History's Wrong Hero
He was hiding in a rat's hole for life and did not resist any way when he was dug out and caught like a rat.
So this is the fate of a hero who always behaved like a lion, and had for as many as thirty four years ruled his people by death.
Perhaps he was next to Hitler and Stalin in killing millions of his own countrymen, and knew death only too well. But he was himself scared of death, and was ready to accept any kind of ingominy to save his own life. What an irony!
But has he got any chance of survival? Despite the human right group's demand for fair trial, and UNO chief's apparent empathy for the deposed dictator, Saddam Hussein is in all possibility going to be hanged.
Hitler commited suicide. Stalin was poisoned and killed by his own intelligence chief. Saddam's end could not be better, only it would be more ignominious.
Monday, December 15, 2003
Thursday, December 11, 2003
LIVING TO TELL THE TALE
I'm a professed fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I got myself to buy the first volume of his autography within three days of launching the book. It's a wondeful book, and has not a single boring passage. I could have finished the book at one go, but didn't. I took time with it, savouring its contents bit by bit. After all, I was reading a great writer's life, though it read very much like one of his novels.
Marquez had a colourful life, and he lived it to the full, sometimes dangerously. Poverty, struggle, migration --he had to embrace all, and at a very ealy age. But he did not seem to care. He had a tremendous lust for life. Like he read all classics to get to his own distinctive style, he danced and sang like any Carribean youth in his days.
Of course, he knew life in the raw and had a first-hand knowledge of it. Who would stop him in his writing life with so varied and deep experiences of his times? As he reveals, the colonel in "Hundred years of Solitude" is none other than his grandfather, and the protagonist in "Love at the time of Cholera" is actually his father.
What I like most about the book is its candour. How easily Marquez tells us that he was a gonorrohea veteran at twenty three! His account of various sexual escapades is an an enjoyable and hilarious aspect of the book.
Marquez was a journalist, and as far as I know, still is. But I never knew he was so intensely involved with journalism. He was indeed a newspaperman. From being a columnist on a small daily for a meagre wage to a high-paying star reporter of El Espectador, he experienced every facet of journalism, and had a great respect for it.
The book convinces me that Marquez is not only a great writer, but a grand man as well. He gave away the royalties of his quick-selling "The story of a shipwrecked sailor" to the sailor who narrated the story to him. The sailor enjoyed the royalties for fourteen years after which the royalties were passed on to an educational institute.
Marquez comes across as a very honest, truth-seeking and simple persona in this book. I adore him even more as I finish the book.
More years to the great writer's life who is living to tell us tales!
I'm a professed fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I got myself to buy the first volume of his autography within three days of launching the book. It's a wondeful book, and has not a single boring passage. I could have finished the book at one go, but didn't. I took time with it, savouring its contents bit by bit. After all, I was reading a great writer's life, though it read very much like one of his novels.
Marquez had a colourful life, and he lived it to the full, sometimes dangerously. Poverty, struggle, migration --he had to embrace all, and at a very ealy age. But he did not seem to care. He had a tremendous lust for life. Like he read all classics to get to his own distinctive style, he danced and sang like any Carribean youth in his days.
Of course, he knew life in the raw and had a first-hand knowledge of it. Who would stop him in his writing life with so varied and deep experiences of his times? As he reveals, the colonel in "Hundred years of Solitude" is none other than his grandfather, and the protagonist in "Love at the time of Cholera" is actually his father.
What I like most about the book is its candour. How easily Marquez tells us that he was a gonorrohea veteran at twenty three! His account of various sexual escapades is an an enjoyable and hilarious aspect of the book.
Marquez was a journalist, and as far as I know, still is. But I never knew he was so intensely involved with journalism. He was indeed a newspaperman. From being a columnist on a small daily for a meagre wage to a high-paying star reporter of El Espectador, he experienced every facet of journalism, and had a great respect for it.
The book convinces me that Marquez is not only a great writer, but a grand man as well. He gave away the royalties of his quick-selling "The story of a shipwrecked sailor" to the sailor who narrated the story to him. The sailor enjoyed the royalties for fourteen years after which the royalties were passed on to an educational institute.
Marquez comes across as a very honest, truth-seeking and simple persona in this book. I adore him even more as I finish the book.
More years to the great writer's life who is living to tell us tales!
Saturday, November 29, 2003
TASLEEMA NASRIN
I was somewhat amused to learn that Tasleema Nasreen's "Dwikhandita" --third volume of her autobiography --had been banned by Bengal Government. The charge against her book was that it contained some hard remarks, amounting to blasphemy, about prophet Mohammad and holy Quran, and that it could foment communal tension in a land truly famous for its communal amity.
On the face of it, the action could not be more justified. But there are more things to it than you know about it.
