Indian Writing

Here is Outlook’s list of what they call “25 people who will never make it to the Power List”.

Since this magazine has a deserved reputation of being a bit of a maverick, we decided to imitate the hallowed Power List formula, adding a characteristic Outlook twist. We have compiled the Alternative Power List by hailing 25 people who will never make it to any conventional Power List, and whose names you’ve probably never heard. Or heard and quickly forgotten.

Update: Thanks to Amitava (see comments below) for reviving the discussion about names for an alternative Alternative List. I would begin with Mahasweta Devi, who speaks truth to power like few others in our country.

And Sister Sudha Varghese, working with Musahar girls in Shivala Musahari in Bihar.

Suggestions welcome.

Update (April 30): A new comment (see below) by someone who was part of the group that put the list together.

KABIR
Translated from the Hindi by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

[ Listen Carefully ]

Listen carefully,
As neither the Vedas
Nor the Koran
Will teach you this:

The rest here.

Farewell to Poornachandra Tejaswi, novelist, essayist, farmer, lover of nature, and the son of Rashtrakavi Kuvempu. Tejaswi passed away in Mudigere, Chikmagalur this month. Land of Lime has a post here. In this interview, among other things, U.R.Ananthamurthy speaks of how, when he married a Christian woman, it was difficult for them to find a house on rent - and it was Tejaswi who found the couple a house in Vontikoppal:

Early in the morning, Tejaswi would come home and we talk on this, that and the other. Then we would cycle off to Coffee House, he on his cycle and me on mine, with my pregnant wife on the carrier behind. And there would talk some more.

Then we would break off to go to Devaraja Market and buy vegetables. Ah, the market, it was so beautiful, the fruits stalls, the flower stalls, the sandige-happala stalls… There was only one shop which had Nanjangud rasabaale, and the owner was such a stern man that if we haggled over the price, he would refuse to sell us the bananas! Mysore, back then, was a very special city.

*****

In Kolkata, Leela Majumdar, writer of children’s books and longtime editor of Sandesh, passed away this month. This cousin of Sukumar Ray, aunt of Satyajit Ray and onetime English topper at Calcutta University in her youth had turned 100 years old this year. From her radio series Monimala, here is Thakurma’s advice to her granddaughter Monimala:

Look at how things are, in the same house, with Goopi. He is a year older than you, but what a little boy he goes around being still, and nobody seems to mind at all. Yet, if you have to go somewhere, then they will not let you walk alone, and might even send that Goopi with you. Doesn’t this make you quite burn with rage?… The reason why he is sent with you is this: not everybody in this country has learnt to respect women yet. People will bother you in various ways if you’re walking alone, but they will not say anything if Goopi’s with you. This is infuriating, but it also makes me laugh.

“All this makes me think, you should try to make it possible that, ten years from now, our women too can walk alone, safely and fearlessly…

Yesudas recalls the last birthday of his guru, Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, and the concert they gave outside the Parthasarathy temple in Guruvayur (where Yesudas, a non-Hindu, was not permitted to enter).

“During Ekadesi, my guru used to visit Guruvayur, offer pujas and render a concert as an offering. Since I was forced to keep off the confines of the temple, he too decided to stay out and we sang together before the Parthasarathy temple.

“The Divine Grace of Guruvayurappan can be felt in no small measure here, too, he had said. Though I had said that my guru himself was the embodiment of the Lord, I was really pained, and that sorrow haunts me even now. But for me, my guru could have sung at the temple.”