Lapata - Daisy Rockwell

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=14204&date=2016-11-20&pageid=1

                                                                     Lapata in Goa

Daisy Rockwell is coming back again! Her love affair with India, especially the Hindi literary cannon is well known. Her translations of Upendranath Ashk’s works have garnered a good following. She not only resurrected Ashkh for the English speaking ‘junta’ of India, but also other eminent writers like Arun Prakash and Shrilal Shukla. Lately her translation of Shubham Shree’s poems caused a stir in the traditionalist Hindi heartland. Here is the translation of Shree’s heart-felt meditation on how reading the feminist writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex “ruined” her “purity”:

What have you done to me, Simone?/I was walking along /perfectly steady/on that path/where/goddess-worthy/“Purity”/awaited me/What you did was wrong…/you shoved me right in the middle of the path/to be “used”/such a dirty word/Tell me, Simone, why’d you do a thing like that?

Shree’s story is yet another case of ‘saved in translation.’ When the Hindu heteropatriarchy rejected Shree outright for her experimental poetry, ironically, Daisy’s English slang in translation restored Shree’s integrity and she was accepted back into the fold. 

Every regional culture of India takes immense pride in their writers. For instance, Bengalis grow up on songs of Tagore and savor writings of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Satyajit Ray. But that is not the case for the Hindi speaking belt. Beyond Premchand, no one enjoys eminence in the Hindi literary cannon. Daisy’s work has brought to light many obscure, neglected classical writers, such as Ashkh and Yashpal, who are now being compared to Proust and Tolstoy. Found in translation and hailed globally, the Hindi writers and their readers owe an enormous debt to Daisy’s work. A non sequitur line of thought follows - A time will come when we will be proud of our multilingual status as Indians.

 In her introduction to ‘Hats and Doctors’ (original text by Upendranath. A), Daisy writes, “Perhaps a translator should hope that her readers will develop a taste for the author’s works in English, so that she can bring out more of the author’s works in translation in the future. My hope, however, is the opposite: that some of these stories will induce a few readers — even just one or two will do — to turn their feet towards a Hindi bookshop one day.”

She goes on to ask herself - ‘‘Why translate?’’. Considering meagre compensation, poor recognition and solitary nature of the vocation, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Sometimes the name of the translator is not even mentioned on the book cover, she says. The stronghold of ownership ‘the author and the book’, disallows the establishment of any other way of belonging or shared authority. But her obsession with linguistic detail has a strong hold on her mind and she finds herself compulsively translating even when she reads for pleasure. 

She has numerous thoughts on every single word and its connotations in a sentence. In one of her articles she expounded on her translating technique, by enumerating multiple sentences for one situation. Readers can’t ask for better translation than this consuming effort for multiplicity that reaches for perfection. She writes, “I struggled mightily to find a phrase which captured the actual condition that a ‘kānā’ (Hindi word denoting blind in one eye) suffers from. ‘A man with only one good eye is much more wounded by taunts of his condition than a man with two eyes would ever be.’ Because this is the nature of translation. ‘If you’re blind in one eye, won’t you feel more hurt by being called ‘the one-eyed guy’ than if you have two good eyes?’ A translation is just never finished. ‘If people shout ‘Hey, one-eye!’ after a man with two good eyes, will he feel half the pain that he would if he were half-blind?’ Even when you see your work in print. ‘He who is blind in one eye feels keenly hurt by taunts of his condition; not so the man with two good eyes.’ It’s never perfect. ‘He who is half blind feels the greater injury from taunts of blindness than the man with perfect vision.’  There’s always some way to improve it. Taunts like, ‘What’s the matter, lost an eye?’ hurt the half-blind man more than the one with perfect vision.’ And it’s always possible I’ll change my mind about one-eyed men and stop thinking of them as Cyclopses. ‘The half-blind man is pained by taunts of blindness; not so the man with two good eyes.’ But probably not.”

Let’s shift the focus to her art and inflections of intellectual thought in it. This is a direct outcome of interaction with her works ‘Odalisque’at Patto, Panjim in 2014. The exhibition invoked the famous Odalisque paintings of Ingres and Manet in the viewer’s mind eye. But the collection was completely disrupted by what Rockwell had on display. The series represented Odalisque as fully participative subjects who chose their pose and manner of depiction consciously in the paintings. The artist and the subject seemed to have become co-creators in the process; a long digression from the19th century reclining female figure, often nude or semi-clad in shawls or loose robes, meant to invoke Oriental decadence and opulence. Viewing Rockwell’s work, it felt that the Odalisque had truly arrived at the gates of a conscious sexual freedom! 

