This is the first part of a trilogy, about three generations of women at various stages of liberty of personhood.
This one is about the first generation well taught with education and values given by her father. Satyavatie has been taught by her father before she was married off. She dreamt of carrying on the dream of blossoming of mind, of education, in her family, her children. She is married and has children of her own and they include a daughter, a piece of her own heart - she wishes to educate her as she was, give her all she can.
But this was well over a century ago and the families had different ideas often, and laws were archaic.
This is the era when British rule was in the process of taking over from various other Islamic and Hindu rulers in India. Ancient Indian social systems were demolished during Islamic occupation through centuries of strife against the Indian systems, and the education system had changed from Ashram school system of yore to one of parents educating children to the best of their own abilities.
This amongst other things had an implication that is universal across time, space, geography and culture - namely, women's education had suffered in terms of reading and writing (recall how recent it was that Harvard admitted women, and this is only because Vietnam war reduced the male student population) - although to be fair reading and writing was but a small part of Indian education where sheer memorisation of various subjects and treatises was the tradition, and also women in their normal course of life were expected to be well versed with all aspects of caring for famiily including medicine.
And too the social system had families make decisions for their children and women, so any head of a household whether man or woman could decide for their own children and dependents. Thus the education Satyavatie received from her father, which was neither unique in India nor universal.
And to make matters worse, child marriages were not only prevalent, they had been the rule since Islamic rule over most of the nation made it extremely risky to have a grown up daughter, or transport a young bride to the bridegroom's home. It had been safer for a few centuries to marry off young girls, before they were anywhere near puberty. The new rule by British had not changed that.
Satyavatie, however, had a great awareness and a mind of her own, and dreamt of bringing light to her own family, her household and children. This dream took a leap into blossoming when her daughter was born, and she intended to educate her daughter properly at a school and not marry her off early.
Satyavatie's daughter, Suvarnalataa, was five, and Satyavatie had already made it clear she would not tolerate any talk of the child being married off until she was grown up and well educated, as she herself had been.
But Satyavatie's mother in law foiled it neatly by taking her daughter Suvarnalata for a holiday to stay with grandparent. The mother-in-law tricked Satyavatie - when the child was on a holiday visiting the grandparents she was married off before the mother could arrive and prevent it.
Satyavatie was not able to break this up, she arrived too late and marriage was a fate accompli; moreover Hindu marriages have no break, no divorce in religion and in any case no possibility of another marriage for the girl, not then anyway. (Law has changed much since then, which is different from religion, as any catholic knows too - church excommunicates divorced people, especially women, everywhere in the world.)
The child, Suvarnalata, was small and it was not abnormal socially, so the trauma for her began only when she was then dispatched off with the new relatives to her own in-laws home, and separated from her own mother - who arrived too late to stop the wedding but early enough to see her daughter married - by force, and then on Suvarnalata had to live with them and take the lifelong taunts from them about her mother and her strange behaviour. As any woman of superior achievements and a mind of her own is likely to suffer in any society across time and space an geography and culture.
Satyavatie fought back in her own way, which might not seem much like a fighting back today but was a great shocker for her day. She according to her name went in search of truth (Satyavatie means One Who Has Truth).
The daughter, Suvarnalata, is the next volume in the series, in many ways the one who battled more and with courage and strength she had inherited from her own mother - even though she had so little a time with her and no education to speak of. She carried the mother's dream forth, with resolve, fighting not only her own mother-in-law and the rest of society, but even her own sons, who were on the side of social norms about marrying off the youngest - the third woman in the series.
It is really hard to put a value on the series, practically a chronicle of generations of women, though the pattern was not same for every family where India is concerned - it never is, in India.
Fortunately. Because that is what makes progress and evolution not only possible but easier, with no central authority conducting inquisition.
..................
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
A River Ran Out Of Eden; by James Vance Marshall.
Charming and decent tale of a boy protecting a golden seal from a hunter, with the latter threatening his parents and home. The book is unequivocal about the cunning and menace of the hunter unlike the film Golden Seal based on the book, which rather equivocates about the virtues of the hunter and the father. I remember the mother of the boy threatened in the book while the film leaves those parts out too. But the film is visually rather a pleasure.
Algebra of Infinite Justice; Arundhati Roy.
The title refers to the article Roy published during the furor of demonstrations by a few city intellectuals defending the rights of villagers and tribals affected by building of dams destroying forests, human and wildlife habitats, natural balance of ecology, and more.
It was published as a long article in a periodical before being brought out as a book, and I thought it brought up and presented to general public many points that might have been known to scientists and authorities but certainly not to those people that were not dealing with any of the factors directly affected by the dams.
The article explained much, including far flung issues - for example the insurgency in Punjab that had taken most population of India by surprise. It obviously had a great deal to do with poverty and unemployment in rural areas and yet Pujab had been the most prosperous state, the most fertile, the famed land of happy well fed and very patriotic people, for as long as we can remember.
This work of Roy explained the root of the inexplicable opposite - when one put it together with the other part of the picture, the disfrachisement of tenant farmers and other poor landless farm workers by the much heralded machinary such as tractors that was ubiquitous in Punjab since a few decades, driving much of the population into a silent but desperate poverty.
Naturally the unemployed, especially those that were young and therefore were far more vulnerable to propaganda and other - well funded, including ablity to provide arms - attempts from those that would be happy to see India permanently in turmoil, or worse.
Much of Punjab has suffered in all this since then, much blood shed and it was all unnecessary, starting from innocent dreams of prosperity for all by using dams to generate power and provide irrigation by canals to all.
But it is neither so simple nor without price to disturb Earth and ecosystesm, and the ill effects have been seen not only in India but in US as well, in many ways. This work goes into it all and is well written for a layperson, writer as well as readership - not that any professionals will not benefit by reading it, too.
It is high time humans stopped in tracks of arrogance of controlling nature and doing anything to any part of nature they can think of - but such awareness is not prevalent and there is far more of a resistance from those that would benefit more directly, whether it is about red meat industry or about dams or industrial pollution affecting rivers and air.
And dams are still being constructed, without regard to the fragility of Earth and its ecosystems, or even effect on human lives.
Incidentally, what Roy has against algebra is not clear, since she was trained in a scientific discipline.
It was published as a long article in a periodical before being brought out as a book, and I thought it brought up and presented to general public many points that might have been known to scientists and authorities but certainly not to those people that were not dealing with any of the factors directly affected by the dams.
The article explained much, including far flung issues - for example the insurgency in Punjab that had taken most population of India by surprise. It obviously had a great deal to do with poverty and unemployment in rural areas and yet Pujab had been the most prosperous state, the most fertile, the famed land of happy well fed and very patriotic people, for as long as we can remember.
This work of Roy explained the root of the inexplicable opposite - when one put it together with the other part of the picture, the disfrachisement of tenant farmers and other poor landless farm workers by the much heralded machinary such as tractors that was ubiquitous in Punjab since a few decades, driving much of the population into a silent but desperate poverty.
Naturally the unemployed, especially those that were young and therefore were far more vulnerable to propaganda and other - well funded, including ablity to provide arms - attempts from those that would be happy to see India permanently in turmoil, or worse.
Much of Punjab has suffered in all this since then, much blood shed and it was all unnecessary, starting from innocent dreams of prosperity for all by using dams to generate power and provide irrigation by canals to all.
But it is neither so simple nor without price to disturb Earth and ecosystesm, and the ill effects have been seen not only in India but in US as well, in many ways. This work goes into it all and is well written for a layperson, writer as well as readership - not that any professionals will not benefit by reading it, too.
It is high time humans stopped in tracks of arrogance of controlling nature and doing anything to any part of nature they can think of - but such awareness is not prevalent and there is far more of a resistance from those that would benefit more directly, whether it is about red meat industry or about dams or industrial pollution affecting rivers and air.
And dams are still being constructed, without regard to the fragility of Earth and its ecosystems, or even effect on human lives.
Incidentally, what Roy has against algebra is not clear, since she was trained in a scientific discipline.
Scarlett; by Alexandra Ripley.
Everyone would have had a different way of imagining how to extend the popular story, and so the heirs appointed someone of choice, and while the first few pages disappoint in style and substance - Margaret Mitchell's Scarlett was fire and spirit, she might lose but did not take humiliations like a woman is expected to, meekly - the later parts do very well in both ways.
