Indian Writing

So many things wrong with this movie. Where to begin? All those brows furrowed in righteous indignation. All that name-dropping of “issues”, including a gratuitous mention of the Mumbai train blasts of 11 July 2006. And halfway into the story Bobby Deol decides to become a dude. He races out of a coffeeshop to help some kids cross the road. And who does he meet but Priyanka Chopra, followed by several chiffon-sari moments…

A pity, because Kabeer Kaushik’s previous film Sehar was pretty good.

The devastating floods in Bihar have affected millions of people.

Goonj sends out an appeal to help the affected with material, logistical or financial support. More here.

Email from Siyahi:

Mantles of Myth - Narratives in Indian Textiles

13-15 December 2008

Indian textile style has evolved with the development of civilization and its significance is hallowed by traditions. According to the Rig Veda and the Upanishads, the universe is a continuous fabric with a grid pattern upon which cycles of life are painted. In the Atharva Veda, day and night are said to spread light and darkness over the earth as weavers throw a shuttle on the loom.

Textiles with narratives are seen across the country and their range varies from painted and printed textiles to woven and embroidered pieces. These textiles tell us multiple stories and represent myths sacred to indigenous communities across the country. Many have religious and ritual value in the cultures they come from whereas others are folk and tribal textiles that carry narratives of their origins and legends of their ancestors and gods.

These textiles remind us of the riches of material culture in traditional communities and the wealth of accumulated knowledge which is generally ignored. They augment the existing rich verbal and oral literary traditions that record and map cultures. Understanding and translating these is a key element of the Translating Bharat Project. An understanding of the real India is possible only by fathoming its multiple histories in myriad tongues and forms.

Mantles of Myth will be a three day conference wherein textile experts, writers, poets, musicians, performers, narrators, will bring together the diverse riches and variegated forms of story telling. This conference will provide a forum for discussions, debate and interaction to focus on how essential and integral it is for us to protect and preserve our folk lore, literary traditions and the colours and threads of our culture.

Panelists include Mamang Dai, Devdutt Patnaik, Wendell Rodricks, William Dalrymple, Laila Tyabji, Paola Manfredi, Ritu Kumar, Meghnad Desai and Dipankar Gupta.

From an email from Zubaan:

The eleventh (and final) lecture in the series Partition: The Long Shadow

Partition as a Metaphor of New Politics:
The 1940s Realignment of the Dalit Movement in North India
Dr Ramnarayan S. Rawat
Gulmohar Hall, India Habitat Centre
Wednesday 13 August 2008, 6.30 pm

Dr. Rawat’s presentation will point to the new emphasis on identity politics in the decade leading up to Partition. Although not directly concerned with the demand of Partition, Partition’s reflection of a new emphasis on political identity enabled Dalits of North India to frame their own agendas by defining a separate identity. Conventional wisdom has taught us that Partition politics fixed identities even for marginal communities, forcing everyone to choose between Hindu and Muslim. In this talk, Dr. Rawat argues that this is an inaccurate reading, instead arguing that Partition and the politics that led up to it made new opportunities for the types of self-definition available to marginal groups. Dalits of Uttar Pradesh, for example, appropriated the new situation by using it to their advantage in order to articulate and define a new Dalit politics. Drawing from his ongoing research on the history of Chamars in UP, Dr. Rawat argues that members of the Chamar community played a significant role in constituting a newly inclusive Dalit politics prior to the 1940s, concluding that the core of Dalit politics as it developed in the 1940s has remained largely unchanged today. Indeed, by the 1960s a commitment to the liberation of Dalits, a desire for social and economic progress, a sense of pride and identity, and a firm resolve to resist the domination perpetuated by Hindu society had all become securely ingrained in the minds and actions of Dalit activists and ideologues—commitments that are still evident today. The earlier concern with refashioning a pure, ‘untouched’ identity continued, but what became most significant during the 1940s was the emergence of a Dalit identity as a foundational category for the social and political reorganization of ways of thinking and acting. In exploring the impact of the ideas of Partition of the 1940s on other domains of politics, Dr. Rawat rethinks nationalist narratives of Dalit struggles and helps us recognize dimensions of history that go beyond a Hindu-Muslim binary.

Envisaged as a series of dialogues, lectures and readings from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the year long Partition: The Long Shadow programme marks the 60th anniversary of the Partition of 1947, a seminal event in the history of the subcontinent. This series of talks and discussions explores the multiple and somewhat unaddressed dimensions of the Partition of the Indian sub-continent.”

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The Indiaplaza Golden Quill 2008 shortlist is up. Also, voting for the Reader’s choice closes on 20 August.

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The Publisher’s Post is a weekly newsletter about the book publishing industry in India.

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The shortlist for the inaugural 2008 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize has been announced.

The judges, William Dalrymple, Kamila Shamsie and Samit Basu, will pick a winner from the seven books in this year’s shortlist: In Search of a Future: The Story of Kashmir by David Devadas. Kari by Amruta Patil. A Reluctant Survivor by Sridala Swami. The Music Room by Namita Devidayal. White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif. Smoke and Mirrors, An Experience of China by Pallavi Aiyar.

The Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize is the only Indian book prize that honours a first book. By awarding a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh, the prize aims to bring attention to deserving books of any genre by first-time authors. There were more than two dozen entries this year.

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To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Katha is conducting a nationwide hunt for Master Storytellers and Artists through its Short Story Writing and Illustration Contest. The contest is open to school students from all over India from classes 8-12. The last date to submit entries is September 15, 2008. The prize winners will be invited to the Katha Youth Utsav at the Katha Short Stories/Illustrations Awards Ceremony. There is a first prize of Rs. 10,000/- each for the best writer and illustrator plus participation in the Katha Youth Utsav, 2008 in New Delhi. Second prizes for 30 lucky students who will be awarded grants to participate in the Utsav. The winners will be eligible for a waiver of the festival registration fee and will win themselves workshops with an eminent writer.

For more details, rules and regulations please contact Gowri Palachandran by email at bestpracticesATkatha.org.

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Salman Rushdie on the writing of Midnight’s Children:

Midnight’s Children, a book which repeatedly uses images of land reclamation, because Bombay is a city built upon reclaimed land, was itself an act of such reclamation, my attempt to reclaim my Indian origins and heritage from my eyrie in Kentish Town, and by far the best thing that happened to it, and to its author, was its reception in India, where people responded not to the magic but the realism; where Saleem’s narrative voice felt to many readers - as it had to its author - like their own; and where the book was so heavily and successfully pirated that the anonymous pirates started sending me greetings cards. “Happy Birthday from the Pirates.” “Happy New Year. Best wishes, the Pirates.” These, perhaps, were the ultimate compliments.

Tiger on a Tree by Anushka Ravishankar with illustrations by Pulak Biswas. It’s a Tara Books publication. More about Ravishankar’s style here.

My son and I are fans. Who knew children’s books were so much fun?

Toward the end of the Sakuntala, the most famous of the three surviving plays by Kalidasa–the poet usually considered the finest in ancient India–the hero Dushyanta offers this poignant self-analysis:

Like someone staring at an elephant
who says, “There is no elephant here,”
and who then, as it moves away,
feels a certain doubt
and later, seeing its footprints,
is certain: “An elephant
has been here”–
such are the subtle
workings of my mind.

Or of any mind–the rueful king speaks for all of us. We almost always miss the elephant in front of us. By the time we make our retrospective deduction from the footprints, it’s usually too late.

(via) Here is the website of the Clay Sanskrit Library.

…can sometimes be delivered in unexpected ways. Not by getting the perfect child that every parent dreams of, but the imperfect one who helps them discover the strength and beauty of their own endurance.”

Manjula Padmanabhan on the Mehta abortion case.

The Man Booker 2008 longlist has been announced.

It includes Arvind Adiga (The White Tiger), Amitav Ghosh (Sea of Poppies), Mohammed Hanif (A Case of Exploding Mangoes) and Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence). Here’s a selection from the chatter:

What one of the judges had to say in a Guardian blog.

Laura Barton on thrillers and the list.

Canongate publisher James Byng doesn’t thinkthe thriller should be there. “I cannot respect a judging committee that decides to pick a book like Child 44, a fairly well-written and well-paced thriller that is no more than that, over novels as exceptional as Helen Garner’s The Spare Room or Ross Raisin’s God’s Own Country,” he wrote on the online forum.

Boyd Tonkin: There are five debut novelists on the list.

Thomas Sutcliffe: Maybe the longlist is all the Booker we should have.

As for Rushdie, according to A.N.Wilson, he and other “humbler scribblers, in common with most people in England, hold him in abhorrence.” Er, including his police minders, one of whom has also written a book… recounting, among other things, how they once locked him in a cupboard and went to a pub. But maybe Rushdie will tell his side of the story too.

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Also here’s the Man Asian Literary Prize longlist, which includes eleven Indian authors in a list of twenty-one. Indians on the list are:
Tulsi Badrinath (”Melting Love”),
Anjum Hasan (”Neti, Neti”),
Daisy Hasan (”The To-Let House”),
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi (”Lost Flamingoes of Bombay”),
Amit Varma (”My Friend, Sancho”),
Sarayu Srivatsa (”The Last Pretence”),
Kavery Nambisan (”The Story that Must Not be Told”),
Sumana Roy (”Love in the Chicken’s Neck”),
Vaibhav Saini (”On the Edge of Pandemonium”),
Rupa Krishnan (”Something Wicked This Way Comes”)
Salma (”Midnight Tales”).

Here’s more about the Indian writers on the list.

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And for those who aren’t on either of the longlists, no need to lose heart: here’s Pothi.com, a new self-publishing website where writers can themselves upload and sell their books online. Techtree has more information here.

Goodbye, Randy Pausch.

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Here is a story of remarkable achievement. Not only in what this young man has achieved, but also in his approach to life.

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