The making of the colonial army

Current read is Nicholas Dirks' Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India which is excellent and highly recommended - among other things to demonstrate just how much influence colonial anthropology and ethnology still have in India. Wanted to post an excerpt here that I found particularly interesting – the melding of ethnography and making of an army.

"The mutiny of 1857, even if it had not led to general rebellion, would have been a major crisis for the Indian army. In July 1858, the British government appointed a commission under Major-General Peel (the secretary of state for war) to examine the organization of the Indian army and recommend changes in the hope that it might avoid any repetition of the events of the previous year. Many witnesses (all forty-seven of them British) suggested that the higher castes be excluded from the army; other witnesses were split on whether to rely more heavily on Sikhs and Muslims. In the end, the commission recommended a higher ratio of British troops to Indian, but no specific caste or ethnic prescription for recruitment. The commission did suggest however, that “the Native Army should be composed of different nationalities and castes, mixed promiscuously through each regiment.” Nevertheless, Lord Elphinstone, urged that soldiers of diverse backgrounds not be mingled in the same regiment, on the principle of “divide et impera.”

As a consequence, regiments were for the most part to be made up of diverse but internally homogenous class companies, made up entirely of single caste or ethnic groups. George MacMunn, a high ranking army officer in the early years of the twentieth century and an avid historian of the Indian army, wrote that “The object aimed at in the new construction was, to some extent, to put the races into water tight compartments, while at the same time developing their martial characteristics to the full...” MacMunn believed that the army had actually played a role in strengthening the Sikh faith and community; by not admitting “unbaptized” Sikhs, for example, “it is the British officers who have kept Sikhism up to its old standard.” In fact, British recruiting had insisted on taking only those Sikhs who looked (to the British) like Sikhs, selecting only unshorn Khalsa Sikhs for army service. And as Bernard Cohn has demonstrated, the almost canonic status of the Sikh turban owes its current importance to the development of special Sikh codes of regimental dress; the marker of an ethnic regiment became the sign of a modern religious community across the world.

The policy of “divide et impera” was reaffirmed in 1879 by the high-level Eden Comission. The subsequent organization of the army into four main regional commands, recruited in different regions and serving in different regiments, put colonial sociology to work directly in the service of imperial authority. It also allowed the British to believe that any subsequent unrest could be quelled by other military units who would share neither national sentiment, nor specific grievance. ... Besides, the British began systematically reduce the troublesome elements in the army and to provide pride of place to Sikhs and Punjabis generally, Muslim, and other “races” deemed loyal in part because they had supported the British in that great test of racial and national loyalty, the rebellion.

Concerns about military recruitment in the years after the mutiny led to a consolidation of various colonial theories about the martial races of India. ... First, the martial races were seen as devoted to military discipline and inherently predisposed to be loyal subjects of the Crown. In the wake of the rebellion, troops from the Punjab, many of them Sikh, were recruited heavily to the Indian army, in part because of their martial claims to fame in the recent past, and in part because of their historical loyalty ever since they were first defeated in 1848, and especially during the Great Rebellion. By 1875, Punjabis made up about 44 percent of the combined Bengal army and Punjab frontier force. After 1880, the balance shifted even more heavily toward Punjabis, as well as toward Nepalis (in particular Gurkhas), in part because of ever increased recruitment in the north due to the perceived threat from Russia, in part because of the steady diminution in numbers making up the Madras army. Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the Indian army from 1885 to 1893 and a leading exponent of the idea of martial races, held that the peoples of southern India were inherently unwarlike. As a result of deliberate ethnographic policy, in 1882 eight of the forty Madras infantry battalions were disbanded; by the turn of the century only twenty-five battalions remained, less than half the number that had been in uniform at the time of rebellion."

Curfewed Night

The doctor who treated a sixteen year old boy
Recently released from an interrogation centre asked,
'Why didn't the fortune tellers predict
The lines in his palms would be cut by a knife?'

Basharat Peer quotes Agha Shahid Ali in his book Curfewed Night. 

The book has been haunting me since I finished - it is searingly honest and reading it also underlined how one sided a view we get of Kashmir. It reminded me of my time in the valley - all too short and almost five and a half years ago now (where has time flown?).  I visited in December, when the chinaar trees were naked, the skies dull and the beauty heart aching. Tourists hadn't yet started going back then and almost everywhere we went it was like discovering a land that had been lost, forgotten, abandoned. 

Kashmir, known to so many of my generation from old Hindi movie songs. Actually being there was like opening an old photo album - those familiar images tumbled out, except they were no longer bright and new, rather, dusty and faded. Perhaps that made the place more poignant, perhaps I am romanticizing. There were also army personnel, bunkers, guns - sights all too stark and ones I would like to remove from my memory of the place, but can't. 

The stories of torture and destruction Peer chronicles are ghastly. It's an India - brute force, blind vengeance, absolute power - which, those of us who haven't, are lucky not to have seen. But one that raises its head all too often and which I have, shockingly, heard people defend glibly - after all, aren't we as a nation too laid back,  too soft, utterly indecisive? People like S.A.R Geelani, Binayak Sen and countless others are just collateral damage in the struggle to maintain power.

I feel strange writing such a cynical(?), unhappy post when every one is gushing over the election results. I am very happy not to be living in a BJP ruled India, what with their venomous campaigns and agendas. Indeed the Congress is the only party I was actively supporting, but the last five years of Congress rule haven't been much to write about, and I really, really hope that with the mandate they have, the next five are better.

Home

Have been busy, first with work and then the GRE. The exam is done with, thank god. What a waste of time and money and what a pain in the ass. Seriously.

Anyway, I am free for a bit now - it's a long story - though I guess technically not free, since I should be working on my applications. But I am in Delhi for a while and it's rather nice, especially since I haven't been home for Diwali for close to five years. I have been lazing around for the last few days, catching up on things I haven't literally had time for. I finished The Case of Exploding Mangoes and am in the middle of Netherland and am most certainly in some kind of love with Joseph O'Neill.

Today we ordered in food from Colonel Kebabz and I spent the evening with the amazingly gorgeous Madhuri Dixit - they were showing Aaja Nachle on TV. It's amazing how she just gets more beautiful by the year, but I have always loved her. So I am stuffed and happy and off to bed with Mr. O'Neill now.