The original told about the civil war and reconstruction in Georgia, both rural and Atlanta, where this sequel takes off and goes into neighbouring states where Scarlett has relatives, and her experience of the reconstruction years there and her spirited dealings with people. Then it shifts to her ancestral Ireland and to Tara, which her childhood home was named after, and deals with history happening there, with Scarlett playing multiple roles.
Ripley is victim to the recent decades of misogynistic pervading atmosphere of her nation (and the world for that matter, but one does get to be led to expect better of US) in general, and the relentless vilification of Scarlett O'Hara in particular, never mind she worked hard to nurse and feed people she need not have taken responsibility of at all, never mind she endangered her own life in attempting to run a business successfully where men failed more than not. Ripley has her thrown out of her own house - left to her by her first husband and the father of her son - by a woman who has survived on her charity basically for years while vilifying her, and the fact that Scarlett did not throw this in her face in public or even think of it is only a small part of her natural nobility that goes unnoticed (except by Melanie in GWTW who is dead when this book begins) even as Ripley proceeds along the lines of Mitchell (who had Scarlett disinvest in the mills that were a symbol of her own achievement to her) in having Scarlett proceed to spend all her own earnings through the years of occupation, danger, strife, on charity to the Wilkes clan, even as she is abused and ill used by Miss Wilkes - who, as Melanie pointed out uncannily correctly, hates Scarlett due to her own being never married and not likely to marry as she is over twenty five and not attractive. Scarlett takes all this abuse, proceeds to set up a dual charity to support the Wilkeses, before leaving town.
This is basically Ripley catering to the hatred that such an achiever and a noble woman as Scarlett invokes in the hearts of ordinary women full of ill will that rule the gossip circles of public, since the expectation was that women - and the gossiping, back biting women at that - will form the basic readership of this book. So they had to be catered to by having the noble spirited Scarlett be treated horribly and taking it in a noble cause of charity to the Wilkeses.
If you wish to know about her love life, read this for yourself.
The original told about the civil war and reconstruction in Georgia, both rural and Atlanta, where this sequel takes off and goes into neighbouring states where Scarlett has relatives, and her experience of the reconstruction years there and her spirited dealings with people. Then it shifts to her ancestral Ireland and to Tara, which her childhood home was named after, and deals with history happening there, with Scarlett playing multiple roles.
Ripley is victim to the recent decades of misogynistic pervading atmosphere of her nation (and the world for that matter, but one does get to be led to expect better of US) in general, and the relentless vilification of Scarlett O'Hara in particular, never mind she worked hard to nurse and feed people she need not have taken responsibility of at all, never mind she endangered her own life in attempting to run a business successfully where men failed more than not. Ripley has her thrown out of her own house - left to her by her first husband and the father of her son - by a woman who has survived on her charity basically for years while vilifying her, and the fact that Scarlett did not throw this in her face in public or even think of it is only a small part of her natural nobility that goes unnoticed (except by Melanie in GWTW who is dead when this book begins) even as Ripley proceeds along the lines of Mitchell (who had Scarlett disinvest in the mills that were a symbol of her own achievement to her) in having Scarlett proceed to spend all her own earnings through the years of occupation, danger, strife, on charity to the Wilkes clan, even as she is abused and ill used by Miss Wilkes - who, as Melanie pointed out uncannily correctly, hates Scarlett due to her own being never married and not likely to marry as she is over twenty five and not attractive. Scarlett takes all this abuse, proceeds to set up a dual charity to support the Wilkeses, before leaving town.
This is basically Ripley catering to the hatred that such an achiever and a noble woman as Scarlett invokes in the hearts of ordinary women full of ill will that rule the gossip circles of public, since the expectation was that women - and the gossiping, back biting women at that - will form the basic readership of this book. So they had to be catered to by having the noble spirited Scarlett be treated horribly and taking it in a noble cause of charity to the Wilkeses.
If you wish to know about her love life, read this for yourself.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Bridges of Madison County; by Robert James Waller.
According to an inside tip, by a colleague from India, a friend of his and of the creator of the film that was subsequently written up as the book were in midwest at university together when the two went and saw Parama, a bilingual film by Aparna Sen, at a time when Parama was a new film and a sensational one. The two were impressed, and the one perhaps new to Indian films subsequently went on to make Bridges of Madison County. No credit is or ever was given to the source of the inspiration, as far as we know.
The points copied from Parama in this work are clear to anyone familiar with both, but this one goes far more into sex, and thereby misses out on the rich texture of the other that was partly contextual and partly in the artists that created it. Also, since the story was taken to the other side of the world in more than one way, it had to be changed enough to make sense and romance from another perspective, since it was being planted in another culture, where an extra marital affair might not be such a thrill or a sin in social terms of today either.
And while the original was about an identity that was lost in the everyday life of the woman and she found it - accidentally as it were - when someone out of her circle loved her for herself, that again was not going to be a new thing either, since that has pretty much been a theme of women's movement since the sixties in west. So it was then pared down to an intense love story that began with sex and very soon changed, into a love that remained faithful but unrequited, with the two neither meeting nor every forgetting one another.
The self discovery of the woman and the guilt imposed by society were both thrown out, reducing the complexity and making it less her story and more of the tryst that became a romance. In the original the man is a catalyst, this copy made him a partner and a lover till his death.
Some features were retained - the photographer who travels around the world who meets a seemingly ordinary housewife and falls in love with her, the talk of traveling around the world, the dreaming, and so on, with her rediscovering beauty and romance that she did not have in her own life much.
A haunting love story, worth reading, almost of another era if you don't know where it came from - and it is, of another ethos.
The points copied from Parama in this work are clear to anyone familiar with both, but this one goes far more into sex, and thereby misses out on the rich texture of the other that was partly contextual and partly in the artists that created it. Also, since the story was taken to the other side of the world in more than one way, it had to be changed enough to make sense and romance from another perspective, since it was being planted in another culture, where an extra marital affair might not be such a thrill or a sin in social terms of today either.
And while the original was about an identity that was lost in the everyday life of the woman and she found it - accidentally as it were - when someone out of her circle loved her for herself, that again was not going to be a new thing either, since that has pretty much been a theme of women's movement since the sixties in west. So it was then pared down to an intense love story that began with sex and very soon changed, into a love that remained faithful but unrequited, with the two neither meeting nor every forgetting one another.
The self discovery of the woman and the guilt imposed by society were both thrown out, reducing the complexity and making it less her story and more of the tryst that became a romance. In the original the man is a catalyst, this copy made him a partner and a lover till his death.
Some features were retained - the photographer who travels around the world who meets a seemingly ordinary housewife and falls in love with her, the talk of traveling around the world, the dreaming, and so on, with her rediscovering beauty and romance that she did not have in her own life much.
A haunting love story, worth reading, almost of another era if you don't know where it came from - and it is, of another ethos.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
God of Small Things; by Arundhati Roy
First and foremost it is a good read and a racy one, and a good piece of writing too. That much is obvious (- it won the Booker prize, after all!). It was a sensation when it arrived, not the least because it was already portrayed as a sensation on distant shores, slated to go win much - and it did win the booker, giving generally many people, those of people of India that are (to some extent or more or less) English reading (- and, too, much of others that are aware of outside world sort) people of India - an elation. One from amongst us won their prize over their people, was the general euphoria in the country and amongst countrymen (or women) living abroad too.
In Roy's own country, India, though, there were opinions as diverse as could be, with the praise abroad contributing to much awe in the country in those that either always look to west for approval or even what to think what to wear what to feel et al, or on a more normal level due to an impression of a world appreciation with prizes much prized making average people proud. On the other hand most innocent detractors were truthfully pointing out that writers in India had written much greater stuff, and while this one was good it was hardly the best of Indian writing, or even representative of India either in social terms or in quality of India's best.
At one small gathering of friends at our place it was suggested that we should do something, make efforts at social and national levels, to bring out best of our literature to the notice of those that were holding up this as our best. While I don't think there is anything to be said against such an effort I thought it was not a "should" - it could be done but was rather of questionable relevance.
It was only those of India that gave importance out of all proportion to bookers and oscars and other "foreign" fame and notice and acknowledgement forms of recognition of worth, that were disturbed by the phenomena that this book had become, I thought (and said) - if "they" like rock, and India has great music of Bhimsen Joshi and Jasraj and Amir Khan and Hirabai Badodekar, "them" not noticing India's best does not change the fact of Indian classical being superior, unless India has a psychological need of approval from "them" to certify her rich heritage in its superiority.
Now remembering the distant memory - it was a storm in a teacup really, so ten years or so is a lot - one can see another side of it, too.