‘The Little Book on Terror’, comprising essays and artistic portraits, invokes the US global war on terror. Her representation of Asian immigrants in mundane everyday poses, questions the straitjacketed mug shots of Asians in the media that are often labelled as terrorists. Her latest art piece on Facebook ‘What is Allepo’ completely nails her artistic quest in place. The war-torn city of Allepo in Syria was much in news due to refugee massacre but drew blank responses from Gary Johnson and Hillary Clinton - the Presidential candidates in the race up to the White House.  ‘What is Allepo’ indicts the power structures in place for their nonchalant attitudes. In face of this indifference and power, Daisy’s artistic quest gets compounded when she signs her art with her alias Lapata (meaning missing).

Daisy Rockwell, or Lapata, is a regular contributor to Chapati Mystery  and has written for The Byword, Bookslut, The Caravan and The Sunday Guardian. Her writing is largely oriental in its themes. We eagerly look forward to having her for the Goa Art/lit festival from 8^th - 11^th Dec, 2016. Kya pata bhulae bisaroo ko pata batadae yeh Lapata! 

Arshia Sattar

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/epaperarchive.aspx?pdate=2016-11-13

The Inimitable Arshia Sattar

Retellings of Ramayana are ceaseless activity in the Indian cultural context. These appear in diverse forms such as books, sculptures, films and art. Every Ramayana is different, as it is relayed from a different perspective. The many Ramayanas shift the gaze to altered positions and facilitate a new look. The Buddhist Ramayana is different from a Kannada or a Telugu Ramayana. Amongst the classical texts, Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas is divergent from the Valmiki Ramayana. The former is a patriarchal take where Rama is God, the ultimate ‘maryada purshottam’, whereas the latter views Rama as an erring human being and provides space for Sita to be a questioning intelligent wife.

Arshia Sattar, the writer/scholar in Indian classical literature from the University of Chicago, is an academic voice who translated the Sanskrit text (Valmiki Ramayana) into English 20 years back. She has persisted with her endeavours with books such as ‘Lost Loves: Exploring Rama's Anguish’, ‘Uttara’ and ‘Adventures with Hanuman’. Her latest work is ‘Ramayana for Children’. She says that whenever there is talk of Ramayana, everyone professes to know the story from sources like translations, media, comics, theatre; but no one has read the Sanskrit texts, essentially the Valmiki Ramayana which was written circa 300BC.

‘Valmiki Ramayana’ is an extant text, a reference point from where all translations originated.  Every subjective retelling adapted it to a different context and imbued it with variations. Popular episodes in the story like ‘Shabari ke ber’ and ‘Lakshaman Rekha’ are recreations, which are not part of the ‘Valmiki  Ramayana.’ These sub-plots were woven in with contextual hierarchical societal changes and the position of women in it. The original text in fact portrays Sita as intelligent, argumentative and wise woman who, in her own dignified way, refuses to tide by every dictum thrown at her. Pushing the argument further, Arshia says that Rama’s character is questionable due to his sly act of killing Vali and  his banishment of Sita without any substantial evidence against her.

“If there is one thing I would like to change about the story is the banishment of Sita”, said a ten-year-old boy to Arshia during one of her readings of ‘Ramayana for Children’. There are both fun uncomfortable parts in the book.  But Arshia has handled the tricky parts well and skilfully told the story straight with her pared-down vocabulary. No lies, she says emphatically.  She is well aware that children can record, analyse and work out the binaries of good/evil and light/dark in their own precocious manner.

Another brilliant factor on which the ‘Ramayan for Children’ rides high is the evocative illustration in the book.  Fine arts and photography artist Sonali Zohra (who goes by the alias, Dangercat ) has rendered beautiful and eloquent graphics. The colour palette and line drawings deliver figures and designs of each frame vividly. The artist’s inimitable style stands apart from previous illustrations in print/visual media. Arshia credits the editors of Juggernaut for facilitating the process between the writer and artist and producing excellent results.

Arshia’s unflagging work on the Ramayana indicates that she regards it as a literary text which can be questioned, judged and reinterpreted in numerous ways. She embraces the many Ramayanas and welcomes continuous endeavours to unravel the text in different ways. She has traced queries to texts like the Jain Ramayana, which frowns upon the existence of flying monkeys and ten-headed monsters. 

