“My mother lived in a world where I was the President of India and married to someone called Vivekta and she was the heiress to a fortune that ran into many crores; Rajiv Gandhi and Giani Zail Singh were paying guests in her father’s home. We, the sane, call this world schizophrenia.”
Lovely Nirupama Dutt has introduced A Book of Light a collection of 13 stories by care givers edited by Jerry Pinto in Hindustan Times.
Please read …
Friends and friends of ‘Sepia Leaves’, the most common response that I got from readers who were or had been care givers has been: ‘Thank you. We did not know we had a story.’
Now, Jerry Pinto has gathered many stories of care givers, loved ones of whose are behind the pale and brought out a collection named ‘A Book of Light’. The collection features harrowing yet moving, even empowering, stories—about the terror and majesty of love; the bleakness and unexpected grace of life; the fragility and immense strength of the human mind.
My own story in the collection is called: ‘My Mother’s Breast’. It is the sequel to ‘Sepia Leaves’. This is the story of my mother’s death. I wrote it within days of her passing away in 2007. It has taken this long to find a home. I am very satisfied that it appears in this collection – in solidarity with all of us who battle many demons which are grounded beyond the narrow myopic discourses that rule our society.
Please bless. Please order and share among loved ones.
See more here…
Friends, a few weeks ago I had raised the question of Sikh identity in my article on the Gurdwara Amendment Law regarding Sehajdharis in The Caravan Magazine. That went viral. Here is another argument in the context of a slightly older but even more revealing court case.
However, you look at it the Sikh identity is now severely compromised. The only way ahead, and I dread it, are the calls for ‘ghar wapsi’ which the right-wing is raising and what would lead to a split in the community – the way other established monotheistic religions have gone: Islam and Christianity. Ask ourselves, did we ask for this? Look at the Sikh identity question through these two angles.
‘The irony of a Sikh community, known much beyond its numbers for its service and egalitarianism, is that it fights its identity battles in the courts of a secular country and ends up losing in the real sense when it thinks it is winning court battles.’
Please read here …
Friends, some times domestic conversations become public discourses. I remain proud of Lakshmi’s endeavour to extend conversations in classrooms with artists who continue to work with students and learners.
‘In the current age, the human being is most vulnerable and is in grave danger of being appropriated by the external powers. Whether it’s a nation state, or a political discourse or a religious identity or if it’s a question of language or of gender or of caste, all these are supra-narratives that will want to appropriate your voice. So the big effort in today’s age is to create a voice that cannot be easily appropriated.’
Friends, my translation of Daljit Ami’s last week’s column in which he says: It won’t be wrong to assert that Kanhiaya Kumar has really been arrested for not agreeing to become ‘reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind.’
Please read …
Friends, here is my translation of Daljit Ami’s piece in which he asks some tough questions which could lead to introspection by those very groups which seek to fight the oppressive forces. Every life is precious: Rohith’s, Navkaran’s …
‘Paash said, ‘If those engaged in changing the times won’t die from fever.’ If Paash were alive today, he would have said, ‘they won’t die from analyses either.’’
Please read …
Friends, upon learning of Rohith Vemula’s death on the University of Hyderabad campus, I looked back at my own time in the same university twenty years back.
‘… I relate to his (Vemula’s) emptiness.
While mental illness in my family had scarred me, and separatist violence in my state had scared me, seeing a united movement for equality break down into such factionalism in an institute of higher learning broke me. After university, for a long time I lost my voice… I will always remember Rohith Vemula’s final letter. To me, he is a writer who has ignited the country. His words will live on.’
Please read …
Dear friends, greeting for the new year. I know, there has been a one and a half month drought on thee site. I was not writing publicly. Today there is a minor flood: two articles. This one is on how we as a nation of audiences deal with threats to our country. I feel we become angsty because we do not trust systems. For that, I feel the blame lies with those who are supposed to run the systems. Please see the next one too.
Please read …
I spent last winter, spring and summer at Akademie Schloss Solitude. Marte Kräher Fellow Art Coordinator talks to me about how I used my time at the Residency. It was a period of grand exposure to the world and huge learning for me.
‘The English word – witness – is too flat, too tied in to eye-witness. The word which defines my work and approach to writing is the German word, which I learnt after coming here, Zeitzeuge, witness of time. The starting point for my stories are my own experiences.’
Please read …
The beauty of my time at Akademie Schloss Solitude was in meeting Fellows from different parts of the world and engaging with their art and their personal and political biographies. I have always been curious about Cuba and it was truly educative to meet the painter Yorjander Capetillo Hernández.
Here is Yorjander’s profile, in my words, please read …
