Indian Writing

Goya’s dog.

‘’There is not a single contemporary painter in the world that does not pray in front of ‘The Dog,”’ Manuela Mena observes. As I stand before it, I think of a story she recounted. The painter Joan Miro, in the last year of his life, paid a final visit to the Prado, and Mena was assigned to escort him through the museum. When she asked him what he would like to see, he said, ‘’I want to see ‘The Dog’ of Goya.'’ He sat in front of it for half an hour… “

Arthur Lubow, NYT, quoted here.

Email from Prufrock points me to Jonathan Safran Foer’s NYT op-ed on dogs in the city:

My morning walk with George is very often the highlight of my day — when I have my best thoughts, when I most appreciate both nature and the city, and in a deeper sense, life itself. Our hour together is a bit of compensation for the burdens of civilization: business attire, e-mail, money, etiquette, walls and artificial lighting. It is even a kind of compensation for language. Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness? And why does it make one feel, in the best sense of the word, human?

Via email from Hemali Sodhi at Penguin India, details of an event for Shama Futehally’s death anniversary (Futehally died of cancer in 2004). At the Habitat Centre, New Delhi, on December 2. Please do attend.

Penguin Books India and Ravi Dayal Publisher
present the works of one of India’s finest writers in English

SHAMA FUTEHALLY

Frontiers: Collected Stories

and

The Right Words: Selected Essays, 1967-2004
(posthumous collections of fiction and non-fiction)

and the novels

Tara Lane
and
Reaching Bombay Central

on Saturday, 2 December 2006 at 6.30 p.m.
at Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

Keki Daruwalla, Githa Hariharan and Gillian Wright will read from Shama’s work

FRONTIERS: COLLECTED STORIES

‘[Shama Futehally’s] short stories . . . are moving, full of atmosphere, and have their “point” or “moral” properly indicated (as in any good story). I enjoyed reading them and felt transported to India’ —Iris Murdoch

One of India’s finest prose stylists, Shama Futehally (1952–2004) was also among the country’s most accomplished writers of short fiction in English. This posthumous collection brings together all her short stories, written over two decades. The first and title story—also the last that she wrote—is a fictionalized account of the Uphaar Cinema tragedy in Delhi and was originally intended as a novella. Yet, even in its present form we see the exceptional skill with which Futehally presents people and events—whether it is the wealth of intimate details that make up individual lives, or the subtle but always effective awareness of larger social realities. Such skill, and the ability to lay open whole worlds of experience in spare, pared down prose, is evident in all the other stories, where we enter the lives of maidservants and memsaabs, riot victims and victims of fate, wives and husbands, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law.

Shama Futehally (1952–2004) was born in Bombay, and studied English at the universities of Bombay and Leeds. For more than three decades she combined a career in teaching with writing and translation. Her short stories appeared in several anthologies, including The Inner Courtyard and In Other Words, and her numerous book reviews and essays were published in all the major Indian newspapers and journals. Futehally’s published books include the novels Tara Lane (1993) and Reaching Bombay Central (2002), a selection of Meerabai’s bhajans in translation, In the Dark of the Heart: Songs of Meera (1994), Slivers of a Mirror: Glimpses of the Ghazal (2005), and her collected short stories—Frontiers—and collected essays—The Right Words—both published posthumously in 2006.

Rich and generous tributes to Shama Futehally from the Indian writing community, here and here and here. From Shashi Deshpande’s tribute:

Almost everyone who speaks of Shama will use words like “poise”, “grace”, “elegance” and “propriety”. Yes, one saw all of them in Shama. But these were not superficial qualities kept for public display; they came out of her strong sense of right and wrong. “We have our standards,” Munni says in Tara Lane. So had Shama. She adhered to her standards, whatever the cost — yes, even during her last illness.

Some of Shama Futehally’s writing is available online. Here is a tribute to Busybee, and to Indian English writing long before Rushdie and Ghosh:

It all takes me back to hot afternoons in Bombay (sorry, when talking of Busybee one somehow forgets to say ‘‘Mumbai’’) and to packed dusty compartments in suburban trains — all made easier to bear because one had bought Mid-Day and Busybee’s column was inside it.

That column did many things. It turned life in our crazy city into something gentle, humorous, middle-brow — in a word, sane. And like all sane things it reminded you that you were not alone — that others, like yourself, were always out when the gas cylinder came and always looking for a taxi on the wrong side of the road…

Busybee’s ill-assorted imaginary family had returned from a trip to Delhi, and his column spoke of cruising the Delhi streets and of seeing its acres of greenery. Then came this gem of a sentence: ‘‘And then there are all these government houses, filled with government families.’’