Pather Panchali was a much heralded film, with awards galore, and fame that went on and on. Part of it was due to its being more accessible to a sensibility that was linear and strictly of mind level, while more complex sensibilities are perhaps of Indian preference, with inputs from the worlds of heart and music and earth's or world's visual spectacular bounty, and dance. For a while there was a distinct divide - with those that preferred Ray considering themselves superior and those that preferred average Indian cinema apologetic or uncaring. Now, India has come to terms with her own rich tradition. And meanwhile there has been in India all along every kind of cinema in between, too.
So why was Ray the heralded one in west, while India ignored the phenomenal and much - very much - deserved popularity of Awara in Russian, east European and much of other parts of the world? The latter film had to do with India's colonial past still shadowing the psyche of most of Indians looking west in their need of approval, now a past. The former film (based on a far superior book by Bibhutibhushan Bandopaadhyaay) is another story and connects to the booker prize of Roy in a distant link.
Awara was a beautiful film with a story and appeal that were universal in nature, applicable to any society with injustice against women in suspecting them of fall from virtue and discarding them while innocent, and the consequent social ills. It touched hearts and won them - Russians could sing the theme en masse, and did when they gave a thundering ovation to the star director - and even today Russia knows India by his name more than anything, as casual visitors testify time and again, with their being given friendly smiles and help with the name of India to which they respond with "Raj Kapoor, Awara".
Pather Panchali in all its truths on the other hand could be applied to the poor of any country, anywhere, but is visually very much identifiable with India, and so is a story of only India identified solely and conveniently, even glibly, as a poor nation in the western psyche, a story of poverty that is usually India identified with. That there is such poverty in their own backyards in west (East End of London, Harlem of New York that Germans were always photographing more than anything, rural poverty of depression era, Scottish and Irish poor sent to colonies with prison being the only option, British poor and unemployed sent with free passage after wwII to Australia that was a penal colony until then) is swept under the rug, and this stark film is comfortable in their view for applauding. It is only India, and does not remind them of anything nearby, after all the people in this film are not wearing tailored clothes but are in thin cloth wrapped around, so it is only India that needs to look like this and have a problem of poverty, goes the subconscious of the viewer making them feel comforted, safe, kind and superior in charitable mood. And it is easier to deal with, being much more if not exclusively on level of a subconscious level of mind rather than of a more integral perception.
The parallels are hardly anywhere near exact. Roy's work is on more levels than merely mind, and both the virtue of this work as well as the truth of there being better works even then in Indian (and therefore inaccessible to west) languages (- I have met Europeans, with all their colonial past of ruling half the world, that did not know India had languages, much less literature, and some thought people of India all speak English! -); fact is this one in its value of literary virtue as well as sensational stuff that could be a silent pointing finger at India was more comfortable for rewarding with a much valued prize.
There is no denying this is good work. Only, readers from elsewhere are likely to take it as representative of not only a specific story of a place and people or even some of society, but of all India. Which is not the writer's fault really. Roy wrote what came with a flow to write itself as a story and one cannot, should not, always be writing with an effort towards making the ignorant or prejudiced understand all aspects of the background. If someone did that (and many do, at that), that way of approach to writing would definitely make for a work with a "them" in mind as readers, stilted and catering.
Roy is brilliant and fearless and has gone on to do superior work, which has gone unnoticed comparatively. Dams are still being built, never mind Algebra of Infinite Justice.
I am afraid (the last phrase and the last word can be taken literally only by disassociating it from the subject of the verb, in that everyone should be afraid of such a possibility) that major disasters of far more than environmental and ecological nature are likely.
This is all the more so when sensitive parts of Earth such as Himaalaya and other tectonic dynamic are being played with - without thought of anything other than power and profits. So volatile an ecology as Himaalaya being played with for economic gain or political power by an occupying power, Amazon forests being cleared with no likelihood of profiteers replacing Earth's forests any time soon, and trawlers scraping off ocean floors and killing all life and ecology only to have much of the fish so brought in rot - none of this is good for any of us, any more than the plastic garbage island the size of Texas floating in Pacific since US garbage has to go somewhere.
In Roy's own country, India, though, there were opinions as diverse as could be, with the praise abroad contributing to much awe in the country in those that either always look to west for approval or even what to think what to wear what to feel et al, or on a more normal level due to an impression of a world appreciation with prizes much prized making average people proud. On the other hand most innocent detractors were truthfully pointing out that writers in India had written much greater stuff, and while this one was good it was hardly the best of Indian writing, or even representative of India either in social terms or in quality of India's best.
At one small gathering of friends at our place it was suggested that we should do something, make efforts at social and national levels, to bring out best of our literature to the notice of those that were holding up this as our best. While I don't think there is anything to be said against such an effort I thought it was not a "should" - it could be done but was rather of questionable relevance.
It was only those of India that gave importance out of all proportion to bookers and oscars and other "foreign" fame and notice and acknowledgement forms of recognition of worth, that were disturbed by the phenomena that this book had become, I thought (and said) - if "they" like rock, and India has great music of Bhimsen Joshi and Jasraj and Amir Khan and Hirabai Badodekar, "them" not noticing India's best does not change the fact of Indian classical being superior, unless India has a psychological need of approval from "them" to certify her rich heritage in its superiority.
Now remembering the distant memory - it was a storm in a teacup really, so ten years or so is a lot - one can see another side of it, too.
Pather Panchali was a much heralded film, with awards galore, and fame that went on and on. Part of it was due to its being more accessible to a sensibility that was linear and strictly of mind level, while more complex sensibilities are perhaps of Indian preference, with inputs from the worlds of heart and music and earth's or world's visual spectacular bounty, and dance. For a while there was a distinct divide - with those that preferred Ray considering themselves superior and those that preferred average Indian cinema apologetic or uncaring. Now, India has come to terms with her own rich tradition. And meanwhile there has been in India all along every kind of cinema in between, too.
So why was Ray the heralded one in west, while India ignored the phenomenal and much - very much - deserved popularity of Awara in Russian, east European and much of other parts of the world? The latter film had to do with India's colonial past still shadowing the psyche of most of Indians looking west in their need of approval, now a past. The former film (based on a far superior book by Bibhutibhushan Bandopaadhyaay) is another story and connects to the booker prize of Roy in a distant link.
Awara was a beautiful film with a story and appeal that were universal in nature, applicable to any society with injustice against women in suspecting them of fall from virtue and discarding them while innocent, and the consequent social ills. It touched hearts and won them - Russians could sing the theme en masse, and did when they gave a thundering ovation to the star director - and even today Russia knows India by his name more than anything, as casual visitors testify time and again, with their being given friendly smiles and help with the name of India to which they respond with "Raj Kapoor, Awara".
Pather Panchali in all its truths on the other hand could be applied to the poor of any country, anywhere, but is visually very much identifiable with India, and so is a story of only India identified solely and conveniently, even glibly, as a poor nation in the western psyche, a story of poverty that is usually India identified with. That there is such poverty in their own backyards in west (East End of London, Harlem of New York that Germans were always photographing more than anything, rural poverty of depression era, Scottish and Irish poor sent to colonies with prison being the only option, British poor and unemployed sent with free passage after wwII to Australia that was a penal colony until then) is swept under the rug, and this stark film is comfortable in their view for applauding. It is only India, and does not remind them of anything nearby, after all the people in this film are not wearing tailored clothes but are in thin cloth wrapped around, so it is only India that needs to look like this and have a problem of poverty, goes the subconscious of the viewer making them feel comforted, safe, kind and superior in charitable mood. And it is easier to deal with, being much more if not exclusively on level of a subconscious level of mind rather than of a more integral perception.
The parallels are hardly anywhere near exact. Roy's work is on more levels than merely mind, and both the virtue of this work as well as the truth of there being better works even then in Indian (and therefore inaccessible to west) languages (- I have met Europeans, with all their colonial past of ruling half the world, that did not know India had languages, much less literature, and some thought people of India all speak English! -); fact is this one in its value of literary virtue as well as sensational stuff that could be a silent pointing finger at India was more comfortable for rewarding with a much valued prize.
There is no denying this is good work. Only, readers from elsewhere are likely to take it as representative of not only a specific story of a place and people or even some of society, but of all India. Which is not the writer's fault really. Roy wrote what came with a flow to write itself as a story and one cannot, should not, always be writing with an effort towards making the ignorant or prejudiced understand all aspects of the background. If someone did that (and many do, at that), that way of approach to writing would definitely make for a work with a "them" in mind as readers, stilted and catering.