Randomness. And some links.

Sigh. I am tired. I have been unwell since Saturday - a bout of the flu apparently. Awful blocked nose and fever and a very sore throat. Also been facing general non happy situation at work, so it's been a shitty few weeks. Major cheer up happened yesterday, though. I got published! No online source I can link to unfortunately, but I was mailed the PDF version of the article yesterday and have been quite kicked about it since. Basically a reworked version of the food in Istanbul post. I've seen my byline in print before, but never had my photographs published. And I get paid for it too. So nice.

Life has been rather uneventful - I don't even have much to write about. I'm trying to study for the GRE and have been thinking about grad schools and applications and what I propose to do if I get in. The whole process is so painful. Most of my reading of late has been confined to the topic of Turkey, as a result. And in between, snatches of poetry - Lorca and Pessoa, as of now. I borrowed Mohammed Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes but haven't started it yet. I also really want to read Joseph O'Niell's Netherland - I have been for a fairly long while -, though is it wrong for me to admit that this is also in some part due to the fact that O'Niell is rather hot? (So, I googled O'Niell while I am writing this and Wikipedia informs me that he has Turkish ancestry? Are you kidding me?)

On the topic of authors (and Turkey) Orhan Pamuk's new book Masumiyet Muzesi came out in Turkey a couple of weeks back. It'll still be a year plus or so till the English translation comes out, which kind of sucks. Pamuk has been doing the round promoting the book - he was at the Frankfurt Book Fair and Deutsche Welle had a rather nice interview with him. He also spoke with Today's Zaman about, among other things, the museum he is setting up in Çukurcuma. I love that he says "I have always loved those neighbourhoods", because those are my favourite areas of Istanbul, too. God only knows how many hours I have spent in the narrow lanes and antique shops of Çukurcuma. That museum has been in the works for a while, and when the whole 301, death threats nonsense happened there was talk about it not opening. I'm glad it is. My friend's professor is helping Pamuk with the museum, so I am also kicked at having some two degrees of separation from the man. My friend herself has interacted with him and as a result I learnt all sorts of gossip about him over the Istanbul trip. Most amusing stuff. Also, I must be the only freak to notice these things but apart from the fact that Pamuk's desk resembles my own, as it is now, in terms of messiness he also has new sexy (and geeky!) glass frames. I approve.

And to end, things on the internets you should be reading. Fëanor has set up a new blog Sundry Translations and Other Tangentialia intended for translated articles from the non-English world. The first post on Armenian Istanbul, has been translated by him from the original Russian set of articles by Mark Grigorian.

For anyone who likes food, beautiful pictures or just wants to read something that makes them feel happy and all fuzzy, please go read Tori's wonderful blog Loves Apples which is not a food blog as much as a celebration of food.

Over at Slate, Juan Cole argues that only difference between Muslim fundamentalists and Sarah Palin is lipstick. And (via Beth) why rednecks may rule the world.

Mahmoud Darwish (1941- 2008)

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 - 9 August 2008)

Stunned and saddened immensely to hear of Mahmoud Darwish's untimely death. What a great loss. Darwish was probably my favourite of all the contemporary poets I have read and one of my all time favourites. Along with Faiz and Hikmet, one of the poets to have affected me most deeply. At this point, the great man's words themselves seem the most apt. RIP.

'One of the manifestations of a Palestinian poet's freedom is that he will not be tied down by the conditions placed by the Israelis. It's a sensitive issue and I might even be misunderstood saying this: that I can write a love poem and it is a form of resistance; that I can write about a tree or a beautiful morning and that too is a form of resistance.'

Below, lines from the Jidariyya:

Mine

Is what used to be mine: my yesterday, and what will be mine

My far away tomorrow, the return of the lost soul

As if nothing ever was

As if nothing ever was

A small wound in the arms of the absurd present...

And History mocks its victims

And its heroes...

He throws a glance on them and passes...

This sea is mine

This humid air is mine

And my name –

Even if I misspell it on my coffin –Is mine.

As for me — full as I am

Of all the reasons for parting

I am not mine.

I am not mine

I am not mine...

Let Them Snuff Out the Moon

A Prison Evening

Each star a rung,
night comes down the spiral
staircase of the evening.
The breeze passes by so very close
as if someone just happened to speak of love.
In the courtyard,
the trees are absorbed refugees
embroidering maps of return on the sky.
On the roof,
the moon - lovingly, generously -
is turning the stars
into a dust of sheen.
From every corner, dark-green shadows,
in ripples, come towards me.
At any moment they may break over me,
like the waves of pain each time I remember
this separation from my lover.

This thought keeps consoling me:
though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed
in rooms where lovers are destined to meet,
they cannot snuff out the moon, so today,
nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed,
no poison of torture make me bitter,
if just one evening in prison
can be so strangely sweet,
if just one moment anywhere on this earth.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Translated from the Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali

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Another translation I like, by Ted Genoways (from this excellent article on Faiz in the Annual of Urdu Studies) below. It is, I feel, more faithful to the original. I haven't been a ble to find a transliterated version of the poem online and I don't trust my Urdu reading skills enough to do so myself from the original Urdu script (I don't have the poem in Devanagiri). If any one can help out here please do!

A Prison Nightfall

Rung by rung, night descends
its spiral staircase of stars.
A breeze passes gently by,
as if words of love had been whispered.
Trees in the prison courtyard, like exiles
with heads bowed, are absorbed
in embroidering arabesques on the skirt of the sky.
On the crested roof are glittering
the beautiful fingers of moonlight,
dissolving star-shine into dust
and washing the blue sky into white.
In the green corners, dark shadows collide
as if the ache of separation
might eddy and fill my mind.

But one thought keeps running through my heart—
how sweet these moments are. Though
there are those who may concoct tyranny’s poisons,
they will have no victories, not today or tomorrow.
So what if they douse the candles in rooms
where lovers meet? If they’re so mighty,
let them snuff out the moon.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Translated from the Urdu by Ted Genoways

TGIF. Really. Thank God.

Perfect pictorial representation of how I feel by the end of the work week, (especially this one, given I was sick*):

Thank God for alcohol. K has been a very gracious companion to my spur of the minute can we please go out and drink because I really need to get out of office SOS calls. If nothing else, I have a new found appreciation for beer. It might be unhealthy.

