tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84120122024-03-14T06:06:39.874+08:00Dream Ink"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." ― V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the RiverAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.comBlogger632125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-34248357615466574562014-12-09T10:58:00.000+08:002014-12-09T11:41:28.661+08:00‘Startup Capitals’ now available for pre-order!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Startup Capitals : Discovering the Global Hotspots of Innovation (English)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitEiLQpW7sAI46u09nQ8jbUuv06OOUo3oMsxWQ3a83MqkRPOhfUUkGs2HG3cPU2MSUGSWbcN7B6A8teEaG4PyWKLUBXYQfa8Cl_4GKm1zEWdq3bl7yoKLtO7h4jhutIoqQWQ-tkQ/s1600/startup-capitals.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitEiLQpW7sAI46u09nQ8jbUuv06OOUo3oMsxWQ3a83MqkRPOhfUUkGs2HG3cPU2MSUGSWbcN7B6A8teEaG4PyWKLUBXYQfa8Cl_4GKm1zEWdq3bl7yoKLtO7h4jhutIoqQWQ-tkQ/s1600/startup-capitals.jpeg" height="320" width="203" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<b>Product Details</b><br />
<br />
Hardcover: 320 pages<br />
Publisher: Random House India (31 December 2014)<br />
Language: English<br />
ISBN-10: 8184005946<br />
ISBN-13: 978-8184005943<br />
Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 14 cm<br />
<br />
As the Internet has matured in technology and reach, we have seen an explosion in tech startups all over the world. Not only are some of these startups changing the world and how we live in it, they are also proving to be the engines of job creation – an aspect that will be critical in the future. To support these startups, new ecosystems are popping up all over the globe to help grow these companies, aided by governments, successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.<br />
<br />
In<i> Startup Capitals</i>, Zafar Anjum brings you a ringside view from the worlds top ten startup cities of the world. Well-researched and highly insightful, this book lays bare the engines of innovation and the lessons that can be learnt from these burgeoning startup capitals.<br />
<br />
<b>Advance praise</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>"As we enter a new phase in human history – a phrase Ive referred to as Civilization 3.0-creativity and entrepreneurial spirit are achieving new milestones for humanity. How and where this creativity is flourishing today is the subject of Anjums book. It is a timely account of some of the most innovative entrepreneurial places on earth and should prove to be a very compelling read." – Vivek Ranadive, Founder and CEO, TIBCO Software, Inc. Owner, Sacramento Kings</li>
<li>"Startup Capitals takes us on an enthralling and stimulating tour of some of the most innovative cities on the globe. It is a timely and illuminating account of people and places that are shaping the human future." – Virender Aggarwal, CEO, Ramco Systems</li>
<li>"Creativity and invention do not occur in isolation. Environment and community fuel it. Mr. Anjum gives us a journey through those landscapes where the future is being created and inspires us to join those cities of innovation that define our time." – Matthew Putman PhD, CEO, Nanotronics Imaging, New York</li>
<li>"Silicon Valley is more than the sum of its parts. And as the world looks at the ‘sum’, this new book zooms in on the parts-the history, events, people and unique occurrences that add up to make the Valley what it is. As a tech strategist and business partner with more than 30 years of experience with Silicon Valley, I value the insight and specific recommendations Zafar Anjum has gathered in this important book." – Barbara Bates, Founder and CEO, Eastwick, Silicon Valley</li>
<li>"Many of the world want to emulate Silicon Valley, yet few have brought context to the incredible story thats taken shape here. Looking deeply at the Valleys history and how our unique ecosystem took shape, Zafar Anjum offers new perspectives that global innovators can use as they envision the communities-and the companies-that build economic success." – Ellen Petry Leanse, Tech Pioneer and Advisor, San Francisco</li>
<li>"Zafar does a brilliant job identifying the key factors that make a city a startup city. – Daniel T. Cohen, Cybersecurity Professional and Strategist at RSA, The Security Division of EMC, Israel</li>
<li>Where will be the next centre of innovation? What are the ingredients for a successful startup ecosystem? These are significant questions for which the jury is still out. Through this book, Zafar Anjum offers insights into the intriguing and exciting world of startups that are shaping our future." – Manish Goel, co-founder and CEO, TrustSphere, New York</li>
<li>"Over the years, Zafar has created a highly respected body of work in journalism. He tackles his subject matter with the tenacity and thoroughness of a good investigative reporter. His previous books have not only been great pieces of journalistic work but also, most importantly, good reads. Startup Capitals promises to be an informative and engrossing piece of work which will add to the understanding of why some cities are more successful than others in nurturing innovation and a risk-taking culture." – Amit Roy Choudhury, Technology Editor, The Business Times (Singapore)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>About the Author</b><br />
<br />
Zafar Anjum is a Singapore-based journalist, writer and filmmaker. He currently works as the Asia Online Editor of <i>Computerworld Singapore, CIO Asia </i>and<i> MIS Asia. </i>His most recent works include<i> Iqbal: The Life of a Poet, Philosopher and Politician </i>(2014), <i>The Resurgence of Satyam</i> (2012) and <i>The Singapore Decalogue – Episodes in the Life of a Foreign Talent </i>(2012). He edits a literary website, Kitaab.org.<br />
<br />
Pre-order the book at <a href="http://www.amazon.in/Startup-Capitals-Zafar-Anjum/dp/8184005946/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417400056&sr=1-3" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and <a href="http://www.flipkart.com/startup-capitals-discovering-global-hotspots-innovation-english/p/itmefwz4hmvnh2jp?pid=9788184005943&otracker=from-search&srno=t_1&query=startup+capitals+by+zafar+anjum&ref=59735220-6e00-443c-8ed2-1e3bb38a3f18" target="_blank">Flipkart</a> now.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-58444735276037436302014-04-25T11:14:00.002+08:002014-04-25T11:26:48.856+08:00Narendra Modi and the Death of the Idea of India <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHJ7xIKB_jDcWvygTXFLa96Lg5RvFErHYxG4liahglNexFDSebxYplLgaN6LPIYY9BXsRFSd-Lwx990W6xClFdnksri0X-Ng-ukNUYF0T6VQtNoG0SnRKTTJKjjpOAFdyIWuo8Q/s1600/Narendra_Modi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBHJ7xIKB_jDcWvygTXFLa96Lg5RvFErHYxG4liahglNexFDSebxYplLgaN6LPIYY9BXsRFSd-Lwx990W6xClFdnksri0X-Ng-ukNUYF0T6VQtNoG0SnRKTTJKjjpOAFdyIWuo8Q/s1600/Narendra_Modi.jpg" height="193" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">For
a long time now I have contained my rage which has been provoked by what is
happening in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> today, and it concerns the future of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> as a nation and as a country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Indians
are offering a man the coveted and powerful chair of the country’s Prime
Minister under whose watch a state-sponsored pogrom resulted in the murder of
several thousand innocent citizens. At the same time, they are branding an
honest citizen activist a ‘fugitive’ who abandoned a state’s chief ministerial
post simply because the establishment did not allow him to pass a tough
anti-corruption law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The
one accused of ‘mass murder’ is a hero, worthy of being crowned a king. The man
of principles, an anti-corruption crusader, is a laughing stock. The sitting Oxbridge-educated
Prime Minister is a dummy head, a man stoically blind to the corrupt in his own
ranks, clinging to his post at the cost of his dwindling reputation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Is
this the state of the nation that nationalist Indian leaders such as Jawaharlal
Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and Abul Kalam Azad had envisaged when they laid down the
foundations of a free </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> in 1947? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Today,
the country is divided on the lines of caste and religion and on top of that, no
opportunity is lost in abusing the sane and the secular, online or offline. How
did </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> arrive at this shameful juncture of history? (<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/zanjum/Desktop/If%20Modi%20is%20elected,%20it%20will%20bode%20ill%20for%20India's%20future">See
this open letter by Indian intellectuals in The Guardian: If Modi is elected,
it will bode ill for India's future</a>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">At stake—The idea of </span></b><st1:country-region><st1:place><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">While
the nation is presently going through its most decisive elections in its 70
year old democratic history, what is at stake is the very idea of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">: the idea that fueled the struggle for </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Independence</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, culminating in the establishment of a free,
democratic, socialist and secular </span><st1:place><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Republic</span></st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> of </span><st1:placename><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:placename></st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">This
idea of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> was based on the principles of equality and inclusiveness,
on the ideals of secularism and equal respect to all religions and creeds. It
was, what Mohammad Iqbal once called, a poetic idea, sophisticated beyond its
time and place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">As
Indian historian Ramchandra Guha has noted in his book, <i>The Makers of Modern India</i>, Indian democracy is unique in the sense
that </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> became a nation and a democracy at the same time,
and five different types of revolutions are going on in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> simultaneously. What’s been happening in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> since </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Independence</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> is what took </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Europe</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> a couple of centuries and the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> nearly 200 years to achieve. There, it happened in
stages. Here, it is happening all at once, and hence, the seeming chaos of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, which often makes us despondent and hopeless
about </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">The
poetic idea of India had emerged a winner after defeating a couple of other competing
ideas—ideas of a communist state (class-based politics), of a federation of
states based on religion (Iqbal and Jinnah’s religious and cultural identity-based
politics), and of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ propagated by right wing Hindu groups such
as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Mahasabha.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">If
Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins the parliamentary elections
this year, it is the last idea, the idea of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> being a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ envisioned by far right
Hindu nationalists that will come to prevail. This once-defeated idea of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> will be revived with a Naipaulian revenge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">The Rise of Narendra Modi<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In
this battle to rule </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, according to the opinion polls and ground
reports, Narendra Modi, BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, seems to have an
edge over all other contenders. Why is he is so popular, both inside and
outside </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> among the Hindus? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">A
lot has been written about this charismatic Hindu rightwing leader from </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Gujarat</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">—about his humble rise from his tea-selling days to his political
stranglehold over </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Gujarat</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> as a Chief Minister, his powers of oratory, his
no-nonsense decision-making, his sex appeal, and so on. The list is countless
if you hear to Modi’s acolytes and fan boys. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">How
did a mediocre man like Modi become the darling of the Indian masses (or that
is what we are being led to believe at this point of time)? Is it because
contemporary Indians love mediocrity? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Interestingly,
Modi is not foreign-educated or highly educated like most of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s Prime Ministers have been. He is a son of the
same soil which gave birth to Mahatma Gandhi, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the
founding father of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Pakistan</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. It is quite possible that millions of Indians
love him because of his image of a self-made man who can bring change and
economic development and ride roughshod over minority rights (which hardly matters
in their consciousness). The last point is important because whenever anything
is done to favour the Muslims or to ameliorate their condition, BJP brands it
as Muslim appeasement, and not secularism. Modi’s hardliner, ‘popular’ image
has been created with the help of the media, by spending millions of rupees (Rs.
5,000 crores, according to Aam Aadmi Party) on advertisements and public
relations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">BJP’s secularism<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">I
was raised as a secular kid in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, and for a long time, I could not understand how a
political party like BJP was allowed to exist in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. BJP is the political offshoot of the RSS, the
Hindu right wing outfit whose ideologies had inspired Nathuram Godse to kill
Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Godse was a member of the RSS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">In
that sense, BJP’s inherent ideology should be seen as against the Constitution
of India. How could the Election Commission of India look the other way and not
ban the party? I could not understand this and later on I put it to the strong
traditions of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s political pluralism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Meanwhile,
very methodically, whatever remained of the Muslim leadership was wiped out of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. Muslim leaders were discouraged (and even discredited)
by all political parties. Muslims were left to be led by Non-Muslim leaders who
had to strike a balance between their Hindu supporters and their Muslim voters.
This led to the persistent and pernicious growth of the vote bank politics. Both
the Indian National Congress (INC) and the BJP stand accused of perpetuating this
malpractice. Something similar has happened on the lines of caste too, but a
generation of successful caste-based leaders has emerged. This has largely
benefitted the low-caste Hindus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">As
far as the meaningful participation of minorities in Indian politics is
concerned, the answer does not lie in stoking the fires of communal politics
but of deepening secularism in the political space. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia;">How is this possible?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was
an atheist. In the Nehruvian model of secularism, scientific temper was meant
to play a great role, which was further predicated on the spread of mass literacy
and education. When the state’s effort to educate the Indian masses failed to a
large extent, right wing forces established their </span><st1:personname><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Sara</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Georgia;">swati Shishu Mandirs throughout </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> (As on 2010, about 17,000 such schools existed across
</span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">). Many liberal private schools were also
established (I was fortunate enough to study in one such private school in India, where we were taught co-existence, and respect for other faiths. Our school uniform was saffron, symbolising sacrifice). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">At
the same time, as the state’s television stations that preached religious
tolerance and social unity became irrelevant, heavily Hinduised television programmes
created a generation of Indians whose spiritual ethos find an echo in Modi’s
image of a <i>Hindu Samrat</i>. For example,
it is not surprising that Smriti Irani, a popular TV actress who played the
role of a Hindu housewife in an extremely popular TV serial (<i>Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi</i>) and the
role of Sita (in Zee TV’s Ramayan) is now a senior leader of the right-wing BJP.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">BJP
has been very active in making Indians believe in their idea of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. Slowly but surely they have chipped away at the
idea of Indian secularism with a sustained effort. They believe in overt
expression of religion on politics and now Modi talks about ‘Indianness’ before
anything else. Whenever he is questioned about secularism, he invokes
‘Indianness’. This is nothing but hollow demagoguery. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Even
this could be fine but there is a hitch and that is the Indian Constitution. If
BJP can take out the word ‘secular’ from the Indian Constitution, it can do
whatever it wants. No one will ask any questions on secularism then.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Meanwhile,
Narendra Modi’s electoral promise is growth and economic progress. One wonders
how this will be possible when the incumbent Indian Prime Minister, an
economist by training and a former World Bank official, has overseen the
faltering of the once-strong Indian economy (<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/zanjum/Desktop/Even%20Narendra%20Modi%20May%20Not%20Be%20Able%20To%20Help%20The%20Indian%20Economy">See
this Forbes story: Even Narendra Modi May Not Be Able To Help The Indian
Economy</a>). Moreover, BJP’s economic policies are no different from Congress’
(<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghabahree/2014/04/07/bjp-will-ban-fdi-in-retail-but-offers-other-goodies-to-business/">See
this Forbes story: BJP Will Ban FDI In Retail But Offers Other Goodies To
Business</a>). They are the votaries of the same neoliberal policies that have
led to </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s development, and <i>inter alia</i> the problems of inflation, price rise, and crony
capitalism. Revealingly, if only economic development is the BJP’s election
mantra, why has the party put rebuilding of the </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Ram</span></st1:placename><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Temple</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> at the controversial site in Ayodhya on its manifesto?
Won’t it alienate the Muslims of India?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">But
how do you explain all this to the 800 million Indians who might see this
complex situation in very simple terms: Congress and its allies have ruled for
ten years. It is time to give the other party a chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">This
proves only one thing. That democracy is still in its infancy in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">. If you don’t believe me, just go to any
constituency. In most places, you will see electoral candidates, often from
rich and political families, touring the area like a price visiting the hoi
polloi. If politics is a business in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, what does it make Indian democracy? A
marketplace?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">My
fear is that because of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s size, </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> will remain ungovernable (Indian population being
three times the population of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">). Confusion of multiparty democracy, communalism
and casteism, poverty and illiteracy make the situation even worse. I don’t
think even a Lee Kwan Yew could set </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> right. Only time will show us the true path. Until
then, we will keep making mistakes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">My
fear is that minority politics will survive in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> as long as minorities maintain their unique
identity. Once they start merging their identities with the majority community,
politics of caste and religion will melt away. “Poverty makes people create
differences,” </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s former President APJ Abdul Kalam said in a recent <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?290318">interview</a>.
“Sometimes poverty drives these differences. But economic prosperity and higher
literacy will make us forget our differences. Economic prosperity is fine but
will Muslims accept it at the cost of their religious identity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">As
far as those who believe in Gandhi’s and Nehru’s idea of a secular </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, they should not lose hope. They should do
whatever they can to strengthen their idea of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, just as the right wing works tirelessly to
strengthen their idea of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">It
should not surprise anyone if Modi wins the elections. If a George Bush could
win the Presidential elections in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">United States</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> for two terms, why can’t a Modi win in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">? </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">America</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> has survived Bush. </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> is a 5,000 year old civilization. She will survive
Modi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Clearly,
a Hindu nationalist party’s interests lie in keeping the nation divided. Thankfully,
a good sign for </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s future is the twin rise of the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party like a </span><st1:stockticker><span style="font-family: Georgia;">DNA</span></st1:stockticker><span style="font-family: Georgia;">’s double helix. One will neutralize the other.
