on a phone to Maddy (he carried a satellite phone in case you were wondering and he remembered Maddy's cell by heart...he did have her card but by this time it was so soaked in his blood that one doubts if anything was legible there!!). Such words which might have been very appropriate in a romantic Titanic like setting seem totally contrived in the dog eat dog world of blood and gore of Sierra Leone.

Also the distribution of violence at regular intervals throughout the film, didn't seem relevant to the narrative. If it was meant to keep the story from slacking and to convey a feeling of fast pace that could easily have been achieved by a bit of tight editing. However a good film and a good message, overall.

Here's more on the conflict diamonds:

A long running war in Sierra Leone finally came to an end in the first months of 2002 as the UN, British armed forces, and government troops edged clashing factions towards a peace agreement. The UN supervised rebel disarmament were held in May 2002. Rebels line up to surrender weapons.

Members of former rival factions, now doing military service together, relax at Bemgeuma training camp

A boy sifts for diamonds. The struggle for control of diamond mining and other natural resources was a source of conflict.
(Above pics are from World Press Photo 2003: Photographer Jan Dago, Denmark, Magnum photos/Alexia Foundation for World Peace)

Many of the prisoner-laborers who work Sierra Leone's open-pit mines end up in shallow graves, executed for suspected theft, for lack of production, or simply for sport. (© Jean-Claude Coutausse/ CONTACT Press Images)

According to Amnesty International only 11% of the diamonds that reach US markets are conflict free. So what can the consumer do? Next time, when you seek a diamond for its Carat, Cut, Clarity and Color, also look for the 5th C. Check if it's Conflict free.

2006-12-14T14:24:00.000-08:00

LAGE RAHO UMRAO B(H)AI

Before I write a word about the Umrao Jaan of the celluloid and paper, of the new and the old, I have a confession to make. Actually make that two.

One, I love muslim socials.

Stories set in the Nawabi era or the bygone Mughal days. All those Bahu Begums and Chaudvin Ka Chands who at the slightest hint of male presence would pull veils over their fair faces with Hai Allahs!. Who can forget those Taj Mahals and Mughal-e-Azams with the Salim-Anarkali dalliances. And how, all those konishes and kowtowing to Jahanpanahs and Mallika-e-alams nothwithstanding, the Salims sang rebellious Zindabads to their mohabbats (Ae Mohabbat Zindabad) and the londis unabashedly declared their love (Hum Intezaar Karenge, Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya). It was indeed a wonderful world.

Two, I detest tears by the bucketfuls.

Having been raised on regular Bollywood fare, I understand of course, that tears are to damsels in distress what dal-chawal is to the common man. And they have to be shed where they have to be shed. But why let copius amounts flow where a few drops or slight wetness of the eye would suffice. Why this colossal waste!!!

And thus between these two preferences, my watching of Umrao Jaan became somewhat of a tussle. So that for every tug at a beautifully crafted scene there was a kick at an overabundant emotion on display.

Both movies, the earlier Umrao Jaan Ada by Muzaffar Ali (starring Rekha in the title role for which she won a National Award) and the recently released J.P. Dutta's Umrao Jaan are based on a book of the same name penned by a Mirza Mohammad Hadi Ruswa, sometime around 1905-6. This slim volume begins with Mirza Ruswa's encounter with Umrao, at a Seraikhana somewhere in Central Awadh. Hearing that the renowned singer and poet was occupying another wing of the same house, Ruswa strained his ears for some snatches of poems or music that might come his way. Soon he summoned enough courage to go and speak to her. And from her story was born his book.

In that sense, J.P. Dutta's new rendition of Umrao's tale is closer to the book. Dutta begins by having Umrao (Aishwarya) narrate her personal saga of sorrow to Ruswa. This Ruswa character was quite inspid, I thought, played as it was by a Mr-No-Name-Unknown-Face who looked as if he were just going through the motions. One would have liked to see an actor of some presence and calibre play this role.

The movie runs thus. (Warning-spoilers and all that)

Young Amiran gets kidnapped and sold into the tawaif-dom of Khanam Sahib (Shabana Azmi playing the role her mother, Shaukat Azmi did so competently in Muzzafar Ali's movie). Khanam Sahib who in her heydays was a top courtesan and had nawabs twined around her fingers, now raises a future generation of tawaifs and kothewalis by giving them taleem and tarbiat (oh! how lovely it all sounds in Urdu!!).

Among these girls is the young Amiran now named Umrao, who is "given" by Khanam to Bua Hussaini, a domestic of sorts in the household, to be looked after and cared. While Bua (Himani Shivpuri) plies her with love, Maulvi Sahab (Kulbhushan) teaches her the written word and all those rhymings,lilts and undulations that are needed in the world of Urdu poetry. Judging from the couplets that Umrao and the Maulvi make, the results of this taleem are pitiable. (One is reminded of all those street urchin style couplets that run along the lines "love mangta hoon, refuse maat karna, mere hope ke bulb ko fuse maat karna").

Soon Umrao's has her coming out day when she performs a mujra before a huge Lucknavi audience. Among them is a junior Nawab Saheb (played by Bachchan Junior) who is quite taken aback by the combination of Umrao's brains and beauty. The besotted Nawab seeks out Umrao and the love birds sing and dance for awhile. After this, a mound of misunderstandings follow, each accompanied by a greater mound of tears. Thus is the story lost like a small stream in a desert.

Where is the real Umrao? Where is the woman who was learned and erudite, who wrote, composed and sang; who was equally famous for her mehfills and mushaiaras as she was for her generosity and piety. A woman who headed a household, earned like a prince and donated to the poor and destitute. Where Rekha had brought a touch of class, showcasing an Umrao with strength and stoicism despite her weaker moments, all Ash does is dress well for every dance.

The men in the movie seem like misfits too. Khanam's son (Puru Rajkumar reciting his dialogues as if he were in a memory competition) is shown with a soft spot for Umrao; however the undercurrent of his relationship with Umrao is never explored, unless the scene where he forces himself on her falls in the exploratory category!!!! Neither is Suniel Shetty suited to the character of Faiz Ali. Faiz Ali is meant to be a brave and ferocious individual. That Umrao runs away with him is meant to show how desperate she is to get away. Here Faiz Ali seems like a wimpering idiot!!!

Abhishek Bachchan as the Junior Nawab doesn't do too bad. He tries to look somewhat convincing, beard and all, but the 21st century sheen stays. Kharbanda and Himani do a good job, as much as the script would allow. I quite liked it where Himani in a snatch of dialogue, pronounces Lucknow as Nuclow; Nuclow being a true blue Lucknavi's term of endearment for the city.

