TASLIMA CAUGHT IN DIPLOMACY
Diplomacy has no sense of respect for a writer. In a strange way, it now connects Taslima Nasreen with Anup Chetia, a dreaded ULFA leader who has fled to Bangladesh, and has since been living in there.
India wants Anup back. And Bangladesh does not want Taslima, its bete-noire, to live in India. Now these two things have been linked. Deport Anup, or we would let Taslima live here, is the dangling message of the Indian government to Bangladesh.
But Anup enjoys the support of some human rights groups of Bangladesh, who fear that India would hang the political dissident in case he is deported. Interestingly, Dacca High Court also asks the Bangladesh Government why it would not give political asylum to Anup Chetia.
So it's knotty issue now. And there's little chance of Taslima getting citizenship or permanent resident permit any time soon.
MRINAL BOSE
Friday, February 25, 2005
Friday, February 18, 2005
TASLIMA SEEKS HOME
The world should be home for a post-modern writer. But not in Taslima's case. The exiled Bangladeshi writer, having lived in Europe for over a decade, is now seeking a permanent residence in Kolkata, and has recently applied for Indian citizenship.
She says that since she writes in Bengali, it would help her to live in a place where she could hear and speak the language. Bangladesh would not take her back, so Kolkata is her option.
Of course a justified ground, and it makes a lot of sense. But one reads in it a tinge of desperation as well.
Taslima, it seems, has never felt comfortable in Europe. She has failed to adapt herself to the alien milieu. Also,she has not learnt much out of it except in dresses.
She is no longer in her once-attractive shape. Much thinner, somewhat fading, she has of course left hehind her best creative years.
She's welcome to Kolkata, but being the kind of essentially a naive person, she may not find the city as suitable for her writing life.
MRINAL BOSE
The world should be home for a post-modern writer. But not in Taslima's case. The exiled Bangladeshi writer, having lived in Europe for over a decade, is now seeking a permanent residence in Kolkata, and has recently applied for Indian citizenship.
She says that since she writes in Bengali, it would help her to live in a place where she could hear and speak the language. Bangladesh would not take her back, so Kolkata is her option.
Of course a justified ground, and it makes a lot of sense. But one reads in it a tinge of desperation as well.
Taslima, it seems, has never felt comfortable in Europe. She has failed to adapt herself to the alien milieu. Also,she has not learnt much out of it except in dresses.
She is no longer in her once-attractive shape. Much thinner, somewhat fading, she has of course left hehind her best creative years.
She's welcome to Kolkata, but being the kind of essentially a naive person, she may not find the city as suitable for her writing life.
MRINAL BOSE
Friday, February 11, 2005
KIM JONG-II
His face has always aroused me a curiosity: is it original or a caricature by some comic-book artist? Round, flabby, all Mongolian features, but with some added element that makes it somewhat unreal. There is a hint of ruthlessness if you look at it closely.
They say he's a communist dictator(a term in contradiction). But he has real balls. Consider his foreign ministry's recent statement: We have manufactured nukes to cope with Bush adminstation's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Reminds me of Cuba's Fidel Castro, another challenger to George W. Bush. But Castro is a revered figure, and has the proven ability to scare off Bush and Co.
I wonder if Kim Jong-II has as much guts and intellect to fight the superpower.
MRINAL BOSE
His face has always aroused me a curiosity: is it original or a caricature by some comic-book artist? Round, flabby, all Mongolian features, but with some added element that makes it somewhat unreal. There is a hint of ruthlessness if you look at it closely.
They say he's a communist dictator(a term in contradiction). But he has real balls. Consider his foreign ministry's recent statement: We have manufactured nukes to cope with Bush adminstation's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Reminds me of Cuba's Fidel Castro, another challenger to George W. Bush. But Castro is a revered figure, and has the proven ability to scare off Bush and Co.
I wonder if Kim Jong-II has as much guts and intellect to fight the superpower.
MRINAL BOSE
Friday, February 04, 2005
LAST DAYS OF MONARCHY?
In a fashion typical of a monarch, King Gyanendra has taken full charge of Nepal. With censorship on media, shut telephones, and jammed internet lines, he has already had done his initial dispensation of authoritarianism. Now it's time for the crackdown on the dissidents and the opposition.
There comes a report of the Royal Nepal Army having used chopper fire from the air on student protesters in the tourist town of Pokhra.The students were from Prithvi Narayan College who assembled in the campus to protest the Feb 1 proclamation by the king. Exact casulties is not known. The army has picked up between 200 and 250 students from the college hostel, and have taken them to the barracks.
In the days to come, Nepal will see more of such atrocities and mayhem. There might be more bloodshed than we can think of. The Maoists are a formidable force in Nepal, and they will of course take this opportunity of consolidating their strength, and attacking the monarchy with new vigour.
Is this the beginning of the end of Nepal monarchy?
MRINAL BOSE
In a fashion typical of a monarch, King Gyanendra has taken full charge of Nepal. With censorship on media, shut telephones, and jammed internet lines, he has already had done his initial dispensation of authoritarianism. Now it's time for the crackdown on the dissidents and the opposition.
There comes a report of the Royal Nepal Army having used chopper fire from the air on student protesters in the tourist town of Pokhra.The students were from Prithvi Narayan College who assembled in the campus to protest the Feb 1 proclamation by the king. Exact casulties is not known. The army has picked up between 200 and 250 students from the college hostel, and have taken them to the barracks.
In the days to come, Nepal will see more of such atrocities and mayhem. There might be more bloodshed than we can think of. The Maoists are a formidable force in Nepal, and they will of course take this opportunity of consolidating their strength, and attacking the monarchy with new vigour.
Is this the beginning of the end of Nepal monarchy?
MRINAL BOSE
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