Roy is brilliant and fearless and has gone on to do superior work, which has gone unnoticed comparatively. Dams are still being built, never mind Algebra of Infinite Justice.
I am afraid (the last phrase and the last word can be taken literally only by disassociating it from the subject of the verb, in that everyone should be afraid of such a possibility) that major disasters of far more than environmental and ecological nature are likely.
This is all the more so when sensitive parts of Earth such as Himaalaya and other tectonic dynamic are being played with - without thought of anything other than power and profits. So volatile an ecology as Himaalaya being played with for economic gain or political power by an occupying power, Amazon forests being cleared with no likelihood of profiteers replacing Earth's forests any time soon, and trawlers scraping off ocean floors and killing all life and ecology only to have much of the fish so brought in rot - none of this is good for any of us, any more than the plastic garbage island the size of Texas floating in Pacific since US garbage has to go somewhere.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Lady Susan; by Jane Austen.
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Lady Susan; by Jane Austen.
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July 05, 2010.
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Yayaati; by Vi. Sa. Khaandekar
Begun in the war between Gods and their opposite side the Asuras, this tale - as most parts of Mahaabhaarata do - continues with effects and consequences into human society at more than one level and more than one generation. Unlike the common misconception (story of lust) this story is about pain suffered for no fault of ones own, resulting loss of sweetness, ego, desperation for love, revenge and repentance, lightness of spirit and pride, and so forth - interplays of various human faults and travails.
Kacha came to Shukra Muni (Muni - sage, great learned teacher, someone with knowledge devoted to knowledge and spiritual matters), to learn from him the knowledge that Gods needed to defeat Asuras, but he had to be disguised as a Braahmana - if he admitted to the truth of his being a Kschatriya, he would be refused by the great teacher who belonged to the Asura side, since the knowledge would then be certain of being used against Asuras.
The young and vulnerable daughter of Shukra Muni, Devayaanie, fell in love with him and Kacha played along so as to not rock the boat prematurely. When he spurned her after being found out (since he was discovered to be too tough and resilient physically to be a Braahmana) she was devastated. Her close friend, princess Sharmischtha, perhaps unaware of how hurt she was, played a prank on her along with her friends and Devayaanie was left in water without any clothes on shore after their bathing together, the friends having left with laughter and her clothes.
A king of the realm, Yayaati, arrived soon after on the scene and helped her out, having heard her cry for help; she then informed him that since he had taken her hand under the circumstances and according to the code of chivalry in India then observed, he was obliged to marry her, and he agreed, with no shortage of pleasure since she was attractive and spirited.
Father of Shramischtha, the king of the region, on the other hand, was obliged to make amends for his daughter's thoughtless folly in putting Devayaanie in this predicament - all the more since it need not have ended as well as it did. Devayaanie asked that the princess be given to her as a personal servant for life, not free to have a life of her own until Devayaanie so pleased. This was done, Sharmischtha repentent and her father only relieved the punishment or amends was this easy. (If it were his kingdom or his daughter's life that were asked for, he would have to comply according to the code of conduct.)
Yayaati the easy going king, Devayaanie the proud and upright queen who was a Braahmana woman and hence unused to the Kschtriya easier life and mindset, and the ever watchful Shukramuni to see that his daughter was not ever disrespected again - this did not exactly make for domestic felicity and when Yayaati happened to see the servant, Sharmischtha, who was not only beautiful and well behaved as a princess born and brought up but also softer due to her repentence and status, he fell in love, as did she.
The queen never discovered this until she saw the proof of their liaison, a child. Her wrath brought her father and he cursed Yayaati the adulterer with untimely old age forever. When repentence of the guilty male was enough to melt his heart, he was given one solution - if any young man were willing to exchange his youth with the king's old age, this was possible as long as the king wished to enjoy youth.
Devayaanie's sons along with all other men refused, unwilling. The only young male willing to agree with all his being to such an exchange was Pururawaa, the son of Sharmischthaa. And having enjoyed youth for long Yayaati gave it back to him, with much more - all his love and his heat's blessings, which Pururawaa proceeded to make good use of. According to the code, he was judged the best candidate to inherit the responsibility of his father's kingdom and became the king. (Kingship was not necessarily bestowed on sons, either, but on the best person for the role, chosen by king and - or - agreed generally by the people of the realm.)
"Yayaati" is One (male) Who Has Suffered Pains. The word is related to Yati, which means One (male) Who Goes Through Pains Of His Own Willing Decision, For Sake Of Spiritual Achievement. (The latter word has been used wrongly by western observers and travellers for sightings of unidentified human like creatures in Himaalayaa who have characteristics human but are most likely to vanish when sighted; this characteristic fits very well the possiblity that they in fact are men meditating in regions where they are unlikely to be disturbed by lesser humans.)
Shukra Muni was the one who in wrath called Yayaati "a man who went astray in his lust"; but it is far more complex than that, and he realised this too, which is why he gave a way out of his curse at all.
Pururawaa went on to be one of the great kings in the Mahaabhaarata tradition, an ancestor of the princes of the main story.
Kacha came to Shukra Muni (Muni - sage, great learned teacher, someone with knowledge devoted to knowledge and spiritual matters), to learn from him the knowledge that Gods needed to defeat Asuras, but he had to be disguised as a Braahmana - if he admitted to the truth of his being a Kschatriya, he would be refused by the great teacher who belonged to the Asura side, since the knowledge would then be certain of being used against Asuras.
The young and vulnerable daughter of Shukra Muni, Devayaanie, fell in love with him and Kacha played along so as to not rock the boat prematurely. When he spurned her after being found out (since he was discovered to be too tough and resilient physically to be a Braahmana) she was devastated. Her close friend, princess Sharmischtha, perhaps unaware of how hurt she was, played a prank on her along with her friends and Devayaanie was left in water without any clothes on shore after their bathing together, the friends having left with laughter and her clothes.
A king of the realm, Yayaati, arrived soon after on the scene and helped her out, having heard her cry for help; she then informed him that since he had taken her hand under the circumstances and according to the code of chivalry in India then observed, he was obliged to marry her, and he agreed, with no shortage of pleasure since she was attractive and spirited.
Father of Shramischtha, the king of the region, on the other hand, was obliged to make amends for his daughter's thoughtless folly in putting Devayaanie in this predicament - all the more since it need not have ended as well as it did. Devayaanie asked that the princess be given to her as a personal servant for life, not free to have a life of her own until Devayaanie so pleased. This was done, Sharmischtha repentent and her father only relieved the punishment or amends was this easy. (If it were his kingdom or his daughter's life that were asked for, he would have to comply according to the code of conduct.)
Yayaati the easy going king, Devayaanie the proud and upright queen who was a Braahmana woman and hence unused to the Kschtriya easier life and mindset, and the ever watchful Shukramuni to see that his daughter was not ever disrespected again - this did not exactly make for domestic felicity and when Yayaati happened to see the servant, Sharmischtha, who was not only beautiful and well behaved as a princess born and brought up but also softer due to her repentence and status, he fell in love, as did she.
The queen never discovered this until she saw the proof of their liaison, a child. Her wrath brought her father and he cursed Yayaati the adulterer with untimely old age forever. When repentence of the guilty male was enough to melt his heart, he was given one solution - if any young man were willing to exchange his youth with the king's old age, this was possible as long as the king wished to enjoy youth.
Devayaanie's sons along with all other men refused, unwilling. The only young male willing to agree with all his being to such an exchange was Pururawaa, the son of Sharmischthaa. And having enjoyed youth for long Yayaati gave it back to him, with much more - all his love and his heat's blessings, which Pururawaa proceeded to make good use of. According to the code, he was judged the best candidate to inherit the responsibility of his father's kingdom and became the king. (Kingship was not necessarily bestowed on sons, either, but on the best person for the role, chosen by king and - or - agreed generally by the people of the realm.)
"Yayaati" is One (male) Who Has Suffered Pains. The word is related to Yati, which means One (male) Who Goes Through Pains Of His Own Willing Decision, For Sake Of Spiritual Achievement. (The latter word has been used wrongly by western observers and travellers for sightings of unidentified human like creatures in Himaalayaa who have characteristics human but are most likely to vanish when sighted; this characteristic fits very well the possiblity that they in fact are men meditating in regions where they are unlikely to be disturbed by lesser humans.)
Shukra Muni was the one who in wrath called Yayaati "a man who went astray in his lust"; but it is far more complex than that, and he realised this too, which is why he gave a way out of his curse at all.
