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Einstein Fellowship 2019 in Humanities, Social & Natural Sciences in Germany. And the Scholarship Amount is EUR 10,000 and reimbursement of travel expenses (Approx. 8 Lakh Indian Rupee!)

2018-03-25T15:45:00.002+02:00

Dear readers!

Good Evening!

Do you really dream of spending some quality time in Einstein’s own residency in Germany, thinking something incredible as perhaps Einstein did while he was living in the same house years ago? It sounds great, right? Then this scholarship is for you! And remember this is not only for science students, but even arts students who are bitten by an Einstein bug and who have extra brains as Einstein had can apply for it. Your age should be under 35 to apply for this fellowship.

Ok! If you at least dare to dream of this scholarship, what is waiting in your way is Euro 10000 which is more than of 8 Lakh Indian Rupee! Read very carefully the description below and if are planning to apply then prepare a two page proposal and send them today or tomorrow even though you have time till 15^th April

If you need any kind of academic help from my side, you may ask the same in the comment box or email me at msqfiles@gmail.com. Ok, now go for it!

All the best and good luck!

Dr. Musadhique Kottaparamban

Now read about the scholarship...

About Einstein Fellowship 2019

The Einstein Forum and the Daimler and Benz Foundation are offering a fellowship for outstanding young thinkers who wish to pursue a project in a different field from that of their previous research.

The purpose of the fellowship is to support those who, in addition to producing superb work in their area of specialization, are also open to other, interdisciplinary approaches – following the example set by Albert Einstein.

Benefits

The fellowship includes living accommodations for five to six months in the garden cottage of Einstein`s own summerhouse in Caputh, Brandenburg, only a short distance away from the universities and academic institutions of Potsdam and Berlin.

The fellow will receive a stipend of EUR 10,000 and reimbursement of travel expenses.

Eligibility

Candidates must be under 35 and hold a university degree in the humanities, in the social sciences, or in the natural sciences.

How to apply

Applications for 2019 should include a CV, a two-page project proposal, and two letters of recommendation.

Applications can be submitted by email to fellowship@einsteinforum.de.

All documents must be received by April 15, 2018.

Guidelines

At the end of the fellowship period, the fellow will be expected to present his or her project in a public lecture at the Einstein Forum and at the Daimler and Benz Foundation.

The Einstein Fellowship is not intended for applicants who wish to complete an academic study they have already begun.

A successful application must demonstrate the quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed project, as well as the superior intellectual development of the applicant.

It is not relevant whether the applicant has begun working toward, or currently holds, a PhD.

The proposed project need not be entirely completed during the time of the fellowship, but can be the beginning of a longer project.

(To subscribe my blog post click the link)

Contact

For more information, call or fax the Einstein Forum at: phone: +49-331-271780 fax: +49-331-2717827.

Ok! True! It is after a long! I am writing here..

2018-03-24T21:34:00.002+01:00

Dear Friens,
I am planning to change the focus the blog into more of an academic one. So you can now find notifications on Conferences, Seminars and Job notification and yea, there will be definetely my writings too..

I wish all your support.

Book Review: The Disabled God: Towards A Liberating Theology of Disability By Nancy L Eiesland

2017-06-17T22:16:00.000+02:00

The Disabled God: Towards A Liberating Theology of Disability

Nancy L Eiesland

The bodies we inhabit and the lives those bodies carry on need not be perfect to have value. Bad things do happen, we know-to bad and good people alike-but so do good things. Life curses like life blessings are always mixed

-Nancy Mairs.

This is one of the academically exploded and theoretically well written books on disability studies. Nancy L Eiesland tries to read the Christian believing system in a more inclusive way. Accessibility is the core theme of her book. She considers Jesus Christ as a disabled God whose body was badly broken. This disabled God inspires the entire Persons with Disability and his broken body to make the Christianity a more inclusive and accommodative system hence she proposes a liberation theology which accommodates the persons with disability and creates spaces for them through refashioning and re-theorising the social-symbolic order of the society to include liberation for all.

The body is vehicle for self perfection and the target through ritual of degradation of social exclusion. There is a deliberate attention to the body in order to prevent it from becoming socially erased or subsumed into notion of normal embodiment so the normal body is projected as the perfect body. This perfect body survives in a network of structures and systems which continually normalise the purity of the body. Alms to the disabled body strengthen the purity of able-body-ness as persons with disability are help through strategies of paternalistic care to try to adjust like a normal person. It was not an able bodied god, but the disabled god promising grace through a broken body is at the centre of piety prior practise and mission. Here an attempt is made to re symbolise of some of our fundamental symbols. Disabled god represents full personhood as fully compatible with the experience of disability. Persons with disability must game access to the social symbolic life of the church and the church must game access to the socio symbolic life of the persons with disability are prone to social stigmatisation, marginalization and exclusion that render them silent and invisible and they are consider as object of pity and patternalisation.

The dissonants raised by the non acceptance of persons with disability and acceptance of grace through Jesus Christ broken body necessitates that the church find new ways of interpreting disability. The disabled have been named by medical and scientific professional or by people who denied full person hood and the persons with disability are imagined as less realistic less intelligent less capable of decision making less logical less self directional than non disabled person. Capable bodies define the experience of the disable. She further brings to experiences of two persons Diane Bebries and Nancy Maries who recount their experience of painstakingly inhabiting their bodies and of disputing with society about their proper social place in the process they de-mythologize disability and the refuse to acquiesce to the societies stigmatisation. The alternative knowledge they relate about the bodies and the social relations reveal full bodied resistance to the dominant stereotypes of persons with disabilities and move towards a liberative theology of disability hence they teach the world the aesthetic experience of living in a non conventional body.

Home Journey

2013-02-09T09:11:00.000+01:00

It was at 12 at night when I got in at Calicut. Everyone had folded their eyes when I was back to my home town. I walked to the bus stand and caught a bus to Calicut University. Though it was night and alone I was, the whole city and the lonely paths wondered me a lot. It was as if I was traveling first time in a unknown country. Some birds still chirped and tweedled at night to welcome me to the home land. Nobody was there to speak, so I knowingly made a small fuss with the conductor, only to call back that was my land! Around 1.30 I landed at the University of Calicut bus stop. It was thick dark, and there were no autos to bring me home. From university I had to walk at least three kilometer through a paseo to reach at home. I preferred to take the air rather comfortably getting in an auto. I called mother and she strongly advised to catch any auto at any cost. But I wanted to walk in such a calm but frightening night. Dogs were horribly woofing from everywhere. Some dared to trace me! I kept two three concrete stones with me only to get some courage. Fist time in my life I walked alone in such a darkest night. Still I felt a warm feeling to meet my parents. I reached home around 2.15. The doors were open already in expecting me there. Mother served some hot dinner (rather a supper!) that time. She was waiting for me whole the day. I was feeling at home after a long time. Everybody cordially received me to the land. I tried to meet everybody. For a week I completely kept my books away and stayed with the parents. They were very happy to send me to the wonderland.

The following day I set off ‘exploring my city’ journey. I usually do a journey without any destination only to see my home place with wild eyes! That day too, I caught a bus to Kondotty. It was Rs. 5 from Vadakke Bazar to Kondotty. By the time, the government had slightly stepped-up the bus fare, but interestingly the government had extended the minimum fare distance, so I had to give five instead of four. I passed on at Kondotty. Next was either to go to Manjeri or Calicut. I waited for the first bus. Luckily it was to Manjeri. I jumped into it. I was observing what people had newly constructed on the road side. I wondered the fast and sudden development my land was getting! Everywhere, construction was progressing, new buildings, houses, farms and other concrete forests were coming day by day. The greenness of country was gradually disappearing from the sight. When I reached Manjeri, I took another bus back to Kondotty. I was sitting near the window watching outside. I was noting only the outside scenes. Suddenly an old man (sorry a senior citizen!) asked me to close the shutter! It was not a request but a kind of demand and command. I helplessly gandered at his face. There was no any sign of understanding and relief. Very politely with a very low tone and trying to make my facial expression gentle I said:

“Hey! Kakka! I am travelling this long journey only to watch these missed sights! Pls don’t ask me to close it down, it’s a request to you, and you can still have a seat other side”

Then he sat very comfortably a bit and whispered in my both ears,

“Son! I am travelling in this only to forget everything and close my eyes at least sometimes..! I don’t want to see the world anymore!”

He was trembling with anger. I did not understand anything. Again I explained:

“I am a pravasi, not an exact pravasi, but I am staying outside of Kerala. I am studying in Hyderabad, the Pearl City and I usually travel on this route only to see what changes my city gets every day, Pardon me if I disturb you by opening the window of the bus!”

He again eased his sitting and held my right hand mildly and asked about the stories of Hyderabad Nizam and Hyderabad. I explained what I could. For a long both did not utter any word. I looked outside and gazed my co-traveller’s face alternatively. He was looking straight and different emotions were flashing on his face.

After a long pause, he mumbled in my ear. “Our land changed drastically!”

True! Kerala is developing day by day and the signs of progress are reaching in every nook and corner.

I agreed and nodded.

“.....That’s why I take this way to go to Calicut everyday in this time!” He added.

I really could not understand what he was averring. I desperately looked his eyes. The silent communication passed my helplessness to him.

“I am travelling to Calicut everyday to forget my place and house. I reach to Calicut around 12.30 and I go to Palayam Masjid for Zuhr prayer. Then I sleep there to dream my childhood. Only when I am in this dreaming my mind gets sharp. That is the time when I am living here in this world. I am dead now; you are speaking to a dead man! But when I sleep I wake up to dream my childhood!”

Then he untied the stocks of endless history and stories he had to say, about his child, Mappila Rebellion, family, the good and better old days, and the nasty and cheating of the present time. It was not a discussion, but he was showering his unhappy to the world, to his family, children. I listened the wild expressions he made in his face. The gestures seemed he lost all trust to the present world. When bus reached at Kodangadu, I said I was getting off next stop. Then he stared at me and held my hands tightly. I was afraid his tight holding might break my hands! His mouth touched my ears and spoke to my eardrums: “Son! Now, first time in my life, I feel that those all good old days are coming back again!

I really did not know why he said so, but our conversation eased his anger and tension. I got down at Kondotty and went to Fish market, even our Mackerel was upgraded to the royal fish, now the poor only have sardine as theirs! But to my surprise every sardine was screaming to save them from there, people changed suddenly their taste and everyone began to think they were part of the rich!

Book Review: Belief or nonbelief? a confrontation; by Umberto Eco and Carlo Maria Martini

2013-02-04T03:15:00.000+01:00

This book is a dialogue between a self- acclaimed secularist, Umberto Eco and a catholic scholar priest, Carlo Maria Martini. Umberto Eco, the author of the labyrinthine novel, Foucault’s Pendulum is not a closed skeptic in a strict sense, but he is more a man marked by a restless ‘incredulity’. He is not an anti-religious ex-Catholic, but is a one of those mature sages who is not interested in refuting believers but in illuminating genuine difference and finding common ground. Carlo Maria Martini, the other hand is interested in frank and unfettered dialogue with any kind of people. He usually addresses ‘the believers in non-believers and non believers in believers. It becomes a matter of interest among the public when both come together to share some of their ideas on some complex matters. The copies of the book were sold out when it published first time, which shows the interest of the readers to know what happened when two big wigs in their own area of interest come together to lock the horn! In his first letter to Martini, Eco addresses his as ‘Mr’ instead of any of the respectful and hierarchical name, and he explains why he addresses him so. Calling by name is an act of homage and of prudence. Usually in French, people are addressed by their own name, so it’s an act of homage, and secondly both scholars come together as free men and representative of the people, so Eco does not want to keep any kinds of reverence. This book is a compilation of four three letters by Eco to Martini on specific issues. Firstly Eco asks about Apocalypse. People are compelled to live in a shadow of fear in the spirit of bibamus, edamus, cras moriemur (eat, drink, for tomorrow we die) because of the presence of religious believes.

Vegetables sacrifices to preserve animal life and we are horrified at the idea of slaughtering an animal, but eat their flesh, we never squash a caterpillar in the park, but kill a mosquito when it comes to suck our blood, so what is the value of living being according to the religion? If a monkey is taught how to read and react, could it be recognized as human being and asserted all the human rights? What is the status of women in a religious set up? For all his questions in another letter Carlo Maria Martini explains from a religious platform. Though the book is fascinating, it loses its continuity. The letters were written in different time, and very different topics, so the reader may not be more interested to engage with the discussion. It is very passive discussion, that Eco asks something, and Carlo Maria Martini replies. It seems that there is not much interaction between each other.

Book Review: Mappilas of Malabar: studies in social and cultural history by S.M Muhammed Koya

2013-02-03T10:22:00.000+01:00

This book also is one of the earlier writings on Mappilas. SM Muhammed Koya focuses on how Mappilas succeeded in making marriage links with Arab traders. He argues that the circumstances both in Arab and early Malabar were almost same. The Muta' marriage and Beena marriages were everyday facts in both places, and both share common characteristics. This book is a good reference to those who want to know more about the earlier Mappila lives and the indigenous Mappila marriage relations with Arabs. Mappilas are the Muslim community of south west coast of India. In medieval time, 1/5th of total population of Malabar were Mappilas. They are basically a trading class. In interior place they involved in agriculture also. Ali raja of Cannanore was the only Muslim royal dynasty in Kerala. Mappila followed matrimonial way of inheritance of property and lived in joint family. The Mappilas were generated by Arab trades and mariners through their unions with local Hindu women. They involved in mut’a or temporary marriage. Spread of Islam on the Malabar Coast happened very different from how Islam spread in other regions of India. In Malabar and Gujarat, Arabs were warm welcomed.

The major argument of Sufi influence is not applicable in Malabar region and also spreading of Islam did not use any kind of political means. It is a counter argument against the claims that Islam first reached in India by the inversion of Muhammad bim Qasim in 711. The conversion in Malabar Coast was rather a calm movement which used marriage and trade relations with the locals. There is another story of prosylitisation in Indian which shows how the religious tenets were deeply diluted. Earlier conversion happened by Sufis who basically followed Sunni school of thought. In 833 Shia tradition with Ismayileets sects was introduced. Their approach to the conversion was different. They converted both Sunnis and Hindus with permitting myths and practices of the precious beliefs. And to preserve ancestral deities. Theirs was not a pure monotheism but later by 1363 this ismayilates were converted to Sunnism by Sunni Sufis.
In Malabar region conversion to Islam was not a serious thread to Hindu rajas. Only the Bramhinical Hinduism feared it. The lower caste converted to escape degradation and to occupy new social position and also they expected civil employment with Muslim. The first mosque in India was built up in Cranganore. Instead of adopting a new architectural style Arabs followed the existing temple architecture. There are different opinions for why Arab traders constructed mosque in earlier times, some say the mosques were constructed for converting Malayalees and to some others, these were for establishing mosques for the traders.

Rulers were instrumental in promoting conversion. Zamorin encouraged fishermen to change their belief to Islam because he needed more mariners and sailors for protecting his land from enemies. The existing social order prevented Hindus to cross the sea. In his order to the people he decreed that in every fishermen family in the country. One or more of the mail members should be brought up as Muslims. The population of Muslims among the fishermen communities of Calicut coast is an evident for this claim. So the lower class, for a high social position, Nayar and Thiyya women for marrying Arabs and, fishermen communities by the order of Zamorin converted heavily in Malabar cost. The main reasons for conversion in Malabar region were immigration, inter marriage, missionary activities, the support of the zamorin and personal advantages. Sufi influence in the increased conversion was less evident in Malabar region.
Arab trades in Malabar Coast existed before the advents of Islam in Arabia. The pre Islamic Arabs had settled in Chaavil, kalyan, and Suppara. It was primarily commercial in natural than cultural. Arabs had colonies in south India. The sea trade was left to foreigners as the Brahmanical Hindus were temperament allergic to the sea and left such ‘vulgar’ business. Arabs monopolized the trade until they were ousted by Portuguese in 15th century. Balhara dynasty in the north and the Zamorin of Malabar were most partial to Arabs they allowed Muslims for building up most, practicing religion and intermarriage. The Mappilas or indigenous Muslims of Malabar coast originated as part of and on going process of peaceful communication and economic relationship between Arabia and Kerala.

The native women were married to the Arab trades through contractual marriage which is temporary in nature. The nature of settlement, distance and trade encouraged this contractual marriage not only did Muslim from outside settle down in this area but even the natives inhabitants began to embraces Islam. Usually Arab boats were coming to Malabar Coast in July/ august and they would lived in December/ January. They would stay in a place for 30 to 49 days. They involved a short term marriage relation with the native Hindus for 4 months. There is no evidence to say that Arabs brought their wives with them. Social organizations of both the early Arabs as in Malabar the marital system in pre Islamic Arab was almost same. Mother right in Arabia was very prevalent and by tribal rule the women was not allowed to leave her kin but could entertain a stranger as her husband, at her own place. The man either settled down permanently with his wives’ tribe, or visited his wife occasionally. In Malabar, Nayar community kept the system of polyandry, matrimonial, matrilocal and the children born of such union belonged to the mother’s tharavaadu and inherited from the mother. The husband was a visitor to his wife’s place and children had no tie with him. The marriage is temporary nature in which the contracting parties agreed to lead together in the house of the women for a stipulated period of time and for which the man has to pay an amount mutually agreed upon bride prize this is a marriage for pleasure. In Nayar, Thiyya and Mukkuva societies the property was inherited in the female. The marriage was matri local. Inter marriage was not restricted to the members of the caste or sub caste alone. So Arabs could easily marry the local women. Even after the system was prohibited it was practised in Malabar region.
Mappilas of south Malabar followed the matrilineal way of inheritance which is visibly just opposite of what Islam asks them to follow. There are two theories for how Mappilas stated to follow these ways. In Kolathnadu (North Malabar) Mappilas were obliged to conform to the general practice of the country. Secondly it is argued that this way Mappila got with their relation with the Nayars. From the Nayar society the Mappila life was influenced the customs of family life, dress habits, marriage practises like tying the tali, paying dowry to the bride groom and purifactory ablution after birth. Within matrilineal Muslim community, there are theoretically two endogamous castes. The Brahmin /Nayar converts’ class could be divided as Kirigans (aristocratic class). The other Muslim matrilineal caste group is Islams who were the converts from Thiyya. Mappilas are followers of Marumakkathayam before Islam came here. Converts should retain the rule of inheritance to which they were previously subjects and the heads of new religion should encourage conversion by making the changes as carry and agreeable as possible to the new converts.

