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I love, love, love this poem by Amrita Pritam. Maybe it is the beautiful voice in which Rasika Duggal reads it, maybe it is the comparison between romance and revolution that Paromita Vohra talks about that set a tone for this poem, maybe it is something I felt when I first heard it but could articulate, but I continue to keep going back to this video. The poem evokes both a sense of quiet and disquiet, content and discontent, hope and despair in me. I don't know the meaning of some of the words used and have perhaps, I have interpreted the poem in a completely different way than it was intended, but it remains special.

एक मुलाक़ात : अमृता प्रीतम 

 मैं चुप शान्त और अडोल खड़ी थी  सिर्फ पास बहते समुन्द्र में तूफान था…… फिर समुन्द्र को खुदा जाने  क्या ख्याल आया  उसने तूफान की एक पोटली सी बांधी  मेरे हाथों में थमाई  और हंस कर कुछ दूर हो गया 

 हैरान थी…. पर उसका चमत्कार ले लिया पता था कि इस प्रकार की घटना कभी सदियों में होती है….. लाखों ख्याल आये माथे में झिलमिलाये 

 पर खड़ी रह गयी कि उसको उठा कर अब अपने शहर में कैसे जाऊंगी?   मेरे शहर की हर गली संकरी मेरे शहर की हर छत नीची मेरे शहर की हर दीवार चुगली सोचा कि अगर तू कहीं मिले तो समुन्द्र की तरह इसे छाती पर रख कर हम दो किनारों की तरह हंस सकते थे और नीची छतों और संकरी गलियों के शहर में बस सकते थे…. 

पर सारी दोपहर तुझे ढूंढते बीती और अपनी आग का मैंने आप ही घूंट पिया 

 मैं अकेला किनारा किनारे को गिरा दिया और जब दिन ढलने को था समुन्द्र का तूफान समुन्द्र को लौटा दिया…. अब रात घिरने लगी तो तूं मिला है तूं भी उदास, चुप, शान्त और अडोल मैं भी उदास, चुप, शान्त और अडोल सिर्फ- दूर बहते समुन्द्र में तूफान है….

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Guftagoo is an interview series I like listening to while working often. I find the questions asked by the host Irfan to be more nuanced and interesting than the usual rapid fire variety and I quite like his voice. I came across this interview a few months ago, and I think this is one of the richest conversations that the show has offered. Udayan Vajpeyi is a poet and writer who lives and works in Bhopal. Some of the insights he shared about abstract art and how to relate to it really resonated with me, especially his early introduction to parallel cinema in his childhood. It has to an extent, opened me up to the idea that you can still like something even if you do not fully understand it. The world of poetry feels a little less inaccessible now. 

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Back again

I began this blog sometime in 2015 to claim some space on the web for archiving things I came across that I felt were worth remembering and sharing and reflecting upon. 

I only have a vague recollection of what triggered it at the time, given that I already had several other blogs running alongside, but I do remember that this exercise doing this made me feel a little grounded and less restless back then. 

I stopped coming to tumblr in the past 2-3 years but the urge to get back to this one has been nudging at me in the last couple of months. Revisiting some old blogs I used to follow in my college years and some new ones I discovered lately has also partially contributed to this rekindling of enthusiasm, besides the constant fear of a failing memory. Perhaps, it is also the crazy times we are living in right now.

It is 2020 and I want to get back to using this space again. This time, hopefully, I will post more regularly and stick around longer.

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The Pedagogy of an Open House

Came across this wonderful video of Norma Alvares sharing stories about having no TV at there home and how their children wonderfully adapted to it. Very Inspiring!

(This Video was shot during the Swaraj University Wisdom Weekend. Shot and edited by Bindaas Community Media Academy. Shikshantar Films, copyleft 2016.)

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An overdose of Desh Bhakti?

For the first time in many many months, I am not bombarded by the wedding and honeymoon photos of my friends and acquaintances as I log onto my Facebook account. 

Instead, there has been a fervent exchange of videos, open letters and articles that I have been bookmarking all week to peruse at length this weekend and get an insight into the furious debate around Nationalism.

NATIONALISM.

I never gave it much thought before. And to be honest, I never felt too patriotic either. I only cared for the free samosa and gulab jamun, if at all, I attended the flag hoisting ceremonies on the Republic or Independence Day organized by my college or housing society.

