I am told that the Magic Wallrush (a street event organised by students and citizens where you can buy art, crafts and listen to live music) is being held tomorrow (Sunday 7 March 2010) starting around 9am at the demolished (?) Salvation Army building on Sudder Street. Here are some pictures that I’d forgotten about of the last Wallrush, which was on Park Street in front of the now closed T3 shop.
Sharon and My Mother in Law
I should write a few lines about my interaction with Suad Amiry, and what it taught me about Palestine and India. Suad was here at the end of last month on the final leg of her India tour, supported by Women Unlimited, who are publishing Menopausal Palestine in India. Suad was extremely charming and wowed audiences, and it was a pleasure to be on a panel with her at Weavers’ Studio, and later to host her at JU.
Suad is half Jordanian, has taught architecture at Birzeit University and now runs her own research centre, and speaks fluent English. She therefore occupies a rare position of privilege in Ramallah’s impoverished and isolated society. Her first book, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law, is a poignantly funny and ironic account of the 42-day curfew inmposed in Ramallah in 2001. Her mother-in-law was then living right next to Arafat’s headquarters, and Suad had to rush to her in a rare two-hour respite from curfew and bring her to live with them. Thuis began two occupations, she says: Sharon’s outside the house, and her mother-in-law’s within. There are more such funny/bitter incidents, as when her puppy gets a Jerusalem passport but she does not (she breezes through the Israeli checkpoint claiming to be the puppy’s driver), when she stares at a soldier and nearly gets herself arrested, when she suspects a gift from a dodgy friend is bugged, and more. Her style is sharp, witty and astringent, rather like turbo Gerald Durrell with political overtones.
Sharon and My Motehr-in-Law was born out of emails that Suad sent to friends while cooped up at home with her insufferable mother-in-law and the fear of Israeli bombs, where she described their predicament as a means of relief from the horror of it. This gives the anecdotes a charming liveliness and immediacy. This is clearly laughing to keep from crying, with the edge of tragedy always trailing at the edge of the scene. She says at one point that one either has to step outside of the situation and see it as an absurdist play, or one goes slowly mad from the weight of irrationality and prejudice, hatred and harrassment, that is the legacy of every Palestinian.
Menopausal Palestine
The second book, which is published in India by Women Unlimited, is a more serious and self-conscious work. It is the stories of eight of Suad’s women friends, all of whose lives have been touched and sometimes twisted by the conflict in Palestine. This book has a testamentary feel to it: it lacks the explosive wit of the first. The introductory chapter is witty and sharp as before, but the shield of irony that keeps Suad from sentimentalising her own story is absent here. It is hard not to be affected by what has happened to these women.
With characteristic polemic she claims that Palestine, an aging, forgetful, angry, heated, isolated and scatty state, is menopausal, and its predicament is as unmentionable as menopause is. As an illustration of how true this is, her book was reviewed in the inside (ie women’s) pages of national dailies, since the word ‘menopause’ could not appear on the front page. This is regardless fo the fact that the book isn’t really about menopause at all. It is about frustration and disempowerment.
There are resonances also with the predicaments of women affected by conflict here in India, although our disputes are less overt and less clearly delineated than Palestine’s. Think for example of Taslima Nasreen’s continued persecution, such that just the other day two people were killed in protests in Shimoga over something she had written. No other writer in India is kept under such scrutiny or reacted to with such violence. M.F. Husain has become a citizen of Qatar because India is as yet incapable of taking him back and of assuring his safety if he returned. Shah Rukh Khan is ignoring the memory of Rizwanur Rahman. The strike in Pune on the German Bakery was apparently targeted at Chabad House, a Jewish Centre nearby. Are we any different from Palestine? In fact the ordinary Jewish and Muslim people of the Levant appear on better terms with each other than we are with our fellow Indian citizens.
On Tuesday I was supposed to give a paper at Gour Mohan Sachin Mondal College in Lakshmikantapur at a conference on popular literature, sponsored by the UGC and the American Library. Accordingly a group of us drove down in a Toyota Qualis, crossing Diamond Harbour and reaching the college by 12. There we found that the TMC had blockaded the gateway of the college, demanding ‘free passes’ to what they imagined were the sybaritic delights of disucssion panels. Most of the slogans were incomprehensible, but one that stood out was: ‘Chhatrader taka shude khatie mohajoggo cholbe na cholbe na’ or ‘Lending student’s money out at interest to fund this mega ritual will not be allowed.’ Conference organizers, crushed under the weight of correspondence, train schedules and receipts for paper napkins, might conceivably agree that ‘mohajoggo’ is an apt description, but lending money out at interest is not a luxury most academics can afford. Oh, and another one was ‘UCG pherod jao’. The protesters, most of them above forty, gaped briefly at the unfortunate American Centre delegates (who hightailed it out of there with understandable haste) and were then inspected glumly by the Pro VC and Registrar of Calcutta University.