Also thank the lord for weekends. Tiny little opening to just be.

*Not well is not a state I like being in. But on Monday I finished of Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain and watched Majid Majidi's lovely Baran. On Tuesday, I read Kamila Shamsie's Salt and Saffron. (It was a fun read. I would like to come from a family called the Dard-e-Dils. I am silly like that). TAP had the temerity to tell me, "It's almost like you took off to read!" Then again, maybe it was some subconscious thing.

Movie notes

I saw There Will Be Blood yesterday. Finally. I liked it very, very much indeed. I know people (Alok and Falstaff – this means you!) who came away underwhelmed, and I do agree it reminded me of many other films (especially Citizen Kane minus the ‘Rosebud’ angle) but I still felt the movie held its own.

For the first twenty or so eleven minutes and thirty three seconds of the film not a word is said and yet the movie was gripping from the go, by sheer dint of the awesome barren landscapes and the complete power that Daniel Day-Lewis exudes. It’s very difficult to take you eyes off him - his face and its very role appropriate nose lends itself perfectly to Daniel Plainview’s character and his taut body at the start seems to contain the kind of force and sheer power of someone determined to make it; by the end, as a consequence, what is left is a mangled, crooked figure.

Of course, this being Day-Lewis he inhabits his character absolutely completely, beyond just the mere physical aspects. When I came out of the theatre I was trying to remember who else had been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar this year and at that moment couldn’t remember any of the other actors, which is kind of apt. Also, no wonder the man ends up acting in only four movies in a decade – it’s exhausting watching him, I wouldn’t imagine what it would be like to live a character like Daniel Plainview.

I must also mention Paul Dano who plays Eli Sunday [1], the faith healer who gets on Plainview’s wrong side. The entire time I was watching Dano in the film I had a nagging feeling that I had seen him somewhere before and late last night it hit me that he was in Little Miss Sunshine – what an awesome turn from that to There Will Be Blood. He really holds his own, which is saying a lot considering the first guy who was supposed to be playing the role got freaked out and overwhelmed by Day-Lewis and quit a week before shooting.

Anyway, I am quite keen on watching the movie again – there are some excellent scenes (with excellent background music) that have stayed with me since my viewing – and quite honestly a Daniel Day-Lewis release is enough to get me to the theatres many times [2].

[1] For people who have seen the movie, can someone clear the air about Eli and Paul Sunday? Were they one and the same person? The movie is hazy about this and while it doesn’t really matter, it’s still interesting speculation.

[2] Daniel Plainview is such a despicable brute most of the time, but half the time the camera focused on Day-Lewis I would be thinking “OMG…he is so hot!” (and also “OMG… he has such a gorgeous face!” and “What amazing bone structure!” among others). This is not so bad though, I even think Ralph Fiennes manages to be amazingly sexily evil as Voldemort. He doesn’t even have nostrils in that role! I need help!
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I recently found out that one of my most favourite books (ever!) Brideshead Revisited is being made into a movie. I am all kinds of skeptical about this entire project (never mind the cast) - really, there might be a good reason why the book has never been made into a movie.

I adore, adore, adore the TV series (the boxed set is one of my most prized possessions) which is twelve hours(!) long and which I wouldn’t wish to be a minute shorter. How they will take all the material of the book and compress it into a 100 minute movie is kind of beyond me. I mean, come on, that isn’t even enough time to fully exploit the homoerotic undercurrents of the Sebastian - Charles relationship!

Of course, a lot of my skepticism stems from the fact that, apparently, in the original draft of the script they decided to leave out Aloysius, and though they’ve brought him back in now, my reaction to the whole thing is just, “Dude, WTF?!”

Coming back to the casting, for me Brideshead has always been about Sebastian and I really can not think of anyone except Anthony Andrews in that role. And though Emma Thompson as Lady Marchmain and Michael Gambon as Lord Marchmain sound interesting, how can anyone compare to Claire Bloom and Sir Laurence Olivier in those same roles? This is not even mentioning Sir John Gielgud’s amazing turn as Edward Ryder. Finally, before I finish my pointless ranting, I offer the picture to the left proof of the fact that any version of Brideshead without Jeremy Irons will just never measure up.

P.S.: Who's to say, maybe the new film will turn out OK...hopefully more people will know about the book (if they don't already, in which case they are cretins) and will go watch the original miniseries.

Strange Times, My Dear

As you read a foreign novel, you are actually invited into other people's living rooms, into their nurseries and studies, into their bedrooms. You are invited into their secret sorrows, into their family joys, into their dreams.

Which is why I believe in literature as a bridge between peoples. I believe curiosity can be a moral quality. I believe imagining the other can be an antidote to fanaticism. Imagining the other will make you not only a better businessperson or a better lover but even a better person.

Over the past few days I have been reading Strange Times, My Dear – The Pen Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature and its no surprise then that these lines by Amos Oz have been coming back to me time and again. The importance of what Oz says can’t be overstated and these lines hold especially true when you are reading about a country that is (in general) so misrepresented, so caricaturized and to a large extent so cut off from public knowledge and imagination.

When PEN and Arcade Publishing contracted to publish this anthology, they found out that to do so could subject them to a possible fine of $1,000,000 and ten years in prison. Reason being, no writers from the “Axis of Evil” countries could publish books in America without applying for a permit by the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). (It was this inane rule that prevented Shirin Ebadi from publishing her memoirs in the States as well.) So, Arcade went to court, the OFAC backed down and it’s our good fortune that we can now read about people in these rogue states and know that their sorrows, joys and dreams are not all that different from ours.

I am still making my way through the collection. There are many pieces I haven’t read at all and some that I have gone back to again and again. Among those that I have returned to are Ahmad Shamlu’s gorgeous poems – they have stayed with me all week, the images beautiful and heartbreaking. What strange times indeed.

In This Blind Alley

They smell your breath
lest you have said: I love you,
They smell your heart:
These are strange times, my dear.

They flog love
at the roadblock.
Let’s hide love in the larder.

In this crooked blind alley, as the chill descends,
they feed fires
with logs of song and poetry.
Hazard not a thought:
These are strange times, my dear.

