Zee Nite in Singapore

Last Sunday was special for many Singaporean Indians. Zee TV, India's pioneering cable TV network ( now in 120 countries) brought to Singapore its first ever event, Zee Nite.

The show combined Zee TV stars/actors like Rajshree Thakur, Ajay Krish, Priti Puri, Pawan Shankar and singers from its hit Sa Re Ga Ma Pa talent hunt shows such as Himani,
Debojit, Twinkle and Vishwas. It was an interesting show and the young performers brought a lot of energy to the show.

Looking at the response, the show was definitely a success. Indians had turned up in hordes. I have noticed that Indians here just love entertainment, and most of the events from India, be it Indian musicians or shows like Zee Nite are always well-attended, which is definitely an encouraging thing for the organizers.

Best time to be a writer in Asia

TODAY's columnist and well-known Singaporean poet Felix Cheong thinks that this is a great time to be a writer in Asia. Not only there is growing worldwide interest in writing from Asia but opportunities are also cropping up to support and grow Asian talent.

Excerpts from his Today Column:


THERE'S no better time to be a writer in Asia than now.

Just as Hollywood is gradually wising up to the wealth of film-making talent in the East, so too are international publishers. And we're not just talking about writers whose novels merely pander to the Western taste for exotica.

Take, for instance, the recent launch of mainland Chinese author Fan Wu's maiden novel, February Flowers.

About the friendship between two friends in Guangzhou and the sexual awakening of the narrator, the book has none of the hang-ups about Asian identity that characterise Chinese-American novels such as Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Maxine Hong-Kingston's The Woman Warrior.

February Flowers is the first title to be released under a new imprint, Picador Asia, a division of literary powerhouse Picador.

Picador is owned by Macmillan Publishers in the United Kingdom and Picador Asia joins other divisions of the company such as Picador USA, Picador Australia, Picador Africa and Picador India.

"It's to cater to the growing demand for literary writing by Asian writers in English, both from within Asia and from the main English-language markets around the world," said Macmillan's managing director Daniel Watts in an interview with Today.

The 35-year-old was in town recently for the launch of February Flowers at the Raffles Hotel, along with Toby Eady, a well-known literary agent acting as Picador Asia's publishing consultant.

Watts disclosed that Picador Asia plans to issue three titles in the coming months, such as The Eye of Jade by another Chinese writer, Diane Wei Liang.

Each of these authors is committed to a two-book deal, with another five or six projects that have yet to be inked. Also in the pipeline are commercial non-fiction books and, possibly, children's fiction.

But the print run, he admitted, will be modest — 20,000 copies of each book, packaged in different editions for the Asian, Australian and British markets.

"To be honest, we don't have bullish, ambitious sales targets," Watts conceded. "We're not doing this to make a lot of money but because we believe in building a destination for Asian writers to put their mark on the literary scene around the world."

The world according to Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai, the Man Booker Prize winner for this year, thinks that writing is a dangerous profesion.

"I think anyone who is writing seriously and trying to write seriously, find it really easy to disappear. It is really quite a frightening realisation that you can really go and that you can do yourself great mental harm. It is quite a dangerous profession, it really is," she says in an interview in The Hindustan Times.

I remember reading in a report how her mother warned her about the demands and dangers of the writing profession. And yet she has managed to do her mother proud.

Kiran has a deep and nuanced understanding of the immigration issues. Here is a very thoughtful passage from the interview where she asks if all acts of immigration should be seen and depicted as acts of heroism:


Of course my life has been exactly one of moving between countries and places. But like I said, that has also been the experience of my family. It is an old story. So a lot of it has been witnessing what other people have been through. While characterising the judge, I did read a lot of old IAS memoirs of 1939, which were fascinating. Describing this entire journey during that time period. Going to England and returning while the freedom movement was going on. They were also working for the British and I drew a lot from that research. Some of them writing more frankly than others.

But again, I found that it is quite a common story. People returning to having found themselves transformed, experiencing a kind of disconnect. The same thing happens today, people going to the States for example and then being completely unable to relate to their families. And that's a choice. They make the choice not to relate to their families. You find that there is a huge amount of cruelty taking place. The fact that they are in America lets them make their immigrant journey a very heroic one. There is a lot of insistence as well that people write novels that look at immigration as a heroic act. Books about people who overcome great odds to come to the virtuous land. In reality I think it is not that kind of journey at all. It can often be a very cruel journey and a very selfish one.

Orhan Pamuk wins the Nobel Prize for Literature

After Kiran Desai's Booker win, here's comes the splendid news of Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk winning the Nobel Prize for Literaure:

"The Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, whose trial on charges of "insulting Turkishness" was dropped earlier this year, has won the 2006 Nobel prize for literature.

"The Swedish Academy praised the author's work, which includes the bestselling novels Snow and My Name is Red and a memoir of his home city, Istanbul, saying that "in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city [he] has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."

Here's more.

The Inheritance of Gain

No sooner had Kiran Desai bagged the Man Booker Prize for this year than a wave of cheer spread among the Indians, and I could almost hear the crack of another whiplash claiming another pound of flesh from the Raj. The empire had again struck back, after Naipaul, Rushdie and Roy. The periphery had again won over the centre.

Kiran's novel, The Inheritance of Loss, was I guess no body's favourite, definitely not of the bookies, and was a surprise entry into the short list, when works by far more established writers were thrown out. What was the idea this time? Some have already sounded caution, as Sharon notes in her blog: "... the current book prize and publishing markets increasingly treat novelists as promotable contenders with their first and second books, mature talents by their third, and possibly old hat, no longer fashionable or burnt out, with their fourth and subsequent titles." (John Ezard)

Surprisingly, when the novel had come out, it did not have many enthusiastic takers but with a hindsight, going by the reviews of the book by the likes of Pankaj Mishra in NYT, this book is really special.

As Kiran has acknowledged, she wrote this book in the company of her mother, so to speak, who has been nominated thrice for the same award in the past. It is an inheritance of gain for Kiran, if I can say so. Well done Kiran Desai!

The coming of age of the Indian diaspora

The story of the Indian diaspora is like the circular cinematic narratives of Manmohan Desai, the master of the lost and found formula.

Though Indians have been venturing out to the neighbouring Asian countries for centuries, from as early as the 1st century AD, the story of the Indian diaspora primarily begins with the indentured labour system--a system that the would be British premier Gladstone would think of to supplant the needs of planters after black slavery was abolished in the early 19th century.

The first ship that set sail from the harbour of Calcutta in 1830s for the Bahamas, with a human cargo of 400 indentured labourers, could be that blur in history, that point, where the story of this great evil system started. Over the period, when the first batch of indentured Indians arrived in Mauritius in 1830s, to 1917, when the indentured system was brought to a halt, nearly 1.5 million Indians had sold themselves into debt-bondage. About 240,000 Indians had been sent to British Guiana (now Guyana), 36,000 to Jamaica, and nearly 144,000 to Trinidad, to mention only some of the Caribbean nations.

That was the beginning of the story of the "desperate diaspora"--close to a million Indians driven by poverty and desperation, and hoodwinked by a power-drunk colonial power, found themselves sailing through the Kala Paani to unknown places to work, sleep, eat and work again for years, without any hope of returning to the motherland.

This diaspora was forgotten, until writers like V S Naipaul started chronicling their stories. Writers like Naipaul not only sought to write about the past, they also sought to renew their bonds with the motherland that had forsaken them, and the initial results were searing narratives like An Area of Darkness-- in a way Naipaul was perhaps giving vent to the sourpuss of memories and abuse that the forgotten diaspora had suffered in far flung island nations, oblivious to the Indians in a free India, and his dark readings of Indian society of that time, a mirror image of his sour palate of memories.

Then came the information technology revolution and that started a new exodus of technically educated Indians to the great capitals of capitalism, thus forming the beginnngs of the "dollar diaspora."

"Crossing the kala pani was considered a sin in the past," says Prof Brij Lal of Australian National University. "But now doing so became a badge of honour."

This dollar diaspora changed the image of the Indians all over the world, and when the internet bubble burst, many retrurned to the motherland to start businesses, to join those who had returned even earlier than them, people like then founders of Infosys. Indians became one of the forces to flatten the world, so to speak, in Friedmanian terms. With the globalization of national economies, the chutnifaction of cultures and Bollywood's increasing cultural appeal and reach, the new and old diaspora began to "converge and diverge" at certain points, in all, buoyant and rising with a rising India.