Pururawaa went on to be one of the great kings in the Mahaabhaarata tradition, an ancestor of the princes of the main story.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Persuasion; by Jane Austen
The most gentle love story from Austen repertoire, with the usual cache of gentle women and men following a normal course of life for their day while falling into easy traps of faults or follies and realising their mistakes and generally rising above, with their counterpart of men and women of small follies or serious faults of character providing examples of how not to be or behave.
Someone (name escapes me, having read this long ago, two decades or more) had once pointed out that in Austen nothing happens page after page and yet one reads it with great interest, and to that one might only add, time after time again and again with the interest not diminished at all. And the most interesting are those of her tales that have the gentlest of stories, characters, et al.
July 4, 2010.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
My Single Friend; by Jane Costello
This book would be really good without the conscious strewing about of some off things that seems these days to be something perhaps publishers and editors insist on having every otherwise readable book sprinkled with like decorative sprays of red pepper on a dish - but they ought to recall red pepper does not belong in every cup of tea or milk. Other than that it is a bit long or just unable to hold the reader.
Just after this I started on an Austen work, which belongs to early eighteenth century as for the time period the book describes, and is comparatively far less eventful. And yet it holds the reader unlike Costello's contrived fast paced and twisted tale, which was a bit of hard work to finish.
Austen was a young woman when she wrote, so why couldn't writers of
Just after this I started on an Austen work, which belongs to early eighteenth century as for the time period the book describes, and is comparatively far less eventful. And yet it holds the reader unlike Costello's contrived fast paced and twisted tale, which was a bit of hard work to finish.
Austen was a young woman when she wrote, so why couldn't writers of
Theodore Boone; by John Grisham
Very good piece of work - as one has come to expect from Grisham - with some familiar ground and yet different from others before. Courtroom, murder, killer likely to get away and all this saved by a school child, but the menace stays in the background albeit not too far away, and normal life goes on, a la Painted House.
Friday, June 18, 2010
And Thereby Hangs A Tale; by Jeffrey Archer.
This would be a delightful book of short stories (- and they are not only delightful but also quite short, suitable for the person who began a whole discussion on the site asking for good literature that was "not wordy" -) but for the faux pas towards the end when in two separate stories Archer mixes up names heedless of the very separate places or people they belong to, something akin to say mention of a Champs Elysée in Washington D.C. or a Vladimir Carnegie running for senator in Texas; the only reason he does not think twice about this stupid set of mistakes is that it involves communities his set thinks quite mistakenly as their past owned people and nations they think they created - which in one instance they did, too, in one of the two cases; which by now they ought to repent with all theirs. Unless they are still in the bushy mindset or mode of pretending instead of thinking, seeing, realising.
A name like Vladimir Carnegie might survive in US albeit with a good many jeers in school and a suitable change effectively shielding the poor bloke in college; it won't win a senatorship from Texas, certainly; but the equivalent stupid mistake of a name could get the guy murdered or worse in the country in fact created by Archer's nation, and in the more ancient land he might survive if no fatwa is taken out against him. That name could only live without danger in Mongolia, in fact.
Why all this fuss is due to a clear indication that such carelessness of anyone of the ex ruler nation involves a deeply ingrained racism and an assumption, an attitude that takes it for granted that this is of no consequence, and not only the nations he respects more but also those that he made a mistake of names related to won't result in consequences for him, not even a loss of possible remuneration - and yet he has spoken out appreciating his over a million fans in the country (which amounts to a million books sold in a poor country which translates into a readership of several times that many).
In short when one is sure no one shall whack one where it hurts one is free to make stupid mistakes. And in fact he is in all probability quite certain no one will take it seriously, since an ex ruled population is likely to go overboard appreciating he is taking notice of them at all.
No one is as surprised as a despot thrown off the throne when finally asked to begin to pay up for the atrocities, at that.
There are other inexplicable mistakes - for instance one would think a fence would know not to deceive a Belmarsh inmate for a couple of years of relative freedom, and such others.
Still - something one may use very well to pass time in, say, waiting for a plane or a doctor's appointment or whatever.
A name like Vladimir Carnegie might survive in US albeit with a good many jeers in school and a suitable change effectively shielding the poor bloke in college; it won't win a senatorship from Texas, certainly; but the equivalent stupid mistake of a name could get the guy murdered or worse in the country in fact created by Archer's nation, and in the more ancient land he might survive if no fatwa is taken out against him. That name could only live without danger in Mongolia, in fact.
Why all this fuss is due to a clear indication that such carelessness of anyone of the ex ruler nation involves a deeply ingrained racism and an assumption, an attitude that takes it for granted that this is of no consequence, and not only the nations he respects more but also those that he made a mistake of names related to won't result in consequences for him, not even a loss of possible remuneration - and yet he has spoken out appreciating his over a million fans in the country (which amounts to a million books sold in a poor country which translates into a readership of several times that many).
In short when one is sure no one shall whack one where it hurts one is free to make stupid mistakes. And in fact he is in all probability quite certain no one will take it seriously, since an ex ruled population is likely to go overboard appreciating he is taking notice of them at all.
No one is as surprised as a despot thrown off the throne when finally asked to begin to pay up for the atrocities, at that.
There are other inexplicable mistakes - for instance one would think a fence would know not to deceive a Belmarsh inmate for a couple of years of relative freedom, and such others.
Still - something one may use very well to pass time in, say, waiting for a plane or a doctor's appointment or whatever.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
2 States: The Story of My Marriage; by Chetan Bhagat.
The writer is certainly better with light and glib, but the glib is detrimental to the deep and profound he ends up trivialising with his incurable love of smart soundbytes - and yet he won't give up trivialising the things he ought to stay away from in his sort of writings. (Gita Mehta did far better in her Karma Kola by not not giving in to the temptation of making this mistake and retaining some integrity, and ending up with her work making her look mysterious and more knowldedgeable. Which she might very well have been or be.)
Still, if one manages to ignore the puzzlingly wrong details in the descriptions of real places and people in one or two spots he has done well with this one, far better than with other three. And this time it is a certainty to have this work translate to a dozen or so films in various languages in India not to mention some NRI filmmaker stepping in, buying rights and making a hash of it a la "Namesake" by mistakes about the society they are now away from and glib generalisations, but then they might pay better for the rights.
Then again the whole theme, the details, the story is so very general the rights don't mean much in this case and the dozen Indian films in various languages can still be made with no legal hassles by changing a detail here or there. The story of inter-community weddings and social differences today is nothing new or unique, with great fluidity of youth between metropolises of work far away from the root towns or cities, and a medium good scriptwriter can take a cue and make an excellent job of writing a good one.
Still, if one manages to ignore the puzzlingly wrong details in the descriptions of real places and people in one or two spots he has done well with this one, far better than with other three. And this time it is a certainty to have this work translate to a dozen or so films in various languages in India not to mention some NRI filmmaker stepping in, buying rights and making a hash of it a la "Namesake" by mistakes about the society they are now away from and glib generalisations, but then they might pay better for the rights.
Then again the whole theme, the details, the story is so very general the rights don't mean much in this case and the dozen Indian films in various languages can still be made with no legal hassles by changing a detail here or there. The story of inter-community weddings and social differences today is nothing new or unique, with great fluidity of youth between metropolises of work far away from the root towns or cities, and a medium good scriptwriter can take a cue and make an excellent job of writing a good one.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Will the Iron Fence Save a Tree Hollowed by Termites? ; Defence Imperatives Beyond the Military; by Arun Shourie
Essential defense concerns, a priori, of a country that has looked at others, including violators of her security, for justification of her concerns, a legacy of colonial past that needs to be thrown over to begin a true independent existence and to protect the nation. But this book is about is far more.
Rare is the courage to go to the root cause of various ideologies that aim to take over the whole world by any means possible, and won't rest until the domination is total. For this totality is never achieved - even within nations and societies adhering to those ideologies and aims, again and again various independent minds or streams of thought must be wiped out by the dominant ones, as witnessed in various such societies and nations through history until now, as explained by Zbiegniew Brezinski in his Permanent Purge, whether inquisition and persecution of other sects and their adherents by Rome, or Soviet purges and murder of Trotsky, or SA massacre by SS, or today various zealots of different names of ideologies including but not limited to fanatic Islam, attempting to do the same in various parts of the world.
The point is their justification in their own eyes is deep rooted in the very "book" they adhere to, with no other options allowed as a possibility. Hence a tolerance or a democracy or a secular setup where "other" possibilities are allowed, is by the very tenets of their creed to be converted or wiped out, both actions being of equal merit in their creed. Taking over the world is part of the aim, death no deterrent.