The other women don't get much meat, either. The tawaif girls who are Umrao's friends, hardly have any footage, Shabana gets some and does a great job of it. In fact, she conveys so much by a cynical twitch or a slight raising of brows or a quiver of mouth that you wonder why dialogue is not redundant. To be frank, Dutta wastes a lot of celluloid on the misunderstandings and wimperings and tears that the Nawab and Umrao subject each other to: had he shown some thrift here, some of the other characters could have been better etched.

What he does not waste on, mercifully, are the dances of Umrao. Arguably these ARE the show pieces of the film. The ornate rooms, the elegant costumes and the stunning Ash whirling in them, make these dances a visual treat. The scenes captured from above as the pankhas gently move and one intakes of the opulence and grandeur, while Ash's hands make stylish movements, are indeed breathtaking beautiful.

J.P Dutta's Umrao is SO different from the life of that feisty, strong and talented woman that Ash has nothing to perform here. She cries her eyes out (beautiful blue eyes at that!!), her heart out, indeed almost her very life out. And yet no one is touched.

Tears by the buckets don't necessarily touch people's hearts. Someone needs to tell out Bollywood directors that.

2006-12-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

MOONLIGHT ON THE GANGA

When this book came to me for review I was captivated by the pretty cover picture of one of the ghats, or stairs, lining the Ganges. Wasn't sure though whether it would turn out to be a traveler's journey or a seeker's. That it was the latter isn't surprising given the large number of people who are drawn to India to partake in what is considered her spiritual heritage!!!

And no river epitomizes this heritage more than the Ganga, or Ganges. One of the largest rivers of India, the Ganga is considered holy and sacred by those of the Hindu faith. Legend has it that in ancient times, the goddess Ganga agreed to fall from the heavens upon the earth to save her mortal devotee, a king named Bhagiratha whose ancestors, having been burnt to ash, could only be freed for salvation by her pure waters. So mighty was she that when she cascaded from the heavens, the world was in danger of being washed away by her strong currents. So Lord Shiva, one of the gods of the holy Hindu trinity, gallantly stepped in and offered his locks to receive her waters and then gently lowered her to flow over the plains of India. Given her divine source and her short stay on Shiva’s locks, Ganga is worshipped as a goddess and a spiritual entity by millions of Indians who address the river as Ganga Maa or Mother Ganges and believe that her water can wash their sins, heal them, and help them attain Nirvana or Moksha, the freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth.

Originating from the Himalayas in Northern India, the Ganga traverses hundreds of miles through the heartland till it flows into the sea, supporting a population of more than half a billion. Along its banks are India's numerous towns and cities, sacred as well as densely populated - cities such as Hardwar, Varanasi, Allahabad and Rishikesh. For hundreds of years, these towns and cities have welcomed seers and believers who seek spirituality and tranquility. Today, the wheels of modernity that churn in a new and vibrant India have also touched these places. Seekers and seers now brush shoulders with a local populace leading a regular lifestyle, so that alongside Nirvana, one finds the huge rich-poor divide, the squalor, the poverty and petty crime. All this, I guess, also makes for an odd, unreal, and in some ways spiritually uplifting experience for most non-Indians unused to the heterogeneity of many centuries living side by side.

When author Claire Krulikowski lands in India, first in Delhi and then Rishikesh, she is enveloped with a sense of calm and belonging. Many Indians find this strange and often roll their eyes in disgust at the thought of anyone, let aside firangs coming from the land of plenty, finding peace amidst the poverty and squalor that permeates these towns. My own take is that perhaps there is an element of calm in the chaos and some sort of cheer amidst the fatalism that draws them.

In many ways the society of these towns and indeed, in many parts of India, is relatively open and inclusive. There is, of course, nothing magnanimous about it. In a place that is teeming with life and where swamis, monkeys, shopkeepers, other pilgrims, godmen all jostle for room, acceptance is not a concept anymore, but becomes a necessity. This openness is what draws the author more and more into the country, its people and its mores. She starts to feel a sort of inner peace in this mishmash of wealth and poverty, spiritualism and materialism, acceptance and rejection. Her journey through Rishikesh and its ghats and her interactions with sadhus, lepers, monkeys and cows as well as ordinary people fill her with an immense joy which somehow translates through her writings. (Although I was guffawing at her
experience with a mother cow!!!)

A pleasurable read, funny in places and disgusting in some. Although I would maintain that it is not the sacred or the divine that is the source of her well-being and peace; rather, it is the dichotomies of chaos and order, tradition and modernity that impart a surreal character to her life in India, a surrealism that makes her and others more casual, accepting, trusting and open-minded.

2006-12-12T12:03:00.000-08:00

RANGIYE DIYE JAO, JAO GO EBAR JABAR AGEY

Bangladeshi performers sing Tagore, Yunus receives Nobel, says I believe that we can create a poverty-free world because poverty is not created by poor people.

Dancers from Bangladesh at the Nobel award ceremony

Check out the video clip of the ceremony here. (For those interested in fast forward: The Tagorean song and dance sequence appears 37 min after the start of the video and are followed by the prize presentation and lecture)

A carpenter working in his back yard shop opened with Grameen bank's microcredit loan

AND

Mohd. Yunus and Taslima Begum (representative of the Grameen Bank) with Norwegian royals

I support globalization and believe it can bring more benefits to the poor than its alternative. But it must be the right kind of globalization. To me, globalization is like a hundred-lane highway criss-crossing the world. If it is a free-for-all highway, its lanes will be taken over by the giant trucks from powerful economies. Bangladeshi rickshaw will be thrown off the highway. In order to have a win-win globalization we must have traffic rules, traffic police, and traffic authority for this global highway. Rule of "strongest takes it all" must be replaced by rules that ensure that the poorest have a place and piece of the action, without being elbowed out by the strong. Globalization must not become financial imperialism.

The whole text is here.
© THE NOBEL FOUNDATION 2006
General permission is granted for the publication in newspapers in any language. Publication in periodicals or books, or in digital or electronic forms, otherwise than in summary, requires the consent of the Foundation. On all publications in full or in major parts the above underlined copyright notice must be applied.

2006-12-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

MORE ORHAN PAMUK

The text of Pamuk's Nobel lecture is now available at the Nobel prize site.

I liked that as a broad theme, the lecture revolved around the concept of not quite belonging and of trying to escape's one own culture as a result. Very much in tune with what millions of people the world over feel at this moment!