The man who knocks at your door in the noon of the night
has come to kill the light.
Let’s hide light in the larder.

There, butchers
are posted in passageways
with bloody chopping blocks and cleavers:
These are strange times, my dear.

They chop smiles off lips,
and songs off the mouth:
Let’s hide joy in the larder.

Canaries barbecued
on the flames of lilies and jasmines:
These are strange times, my dear.

Satan, drunk on victory,
squats at the feast of our undoing.
Let’s hide God in the larder.

Ahmad Shamlu
Translated from the Persian by Ahmad Karimi Hakkak

Martin Amis - words fail me

I really wish Martin Amis would just shut the fuck up. But no, he continues to spew crap. Sample these gems:

And he has always loved this multiracialism, he says. "At that time, I had a Pakistani girlfriend, I had an Iranian girlfriend, I had a South African girlfriend, all of whom were Muslim. It's interesting. The Iranian one – this is 1969 – was into mini skirts and discos because she was not an inhabitant of an Islamic republic but of a decadent monarchy 10 years before the revolution. The Pakistani girl was just beginning to kind of Westernise. You would – I don't know – just look at her and just feel eons between you."

"I know it's a great tradition of the British left to support Palestine, but when you come up against this question, you can feel the intelligence and balance leaving the hall with a shriek, and people getting into this endocrinal state about Israel. I just don't understand it. The Jews have a much, much worse history than the Palestinians, and in living memory. But there's just no impulse of sympathy for that... I know we're supposed to be grown up about it and not fling around accusations of anti-Semitism, but I don't see any other explanation. It's a secularised anti-Semitism. Do you want another drink yet?"

What a fucktard.

And this from Dalrymple's review of Amis' new book The Second Plane -

Amis is at least aware of his weaknesses: “Geopolitics may not be my natural subject,” he writes in the introduction, “but masculinity is.” This is the basis for the most crass of all the arguments made in this book: that bombs are going off because Muslims are not getting enough sex.

God.

To say "I Lived"

Türkçe'de

III
Bu dünya soğuyacak,
yıldızların arasında bir yıldız,
hem de en ufacıklarından,
mavi kadifede bir yaldız zerresi yani,
yani bu koskocaman dünyamız.

Bu dünya soğuyacak günün birinde,
hatta bir buz yığını
yahut ölü bir bulut gibi de değil,
boş bir ceviz gibi yuvarlanacak
zifiri karanlıkta uçsuz bucaksız.

Şimdiden çekilecek acısı bunun,
duyulacak mahzunluğu şimdiden.
Böylesine sevilecek bu dünya
"yaşadım" diyebilmen için...

Nazim Hikmet, Şubat 1948

In English

III
This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet -
I mean this, our great earth.

This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space...

You must grieve for this right now
- you have to feel this sorrow now -
for the world must be loved this much
if you're going to say "I lived"...

Nazim Hikmet, February 1948
Translated from the Turkish by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk

The poem in full here.
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There is much that I want to write...half written posts are all around, but I haven't had the time or space to clear my head and actually organize my thoughts. Faiz has been a constant every single night (and during the day - all I seem to be listening to these days is a mix of Nayyara Noor and Iqbal Bano). In between there have been bits of Hikmet.

I do mean to finish my half written post on (my struggle with) reading Faiz in Urdu, but till then Nayyara Noor singing Aaiye Haath Uthayen.

Two Poems

Haven't had much time to read anything. My Name is Red in starts and stops and last week, Agha Shahid Ali and Faiz. This week has been a mix of Darwish and Hikmet. Two poems I love very much here. Falstaff, still no Darwish on Poitre ... you really should have some ...
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And We Have a Land

And we have a land without borders, like our idea
of the unknown, narrow and wide. A land …
when we walk in its map it becomes narrow with us,
and takes us to an ashen tunnel, so we shout
in its labyrinth: And we still love you, our love
is a hereditary illness. A land … when
it banishes us to the unknown … it grows. And
the willows and adjectives grow. And its grass grows
and its blue mountains. The lake widens
in the soul’s north. Wheat rises in the soul’s
south. The lemon fruit gleams like a lantern
in the emigrant’s night. Geography glistens
like a holy book. And the chain of hills
becomes an ascension place to higher … to higher.
“If I were a bird I would have burned my wings,” someone says
to his exiled self. The scent of autumn becomes
the image of what I love … The light rain leaks
into the heart’s drought, and the imagination opens up
to its sources, and becomes place, the only
real one. And everything from the faraway
returns as a primitive countryside, as if earth
were still creating itself to meet Adam, descending
to the ground floor from his paradise. Then I say:
That’s our land over there pregnant with us … When was it
that we were born? Did Adam get married twice? Or will we
be born a second time
to forget sin?

- Mahmoud Darwish, The Butterfly’s Burden
(Translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah)

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The Strangest Creature on Earth

You're like a scorpion, my brother,
you live in cowardly darkness
like a scorpion.
You're like a sparrow, my brother,
always in a sparrow's flutter.
You're like a clam, my brother,
closed like a clam, content,
And you're frightening, my brother,
like the mouth of an extinct volcano.

Not one,
not five --
unfortunately, you number millions.
You're like a sheep, my brother:
when the cloaked drover raises his stick,
you quickly join the flock
and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse.
I mean you're strangest creature on earth --
even stranger than the fish
that couldn't see the ocean for the water.
And the oppression in this world
is thanks to you.
And if we're hungry, tired, covered with blood,
and still being crushed like grapes for our wine,
the fault is yours --
I can hardly bring myself to say it,
but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours.

- Nazim Hikmet, 1947
(Translated from the Turkish by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk)

Older

Amusingly enough, Borders seemed to be aware of my birthday – they had Orhan Effendi’s books on their three for two offer. Now I do own a copy of My Name is Red, after gifting away countless numbers of the book, telling people they have to read Pamuk. I am excited about rereading it; it has been a while. So, the birthday was brought in reading the beloved author [1], till the people at Borders decided to shut shop and kick me out. Bookshops should be open 24x7. And so should libraries.

