Friends, my interview with Kiran Doshi whose wonderful and insightful historical fiction Jinnah Often Came To Our House is short-listed for The Hindu Prize 2016.
Please read …
Friends, on November 26, at 10 AM, I will speak at the Taipei Biennale on the topic: ‘The Writer as a Memory Maker’.
I will talk about the bloody birth of our nation in the wake of the greatest migration in human history which left 1 million dead and 14 million displaced. Yet, how as a nation we seem to be condemned to never learn from history. How our gestures of public history – museums – are shaped. How our discourses are built on excluding narratives of caste, gender, tribals, and minorities. How chasing the dystopia of material development, through corporate capitalism, we are ignoring the core strengths of our diverse nation. What then is our future? All these with special focus on Punjab. I will also discuss the draft novel I wrote in Germany – The Memory Maker – which is currently, justly, gestating.
I will share the video when available. Please read …
It is a measure of some satisfaction that even after years of its release readers and scholars are engaging with ‘Roll of Honour’. Here is Manjinder Kaur Wratch’s scholarly article on the book in Muse India’s latest issue. Very thoroughly she draws out the larger context of the book and presents it very well.
‘As a writer of testimonial fiction and non-fiction, Sandhu lays bare the Punjab crises in a nuanced manner, and fittingly problematises it from a non-partisan viewpoint.’
Thank you! Please read …
Friends, over the last decade Punjab has been much maligned over the drugs issue. The issue has become a huge plank for political campaigns, police bullying, addicts being marginalised, and the system collapsing.
Yet, it needed a good doctor to pin-point the issue and suggest a course of treatment which is stupendous in its simplicity. That is exactly what Dr Dharamvira Dv Gandhi is suggesting: change the way we look at drugs, amend the draconian NDPS Act, 1985, to lay out which are ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ drugs, decriminalise the addict.
He is proposing the amendment in the Winter Session of the Parliament, starting November 17. I really hope the Bill goes through. This is a much needed change on our own ‘war of drugs’ and stands to make political parties accountable for their rhetoric.
I understand, given our mindsets, this could cause a furore but let us discuss, debate, make informed choices, instead of staying apathetic and suddenly turning around and blaming the system. The incidence of drugs is a symptom of systemic collapse. We are the system.
Please read …
Friends, my review of Ranbir Singh Sidhu’s novel ‘Deep Singh Blue’. What struck me immensely about the writing was that it is without crutches, the writer creates and inhabits a world within language alone yet it is deeply rooted in the human experience. Kudos! Thank you Omair Ahmad for the opportunity.
‘DSB is a dark bildungsroman – a coming of age novel – about different types of unbelonging: in cultures, in the community, in the family, in relationships, in place and in time. The protagonist is lonely, immensely lonely, but the novel is not about loneliness or about an emotional or cultural pain. Instead, DSB explores the deep angst of being and a human’s relationship with the world.’
Please read …
Friends, drugs are a huge aspect of mental health of the society. When we have a movie on drug addiction, I also see the film as a social act: what does it do to solve the society’s issues? Here is my comment piece on Udta Punjab in The Hindu Business Line.
The movie raises a great question: What is Punjab? Is Punjab a land? Is Punjab a bond? Is Punjab a vision for which Sartaj is willing to let go of his brother, even implicate himself?
The film also compromises a fundamental weapon in the real war on drugs the people are fighting on the ground in Punjab.
Please read…
Friends, here is my translation of Daljit Ami’s much appreciated review of Udta Punjab. A lot of friends had asked for a translation. All errors in the copy are mine. Please comment on the note itself. Helps us understand your views in context.
Please read …
Friends, Scroll.in has been kind to ask me to elaborate my yesterday’s post. I discuss how the Badals tame Punjab and what they should have done instead of perpetuating denial. The task is still ahead of anyone who wants to come into power in Punjab in the next elections.
Please read …
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, you might have heard of the recent mother-son dual suicide in Barnala. It has jolted the state but the fact is it is not a one off case. Each day one or more farmers commits suicide in the tiny state. Once the granary of India, Punjab is fast reaching the dubious status of the suicide hot spot of the country.
My piece on it critiquing the 15-years-in-the-making Punjab government’s Rural Indebtedness Bill in The Caravan Magazine.
‘An undeniable cause that underlies these deaths is the state’s role in them. Through both the law and tone-deaf bills such as the recent Rural Indebtedness Bill, passed by the Punjab government in March this year, the state approves, aids and facilitates processes that invariably lead to the loss of a farmer’s land, and does little to resolve their indebtedness.’
Please read here …