Indian Writing

P.Sainath is one of the seven awardees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award 2007. From the citation:

In the early twentieth century, the press was at the heart of India’s freedom struggle. During those formative years, says Indian reporter Palagummi Sainath, journalism contributed to “the liberation of the human being.” In contrast, he says, India’s press today merely performs “stenography” for big business and the governing elite. As the economy surges, matters that call for the urgent attention of the public and government are ignored in favor of film starlets and beauty queens, the stock market, and India’s famed IT boom. Sainath has taken a different path. Believing that “journalism is for people, not for shareholders,” he has doggedly covered the lives of those who have been left behind.

Here’s an archive of Sainath’s articles.

…Ingmar Bergman.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s tribute here.

Mornings are for reading the Bombay Times…

An excerpt from J.M. Coetzee’s new novel has been published in the NYRB here.

… to the families of children with cancer:

Please don’t say: “I don’t know how you handle it, I just couldn’t do it!” What are we supposed to do, shrivel up and die because our child has cancer? We aren’t “handling” it because we are superior people, we simply have no choice. We have to protect our children. In fact maybe we are not “handling” it at all, it may be that we are a total emotional mess, but we have to save our kids so in the haze of hospital rooms and surgeries and toxic drugs put in our children’s veins we focus on the important facts that we have to know - like focussing on the taillights of the car in front of you as you drive through the fog. And we may have a smile on our face as we talk to you, but that doesn’t mean we don’t cry in the nights, it only means that we are trying to make you comfortable so that you will keep talking to us.

And this is how one small community in New Delhi has come together to support a family in their fight against cancer:

Satish Veshwal, 28, hurriedly counts his earnings for the day. For half of whatever he earns from a small-time departmental store in Mongolpuri, he gives to Ved Bahadur Thapa, his tenant for two months. Satish Kumar Saraswat, 52, meanwhile, goes door-to-door asking for monetary help from the neighbours so that Thapa’s 13-year-old daughter Beena wins her battle against cancer.

Beena has been diagnosed with leukemia (blood cancer) three months back. Thapa asked for advance from his employer but was sacked. He worked at a factory. Thapa’s neighbours in Madrassi colony, Mangolpuri, have now come forward for help..

(link)

“He was a great morale booster wherever he went,” says Flood. “He believed that his cup was always full, never half-full. He was always ready to work, eager to play _ and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items.”

Read Jake’s story here.

My brother’s attempt. It’s not quite accurate - Baby Berry has started four teeth, not three - but the wicked expression is about right.

Inter-country adoptions from India take considerably longer than in-country adoptions. CARA has invited comments on a set of draft revised guidelines on adoption available on their website.

Meanwhile I found this article on inter-country adoptions from India in the Guardian.

One of the worst things you can ask parents who have adopted from India is the advice they would give to others. Most will give practical hints: go to the Cara website; use the “iChild” talkboards to find other parents who have successfully adopted; register with your local authority for your home study; save up £10,000. Few will actually recommend it. Clarke says that the adoption process is like a bad labour; you forget the pain. “I say to anyone who is half-heartedly thinking about it, ‘Think more than half-heartedly, because it will push you emotionally to places you can’t imagine.’ Unless you’ve got cast-iron resolve and amazing friends and family support, you’d find it really difficult.” Baker stresses that it is absolutely worth it. “Our lives have changed so much because of Kuber,” she says. “He is a godsend, a beautiful child. Sometimes I think: if we had had our own children, could they possibly have matched up to him?”

Pretty low, it seems. In Chembur, Mumbai, some men in a jeep harassed a group of girls so much that one of the girls, a ten-year old on her way back from tuitions, was dragged under the wheels of the jeep. She is now in hospital.

No prizes for guessing who:

Actually I have shot in Manhattan but never in Mumbai, strangely.

50,000 silkworms are killed to make one silk saree. The cocoons are either steamed or dropped into boiling water before they can metamorphose into moths.

Here is an alternative: Ahimsa silk, produced from the cocoons left behind by silkworms after they have turned into moths. Here is the link to the APCO web page on Ahimsa silk.

Here is another article about Kusuma Rajaiah and his silkmaking process. It also mentions how, not surprisingly, an early call for Ahimsa silk came from Gandhi, who

wore ‘ahimsa’ leather sandals and promoted ‘ahimsa’ silk; the former made from the hide of cows that had died a natural death. He also hoped that the Indian silk industry would use only those cocoons whose worms had already matured into moths and flown out into the world, not boiled to death for the sake of the rich yarn known all over the world as a symbol of India.

In April, Riverbend’s family took a major decision: to leave their homeland.

I guess I’ve known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times. At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving ones home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?

Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion- a last case scenario- soon took on solidity and developed into a plan. For the last couple of months, it has only been a matter of logistics. Plane or car? Jordan or Syria? Will we all leave together as a family? Or will it be only my brother and I at first?

…So we’ve been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I’ve had since the age of four? Is there room for E.’s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

Still linking to the stuff.

Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference. But I did nurse the hope that my voice might combine with those of others — teachers, writers, activists and ordinary folks…

Andrew Bacevich lost his son to a war he opposed.

(via Land of Lime)

Terry Eagleton, writing in the Guardian, laments the end of political engagement in British writing:

For almost the first time in two centuries, there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life. One might make an honourable exception of Harold Pinter, who has wisely decided that being a champagne socialist is better than being no socialist at all; but his most explicitly political work is also his most artistically dreary.