Marumakkathayam is an important aspect and the best example cultural assimilation among Mappilas. Here the property is handed over in female line and a Karanaver is given to look after the common property. The traditional Islamic belief and matrilineal is a paradox and it is only practiced in Malabar. Social institutions like matrilineal system were unhampered by excessive interference from outside and this particular circumstances did not contradict their faith. The prevalence of polyandry, marumakkathayam and other similar customs made it possible to have a distinct identity which is different from the traditional belief.
If we study the system in Arackkal dynasty, it can be easily understood the close relationship with the existing circumstances and cultural assimilation. The terms like ‘Arakkal swaroopam’ is very much similar to the denotations which were common to all other kingdoms ruled in Kerala that time. The power rested in the hands of the oldest female member of the family and she would be renamed as ‘Arakkal Beebi’ Ali Raja wanted to preserve the marumakkathayam practice in tact and independently of outside interference. He made a friendship with Ottoman Empire and set this traditional system of matrilineal succession recognised and ratified by the ottoman who adhered to the tenets of Islamic Shari‘at. Matrilineal and the joint family system have now broken. The decline of matrilineal, joint family and polyandry ended and epoch. The Mappila succession Muslim personal law of 1937, shareeath act, the Mappila Marumakkathayam Act1939 were some of the administrative interventions which resulted Mappilas to go a more homogenised Muslim platform.

Islam was instrumental in initiating social changes Mappila with a distinct personality of its own customs and culture seemed a more medieval society. Nercha lost its old glory. The existing practises of customs like ear boring ceremony circumcision and various cultural practices which are associated with these special occasions are fast disappearing. Mappila culture is a mixture of Indian and Arabian tradition and their origin reached to the pre Islamic Arabia. Their historic specification made them special language culture, religion, and social life. Cultural assimilation was one of the noted things in Mappila’s history. Caste system, some elements influenced by Hinduism. Peaceful co existence of heterogeneous religious group in it is term, called for and brought in a climate of religious tolerance. Which against facilitated the harmonious growth of Islam. The Marriage of Hindu women to the Arabs, large number of converts religious formed the cultural specificity of Mappila and instead of a universal Islam view they cultivated a locally rooted tradition.
The cultural impact of Mappila to the Kerala culture is very influential. Several trade names came to Malayalam from Arabic language. The Arabic words when introduced into Malayalam have undergone some considerable changes phonetically and semantically depending on phonetical habits of Malayalam language. In Mappila songs Arabic Malayalam was evolved and came into prominence. The impact of the new language -Arabic-Malayalam-was very reachable to the society. It was taught in primary religious education and Mappila songs were written in this language. The first Quran translation was written in Arabi-Malayalam by Arakkal Mayin Kutty.

Mappila songs are the specific genre of Mappilas. The themes are Religious topics or history of Islam, anecdotes of prophet’s life, love/ romance, satire and heroism. Many of the earlier mappilappaatu were written by anonymous authors. It could further be categorized into Kissapattu, Uhudhupattu, Malapattu, Padapattu. Muhyuddhin mala by Kazi Muhammad in 1687 is one of the oldest form mappilapaattu. Kunjayeen Musliyar (Nool Mala) and Moyin Kutti Vaidhyar are other earlier important song composers. In 1907 Cheekkeri adopted pure Malayalam for his songs. Mailanchipattu, opppanapaattu, ammayipattu are associated with the marriage functions. Among the art tradition, Aravana is more associated with gulf/Persian art, Duffmuttu is an Arab tradition and Kolkkali has a close relation to the kalarippayattu and each player in Kolkkali is asked to be trained in kalaripayattu. It is a martial play.
The style of architecture and construction of mosques are highly influenced by temple/local architecture. Unique styles of mosque architecture are different from that of Mughal architecture. These were built in perishable wooden building and without any visible minarets. In those days, mosques were constructed in/ near temple sites and the masons and carpenters were mainly the lower caste Hindus. Their available model of architecture was the temple architecture. Mappila houses were built in ‘naalukettu’ style. They adopted a locally comfortable dress and food manner.

The lives of mappilas are mixed with some social and cultural patterns. Saints are venerated and jarram nerchas are celebrated. The annual offerings on the occasion of the saints’ death anniversaries are celebrated with great zeal. Festivals resemble the rites of Hindu temples. Different annual offerings in different places are done with a procession of caphrisoned elephants, Nagaswaram, Panchavaadhyam, sword play, dance, drum beat and Kathaprasangam. The nercha culture is a best example for folk culture and cult worship.
The arrival of Portuguese dismantled the trade monopoly of Arabs. The coming of the first Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama was read as the extension of crest Vs cross war in the Middle East. And it augmented the Portuguese Muslim revelry. He had religious and commercial motives and to break the monopoly of Arab trade from the coast. Gama’s missions were aimed at Christianity and spices. Conquest, commerce and conversion were his objectives. The king of Malabar welcomed European because the sea trade was very important to him. The Arabs made ceaseless attempts to prejudice the mind of the king against the Portuguese. Their strange mercantile behaviour of accepting goods more than double the value and giving excess weight on all the salt alarmed the foreign Muslim all the more. Zamorin in the beginning helped the Portuguese as he did for any foreign traders, but when Pedro Alvarez Cabral impolitical bombardments of Calicut reverberated for over a hundred year along the cost and on the Indian Ocean. In these years Portuguese moved to Cochin and Kannur. The Portuguese was hostels only to the Muslims and their faiths and not to the Nayars and unbelievers to the Malabar. Kunjali Marakkars were the hereditary admirals of the Zamorin. After a while the Portuguese sailors succeeded in making alliance with Zamorin when they captured Chaliyam in 1571 and Zamorin allowed a space for a factory to be open to Portuguese despite the strong protest of Mappilas. So In 1595, Muhammad Kunjaali Marakkar of Kottakal challenged Zamorin by declaring himself as the ‘king of moors’, and he was described as the reformer of Islam, lord of Indian seas. With a joint operation by Zamorin and Portuguese defeated Kunjali in 1600 and he was killed.

Book Review: Offence: The Muslim Case By Kamila Shamsie

2013-02-01T03:30:00.000+01:00

The latest example of Muslim offence is Kamal Haasan’s Viswaroopam. When some Muslims leaders were showed its preview they felt offended some part of the movie, so they filed a petition to ban the movie. The next moment, the Pandora’s Box has just broken, and from every corner, furore came to condemn, not the movie, or part of the movie, but the offended Muslims! Most of the critics of offended Muslim cried the freedom of expression, creativity and all other hells. This book primarily asks why the offended Muslims are always projected to the fore. Taking the example of Pakistan and its history of offended Muslims, she tries to find out the changing nature of ‘declaring offence’ in Pakistan. Those who protested vehemently in 1990s are not so offended by the same issues, but instead new forces come forward to condemn and protest to new offences. This book is an historical journey and exploration of earlier Pakistan and new Pakistan. Taking the protect against the offence felt by Muslims in Pre-Independence days of India (Pakistan too), as a case point, she argues that the same strategy is maintained in the latest scenario also. There were cries of Jihad during 1857, but the landscape shifted afterwards. The sudden cry after the 1857 was an intellectual discourse for accommodating to security with safe guards for the defeated and demoralized Muslim community. Syed Ahmed Khan took the mantle and started some reformations. Keeping this idea in mind, he declared that Jihad is not applicable in the case of British rulers, but he was strongly defending Islam in other matters when he engaged the issue of Urdu language Vs. Hindi.

When the word offence of Muslim comes to our mind, we have certain pictures already there as the protest against Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Danish Cartoon, Toddy bear called Muhammad etc. Interestingly always the opposite side of the offence will be the US or western country. Kamila asks that why has the violently offended Muslims become such a prominent figure. So the mainstream media propagate that Islam lends itself to violence. So along with the offences, there are a number of terms emerged related to the offended Muslims such as hardliners, non-hardliners, moderate Muslims, secular Muslims etc.

Book Review: Mappila Muslims of Kerala: A Study in Islamic Trends by Ronald E.Miller

2013-01-30T18:11:00.000+01:00

This book is one of the first historical narratives of Mappila community. Miller tries to trace the cultural and political hhistory of much neglected socity and he ends it in 1970s. This would be a wonderful reading to those who would like know Mappilas and their cultural legacies. Mappilas are those Muslims who are living in the coastal area of south west India. When we discuss Muslims, we usually talks about the Indian Muslims. The unknown Muslims’, Mappila, populated more than some of Arab countries. In general history Mappila got a space in ‘Malabar and Its Folks’ a book edited by TKG Panikkar in 1921. Mappila must discover them and they must critically know their own history and attitude and relationship with society around them. The traditional Islamic tenets must read in terms of contemporary situation. Mappila exploration into self discovery is a journey has just begun. The Mappilas have suddenly emerged as a new force to be contended within Indian Islam, and they emerge with their hazy image carrying the burden of past caricatures. Some place they seem a progressive society, but they can only go with the orthodoxy believes. In Kerala we may separate the idea of ‘Mappila’ and Islam in Kerala.

The sea has been the permanent and decisive factor in the history of Kerala. Such religion as Judaism, Christianity and Islam come to Kerala by sea. The recorded history of trade between west Asia and Malabar may be traced back as Phoenician times. In the course of time malayalees developed their own culture, in the process extensively absorbing Aryan elements from the north, as well as Arab and European elements from the west. Their influences affected most noticeably the language and religion of the malayalees.

The Kerala political history prior to the coming of the Portuguese is a mass legends and dreams and the ‘authentic’ Keralolpathi is very unrealistic. The chief characteristics of early period appear to be: dynastic struggle among the traditional Chera rulers, shifting hegemonies of external powers, and the advent of Nambutiri Brahmins, Christians and Muslims into Kerala social life. The Brahmins were able to gain effective control over the religions and social system of Hindus, while the coming of Christian and Muslims eventually resulted in the changed in the changed religious status of the 40% of the indigenous populations. Kerala political divisions surface more clearly after the abdication and possible conversion of one the ninth century rulers, Cheruman Perumal. Interreligious living in Kerala is not only a possibility but it is an everyday fact of life. The relative success of that effect has symbolic value both for the nation and the world. The idea of family has been broadly interpreted traditionally. The older system of joint families and joint owned properties the tarawad system, found especially in the Brahmin and Nayar communities, but also followed by some Muslims, reflects this tradition. The traditional expression of malayalee art, music, and architecture reflected the variegated nature of the people’s background. They were representational, and emphosized rather than briodged the cultural barriers. Kathakali could not be appreciated by the vast majority of Muslims.

The neighbourly proximity of Hindus and Muslims implies that the latter will be unaffected by what happens to the former. But the current Hindu context also presents some specific implications for Mappilas. First the latter are living amidst an active and enthusiastic polytheism. They are not surrounded by shirk which is visibly doomed, but which is rather burgeoning in some of its manifestations.

The name, Mappila, is a title of respect. The partial form of ‘pillai’ frequently found in nayars. ‘Mappila’ is an honorific for Christian in middle Kerala and Muslims in north Kerala. In earlier days, Christians were named as Nasrani Mappila and Muslims as Jonaka Mappila. It’s a combination of two terms maha (great) and pilla (son). In those days foreigners were considered as great ones, noble ones and gladly received and held in highest respect by the indigenous inhabitants.

Mappila is a term to denote the newly wed bridegroom (son-in-law) husband or husband to be. It was applied to as a descriptive honorific to foreigners who married into indigenous families. Another interpretation of the emerging term of Mappila is with the reference of the nature of the matrilineal inheritance. According to this, Mappila is a term of combination of ma (mother) and pilla (son) as such it designed the offerings of foreign husband and indigenous wives. Both to emphasise that indigenous relationship and to correspond with the usage appropriate to the matriarchal system current among the Nayars it would not be unnatural to apply this designation. Mahfil, the Arabic term means the gathering place or meeting place. Malabar was a meeting place of Arab traders, so the people who emerged wit the relation of Arabs got the term mahfil which is corrupted into Mappila. Another interpretation of the term is, Mappila has been derived from muflih, maflih (base is falah) which means ‘to till’. The noun form is agriculturalist. The interior Mappilas were agriculturalist, so they got the term, Mappila. Another interpretation is, it derived from the term ‘muabbar’ (base: abara) which means ‘one from over the water’, mabar, mubar was the early name applied by fishermen of the Tamil Nadu area. In earlier Censes Mappilas were listed as a separate caste, but from 1931 census, they are not recorded as a separate class, but who are henceforth listed in the general category of Muslims.

Islam in India in all probably began in Kerala and the Mappilas are the descendants of the first Indian Muslims. The arrival of Muhammad bin Qasim who is the first Muslims reached in the northern part of India came only in 711. In earlier days Muzirin port was very important which connects the east and west traders. It is in the context of, this great traffic of people, goods, and ideas that we find the origin of the Mappilas. Arabs had a leading role in the commerce in Arabian Sea. As Indian and maritime activities decreased after the forth century, Arabs took the position and filled the vacuum encaging in a steadily growing inter costal trade. Arabs settled in Sumatra and Ceylon by the first century AD and they had a virtual monopoly on all the commercial activities. Malabar was their halting point and local Hindus accepted Arabs with a non-aggression policy. The Arabs were mostly businessmen from Yemen and Hadramouth.

Arabs were the progenitors of the Mappilas and Islam reached within after years of the proclamation of the prophet of his mission. There is a great historical gap till the 14^th century. There is no Mappila manuscript presently known that predate the 14^th century. The earliest attempt to note down the life Mappila was from Zainudheen Maqdoom (1498-1581) of Ponnani. His book Tuffathul Majaahideen (An offering to Jihad warriors against Portuguese) is a reliable source to the lives of Mappilas.

There is a story of Cheramal Perumal connected with Mappilas. He was a Chera king. It’s believed that he converted to Islam after seeing the miracle of parting the moon into two by the prophet. He raided to Arabia after distributing his suzerainty to the adjacent rajas and he accepted the name ‘Tajudheen’ (Star of the religion) and died in Mecca in 624. Historians opine that ‘there is a good reason for believing that this account of the introduction of Muhammedanism into Malabar is reliable and to the other extreme which maintain that ‘it is a pious invention of the Mohammedans. Sri Sankara, the great proponents of Advaita Philosopy had been influenced by the Muslims of that time. His monotheistic philosophy was a product of this influence. Sankara’s philosophy is wrapped in legend and direct testimony of any kond is completely lacking to establish a connecting him and Islam. There is no doubt of his influence on Hindus. It is therefore possible to surmise that on Hindu leader, influenced by Sankara and involved with Muslims, and perhaps at the end of his political career, may have ended his search for ultimate unity with the acceptance of the Islamic revelation of God’s unity.

Islam reached in Malabar as a steady, peaceful and calm movement which is contrasted the arrival of Islam in north India. It was a mutual economic interest between the Arab traders and the Zamorin, so the Arab kept a very religious tolerance. The main reasons fro spreading of Islam in Malabar Coast are immigration, intermarriage, missionary activities, the support of Zamorin and personal advantage. Though there are some Sufis associated with Mappila history, like al-Jilani and al-RIfa, the excessive Sufi missionary is not evident in south India, but a minor element. The relationship of Arabs and Zamorin were very much strong. Zamorin could get the custom duty from the Arab traders and for Arab the land was famous for spices especially for pepper and ginger. It was a very honestly flourished relationship. A traveller opined that ‘loaded goods could be left on the street for any length of time without guard and without threat of theft’. Calicut became a new meeting point, and the fame of the city went everywhere through the Arabs. Zamorin did not oppose the conversion but he supported it. He understood the presence of Muslims was an added advantage to his navy so ordered to the fishermen community to convert. By converting they could find out a job in Zamorin’s army. By the influence of Arab, others also converted to Islam for personal advantages.

