CONFLUENCE MAY 2021

Current Affairs

SOUTH ASIA: CONFRONTING THE COVID-19 CATASTROPHE by Shalomi Daniel Nearly one and a half years since the COVID-19 and Tamil New Year celebrations in Sri Lanka, which Lockdowns imposed without putting in place virus was first detected in Wuhan, the virus saw Sri Lankans travelling across the country and support systems that will provide a safety net for continues to ravage the world. As of May 2021 gathering in large numbers to participate in daily wage earners and manual labourers who do more than three million lives have been claimed by festivities, are cited as such examples of not have the luxury of working from home, led to this pandemic. The virus seems loathe to leave governments mishandling the crisis. It has been such persons having to battle both the virus and mankind alone, with countries across the globe said that stricter rules should have been put in dire financial circumstances. They were left with no reporting third and fourth waves. Lockdowns, place to ensure that movement is restricted, that choice but to go outside, exposing themselves to vaccines, social distancing and teleworking are now basic guidelines such as social distancing and mask the deadly virus, to provide for themselves and common parlance in the new normal. Whilst the wearing are adhered to, and to roll out the their families. Forced to choose between the pandemic also brought to light several acts of vaccination process far more efficiently. Instead, pandemic and starvation, they opted for the kindness and love that proved to be a ray of hope South Asian governments were complacent with former, hoping that they do not contract the virus, in the pandemic induced darkness, there have also having ridden out the first wave with minimal as they go out to forage a living for themselves and been tales of irresponsibility and foolhardiness on casualties, with some governments taking personal their families. Governments are tasked with the the part of both governments and individuals which credit for having vanquished the pandemic. The responsibility to ensure that measures adopted in has exacerbated the crisis. warnings of local health experts and the reality of respond to public crises such as the pandemic, take It could be said that different parts of the world second and third waves in other parts of the world on a wholistic approach. Not only should measures experience spikes in COVID-19 cases and resulting went largely unheeded. be put in place to restrict movement, curtail the public health catastrophes at different stages and spread of the virus and protect public health, seasons. In the early and mid parts of 2019, most of governments should take into consideration the Europe and North America bore the brunt of the needs of the most vulnerable, those who might not pandemic. From Italy to Spain to the United States be able to sustain themselves in the new normal. of America, hospitals were stretched beyond Heart wrenching stories are heard about non capacity, daily death rates exceeded the 1000s and distribution of relief to the most deserving, of the world looked on helplessly as the pandemic corruption seeping into COVID relief measures, of ruthlessly crippled public health systems, and certain class or community of persons being denied economies and brought great nations to their relief based on their race, religion, class or political knees. affiliation. While the situation in these countries have now South Asia also saw a crackdown on free vastly improved, another part of the world is Various sectors of society have censured the expression, with journalists and citizens being currently gasping for air as the pandemic ravages governments for prioritising economic welfare over denied the right to criticise their leaders. across South Asia. Long queues outside hospitals the safety of its citizens. What is the use of a Allegations of fake news have been levelled against waiting for oxygen, lives being lost by the 1000s and thriving economy if it kills its most valuable several voices who have dared to ask difficult daily infection rates reaching an all time high, were resource – human capital? Several other questions and challenge the powers that be. seen in India, home to more than one billion governments have been embroiled in political Way forward people. The situation continues to be dire with rivalry to pay too much attention to the pandemic. While the situation in South Asia appears to be dire, several states in India under complete lockdown In India, the onset of several state elections, saw there is much that both individuals and and daily infection rates soaring past 350,000 a day. election campaigns being held with large crowds governments can still do to salvage the situation. A The situation threatens to spill over to India’s gathering as though completely oblivious to the March 2021 report by World Bank showed that on neighbours in the Indian Ocean. From Sri Lanka to pandemic. Securing votes and consolidating power average South Asian countries spend only 2% of Pakistan to Nepal, lockdowns are being reimposed, took precedence over ensuring that the population their GDP on healthcare. Increasing budgetary and public healthcare systems are already on the is protected from the pandemic. Meanwhile allocations for healthcare, ensuring non- brink of collapse. neighbouring Nepal was also plunged into political discrimination in rolling out public healthcare, Are Governments guilty? uncertainty with the Nepali Prime Minister losing a ensuring an organised and informed vaccination Many South Asians are holding their governments vote of confidence, leading to uncertainty and rollout and ensuring that the vulnerable and accountable for this most recent wave, stating that chaos. marginalised are not overlooked are just a few of their governments ought to bear the blame for Minorities matter the steps that South Asian governments can adopt failing to put in place adequate measures to The general public, and especially those in the to address the rising tide of COVID-19. On the part contain the virus and prevent a public health lower rungs of society and the most economically of individuals, loving one’s neighbour has never catastrophe. vulnerable have suffered the consequences of such been more important – from wearing masks, to Governments have been blamed for taking the gross negligence. Whilst the rich chartered their maintaining social distancing, from looking out for virus too lightly and allowing large gatherings and private jets and were whisked off into the blue, the the vulnerable and helping out a colleague in need lax adherence to public health guidelines. The poor, the vulnerable, and the impoverished, were – small acts of kindness and great amounts of love Kumbh Mela festival in India where thousands left to fend for themselves. are essential, if South Asia is to weather this storm. congregated at the River Ganges, and the Sinhala

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Editorially speaking: Contents Our May issue has been delayed due to several reasons. However, it South Asia: Confronting Covid-19 Shalomi Daniel gives me comfort that we have been fortunate enough to produce this 1 issue under the prevailing conditions. As our readers are well aware, the current pandemic crisis has affected all of us directly or indirectly in 2 Editorially Speaking Vijay Anand many ways. This time, we found that contributors have been somewhat slow in sending their works to us on time. Compiling a magazine of this 3 Remembering Satyajit Ray on his Sunayana Panda calibre without losing quality needs a lot of patience and focus. I am centenary glad we have been able to offer our best to produce this issue with a variety of content from contributors from different corners of the 4 A bolt from the blue Innamburan world. Talking about the pandemic again, it is quite sad that millions of lives 5 Poems: Dialogues with Ganga in Sukrita Paul have been sacrificed to the Coronavirus, despite the fact that an Coronatimes Kumar effective cure has been found already. India in particular, has been badly hit even though it has been in the forefront of producing the 6 Zooming Down Melody Lane Jameela Siddiqi vaccine and making it available, not only to its own population but also for many other countries that couldn’t afford to make one. We can’t 7 The Elusive Right to Remember Shalomi Daniel simply blame the political leaders alone for the current crisis even though things could have been handled differently with some hindsight. India: Searching the present Anjana Basu Let’s hope this crisis will come to an end in due course and lessons can 8 from past be learnt to avoid any future crisis of this magnitude. In the meantime, Two poems Reginald Massey we would like to urge media organisations and politicians not to use the names of the countries when describing the variants of the Corona virus 9 Ekphrastic and surrealist poem Anita Nahal as it causes a lot of problems among the communities. As usual, this issue includes many different, interesting features from 10 Narendra Modi: The Yogi of Martin Lumb our contributors. I would like to thank them all for the splendid work Populism sent to us. In future, I would like to maintain an article bank, containing 11 The Sarasvati Civilisation Kusum Pant Joshi enough content available for each issue. So, please consider sending your contributions at anytime without waiting for a deadline. I would like to ask the contributors to send their work to 12 The Detective's Son by Subhash [email protected] email only, and not to any other emails. Chandra We have an active Facebook group which is growing all the time and I like to have healthy discussions on varied topics. Please share your 13 Through the Poetic lens Abhay K Yogesh Patel opinions too and encourage your literary friends too to become members. I look forward to receiving your thoughts on this issue and welcome any 14 Interview with Salman Rushdie Malathy Sitaram suggestions to improve the magazine overall. I wish all our readers a good summer. 15 Dining in Mumbai Anushka Shinde Vijay Anand Franklin

CONFLUENCE SOUTH ASIAN PERSPECTIVES 16 The Carnatic Conundrum Parthiban ISSN: 2633-4704 Manoharan 23 Cray Avenue, Orpington BR5 4AA 17 Short fiction: Dead, alive! Sunil Sharma United Kingdom Book Page Reginald Massey Telephone: 01689 836 394 / 07801 569 640 18

MANAGING EDITOR 19 Book review: All that Jazz and Meenakshi Dr. Vijay Anand PhD, MRSC other pathbreaking tales Mohan

SUB-EDITOR 20 Book review: A Reassessment of Charles P Sarvan Malathy Sitaram Arumuga Navalar 21 Bonfire Chaand Chazelle FOUNDER EDITOR Late Joe Nathan 22 Book Review: A Journey through Amrita Sharma an Artful and Rhythmic Charm! Editorial: 23 Biography of a centenarian Devi Rajab [email protected] mother: Design: Confluence Publishing Ltd Golden Jubilee of Vatayan: Divya Mathur The views expressed by interviewees or contributors are their own and do not Holi celebration necessarily reflect Confluence editorial policy. No part of this publication or part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or 24 Off the Hook: A musical Anju Makhija transmitted in any form without the express permission of the publisher in http://www.confluence.mobi/2021/0 writing. 5/off-the-hook-a-musical/ © Copyright, Confluence Publishing 2021

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Remembrance Remembering Satyajit Ray on his centenary by Sunayana Panda

It is hard to believe that this year, 2021, is the year of Satyajit Ray’s rented flats all their lives. Fortunately, he had multiple talents which birth centenary. He is someone who has been a part of many kept him afloat. people’s lives, so intensely present in our memories that it seems as if he is almost our own age. His films have been discussed, Before becoming a filmmaker Ray worked for an advertising agency appreciated and analysed by our contemporaries so it is hard to and in connection with his job he spent 6 months in London. This believe that he would have been a hundred years old had he been was the turning point in his life. He watched as many films as he alive. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic this centenary could. This gave him an insight into how international film makers cannot be celebrated as it should be. Perhaps there will be many worked. Back in Calcutta he, along with some friends, started a film online events and more people will have access to these discussions society which promoted good cinema. Another turning point came than if they had been held in physical spaces. in his life when he got the opportunity to assist Jean Renoir when Satyajit Ray was born he was making his in Calcutta on 2nd film “The River” in May 1921. His Calcutta. His parents belonged to theoretical an educated and knowledge was cultured family. His complemented now grandfather, with practical skills. Upendra Kishore Raychoudhury, The extraordinary owned a printing scope of his work press which was at makes him that time one of the outstanding. He has best in Asia. Satyajit’s made adaptations father was the from Tagore’s novels, famous poet he has adapted the Sukumar Ray. Every works of other child in West Bengal authors and he has knows him as the made a series of films author of the comic based on his own poems in the detective novels. He collection “Abol Tabol”. He was also the creator and editor of the has also made documentaries, children’s films, films with social children’s magazine “Sandesh”. relevance, films set in villages, films set in contemporary Calcutta and one film in Hindi, rather in Urdu, a language he was not so Unfortunately, Sukumar Ray died very young, only two years after familiar with. He touched various genres and various periods in Satyajit was born. Therefore one cannot say that the son’s creative history. He started with black and white films but then moved on to genius was carefully nurtured by his father. This is an extraordinary color films seamlessly. For a filmmaker, visually it makes a case of a father and son, both unusually gifted, both famous in their difference whether he is working with black and white or color own field but who did not actually know each other. Here it is images. He was an artist and every frame was like a well-composed important to note that the Ray family was a prominent member of photograph. the Brahmo Samaj which was an intellectually open community. Satyajit was brought up in the house of his maternal uncle where he It was a pity that while he was working he was recognised only in imbibed the influences of the people around him who were all Bengal. Ironically during his lifetime he was better known outside talented and artistic. Literary culture was in the air he breathed. India than within his own country. The sub-titled versions of his films He was an only child so he was very close to his mother but also were seen by film-lovers in France, in the UK, in the USA, and even spent a lot of time alone. This solitude allowed him to read, reflect, in Japan. But in India beyond the two Bengals, although his name imagine and also express. He was sent to Shantiniketan to learn to was known, his films remained unknown. Only in film schools his draw and paint. There too he absorbed the atmosphere of films were screened to an admiring audience and many of those creativity. Growing up in Calcutta during the British rule he had future actors and directors found inspiration in his work. access to Western culture which most other cities of India did not Very few people know that he received an Oscar award for lifetime have to that extent. achievement as he lay dying in his hospital bed. At least before he died he received appreciation from a global audience. He was also Ironically, he never really earned much from his films. Although he honored by the French government with a Legion d’Honneur. did a lot of work in various departments, such as music, costumes, Strangely it was the French who first recognised his genius before etc., he rarely charged the amount that he deserved. He was always anyone else and he is known to all film lovers in France even now. worried that the producer would not recover his costs and so he His legacy lives on in the work of the young film makers of Bengal tried to keep the cost of production to a minimum. What many don’t who acknowledge that he was an inspiration in their growing up know is that his true income, which paid his bills, came from the years. royalty of his books. His wife wrote in her biography that every time Sunayana Panda is a writer and an actress. She she expected there would be some money she would plan to buy a divides her time between London and flat but in the end any extra cash that came their way got spent in Pondicherry in India. tickets to the international film festival which Satyajit Ray had to attend or it went into the creation of another film. They lived in

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Escape from Covid A BOLT FROM THE BLUE by Innamburan

