Indian Writing

Wim Wenders on “A Soul for Europe”:

The whole “American Dream”
is really an invention of cinema,
and it is now being dreamed by the whole world.

I don’t want to discredit this,
but merely ask the question,
“Who is dreaming the European Dream?”
Or better: How are we encouraged to dream it?

A concrete, current example just occurred to me:
In the next 2 months or so,
some 20, 30, or even 50 million Europeans
will watch one and the same film.
It started the other day:
every channel up and down,
every programme and news show,
- and I’ve been surfing TV stations throughout Europe -
reported at large on a film premiere in London.
As you have probably guessed already,
all the racket was about James Bond,
that knightly British gentleman,
who has been saving the world from disaster for the last forty years….

Peter Singer writes about veal calves and breeding pigs being prevented from turning around freely or extending their limbs in their cages.

I’m reminded of the Goregaon dairy buffaloes. They spend most of their lives confined in cramped spaces. Many of them died of drowning in the floods of 26 July 2005 because they were tied to the posts and unable to swim to safety.