That’s where my hope lies. And like Tagore said, in the end, </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> does not belong to Hindus or Muslims. </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> belongs to humanity and when the dust of history
settles, and when we are rid of our vanity, </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Georgia;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> will be claimed by humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-53892092001462871032013-09-19T12:32:00.001+08:002013-09-19T14:24:15.427+08:00On reading ‘A Matter of Rats’ <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYozQZHz2EDfJpEmzcbuZVq3vwsZ1Jr7Ets4JU1YCQuIO19pL0tb_0mwvyj2ZKqnIa-FrPkEPRZwaG4BPpF89bYY5LPgCTFmZ5dmibLV55C1OFtnL2SSd60xLW8Y0NBU5jejLCIA/s1600/Rats_matterofrats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYozQZHz2EDfJpEmzcbuZVq3vwsZ1Jr7Ets4JU1YCQuIO19pL0tb_0mwvyj2ZKqnIa-FrPkEPRZwaG4BPpF89bYY5LPgCTFmZ5dmibLV55C1OFtnL2SSd60xLW8Y0NBU5jejLCIA/s1600/Rats_matterofrats.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I started reading Amitava Kumar’s <i>A Matter of Rats </i>at <st1:time hour="3" minute="0">3 am</st1:time>
on a Sunday morning. The book was in my office bag, and finding myself suddenly
awake, I took it out and went to my study. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reading the book was like plunging into a rat hole of
memories. I had grown up as a child in a village in <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place>
and like the ancestral village that Kumar describes in this book, my village
too had an adjacent basti. We called it the Mus-har basti (the village of
rat-eaters) where low caste Hindu families domiciled. I knew some of the
members of those families as they worked on our fields as day labourers. Many
of them visited our house everyday to meet my father, a school teacher who
doubled up as the village head. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unlike in <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>,
rats then were not a menace in our village. Rats, along with stray cats and
dogs, lived and roamed around in our courtyards and <i>galis</i>. They stole grains and sometimes we used to hear that
rat-eaters (Mus-hars) had hunted through our fields after the harvesting was
done. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a child I was rather afraid of the big, fat moles that
scurried around half-blind through the narrow lanes of our village, dipping in
and out of drains as they wished. Them, and the stray dogs that sometimes chased
people for no rhyme or reason. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was in <st1:city>Delhi</st1:city>
where I had first encountered the menace of rats. As a newly married couple, I
used to live in a run-down flat in <st1:place>South Delhi</st1:place> with my
wife and we used to sleep on the floor on a mattress. One day my wife
telephoned me in the office. A rat had bitten her on the head while she was
asleep. She had awoken with a sharp pain and when she touched her scalp, she
found blood on it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Initially, I could not believe that a rat could bite humans,
but after seeing my wife’s case, I had to. Because of the rat bite, my poor
wife had to take antibiotics for a while. Reading Kumar’s book, that memory
came back to me. A Musahar, a rat-eating man in Kumar’s book, tells him that
rats could bite through bricks and concrete. In <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>,
Kumar tells us, remnants of food on the face of babies attracted rats who bit
them, and nurses played music at night to protect their toes from being bitten
by rats—they believed music kept the rats away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could never figure out what had attracted a rat to attack
my wife. Anyway, the result of that unfortunate episode was a short story titled
<i>Rats</i> that I wrote while staying in
that flat, which took me to <st1:country-region>Sri Lanka</st1:country-region>
for a literary conference.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At <st1:time hour="3" minute="25">3.25 am</st1:time>, when I
was almost done with the book’s prologue, a quarrel broke out in the
neighborhood, disturbing the peace and stillness of the early morning. A couple
was having a verbal fight. I looked out of the window. Across the side road
that lay between my flat and the multi-storey car park where the squabble was
in progress, there stood a very old tree, almost as tall as the car park,
which, with its thick foliage, hid the couple from my view. Through the gaps in
the branches, all I could see was a man in a blue shirt and a woman in green,
both of the Chinese race which I could figure out from their accented English.
The man was shouting and verbally abusing his wife and at one point seemed to
push her around too. He was saying things like ‘you have destroyed my life’ and
‘I am done with you’. The woman seemed to be scared and even though she fought
back, her voice was cracking up. The man was going to his car which had its
blinking lights on. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The bickering went on for almost half an hour when I decided
to start taking some notes for this review.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was <st1:time hour="4" minute="13">4.13am</st1:time> when
I went back to the book. It was an exciting read, more so because I had waited
for almost two weeks before the book reached me in <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>
from <st1:city>Bangalore</st1:city>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the chapter ‘Patliputra’, Kumar narrates the history of <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place>
through his memories of the history of the city and the province from his
school days, and how he used to draw diagrams of rulers and emperors from the
past during his class hours. He ascribes his desire for drawing the emperors of
the past (people who existed before photography was invented) to his incipient sexuality.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then he proceeds to talk about art and craft in <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>.
He describes visiting a museum in <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
where Napoleon’s four-poster bed was on display. Kumar expresses his
disappointment with R K Jalan’s collection which he says was more geared
towards flattering power. One of the collected items in the museum is a dinner
plate belonging to Emperor Akbar’s Prime Minister Birbal. Jalan had persuaded a
Viceroy and later on <st1:place><st1:city>Jawaharlal Nehru</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s
first Prime Minister, to eat from the same plate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the chapter ‘<st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
in the Hole’, Kumar looks for traces of <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
in English literature. Surveying literature from E M Forster to Vikram Seth, Kumar
laments the fact that <st1:city>Patna</st1:city> hasn’t
had much of a presence, and declining if at all, in English literature.
However, there has been a nuanced portrayal of <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
in many stories by some great Hindi writers. From there, Kumar proceeds to
lambast Shiva Naipaul, the young brother of V S Naipaul, who had visited <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
and had nothing good to say about <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place>. In contrast, he
finds Ian Jack, the founding editor of <i>Granta</i>,
to be sympathetic towards Biharis. He describes Jack as a writer who could
discern some humanity and dignity in the much reviled people of <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the chapter where Kumar mentions Ian Jack’s writings on <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place>,
there is a mention of my hometown Kishanganj. Ian Jack once visited <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place>
to find a lawyer who had defended a labourer from the Himalayan foothills. This
man had spent thirty years in prison because of being found travelling without a
ticket on the Assam Mail. The whole episode had turned out to be a case of
bureaucratic mismanagement. In his second visit, Jack not only finds the lawyer
but also the labourer, the guy who lost 30 years of his life. After his jail
term, the man lived just outside the jail in Kishanganj. I wondered if I had
ever seen that man in my town.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the next few chapters, Kumar deftly narrates some of the
success stories from <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>. “This
book is about my hometown <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>;
but at its forefront are stories about people,” he writes. On its pages we meet
artist Subodh Gupa and his mentor Robin Shaw Pushp; we hear about Bindeshwar
Pathak, the man behind the Sulabh International movement, and filmmaker Prakash
Jha, the man who has made <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>’s
first mall. We also get to hear from Irfan, a former communist now working as a
TV journalist in <st1:city>Delhi</st1:city>. I had had
the chance to meet some of these people, so it was thrilling to read about them
from a different perspective.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of the fascinating stories in the book is that of youth
poet Raghav and his now estranged wife Leela, a struggling TV actress. In a <i>Rashomon</i>-like narrative, the author
tries to examine the truth in their crumbling relationship. “It’s human to lie.
Most of the time we can’t even be honest with ourselves,” says the thief to the
woodcutter in the classic Akira Kurusawa film (Kumar has used that quote in the
book to make his point).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Through this book, it would be fair to say, Kumar has only
tried to present his perspectives on the city where he grew up. He does not
make any other claims. “There is no truth in nonfiction; there is only
perspective,” he clarifies his stand in the author’s note. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As far as <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
goes, Kumar’s view of the city is that of hopelessness. “I see in <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>’s
decline, in its pretensions to development, in its plain dullness, the stark
story of middle age and death,” he says. “It’s all hopeless, really—that is
what <st1:city>Patna</st1:city> and I are saying to each
other.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every time the US-based author returns to <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>,
he is reminded of his youth (the time of his life when discovery of sex
happened for him), and the present question of ageing and mortality (his Patna-based parents are in the last years of their lives). “To return to <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
is to find the challenging thought of death, like the tip of a knife, pressing
against my rib,” he writes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kumar’s ode to <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
ends on a melancholy note. Some Westerners might see a crumbling <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>
as the Indian version of ancient <st1:city>Rome</st1:city>, but he sees this city in a different light—the city where he grew up and where his
ageing parents live. “When I step on <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>’s
soil, I only want to see how much older my patents look,” he writes. “I arrive
in <st1:city>Patna</st1:city> and a few days later I
leave. Each time I leave, I wonder about the circumstances under which I will
need to return.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
The book, which starts off with a youthful exuberance, ends
up with an old age-like gracefulness—understated, sober, melancholic and wise.
As I come to the last page of the book, I understand why Kumar calls the book,
A Matter of Rats. It is a tribute to the life and people of <st1:city>Patna</st1:city>,
rather than an examination of the past and speculation of the future of the
capital of <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place>. It is this quality of the book that
makes it an endearing read.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-60799025661466926702013-09-15T16:14:00.002+08:002013-09-15T16:14:19.092+08:00Amit Virmani: Audiences need something to keep them engaged<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QIjOcEQtOx0t_Wav5R0MJx5AIilWM1YInOzVJm7oEScUh_Cf51HTN8Ka9S-1VIXW97j8e1OO9-tXnSTHNQZ9pil0ESKsRDgNkHk2QAsQ9QMytlJwkA4LD79Qr9OUxEkXEscmlg/s1600/Virmani_A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QIjOcEQtOx0t_Wav5R0MJx5AIilWM1YInOzVJm7oEScUh_Cf51HTN8Ka9S-1VIXW97j8e1OO9-tXnSTHNQZ9pil0ESKsRDgNkHk2QAsQ9QMytlJwkA4LD79Qr9OUxEkXEscmlg/s1600/Virmani_A.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: 'Droid Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: 'Droid Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Singapore-based filmmaker Amit Virmani’s debut, “Cowboys in Paradise”, was one of the most talked-about Asian documentaries in recent years. The controversial film on sex tourism in Bali (Indonesia) garnered international acclaim and has been broadcast in over 110 countries.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: 'Droid Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
His second documentary feature film, “Menstrual Man” (2013), is already making waves. The film documents the struggles of India’s Muruganantham, a school dropout who realised that the majority of women in India couldn’t afford sanitary pads and decided to do something about it. A Netflix audience favourite at Hot Docs 2013, the film underscores the importance of empowering women to combat poverty and highlights the power every individual has to make a difference.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: 'Droid Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Amit is a graduate of Southwestern University, Texas, where he was honored with the Feminist Voices Award.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: 'Droid Sans', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://kitaab.org/2013/09/15/amit-virmani-audiences-need-something-to-keep-them-engaged/" target="_blank">Read the interview here</a></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-69063047823916844162013-08-02T17:30:00.000+08:002013-08-02T17:30:10.099+08:00Tiger tales, Neurolinguistics and the power of positive thinking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKtJmM3U-f873hyphenhyphenytMXo2CtVK3VGv4zXKBAjX1tCYxqbVoNw8B7htADwbwxlYB1kOk7PaTiU0TutbYYXeF6pMn_CdgrYlGnJ-jRvkjYVg72xcapo2_PrAqkEk8aqRe1XvA5TsFg/s1600/AbdulKalam.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKtJmM3U-f873hyphenhyphenytMXo2CtVK3VGv4zXKBAjX1tCYxqbVoNw8B7htADwbwxlYB1kOk7PaTiU0TutbYYXeF6pMn_CdgrYlGnJ-jRvkjYVg72xcapo2_PrAqkEk8aqRe1XvA5TsFg/s320/AbdulKalam.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine you are standing in front of a tiger. Not in a zoo
but in a real forest. And let’s say this tiger is a man-eater. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How would you feel?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You will quake in your boots, right? Clichéd but that’s
saying a lot in just five words.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beyond the surface truth, a lot more stuff happens within
your body at that moment. For example, your body diverts 30 percent of your
glucose into your blood stream to give you strength to face the danger. The
brain releases fear-related hormones. Your heart wants to jump out of your
throat. You break into a sweat. And so on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, replace this tiger with your boss. Yes, your boss in the
office.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do you feel the same about your boss? Are you afraid of him?
Are you afraid of losing your job? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you are, then you are living in a condition of constant
danger. You are living your life in the shadow of a tiger, and it is damaging
your brain. Not just your brain but your entire well-being. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you do your job well, you should not be afraid of your
boss. A good boss needs a good worker like you. He needs you as much as you
need him to succeed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The same goes for your boss—your boss also has a boss in the
chain of command. Like you, he too shouldn’t be afraid of his boss. And for the
same reason.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, what’s the point? The point is that a good leader would
lead and not just play games with employees to keep his chair intact. A boss
who is not like a fear-inducing tiger will ensure more positivity in the
office. Positive employees are happy employees and happy employees are
productive and loyal employees. I bet you can find plenty of evidence to back
that claim.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Neurolinguistics and
the power of positive suggestion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The above described scenario didn’t come to me just like
that. I recently bumped into a former colleague who now teaches at a bank
management institute in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>.
She is a scholar of Neurolinguistics and she coaches bankers and top banking
executives in leadership roles. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In her long career, she said she had seen many professionals
damaging themselves because of negative thinking. She had seen this especially
in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region> (she
has been working in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
after working in <st1:country-region>Switzerland</st1:country-region>
for many years) where sycophancy and toadyism are considered important traits
for survival. You can’t create a healthy working environment if you are not a
positive-thinking leader—that’s her point. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Many banking leaders in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
love to cling to their chairs so much so that they don’t allow their juniors to
be groomed for top positions. What if they become better than me or replace me?
That’s their fear. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This shortsightedness has created a leadership vacuum in the
banking sector in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>—a
sector which will see more job creation than the manufacturing sector in the
years ahead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
According to her, your negative thoughts induce the release
of harmful hormones in your body, making you ill and disease-prone. The
language you use affects your brain and its wiring—that is Neurolinguistics in
short.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her prescription? Always think positive. Tell yourself you
can do it (let’s say public speaking) and you will be able to do it. Imagine
positive scenarios for yourself and believe in them. They will happen. It is as
simple as that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t use the word ‘try’—as in ‘I will try to achieve my
goal’. Say, ‘I will achieve my goal’ instead. Don’t let the word ‘try’ become
an obstacle in your path to success. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t be afraid of your weaknesses—we all have our
weaknesses. Don’t focus on them. Focus on your strengths. When you see Javier
Bardem on screen mouthing dialogues in English, you don’t mind his weird
accent. You enjoy his acting. Bardem is successful because he is exploiting his
strength—his acting abilities. Vladimir Nabokov, the famous novelist, was not a
great speaker of English but he wrote some of the most scintillating sentences
in the English language. Dr. Abdul Kalam, former President of India, might not
have a great accent but he always has great content to share. He focuses on his
content and that has made him a darling of people, an inspiring figure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The choice is yours. You want to think positive and stay
healthy or you want to have negative thoughts and damage your brains. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
You have to try it to believe it. Promise me that you will
think positive today and see how it goes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.cio-asia.com/resource/featured-blogs/blog-in-the-shadow-of-the-tiger/" target="_blank">Source</a></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-10833249495355207622013-07-29T15:54:00.000+08:002013-07-29T15:58:39.111+08:00Charity screening of 'Menstrual Man' in Singapore<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Singapore-based filmmaker Amit Virmani, who shot to fame with his first film, Cowboys in Paradise, is screening his second documentary film, Menstrual Man, in Singapore on 6 August 2013.<br />
<br />
This is a charity screening so friends in Singapore please help this effort. Book your tickets online today!<br />
<br />
“Menstrual Man” tells the inspiring story of a man who rose from below the poverty line to stand up for the ignored and forgotten. It underscores the role of social entrepreneurship in combatting poverty, and the importance of economic empowerment of women to enable a better world.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="367" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/S3567Hx_U98?rel=0" style="background-color: white; border-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 23.390625px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="652"></iframe><br />
<br />
<b>MENSTRUAL MAN</b><br />
SINGAPORE CHARITY SCREENING<br />
August 6, 2013. 715PM.<br />
Golden Village Great World City<br />
$20<br />
All profits go to MPEVDS, a village development society featured in the film.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #e5e5e5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 10px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #e5e5e5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 10px;"><a href="http://www.menstrualman.com/empowering/" target="_blank">More Details here</a></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-891657234164758922013-07-26T12:28:00.000+08:002013-07-27T11:43:43.797+08:00An evening with a Hollywood editor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKkxpkBsU_Pz1-aq4i8FJtnC_7ThFhNA7UQZsdKoWMkkBG5PYK6YAhPJdIQ5LoG84tvFQm8aBJlk4VcBsPpfY3dNHBqOPTmhqG1fY_WhzaGpGVtooTaqk74OWqG88AsVNAmxb0RQ/s1600/shake-it-up.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKkxpkBsU_Pz1-aq4i8FJtnC_7ThFhNA7UQZsdKoWMkkBG5PYK6YAhPJdIQ5LoG84tvFQm8aBJlk4VcBsPpfY3dNHBqOPTmhqG1fY_WhzaGpGVtooTaqk74OWqG88AsVNAmxb0RQ/s320/shake-it-up.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Yesterday, I spent nearly two hours in the company of a
veteran <st1:place>Hollywood</st1:place> video editor. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His name is <a href="http://kristrexler.com/">Kris Trexler</a>
and he is an Emmy Award winning editor. Los Angeles-based Trexler has been
nominated for the Emmy’s five times in his 30-year career. Twice he has won it.