And the three explicitly named enemies are US, Israel and India. Today UK is probably added to the list as well, or west Europe too. There have been more events orchestrated since the book was published.
As everyone is aware by now, the irony is that the democracies and the law abiding societies with freedom are being attacked by copious and precise use of the very freedom that success of these fanatics will finish from the world. The secular is twisted to feel guilty about identification of an ideology that leads to terror as a means and an end, the free media are manipulated into lines or bytes to suit them by propaganda that is eventually discovered as such but long after the damage is done (and no headlines about the discovery of falsehood then, unlike the baying packs shouting about the terror agenda) and the courts of law are all too easy to manipulate too one way or another.
The three nations so identified in the terror agenda deal with it very differently and the most in danger is India, by far. But as an Israeli woman put it succinctly, "Israel is the canary in the mine"; and offering someone else's children to the rottweiler won't stop it from one day taking yours, it merely whets the appetite and the moral certitude of the rottweiler to its rights to yours.
Rare is the courage to go to the root cause of various ideologies that aim to take over the whole world by any means possible, and won't rest until the domination is total. For this totality is never achieved - even within nations and societies adhering to those ideologies and aims, again and again various independent minds or streams of thought must be wiped out by the dominant ones, as witnessed in various such societies and nations through history until now, as explained by Zbiegniew Brezinski in his Permanent Purge, whether inquisition and persecution of other sects and their adherents by Rome, or Soviet purges and murder of Trotsky, or SA massacre by SS, or today various zealots of different names of ideologies including but not limited to fanatic Islam, attempting to do the same in various parts of the world.
The point is their justification in their own eyes is deep rooted in the very "book" they adhere to, with no other options allowed as a possibility. Hence a tolerance or a democracy or a secular setup where "other" possibilities are allowed, is by the very tenets of their creed to be converted or wiped out, both actions being of equal merit in their creed. Taking over the world is part of the aim, death no deterrent.
And the three explicitly named enemies are US, Israel and India. Today UK is probably added to the list as well, or west Europe too. There have been more events orchestrated since the book was published.
As everyone is aware by now, the irony is that the democracies and the law abiding societies with freedom are being attacked by copious and precise use of the very freedom that success of these fanatics will finish from the world. The secular is twisted to feel guilty about identification of an ideology that leads to terror as a means and an end, the free media are manipulated into lines or bytes to suit them by propaganda that is eventually discovered as such but long after the damage is done (and no headlines about the discovery of falsehood then, unlike the baying packs shouting about the terror agenda) and the courts of law are all too easy to manipulate too one way or another.
The three nations so identified in the terror agenda deal with it very differently and the most in danger is India, by far. But as an Israeli woman put it succinctly, "Israel is the canary in the mine"; and offering someone else's children to the rottweiler won't stop it from one day taking yours, it merely whets the appetite and the moral certitude of the rottweiler to its rights to yours.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Genome; by Matt Ridley
Worth reading for its subject matter and informational content, the book is not as faultless as one would expect a treatise on science to be, that too on so sensitive a topic touching on every aspect of life, no matter that the book is for lay readers.
For one thing a few diagrams would have made the subject more accessible and easily understood for the intended readership - scientists are unlikely to read it except to see if it is any good, and grade it. For another there are mistakes that easily could and certainly ought to have been avoided.
A comparatively distant mistake relates to the colonial mindset of the author, when he compares an indigenous language of a formerly occupied colonial nation to the one that took root due to the colonial occupation; this mindset has been carefully nurtured and deliberately spread by the said colonial ex-ruling power, and easily taken root in US since the latter would like to forget that the nation of US is formed by occupying and pushing back the indigenous population of the land, the indigenous people deliberately obscured and forgotten by such psychological weapons as speaking of US independence when in reality the occupational settlers enslaved, killed, murdered the real indigenous people as well as the kidnapped and enslaved forcibly brought ones from yet another continent, and giving them - the indigenous people - false names (i.e., Indian, when they have nothing to do with India, thus the very word Indian acquiring connotations other than that of people of India, and coming to conveniently mean people of less progress and so forth, an entirely falsified final meaning and usage of the stupid mistake and false nomenclature deliberately made by Columbus who did not discover the land in the first place but knew his mistake and silenced his sailors on pain of death) instead of calling them by at least the name given to the land by occupiers, i.e., American. An honest way of naming the populations of US would be Native American for the indigenous people, Euro Americans (on the lines of African American), Asian American and so forth. But this would clear up the fact that European settlers have no more right than the African slaves they forcibly brought to work for them, and hence the false nomenclature not only continues but gets aided by similar falsehoods spread through such nomenclature applied to distant lands and other ex colonial nations.
A far more serious mistake of similar nature but one dealing with the very subject matter of the book and therefore far less ignorable is due to yet another facet of the writer's colonial slaver mindset that this time applies to half the world across the world. After much discussion about the nature vs nurture debates of the last three centuries or so, when it comes to x and y matters the writer glibly quotes his own daughter gurgling at a baby doll while his son had merely done so for trucks, and concludes that this implies irrefutable proof of nature making women for the purpose of bearing and caring. He fails to take into account the very arguments and facts he has quoted for this and fails to see they might apply here too. That is, he does not see that while it is possible he did not see the difference of bringing up his children had - most people do not see their own biases - he also failed to take into account the genetic inheritance of the children, and the mindset the parents and other ancestors (not to mention the social setting around) had imprinted on the children whether at the genetic level or at the psychological, in all probability both.
I have personally known several women who had other interests even though they were far beyond excellent as mothers, and the fact that they had daughters who were therefore further along in such interests even as infants while they lacked in no way as women; and I have also known men, several, who were nurturing people rather than the usual image of the macho hunter or remote fisher preferred and imposed in US as a cultural stereotype. I have known sibling groups where the sisters were into reading, and brothers avoided it to begin with; I have known sibling groups where a sister was a destructive character and a brother played longest with dolls with elaborate stories and characters (he did not grow to acquire a career in any of the expected feminine professions either, he is qualified as an electrical engineer - having had interests along this plain enough in toddlerhoood as well - and has successful career in management and finance, which does not deter him from baking cakes for parties he throws, in spite of being entirely straight like his caring ancestors and just as stably married), far beyond the sister who played most with dolls (who had professional career in science); I have known men who not only did not mind cooking but did so naturally and for their girlfriends too; and I have known women who would not stop shy of holding a philandering suitor by his collar in the middle of a street and asking him point blank if his intentions were less than honourable, something men don't always do for daughters or sisters.
It is not that this sort of examples proves anything of a rule, merely that given an equal opportunity and an unbiased mindset from parents and ambient society the children inherit less of blinkers or rails to run on even at genetic or gestational level, and might develop and blossom to their own true selves, more like a garden rather than a forest of trees carefully planted at regular intervals for harvesting at regular intervals to feed a factory or a season of decoration. Given a fair chance a girl might grow up to read and write seriously and think well, and a boy might not be emotionally dead.
If they stick to the stereotypes in unusually large numbers and proportions it is due to the stereotypes being imposed in subliminal ways and reinforced. When everything from magazines to books to television programs are either labeled for women and filled with stupid content or labeled for men and filled with equally stupid different content, all for sale of this or that bunch of industries, the only freedom really is in professional journals, and those are heavily biased - toddlers might not know yet that girls who read are unpopular but they get to be told soon enough, and boys are pushed away from being anything but jocks with steroids. This destroys a chance at even a human life - forget anything more progressive in evolution - for most children of both genders especially when they know they have to form their own homes with no help from anyone else.
One wishes this writer had thought more before writing mistakes in. This subject, this book would be worth a painstaking correctional rewrite.
For one thing a few diagrams would have made the subject more accessible and easily understood for the intended readership - scientists are unlikely to read it except to see if it is any good, and grade it. For another there are mistakes that easily could and certainly ought to have been avoided.