The poor GMSM faculty, most of them very young and full of beans about their first big conference, were devastated. Some of them were in tears. We made contingency plans to hold the conference in the Lincoln Room some time before the end of the month. Watch this space.
We all then left for the city, stopping off for lunch at Diamond Harbour, where we heard that TMC was also picketing the Syndicate meeting on College Street. Sigh.
This is how close we got to the gate.
Some students were milling bemusedly
A nice holiday was had by all. The mood of Holi still prevailed
We provided some transient entertainment
And finally, a reminder that China Mieville is speaking today at JU at 11am and at Oxford Bookstore (which is open to all) at 6pm in conversation with Abhijit Gupta.
I know that print ads are placed well in advance, and are difficult to pull at short notice, but this morning this is what we see on the last page of Calcutta Times.
SRK and the KKR team with the t shirts
And check out the fine print. Seriously, who writes this stuff.
The fine print
Reposting this here.
RBC
Dear Shahrukh
Let us (Conscience of Calcutta) thank you for ‘putting on hold’ the relationship of Knight Riders with Lux Industries.
The speed with which your management responded has reinforced our conviction that the team’s owners are at heart ethical, sensitive and patriotic citizens.
It is precisely with this in mind that we must present our second point that has been deeply troubling citizens over the last fortnight.
The issue: Your endorsement of the Lux-Cozi brand in a personal capacity.
A number of television commercials over the last few days have shown you endorsing the products of Lux Industries. While we recognize that this represents a legal income source for you, there is a moral and ethical issue that has hurt and disappointed thousands of fair-minded citizens.
The background is that the promoters of Lux Industries (owners of the Lux-Cozi brand) are engaged in an ongoing controversy about the mysterious death of Rizwan who was married to the daughter of the company’s promoter.
The media has over the last two-and-a-half years written extensively about how the Todis interfered with the decision of two adult individuals to marry and how they attempted to separate the two, culminating in the alleged killing / suicide abetment of Rizwan.
The legal process to identify the culprits and affix responsibility is presently under way.
The reasons why we request you to discontinue your endorsement of the Lux-Cozi brand are given below:
A number of citizens have succinctly encapsulated our hurt and disappointment in a simple line that we shall repeat here: ‘Shahrukh, how could you of all people do this?’
We end with the optimism that just as you responded from the heart and won over citizens with your speed and sensitivity a few days ago, you will respond likewise on this issue as well.
With a deep trust in your sense of values,
Kishwar Jahan, mother of Rizwan, with the following citizens:
Iftekhar Ahsan, hospitality professional
Rila Banerjee, musician
Dr Kallol Banerjee, medical professional
Ananda Basu, lawyer
Abbas Bengali, interior designer
Lovey Burman, entrepreneur
Abanti Chakraborty, theatre director
Jayanta Chatterjee, businessman-Rotarian
Rimi B. Chatterjee, writer and teacher
Payal Chitlangia, citizen
Soumyadip Chowdhury, portfolio manager
Dr Zarine Dadina, paediatrician
Vivek Das, commercial photographer
Sushismita Dasgupta, textile-costume designer
Dr Zahid Gangjee, behaviourial scientist
Deepa Gangjee, yoga teacher
Abhijit Gupta, university faculty
Dr Fuad Halim, medical professional
Nidhi Haralalka, advertising professional
Anuradha Kapur, social activist
G.M. Kapur, conservation consultant
Naveen Kishore, publisher
Dr Ajoy Mistry, medical entrepreneur
Mustafa Muchhala, management consultant
Hena Nafis, nutritionist
Meher Nowroji, citizen
Mudar Patherya, communications consultant
Shalini Patherya, communications consultant
Abhay Phadnis, management consultant
Ram Ray, advertising professional
Nitai Mukherjee, social activist
Dr Ranjan Raychowdhury, medical professional
Dipen Sheth, citizen
Neena Singh, educationist
Rehan Waris, Rizwan confidant