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and affected COVID-19 patients at grave risk,” shores, all the while addressing his name that sat on him was Death, and the government said; our numerous anxious questions and Hell followed with him. And power was eleven patients lost their lives due to a chasing the airlines about wheelchair given unto them over the fourth part of the delay of five minutes in oxygen supply; access. earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, ‘India's surge in infections began around We underwent the RT-PCR tests manned by and with death, and with the beasts of the mid-March…reaching a peak of more than nine functionaries and one technician. 10 earth. — Revelation 6:8 400,000 recorded daily cases on Friday, 30 individuals to complete one swab. The April” [BBC]; crowded testing site appeared to pose risk Pestilences lay claim to their tenacious Chandrika Bahadur, chair of the Lancet of infection in itself. We tested negative. adherence to the law of equality. Covid is no Covid-19 Commission India Task Force, said The airport was milling with people who different. People perished, regardless of on May 3. "So it's hard to tell whether the were breaking social distancing rules and their status in life - a former President of peak will come in the middle of May ... or wore masks covering their chins and others India, for instance. I lived all by myself in whether it will take a little bit longer who were trying to distance themselves in solitary splendour for more than one year in [CNN]. sheer horror. All passengers were jittery. a retirement home. Unlike On landing in Mumbai, my most others, I could endure heart melted on seeing a it thanks to large number of Zoom/Meet/Skype. I take vulnerable elders in a sea classes for girls from of 72 wheelchairs - downtrodden communities fending for themselves in of North Chennai and extremely trying derive immense circumstances. A lady in satisfaction from their her late nineties was spectacular progress. This subjecting herself to a activity, which set the tone rigorous security check. for my own learning curve, President Biden’s shielded me from boredom announcement that and ennui and thereby kept Indians could not travel to dementia and Covid at bay. the USA after May 4th Not for long though. The added to the desperation. second wave struck at us in India, like a bolt I refrain from reciting horrendous tales I empathize with the fear and anxiety of 350 from the blue. We shuffled many a card in about floating corpses in River Ganga and passangers in a packed flight and the intimidating pack that the Corona II 24x7 cremations. Nor shall I go hammer and appreciate the flight attendants who, at risk dealt unto us. The choices were all bad - tongs at this or that government machinery themselves, were very helpful. We found stay and risk death; become infected and as naming, blaming and shaming does not all, from the wheelchair attendants to the hope for someone to have mercy and help; serve the rehabilitative focus of the immigration officials, showing that they or leave India and risk infection. None of regulatory system nor the restorative scope cared. I turned to my daughter, who had these options are good or risk-free. The for the system under revision. come to escort us and I intoned in a whisper final “best bad choice” was to leave. to the Statue of Liberty: And, the people should have cooperated Lockdowns in different countries, abrupt more. “Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for cancellation of flights, and a host of ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye obstacles prevented my children from As 96-year old Charlie Munger put it on high were strangers in the land of Egypt.”- visiting me. They themselves ran the risk of finance, “Everybody talks as if they know [Exodus 23:9] I am sure that she lent us her contracting the disease and they feared what’s going to happen, and nobody knows compassionate ears. infecting us if they came over. It gave us what’s going to happen” applied to Covid as some consolation that I got the second well. I was losing many friends to it and Despite the perils of such travel, we are the vaccination on April 1, 2021. It was, then, some could neither get admitted to the fortunate ones. All of us tested negative that I beheld the biblical ‘pale horse’ slaying hospital nor could return to their home, and we will do our bit to keep others safe. hundreds of people daily. Horror stories endangering children and family. numbed us. I list a few from the clippings. three people in their 20s succumbed to the As a loner at age 87, I stood little chance of infection; fending for myself. Two other elders of the family members of doctors became family and I were chaperoned from Chennai infected; and boarded a flight to USA from Mumbai, “the acute shortage of medical oxygen on a after many tense moments. My son-in-law day-to-day basis is putting the lives of was booking our tickets from distant

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Dialogues with Ganga in Coronatimes by Sukrita Paul Kumar

The emerald green of the river waters When there is lightening Is the green of the forests softened Falling on your chest The blue is that of the skies From the coal-ash skies above And the brown Why do you not pause, that of the mud Hold on to it tight Carried to the plains O Ganga

With many a million corpses and ashes For the forests to light up In your belly For the hanging bats and owls What of the colour of death to go back into dark holes O Ganga? Let the birds fly and chirp But death you confirm has no colour Let the nightmares crumble It is transparent like truth Into daylight and cheer … Shed all ghosts and demons In the din of the river To the oblivion The sound of the universe vanishes Fill the void with music And echoes of demonic silence rise Of your fast-moving waters From within the mind … As confessions from within In Sanskrit, Ganga is called O Ganga, Trilokapatha-gamini I am ready to One who travels thousands of miles Perform my life again… Across three worlds … O Ganga, Here when I meet you this instant I wake up to your energy Vibrating in the unrelenting flow All three worlds coming together Here and now

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Remembrance ZOOMING DOWN MELODY LANE… A Tribute to Musical Icon – Khemchand Prakash by Jameela Siddiqi

This otherwise deadly pandemic may have brought perceives these songs in a way that gives least has made a documentary on the composer and us one thing that we hope will remain with us long credit to its actual creators and the majority are Pawan Jha, who has used his knowledge of after things are normalised: the realisation that unable to name the composer or the lyricist. Songs technology to feed his other passion – film music. remote contact through technology can are always thought to “belong” to the person who Both personalities contributed a huge amount in sometimes help us achieve as much, if not more, had the least to do with their creation, that is, the terms of our understanding of that period as well than what might have been physically possible in a stars who ended up lip-synching them on screen. as deconstructing the actual format of those songs “normal” world. that served as a template for subsequent decades For example, Lalit Mohan Joshi, a London-based Thankfully, there is now a growing awareness and of music. Best of all, professional singers were at writer, Indian film historian and filmmaker interest in wanting to know more about the hand to render a selection of Khemchand recently hosted a Zoom event, ‘A Musical Icon – creators of songs and events such as this one are Prakash’s songs most competently and that too, Khemchand Prakash: Telling his Story with his to be welcomed as an opportunity to learn more without the support of orchestration or percussion Songs’, aired live on which were such an Facebook in which Joshi was integral part of the joined by an array of guests original numbers. – musicians and specialists – Even more surprisingly, to pay tribute to the Joshi was able to legendary Indian composer persuade UK-based Khemchand Prakash – Indian classical (1907-1949) who, in his musician, Pandit brief life, dazzled music Vishwa Prakash, to lovers with his render a film number – unforgettable creations. In (it is extremely rare to the absence of Lockdown, see a classical musician Lalit Mohan Joshi may well agree to sing a film song have hosted such an event, in public) – from the for example, at the Nehru 1943 hit ‘Ziddi’, a ghazal Centre or a similar venue. by the Urdu poet Moin But it’s unlikely that such a Ahsan “Jazbi”. The song panel of international features prominently in Indian film music experts film music history, and musicians would all furnishing the first have been simultaneously lucky break for a then present in London. obscure young singer, Indian film songs – particularly those of the golden about these immortal songs as well as to have a Kishore Kumar, who went on to be a big name in age that ran from the 1940’s to about the early 70s rare opportunity to hear those who have done the decades that followed. – are perhaps the one and only area where South considerable research and study in the history of Lalit Mohan Joshi is to be applauded for a richly Asians of otherwise varying views and persuasions film music. informative and entertaining afternoon. One stand in universal agreement when it comes to Khemchand Prakash’s main forte was the use of hopes there will be many more such events for identifying those iconic numbers that define these India’s rich and varied folk music traditions notably those who like their film music to be placed in a memorable musical decades. These were decades that of Rajasthan, coupled with a thorough historical context and to know something more in which both, the output of films and the songs understanding of the hundreds of raags of Indian about the back-story of their favourite songs. that featured in them, was sizeable, to say the classical music – an unbeatable combination that least. Ironically, with the exception of just a yielded gem after gem. Although he got his first handful, most of the films from that era have break to compose music for a film in 1939, it was Jameela Siddiqi is usually been erased from memory but the songs in 1943 with the music of the film ‘Tansen’ , which an award winning have a stand-alone quality making them immortal. broke all existing records that made Prakash a broadcaster, Attracting even more fans with each subsequent name to be reckoned with, a mere six years before journalist, novelist generation of listeners, youngsters whose his untimely death. But it was six years in which he grandparents hadn’t even been born when the delivered some of the greatest film songs, and a leading songs were first released, are keen to produce culminating in the 1949 runaway hit, ‘Mahal’, commentator on cover versions while young contestants at talent India’s first psychological suspense thriller, for Indian classical shows and auditions, more often than not, prefer which he composed the ethereal song “Aayega music. She read to perform one of these golden nuggets as aane waala” with its equally haunting lyrics by International History at the London School opposed to choosing something more Nakhshab Jarchavi – as well-loved and popular of Economics, and worked as a television contemporary. Curiously, Indian film music went now as it had been at the time of its release, over news producer, scriptwriter and down the drain in the 1980s at roughly the same 70 years ago. But Prakash didn’t live to see the time the industry came to be referred to as success of ‘Mahal’ or its immortal theme song, documentary director for several years. “Bollywood”. which remains one of the most significant songs in She has published two novels: The Feast of Similarly, in gatherings of South Asians, even if film history not least because its singer, Lata the Nine Virgins, 2001, and Bombay they’re meeting for the first time – especially in the Mangeshkar, who recorded it at the tender age of Gardens, 2006. She has also taught on worldwide diaspora – the mutual love of film songs 19, acknowledges it to this day as a major turning creative writing courses and acted as creates a very special bond, almost like a shared point of her long and illustrious career. Course Manager and Lecturer for a degree reference point that forms part of their personal A number of memorable hits of Khemchand course in North Indian Classical Music for soundtrack, engraved on the memory and dripping Prakash were discussed with film music historians with nostalgia. Even so, the average person often and specialists, notably Dr Rajeev Srivaastav who Trinity-Laban and The Bhavan.

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REMEMBRANCE THE ELUSIVE RIGHT TO REMEMBER by Shalomi Daniel The right to life, the right to be treated equally, opportunity to remember and memorialize, they The most recent attempt at curbing such the freedom to express oneself, and especially are often met with opposition, surveillance and memorial events was in May 2021. On 12th May since the onset of the pandemic, the right to hostility. 2021, a mere six days prior to the ‘Mullivaikkal quality healthcare are all rights and freedoms that remembrance day’ yet another memorial in are part and parcel of quotidian vocabulary. Many confuse memorialisation with Mullaitivu, was found vandalised, and a new However, one right that is perhaps less discussed accountability and blame. Many conflate the memorial plaque that was to be erected the and yet equally important, and even sacred, is the cause of the conflict, and the conflict itself, with following day, was nowhere to be found. One of right to remember. the right of the individual, family and community, the monuments, a pair of outstretched hands, lay to remember their loved ones. What many forget helplessly on the soil, as though endeavouring to The right to remember one’s departed loved is, that for these families, it is the death of a son grasp the basic right to remember that continues ones; the freedom to engage in religious rites and or a daughter, a husband or a sister, a parent or a to remain out of reach. Several attempts were observances in their memory; the yearning to grandchild, that they mourn. A day to remember made by the police once more to obtain court collectively memorialize those who have gone them, to offer prayers and blessings, to honour orders prohibiting any memorial events. Despite before us, is an intrinsic right and something very their memory, are therefore essential for these this, a court order was obtained allowing the close to the human heart. It may not always be families to heal and to move forward. Denying families to remember their dead. However, on the articulated as a right and may not even be found them this, is to deny one of the most basic human night of 17th May 2021, three police divisions in in domestic lawbooks. However, remembering needs, let alone human rights. the Mullaitivu district were isolated on the the dead has been part of human life grounds of curbing the spread of COVID- since its genesis, a thread that weaves 19. together the past and the present, stretching out into the afterlife. The Successive governments have also yearning to remember those who have repeatedly mounted opposition to left us, the almost reflex tendency to ‘Maveerar day’ commemorations – the honour the memory of the dead, is day on which families in the North and part of what it means to be human. East remember their fallen who were part of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Memorialisation can come in many Ealam (LTTE). Governments have argued different forms, shapes and sizes. They that allowing such memorialisation can range from towering monuments would revive the LTTE, and pose a threat to a humble shrine in the house, from to national security. However, for the a community vigil to a tree planted in families of the young boys and girls who memory of the dead. The right to died, it is a day to remember the vacant remember and mourn those they have place at the dinner table, the missing lost, enable the grieving loved ones, to face at family gatherings, the memories find closure, to find healing and to of someone they loved and cherished. keep moving forward in their lives. In a post- The right to remember, has now become the conflict context, amidst competing narratives and In contrast, members of the Janatha Vimukthi struggle to remember. Much opposition has been raw wounds, memorialisation has the power to be Perumuna, a leftist party in Sri Lanka, to which mounted since 2009 against the Tamils’ right to a soothing balm – to acknowledge each other’s youth insurrections in the 1970s and 1980s are remember. This trend continues, and has in fact griefs, respect the other’s loss, and honour the attributed, were able to remember their fallen been exacerbated with the onset of the memory of the dead. comrades. Though the insurrections saw innocent pandemic. In May 2020, law enforcement officials blood being brutally shed on both sides; yet obtained court orders to prevent the As Aristotle said, human beings are by nature, another dark period in Sri Lankan history memorialisation efforts in the North and East social animals. We tend to crave community and characterised by enforced disappearances, under the guise of public health concerns. While companionship. This is especially so in South Asian torture, killings and political upheaval, the right to the order was later revoked, the attempt to cultures, where celebrations and mourning are remember those who died in furtherance of their prevent memorialisation was a stark reminder done in community – hardly in isolation. It is not cause, was honoured in this instance. Memorials that the right to remember continues to be under in the least unusual for family, friends and in memory of the youth who lost their lives in the siege. neighbours to come together either in preparing insurrections are common in State Universities for a celebration, or in providing comfort and across the country. In contrast however, ‘war heroes’ day was support in mourning. Therefore, community commemorated in May 2020 by state officials in memorialisation efforts are not only a basic right, Why two different approaches to the same issue, memory of the armed forces personnel who lost they are also part of the South Asian DNA. Hence, one may ask. It is a question that has remained their lives in the war, with no attempts being especially in a post-conflict era, where unanswered for decades, one may respond. For made to curtail the event under the guise of communities hold shared memories and years to come, generations of Sri Lankans may pandemic regulations. experiences, it is natural for communities to want continue to debate the finer points of politics, of historical grievances, of rights and wrongs, of who to come together to remember those who have Since the conclusion of the war in May 2009, threw the first stone. However, for the families of died and been disappeared. grieving families have been engaged in several the dead and the disappeared, their grief battles of a different nature – the battle to unassuaged, their wish is quite simple – to For Tamils in Sri Lanka, especially those whose remember; to memorialize. From being remember those they love. loved ones were either killed or disappeared prohibited in 2017 from holding remembrance during the course of the three decade war, and events at a place of their choosing and being Shalomi Daniel is a lawyer especially at the latter stages of the war in May dictated as to where such events may be held, to practising in Sri Lanka. 2009, exercising this right, has been fraught with memorial monuments and plaques being controversy. Since May 2009, Tamils especially in destroyed overnight in 2021, the basic right to the North and East of Sri Lanka have been facing remember the dead continues to be an uphill mounting challenges to remember their dear struggle. departed. Every year, as they anticipate an

