INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE Volume XXVIII
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diary Price Re.1/- INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE volume XXVIII. No. 3 May – June 2014 creatures creating abstract shapes of flora and fauna. The Celebrating Tagore curator had not ignored the prospect of uninformed visitors and aided such pictures with texts alongside EXHIBITION : Rabindranath Tagore: 1861 – 1941 — His Life explaining the art and its importance as briefly as possible. and Work Curator: Uma Dasgupta, May 7–13 After customary representations of Tagore’s life, the Rabindra Sangeet by Sudhir Chanda exhibition returns to its focal point of education and Shantiniketan. Several photographs depict the methods Introduction by Andre Beteille of education and the conditions in which this education A talk on the exhibition by Uma Dasgupta, May 6 was imparted. Studying in the open, unbound by restraints of definitive and burdensome education, Dr. Uma Dasgupta presented Tagore, both in his writing and life photographs and texts titled aimed at delivering an education Rabindranath Tagore: 1861- that ‘does not merely give us 1941-His Life and Works for a information but makes our life in week long exhibition that sought harmony with all existence’. But to evoke Tagore’s life and his again, upon discussion and survey principles and ideas about it is found that despite the education. The exhibition consistency in Shantiniketan and opened with a beautiful its scheme of education, it is performance of Rabindra Sangeet slowly declining in terms of being by Sudhir Chanda who only a destination for children and accentuated the historicity of the parents of today who emphasise place and setting. Following that, more upon success and less on Dr. Uma Dasgupta addressed the principles. visitors to establish a context as to her inspiration and reason behind As for the display, all the putting up the exhibition, and photographs with their sepia and emphasised the need to observe monochromatic tint worked to a n d r e m e m b e r Ta g o r e’s create a sense of nostalgia. educational endeavours and Particularly about Tagore, his methodology in the light of the legacy and the very widening gap present scenario. between his time and the present. Despite the dominating historical The collection began with a few motive behind the selection and portraits of Tagore, at the age of presentation of the pictures, one 17 in 1878, of his wife Mrinalini and children Bela, cannot help but wonder at the immortality which Tagore Renuka and Rathi. Following these, other pictures communicates. And lastly, Dr. Uma Dasgupta succeeds in included Rabindranath meeting his tenants and other her endeavour as stated in the title ‘Tagore: 1861-1941- prominent personages such as Mahatama Gandhi and His Life and Works’ and also in either knowingly or Charles Freer Andrews. Disconnecting from such unknowingly reminding us where we really place Tagore physical depictions of Tagore and his life experiences, outside the realm of academic and scholarly appreciation, Dr. Dasgupta had intelligently not ignored the popular and how distant his past and present become to us as and essential part of Tagore’s persona as a painter. Two of spectators of the 21st century. his doodles stood there in contrast to the dull scheme of black and white. Instead of crossing out words, Tagore would turn his disposable sentences into grotesque SRESHTI VERMA 1 literature diary always room for lateef hawasnigari or aesthetic obscenity. Manto : A Style of Living She also drew attention to the fact that Manto was deeply TALK AND PERFORMANCE: Yadgar Wa Jashn-i-Manto — hurt by this condemnation by the PWA and wrote as ‘A Greater Story Writer then God!’ much in an article defending his characters who lived in urban slums, survived on their wits, were pimps and Speakers: Shamim Hanafi; Rakhshanda Jalil; prostitutes simply because that is what life was and he as a Alok Sarin; and Tarun Saint writer was only mirroring it. FILM: Mantoniyat. The dastaan of Manto by Mahmood Manto’s stories of the Partition of India are perhaps the Farooqui and Danish Husain most voluminous documentation of the event and its Chair: Shahid Amin, May 11 horrifying, blood chilling fall-out. Tarun Saint in his paper described these stories as the Partition seen with a Speaking on the occasion, Professor Shamim Hanafi said Freudian perception and an analysis of the madness that Manto like Ghalib has no contemporary match. that followed. Strangely enough, The crowning event of though one was writing the evening and what prose and the other a c t u a l l y g o t t h e poetry, the two have houseful for this often been compared d i s c u s s i o n w a s for their loneliness, M a n t o n i y a t , a their neglect by society, Dastangoi rendering of their sharp often