The Mappilas as a Muslim community originated shortly after the beginning of Islam itself as part of the ongoing process of peaceful communication and economic relationship between Arabia and Kerala, that Islam found a receptive soil in the circumstances of exciting Arab, colonies and the religious toleration go the natives dn that the growth of Islam may have received an added encouragement through the conversation of a malayalee ruler. The direct relations of Mappilas with the Arabian Islam is as significant as its isolation from indo- Persian Islam,. Not only the political hegemony and traditions of the latter, but also its emotional tenor, theological developments, and cultural heritage passed the Mappilas by. The original relationship with Arabia, on the other hand, continued and grew and that intercourse has gone into modern times. Culturally the, malayalees were as far removed from the Arabs as the lush tropical scenery of Kerala it removed from the austere landscape of Arabia. But once wedded, the offspring of that union,. Tjhe Mappila, have remained loyal to both parents. The Arab affinity has affected and continues to affect the language, religion, and culture of the Mappilas more profoundly than those of any other Indian Muslims. In the span of time from their origin to the advent of the western powers the Mappilas took on an identifiable form as Mappilas in contradictions to the appearance of temporary expatriate Arab residences.

They increased in the coastal areas. The increase was partly due to conversion, but of continuing importance was the process of Arab settlement and intermarriage. The developing culture of the Mappilas naturally included elements of both Kerala and Arabia. Social distinction between Hindus and Muslims remained. But within the embrace of Hindu receptivity and neighbourliness the Mappilas lived in apparent peace and co-operation for eight centuries. They continued to thrive until the Portuguese came to India. The arrival of Portuguese dismantled every thing and it caused a great imbalance in Malabar.

There were three stages in the history of Malabar after Britain came for commerce purpose. Britain shifted their object from a purely commercial intention to territorial aggrandizement, the rise and flourish of strong Mysorian kings, Hyder Ali and Tipu sultan and thirdly the rise of Britain and a dominant power. The Mysore kings had a great time in Malabar. Apart from geographical proximity, they had other reasons also to attack Malabar. It was politically very weak and the Europeans were only in a certain pockets. Zamorin was very weak that time. Malabar was very wealth at that time, Malabar’s proximity to the sea and value of its port facilities for the land attracted the Mysore rulers in 1766 with 12000 men. Ali Raja and Mappilas went for helping him. Around 8000 Mappilas jointed in the army. The coming of Mysore kings was a psychological boast to Mappilas to forget all the atrocities done by Portuguese to Mappilas. But still Tipu could not do anything to give a solace to poor farmers. General sense of Mappila triumph was mixed with some discontent over the rule of Mysorean bribing to the executive of administration is a common sight. Ruthless destruction resulting from the scorched earth policy carried on by the conqueror done a lot to the peasants. Mappilas under Kurikkal of Manjeri rebelled in 1786 and 1788 against Tipu. They had their problems with the Muslims rulers.

Later Bibi of Arakkal dynasty supported Britain against Tipu. Tipu sultan is traditionally pictured as a religious begot, but in recent years efforts have been made to rehabilitate that image. It is pointed out that he followed a more religious policy in Malabar than he did elsewhere, emulating his father. Reports are noted that Tipu gave gifts to temples at Guruvayur and Kollenkode. It is said that ‘he forced conversion only on those recalcitrant Hindus on whose allegiance he could not rely. The major results of Mysorian rule could be summarized. One of these was regard for Hindus as the natural enemies of the Muslims. This feeling, characteristic elsewhere in Indian but not a mark of Kerala Islam was now imported and became a strong element in Mappila psychology. The other was acceptance of the use of force in religious matters. The climate created by the Portuguese had fanned to life this principle, but tipu turned it into a fire that is going out only in contemporary time. The loss of confidence and friendship with Hindus was the most serous loss in Mappila history. The new attitude was to continue for the next one and one half centuries , producing a serous of incidents that would finally culminate in the Mappila rebellion of 1921. The second major implication of the Mysorian period was the effect that it had on Mappila attitude toward land rights.

It has been noted that the Mappilas were prevented from becoming land owners by the system of land tenure that uniquely prevailed in Malabar. The events of the Mysorian era resulted in a temporary release from the shackles of that feudalistic system for the Mappilas. The release was later to be revoked by the action of the British regime. But the Mappila had tasted a new freedom and hope, whose effect lingered on in the coming years. Not only was the ownership of the land vested in the hands of a few jenmis, but also their control over its use was maintained by customary law heavily weighted ion their favour. The land tenure system worked, and some jemis maintained good relationship with their tenants, but the built in injustices and the possibilities for severely oppressive actions, frequently exercised, made the system a continually festering sore in Malabar society. It was inevitable that some day it would be entirely overthrown.

Book Review: In those days there was no coffee Writing in Cultural History by A.R Venkatachalapthy

2013-01-08T10:33:00.003+01:00

‘History is not yet what it aught to be’ – Marc Bloch

This book narrates the day to day life of Tamil Nadu in colonial time and their cultural artifacts in those days. AR Venkatachalapathy explains how coffee, tea, tobacco and other cultural signs had significant meanings in the colonial time. Instead of going to the stereotypical, elite and traditional historical narratives, Venkitachalapathy, a disciple of KN Panikkar, searches what roles coffee, tea and tobacco engaged in the making of modern Tamil Nadu. The book is divided in two parts and in the first part both material (coffee, tea and tobacco) and cultural (the cartoon, the city and modern literature) artefacts are elucidated and further the books related how they were consumed in colonial Tamil Nadu. And in the second part, it engages with the politics of language and identity in colonial Tamil Nadu. In the first part, the discussion is about the coffee. Coffee is not a simple word in those days. It is something very important sign, a cultural symbol which differentiates a range of cultures which transform through various trajectories. Drinking coffee was considered as a habit of middle class/ upper class/ caste of Tamil Nadu. Coffee has been accepted in the cultural domain of Tamil Nadu after years’ long negotiations with the tradition and practices. It was also considered as the symbol of acceptance of modernity of Tamil Brahmins and the reluctance of lower class/ caste people. It is not as easy as saying ‘drinking coffee’ but some opine that ‘One can write a whole puranam on coffee’; and ‘to go without my morning cup of coffee is like the world as crucial economic crises.

The story of coffee is a very recent one. According to the archives, the morning cup of coffee was unknown to people in those days. Coffee was first cultivated in Ethiopia; but soon it reached in India with it’s its cultural other, tea. But when it was introduced in India, it represented the colonial Europe; soon the debate was centred on the replacing of morning drink –neerajaram- of Indians with an alien drink -coffee-. So the general opinion was that coffee drinking is not required in our nation. Our ancestors never ever consumed it. Coffee is a kind of liquor. Stri Dharma, a radical woman organisation claims: ‘coffee here seems to stimulate cheerful for a little while after drinking, but gradually subvert the vitality of the digestive organs that’s why the body is weak, this creates all sort of unknown diseases. People in Tamil Nadu used to drink the cold rice in those days, but coffee created a threat to that habit. So the debate soon diverted to the English coffee Vs Indian cold rice (payachoru) and cold rice personifies coffee as an immoral woman, who has led people astray and disturbed the (fasting) austerities connected with amavasi, ekadasi and karthigai. The patriarchal way of life taught that women are addicted coffee and consumed to western culture.

But the upper caste Brahmin used coffee as an evidence of their earlier acceptance of colonial modernity and they utilized it to dominate others, soon Tamil Nadu faced the discrimination in drinking coffee. For cultural reasons both coffee and tea were understood as the specific symbols of upper and lower castes. For Brahmins, coffee was a touchstone of hospitality, even if they were not providing coffee to their hosts, a mere invitation would do more in that days, the question ‘let’s have some coffee, was more symbolic than the act of providing coffee. If they did not invite for a coffee, it was understood as an insult to the host. The most insulting word in those days was to say, ‘their coffee is awful’. When coffee was a cultural symbol and more coffee hotels were open, Brahmin of Tamil Nadu found a new method to keep their notion of pollution up. They introduced the metal tumbler with rims. It served the role of hospitality to their co-casters and also a tool to keep untouchability.

When coffee was somehow accepted in day to day life of Tamilans, the Tamil literature started to reflect the new habit. A lot of short stories, articles, puzzles, and riddles were written on coffee. There was an interesting passage in Tamil short story in which Siva descended and offered Kandasami Pillai a cup of coffee with Him. The story goes on like that:

‘As god sipped the coffee, a divine demeanour of having drunk some suffered his face.

This is my leela, said god.

‘This is not your leela, but the hoteliers’. Mixing Chicory with coffee is his handiwork. Show your mettle when you pay for the bill’, whispered Kandaswami Pillai, with his ears, content that he had sorted out the issue of paying for the coffee.

Chicory... what’s that? God looked up quizzingly.

Chicory powder resembles coffee, but it is not coffee. Like those who defraud people in the name of god’, replied Kandasami Pillai.

The issue of good/bad coffee rose soon. Making coffee with buffalo milk was a sign of cultural and moral degradation. It countered with the ‘Pasumpal Kapi Klub’ of Brahmin and Beef biriyani of lower caste/ middle class people. The Coffee hotel which was started every nook and corner of Brahmin populated streets soon became specific cultural symbols. Every third house is either a hair dressing saloon or a coffee hotel. This coffee hotel played the role of a place of congregation, for traders to clinch dealings with others, for families a meeting point in week days. The general addressing of coffee maker was, ‘Iyer, bring me a cup of coffee’ which says, that only the upper caste Brahmin had run hotel in those days. To overcome caste pollution, each hotel facilitated separate corner for Brahmins, and to question this was interpreted as the interfering of the personal matters. Later Periyar Ramaswami sharpene3d his knife against this inhuman practice and called for forcefully destroying the board which showed a sign of Brahmin.

Tea acted as the other of coffee. It was considered as the drink of middle class, lower caste people. The advertisements of tea have always been shown with the working class people. All most all the offices served with tea. Unlike coffee which was served mainly in Brahmin’s coffee hotel, Muslims were famous for strong and best tea. The common notion about the best tea was, ‘the best tea can be had only at Muslim house hold and non- vegetarian restaurant run often by Muslims. In colonial Tamil Nadu, both coffee and tea understood in a very different ways. Both produced and reproduced very different connotations, meaning. Though reluctant at first when coffee was introduced, but later it became a habit of most of Tamilians, there is story in Tamil literature, and it can be read as:

When a husband and wife quarrelled each other, wisdom appears and advises them that,

‘I tell you seriously, and after bitter experience, whatever you do, don’t cut out coffee. You may cut out food, you may go out in rages, or walk three miles to your office, but don’t meddle with coffee.

The story of tobacco was very different from that of coffee and tea. Tobacco was readily accepted by Indians. But later, after the colonial medicine and education introduced in India, tobacco lost its earlier charm and was considered as an intoxicants and dangerous substance as ganja and other drugs. If lend the words of Ashis Nandi, Tobacco was an Indian crop accidently discovered by the European! It was in its earlier days considered as a sign of good life, relaxation, cultural attainment and so on. Without any resistance, the Indian farmers accepted it as a domestic crop. It was not for exportation for two reasons. Europeans considered the Indian tobacco as coarse, rank, ill-flavoured. And Indians felt all these accusation as positive and they liked it, so the exportation held in a very low rate.

The Tamil word for Tobacco is Pugai-ilai which means smoking leaf. Soon tobacco was explained with divinity. Divine origin of tobacco as explained in Tamil literature is: once three gods Siva, Vishnu and Brahman had a quarrel each other over the supreme power. Each claimed they were the most powerful. To find out a solution it was suggested that let three of them keep a leaf with them and give it without losing. Siva was given a vilvam leaf and Vishnu a basil leaf and Brahma was given a tobacco leaf. Both Siva and Vishnu lost their leaves, but Brahma could keep his leaf with him, and he relaxed: ‘em pathram pogalai’ (my leaf is not lost), the tobacco got that name, pogalai from this word. The rest of the book deals with other cultural and literary issues like cartoons in colonial Tamil Nadu, Imagination of a city, literature, culture and Identity.

Tamil Nadu from time immemorial tried to stand alone and agitated the cultural domination of non-Dravidian forces. So it stood up against the imported Indian nationalism over Tamil nationalism. Whenever a call for English/ Hindi/ Sanskrit education, then they counter-argued for a Tamil Nationalism. Non Brahmin Vellalar elite challenged the notions of a monolithic Sanskrit based Hindu vision of India. Jadunath Sarkar’s book, ‘Confession of a History Teacher’ deals the importance of English in history writing. To him, for a better history work, English (language) is a necessary thing, a historian without linguistics skill and literary abilities and sensibilities would be no historian at all. According to Partha Chatterjee, all the historical works written in colonial time expressed the duality of material/ spiritual, outer/ inner, man/ women, world / home. The book seeks to negotiate the hierarchy of knowledge. Literature aspiration to occupy the space between the best of professional social science writing in English and the culturally sensitising centre in Tamil Nadu addressing for the most part of literary audience.

Trace: A Strong Messege to the society

2013-01-03T03:01:00.000+01:00

“I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I'm in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight times.” - -Will Rogers

The assassination of T.P Rama Chandran has wounded the psyche of Kerala profoundly. Kerala has already eyewitnessed a number of political murders, but the killing of TP Rama Chnadran must be read in a diverse angle. More over a conflict between two different ideologies, TP’s murder actually tells us the bigotry of a mainstream political party to its faction which was formed in very particular political circumstances. The people of Kerala have carried the burden of the incident of the assassination for a long and they woke up anticipating an odious event each day. The people were frightened of someone who was honing a knife for him/her.

(to watch the film on youtube kindly click here)

(The film: Trace)

The sequence in which TP was viciously killed with more than fifty stabs in his body has made a strong ripple in the society. Even the cultural leaders who were believed the bed-shares of Communist party broke their silence against this brute killing. The young film director Mufeed Muthanoor has developed his new short film ‘TRACE’ from this point. Each murder is a very well planned one. When the foes set off for killing a targeted person, the plan which is already conceived gets practiced. We are afraid even the single word, ‘murdering’ ‘killing’, because the word itself generates complicated and many-sided meanings which injure the psyche of the society. A murder is very perilous and dodgy to the cultural paradigm of the society and it needs a lot of time to heal the society from the blow of such an incident. How the repeated political killings trim the society down into permanent panic condition, is the starting point of this film.

Ayyappa Panikkar

Ayyappa Panikkar, a Malayalam poet, might be the first writer who analysed the process of meaning-making of a trouble-free word like ‘murder’. In the word ‘Kolapaathakam’ (murder), even it’s each letter can produce different connotation. It seems at the first look, that these separated letters and syllables of ‘kolapaathakam’ are very innocent, above suspicion and without any meaning, but the tone of each words actually manufactures some meaningful symbols, Ayyappa Panikkar observes in his poem, Kolapaathkam’.

The media which push the boat out each news on political killing by manoeuvring, colouring and embellishing, are not actually aware about the injuries they are causing to the minds of the people. This news on killing are actually affecting to the young people of any society.

Mufeed starts the film, Trace in the milieu of a newspapers reading room. The everyday readings of the newspaper, according to Charse Baudelaire, actually negatively affect to the people. He says, ‘any newspaper, from the first line to the last, is nothing but a web of horrors, I cannot understand how an innocent hand can touch a newspaper without convulsing in disgust’. It is right in a sense, if we analyse how different media establishments handle the news items such as killing, rape and others which damage the positive attitudes of the society, then we can understand the intensity and depth, these news cause to the society. Each reader internalizes what he/she gets from the newspapers and he/she develops the same view point whenever gets a possibility to harangue about the incident.

Mufeed Muthanur (Director)

After visualizing the manner of how different media handled the news of the heinous killing of TP, the director portrays some youngsters who have internalized the reporting of their own politically biased newspapers look the issue in different angles. The story starts when the reading room which is supposed to be a platform for creative discussion, turns to the political debates and discussion, then a silent reader sitting beside them, starts off his bike and rides it very swiftly.

The background music and the political symbols which are repeatedly shown in the film produce a feeling of dread and insecurity in the viewers’ minds. The quickening bike, knife, the broken words from mobile phones, airport and others intensify the terror in the viewers. After repeatedly shown all these panic-producing symbols and the bike ride which terminates in a very isolated house. The film ends when the protagonist after a high drama and long-time-suspense slashes a water melon.

Punnodi MA Rahman

Political killings, as any other crimes should be punished strictly. And in some cases the assassin may be punished, but the injuries and pains a society suffers from such killings are seldom healed. This is the message of the film. The body language of such murdering is in a conspiracy, this clandestine nature of such action, in fact making even a daft job like cutting a fruit in suspect. The basic function of a knife is to use for cutting vegetable and fruits, but even such acts are made in doubt in the changed and charged atmosphere. All the characters are youths in the film. Even the youths who are thought to be very audacious and courageous are actually living in the fog of trepidation, and then pondering over the mental trauma of weaker section of the society is more panic.

This is the third project made by KPB Production. MA Rahman Punnodi performs the leading role. K.P Sadarudheen, Munavvir Alingachaal, Suresh and Muhsin are the other actors of the film.

Book Review: Giving Offence by Martin Rowson

2012-11-08T20:26:00.000+01:00

After a long, exactly after 2 months, I am lettering another blog post! Frankly, a minute before writing this, I have never thought I must write something. The sudden reason for this new blog is, what I encountered in EFL library today. We had a presentation today, so as always, I went to participate it before an hour, and I had an hour to spend in some way. I could have gone to the teashop to meet any of my friends, or to open facebook and upload a new photo on its wall, or to sleep and see a wonderful daydream, but I preferred to be a good boy, therefore, I went to the library. I had an empty bag and the bag was not allowed to take inside of the library. An empty bag always behaves like our intimate friend and some theoreticians already introduced the importance of the possessiveness of a bag. For example, in everyday he is talking about the possessing of a bag and why a bag is important.