I vaguely remember reading about an aspiring/fledgling bollywood actress slapping and/or shaming someone in a theatre in Bombay for not standing up for the National Anthem played before the moviea few years back. I remember dismissing this self righteous behaviour as an attempt to get some media attention.

The poor actress may be unaware of the irony that Tagore, who worded our anthem, was himself a critic of Nationalism, and considered it a menace. 

In his essay, Home and the World he says that 'The country isn’t the earth beneath our feet, it’s the people' and he believed that “Oppression for the sake of the country is oppression of the country.“ 

(source: scroll.in)

But India now seems to be full of these righteous idiots, a little too many to laugh off or ignore. And they are not just the nameless faceless trolls you sometimes hear about. As people passionately begin to share their political views on Facebook (besides what they ate for breakfast), I realize there are a few desh bhakts amongst people I know, and it is starting ti make me uncomfortable. 

In such times, I am glad to hear some voices of sanity. Like P. Sainath abt whom I learnt on only two year back and Ravish Kumar, whom I discovered only a few months ago. I am really glad they exist. 

(P. Sainath is well known for his collection of writings titled ‘Everyone loves a good drought’ a book that I have only partially read. He also initiated an online resource called the ‘People’s archive of rural India’)

I was first impressed with Ravish Kumar’s kickass reporting when he talked about the Chennai floods, sorry for digressing. Now watch his speech...

In another video he asks....

तिरंगा हाथ में लेकर, अगर आप झूठी, बेतुकी या ग़लत बात कहेंगे - तो क्या मुझे मजबूरन मानना होगा, कि आप सही हैं? वाद-विवाद में लोग तर्क और विवेक लेकर आते हैं; क्या अब सिर्फ झंडा लेकर आना काफ़ी होगा?

Another brilliant read is this open letter to Arnab Goswami by someone called Aarti Sethi. Here are some excerpts:

[...]

It seems in the world you inhabit, and people like you inhabit, the nation is a god-given entity before the idea of which we must all lie prostrate in quaking terrified adulation. 

[...]

“ What exactly it is that you are channelling Arnab? What flock is it that has chosen you as its shepherd? What people are they who have deemed you their prophet? 

Have you thought about who might employ the hashtags you so helpfully provide: #NOPlaceForTreason? Perhaps, but there soon will be #NoPlaceForFreedom if you continue the way you’re going Arnab. 

Because this drug you are hooked on, this heady dangerous toxic mix of pompous affirmation and  self-righteous rage will consume us. 

Because you can channel it and feed on it and give it back so there’s more next time, but you cannot control it.

We are living in a country today where young people holding a meeting on a college campus are being hounded as enemies of the nation. Where other young people, people who presumably live their everyday lives with some modicum of non-pathological common-sense, celebrate the hanging of a man. 

There are people gathering themselves into lynch mobs in neighborhoods. Lawyers in a courtroom morph into a vigilante crowd that attacks teachers and students. There are groups of people creating Facebook groups whose only purpose is to issue objectless threats to abstract ‘enemies of India’. 

We are living in a country where a man can be lynched because of what he may be eating. That the apparent job of our border security forces is the diurnal head-count of cows grazing on the Bangladesh-India border.”

[...]

(source: caravandaily.com)

When I read about life in the Taliban occupied Iran by Azar Nafisi and Suad Amiry’s description of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and her daily life in Ramallah, I silently (and guiltily) thanked god for being born in India. But with growing intolerance and diminishing space for dissent, it seems, it won’t be long before I lose that luxury of assurance.

Next in line is this wonderful performance by Ankit Chadha and Himanshu Bajpai in ‘Daastan-e-Sedition’

I really don’t know how to end this post, may be this is just the beginning of more dark times to come, of more stories of courage and reason to surface and more lessons to be learned. The faculty at JNU are taking open classes about the idea of a nation and  I am hoping these videos are shared. 

As P. Sainath told the students of JNU, you can be shocked, you can be disgusted, but you cannot be surprised. I guess, that is what we have to prepare ourselves for...

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All the marvelous earth

A thoughtful piece on mindfulness and being in the moment by J Krishnamurti shared by Deshna, my senior from college who is a very inspiring person herself. It is good to have such reminders every once in a while.