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BACK TO THE FUTURE

Prosenjit Dasgupta’s India: Searching for the Present in the past Reviewed by Anjana Basu

To write a book that compares India’s past another. He also points out that there was first published in 1923 and then brought out and present chapter by chapter is an no unity among Hindus – the sub continent five years later entitled Hindutva: Who Is a undertaking that requires in depth was divided among regional rulers and that Hindu? According to the book, Hindus, are research. Prosenjit Dasgupta has not only clans like the Rajputs were perennially at those who consider India to be the land in done that but directs the reader to the war with each other, referring to Tod’s which their ancestors lived, as well as the relevant texts from which he has drawn his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan and land in which their religion originated points in case cross referencing is required. refuting the myth that became more and though history does not bear testimony to What emerges is a study of the more prevalent in the nineteenth century this. subcontinent’s origins and its pluralism that of an ideal Hindu civilisation that ruled over continued without compromise down the all others. The India that Dasgupta explores is formed ages, more or less untrammelled till the from migrations and cross migrations and nineteenth century when a combination of even the texts of the RigVeda and Puranas British scholarship and Hindu inferences do not claim to be religious documents but based on a selective reading of portions of purveyors of knowledge. However, texts like the Manusmriti led to a Sarvarkar’s pamphlet gave rise to the one of redefinition of what India was and gave rise the most commonly used words in present to the belief that India was responsible for day India and a theory which is refuted by banishing ignorance from countries like the historical references that Dasgupta Egypt, Greece and Europe in the pre- presents. Christian era. Also that before the Aryans swept the sub continent; the country that Many would be interested to know that became India was unpopulated, though Sardar Patel gave his nod to the RSS after history bears testimony to the contrary. He they presented themselves as a cultural speaks of travellers like Fa Hien, Hieun organisation rather than a political one. Tsang and Bernier who contributed their For those who are interested in finding out tales both of the nation’s open mindedness how a nation that believed in unity in and its practices like sati that went diversity became a Hindu focused one, the unchecked in Mughul times when all faiths book will be an enlightening read. were allowed their freedom. Dasgupta traces the gradual narrowing of Anjana Basu has to date philosophical and religious thought down published 7 novels and 2 the ages, citing examples like Asoka’s edicts books of poetry. The has BBC broadcast one of her which spoke of ‘Dhamma’ as all-inclusive INR 550/ short stories. Her byline has and Sri Ramakrishna’s later ‘joto mat toto appeared in Vogue India, pat’ both of which implied that there were This crystallised into Vinayak Damodar Conde Nast Traveller, many ways of reaching God and that one Savarkar’s Hindutva, which was written Outlook and Hindu Blink. way was not necessarily better than while he was jailed in the Andamans and

Two short poems by Reginald Massey

The Wind That Afternoon Amidst The Oleanders

It is written 'Do not pluck the Flowers'. That afternoon amidst the oleanders But a strong storm comes and blows them away. We said the simplest things. The wind cannot read. Things that lovers had said before, Declarations and questionings. And a squirrel stopped and envied us Then flicked away, a streak of grey. And the sparrows in the bougainvillaea Built their nests throughout the day. And the flower-beds armed with cannas Defied the might of suns and kings, But we just said the simplest things That afternoon amidst the oleanders.

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EKPHRASTIC & SURREALIST POEMS

Anita Nahal’s poems This is an ekphrastic and surrealist poem based on the painting, Time Transfixed by surrealist painter, Rene Magritte, and an image from the movie, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (Accessed from free images on the net) The two images were merged into this one piece by the author. Ekphrastic poetry represents the writer’s perception of a painting, sculpture, image or movie. This poem is also written in surrealist imagery.

Native

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee was playing on a mega screen on This is an ekphrastic and surrealist poem based on the the expansive canvas of almost captured fields. People were image of the jazz singer. Ekphrastic poetry represents the scampering around filling in the shadows of the good, bad and evil. writer’s perception of a painting, sculpture, image or Each side in history believes its good. Arrows, bullets, tears mixed movie. Image: Photo by Kobe Subramaniam on Unsplash. with the neigh of horses were lying on their side, wounded in body The poem is also written in surrealist imagery. and pride. Blood and the guilty swarmed like hungry, disturbed bees. Rusted and tainted buggy lines had left permanent etchings in Smooth jazz flows through me, soft, tempting, the muddied road in which lilliputian minds pushed their bayonets experimenting like an alchemist searching, yearning, into people’s shoeless feet. And far away on the horizon, one could transforming lost souls into solid again. There’s an ocean hear the wolves howling, babies crying, mothers wailing, and young flowing through the club where I’m performing, and the and all lost. A bison with lush green grass growing from its back sits Middle Passage is red. All around ancestors are wailing. at the entrance of a burning teepee village begging to be fed and Unnerving screams are unable to break the chains. Burnt eaten like before. The railroad keeps moving. Even the artist refuses rose buds fly around bellowing my tale wondering how to let the train rest. The steam is chocking and burning inside, they’d survive infancy. You, and you, and you, or even you, outside. No onomatopoeia exists for the sounds of civilizational may not fully get it. The sweet fragrance and the tears truths and lies. fusing in my veins. Don’t ask me whose fault it is. Delve your arms into your belly for that gut of yours. Pull it out. Shake it. Awake now. Ask it.

Outside its raining saxophones and plethora of hums, echoes, reverberations and silence. The last is louder than Anita Nahal is a professor, poet, flash all. Some wood, some mast, some gold, some skin, some fictionist and children’s writer. Her third souls. The other day I went on a fancy cruise to where the book of poetry, What’s wrong with us Kali slave ships teared through alien waters far, far away from women? is scheduled for release by Kelsay home and the saxophones were enthralling there. The top Books, August 2021.More on her at: deck was brilliant and mopped clean. A little tearful. A bit https://anitanahal.wixsite.com/anitanahal queasy. And many stood watching the heartbeats of the ocean in satin and silk dresses and velvet tuxedos singing midnight extravaganzas. It’s raining dead people. Love and hearth are confused. My body, your touch. Strings of music notes hold us together.

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Book review Mihir Bose’s Narendra Modi: The Yogi of Populism Reviewed by Martin Lumb (Commonwealth Journalists' Association)

If political populism was an international sport, Narendra Modi would Furthermore, says Bose, he's converted this idea of Hindu nationalism have to be given a handicap. into a touchstone of identity, part of his party's core ideology of Seizing on what his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has Hindutva, which he believes all Indians whatever their faith must accept. decried as the corruption, inertia and nepotism of the post-colonial era, he's fed an eager populace with a simple message: You've been Examples of discriminatory measures aimed at Muslims abound in the dispossessed. Modi era. One of the most notorious is the Citizen Amendment Bill, They lapped it up, and he won two thumping election victories. No supposedly meant to help illegal immigrants who'd suffered religious need for him to make up stories of election fraud. In a field of impressive discrimination to achieve citizenship. Six minority communities were runners, he's way out in front in the international populism stakes. specified in the bill - Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsee and Christian. But while his political tactics may match those of some unsavoury One other very significant minority community is not on the list. contemporaries on the world stage, there is evidence that his fight to the top will be far more consequential than theirs, his manipulation There is also the revoking of Article 370, written into the Constitution more skillful. to recognise the special status of Kashmir, the only Muslim- It's this turning point in Indian majority state in the Union. politics, driven in part by a dark This provision allowed for a anti-Muslim energy, that has state flag and a measure of prompted Mihir Bose to look at autonomy, intended when the how his birthplace reached such Constitution was drawn up as a troubling juncture. living proof that India could be a secular state allowing for Bose is the ideal interpreter of people of all faiths. But this transformation in the Indian secularism is anathema to political landscape, given his Modi and the and the special prolific output on everything that provision was an obvious makes the country tick - politics, target for the BJP. business, Bollywood and cricket. Along with the baggage of He traces the striking populism comes the cult similarities between the surrounding a leader, and messages hammered home so along with the cult comes the crudely in recent election campaigns elsewhere, and Modi's own lunatic fringe. With Trump in the US it was QAnon and the message that constant theme. That is, you're losing control of your own country, your their opponents were really Satan-worshipping paedophiles. In neat destiny is being sacrificed, and I'm showing you the true path out of this. examples of how fanaticism leads to suspension of reality, Bose finds time to talk to Hindu supremacists in India who tell him the magnificent This may sound familiar from the recent American presidential Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, was actually a Hindu campaign, and the EU referendum in the UK. In India's case, it goes back palace appropriated by the Muslims, and that the high priest of decades to the seminal moment of independence and Partition, and the secularism, Jawaharwal Nehru, was in fact a secret Muslim. ability of Hindus and Muslims to live together. But who needs fantasists when hardline Hindu fundamentalists are When Jawaharwal Nehru became India's first prime minister, his already so well entrenched in the Indian body politic? This book should guiding principle for keeping such a sprawling multi-layered society serve as a salutory reminder of how perceptions change and how the together was secularism. What Modi has done is to debunk this, and as fringe can become the mainstream. Bose argues, what was once considered anathema, and ideas at the very fringe of Indian society, have now been brought to the fore.

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The Sarasvati Civilisation: The 9500 year old Cradle of Indian Civilisation by Kusum Pant Joshi

On Sunday 16 May, London’s ‘Sannidhya that was located a little away from it. He said that Samvad’ run by Lalit Mohan Joshi, presented a from remnants of this civilisation it is crystal clear scintillating Zoom talk by Brigadier G.D. Bakshi. that India’s ancient Sarasvati civilisation is not The subject was ancient India’s Sarasvati only the oldest but also the only living civilisation Civilisation of north- western India which is also in the world. It is the Sarasvati Civilisation that is the subject of one of his recent books. the cradle of Indian civilisation and possibly also of global civilisation. The learned General with a Ph.D. from Madras University, based his findings on painstaking He emphasised the continuities that characterise research. His sources include excavations and India’s ancient Sarasvati-Indus Valley Civilisation analyses of satellite images, gene mapping and and Indians today. To stress these continuities gnome studies of an area about 2 million square that have defied the inexorable passage of kilometres in extent over which this highly centuries, General Bakshi mentioned the evolved ancient civilisation was spread. following: (1) the use of the ‘bindi’ or mark on the forehead worn by Indian women, (2) the ‘sindur’ He stressed the need for Indians to end their or vermillion powder innumerable worn by needless and harmful reliance on western writers married Hindu women almost all over India on the to write their history. No other nation outsources parting of their hair to this day, (3) their wearing their history writing to others he said! It’s high bangles, (4) the worship of the Shivalinga and (5) time Indians had a hard look at the sources of the practice of Yoga and (6) meditation. their history. This includes written texts going back to the ancient era, books, archaeological The only civilisation today as regards cultural remains and conclusions evident from the latest continuity is that of the Chinese. China, however, scientific analyses of historical data. It is such has lost huge chunks of its culture and identity sources that Indians must examine for rewriting though it has tenaciously clung to its language. their history in an unbiased manner with a multidisciplinary approach. He attacked the Aryan Invasion theory mooted during the British Raj for establishing political This he said, will happen only when Indians shed dominance. He regretted that it was still the debilitating inferiority complex bred during supported by India’s post-independence so-called colonial times that has continued to afflict them Marxist and “Leftist” historians and their ilk. long after the British Empire has vanished from the face of the earth! In a riveting session that helped correct the deliberate distortions of India’s colonial rulers, His powerful talk was heard by an attentive group General Bakshi revealed the failure, (even after of listeners from different age groups and 1947), of indigenous governments to correct the nationalities. The diversity of their backgrounds false colonial narrative. It is apparent that a ranged from experienced researchers and social collusion of myopic governments with a section of scientists from the world of academia to the field historians fired by hidden agendas and a brood of of politics and journalism. It included young visionless bureaucrats and ex-bureaucrats, college students, literary writers and senior artists continues to block essential course correction. It from the sphere of dance and music as well as was distressing to hear of the dismissive and young professionals from the sectors of business arrogant attitude of historians who have ruled and finance. the roost so far, towards new evidence-based data. Through his Power Point presentation General Bakshi revealed that the Sarasvati civilisation We now look forward to a spate in which India’s went back 9,500 years before the birth of Christ. indigenous historians will emerge, re-read and As described in the India’s ancient Rig Veda, the Through a really powerful Power Point rewrite Indian history and come forward with Sarasvati, after rising in the Himalayas, presentation, General Bakshi showcased glorious logical conclusions drawn from irrefutable data transformed itself into a mighty river 4,600 remnants of the Indus Valley civilisation. These and a multidisciplinary approach. We will also kilometres in length and 6-8 kilometres wide. It is included photographs of terracotta figurines of welcome the dawn of an era when Indian clear that when it flowed past Patiala in modern men and women, children’s toys, highly finished historians of yesteryears will open up and engage Punjab where it was joined by the Jamuna and the pottery, official seals, standardised bricks and a in meaningful discussions and constructive Sutlej, its width almost trebled to 20 kilometres. highly perfected drainage system. Such evidence, criticism of new historical writings on Indian After passing through Kurukshetra, the site of the as remarked by Professor Smriti Shukla of history by Indian historians! ancient battle mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, Government M K B Arts & Commerce College, and parts of north India, the Sarasvati entered Jabalpur “rightfully kindles our pride in Indian Dr Kusum Pant Joshi is a modern Gujarat and emptied itself into the Sea heritage.” London based Social Historian, after meandering past the Rann of Kutch. Researcher and Writer. She is Very importantly, General Bakshi added that the Chief Researcher in an HLF He said that though it was a spectacular river in India’s ancient “Indus Valley Civilisation” was first Project awarded to South ancient times and much feared due to its power, unearthed by English archaeologist, Sir Mortimer Asian Cinema Foundation it dried up due to geological reasons and had Wheeler in 1921 who had rushed to assign an (SACF). She is presently vanished by 1900 BC. Thus, later on, when India arbitrary and inaccurate date regarding its working on a new book “African & Asian was invaded by foreigners such as Alexander from antiquity. Celebrities in London’s ‘Vanity Fair’ magazine Greece in 327 BC, they had encountered not the (1868-1914): Selective Inclusion?” Sarasvati, (which had by then vanished Then, linking the Indus Civilisation to the Sarasvati underground), but the River Sindhu or Indus on Civilisation and calling it the Sarasvati-Indus their march into India. This explains why we they Civilisation, General Bakshi said that the Indus referred to the land beyond this river as “Hind”/ Civilisation was an extension or child of the same “Hindustan” and its inhabitants as “Hindus”. and more heavily populous Sarasvati Civilisation