She draws our attention to other writings, which raise eyebrows at the hegemony of the State and the role of the Kshatriya kings, at the expense of their households. She highlights comparative studies that make us choose between Lakshmana and Rama. The controversial episodes of the insult of Sarupnakha and the humiliating defeat of mighty Ravana, the great honourable King in many parts of the subcontinent, are an endless source of debates and discussions.

Besides being a scholar and writer, Arshia is also an activist. Sangam House Residency for Indian writers provides access to regional writers in India. Arshia says, “Literatures in many languages flourish in the subcontinent and literary cultures are strong, but it’s impossible for writers to access quiet and supportive spaces in which they can do their work, particularly if they are working in languages other than English.” Therefore, an idea of residency for Indian writers was born. Taking her activist avatar further,  ‘Mixed Bag of Books’ a book-club led by Arshia Sattar and Samhita Arni discussed and debated on Perumal Murugan’s “One Part Woman’ when the book was being torched and banished in India.

Her abridged translations of the epic Sanskrit text, ‘Kathasaritasagara’, is a heterogeneous collection of Indian folk tales compiled by Somdeva in the 11^th century. Arshia says that she had great fun translating the playful text. The stories live on the Zarathustra concept of an indulgent life, a bawdy and earthly existence lived and recounted by Sufis, Jains, Buddhists in Kashmir. “Here the universe is not weighed down by karma and dharma, and as a result, the text is playful and pokes fun at everyone. I loved translating this,” she reminisces. Another exciting foray was ‘Adventures with Hanuman,’ an original playpen for children with the monkey-god.  

‘Lost Loves’ by Arshia explores Rama’s anguish thus, “I always thought I was human, that I was Rama, the son of Dasaratha. Tell me who I am. Where did I come from? Why am I here?  He ceased and Brahma replied, ‘O’ caste the idle thought aside. Thou art the Lord Narayan, thou the God to whom all creatures bow.’” In her essays, she explores the delicate relation between Rama and Sita, and the trials and tribulations of their separation. The writing is contemporary and constructs the argument in present times by delineating the colliding public and private spheres of a legendary couple.

Arshia’s cool slang and unassumed disposition endears her to readers quickly. Her easy manner against a scholarly bedrock becomes a potent combination few can resist. We look forward to her presence at the Goa Art/Lit Festival from 8-11^th Dec 2016.

 

Museum of Goa

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=13680&date=2016-11-06&pageid=1

                                                   Mog

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;

The poetic reflections by the seaside from the poems of Sara Teasdale and RL Stevenson conjure up the ephemeral sculptural installations of the Goan international artist Subodh Kerkar which dot the coastline in different parts of the globe.  The installation ‘The Moon and the Tides’ depicts a semi-white circle five metres in diameter made up of thousands of shells. The moon poem serenading the tides was painstakingly created by the artist on the coastline of Goa. Within hours, it got washed away with the turn of the tide, as wave upon wave in slow cadence hugged the moon-blanched shore.  The said installation hangs in a photographic frame in the central hall of the Museum of Goa (MOG), telling the truth but telling it slant – of rising and falling human civilizations along the oceans of the world.

Cultural histories of civilizations form footnotes to the works of Subodh Kerkar, the land and conceptual artist. These mneumonic devices help in remembering  past times. The narrative begins with the dialogue between Indus valley civilization and the Greco-Egyptian period and segues into the Indo-European cultural exchanges of trade and religion from 15^th century onwards. The epicenter is the Goan state along the Konkan coast. All through, the ocean remains his co-creator, sculptor and muse. His language is constructed using alphabets of pebbles, shells, sand, coconut and fibre.

Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs,
in that gray vault. The sea. The sea
has locked them up. The sea is History.

Derek Walcott

Subodh often reminisces of the long walks he took along the sea sands with his father, and how he learnt to listen to the song of the waves. The whisper, leap, roar, crash, break, murmur and stillness of water spoke to him relaying secrets of conquests, trade, war and gods of people who came and went, leaving signs and symbols that they had ‘been there and done that’.

Beginning with his installation on the myth of Parshurama whose arrow made the Arabian Sea recede and created the Konkon coast, he goes on to mark the voyages of Zheng He, the fifteenth century Chinese admiral whose ships were 127m long (the ships of Columbus, Vasco da Gama and other Dutch and Portuguese explorers paled in comparison). The long wooden boat ‘Ulandi’ at MOG mounted with antique Chinese spoons pays homage to the Hui Court mariner. The other large framed photographs of hundreds of fishermen forming a boat or a fishbone echoes the African concept of ‘Ubuntu’ in the mind of the viewer – ‘I am because we are’ – the feeling of communion with each other and nature.

