Writing Politics/Writing and Politics

With Salman Rushdie's being knighted and Chinua Achebe's winning the Man Booker Prize within days of each other, the postcolonial novel in English/english is again in the news. The knighthood sure has political implications, and has been promptly politicised too. The postcolonial novel is often avowedly political (Achebe's remarks about his own writing in the report linked above bear testimony) but what makes literature vulnerable in its relationship with politics is that some texts are particularly susceptible to being used for political agenda quite unthought of or unwanted by the author. Another writer whose work has been put to political cross-purposes is J.M. Coetzee. Of course that brings up once again the vexed question of authorial intention, and its place in cognitive protocols of response. At a talk show organised by The Telegraph on 9 December, 2004, in Calcutta, that I was fortunate to be able to go to, Rushdie dwelt on this troubled aspect of writing, and it seems it is worthwhile to revisit Rushdie's remarks on that occasion now. Here is Rushdie's own transcript of his talk that appeared in The Telegraph on 20 December, 2004. The punctuation seems to have been messed up in the internet version, and from a brief glimpse I can decipher that the commas, apostrophes and quotation marks have all morphed into question marks. Questions abound, for sure.

Sir Salman

Some news links:
The Times of India
The Statesman
Anandabazar Patrika
Aajkaal
Bartaman

These are the only reports of Salman Rushdie's being knighted that I found in the newspapers I read regularly. I am sure there will be more reports and features soon. I am dozing off as I wonder what the implications of this royal attention to literature in chutnified English, and of Rushdie's acceptance, are. But we will hear about that in the press shortly, anyway.

Caribbean Clouds

This picture is from some match in the Cricket World Cup 2007. I spotted it on NDTV or IBN or Cricinfo.

 

IBN news item on gay flamingos adopting

Here is an interesting story from IBN.

Besame Mucho

Soon after I mused about the accordionist, I bumped into another very talented young Latino accordionist on the subway last Friday afternoon. He made a dramatic entry on the R train moments before it began hurtling past Prince Street station: even with half his body still outside the train, he played a loud chord all of a sudden, and seemed to revel in thus shocking commuters out of their reverie. He played a medley beginning with Besame Mucho and going on to a melody I know only from Klaus Wunderlich, and can't recall by title this instant (getting old!), one of those melodies eminently suited for the accordion. He played much little compared to what others do on the subway, no matter how skilled they are, and seemed very aware of his competence, looking around and asking for the appreciation that he was sure he deserved and would be given, not like my humble smiling hexagenarian accordionist who acknowledged even every twinkle of appreciation. I even wondered briefly if I should give him anything, before finally choosing to give because he was very obviously skilful, and easiliy belonged to the top bracket of performers I have come across in New York, and of course he was playing for money. I wonder if he played a little more and showed less awareness of his skill in his demeanour, he would have collected more money in the same compartment. Perhaps that is what New York will teach him.


© Text: DURBA BASU 2007

Ford fiasco

With Graham Ford's declension of the BCCI's offer of being the coach of the Indian team, the BCCI has again made a laughing stock of itself. While Ford may have any number of reasons for refusing the offer (the short contract, the BCCI's choosing of his support staff for him do not seem very attractive propositions, but I will not enter into those issues here), the modus operandi of the BCCI especially for the last few years has only too often left a lot to be desired, and indeed one wonders whether the position of the coach would interest capable candidates from within and outside India any more at the present moment. The BCCI's way of (unofficially?) wooing Dave Whatmore before rejecting his application, and the subsequent hullabaloo stirred up about Graham Ford, and the sudden induction of John Emburey into the race all together suggest a most unprofessional way of going about the whole business of appointing a coach, and perhaps indicate continuing internal bickerings as well. Starting with the leaked email in September 2005, the BCCI has been regularly in the news for all the wrong reasons. There are bound to be differences of opinion among any large group of people, but the recent fiascos lead one to wonder whether the board, especially in its current prescriptive mood--draconian even--about the conduct of players and coaches alike, should not also determine for itself formal procedures beyond its electoral and constitutional affairs, for going about things that it must do periodically, and preferably, without blundering: it will have to appoint a coach through a proper selection procedure once in a while, and talk to the media before and after. Just as there is a long way for the team to go to get back to winning ways, there is a lot the BCCI needs to do stop looking stupid.

Graham Ford's statement on the Kent County Cricket Club website

On the Picture

Daffodils, also called 'Narcissus', seemed the logical choice after describing myself as I have. The flowers, the mirror, the camera and my reflection together stand for a preoccupation with perspective, reflection, and self-obsession. Narcissus wouldn't shrink to fit anywhere, but on this page, the whole page being HERS to fill, she will be content with a corner.

हिंदी!!!!!!

हिंदी! देवनागरी!

ब्लॉगर में हिंदी में एक पंक्ति लिखकर मैं बहुत बहुत खुश हूँ! इरादा हैं कभी बंगला में भी लिखने का मौका मिल जाएगा।

For the love of blogging!

I found I love my old blog too much to let go of it. And so, I have decided to keep both pages going. Too much resolve, I fear, from someone who has not been able to keep even one blog going properly!

In a Station on the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

-Ezra Pound

[Disclaimer: Ezra Pound's famous poem has nothing to do with this post except that both have an association with the underground railway, though in different cities. My choice of epigraph, honestly, is inspired by Pound's title rather than his lines.]