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Short story The Detective's Son by Subhash Chandra

It was dusk and he crossed all limits when me, I felt icicles flowing down my spine. An Every morning on my way to college and he espied me. ugly chunk of my youth came alive! back, I encountered him. # He sat on his haunches, arms enfolding his I clearly heard him use an expletive for me, legs, back resting against the low boundary mutter and laugh aloud. Two men were Satish and I were classmates at college and wall of the park and chin perched on his walking immediately ahead of me, but we had free access to each other’s home. knees. He seemed to be a beggar ... well not neither of them looked back. My parents liked him and his younger sister. exactly. They had lost their parents in a bus There was something about him which He was surely a fishy character. I resolved accident. On way to Delhi from Shimla, their conveyed his innate dignity. to investigate and find out who he was, why bus had hurtled down a gorge. Satish and he had chosen to squat in our lane and near Darshee were among the few survivors. He seemed mad … well not exactly. to our house and get him hauled up by the After college Satish joined a government His eyes did not have that classic distracted police. But my instinct told me to not mess office as a clerk whereas I went on to do my look of madness. On the contrary, in up with him. Masters and then PhD in Accountancy. contrast to his slouching body, stubbled face, and scruffy hair, his eyes were alert But genes cannot be smothered. After a Darshee, a simple, pretty girl had the dewy and penetrating. Whenever I passed him, fortnight, I slid out of bed at midnight. I saw freshness of the mountains. It took me little he’d mutter incoherently. the fellow walking away and chased him time to seduce her. Despite knowing fully I knew, one day I would succumb to my wearing my sneakers to avoid making any well my Rajput parents would never agree genetic curiosity. sound and also keeping distance. to our marriage, as they belonged to low caste Hesi tribe (vagrant minstrels singing My father was the most highly paid private He got into a by-lane and disappeared. I for sustenance), I carried on the detective in his Agency. Each success made stalked him for a week but to no avail. relationship on the sly. Satish would come him happy, but also sad. Putting on my detective cap, I concluded he late from office and I used the opportunity “Tejas, this profession has no social must be getting into one of the houses at to sneak into their house. respect,” he said to me once. the beginning of the by-lane. She conceived and when I asked her to “People avoid you because almost abort, she hanged herself. everyone has a patch of shady past. Study One night I closely scrutinised every house Satish disappeared without leaving any hard and join the university. Teaching is the till the end of the by-lane, but could not trace. After six months, his severed body best profession and commands the highest zero in on any. I repeated the process, now was found on the railway tracks. respect in society.” lingering in front of each house to find some # # clue. The door of the second house on right “Darshee has also come with me,” he said This guy was a mystery and all my life I had was not properly shut. and called her. She came and stood shyly by been fascinated by mysteries. Yes, this is it. Your game is up, fella; you his side. So, I’d stealthily observe the fellow from can’t outsmart the son of a private “But she …” our first floor balcony, whenever I could. detective! “No, she did not die. I got back home early Sometimes, I caught him sneaking glances that day.” at the three-storey Minocha Mansion with I forcefully kicked the door open. But the “And your body … a lift -- which was out of sync with this next moment, I found myself amidst “That was somebody else’s.” middle class colony, inhabited by salaried swirling darkness and eerie silence. It’s an I turned to bolt out from there. people. The Minochas were into some kind abandoned house, I thought. As I turned to “No use. The door is locked from outside.” of exports -- nobody knew what. They did leave, I heard, “You’ve come to the right not socialise with anybody. place.” Startled, I peered into the darkness. Dr Subhash Chandra, Now and then his gaze followed the Anglo Keeping my nerve, I asked in a commanding former Professor of Indian widow’s two nubile daughters who tone, “Who are you and why are you hiding English, Delhi worked as Escorts to tourists visiting in darkness?” University, has historical places in different cities. They “The electric switch is on your right.” published two short often kept late hours. The guy was sitting cross-legged on a stories collections, Not ramshackle chair in a confident posture. Just Another Story, But one day I was struck by a thunderbolt! “Who are you?” I asked. and Beyond the It was a Sunday and Bhavna and I were “I’ve worked hard to get you here.” Canopy of Icicles, about sixty short stories going to the market. He ogled at her “What business do you have with me?” in journals, 4 books of criticism and several shamelessly, grinned in a grotesque way “The past is always present.” research articles. and made some bizarre gurgling sounds. I decided to teach him a lesson, but when I His behaviour was intriguing. He was looked at Bhavna, she was not only unfazed insultingly ignoring my questions, as if I had but also perplexed by my irritated face. not spoken. “Have you forgotten me totally?” he asked. One evening, I had to stay late at college for My mind plumbed the depths of memory the preparation of the Annual Day function. pool. Oh no … the same tenor-voice … yes, and the moment recognition dawned on

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Abhay K. brings us a dictionary and travelogue of culture from Latin America

While paying tribute to Peru’s greatest poet, the end, "Fellow citizens! I blush to say this: Abhay K. reinvents his exclusive meaning. Such Independence is the only benefit we have

is the power of craft! It shows how with ease acquired, to the detriment of all the rest." some simple material can change ownership to take us to different heights.

The Alphabets of Latin America is Abhay K.’s new poetry collection. It is a unique travelogue

of Latin America’s cultural carnival through the

kaleidoscopic words by our much-travelled, Abhay K. diplomat poet. He organises this riot in A-Z alphabetical order! The book is populated not

only by people, animals or important places

and cities but also, frequently, by Latin Bloomsbury India, ISBN 9789389867923 César Vallejo America’s most engaging and imaginative That stands with the humorous lines of the

After Mass artists, writers and poets of stature as in the poem on Bolivar:

above poem. This collection is unique in the he kept his solemn vow

The corpse sense that it has no intention of dragging you not to marry again into some great contract of poetic epiphany. It after the untimely death who was already dead rather paints vivid word pictures for you to of his young wife Maria died again this Thursday entice you into feeling touch, smell and vision. though had countless affairs. in Paris Where possible poet also delivers a serious Such is the morality of politics, where all men, women, and children punch as in this very short poem: promises are kept drenched in hypocrisy. on the earth São Paulo could not save him Fernando Botero is well-known for his inflated figures, especially sizeable women. from dying again, Giant towers rise Botero’s Women described by Abhay K. as he wished to get up slowly in concrete jungles ‘bare colossal delight’/exaggerated at least once flaunting/gentle hypnotic/inflated jumbos’ to embrace the last human birds are absent from the sky are also many other words in that poem. before dying again. But he points out the play of aesthetics trees pray for sunlight against the reality in the last lines: th On 29 October Thursday, there was an The extremely crowded and dense city takes its ‘xeroxed/yearning/zoomorphic/but not fat.’

Islamist terrorist attack in Nice, France. Poet name from Saint Paul of Tarsus, and of course, Thus Abhay K. creates observations in recreates the message in general. Humanity it has much to offer in arts and architecture, poems on Latin America. died “again” on that horrific day of new and old, drumming about Brazil. The decapitation. It dies again and again while the To close the article, here is a poem Samba. alienation is too familiar to the poet with good people try to rescue it as it happens in financial towers wanting to reach the sky and It is always a delight to listen to and watch César Vallejo’s poem Mass. César Vallejo was it. The poet leads us to the spirit of Latin create a forest of concrete towers blocking the a great Peruvian poet. In his famous poem, a America with a soul full of rhythms light at a ground level where nature lives. Poet scene opens with subtly–rather diplomatically, as he cannot enveloping us in an extravaganza of colours

afford to upset countries in his positions as and light. There is no room for darkness in

When the battle was over India’s senior diplomat abroad-makes us aware Abhay’s journey. And the fighter was dead, a man came of the unnatural neon culture fashioned by the Samba toward him humans in this and any city. It is a place from And said to him: “Do not die; I love you so!” where birds –with their beauty and songs – But the corpse, how sad! went on dying. have decided to go in exile! Poet laments our

disconnection from nature. We are too busy This process of dying continues to the end on towering our ‘concrete’ hopes, expectations an abstract battlefield with more and more and ambitions translated into economic people joining until the whole human race success leaving no room for any light for the walks to the corpse and inspires the dying man trees- our rescue and connection

to get up and live. The poet’s message is of to nature; but they are homeless without light!

power not from the economic globalisation, It also delivers a lateral message on the climate but instead, from the Vasudhaiva crisis. A beam of light

Kuṭumbakam (वसुधैव कु टु बकम) ् of the human enters a dark alley— Abhay K.’s craft also involves shrewd humour! goodness. Abhay K. takes a tangential skirting spirit takes over body. on the theme. In his version, he finds the corpse In Simon Bolivar, the hero who overthrew the in fact dies, but to only rise again and again as Spanish Empire to create freedom for many humanity cannot surrender to the nations, including the one named after him, executioners from hell. The twist is that in Bolivia, the poet contrasts Bolivar’s personal In the Queen’s New Year Honours List 2020,

César Vallejo’s poem the dying man has given life with his despair about his native region’s Yogesh Patel received an MBE for

up hope to the end, while in Abhay K.’s poem freedom, not forgetting what Bolivar said at literature. He runs Skylark Publications UK

the dying man is a corpse but “wished to get and a non-profit Word Masala project to promote SA diaspora literature. Extensively up slowly”, while the whole humanity-“all men, women, and children”- is failing the John published, an award-winning poet, he has

Doe. also received the Freedom of the City of

London.

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Malathy’s Musings Revisiting my Interview with Salman Rushdie by Malathy Sitaram