Antique ceramic plates from China and Europe that are encrusted with oyster shells convey a sea story in one of the rooms at the museum. Cotton and Gulmohar trees are presented as installations and narrate the tales of intrigue by explorers and colonizers who described them as ‘trees with tiny lambs at their tips’ and ’sunset at the wrong time and wrong side of the sky’. If indigo and pepper were weighed in gold in India, Chili was the mainstay of Latin America. The Chilli installation, covered with crochet pieces, tells us of its indigenization in Goa far from the South America coast. ‘Bubblegum God’ installation playfully orchestrates the hybridization of religious practices. The amalgamation can also be seen in installations like ‘Jezu-Krishna’ where Krishna’s crown wears a cross in place of the peacock feather. Moving on, the exhibition rocks with jest in ‘Colonial Rock n Roll’, a tongue-in-cheek take on the appearance of toilet paper rolls in Indian washrooms. The quotidian becomes vested with an artistic sensibility and relays a historical bite.

One of the rooms is completely dedicated to his father, Chandrakant Shankar Kerkar, the teacher artist.  The latter’s evocative paintings present socio-economic commentary of the cultural landscape in Goa in the mid-twentieth century.  Besides this, MOG also houses works of other artists from Goa and abroad. The quintessential ‘Caste Thread’ by Kalidas Mhamal is a visceral artwork articulating conversion, psychological upheaval and remnants of ancestral heritage. On the other hand, in lighter vein, is Santosh Morajkar’s sunny yellow pilot motorcycle, marking a ubiquitous fast taxi of the Goan landscape. On the international front, ‘Expanding Structures’ by Rene Fadinger is a metaphysical take on empty space and its potential to morph into new forms. Sebastian Kusenberg’s ‘Pradakshana around St. Anthoy’s Chapel’ marries the language of colliding religions.

Moving on to the platter of activities at the museum - ‘MOG Sundays’ is a highly successful weekly venture, wherein eminent speakers from home and abroad showcase their journeys and generate alternative ideas and debate. The cozy auditorium has a full house with more wanting to get in and participate in the invigorating proceedings. Soon, this event will shift to a space outside the main building next to the workshop at the back with facility to accommodate 200 people. Music performances, art classes and ethnic Goan spreads are other attractive offers on the calendar. MOG is all set to host a series of talks – ‘Kala Vichar’ in collaboration with Raza Foundation, Delhi in the coming year.

Subodh’s pluralistic idea of ‘Art for the people, art by the people’ - has MOG going full throttle to involve the local populace in initiatives to create artistic context in the cultural climate of Goa. That art heals, invigorates and balances our minds thrusts the argument for such a space as necessary condition to the well-being of society. Art in dialogue with literature, philosophy, music and history further expands the horizon of MOG to a liberal construct – which then becomes the ultimate utopian dream. This week when MOG marks its first anniversary, this dream is already becoming a reality!

How Darjeeling unrest today echoes Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss

http://www.dailyo.in/…/gorkhaland-gjm-we…/story/1/17863.html

Lost Inheritance in the Mountains  

“In 1947, brothers and sisters, the British left granting India her freedom, granting the Muslims Pakistan, granting special provisions for the scheduled castes and tribes, leaving everything taken care of, brothers and sisters -

Except us, EXCEPT US. The Nepalis of India. At that time, in April of 1947, the Communist party of India demanded a Gorkhasthan, but the request was ignored… We are labourers on the tea plantations, coolies dragging heavy loads, soldiers. We are Gorkhas. We are soldiers. Our loyalty and character has never been in doubt. And have we been rewarded? Can our children learn our language in schools? Have we been given compensation? Are we given respect?

No! They spit on us.”

This excerpt of a speech from the Booker Prize winning novel “The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai mirrors the current unrest in Darjeeling led by Bimal Gurung, the leader of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

Kiran Desai, who won the Booker Prize (2006) for her novel, portrays the unstable political period in the mountainous region of Kalimpong in the eighties – when Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), led by Subash Ghising - the Guru of Bimal Gurung, demanded a separate Gorkhaland in Kalimpong and neighbouring Darjeeling.  

In a crumbling Scottish mansion named Cho Oyu lives Sai, a seventeen-year-old girl, with her grandfather, a retired civil court Judge. Completing the household are the Judge’s beloved dog, Mutt, and his faithful cook. The very first chapter portrays the liberation army of GNLF, made up of young lads, enter Cho Oyu forcefully – ‘in leather jackets from the Kathmandu black market, khaki pants, bandanas - universal guerrilla fashion. They were looking for anything they could find – kukri sickles, axes, kitchen knives, spades, any kind of firearm.’