The day was exhausting if only because my Saturdays are usually terribly hectic and I need all of Sunday to recuperate – usually by sleeping straight through the day. It was also emotionally tiring – a terrible mix of happy moments and ridiculously bizarre ones. I need to read happier things because breaking out into tears for most of the train ride is not good. Later on, I had copious amounts of delicious fatty Malay food for lunch, and had a box of the best lokum in the world all the way from Istanbul awaiting me at Turkish class. And then I was gifted this lovely book by friends over dinner of very good Indian food (and also very good wine). As I told my friend, I am probably the most obvious person in the world to buy gifts for. Also a shout out to the person who called in the middle of the night after getting my number from god only knows where - thank you.

Birthday wish that has been constant since forever is to have a house full of books. (And to have them magically clean and arrange themselves, too). I am convinced though, that I am going to turn into one of those old people who live all alone in a house full of books and it takes weeks for people to even find out that they have died [2]. Really, I can even see it happening. Oh well, there’s a lot to be done next year and the thought of a lot of it scares me. I just hope everything works out.

[1]No, really, I think Pamuk is the closest I actually come to being in love with someone. I KNOW I need help, but what to do?
[2]Might be a side effect of reading A.B. Yehoshua’s A Woman in Jerusalem, but I doubt it. It’s called falling in between the cracks, no? The book is excellent. No, beyond excellent.

Book Covers

Via Alok.
My favourite book cover of the year – Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers.

I know, it’s a bit clichéd but I really love it. (I remember reading in the introduction that Aslam had to ask for permission from some acquaintance to use this picture). The book is very nice too.

In the history category I really liked the cover of Mark Mazower’s brilliant The Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century. Mazower is a brilliant historian and I have been so impressed by every book of his that I have read. Dark Continent is an excellent (and slightly revisionist) history of the Europe since after WWI.

Also, a mention for La Vie en Bleu: France and the French since 1900. I haven’t actually read the book yet but its been lying on my table for eons now and I keep meaning to start but its just so darned fat and I don’t have time. Gah! I love the quote by de Gaulle on the back cover of the book as well – “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” Ah, the French are so amusing.


Book cover that has been making my head want to explode (which is not good because I’m reading it at the moment) – Zulfu Livaneli’s Bliss (Mutluluk in Turkish). Apparently Turkey and Afghanistan are one and the same place. The other cover for the book isn’t bad though. Too bad I couldn’t find it. The book itself is so-so; easy reading on the train.

Previous post on book covers here. The only reason Other Colours didn’t make an appearance here is because I didn’t buy the Faber version. I think they usually do wonderful covers. Knopf’s aren’t bad either.

Anyway, so, what are your favourite book covers of the year?

Around the world

Thessaloniki

Delhi

Vienna

Florence

Istanbul

Vienna

Venice

Istanbul

Siem Reap

Dachau

Delhi

Venice

Angkor Thom

Am contemplating buying a new camera. Have shortened it down to the Panasonic Lumix FZ18 and the Canon S5 IS (though I am leaning more toward the former). Any input is welcome.

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Columbia Magazine has an interview with Pamuk (via 3QD). His new book Masumiyet Muzesi (The Museum of Innocence) will be out in Turkey in December. He has said earlier it’s his most ambitious project to date and I am really looking forward to it. So, here’s hoping the English translation comes out soon!

Another interview (quite an old but interesting one) talks about the trouble he has had with publishers and translators. “Guneli’s translation of The New Life in England received The London Times award for the worst translation of the year, while the American Translators Association gave her the prize for the best translation, which made only more confusion for me.”

I didn’t enjoy Gun’s translation of The Black Book and left it midway to pick up Maureen Freely’s new translation of the book that is now one of my favourites. I keep hoping a new version of The New Life comes out. It’s such a bizarre book I still don’t know what to make of it.

Pamuk was also on The Charlie Rose show a couple of months back and I really loved the interview. He is just completely adorable. You can watch it here.
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After a post on the intermingling of food cultures, it’s perhaps apt that I should write about dance cultures. A couple of weeks ago at a seminar and dinner gathering I was attending on ‘Islam and the Arts’, the roots of the Malay Zapin dance were traced back to the Muslim missionaries who came to the region from Hadramut in Yemen. Though traditionally performed only by males during religious functions the many variants of Zapin are now part of the secular artistic heritage of the area, with women dancers a common sight too.

I found a video of a dance that is very similar to the one I had the pleasure of watching except that the boys (in their late teens I would guess) wore lose jeans, tight shirts and looked strangely like docile punks dancing away to the wonderful music of the oud. One particular young man had the entire female population in the audience drooling including the very elderly lady sitting next to me who turned to me and said “Isn’t he beautiful?” the moment he started dancing. My friend later found out he was half Arab and a quarter Malay and Chinese each. “Ah, clearly he’s taken the best features of each,” she commented knowingly.
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Have been listening to a lot of Abida Parveen of late and by default a lot of Faiz and Bulleh Shah as well. And as much as I love Tere Ishq Nachaya [1] what I have been listening to most has been Abida singing in praise of Shahbaz Qalandar in Lal Meri Pat Rakhiyon..[2]. All this of course makes you feel even more crappy about the shit that is happening across the border.

Strangely enough the NYT had a profile of Aitzaz Ahsan, who is currently in jail, a few days back. Strange because I had just borrowed his book The Indus Saga – From Patliputra to Partition from the library. I haven’t read it yet, only the introduction, but it will be my companion on the metro this week.

All of this reminds of another favourite, Hikmet, and his apt and beautiful words:

Ne devlet ne para

insanın emrinde dünya

belki yüz yıl sonra

olsun

mutlaka bu böyle olacak ama

The world is not run by governments or money

but people rule

a hundred years from now

maybe

but it will be for sure [3]
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[1] I didn’t know till about a year back that Chaiyya Chaiyya (and also of course Thaiyya Thaiyya) were inspired by Bulleh Shahs famous poem. I did however know that Rabbi Shergill was singing Baba Bulleh Shah in his lovely song Bullah Ki Jaana. (Translation here.)

[2] I need to mention that Faiz more than anyone makes me cry. Last week I wept just listening to his ghazals and I do not know why. I just remember hugging my pillow and sobbing away. With some of his poems its even worse - I remember reading a thin little volume in the library and before I realised it tears were streaming down my cheeks. So there is only so much Faiz I can take at a time and I think listening to Dam Mast Qalandar has been one way of not getting overly depressed.