He has worked on hit TV shows in the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>,
such as <i>In Living Color, Ellen, Titus,
According to Jim</i>, and <i>Rita Rocks</i>.
He has also edited some music videos of Michael Jackson and Tina Turner and has
worked on the taped segments of the Academy Awards.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most recently, Trexler has been editing the hit Disney dance
and comedy show, <i>Shake It Up</i>. After
three successful seasons, the show is folding up and Trexler has been hired to
edit another hot TV show in <st1:city>Hollywood</st1:city>.
His new work starts from next month. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYtdveJ2Wd9Q7Ycc_22PtzY06x_4FeW7Ue-R3dO9x7nwOpbmlOOus9GGu4zR3O-tBQPHPC3ywjITxxtAVfP7WhWPAkMjbmduI3fp_H-e-Qttb-CR2ED_oanvZ3BKnlCq6sPhsTPA/s1600/Kris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYtdveJ2Wd9Q7Ycc_22PtzY06x_4FeW7Ue-R3dO9x7nwOpbmlOOus9GGu4zR3O-tBQPHPC3ywjITxxtAVfP7WhWPAkMjbmduI3fp_H-e-Qttb-CR2ED_oanvZ3BKnlCq6sPhsTPA/s320/Kris.jpg" width="279" /></a></div>
<br />
Trexler was addressing some local video editors in the
Singapore Media Academy (SMA) in a talent forum yesterday. He is a regular
visitor to <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>
and he conducts an editing master class here once a year. He also taught
editing at Nanyang Polytechnic a couple of years back and loves <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>
as a city.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Trexler is a self-taught editor. He did not go to any film
school. He learnt all the tricks of the editing trade on the job.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Trexler started out in his editing career at a time when
digital editing was just taking birth. There was a demand for technicians who
could learn to edit films (video) on computers and Trexler jumped into the
fray. He became one of the pioneers of computerised video editing, using the
revolutionary <st1:stockticker>CMX</st1:stockticker> system to edit “All in the
Family” and “The Jeffersons”, top rated CBS network comedies in the late 1970s.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever since, he has been constantly employed. He works for
eight months and then takes a four month break. It is during the break that he
conducts his editing classes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Video literacy and
editing<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, video is ubiquitous (thanks to smartphones and
YouTube and Facebook) and there are plenty of awfully edited videos on the
Internet, he said. If people could learn the basics of editing, they could
really improve their home videos.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I call this need video literacy. Today we live in the world
of videos—from surveillance footage to our casual videos taken through our
iPhones and iPads. They all end up somewhere on the Internet. Like we learnt
how to read and write in school, how to use syntax and grammar, the same kind
of literacy is required to handle the language of video.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the SMA forum, most of the discussion centred on editing
software. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Trexler lamented how Apple’s Final Cut Pro (<st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker>)
X has disappointed professional editors. <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker>
was a great piece of editing software and after Apple discontinued <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker>
7, it fell out of favour. When Apple had announced <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker>
X after a hiatus of several years, Trexler was over-excited. He wanted to use
it to cut his next project on. When the product was finally released and he
downloaded it from the App Store, he was disillusioned with what he saw.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The new version is not convenient for editing longer footage,
he said. Creating and using duplicates is a problem with the software. However,
he thinks that <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker> X is great for editing
documentaries. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After his initial rejection, Trexler is slowly coming to
terms with <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker> X again and is exploring it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:city>Hollywood</st1:city> is a 100
percent Avid town, Trexler said. All <st1:place>Hollywood</st1:place> editors
use Avid to edit their footage. Most <st1:place>Hollywood</st1:place>
productions use multi-cam footage (videos shot with four-cameras, A, B, C, and
X). It is easier to edit such footage on Avid. Avid also has some unique
features which other softwares don’t have, he claimed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Trexler also appreciated Adobe’s editing software, Premiere.
He said the software has evolved over the years and many editors are using it
now (though not in <st1:city>Hollywood</st1:city>). Apple’s
loss (after the folly of <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker> X) has been
Adobe Premiere’s gain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you are budding video editor, Trexler has one simple
advice for you: you should learn both <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker>
and Avid. If you know how to use <st1:stockticker>FCP</st1:stockticker>, it
should not be difficult to learn Avid in a day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s what Trexler thinks. You want to try?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[<a href="http://www.cio-asia.com/blogs/featured-blogs/blog-an-evening-with-a-hollywood-editor/" target="_blank">First published at CIO Asia</a>]</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-11369660699246106642013-07-04T14:05:00.001+08:002013-07-04T14:05:57.500+08:0020 things you should be thinking about if you care about journalism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">1.
Why don’t we build the audience before we build the product?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">2.
As technology companies have become media companies, media companies must
become technology companies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">3.
Are we talking too much about tools and too little about culture change?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">4.
The future of news design is about how content is created, not how it is
presented.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">5.
Journalists need to be a lot more aware of data security.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">6.
Who, what, when, where have been commoditised. Journalism needs to focus on
why, how, what next.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">7.
Content is now like water. It’s everywhere. Value comes from packaging it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">8.
The many new faces of the unit formerly known as the article. – Circa‘s idea is
to «atomise» the article, Fast Company is experimenting with «slow live
blogging». <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">9.
The best games for mobile are built for mobile, not adapted from desktop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">10.
The metrics for success we use are old, industrial, wrong metrics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">11.
What if we made engagement as important as consumption?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">12.
More people are paying for digital news in 2013 compared to 2012. But still
very few.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">13.
Paywalls are still more wall than pay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">14.
Rule if you want people to pay for your content: It doesn’t matter if you value
it, but if they value it. Part of our mission is to improve people’s lives. If
we do that, revenues will follow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">15.
Is it true that if it didn’t happen in English, it didn’t happen at all?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">16.
The past does not buy our future. Without taking risks, each dollar in profit
will turn into $0.56 of loss within 5 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">17.
Bad CEOs and worse editors are using the past to kill our future. See it as
your Occupy-moment. Demand change of your bosses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">18.
When using social media platforms, ask yourself: 1. Who benefits? 2. Who’s in
charge?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">19.
Your smartphone is your newsroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">20.
The big red button to make the internet go away again: Would you press it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Top
rule: Rule of the internet: It's cheaper
and easier to try than to debate about trying. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[Adapted from <a href="http://www.davidbauer.ch/2013/06/22/journalism-future-quotes-gen-news-summit/">http://www.davidbauer.ch/2013/06/22/journalism-future-quotes-gen-news-summit/</a>]</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-67837841989831401742013-06-14T11:12:00.000+08:002013-06-14T11:12:06.858+08:00The day human privacy died<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5h4o9wTltxuqqeWRnx4V0fGWVHwGBt1OP1yYWsqkWzPI09Qt5qgmNBjnhHMBQXT-EjfHLZGNBTzY7sUk6cR26_fH76qksS4ul-Dc8TMSJS0b8et7IN3q0wFyoMXaeKNy_rY0ABQ/s1600/Snowden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5h4o9wTltxuqqeWRnx4V0fGWVHwGBt1OP1yYWsqkWzPI09Qt5qgmNBjnhHMBQXT-EjfHLZGNBTzY7sUk6cR26_fH76qksS4ul-Dc8TMSJS0b8et7IN3q0wFyoMXaeKNy_rY0ABQ/s1600/Snowden.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">Edward
Snowden</a> blew his whistle on the secret big data surveillance system of the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
government, called <a href="http://www.mis-asia.com/resource/industries/faq-5-things-known-and-alleged-about-nsa-surveillance/">PRISM</a>,
I could hear only a murmur of outrage from humanity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While some knew that the government eavesdrops on our
conversations and technology was available to enable this, people in general
had no clue about it—the way the vastness of the operation has been unearthed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Snowden’s revelation—proof of the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
government’s secret plan—should have come as a big shock. It was like finding
out that your privacy had been bombed out by a drone and you didn’t know about
it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and
say is recorded,” Snowden said in an interview. “That is not something I am
willing to support or live under.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There should have been a tsunami of revolt after the Snowden
interview. Instead, all we got were some heroic applauds for Snowden, usual condemnation
from the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
government and the justifications for the programme by the secret service, and the
rest was soon forgotten. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Did you see any action after this?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know what? Snowden knows that people would be callous,
that they will not do anything. He said: “The great fear that I have regarding
the outcome for <st1:country-region>America</st1:country-region>
of these disclosures is that nothing will change. [People] won’t be willing to
take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things… And in the
months ahead, the years ahead, it’s only going to get worse.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While Snowden went missing from his hotel in <st1:place>Hong
Kong</st1:place>, you moved on with your daily life. You always do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, hey, here, take a pause with me. Stop playing that
video game for a minute. And consider this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
History will remember this Snowden moment as the day when human
privacy died. And if you have not spoken out, your silence will be construed as
your acquiescence. You will have to answer to the questions of your children
and grandchildren. Why did you not stop it when we were being enslaved? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But do you even care?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most people are past caring about anything that does not
directly affect their well-being—and I applaud the system that they have
silently enabled to turn them into this state of emasculation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like they stopped caring for what has remained a sham of a
concept like democracy. Your government will do what it wants to do. What you
think your government should be doing is immaterial. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like democracy, a lofty concept like privacy has no place in
the new world order that you live in. Your addiction to the cyber space has
vacuumed out your privacy—it gives you the carbonated sugary drink that you
love and crave for but what it does is makes you sick over time. And weakens
your will to fight the system. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you don’t believe in human privacy, you don’t believe in
human dignity. And a life without dignity is anything but human. If you don’t
get this, go look at yourself in the mirror.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy,
and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity,” Snowden
said in an <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/10/politics/nsa-leak/index.html?hpt=hp_t1">interview</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the end, it is all about making choices.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Snowden made a choice and he does not regret it. He has had “a
very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend
with whom he shared a home in <st1:state>Hawaii</st1:state>,
a stable career, and a family he loves, he told <i><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">The
Guardian</a></i>. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good
conscience allow the <st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region>
government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people
around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly
building.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
What are the choices that you are going to make? Think about
it. Some have already started a campaign. <a href="http://www.mis-asia.com/resource/security/stopwatchingus">The Mozilla
Foundation, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, Reddit, and a host of other
organisations are supporting a petition, Stop Watching Us</a>. If you can’t do
something on your own, at least join the good side of the battle. Don’t look
for a leader. Get started now. Remember what <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance">Snowden
has said</a>? “I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership
is about being the first to act.”</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-69317394998406441542013-05-31T11:17:00.001+08:002013-05-31T11:18:48.367+08:00Kith and Kin: A Portrait of a Southern Indian clan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ddpYBDMcf6PzG7LYpDKF88IwZU-NUULNtcWG0LczhEXQ4mrVYJGLNU3ROv-5qiixKtMWOzI2iIvFPOThM0imHd26z_mWtPpfnqfnuOvOsurmFHThLCmoDinFLeay3MCwqIhsWg/s1600/KITH_AND_KIN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ddpYBDMcf6PzG7LYpDKF88IwZU-NUULNtcWG0LczhEXQ4mrVYJGLNU3ROv-5qiixKtMWOzI2iIvFPOThM0imHd26z_mWtPpfnqfnuOvOsurmFHThLCmoDinFLeay3MCwqIhsWg/s320/KITH_AND_KIN.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have been trying to take a crack at Sheila Kumar’s
collection of short stories <i>Kith and Kin </i>(Rupa<i>, </i>2012) for a few months but without
much success. In between, I read more than half of Howard Jacobson’s <i>Zoo Time</i> and then abandoned it—it didn’t
seem to go anywhere. I returned his <i>The
Finkler Question </i>unread to the library. I flitted from book to book, mostly
nonfiction and even dabbled into Manto’s stories for a while. But I could
barely finish a novel (managed to read three chapters of <i>Buddenbrooks</i>). And all this while, <i>Kith and Kin, </i>sitting on my bookshelf, excoriated me for being so
fiendish and obtuse. I became my own nightmare.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then I came across an opening, a mental pass, that offered
me some redemption. Or cut me some slack, if you go for the less dramatic.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was travelling and I carried Kumar’s book to give it one
more try. Luckily, this time the book yielded to me. Is the mind more receptive
to new experiences when one is traveling at 30,000 feet above the ground? Is
the airborne mind so tremulous with unexpected disasters that it is eager to
absorb anything new? Anything that can distract the mind is a welcome
absorption at that altitude. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the two hours of flight time, I could read Kumar’s
stories and enjoy some of them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Kith and Kin</i> contains
19 stories about the Melekat clan of Kerala. Ammini Amma is the matriarch of
the clan and Mon Repos is the matriarch’s house in south Malabar. The various
members of this clan— three generations of brothers and sisters and their grandchildren—inhabit
different cities in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>.
This is a proud clan, with beauty running in the genes, but with some customary
exceptions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Through these stories, Kumar explores a range of human
emotions, both carnal and spiritual and always with a touch of wit and humour. In
<i>Kingfisher Morning</i>, for example, Sindhu’s
affair with <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8412012" name="OLE_LINK1">Deepender </a>comes to an abrupt end when she
finds out that he was two-timing with Seema, her own sister, in <st1:city>Delhi</st1:city>.
There is even a slow-mo moment when this discovery takes place but instead of
feeling blue after encountering her sister, Sindhu thinks of Seema’s hairy
armpits. Deepender loathes women with hairy pits. “Hope Seema has done
something about hers,” she contemplates.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some stories in the collection end with a twist in the tale
which feels contrived. In <i>All Those Doors</i>,
Anita, a journalist, goes to interview a famous theatre and film actor—‘a
thinking woman’s sex symbol’ who has retreated to the hills near Coimbatore.
The interview goes very well and Anita imagines a life with this famous
person—an opposite of the shallow Chetan, her boyfriend of two years. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Anita leaves the house after the interview, the actor
goes back into his house to surf kiddy porn. Some might think this is a clever
ending but there is this sudden shift in the point of view which is jarring. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In these stories, Kumar shows her flair for comic writing. But
this is not the sort of comic writing that reminds you of early Naipaul; nor
does it display the chutzpah of Rushdie’s literary playfulness. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
To Kumar’s credit, she draws most scenes well and some of
her passages are expertly well-written. However, her prose is overwrought at
places and she barely exercises restraint, resulting in overexposing her characters.
Also, there are far too many references to contemporary books, writers and film
stars in these stories. It is possible that Kumar prefers Woody Allen over
Hemingway. But all her stylistic choices mar an otherwise readable collection
of short stories which could have been a deeper study of a Southern Indian clan. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-6141909302654788582013-05-29T07:17:00.002+08:002013-05-29T07:18:21.190+08:00India’s population: Boon or bane?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3intKO3qIl7Z3pT-6Cqiy54KEpQC32DjqMXk-kl3kNg9Ke3YV9BKrujK6Osn3tdmO4ntxPZVB9x4qnvqeUcXbAWt9YRhhc-_t18LGiJoEtfjUs83ilMGo96GGIIpk5KkuErz6Q/s1600/Sanjay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO3intKO3qIl7Z3pT-6Cqiy54KEpQC32DjqMXk-kl3kNg9Ke3YV9BKrujK6Osn3tdmO4ntxPZVB9x4qnvqeUcXbAWt9YRhhc-_t18LGiJoEtfjUs83ilMGo96GGIIpk5KkuErz6Q/s1600/Sanjay.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
If you are an Indian child of the
1970s and 80s, you would remember the ‘population explosion’ scare of that era.
During the days of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government (1966-77 and
1980-84), India’s bulging population was seen a threat to the country’s future
so much so that Indira’s son, Sanjay Gandhi, ran an controversial campaign of
forced sterilization during the emergency (1975-77). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“<st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>’s
large and growing population has long been seen as a problem, perhaps even the
most important long-term problem facing the country,” writes Singapore-based
economist Sanjeev Sanyal, currently Deutsche Bank’s Global Strategist, in his
book, <i>The Indian Renaissance</i>. “This
is not surprising given the sustained increase in population in the second half
of the 20<sup>th</sup> century—from 361 million in 1951 to around 1.1 billion
in 2007. Between 1951 and 1991, the country’s population grew at an average
rate of over 2 percent per year.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In the 1970s and 80s, this fast clip
of population growth was an alarming problem for <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
because the country was growing only at the rate of 3.5 percent. This led the
government of the day to pursue a policy of population control and family
planning. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But come the 1990s and the tone
of the government changes. <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>’s
population explosion was no more seen as a problem. It was touted as “the
population dividend.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
How did this turnaround happen?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“The Prime Minister had himself
announced in parliament that <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>’s
population, criticised for being a curse, is actually a boon,” says noted
economist Dr. Amir Ullah Khan, Deputy Director, Strategy, Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation, <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>.