As far as I was concerned, the language barrier had been broken. Here was a sentence which could only come from an Indian speaking to Indians. It followed the laid-back, seemingly purposeless rhythm (‘‘And then there are all…’’) of the Indian vernaculars. At the same time it was packed with witty suggestion, because the concept of a ‘‘government family’’ can be understood by us and by nobody else on this planet. A government family means a certain type of worthy family which follows the two-child norm and which owns an ancient Fiat. It may not be the most exciting company possible but it is finally — I belong to a government family myself — not so very bad…

This delightful weekend in Kasauli. This one about the subjective experience. And this nice little piece about “the world’s most complex job”.

Picture of Shama Futehally courtesy The Hindu.

At the NGMA, Mumbai.

Came across this great Salon interview of Grace Paley by A.M.Homes.

AMH: I remember you saying you wrote a book every 10 years; are you a very slow writer or were there always so many other things going on?

GP: There really is a lot going on — raising children, political activities, teaching — and it’s also that I never developed good habits. My husband, Bob, always says, “Grace doesn’t have a single habit.” I do have habits [laughs]. It’s just all my habits are bad.

Topsia, Kolkata:

Every night, the owner of an illegal leather factory allegedly used to lock the daily-wage workers inside after the late-night shifts, so that no one would try to run away with the material meant for export. Or that no one would try to run away, period. They slept on the third floor, behind a collapsible iron gate that was kept locked.

One night this week, there was a fire in the building. Those who were trapped inside screamed in agony and banged on the doors.

The lucky ones were rescued. Others were injured, some critically. Ten people died. The rescuers are haunted by the experience.

This Sunday was the first anniversary of the murder of Manjunath Shanmugam. A sales manager in the Indian Oil Sales Corporation, Shanmugam was trying to stop the adulteration of oil when he was killed. The football-playing, music-loving IIML alumnus was 27 years old when he died.

From his IIML yearbook: “He laughs heartily, he sings heartily, he eats heartily, he sleeps heartily, and he plays heartily. In fact Machan must hold the record for the largest heart ever in the history of the world.”

The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust, set up by IIM alumni across the world, has been working hard to keep Manjunath’s memory alive in a meaningful way.

H.Jaishankar (IIMB ‘91), one of the trustees of the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust, sent me the following email:

On November 19, 2006 Manjunath’s first death anniversary the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust has undertaken following initiatives:

1) Launch of a national helpline that will help people across the country in using the Right To Information Act. (9250-400-100)

2) Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award.

The objective of Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award is to honour and encourage person/s or institutions who are working to uphold the values of truth and honesty in the Indian public life. We are looking at deserving candidates who have reported and actively rectified/have worked to rectify corrupt practices in government, public or corporate life.

The nominees will be evaluated on the basis of

1. Gravity of the situation and its impact
2. Corrective action undertaken , not merely reporting the situation
3.Extent of difficulty faced by nominee in correcting the situation

The valid entries will be assessed by a panel of distinguished jurors, drawn from the corporate sector as well as public life. Nominations will be accepted from 19th November, with details and form available on the MST’s website www.manjunathshanmugamtrust.org. The award carries a citation and a cash prize of Rs. One Lakh.

You can help us by nominating a deserving person. If you wish to nominate someone, pleasedownload the nomination form and send it to us at the address mentioned. You can also spread the word around through your emails/blogs.

We wish to make this annual award a success, and encourage more people/institutions to work to improve Indian public life.

A most worthwhile effort. Please help to spread the word!

Meanwhile, the trial continues and my thoughts go out to Manjunath’s family as they await justice.

Here is a comment that was left on my post about Mohammed Yunus who has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Hello to all the people who support Muhamad Yunus. You have an opportunity to learn more about his ideas and help at the same time. Ashoka: Inovators for the Public recently developed a group of films about Social Entrepreneurship, and Yunus is one of the speakers.

Ashoka - just launched an ambitious subtitling project with dotSUB, a new site that lets you translate films line by line. The plan: volunteers translate one video on Muhammad Yunus and one on Ashoka founder Bill Drayton into 100 languages in time for the Nobel ceremony on December 10th. Go on, translate a few lines (www.dotsub.com/nobel) and learn more about what these Social Entrepreneurs have done. You will be giving people all around the world the opportunity to enjoy and learn from these videos…

What a great project. Please consider participating by translating a few lines.