[3] The poem in full

İyimserlik
Şiirler yazarım
basılmaz
basılacaklar ama

Bir mektup beklerim müjdeli
belki de öldüğüm gün gelir
mutlaka gelir ama

Ne devlet ne para
insanın emrinde dünya
belki yüz yıl sonra
olsun
mutlaka bu böyle olacak ama

Optimism
I write poems
they don't get published
but they will

I'm waiting for a letter with good news
maybe it will arrive the day I die
but it will come for sure

The world is not run by governments or money
but people rule
a hundred years from now
maybe
but it will be for sure

Nazim Hikmet, 12 September 1957
The American Poetry Review, Jan/Feb 2002

I get thrilled when I can read Turkish and understand it. The downside is that translations somehow don’t match up to the original then. But, well, they bring their own perspective.

Go read this.

In 1928, when a 17-year-old Akbar Jehan had left school and was back in Lahore, a senior figure in British Military Intelligence checked in to the Nedous Hotel on the Upper Mall. Colonel T.E. Lawrence, complete with Valentino-style headgear, had just spent a gruelling few weeks in Afghanistan destabilising the radical, modernising and anti-British regime of King Amanullah. Disguised as ‘Karam Shah’, a visiting Arab cleric, he had organised a black propaganda campaign designed to stoke the religious fervour of the more reactionary tribes and thus provoke a civil war. His mission accomplished, he left for Lahore. Akbar Jehan must have met him at her father’s hotel. A flirtation began and got out of control. Her father insisted that they get married immediately; which they did. Three months later, in January 1929, Amanullah was toppled and replaced by a pro-British ruler. On 12 January, Kipling’s old newspaper in Lahore, the imperialist Civil and Military Gazette, published comparative profiles of Lawrence and ‘Karam Shah’ to reinforce the impression that they were two different people. Several weeks later, the Calcutta newspaper Liberty reported that ‘Karam Shah’ was indeed the ‘British spy Lawrence’ and gave a detailed account of his activities in Waziristan on the Afghan frontier. Lawrence was becoming a liability and the authorities told him to return to Britain. ‘Karam Shah’ was never seen again. Nedous insisted on a divorce for his daughter and again Lawrence obliged. Four years later, Sheikh Abdullah and Akbar Jehan were married in Srinagar. The fact of her previous marriage and divorce was never a secret: only the real name of her first husband was hidden. She now threw herself into the struggle for a new Kashmir. She raised money to build schools for poor children and encouraged adult education in a state where the bulk of the population was illiterate. She also, crucially, gave support and advice to her husband, alerting him, for example, to the dangers of succumbing to Nehru’s charm and thus compromising his own standing in Kashmir.

(Bitter Chill of Winter)

The latest issue of The London Review of Books has a review of Tariq Ali's Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope. From there I somehow backtracked to this old article by him on Kashmir, which is full of double take inducing anecdotes as the one above. Pure Ali - extremely witty and very good overall. I stumbled upon it half asleep around 1 AM and midway through was giggling, nodding in agreement, definitely not sleepy and wondering "How have I NOT read this before?". By the way, if you haven't read Tariq Ali you really should. He is all kinds of awesome. Also from the article:

When Nehru and Ghaffar Khan revisited Srinigar as Abdullah’s guests in the summer of 1945 it was evident that divisions between the different nationalists were acute. The Lion of Kashmir had laid on a Mughal-style welcome. The guests were taken downriver on lavishly decorated shikaras (gondolas). Barred from gathering on the four bridges along the route, Abdullah’s local Muslim opponents stood on the embankment, dressed in phirens, long tunics which almost touched the ground. In the summer months it was customary not to wear underclothes. As the boats approached, the male protesters, who had not been allowed to carry banners, faced the guests and lifted their phirens; the women turned their backs and bared their buttocks. Muslims had never protested in this way before, and have not done so since. Ghaffar Khan roared with laughter, but Nehru was not amused.

Also, I know that General Yahya is generally greatly disliked in Pakistan but I did not know that Yahya translated as "Fuck - Fuck" in Lahori Punjabi. Heh. Ok, go read in full dammit!

Miscellaneous

Lord people, I am tired. The workload at office has kept me busy till late at night for the last few days – but that’s all I’ll talk about that. Outside of work, I have Turkish exams in a couple of weeks and sheaves of homework assignments to complete. I have been making compilations of word lists and verb lists on the long train rides home when I am not reading. There’s a lot that I have been reading and watching (I am rediscovering movies!) and I have wanted to write about many of these things but have had no time!

This weekend blogging shall be about some of the movies I have seen recently. La Trahison (The Betrayal), set during the Algerian War of Independence. The Battle of Algiers, which I have not seen in a while but is one of my all time favourite movies. If you haven’t seen Gillo Pontecorvo’s brilliant film please go and rent a copy now. And Atom Eyogan’s Ararat – strangely topical given the recent Genocide bill that is making the rounds in the US Congress. I have also wanted to post excerpts from the wonderful and hunger inducing Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East on, amongst other things, why the Turkey is called so and the origins of baklava. All of this if I ever mange to get down to it, of course!

Current read is Mark Mazower’s The Balkans: A Short History. Only half way through but it’s been a good quick read and quite excellent for what is basically a short summary of the history an immensely complicated region. Here an excerpt that helps explain why the area remained hugely heterogeneous:

If the Balkans did not become another Islamic land, one reason was that the sultans had no interest in making this happen. Christians paid higher taxes, and mass conversion would have impoverished the empire…Less material factors also played a part. On the two occasions (in 1517 and again in 1647) when the Porte seriously considered the forces Islamistion of Balkan Christians, there was religious opposition to the idea on Koranic ground. In general there was no Muslim analogue to the widespread Christian impulse to drive out the infidel and heretic. On the contrary Islamic law prescribed the toleration of Christian and Jewish communities of believers. It prohibited Muslims from converting to other religions but did not insist upon conversions in the other direction. Indeed many a convert was obliged to demonstrate the desire to embrace the true faith was not prompted by materialistic or ignoble motives.