“The 600 million strong workforce does not just provide cheap labour, it also
is the largest provider of skilled manpower in the world. It is the youngest
population in the world with a mean age of 24 years, in a globe that is ageing
pretty fast. The large population, with its striking diversity that is not seen
in the stark homogeneity of <st1:country-region>China</st1:country-region>,
offers the world a variety of skills in terms of languages spoken, technology
education and adaptability in disparate environments. With the millions of
Indians now going to school and getting skilled, <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
is the largest provider of engineers (more than half a million annually) and
English speaking professionals in the world.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
With middle class population in
excess of 300 million, <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
is the largest market for automobiles, high value foods, mobile phones etc
ahead of or just behind <st1:country-region>China</st1:country-region>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“This turn around has happened as
education levels have gone up - nearly 98% of children are enrolled in primary
schools now,” says Khan. “Also because of the fall in fertility rates, an
average Indian family now has less than three children compared to five a
couple of decades ago, leading to increased expense on education and health per
child.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>The dependency ratio<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Demographic accelerations and
decelerations have huge impacts on a country’s economic performance, and that’s
where the secret lies of understanding why <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>’s
population boom is a boon.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“The dependency ratio (the ratio
of the population outside the working age group relative to the population in
the working age) is the key,” says Prasenjit K Basu, MD and Head of <st1:place>Asia</st1:place>
(regional) Research & Economics at Maybank Kim Eng Holdings, <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>.
“As the dependency ratio falls, a nation’s savings rate typically rises (as
long as those of working age are mostly employed!). If the nation’s savings
rate rises, so should its investment/<st1:stockticker>GDP</st1:stockticker>
ratio, and a rise in the latter boosts productivity and therefore prosperity.
This is the virtuous circle that <st1:country-region>Japan</st1:country-region>
entered in the 1950-90 period (when its dependency ratio was steadily
declining), and <st1:country-region>Korea</st1:country-region>
did from 1965-2010, <st1:country-region>China</st1:country-region>
from 1978-2013 (the dependency ratio there is going to start rising from next
year). And <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
is in the middle of its demographic dividend phase (the period of declining
dependency ratios) which will last from 1990 to 2035.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>A boon turning out to be a bane?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
However, not all economists see <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>’s
burgeoning population as a boon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“The demographic dividend that we
talk about is actually turning out to be bane for <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>,
because of lack of skill or employability on part of the Indian labors,” argues
Nilanjan Banik, Professor at Institute for Financial Management and Research, <st1:place><st1:city>Chennai
Area</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
“Consider this. In the private sector, approximately 10 to 15 million jobs were
created in 2011-12 but not all could not be filled up as 75 per cent of this
jobs required skill such as vocational training which are not to be found among
the prospective applicants. Be it doctors, engineers, or even MBA graduates,
there is a dearth of quality professionals in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>.
This is precisely why every year corporates like Infosys (service), ITC
(manufactured consumer items), Apollo (medical), and L&T (engineering), to
name a few, are left with vacant seats, or prefer to recruit people with
foreign degrees, rather than employ graduates from India.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“This year’s Economic Survey puts
the jobs question at the forefront and for all the right reasons,” says Dr. Rajesh
Chakrabarti, Executive Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, and
Clinical Associate Professor, <st1:place><st1:placename>Indian</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>School</st1:placetype></st1:place>
of Business, Mohali, <st1:place><st1:city>Punjab</st1:city>, <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
“It is not clear that <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
will be able to create the kind of jobs in sufficient numbers to employ its
millions.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“The point is higher number can
not be sustained as a boon,” says Dr. Debashis Chakraborty, Assistant
Professor, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, <st1:city>New Delhi</st1:city>.
“There needs to be skill-formation for smooth progression and human development
aumgmentation has a crucial role there.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b>What can be done?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“In this regard, Indian
policymakers should take a lesson from the growth performance of the newly
industrialised economies in <st1:place>Asia</st1:place>, such as <st1:country-region>Taiwan</st1:country-region>,
<st1:country-region>South Korea</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>,
<st1:place>Hong Kong</st1:place>, which is typically driven by designing
curriculum, so that more people can be employed,” says Dr. Banik. “In <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>,
on the other hand, government regulation in higher education is actually
hindering supply of quality education.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“What <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
needs is rapid skill development to ready its growing population for the
marketplace for jobs,” says Dr. Chakraborty. “That is the critical challenge.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
“<st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
now will have to take a call whether we want to be a manufacturing hub (e.g.
like <st1:country-region>China</st1:country-region>) or
service hub (e.g. <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>)?”
he says. “Once we are ourselves clear on that front, appropriate education and training
policies can be devised to reap demographic dividend.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These arguments are in line with
a report, ‘State of the Urban Youth, India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods,
Skills,’ published by IRIS Knowledge Foundation in collaboration with
UN-HABITAT.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The report suggests that unequal
access to opportunity and the lack of emphasis on education remains a
persistent problem in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>.
While the country is undergoing a demographic transition, regional disparities
in education mean the benefits will not be evenly spread across the country.
That, if one may say, is the fine irony of <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>’s
population boon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<st1:country-region><st1:place><b>India</b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b>’s population-related trends at a glance</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
is currently the second most populous country in the world, with over 1.21
billion people (2011 census)—this represents more than a sixth of the
world’s population. </li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;">Every third person in an Indian city today is a
youth.</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
is projected to be the world’s most populous country by 2025, surpassing <st1:country-region>China</st1:country-region>.
It’s population will reach 1.6 billion by 2050.</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;"><st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
has more than 50 percent of its population below the age of 25 and more
than 65 percent below the age of 35. <o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;">By 2020, <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
is set to become the world’s youngest country with 64 per cent of its
population in the working age group.</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;">In about seven years, the median individual in <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region>
will be 29 years. </li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;">The population in the age-group of 15-34 increased
from 353 million in 2001 to 430 million in 2011. Current predictions
suggest a steady increase in the youth population to 464 million by 2021
and finally a decline to 458 million by 2026.</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;">India is set to experience a dynamic transformation
as the population burden of the past turns into a demographic dividend,
but the benefits will be tempered with social and spatial
inequalities—according to a report the ‘State of the Urban Youth, India
2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills,’ published by IRIS Knowledge
Foundation in collaboration with UN-HABITAT.</li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-align: justify;">The report says the southern and western States will
be the first to experience a growth dividend as they accounted for 63 per
cent of all formally trained people. The largest share of youth with
formal skills was found in Kerala, followed by <st1:place>Maharashtra</st1:place>,
Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and <st1:place>Gujarat</st1:place>. Among
those undergoing training, <st1:place>Maharashtra</st1:place> had the
highest share, <st1:place>Bihar</st1:place> the lowest.</li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>[This article was published in Tabla! Singapore in May 2013 and should not be reproduced without the permission of SPH]</i></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-40796313746407936452013-05-29T07:12:00.000+08:002013-05-29T07:12:07.471+08:00Hair and the Indian<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLGCJUo_RqHhLyexAaXB_MHVZxsw8gSKtfgjWutq4yQP41gPq9jKS-gMNfW4ODLykeDwjlq0cuSmHv1XWPm2LIwy0wYZXG3su2m5oAtcm_Bs8Zfez79PgRTd0JGEovjbdkUpTpg/s1600/Dev_Anand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLGCJUo_RqHhLyexAaXB_MHVZxsw8gSKtfgjWutq4yQP41gPq9jKS-gMNfW4ODLykeDwjlq0cuSmHv1XWPm2LIwy0wYZXG3su2m5oAtcm_Bs8Zfez79PgRTd0JGEovjbdkUpTpg/s320/Dev_Anand.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Hair
now and gone tomorrow. That’s the story of hair, in short, for most Indians. In
between (one is telescoping time here), there is a long struggle to hold on to
the heritage one is born with it. Most fail at it, but some go to incredible
lengths to preserve the luxuriant foliage on one’s pate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Both
Indian men and women love their hair, but women obviously love them more. Long
tresses that are shiny and healthy are a mark of good health and beauty.
Traditionally, Indian men like women who have black and long hair. Indian
poetry is full of praise for the long-tressed beauty. Look at the Indian film
actresses: from the beginning of cinema, they have sported long hair, and their
dense, silky locks have set nationwide trends in hairstyles. Remember the fringe
of actress Sadhna (popularly known as the Sadhna cut) in the 1960s? Or for men,
the Dev Anand style ‘puff’ hair, the Amitabh Bachchan style middle-parted hair
or more recently, Salman Khan and Amir Khan’s ever-changing hairstyles? They
have been ardently copied by their countrymen.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">While
both men and women in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> loved their hair, the fact is that men cared a
little less about maintaining their hair. Even though they wanted their hair to
be thick, black, and luxuriant, they didn’t do much about it. There was a time,
when a ‘champi’ (hair oil massage) was all that a man needed, and even today,
hair oil is an everyday habit with about 50 percent of the population. Older
men put henna in their hair. Over the decades, however, as with their interest,
their options have evolved. Now they have a variety of oils, shampoos,
conditioners, and post wash products to choose from. In addition, most Indian men
turn to dyes to hide their grey hair when they begin to age. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">A
testimony to this Indian obsession with hair is the growing hair care market. According
to industry figures, the size of the hair care market is Rs 13,000 crore
(US$2413 million), of which Rs 6664 crore (US$1237) is the size of the hair oil
market alone. This is such a huge market that top Bollywood actors like Shah
Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, and Amitabh Bachchan have been endorsing hair oil
brands, earning crores of rupees in fees. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">“In
the last five years, the hair oil industry has been registering healthy double
digit growth mainly due to increasing hair damages due to lifestyle and
environmental changes,” Minoo Phakey, marketing head, hair oil, Dabur India,
told an Indian newspaper.<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/zanjum/Desktop/Zafar/Hair%20and%20the%20Indian_ed.doc#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">But
many Indian men don’t stop with hair oil when it comes to preserving their
youthful look. They are turning to even hair weaving and hair transplant
treatments, even though these are highly expensive procedures. A typical hair
transplant, a painful process, costs about Rs. 1.5 lakh (about $4,000). Today
when incomes have risen in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;">, well-to-do men can afford such treatments.
Thankfully, there is no dearth of role models for them: Akshaye Khanna, Sunny
Deol, Dharmendra, Rajnikanth, Salman Khan and Amitabh Bachchan from the
Bollywood brigade and Virendra Sehwag, Ravi Shastri and Harsha Bhogle from the
cricketing world have all gone for hair weaving and transplants at some point
of their career.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond;">From
Hair to Eternity—Hair and rituals in Indian culture<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">In
a deeply religious and spiritual country like </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;">, hair is not just a part of one’s outer
personality. It has its own spiritual dimensions. For Sikh men, for example, maintaining
their hair and keeping their beard is part of their religious identity. Both
Hindus and Muslims in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> shave off their hair at different points of time
for spiritual reasons and it starts right after birth. Muslims shave off their
children’s birth hair within weeks after their birth and donate in charity gold
or silver equal in weight to the hair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">For
Hindus, the hair from birth is associated with undesirable traits from past
lives. So, it is believed that the child’s ‘mundan’ ritual frees him or her of
her past. Hindu men go for a tonsure when they lose a parent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Hindus
also offer their hair as a sacrifice to their gods, and they do it for a variety
of reasons, ranging from seeking good luck and riches to ward off sickness and unfavourable
circumstances. The practice is common in southern </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;">, especially at temples such as the famous
Tirumala Venkateswara Temple of Lord Vishnu, where people flock from all parts
of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> to be shaved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Splitting
the hair<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Where
does all this hair go? That is a million dollar question. That brings us to the
world of the big business of hair. </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Temple</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> hair donation has made </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> the world leader in the hair extension trade. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">When
devotees offer their hair to the gods, temples auction them off to wholesalers,
who in turn export them to countries like the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">US</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> and the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">UK</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> where demand for Indian hair is high— </span><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Hollywood</span></st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> actresses such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Kim
Kardashian have pushed up demand for hair extensions. Hair extensions make
women feel glamorous—that’s the prevailing belief.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">The
practice of selling human hair is a good source of income for the temples. The
money raised is used for charitable activities. And the prices are good: one
kilogram of Indian hair can bring in as much as $250 on average; it would have
fetched $20 15 years ago, according to a people in the trade. Last year
Tirumala temple, apparently made 2,000m rupees (more than £22m), from
auctioning hair<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/zanjum/Desktop/Zafar/Hair%20and%20the%20Indian_ed.doc#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">So,
there is more to hair than what meets the eyes. For Indians, hair is not just a
matter of beauty and good looks, it is also a symbol of devotion. It can be
safely said that as </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> evolves and redefines its culture, the Indian
love affair with hair will continue. Probably we will see more funky hairdos in
</span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> but the fashion police will also be equally
ruthless. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Garamond;">Hair is big business<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Today,
hair is big business the world over. Both the young and the old in the West
turn to hair extensions and hair addition. The young go for coloured extensions
while the middle-aged ladies opt for it to create a glamorous effect. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">According
to approximate figures from U.N. Comtrade, the U.S. imported over US$900
million-worth of wigs, false beards, eyebrows, eyelashes and similar products
in 2010, while the U.K. imported $79 million-worth and China and Hong Kong $71
million.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">There
is high demand for Indian hair for wig making and hair extensions. According to
a report in the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;"> exported $190 million-worth of hair and related
hair products in 2009-10 and could more than double that to $470 million by
2013-14. The newspaper sourced these figures from the Department for Commerce
and Industry, Government of India.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Indian
hair is preferred because it is both “thin and strong”. Indian temple hair is
valued because, according to one report, most of the temple hair donors are
rural women. In most cases, their hair has never been dyed, blow-dried, or even
cut. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">The
temples first sort the donated hair and then sell it through online auctions.