The circular narrative was coming to a close now, the circle was getting complete. And with the Parvasi Bhartiya Divas, held every year on the 9th of January to mark the return of the most famous NRI Mahatma Gandhi to India, the lost and found narrative of the Indian diaspora drew to a close. You might as well see "The End" written over the screen, with Amar, Akbar, and Anthony dancing and singing into a fading screen paradise, into a chiaroscuro of ever-after glory and happiness, joyous after reuniting with the primordial family.

To mark the return of the native, the rise of the consciousness of the Indian diaspora, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Australian National University have come out with the world's first Encyclopaedia of the Indian Diaspora.

The idea germinated in 2001 in a seminar in Singapore and was nurtured by Singapore's President S R Nathan and others. Professor Brij V Lal of ANU was appointed the General Editor. Two years of hard work by 60 international scholars, mostly parvasis, yielded fruit on Monday 9 October, when President Nathan launched the tome in Singapore.

A nice Deepawali gift for the Indians, and the book has come not a day late. Published by Editions Didier Millet, the encyclopaedia follows the model of the encyclopaedia of the Chinese diaspora, whch they did sometime ago.

As the Indian diaspora is increasing in its significance, its reach and power is being acknowledged by the world. The phenomenon of the Indian diaspora is not new, but its history and achievement has come into sharp relief with the rise of Indian as an economic giant. The world is interested to know about this community now--close to 15 million Indians (some even put it at 20 million) are living in almost all countries of the world.

The 400 page encyclopedia has individual artices on 40 countries and its Indian communities. It has many startling facts, says Professor Brij Lal, such as, did you know that an Indian sparked off the gold rush in New Zealand but never got credit for it? and that there is hardly any country in the world that does not have an Indian community? But, he says, more than that it is about the lived experiences of Indians in these countries and their bitter sweet stories of successes and hardships that matter more than mere factoids.

With a lavish grant of Citibank and six other sponsors, the book has cost some S$1.6 million to publish.

Professor Brij Lal says, "It will give them (the diapsora)a sense that they're part of a larger mosaic. Maybe you are part of the Indian community in Mauritius but you are part of the larger community that came from a similar experience of indentured migration.

"So I think, in terms of giving these people a sense of identity, a sense of history, a sense of evolution, this book will play an important role in that regard."

Top Indian businessmen, like steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Amtel's Dr Sudhir Gupta are also featured in the encyclopedia.

Professor Peter Reeves, Head, South Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore, says, "We wanted a diasporic voice in the encyclopedia and we've got that - people writing about their own communities in the Caribbean, in South Africa, in Fiji, Mauritius and so on...in Southeast Asia."

16,000 copies of the book have been printed so far. It will be available at bookstores islandwide at S$85 each.

With the Singapore launch done, the publishers are now gearing up for the book's worldwide launch in Delhi, New York, Sydney and Melbourne by the end of the year.

PS: Deepika just gave me the great news. Kiran Desai has won this year's Booker Prize, one more reason to celebrate the diaspora.

Best Novel of 25 Years

The Guardian, after polling 150 literary luminaries, has declared J M Coetzee's Disgrace the best novel of 25 years!

Both Rushdie and Naipaul might be disappointed with this choice, but I am not. I just love Disgrace!

Though I was personally disappointed not to see A House for Mr Biswas at all in the list. Naipaul's Enigma of Arrival might be elegant and perfectly written, but the humanism and comedy in A House for Mr Biswas makes it a much more valuable work. And it was honest.

And with it will tie, in my opinion, Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Ian McEwan's Atonement (which is at no 3). And close comes Roy's The God of Small Things.

But where is Amitav Ghosh? None of his works features in the list. Amitav is currently held as the best novelist from the Indian subcontinent. See this appreciation from Tabish Khair in Outlook Magazine. But well, Ghosh has never won a Booker, so can't be expected to be in the list.

Rushdie joins Emory

Recently, when Salman Rushdie was in Vassar College where he said that he felt like teaching and giving back to the community what he had learnt, I guessed he was ready for a teaching stint. And my hunch was right. He has not only sold his papers to Emory, he has also joined it as a faculty member. Here are bits from Emory University's press release:

"Salman Rushdie, one of the world's most celebrated contemporary
authors, will join the faculty of Emory University as Distinguished
Writer in Residence and place his archive at Emory's Woodruff Library.

"Salman Rushdie is not only one of the foremost writers of our
generation, he is also a courageous champion of human rights and
freedom," says Emory President James Wagner.

"The teaching appointment of Salman Rushdie, and the significance of
his archive, underscore the importance of the humanities in addressing
the global issues of our day," says Emory Provost Earl Lewis. Emory
recently designated creativity and the arts as one of its signature
initiatives for the future, recognizing the critical role of the arts
in sustaining free societies and in confronting oppression."

"This is Rushdie's first extended relationship with a university. His
position as Distinguished Writer in Residence is a five-year
appointment in the English Department, beginning in the spring of
2007. During each of these five years he will be teaching for at least
four weeks, lead a graduate seminar, participate in undergraduate
classes, advise students, engage in symposia and deliver a public
lecture.

"Rushdie began his relationship with Emory in 2004 when he delivered
the Ellmann Lectures, named for the eminent literary scholar Richard
Ellmann. Though not yet 20 years old, the biennial Ellmann lectures
have become one of the most distinguished literary lecture series in
North America. Seamus Heaney, Mario Vargas Llosa, A.S. Byatt and David
Lodge are a few of Rushdie's fellow alumni in the Ellmann series.

"In placing his papers at Emory, Rushdie is joining an elite group of
modern masters. "Emory has become one of the major literary archives
in North America," says Dana Gioia, chair of the National Endowment
for the Arts. Among Emory's research collections are the personal and
literary papers of such modern literary giants as the late British
poet laureate Ted Hughes and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.

"The Rushdie papers will provide the primary resource for future
generations seeking to understand an artist at the center of our era,"
says Stephen Enniss, director of Emory's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Books Library. Included in the archive are Rushdie's private journals
detailing life under the fatwa, as well as personal correspondence,
notebooks, photographs and manuscripts of all of his writings,
including two early unpublished novels."

Here's more from the Mumbai Mirror.

Sharon@Ubud Writers Festival

Fellow blogger and Malaysian literary doyen, Sharon Bakar, was in the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival last week and is now back with an intersting grabbag of anecdotes, articles, and portraits. Friends like columnist and writer Dina Zaman of KL and moderator par excellence Deepika Shetty of Channel NewsAsia, Singapore were also there (waiting for their stories now).

Thanks Sharon for sharing your impressions and memories with us. They are all here:

Opening
Not Just Pretty Faces
More Festival Photos
Islam and Modernity

Anurag Kashyap, Catcher in the Rye

How does it feel to be a filmmaker who has written and directed 3 full-length feature films in seven years and not one has seen a public outing?

And yet it has happened to a filmmaker, a proven scriptwriter of immense talent. His name is Anurag Kashyap--one of the hands that shaped a groundbreaking gangster film years ago called Satya (directed by Ram Gopal Varma).

Kashyap's story is very much like a film's story itself, the struggles and the pain he has gone through in all these years makes a compelling case of creative honesty vs the powers that be.

In this autobiographical piece in Tehelka, he shares his angst and experiences, and even lets us peep into his childhood and how he suffered sexual abuse.

"I grew up in Benares, part of a larger community of relatives and neighbours. My father was an officer in the state electricity board; my mother was a housewife. We often ate at a cousin and neighbour’s home. I was five when an elder cousin and a neighbour began to abuse me sexually. It was more than molestation; it violated everything. I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t speak of it. I was always a very detached child. I went into a deeper shell; my behaviour became erratic. When I was eight, my father sent me to Scindia School in Gwalior. It was more than he could afford and I will always be grateful for that. But Scindia was hell for me. The sexual abuse continued there for years. I hated myself. I couldn’t understand why it was happening to me. I was often picked out, beaten, then taken to the toilets. To save myself from the beatings, I’d give in to the abuse. Once I saw a senior abuse another junior. I spoke up about it. The repercussion was terrible. When I was in Class vii, I felt suicidal. That’s when I began to write."