“General” Narsamma and her team of Dalit women are all set to launch India’s first full-fledged community radio station in Machnoor, Medak District, Andhra Pradesh. According to this report, with

- a studio building made of locally available low cost material
- two 16 and 4 channel mixers and stereo recorders
- two 100-watt FM transmitters with a coverage area of 30 km radius
- and a newly-cleared licence,

the radio station is ready to reach out to the people in its 100 villages of coverage. The report goes on:

Making radio programmes has been a child’s play for these tape-recorder wielding Dalit women, as they have canned 500 hours of them so far. “It’s our radio and we will broadcast programmes made by us for our benefit. We will talk about seeds, crop diversity, organic farming, health, hygiene, women’s problems and sending children to school, virtually everything that touches the community,” said `General’ Narsamma brimming with confidence.

There is expectation that the radio tailored to community needs would not only lend voice to the voiceless marginalised community but revive interest in the dying oral folk traditions like “Bichapola patalu.”

Small detail: I like the way the report doesn’t explain why Narsamma is called “General”. It’s her name, it’s what she’s called. Deal.

“The very bottom third is what you might think of as land; a body of water occupies the upper two-thirds. That bottom third is a greenish earth-color tone that suggests this landmass to us, and above that we have bluish hues that determine this watery body. You really have a lot of horizontals…

He actually uses only dots, small dots…

He uses the very tip of the brush to create what we just described as a scene, and he does not mix colors, meaning that these small dots, juxtaposed with each other, in a complementary manner, create this effect.”

Do you see? Lovely article in the New Yorker.

…and it begins with a cat called Simple Man. Also a feather. And mallards. And decoys…

Read on.

and shot her husband. In what seems like a honour killing in northeast Delhi.

A report about HIV+ children in Guntur who work to support their families:

Fifty-year-old Mani, a former sex worker and HIV-positive, adopted orphan Sambasiva who too is infected like her. But finding a mother has been no solace for the 15-year-old who has never gone to school. Mani is too sick to work, which leaves Sambasiva to toil 12 hours a day in a vegetable shop to earn a meagre Rs 25. Living with Mani in a dingy room in a brothel, Sambasiva is often sent out by neighbouring aunties to buy cigarettes and liquor when clients arrive, for which service he gets small tips. Ratnam, coordinator of NGO HELP, which works with HIV-infected children in Chilakaluripeta, says it is extremely difficult to motivate such children to study. “So all we do is provide them with food and facilitate anti-retro viral therapy (ARV) in advanced cases.”

Picture and extract from this Outlook report by Madhavi Tata.

Kanhailal’s classic production, Pebet.

Rustom Bharucha on the play:

Let me offer yet another instance from my theatre research of how the act of documenting a play can assume a political dimension. I draw here on my experience in documenting some of the non-verbal plays of the Manipuri director H Kanhailal — Pebet and Memoirs of Africa. The first play dramatizes the effects of cultural colonization on indigenous cultures. In this animal fable, a Cat, who is disguised as a Vaishnavite monk, abducts the children of Mother Pebet, a mythical bird. In the course of his indoctrination, he compels the children to stone their own mother with the Sanskrit maxim — “Janani Janmabhumishya swargadapi gariyasi” [Mother and motherland are greater than heaven]. The irony of these words is heightened in the predominantly non-verbal text of the entire play, which is structured for the most part around two words — `pebet’ and `te tu’.

My challenge in documenting this text was not merely to prepare a written text out of a non-verbal performance text; the more critical task was to participate in the resurrection of the play from the ashes of its memories as it were. Here I found myself playing the role of a catalyst, as I encouraged Kanhailal and his wife Sabitri to reconstruct the play after an absence of almost 20 years, with a very different cast and a somewhat altered political situation. In Manipur, I found that the very site of documentation compelled me to assume an active role as a writer. The professional demands of the job required a negotiation of existing resources and conditions of work. Not only did I and my photographer colleague Amit Bararia have to get involved in finding an appropriate space for the documentation, we also had to record the productions late at night when it was possible to photograph the plays without voltage fluctuations by stealing electric current from the main line…

The Animals’ War

Sculpture of a Nigerian bus, commissioned as a living memorial to Ken Saro-Wiwa and his Ogoni colleagues.

More here.

South African, Nobel Laureate, longtime anti-apartheid activist, now 83 years old, attacked at home by robbers, assaulted and locked into a cupboard when she refused to hand over her wedding ring even though she had already given them her cash and other jewellery.

And still refusing to leave the family home in Johannesburg.

Here’s what she had to say after the attack:

As the thieves grabbed the widowed author and her 66-year-old domestic servant, she was overcome more by sympathy than fear. “One grabbed me and had his arm across me. It was a muscular, smooth arm and I thought, ‘Shouldn’t there be a better use for these hands, this arm than robbing an old woman?’ What a waste of four young men. They should have jobs,” she said.