A comparatively distant mistake relates to the colonial mindset of the author, when he compares an indigenous language of a formerly occupied colonial nation to the one that took root due to the colonial occupation; this mindset has been carefully nurtured and deliberately spread by the said colonial ex-ruling power, and easily taken root in US since the latter would like to forget that the nation of US is formed by occupying and pushing back the indigenous population of the land, the indigenous people deliberately obscured and forgotten by such psychological weapons as speaking of US independence when in reality the occupational settlers enslaved, killed, murdered the real indigenous people as well as the kidnapped and enslaved forcibly brought ones from yet another continent, and giving them - the indigenous people - false names (i.e., Indian, when they have nothing to do with India, thus the very word Indian acquiring connotations other than that of people of India, and coming to conveniently mean people of less progress and so forth, an entirely falsified final meaning and usage of the stupid mistake and false nomenclature deliberately made by Columbus who did not discover the land in the first place but knew his mistake and silenced his sailors on pain of death) instead of calling them by at least the name given to the land by occupiers, i.e., American. An honest way of naming the populations of US would be Native American for the indigenous people, Euro Americans (on the lines of African American), Asian American and so forth. But this would clear up the fact that European settlers have no more right than the African slaves they forcibly brought to work for them, and hence the false nomenclature not only continues but gets aided by similar falsehoods spread through such nomenclature applied to distant lands and other ex colonial nations.
A far more serious mistake of similar nature but one dealing with the very subject matter of the book and therefore far less ignorable is due to yet another facet of the writer's colonial slaver mindset that this time applies to half the world across the world. After much discussion about the nature vs nurture debates of the last three centuries or so, when it comes to x and y matters the writer glibly quotes his own daughter gurgling at a baby doll while his son had merely done so for trucks, and concludes that this implies irrefutable proof of nature making women for the purpose of bearing and caring. He fails to take into account the very arguments and facts he has quoted for this and fails to see they might apply here too. That is, he does not see that while it is possible he did not see the difference of bringing up his children had - most people do not see their own biases - he also failed to take into account the genetic inheritance of the children, and the mindset the parents and other ancestors (not to mention the social setting around) had imprinted on the children whether at the genetic level or at the psychological, in all probability both.
I have personally known several women who had other interests even though they were far beyond excellent as mothers, and the fact that they had daughters who were therefore further along in such interests even as infants while they lacked in no way as women; and I have also known men, several, who were nurturing people rather than the usual image of the macho hunter or remote fisher preferred and imposed in US as a cultural stereotype. I have known sibling groups where the sisters were into reading, and brothers avoided it to begin with; I have known sibling groups where a sister was a destructive character and a brother played longest with dolls with elaborate stories and characters (he did not grow to acquire a career in any of the expected feminine professions either, he is qualified as an electrical engineer - having had interests along this plain enough in toddlerhoood as well - and has successful career in management and finance, which does not deter him from baking cakes for parties he throws, in spite of being entirely straight like his caring ancestors and just as stably married), far beyond the sister who played most with dolls (who had professional career in science); I have known men who not only did not mind cooking but did so naturally and for their girlfriends too; and I have known women who would not stop shy of holding a philandering suitor by his collar in the middle of a street and asking him point blank if his intentions were less than honourable, something men don't always do for daughters or sisters.
It is not that this sort of examples proves anything of a rule, merely that given an equal opportunity and an unbiased mindset from parents and ambient society the children inherit less of blinkers or rails to run on even at genetic or gestational level, and might develop and blossom to their own true selves, more like a garden rather than a forest of trees carefully planted at regular intervals for harvesting at regular intervals to feed a factory or a season of decoration. Given a fair chance a girl might grow up to read and write seriously and think well, and a boy might not be emotionally dead.
If they stick to the stereotypes in unusually large numbers and proportions it is due to the stereotypes being imposed in subliminal ways and reinforced. When everything from magazines to books to television programs are either labeled for women and filled with stupid content or labeled for men and filled with equally stupid different content, all for sale of this or that bunch of industries, the only freedom really is in professional journals, and those are heavily biased - toddlers might not know yet that girls who read are unpopular but they get to be told soon enough, and boys are pushed away from being anything but jocks with steroids. This destroys a chance at even a human life - forget anything more progressive in evolution - for most children of both genders especially when they know they have to form their own homes with no help from anyone else.
One wishes this writer had thought more before writing mistakes in. This subject, this book would be worth a painstaking correctional rewrite.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
SOLD; by Patricia McCormick
Even before reading the book one fact is clear from looking at the cover - the writer, the publisher, et al, none of them have either visited Nepal or got over a subconscient racism they do not realise they have, ingrained deep in their psyche.
People of Nepal, fact is, are not dark. And this face on the cover is hardly distinguishable from her hair or the dark cover overhead, a really dark shade of skin that does not usually come from a suntan when skin begins as light as in Nepal.
And what is more, Nepal is poor enough that the white slavery racket sources from, rather than supplies into, Nepal. Come to think of it the terminology "white slavery" is, of course, doubly false. For one thing the racket is about luring young women under false pretenses into slavery for profit of pimps with torture and physical abuse heaped on multiple rape until they are all but dead within and often dead in fact, and the women so abused and cheated being "white" is true about a small proportion in the world; for another, no humans are white - what humans are is pale skinned when generations and millennia of living in a dark continent forces nature to make the skin light enough that the little sun one gets might in fact give sufficient vitamins and so forth for health.
This is very reminiscent of seeing a painting titled "An Arab" in one of the two top museums in Amsterdam, and when pointed out that Arabs are not dark - the painting showed a male darker than this face on cover of "SOLD" - the host said the value of the painting was in the art and it did not matter if facts were right. He was completely unaware of his level of racism (and for that matter gender attitude too) - but he was also unaware of his level of ignorance, and of lack of thought on matters not directly related to his everyday needs. Of German origin few years post war, this was not very surprising.
This book though is not that old, and hence one expects better.
People of Nepal, fact is, are not dark. And this face on the cover is hardly distinguishable from her hair or the dark cover overhead, a really dark shade of skin that does not usually come from a suntan when skin begins as light as in Nepal.
And what is more, Nepal is poor enough that the white slavery racket sources from, rather than supplies into, Nepal. Come to think of it the terminology "white slavery" is, of course, doubly false. For one thing the racket is about luring young women under false pretenses into slavery for profit of pimps with torture and physical abuse heaped on multiple rape until they are all but dead within and often dead in fact, and the women so abused and cheated being "white" is true about a small proportion in the world; for another, no humans are white - what humans are is pale skinned when generations and millennia of living in a dark continent forces nature to make the skin light enough that the little sun one gets might in fact give sufficient vitamins and so forth for health.
This is very reminiscent of seeing a painting titled "An Arab" in one of the two top museums in Amsterdam, and when pointed out that Arabs are not dark - the painting showed a male darker than this face on cover of "SOLD" - the host said the value of the painting was in the art and it did not matter if facts were right. He was completely unaware of his level of racism (and for that matter gender attitude too) - but he was also unaware of his level of ignorance, and of lack of thought on matters not directly related to his everyday needs. Of German origin few years post war, this was not very surprising.
This book though is not that old, and hence one expects better.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Roots; by Alex Haley
Slavery existed before US, but it is interesting that the form it had in Africa was so much more human and humane, as was the natural character of life, extensive knowledge of herbs and vegetation around integrated in medicine and food that were all part of one seamless fabrique of life. Slaves could live with families, owners could not sell them apart from families, owners could only take half the produce of slave labour and slaves could buy freedom far more easily, and what is more slaves were often more wealthy than owners. Slavery was a punishment for guilt or debt unpaid and slaves could not be distinguished from owners by any racial characteristics - which, with hundreds of tribes indigenous to Africa, are how various tribes know others different from themselves.
One does not know from this book if slavery practiced elsewhere - ancient Greece, Arabia or other Islamic societies (India had none according to the Chinese travellers that visited to study in the universities there in ancient times) - was anywhere near as humane as the form described here of African version of slavery, and from, say, writings of Pearl S. Buck one does get the impression slavery in China was closer to that in Africa in that it was not racial but a result of needs of poverty.
But definitely the contrast of the first part with its gentle flow of life could not be contrasted more by life anywhere than that of slavery in US what with using humans worse, far far worse, than animals have ever been used in western society. Perhaps the modern treatment of animals used for food production either for meat or for dairy is comparable, but then the owners do not rape or whip them or chop of their body parts.
Reading this book is very like travelling down a river and then back up to the pristine source of the river surrounded by forest in the mountains. One is expecting the river to plunge down a precipice but is lulled after all the fears and expecting more of the gurgling stream going a ways, when the sudden fall down the precipice (capture of the boy looking for suitable wood for a drum, having planned a trip to the source of his roots in Mali after two trips locally) shocks and horrifies in its brutality, getting worse in every way through the trip with brutal and disgusting conditions, then far more horrible with the slavery in its early days in US (did law allow chopping off body parts of a runaway slave in southern states when the "whites" had their "Give me liberty or give me death" without realising the irony of enslaving others in such brutal ways while fighting for "independence" with their own cousins from across the ocean over taxes, all the while keeping the fruits of not only labour of others but also claiming, owning and selling of their offspring - horror after horror, really, that is not unfamiliar in thought before reading this but becomes something one cannot remain unaware of having read this.