I got a token, and when I was about to sign the registrar, suddenly the security person asked my ID card! The interesting thing is, that security guy knows me well, he sees that I come and go back from the library at least two-three times every day. Still he dared to ask me the library card! I avoided his demand and pretended I heard something else, but he repeatedly demanded and glued on his need. I felt strongly offended by that person and in a hurry; I took my ID card and rushed inside the library. To air out my felt offensiveness, I could go out taking my bag arguing with the security guy or simply go and sit before a book. Here again I preferred to be a good boy. Therefore, the next option was to select a book that is suitable to the situation. Here I, either, could select a book on Mappilas of Malabar (I know there are two books in the library), or go to the magazine section and read something. In that moment, Martin Rowson’s book appeared to console me!

In the new arrival section, I saw ‘Giving Offence’ written by Rowson, a London based cartoonist. His self-explanation is one who gives offences to the society. This book is examining the psychic of an offender and why people always are offended by others. Offence, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and it is a subjective business. There are many minor offences, but there are also some major offences that are not worth to be mentioned like cannibalism, incest, paedophilia, necrophilia or coprophagus. He traces the history and goes for saying that these overwhelmingly offensive acts were practiced somewhere in some point of time. For example, Tom Stoppaardi’s noted-play Jumpers explains the cannibalistic practices of some society. The playwright describes a community who eat their parents’ dead bodies believing that by doing this they are actually venerating their parents. Even Christianity in certain community played a role to encourage them to eat the brain of the dead bodies. For example, a new disease, Kuru was found among Fore People of Papua. The reason for this disease was when they converted to Christianity, they mixed their own ritual practices with the new theology and started to ete their parents’ brain when parents were dead.

Incest was a common practice of most of the ancient communities like Greek, Roman, Egyptian and ottoman to protect their monarchy and to revolve their power around their own people. Paedophilia is seen in some societies still. There is a myth of Zappa about his act before a huge crowd. Once when he was performing in a stage he challenged the audience to do the most repulsively offensive thing they could imagine, he promised to outdo that. A woman did a ‘most offensive thing’ and he, as promised, outdid that.

Offence is a very subjective one, a daughter is easily offended when she is not allowed to wear what she wants to wear, a father is offended when he sees his son wears something he does not like, and the daughter is offended when mother wear an old dress or something. There is a story about a German Brownshirt. She went to watch Marx brother’s movie. She liked it and she laughed, laughed and laughed. But when she came out, she knew that Marx brother were actually Jew, so she was offended and went to the counter demanding her money back! Humour can be used both aggressively and defensively. When Diana was killed in a car mishap, it actually made mixed responses. As a satirical cartoonist, our author drew some cartoon on Diana’s death and it invited the offence of some people.

He goes to explain the caricature and how caricature works in a society. When 9/11 happened, he drew a cloud sky, called his manager, and said to him that he had a meaningless and senseless cartoon. The manager was impressed and responded, ‘this is the best time to give people that meaningless and senselessness!’ The book is written with very less pages and in am easy way to comprehend the idea he is presenting. I read it and ran to participate the research scholars’ open presentation.

Staying a Night at Nagpur Railway Station! An Incredible Journey of a mother 2

2012-09-24T05:10:00.000+02:00

It is the second part of the travelogue of a journey I accompanied with my son to Delhi via Hyderabad via Mysore. In the first part (kindly click here to read the first part: (An Incredible Journey of a Mother to the Heart of India), I was telling what happened to the ticket and why we booked the ticket first to Nagpur. When the train paused in Nagpur, the sun had already sunk in the Arabian Sea. The strange and fearful atmosphere stared at me. I could not realize anything, everywhere an alien language script laughed at me, strange people gazed and the whole railway system threatened me. My son was in a deep silent but he was pretending that a smile was there on his face always. I got down in to the platform with praising Allah. We travelled the half way to Delhi.

Nagpur, a land of Orange! The story of Nagpur also related to Delhi, Delhi sultanate and of course, Hyderabad Nizams. Bhakt Buland initiated Nagpur city after he visited Delhi in the early 18th century and declared it as his capital. He was the Gond prince of the kingdom of Deogad in the Chhindwara district. His successor Chand Sultan continued the work. As happened everywhere after the Chand Sultan in 1739, the princes fought each other for the throne and Raghuji Bhonsle, the Maratha governor of Berar, helped to restore the elder son to the throne. Raghuji Bhonsle camped there and intervened in 1743, and the control of Nagpur slowly passed on from the Gonds to the Marathas.

It became the capital of the Bhonsles. With the Bhonsle dynasty came the vast class of cultivators in Vidarbha. Raghuji's successors lost some territories to the Peshwas of Pune and the Nizam of Hyderabad. In 1803, Bhonsles (along with their allies Scindias [Shinde] of Gwalior) at Assaye and Argaon (Argaum). In 1811 Pindaris attacked Nagpur. Bhonsles again lost to the British in 1817 and Nagpur came under British influence. In 1853 Raghuji III died without an heir to his kingdom. As a result, the city lapsed into British control under Lord Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse. In 1861, Nagpur became the capital of the Central Provinces. The advent of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIP) in 1867 spurred its development as a trade centre. After Indian independence, Nagpur became the capital of Madhya Bharat state (C.P. and Berar). In 1960, the marathi majority Vidarbha region was merged with the new state of Maharashtra and Nagpur was designated the second capital of Maharashtra state, alternating with Bombay as the seat of the Maharashtra state legislature.

However, my mind was troubling with the image of Nagpur I was getting from the newspaper reports that it is the head office of some extremist organizations. I was compelled to stay there a night! I did not know where my hotel room was booked. When I asked the room, his smiling turned a big laugh and it took two minutes to slow down, when he finished laughing, in a very low voice, he said, ‘we are luck, today we booked a huge room with 24 hours electricity’. Therefore, I was happy, but scared, if I stayed that big room, the amount must be very high. . After few minutes, he turned me again and said,

‘Mom! Don’t be worry if say anything’

No. Not at all.

‘That huge room I booked is here, with these people!’

He pointed to the sleeper class waiting room.

The room was clean, the cleanest place I have ever seen. However, a huge number of people have already booked each place in that ‘huge room’ with 24-hour electricity. A man was sitting before the room with a register to check whether we were upper class ticket owners. Moreover, outside of the room, there were flood of people staying here and there.

‘Now, we need to keep our luggage in the clock room’, saying this, he went in searching of a clock room. The security was very strict, they checked the luggage carefully and gave us token and we kept the luggage in the clock room. When the heavy luggage from our shoulder removed, we felt very relieved without any burden. ‘Now we can have something for dinner’. We went outside. There the crowd was moving aimlessly as if they were paral fish in a stream. Everywhere people packed largely. I was thinking about myself, ‘A woman who came from a faraway place, here in a very strange place with her tongue tightened and feet trembling. Her only proof to believe she is in a Hindi speaking belt was her hand grabbing her son’s hand’! That thought tightened my hold his hand further. When he felt it, he turned and asked,

What happened?

Nothing’ I was thinking a story I learnt in school in my fourth standard about four poor animal friends’

‘Which story?’

‘Four animals, a cow, a mouse, a deer and tortoise, they were good friends, but all were very much dependents each other, they did not want to miss anybody, and being helpless and small animals they were scared about everything’

‘I know that story but why you think the story this time?’

‘Missing is painful’

‘Don’t worry, mom!, you know there are millions of people live in our India, and we are just two drops in this great ocean, I will stay with you always, and there is no question of missing. Hey mom, he is selling oranges, so we can have some oranges from him’

We did not think about the price of orange, because there is saying that if you want to eat apple from Kashmir, do not go to the shop but go to an apple tree and collect scattered apples underneath the tree.

We went and asked that man the price of orange, the price was double of what I usually got from any shop in Kondotty! ‘What a world!’

We saw a restaurant there. When I saw the menu, I whispered in his ears,

‘Choru kittumo?, (Can I have rice?)

However, my sound was little high, then all people seemed to stare at me, I was afraid and looked at my son’s face.

He smiled and explained me.

Mom! You know we are far far away from our land, nothing will help us now here, our culture, food, language, dress, bed, house, nothing’

I agreed, ya, my dress has changed, look! I have never worn a churidaar for past many many years in my life, but now my dress is churidaar, my Malayalam, my house, everything I had given up in Kerala!

‘Therefore, when we were what we were not, then all our meaningful words will produce some other meaningful words’

He looked as if a philosophy teacher and I could not understand his words.

‘You know the word; choru in Hindi means thief, that’s why the hotel cashier looked at us! You might know the story of two Malyalees who went to a hotel in Delhi’

‘No, I don’t know’

Once Two Malayalees went to Delhi to participate in a party conference. When they were hungry, they went to a restaurant as we did now. They ordered two plates of poratta, and they did not get curry for sometimes, so one of the person shouted, chaar (curry in Malayalam), then the next moment, the waiter brought him four poratta, when seeing this, the other guy signed and said loudly, ‘che!’ (a sighing sound). The waiter again came with six poratta, when they got six more poratta, one friend, lost his temper and clamoured to the other friend, ‘Kazhutha! ivianeyokke ivideunnu aaattanam’ (Donkey! He should be ousted out from here) this time, with their surprise the waiter came with eight poratta! Again the other Malayalee was about to say something, then the other guy, pressed his mouth with his full force and said, don’t say anything, if you say any word, the waiter will bring you more and more poratta..’

I enjoyed that joke and kept in silent. He ordered something, and then I realized I was losing even my rice for at least two weeks. The food was nice and tasty. Night was darkening more and more, and I saw more people were coming to get a space in each corner of the street, we walked back to the station, station was packed with the people, and anyhow I got a seat to sit there. Everywhere people spread their cloths and started to sleep. he asked me what I usually pray before going to sleep, I briefed up the prayers I usually do before going to the sleep, then he said to add one more thing to the prayer,

‘What?’

‘To not come TTR or checker to the station’

‘But, why we already have the tickets?

‘We have the ticket, but we are not allowed to enter the platform before four hours of the journey, our journey starts at 9.30 tomorrow morning!’,

he continued, but don’t worry, our journey is not any ordinary trip, we are going to know the pulse of India, so everything should be welcomed in the journey. Each event will be an added experience in our journey. This journey is not for any destination, but it it’s destination is wherever we are led’

I looked at the people, they are very happy, and everybody has dreams, hopes, happy, so I also should be part of the sleeping mass beside me’ when a lot of thoughts flooded in mind, sleep visited my eyes gradually.

(English translation of a travelogue written by Maimoona Rahman KP )

In Memory of ‘the Brightest Night of the Year’

2012-09-20T21:25:00.000+02:00

Now I am writing about the brightest night of the year (der Klügsten Nacht des Jahres), which is a whole night devoted for science and, of course, for arts in Berlin and Potsdam. The programme begins late at night and goes without ending until dawn! That day different universities and institutes come together to show what miracles they have in their hands. For the twelfth time scientific institutions in Berlin and Potsdam together organized the "Brightest Night of the Year", in which a total of 73 universities, colleges, research institutes and technology-oriented companies opened its doors in June 2012. The comprehensive program included an almost endless range of topics. There were also events for urban development, economy, social issues and much more. Embarked on a journey of discovery through the scientific community, where one could experience firsthand what being researched in these two regions.

Small researchers had in the numerous activities for kids get a first impression. This year's theme of the night of science was, a "fireworks in the brain." This was an incentive program and at the same time, this year's Long Night offered a firework of ideas and knowledge, and we enjoyed the "brightest night of the year." The idea was wonderful!

A full day to celebrate! A celebration which directly pierces to our brain and mind. The first day we reached the university, Prof. Dirk Wiemann asked us to participate in a seminar presentation he would do in this day. The topic was interesting; it was about the Indian graphic novels. I have not read any graphic novel before, but ya, definitely I did read all most all amarchitrakatha published in Malayalam.

It was a very cold day; even our bones broke with the chilling climate! I could opt to either wear my usual red coloured sweater or wear a blue coloured t-shirt and show the people our team jersey. Actually, the t-shirt and the badge were two marks to recognize us when we were in the presentation room.

We went to Golm campus early morning, and we saw there were a long queue and a ticket counter. When we knew, the ticket price was 13 euro (Rs.910!) we thought to drop the plan to go in and we decided to participate in the seminar in which we were a part. We went to the gate to ask about the programme, and we saw a very few students wore the same blue coloured t-shirts and badges. Moreover, they smiled at us. The security before the gate greeted us. We were thinking some magic of the shirt. We went to a door, where a blue coloured t-shirt dressed woman kept just before it to check the ticket. We pretended to ask something, but she smiled and greeted us. We entered the hall. Then we realized the badge was an entry ticket which permitted us to see the entire programme.

The first door led us to a chemistry experiment hall. People thought we were science students; they were creating different substances and making experiments. I suddenly remembered my Pre-Degree Classroom. I was scared all the acids and experiments. (That is why I ended up in an art subject for my Degree!) For my final exam, there was a question to recognize some acids; I think, it was phenyl acid. The only thing I knew about that acid was that phenyl burns our skin. Therefore, instead of making any experiment, I poured two drops of phenyl into my palm using a scale, nothing happened, so I confirmed that it was carbohydrate or some other stuff, and started to answer it. I completely forgot the scale, which I used to take the acid. When my exam passed the first hour, accidently I put my hand on the scale, I heard a shii sound and smelled a burning skin. My left hand made a black mark of burning acid, the neighbouring girl was shocked, and she was about to faint but I winked at her and said, it is ok, I got seven marks freely, I corrected the answer and thanked the phenol for giving me a mark on my left hand a 7 marks in my paper.

When the research scholars realized we were not science students, they said that all were for children, and there were already a bunch of school-going children surrounded them.

‘Could we participate in your experiments? Vivek asked them.

‘We are sorry; it is only for school going children’

‘Oho! But we are university-going children!’

‘Ok, then you are welcome’.

First was a DNA forming experiment from a banana. One should come forward to help the researcher to do the experiment. I was thinking all the experiments I did my Pre Degree and took two steps back. So Aparna went for it. The guy explained us how a DNA is formed from banana. He said to do different processes. To our wonder, we got a DNA in a test tube. Oho, the term test tube also forced me to remember my PDC chemistry lab, once in the lab, with my hand, I broke the tip of a pipette (burette?), that day just got over. However, when I went there to get my transfer certificate I got a due certificate of breaking the tip of the pipette, it was some 350 rupees!)

After the experiment, they presented that DNA as a gift for completing the job successfully. Next was an experiment to create thermo-coal-balls. This time Vivek was ready to be the scientists, it seemed he also was thinking his +2 science class. It took too much time to complete the process. At last, he also got the gift. The least dangerous experiments were blowing a balloon with ice. This ice was very different. It became the evaporated stage directly from ice without a liquid stage! They filled the balloon with this ice, and the balloon, then started to puff with air. That was amazing. I got that balloon as a gift! We came out from the chemistry laboratory.

Then it was the time of music. We heard a very beautiful music from the courtyard of the Golm campus.

Our presentation time was around 10 pm at night. We were asked to read four graphic novels, these were:

Delhi Calm by Vishwajyothi Ghosh. This is a picturesque description of what happened in Delhi (India) during Emergency. It explains the whole issue through a journalist’s eye. I am sure it will please those who witnessed the sleepless nights of Emergency and those who know the short cut routs of Delhi.

Tinker. Solder. Tap by Bhagwati Prasad and Amitab Kumar. It is a very sataristic story of how piracy is well worked in India. The transformation of film piracy through Cassettes to DVD is simply described in the book. Again, it explains the India’s big piracy market, Palika Bazar. As the authors know that, any of the creative products is not free from piracy in India in this globalized time, so they have given the permission to ‘pirate’ the book. It is available in this website, www. sarai.net. In the cover page, the authors have written: ‘Any part of this book maybe reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the publishers for educational and non-commercial use’.

Indian by Choice by Amit Dasgupta. This is specially written for NRI citizen who live in hi-fi metro cities. It is a journey of a Punjabi rooted Manddep Singh who thinks India as a very unproductive, densely populated, uncivilized country, but his visit to India for a marriage function changes all his notions on India and its people. When Mandeep feels India after a tour to different places of India, he starts to love India.

LIE: A Traditional Tale of Modern India by Gautam Bhatia. It is a very satirical and strongly criticise today’s politics. Among all these four novels I like reading of this graphic novel most.

In his presentation, Prof. Wiemann was focussing the reproduction of mythical past of India through the amarchitrakatha. The amarchitrakatha started and developed using the mythical stories and it generated a golden past notion of ancient India.

A visit to the spot where Hitler committed suicide and to to the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

2012-08-30T22:24:00.000+02:00

Until I reached the spot where Hitler shot himself after consuming Cyanide, I was not at all paying attention to that guy who was explaining the already known history of Berlin Wall, parliament, and other stuffs! That instant was very crucial to me. In my unconscious mind, I was thinking that Hitler did it in any of the border place of Germany; frankly, I am very poor in history too! Nothing was there in that spot, just an ordinary place without any identifiable mark. Vivek and I were talking our ‘own’ constructed history of everything till we heard that word, Hitler from the guide.

with Sajeev Chemmany

Today I am writing about our journey to both of these two places, firstly the spot where Hitler shot himself and the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin. That day was very much special for two reasons. We had two guests from Calicut via Delhi, Mr. Sajeev Chemmany and Soumya Balakrishnan, the two cosmopolitan citizens in every sense. They were in their usual ‘exploring Europe journey’ via Berlin when we met them at the ZOB in Berlin. Both are media persons based in Delhi. Sajeev is a staunch football player and a good fan of European football. Then our talks revolved round football and European clubs. He whispered me that one of his aims to visit Germany was to buy a Bayen Munich club Jersey! They knew many languages, Malayalam, Hindi, English, Italian, Tamil, Telugu, and many more. They had all information in their hand and plan in their mind. Instead we guided them they brought us to the Free Berlin city walking tour. The tour would start from Brandenburg Gate at 11 am. We thought there would be a very less people for this walking tour and so we reached before the gate around 10.45.