bitter Manto’s life, and analysis of society and writings by Mahmood t h e i r l o v e f o r Farooqui and Danish humankind. Manto Husain. This duo who often used phrases of revived the medieval art Ghalib’s couplets as of Dastangoi or Qissago headings for his articles. almost a decade back Focusing on society have nurtured it to which he termed as become a vibrant and ‘naked’, Manto targeted mature form that can its hypocrisy, its scum successfully project not and underbelly, its just the traditional rabble and its bastards. fantasies of fairy tales, Dr. Rakhshanda Jalil, but weave a lively, speaking on Manto and animated story of the Progressive Writers present day heroes like Movement admitted Faiz and Manto. Deep that this movement was research forms the spine a force that changed the of Mantoniyat, a name perception of literature; given by Manto himself but then it went on to to his way of life; the become dictatorial, performance included developing a core group h i s w r i t i n g s , that laid down rigid friendships, his pain rules defining which and even alcoholism. writing qualified as Each phase of the ‘progressive’ and which rendering brought was decadent. Though laughter and pain M a n t o w a s a together much like progressive because all Manto himself and the his life he remained socially engaged through his writing, end left one not satiated but yearning for more: that he was too independent to be part of a movement. From which can be quenched perhaps only by going back to the PWA conference of Hyderabad in 1945, she narrated Manto’s writings and the anecdotes and relationships that a demand was raised to ban obscenity which Maulana recorded by his friends and fellow travellers. Hasrat Mohani had contested saying that there was NOOR ZAHEER 2 diary literature was supposed to have transgressed this, which she did Ismat and Censorship most unapologetically. DISCUSSION AND READINGS: Ek Shaam, Ismat ke Naam Other points came up during this session as the Moderator: Urvashi Butalia mechanics of PWA were discussed: aesthetic eroticism Session 1 – Panelists: Geeta Patel and Noor Zaheer was always permitted, and PWA was never oppressive or Chair: Shohini Ghosh authoritative. However, the idea of ‘aesthetic eroticism’ Session 2 – Panelists: Geeta Patel and was always subjective and Chughtai was criticised within Sukrita Paul Kumar, May 24 and outside the PWA, and had to defend herself and her writing. Following this, Geeta Patel spoke at length about After an informal introduction to the life and works of important issues such as censorship and bowdlerisation Ismat Chughtai, and the discovery of her works by Indian and said that although Chughtai resisted these, feminists in the late 1980s, Urvashi Butalia opened the deploying, strategically, naivety and innocence when session with the screening of an interview by Nirupama required, it was difficult to escape censorship when an Dutt of Hiralal Sibal, the lawyer who fought Ismat entire community began to practice it. She also spoke Chughtai’s case when charges of obscenity in writing were about Realism as employed by the writers of PWA, and how brought against her. This was followed by Shohini they were close to Trotskyite models, but different in their Ghosh’s comments on the Progressive Writer’s social realism in being playful, ironic and carefully crafted. Association (PWA) and its agenda to expose the ‘maladies Sukrita closed the session with readings from Chughtai of the society’. She also made comparisons with and later went on to speak on the perils of teaching international feminists, and said that Chughtai was as Chughtai in English translations, focusing on the loss, in radical as her western counterparts, and effected similar English, of the begumati zubaani in which most of transformations through her art by being ‘unruly’ and Chughtai’s characters talk. Geeta Patel shared her ‘transgresssive’, and generally outspoken and ‘ill- experiences of teaching Chughtai to heterogeneous mannered’. Noor Zaheer and Geeta Patel then dealt with student audiences in the USA, and how her radical the above-mentioned trial of Chughtai (and Manto). aesthetics and politics had to be explained to them The speakers discussed how ‘obscenity’ actually had through feminist, queer, and psychoanalytical theories. no fixed definition. Sharafat was only an amorphous The programme concluded with Sukrita reading from concept that writers had to abide by, and Chughtai the untranslated text of Chughtai’s Nanhi ki Nani. IPSHITA NATH demonstrate the effortlessness of this technique, in Music for Dance dovetailing the singing, dancing and the sthayee bhava, with the radiant dancer, Priya Venkataraman, in an PERFORMANCE: Dancing Music excerpt of a varnam. The second dancer who performed By Sudha Raghuraman that evening was Justin McCarthy. Sudha explained that Accompanists: G.