Shahrukh Khan in Singapore

Folks, King Khan was here in Singapore last weekend to promote ICICI Bank. And my colleague, Ashraf Safdar, a fine journalist/writer by all accounts, could manage to draw out some Khanisms from the self-acknowledged Bollywood jester.

Here's one part I enjoyed reading in the piece:

"Hollywood can knock on my door

For a man at the top of his industry, Khan seems to have no desire to chase what is widely regarded as film-making's Holy Grail: A career in Hollywood.

"It's not as if Steven Spielberg is saying, 'come now!'" he said, laughing again. "I don't see myself in Hollywood unless a director decides to make a film about India.

"If they Google me and need a 40-year-old, 5 ft 9 inch (1.75m) actor with brown skin … then maybe me."

As he batted his eyelids coyly, Khan expounded on the subject, explaining that he is, very specifically, a product by and for the Indian cinema.

"I'm 40 years old, I don't fight like Bruce Lee and I don't dance very well," he said. "I'd rather make an Indian film and then tell LA to buy my film."

Read the entire piece here.

Shobha Bhalla takes an interesting look here at Khan's promiscuity in brand endorsements.

The Big Sleep

I had mentioned in my KL post about Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

I had been wanting to read Raymond Chandler for a long time but this was the first time I got my hands on one of his titles.

Finding the book was a stroke of luck as I got consumed with the novel on my way back and the 5 hour journey passed like a sweet second. I had lounged myself in the lower deck of the bus on a sofa, all alone, and did have a marvellous time with the novel's protagonist detective Philip Marlowe. Others, as I could see, were enjoying a Hollywood regular such as 13 Going On 30.

Now it is generally rare that a novel will hold my undivided attention for such a long time. After all, there are only a handful of works that past muster my lazy and overly demanding literary taste buds. This one did, and in the next five days, I could finish reading it on the bus rides between home and office (If I forgot to pack my The World is Flat by T Friedman in my office backpack), in the restroom or on the bed just before going to sleep if my daughter had not tired me out.

The language of the narrative is exquisite and superbly crafted. This kind of deft handling of the language is uncommon. Above all, it is an entertaining read, and Chandler packs a lot of fun through Marlowe's observations. If I had time I would have quoted some of the sentences here but let's save it for the future.

One interersting thing was, while reading the novel, I was constantly thinking of Jack Nicholson from China Town, and not Humphrey Bogart (Howard Howkes made it a Hollywood film in 1946 with Bogart and Bacall, screenplay was by William Faulkner). Strange, isn't it?

The Inspiration behind Umrao Jaan

Indian actress Aishwarya Rai is back in the news with the hype of her two new outings, Umrao Jaan and Dhoom 2. No doubt, she is looking hot in the released videos (the one in which she is doing a mujra in Umrao Jaan).

Funny thing is, Umrao Jaan's director, J P Dutta, claimed in an interview that he was not inspired by the original film, Umrao Jaan by Muzaffar Ali--Ali's best known work and one of the best films in its genre, especially remembered for its soulful ghazals and Rekha's portrayal of a courtesan, Ameeran, aka Umrao Jaan Ada. He said that he is inspired by Mirza Ruswa's novel of the same name.

The matter of the fact is, Ali's film is also based on the same novel. And who would have heard of this novel, especially people of non-Urdu literary background, had Ali not made a film out of it about 3 decades ago? I find it a little disingenuous on Dutta's part. Of course, everyone is free to interpret the novel in his or her own way, and in a business-oriented world like Bollywood, where the film already has a brand appeal, it becomes much more easier to make or remake a film like this.

Conversely, there are so many good Urdu novels of the past. Why didn't Dutta or some other director care to make a film out of them? The truth is, I feel, that one needs courage to do something original and it takes the kinds of Ali who tread the unbeaten path.

This is not to pan Dutta or make fun of the forthcoming Ash flick but to analyze an opinion made in the public space.

Anyway, these days Bollywood is fixated with making remakes of its old hits--After Devdas, there is Umrao Jaan and Saheb, Bibi aur Ghulam, and many more. Even Raj Sippy is threatening to remake his Satte Pe Satta as Seven (remember the Brad Pitt film , I mean just the title), which in the first place was inspired by the Hollywood film, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!

But why to blame only Bollywood filmmakers. Even Hollywood is doing this gleefully. I hear that Martin Scorsese's The Departed is inspired by the Hong Kong flick Infernal Affairs and currently Nicolas Cage is shooting a film (Big Hit in Bangkok) in Thailand inspired by the Thai hit, Bangkok Dangerous.

Making Literature in KL

Last weekend I was in Kuala Lumpur (KL), and compared to last time (that was about two years ago), this time KL looked better, more cosmopolitan, more beautified. My personal opinion. Or was it all because of the onset of the month of Ramadhan. The denizens of KL would know better.

While I got to meet some interesting inter-racial couples during my stay, one of the most interesting things to happen was to be able to attend Sharon's monthly reading session. The reading was in the afternoon and because of the torrential rains, I got late from a meeting, and thanks to a convoluted address, I could barely make it to the reading session.

When I reached the venue in Bangsar, Aneeta Sundararaj was reading a story from her anthology, Snapshots. After the reading, the effervescent Aneeta even gifted me an autographed copy of her book. That was so nice of her.

The gathering comprised of young Malaysian writers and poets and I could sense a sort of great energy among the writers. The fact that they cared to meet up for a literary event in the afternoon of a weekend says a lot about them.

After the event, Sharon, Sharanya, KG, and myself went to a nearby cafe and had a nice chat. Sharon is doing a great job in cultivating reading and writing in the city.

Afterwards, I went over to Silverfish Books to say hello to Raman. Raman was about to shut down the bookshop but I was lucky enough to browse there for sometime. I got a copy of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. It was a wonderful read. More about that later.

Next day when I met Sharanya again to discuss about Indians in Malaysia, she told me about the Rushdie-Amitava Kumar spat. I could not believe it first but I had to when read about it in Amitava's blog and saw Rushdie's comment. One more proof that blogging has really arrived!

Migratory birds, Imaginary homelands

The question of immigrants and immigration was recently a hot topic in Singapore. The island state needs immigrants to supplant its declining population.

Japan is another example but it can't take a recourse like Singapore. Singapore is unique in the region. Like the United States, it is a multicultural society, built with the blood and sweat of immigrants.

In our time, when the world's economies are integrating globally, we are seeing immigration happening on a large scale all over the world.

People are crossing borders in hordes, legally or illegally. Educated youths, generally holders of a Master's degree in business administration, engineers or computer experts from poor countries, and even semi-skilled workers are emigrating to richer countries.

And the rich countries welcome them with open arms for their skills.

But there are also some unpleasant, unwelcome guests.

The British are worried, for example, about workers from Eastern Europe inundating their labour markets. America had to put up a fence and recruit troops to patrol its border with Mexico. Spain's Canary Island is awash with illegal immigrants from Africa.

The core question remains: Why do people immigrate?

The question has vexed me for a long time. Even as a child in a nondescript village in India, I would wonder about this.

Then, my imagination was bound within the territories of my country, India. I would see fellow village folk, short of work, going off to Kolkata and Delhi to work in the mills. Others went to faraway Punjab to work for rich farmers benefiting from a green revolution in India in the 1970s.

Economics was the only reason that could explain this flight of able hands from my village to the big cities or richer places. Places from where village folk could send money to feed the hungry mouths at home.

Years later, I went to Delhi to pursue higher studies. But what did I see? Many of my better-off friends, born and brought up in metros such as Delhi, wanted to go to the United Kingdom, the US or Australia.

After getting their degrees, some went away to the rich countries as foreign students, never to return to India. Universities were their entry points to the workforce of those rich countries.

Later, when I joined the Delhi workforce, I saw many colleagues migrate to Western countries. They never returned.

People from villages and small towns who went to the big cities such as Delhi or Mumbai considered them good enough to find success in, and their parents felt proud of their children's achievements. After all, to find a toehold in a metro within a country of 1 billion people was no mean achievement for most of us.

What about those who seemingly had no complaints; why did they need to migrate?

I guess they had different parameters for success. For many from South India, for example, it became almost a competitive trend to send their sons and daughters to the US or Europe, either to work or study.

THEN I came to Singapore, and found to my dismay that some Singaporeans were also leaving their country.

Why? Over the centuries, this age-old question has vexed many hearts and souls, not just mine.