The situation is also profiled through the character of Gyan who is however not part of the same class as Sai. He speaks a different primary language and eats more indigenous food. He is Nepali, which is a minority group in India but a majority group in Kalimpong. He tutors Sai and is paid a paltry sum for his time and effort by the judge.  He tells the story of his great grandfather, his great uncles in the British army, “And do you think they got the same pension as the English of equal rank? They fought to death, but did they earn the same salary?”

Slowly it dawns on Gyan why he had no money and no real job came his way, why he couldn’t fly to America and why he was ashamed to let anyone see his home. He and his kin did not enjoy the same rights as the others around him - Anglo Indians, Bengalis, Marwari businessmen, and even Lepcha tribals. Destitute Anglo-Indian students in Dr Graham’s Homes were better off than him. They all belonged here lawfully – whereas his identity was questioned all the time.

The novel deals with the quest for individual identity. It is the struggle for search of one’s root, in a world that has undergone a significant change in the postcolonial era.  The conflicting ethno-racial relationship between people who come from different cultural, historical, religious and social background throws up a playfield of unease. 

For meeting of varied cultures is never harmonious. Often violent, it peters out to a compromise and sometimes subsumes the weaker culture.

Kiran Desai gives a backdrop to the agitation in the book – “When England controlled much of India, they brought in Nepalis to work on the tea plantations, and although colonialism is officially gone, the descendants of these people still live in the border region, but do not have equal rights. During the mid-1980s in the border region of India, including Darjeeling, there were numerous processions, demonstrations, and some violent riots by minority groups who wanted fair treatment.’

GNLF wanted to bring dignity and a sense of belongingness to their people. The biggest insult they often faced was when they registered the utter bewilderment of people who didn’t consider them to be ‘Indian citizens’.  Leading a procession through Kalimpong, 

Gyan’s fellow agitators proclaim loudly, “This is where we were born, where our parents were born, where our grandparents were born. We will defend our own homeland, we will run our own affairs in our own language. If necessary we will wash our bloody kukris in the mother waters of the Teesta, jai Gorkha.”

Conversations between Anglo-Indian residents in the novel bring in further detail of the history of Gorkhas. -  Around the 1800s NepalI people left their villages and migrated to the tea plantations of Northern Bengal, in search for work. They settled in hamlets bordering remote tea estates of Darjeeling-Kalimpong area. By and by along came the imperial army looking for strong soldiers to fight their wars. They were delighted to discover the Gorkhas - able, courageous, obedient, and to top it, loyal to the core. They recruited them in numbers, and the Nepali soldiers fought English wars in World War I and II, besides imperialistic expeditions. 

They brought innumerable victories to the British and were decorated with honours. A Statue of a Gorkha soldier at Westminister is testimony of their valour and the part they played in British wars.

Of course many perished on battlefields fighting alien wars and sometimes against their own brothers in Pakistan, India and South East Asia. Still there are a number of Nepali soldiers in the Malaysian, Singaporean armies today. The Indian army also kept its doors open to recruit Nepalis in its cadre. The Gorkha regiment is the pride of the armed forces in India.

When power suppresses, resistance is born in its interstices. Despite the fact that generations of Gorkhas have lived in the Bhutan-Sikkim-West Bengal sector since the 1800s, this part of India has been a messy map. First the Gorkhas were turned out of Assam and Meghalaya. The King of Bhutan made noises against influx of immigrants to his country. The novel further augments, “A great amount of warring, betraying, bartering had occurred: between Nepal, England, Tibet, India, Sikkim, Bhutan; Darjeeling was annexed from Sikkim, Kalimpong plucked from Bhutan.”

The proud Gorkha felt betrayed, “In our own country, the country we fight for, we are treated like slaves. Here we are eighty percent of the population, ninety tea gardens in the district, but is even one Gorkha-owned?  Every day the lorries leave bearing away our forests, sold by foreigners to fill the pockets of foreigners. Everyday our stones are carried from the river bed of the Teesta to build their houses and cities. 

We are labourers working barefoot, in all weather, thin as sticks, as they sit fat in managers’ houses with their fat wives, with their fat bank accounts and their fat children going abroad.”

Their fury flamed over, overflowing into the streets, as they looted shops, burnt lorries and burgled rich Anglo-Indian bungalows.

The current situation in Darjeeling is akin to the political and cultural upheaval discussed in the book. History may never repeat itself but it often rhymes and “those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it”.