As for my place in the world – in life, as in literature, my basic feeling was that I was 'not in the centre'. In the centre of the world, there was a life richer and more exciting than our own, and with all of Istanbul, all of Turkey, I was outside it. Today I think that I share this feeling with most people in the world. In the same way, there was a world literature, and its centre, too, was very far away from me. Actually what I had in mind was Western, not world literature, and we Turks were outside it. My father's library was evidence of this. At one end, there were Istanbul's books – our literature, our local world, in all its beloved detail – and at the other end were the books from this other, Western, world, to which our own bore no resemblance, to which our lack of resemblance gave us both pain and hope. To write, to read, was like leaving one world to find consolation in the other world's otherness, the strange and the wondrous. I felt that my father had read novels to escape his life and flee to the West – just as I would do later. Or it seemed to me that books in those days were things we picked up to escape our own culture, which we found so lacking. It wasn't just by reading that we left our Istanbul lives to travel West – it was by writing, too. To fill those notebooks of his, my father had gone to Paris, shut himself up in his room, and then brought his writings back to Turkey. As I gazed at my father's suitcase, it seemed to me that this was what was causing me disquiet. After working in a room for 25 years to survive as a writer in Turkey, it galled me to see my father hide his deep thoughts inside this suitcase, to act as if writing was work that had to be done in secret, far from the eyes of society, the state, the people. Perhaps this was the main reason why I felt angry at my father for not taking literature as seriously as I did.

And later where he alludes to the darkness that almost always accompanies the feelings of being marginal and unbelonging.

But as can be seen from my father's suitcase and the pale colours of our lives in Istanbul, the world did have a centre, and it was far away from us. In my books I have described in some detail how this basic fact evoked a Checkovian sense of provinciality, and how, by another route, it led to my questioning my authenticity. I know from experience that the great majority of people on this earth live with these same feelings, and that many suffer from an even deeper sense of insufficiency, lack of security and sense of degradation, than I do. Yes, the greatest dilemmas facing humanity are still landlessness, homelessness, and hunger ... But today our televisions and newspapers tell us about these fundamental problems more quickly and more simply than literature can ever do. What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kind ... Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world – and I can identify with them easily – succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West – a world with which I can identify with the same ease – nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.

Go on read it.

2006-12-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

CAR PROJECT IN SINGUR

Singur, a small town, in Hooghly district of West Bengal made news when the State Govt. decided to sell more than a thousand acres of fertile agricultural land to Tata Motors to set up a car factory.

Policemen sitting on guard around land acquired by the Tatas

Resistance by farmers and locals is being ruthlessly crushed while leaders like Medha Patkar are under arrest.

Google video has this documentary on the Singur crisis. Check it out.

2006-11-30T15:06:00.000-08:00

OH BRING BACK THE DAPPER, THE DEBONAIR, THE DANDY....
....I said with a sigh at the first glance of the new Bond (Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, Dir. Martin Cambell). Needless to add, Craig has had a tough job given the high standards in style set by a long line of unique and suave predecessors. Playing a spy who's been endowed with a playboy-hunk persona (courtesy Sean Connery) and a impish smile and charming wink a la Roger Moore, not to mention the intermittent limpid pools as the eyes of Timothy Dalton and the flashes of domesticity as wedding bells for George Lazenby, is not easy as it were. But THEN there was Pierce Brosnan. In him, Bond climbed new heights. Ah! those were the days. Dandy and debonair, all he had to do to get dressed for dinner after chasing goons in an armored tank was to flick off that speck of imaginery dust from his impeccably tailored and ironed suit. That, and tighten the knot of his tie. Just a tad bit.

There is this scene in "The World is Not Enough" where after a huge hold up and staccato firing at a bankers', Brosnan saves himself in the nick of time by gliding down a multistoreyed building using a twine or rope (or something equally trivial) while bullets spray and glass shards rain around him. The touche one uttered was not at the escape but at the cool-as-a-cucumber demeanour, the cynical bending of mouth at his own triumph and at the gallant exit from scene while lightly touching his tie.

This chutzpah that was so typical of Bond is what I miss in our new avatar. Craig is just another spy. One of the hundreds of henchmen out there. He fights like a boxer, runs like a athlete and wears clothes like the next door neighbor. He even gets beat up like a common criminal. And he bleeds. As of all this were not enough, his shirt gets torn and dirty.

AND IF YOU DON'T SCREAM WHEN JAMES BOND'S SHIRT LOOKS YUCKY, DIRTY AND TORN (INSTEAD OF IRONED AND DELICIOUSLY SILKY) YOU WILL NEVER EVER SCREAM!!!!

Of course, if it's bye bye to stylish clothes and manners, can gizmos be left far behind. So they too disappear. No Q, no fancy shmancy cars or guns that fire like turrets upon request, no rings to break walls....in short no nothing.

The new Bond is also slow in the womanizing department. To top it all, he falls in "love". Now when was the last time Bond fell in love and wanted to settle down!

It was 1968, and no man had ever set foot on the moon, the Soviet Union was a rollicking success and 'Nam was a synonym for war.

Obviously we've moved since then, and Bond never falls for a woman. True he enjoys their company and they are an absolute necessity as accompaniments to his Dom Perignon '53. As absolute as the shaker for his vodka martini is. That is until now.

Until 2006 and Casino Royale. Sore disappointment awaits anyone who was looking forward to any familiar "Bond" moment. Not even the moment when the new Bond would announce his preference for all matter shaken but not stirred. No, that last bit of succor is also taken away. At that opportune moment when the bartender asks Bond whether he would like his martini shaken or stirred, our newbie says, "Does it look like a give a damn?"

But I do give a damn. If Bond is a common fighter, a common spy, a common man in love, in pain, hurting, falling, failing, pray why!, why then should he be special, or different. Why then should one go to see a Bond movie? One could just as well see Stallone, Schwarzneggar and/or their many wannabes and the hordes and hordes of Hollywood hunks that fight in the name of justice, cry over lost loves, and hurt and bleed till kingdom come.

Dear Martin Campbell, tweaking with Bond is a grave sin. And that has been committed. The one and only redemption lies in bringing the old geezer back. That uber stylish, metrosexual, dapper ladies man who needs only to give a soft tug at his tie to tug hard at women's heartstrings!!!!

2006-11-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

THE MOTHER AND THE CHILD

Two of my Jamini Roy favorites. Perhaps because I grew up with these framed prints in my room.

When I was very little, the whole family went to an art exhibition (which obviously I have no recollection of) and returned with several poster prints of Jamini Roy's works bought after the show. For years afterward many of these prints occupied the walls of our home. I wonder how the mother child duo landed in my room. They hung next to one another. And I loved how the two mothers with their small ones close to them, stared at the world in the same quiet way.

2006-11-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

END OF NAKRAS AND JHATKAS FOR ASH

The beautiful Aishwarya Rai stars in The Last Legion, a film on the fall of the Roman Empire. And no...no dumb combo of beauty and Miss goody-two-shoes here.....instead she is a (gasp!) warrior. Must admit that she looks quite good in a rough and tough role. Check out the trailer.