The robbers were after cash and car keys, which Gordimer did not hesitate to hand over. But after one of the thieves pushed her into her bedroom she balked at surrendering the wedding ring from her husband, Reinhold Cassirer, who died five years ago. “He pulled off my ring. He held me tight, against his chest. I was very close to his face and could see he had very little beard. He didn’t shave often. I would put his age at 18 to 22,” she said.

The two women were then locked in a storeroom. They were released about 30 minutes later by security guards who had been alerted by the domestic worker hitting an alarm button.

A week later, Gordimer was keen to view the incident from the other side. The robbers, she said, are products of a society grappling with the legacy of South Africa’s past. “I know that South Africa has a terrible problem with crime, with violent crime. But I don’t think the answer is more police. I think we must look at the reasons behind the crime. There are young people in poverty without opportunities. They need education, training and employment. That is the way to reduce crime,” she said.

Why look at his ashes
or fear his serpent
or heed his elusive
Vedic talk?
all you need to know is this
he is the essence
the god of all
that lives and moves

- Manikkavachakar on Shiva.

Shiva as Nataraja, eleventh century, bronze, height 111.5 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Picture from the exhibition Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

In Ghaziabad, some 20,000 entrants came to write the entrance test to join the police force. Finding the test ‘too hard’, hundreds of them started rioting and molesting women. Disturbing statement by a local resident: “These men will become gangsters if they do not become policemen.” More here.

Modal Minority has these posts on the job situation elsewhere - in Nigeria and in New York.

Trash your cigarettes. Shun restaurants and bars
that traffic in secondhand smoke. Eat organic
and low on the food chain. Steam vegetables;
don’t grill meat. Just say “no” to marijuana, Jack
Daniels and cocaine. Stay home: do not rent cars
at Miami’s airport, or ride the New York subways,
or dig potshards in the Negev after massacres
in Hebron. Don’t drive vans older than you are
to places you’ve never been…

The whole poem here. By Judith Strasser.

From The Cancer Poetry Project.

I think there are amazingly great advances being made in cancer research. I’ve met so many amazing doctors who are impassioned and convicted about finding a cure. Just the advances that have been made in the last few years regarding gene research as well as effective treatment are encouraging. We are past the time when the mastectomy is the only solution. It has only been in the last 20 years that lumpectomy and radiation/chemo became a viable option to having the entire breast removed.

Singer and breast cancer survivor Sheryl Crow, who is doing a great deal to raise awareness about breast cancer.

October was Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Survival stories, issues and more reports here. Also an incredibly courageous photo essay that brought tears to my eyes.

Art in the service of Desh. What a wonderful theme for the Prithvi Theatre Festival this year. And what better way to celebrate the Prithviraj Kapoor centenary. I also love the fact that the venues are spread out between Prithvi in Juhu, Land’s End at Bandra, Yashwant Natya Mandir in Matunga and the magical Horniman Circle Garden downtown.

Last night A~ and I saw Raj-Rakt, a wonderful play by Habib Tanvir’s Naya Theatre at the Yashwant Natya Mandir in Matunga. Based on a novel and play by Rabindranath Tagore, set in Tripura, performed in Chhattisgarhi, Hindi and Bengali, for a Mumbai audience… amazing. Maybe I’ll write more about the play if I get the time. Yet it’s not my favourite among Naya Theatre’s plays - which have included such superb productions as the now-classic Charandas Chor, Gaon Ka Naam Sasuraal Mor Naam Damaad, and Kamdev Ka Apna Basant Ritu Ka Sapna.

Shabana Azmi after accepting the Gandhi International Peace Award:

For non-violence to succeed, it has to rise from its death, not once but again and again. Never before has it been so true than the present time…

More here.

…at Project Why, where little Nanhe is learning to walk.

But for Babli, it’s three steps forward and two and a half back…

(via email from Anou)

Nidhi Kaila’s organisation Esha (esha_brailleATyahoo.com), which works with visually-impaired children, has come up with innovative little schemes - like Braille - embossing visiting cards on order for a rupee a card, or audio-recording a book of one’s choice for one’s drive to work. It’s not just about helping the children to earn some money. It’s also about making sure that one does that extra bit to show some sensitivity for the visually-impaired.

More here. And here.

(via email from a friend who would like to remain unnamed)

I’ve been busy offline organising my mother’s hospitalisation for a relapse of the ovarian cancer. Her health has declined and she’s visibly much weaker, but fortunately still able to read, make tea, watch television, go down to the garden with the dog… Her oncologist has put her on chemotherapy combined with a new drug. Everyone is hoping for the best.

I’ve always wondered what the tumour cells look like. The picture above is from here.