The Battle of Pan-Pat and Other Happenings

More literary controversy! More skirmishing! This time between Pankaj Mishra and Patrick French! (I really don't have anything to say about it except how much I wanted to use the title of the post).

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Now that that's out of the way, announcements:

1. Readings, Writing Workshops, Film Screenings (not in that order) related to the writer Akhil Sharma's visit. Via mail from the US Consulate, Hyd, details below:

February 8                 : Screening of ‘Cosmopolitan” film and discussion with author Akhil Sharma, whose story was made into the film

                                     Venue: La Makaan, 7.00 pm

 

February 9                 : Creative writing workshop (registration required. Mail hyderabadpa@state.gov)

                                     Venue: Akshara book stores, West Marredpally, Secunderabad, 6.30 pm

 

February 10               : Book reading from “An Obedient Father” by Akhil Sharma

                                     Venue: Oxford book stores, Park Hotel, Somajiguda, 7.00 pm

2. Via Peter Griffin, the Essential Indian Books Survey.

He needs plenty of responses, so do consider taking it when you have a moment.

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Crazy busy weekend, and there's stuff I want to blog about, but OMG, Scorpio in the early morning sky this morning after god knows how many years! It was magnificent!

It being spring, the rain tree's shed all its leaves, and I suppose I happened to look up as I do these mornings, and there, behind the bare branches, was the top half of Scorpio. The tail was tucked out of sight, which is a pity, but it was still gorgeous. Must find some other vantage point tomorrow morning.

 

The view from here

After the Bal-Dalrymple stand-off, with a brief digression via anonymous solutions to the problem of IWE, here's Mridula Koshy's essay from earlier this month:

Too many Indian writers are immured in the broad brushstroke approach to Indian-ness. A generation and more have expended energy on a sort of anthropological writing, handling as curiosities what would otherwise be mundane – bindis, bangles and arranged marriage. Deciding how much of an India unfamiliar to the west may enter a work if it is to find success abroad is a constantly negotiated question for the Indian writer in English. Like Hosseini, some of these writers are immigrants to the US, while others live for extended periods of time in the west. The migrant writer is in this case like other migrant workers, someone forced by the economics of a global marketplace to travel where the work is. But the writer is unlike any other worker in that his work is determined by its accountability to audience. If there is any substance to the notion of authenticity, it rests here in the question of accountability. Nadine Gordimer said of African writing, ‘One must look at the world from Africa, to be an African writer, not look upon Africa from the world.’ 

Read the whole thing. 

I always want to know how people define authentic and how they know it when they see it. Koshy's definition is certainly an interesting one; for another approach to the question of accountability see Rahul's post today on music, the arts, and funding. 

More on this as and when. 

An anonymous solution to the problem of IWE

This is an awesome solution, of the kind that only a post like Kuzhali Manickavel's can inspire.

Here is the comment in all its splendour:

ஐ தினக் போர் கிரேட்டர் ஆதேண்டிசிடி வீ ஷுட் ஜஸ்ட் ஸ்டார்ட் ரைடிங் இங்கிலீஷ் இன் தமிழ் லெட்டர்ஸ்.

தென் தீஸ் ஜெர்க் கிரிடிக்ஸ் வில் நாட் பாதர் அஸ்.

ஹாப்பி போரிஜ் டே.

For those who can't read (or figure) this out, Kuzhali has transliterated it in her comment below this one.

I lovelove. I want every day to be Happy Porridge Day!

Racism, Raj, Fake Palindromes

Ha. Hartosh Singh Bal's stirring up stuff again. Here's how:

1. Hartosh Singh Bal writes a piece titled 'The Literary Raj' about the Jaipur Lit Fest.

2. William Dalrymple (who HSB says is not the main point of the article but just look at that caricature, will you?) responds with a charge of racism.

3. Bal replies, asking if Dalrymple knows what racism means. He also responds obliquely to some of the comments in his original piece.

Me - I'm being [Opening the] Cage-y*about this.

Then, this review of Swar Thounaojam's new play, Fake Palindromes. (I've read the play and it's excellent. Looking forward to getting it here some time. Watch this space.)

But the review! C.K. Meena begins thus:

A midst the fresh crop of English-language playwrights in Bangalore, where are the female faces? Do all the young women stay at home raising poems while the young men go out hunting scripts? If you've asked yourself these questions, you would have found an answer last week at Ranga Shankara where Swar Thounaojam's “Fake Palindromes” was staged. 

Morgan (reprise): I have nothing to say and I'm saying it. 

What? I'm stayin' at home raising mah pomes. You want me to have opinions as well? 



*Probably the most searched-for post on this site, esp. since Morgan died.