2006-11-24T18:06:00.000-08:00

SALAAM, PARIS
Kavita Daswani

Perhaps I was expecting too much from a desi chicklit. Or perhaps the recent flood of works from South Asia, most of which are almost sans stereotype had given me false hopes. Whatever the reason, Kavita Daswani’s Salam Paris woke me with a rude shock. However must say that once one was reconciled with Mills and Boon romance meets traditional South Asia while traipsing around the globe, it was an entertaining read. In other words there is amusement aplenty when beautiful chaste woman hits the spotlight of the Paris fashion world and romances wealthy handsome man of noble lineage all the while keeping her traditional roots and chastity intact!!!

Conversation between man and woman is pathetic to say the least. Some gems.

She : It is easy for you to preach on about family blessings. You have always had them. No matter what you decided to do, you would always have them. Go to law school, go to med school, stay home and become an auto mechanic. (Knowing South Asian parents, I doubt the stay at home and auto mechanic part very much but we'll let that go for now). Your parents would never have cursed you with Allah's wrath because you are a man. You were meant to go out and conquer the world. But if a girl tries to do it, suddenly there are accusations of betrayal and threats of being disowned. I couldn't even walk out of my apartment without being followed by Nana. But you? You could study in America, work in London, move to Paris, whatever you wanted. Why? Because you are a boy and I am not?

He: If you had told your grandfather that you wanted to get a proper education, take on a decent career, he might have eventually agreed. (Yeah right! girl just had to say Granpappy Granpappy I need a propah education, and right then he would be filling out forms for Harvard) Even I would have fought for that on your behalf. But what is this? This taking off your clothes for the world to see? This sleeping with a strange white man who plays music for a living? What kind of behavior is that for a decent girl?

And before anyone gets ideas about why she was taking her clothes off here is the secret: she is a model in Paris. A fashion supermodel at that. And how does Ms. Supermodel with rock star boyfriend in tow stay nicely chaste. Answer : Supermodel's boyfriend (never realized why he was called strange, was it for being white or because he made a career out of music!!) is a DECOY.

Now to the story. The plot revolves around Tanaya, a girl raised in a conservative Muslim family in Bombay. Tanaya is an exquisite beauty (but of course, which plain Jane could ever aspire to do anything!) and dreams for the world of Paris; a world that comes alive for her in Audrey Hepburn’s film Sabrina. Her chance arrives in the form of an arranged match to a highly prized catch. Tanaya reaches Paris but once she’s there she avoids the arranged mate, tall dark handsome Tariq. With a little help from lady luck she becomes a top fashion model, hobnobs with the glitterati and zips around the world. However her roots and her tradition beckon (as usual) and when she falls in love with the same man she was betrothed to, Tanaya has to make a tough choice between her life of glamour and her life of tradition. No prizes for guessing, since this is the world where handsome princes and their beautiful princesses ride their way into sunset. Always.

(All Italic emphasis: my comments)

2006-11-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

MAHMOOD FAROOQUI (via Amardeep Singh) on the complex position the modern secular Muslim finds himself in India.

I am eager to tell the world that Muslims of the past were different, as they indeed were, but the hidden presumption is that the current Indian Muslims are a fallen lot, in need of reform. We are not entirely sure whether it is they or Islam itself that needs reform, but we are absolutely certain that reform is needed. The West is reformation itself, Christianity has been protestantised, Hinduism has been reformed by the State, but Islam we have been trying to reform for the last 150 years and have been on the defensive for as long as well. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan wrote letters justifying the British racial hatred of Indians — “They are right to treat us worse than dogs,”— before pleading that there is no contradiction between the Quran and science, that Islam was enlightenment and enlightenment Islam. Why must even those defending Muslims reduce all debate surrounding Muslims to Islam? Why do I continue to become perturbed by the treatment of Islam from both sides?

I am confused. On the one hand I bemoan the condition of Muslims in India; on the other, I am strongly aware of the fact that this State, like most others, delivers mostly to its elite, outside whose pale are not only Muslims but also most other marginal groups. On the one hand, I feel that we should have the space to be critical of certain strains in the world of Indian Muslims; on the other, I feel that sometimes we make too much of freedom of expression. I want Muslims to be different from what they are, but cannot tell how much of that desire is an internalisation of a vein of criticism and interrogation that has now gone on for over 200 years, not merely in India. What I do know is that the stereotype of the exceptionalism of Islam as a religion and the inexorable Muslim urge for separateness from the mainstream is one that cuts both ways. You can use it to condemn Muslims, you can invoke it to celebrate difference in a world where history has ended, where all roads lead to New York. That cannot be our only fate.
Read on.

2006-11-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

THE SUMMIT OF THE POWERLESS BEGINS

The Summit of the Powerless, initiated by Tehelka, begins in New Delhi today. Powered by the mantra of Two Indias One Future, delegates from all around the country gather the three cornerstones of civil society: money, power and people, to make a difference.

A dialogue between the have and have nots in India has long been overdue. Never mind the the awakening of the colossal commercial Indian giant since the last decade, the disparity between the rich and poor has never been greater.

In the words of Tarun Tejpal

For every swank mall that will spring up in a booming Indian city, a neglected village will explode in Naxalite rage; for every child who will take wings to study in a foreign university there will be 10 who fall off the map without even the raft of a basic alphabet to keep them afloat; for every new Italian eatery that will serve up fettuccine there will be a debt-ridden farmer hanging himself and his hopes by a rope.

Let's hope that this is a start for us Indians to reach out to one another and initiate and legitimize a process through which civil society can step in where the Indian State has yet to get success.

2006-11-20T08:51:00.000-08:00

A nice piece of fiction by Jayant Sankrityayana. It won the Little Magazine writing award in 2006.

2006-11-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

Mush...Musharraf
Soon after General Musharraf had taken over as the head of Pakistan, the Dawn columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee was talking to a women's delegation. Telling them that this was perhaps the best time in recent years to get some outdated misogynist laws repealed, Cowasjee had said, "Ladies, while the General is batting, ask away."

This, more than anything else, succinctly summed up the initial euphoria that Pakistan's intelligentsia felt with General Pervez Musharraf's rule. To many Pakistanis it seemed that this gallant and decorated army general, hailing from a modern and secular middle class background could deliver. The two earlier democratic goverments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, with their corruption and nepotism not to mention the constant pandering to right wing sentiments for votes, had left many people disillusioned. Musharraf, however, could't deliver all that he had promised but as a start he did take some baby steps toward modernity and has tried to keep extremely retrograde Islamic laws at bay.

In the meantime 9/11 happened and Musharraf was under extreme pressure to cooperate with the US and bring scores of Taliban and other terror outfits, operating both out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, to book. The armed incursions that the Pakistani army had to make into the border territory with Afghanistan made Musharraf extremely unpopular both within the army and among his own people. Twice in the last few years he came close to being assassinated. So fraught with dangers is his job that in the words of the TIME magazine he holds the "world's most dangerous job". There are also rumors that he owes his position, indeed his very life, to the help and support of the US Intelligence.