According to Chennai-based Curlsnwaves, one of the country’s largest exporters
of hair, the acquired hair is first processed, stripped of colour and re-dyed
before being exported.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Garamond;">Hair
extension is not just a fashion abroad—Indian women are also embracing it. “Hair
is the first thing an Indian woman would look after,” says a Mumbai-based
hairstylist in the Aljazeera documenrtaty film, <i>Witness—Hair </i></span><st1:country-region><st1:place><i><span style="font-family: Garamond;">India</span></i></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="font-family: Garamond;">. “More than her skin. Indian woman are obsessed
with length. They all like to have their hair extended.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/zanjum/Desktop/Zafar/Hair%20and%20the%20Indian_ed.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/Markets/A-black-shiny-market/Article1-889575.aspx">http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/Markets/A-black-shiny-market/Article1-889575.aspx</a></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/zanjum/Desktop/Zafar/Hair%20and%20the%20Indian_ed.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/oct/28/hair-extension-global-trade-secrets">http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/oct/28/hair-extension-global-trade-secrets</a></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<o:p> [Published in Tabla! Singapore in April 2013. This article should not be reproduced without the permission of SPH]</o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-64881881127527636982013-04-22T00:19:00.001+08:002013-04-22T18:27:57.312+08:00On Boston Bombings: A Convoluted Narrative of Terror<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxeIJg_EHDegG9hPFHr2LywGqX8p6wOVPANluiiWumHcia79v1ws5o8KYD29TJ4FvIKOwDHH8RAOp6vSjcsD7QJfCb9Tg1ThdYqz0uDJtKFH9EF0dTo7h7ceb8t4FrNwPUEPb0w/s1600/Boston_bombing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxeIJg_EHDegG9hPFHr2LywGqX8p6wOVPANluiiWumHcia79v1ws5o8KYD29TJ4FvIKOwDHH8RAOp6vSjcsD7QJfCb9Tg1ThdYqz0uDJtKFH9EF0dTo7h7ceb8t4FrNwPUEPb0w/s1600/Boston_bombing.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
In the last few days, the developments of the Boston marathon bombing case have dominated the international media coverage.<br />
<br />
The attacks took everyone by surprise. <br />
<br />
We had all become complacent about terror attacks on the US soil and we thought these were a thing of the past. There hadn't been any major terror attack in the States by Jehadists since 9/11. In fact, the danger was more from demented shooters who went postal from time to time and killed innocent children and adults, their fellow citizens.<br />
<br />
When I heard of the Boston attacks, I had a sense of foreboding just like I had it when the Twin Towers fell more than a decade ago. Only the scale was smaller this time. But its security repercussions might be deeper and more widespread. When and how this will pan out only time will tell.<br />
<br />
For now, the Boston Bombings are a reminder that the US territory is still not safe. That terrorism is still able to cast its dark shadow on the American people. The bombers had the temerity to carry out the attacks in public, at the site of a world famous marathon.<br />
<br />
Why did this attack happen? Was it meant to intimidate people? Did it contain a message? Who was behind the attacks? Everyone wanted to know about the attackers and their motive. President Obama, very rightly, asked people to hold their guns and not jump to ready-made conclusions. The suspects included people who opposed Obama's gun control legislation.<br />
<br />
Whoever was behind the attacks, the attacks were condemned, and characterized as acts of cowardice. The world expressed solidarity with the victims of the bombings. On the other side of the globe, on the same day, 14 people died in Afghanistan in terror attacks and I doubt if anyone heard about it. <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/boston-attacks-reminder-violence-elsewhere-182231749.html" target="_blank">Yahoo</a> did this story, <i>Boston attacks are reminder of violence elsewhere</i>, to make us aware of the violence elsewhere.<br />
<br />
<b>Major manhunt</b><br />
<br />
After the attacks took place on Monday 15 April, the security forces started a major manhunt. Finally, on Friday 19 April, two Chechen brother were captured--one dead, another alive. Police identified the suspects as brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 (Suspect One), who died in hospital, and Dzhokhar Tsarnev, 19 (Suspect Two), who remained at large and was later captured.<br />
<br />
According to US security forces and Boston police, these two brothers were behind the attacks. Their photos and videos at the marathon site with backpacks established their guilt. Further guilt was underlined when the elder brother killed a police officer in pursuit before he himself died in a gun battle. The younger one, 19, had partied the night before he was captured hiding in a boat. He had even tweeted: I'm a stress-free kind of a guy. Are these the tell tale signs of a terrorist? Why did they defy the typical terrorist stereotype?<br />
<br />
Except for the fact that the elder brother was interviewed by the FBI in 2011 (for suspected Chechen terrorist links), on the request of the Russian government, there was no other evidence of his involvement in terror activities. If there was anything else, that information has not come out into the public. The mother and father of the accused have said that their sons are innocent and that they have been set up by the security agency, FBI. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/21/boston-marathon-bombings-fbi-tsarnaev" target="_blank">The Guardian </a>reports:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The FBI's previous contacts with one of the alleged Boston bombers have come under intense scrutiny as questions were raised about whether it missed vital clues that could have prevented the attack, which killed three people and injured more than 170.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As questions were raised about how well known the brothers were to federal investigators, their mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, said that the FBI had spoken to the family on multiple occasions. In an interview broadcast by Russia Today before the end of the manhunt on Friday, Tsarnaeva, a naturalised US citizen, said FBI agents had spoken to her in the past.<br />
"They were telling me that Tamerlan was really an extremist leader and they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremists' sites." Tsarnaeva, speaking from Dagestan, claimed that the FBI were monitoring her son "at every step", and had been "controlling" him for three to five years. She did not give specific dates. </blockquote>
How far are these claims true? No media agency has so far investigated these claims. They have only reported them. In India, we have seen many cases of young people getting implicated in terror attacks or even being killed in fake encounters and later on it turns out that they were innocent citizens (read <a href="http://tehelka.com/the-muslim-question-stories-of-false-terror/" target="_blank">the Muslim Question at Tehelka</a>). The Tsarnaev brothers could well be the Boston bombers but so far they are only the accused in this case, according to the US media.<br />
<br />
If the brothers were trained terrorists, the motive behind the attacks was not clear. Why should Chechen rebels attack Americans? Their enemies would be Russians, not Americans. It does not make much sense. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/us/boston-marathon-bombings.html?ref=global-home&_r=0" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reports today:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The brothers’ motives are still unclear. Of Chechen heritage, they had lived in the United States for years, according to friends and relatives, and no direct ties have been publicly established with known Chechen terrorist or separatist groups. While Dzhokhar became a naturalized American citizen last year, Tamerlan was still seeking citizenship. Their father, Anzor, said Tamerlan had made last year’s trip to renew his Russian passport.</blockquote>
The NYT said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in Dagestan in 2012, and analysts said that sojourn might have marked a crucial step in his alleged path toward the bombings.<br />
<br />
<b>The other narrative</b><br />
<br />
Curiously, some alternative media in the US are pointing fingers at the security agencies for possible prior knowledge of the attacks. Almost a year ago, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">NYT had run this story: Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.</a><br />
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Pointing at the insinuations of this story, some alternative media outlets have reported that there was a security drill at the marathon site on the same day and there were private security people with black backpacks there too but the US agencies have so far discounted that angle. Mainstream media, however, has not confirmed this. In fact, what seems to be an attempt to the discredit such views, CBS News had its twitter channel hacked with messages implicating the US government of hiding the truth behind the Boston bombings. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22237458" target="_blank">The BBC</a> reports:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
CBS Twitter accounts hacked by 'pro-Damascus group'<br />
The Twitter accounts for two CBS news programmes in the US have been suspended after being hacked. Fake messages appearing on the @60Minutes account criticised US support for "terrorist" rebels in Syria and others accused Barack Obama of trying to "take away your guns". A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army claimed to have been responsible for hijacking the accounts.<br />
The fake messages that appeared on the @60Minutes account reportedly included:<br />
"The US government is hiding the real culprit of the Boston bombing"<br />
"The US government is sponsoring a coup in Venezuela and a terrorist war in Syria"<br />
"Your duty is to protect your nation from the parasites that have taken your government"<br />
"Obama wants to destroy the Syrian and American people. We must stop this beast"</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, DEBKAfile, an Israeli intelligence analysis site, has reported that the <a href="http://www.debka.com/article/22914/The-Tsarnaev-brothers-were-double-agents-who-decoyed-US-into-terror-trap" target="_blank">Tsarnaev brothers were double agents who decoyed US into terror trap</a>.<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The conclusion reached by DEBKAfile’s counterterrorism and intelligence sources is that the brothers were double agents, hired by US and Saudi intelligence to penetrate the Wahhabi jihadist networks which, helped by Saudi financial institutions, had spread across the restive Russian Caucasian.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Instead, the two former Chechens betrayed their mission and went secretly over to the radical Islamist networks.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
By this tortuous path, the brothers earned the dubious distinction of being the first terrorist operatives to import al Qaeda terror to the United States through a winding route outside the Middle East – the Caucasus.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
I could not find any mention of this in the mainstream US media. This could be mere speculation at this stage but who knows how twisted the truth is?<br />
<br />
I have no sympathy for terrorists of any hue but I also don't like simple bedtimes stories when it comes to a deadly issue like solving the crime behind terror attacks. This convoluted narrative of the Boston bombing terror attack must not be allowed to have loose ends. If there is more than what meets the eye, then that truth must also come out in public.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-79473875671435632012013-04-08T12:44:00.001+08:002013-04-08T12:44:35.634+08:00Anuradha Kumar: A writer to watch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Anuradha Kumar is one of those rare writers who straddle the worlds of writing for children and adults with equal ease. Today, when the publishing market is competitive and segmented and subdivided like never before, finding success in more than one genre is not easy–and the fact that Anu sails successfully in more than one genre is a testament to her huge talent. Yet she started out without much ambition, as she mentions in this interview with <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kitaab</em>. “I started writing stories when I found myself bored in the corporate world, then submitted these to online magazines and then I just wanted to do more,” she says.</div>
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Anu’s first book was <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In Search Of A Raja And Other Stories</em> published by Writers Workshop. This was followed by <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Dollmakers’ Island</em> and <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Letters for Paul</em>. Her most recent novel is, <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It Takes a Murder</em> (Hachette). In between all these novels, she has published many successful books for children. Eminent author and scholar Pankaj Mishra has described her as a writer to watch. Read this interview and you will know why.</div>
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<a href="http://kitaabonline.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/young-readers-are-as-rigorous-and-demanding-as-older-ones-if-not-more-anuradha-kumar/#more-1450" target="_blank">Read the full interview here.</a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-33772127881427246792013-03-07T13:40:00.000+08:002013-03-07T13:44:31.286+08:00P. Sainath to speak at AMU<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">The I G Khan Memorial Trust</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;">& Club for Short Evening Courses, GEC, AMU</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;"> invites you to</span></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;">The lives of others: Stories of Workers</span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">P. Sainath</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;">Yeh Hum Kyun Sahein</span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;">Yeh Hum Kyun Sahein</span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Saturday March 9th 2013</span></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Saturday March 9th 2013</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;"> ‘India and the age of inequality’</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;"> Lecture by noted journalist P. Sainath</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;">11 AM / Kennedy Auditorium</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">panel discussion with</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Prof Madih ur Rehman Sherwani</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Janwadi Rickshaw Chalak Unio</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 19px;">AV presentation – AMU students</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">2.30 PM / Lecture Theatre, GEC</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">a play by</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Jana Natya Manch</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">4.30 PM / GEC Lawns</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Screening of feature film</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Do Bigha Zameen</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">Presented by Rinki Roy Bhattacharya</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">5.30 PM / Kennedy Auditorium</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY / ALIGARH</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.igkhan.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.igkhan.org</a></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/igkhanmemorial/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>groups/igkhanmemorial/</a></b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-59841506308811434712013-02-14T14:50:00.002+08:002013-02-14T14:50:59.121+08:00Notes from the Jaipur Literature Festival – Part 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">25
January 2013</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">On the second day of JLF 2013, I attended two sessions: one
by Faramerz Dabhoiwala on <i>The Origins of Sex</i> and another by Jawed Akhtar on
Bollywood and the National Narrative.</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Faramerz Daboiwala on The Origins of Sex</span></b></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Faramerz
was in conversation with William Dalrymple. Dalrymple introduced the teacher at
</span><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Oxford</span><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> in
most glowing terms and then took a back seat.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Faramerz
made the following main points, in relation to his book, <i>The Origins of Sex</i>.
The book was based on his PhD thesis and portrays the history of sexuality and
sexual mores in the last two hundred years. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Sexual revolution
did not start in the 1960s. It started in 18th century </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">England</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Then, sex outside
marriage was not acceptable at all; vigilante groups looked for any couple who
indulged in extramarital sex and presented them to the courts. They were
punished, flogged and paraded naked on streets. Listening to him, I began to
realize how the West sees many Muslim societies today: two centuries ago, they
weren’t any different from them (from what we see and hear about sexual crimes
in the Arab or other Muslim societies). </span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Aristocrats in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">England</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> started demanding
that they be allowed to have a private sex life separate from their public
life.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Courtesans were the
first celebrities. They published memoirs and were scandal mongers. Their
memoirs sold in large numbers making them money to survive in old age. They
also blackmailed aristocrats and threatened to expose them in public. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- A famous courtesan
(who is on the cover of <span style="background: white;">Faramerz Dabhoiwala’s
book)</span> ordered her painting and published stamp sized prints for men to
carry them in their watches (like today's cellphones)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- There were people
who wrote books anonymously, published them and wrote glowing reviews of their
own books. </span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Javed Akhtar on Bollywood and National Narrative</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Well-known lyricist
and scriptwriter Javed Akhtar was in conversation with film historian Rachel
Dwyer.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Javed Akhtar said
that when they (he and Salim) were writing scripts, they did not know that they
were creating a phenomenon (The Angry Young Man of the 1970s). They were just
writing good stories. Only in hindsight did they know that their works were
path-breaking, and that they were defining a generation. What were their heroes
rebelling against? Very minor things, like, they wanted to marry the girl of
their choice; it was a rebellion against their parents. They did not touch any
institution.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Being a film
lyricist, Javed Saheb dwelled heavily on the devolution of lyrics in Hindi
cinema. He said that film songs earlier had <i>tehzeeb</i> (courtesy, a cultivated
manner and civility) in them; now that etiquette is gone. In the past, even
B-grade films' songs had a soul, poetry in their lines.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- You have to be
kindhearted to say today's lyrics are poetry.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- We are also
responsible for degeneration of our films and songs:<i> Choli ke peeche kya hai </i>(the
suggestive but popular song from Subhash Ghai’s film, Khalnayak) was made by 9
people; who made it a hit? Who were the other 9 crore people? At homes, people
proudly told me, he said, see my 8-yr old can dance so well on Choli ke peeche
kya hai? What does that say about us as parents? Where are we going as a
society? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Our Vocabulary has
shrunk; proverbs have died; we have replaced them with poor language and some
bad American words, not even proper English.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Today's kids have
less than half the vocabulary of their parents.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Only the poor go to
vernacular schools, so they use cheap language, it gets reflected in our
cinema, giving it even more credibility.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Good and bad films
were always made: but in the past, most hits were good films; today, most hits
are bad films. Show me a good film that has done a business of 200 crores?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Some young
filmmakers are making quality films today. It is good. (Examples: Farhan
Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- We had abandoned
language and arts in the last 30-40 years. We wanted cars and fridges. Now
today's generation takes them for granted. They want something else. They want
arts, and literature, so (that’s why we see) this revival of arts and
literature in </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">India</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- I am not
pessimistic. In the next ten years, we will make even better films which will
have better aesthetic quality.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-33931548834921273832013-02-08T09:31:00.002+08:002013-02-08T10:14:18.057+08:00Notes from the Jaipur Literature Festival – Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;">[Random Shots: Journalist and novelist Tarun Tejpal interacting with his readers at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2013]</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10pt;">24
January 2013</span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">On the first day, I attended
three sessions: the Art of the Short Story, Ismat and Annie, and the Novel of
the Future. I did not take any notes. I wrote down the following the next
morning (from whatever I could remember). If some statements sound weird and
don’t make sense to the readers, I take the blame for sloppiness and apologize
in advance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">We don't tell novels, we tell short stories<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Short story: The
Art of the Short Story panel had Nicholas Hogg, Richard Beard and Yiyun Li and
Anjum Hasan was the moderator. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Yiyun Li said show
and tell is a wrong advice<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Bring the narrator
back<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- She said she represents
only herself (not any group or community as a writer)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Length in a story does
not matter; she refused to reduce the length of a story just to get into <i>The New Yorker</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Anjum Hasan referred
to the Chekhovian Little Man (mentioned Frank O'Connor's book on short stories)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Why do you write
short stories: The panelists said that one is able to explore other lives
through short stories<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">- Short stories are
great as a genre as they allow great room for experimentation (for example, the
stories of Georges Perec)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">The panelists were of
the opinion that short story as a genre is not dying; it will live as long as
there will be human beings. It is very natural for us—we don't tell novels, we
tell short stories<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ismat and Annie<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">This session was
about two famous Urdu fiction writers: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismat_Chughtai">Ismat Chughtai</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qurratulain_Hyder">Qurratulain Haider</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">In this session,
Javed Akhtar and Ameena Saiyid (head of OUP, </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Pakistan</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">) were in
conversation with Syed Shahid Mahdi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Javed Akhtar: Both Ismat
and Annie (Haider) were rebels in their own way. Annie was from an aristocratic
background and was scholarly; if she was confident about something, she would
put her foot down. Otherwise, she would say I don't know anything about it;
tell me about it. She would quote from magazines and books. She would think in
terms of centuries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ismat was more from a
middle class background. She was a fighter and was so dogged that even if she
had said something wrong and she knew it, she would stick to her point. She
thought in terms of mosaic, short stories.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">In this session,
Javed Saheb said some very interesting things about the Urdu and Hindi divide,
which he considers an artificial divide. He said that what we commonly speak in
</span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> is Urdu or
Hindustani. But what is people’s attitude? When do they think one is speaking
Urdu and not Hindi? “Jab kah (baat) samajh me aaye toh who Hindi hai. Jab samajh
me aana band ho jaye toh Urdu hai.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">He exhorted people to
learn Urdu if they wanted to enjoy the works of genii like Ismat and Annie.
“Learning Urdu is not that difficult,” he said. “Learn the script. Don’t just
look at the script and run away scared. Doosre ki galiyan hamesha tedhi medhi
lagti hain.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">In the futuristic scenario, everybody is a writer, no one
is reader<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">“The Novel of the
Future” was a very interesting session. The participants were Howard Jacobson,
Nadeem Aslam, Linda Grant, Zoe Heller and Lawrence Norfolk and the moderator
was Anita Anand. Mohammad Hanif was supposed to be a part of the panel but he
did not show up. Later on, I found out that he got his visa too late in the day
and cancelled his plans to come to Jaipur. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">The discussion opened
with a reference to the famous Naipaulian claim that the novel is dead. Long
ago Naipaul had declared that the novel is dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Nadeem Aslam: The novel's
health is not exhausted in my study. If
you say the novel is exhausted, it means you are exhausted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Howard Jacobson:
Looking at the success of Fifty Shades (the trilogy by E L James), we are
doomed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">The problem is with
readers, not novels<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Everyone wants to
write, not read<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Meeting authors has
replaced necessity to read<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">We need novels. It is
an argument, not a single voice of dictatorship.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">In the futuristic
scenario, everybody is a writer, no one is reader.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Anna Karenina is a
young adult novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Don't change your
writing to suit the market; stick to your style, at any cost, and your audience
will change<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Zoe Heller: What is
worrying is that kids are losing the art of reading long fiction; they have short
attention spans.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">What's happening in
the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">US</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> will happen in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> too. The market for
novels is shrinking in the </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">US</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">. The same will
happen in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;"> in the future even though right now the market here is expanding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Howard: Don’t read
novels for information. Novels have no information to provide.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Others<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Someone asked: What about
the novel in the e-form, with embedded video and all that jazz we could do with
the form in a digital age? Answer: Novels will change—like a parachute, with
trimmed strings. Will the parachute remain the same and will provide the same
functionality if you trimmed it strings?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">E-books are not same
as the hard copy novels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt;">Nadeem: You don’t
need video and music to be embedded in the novel’s pages. The words, the
sentences, they should evoke the music and picture in your head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-771668390639829082013-02-07T11:45:00.000+08:002013-02-08T09:32:20.922+08:00Voices from the Jaipur Literature Festival<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">There was a time when </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">
barely had any literary festivals. There were readings and book launches, there
were mushairas and kavi sammelans but not literary festivals—it is a western
import like the ‘novel’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">Just as there is an epidemic of novel-writing in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">
these days, there is also an outbreak of literary festivals in the country.