The book does - did - a great service to African US citizens by giving them a validity of their experience and history and hope of finding their roots, and one to everyone else by giving a lot of information and providing a good many details of the heritage and putting usually not mentioned events of history in time frames too. So one learns of how often there were uprisings, how often they did succeed in one place or another, how it was not a silent dumb mass of people who toiled until freed by strangers but a brutalised people who had no hope and yet did the best in every circumstance until even now.
One does wish one could learn of the life various ancestors led when the branches separated - what happened to the village and Kunta's family when he was taken, what about his life after his daughter was sold, and so forth. One does wish Haley had time and thought and success in providing one with some answers. But not knowing is true to the life of those that proceeded along the stream from Juffure to Haley.
And it is thrilling to have him find his ancestor's name in the archives and finally in the very village he lived in. One wishes one could know more about his meeting his long lost cousins.
One does not know from this book if slavery practiced elsewhere - ancient Greece, Arabia or other Islamic societies (India had none according to the Chinese travellers that visited to study in the universities there in ancient times) - was anywhere near as humane as the form described here of African version of slavery, and from, say, writings of Pearl S. Buck one does get the impression slavery in China was closer to that in Africa in that it was not racial but a result of needs of poverty.
But definitely the contrast of the first part with its gentle flow of life could not be contrasted more by life anywhere than that of slavery in US what with using humans worse, far far worse, than animals have ever been used in western society. Perhaps the modern treatment of animals used for food production either for meat or for dairy is comparable, but then the owners do not rape or whip them or chop of their body parts.
Reading this book is very like travelling down a river and then back up to the pristine source of the river surrounded by forest in the mountains. One is expecting the river to plunge down a precipice but is lulled after all the fears and expecting more of the gurgling stream going a ways, when the sudden fall down the precipice (capture of the boy looking for suitable wood for a drum, having planned a trip to the source of his roots in Mali after two trips locally) shocks and horrifies in its brutality, getting worse in every way through the trip with brutal and disgusting conditions, then far more horrible with the slavery in its early days in US (did law allow chopping off body parts of a runaway slave in southern states when the "whites" had their "Give me liberty or give me death" without realising the irony of enslaving others in such brutal ways while fighting for "independence" with their own cousins from across the ocean over taxes, all the while keeping the fruits of not only labour of others but also claiming, owning and selling of their offspring - horror after horror, really, that is not unfamiliar in thought before reading this but becomes something one cannot remain unaware of having read this.
The book does - did - a great service to African US citizens by giving them a validity of their experience and history and hope of finding their roots, and one to everyone else by giving a lot of information and providing a good many details of the heritage and putting usually not mentioned events of history in time frames too. So one learns of how often there were uprisings, how often they did succeed in one place or another, how it was not a silent dumb mass of people who toiled until freed by strangers but a brutalised people who had no hope and yet did the best in every circumstance until even now.
One does wish one could learn of the life various ancestors led when the branches separated - what happened to the village and Kunta's family when he was taken, what about his life after his daughter was sold, and so forth. One does wish Haley had time and thought and success in providing one with some answers. But not knowing is true to the life of those that proceeded along the stream from Juffure to Haley.
And it is thrilling to have him find his ancestor's name in the archives and finally in the very village he lived in. One wishes one could know more about his meeting his long lost cousins.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Peace to End All Peace; by David Fromkin
The book gives a good account of a part of history of a region often overlooked when considering the era, and more - a better understanding of the principal players of the first world war, and their travails and blunders.
Pretty much like a story rather than history that it is, the book reads well, much like a PG Wodehouse story, that would be funny if it were not so serious.
The author makes one mistake repeatedly, whether from blinders or from a deliberate prejudice, it is unclear. He repeatedly says "India" or "Government of India" when all he intends to mean (as indeed he makes it amply clear) is British rulers of India, specifically that part of British government which dealt with matters concerning India from station in India. This confusing of a ruled nation with rulers that were soon thereafter thrown out is somewhat parallel to confusing of US children and other simple minded or relatively ignorant people of the world by using the word "Indian" when what is meant really is the original people of the continent(s) across Atlantic from Europe, which - the continents, that is - lost their original names as well and were named after a relatively obscure sailor Vespucci Amerigo. Such confusion coupled with an attitude of "this is not important, don't make trouble by pointing it out" is really indicative of a deep racism and imperial view of the world as a slate for European descendants to wipe and re write and draw on at whim. Pretty much what Europe did with Asia, Africa and as told in in this book, with the East Europe- North Africa - western Asia confluence region named "middle east". East is a relative direction though, unlike north or south, so even this name is indicative of what is assumed to be centre of the world.
Nevertheless, amongst all these extremely prejudicial terms, calling British rulers of India by the name of India or Government of India instead of British or British rulers of India is taking cake, bakery and all the pattisseries of France, with all the boulangeries thrown in for free yet, as far as prejudices go.
Pretty much like a story rather than history that it is, the book reads well, much like a PG Wodehouse story, that would be funny if it were not so serious.
The author makes one mistake repeatedly, whether from blinders or from a deliberate prejudice, it is unclear. He repeatedly says "India" or "Government of India" when all he intends to mean (as indeed he makes it amply clear) is British rulers of India, specifically that part of British government which dealt with matters concerning India from station in India. This confusing of a ruled nation with rulers that were soon thereafter thrown out is somewhat parallel to confusing of US children and other simple minded or relatively ignorant people of the world by using the word "Indian" when what is meant really is the original people of the continent(s) across Atlantic from Europe, which - the continents, that is - lost their original names as well and were named after a relatively obscure sailor Vespucci Amerigo. Such confusion coupled with an attitude of "this is not important, don't make trouble by pointing it out" is really indicative of a deep racism and imperial view of the world as a slate for European descendants to wipe and re write and draw on at whim. Pretty much what Europe did with Asia, Africa and as told in in this book, with the East Europe- North Africa - western Asia confluence region named "middle east". East is a relative direction though, unlike north or south, so even this name is indicative of what is assumed to be centre of the world.
Nevertheless, amongst all these extremely prejudicial terms, calling British rulers of India by the name of India or Government of India instead of British or British rulers of India is taking cake, bakery and all the pattisseries of France, with all the boulangeries thrown in for free yet, as far as prejudices go.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Scoop; by Kuldip Nayar.
A worthy read for those interested in the region and the history. Nayar was close to centres of power and able to find scoops and talk to people, and more importantly have people talk to him. If his objectivity is only 99 percent, that is more than most others achieve.
The Associate; by John Grisham.
It begins with a pit of fear growing in the protagonist, and one of fear and disgust in the reader, what with the men who blackmail him as he finishes coaching underprivileged kids at sport as a social conscience duty, about to return to his room at Yale law school, and with every step thereafter it is a contest between him to keep his head clear and them to have him in their sights. The boy is intelligent and generally good, and really has not done anything wrong but a seeming wrong and the evidence thereof that can be fabricated is often damning enough, and his career, his life is at stake. How he manages to stay clean nevertheless is the story, and the astounding end is all too plausible these days.
This time Grisham abandons his favourite old ending - that of innocent victims and witnesses on the run hiding from criminals in islands in Caribbean or elsewhere. Not everyone can, especially when your career and qualifications are well defined and not in multiple directions. This time the protagonist takes another, more dangerous perhaps, route - with good reasoning he gives clearly.
Very readable and more, as all Grisham works are, but a bit unsatisfactory in that it leaves one at every chapter feeling he could have written more, made it more detailed and filled out. This one is barely a sketch compared to some of his earlier works. A good one, but still, unsatisfactorily bare.
This time Grisham abandons his favourite old ending - that of innocent victims and witnesses on the run hiding from criminals in islands in Caribbean or elsewhere. Not everyone can, especially when your career and qualifications are well defined and not in multiple directions. This time the protagonist takes another, more dangerous perhaps, route - with good reasoning he gives clearly.
Very readable and more, as all Grisham works are, but a bit unsatisfactory in that it leaves one at every chapter feeling he could have written more, made it more detailed and filled out. This one is barely a sketch compared to some of his earlier works. A good one, but still, unsatisfactorily bare.
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