“ Do you have a sense of beauty in your life, or is it mediocre, meaningless, an everlasting struggle from morning until night?

What is Beauty? It isn't a sensual question, nor a sexual question. It is a very serious question because, without beauty in your heart, you cannot flower in goodness.

Have you ever looked at a mountain or the blue sea without chattering, without making noise, really paying attention to the blue sea, the beauty of the water, the beauty of light on a sheet of water?

When you see the extraordinary beauty of the earth, it's rivers, its lakes, mountains, what actually takes place? What takes place when you look at something which is actually marvelously beautiful:a statue, a poem, a lily in a pond, or a well-kept lawn? 

At the very moment, the very majesty of a mountain makes you forget yourself. Have you ever been in that position?

If you have, you have seen that then you don't exist, only that grandeur exists. 

But a few seconds later or a minute later, the whole cycle begins, the confusion, the chatter. So, beauty is, where you are not.”

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People are stories

I was clearing my drafts folder in gmail this morning when I found these lines written by Homi that I had copied down many days ago.Really nicely put. 

”Some stories take their own time to to be understood, just as some people take their own time to understand. Moving further, how do you and i relate to yourself, myself and to others? Through stories - yours, mine and theirs, of yourself, myself and their selves. People, hence, are a collective of stories. People are stories.”

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Pictures, what you see and don’t see.

I love almost everything that Hemant writes. Recently discovered another brilliant post on his blog ‘munna on the run’. This piece, speaks to me, perhaps a little more, because it identifies with my own pet peeve about people constantly clicking pictures. Or maybe it’s just his way of putting things. Anyway, read on-

“Sometimes what you don't see in the picture says a lot more than what you do see in the picture. 

What the picture's captured magnificent autumn colors, the duck making its way across the sky that has fallen down in the lake, the sun taking its annual vacation on the trees making them turn yellow and gold, the flatirons in the distance - don't show is the coyote that hurried its way to the water, drinking its fill and going quickly out of sight. Scaring a few rabbits. 

But it paid no mind to the white tailed wonders. It was on some other quest. What the picture doesn't play back is the soft sound of the birds who are quiet this time of the year. Cars stop, people get out, people run, people run with dogs, dogs run with people, cameras with their flashes (oh why), camera with their flashes closed (phew), everything and everyone stands, watches this view, captures it, Instagrams it and Facebooks it. And move on. Always hurrying away. Like the coyote. 

And I wonder, sitting there, not moving, not running, not running with my Nikes on, not running with a dog - that there are so many stories we will never listen to, never hear, never look for - for they exceed our internal camera specifications of finite megapixels.”

Don’t you agree?

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Tum bilkul hum jaise nikle...

Urduwallahs shared this super cheeky poem by progressive Urdu poetess,Fahmida Riaz comparing the rise of Hindutva in India with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. Kya mast aurat hain yaar! Haste haste rona aajayega!

Shabana Mir translated this poem in English on her blog Koonj.

tum bilkul hum jaisey nikley ab tak kahaN chhupe the bhai voh moorkhta, voh ghaamarpan jis mein hum ne sadi ganwai aakhir pahunchi dwaar tumhaarey arre badhai bohot badhai

preyt dharam ka naach rahaa hai qayam Hindu raaj karoge? saarey ultey kaaj karogay apna chaman daraaj karogey tum bhee baithey karogey sochaa poori hai waisi tayyari kaun hai Hindu, kaun naheeN hai tum bhi karogay fatwe jaari hoga kathin yahaN bhi jeena raatoN aa jayega paseena jaisi taisi kata karegi yahan bhi sabki saans ghutegi kal dukh se socha karti thi soch ke bohot hansi aaj aee, tum bilkul hum jaise nikle Hum do qaum nahin the bhai!

bhaar mein jaaye shiksha viksha ab jaahilpan ke gun gaana. aage gadha hai yeh mat dekho wapas laao gaya zamana bhasht karo tum aajayega ulte paaon chalte jaana dhyaan na mann mein dooja aaye bas peeche hi nazar jamana ek jaap saa kartey jao vaaram vaar yahi dohrao kitna veer mahaan tha Bharat kaisa alishaan tha bharat phir tum log pohonch jaogay bas parlok pohonch jaaogay hum toh hain pehle se wahan par tum bhi samay nikalte rehna ab jis nark mein jaao wahan se chitthi vitthi daalte rehna.