In his autobiography In the line of Fire , that was released in September this year, Musharraf talks about Pakistan, Islam,
Al-Qaeda and the terrorism that is threatening peace today. He also shows us glimpses from his childhood, the years spent in Turkey (where his father served in the Embassy) and his youth in the Pakistan Military Academy. From the Academy to the Army House (the home of Pakistan's Army Chief) to the Head of State, the journey was fraught with dangers. Obviously he takes immense liberty with facts. And nowhere is this more evident than his recounting of the hijacking drama of 1999, when following his dismissal by Nawaz Sharif's govt. as the Army Chief, he was denied the right to land in his own country. He then goes on to call his dismissal as Sharif's coup; his own coup d'etat where he deposes a democratically elected govt then conveniently becomes a "countercoup".

The next few chapters deal with rebuilding the economy. Although it is well known that Musharraf did initiate an economic liberalization program spearheaded by his Finance Minister, New York banker Shaukat Aziz, this section is mainly a self applaudatory exercise. As his the following section where is talks of his "achievements" in the war on terror.

However, to his credit he is extremely critical of the appeasement of the religious right in Pakistan. And of two of Pakistan erstwhile leaders, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, for their kowtowing to the religious fundamentalists. In his own words

By the time his regime ended, I had come to the conclusion that Bhutto was the worst thing that had ever happened to Pakistan. I still maintain that he did more damage to the country than anyone else, damage from which we have still not fully recovered. Among other things he was the first to try to appease the religious right. He banned liquor and gambling and declared Friday a holiday instead of Sunday. This was hypocrisy at its peak, because everyone knew that he did not believe in any one of these actions

And this later about Zia

President Zia, in the 1980s, completed what Bhutto had started in the dying phase of his regime- the total appeasement of the religious lobby. By hanging Bhutto, he turned Bhutto into a martyr and his political party-the PPP-into a great force. Zia found it convenient to align himself with the religious right and create a supportive constituency for himself. He started overemphasizing and overparticipating in religious rituals to show his alignment with the religious lobby. Even music and entertainment became officially taboo, whereas I am told that in private he personally enjoyed good semiclassical music.

pictures scanned in from the book (without permission)

Interspersed are stories of his love for a East Pakistani Bengali girl, his arranged marriage to his wife Sehba after their long courtship and the birth of his children. He also tells us his distaste of Islamic laws. About a lashing he says,

It was an ordeal just to be present at such a distasteful event, the most inhuman and humiliating that I have ever witnessed. The jailer set out a sofa for me, and a table laden with cakes and pastries for my pleasure. The image of a Roman Colosseum sprang to my mind. The least I could do was order him to remove the cakes and pastries immediately.
.....................................................................................
The lasher began by drawing a line with a marker across the buttocks of the criminal, indicating the exact spot where the lashes were to be delivered. He came running and gave the first lash as hard as he could. The man tightened his muscles on the first lash, squirmed on the second, and screamed on the third. I could barely look at the fourth and the fifth. I could see red fleshy pulp on his bottom. A crude doctor appeared, checked the miserable man, and then did the stupidest thing. He started pressing the man's bottom with his feet with all his weight on it.
I have never been more disgusted, not just at the inhuman treatment but also at the unfairness of it all.

However, Gen. Mush does not tell us all. He keeps some of his nation's secrets, just that way. While he mentions the secession of Pakistan's East wing, thanks to India's military aid, he conveniently forgets the horrific violence that the Pakistani Army had unleashed on the people of the erstwhile East Pakistan in 1970-71. This terror that continued for months and left millions dead and homeless, eventually led to the secession of the Eastern part to form a new nation, Bangladesh, in 1972.

He also does not tell us about the proxy war being carried out in Kashmir by terrorists trained in Pakistan or about the Agra summit that by virtue of being held pre 2001, had him singing a different tune. Mum is the word on how Pakistan's Intelligence Agency, the notorious Inter Services Intelligence or ISI that literally cut its teeth on training terrorists from the Soviet-US days in Afghanistan, became a mischief monger aiding and abetting terror outfits from Kashmir to Chenchnya. No Pervez Musharraf keeps the bad news under wraps. And sings paens to himself and his attempt to transform Pakistan into a modern state.

2006-10-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

Dawn of a New DaaN

DON
Direction : Farhan Akhtar
Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Isha Koppikar, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Kareena Kapoor, Om Puri, Boman Irani.
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Story: Farhan Akhtar

Halfway through the movie, between munches of the deliciously evil lavishly buttered popcorn offscreen and the luscious bewitching damsels on screen, one could be forgiven for having forgotton the original. The glitz, glamour and pizzaz, not to mention the kick ass special effects of Farhan Akhtar's remake did make the old Don a distant memory. It took the Khaike Paan Banaraswala number, to jolt me from my seat to the Big B's days of yore.

Right off the start with an opening scene set in Paris (Eiffel et al) and a Shahrukh in stylish designer ensemble, one could get the feeling....nay one knew right there that this Don (pron. DaaaaN!!!) was a new dawn in remakes structured around a surfeit of glamour, style and breathtaking locales. After all how can one not moan at those lovely beaches and waterfronts and beautiful shots of the Petronia Towers. Further moans and breathtakers await as the seductively beautiful Kareena Kapoor does the Helen number from the original. As the camera pans over the shimmer costumed Kareena in a hotel room overlooking the twin Petronia towers, the scene is endowed a golden hue and with Kareena crooning yeh mera dil both stock and track seem to be drenched in pure gold.

Another delish (to borrow from Rachel Ray) song and dance sequence is when the Don reclaims his "yaadasht" and empire. In a celebration that has pyramids of glasses overflowing with champagne and a bevy of beauties competing for the Don's attention, Priyanka looking drop dead gorgeous makes an entry.

I guess I wasn't the only one to gasp. All those beautiful torsos and champagne and feet tapping music made it a magic filmi moment. (Talking about beautiful torsos, has anyone noticed how our woman have progressed to becoming Hollywood babes, muscles bellies and all. No, I am not complaining...if anything it was a treat to watch pretty and slithe Priyanka Chopra executing her martial art chops with wondrous ease and grace. No complaints, just a tad bit of nostalgia at all those voluptuous Padminis and Hema Malinis, that's all).