Let me take you to Russia, to 1869. To the fictional world set by Nobel Prize-winner novelist J M Coetzee in The Master of Petersburg.

The novel's protagonist, an old Dostoevsky (yes, the famous Russian novelist) is summoned from Germany to St Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, Pavel. He visits the place where Pavel lodged and muses about his stepson's desire to go to France.

In a discussion with the landlady, the ageing novelist comments: "When you are young, you are impatient with everything around you. You are impatient with your motherland because your motherland seems old and stale to you.

"You want new sights, new ideas. You think that in France or Germany or England, you will find the future that your own country is too dull to provide you with."

Perhaps, now, I vaguely know the reason why people migrate.

Migration appears to be basically a question of survival. But it is not that simple.

On another level, it is also a matter of aspiration. The desire to achieve or to prove something.

There may be hundreds of reasons but one thing is for sure: It is not about money and comfort all the time.

Published in Today, dt Sep 13, 2006.

Video Nights with YouTube

Are you a YouTuber?

I did a piece on YouTube for Today/CNA, Singapore. Here's the into:

EXIT Video Nights in Kathmandu. Enter Video Nights with YouTube.

In his book Video Nights in Kathmandu and Other Reports from the Not-So-Far-East, author Pico Iyer set out to explore the impact of American culture in Asia.

He travelled through Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Tibet, Nepal and elsewhere in Asia, and recorded how these societies were making American films, music, food and fashion — among many other things — their own.

That was in 1988.

Fast forward to 2006. Much has changed, especially after YouTube.com came into existence. It was launched last year to host short videos posted by the public.

In a short period of time, YouTube has spawned millions of online gawkers, fondly referred to as YouTubers.

Unlike Mr Iyer, these "armchair tourists" do not have to leave their rooms to meet new people and explore new cultures.

YouTube has started a new online video culture. The Guardian recently named it one of the 15 websites that has changed the world. And its success is evident in the numbers — more than 100 million clips are viewed every day.

Here's more

Colonial Quarters

Colonial Quarters
Originally uploaded by zafaranjum.

I love this view (seen from the Boat Quay side of the Singapore river) and the area close to the colonial quarters of Singapore. A nice place to spend the evening.

Naguib Mahfouz

It was sad to know that Egyptian novelist and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz passed away on August 29. He was 95.

Naguib lived a long life, almost a century long and his ouvre as a writer is quite impressive, both in quality and quantity--35 novels, 20 film scripts, a dozen collection of stories, essays, etc. But he will always be remembered for his Cairo Trilogy.

"GREAT writers often seem to haunt their cities. Joyce and Kafka remain ghostly figures on the streets of Dublin and Prague, and the elfin presence of Borges is still glimpsed, through cigarette smoke and tango sweat, in the cafés of Buenos Aires. In the ancient city of Cairo, it is Naguib Mahfouz who does the haunting," says The Economist.

While reading his obit in The Economist, I loved this part: "Into his 70s he prowled far across the cityon solitary early morning walks, typically ending up in one of the many cafes where he was greeted as a returning son of the quartier. Into his 90s he rarely missed his weekly gathering of intimates at some public watering hole. There he soaked up the endless tales of woe, the political gossip and wicked jokes that provide the spice of Egyptian life."

How many writers like him are there amidst us? Many writers today live the lives of celebs who come down and meet the hoi ploi only when they have a book to launch.

Authors Romesh Gunesekera and Capt Elmo sharing a private moment outside the audi in the Asian Civilizations Museum (Monday, 28 August 2006) 

At Home in the World--Romesh Gunesekera

“I don’t know where my home is,” said Romesh Gunesekera, answering a question on being an immigrant writer. “I think writers are one of the worst people to ask this question,” he added.

The well-known Sri Lanka-born novelist and poet, now living in London, was speaking at a gathering at the Asian Civilizations Museum’s auditorium yesterday evening. Captain Elmo Jayawardena, novelist, philanthropist, and a pilot with the Singapore Airlines, moderated the open discussion.

“When I was very very young, reading all sorts of books that I used to come across, I was never where I was reading, I was where I was fantasizing,” he said.

Romesh Gunesekera, now 52, broke into the English literary scene with his novel, Reef, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. His other books are Monkfish Moon, a collection of short stories touching on the ethnic and political tensions that has maimed Sri Lanka since its independence from colonial rule, The Sandglass (1998), and Heaven's Edge (2002). His latest book The Match (2006) is a psychological thriller.

Romesh, very much like the pictures he is usually seen in, is curiously tall and remarkably slender. He has a boyish Harry Potter like intelligent bespectacled face, but his unruly mop of salt and pepper makes him look like a monkish boy wizard who has grown a tad older in his troubled fantasyland while he has been busy spinning yarns for the folks.

“I happened to know Sri Lanka much more and much better once I was an adult, and was writing my books, than at the time when I was living there (in Sri Lanka),” he said.

Though Romesh was born in 1954 in Sri Lanka, where he spent his early years, he has lived an immigrant’s life. He lived in the Philippines before coming to Britain and settling there in 1971.

All these geographical shifts have equipped him with authorial ammunitions. Unlike many writers, he said, “I don’t write autobiographically. I write auto-geographically.”

From his first book itself, he has created a scintillating oeuvre, setting him on the path of an award-winning writing career. Reef won a Yorkshire Post Book Award (Best First Work) and was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Guardian Fiction Prize.

In Reef, a young Sri Lankan boy named Triton who is sent to work for a marine biologist, Mister Salgado, narrates the book. They are forced to leave Sri Lanka because of the worsening political circumstances, and making them move to London where Triton opens a restaurant.

The Sandglass (1998), his second novel, centres on the character of Prins Ducal. Ducal is a Sri Lankan businessman who is searching for the truth of his father's death. The novel was awarded the inaugural BBC Asia Award for Achievement in Writing and Literature. His novel, Heaven's Edge (2002), is set on an island in the near future. For his brilliant work, Romesh received an Arts Council Writers' Award in 1991.

“So, of course, it (Sri Lanka) is a very important part of my identity but where your children are and where your family is also a big part of your life,” he said.

Though Romesh lives in London with his English wife and two daughters, he travels widely for festivals, workshops and tours. In recent years he has held writing residencies in Hong Kong, Singapore and Denmark. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004.

Taking the discussion on passport identity further, he remarked on a lighter note, “These days, when I get out of a plane anywhere in the world, I feel relieved that I have been able to make the journey.”

But different countries did touch him somewhere deep down. “I actually find different landscapes do make my heart go a little faster,” he said.

Romesh’s journey from Reef to The Match has been outstanding. He himself likens this journey to that of a bookend, with Reef at one end and The Match at its opposite side.

“It (Reef) was written sadly a long time ago, sadly because it was written in 1993 when the sad troubles of Sri Lanka started. And connected to that I suppose is the fact that since then the stories that I have written have in a way tried to grapple with the tragedies that have come afterwards,” he said, connecting his stories to that of the parallel history of Sri Lanka, which has been quite violent.

As in the Rushdian sense of colonial and immigrant writing, in Romesh’s writing too memory plays a great role. Rushdian memory is fragmented, the mirror of memory is broken, flawed and yet it is able to make a powerful narrative that clashes with the narrative that politicians set out to describe: “The shards of memory acquired greater status, greater resonance, because they were remains; fragmentation made trivial things seem like symbols, and the mundane acquired numinous qualities.” (from Imaginary Homelands)

Literary critic Susheila Nasta has written that “in many senses Reef is a novel of remembering whose preoccupation is as much with the fragments of memory, the recollection and naming of things past, as about Sri Lanka itself, the beleaguered ‘island’ where it is set during the 1960s to 1980s, a period of brewing political, ethical and religious turmoil.”

In contrast, to further explore the metaphor of the bookend, The Match, written almost a decade later, testifies to a better chapter to Sri Lanka’s history. “When I started this book (The Match), I actually wanted to begin a different set of experiences still connected to Sri Lanka but more of its happier side—and that has been Sri Lankan cricket, which I had not written about in my world of imagination. So I wanted to do that. And also I started (writing) this in 2002 when things were going rather better.”

For the first time, Romesh has used cricket as a backdrop to tell his story in The Match. And he is surprised by his achievement where he has masterfully married a sport into the narrative that is in the heart of every South Asian and Englishmen.

