Amrita Pritam

From BBC:

Renowned Indian writer Amrita Pritam has died at her home in the Indian capital Delhi after a long illness. Known as the doyenne of Punjabi literature, 86-year-old Ms Pritam also wrote extensively in Hindi and Urdu.



Her first story collection, in the Punjabi language, was published when she was 16 years old. She received many awards, including India's highest literary award, Jnanpith, in 1981. Born to a Sikh family in Gujranwala, Pakistan, in 1919, Ms Pritam crossed to India after the partition of the sub-continent in 1947. Moving to Delhi, she began writing in Hindi and also worked for the state-owned All India Radio till 1961.

The first prominent woman Punjabi poet and fiction writer, many of Ms Pritam's writings dealt with the pain she felt at the division of the sub-continent. One of her famous novels, Pinjar (Skeleton), was made into a feature film a few years ago.



The story is set against the backdrop of the violent frenzy and rioting that engulfed the whole of Punjab in the months preceding partition.

"Her death symbolises the end of an era. Punjabi literature, after the country's independence, will be known as her era," said London-based Punjabi poet, Amarjit Chandan.
Ms Pritam's literary works have been translated in several languages including French, Japanese and Danish.

She has written several novels and short stories.

She often wrote on the condition of Indian women and her writings reflected their neglect and suppression in Indian society.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4393970.stm

Forgotten Soldiers of WW1

My maternal great-grandfather fought and died during the First World War in France, so I found this article about forgotten Indian soldiers in Germany a rather poignant one.

Luke Harding in Wünsdorf
Saturday October 29, 2005
The Guardian

Until recently there was nothing to identify the quiet, leafy spot where Jafarullah Mohammad and Mata Din Singh were buried. The two servicemen were among thousands of Indian volunteers who fought for Britain in the first world war, and were captured at sea or on the western front.

For more than 80 years the German graveyard where Mohammad, Singh and 204 other Indian volunteers are buried was forgotten. But today the war cemetery in Wünsdorf, in a forest 40km south of Berlin, is to be officially reopened.

The restoration is a recognition of the role played by troops from undivided India, who fought in the bloody battles of Ypres, Neuve Chapelle and Loos. Many died. Others ended up interned in German prisoner of war camps.

"Very few people are aware of the role Indian troops played in both world wars," Peter Francis of the Commonwealth Graves Commission said. "In some Indian units the casualty rate was 80%. In three days' fighting in Neuve Chapelle in 1915, for instance, some 4,200 Indian soldiers perished." Most of the soldiers and sailors buried at Wünsdorf died of disease while stationed at the PoW camp in the nearby town of Zossen. The Nazis later used the area as a vast military training camp.

After the second world war, the Russians took over the camp, including the graveyard - using the surrounding heathland for mock tank battles. Locals, meanwhile, looted the headstones; the plot disappeared under rhododendrons and fallen oaks. It was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall that British officials were able to gain access to the site.

Diplomats from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will attend today's rededication ceremony, as well as officials from Russia and France, to honour Tartar soldiers who are buried on the same site.

Bling

I found this ad rather amusing... :)

Lion,Witch & the Wardrobe

As a kid I grew up reading the Narnia Chronicles by C.S.Lewis before graduating onto Tolkien. So I was pleased to hear that the movie version of LWW is coming out in December at cinemas nationwide. Anyone else read the books, or planning to watch the film ? (There is also an excellent animated version which has been around several years).

Of the other Narnia books my other faves include Prince Caspian, The Horse and His Boy and The Silver Chair (the latter I'm re-reading now). There have been several analyses of Lewis's interpretation of 'good' versus 'evil' struggle which manifests itself throughout the books.

Bright

There was a young lady called Bright,
Whose speed was much faster, much faster than light,
She departed one day in a relative way,
And arrived on the previous night.

(Author unknown)

Cultural significance of the Bindi ?

I always wondered about the social anthropological meaning of the Bindi in Indian society. Well now you know.......LOL. :)

Is this picture moving..or are you ?