Every city worth its salt has a lit fest going on and writers, publishers and
readers aren’t exactly complaining. In </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">,
when we like something, we tend to go overboard. The same is true of lit fests.
But I hope we stop at the city level and don’t take literary festivals to the
mohalla level. A Kirti Nagar literary festival or a Jorbagh lit fest does not
sound right. A reading group would be much more appropriate at that level. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">I was recently in Chennai and one of my friends told me that
his daughter who is in third standard wants to become a writer. That’s great, I
said. When I was in school, I could barely get my head around what was
happening in the classroom, let alone think of becoming a writer. </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">’s
new generation will take the country to another level. Who will not welcome
such glad tidings about </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">On my way to the Jaipur literature festival (JLF) this January,
I was pondering why was there so much growing interest in reading and writing
in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;"> now?
Why so many literary festivals? While this is a welcome pandemic, there must be
some robust reasons behind it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">I found the answer in one of the sessions by Javed Akhtar
Saheb, who is a well-known poet, screenplay writer and Hindi film lyricist. His
name has become synonymous with JLF. He and Gulzar Saheb (though the latter was
absent this year or maybe I missed him at the festival) have been crowd-pulling
festival regulars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">In
one of his sessions, Javed Saheb had this to say about the revival of our
interest in the arts: “</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">We had abandoned language and arts in the last 30-40 years. We
wanted cars and fridges. Now today's generation takes them for granted. They
want something else. They want arts, and literature, and so this revival.” What
he says makes sense. Perhaps it is even true. But is this view too simplistic?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">I am asking this
because a danger lurks around the corner of this insight. <span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">While lit fests are an endearing feature of a changing
</span></span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">
(along with the nationwide ban on plastic bags), they could signal something
else altogether and “Booker-award winning” novelist Howard Jacobson had this
point to make which is equally convincing: Today, we have more writers than readers. We complain of the death of the novel. But the p</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">roblem is with
readers, not novels. Everyone wants to write, and no one wants to read. Meeting
authors has replaced the necessity of reading.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">He had made this point
in one of his columns too—I remember reading it. He was, in his column,
referring to a literary city like </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">London</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">. The point he is
making it this—are literary festivals replacing the reading habit? Is meeting
authors, listening to their talks and getting their autographs enough to
qualify us to skip the hard work of actually reading their books?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">On a panel discussion
on the future of the novel, Howard Jacobson was at his cantankerous best, and I
loved everything he said. <span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Howard was among the
three writers this year who drew me to the festival—the other two were Yiyun Li
and Musharraf Ali Farooqi. I admire all three of them (I heard them but did not meet them in person; I did not even take their picture. I just listened to them and took mental notes).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">This
was my first time at JLF and the festival was as colourful and cacophonous as I
had expected it to be. In its first edition years ago, it had attracted 7,000
people. This time the organizers said footfall was about 2 lakhs (Sounds like a
mall, doesn’t it?). Getting a seat was always a problem at the festival but
people were unfazed. They fought for seats. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">While
the festival attracts top writers from all over the world, one reason for its
popularity is Bollywood. Members of </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">’s
film fraternity are an integral part of the festival (Gulzar, Javed Akhtar,
Prasoon Joshi, Shabana Azmi, and this year Neelesh Misra too was introduced to
the public). Not satisfied with their popularity, this year the festival
organisers added cricket and religion to the mix to a great effect. We had
Dalai Lama and Rahul Dravid at the fest who injected a dose of spirituality and
sports into the milieu in their own way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">But
this was not everybody’s idea of how a lit fest should be. At the same time
when Dravid’s session was going on, eminent Hindi writers like Ashok
Chakradhar, Ikraam Rajasthani and Atul Kanakk were holding a session on ‘Navras’.
The crowd was going hysterical on Dravid’s side (Tata Steel lawns). Ashok made
us do a ‘ho ho’ too as a counterpunch to the other side’s level of enthusiasm:
it was cricket vs Hindi and the audience did not let Hindi down. It was good
fun. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">To
enter the venue, one had to go through many security checks. But this was not
that unpleasant, and once inside, you were in for a treat. Colourful tents,
sunshine, bookstores, art and craft shops, people with elongated lenses
attached to their cameras, autograph hunters, writers, and food for thought. A
lot was going on inside the barricaded </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Diggi</span></st1:placename><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Palace</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">. Besides
the chai in earthen cups and pyaaz kachodi with delicious chutney, there was a
variety of food available at </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Diggi</span></st1:placename><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Palace</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">. Unfortunately,
smoking was banned on the second day but we saw many foreigners smoking away,
oblivious to the promised fine of Rs 200 that had been imposed on those who
smoked inside the festival venue. When my friend complained to the police, they
said, “Kya Karen Saheb? Yeh toh foreigners hain.” (What to do, sir? These are
foreigners). My desi friend’s cigarettes had been impounded at the entrance of
the </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Diggi</span></st1:placename><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Palace</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;"> and
so he was angry. If JLF organizers are reading this, they should designate
smoking areas at the festival venue. Smokers will smoke and if you force them
to do it surreptitiously, they become fire hazards. So please, be a little more
practical. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">The
auto wallahs had a field day during the festival. They happily overcharged us
everyday from the venue (some 7 kilometers) to our hotel. They justified the
overcharging by saying that the traffic is very bad because of the police
bandobast. Many fellow attendees I talked to said that orgainsers should
arrange bus service to hotels. Another great suggestion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">I had
hoped to meet Musharraf Ali Farooqi (whose work of translation, The Adventures
of Amir Hamza, I had been enjoying) at the Random House party on January 25 but
unfortunately the party was moved to another day because it fell on a dry day.
I had to return to </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Delhi</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;"> the
next day, so I missed the party altogether. We were, however, on the same
flight from </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Delhi</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;"> to
Jaipur and that was a consoling thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">On
the way back to </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Delhi</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">, I
saw newsman Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN-IBN) boarding our plane. He kept to himself
and after landing in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">Delhi</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">, on
the bus to the terminal, I got a seat right in front of him. A lady with a
toddler was too excited to see him and when she could not contain her
excitement, she asked the man: Are you Rajdeep Sardesai? Rajdeep politely
smiled and nodded yes. The woman beamed for a while at this affirmation. Soon,
we reached the airport terminal and went our separate ways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">During
the festival, I did not mob anyone for autographs. I did not buy any books as I
had already ordered the books that I wanted to buy through Flipkart. All I had
were some good memories, and there were voices from the festival that echoed in
my head. I was glad that this year the festival did not generate any
controversy. I was so wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9pt;">The
next day I read of the Ashish Nandy controversy in the papers. I had completely
missed it but I could not stop smiling. JLF and controversy go hand in hand
now—last time, it was Rushdie (in absentia) and this time, Nandy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-36694162037259556562013-02-05T11:30:00.001+08:002013-02-05T11:30:46.916+08:00Tales from Timbuktu<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGGRiqCOcdNXBlWEcmIxmGMPZeE3Clsiq93yrIqbYIb6LX-8vQi1UrIeTDPcYBt-TQD7MW3fbOVSi9cqaYg8yZb88w_vUEoxmd-boxeZOClXILtcXKefL6mIjHmL3cZeP-jeR5IA/s1600/Timbuktu_novel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGGRiqCOcdNXBlWEcmIxmGMPZeE3Clsiq93yrIqbYIb6LX-8vQi1UrIeTDPcYBt-TQD7MW3fbOVSi9cqaYg8yZb88w_vUEoxmd-boxeZOClXILtcXKefL6mIjHmL3cZeP-jeR5IA/s320/Timbuktu_novel.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>
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For most of us, <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>
has been a noun and an adjective—a shorthand for a far off place. I also knew
of <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city> as the title of a Paul
Auster novel. Over the decades, <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>
has come to acquire the same kind of mystic aura that is reserved for places
like <st1:city>Casablanca</st1:city>, thanks to the
classic <st1:place>Hollywood</st1:place> love story. What has happened in the
case of places like <st1:city>Casablanca</st1:city> and <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>
is that cinema and literature have turned a real place into a mythical
landscape</div>
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Yet, in the last few days, <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>
has been hogging the limelight for all the wrong reasons—the desert town had
been captured by Tuareg nationalist rebels and Islamic extremists and the
French army had to intervene to flush them out.</div>
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In the process, it was reported that something very precious
was lost—a treasure trove of ancient Greek and Islamic texts. The rebels had
torched a library (The Ahmed Baba Institute) that was the repository of these ancient
texts. They also destroyed some sufi shrines, “claiming such shrines were
forbidden” in their version of intolerant Islam.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxsVsuVgTGWiNfL702QhhRAIqoWiG_vC2joTC4JH7tDCMCTpLVAwMcqhvYhxLEp9hzZL0WYjf4wnlX47Sa1qpXwWlNhcBmBjBh2PKQIQME-YeG8Ddg1mmk7aivQ4NmdGraO4VMxQ/s1600/Empire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxsVsuVgTGWiNfL702QhhRAIqoWiG_vC2joTC4JH7tDCMCTpLVAwMcqhvYhxLEp9hzZL0WYjf4wnlX47Sa1qpXwWlNhcBmBjBh2PKQIQME-YeG8Ddg1mmk7aivQ4NmdGraO4VMxQ/s320/Empire.jpg" width="224" /></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
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The loss was mourned internationally and it was on the news
everywhere. The rebels, who were adamant on imposing shariah laws, were
condemned. </div>
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You can’t miss two ironies here. One, Islamic extremists
setting fire to texts that were part of their own heritage. They were not the
infidel Mongols who had raided and destroyed the ancient libraries in <st1:city>Baghdad</st1:city>
in 1258. During the siege of <st1:city>Baghdad</st1:city>,
many books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy were destroyed. The
siege marked the end of the Islamic Golden Age.</div>
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Two, the saviours in <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>
were the French. In 1789, when Napoleon entered <st1:city>Cairo</st1:city>
and “vigorously appeased conservative Muslim clerics in the hope they might
form the bulwark of pro-French forces in the country,” there were many revolts
against his occupation. “Many other Muslims saw plainly the subjugation of
Egypt by a Christian from the West as a catastrophe;” writes Pankaj Mishra in
his brilliant book, <i>From the Ruins of the
Empire,</i> “and they were vindicated when French soldiers, while suppressing
the facts against their occupation, stormed the al-Azhar mosque, tethered their
horses to the prayer niches, trampled the Korans under their boots, drank wine
until they were helpless and then urinated on the floor.”</div>
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One can argue what Napolean’s army did was more an act of bravado,
showing how they could morally subjugate an occupied people and disrespect
their culture; something quite different from an act of pure philistinism as was
demonstrated by the fleeing extremists in Timbuktu. </div>
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How do we square these ironies? Let’s put it this way: time
heals everything, people are ennobled by forces of civilisation and there is
redemption in God’s kingdom.</div>
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Now, let us come back to the present.</div>
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While peace has returned to <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>,
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/30/uk-mali-rebels-manuscripts-idUSLNE90T02B20130130">new
stories</a> about the burning of manuscripts are coming out into the public. I
read in today’s newspaper that all has not been lost. </div>
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According to a <a href="http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/333-146/15873-timbuktu-under-siege-hid-artifacts-of-a-golden-age">report
in the IHT</a>, the imam of a mosque in <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>
was able to save 8,000 volumes of ancient manuscripts by moving them into a
bunker in an undisclosed location—that was before the attack. “These
manuscripts, they are not just for us in <st1:city>Timbuktu</st1:city>,”
said Ali Imam Ben Essayouti. “They belong to all of humanity. It is our duty to
save them.”</div>
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And that’s the point I want to make here: it is our duty to
save them. So what can be done?</div>
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While the act of this saviour Imam is laudable, something
more needs to be done by the international community, and organisations like
UNESCO and Google can really help in this matter. </div>
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Given the kind of turmoil the <st1:place>Middle East</st1:place>
and <st1:place>Africa</st1:place> are going through, won’t it be wise to get
all ancient manuscripts scanned and digitally saved? UNESCO knows where all
these treasure troves are. Google already has a global book scanning project
on. If we do this, we need not fear the extremists torching ancient libraries
anywhere in the world anymore. Not that we want it to happen, but better safe
than sorry.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-72706620329655411712013-01-16T09:15:00.001+08:002013-01-16T09:15:53.406+08:00Implications of an Indian Gang-rape<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><i>My opinion piece in the Asia Sentinel today:</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">The moment I heard that the Delhi gang-rape victim was being flown into Singapore, I knew what was going on. That unfortunate woman, whom we will call Amanat, was the victim of a horrible gang rape and mutilation at the hands of a bunch of hoodlums in Delhi. She was clinging to her life. Doctors had removed parts of her intestines at </span><a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_intestine-transplant-to-delhi-gang-rape-victim-offer-was-irresponnsible-dr-trehan_1785576" style="background-color: white; color: #006699; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: initial;"><strong>Safdarjung Medical Hospital</strong></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"> and she was surviving on life support. It was difficult to imagine that she would be able to live.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">As has been reported across the world, generating spreading outrage, the victim, a paramedical student, was brutally raped and assaulted in a moving bus in Delhi on the night of Dec 16. Moving her to Singapore was clearly a political decision. If she had died in Delhi, the public outrage, which was already bursting out of control (a constable, </span><a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-25/news/35999343_1_india-gate-crematorium-delhi-police-chief" style="background-color: white; color: #006699; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px; text-decoration: initial;"><strong>Subhash Tomar, had died during the violent demonstrations at India Gate in Delhi</strong></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">), would get even more fierce. News of her death coming from Singapore would be much more manageable for the establishment. This is exactly what happened. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">Right after the news of the victim being moved to Singapore flashed across TV channels, I tweeted about the same from my Twitter account. So far, I had avoided saying anything about the girl or the tragedy that had rightly incensed Indians across the world; not that my saying anything on this issue mattered-I am hardly Sonia or Rahul Gandhi. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">My response was mute because for years I had been reading about crimes against women in India, including rape, mutilation, murder and communal humiliation (being paraded naked on the streets or in villages by men). In 1994, Shekhar Kapur had made a stunning film on this subject-Bandit Queen. The film was based on the life of Phoolan Devi, a poor girl who turns into a dreaded dacoit after high-caste men in her village gang-rape her. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;">Over the years, I have read too many reports to count of girls being kidnapped and raped in Delhi and the national capital region (NCR), including many of such crimes being committed on buses (I personally dreaded living in Delhi for the lack of safety and also worried about my family members when they were out on the streets). Every time I read such hideous stories, I would be filled with anger and revulsion. And it was not just Delhi where such crimes were rampant. It had been happening all over the country. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px;"><a href="http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5110&Itemid=404" target="_blank">Read the full story here at Asia Sentinel.</a></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-38507346664781947152012-12-26T14:33:00.000+08:002012-12-26T14:47:02.686+08:00Why I wrote The Singapore Decalogue?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieBiZvN2W1uGE2gvRIghpd8yPy5Wu_1l2sd5J_tzE7mOhd1kR_Hbc4cB5eoEKBnzWXUp7-EWB9TTjnr4YVWNWUHrMe61DWw1SHDU4R7WRJeeaJp_SrHiRGHGtaYD5ZiwMfudxOg/s1600/Singapore+Decalogue+final+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieBiZvN2W1uGE2gvRIghpd8yPy5Wu_1l2sd5J_tzE7mOhd1kR_Hbc4cB5eoEKBnzWXUp7-EWB9TTjnr4YVWNWUHrMe61DWw1SHDU4R7WRJeeaJp_SrHiRGHGtaYD5ZiwMfudxOg/s320/Singapore+Decalogue+final+cover.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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My first collection of short stories, <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://singaporedecalogue.wordpress.com/" style="border: 0px; color: #f3686d; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Singapore Decalogue: Episodes in the Life of a Foreign Talent</a> </i>(Red Wheelbarrow Books, 2012) was released in November this year at the Singapore Writers Festival. The book was supported by the National Arts Council Singapore under the Arts Creation Fund grant.</div>
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In this collection of short stories, I have tried to create vignettes of life in Singapore. This is my tribute to this city state, which has built its social capital with great wisdom, civic sense, and quotidian practicality.</div>
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Like many modern metros, the Lion City is compact, with people of various ethnicity and nationalities living side by side. Though they live mostly secluded, private lives, there are times when their paths cross. This civic commingling of people can be harmonious or chaotic, depending on the circumstances.</div>
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In these stories, I have tried to portray the hopes and frustrations of a few interconnected characters (that was truer for the earlier draft when the characters were varied). The bustling metropolis attracts all kinds of people who want to make a life here. What happens to their dreams? What kind of struggles do they go through? Do they feel alienated? What do they love about the city? And so on.</div>
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Through the panoply of characters, mainly built around a main character, Asif Basheer, an aspiring poet from India, I have woven together a web of stories that throw light on various contemporary themes. The initial aspiration, following in the footsteps of Tolstoy and the Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski (especially his film cycle, <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Decalogue</i>), was to explore themes based on the Ten Commandments, but I finally transformed the idea. I was anxious, even afraid, that the stories might come across as too moralistic or formulaic if I went down that route. Nevertheless, my moral concerns about making choices in life still shaped and informed the stories in <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Singapore Decalogue</i>.</div>
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As I have said elsewhere, more than a writer I am an inspired reader. In terms of actual inspiration behind the stories in this collection, there were many influences—both from life that I have seen from close quarters and from books that I have read over the years. So, in these stories, besides expressing my appreciation of the city and its people, I have also tried to pay my debt to many of my favourite writers and their works that I have benefitted from. The first story, that introduces the main character, is my homage to Fyodor Dostoevsky. In fact, the story begins in the same way as the master’s novel, <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Crime and Punishment. </i>His protagonist, Raskolnikov, a conflicted and aspiring intellectual, finds a modern day reflection in my main character, Asif Basheer. As the stories unfold, we become privy to Asif’s trials and tribulations and see life in Singapore through his life’s prism. We meet characters who interact with Asif or come into his life. In the earlier version, Asif’s story culminates in a bizarre incident in Boat Quay—Singapore’s commercial heart but that has changed in the final version.</div>
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In the original version, the last story summed up the aspects of Asif’s life in epistolary form and it was meant to be my tribute to Gustave Flaubert who wrote some of the most beautiful and passionate letters that I have ever read. In my view, this completed an arch—the first story and the last—as both Dostoevsky and Flaubert were contemporaries in 19<sup style="border: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">th</sup> century Europe, and died one year apart (1880 and 1881 respectively). This was how I had tried to connect the past with the present. No matter how times change, people and their hopes and sufferings remain the same. Besides these two great writers, there are stories in the collection that are inspired by the styles of my other favourite writers—James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Hanif Kureishi. Initially, my model was Joyce’s <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dubliners </i>in which he tried a naturalistic depiction of the Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. A lot changed from the initial idea but that was what I had in my first draft.</div>
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A note of explanation here: by dropping big names (Joyce, Hemingway, <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</i>.) I don’t claim any greatness for myself (how could I?). That would be preposterous and arrogant of me (some have already charged me of being a snob because I don’t like most of the books that are being published today, especially fiction—so I don’t want to aggravate matters here). I am doing that because I want to acknowledge my debt and put on record that I drew inspiration from their works, and that I feel a sense of kinship with them (as many reader would feel towards their favorite writers).</div>
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The first draft of <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Singapore Decalogue</i> was ready in 2011 and as I started working on the book with my publisher and my editor, the contours of the collection began to change. The publishers had liked the opening story, <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Crime and Punishment</i>, so much that they wanted to have Asif Basheer, the main protagonist, as the lead in each story. That was not my plan. This meant that I had to drop almost half the stories from the collection and write new ones. I needed some time to do that. By that time, I was also working on my non-fiction book, <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Resurgence of Satyam</i>, and had started work on a screenplay. So, there was a hiatus between the first batch of stories that I wrote in 2010-2011 and the later stories that went into the collection. They were written after July 2012.</div>
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I still like some of the stories that were dropped from the first draft. Who knows? They might go into <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The </i><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Singapore</i><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Decalogue 2.</i></div>
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<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Copies of The Singapore Decalogue are available at Kinokuniya, Singapore</i><i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> for purchasing and at all branches of National Library Singapore (NLB) for borrowing. </i></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-15947840611433993382012-12-21T15:41:00.000+08:002012-12-26T12:24:19.469+08:00Tokyo Not Cancelled<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
We (I was
accompanied by my wife) reached <st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city> in the afternoon of November 24. We were very tired as we
had to leave house around <st1:time hour="3" minute="0">3am</st1:time> to catch
the <st1:time hour="6" minute="0">6am</st1:time> Delta flight. Not only we were tired, we were very hungry
too. We had a quick sandwich at Starbucks before we boarded the flight. I could
hardly sleep on the plane as I am always tempted to watch movies on a flight
and I always have a backlog of movies that I wish to watch.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Just two
days before the flight to Tokyo I had watched almost an hour of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1412386/">The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel</a> en
route to Bangkok and had loved it completely (especially the humour in the
film). So, during the flight to <st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city>, I first watched that movie (from where I had left it off)
and I don't regret it. Perhaps it was the best film of this year for me. Many
Indians, including myself, dislike <st1:country-region>India</st1:country-region> for its crowd, squalor and poverty, and the film sort of
showed me how to see the same situation in a different light ("In India,
life is not a right," says one character. "It's a privilege.").