Only then we understood a flood of people had already reached there to participate in the free tour. The concept of this free tour is a walking about 3 hours in the main tourist point of Berlin. The guide would explain the history and importance of each place. He never goes inside of any of the place, but it is a participant’s responsibly to go and spend some euro, if he/ she likes. I was not at all interested to go for that tour, because I thought I knew all the places and I had seen already all the places and I had read the history of the places, the guide would explain. So I was sure, it would be just 3 hours walking and spending of time. But our guests were too much excited and interested to hear each story of the city. We were given some numbers and papers by the walking tour people and they divided us into multiple groups. In our group, they included numbers from 95 to 130. In these 35 people, there were different nationalities. I was guessing the majorly must be Indians and in Indians again the majority must be Keralites. I was proud of my country/ state to feel me proud in a foreign country. That tourist guide guy was looking very impressive and energetic. To make an initial interest to the participant, he asked who were among us staying in that hotel pointing a far away hotel. And he waited 26 seconds to get an answer. Actually nobody was staying there, and then he explained the reason for it. That building was too expensive and placed in the heart of the city. Only big wigs like the ministers, ambassadors of different countries, corporate businessmen could only afford such a highly cost.

Then he gave details the different flags floated in the air. These were different embassies with colourful flags. The flags of France, Britain, USA, Russia, and lots of European countries were waving in the air. He then explained the history of Brandenburg Gate (see my next blog post). He could not control his emotions when he explained the misery the people the Berlin Wall made them. His words were broken and it trembled and sometimes he took time to find a word to explain. The Brandenburg Gate witnessed all the tears and laughs of the Berlin people. Next was German parliament, when it was parliament I just escaped the explanation, because we had already visited the parliament and sat inside of the parliament. (I will write about the journey soon). When he was talking about the parliament I distanced from the group and went to a nearby iron statue.

I took my camera to take a snap of that statue, but then suddenly the statue covered his face with his hand! I was terrified first; I could not realize what was going on. I stood with my mouth wide open. The statue smiled me! Then only I realized that it was not a real statue but someone had dressed up as a statue of Lenin! I really thought it was an iron statue. He raised his two fingers. I thought something special happened to him and he was showing the victory sign. Then Vivek, standing behind me remembered that he was not showing any victory sign, but he was asking two euro to take a photo with him., I said ‘salaam’ in my mind and turned to the walking tour party.

But they were not there. I knew if the guide had finished explaining about German Parliament then the only thing the guide would show was Alexander plaza or Topography of Terror, if these were not, then, of course, it would be Check Point Charlie. So we were about to go to Topography of Terror. Then we saw the group were standing just opposite of the Brandenburg Gate and he was explaining something. We trickily reached there and tried to listen to him. The group members were very keen to hear him. Even our guests did not show any interest to greet us; all were enchanted with his powerful and clear words. Then I smelled something serious discussion was going on there. I did not see anything fascinating there, but a part of the street road and a traffic signal before them. All most all were taking photos of that street road. I laughed in mind and wondered that people would have gone mad. Slowly we understood that he was explaining the end of Hitler and his sad death. The place where Hitler committed suicide is now a car park and grassy knoll.

The consensus is that Adolf Hitler took a cyanide capsule and shot himself in the head on April 30, 1945 in his bunker in Berlin. Tanks and troops of Soviet General Vasily Chuikov's Eighth Guards army had fought to within a few blocks of the Reich Chancellery. Adolf Hitler was based in his bunker underneath the Reich Chancellery building. Bomb proof and with its own air recycling plant, the complex had been built without a proper communication system. The only way staff officers could know about the extent of the Red Army’s movement into Berlin was to phone civilians at random (if their phones worked) to ascertain if the Red Army was in their vicinity. Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, had brought his wife and six children to the apparent safety of the bunker. The end was clearly at hand. With Germany lying in ruins after six devastating years of war, and with defeat imminent, Hitler decided to take his own life. On April 28th, Hitler received a report that Himmler, head of the SS, had been in touch with the Allies regarding surrender.

this is the place where hitler killed himself

Himmler had contacted Count Bernadette of the Swedish Red Cross. Adolf Hitler had always considered Himmler to be the most loyal of his men. When he received a Reuter’s confirmation of the report, witnesses said that he exploded with rage. He accused an SS officer in the bunker, Herman Fegelein, of knowing about what Himmler had planned. Fegelein admitted that he had known about it and, stripped of all his rank and medals, he was marched by SS guards to the Reich Chancellery garden and shot. Early on the morning on April 29, 1945, in a civil ceremony in his bunker, Hitler married his mistress of many years, Eva Braun. The wedding service was held in Hitler’s private sitting room. A low ranking Nazi official who had the authority to perform a civil wedding was brought in by Goebbels. Eva Braun wore a black silk dress for the occasion. In keeping with Nazi requirements, the official had to ask both Hitler and Eva Braun whether they were of pure Ayran blood and whether they were free from hereditary illnesses. Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann signed the register. The next day at a little after 3:30 p.m., they bit into thin glass vials of cyanide. As he did so, Hitler also shot himself in the head with a 7.65 mm Walther pistol.

Though there seems little doubt that Adolf Hitler had already decided that suicide was his only option, and also that of Eva Braun’s, it is probable that these two pieces of information moved that nearer. Hitler had also received confirmation that Mussolini had been caught in Italy, shot and his body, along with that of his mistress, Clara Pettachi, had been hung upside down in a square in Milan. Above all else, Adolf Hitler had decided that such humiliation would not happen to him as he ordered that his body should be burned. According to witnesses, the bodies of Hitler and Braun were wrapped in blankets and carried to the garden just outside the bunker, placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol and set ablaze. In May 1945 a Russian forensics team dug up what was presumed to be the dictator’s body. Part of the skull was missing, apparently the result of the suicide shot. The remaining piece of jaw matched his dental records, according to his captured dental assistants. And there was only one testicle.

You can watch this explanation on Hitler’s death here

I was watching to the faces of the tourists. There were different emotions interchanging, and the common feeling on every face was a feeling of amazing. A dictator who controlled the whole Europe with his thumb, found his death in that spot, was they were thinking that moment. Then the guide led us to the holocaust memorial, that memorial also was, first time I heard about. This time we did not miss him. The 2,711 pillars, planted close together in undulating waves, represent the 6 million murdered Jews. Both the subject matter (which has forced a taboo part of Germany’s past into public consciousness) and the site have raised controversy. The 19,000 square metre block of land, situated just south of the Brandenburg Gate, has a dark past. In 1937, it housed the office of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels; nearby was Hitler’s Chancellery and the infamous bunker where he ended his life.

Designed by US architect Peter Eisenman, controversial plans for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe were approved in 199 Architect Peter Eisenman stirred controversy when he unveiled plans for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The building of the ‘Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe’ has been a protracted process. First proposed in the late 1980s, the project was not approved by politicians until the late 1990s, with American architect Peter Eisenman’s finalised design being presented to the public in 1999. Now, in 2005, here it was: an entire city block covered, seemingly haphazardly, in huge concrete blocks. Some of the ‘stelae’ lay low to the ground, while others stood upright, the tallest reaching a height of 4.7 metres. The Holocaust Memorial is constructed of massive stone blocks arranged on a 19,000 sq m (204,440 sq foot) plot of land between East and West Berlin.

The stone slabs seem to undulate with the sloping land. There are no plaques, inscriptions, or religious symbols at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The solid rectangular stones have been compared to tombstones and coffins. Visitors to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe can follow a labyrinth of pathways between the massive stone slabs. Architect Peter Eisenman explained that he wanted visitors to feel the loss and disorientation that Jews felt during the Holocaust. Each stone slab at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a unique shape and size. The stone slabs at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial have been coated with a special solution to prevent graffiti.

Critics protest that the Memorial is too abstract and does not present historical information about the Nazi campaign against the Jews. Other people say that the Memorial resembles a vast field of nameless tombstones and captures the horror of the Nazi death camps. People who praise the Berlin Holocaust Memorial say that the stones will become a central part of Berlin's identity. Many people felt that the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe should include inscriptions, artefacts, and historical information. To meet that need, a visitor's centre was constructed beneath the Memorial stones. The Memorial opened to the public on May 12, 2005 and now carries its sombre message to the world. Protests against the Memorial – both its concept and design – have been numerous.

While I was wondering seeing the thousands of the unique and uniform slabs, Vivek who was sitting beside me suddenly lied down on the floor. I was speechless and could not understand what to do next. Many people might feel a kind of depression seeing the very abstract and symbolic structures of thousands of graveyard slabs, so I thought he might have struck with something. Three moments passed, I could not move from the place or even could not close my mouth. I was watching him, and then he did two- three push-ups as he does in a Gymnasium and stood up. Then he whispered in my ear, ‘let’s move forward! The walking tour had already left the place, so we walked fast.

Book Review: 'No Alphabet in Sight New Dalit Writing from South India: Dossier1: Tamil and Malayalam'; Edited and Introduced by K Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu

2012-08-27T00:50:00.003+02:00

‘I don’t think I am a poet yet. On the primordial grasslands of my people, there is poetry. I might yet become a poet when I get there. That will be my true poetry.

(Raghavan Atholi; The Poet with a Forest Fire Inside, Pg. 345)

O! My God! I have just finished reading of the 650 page ‘No Alphabet in Sight New Dalit Writing from South India’ a book edited and introduced by K Satyanarayana and Susie Tharu. I have bought this book paying money from my pocket! Its price is 600 (sorry, actually 599!), that means each of its page costs Rs 1. I picked it up when the book was released at a function organized at the EFLU campus. I wished the book to possess, for I wished the authors’ signatures on it. And I got it. When I purchased it, I soliloquised that, one day I would read it, if not today or tomorrow. Today is that day when I devoured this book. It was the time to go to Germany and I wanted some books to carry with me. I could select any of the books I had in my room, but I preferred this one. My brother frequently asked me whether I would take this book with me. It is a very heavy considering its heaviness and its content. I said him, yes, but he tried to put out of sight in thinking it would be too weighty to be carried. Actually Nehru compelled me to take this book with me! Nehru? Yes, in my seventh class, I have read a lesson about Nehru and his words about book. If we respect a book, we are actually respecting its author(s). Prof. Satya Narayana and Prof. Susie Tharu edited this book. I hoped both would guide me if I took this book with me.

me with Prof. Susie Tharu

For my MPhil, my research query was the (im)possibility of a dalit literature in Kerala and again the (im)possibility of a community formation among dalits. When I completed reading this book, I suddenly memorized my thesis. One of the tactics to disprove is, comparing Kerala dalit life with the life of Maharashtra where a strong dalit movement and literature emerged out. As the book argues that comparing a dalit life in a state like Kerala to the dalit in Bihar is very problematic. It actually reduces the issue of the entire dalit problems into a very few issues like untouchability or two tumblers system, but the marginalization of dalits are multifaceted and diverse. Anywhere in the book, they are not comparing their lives with other states of India to prove that as everywhere, the South also has a dalit literature, but it speaks only the two states, and its multiple possibilities of dalit writing. Dalits are not a homogenous category so as their stories. Everybody contributes to the dalit literature in their own way. There are sturdy internal criticisms, multiple voices and solutions to face the challenges, celebration/ demolition of the same political and social idols, a parallel dalit feminist critique, but all journeys flow for a common cause. The book is not narrating a homogenous dalit experience or dalit literature, each page of the book is a small stream which reaches to the ocean at last. The pages are colourful, but powerful current as in a river. Don’t expect it’s only a downward river which reaches to the ocean. It also diverts somewhere and goes in search of upwards current. But whatever way it goes, it reaches to the ocean called dalit literature. This is not a simply a Dossier as the book claims. It is not a simple collection of diverse writing of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but its introduction itself is influential to make a separate book. The introduction is detailed the miniature events happened in the states. When this introduction is added to the first pages, the book broadens its length beyond a just dossier. By giving its name ‘No Alphabet in Sight’ the authors successfully overcome the issue of an alien title for the book. The title is a title of a Malayalam book, so the authors act as they have nothing added new. The description of the authors are very helpful to understand the background of the writers and their diverse life.

me with Prof. Satyanarayana

The book celebrates the dalit life, most of the writers of the book are dalits by birth, not they are thematically dalits. All the writings start from internal criticism and develop to trouble the accepted notion of establishments. They question everything, untouchability, landlessness, Hindutva agenda, law against the conversion, poverty No dalit writer says meaningless stores, but a story with a social mission. This 650 pages are impressively engraved the everyday realities of the South India States, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This book is a proof for an undeniable truth that there is a strong dalit life narrative emerging out even from extreme south of India. Can one who is not a dalit write dalitliterature? Just listen, what Vizhi. Pa. Idayaventhan says:

‘Well, let me give you the example of Sujata who wrote a story about hunger. I also have a story called ‘choru’. Their sadam (the Brahmin tem for cooked rice) and my choru (the lower caste term) are different. Hunger for me is my experience, but it is also that of my children and my forefathers’ (pg. 169).

Some of them inspire other dalit brethrens with the way they lived. For example, Sreedhara Ganeshan says, ‘To write Vaangal I stopped working for six months, living off a cup of tea and one meal a day. The 1000 page work was edited down to 500 for publication’

When you start reading this book, you may feel as you enter into a burning forest. The fire is so powerful which burns the injustice which is done against the indigenous people. The dalits start to read everything, literature, history, aesthetics, philosophy and all types of stereotyping. Dalits are well aware that they are not attempting to interpret everything in a parallel or opposite of the excising aestheticism. . But dalit practice is not a reflection of any one unity, rather it encompasses a variety of presences, complexities, experiences and absences. The dalit manifestoes of the seventies addressed this condition in which all the elements were interconnected or mixed. (KK Baburaj, Pg. 371). The categories like opposite, alternative, secular, and parallel are delineated by western systems of thought, and the processes of pollution and invisibilization on the East are both in a state of crises. At this juncture, along with the emergence of new subjectivities, discourses of the multitudes are also taking central stage.

with Prof. Susie Tharu

Everywhere we must expect an opposite voice in between different castes, each writing may be the controversial each other, but after all, this all controversial, divergent writing are called dalit writing, because dalit life is not unilinear. Dalit studies challenges the objectivity of knowledge and endorses the view that different belief systems and contradictory interpretations are possible. For example, Mathivannam is not convinced by Ravikumar, Sivakami and others who say that Periyar is an enemy of dalits and that he retarded their development and so on. On the contrary, he feels that Periyar and the movement he initiated have done many things for the upliftment of dalits. The recovery of Iyothee Thass, a Tamil dalit Buddhist scholar in the 1990s by some dalit writers, Mthivannam argues, an attempt to uproot the inclusive ideology of Periyar. Thass belonged to one dalit caste (parayar) and he worked for that caste group. So to him, the attacks on Periyar are a result of a union between the past Brahmin and the present Brahmin. Actually this argument is not so trivial; the whole Tamil dalit intelligentsias are divided in this issue that who is the dalit hero Periyar or Iyathee Thass. Ravikumar very plainly argues that the lineage of dalit is a Brahmin one (The original Brahmin- the Buddhist who were destabilized by the false Brahmins sometimes after the 10^th Century- suffered innumerable hardships, pg. 269) and he goes on for saying Periyar did not do anything for dalit and abolition of untouchability in Tamil Nadu.

He concludes his article, ‘Re-reading Periyar’

Ambedkar concludes his book, what congress and Gandhi Have done to the untouchables thus: ‘The untouchables will still have ground to say: ‘Good God! Is this man Gandhi our savour?’ if the deeds of Periyar are analysed the dalits in Tamil Nadu would ask a similar question: Good God! Is this man Periyar our savour?

Some argue dalits should grab the ‘best’ language with wonderful style and all, and other argue, dalits should write in their own languages. For example, Azhakiya Periyavan says, ‘I am a conscious stylist, but you must remember that I am also landless! People tend to believe that dalits are ugly and that we use an unrefined cheri bhasha. I want to respond to those criticisms by writing consciously in a literary style about dalit life.’ (pg. 231). Must dalit writers criticise dalit life? Still there are numerous stands about it, but Sivakami strongly bringing out a possible dalit woman writing through her novels.

If I am asked to make a choice the most striking articles/stories from the dossier, what writings would I select? It is actually very easier said than done to select such a limited number of books from a huge collection. All are much thought provoking, enthralling writings. Another problem is articles, poems and stories are not the same genre. So my selection is very much subjective the seven most striking writing are;

Rock by MB Manoj (Pg: 530)
The Unwritten and Writing: Dalits and the Media by Ravikumar (pg: 266)
Kukai by cho.Dharman (pg.104)
Narrativizing the History of Slave Suffering by Sanal Mohan (535)
The Show (Abhirammi) (Pg: 75)
Ghost Speech by C Ayyappan (351)
Scavenger’s Son in the Collective Thinking of Tamil Writers by Mathivannan (Pg. 216)

I must explain why I select these seven writings as very unusual.