“I had never thought in my wildest fantasies (and I fantasize quite a lot) that I would ever write something in which any kind of sport will be of any consequential value. I had never thought I would write a book that would have cricket anywhere in it.”

So was this sport easy to write about? Did cricket come naturally to him? “I had played cricket when I was younger but I never was a cricket enthusiast. Now I watch it like a drunk, at least some of the matches involving Sri Lankan cricketers.”

He said that he did not set out to narrate to his readers the life stories of Sri Lankan cricketers through The Match. Yet, he mentioned, he complimented him for being able to integrate their (the cricketers’) life stories in his novel. It was not intended at all, he clarified.

How did he manage to write as capaciously as in two separate genres, as it were, asked Deepika Shetty of Channel NewsAsia, producer of the book show, Off The Shelf? She was referring to Heaven’s Edge which, one the one hand, is more like a magic realist work and The Match, which, on the other, employs the realistic mode of narration.

So, how does he manage to swing his pen between these two genres? “I try to write a different book each time but probably it does not work out,” he said. “Most writers tend to have a set of themes, interests or whatever and with each book I tried to be as realistic as possible.”

Romesh does not feel that Heaven’s Edge is a magic realist work at any rate. He said: “Heaven’s Edge was a very strange and different book. I wanted to write about something in the future. I wanted to invent everything. So many people see a Sri Lankan terrain in it. Sri Lanka is not mentioned there. And I invented a lot of the landscape, the country, what was going on in the country, so it was quite a relief that such a book in a sense was written in which everything was invented.”

Fielding a question from the audience, Romesh explained his idea of literature.

The value of literature lies in the fact that it helps us understand how different each individual is, he said. How simple but true!

Talking about the colonial heritage of the English language and whether he felt comfortable in writing in English, especially as a writer of colour residing in a country like England, he said, “English does not belong to anybody today.” His claim validates what Rushdie had once written: “To conquer English may be to complete the process of making ourselves free” (from colonial rule).

Romesh never felt any different from other writers in England as he saw there, he said almost in jest, so many native writers who succeeded and so many others who failed. “It would have rather seemed arrogant had I written some somewhere else (other than from London),” he admitted.

He gave the example of a native Briton, a white man, who always wanted to write something but didn’t know what to write about. Finally, to Romesh’s relief, his friend has written a book on India and it is doing rather well, he said.

Did he have any favourite authors? Romesh took a philosophical approach to this question. He said that one has favourite writers at an impressionable age. When he was of that age, he used to like reading the works of Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, and Graham Greene, among others. But that does not mean that he necessarily revisits those works.

About contemporary writers, he said he met a large number of living authors and it was almost impossible for him to read the works of his contemporaries (because they were so many). But sometimes he has to read some of his colleague’s works when he shares a panel with them during literary festivals and publishers send him copies of their books in advance.

From favourite authors the discussion segued into a discourse on the process of writing and the prospects of getting published for emerging writers.

For aspiring writers, he advice was the age old recipe: hard work, perseverance and of course a dash of good luck. “There are many more avenues for writing and getting published now,” he said. “But if one is aiming to get a break with a big publishing house, clearly the competition is extremely tough there. Thousands of people write and send in their manuscripts and big publishing houses can publish only so much.”

When Captain Elmo asked Romesh for tips on the process of writing, especially for a writer (Romesh) who had to work while living with a wife and children, Romesh almost burst into a guffaw. “Writing a book is like making a baby, and if you have not got it yet then perhaps you never will,” he said.

Perhaps that was a comment in a lighter vein but Romesh definitely knows what writing is and what it means and what it entails: “Writing, I guess like reading, is about stopping time. Only then do we realize that we do live forever, in a way, as our consciousness rushes in to fill the black hole of a rounded full stop.” (from Sandglass).

The evening ended in a book signing session. By the time I had my copy of Heaven’s Edge signed by him, it was about 9:30 pm. Amid the din, I had to spell out my first name to Romesh but he was very gentle with everyone. While he was signing my copy, he was also looking for his glass of red wine that he had left somewhere on the large table where his books were doing a brisk sale. It was resting listlessly near the cash till, oblivious to the crowd of pushing elbows, books and plastic bags, a swig of undrained wine almost looking like a fat petal at the bottom of the glass.

Just before Romesh signed a copy of his book for me, one middle-aged gentleman requested him to sign a copy for his wife. “My wife wants to write. She has not written anything yet but would you please write something to encourage her,” he said. The man’s voice was immensely full of love and tenderness. Romesh obliged.

END

The Ram Gopal Varma of Indian Writing in English

Vikram Chandra is out with his new novel, Sacred Games. The book was released in Bombay and ever since Vikram is travelling the length and breadth of India promoting his new book. I have just read his zillionth interview, not even in a magazine, but on a blog. Though Vikram rocks as a writer (I still remember his brilliant writing in Love and Longing in Bombay), what is the need to give so many interviews? Just a personal opinion because even though he comes across in his interviews smart and sagacious, it often gets repetitious and adds to the reader’s ennui.

Now to the point of the heading. Why am I calling him the Ram Gopal Varma of Indian Writing in English?

My contention is simple. Like RGV, Vikram is also attracted to stories of cops and underworld characters. Both of them are fascinated with the city of Bombay. Both of them are sharp and daring in their presentations. Both of them are frank and outspoken. So there…

Nothing against him or RGV, but it is interesting how Bombay fascinates our writers and filmmakers. Rushdie, Naipaul, and now Vikram—all have written so much about Bombay. And Suketu Mehta has made a career out of this city with his book, Maximum City. His book has given a lot of dignity and humanity to a number of stock in trade Bombaiyya characters like the bhais, the dance bar girls, the pimps, the politicians, et al. Hope Sacred Games does the same and more, in its own unique, fictionalised way.

Though I look forward to reading Sacred Games, its sheer volume is going to be a challenge to me.

PS: Trawling through the reviews of this novel at his website, came across this review by Ashok Banker. He has also likened Vikram’s work to that of RGVs…what a coincidence!

The Devil Wears Prada

Last week, we saw this film--The Devil Wears Prada (DWP). We means, me and my wife. It was an outing after a long gap as my daughter is only eight months old and it was difficult to leave her behind and go for a movie show. The last time we saw a film together was, I don't remember.

DWP is a breezy comedy, and am sure by now you must would have read the reviews. I would spare you another review and also save my time.

In one line, in case you never heard of this film, it is about a trainee journalist (Anne Hathway) who interns with the fear-evoking but highly respected fashion editor of Runway magazine (Maryl streep) and in the end, prefers to be a humble earthling.

If ever watch this film, let me know what you thought of the ending. I found it forced, as if the writer was trying to find a counterpoint to where he had started off from.

If you are a Meryl Streep fan, you would love this movie. And if you had a bossy boss ever in your life, you will have a cathartic experience. And you might even emerge a happier soul from the show. Is that a recommendation? Yes, sure.

The day Pluto was murdered

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly booted Pluto out of our solar system as a ‘planet’ in Prague on 24 August. They have reduced its celestial stature to that of a ‘dwarf planet’.

In plain language, to be a planet, a world must meet three criteria:

-is in orbit around the Sun
-has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape
-has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit


Worlds that meet only the first two criteria have henceforth been classified as "dwarf planets." An example of a planet would be Jupiter, which circles the sun supreme in its own orbit. On the other hand, Pluto, which shares the outer solar system with thousands of Pluto-like objects, has therefore been deemed a dwarf planet.

According to the IAU, the Solar System now consists of eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; and at least three dwarf planets: Ceres, Pluto, 2003 UB313 (nicknamed 'Xena').

The Singapore Science Centre held a short ceremony yesterday to mark the symbolic change in the status of Pluto yesterday afternoon (28 August).

The Centre is also exhibiting a brilliantly made IMAX film, not on Pluto but on Mars, Roving Mars, in its Omi-Theatre. It is breathtakingly shot, with images shot by actual Mars Rovers, footage from Cape Canaveral rocket launches and landscapes of Antarctica doubling as Mars. Amazing! You must see it, if for nothing, than for the launch sequence, which is a combination of film footage and pixar animation.

You will see the lift-off, followed by the sequence of rocket stages falling away, and then the payload goes into a spin, and is finally shot into outer space like a bullet. The IMAX experience is great.