That is the beauty of the film.If you haven't watched it, you must. There is a
lot of good humour in the film. I thought it was a well-written movie.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Coming
from <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>, almost any airport in the world will disappoint me--in
terms of ease of movement, layout and sheer opulence. Narita was no different.
Anyway, the immigration process was very smooth and after collecting our bags,
we boarded the Narita Express (NEX) to our hotel in Shinjuku.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Shinjuku
is one of those little districts in <st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city> where high life and low life come together in a
confluence. Our hotel was a short walk away from the station (the world's
busiest railway junction, says the guide book). After checking into our hotel,
we rested for a while in the room--even for a four-star hotel, the room was
very small: a double bed, a desk, and one chair. There wasn't any cupboard in
the room. And there was a narrow space between the bed and the wall, narrow enough
to put a suitcase down. Freshly pressed robes waited for us. There was TV which
had only Japanese channels on it: I found one channel where a man was furiously
talking about some products. The shower room was even smaller but the snazzy
toilet seat more than compensated for it. It had some amazing functions and I
wonder why hasn’t the world (or, at least <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>) adopted technologically advanced Japanese toilets? Think
of it: today we carry so much advanced smartphones but when it comes to
toilets, we have not evolved much. It is a shame.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
After a
while, we hit the streets. It was evening and it was very cold, and we admired
our cleverness that we had packed enough winter clothing to brave the <st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city> weather. The streets around Shinjuku had a quaintness to
them—small, narrow streets, with small, little shops and lots of neon signs and
locals, mostly youngsters, pounding them in groups. My wife thought we were
back in the 70s. Despite the cold, it seemed there was enough cheerfulness in
the atmosphere and it didn't seem like a country that had been stuck in
economic stagnation for decades now. The traffic was slow and there
didn't seem to be a mad rush for anything (or was it because it was a
Saturday?), and many people rode bicycles on the streets. Even the taxis looked
of an old vintage but they were all in good condition. The whole atmosphere
reminded me of a Dev Anand film shot in the 1970s or 80s. My wife was right
about the feel of the district.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
Next to
our hotel and across the street there were plenty of vending machines. That's
where I first saw vending machines that dispensed cigarettes. Also, every now
and then, one would find a Family Mart or a <st1:time hour="19" minute="11">Seven Eleven</st1:time> store to buy items of daily and frequent use, including
food items, water and fat, comic magazines that were sealed to prevent thumbing
by browsing-happy readers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
The
streets were packed with noodle bars and restaurants (the signs were sometimes vertically
displayed, implying different restaurants at different levels of a building)
and global fast food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC were easy to find. We
also spotted a Yoshinoya outlet but it looked so different from what I had seen
in <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region> that I decided not to enter it. There didn't even seem to
be a menu at the counter.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Across
the Shinjuku station, there was Takashimaya, the shopping complex of the same-name
that we have on <st1:street>Orchard
Road</st1:street> in <st1:country-region>Singapore</st1:country-region>. That's where we planned to spend the evening. On the way
to the mall, we came across beautiful Christmas decorations. We saw people taking
pictures around the decorations.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Even
though the mall was sprawling, the layout of the stores seemed to be a bit
confusing or maybe it needed many more trips to get used to it and find our way
around with ease. We had spent nearly half an hour inside the mall and as we
entered an elevator to go to the fifth floor, we had a taste of the famous
Japanese earthquake. The elevator shook, the lights sputtered off and the doors
forestalled. Luckily, we were not between two floors so all of us rushed out of
the lift.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
The
mall's staff sprung into action: all elevators and escalators were
jammed up, and they showed the shoppers the exits. I wanted to see Kinokuniya
the bookstore but my wife didn't want to hang around anymore so we followed a
bunch of locals who took the staircase down. Somehow we managed to get out of
the building. Outside, people were milling round on the streets as if nothing
had happened. We went to a Starbucks which was very crowded, (and it seems
young people in <st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city> love hanging out in Starbucks) and ordered
a cappuccino. We collected our drink and sat outside and as we began
to sip it, we realized we had been given the wrong drink. But the cinnamon-flavoured
tea tasted nice in the cold and we carried on, dropping any idea to complain to
the café’s staff.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
We had
our dinner at McDonald's--we got some burgers and we had to ask for ketchup. It
was really self-service in there as we had to clear the table after we had
eaten--everyone was doing that in the restaurant. Japanese shops seemed to get
along fine with minimal staff and we saw it everywhere. They could hardly speak
English but communication was not a problem. Gestures and pictures supplemented
pidgin English. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
I slept
at night wishing for our safety. There weren’t any more tremors that night.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
The next
morning we set for Odaiba, a reclaimed island next to the <st1:place><st1:placename>Tokyo</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Bay</st1:placetype></st1:place>. The train ride across the <st1:place><st1:placename>Rainbow</st1:placename> <st1:placetype>Bridge</st1:placetype></st1:place> offered amazing vistas. We had to change three lines but the
train rides were comfortable and the trains ran on time, exactly as I was told.
<st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city> has one of the best metro systems in the world. They have
about 16 lines in operation. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
We
entered one of the shopping malls in Odaiba and by the time we were done with
our shopping it was dark outside. We had our lunch inside the mall--we ate the
delicious beef bowls at Yoshinoya, and I put a check on my list. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br />
After
coming back to our hotel room, we went out again. I had to see the original
Kinokuniya in <st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city> and finally after asking a couple of helpful Japanese
staff at Takashimaya, I was able to step inside the 6 story building that housed
Kinokuniya. The annex (building) was old and the elevator didn't work. It was ten
minutes before closing time and we had to use the escalators. I finally
managed to reach the English language section of the bookstore which was on the
6th storey. Just for fun I asked them if they my books. They didn't have them.
I bought a novel,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Devotion
of Suspect X</i>, for the sake of memory, and they kindly draped my copy with a
cover. Nice gesture!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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That night
we had our dinner at KFC and the portions (true for both the pieces of chicken
and fries) were really small. But the taste was fine. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
The next
morning we left <st1:city>Tokyo</st1:city> for the <st1:country-region>United States</st1:country-region>. The journey from the hotel to the Narita airport turned
into our biggest adventure in <st1:country-region>Japan</st1:country-region>, and what was meant to be a 90 minutes journey turned into
a 3 hour long rush. That is something I have to tell you when we meet (remember
to ask me), and not write about it here. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-76375346671019348392012-12-18T11:44:00.001+08:002012-12-18T14:31:19.974+08:00I bankrupted myself while writing Maximum City: Suketu Mehta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
New York-based writer Suketu Mehta is one of my favourite writers. I became a fan of his writing (he also loves Hemingway and Naipaul like I do) when I read his autobiographical account of his experiences in Mumbai (where he was born and partly raised before his diamond trading merchant family moved to New York), <i>Maximum City</i>. The book was published in 2004 and I read it shortly after I moved to Singapore. I loved the book because it was not a chore to read; it was like watching a Bombay film. Why was it an easy read? Mehta explains in an<a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200802/?read=interview_mehta" target="_blank"> interview</a>:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"... the impression readers have that Maximum City is a quick read is a false one because it was certainly not a quick write. But it takes a lot—Hemingway taught me this—to make writing seem effortless. It took me a long time before I learned how to write simply. My early sentences back in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop were long. As Indians we tend to like longer sentences."</i></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Unlike many contemporary writers who are in a hurry to churn book after book, Suketu is a patient writer. He took seven years to research and write <i>Maximum City</i>. What I did not know though is that he had bankrupted himself while doing this book. This happened to him even though he had an advance from the publishers. In <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/power-of-one/power-of-one-with-suketu-mehta/258443" target="_blank">this interview with NDTV (Power of One)</a>, he reveals that he incurred a considerable amount of debt by the time he was done with the book. "When I finished my book, I was 40,000 dollars in debt," he tells NDTV's Srinivasan Jain.<br />
<br />
How many writers will take this kind of risk?<br />
<br />
In an<a href="http://www.believermag.com/issues/200802/?read=interview_mehta" target="_blank"> interview with Karan Mahajan</a>, Mehta revealed his method of working in Mumbai: he would hang out with his book's characters until 3 am and would write down everything between 3am and 6am:<br />
<i> </i><br />
<i>"I wrote as I reported [in Bombay]. So I would meet, say, a gangster, I’d go hang out with him, then I’d go to the beer bars and meet Mona Lisa [an alias for the bar girl in Maximum City], and then I’d come back home at 3 a.m. From 3 to 6 a.m. I would just write. It was the easiest writing I ever did. It was all in my head and I needed to get it out in real time. So I wrote these long sections—it was great. I was on speed or something, not literally. Better than speed"</i><br />
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In the same interview, Mehta says he also loves to cook his own meals and loves to take an afternoon nap--very much my kind of guy (but I can't have naps; I am in office in the afternoons).<br />
<br />
Suketu currently lives in a Manhattan apartment and teaches journalsim (narrative nonfiction) at New York University. In the NDTV interview, he says that he has been working on a book about the New York City immigrant experience. The current reality is that every two in three New Yorkers are immigrants, he says, and he wants to tell the story of the city from that point of view.<br />
<br />
<b>India books a big mistake</b><br />
<br />
Mehta is skeptical about the recent crop of India books--big books that try to define the phenomenon of a changing India within a few hundred pages. "All big books that have recently come out about India are a big mistake," he says. Why? Because it is insane to try to capture such a vast country within a book. However, he says Aakash Kapur has done a relatively better job in <i>India Becoming</i> where he follows a set of characters.<br />
<br />
Mehta is also an admirer of Katherine Boo's book, <i>Behind the Beautiful Forevers</i>. "I was filled with envy when I read Kat Boo's book," he says. "She has done exactly the right thing with the book ... and I am amazed that she could do it without (understanding) the language".<br />
<br />
Mehta then talks about Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, an American journalist who writes on the marginalized members of society (adolescents living in poverty, prostitutes, women in prison) and mentions her seminal book, <i>Random Family</i> (2003). "Her book was inspiration for our books," he says, "mine and Kate Boo's." <br />
<br />
When Jain asks him if he likes any nonfiction books done in India, he mentions <i>Following Fish </i>by Samant Subramaniam.<br />
<br />
<b>How 9/11 changed writing</b><br />
<br />
At one point of the interview, Mehta says that "more students now want to do narrative nonfiction than fiction" in the context of his journalism classes."9/11 had a lot to do with it," he says. "After 9/11 we realised what kind of fictional image could be created that could compete with this image of two giant airliners<br />
slamming into two giant towers and the whole world changing as a result." Fact had become stranger than fiction and fiction could not compete with it--or was confused to deal with it for a while.<br />
<br />
However, he says that now, some American novels are dealing with the 9/11 tragedy. He mentions <i>Netherland</i> by Joseph O'Neil as a good example. <br />
<br />
<b>On Social Media</b><br />
<br />
Mehta is on Twitter but he rarely tweets. "I have only tweeted 7 times," he claims. Even though there are very few writers on twitter (Salman Rushdie is there), some have made good use of it. "Teju Cole has taken the form and made it literary," says Mehta about the writer of <i>Open City</i>. He likens the twitter form to the form of Haiku.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Mehta is not worried about the future of books or writing. "Storytelling is a basic human need," he says. "It will always be there, only the forms of delivery will change." How reassuring!<br />
<br />
Fellow New Yorker Salman Rushdie is a friend and Mehta says he likes his memoir, <i>Joseph Anton</i>, and he is aware that some have not liked it and some complain of his artistic decline after the fatwa was imposed on him. Mehta has a very simple explanation for all the Salman-bashing: "People hate Salman because he gets a lot of chicks around him."<br />
<br />
Apart from the New York book, Mehta is also working on a new translation of Gandhi's autobiography. This is what he told Karan Mahajan in an earlier interview:<br />
<br />
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<i>"Once, I was telling my father how I think The Story of My Experiments with Truth is really not well written, how it’s long-winded, even if the material is certainly fascinating. My father said, “But it’s really beautifully written. It’s really elegant and concise.” I said, “We’re not talking about the same book.” He said, “Which one are you talking about? I’m talking about the original, in Gujarati.” Then we compared the Aatmakatha with the English version. This book was written in the salad days of the century and it was translated by two of his political secretaries—Mahadev Desai and Pyarelal—who were very good political secretaries but not necessarily good writers in English. Gandhiji did look over the translation and corrected it, but, you know, he had a few other things on his mind, like leading a country to independence!"<br /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Georgia, 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 19px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 27.100000381469727px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></i></blockquote>
More power to your pen Mr. Mehta and may you get to take a lot of afternoon naps!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-83097101620850110132012-11-03T13:05:00.000+08:002012-11-03T13:06:59.282+08:00V S Naipaul and Indian Muslims<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
V S Naipaul and controversy go hand in hand.The master was recently speaking at Tata Literature Live! festival in Mumbai where he was being honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award. Naipaul had said something like "Muslims destroyed India" during his talk and it ruffled many feathers. In reaction, playwright Girish Karnad, speaking at the festival on Friday, "took the audience aback with his unexpected criticism of V.S. Naipaul for his “rabid antipathy towards Indian Muslims”, and asked for an explanation from the festival’s organizers on why they had honoured the author with the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award."<br />
<br />
When I saw these headlines in the media and read Karnard's arguments (<a href="http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/BjorhQtK5JCBUROpwFdRgK/Girish-Karnad-takes-on-VS-Naipaul.html" target="_blank">Girish Karnad takes on V.S. Naipaul</a>), I was reminded of my own essay "A Convert's Complaint: Analyzing Naipaul’s Views on Islam" that I had written probably ten years ago when Naipaul had won the Nobel Prize for Literature.<br />
<br />
I am pasting it here for reference in case some people want to take a look at it. It was first published in <a href="http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar/article.php?article=21&category=8&issue=14" target="_blank">Akhbar</a>, a Delhi journal. <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>A Convert’s Complaint</b><br />
<br />
<i>Analyzing Naipaul’s Views on Islam<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i><br />
<br />
By Zafar H Anjum<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul’s views on Islam have come into sharp focus after he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001. In the context of the September 11 (Black Tuesday) attacks and the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan by America, his much-quoted and debated views on Islam and the Islamic world have gained immediate significance. However, his views on Islam have been very much in the circulation (in the media) ever since he wrote Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981) and Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples (1998). In this essay, I am not denying Sir Vidia what is his rightful due: the Nobel belonged to Naipaul as much as he belonged to the Nobel. There is no doubt about that. Naipaul is one of the greatest living writers in English today. In this essay, I intend to analyze Sir Naipaul’s famous remarks on Islam.<br />
<br />