The age of miracles is dead

Main Entry: mir·a·cle
Pronunciation: 'mir-i-k&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin miraculum, from Latin, a wonder, marvel, from mirari to wonder at
1 : an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs
2 : an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment
3 Christian Science : a divinely natural phenomenon experienced humanly as the fulfillment of spiritual law

^ ^ ^ ^

My comment:

I don't think the world will ever see a religious miracle on the scale documented in the all the main religious scriptures that exist in this world, either in the East or West. In fact I don't believe any historical episode where apparently some supernatural feat was performed by some messiah, prophet or guru. The tales of resurrection after death, flying chariots, individual faith worshippers killing 100 of the enemy single-handedly, or duels with the devil in the desert are just that - tales - to be treated in the same incredulous grain as the existence of Santa Claus flying around the world on Christmas eve with his herd of reindeer. They are metaphorical allusions to the power of faith - but nothing more.

In an age where digital media and recording devices are as common as sliced bread, of real time streaming internet news, and where every other person has a camera-cellphone and/or mini-camera, how is it that no miracles have yet been captured on film ? The reason: miracles of a divine nature do not exist, never have and never will.

Review: The Tiger Claw

Finally finished it ! :)

"December moved in, taking up residence with Noor in her cell, and freezing the radiator. Cold coiled in the bowl of her pelvis, turning shiver to quake as she lay beneath her blanket on the cot. Above, snow drifted against glass and bars. Shreds of thoughts, speculations, obsessions...some glue still held her fragments together."

There are writers and there is Shauna Singh Baldwin. The breadth and depth of her latest novel is breathtaking, and leaves you both exhausted and enthralled at the same time.

'Tiger Claw' is based on the true life of Noor Inayat Khan, of Anglo-Indian Muslim origin (and a direct descendent of Tipu Sultan), who served as a secret agent transmitting radio messages from Vichy France during the Second World War. As her life story is in the public domain, I'll make no secret of the fact that she was betrayed and then subsequently captured by the Gestapo and rather than being treated as a prisoner of war, instead was held as a 'night and fog' prisoner (ie. officially does not exist), and eventually executed by her German Nazi captors.

What starts off as a spy thriller, meanders into themes of love, betrayal and idealism. As the tides of fortune slowly turn against Noor, she still harbours the belief that one day she would be re-united with her Jewish lover who is held in an unknown concentration camp. The more poignant parts of the book are when she is almost resigned to the inevitability of death in prison, yet steadfastly refuses to show her fears and still stubbornly clings onto hope where there is none. There is a message in there for all of us somewhere in this book.

One of the more powerful parts of this book, is the parallels that Baldwin draws between German occupied France and British occupied India. Both were acts of aggression, and yet I wasn't aware until reading this book, that 4 millions Bengalis died of starvation during 1943-44 due to a deliberate policy by the British to divert rice to other parts of the empire. Almost as many people died in the Bengal famine as during the Jewish holocaust.

This book will leave a huge impression on me for a very long time. A quality read.

ps. You can read more of her life story here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_Inayat_Khan

On natural justice and Saddam Hussein

If Saddam Hussein is to eventually hang from his neck, as inevitably he will given the charade of a show trial he is now involved in, then so should Bush, Rumsfeld, Blair and other war criminal terrorists who illegally invaded and occupied Iraq on the basis of lies, and caused untold genocide upon the ordinary men, women and children of Iraq. Yes, Hussein was a mass murderer, but he was not the only one in the circle of international leaders, and he could not have acted alone in the killing of Kurds and Shias without the active support of the US in the pre-Gulf War days.

There is a difference between 'natural' justice and 'constitutional' justice. The latter is something that can written to appease one's puppet masters (think of Nazi occupied Vichy France, or British occupied India), but natural justice is something that overrides paper charters written in meanigless legal speak. Natural justice can potentially call for an 'eye for an eye', of satiating the human blind rage that has the potential to exist in each one of us, or collectively, in an orphaned brotherhood or nation.

They say history is written by the victors. Never has a statement sounded more truer than that.

If you could see the end...

Last week's terrible devastation from the earthquake in Pakistan has got me thinking as to how fragile human life is. None of us knows when it will be our turn to leave this physical abode known as 'life' and depart forever. The thousands who died never had a chance to say goodbye to their surviving loved ones, and many of those who did survive are now destitute and left to endure a living death of sorts. I pray that through the grace of Waheguru, recovery and relief will be as quick as humanly possible, especially given that the first snow flakes have already landed in some areas heralding the imminent arrival of winter.