Hexagenarian, chubby-cheeked and grinning widely, he sat on a small stool, enthralling all commuters present with the Latino melodies that he played effortlessly on his piano accordion. From Besame Mucho to El Condor Pasa to La Cucaracha, he played them all with equal panache, and once obliged New Yorkers with the theme from The Godfather. In my eight months in this Mammon's den, of all the 'musicians' I have given money to, perhaps only one other man who played Latino melodies on a Spanish guitar on 116th St could vye with this man for felicity. Both, incidentally acknowledged not just the money passers-by would give them, but also their appreciative glances and nods. I was dismayed to see a "For Sale" tag on the accordion. As I embarked on the train, I faintly hoped the accordion wouldn't find buyers too soon, so that I could hear more of him. And lo! Two days later, I chanced upon him at another station, but as luck would have it, I had no money on me this time. It has been two months since then, and I have not seen him again. I only hope the accordion has gone to good hands, and my nameless artist does have another to play on, though not for the mercy of commuters.

Midwinter spring is its own season

I am in the mood for Eliot today it seems. So here are some more favourite lines. With all its improved typography, Blogger isn't allowing me to indent as I want. So here is some Eliot typographically altered from the usual anthologized text.

Marina

Quis hic locus, quae

regio, quae mundi plaga?

What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands

What water lapping the bow

And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog

What images return

O my daughter.

Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning

Death

Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning

Death

Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning

Death

Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning

Death

Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind,

A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog

By this grace dissolved in place

What is this face, less clear and clearer

The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger--

Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye

Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet

Under sleep, where all the waters meet.

Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat,

I made this, I have forgotten

And remember.

The rigging weak and the canvas rotten

Between one June and another September.

Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.

The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.

This form, this face, this life

Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me

Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,

The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.

What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers

And woodthrush calling through the fog

My daughter.

- T. S. Eliot

Evicted

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from...
...We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time...

From "Little Gidding", Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.

I begin again. The decontextualised epigraph from Eliot is as much an epitaph for my earlier blog as a prologue for this one. Logging in to blog after aeons, I find so much has changed on Blogger. For a brief moment, I faintly revolt against having to gulp down all the changes Blogger wants me to accept if I want to use their space. But what would it matter? I briefly muse on possible wider consequences of Blogger urging all users to update their blogs. I just want to write, and there wouldn't be much at stake anyway. So I accede as countless others have done. And then, I am dismayed to find the template I loved so much is no longer available. I re-posted my earlier postings, simply because I was loath to lose them--they are like pieces of myself. There must be some way to retain the earlier comments too. I would love to save the comments my friends made. The only consolation is that Blogger let me keep the same title. So here am I, typing away again.

Postscript: I have added the link to my earlier blog on this page so that I don't lose my friends' comments, and the older blog itself.

Another World, Another Time
“Biyer shanai jachchhe bole, chhotobelake jachchho fele,” stares at me from an 8'x10' billboard as I pass Golpark. A pensive Deepika Padukone, resplendent in bridal jewellery, a distant gaze on her kohl-rimmed wide eyes, her forehead gently resting on her bejewelled left fist… Saturday afternoons idled away looking at black and white photographs… my brother in a pram, jolly, chubby baby that he was… me and my brother on the day of my annaprasan… me crying disconsolately, sure that the lion over my head at the gate of Sakshigopal Mandir would devour me… my mother cuddling me in the lobby of a Benares hotel, my freshly lost incisor on the table in front... me in school uniform posing on the Victoria Memorial grounds, one sock drooping… … summer afternoons spent in coaxing the local sweetshop man for clay cups to pour milk for our kittens… poking fingers in the bellow of the harmonium while my uncle played and sang... reflecting sunlight on his face with book transperencies as he checked on the mirror if a shave was due... my brother and I busily assisting our father in repairing leaks on the roof before the monsoon set in… poking the colourful caterpillars that infested our ghaashphool in the monsoon so that they would curl up … Honking horns remind me I must pick up altered trousers on my way to my parents’ place from my in-laws’. At home, my mother has kept an album ready for me to take along to another land… my brother in a pram, jolly, chubby baby that he was… me and my brother on the day of my annaprasan… me crying disconsolately, sure that the lion…At night, when I hear familiar snores around me— I miss these sounds at my in-laws’— I login hoping to find my husband online. He isn’t there. I wait. I type something in a new Word document. He’s still not online. I type a few more lines, and more, and more. My blog is born.

© Text: DURBA BASU 2007

Blogger's Block?

This is the first time I am blogging in New York. I have been itching to write for a long long time and don’t know quite what has held me back. I had much more time before the semester started, and much more new in life each day than I do now. All the newness that my mind registered went into the long emails I wrote, and yet I never once tried to blog. Perhaps one needs to get used to even a new corner in a new home to think of it as suitable for personal, reflective activity, even through its fruits will be shared with others.

A Beginning

When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right-angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.I said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with Andrew Jackson. If General Jackson hadn’t run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch would never have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn’t? We were far too old to settle an argument with a fist-fight, so we consulted Atticus. Our father said we were both right.

From: Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, (London: Mandarin Paperbacks, rpt. 1995)

One of the many things Scout’s words here highlights is the existence and inevitability of competing narratives of the same event, which partly explains the reason I chose to name my blog as I have: it will inevitably represent only my version of things. Another reason that governed the christening is that this is a book very dear to me, and whenever I reread it (never in full), I am reminded of my childhood, and I thought I could have a blog that not only focuses on my present, but also my past, and the ‘pastness’ of my present.