Naipaul claims that Islam asks its followers to abandon their past histories, culture, and identities. His quotes on Islam, among others, have appeared in different magazines after he won the grand prize, and here I quote him from different sources. Naipaul has been quoted to be saying, “Islam has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say ‘my ancestral culture does not exist, it does not matter’….”<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, Naipaul is known to have said, “Islam is in its origin an Arab religion. Everyone not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A convert’s worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands. His sacred language is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own: he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his.”<br />
<br />
Reading such views on Islam, two basic questions arise in my mind. What’s new about these Naipaulian claims? Before Naipaul, there have been many commentators who have expressed their unfavorable views on Islam. And secondly, are his accusations true for Islam only?<br />
<br />
It seems Naipaul has been making sweeping generalizations apropos his views on Islam. He is used to doing that (As we know, he has also “arisen much controversy because of his politically incorrect views of the ‘half-made societies’”). One may well ask how can one say something like this about Sir Vidia. For this, and, before we go into analyzing the merits of his views, we must know how Naipaul formulates his opinions. I think knowing that is important as the act (of forming an opinion) is the result of a process (of accumulating details, of gathering information from various sources). No one takes the credit from Naipaul that he is a meticulous observer (his self-admitted role as a writer "to look and to look again, to re-look and rethink."); however, he has his own ways of making observations, which may not be agreeable to everybody. Let’s see an example.<br />
<br />
Charudatta Deshpande who used to work with The Indian Post had the chance to spend a week in close contact with Naipaul in Bombay when he came to collect material for his book, India: A Million Mutinies, in the 80s. He writes in Gentleman (May 1989) recollecting the experience (after Naipaul has spent three hours interviewing Namdeo Dhasal):<br />
<br />
After the interview, Naipaul thanked both Namdeo and Mallika profusely.<br />
<br />
“On our way back to the hotel, I was surprised to hear him comment: “Very superficial people, without depth. Don’t you think so?<br />
<br />
“I don’t agree with you. We met only thrice and that too, formally. I don’t want to refute your observation but I feel because of the language and cultural differences, they may not have expressed themselves fully in the interview.<br />
<br />
“I don’t think so. I don’t think they had much more to offer than what they have already given us,” said Naipaul.<br />
<br />
Clearly, Naipaul is not known to entertain views other than his own. From the above quoted interaction, one could imagine the personal liberties taken by Sir Vidia while formulating his opinions about people and culture. I find his style dangerous and unbalanced. [Excuse me for digressing here: I have similar feelings about his views on E. M. Forster. How does it matter if Forster was a homosexual? If a writer’s moral uprightness is so central to his standards of judgment, then why is Naipaul so oblivious to his own shortcomings? Paul Theroux has a lot to say about him on this score.]<br />
<br />
Naipaul posits that Islam asks the converts to deny their ancestral culture. How can it happen? To any educated Muslim, there is no doubt about the historical veracity that he has studied in the textbooks. In that sense, say for an Indian Muslim, Asoka and Budhha and Shivaji and Babar are part of his heritage. If you ask an educated Indian Muslim, he would not be dismissive about his heritage. He would find, as I found out, his heritage—Islamic or un-Islamic—rather ennobling—a source of mixed baggage to learn from, to make this life worth living.<br />
<br />
Naipaul says, “Islam is in its origin an Arab religion. Everyone not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands.” It is true that Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was revealed in Arab. The seed of this faith, like any other faith, traveled to different parts of the world from that epicentre. However, it is a misnomer to label it as an Arab religion. This term gives the impression that it (Islam) was meant only for the Arabs. A Priori, it may also imply that those non-Arabs who converted to this faith were somehow illegitimate or inferior in doing so. However, it was Islam, which preached the message that no one—Arab, non-Arab, white, black, tall, short—is superior or inferior to any one else, except in terms of piety. Naipaul’s second assertion is historically unsound. The fact is, even the first generation Muslims who became Muslims on the call of prophet Mohammad were converts—converts from their pagan faiths. Not even the prophet was a born Muslim. After he got enlightenment, only then did he become the messenger of God. Taking the logic further, can we ask if we can call the Europeans converted Christians or the American Jews as converts?<br />
<br />
Naipaul says, “a convert’s worldview alters.” Really? I don’t think so. If I’m a convert, how does it affect my worldview for it is as good or as bad as any of my non-convert (read Hindu!!) fellow Indian? Therefore, I fail to understand how my worldview is going to be affected by the fact that I am a convert or not. However, my logic says that one’s education (plus the quality of education) can definitely affect one’s worldview. Then what is Naipaul hinting here? Is he identifying Islam as a faith with an automatic and in-built ignorance (towards the outside world) that it infuses in is followers?<br />
<br />
Naipaul says that his (a convert’s) holy places are in Arab lands.<br />
<br />
True (and what’s wrong with that?). But also sacred are the local neighborhood mosques, the dargahs, and the famous mausoleums of the innumerable saints. For example, for the Indian Muslims, the dargah of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz is so sacred. Similarly, if one can ask Naipaul what’s wrong if the Jews and the Christians have their holy places in the Arab land?<br />
<br />
Naipaul says that his (a convert’s) sacred language is Arabic.<br />
<br />
True. But what’s wrong with that? It does not take away, for example, the convert’s love for one’s mother tongue (Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, etc.)! Now for decades in India and Pakistan, we have been reading the Holy Quran in Urdu and English to understand its meaning. Mustafa Kemal Pasha allowed prayers be said in Turkish instead of Arabic. Things change and people adapt things to their convenience. (Must I add here that the Jewish language is sacred to the Jews and I see no problems with that? Does Naipaul need to be reminded that once the Bible was supposed to be sacrosanct in Greek only? Has he forgotten what commotion it created when it was first translated into German?)<br />
<br />
Naipaul says, “Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands.”<br />
<br />
True. But also true is that fact that this is the case with almost all the religions. The only thing or distinction about Islam is that it is the most recent religion, and hence the most strident. It came to the world through Prophet Mohammad only some 1400 years ago, and hence it is the Islamic countries/societies in the world, which are experiencing tumultuous conditions of historical change. Some of the Islamic countries are as new as 30 years (Bangladesh). Societies take time to settle down peacefully with their past in the face of a changed present.<br />
<br />
Naipaul asks why this tumult only in the Islamic societies? It is because of Islam’s historical recency that we come across tumultuous situations in the Islamic societies.<br />
<br />
Let’s go a little deeper.<br />
<br />
The fact is very simple. Any new idea or religion, which enters a society, seeks rejection of the old. Rather, the acceptance of this new idea is based on the premise that the old is not reasonable any more, and hence it’s abandonment, and the embracing of the new faith. What’s discarded in the process is what had become old, trite, and useless—a part of the process of cultural/ideological evolution. What is left behind is what is historically moribund. History is witness to this process. For instance, when Christianity came to Europe, did it not replace the pagan faiths in the continent? People accepted Christianity because they found it more acceptable than what they previously believed in. So, what was wrong with Christianity? Similarly when the Aryans came to India with a new faith and lifestyle, did they not change or affect the cultural and ideological space of those who had been living here. That is the process of historical evolution. It is irrational to think that this will not happen in societies.<br />
<br />
We all know that the communal divide that we see in India is the construct of the British colonials. First they captured power in different Indian states with the help of Muslims. After the 1857 revolt, they lost their trust in their Muslim collaborators. Then they thought of promoting the Hindus as their new allies. This is how the policy of divide and rule started in India. We all know this. The British sowed the seeds of this “Hindu Muslim divide” canard not only to strengthen their hold on India but also to justify their imperialistic policies to their own people. Let me quote from a conversation between two working class British citizens, Tom and Jim, in London from Sajjad Zaheer’s novel London Ki Ek Raat (1938) [Like Naipaul, Zaheer studied in England]. The setting is a pub where both of them are having drinks:<br />
<br />
“Tom!” Jim said slowly. “If we leave India what’ll happen to that country? We read in the newspapers that there the Hindus and Muslims are the followers of two different religions and they always fight with each other. They are each other’s sworn enemies. If we don’t maintain peace in India and get out of that country, there is the danger of a bloody civil strife there.”<br />
<br />
This dialogue clearly shows how the British systematically developed and disseminated this “Hind-Muslim divide” lie that the common man in England believed it to be an original characteristic of India (and not a British construct of power which it actually was).<br />
<br />
If we look into Naipaul’s writings, we find that he first dug up his Hindu past. Then he declared that the Muslim invaders were responsible for destroying all that was good and great in India. I admire Naipaul’s sincerity of exploration and investigation, but where he fails, which he himself does not realize, is his falling into the trap of political history as Hindu history and Muslim history. This was how the colonial historiographers had started to give a communal interpretation to history. The fact is history is not about the religions of the historical cast. It is about the victors (stronger people or ideas) and the vanquished (weaker people or ideas). Seen from this viewpoint, one finds Naipaul a victim of the colonial mindset. No wonder he studied in England, and he still wears a hat.<br />
<br />
Today Islam is the only religion, which is as big as the Christian faith. It is the only challenger to Christianity. What the West fears is the takeover of Christianity by Islam. In the Western world, the number of Non-Muslims converting to Islam is hopping. The West was smug when it converted people in the poor countries in Asia and Africa. Now it is alarmed when the East is taking away their own people (Americans, Europeans) into their folds.<br />
<br />
What the British construct of “divide and rule” did to India in the colonial times, Samuel Huntington has done it to the world in the post cold war scenario. (More examples: The Nazis vs. the Non-Aryans; the Communists vs. the people with a God!). After September the 11th the Huntington era (The West vs. Islam) has begun. And in such times, perhaps no author is more relevant than Naipaul, and perhaps that’s why he has been bestowed with the Nobel Prize.<br />
<br />
Summing up, I’d like to sign off with the comments from my friend, Yousuf Saeed, a Delhi-based filmmaker and journalist, who had the following to share on this subject. It is an Indian Muslim’s complaint to the legend we know as V. S. Naipaul:<br />
<br />
“Naipaul claims that people who accepted Islam wrote off their pre-Islamic past. This must be true for countries like Egypt, Turkey, Tunis, Malaysia, and Iran, which Naipaul traveled in, and wrote about. But unfortunately, the country he forgot to travel to is his own India. He grossly underestimates the past and present of Muslims in India, which has the world’s second largest Muslim population, and would, in many ways, present an antithesis to his theories. Notwithstanding the current trends of the ‘Wahabization’ of Islam here, a large number of Indian Muslims, especially in small towns and villages, still carry a lot of their pre-Islamic cultural past. To begin with, one could simply visit either the local dargah (mausoleum) of a Muslim saint, or the observance of Muharram by typical Shia communities, and see for oneself the traditions, rituals, and iconography that has been carried over from the Hindu past. It is possible (and there are historical evidences of it) that similar multicultural scenarios may have existed in other Muslim countries prior to the recent trend of purification of Islam. And one needs to investigate this issue entirely before coming up with such generalization.”<br />
<br />
What do you say Mr. Naipaul?<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12126007565300598871noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8412012.post-10040849131875696752012-10-25T11:54:00.001+08:002012-10-25T11:54:26.087+08:00In memory of Jaspal Bhatti Saheb<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
This morning when I reached my office and checked the news, I was shocked to learn that comedian<a href="http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_story.aspx?ID=284051&subcatg=&keyword=bollywood&nid=284051&pfrom=home-lateststories" target="_blank"> Jaspal Bhatti had died in a car accident. </a>He was in Punjab promoting his forthcoming film, <i>Power Cut!</i><br />
<br />
Imagine promoting a movie called 'Power Cut' and suddenly your lifeline is <i>cut</i> by the almighty. What can one do? R.I.P Mr. Bhatti!<br />
<br />
Bhatti Saheb showed his talent in <i>Flop Show</i>, a TV series that used to be broadcast on Doordarshan decades ago (actually, 1989). As a school-going kid, I used to love the show--comedy used to be in short supply in those days (there was no YouTube then). <br />
<br />
To remember this great comic talent, who did not get his due in Bollywood, I am sharing with you this little comic piece that I wrote a few days ago on a whim. This is my tribute to Bhatti Saheb, my way of remembering him as he wanted us to laugh at ourselves.<br />
<br />
This is the chapter 1 of <i>I Break The Leg of Inglis, </i>a book that I began to write a few days ago. The idea came to me on the bus on my way home. Let me know if it tickles your funny bones. <br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">I Break
the Leg of Englis</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">Hello!
So please to meet you. I take the honour of shaking your hand. My name is
Parvesh Sharma. I am a Bihari and I am here to break the leg of Englis.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">Breaking
the leg of Englis has been my lifelong dream. When I was a little boy in a
little village called Angsola, I broke my own leg climbing a stool. I was
reaching out to steal the rasgullas from the peak of the almirah. I was doing
something wrong. God punish me badly. I become a little <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">langda</i>, but I become god-fearing from that time. Every mishappen
has a lesson on it and that is why it is called a sting in the tale.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">If you
don’t fully understand me, I bend my behind in forgiveness and fully seek your
support. We starting a new bank branch of Englis called Binglis. If there can
be Hinglis, why not Binglis? If you don’t allow this facility, where is
justice, haan?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">Any way,
when my father see my broken leg, he scold me black and blue. ‘If you have to
break anything, break the leg of Englis,’ he shout. At that time I think Englis
is name of some mild animal. So I remember what my father tell me that day and
I tie it in the fold of my antenna. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">Before I
tell you more of me, I tell you the behind of my family. I belong to a long
tradition of family history full of writers. My grandfather write letters for
other people in deep trouble of not able to write a word. He write their
happiness, he write their sadness, and he make money like that. He make money
but my grandmother still not happy with him because he give lot of money to Congress
and Gandhiji. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">My
father also a writer; he write big big words on walls and on big tin signs—the
village people call him PhD master. He no PhD from some big university. He not
even high school pass. But people call him that surname because he can talk
Englis like a convent pass Angrej. My village very proud of my father.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">When I
born, my father tell the whole village: ‘My boy when grow up, he become even
better than me. He break the leg of Englis in his own surf.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">What he
mean is I talk and walk like an Angrej from </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">England</span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">. And become a writer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">So,
every time I do mistake my father remind me of his promise to his village
people. ‘Don’t make keema of my ijjat,’ he tell me. ‘Break the leg of Englis.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">So, that
became my possession—breaking the leg of Englis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">When I
in primary school, my father give me Father Kamil Bilke dictionary. Every day I
remember ten words. He become very happy and give me round round sweets to eat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">After
primary, he send me for tuition to an Englis teacher for grammar. He very
strict man. He talk with a ruler and hit your head if you make a wrong mistake.
But he a man of bad habit. When he talk, he take out his tongue too outside his
mouth like a snake. The spit from his mouth also fly out of his mouth and make
us dirty. In few days I loss my appetite for grammar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">I never
recover the loss till today. My guru Ketan Bagat says never mind. ‘You think
all writers write books with perfect grammar?’ he tell me one day. ‘Beta, you
can become a writer even with bad grammar.’ ‘How? I ask. ‘There are people in
publishing house, mostly ladies, called editors,’ he say. ‘They clean copy like
you clean a tea pot or a gwala cleans his cowshed.’ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">turant</i> understood what he mean. ‘You
mean the press house like white house,’ I say. ‘Writers come, take shit and go
out. The editors clean the shit and get money for their job.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">‘Correct,’
say my guru.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;">I touch
his feet and say, ‘They are noble people. They clean dirt of others. God bless
them.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 16.0pt;"> (Copyright: Zafar Anjum, 2012)</span></div>
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