On the 40th anniversary of the publication Booker English boarding school, Rugby when he was They were unhappy out of Bombay and never prize winner “Midnight’s Children” Malathy thirteen. A brilliant pupil at Rugby he then went on completely at ease with Indians from elsewhere. Sitaram revisits an interview she carried out with to Cambridge. Meanwhile his parents had Bombayites were members of an exclusive club. Its its author Salman Rushdie at his London home. uprooted themselves from India and had departed manners and mores set one apart. How well I for Karachi, Pakistan much to Rushdie’s dismay. He remember declaring to my parents that I could not On the evening of 25th October 1981, I was sitting confesses that to this day he does not really know marry a man from the “provinces” and leave in front of the television in a state of some the reasons for their departure from India. A Bombay. I did marry an “outsider” and left Bombay suspense. For that evening the Booker-McConnell secular, Westernised and cultured family, they had for good in 1961; but for a long time I yearned for Prize Committee would announce the winner of all loved Bombay and Rushdie recalls his the high rise flats, the Bombay accent and slang the prestigious literary prize for 1981. The reasons belderment and pain at this parent’s decision. the steely glitter of the Arabian sea. for my suspense? Well I felt as though I had a personal stake in the outcome. On the final short Through Rushdie’s magical realism he tells the list of authors whose book Midnight’s Children had history of India after Independence, starting with received critical acclaim earlier in the year. I had hope, and then the descent to despair with the Indo just finished reading the substantial novel and the Pakistan war in 1971 and the birth of Bangladesh euphoria that had begun on commencing reading and ending in the emergency years of Mrs. Gandhi. had not worn off. Indeed I was on a “high”. At last The initial euphoria of the book that accompanied someone had written about Bombay, the fabulous the birth of the nation dissipates under the weight city of my childhood and youth with the love and of political reality. sure knowledge of an initiate. My euphoria was compounded of nostalgia and gratitude. Memory In recent interviews to mark the fortieth banks in my brain, suddenly activated, flashed a anniversary of the book, Rushdie’s disillusionment series of images, sharp and clear onto my inner with India has increased as he now says that India eye. The images brought in their wake sounds, is no longer the country of the novel and believes it smells and feelings – total recall. has entered an even darker phase than the Emergency years. The hopes that accompanied At last, the Chairman of the judges, Malcolm Independence have been dashed. Bradbury, arose and without delay announced the winner- Salman Rushdie. My triumphant yell Midnight’s Children should be read by every startled my gentle spouse. Others – foreign others Indian. It should be a set book in every Indian – had appreciated the lyricism of Rushdie’s University’s English Department. It is a historical evocation of the Bombay of the fifties and sixties. novel, political satire and zany comedy written in The city was forever immortalised in print by a the modern experimental tradition of the West kindred spirit who now blinked like a bemused owl and utterly Indian in flavour. in the glare of lights and acclaim. A pale, slight young man, very Parsee in appearance and visibly For me it is Rushdie’s record of his childhood in shaken on receiving his reward of a £10,000 After Cambridge, Rushdie went to Pakistan for a Bombay that was most meaningful. Places, names, cheque for his endeavours. He had opened up a few months, but hated it so much that returned to happening long forgotten were magically revived fresh new territory for the literary imagination: England for good, determined to get by under his and restored fresh and whole. The constant litany Bombay. own steam. His antipathy to Pakistan is shared by of place names between Worli and Colaba has an the hero of “Midnight’s Children”, Saleem Sinai, incantatory effect. Shops, roads, books, pop songs, The young celebrity proved to be very accessible who spends four unhappy years in Rawalpindi, foods…” How on earth did you remember all this?” on the telephone. We arranged an interview at his never ceasing to feel that Pakistan is not his I asked Rushdie. home in Tufnell Park, London in two days’ time. He country. Saleem feels acutely the pangs of forced seemed glad to talk about the Bombay ethos of the exile from Warden Road and Breach Candy and The Metro cub club at the plush Metro cinema was novel. To emphasise this aspect of his book is to do Scandal point…away from the Cathedral School my childhood Saturday morning ritual. To think it less than justice. It is a massive complex, funny, and the equestrian statue of Sivaji and melon that I actually took part in the Talent Contest held satirical and political novel, undeniably brilliant. sellers at the Gateway of India; away from Diwali every alternate Saturday so lovingly described by and the Ganesh Chaturthi and Coconut day… Rushdie. The book portrays India’s transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition of “Back to Bom”, he yells happily on his return. Reading the book made me realise that like the India. The story is told by its chief protagonist protagonist in the book Saleem Sinai, I too am Saleem Sinai and is set in the context of actual And really it was Rushdie’s intimate recollections “forever tainted with Bombayness.” historical events. Born at the stroke of midnight on of Bombay that I wanted to discuss because we the exact moment of India’s independence, Saleem had both been there at the same time, had led Sinai is a special child whose telepathic powers rather similar lives in practically the same few connect him with 1,000 other “midnight’s” square miles, although our paths had never children. crossed. Rushdie understood my triumphant excitement that at last someone had written about Salman Rushdie was born in 1947 in Bombay into that very special city from the inside. What to a well-heeled upper middle class Muslim family. constituted Bombay’s otherness? What set it apart His childhood was spent in Windsor Villa, Warden from any other Indian city? Its inhabitants were Road, the environs of which are described snobbish about their lifestyle. They saw minutely in the book and which, he told me was themselves as cosmopolitan, secular, still surprisingly unchanged. He left India for an Westernised, urban and laid back in their outlook.

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Eating out Dining in Mumbai by Anushka Shinde Franklin

When one thinks about Mumbai, the first thing Tourists often prefer fine-dine outlets. Many of As we travel away from the city to the outsksirts that comes to mind is the variety of life in India’s them have been there since ages like Lings of Mumbai, one comes across local dinners-or- most vibrant metropolis. This reflects in the Pavilion (chinese/cantonese) and Gaylord (‘Dhabbas’) as they are called. They serve city’s cuisine---from spicy Kashmiri kebabs to the traditional Maharashtrian missal pav, there (continental). Some newer ones are Kuai authentic Maharashtrain simple food at are distinctive flavours to satisfy every taste and Kitchen, Foo Town, Pa Pa Ya and Jia which give reasonable prices. The meal usually includes palate. us a taste of Thai and Japanese food. rice flour rotis- the dough is kneaded with warm water and lightly cooked on the pan which turns People from different states migrate to Mumbai out to be very soft. The vegetarian platter is Going into the suburbs, we have places like for their livelihood and to fulfil their served with a bowl of lentil (dal), vegetables, a Candies, a legendary eatery in Bandra, that dreams. Along with them, comes the flavour of sweet dish and papad. The non-veg platter or thousands in Mumbai swear by. The Goa the region: Gujaratis, Sindhis, Keralites and combo consist or rice flour rotis along Portuguese-styled villa seems to accommodate others have their own specialties. The city with spiced curry made with coconut, and fish everyone. Further down at Khar, we have presents a cocktail full of flavours from North, fry with a lot of masala. A digestive drink called Ministry of Crabs a newly-opened Sri Lankan South, East and West! Mumbai locals love street Solkadhi, (made from dried kokum fruit mixed place. After being in business for few years, it food- Vadapav (potato patty dipped in gram with coconut milk) is served. The flavours with has made an entry into Asia’s top 50 flour, baked or fried served in a bun with garlic every sip can be surprising. restaurants. For those who crave barbeque

food, they can go to Barbeque Nation which mix) or Panipuri (fried puff-balls filled with serves a variety of veg/non-veg grilled dishes mashed potato and herbed water) or Bhel-puri Mumbai is a city that can mesmerise you in along with a sumptuous buffet. (pop-rice served with a mixture of chopped many ways, specially when it comes to food. onions, tomatoes, tamarind paste, and The covid pandamic has forced people to stay coriander chutney). The young crowd of Mumbai love going to bars home, but they order out frequently and like Irish House. The ambience of this place housewives add to their income by supplying captures the spirit of traditional pubs of grand home cooked meals. Alas, restaurants are not Irani cafes are an iconic part of our city and are old Ireland. They have major events such as doing so well and there is fear that some may situated mainly in South Mumbai. However, Oktoberfest & St. Patricks day. The well-stocked close down.We all pray and hope that this lively times are changing and these outlets face an bar has over 50 variety of beers ranging from city will always have the best offer. unstable future. Parsi (Iranian) restaurants such international, domestic and hand-crafted. The as Café Military, Ideal Corner, Yazdani Bakery, other trending hangout for youngsters is 145. It Kyani’s, Britania& Co, and last, but not the least, Anushka Shinde Franklin used to be a popular night club but has now Jimmy Boy, have been here since decades and writes about food for transformed into a fun place with casual bar- now are historic landmarks. magazines and blogs. She dinning. Their fare is a mix of popular dishes and specializes in Early street food with quirky names such as the Childhood Education and Chicken Makhani bao & Animal Fries. works at a school in Mumbai.

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Music The Carnatic Conundrum By Parthiban Manoharan This background is needed to understand the they transpired into nothing concrete in the liberty that was up for grabs where the problematic space in which Carnatic music addressing these issues where the accused artist was able to choose any theme, exists today. Being upheld and almost “owned” musicians enjoyed much celebration as before. composition or structure that they would by a certain caste and class of society, the This further questioned the integrity of the prefer, it just ended up being an exploration of music exists in a vacuum, eerily choosing to industry who it ultimately benefitted. the compositions of the Trinity, yet again. disregard the surrounding environment that it Some of the titles that were from this season’s owes its origins to. For starters musicians Let’s fast forward to 2020. First there was concerts were “From the banks of Kaveri”, “A outside the Brahmin class or from a Guru- COVID. In India the impact was immense. One journey with the supreme”, “Rivers of India”, Shishya parampara outside of the Trinity find it cannot forget images of the plight of daily wage “The guiding light” and “All is well”. As you can incredibly challenging to enter this world. Caste workers, especially from adjacent states to see the representation and diversity is identifiers have increasingly dominated Tamil Nadu, named as “immigrants” within spellbindingly absent. It is almost like nothing concert attire. Even the younger lot seem to their own country, who lost their jobs, were else mattered. Artists could have chosen find so much importance in displaying caste penniless, foodless and shelter less but above contemporary poets, Dalit poets, chosen identifiers in its full glory than giving all had no cries answered in helping them reach themes that are connected with the importance to “real” issues in hand that can be home. They walked, thousands of kilometers, environment they were witnessing but it was lent the hand of music while enriching the some losing their lives on the way, shamefully conveniently disregarded. Artists are usually musical experience itself. While there are sanitized in the middle of the roads while we all inspired by the events that transpire in the exceptions such as the great environment they live in but Yesudas, the fact is that they somehow Carnatic musicians are still exceptions. The skill seem to be an exception. And of a non-Brahmin artist had even in relation to supporting to be extensively superior to struggling artists, many of the the average Brahmin artist funds also ended up for a person such as Yesudas facilitating artists who were to flourish. It is also accused in the “Me Too” important to note that in the movement who saw some of State of Kerala where their income dwindle even Yesudas originates from, before COVID. Carnatic music exists outside So where do we go from here? of the confined of Hinduism I believe the answer is in making it comparatively Technology and the power of easier for people from all Social Media. The biggest walks of life to be part of the boon that is available to all industry. Many popular fringe artists is the limitless vocalists in the South Indian film industry watched helplessly. But that’s not all. P Jayaraj possibilities and independence that exists in originate from the state of Kerala owing to the and Bennicks, a father and son, were brutally platforms such as YouTube. There is no need to access that is made available within the music sexually assaulted and killed under police be supported by established organizations or industry in Kerala. custody for opening their store during COVID eminent artists to take one’s own art to the What are these “real” issues you may ask? Let’s restrictions. Caste violence escalated with masses. If the art comes from a genuine place, take the Chennai floods in late 2015 and early murders and rapes dominating the news the intention is genuine and if the artist can 2016 for example. The city was under water, throughout the country. Farmers began an support their vision by their enduring skillset, everyday life were thoroughly affected, no unprecedented protest against reform rules then there is absolutely no stopping in the food, no shelter, diseases were spreading, that works against them. From a Carnatic music heights that the artist can reach. Social media wages lost, and it disproportionately affected front, due to travel restrictions, many artists for the most part has been democratic in who the middle and lower income citizens of found themselves unable to tour as they it rewards success. While one hit wonders do Chennai. But the sabhas, concert halls, and normally would especially to the USA, where exist, they vanish away while true talent lasts in majority of musicians felt that the iconic there is a large diasporic base who are patrons the long run, transforming our known Chennai December Music Season, the crown of the art. Even within India or Chennai there experience of the art while also inviting the event in the calendar of Carnatic music, should were very limited concerts that were being eyes of illustrious musicians and production go on and it did. Musicians dedicated a prayer held. This meant two things for the artist. One, houses. It would be quite hard to believe that at the beginning, and may have avoided singing their income was severely impacted and women artists were let on a Carnatic stage only Amirthavarshini, the raga or scale that is bound secondly they had much more time to explore few decades ago. That was a hard fight fought to shower rain when one performs it with new avenues and identify new compositions by many women but three came out devotion, but this class bubble remained and be experimental with their art. In fact I was victoriously where we celebrate them as the unaffected more concerned about the “cultural eagerly hoping that this would be the year that Women Trinity of Carnatic music today. If this identity” of the city of music, Chennai, than the the art faced with such mighty challenges can be achieved in the Carnatic space in a time emotional plight it was in. The emotional plight would finally blossom into a new facet. But that was much more restrictive and closed up, of the very citizens, the ones that are little did I realize that I was in for a huge then much more can be done today to achieve marginalized, who built this city into what it disappointment. greater change. Here’s to hope. became. Many of the Carnatic organizations and spaces Parthiban Manoharan is a The “Me Too” movement also spread its storm moved their concerts online. Which meant Capital Markets Professional amongst Carnatic Musicians. Many were greater access and reach to the arts and an from Canada interested in named but Carnatic music organizations opportunity to explore beyond what an artist exploring the arts, culture and completely disregarded and claims and turned traditionally would. Concerts were mostly technology and it's impact on a blind eye to every single accusation. While thematic in nature, and the funds collected marginalized communities. generic statements were issued on zero were also touted to help struggling artists. But tolerance for such behavior and that these sadly these concerts became just an online organization take these accusations seriously, version of a traditional in-person concert. For