To begin with, Tasleema is too known for her anti-Islamic views and writings, and she has been circulating them even before she had been exiled from her country a few years ago. In the current book she wrote what she usually writes, and in that light nothing new or extra-ordinary. So, what was it that stung the government this time?
It was the pressure from the Muslims who formed a large chunk of the Marxist votebank. Some Muslim intellectuals raised a hue and cry, and the government acted too fast to respond to their demand without considering any other thing.
It was quite in line with my assumption that none of our writers and intellectuals except novelist Budhadev Guha and columnist Sunanda Sanyal protested the ban. Some of them even came out in the open to support and hail it.
Poor fellows! They have a stake here this time. In the final phase of her autobiography, Tasleema is now writing about her relationship with them, and in her no-holds-barred account she has spared nobody, however mighty or popular. She will write more about them in her last volume. Our Bengali writers, basic hypocrites as they are, don't exactly like the idea and have now united to control the damage to their public image. Somehow they twisted the Tasleema issue to give it a communal colour, and cried hoarse to instigate the minority community to demand the ban of the book.
But why do I feel amused? For one thing, it has exposed once again our kowtowing writers and poets. Secondly, the ban will trigger more curiosity and interest in Tasleema's book and more people will read the book, and thus the ostentatious purpose of the ban will be defied.
Publishers of the pirate copies of books are no doubt working overtime now to bring in the book to the market.
I was somewhat amused to learn that Tasleema Nasreen's "Dwikhandita" --third volume of her autobiography --had been banned by Bengal Government. The charge against her book was that it contained some hard remarks, amounting to blasphemy, about prophet Mohammad and holy Quran, and that it could foment communal tension in a land truly famous for its communal amity.
On the face of it, the action could not be more justified. But there are more things to it than you know about it.
To begin with, Tasleema is too known for her anti-Islamic views and writings, and she has been circulating them even before she had been exiled from her country a few years ago. In the current book she wrote what she usually writes, and in that light nothing new or extra-ordinary. So, what was it that stung the government this time?
It was the pressure from the Muslims who formed a large chunk of the Marxist votebank. Some Muslim intellectuals raised a hue and cry, and the government acted too fast to respond to their demand without considering any other thing.
It was quite in line with my assumption that none of our writers and intellectuals except novelist Budhadev Guha and columnist Sunanda Sanyal protested the ban. Some of them even came out in the open to support and hail it.
Poor fellows! They have a stake here this time. In the final phase of her autobiography, Tasleema is now writing about her relationship with them, and in her no-holds-barred account she has spared nobody, however mighty or popular. She will write more about them in her last volume. Our Bengali writers, basic hypocrites as they are, don't exactly like the idea and have now united to control the damage to their public image. Somehow they twisted the Tasleema issue to give it a communal colour, and cried hoarse to instigate the minority community to demand the ban of the book.
But why do I feel amused? For one thing, it has exposed once again our kowtowing writers and poets. Secondly, the ban will trigger more curiosity and interest in Tasleema's book and more people will read the book, and thus the ostentatious purpose of the ban will be defied.
Publishers of the pirate copies of books are no doubt working overtime now to bring in the book to the market.
Sunday, August 31, 2003
In the past two years, I was just happy writing my regular literary column on suite101.com, and querying literary agents for my debut novel. Then the Iraq war happened.
The dastardly Bush-Blair offensive on the common people of Iraq seemed so mindless and inhuman that I wrote a scathing article criticising George W. Bush and his cronies, and posted it on my web page in place of my regular musings on some literay theme.
My new managing editor did not like it, and asked me in a rather brusque manner why I wrote on a topic not assigned to me. I argued that at a time like this I thought it was quite an appropriate subject, and every columnist worth his salt digressed occasionally to suit the demands of the time. She was not convinced, and I decided to quit.
Was it the right decision? I had a pretty good traffic, and I enjoyed feedback from my audience who wrote from different parts of the globe. True I miss it sometimes, but I don't regret it. I believe in speaking out my mind.
The dastardly Bush-Blair offensive on the common people of Iraq seemed so mindless and inhuman that I wrote a scathing article criticising George W. Bush and his cronies, and posted it on my web page in place of my regular musings on some literay theme.
My new managing editor did not like it, and asked me in a rather brusque manner why I wrote on a topic not assigned to me. I argued that at a time like this I thought it was quite an appropriate subject, and every columnist worth his salt digressed occasionally to suit the demands of the time. She was not convinced, and I decided to quit.
Was it the right decision? I had a pretty good traffic, and I enjoyed feedback from my audience who wrote from different parts of the globe. True I miss it sometimes, but I don't regret it. I believe in speaking out my mind.
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