Now that Slumdog Millionaire has bagged a bagful of Oscars, every Indian is celebrating it. Even those who criticised it only a few days ago. Barkha Dutta thinks it's about the innate fighting spirit that defines India. Suhel Seth says it's about the hope especially in these depressing times.
But there's one journalist Tarun Tejpal - intrepid and uncompromising and visionary - who rubbishes these things about the film, and tells the truth.
The awgee media tells us the film is about hope. And hope, as we all know, is greater than inconsistency, inaccuracy, implausibility, dodgy politics, and partypooper critics. And since the film is about the triumph of impossible hope, it is impossibly greater than all of the above. QED. And yes, of course it is also a fantasy, a fairytale. And since, for these poor sods, hope too is a fantasy, it all coheres, hangs together beautifully.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The slipper that was to hit Arundhati Roy
Did most Indian dailies block this news?
A slipper was thrown at Arundhati Roy when she visited the Delhi University on February 13 was auctioned for Rs 101,000 on Thursday, Hindustan Times reported. Asif Kumar, a member of the Youth Unity for Vibrant Action, threw his slipper at the acclaimed author in protest against her statement that “Kashmir should be given to Pakistan”, an official of the student group told the newspaper.
What's your take on this auction?
A slipper was thrown at Arundhati Roy when she visited the Delhi University on February 13 was auctioned for Rs 101,000 on Thursday, Hindustan Times reported. Asif Kumar, a member of the Youth Unity for Vibrant Action, threw his slipper at the acclaimed author in protest against her statement that “Kashmir should be given to Pakistan”, an official of the student group told the newspaper.
What's your take on this auction?
Friday, February 20, 2009
Twenty Years after the Salman Rushdie Fatwa
Thierry Chervel analyses Islamism's current grip on the west (via signandsight.com)
Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" show that enlightenment is not a path to bone-dry reason. The novel is packed with riddles and wonders, top-heavy with symbols and postmodern brouhaha, colourful as a Pakistani bus. It is a swift, inspired, extremely ambitious act of liberation. It is Gibreel's ham sandwich. Today one trembles at its impudence. The Prophet is called Mahound. Mohammed's twelve wives are reflected in the twelve prostitutes in a brothel. Not just enlightenment, it tells us, but blasphemy, too, leads humankind out of its self-imposed immaturity, an act of liberation which makes our hearts beat wildly, in euphoria and panic. The novel insists that we can ride our bicycles without stabilisers. It is beyond this act that the here and now awaits. This novel, written by an immigrant challenges Europe not to lose sight of its selfhood.
But Europe prefers not to listen.
Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" show that enlightenment is not a path to bone-dry reason. The novel is packed with riddles and wonders, top-heavy with symbols and postmodern brouhaha, colourful as a Pakistani bus. It is a swift, inspired, extremely ambitious act of liberation. It is Gibreel's ham sandwich. Today one trembles at its impudence. The Prophet is called Mahound. Mohammed's twelve wives are reflected in the twelve prostitutes in a brothel. Not just enlightenment, it tells us, but blasphemy, too, leads humankind out of its self-imposed immaturity, an act of liberation which makes our hearts beat wildly, in euphoria and panic. The novel insists that we can ride our bicycles without stabilisers. It is beyond this act that the here and now awaits. This novel, written by an immigrant challenges Europe not to lose sight of its selfhood.
But Europe prefers not to listen.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Literature is not a heavyweight championship: Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe is the father of modern African writing. He has been writing fiction and essays over the past 50 years, and stands out, arguably, as the most reviewed Nigerian writer. In 1992, he became the first living author to be represented in the Everyman's Library collection published by Alfred A. Knopf. His 60th birthday was celebrated at the University of Nigeria; Nsukka (UNN) by the International Who's Who in African Literature. One observer noted: "Nothing like it had ever happened before in African literature anywhere on the continent."
Novelist Margaret Atwood called him "a magical writer one of the greatest of the 20'h century." Poet Maya Angelou lauded Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a book wherein "all readers meet their brothers, sisters, parents and friends and themselves along Nigerian roads."
Novelist Margaret Atwood called him "a magical writer one of the greatest of the 20'h century." Poet Maya Angelou lauded Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a book wherein "all readers meet their brothers, sisters, parents and friends and themselves along Nigerian roads."
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Will Nuke Khan be at his old game again?
Nuke Khan alias A.Q. Khan is a free man again, thanks to President Zardari. Khan is a known nuclear proliferator and through his unique nuclear network, committed a crime against humanity. Though lionised by many Pakistanis as the father of the country’s atomic bomb, he confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya in 2004.
It has been five years since he was put under house arrest. Now a Pakistani High Court releases him with the verdict that Nuke Khan has never been involved in any kind of nuclear proliferation or criminal activity.
Do you read anything into this release?
It has been five years since he was put under house arrest. Now a Pakistani High Court releases him with the verdict that Nuke Khan has never been involved in any kind of nuclear proliferation or criminal activity.
Do you read anything into this release?
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
World of David Markson
David Markson - who? He's a writer's writer.
Twenty per cent of his novels contain the hero’s own jottings, the rest eighty percent are surprising facts about the isolation, despair and suicides of writers, musicians and thinkers in a discontinuous, non-linear, collage-like form. Much of his fiction looks at characters on the verge of madness, or after some great loss. The unnamed hero of his books is an aging writer working on a novel that seems stuck in his mind. In trying to think and write, the lives of other artistes crowd his consciousness and he notes them in the form of quotations, intellectual allusions and scholarly curiosities. All this is the residue of a lifetime’s reading. But is that all the hero of this book can now offer-his reading? Or will he, by the end of these numerous obscure literary factoids, conjure up a novel?
Twenty per cent of his novels contain the hero’s own jottings, the rest eighty percent are surprising facts about the isolation, despair and suicides of writers, musicians and thinkers in a discontinuous, non-linear, collage-like form. Much of his fiction looks at characters on the verge of madness, or after some great loss. The unnamed hero of his books is an aging writer working on a novel that seems stuck in his mind. In trying to think and write, the lives of other artistes crowd his consciousness and he notes them in the form of quotations, intellectual allusions and scholarly curiosities. All this is the residue of a lifetime’s reading. But is that all the hero of this book can now offer-his reading? Or will he, by the end of these numerous obscure literary factoids, conjure up a novel?
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