And now to the minuses. Take away the slick, snazzy thriller moments, glamour and the whole shebang, and there isn't much left. When the rustic Amitabh had changed places with his double (the real Don) to help the honest cops in exposing and apprehending a crime racket, the world revolved around the interplay between the good and evil, poor and rich, honest and dishonest. In other words, never mind the lack of jazz and pizzaz, the foundation pillars of the system were stable and clearly demarcated. No such thing exists in the remake. Evil like good is omnipotent and omnipresent and may show itself in the most unlikely of places. All lines are very blurred indeed. Nothing wrong it that either.

Except that in such a scenario, the best man may not always win.

2006-10-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

SEASON'S READS

I am midway through each of these books. Good reads, some of them. Will post short reviews soon.

2006-10-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

VIVE LA HüZüN

It is not every year that I dance a jig to the announcement of the Literature Nobel. There is of course a pleasant feeling each time an author whose work one is familiar with, wins. I might spend an evening or two ploughing through the shelves and boxes to locate if any of their works are in my possession. Perhaps follow it up with a bit of random browsing of the a few pages here, a few pages there variety.

But this year was different.

Agreed that my addiction to Orhan Pamuk-fare had something to do with it. But that aside, there was other reasons for the rejoicing and jubilation. Pamuk, the writer and litterateur, is also Pamuk the sane voice, that has always roared against and above the cacophony of religious and political extremism, both in his country and in the Middle East. His was perhaps the lone voice protesting against the Rushdie fatwa. Pamuk-speak against the Armenian genocide, against Turkey's dictatorial regime got him in trouble with the Turkish authorities, time and again. Last year there was a government order to burn his books (I had blogged about this) and Pamuk has often been labeled as anti national.

When I first read the anti-national bit, I laughed so hard that I almost choked. Funny how an anti-national Turk has come to symbolize how the literary world sees Turkish history, culture and ethos today. As a compass is to the seas, Pamuk's work is the lighthouse for navigating Turkish culturo-historical territory. In fact when the prize was announced, I was in the midst of a page-turning whodunnit of the adventures of a Poirot-wannabe in an Ottoman court, a nice piece of fiction by Jason Goodwin (a Turkophile hitherto given to writing non fictional tomes on the Ottoman sultans). However, every few pages into Goodwin's Janissary Tree saw me reach out for Pamuk's "My Name is Red" as though it were some kind of grid on which the world of the Ottoman Istanbulu needs to be constantly placed.

Pamuk's Istanbul of Ottomon days gets so well etched in one's mind that it becomes a blueprint that finds itself juxtaposed to every other story of this city or of Turkey to get a sense of the cultural time and space. That is the strength of Pamuk's narrative.

My Name is Red is a beautiful recreation of the glory and majesty of the Ottoman empire and the friction between tradition and modernity as embodied by miniaturists and calligraphers on one hand and the influence of modern Renaissance on the other. It isn't the Orient-Occident cultural clash or dichotomy or even the the conflict between the Old world and the New that is the hallmark of this work; rather it is the magnificent narration of the Islamic craft of miniaturization, a craft tethered to the intricate web of power and deceit, that brings this work to life. It is the feeling of loss at its gradual decline-at the passing of an age, at the slow end of an art form that will ensure this book's popularity for decades to come, long after all those East-West divides and dichotomies are gone. The first chapter of My Name is Red is here.

And yet Pamuk does not always inhabit the world of yore. In his latest offering Istanbul, as he captures the lows and highs of the city, he bares out his life and world and indeed his very soul before the readers:

Conrad, Nabokov, Naipaul-these are writers known for having managed to migrate between languages, cultures, countries, continents, and even civilizations.
But great literature can also come out of never having gone away: indeed having stayed on in the same city and same home.
Here we come to the heart of the matter: I’ve never left Istanbul, never left the houses, streets, and neighborhoods of my childhood. Although I’ve lived in different districts from time to time, fifty years on I find myself back in the Pamuk Apartments, where my first photographs were taken and where my mother first held me in her arms to show me the world.
We live in an age defined by mass migration and creative immigrants, so I am sometimes hard pressed to explain why I’ve stayed, not only in the same place but the same building. My mother’s sorrowful voice comes back to me: Why don’t you go outside for a while? Why don’t you try a change of scene, do some traveling…?

It is this never having left that makes for his oneness to Istanbul. Having stayed on he can sense the overwhelming feeling of sadness of this city with every beat of life. There is no word to describe this sadness, it is not melancholy or angst: Pamuk sticks to the turkish hüzün, a word closer to tristesse, denoting the collective pain of a people, the feeling of nostalgia and defeat at the thought of the bygone era and lost glory. From the early sunsets to the ferries on the Bosphurus to the old booksellers and barbers to unemployed men, Pamuk can see hüzün everywhere - as he can see the traces of ruins of the Ottoman rule that pervade the city, heightening its sense of melancholy.

And while his literature comes from never having left, it is not local or regional: in fact it merges beautifully into this larger universal phenomena; what is true for Istanbul is true for Mesopotamia and Cairo, true for the Great British Empire and closer home for Delhi and Calcutta. For every city, culture and people that have seen glory will face this sense of loss as those days fade away taking with them the habits and ways of life of entire generations to make room for the new.

2006-10-04T12:35:00.000-07:00

THIS IS ANOUSHEH ANSARI BLOGGING....

from space. Anousheh is the first woman space tourist and first Iranian etc etc. in space. Go read her blog.

2006-09-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

SETH SHARES HIS SECRET; RUSHDIE REFUSES TO SHARE HIS STAGE

Vikram Seth is in news again. Leading a campaign for gay rights, Seth, along with other luminaries (Amartya Sen, Soli Sorabjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Shobha De among others) signed an open letter (titled Same Sex love in India, Section 377) urging the Indian Legal system to do away with section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

This obsolete piece of legislation that criminalizes same sax or gay activity came into being in 1862, when it was introduced by the British to replace the Hindu laws of the time (incidentally consensual sex by same sex people was never an offence under Hindu criminal laws). Over the last few years activists have been appealing to the government and to the judiciary to overturn these century old laws. These laws are creating a major impediment in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
In his interview in Outlook, Seth talks about how he took years to come to terms with himself. Go read the piece. The same issue also has Amartya Sen adding his voice.

While Seth was busy sharing his secret, Salman Rushdie refused to share his stage. Rushdie was invited to Vassar College to deliver a lecture, where Amitava Kumar (of Husband of a Fanatic, Passport Photos fame) was to have introduced him. According to Kumar, Rushdie apparently did not like the idea and threatened to withdraw. Says Kumar

Mr Rushdie and I have never met, although I have heard him speak several times. I presume his dislike of me has to do with essays like this that I have written about him in the past. I cannot say whether he has read my Passport Photos but it’d be fair to say that the book takes its cues from Rushdie. It was from him that we really learned to show some attitude. When I say “we” I’m talking of many contemporary Indian writers in English. But we have also sought our own paths, and in doing so we’ve also sometimes sought to renounce our past, the past in which Mr Rushdie looms so monumentally. For the rest of the article read his blog.