Rock is an extra ordinary dalit poem written with some unimaginable imageries and symbols. Each line of the poem is a long essay. Nobody has written what is a dalit poem in an easy way than Manoj wrote. It declares that when vein of a Muslim League activist oozes green blood and Marxist dark red, but for a dalit when s/he is stabbed s/he produces black blood! Remember the proverb, ‘better is to be a lion in day than be a rock for 1000 years’ so it also denies the main stream idea of a valour, chivalric notions like lion and tigers and instead prises the importance of being a rock which has the years long experience, patience and it silently witnesses the fall and raise of communities. The least wanted and ever time unnoticed things like mud, rock, pebbles are never exampled in Malyalee aesthetic sense. Manoj dares to associate with it and hence goes in search of a dalit root. We see rocks everywhere but we don’t know when it emerged there. IN geography books we learn rocks are the result of powerful volcano, but we never see (but in TV of course!) in a volcano, the lava makes the rocks. In a place like Kerala this rock formation actually happened in a thousand years ago. Here the vocabulary of rock and dalit speaks the same. Both are the ancestral and inhabitants of the land. When a rock is demolished, the history, literature, poem of the rock is buried forever and only with lava the rock is created. Here the poet warns the privileged class of literary world, that if you people try to destroy the indigenous glory from the literature, the result will be powerful volcano again. In this poem there are pains of a yearlong negligence of the authority, anger of being sidelined. The poet also equates the sufferings of dalit with the sufferings of the Black people. Both are born with the disease of being unaccessed to the society. The notion of colour is also questioned here. Black is beauty, black beauty. The beauty of a rock is its colour of being black. So this strong imagery dismantles the very notion of beauty associated with any other privileged colour. And also it brings forth a new kind of beauty concepts. The image of rock is also an attempt to associate dalits to the nature. It strongly attacks the greediness of the capitalist/savarna/mainstream idea of destroying everything and exploiting everything for his/her own sake. Rocks (dalits) are the very indigenous, ancient inhabitants of the world. Its pebbles are always neglected. Because of its lack of visible power, people try to pull down or destroy it. for poet, the pebbles of the rock are the sons and daughters of the dalits.

The Unwritten and Writing: Dalits and the Media

Ravikumar’s article, The Unwritten and Writing: Dalits and the Media is quite impressive and incredible. He tries to find out a parallel media history for dalit. The immediate reason for his enquiry was the celebration of The Hindu’s 125^th anniversary on 13^th September 2003. In such a juncture, he traces the dalit media history in Tamil Nadu. His finding is very notable. Reclaiming against the main stream history of magazine production in Tamil Nadu, Ravikumar discovers Iyothee Thass, whose work has witnessed a revival in the post- Ambdekar centenary phase, has recorded the fact that the Parayar were the first to publish Tamil magazines in the Madrass presidency. Ravi’s history of Tamil media journeys parallel to the history of main stream publication, he problematizes all the claims The Hindu makes to celebrate. For example, see the parallel narration of both of the history,

G. Subramaniya Iyer, who started The Hindu and Swadesamitram, founded the Madrass Maha Jana Sabha in association with Anandacharyulu, Rangaianh Naidu and Ramasamy Mudaliyar in May 1884. However eight years early, Pandit Iyothee Thass had founded the Advaisananda Sabha in the Nilgris in 1876, he founded the Dravida Maha Sabha in 1891. The Hindu was founded in September 1878 with an investment of just Rs.1 and 12 annas- that too as a loan. Started as a weekly with eight pages selling for 4 annas, it initially had a print run of only eighty copies. Fifteen years later, in October 1893, Rettaimalai Srinivasan founded the magazine Parayan. It was started as a monthly with four pages for 2 annas. The total cost of production, including the advertisement, was Rs. 10. His reason for starting a magazine like Parayan was ‘So, those belonging to the parayar community should come forward openly to say, ‘I am Pariah’. Otherwise, he cannot enjoy freedom. He will lead the life of the suppressed and remain poor’. There is no doubt that The Hindu, which has not bothered to employ a single dalit in its 125 years of history, had the same ‘progressive’ attitude even during the time of Subramaniya Iyer. So he goes on saying that dalits very actively realized the importance of media as a powerful tool, but the representation of dalits in mainstream media is very minimal.

He quotes Jeffrey who says,

‘If you ask an Indian journalist, ‘do you know any dalit journalist?’ the answer could be a long pause and then, ‘could you give me a couple of days?’ sometimes it was a considerate ‘no’. There were some dalit journalists in Malayala Manorama, but they worked in less significant position. Ravikumar ends this dalit version of media history with the hope of dalit will someday understand their ability to produce a national daily as did they hundred years ago.

Kukai by cho.Dharman

This long short story is a mixture of different imageries and metaphors. The central character is an owl which comes as the savour of the poor people of the village. The relation of a child and its protection by an owl is very powerful. The new generation would be saved by the alien, dirty night bird. The owl also becomes a mother/sister figure of the story. The couple, Cheeni and his wife were thinking to grow crow, but accidently they discovers an owl and understand owl is very much related to their life. The village is dry and un-rainy and Cheeni’s act again suspected the villagers, and they are doubtful of such a sinful act of worshipping an owl, instead of accepting the socially normed deities and this intensifies their anger. Cheeni and his wife are adorning their dresses with owl shaped.

Cheeni with his wife go for a journey forever. Then he gets chance to prove that owl is the protector of the village when he come across the Gengaiah Nayakkar.

‘Why then you want to leave?’

Dont you know everything? I can’t but worship the owl!’

‘You silly fellow! Who would ever worship mudevi in one’s house?’

‘Even if it’s mudevi, was it not the owl that saved my child and ensured my progeny?’

‘You are right. I take that point. For so many generations my family has only one child, and that child too happens to be a male. Ask your owl god to give me another child. Or at least ask it to make that one child a girl. If that happens, I build a big temple for the owl, in this very village, and consecrate it’.

‘Here smear it on your forehead. Apply some on your wife’ as well. Next year you will have a son. Then year after it will be a girl, but it will not live as a girl.’

This girl also very important, she embodies the owl life and saves the people.

When Cheeni comes back to his village after long years, everything is changed. In a village where not a blade of grass could be seen except during monsoon, there was greenery everywhere. The appearance of the owl is described as ‘Suddenly, the din of birds clamouring could be heard. The branches rustled as the birds flew out. They circled around one tree and cried out. Akkaiah Nayakkar stood up and walked towards it. Cheeni followed him. On a newly cut branch,, freshly sprouting at the edges, sat an owl. All the birds attacked the owl and to tried to chase it away. The owl fled jumping from trees to trees in search of a hideout. The birds kept chasing it away.

‘What’s this bird? I have never seen it here.’

‘Saami, this is the night bird. We call it kukai, the owl. This bird is the real owner, the authority of this forest. This primeval bird knows not swift flight. Nor can it hide to escape attack. The colourful birds which came later drove it out of the forest. The owl lamented and cried for justice. You do not know how to sing. Or cry. Or speak. You do not have colourful plumes. Nor can you dance with feathers fanned out. You are the sinner that eats flesh. The other birds drove away the owl with these words.

The story suddenly speaks about the dalits who were the first inhabitants of the earth. And despite their strong history and knowledge they forgot to retaliate to the late comers of colourful birds. The story is very powerful and written in a very skilful way. The translator of the story admits, Kukai is a challenging novel to translate. If the words peculiar to the karisal region pose difficulties for translation into mainstream standard language, the metaphorical brilliance and the narrative structure, which is not slotted into chapters and sub-sections, puts demands on creative abilities that academic translators may not posses’. (pg. 104)

Here I point out some absents in the text. Lackness and silence are always projected in any work. Firstly for some dalits, this book is literally a ‘no alphabet in sight’. When it’s a strong word against the marginalization and sidelined, some dalit writers did not get a space in the book. At least skipping of two dalit writers is not justified. The absence of Kandal Pokkundan and Kaviyoor Murali raises some serious questions.

Who is Kallen Pokudan? Pokkudan is a dalit, in its true meaning. He rejected his autobiography for its imperfection. If we can consider a book is a child of an author, Pokkudan considers his first autobiography (incidentally it is the first new-dali autobiography of a dalit ever written in Malayalam!) as premature birth. After publishing, Kandalkadukalkkidayiel Ente Jeevitham was widely recognized. In its zenith of publicity Pokkudan recognized the silence of a dalit life in the autobiography. He understood the way the interviewer diverted the issue of caste over the idea of class. He disowned Kandalkkadukalkkidayil Ente Geevitham (My Life among the Mangroves). Thaha Madai, the chronicler, was accused of diluting the political aspects of the Dalit environmental activist’s life. To allegations that it paid little to no attention to Pokkudan’s Dalit identity and concomitant political implications, Thaha Madai retorts that the intention from the start was to focus on Pokkudan’s struggles as a local environmental activist, not his caste identity. After a controversy the publisher, DC Book decided on Pokkudan’s version and came out with a more comprehensive and more authentic version, titled Ente Geevitham (My Life), transcribed by his son Sreejith. That moment he started to write the dalit part of his life. As a reader, one has the right to see Pokkudan in the book. In the last pages of the book, Yesudasan pains saying there is no dalit autobiography born yet.

It is very significant that the dalit community in Kerala has not produced a single autobiography yet. I am not sure if this observation is true. The inference that only a community which has self-confidence can produce autobiographies may perhaps be true. Literacy and politics might play important roles as well. We must not forget the fact that Ayyankali, the greatest dalit of Kerala, was himself illiterate. (Emphasize added)

(TM Yesudasan; Towards a Prologue to Dalit Studies, pp. 625)

That means he has not at all aware about the fact that a dalit called Kallen Pokkudan has written his dalit life! His autobiography was published in 2007 by the prestigious publisher DC Books and it was celebrated for being the first of its kind of genre. Though the autobiography skipped the very serious life experience of Pokkudan, and projected his political and environmental activism, still the ill treatment of the caste people came in the book here and there. The important thing was his denial of a good name. Dalits were prohibited to christian their child with a good name. Why Pokkudan was named as Pokkudan, because his pokkil (umbilical cord was too long), so he got that name, Pokkudan right from his birth. He again wrote his dalit life with the help of his son and other dalit writers. But to him, at least the title of the book is very meaningful; ‘No Alphabet in Sight’.

Anyway when the reading comes to the Malayalam section, one feels the powerful current of the dalit writing has just stopped or at least faded away. In Tamil Nadu, the dalit creativity is very powerful, it is multi-faceted, sharp, poly-linear, colourful, but when we reaches to the ‘Malayalam Sector’, the whole dalit issue revolves round a single issue of land reform. Re-reading of much acclaimed Land Reform, the land issue itself, and the govermentality of the Kerala government are very vital and these should be questioned, but when it is a dossier of dalit writing, it suddenly reduces its focus to this issue. For example, CK Janu gets a space in the book though she is not a dalit in a ‘literal sense’. If we consider the Maharashtra Dalit Panther’s definition, all adivasis, landless, women are coming under the category of dalit nad here CK Janu comes in this all these three category, but in her interview the difference between dalit and adivassi are more obvious. Each line of her interview says dalits and adivasis have different issues to look after. She says:

True, after Muthanga, a distance (between dalits and adivasis) emerges. With the build-huts protest, it is only the adivasis who get land, right? I think part of the problem was that even though there was a huge dalit presence in the protest, land was only given to adivasis. Also, the build hut protest happened in the heart of the governemtn, in the city. It also got the attention of and supprto fo the media. It was a struggle that got international recognition. But Muthanga was basically a different kind of a struggle. The build-huts protest was a symbolic struggle. The Muthanga protest was based on actually acquiring land. I have my doubts how the dalit friends understood both these protests. Muthanga was more risky. There was the possibility that clashes, fightsand conflict would emerge. It is to be determined how many people have the stamina to go through with such a struggle.

(CK Janu, We Need to Build Huts all over Kerala, Again and Again, pp 444-5)

Here she actually raises serious psychic problem of dalit who attends any of the struggle. Dalits are afraid the situation wherever a stamina needs to go with a struggle and are suspecting the outcome of the struggle and its benefit. I was saying that Janu’s interview is included because she is talking about land struggle. Apart from this, if dossier really wants to include any adivasi, it must be Narayan who wrote the first adivasi novel in Malayalam literature and it got the Kerala Sahitya Akademy Award.

Dalits are not a single, homogenous category. It spreads through different religion and castes. When a reader goes through the Malayalam section, s/he wonders the least depiction of the multiple dalit lives there. Comparing with Tamil Nadu section, this section is more linear and homogenous. Most of the writers are representing the Dalit Christians (true, their marginality is also very central, but when it is about the Malayalam dossier, all other sections are marginalized in the book). The 90% of the authors are either from South Kerala or Dalit Christian! It is not incidental. The life of northern Kerala dalits is minimal and silenced. Raghavan Atholi, Pradeepan Pampirikkunnu and M Kunhaman are the three lone representatives of the North Kerala. One wonders that do they have nothing to say in this discussion. And the description of some authors are irrelevant. For example, when Lovely Stephen is described, the descriptions goes on, ‘It was during this period she met TM Yesudevan, then president of the CSI Youth Movement and close to Dynamic Action. She married him in 1985 and both decided to continue their social activism. However, Lovely and Yesudevan maintained their contacts with the friends at Thiruvalla even after they shifted to Kurichi.

How to Overcome Euro-spendo-phobia: A Conversation with the Doctor

2012-08-16T16:17:00.002+02:00

Dear doctor,
I am writing this note from Berlin, Germany. My question is: ‘After coming to Europe I face up a very serious psychic problem. Let me elucidate it. Whenever I go to any supermarket to purchase stuffs, I perceive everything in Indian rupees. When I wish to buy a spoon, its rate is 1 euro, but my mind is calculating the price in Indian currency that equals to 70 rupees. Do you think I should buy a simple ‘chammach’ for 70 rupees? Its really crazy, na? When I want to have a cup of coffee or tea the rate in India rupee equals to more than 100 Rs! Do you think I am mad to have a cup of coffee/ tea for such a merciless price? So I am compelled to share my coffee or tea with my friend, if I buy it. We add ‘the free milk’ and ‘sugar’ more to make it two cups or three. So we can at least manage. When it comes to the drinking water, you know, I have to spend more than 90 rupees for a one litter bottle of mineral water! Leave this all, if I need to go for pissing I need to pay them Rs.70! What a pity! So in such instances I am compelled to come back home unwillingly from any place and do it in my hostel only. It affects my body.

When I need to travel, for a day-ticket its 7 Euro, but in Indian rupees its more than 500! This 500 is enough for me to get an annual bus ticket from APSRTC. So I am compelled to travel without ticket or avoid any journey and to sit idly at my room always. It increases my body pressure and I become more lonely. The most miserable part of the story is recently I went to a museum with my friends, and when I found the entry ticket cost is 8 euro, I was calculating it into Indian rupees and it is equal to Rs. 500. Dr, do you think I am mad enough to go inside of the museum to see the older uninteresting stuffs spending easily that 500 Rs? So I felt a head ache and sat outside waiting for my friend coming out. Hence I wasted 5 hours just looking at the sky above. But the interesting part of this miserable story was I realized that I could also write poems, I attach that poem with the letter, after reading this note, you read that poem and send me some compliments.

I am half dead now, because of this problem I can’t buy anything. For our easily available banana, I have to pay Rs. 160! For tomato its more than 200, leave it all, for a smoke I need to pay 450 Rs for a pack! I am in a very desperate condition. You know I usually cut my hair once in two months, if it is not done in a month. Don’t like to grow my unwanted hair so long. I usually go to the cheapest available place to do this and bargain for a less price. Last time before coming here I gave 15 rupees for cutting hair from traditional cutting practitioner. (actually he deserved Rs. 10 I would say!) I had not cut my hair before coming to Berlin, so I went a hair beautification shop, but I did not enter into the shop, I saw the price from a board they kept outside. It is 20 euro. I said I have that problem of converting everything in Indian rupees, so when I did it I saw it was more than 1400 Indian rupees! Do you think I am such a stupid to go and sit before him? I was wondering I have that 1400 in my hand, then I can easily manage cutting hair for lifetime.

And seriously the moment I was very happy, was when I went to a 'Wishing Well' with my friends, I saw millions of euros submerged in the water, I thought everything is euro, but all are 'coins', so I donated one Indian Rupee coin and wished my dream (sorry, I wont say what I wished, its a secret), I think it also related to the problem I am explaining to you.

Dear doctor, I am in a great blight condition and day by day my life becomes grimy. So I expect your earliest response to how I can overcome these troubles. Doctor, I have some doubts. Is it a health problem? If it not then, what is it? Is it curable? I will be very happy if you give me a quick response, still then I can’t eat anything properly. From next year my other friends also may come to Europe, so your reply will be added benefit for those friends also.