Carrying on the theme of an earlier point, what would you do if you knew your final day was to come ? (It's sometimes hard enough driving a loved one to the airport for a long absence abroad, and no matter how much one's eyes may well up with tears at the departure gates, at least in your heart you know they will come back or you can go see them again one day). But what if you knew - this is it. Finito. The End. Then what ? And let's assume, you had a choice of either one month, 6 months or 1 year to live - then what ? Who would you see, what would you do, what would you say? How much more would you talk, joke, laugh, love ? And should it matter what the timeframe is ? Why can't we live life cherishing each day as if this could be our last ?

Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters)

After searching for what felt like eons, I finally found a copy of 'Khamosh Pani' over the weekend. Will watch it probably tonight. Have heard nothing but good reviews about this film.

Here's a review I found on Rediff.com:
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2004/dec/02pani.htm

There is a side to Pakistan most of us are blind to. At least visually. Director Sabiha Sumar presents that side to us -- a desolate, barren Pakistan, a magnificent, sprawling wasteland worthy of a Sergio Leone classic. For someone used to the congested streets of an Indian metropolis, seeing this grand, hilly Pakistani village, full of whispered secrets and echoed threats holds a surreal poignancy.

In the Charkhi village of Punjab in Pakistan, life is quirky, quaint, and increasingly foreboding. The setting itself presents a paradox: there are fortresses available for youngsters to romantically rendezvous, but no place for a kafir (non-Muslim) to hide.

Khamosh Pani revolves around the life of a simple, middle-aged woman, Ayesha, played by Kirron Kher. She seems normal enough, a typical Pakistani lady, living the placid life of a widow, supporting her family by giving Quran lessons to neighbourhood children. As the film builds slowly into its plot, we begin to suspect the central protagonist is actually her wistful son, Saleem.

Saleem, played by Aamir Malik, looks exactly in the Jimmy Mistry (The Guru, East Is East) mould, just floppier, lazy, and intensely likeable. With a boyish grin firmly in place, he is smitten with girl-next-door, the no-nonsense Zubeida, who's trying to goad him into getting a job. As the two murmur besotted secrets to each other across the roofs of conveniently empty minarets, Saleem realises that Zubeidaa's dreams of going to college and fashioning her career and her own riches far outweigh his own. In fact, he doesn't have any dream at all, just shuffling through life listlessly. He needs a vocation, a higher cause to believe in.

At this crucial juncture in his youth, Charkhi's naïveté is shattered by the arrival of Islamic fundamentalists. We suddenly realise that the year is 1979, and we're told emotionally that Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has just been hanged.

There is ample scope for over-dramatisation, but the scene has been handled with wonderful restraint -- a postman stands by his bicycle, seemingly lost. When Ayesha repeatedly asks him what's wrong, he just shakes his head and shows her the paper, muttering in disbelief that the prime minister has been hanged. Immediately, we're framed into uncannily familiar perspective:

General Zia's period of marshal law has begun.

As the Sikhs are allowed to cross the border and revisit their native places of worship, dissent and fundamentalism sets in deeper. Saleem is now one of them, a misguided boy strongly hanging on to a deluded version of Allah.

The film turns darker and more sombre as an important issue comes evocatively to the fore. A gentle visiting Sikh alludes to the prospect of some female relatives being left behind during Partition, but is silenced vehemently by those around him. It is an issue of pride, and we are awakened to the nightmare that families actually killed their own, sacrificing them brutally to avoid dishonour at the hands of the enemy.

The irony is painfully simple: the womanfolk were actually safer in the hands of the very enemy, whose attempt at dishonour was probably preferable to the slaughter their own families put them through.

Zubair (Navtej Johar), however, is a Sikh determined to find his long-lost elder sister, and is sure she lived around these parts. The film is based on true incidents of the time, and as we shuttle through flashback and the present, Khamosh Pani confronts us with information many of us are unaware of.

The film is subtle, and refreshingly free of hysteria, enough to make it one of the best films in the increasingly crowded Partition genre, and reminds us that the subject still has so much to explore. It's a film striking in its simplicity, unlike most recent attempts that usually peter off into melodrama or pander to clichés and even propaganda.

Most directors, with an eye on the festival circuit, try to exaggerate their viewpoints, and show off cinematic abilities. Mira Nair is a case in point. Here, the debutante filmmaker has made a commendable first effort, with visible sincerity. Her lead actress, Kher, has done an overwhelming job, underplayed but truly a wonderfully written role.