We're not just passing through

WHEN one of my Indian friends, working across the Causeway for many years, decided to come here in search of a job, I remarked on how globalised he had become. He was an Indian living in Malaysia and was now crossing over to Singapore to work for an Australian firm!

The world is now the playground for a growing swathe of immigrant workers. Once, the Chinese and the Indians were inundating other countries, especially the affluent West; now, Americans and Europeans are travelling to the East to work in emerging economies like China and India. The East Asian tigers including Singapore have long been magnets for itinerant westerners.

But while the governments of these countries might welcome foreign workers, the local population may not be so enthusiastic, especially towards the Asian imports.

At Sunday's National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted that some Singaporeans felt bitter about having to compete with foreigners for jobs.

This feeling is common in many countries. When jobs get "Bangalored" (read: outsourced) from rich western countries, the average citizen feels threatened. But when interdependence among countries and people is the order of the day, countries need to be open to foreign talent — otherwise, it will simply fly to a more hospitable destination.

Read the rest of it here.

Deconstructing the Tablighi Jamaat

But What Do They Preach?

by Zafar Anjum

The Tablighi Jamaat ("group of preachers") has been in the limelight since 9/11 for all the wrong reasons. Britian’s MI5 and America’s FBI have been alleging that it is the recruiting ground for wannabe Islamic terrorists. The organization has once again come into sharp focus after the recently foiled plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. UK’s security services have found that at least seven of the 23 suspects under arrest on suspicion of involvement in the transatlantic airliners plot may have participated in Tablighi events. The organisation was also found to be linked with two of the July 7 suicide bombers. The jailed shoe bomber Richard Reid had supposedly attended its sessions.

In their defence, the Tablighis completely disavow any links from anything other than Islam. The Guardian ("Inside the Islamic group accused by MI5 and FBI", Augsut 18) reported a Tablighi defend the organization in these words (when asked about the association between Tablighi Jamaat and terrorist groups): "Tablighi is like Oxford University. We have intelligent people - doctors, solicitors, businessmen - but one or two will become drug dealers, fraudsters. But you won't blame Oxford University for that. You see, it does not matter if someone speaks in favour or against this effort. Everything happens with the will of God."

Though Olivier Roy, the French scholar on Islam, has described Tablighi Jamaat as "completely apolitical and law abiding," is it really an innocuous religious organization as is claimed by its followers? Or is it a silent and hidden breeding ground of Islamic terrorism? To assess this, we need to look at its background and activities.

The Tablighi Jamaat was an offshoot of the Deoband movement and it represented a commitment to individual regeneration apart from any explicit political program. According to American scholar Barbara Metcalf, the movement began in the late 1920s when Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi (d. 1944), whose family had long associations with Deoband and its sister school in Saharanpur, Mazaahiru'l-`Ulum, sought a way to reach peasants who were nominal Muslims being targeted by a Hindu conversion movement.

The basic strategy of the movement is to persuade Muslims that they themselves, however little book learning they had, could go out in groups, to remind the lay Muslims to fulfill their fundamental ritual obligations. Participants were assured of divine blessing for this effort. Tablighis not only eschewed debate, but also emulated cherished stories, recalling Prophetic hadith, and of withdrawing from any physical attack. A pattern emerged of calling participants to spend one night a week, one weekend a month, 40 continuous days a year, and ultimately 120 days at least once in their lives engaged in tabligh missions. The thrust of the movement is not clearly on conversions but on bringing the "wayward" Muslims back to the fold of practicing Islam.

This does not mean that all is well with the Tabligh movement. Its ambitions might be noble but sometimes it harms the interests of the Muslim community in no ambiguous terms. This may not be deliberate, but it nonetheless has deleterious effects.

And now with the Jamaat’s emphasized association with terrorism, it is facing its strongest moment of criticism, though it has been on the radar for some time now.

More here in The Outlook Magazine's website.

Remembering Netaji

I attended a seminar titled "The Forgotten Army in a World at War: Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA and its Effect on Asia’s Independence" this Sunday afternoon, organized by Singapore’s Institute of South East Asian Studies (ISEAS).

The seminar was to celebrate and remember the achievements and sacrifices of Subhas Chandra Bose, reverentially called Netaji, and his army of freedom fighters, the Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army) which was founded in Singapore in 1943.

The INA drew recruits for its 100,000 strong army of men and women from amongst the Indian immigrant community of Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Burma, including ex-British Indian Army soldiers languishing in jails as Prisoners of Wars.

Netaji’s life has been no less interesting, almost a cloak and dagger story that climaxed into a controversial plain crash, some still believing that he survived the crash and lived for many long years in cognito.

Professor Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs at Harvard University and the great grandson of Netaji provided a scholarly analysis of Netaji’s quest for freedom during the world war.

In a short 30 minute documentary film, Prof Bose also depicted Nataji’s life as a revolutionary. Netaji was born in 1897 and revealed an independent streak right from the days of his student life. He studied philosophy at Cambridge University (Great Britain) and despite being selected for the coveted Indian Civil Services, he joins the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1921 to fight for India’s independence from British rule.

By 1939 he got disillusioned with INC and in 1941 escapes from under strict British surveillance at his house in Calcutta as a Muslim insurance salesman. He arrived in Berlin, married a German woman, and ever met Hitler to enlist his support in his fight against the British. Finally, Netaji arrived in Singapore through Tokyo and assumed the leadership of INA on 4 July 1943.

Under his leadership, the INA fought a number of bloody battles with British and American forces on Indian soil in 1944 and Burma in 1945. In his paper, The INA: Its Contribution to India’s Independence and Asia’s Resurgence, Mr Prasenjit K Basu of Khazanah Nasional demonstrated that INA’s success in turning the British Indian army against their rulers was instrumental in making Britain free India.

Netaji's family and country were coterminous, said Professor Bose.

Interestingly, Netaji had made a daring submarine to Submarine transfer with a Japanese crew near Madagascar, while travelling from Europe to Japan.

When Netaji arrived in Singapore, he was given a hero’s welcome and people sang this song in his praise:

Subhashji Subhashji Subhashji Aa Gaye
Hai Naaz Jis Pe Hind Ko Wo Naz-e Hind Aa Gaye

While addressing the public on July 4 in Cathay Theatre, he gave a call for Total Mobilisation for a Total War. All he promised to the patriots was bhook, pyaas and maut.

He gave the slogan of Delhi Chalo, which mobilised the masses. His strategy was to attack the British both from inside and outside.

One of the most revolutionary things that Netaji did was the founding of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment in 1943, a women-only regiment. Jenaki Thevan of Singpore was made its leader.

During the Bengal famine of 1943, in which about one third to half of Bengal’s population died, Netaji offered to send rice from Burma to Bengal, but the British not only suppressed the news, they never allowed it happen. Churchill said that while he would bomb all the Germans to death, he would kill the ‘vicious’ Indians by starving them to death.

Netaji proclaimed the establishment of the Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind in Singapore on 21 October 1943. Nine countries around the world recognized this government including Thailand and Ireland.

Singapore’s Indian businessmen, initially a little tight-fisted, finally showered Netaji’s govt. coffers with contributions. The Chettiars of Tamil Nadu were great contributors.

Whenever Netaji addressed the public here, his speech was translated into Hindustani and Tamil. His official flag was the tricolour with Gandhiji’s charkha with the image of a springing tiger, reminiscent of Tipu Sultan.

Netaji wanted India’s national language to be Hindustani, a mixture of Hindi and Urdu, written in the Roman script.

Interestingly, his slogan, Jai Hind, was coined by him and his friend and fellow struggler, Abid Hussain. Abid had travelled with him from Germany to Asia and had kept him company throughout. Ambassador Abid Hussain, who was also present in the seminar, is the nephew of Abid Hussain.

In December 1943, when the Japanese Govt, handed him the control of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (whom he wanted to rename Swaraj and Swatantra), he visited the Cellular Jail where many nationalists had achieved martyrdom.

In 1944, he moved his headquarters to Rangoon. Indians in Burma also helped him generously. One Abdul Habeeb Saheb donated millions for his cause.

Though the INA lost the Battle of Imphal in 1944, he said that these temporary failures will lead to ultimate success. “The roads to Delhi are many more,” he said. After losing the battle to telegram, cannons and automatic rifles (INA soldiers had muskets), they retreated on foot from Burma to Thailand under constant enemy firing—they walked on foot for 23 days!