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Short fiction Dead, alive! Sunil Sharma “Indian writing in English is strange fiction,” riddance”, said Jose. Once, this Jose guy was mornings. Then, one day, badly hung over, he said, “Characters conversing in English! In a successful playwright and screenplay he swallowed sleeping tablets but was saved a fairy tale, the Chinese dragon speaks writer, but now at 45, his powers were from near death by the doctors. Finally, he Chinese, not English. The characters must declining, and he could not create anything stopped seeing people. speak their native language!” which was commercially successful. His Who can contradict Jorge Luis Borges? recent plays and one film had bombed. Couple of days later, a delivery boy delivered “The language of fiction is the language of Gradually he came to be regarded as a bad to the bewildered Jose a gift. It was a garden- dreams.” omen and treated as a leper. fresh, long-stemmed rose, with dew drops After a pause: “But then fiction is fiction. Fact Jose reputation rested on a solid, two-hour, glistening. It did not have any card or and fiction collapse and this merger is the long play called Shadow. He wrote it when he message. The delivery boy did not know the province of the fictionist.” was 26, a young and restless exile in the identity of the sender. What is good fiction? bohemian Paris of Gertrude Stein, For three months, exactly at 7:30 A.M., the “Fiction is fiction only. Neither good or bad!” Hemingway, Joyce, and Beckett of the 1940s rose was delivered with military precision. How fictions are created? and early 50s. He wrote it in French and Then the roses stopped. By now, a Borges smiles. translated it in English. Beckett was disoriented Jose had found a new addiction- “By revitalizing imagination.” thoroughly pleased. The play opened to full the morning rose. For four days, his addictive How, sir? house and attracted rave reviews. Sartre system screamed for the rose that had “Well, listen, my friend.” He started thus: liked it. Jose became, overnight, a celeb spread cheer in his lonely life. author, the toast of the literary elite of Paris. I am going to tell you, Amigo, about a man Soon New York followed. London also fell at The florist was delighted to see the most- whom I knew. He lived in Buenos Aires. For his feet. Then Amsterdam, Berlin and Tokyo. photographed face smiling. He said one Mr. that matter he could have lived anywhere. The international star was born in the Juan of a shop called “Ancient Treasures” He lived luxuriously. Our friend Jose rarely expanding literary market. Even Godard was sending these roses of his own backyard exited from his apartment. He drank, planned a film but could not make it. This garden, through the florist, with the watched lot of T.V., spent liquor-soaked raised his stocks. He got everything: big cars, instructions that his name be not revealed. evenings with pretty women, and conversed an apartment in Paris, beautiful babes and Jose went back to the shop. with the late-night moon. He collected the paparazzi. Just think: a 26-year-old, out- Juan was in the hospital. antiques from a shop whose owner was his of-job, émigré, born into a lower-middle- friend. The large shop was across the street, class family, where his father clerked and Jose smiled at Juan lying amid tubes, a glass-and-brass affair with glowing roof Mom did the sewing jobs for the neighbours, medicines, and other fixtures. The old man lamps, presided over by a 70-year-old, thin- becoming a great author and earning said, “Amigo”. A surge of happy relief went as-a-reed man, whom we should baptize as $30,000 for his new play. The Shadows I saw through the visitor. Placing roses, soon he Juan. Jose collected vases, masks, coins- “the on Broadway, I found it amusing! On the played an old song for his Amigo. precious bits of history”- while for the huge stage, in the center, was a big sofa, a …The nurse, later, discovered the author urbane Juan, “it is all about business with the four seater, along with two chairs. A wall- crying before a lifeless patient! eccentrics”. Juan indulged his super-rich clock, a centre table, a T.V set, a poster of a clients and played the role well. The red sports car. Clothes lying on the sofa. And During the service, Jose muttered, “You apartment of Jose was crammed with a man standing at the periphery, in the soft made a dead man come alive”. Since then, objects and those who trifled or mishandled shadows, delivering long soliloquies in a every year, Jose places the red rose, at the the objects lost their jobs and friendship with staccato manner, talking to nobody! The grave of his friend. Jose. “I care my objects and guard them person in the shadow went on rambling on What happened to Jose? ferociously”, was the refrain. His Brazilian absentee parents, priests, wife, kids, Borges smiled. “Jose? Just a magical tale for wife suspected that her man was totally neighbours. A world of absence and shadow! you.” freaked out on the objects and could murder Towards the end, exhausted and drained, he He, too, vanished. family at the altar of an ancient Aztec sits down and blends with the furniture. sacrificial stone. She claimed she often saw a Brilliant light highlights the furniture and the disturbing nightly ritual, when a drunken person is obscured by an engulfing darkness. Jose would openly talk in Spanish or French, Jose was spoilt by success and later on, with the death masks of the warrior tribes of devastated by the unexpected failure, the rain forests of the Congo! “It gives him a excessive drinking and womanizing. “The high,” she confided, “talking with these whole world is Hollywood,” he would say, ‘sacred’ objects. Scary!” “and Hollywood treats failures as shit.” No wonder, Amigo, she ran away with her Young babes still flocked to him. He chatted, kid, after a brutal battering. “Good dined with them, and forgot them in the

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Reginald Massey's Book Page The Father of Comparative Linguistics

The Welsh genius William Jones is hardly In the meantime he joined the Middle even Russian and German. But Jones's remembered today. He was the man who was Temple and was called to the Bar. He became researches were methodical and based on a celebrated in the 18th century for his work on convinced that Britain's stand in the matter of first-hand knowledge of the languages he what came to be known as the Indo European the American colonies was both morally and wrote about. He is certanly the father of group of languages. He was born on legally wrong. Joining hands with Benjamin comparative linguistics. September 28, 1746. His father, also William, Franklin, who was then in Paris, he tried to was a notable self-taught mathematician from resolve the conflict between Britain and her This is the statement he made in 1786: north American colonies. As a circuit judge in "The Sanscrit language, whatever be its Wales he gained a reputation for dispensing antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more justice with mercy. While serving in Wales he perfect than the Greek, more copious than the married Anna Maria Shipley, daughter of Dr Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of Llandaff and later yet bearing to them a stronger affinity, both in Bishop of St Asaph. He was then knighted and the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, appointed judge of the Bengal High Court. then could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer He was fascinated by India, its people, could examine them all three, without culture and literature and immediately started believing them to have sprung from some studying Sanskrit, the classical language of the common source, which, perhaps no longer country. With like-minded British exists; there is a similar reason, though not so administrators, Henry Thomas Colebrooke and forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic Nathaniel Halhed among them, he founded and the Celtic, though blended with a very the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit and old Persian might be added to the same family". What an amazing paragraph. It is, in fact, an extended sentence. Note the clauses and sub-clauses. Only a man grounded Angelsey who was elected a Fellow of the in the classics could write English like that. Royal Society, a no mean achievement for a man who had never been to Oxbridge. It was The German philosopher Schopenhauer, he who first used the Greek letter pi to express who had no Sanskrit, depended heavily on the mathematical constant which can be Jones's translations and paid handsome approached but never reached. In London he tributes to him. tutored the sons of the rich and the influential and thus became financially stable. His The Hindus of India revered Jones and collection of books on mathematics and regarded him as a great Guru who had brought scientific subjects was immense. their sacred language to the attention of the western world. Some of them believed that he, Unfortunately, he died when his son, the in a previous life, was certainly a Brahmin. subject of this article was only three. His Many Indians would attend his court when he widow Mary became responsible for their was delivering a judgement just to see him and child's education. It soon became apparent hear him speak. They would then tell their that young William was a prodigy. He picked friends, family, children and grandchildren up languages easily and seemed to master that they had had a darshan ('a viewing') of the them without difficulty. While stll in his teens He lead European scholars to new and learned white man who knew more of their his long Latin poem Caissa, which he translated exciting fields of Indic studies. He wrote on scriptures than most Indians. into English, made a great impression. It told Indian laws, society, botany, music and the story of the nymph Caissa who was won geography. He was a polymath of the highest Jones died in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on over by Mars, the god of war, when he beat order. The group he headed were dubbed 'The April 27, 1794. He was only 47. He was buried her in a game of chess. Caissa was later Orientalists' and he himself became famous as there in the South Park Street Cemetery. His recognized as the goddess of the game. 'Oriental Jones' and sometimes even 'Hindu tomb has the appearace of a Hindu temple. In Jones'. 2006, the Oxford University Press published an He went to Harrow and then to University important volume on his life and immense College, Oxford. In 1773 he received his MA. The Persian grammar that he compiled achievements. He became a language teacher and translator had the by-line 'Youns Uksfardi'. 'Youns' was and was soon accepted as an Orientalist. King 'Jones' and 'Uksfardi' in Farsi meant 'of Reginald Massey, Christian VII of Denmark asked him to translate Oxford'. However, he is celebrated for his Fellow of the Royal a book originally authored in Persian by Mirza enduring work on what came to be known and Society of Arts and Mehd Khan Astarabadi. The result was Histoire accepted as the Indo-European group of Freeman of the City of de Nader Chah which was the first of many languages. Much before Jones, the Jesuit London, has authored books on Iran, Turkey and the Middle East. missionary Gaston-Laurent Coerdpoux noticed many books on South and commented upon the surprising Asian subjects which similarities betwen Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and are available from Amazon UK.

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Book review Lopamudra Banerjee’s All That Jazz & Other Pathbreaking Tales (Blue Pencil Pub., India, 2020) By Meenakshi Mohan

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope how they shape the characters' lives in this -- The Ripples of Life – “Are you still going to marry … novella. In Dr. Koshy’s words in the Introduction, her, the white girl from your college?” Thomas But the faith and the love, and the hope are all in looks into his father’s rebuking, questioning eyes the waiting. “Long after the story ends, the character of Amrita from the newspaper. He nods his head slowly. (T.S. Elliot, quoted in the Ripples of Life, All That will haunt us …” There are scars of her past life, “She is a cancer patient. Cancer runs in her family Jazz) but they become her strength as a liberated … how can you ruin your own life, knowing what The above quote by T.S. Elliot is the essence of woman. the consequences of this decision will be?” How Lopamudra Banerjee’s novella All that Jazz and will Nina and Thomas’s love story take shape? her other ten Pathbreaking Tales – in each of -- Amor Mio – Shalini is deeply traumatized by the these stories, the protagonists and some other bad experiences of her arranged marriage with characters in this book is suspended with a thin Rajesh. She loses her child due to Rajesh’s physical line of ‘hope” between love, despair, and desire. abuse. Neil helps her get a divorce from Rajesh. The title of this romance novella emerged from Will Neil’s love help her get over the trauma of her the musical band's name the two protagonists, past life? Joydeep and Amrita, created. Rhiti Chatterjee

Bose’s artwork for the cover with a smiling mask The rest of the stories in this collection speak of and a woman's disheveled face makes us wonder the same theme, love, loss, despair, and if all that jazz is all about merrymaking? Dr. frustration – are there hopes? Banerjee quotes Santosh Bakaya, in her forwarding note, says, Lee Montgomery, “In the war of the human heart, “…one hears the strangulated notes of unsung there were no rules, no ammunition, no songs, the strumming of an acoustic guitar and battlegrounds, no leader, but only lumps in our also the soothing notes of Rabindra Sangeet.” throats.”

All that Jazz is a love triangle of Joydeep/Joy, Kolkata, its suburbs, the picturesque mountains of Amrita, and Anindita/Annie. Annie was once North Bengal, and various USA cities are the Amrita’s best friend in her college days, with novella's and the short vignettes’ settings. whom she shared the stories of her tempestuous Banerjee mirrors Sylvia Plath’s anguish when she affair with Joy. Annie becomes engaged with Joy Dark silhouettes hang around most of the writes about old scars and hidden desires. At the and fills up the vacant space in the band, Joy and characters in all the ten stories under Other same time, we see Jhumpa Lahiri’s style in her Amrita's dream child after Amrita decides to move Pathbreaking Tales. They narrate contemporary writings when she talks about the indomitable away to the USA. The story weaves around urban women's tales and their emotional passions and irresistible emotions of different cultural, social, and family conflicts -- emotional journeys, life choices, and travails. Romance, characters as they journey through various turmoil, love, and jealousy being the central sexuality, and the emotional journeys of love and nuances in their lives. She writes with a bold theme. Amrita’s love and hate relationship with loss form these narratives' central crux. In Park appetency of Bharati Mukherji in her description Annie resonates with Chitra Bannerjee Street, two young women meet in Park Street, of physical intimacy. Her writing flows with a Divakaruni’s book, Sister of my Heart – how Kolkata, on New Year’s Eve – their pasts collide, poetic cadence, and her use of Bengali language destiny changes the course of life. Amrita decides both scorched and bruised in lost love. gives an engaging authenticity. to go to Kolkata on a three-month sabbatical. She Lopamudra Banerji is an acclaimed author, poet, drafts an email to Annie in a daze, “I don’t know Some stories that touched my heart, and I read editor, and translator. She is the recipient of the why, but somewhere deep inside, I feel that this them teary-eyed and with a lump in my throat, International Reuel Prize twice for excellence in calling is also to let me find out whether a closure are: literature and writing. Thwarted Escape: An has been possible in all these years … where it all -- Durga: The Third Eye --Shefali, the ravaged Immigrant’s Wayward Journey was a First Place had started … I believe our destiny will lead us to beggar, loses her child Durga in the maddening Category Winner at Journey Awards 2015. where we are meant to be …” crowd and at the cacophony of clangor and clamor at the Durga Puja Pandal. She looks for her Dr. Santosh Bakaya, in her Foreword, says, “… this Where would Amrita’s visit to Kolkata lead to in daughter frantically when she finds her in the novella and ten short stories are an intoxicating this love triangle relationship? In her visit to arms of an affluent couple. She wants to scream, symphony – oft soothing, oft disturbing, oft Kolkata, Amrita wonders, “Was it here that I “Durgaaaaaaa.” A sudden downpour making one’s eyes tingle with unshed tears and discovered Joydeep first in that dainty coffee shop oft making one burst into a song …” Kudos to … was it here that our differences soared …?” of rain drenches her heart. Will She find her Durga Banerjee for her debut novella and vignettes of Will the old flame rekindle? What happens to her again? ten short stories – a must read married life with Christopher, her -- Femme Fatale – Flames devours Meenu’s body, crushing her bit by bit. She kicks the bathroom American husband who believes in an open door open. The smell of burnt flesh overpowers relationship? Where does Annie, Amrita’s old the space. The thick fog of people gathers around college friend and who was now a part of Joy’s life, fit in the story? All That Jazz roils around love, her, contemplating, witnessing. Sidhu wonders lust, ambition, social and cultural bondage, and why Gautam, her husband, doesn’t come to help

her.