To end this largely random post via 3quarksdaily this link to an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Reason magazine. As they point out van Bakel seems to be one of the few people not letting her off the hook all that easily. I find her extremely irritating and offensive and her arguments simplistic, generic and ignorant. (Interestingly, before the Turkish election earlier this year she wrote an article arguing that the US should support a military coup in Turkey to prevent the AKP from coming to power. The mind boggles.) I have to admit I haven’t read her books. Though I think her opinions come across strongly enough in her interviews anyway, I would gather they are more of the same. From the interview:

Reason: Explain to me what you mean when you say we have to stop the burning of our flags and effigies in Muslim countries. Why should we care?
Hirsi Ali: We can make fun of George Bush. He’s our president. We elected him. And the queen of England, they can make fun of her within Britain and so on. But on an international level, this has gone too far. You know, the Russians, they don’t burn American flags. The Chinese don’t burn American flags. Have you noticed that? They don’t defile the symbols of other civilizations. The Japanese don’t do it. That never happens.

Reason: Isn’t that a double standard? You want us to be able to say about Islam whatever we want—and I certainly agree with that. But then you add that people in Muslim countries should under all circumstances respect our symbols, or else.
Hirsi Ali: No, no, no.

Reason: We should be able to piss on a copy of the Koran or lampoon Muhammad, but they shouldn’t be able to burn the queen in effigy. That’s not a double standard?
Hirsi Ali: No, that’s not what I’m saying. In Iran a nongovernmental organization has collected money, up to 150,000 British pounds, to kill Salman Rushdie. That’s a criminal act, but we are silent about that.

Reason: We are?
Hirsi Ali: Yes. What happened? Have you seen any political response to it?
Reason: The fatwa against Rushdie has been the subject of repeated official anger and protests since 1989.

Of strange reality and the Nobel

From the NYT, news that The Kite Runner is being delayed to protect the child actors in the movie version of Khaled Hosseini’s book.

The studio distributing “The Kite Runner” a tale of childhood betrayal, sexual predation and ethnic tension in Afghanistan, is delaying the film’s release to get its three schoolboy stars out of Kabul — perhaps permanently — in response to fears that they could be attacked for their enactment of a culturally inflammatory rape scene.

This is so strange…I really don’t know what to make of it. (Is there anything to make of it?) I read about this a few days back but it really seems to have blown up since. I think more than anything it just offers more proof of how unstable Afghanistan has become.

What struck me most reading the article was this:
Mr. Forster emphasized that casting Afghan boys did not seem risky at the time; local filmmakers even encouraged him, he said: “You really felt it was safe there, a democratic process was happening, and stability, and a new beginning.”

A couple of years back my father had visited Kabul. I still have (for some reason) the pictures from his trip I had downloaded onto my computer. I remember him saying something about the bootlegged Bollywood movies that were available everywhere, about how they wanted to rebuild the country, to start promoting tourism…
This last trip to Delhi, while browsing the bookshelves I came across a book he had gotten back from Kabul. A travel guide to Afghanistan, circa 1971. It almost broke my heart just going through the faded pages of that book. No country deserves this.

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In other news, the Nobel prizes will start being announced next week. As usual, confusion reigns over the question of who might win for literature. Odds are here. I will be terribly happy if Adonis wins, but I would think the odds might be slightly slim… (perhaps the fact that Pamuk won last year, makes them worse?). Not surprisingly, however, he is one of the strong contenders amongst those in some know. I’ve wanted to read Amos Oz for a while now - actually, I haven’t read many Israeli authors and Oz, Grossman (who, by the way, delivered this years PEN Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture) and Yehoshua are all on the immediate reading list.
Oh, and I am reading Llosa right now and dear lord, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is one of the funniest books I have read in just the longest, longest while. Truly excellent.

Book Tag

Book tag by way of Alok.

Total number of books owned: No idea. Have a whole roomful in Delhi not all of which are mine of course. Many of them belong to my parents…some have been handed down. Plus there are quite a few of the earliest books I ever owned still around, including Red Riding Hood and Snow White (which my mom used to read out to me!), collections of Amar Chitra Katha, Hans Christian Anderson, the abridged version of classics like Count of Monte Cristo, Oliver Twist etc. (The unabridged versions are there too). And there are also books bought during the teenage years that I am quite ashamed about now – Jeffrey Archer, Michael Chrichton, even a couple by Sidney Sheldon and the like. No Mills & Boon or the sort – never read those. Don’t have many in my room now, only a couple of shelves, mostly because I use the library rather than buy books these days.

Last book bought: Heh. Orhan Pamuk. Other Colours.

Last book read: Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories. I can not recommend this book highly enough. It is simply one of those books that everyone should read. Please do. It is a slender volume – only about 100 pages – and would probably take only a couple of hours to read. The short story, The Land of Sad Oranges is one of the most poignant, moving (these words seem so hollow but what else can I use to get my point across?) I have read in a very long time, leaving me feeling as if I was stuck in a vacuous, pointless, senseless space with just no way out.
More on Kanafani here.

Currently reading: Other Colours, of course. Apart from that Ramchandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. I lugged it (literally – it’s a ridiculously unwieldy book) back from Delhi because it was just lying at home and I was contemplating buying it anyway. Because of its size, reading it on the train is not feasible so I have been reading it at night before going to bed and it’s been slower progress than I would have liked. (I usually fall asleep while reading table lamp on et al and wake up with a start only when my alarm goes off the next morning…sigh. This work thing is not fun; I have eye bags that could rival a raccoon.) Anyway, have been reading Guha for the last two weeks (discount weekends) and am about 60% through, and so far it has been quite good, detailed and engrossing. That is saying quite a bit given the scope and scale of the book in which it definitely transcends usual one volume introductory texts on India.

Books plan on reading next: On my bookshelf Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun; Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India (which I have heard only good things about); Maria Vargas Llosa’s Aunt Julia and the Script writer (I still haven’t read Llosa – utterly shameful, I know, but this shall be rectified soon). Suggestions on which to read first?

Five books that mean a lot to me: Jeez…I really had to think hard about this.