On 8 July 1945, the foundation stone for the INA Memorial was laid in Singapore, with the motto of the martyr: Unity, Faith, and Sacrifice. The British with cannonfire later blew the memorial away in the last war.


Netaji’s patriotism and revolutionary ideals not only informed the history of India, it also had profound impact on the society and politics of the entire South East Asia. Professor A Mani and Professor P Ramasamy argued in their paper that INA affected the psyche of Indian immigrants of South East Asia who were mostly living and working in appalling conditions as plantation workers. Through INA, their minds were awakened and revitalized, which later affected the trade unions, politics and community organizations of South East Asia.

Three INA veterans, namely, Mrs Rasammah Bhupalan and Mrs Janaki Nahappan of Malaysia and Mr Ajit Kumar Guhatakurta of Singapore, who had fought under the command of Netaji, recounted their experiences of being a part of INA.

Subhas Bose’s saga lives on even after his reported death on August 18, 1945 but these veterans have kept the flame of Bose legacy alive.

Though he was said to have died in an air accident at Taipei on Formosa Island, The Hindustan Times'public probe concluded that “on present evidence it would seem improbable that Bose died on August 18, 1945, from burns he was said to have received in the air accident at Taihoku airport.”

Whatever the truth, Netaji’s legacy of freedom will always inspire the deep bonds that exist between Singapore and India.

(The Webcast of this ISEAS seminar will be available on this page from August 21, 2006)

Lady in the water

Terrible reviews have greeted M Night Shyamalan's latest outing, Lady in the Water. The local reviewer had problem with the premise of the story itself--a tale of narfs and scrunts--supposed to be an Eastern bedtime story that no one has heard in the East.

Shyamalan is a fantastic director, and I like some of his trademark story telling techniques, his camera placements, lighting, and cinematography techniques. And you have to agree that despite his penchant for casting himself in his own films, in roles however minor, he has given us some of the most original movies of our times. Though in his current film, he makes a character mock at the idea of orginiality in films. The character, a film and art critic, the only human character in the entire film that gets killed, says at one point: There is no orgininality left in the movies. Quite true. And Shyamalan's successful portrayal (in the act of the critic's killing) of what he thinks of the critics.

To begin with, I never liked the poster of this Shayamalan film: it is mysterous but in a scary way. I think the poster communicates a different kind of message to the potential viewers, and I will not be surprised if this film does not do particularly well at the box office.

The film opens with a message: We must return to good, we must stop being bad, and the mythic characters like the narfs are here to help us.

There are two things that make this film different, at least from the point of view of Shyamalan's earlier films. The first is casting Paul Giamatti who is brilliant in the film. In fact, one reason I went to see this film was Giamatti. I liked this actor in Sideways and since then I have been wanting to see more of him.

The second is Shyamalan's use of cinematographer Chris Doyle, who has a vast experience of working with Hong Kong auteur Wang Kar Wai. There are many departures from his trademark shots taking and the visual narrative style. The result is an interesting change. The pace of the film, the shots, the camera movements are in alliance with the theme of the film which is basically a retelling of a simple story that we are supposed to believe in.

Initially, Shyamalan was supposed to do this film for Disney but reportedly Disney did not see any potential in this film. Shyamalan hitched his wagon to Warner Brothers. Critics have already panned this film, and some have even declared Shayamalan a spent force. I think Shyamalan's time is not up yet and he will keep surprising us.

How much do you love me

There are very few actresses who are a pleasure to watch. Italian actress Monica Bellucci is surely one of them.

I went to see this french film, How much do you love me, just because of her. I was not disappointed at all. The director has made a clever use of her beauty and persona.

The story of the film is simple, or I would like to call it simplistic. A jerk goes over to Monica who is a prostitute and tells her that he has won a million dollar lottery. Without verifying his claim, Monica agrees to stay with him for a huge monthly salary. The guy, weak of heart, swoons with happiness, and his doctor friend, who himself leads a patehtic life, dies of heart attack when he sees a naked Monica. There are some nice comic sequences, the best is an argument on orgasm with the protagonist's neighbour.

And the most erotic scene in the film is not when Monica is shown naked or semi-naked. It is when she takes off her overcoat for the first time in front of the hero. The way she has done that scene, the erotic tension of that screen moment, is unforgettable.

Isn’t happiness a little overrated?

Every time there is a survey of unquantifiable traits like happiness and courtesy, we react as if someone has pricked a needle in our inflated ego of self-imagined humility or cast a stone at our glasshouse of laugh riots.

31 out of 34 in courtesy? 132 in Happiness Planet Index, the worst in the region? Could the rankings get anymore dismal?

The happiness rankings tell us that Singapore is a melancholy state and its black mood is shared by millions of its citizens.

In reaction, some sigh with despondency. Some froth with rage. Others try to debate and indulge in some introspection. Why are we what we are?

The question is: Is perception more real than reality? Do these rankings really mean anything? How does one ensure that a few citizen’s bad mood don’t take down a country’s ranking by several points?

Let us go beyond Singapore and look at a particular example.

As per the courtesy survey, Mumbai was ranked as the rudest city on earth. Mumbaikers were obviously not mighty pleased with their ranking but they grinned and bore it. And when the opportunity arose, recently during the July 11 train bomb blasts, they showed their true mettle. They went beyond courtesy. They demonstrated that humanity was alive and kicking even in the rudest city on earth.

I think, of all things, humanity matters most. It is the kernel of our civilization.

Singaporeans have also demonstrated their humane side during the tsunami two years ago. They broke all previous donation records in a short period of time. Every year they donate millions of charity dollars. That is quite commendable.

Coming back to the main issue, I frankly feel that happiness is overrated. All this song and dance about happiness is overblown.

Happiness is so mercurial. We don’t really know much about this animal.

A child beggar cries and begs at a Mumbai traffic light. He succeeds in creating enough pathos in you. You give him a coin and move on. You feel happy because you think you helped someone. You don’t look back. If you did you would know you’d been conned. The crying kid would be smiling on your back.

But, is his smile genuine? Is he genuinely happy? Who knows? And if you knew that he’d conned you with his theatrics, wouldn’t your happiness evaporate then and there?

Happiness is like God. If you went out in search of happiness, you won’t find it anywhere. Like God, it lives within your heart and you will have to find it there.

I will give you another example. When I was coming to Singapore, I was warned. Singaporeans don’t smile. They don’t laugh.

When I came here, I saw something else. One has to be simply blind not to see Singaporeans smile and laugh. Some Singaporeans prefer to maintain a reserved attitude though. In no city you will find all the citizens smiling and laughing all of the time. Singapore is no different.

But why are Singaporeans perceived to be so unhappy? I think there is a reason.
In just four decades, Singapore has leapfrogged from bullock carts to A380. It is no laughing achievement. This country’s success is a testimony of its people’s determination because it is people who make countries.

More precisely, it is hardworking citizens with aims, ambitions and goals who make successful countries.

Singapore is not built on tradition but on drive. Singaporeans display a sense of purpose in their day-to-day lives and so they seem to be humourless in public.

But the truth as we know is this: Happiness is a state of mind. Most often, we don’t know if we are happy but we sure know if were happy at some point of time. Right now is the time to act, to move on, and to live and let live. Happiness will follow.

On books

We know that bad news is good news. But is it true for books as well? Now an author has made the claim that bad reviews could actually augur good business. Read it all here.

Technology is really changing the way books are being produced and consumed (yes, consumed and not read, not necessarily). Now you can create your own book online with all the pictures, and you yourself are the author and designer of the book. Interested? It's all here.

Virgin’s Devi triumphant in the US

Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur’s comic book warrior Devi has a lot riding on her slender, but strong shoulders. Not only does Devi have to combat a fallen dark God called Bala; she is now the champion for Indian superheroes drawn from ancient mythology in lands that grew up on Superman and Catwoman.

In January this year, Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson teamed up with US-based motivational guru Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur to create an Indian equivalent of stylised, futuristic Japanese-style cartoon books known as manga. The three-way joint venture is also aimed at producing cartoon films. Virgin just rolled out its first comic book — Devi created by Kapur and artist Mukesh Singh — in stores across the US.

Devi has sold over 10,000 copies in the United States in the first two weeks since publication and the Virgin Comics reincarnation of the Indian Goddess is heading for cult status.