Thanking you

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friend,

I read your letter very carefully and interestingly. Your note is not complete, but from the description I guess it’s a serious symptom of a psychic disorder called Eurpspendophobia. This disorder is termed in different names in different places. In Europe except Britain it is called eurospendophobia and in Britain its Poundspendophobia. In most of the American countries it is termed as dollerospendophobia. This symptom largely was seen in India after the massive migration of the people to gulf countries. It was seen specifically in the northern part of Kerala and doctors called this physic disorder as dinar-spendo-phobia. Later in southern part of Kerala, when people started migrating to Canada and other American countries, another disorder but with the same symptoms was seen, doctors termed it as dollerospendophobia. Anyway there is nothing to worry about it. With some practical exercises, this disorder could be easily recovered. For a better understanding I also explain how I overcame this symptom when I went to England for my research purpose. So this answer is a little autobiographical also.

What I was saying is that once I was sent to England from my University after getting Madam Curie scholarship. I was caught by this psychic disorder called Poundspendophobia. I was getting more than 3000 but this phobia compelled me to not spend any pound for a long. I wanted to visit a lot of museums, amusement parks, party, film festivals, clubs, but I could not do. I felt that somebody was pulling me behind and every time I went to the museums and other better destinations only to come back unhappily. In such a miserable condition, I paused my research and did some social research on how to overcome this health and psychic problem. My findings are given below, and I guess, you can also adopt most of the solution I implemented. After applying these all, I completely recovered from this phobia.

1. European countries are blessed with plenty of water resources like lakes and rivers. But you will not find out any common drinking pipe system there as we find it in India. You need to spend some euro for buying for bottles. As you wrote in the note, for a litter of mineral water you have to give more than 90 rupees! When I faced the same situation in England, I would always try to not drink a single drop of water for along. So I also found a new way of endurance. (I have published a book based on this experiment of survival). A healthy (wo)man needs not much water as we usually read in newspaper and other research findings. All these researches are coming from the vested interested parties who want to sell their water bottles for a high price. By doing this you can also positively reject this hegemonic ideas of the capital society. The other method is you can use the tape water for drinking purpose. People are using the tape water to prepare coffee, tea and cooking, but who advise you to not drink it? Here again, I suspect the above mentioned capitalist hegemonic ideology has been worked out to prevent us to not drink the tape water. Remember, you are struggling against the dominant ideology with your own act. In my analysis this hegemonic culture also produces a new notion of purity and impurity. If we use the same tape water for cooking, coffeeing and teaing, then you can also use it for drinking. So I think using this method you can easily overcome the problem of drinking water. Coffee and tea are the products of capitalism. The over consumption of both are taught by the late capitalist society. Better is to read all the research papers which find both coffee and tea are very harmful to our metabolic functions of body. The two dreadful nicotine contents of coffee and tea may cause us dangerously and it may take us even to death. Why should we put a cobra around our shoulder deliberately? The other studies have been assessed that these two capitalist drinks are more harmful than alcohol. So think twice before you have tea or coffee.

There is nothing danger than serving milk every day. In naturopathy, milk is not at all ideal nutrition. When the industrialization happens, it was their compulsion to feed people more milk, so they fooled people renting the leading scientist and declared milk is an ideal and perfect nutrition for health. Remember there is nothing called ideals, we are living in a postmodern society and we believe in reflexivity and relativity. So the authentic versions of ideal, perfection, completeness are nothing but the re-production of the hegemonic vocabulary. So here you can successfully prevent all these propagandas by avoiding milk. And what is exactly this milk? Milk is a birth right of a calf. And nobody has entertained to snatch the right of an animal by dirking his/her dutiful and necessitate right of having its mother’s breast milk. You can also join the animal right movement by declaring your solidarity to not consume the milk. And still you want to drink it, and then you can elaborate your method of sharing. Every time when you go to the shop, keep a secret glass with you, and order a coffee/ tea, then take your secret glass and pour more milk into it. By doing this you can get more milk for a less amount, (but still I advice to not go for this)

2. You have also mentioned the public comfort stations are very expensive and you have to pay at least Rs. 70 for a going. It is actually very easy to solve this issue. Firstly if you practice how to reduce the drinking water so, you can also successfully reduce going to the toilet several times. If you are travelling anywhere, you try to not drink a single drop of water, so you can prevent going to the toilet. Most of the European countries successfully utilize the human waste for industrial purpose, they collect it massively and produce biogas. They are using our ‘unproductive’ waste and increasing their income. And instead of giving us our rightful money back they are paying from us. Quite lot of theoreticians critiqued the exploitative notion of this capitalist economy. Marx is still important to think about. Here we are a labour class, producing our ‘surplus’ amount and giving to them without getting anything, but paying to them instead. It’s a very naked exploitation and you can also conduct some protest against the unnatural utilization of labour and money. The other way to avoid this is, in most of the European countries there are some bushes called Common Floss Flower and small plants are seen. Studies reveal European countries maintain forestry and ecology more than enough. So you can utilize such a possibility ‘to go to nature’ for nature’s call. Here you are fight back to the capitalist ideology by watering the plant and also negating their ideology of paying for everything.

3. In my study I have found out that museums and entertainment business are nothing but the usual practice of late capitalism. It is not the common man’s need to keep the old and ancient stuff to declare their ancestry and power they inherited through generation. We must have to deny this brain storming practice of keeping the hegemonic ideological symbols which kept the lower class people’s practices and rituals invisible. In a close reading, here I guess a new equation has also been worked out. By charging high cost as entry fee, they are historically keeping away the lower class people to enter their cultural symbols and practices. So do you think it is better to go inside giving such a heavy price and enjoy the old power structures of the dominant class or keep out yourself from such ideological power producing houses? So if you are not going to any museum or tourist place means you are approaching to the culture of common man and depressed class. The lower class people will never hide their cultural symbols, actually these are not for hiding and charging money but for spreading and showing. The other amusement industries and theatre industries are doing the same.

4.And for your questions about cutting hair, I think you need a more elaborate answer. I strongly suggest you to not cut your hair. So have to protest against the male chauvinism which bloomed inside in you. Let me elaborate that point. I should say something about the masculinity and how the idea of a masculine image, we people are nurturing in our mind. Patriarchy has done enough destruction to the natural growth of a child. This is only the patriarchal system taught us to cut our hair to differentiate from women. Hence it soon became a symbol of valour, power, and masculinity. The social and cultural system compelled each man in a society to follow a particular system to control his inner motives. And after world war second was over, then the women were forced to go inside of her house, and they were forced to grow their hair. Women had enough time after doing all domestic works, so the patriarchy taught her to spend nurturing and oiling her hair. Men were forced to cut their hair because he had to do all the public activities and the public places were soon seen only the cut-haired heads and it became a symbol of handsome, heroism and manliness. We have to awaken and walk in our own way. Here by disobeying the patriarchal way of living you are liberating yourself from that nasty patriarchal culture. Historically speaking, hair was not at all disturbing symbol for men in older days. In a research I did about the ancient Rome, I found most of the ancient folks were encouraged to keep their hair uncut. You look at the prophets, eminent leaders, and revolutionaries, they kept their hair uncut at least for six months. So for you, these six months are very perfect. Nothing in our body is unwanted. If it grows by nature, we should not prevent it. Why we try so is because the social system teach us to do so.

I want to add more on this issue. But you are in such a hurry so I am skipping some of my research on how I could easily overcome my own eurospendophobia. If you have any further clarification, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Dr. Guna Shekharan

MA (Sociology), PhD (Cultural Studies)

Carnival of cultures, Berlin

2012-08-13T00:40:00.004+02:00

Nothing but excellent was the only word I would say when I put in writing about the carnival of cultures I eye-witnessed in Berlin. It was just a few weeks after we reached in Deutschland. One day I found an email in my yahoo inbox from ESN (ERASMUS Students Network) about an outing to the Carnival of Cultures. As guided by the mail, we trio, Vivek Singh, Aparna and me reached at Yorkstrasse around 12.30 pm, but nobody was there to go together with us. We, actually, did the misapprehension. We thought that without registering or at least informing them, ESN people would expect us at the station. We waited and waited. All were in vain. At last when all hopes bore no fruits, we were about to go back. For the last attempt we asked a guy who was sitting with an unusual dress:

‘What on the earth this carnival of culture is?

He grimaced and gave an explanation in a word.

‘It is nothing but walking, eating and walking again’

We could not comprehend what he exactly meant.

We again asked the way to reach to the spot.

‘The venue is right here, it starts from where your feet are’

After saying this he left the place hurriedly.

We looked around, and then we saw a deluge of people who were walking, running and eating. He was true; the venue was widening in each second. It was like an oversized train and each group of people became a chain as in such a train in which each compartment becomes its part. We walked forward and followed the people. We knew at least one million people would turn out there on that Sunday. After a stride we stood for having a slice of bread and ya, again walked forward. We looked as if three chicks which walk at a moon-lit night. We could not know what exactly happening there and we were wondering that it was the much celebrated carnival of culture! After walking at least 3 KM, we reached a place where lakhs of people gathered massively and we saw countless counters of eateries. The first one at the extreme corner of the road was a Tamil restaurant run by Sri Lankans, we just waved our hands. There were hotels and stalls of each countries and they served very diverge tastes. From that time, the crowd was getting increased in each moment, the place suddenly suffocated with the excess of the throng. We thought we would miss each other in the crowd.

Suddenly we noticed in the nearby street road, five-six police vehicles were moving bit by bit. We were afraid of something bad which was about to happen. We crossed the road and expecting that ‘something’. When reached there we felt the street was already parted very nicely into a beautiful path and from afar a saffron coloured flag was seen. We read it No. 1 and at a snail's pace, it was coming out from the western side of the street. We made our camera ready to catch the moment. A relentless and continues music was approaching towards us. When it was about to reach at us, we knew it was not one, a flood of parades were coming there. The sounds of the different music rested above. Yes, the riot of colours here started!

The great parades of Carnival of Cultures have just begun. People lined up with their innovative ideas and dresses. Some people came there with wonderful and strange dress, some with a minimal dress and some with full covered dress. We saw Palestine people with a placard declaring their solidarity to the Berlin Festival. Children from different parts dressed up beautifully and sang fantastically, and then they were seemed as fresh angels flied down to the earth. Some played tricks also. Small kids mixed their hands with chocolate and shook hand to people only to make others hands dirty! A funny chocolate shake hand! When Vivek saw a kid offered a hand, he shook his to get a fistful of chocolate colour! He could not understand what was happening and the lady near to him very politely offered a tissue paper to clean it. Yes, it was the time to celebrate, dance, make fun and also such a simple help.

On the Sunday of 27th May 2012, about 4.800 participants machinated in 90 groups changed Kreuzberg District of Germany into a riot of colours and ideas.

Every summer, Berlin celebrates its own unique carnival, called the Carnival of Cultures - more than 1,5 million visitors flock to the district of Kreuzberg to celebrate the multicultural spirit of Germany’s capital. The procession started at 12.30 pm, at Hermannplatz and ended approximately 9.30 pm, Yorckstraße.

The street procession focuses on the cultural richness of Berlin, and also highlights the often hidden treasures of its international cultural scene. It questions everyday life and politics. Carnival is a combined art form that embraces many aspects of artistic expression. Due to the global migration currents it is multifaceted and of mixed styles.

The Carnival of Cultures is open to everybody and all forms of cultural expression. It is regarded as a platform for a proud expression of hybrid cultural identities, containing traditional and contemporary elements. It includes and attracts all age groups, professional artists and amateurs, people from all walks of life. People from all over the world come to Berlin to take a look at the colorful costumes and cheerful performances. The carnival of Cultures is one of the main events in Berlin which is taking place every year through the streets of the city between May 25th and May 28th in 2012, with a four-day street-festival, the Parade (28th of May) and various parties throughout the whole city.

The colorful highlight of the festivities is the street parade, where more than 4,500 performers in authentic costumes, elaborately decorated floats, and musicians from over 70 different countries dance through the streets of Berlin.

Soak up the samba rhythms, enjoy Brazilian drummers, Congolese singers, Korean culture groups, artistic larger than life puppets - and a bit of Rio de Janeiro in the streets of the German capital.

The idea of a carnival which presents the cultural and ethnic diversity of Berlin was developed in 1995, i.e. at a time when – as a consequence to the political and economic changes since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of the two German states – a lot of social, economic and cultural changes happened. Due to these changes, to the economic decline of Berlin and the different economic levels and social and cultural experiences of people in East and West Berlin, social conflicts became more evident and even increased. This state of change resulted, among other things, in a biased and prejudiced view on immigration, which was reflected in the public discussion.

At the same period of time, Berlin attracted a growing number of artists from all over the world and a new cultural off-scene developed, which added to the cultural richness of Berlin. Berlin developed into one of Europe's music centres with a focus on different styles of electronically generated music.

There had been attempts to initiate a carnival in Berlin in the past. Those concepts which had been based on already existing patterns, like the carnival in Rio or the Notting Hill Carnival in London, did not gain sufficient support and could not be implemented in Berlin.

The involvment in carnival activities strengthens the bonds within ethnic communities and among all the groups alike. Their presence in the national and international media lead to a growing self-esteem within ethnic communities. Therefore, the Carnival of Cultures promotes the awareness for the positive impact made by immigrants on Berlin's cultural and social life. Large numbers of young people are involved in carnival activities, many of them coming from multi-ethnic or difficult social and economic backgrounds. While participating in the preparation for the carnival, many of them develop a level of commitment and reliability most unusual in their daily life. Many bands from Berlin's wide-ranging live and electronic music scene as well as theatre and art groups add their aesthetic visions to this sensual and joyful celebration.

Berlins Carnival has been inspired by modern European carnivals like the Notting Hill Carnival in London and the Rotterdam Zomercarnaval. It has taken in elements of many traditional carnivals and celebrations from all over the world. By being open to cultural rites, customs and traditions it attracts performers from countries without carnival traditions. The inclusion of all these elements makes the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin quite unique.

By inviting numerous associations, institutions and individuals in Berlin – among them theatres and arts schools, youth and community clubs and ethnic associations, individual artists, musicians, bands and DJs – the WdK built a network of carnival activists which was and still is the basis for the Carnival of Cultures.

From the beginning on, it encouraged a discussion on the adaption of elements immanent to carnival, including music, dance, masks, theatrical elements, performance and crafts.
The WdK provides the participants with workshop facilities for the preparation of costumes, masks and decorative elements for the floats. By doing so, it offers the groups a chance to meet and discuss their artistic concepts and means of implementation. The artistic quality of the group presentations has been stimulated and increased by the introduction of a competition during the parade in the fourth carnival year, 1999. Prizes are awarded to the best carnival groups, floats and youth groups thereby encouraging the development of all aspects of carnival.

We were watching each country and each and every country dressed up magnanimously, China came with a giant dragon, Japan appeared with a wonderful melody playing, all most all European countries came with an adorning festivity. We three waiting for India, we were sure, India would come if not now but definitely by late. For example if you visit the East Side Gallery painted in the (in)famous Berlin wall, the last painting is the Indian flag with a description of Amma Amirt, Budha nirvana, Muhammed light.... an Indian painter portrayed the glory of India in a very artistic manner. What I am saying here is India is near to the heart of the people of Berlin. So we waited and waited. When we felt hungry we went to a Turkish Kebab shop and ordered falaphel but with opening our one eye to see Indian parade.

Then we heard a Bengali song and a group of Bengali babus. We thought it would be India, but they were the exact Bengalis, I mean the people from Bangladesh. They stepped with the dance they were playing. People were expressing their ideas in a very attractive manner. We saw the protest against the non-vegetarian culture by the proponents of the vegetarian culture with a huge pig shedding tear. We saw the German parade who were shouting against the privatization and chanted for swedeshi brand. After a pause, there came Nepal with a very impressive theme. In the front of the rally, people dressed up like the three important religious priest. A Hindu sanyasi, a Muslim moulana and Christian achan and the people same dressed in the same manner followed them. It upheld the harmonious character for their country. They shared words in Hindi.

Parades came and went, we saw a lot of countries flags except India, but when it seemed the parade was ended, the next rally started. We were optimistic and walked towards the origin of the parade and thought when Indian parade started we could also participate in it. It was near about 9 O’clock at night. When we were about to reach the venue we saw a mixing of light in the sky and deafening sounds, and thousands of followers started to line up in a parade at the starting point. It was the African beauty. People were mesmerized with the charm of African wild music as a flout man’s pipe and followed them. It was amazing. We stood still and waited again for India. And the last parade came again a Latin American parade. Even the last man followed it.

That moment we realized India would not make its usual last appearance. We were desperate. Far away we saw some ladies with ‘Indian sarees. They must have also expected an Indian flag in this all cultures event. We approached them and within moment made a new plan. Immediately we drew an Indian flag and upheld it and walked forward as we were representing India.

Saare jahaam se se achaa

Hindusthan Hamaaraa..

Sang we loudly.

An Incredible Journey of a Mother to the heart of India (Calicut-hyderabd-delhi-shimla-delhi-hyderabad-bangaloor-mysoor-wayanad-Calicut), Part 1

2012-08-06T00:11:00.000+02:00

This is a simple note about my incredible journey. Incredible journey? Did a 55+ aged mother have an incredible journey? Frankly enough! In my life I have not even journeyed so long, my maximum distance at a sitting was some 100 KM, it may be a stopover to my sister’s house, from Kondotty to Wazhanad or my daughter-in-law’s house, from Kondotty to Palakkad. But one day, a phone from my son, Musaahique gave me enough laughs. He invited me to accompany to him to Delhi! My answer was very important; I could either thankfully refuse that offer or dare to accept it! Despite of all the teething troubles such a long journey would give me, I accepted that proffer. Doing this I had two intentions; firstly I sought to know whether he was serious and also I really wanted to go to somewhere faraway place. Each journey is a starting from our mundane life, no matter whatever its outcome may be, the journey is important. Until he was explaining his journey plan, I was thinking he was jockeying. But he was serious and well determined. The journey plan was very complicated, to me at least. I heard only a few places in his chart.