Now either Rushdie or someone claiming to be him has a response on Kumar's blog. It reads:
Dear Mr Kumar,

My attention has been drawn to your website, where you claim that I threatened to cancel my visit to Vassar if you were involved with it. This is inaccurate. At no time did I threaten anything of the sort. I did indeed tell the organizer, Joanne Long, that I was unwilling to share a stage with you, and, after she had read what you have written about me in the past, she understood why I would have that view, and asked you to stand down. It might have been more dignified of you to leave this matter private, but as you have chosen not to do so, you ought at least to strive for accuracy in your reporting of it.

It is not for me to comment on your many disparaging remarks about my work, but allow me to make one other correction of fact. You write:

>

If you had done the most minimal amount of homework, you would have known that my “concern for Indian democracy,” far from being “entirely absent,” had led me to make a feature-length tv documentary film, The Riddle of Midnight, whose long climactic sequence, centered around a moving testimony by a Sikh widow of the massacres, resulted in the Indian government pressurising Channel 4 in Britain not to run the programme — pressure which, I’m happy to say, they resisted. It is odd, to put it mildly, to be accused of indifference to a cause which one has, in fact, passionately taken up.

Yours sincerely,

Salman Rushdie.

One fails to understand why a writer of Rushdie's stature, would bear a grudge against so junior an author and critic. Surely more is expected of a man considered as the architect of post colonial literature and an inspiration for a whole generation of writers. Ironically he who had this to say once on the fatwa against him,

In my view, the best one can do is to show, by writing books, by continuing, that it didn't work. That even this colossal threat did not work. The Satanic Verses was not suppressed, the author of The Satanic Verses went on writing. Life goes on.

could not even share the stage with his critic.

2006-08-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

NAGUIB MAHFOUZ

It was December of 1988, when I first heard of Naguib Mahfouz. Although by then he was a well established author in the Arab world with a fan following from Baghdad to Beirut, relatively few outside the Middle East had read his books. Much of his works had not been translated; of those that had been, few were available in India. It would be many years before I could lay my hands on any of his writings. When I finally could, I noticed that his most famous work, the Cairo Trilogy, was first translated into English around 1990 or so. Over the years, people like Edward Said did try to persuade publishers to put out translations but it took the Noble Prize of December 1988 to set those wheels in motion.

Yet I remember being touched by the text of his Nobel speech which was published by many leading Indian newspapers and magazines of the day. So that without having read a single piece of his writing I became somewhat of a fan of the man.And every time I remembered his evil is a loud and boisterous debaucherer, and that Man remembers what hurts more than what pleases, I couldn't help but marvel at the simple truth put in succinctly in those lines.

Cairo Trilogy took me several months to finish (and several years to get over, but that's another story) although it was the only book I was reading at the time. My progress was hindered by the fact that I would keep turning the pages back and re-reading the older sections. And no, this didn't arise from any confusion over the characters, or the generations or the events. Rather it felt more like savoring a delicious meal, where one's taste buds and thoughts might still dwell on the delicacies just ingested.

For instance, I would go over and over the descriptions of Amina's kitchen and the makings of the seasonal delights and sigh at the sheer magic of Mahfouz's words. Words that could transform the most dank and darkest of places in a 1920s Cairo household, the kitchen, into a life giving fountain of joy and pleasure, and make mundane tasks as kneading the dough, appear divine. As the coals and wood burned and glowed, you could scarcely pity Amina's stifled existence under the iron fisted patriarch. Despite all the indignities heaped on her, those "sweet compotes and doughnuts for Ramadan, the cakes and pastries for Id-ul-Fitr" as "the blaze of the fire gleamed from the depths of the oven through the arched opening like a flaming firebrand of joy in the secret recesses of the heart" made Amina's world a place of sheer beauty.

This is from the first part of the book called the Palace Walk (the other two are Palace of Desire and Sugar Street also called Al-Sukkariya in the original version). The trilogy spans three generations and covers a period from the end of World War I to the rise of Nasser and modern Egyptian nationalism in the mid-1940s. Mahfouz's women were made of stern stuff and almost always occupied centre stage. And they rebelled. In every generation, be it Amina or her daughters Aisha and Khadiga or eventually Susan Hammad. Against the system, against their circumstances; but their rebellion was quiet and non confrontational. Their gradual, non violent and perseverant struggle had the power to transform just as the slow flames in Amina's kitchen could change even the lowliest of grains to golden flat bread. This was the beauty of Mahfouz's world.

Details of Mahfouz's life and times have appeared in obits published in The Guardian, BBC and a host of other sites. (last link courtesy Pia)

2006-08-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

MAN BOOKER

The booker Prize longlist this year (announced on 14th August) consists of the following works.

Carey, Peter Theft: A Love Story (Faber & Faber)
Desai, Kiran The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton)
Edric, Robert Gathering the Water (Doubleday)
Gordimer, Nadine Get a Life (Bloomsbury)
Grenville, Kate The Secret River (Canongate)
Hyland, M.J. Carry Me Down (Canongate)
Jacobson, Howard Kalooki Nights (Jonathan Cape)
Lasdun, James Seven Lies (Jonathan Cape)
Lawson, Mary The Other Side of the Bridge (Chatto & Windus)
McGregor, Jon So Many Ways to Begin (Bloomsbury)
Matar, Hisham In the Country of Men (Viking)
Messud, Claire The Emperor’s Children (Picador)
Mitchell, David Black Swan Green (Sceptre)
Murr, Naeem The Perfect Man (William Heinemann)
O’Hagan, Andrew Be Near Me (Faber & Faber)
Robertson, James The Testament of Gideon Mack (Hamish Hamilton)
St Aubyn, Edward Mother’s Milk (Picador)
Unsworth, Barry The Ruby in her Navel (Hamish Hamilton)
Waters, Sarah The Night Watch (Virago)

This list was chosed from 112 entries by a judging panel comprising of novelists Simon Armitage and Candia McWilliam, critic Anthony Quinn and actress Fiona Shaw (Chair is Hermione Lee). The shortlist wil be announced on 14th September and the winner will be announced on 10th October.

Last year, Azar Nafisi (of Reading Lolita in Tehran fame) was on the judges' panel. Nafisi is the kind of teacher who would explain "kitsch" to students in her Teheran University classroom with a bouquet of lilies in one hand and plastic flowers in the other. No wonder she was so popular.

Though I haven't finished reading last year Booker winner, John Banville's The Sea (heck haven't started it yet!!!) some of the books that made it to the winner list in the past few years have been truly great works. For instance Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, Coetzee's Disgrace and Yann Martel's Life of Pi.