Read the full text here.

Why bother with Patrick White?

Sometime ago, a British newspaper did it with one of Naipaul's books. Now, an Australian newspaper has pulled the trick off with an Australian Nobel prize winning novelist, Patrick White. The results are similar. Intrigued? Read on:

HE is the nation's most lauded novelist, our only Nobel prize-winning writer, twice a winner of the Miles Franklin award and three times the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medallist. Yet without his name on the cover, Patrick White's work is apparently of little value to Australia's publishing industry.
Inquirer submitted, under a pseudonym, chapter three of White's The Eye of the Storm to 12 publishers and agents. This novel clinched his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, with the judges describing it as one of his most accomplished works.

Not one reader recognised its literary genius, and 10 wrote polite and vaguely encouraging rejection letters. The highest praise was "clever". A low point was a referral to a "how to" book on writing fiction.

Pan Macmillan referred the author to writers' workshops; Mark Latham's agent, Mary Cunnane, recommended the author improve by reading Penguin Books' The Art of Writing, for hints on character and form. Text Publishing, which prides itself on finding and publishing Australian literature, sent back a form rejection letter and HarperCollins flicked it back unread.

For the experiment, the title of the manuscript was tweaked to become The Eye of the Cyclone, and an anagram was used for the author's name, Wraith Picket. And the age chosen for the 33-year-old father of one was the number of years that have passed since White wrote the novel.

Cunnane is a respected agent of 30 years' experience. She wrote: "Alas, the sample chapter, while (written) with energy and feeling, does not give evidence that the work is yet of a publishable quality.

"I suggest you get a copy of David Lodge's The Art of Fiction (Penguin) and absorb its lessons about exposition, dialogue, point of view, voice and characterisation."

Nicholas Hudson, of Hudson Publishing, found the work perplexing. "What I read left me puzzled. I found it hard to get involved with the characters, so it was not character-driven, nor in the ideas, so it was not idea-driven. It seemed like a plot-driven novel whose plot got lost through an aspiration to be a literary novel. It was very clever, but I was not compelled to read on," he wrote.

Read the full article here.

Krrish and the Spirit of Asian Cinema

July has been a gloomy month for Mumbai. First, the torrential rains almost brought life in Mumbai to a grinding halt. Then came the July 11 train bomb blasts, claiming over 200 innocent lives.

But amazingly, true to the irrepressible Mumbai spirit, the city got back on its feet the very next day. The show must go on!

Buoyed by the same indomitable spirit of Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, is India's first superhero movie, Krrish, which has been spreading some cheer at home and abroad. The good news is that it has been declared a super hit in India.

Despite mixed reviews, the film has surpassed all commercial expectations. The rain-washed Mumbaikers have given their shower of approval to the fantasy flick, despite having to choose between the Bollywood US$10-million-Krrish ($15.9 million) and the Hollywood heavyweight Superman Returns (US$200 million). It is also currently running all across the United States and according to reports, has been doing especially well in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Illinois.

A beaming Mr Rakesh Roshan, the director-producer of this sequel to an earlier smash hit Koi Mil Gaya (I Found Someone, 2003), claimed in an interview that the film had made box office history by taking in the biggest ever opening in India. Not just that, the film is on its way to Harvard University as it has been shortlisted for an international-level case study.

Now that the verdict on Krrish is out, Singapore can take pride in its success. Krrish was extensively shot here under the Singapore Tourism Board's (STB) $10-million Film in Singapore! scheme, launched to generate more awareness of Singapore in countries like India — one of Singapore's top 10 visitor-generating markets.

Read the full article at Today.

The Myth of a New Delhi

FOR the last 10 years, New Delhi had been my home until I left for Singapore two years ago.

My friends, who visited New Delhi recently brought me amazing news about the city.

Delhi is transformed, they say. It has developed like never before; people are making lots of money, getting unbelievably high salaries and buying cars and houses like there's no tomorrow.

Impressive, I thought.

Read the full piece here.

The Myth of the New India

Pankaj Mishra likes to swim against the tide. When the world is singing paens to India's economic miralcle, Mishra writes an op-ed in the NYT questioning the fundamentals behind the assumption of India's miracle. And he marshalls some convincing data to prove his point:

"INDIA is a roaring capitalist success story." So says the latest issue of Foreign Affairs; and last week many leading business executives and politicians in India celebrated as Lakshmi Mittal, the fifth richest man in the world, finally succeeded in his hostile takeover of the Luxembourgian steel company Arcelor. India's leading business newspaper, The Economic Times, summed up the general euphoria over the event in its regular feature, "The Global Indian Takeover": "For India, it is a harbinger of things to come — economic superstardom."

"This sounds persuasive as long as you don't know that Mr. Mittal, who lives in Britain, announced his first investment in India only last year. He is as much an Indian success story as Sergey Brin, the Russian-born co-founder of Google, is proof of Russia's imminent economic superstardom."

"...The main reason for this is that India's economic growth has been largely jobless. Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy."

I agree with Mishra's conclusion--we need to do a lot of work before we can rightfully claim that the 21st century is the century of India: "Many serious problems confront India. They are unlikely to be solved as long as the wealthy, both inside and outside the country, choose to believe their own complacent myths."

What's in a name?

Probably a lot. That's why some places are wiped off the map, says Mark Monmonier in his book, From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow.

Mark says: "'Nigger's were abolished in the US in 1962. 'Squaw's and 'Jap's went in the decade following. The erasure of 'Dago's, 'Chink's and 'Wop's has been a more piecemeal affair. In From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow, Mark Monmonier reads map names to diagnose the racial, political and moral tensions which enmesh them. A toponym (the name of any feature that appears on a map), he argues, is both a legacy and an argument waiting to happen."

Name of places do fascinate me. If you go into the heartland of India, or for that matter, any other country, you will notice how the names of the places are linked with local language and folk lore. These days in the metros, however, you will find more anglicised names than ever before. In Delhi's suburb Gurgaon, for example, you will find a lot of apartment buildings named as Ridgewood and Hill View Apartments in Pocket so and so and Zone so and so.

Sometimes, even your name could have a geographical existence. I was really surprised to find out that my name stood for two different places in different parts of the world: Zafar in Oman and Anjum in the Netherlands. Interesting, isn't it?

Who's the voice of this generation?

Asks Lev Grossman in this Time magazine article.

" David Foster Wallace is 44 years old. Jonathan Franzen is 46. Jonathan Lethem, 42. Michael Chabon, 43. I point that out not to be rude--although I admit it is kind of rude--but because those are the writers that people--people who think about such things, anyway--think of as the young American novelists. And even by the notoriously elastic standards of the literary world--the only place on earth where you can still be a wunderkind at the age of 30--42 is not especially youthful. Wallace, Franzen, Lethem and Chabon may be great writers, but one thing they are not is young writers."

He goes on and then concludes:

"That probably gets at some of the truth of it. The world has changed, and the novel has changed with it. Fictional characters just can't get away with being generically white and middle class and male anymore, the way they used to. Not and still be the object of mass identification and adoration the way the Voice has traditionally been. We just don't think about people that way anymore: we're interested in the specifics of their racial and ethnic and historical circumstances, where they came from and who made them that way. If the novelists under 40 have a shared preoccupation, it is--to put it as dryly as possible--immigration. They write about characters who cross borders, from East to West, from Old World to New and back again, and the many and varied tolls they pay along the way. Their shared project, to the extent that they have one, is the revision of the good old American immigrant narrative, bringing it up to code with the realities of our multicultural, transcontinental, hyphenated identities and our globalized, displaced, deracinated lives. It's a literature of multiplicity and diversity, not one of unanimity, and it makes the idea of a unifying voice of a generation seem rather quaint and 20th century. I may love and empathize with the transplanted Bengalis who populate Lahiri's fiction, or Shteyngart's semi-Americanized Russians, or Foer's uprooted Old Worlders or Smith's international extended families. But I would never be so foolish as to mistake any of them for myself."

That's an interesting thought there. Reading experience, in this age of TV and rich media and what not, is not the same any more.

But to think of India in this context, thankfully there are a number of 30 or below 30 something novelists--whether they represent the voice of this generation is a differet matter.

Interestingly, in a poll in the same issue, to see the emergence of a classic novel written by the recent crop of writers, Zadie Smith and Jhumpa Lahiri are on the tops (at least as of now).