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A Dream called America

I am presently reading a memoir of a literature professor Azar Nafisi titled ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’ who resigned from her position when wearing a headscarf became mandatory and gathered a group of her most committed students and invited them to come to her house on Thursday mornings for a secret reading class to discuss forbidden Western books such as Nabakov’s Lolita.

(Photo Credits: Wikipedia, artsatl.com)

One of the interesting episodes from the memoir is the incident when Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ is put on trial, with students acted as prosecutors and defense. There were a lot of interesting arguments about culture, morality, power of literature and dreams in general. Here’s an excerpt-

“It is also about loss, about the perishability of dreams once they are transformed into hard reality. It is the longing, its immateriality, that makes the dream pure.

[...]

Dreams, Mr Nyazi, are perfect ideals, complete in themselves. How can you impose them on a constantly changing, imperfect, incomplete reality? You would become a Humbert, destroying the object of your dream; or a Gatsby, destroying yourself. “

I have been personally struggling with the idea of dreams lately- whether they sabotage lives of people who refuse to settle for reality or do they reward those who are willing to believe. And it was while getting lost in these thoughts, that I recalled a documentary titled ‘A Dream called America’, made by my senior from NID- Anoop Sathyan on a 15 year old boy from Ahmedabad named Shahbaz.

Shahbaz, is the son of Aftab who makes a living by repairing cycles on a footpath. He gets an opportunity to study in the US for a year on a scholarship, where he was hosted by an American couple. That one comfortable and carefree year he spent in US changed his attitude and after reaching India, he badly wants to go back and settle in US, leaving his parents in a dilemma.

I was very moved by this film, but I had a tough time taking sides. Aftab kaka is a familiar face, we cross him everyday working on the cycles, when we walk back home from college night.  It made my eyes moist to see how hurt his family was by Shahbaz’s attitude. 

A remark by an elderly participant during Christine Fowle’s workshop in Panaji, Goa comes to mind. She commented that in Goa, it is often joked that-

 “If you want to ensure loneliness in your old age, send your kids for higher education.”

I remember feeling both uncomfortable and defensive while a few others nodded or murmured their agreement. I have myself often argued with my parents that giving ‘permission’ was not the same as giving ‘freedom.’ and how children are like kites, they feel they r soaring on their own but they are in reality, controlled by the parents handling the strings, but I will avoid going on another tangent.

I am reminded of a quote ( unsure if it’s by Ralph Waldo Emerson or Oliver Wendell Holmes )-

“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

So yes, we could dismiss Shahbaz as a selfish brat, but I do feel it is more complex than that and I could also somewhere relate a little to what Shahbaz might have experienced on returning.  

Anyway, I am still undecided on my take on the issues that come up in the film but I have a feeling that it will keep revising over the years.

(posted on March 22, 2015)

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Scary, No Scary

I first came across Zachary Schomburg’s writing in a poetry workshop conducted by Christine Herzer at NID two years back. 

I honestly could not make sense of most of his surrealistic poetry in prose form, it was way too bizarre for me to comprehend, but for some weird reason I was drawn to this poem of his-

Scary, No Scary

One night, when 

you return to your childhood home after

a lifetime away, you'll find it abandoned. Its

paint will be completely weathered.

It will have a significant westward lean.

There will be a hole in its roof that bats fly out of.

The old man hunched over at the front door will be prepared to give you a tour, but first he'll ask Scary, or no scary?

You should say No scary.

(posted on March 20, 2015)

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Vegetarian zone in Palitana

Maharashtra’s recent ban on beef and a friend’s visit to Palitana, a pilgrimage site for Jains’ a few days ago, reminded me of an article in Outlook by Ms Namrata Joshi that I had read sometime back about Jain monks demanding a ban on non vegetarian food in the town.

While I am a vegetarian myself and don’t particularly find any pleasure in slaughtering animals, I find this demand of a vegetarian zone to be imposing and unfair and I hope this doesn’t happen.