2006-08-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

HAMAR CARPORATE NAGRI

Take phoren cars, to it add cell phones and laptops of any and every conceivable make, sprinkle women in smart business suits, a dash of amrikis, garnish liberally with godmen, conmen and politicians, for decoration use cocktails aplenty and waning "femly bhelues"......shake...stir.....whatever. And Voila, you have created what in ajit-lingo would be "car"porate nagri.

This is a nagri of cut-throat competition, where two rival business houses will stoop to being the scumiest of the scums to keep their profits rising and shareholders happy. Just so that no one in the audience feels left out, a drone of a voice in the background keeps explaining deal, merger, takeover and such like concepts till you are ready to scream. Funnily none of these were really necessary because in its heart-of-hearts corporate is true blue masala. Masala with a few boardroom meeting thrown in, where half the junta act like overgrown six year olds.

Top exec Nishigandha Dasgupta (Bipasha Basu cast as a neat package with sharp smart demeanor in all those armani suits and gelled hair worn in a neat ponytail). [as an aside: Come bharatiya naritwa time, however, armanis and gels get replaced by crumpled salwars and dishevelled hair]. Nishigandha is tough as nails and will stop at nothing, such as lying, bribing, scheming etc.to obtain her rival's secret. Now the corporate world is such where every CEO/VP worth his salt is hitting and pawing on the next bright, young female exec (women IIM grads beware!@#$). Here sleeping with the enemy could ensure easy success. But our Nishigandha aside from having a virtuous soul also has a brilliant mind shaped by the times. She hatches a plan wherein the bed time duties are duly outsourced to a beauty of unknown name (couldn't find her in the titles) who leaves the lusty lascivious enemy in snoring bliss, while Nishi busies herself downloading all his files with rival product launch plans. Gone are the days of yore when scraps of paper masqueraded as THE "secret formula". Now when Nishi downloads data, it is from Mr Rival's laptop into a...ahem....USB port. Though audience is no longer treated as technologically challenged idiots, one wishes that the poor rival wasn't treated as one. He should have been allowed a password at the very least. After all the fortunes of his company resided in that laptop. Perhaps he could have it written on the underside of his undies as a cryptic puzzle. Solve the puzzle, enter password, download data. Much more challenging!!

Anyway nemesis awaits Ms. tough-as-nails. In the form of CEO's brother-in-law Ritesh (played by Kay Kay Menon of Hazar Khwaishein Aisi fame). Ritesh gets her heart in a platter. Spiked by huge chunks of her brain as well. Why else would she admit to crimes that she never committed and allow others to go scot free? Or perhaps she thought the Indian judiciary was a bigger joke than Bollywood movies.

In Page 3, his earlier film, Bhandarkar had a more convincing cast and portrayal of characters. In contrast, Corporate does not even take off. The cut-throat competition, warring factions and tattle tales all seem so tame and sedate that one could sing a lullaby. The Bipasha-KK romance, so pivotal to the story lacks passion and punch and is reduced to a collage of scenes of various degrees of undress. These and other newbie gadgets fail to lift Corporate from its very mediocre status.

2006-08-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

USTAD BISMILLAH KHAN DEAD

Ustad Bismillah Khan, the man who single handedly brought the Shehnai into prominence, passed away today. He was 91. Born in 1914 in a family of musicians in Bihar, he moved to Benaras as a young boy. Starting his career with his older brother, Bismillah Khan often played down his part as he didn't want to overshadow his brother. "Even though I have the ability, I must always remember that he is my elder brother" he always said with humility and modesty. Both brothers played together from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the eve of India's first republic day.

Khan Sahib as he was affectionately called was a great believer of the universality of music. A devout Muslim, he called his Shehnai his Quran- I-le. And every year, on the day of Muharram, when he led a procession through the narrow lanes of Benaras, he would blow his Shehnai and proudly ask "How could my music that gives such peace and happiness be haraam?" In this interview taken in 2005, he talks about the divinity of music and how he could take on and convince a Maulana from Iraq of this, simply by singing Allah's name in Raag Bhairav. He sang and played at all the temples in Benaras and was particularly attached to the Vishwanath temple where he was often seen. Simple, honest and unpretentious he remained in his old home at Benares till the last. His mode of transport was a cycle rickshaw. His fans will remember the child-like two toothed grin of his last years.

Bismillah Khan was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Benares Hindu University and Shantiniketan. Over the years numerous honors were bestowed upon him from the Sangeet Natak Academi, the Madhya Pradesh government (Tansen award) and the Govt of India (Padma Vibhushan). The long due Bharat Ratna,the nation's highest honor, was finally given to him in 2001.

Even Bollywood wasn't left untouched by his Shehnai. So impressed was film director Vijay Bhatt after he heard Bismillah Khan play, that he made a film on the instrument. "Gunj Uthi Shehnai" for which Khan sahib composed some music as well, was a great hit.

Bismillah Khan will be remembered as one of our finest musicians. He is survived by five sons and three daughters.

2006-08-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

INDEPENDENCE DAY DISCOVERY

Good ol' Amriki Barbie goes desi.

Says the ad "Diwali Barbie doll wears a traditional teal sari with golden detailing, a lovely pink shawl wrap and exotic ewellery. The final detail is a bindi on the forehead-a jewel or mark worn by Hindu women to indicate that they are married. Doll can't stand alone."

umm....bindi implies "married". Now does sari imply lehenga (see barbie pic).

2006-08-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

BLACK DEEDS FROM THE PAST

Remember Lech Walesa. The trade union leader who formed his own political party and played a key role in ushering electoral reforms in Polish politics. This famous Gdansk citizen (Walesa was born in Gdansk,the largest seaport in Poland) is asking another son of Gdansk (none other than Gunter Grass) to give up his honorary citizenship. This comes after Grass, a famous writer and Nobel laureate confessed to being an ex-SS Nazi.

The revelation by the Nobel prize winner, now approaching his 80th birthday, has shocked Germany's literary and cultural world. It was Grass first and foremost who insisted the Germans "come clean" about their history and that his own generation should not try to pose as "victims" of Hitler's National Socialist ideology.
Now the great advocate of facing unpalatable truths has lived up to his own standards, but a little late.
...........
Grass now says that, although he had told the truth to his wife, those he deceived included his children and his biographer Michael Jurgs, with whom he spent countless hours apparently going over the minutiae of his life in the latter years of the Third Reich.

2006-08-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE
in Saudi Arabia

Young men and women can meet and date thanks to all the cell phone and wireless technology.

Cellphone technology is changing the way young people meet and date in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the most insular, conservative and religiously strict societies in the world. Calls and texting -- and more recently, Bluetooth -- are breaking down age-old barriers and giving young men and women discreet new ways around the sentries of romance.

he he...technology, as they say, is a great leveller.