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Book review A Journey through an Artful and Rhythmic Charm Nursery Rhymes and Children’s Poems From Around The World: You May Not Have Heard! (Edited by Anita Nahal and Meenakshi Mohan) Reviewed by Amrita Sharma An anthology of poetic delicacies that contemporary and objective. On the other Pool” by Shashi Kalra, “Baby Kisses” and appeal to an inherent sensitivity towards hand, some of the poems offer deeply other poems by Kavita Mohan and sheer joy and delight, Nursery Rhymes and subjective thoughts, for example “Dream” Shantanu Lal, and her own poetic Children’s Poems From Around The World: by Prithvijeet Sinha reads as follows: contributions that include “A Shining Star” You May Not Have Heard! is a collection Say, mother and other poems. These illustrations, thus that offers a reading experience that is both Where am I? either added by the editors or the joyous and diverse in its compilation. Edited With eyes open like butterflies contributing poets, remain very beautifully by Anita Nahal and Meenakshi Mohan, the Who put me in your lap connected to the poems that follow them anthology brings together the works by One that you could be forever mine and serve to recreate and transform the thirty eight poets from ‘around the world’ And cherish me like your little star? format of a children’s book to a that blend into a collage of poetic The poems like “I Love Mummy” by Anita contemporary poetry anthology. exuberance. Nahal take us back to the joy of reading rhymes and such rhythmic musicality From the Cover art that remains the Boat Bringing together works from both reverberates throughout the collection. Painting by Meenakshi Mohan to the established as well as young authors, the Several poems remain remarkable for their overall representation of this paperback anthology offers space to works crafted blend of natural imagery with imaginative edition, the book remains a product of well- within the simplistic world of a child’s usages while several others in the collection crafted editorial and poetic skills. Compiled psychological nuances and touches upon speak directly to the reader as a child and and produced in the post-Covid era where themes that surround the subject. As the offer the joy of it. literary explorations have been expanding title suggests, over the virtual connect, it presents this poetry collection poems written takes us back to a world in the form of of fantasy and wonder ‘nursery that is marked by rhymes’ and streams of innocence ‘children’s and love for the surreal poems’ that within the real. remain very The anthology thus contemporary stands out as a in their compilation that adds to subjective one’s collection of flavours. With poetic gems of sheer two eminent lucid creativity. poets taking Whether to be read out up the to your younger editorial task companions or to be for the collection, the poems appear in a Another of my personal favourite entries in cherished as an appetite for oneself on a thread of balanced and appealing accord. the collection remains the last entry titled long day, the anthology is recommended Both the editorial ‘Dedications’ reading “Words” by Zeenat Khan that seems to sum for every poetry enthusiast who remains in from the personal to the public realms, they up the poetic possibilities within this love with the idea of innocence and its ever set the readers’ journey with the book into themed collection and as well as all others youthful charm! the world of children at large. at large: The introductory note opens with the Some words are clouds Amrita Sharma is a editors stating: “Let’s open the door to Some words have mouth Lucknow based writer magical worlds through nursery rhymes and Some words have tongue currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English from the children’s poems” and further sets the Some words do run University of Lucknow. readers for an “inventive world of children’s Ending with the line: ”Hear Words, Wear Her works have previously merriment and scholarship.” Words” and enrapturing the power of been published in Earth, The poems completely absorb with the “words” on whole, the anthology begins Fire, Water, Wind: An theme and present varying alterations of and ends on a creative note, while all along Anthology of Poems, Café objectivity and personal recollections in an offering a range of musical and imaginative Dissensus Everyday, extremely simple diction and form. For verses. Literary Yard, Trouvaille Review, Confluence: South instance, the first poem in the collection Each entry by an author begins with a Asian Perspectives, Women’s Web, Borderless, titled “Twenty Magic Seconds” by Vaida biographical note followed by an Tell Me Your Story, Muse India, Rhetorica Almeida s speaks of washing hands and illustration that lends an added charm to Quarterly, New Academia, GNOSIS, Dialogue, opens as: “When you wash your hands / the book at large. The co-editor Meenakshi The Criterion, Episteme and Ashvamegh. Her Please, don’t be in a rush! / Wash it well: Mohan has also contributed several of area of research includes avant-garde poetics lather and rub” that remains very these illustrations for entries like “My New and innovative writings in the cyber space. [email protected]

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Ratnajeevan Hoole’s Heritage Histories: A Reassessment of Arumuga Navalar by Charles P Sarvan

It is beyond my competence to write a review of The incident of Gandhi being ejected caste. Professor Hoole claims it is difficult for this book, and the intention here is only to give from a whites-only compartment in South Africa is someone who is not from the Govigama caste to readers some inkling of it. As the title makes clear, well known but what is not equally well known is win political leadership at the national level (page the work is a “reassessment” and not an his reason: he wouldn’t move to compartments 42). Advertisements for marriage often specified introduction. That being the intention, we are occupied by “kaffirs”, a derogatory terms for black (specify?) the caste of the prospective bride or taken, “in medias res” into circumstance, South Africans. What follows is drawn from Perry groom, despite the Buddha having clearly and characters and controversy: those without any Anderson’s article, ‘Gandhi Centre Stage’, in the decisively turned his face against it. A ‘litmus test’ knowledge, particularly of the last two, may find ‘London Review of Books’, 5 July 2012, pages 3 – is defined as “a decisively indicative test”. In the orientation difficult. Secondly, Professor Hoole has 11. At the Round Table Conference in London, past, a question asked (I should say, challenged) of carried out thorough and meticulous research, Muslims, Sikhs and the Untouchables (the last led a white person was: Would you allow or like your often drawing on original texts including past daughter, sister or cousin to marry a non-white? I newspaper reports, minutes of meetings and suppose people can be asked (or must honestly ask correspondence. The wealth of substantiation; themselves) the same question but with caste the detail, the minutiae, are for readers with a substituted for colour. special interest. Going back over sixty years, I recall a We must briefly pause over the word friend, Dharmasiri de Zoysa, picking up a book and “Heritage”. Etymologically, it’s connected with “to exclaiming in mock (if cynical) surprise: “How did inherit”. What we inherit is many and varied, but these two entirely different subjects get into the not everything can be credited with veracity. same work?” The title was: ‘Love and Marriage’. Heritage history, not being rigorous and factual, Similarly, religious doctrine and religious practice must be scrutinised and interrogated – as are separate; very often, contradictory. Like many Professor Hoole attempts to do with the Buddhists, Christians also remain infected with ‘inherited’, popular history of Navalar. Heritage caste: for example, Hoole states that Bishop history, as he notes, can be nothing but heritage Kulandran justified ban on low caste temple entry myth: sometimes, history is fabricated rather than (page 126). ‘Mirage’ by K. Daniel (translated by made. As it has been ironically said, historians Subramaniam Jebanesan, 2016) is a novel but, as have a power that the gods themselves don’t the author states, based on fact. It is a searing possess, namely, to alter the past. ‘The indictment of caste, both in Hindu and Christian Mahavamsa’ records that the dying Buddha th prayed to the Hindu god, Vishnu, to protect Vijay society. As I wrote (Colombo Telegraph, 28 who would establish Buddhism in Lanka - in turn, March 2019), it’s an instance of the novelist as replacing Hinduism! Books have influence (if not witness and testifier. I cite from this article: In the authority) in that what one book states can be name of religion and ancient time-honoured picked up and repeated in another, and so on until practice, power and privilege are preserved on the it comes to be accepted as truth. Professor Hoole one side; exploitation and suffering perpetuated frees himself from the “inherited”, and looks at on the other. (The Tamil Tigers, apart from their things with an independent mind. Thesam Publications, London, 2020 many and grievous faults and failings, are reputed The central character is Arumuga to have disapproved of caste, even as they tried to Navalar, 1822-1879, (Navalar = “learned”) by Dr Ambedkar) demanded advance female emancipation.) described in one source as “a Sri Lankan Shaivite separate electorates. However, if Untouchables It can’t be easy for a member of a Tamil-language scholar, polemicist, and a religious were to be treated as external to the Hindu defeated minority group to publicly attack a fellow reformer who was central in reviving native Shaiva community, it would be confirmation that caste member. As I wrote in that Colombo Telegraph Tamil traditions in Sri Lanka and India.” The other was a vile system of discrimination, relegating the article on caste in Jaffna: “There’s no doubt that important character is the Rev. Peter Percival lowest orders of society to a subhuman existence those Sinhalese incurably infected with ugly racism (1803-1882) who came to Jaffna at the age of with which the smallest brush was pollution. And will gleefully grab this … as a bludgeon with which twenty-three. Most Englishmen during those since Hinduism was founded on caste, it would to beat the Tamils, pretending to a moral outrage imperial days didn’t deign to learn the language of stand condemned with caste (Anderson). There and a compassion of which they are completely the “natives” over whom they or their compatriots was also Gandhi’s fear that the ‘Untouchables’ devoid. To change the metaphor, casteism among ruled, but Rev Percival mastered Tamil and went would link forces with the Muslims. Gandhi who Tamils can be used as a red herring to divert on to publish many works in the language. He saw had never fasted against ‘untouchability’ itself, attention away from racist acts. Racists can come education, rather than direct evangelism, as the now declared a ‘fast unto death’ and Ambedkar, before their victims clothed in the garment of more effective tool in Christian missionary work. fearful that the Mahatma’s death would lead to a solicitous saviours.” But evidently with Professor In re-examining Navalar, his role and contribution, mass massacre of the untouchables, withdrew his Hoole, the guiding principle is “Veritas vincit Hoole demolishes the belief that Navalar demand for a separate electorate. Of the omnia”. It’s now for others, far more translated the Bible into Tamil: that work was Satyagraha of 1932, Ambedkar wrote: “There was knowledgeable on the subject than me, to enter undertaken and accomplished by Percival. nothing noble in the fast. It was a foul and filthy into discussion and debate - if not disputation. Another and far more important aspect, and the act. The fast was not for the benefit of the one on which I will focus, is that of caste. Untouchables. It was against them and was the Retired after Navalar was “a notorious casteist” worst form of coercion against a helpless people having taught in (page 155). Even as a schoolboy (then one of [forcing them to] agree to live on the mercy of the Percival’s pupils) he refused to sit on the same Hindus” (Anderson, page 10). For a fairly recent London, Nigeria, bench as a low-caste fellow pupil. When this work on the lived experience of caste in India, see Zambia, the protest was not accommodated, Navalar led Sujatha Gilda’s ‘Ants Among Elephants’, reviewed Middle East and several other upper-caste boys in leaving the by me in Colombo Telegraph (28 March 2019) Germany, Sarvan school: see the book’s cover illustration. One is under the caption, ‘The curse of caste’. now lives in reminded of apartheid South Africa where In as much as (non-existent) ‘race’ Germany with his buildings and facilities were strictly segregated. As proves stronger than religious affiliation, so caste German-born wife, I have written elsewhere, Tamils who don’t is more potent than religious doctrine. Many of completely eschew caste have no moral right at those who convert to Buddhism or become a published poet all to protest Sinhalese hegemony. Christian, do not jettion the inherited baggage of

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Short story Bonfire by Chaand Chazelle

to host our marriage at her spacious Haveli an English girl. I am content that he has a “Get rid of that damn thing.” in Kapurthala. For girls in India, the only happy marriage. “What thing?” I surprised myself by daring escape route to get away from one’s to ask. unhappy situation was – marriage. I I have suffered with Arthritis for years. I was “Get rid of it, I say.” thought marrying him would liberate me hospitalized for ten days, for my knee- “What do you mean?” from my father’s cruel and dictatorial replacement. He and his wife were too busy “Are you dumb or something?” control. My father was a doctor; his to visit me. It was a difficult road to I decided not to respond as he aggressively patients thought – he was an angel, once he recovery but with the help of my good rushed towards me with a raised hand, I crossed the threshold of the house; he friends, I managed. took a few steps back, weighing his turned into a devil - truly a Jekyll and Hyde intentions. I wasn’t sure, what he was on character. During this whole year of Pandemic, I about. We been married …six months! longed to hear his voice - he never called. “You know I am three months gone…” Out of the frying pan, I fell into hellfire. I “Yes, gone to dogs…just get rid of it, you later learnt that Aakash had fathered other I once said to him- “If ever I became hear me?” children from other women and had walked incapable of looking after myself, I never This child for him was – ‘IT’ and a ‘Damn away. To put it crudely he just wanted his wish to be a burden on you.” Thing’? He snarled again – way with me and I was so dumb. “Well, you were never there for me, I was “Just look at you, you’re 4ft 10, and always left alone, didn’t see much of you weigh…what…30 Kilos? Your body is not I couldn’t stay with my aunt for ever. I came growing up...now I have someone who even designed to carry a baby.” to Chandigarh, out of fifty-four girls in my loves me.” He retorted. “Eleven…I’m 4ft.11” I corrected him. class, ten of them had become doctors, two “So? Ten or eleven…big deal?” He looked at of them were good friends of mine. One I wanted to remind him: You were and are me contemptuously. I averted his gaze. had emigrated to Britain, the other worked my first priority, that’s why I never married “I’m sure I’ve made myself clear, go and see in a hospital locally. I went to see her, the again. You think I didn’t love you? I paid for a doctor.” advice she gave me, came with a warning – your world travels, bought you cars and “Doctors demand a fee.” “First of all, its too late to abort the foetus, funded your business and even a ride on “Sell that bloody ring.” you are far gone, it poses a danger to your your favourite Concord; fulfilled your desire The ring he referred to – was bought and own life and…” She hesitated. “You may to be in Vegas on your 21st birthday. It paid for with my own money before I met never conceive again, there’s always that saddens me deeply that I missed your him. My father not only refused to pay my risk.” childhood. Was it possible for me to be at university fee, he also demanded that I pay two places simultaneously – work and - hundred Rupees towards the family food No way in hell was it possible for a young home? You never blame your father? But I bill. My first paycheque was – Rs.139.00. single mother to raise a child in Indian stayed quiet, said nothing. Aakash stopped by the door – society. In desperation, I contacted my I thought - “You don’t need to pay, what about your friend in London, she sponsored my visit to However hard doctor friends… you went to university U.K. My mother’s express advice always I had strived to achieve my goals; with?” was – “Be economically independent.” unwittingly, something precious also got Vivek was born in England, I was lost. He stormed out, banging the door behind determined to be a good provider. I worked him. He always took, never paid back. He as a freelance linguist, leaving him with He continued – was a free-loader. My savings, since our English baby minders. Once, a baby sitter “Just run your bath, turn on your hair dryer, marriage, had dwindled away. That was burnt his hand; distraught and dismayed, I take it with you in the bath…it’s easy.” Then forty years ago, he left me penniless and enrolled him in a boarding school. I was on looking around, added - “I will put homeless. Never contacted his son, who is call 24/7; working long hours, occasionally everything here… on a bonfire.” now thirty-nine. even thirty hours at a stretch.

