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 …
Tags: 1984, Manjinder Kaur Wratch, Muse India, Punjab, Roll of Honour
Friends, it is a pleasure that Akademie Schloss Solitude invited me to write for another edition. This time a digital Atlas. The questions were:
Q: Would you say that your (artistic) practice is political?
A: Yes, it is. For me, the unspoken personal is political. I write to give voice to subjects our society likes to brush under the carpet – give voice to the marginalized. My intention is to find ways to restore human dignity through language.
Q: If so, how would you describe its political dimension?
A: I believe writing is a space where it is possible to honestly dissect the self and the violence of the society around us. My books are coming-of-age testimonial fiction.
Then they carried an excerpt from my current writing. Please read here …
Tags: Akademie Schloss Solitude, Homing Pigeons, India, Pakistan, Schloss-ghost
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 …
Tags: Dr Dharamvira Gandhi, drugs, NDPS Act, Punjab, The Caravan
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 …
Tags: America, Deep Singh Blue, Diaspora, Migration, Ranbir Singh Sidhu, Sikh, US