The Black Book – Orhan Pamuk
I struggled between My Name is Red and The Black Book…and really I should have copped out and chosen both. Perhaps Kara Kitap is still fresh in my mind because I read it recently and because when I think of the stories that populate its pages – of the Istanbul mannequin maker who had no buyers when mannequins became all the fashion because his were too “Turkish”, of the back streets of Cihangir, the dark kahve shops, of dear Aladin’s shop where you could find anything under the sun – they all remind me of the city where I spent probably the happiest two weeks I can remember.
But this also made me feel that perhaps a reread of Benim Adim Kirmizi is in order. For I truly fell in love with Pamuk (I always liked him a lot but My Name is Red blew like out of proportion) while reading that book. And because it contains probably my two favourite lines in a Pamuk book:
“To God belongs the East and the West. May He protect us from the will of the pure and unadulterated.”

L’Étranger – Albert Camus
While I love Camus’ essays – The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel in particular - L’Étranger is probably my favourite book by him. Cold, indifferent Meursault who cannot even cry at his mother’s funeral…who in the end seems to us to be the internally rational and logical person. For the world, in the end, is only as sensible as we make it.
Side note: Camus over Sartre – Yes?

Discovery of India – Jawaharlal Nehru
Nehru is so often portrayed as a romantic… a dream in his eyes, rose in his button hole and the sort. (It is an apt description I guess - when he made his “Tryst with Destiny” speech he was wearing a rose the button hole of his silk kurta, and no doubt he had a dream). Some of this comes across in his writings as well. He could ramble on with metaphor after metaphor but more often than not his prose was elegant and his writings hugely expansive ion scope. This is most obvious in Discovery of India, where he seems to be almost narrating a common national heritage into being.

Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects – Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell is one of the most egotistical people I have ever read. And also the most brilliant. He had an opinion on everything and he usually put down his point for view, which is why he must be one of the most prolific writers ever. In all his books his prose is simple, logical, to the point and extremely witty. And it’s probably at its best in Why I Am Not a Christian. I also love his Marriage and Morals and History of Western Philosophy (which while biased, is still a really good read) among others.

Ramayana – Valmiki
The version I read was a ridiculously fat tome with the original Sanskrit, supplemented by Hindi, supplemented by English. It’s a great story, beautifully written and I think it’s important to read a lot of texts in their original form just to realize the grotesque misrepresentation of them by the religious fundamental asshats. Plus reading the Valmiki Ramayana is a good base to read the other versions as well – the Ramacharitamanasa (just so beautifully lyrical), the Kamban Ramayana, C.Rajagopalachari’s English version (which is probably still the best English version of the epic, and miles ahead of his English version of the Mahabharata) or even watching the TV serial (I still do when I’m in India!).
I usually avoid the Uttara Kanda because it seems like nothing more than a tacked on epilogue. It is offensive of course, but so are other parts of the Ramayana… and Rama is different from the idealized version of him we are usually fed. But he is still a most fascinating character, hugely human and very charismatic. And simple. In this he is miles apart from Krishna, who in all honesty is way beyond my comprehension. I wonder if I would ever be able to read the entire Mahabharata in a remotely original form, that text is so long, meandering and plain confusing, just the thought of it overwhelms.

Ok…this took me longer to finish than I would’ve thought possible. Needless to say I have rambled on aimlessly. I tag Falstaff, Veena, TR and Elizabeth. (It’s a nice tag – so please do do it!)

Other Colours; Book Covers

I bought my copy of Other Colours day before yesterday and it has been the source of much joy since. I thought I would space it out and read it over time but that didn’t work out at all and I have been reading not only at home but on the train (even taking a longer route home so that I could read at a stretch), while walking from home to the station and from the station to work and vice versa. And no doubt people who watch me reading think I’m slightly deranged what with the silly smiles and giggles Pamuk brings out….(this happens with me a lot but the responses are so much more magnified when I read Pamuk.)

On a side note, when I was buying the book I couldn’t decide which version to pick up. The print by Faber and Faber (paperback) or the Alfred A. Knopf (a hardcover) version. Both were for the exact same price and I walked from Borders to Kinokuniya twice because I couldn’t decide which one to pick up. I eventually picked up the hardcover because it somehow seemed more apt for a collection of essays and because the pages were so wonderful – thick rich paper, slightly jagged at the side. This despite the fact that I love the cover of the Faber version (it’s a picture that first appeared in Istanbul. The young Orhan Pamuk still dreaming of being a painter). And also despite the fact that Knopf spells colour as “color” and I do actually prefer the British spelling. In any case, once I had bought the book there wasn’t much I could do but I did agonise over my decision.

This sort of anal pickiness over which book to buy is so typical of me. I have hardly been buying books for the last few years because they are just so expensive and also because the library is so good that my library card is my single most valuable possession. So when I do buy a book it is a sort of emotional investment. I chose the copy with the better cover, sometimes smell the pages, always try to get a hold of how it feels in my hand. Other Colours has been my first purchase since I started work and now that I am earning I keep eyeing books that I really want to own (top of the list is this version of the Shahnameh). Clearly this is where all my money will go.

But here is the thing. After all the fretting about which copy of Other Colours I should buy because of the cover I felt a bit validated when I read this essay in the book:

Nine Notes on Book Covers

• If a novelist can finish a book without dreaming of its cover, he is wise, well-rounded, and a fully formed adult, but he’s also lost the innocence that made him a novelist in the first place.

• We cannot recall the books we love most without recalling their covers.

• We would all like to see more readers buying books for their covers and more critics despising books written with those readers in mind.

• Detailed depictions of heroes on book covers insult not just the author’s imagination but also his readers’.

• When designers decide that The Red and the Black deserves a red and black jacket, or when they decorate books entitled Blue House or Château with illustrations of blue houses or châteaux, they do not leave us thinking if they’ve been faithful to the text but wondering if they’ve even read it.

• If, years after reading a book, we catch a glimpse of its cover, we are returned at once to that long-ago day when we curled up in a corner with that book to enter the world hidden inside.

• Successful book covers serve as conduits, spiriting us away from the ordinary world in which we live, ushering us into the world of books.

• A bookshop owes its allure not to books but to the variety of their covers.

• Book titles are like people’s names: They help us distinguish a book from the million others it resembles. But the book covers are like peoples faces: Either they remind us of a happiness we once knew or they promise a blissful world we have yet to explore. That is why we gaze at book covers as passionately as we do at faces.