Aakash, a friend of my brother’s, Vivek was the only Indian boy in his class; he sometimes visited. Whenever he found me was happy, he forged lifelong friendships alone, he would coax me into seeing him. there. It was inevitable - he became a Against my best judgement, I believed in his proper Englishman, there was no family lies and got tangled in his silky web of around him to instil in him any Indian deceit. He charmed me with the promise of values; especially - respect for our elders migrating to Canada after marriage. At and not always focusing on self. twenty-five, I had never spoken to a boy Individualism does have its merits, so do Chaand Chazelle before, wasn’t allowed to. I had no idea, eastern customs. Writer/producer/Director how men behaved. My father objected to http://chaand18.blogspot.com our marriage. On one of her visits, my aunt Vivek completely identified and immersed too was enamoured by Aakash. She offered himself in the host community; he married

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South African Newsletter Biography of a centenarian mother Amartham Moodley (106) by Devi Rajab ON SEPTEMBER 4, Amartham Moodley turned good clothes has not left her. She remembers her waiting anxiously for her arrival from a shopping 105, and as her short-term memory fails her, her father bringing her large juicy prunes to eat and a trip. I felt very early the fear of losing a parent. past comes sharply to the fore. She sings songs in porcelain doll, not to be played with but to be put Luckily my mother emerged in the nick of time to Tamil - an ancient Dravidian language - of in a showcase to be admired. She recalls him reassure me that all would be well. On another hardships faced by the indentured labourers who coaxing her to go to convent schools after her occasion I recall it was my birthday, and my cried out for mercy as their arms and legs were so mother’s death so that she would get a good mother had taken me shopping and generously full of fatigue at having to slash the cane all day education in music and literature. When the bought me a pure Egyptian cotton shirt- waister long in the hot sun. “Have you no heart?” they family heard this, they hid the children under beds dress for £3 and 10 shillings.” “I want the best,” asked their white sugar barons and their and advised them never to heed their father’s she said. This would not have been so memorable overseers. “Even a stone would feel our pain. Has advice. After his death she was raised by a strict if it had not been for the fact that on an earlier the devil resided in your soul for you to be so but caring aunt who was like Queen Victoria in her occasion I sat in the back of my father’s pea green cruel?” Later Amartham tackled the abuse of dress and demeanour. Chevrolet and watched her go in and out of a sari apartheid with dignity. On one occasion when she shop to get a good deal for a much-needed walked into a white butcher shop and was “North Street Ayah” as all the children called her, Deepavalli (Hindu Festival of Lights) outfit for addressed as “Mary” in the derogatory wore Harley Street shoes on her stocking clad feet herself. She settled for a chocolate brown silk sari designation of “Coolie Mary” often given to Indian and dressed in pale saris with a Queen Victoria with gold flecks. My observation at the time was women, she replied with her head held high: “Can pendant at her neck. Her maternal family, headed that this was not what she really wanted, but it I have a pound of lamb chops, please Jane?” To by KR Pillay, an eminent businessman, had was a frugal choice based on the priorities of which the woman replied “My name is not Jane,” properties and was the first non-white owner of raising a family. She taught us about the dignity of and she retorted “Well, my name is not Mary”. an ice cream factory. The entire family of many labour in a servant-ridden society. For as long as I Parenting in the age of apartheid could not have brothers and sisters lived in a family owned block can remember she worked alongside her husband been easy. Her eldest daughter, Professor Kogila of apartments called Crystal Court. My mother as an equal partner running the family store. The Adam Moodley a sociologist based in Vancouver attended the Depot Road Primary School where tell-tale signs were in her varicose veins. During Canada, ventures an explanation: “How did our she completed Standard 4, and like many young the height of apartheid, in subtle ways she taught parents cope? They who were badgered in the girls at the time, had to help with family chores us how to hold our heads high and never succumb workplace, psychologically to the pressures of racism. assaulted in their She raised a black child, circumscribed, curtailed Sipho, and widened our movements, forced to sell horizons when it was not and relocate from homes fashionable. Some family they had laboured long to members had to find an buy, disallowed basic explanation for this rights, tolerated at best. utlandish behaviour and Yet these emasculated attributed her affection for adults went home each day the little boy to a variety of to homes and repaired amusing explanations from them to restore the last dementia to disrepute. bastion of their self- Alongside her husband esteem. In the eyes of their they raised four children, wives and children, the giving them an overseas men were still kings”. education. Working women endured workplace indignities too, In 1968 the whole family but even more than the men, they endured and until a suitable young man came her way. Her immigrated to various parts of the world on often took their double disadvantages with the desires for a suitable partner were simple. All she account of the Immorality Act which prohibited express purpose of giving their children a better wanted was a tennis player with clean, well-cut mixed marriages preventing their eldest daughter life. “I think often about what it must have taken nails who didn’t smoke or drink. She got more from marrying a German sociologist Professor to educate children not to be racist, to believe in than she bargained for, as her husband went out Heribert Adam. The Group Areas Act forced the their capabilities, to pretend that they had the of his way to educate her and provide her with an family to give up their home which was declared a capacity to become whatever they chose, to be enlightened and an emancipated lifestyle He white area. They chose not to move into a citizens of the world when they were only encouraged her to read instead of spending hours residential area designated for Indians only and delimited citizens in the land of their birth.” slaving over pots in the kitchen and so she always preferred to leave the country. carried a copy of the Readers Digest in her Furthermore, the Separate Universities Act meant M y mother was born to a large extended family handbag. Later the stories that she told me about that Indian students had to study at ethnic which cushioned her from the tragic loss of her Lord Byron helped me to win the Jan Hofmeyer institutions. So the whole family split and settled own mother when she was six. At the age of 23 Speech contest in 1963. in various parts of the world. The eldest Kogila is a her mother died in childbirth, which was not Professor of Sociology at the University of British uncommon, leaving her with two brothers. I have many memories of my mother. Some Columbia. Next is a son Sundru Moodley who is a Shortly after, her father died after he had a dream frustrated me at the time, but were the highly successful denturist living in Denver that her mother had called him. As a senior porter parameters and limits any good mother should Colorado the third is Dr Devi Moodley Rajab in charge of luggage in the railways, he was often draw for her beloved child. She was strict about former Dean of Student Development at the given gold coins as a generous tip which he saved the company one kept and encouraged us to University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. The youngest is Dr and left to his children as an inheritance. interact with people from whom one could learn Subithra Moodley Moore a political scientist. They Amartham, which means, sweet-smelling flower, and emulate. Now, I too, draw them for my all became professionals, fulfilling the thwarted remembers her father buying her silk by the yard daughter. But the memories that linger are ambitions of their parents. and taking it to “the white madam” to sew into touching ones and point to the sacrifices that a dresses for his daughter. “Stitch it to fit her well,” parent has to make for children. My earliest After the death of her husband at 85, Amartham he used to say, “and don’t let it waddle around.” memory is of the 1949 Indo- African riots, when discovered the wonders of the paintbrush. The only problem was that she had to have three as a three-year-old I stood on a sofa overlooking a Initially her paintings were simple and childlike, dresses made in the same fabric, as he bought so window in Lorne Street, Durban watching the but they became vibrant, bold and full of colour. much. To this day her sartorial appreciation of angry crowds spew forth from the bus ranks and They display a wonder of nature that reflects an

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inner world of birds and peacocks and intricate need not fear, as “there is only one God, and stood loyal to your partner but never in his designs depicting the dance of her universe. She is different religions are like different rivers that shadow. In Ganesha’s worship you removed a living statement of the dictum “it is never too flow into the same ocean”. obstacles from our path. Sita you were, without late to learn”. Now at 104, she has children in teaching your daughters her subservience, but Stellenbosch, Durban, Vancouver and Colorado. In Zulu philosophy, I was once told by Professor only her morality. Long before it was fashionable, Her life is further enriched by the diversity of her Mazisi Kunene, “the mother gives birth to you framed our minds and bodies into post- grandchildren and great grandchildren, who hail herself”. Deeply embedded in each of her three modernist women – tall, upright, principled, from different faiths and ethnic backgrounds. daughters and only son is a magical combination tolerant, and appreciative of diversity. Who else How does she cope with such diversity and still of all of Amartham– great in wisdom, sweet in could pray in her shrine, and welcome with open retain her centrality as a Tamil-speaking Hindu kindness, determined in purpose, rich in creativity arms a Catholic German a Canadian, a Jew, a woman who grew up in the Point area in Durban and strict in discipline. But most of all she displays Muslim, a Rumanian into the family fold, and not at the time of horse carts and separate double- an interesting tension between ancient wisdom lose her essence? decker trams? Armed with her simple lamp and and modernity, sparkling with a joie de vivre that flowers floating in water she says that it is her excites and baffles the onlooker. In the Dr Devi Rajab is an award-winning journalist and the prayers that embrace all of these changes. She embodiment of mater, she holds many lessons. As author of several books. Now she is the Chairperson sent her children to Catholic schools and Sarasvathi, the goddess of learning, you sit on a of Democracy Development Program. She is also the encouraged them to learn the hymns and prayers rock; as Luxmi the Goddess of wealth you never former Dean of Student Development at UKZN. that reassured them that as Hindu children, they squandered wealth. As Goddess Parvati, you

Golden Jubilee of Vatayan: HOLI CELEBRATION

A short report by Divya Mathur Vatayan celebrated its Golden Jubilee on the auspicious occasion of Holi, the following day people throw multi-colored powders and perfumed water on Festival of Colour with great fun and frolic. In this program, the audience was each other, the celebration brings in mesmerizing hues of blues, yellows, requested to wear white kurtas. The program began with rubbing of Gulal and magentas, greens, violets, and more; clouds of colors dancing in the wind Abir (bright coloured and sparkling powders) on their own faces, keeping a carry the message of love, harmony, and happiness far and wide. special drink called Thandai and special home-made sweets called Gujias; The next morning is celebrated as Rangwali Holi (Dulendhi) – a free-for-all water blasters (pichkaris) were optional. The event continued for two hours festival of colours, somewhat like Spain’s La Tomatina festival, where people with fun-filled chatter, poking fun, reciting humorous poems - all the essential smear each other with colours and drench each other with Pichkaris (water elements of Holi. pistols), water-filled balloons are also used to play and colour each other. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friends or strangers, rich or poor, children Graced by distinguished guests including Virendra Sharma, MP, Anil Joshi, and older people. It begins at home and then people go out in the streets, Vice President of Central Hindi Institute, Agra, Divya Mathur, Founder of parks, outside temples and buildings. Groups carry drums and other musical Vatayan-UK and Chairman Mira Mishra-Kaushik, OBE, this event was chaired instruments; go from place to place, singing and dancing. People visit family, by Sarojini Pritam, promoter of comic satire poetry and presented by three friends and even foes this days, throwing coloured powders and embracing comperes Dr Padmesh Gupta, Director of Oxford Business College, Shikha each other, share Holi delicacies, food and drinks. Varshney and Ashish Mishra. The poems who made the international In the olden days, people used only natural colours like turmeric to cleanse audience reel in laughter were Ajatshatru, Pankaj Prasoon, Brij Goyal, Dr K K the body and remove unwanted accumulation on the skin. Holika Dahan, on Srivastava, Abhishek Tripathi and Sunita Pahuja. the other hand, was performed to burn all that is dry and dirty to pave the way for new life in the spring. Predominantly celebrated in Nepal and India, the popular ancient Hindu About its history, besides having a detailed description in the Vedas and festival, Holi has spread to parts of Europe and North America as a spring Puranas such as Narad Purana and Bhavishya Purana, Holi is a mentioned in celebration of love, frolic, and colours. Also known as the Festival of Love, the Jaimini Mimansa. A stone inscription belonging to 300 BC found at Ramgarh in the province of Vindhya has mention of Holikotsav in it. King Harsha too Festival of Colours and the Festival of Spring, it signifies the triumph of good has mentioned about holikotsav in his work Ratnavali that was written during over evil. People get together to sing and dance, play and laugh for a night the 7th century. The famous Muslim tourist - Ulbaruni too has mentioned and a day, starting on the evening of the Purnima (full moon day) falling in the about holikotsav in his historical memories. Other Muslim writers of that Hindu calendar month of Phalgun, which falls around middle of March in the period have mentioned that holikotsav were not only celebrated by the Gregorian calendar. Hindus but also by the Muslims. A 16th century panel sculpted in a temple at The first evening is known as Holika Dahan (burning of Demon Holika) or Hampi, capital of Vijaynagar, shows a joyous scene of Holi. The painting Rangpashi or Chhoti Holi, where people gather, perform religious rituals in depicts a Prince and his Princess standing amidst maids waiting with syringes front of the bonfire, and pray that their internal evil be destroyed the way or pichkaris to drench the Royal couple in coloured water.

Holika, the sister of the demon king Hiranyakashipu, was killed in the fire. The https://www.facebook.com/VatayanPoetryOnSouthBank/

Online Special Feature Off the Hook: A musical by Anju Makhija ThisCONFLUENCE play is excerpted MAY from 2021 the book, Mumbai Traps: Collected Plays. http://www.confluence.mobi/2021/05/off-the-hook-a-musical/ 24 Off the Hook is a musical inspired by the mythological sufi saint, Lord Jhulelal, the legendary mystic of the Indus valley. By divine intervention, a fish with an evolutionary leap reincarnates into a handsome, young man, Toochy. He is rescued by a frustrated woman, Sheila, who cannot get enough of him! Like any immigrant to Mumbai, he must sharpen his survival skills to confront the city seeped in purgatorial desires and pursuits. …………………….

Anju Makhija is a Sahitya Akademi award-winning poet, playwright and translator based in Mumbai. She has also co-edited anthologies related to partition, women’s poetry and theatre. Her new book, ‘Poems Grow With You’, has been published recently. She is currently working on a volume of her ‘Collected Plays’. www.facebook.com/anjumakhijawrites .