Oh well. Alas, etc. But that bit about Pinter reminds me of Ian McEwan’s “Saturday” where the central character, an affluent surgeon who came up the hard way, buys himself a fancy Mercedes. He’s not sure how his poet daughter will react, but she seems quite okay with it - because according to her Pinter has a Mercedes too, so it must be all right.

The Mad Gardener’s Song

He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
‘At length I realise,’ he said,
The bitterness of Life!’

He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
‘Unless you leave this house,’ he said,
“I’ll send for the Police!’

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
‘The one thing I regret,’ he said,
‘Is that it cannot speak!’

He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
‘If this should stay to dine,’ he said,
‘There won’t be much for us!’

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
‘Were I to swallow this,’ he said,
‘I should be very ill!’

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
‘Poor thing,’ he said, ‘poor silly thing!
It’s waiting to be fed!’

He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage Stamp.
‘You’d best be getting home,’ he said:
‘The nights are very damp!’

He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
A Double Rule of Three:
‘And all its mystery,’ he said,
‘Is clear as day to me!’

He thought he saw a Argument
That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
‘A fact so dread,’ he faintly said,
‘Extinguishes all hope!’

— Lewis Carroll

What fun it was to read Kalpana Swaminathan’s new Lalli Mystery “The Gardener’s Song”. Set in Vile Parle East, in Utkrusha-A, aka Building:

“Building generally feels exact time of departure should be specified,” Paterphaker explained… Building is particular about niceties of that sort.

this little story about murder and other dark deeds is a very Bombay book, quirky and cussed and full of surprises.

I like this short story by Vinod Joseph in Epic India, a new arts and culture magazine published by Ashok Banker. This is how it begins:

The fast passenger bus to Kottayam made an exceptional racket as it rumbled past Baby’s house at eight in the morning and woke him up. After waking up, Baby lay on his back and tried to shut out all his problems. He seemed to have exhausted all options, all avenues. Never mind, he told himself. There’s always a way. He rolled up his mattress and propped it in a corner of the veranda where he had spent the night.

(Via Under the Fire Star)

Here’s an interview with Joseph in the same magazine.

There is a controversy raging over the ugly racist and colonialist stereotypes in Tintin in the Congo.

I’ve read the book (by borrowing someone else’s copy - I didn’t pay money for it) and yes, I can assure you that it is quite ghastly. Apart from all the offensive “savage natives” stuff, I remember an early scene in which a gorilla steals something of Tintin’s - I think his rifle - so the intrepid reporter calmly kills another gorilla, skins it and then wears the skin to go chasing the first gorilla. Ugh.

(And I’m told the original even had a scene where a rhinoceros gets blown up with a stick of dynamite.)

Yes, it is most certainly “old-fashioned racist claptrap”, as a representative of the Commission for Racial Equality has said. However, I don’t think banning the book is the answer. One outcome of the banning proposal has apparently been a huge increase in sales. The book was only the second in the Tintin series, originally published in 1930-31, and it’s pointless to pretend that the racism and colonialism it depicted weren’t very much representative of the times. The Congo itself was a Belgian colony during that period.

A comic book like this can actually be a powerful way of making children think about the real effects of racism, colonialism and gratuitous violence. Rather than banning it, a better idea would be an advisory printed on the first page, pointing out that the book contains offensive racist and colonialist views and scenes of violence against animals. Surely that would make children think about these issues rather than blindly accept these depictions.

Some months ago, the apartment in which we live was taken up for pre-monsoon repairs and painting work. We moved into a fully-equipped service apartment where we only had to bring our clothes with us. Nevertheless it was a complicated move, involving not only A~ and me, our laptops and numerous books, but also my parents, our two domestic helpers, and of course the dog and the cat. Dog and Cat came with their leashes and harness, toys, pet food, water bowls and food dishes, the cat’s carrier basket, his all-important litter and litter box, a packet of catnip and a scratching post that would (we hoped) prevent his scratching up the rest of the furniture…

“We have a lot of stuff,” I said helplessly to A~ as we looked around at everything that needed to go with us.

And then two months later, when we returned to our apartment, in addition to all this, we had one more little person and all his paraphernalia to bring back with us: not only baby clothes, diapers, feeding bottles, formula, bottle warmer, diaper bag, massage mat, etc etc but also innumerable squeaky toys, teethers, a singing snail, a musical book, and a rubber tortoise that squirts water on anyone who’s trying to give Baby a bath…

“It’s like preparing for a war,” grinned the friend who had helped me with baby shopping lists. “But don’t worry,” she added: “there will be times when the baby will go to sleep…”

This is one of those times…

after close to two months of sleep deprivation parenting…

Baby Berry, who has been given all sorts of names from Chakkarakuttappan (by my Mallu sister-in-law) and Pongalkutty (by A~) to Tintin (by his Pishi), is doing well. He has a new game every day: one morning it is to chase the cat all over the house, the next day it is to go “Woo-hoo-hoo” at poor old Whisky Doggie. His newest thing is to do a cool dance to the Ballelakka song from Sivaji (No, he didn’t see the movie. He hasn’t even seen television yet. We did see the film, but we were so exhausted that we slept through most of the cool dialogues).

Oh, and we need to learn some new lullabies. A~’s been trying “Ae Ganpat, chal so ja,” but I don’t think that quite cuts it.

And yes, it’s all been intense, exhausting, and utterly magical so far.

Several people have written to me asking about the adoption process. The steps involved are listed on the Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) website. Good luck!!

(Picture via Mrinalsen.org)

Also see this post.