I really feel that all people should limit their religious practices within the confines of their homes and not go around preaching it to others. And Jains, I felt, always had this sense of superiority. Of being better than others. I cannot and should not generalize, but this is what I sensed growing up in a Jain family. My maternal grandmother used to always say that one must have done a lot of ‘punya ka kaam’ in the previous birth to be born in a Jain family. I have heard a Jain monk, with all wit and charm, talk against Christians and Muslims. I was a little shocked to hear him do that and just sat there seething in anger, but if I do come across him again (hopefully not when I am with my mother) I would like to give him a piece of my mind!

A friend had once mocking remarked- “Jain paani ukaadi ne pive pan loi sidhu pive” (I cannot do a good job of translating it from Gujarati, but basically, it comments on the hypocrisy of Jains by saying that while they drink water after boiling it, they suck other people’s blood directly). I thought it was hilarious but my parents were offended when I shared it with them.

But it is so true! For a community who would not hurt even a fly, they can be really insensitive and intolerant of people of other faith, not only insisting on determining what they should or should not eat but also affect their livelihoods.

(This was not supposed to be a rant but I feel better now, having got it out of my system.)

Some more beef madness here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C57RTAwiOc4

(posted on March 20, 2015)

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The storm

I read my first Murakami last month.

If open ended movies make you uncomfortable, or if you have a compulsive need for closure, Kafka on the shore can be disorienting. But if you like making up your own stories, it can be a wonderful journey.

I initially sped through the pages’, greedily looking for answers and thinking the ambiguity of the text will be resolved in the end. While the language was not difficult to read, the text was deeply layered and could be interpreted in so many different ways. It was up to the reader to draw their own meanings. I was reminded of the concept of ‘Reader as a Writer’ that Ms Seema Khanwalkar mentioned in our narrative theory class.

It took me a long while to realize that the way to enjoy a Murakami was to linger and get drawn by the mysteries, relish the words, not go looking for answers but immerse yourself in the questions. I will reread it, someday with more patience. For now, I want to share this extract from the book. It is so, so powerful-

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn.

Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. 

So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step.There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. 

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”

(posted on 17 March, 2015)

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Believe

Was checking out Vishwajyoti Ghosh's graphic novel 'Delhi Calm' in the Library when I came across this line-

It takes a lot to leave everything for what you believe in. But before that, it takes a lot to believe.

This is so, so, so true!

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John Goddard's Life List

This incredible man wrote down 127 goals he wished to experience (when he was just 15!!! ) and managed to accomplish about 109.

So damn inspiring!

(posted on March 14, 2015)

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Curfewed Night

My initial introduction to the Kashmir issue happened during an orientation camp we had, some 6-7 years ago in Panchgani, that I attended with my fellow team members of the Beyond Borders Mumbai Chapter. I learned about terms plebiscite and AFSPA.

But it was in 2009, on my trip to Ladakh, that this book by Basharat Peer was brought up while interacting with Vinod’s friend Abid during our short stay in Shrinagar, 

(Photo Credits: kashmirinetwork.com) 

 Out of curiosity, I bought it. And read it. And realized the full extent of the horrors of AFSPA. It was not easy to go through page after page of disturbing accounts of violence, but it was difficult to turn away too. I remember frequently turning to the back cover and staring at the author’s picture, trying to imagine growing up in war torn Kashmir. I also remember trying to share my copy with a few people and starting a few conversations. A few of them did read it but I feel I did not try hard enough. I stopped too soon. I was also hesitant to bring this up with a few friends who had an army background, but I now feel, it will be interesting to get their perspective too.As an Indian, it can make you deeply uncomfortable, but I think it is important to not ignore this memoir.

(Photo Credits: India today.in)

I recently saw Haider. But I could not focus on the storyline and appreciate the cinematography or the powerful performances of the actors. Because I knew Basharat Peer had helped Vishal Bharadwaj with the script. Somewhere I began excepting to see scenes from his book, forgetting it was not his story. But the experience felt so incomplete, so many holes, so many things left unsaid. This is by no means an objective evaluation of the movie, just a recollection of how it left me feeling at the end of watching it.

(Posted on March 14, 2015)

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Crocodile in water, Tiger on land

This cheeky team has been throwing light on a variety of issues disguised as insults through their comics. Every Monday.

Here’s a sample from their tumblr-

(Posted on March 13, 2015)