-Calicut-hyderabd-delhi-shimla-delhi-hyderabad-bangaloor-mysoor-wayanad-Calicut-

Firstly, I re-figured this map into -kondotty-areacode-manjeri-perintthanlamanna-manjeri-kondotty-. I could only reflect my imagination like a small circle of my village. My India is vast, vaster than I ever thought about. Whenever the news about the journey spread out, all put their fingers on their noses. All were apprehensive about my health. Some advised me to not take risk, and instead suggested me to favour to take the last option, a journey to Mysoor. North India is another world! a country of far far a way land. Firstly, I also considered taking the last option, but there were also some others who encouraged me to go with my son wherever he goes and some dared to ask him to append Kashmir too to the plan! Each journey gives us an endless experience and when I am concerned even a single step from my house is a starting point where a flood of experience begins to come!

at Hyderabad Central University

My son had obtained a gold medal from two central universities for his study excellence. He was placed first in MA Sociology from IGNOU, New Delhi and PG Dipolma in Dalid and Minority Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He missed the gold medal award-giving-function of IGNOU and when it’s time to get a gold medal from Jamia Millia Isalmia he readied to go to receive it. To make this event more colourful and blessed he invited me to accompany him. My family has extended support to go to the far away land. All of sudden, everything happened! But still there were some practical problems. He was in Hyderabad and somebody wanted to come to take me to Hyderabad. My three sons and daughter- in-law also were in Hyderabad. One day my youngest child phoned me and asked to come with some of his friends to Hyderabad. I agreed.

at Jamia Millia Islamia

I remember that day distinguishly. It was a fine, rainless November day. Flowers were bloomed everywhere. Monsoon has just stopped to make the event merrier, and the water it poured all along was filled even a single hole on the earth. My mind murmured, it is the best time to go anywhere. I started that very unexpected, but thrilling journey to affix new meaning to my life. I stepped into the train from Palakkad. Palm trees waved their leaves to send me off. Train seemed very happy to carry a lucky mother to go far. I was about to daunting with the new atmosphere, but the presence of those students who all were students of Moulana Azad Urdu National University, Hyderabad gave me enough safe feeling in a compressed and packed compartment. I did not even my seat; the idea of reserved seat was a new thing to me. But they helped me and found a very comfortable seat for me.

beside Taj Mahal

Train was in a very fast pace. The sound of chuk..chuk of the train resonated my own heart beat. I was separating from my beloved state into an alien, scary land. Instead of feeling fright, I enjoyed the journey. The night I slept in the train with millions of very colourful dreams. In my dream I was alone and was going to a valley where flowers blossomed and birds chirped and from far away a very small girl started dancing. The face of that young gal was not so lucid. She sang a very familiar song I used to sing in my childhood days. After a song, that child came along to me, I was surprised, it was me, and her face was mine! My dream was about me! I enjoyed that song, and when I was awake, the sun was already there. One of the students said to me, in a very low voice that the whole night I was singing some old songs! I said them: ‘Those all songs are not old, it all came from my fresh mind’.

before Jama Masjid

When the train halted the next stop, I heard some strange sounds of another languages, I looked at the sign board. It was Wijayawada. I took my mobile phone; the battery charge was already empty in it. I took a ‘reserved battery’ and inserted a new Andhra SIM card which my son had given me to put in when I cross the boundaries! Now everything is new, and from the freshly charged mobile phone I rang to Hyderabad. After years of struggle for living, first time I was going to a far a place. In a dreamy state, I was about to sleep again in day-time Suhaib came and said: ‘Umma we are reaching to the Secunderabad railway station’ then suddenly I got up and freshed my face with water. The train was on time until that time, but when it was about to reach its destination, it started to go very slowly, slower than a snail. I heard the sigh of the train. It only produced the chuk chuk sounds, but did not want us to leave it. one seat in this train was my abode at least for some hours. Then the train totally stopped. People were complaining and abusing for ‘the dead train’, but I felt rather very sorry to that poor train! Train only makes its name meaningful only there are thousands of travellers, and when nobody is there its only a iron coated machine body. So when it was about to reach its last destination, it did its last option to lag a little more time only to give it to be a meaning being.

Red Fort

When I was reaching there, my sons and daughter-in-law were already present there. They gave me rose flowers. I felt very happy. When I hugged my children I felt home in Hyderabad. We did not have much time before going to Delhi. I stayed with my son that day. I was too tired so I slept when I saw the bed. In a certain moment, I woke up. Still there was the light in the room, I tried to open my eyes and stand to switch off the light, and when I switched off the light, a meek sound came from the corner.

‘Mam, I am still awake. I am searching for a ticket for tomorrow’

‘Searching for a ticket for tomorrow?’

I did not comprehend what my son was saying, then he explained.

‘I booked our ticket for tomorrow, but the ticket from Hyderabad to delhi has been cancelled. I booked it through the website www.irctc.co.in. so if a seat is not confirmed it would be cancelled automatically. So I am trying to find out some other way to get a ticket’

‘Ok, well’

at Lotus Temple with two Swedish tourists

I actually did not understand what he was telling me. So I wished him a solution and returned to finish my broken dream. When I got up next day, he was still before his laptop, I was totally upset with him and in a very slow voice I express my disquiet with him for avoiding his sleep in the night. Then he told me in an excitement.

‘Mom! Finally I found a solution for our journey. I searched all the way around and at last found two trains to go to Delhi. In the first train we will go to Nagpur and we will stay in Nagpur a day and from there we will catch another train to Delhi. Actually there is not a single train to go without a break, and we don’t have another day to post pone our journey’.

He thought I would be very dissatisfied if I heard that very strange idea, but I was very happy to go wherever he would go. For me, this journey was not for a destination, but for travelling all around India.

Qutub Minar

The next day at 10 am, we reached at the train station. I have never seen such a crowd before in any railway staion. Every inch of Secunderabad railway station mackerel packed with the people. I was scared I might lose myself in that crowd. The train was going to Bihar. Though it was a sleeper class, each seat, two or three ‘illegal’ passengers occupied all most all the ‘reserved’ seats. Our two seats reduced into one. He told me the idea of RAC. One of our seats was occupied by a teenager. We did not say him to leave the seat, he was looking at us and expected anytime he would be asked to get up. There was also another man, a guy with a moustache and a pot belly, he was sleeping or rather pretending that he was in a deep sleep. He got a middle birth and he was ‘sleeping’ in that seat and made enough hard to the other passengers who were supposed to sit in the lower birth. All the five passengers were compelled to sit the other side. A pot bellied man in one side and five persons including women in the other side! I was thinking India is very divergent is all aspects!

The train started moving. A journey to a wonderland, a mother in a wonderland would be the apt title for this post. Suddenly I felt I lost everything which I thought would help always. My language became just some disturbing syllable to others and only my son understood what I communicated through it, what helplessness! Before me there was small kid with her mother and always it slipped from the seat, my heart ached, but my tongue was tied, no word which familiar to her did not come out it. I, in a very low voice, but

Hyderabad

sometimes in a bit louder pained her gesture to slip and I said only, ‘mol’, ‘mol’. I tried to believe that in all language words for mother and child must be same. When I failed to lull or convince that small kid, I turned back and held my son’s hand tight as if I were a small kid who confronted difficulties to speak its first syllable to its mother. If we don’t know a language we are equal to a innocent child!

((This is a translated version of a travelogue originally written in Malayalam by Maimoona Rahman))

A Visit to ‘Spy Bridge’, Germany

2012-08-03T07:14:00.002+02:00

Suppose when you are alone and unexpectedly a seraph appears before you and she blesses you a boon that whatever you wish, it will turn to be true! What you will then desire? We got an opportunity to visit a ‘wishing well’ where our wish would come true. When we reached the well, there were millions of coins sunk in the well already.

Vivek Singh looking into 'the wishing well'

So if we put some Euros or at least some cents, then the wish will come true in a faster way. Most of the people actually wished (it seemed) to seize all that Euros from the well, oops! What a bad idea! But I wished to not put any coin into the well, surely my wish would not come true. So I stood up aside and watched what my Spanish friend would wish for! She put some Euros and wished ‘let the world ever remains in peace! I don’t think all the Europeans are very superstitions, but this wish anyway was very noble and motivational!

Dear reader, I must not start this note on wishing well, actually I was thinking to put pen to paper a bit about the famed ‘Spy Bridge’ in Berlin. But the moment I thought about the bridge this ‘wishing well’ business came to mind first. Let me make clear what this spy bridge is precisely. In my first blog post (berlin wall) I have elucidated the Berlin Wall and the countless sufferings of the people the wall made possible to them. Glienicker Brucke, popularly known as Spy Bridge articulates the same old story of two oppositional blocks which occupied the beautiful Berlin city. The eastern side of German (including Potsdam) was shared for Red Soviet Russia and the Western part was given to Britain, France and US of America. This is only a part of the story. History of the bridge actually starts a bit early. When the major towns Berlin and Potsdam flourished side by side, this bridge was constructed in 1907 in the Havel River to connect these two cities.

'the Natural Fridge'

It was broken heavily in world war second and later a major reconstruction was carried out to meet people each other. As I just mentioned above, as part of the sharing business the bridge was also shared within the four countries, USSR, USA, UK and France. The offices of spies of both sectors formed surroundings of the bridge. Spies met and made ‘friendly talk’ here. Prisoners and people were exchanged here, and it stood a bare spectator to the cold war. Literally it stood witnessed to the power sharing dealing. You look at closely the bridge; half of the bridge was painted black to declare the power of the mighty countries.

I was thinking about our Hussain Sagar of Hyderabad when I was scrutinizing the bridge. Hussain Sagar divides Secunderabad and Hyderabad and both carry the legacy of colonial past. Seconderabad was actually built to gratify French power and they made it a cantonment to establish their power in Hyderabad. All bridges are the silent witnesses of ugly business everywhere!

The bridge immediately became a symbol of spy dealing and exchanging prisoners. Thousands of poems were written on the bridge. Films, cartoons, TV serious refereed the bridge. Smiley’s People, a novel written by John Le Carre made this bridge famous by continuously referring the bridge. The popular nickname 'Bridge of Spies' was used by the British band T’Pau as the name of the title track on their first album. The usage is metaphorical, referring to a 'walk to freedom' but in the context of long dreamt-of relationship.

After visiting the spy bridge we went to the palace (not exactly to the palace, but the courtyard of Schloss Cecilienhof fortress). It was a very sunny day in a cold shivering winter.

When the sun mercied upon us to go anywhere we wished without wearing the maddening winter jacket, then we preferred to visit the palace. It was one of the earlier journey with a group called Erasmus Students Network (ESN, Potsdam), an effort of some dynamic young (wo)men to make a get together possible within the foreign students. We are not ERASMUS students, yet we were invited.

Schloss Cecilienhof has been built in an eye catching place of the northern part of the Neuer Garten park. When we crossed the threshold the courtyard, the birds started chirping, squirrels squeaking, and a gentle breeze slowly passed telling stories to the dancing meadows, tall and short trees agreed unanimously what the breeze brought for them, later the wind ended and merged in the nearby Jungfernsee Lake, and then a school of fish jumped expressing their joy. Flowers smiled, beautiful butterflies flied everywhere!

Between 1914 and 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II had Schloss Cecilienhof built in the north of the gardens for his son Wilhelm and his wife Cecilie. The use of traditional building materials such as brick and wood helps the house to blend in with its surroundings.

the red flower star was the contribution of Soviet Russia

The actual size of Schloss Cecilienhof only becomes evident upon closer inspection: the house has a total of 176 rooms. Some of them were used by the Allies in 1945 for their Potsdam Conference. Its design was based on a house called 'Biston Court' (later 'Hillbark') on the Wirral Peninsula which in turn was inspired by Little Moreton Hall. The interior was furnished according to plans by Paul Troost, who originally had designed steamship décors.

The brick and oak timber frame building, including six courtyards and 55 carved brick chimney tops, should have been completed in 1915, but construction was delayed due to the outbreak of World War I and Crown Prince Wilhelm and Cecilie could not move in until August 1917.

Wilhelm followed his father into exile one year later, while Cecilie stayed at the palace until she fled from the approaching Red Army in February 1945. ! It was part of soviet Russia, so they made a beautiful Courtyard with red flower star, planted by Soviet armed forces in 1945.

There is a ‘natural fridge’ as well! When the shivering and bone chilling cold comes, the lake starts freezing completely. So the royal family made from this natural phenomenon useful and built a pyramid shaped fridge where the icy lake water stored in the pyramid and they kept food items until the winter ends.
When we started the journey the weather was perfect and fine, but later the climate gradually changed and it became cold again.

Book Review: The McDonaldization of Society

2012-07-30T01:26:00.000+02:00

"Little boxes on the hillside,
little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
little boxes, little boxes, little boxes
little boxes all the same"
- Malvia Reynold

Until I devoured George Ritzer’s book The MacDonaldization of society, I was thinking everything is very normal in our society, but now I realized we all are enchanted by the process called McDonaldization. Otherwise you tell me, whenever you get in to a McDonald’s or any fast-food restaurant, have you ever (I never) surmised why the guys in work are ‘acting’ very buzy, why in the shop only a few seats to sit but why more tables, why not any newspaper but only a TV above? Why not there is any kitchen inside and why they show their messy kitchen out? Why only a few menu and limited choice to offer? Why always young and energetic chaps are appointed there and why not old or middle aged? Why always the workers are replaced with others and why they have a uniform? And most often the employee asks us whether you eat it here or should he packs? Why the burger or any fast-food shows quantity rather quality? Or at least why the workers are wishing us ‘it’s my pleasure to help you or have a nice day?

To me, these questions were very stupid until I thumped through George Ritzer. Everything is beyond our expectations and our calculations, the book says.

George Ritzer is an American sociologist and he published this book in 1983 when nobody, even in India, envisioned about our today’s 20-20 cricket. He has not mentioned the term cricket anywhere in the book. Definitely he is not a Malayalee, and he does not know our Malayala Manorama and there is a least chance he visited in Hyderabad. But surely he has hinted at least three things, 20-20 cricket and Malayala Manorama and Hyderabad Tour Packages!

You read these paragraphs I quoted from his book,

"In the past few decades, the leadership of collegiate and professional (cricket) decided that fans raised in the McDonald’s era wanted to see faster games and many more (runs). In other words from (Cricket) what they got from their fast food restaurant- great speed and large quantities. It was believed, apparently correctly, that faster and higher scoring games would mean greater attendance and higher profits. Instead of the often the defender taking his turn at his bat, someone whose main (and sometimes only) skill is hitting replaces him. Designated hitters will get more hits, hit more runs, and help produce more runs that defender who are allowed to bat. (quote continues...)"

"Stories in (Malayala Manorama) usually do not jump from one page to another; they start and finish on the same page. To meet this need, long, complex stories often have to be reduced to a few paragraphs. Much of a stories context, and much of what the principles have to say, is severely cut back or omitted entirely. With its emphasis on light news and graphics, the main function of the newspaper seems to be entertainment".

Thousands of words are emerged prefixing McDonald’s or at least two simple letters ‘Mc’. McDentists, McDoctors, McChild, McStables, McPaper, McSex are some of these words.

So this term seems nothing to do with our eating habit. He explains in the book

"This is not a book about McDonald’s, or even the fast-food business, although both will be discussed frequently throughout these pages. Rather, MacDonald’s serves here as the major example, the ‘paradigm’ of a wide ranging process I call McDonaldization, that is

The process by which the principle of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world".

Why McDonald? Four alluring dimensions lie at the heart of the success of this model and more generally, of McDonaldization. McDonald’s has succeeded because it offers consumers, workers, and managers efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.

It offers the best available method to get from being hungry to being full. Calculability or an emphasis on the quantities aspects of products sold. Quantity has become equivalent to quality; a lot of something, or the quick delivery of it, means it must be good. As a culture, we tend to believe deeply that in general ‘bigger is better’. Predictability: the assurance that their product and services will be the same over time and in all locales. The people who eat in fast-food restaurants are controlled, albeit subtly. Lines, limited menus, few options, and uncomfortable seats all lead diners to do what managers wishes to do- eat quickly and leave.

After this point Ritzer goes far and compares all most all our social institution and checks how all these are McDonaldized. His extreme comparison of McDonald’s with Holocaust is worthwhile which seems he has such a strong disgust against the system called McDonald’s. McDonaldization and Holocaust show the same process, effectiveness, calculability, predictability, controlling and irrationality of rationality. The holocaust is an ‘efficient’ means for the destruction of massive numbers of human beings and it’s quite calculable that how many people could be killed in the shortest period of time (calculability) was effort to make mass murder predictable. Victims were controlled by a huge non human technology including the camps, the train system, the crematoria, and the bureaucracy that managed the entire process. He uses Weberian concept of bureaucracy and he shows if we examine the beurocrartization and McDonazation both share the same things. If we extend the McDonazation methods we can apply this theory to Shopping malls, entertainment, health care system, education and even pregnancy and death.

For instance when we hear Americans are hardly doing abortion, don’t think it a very positive thing rather they have already made everything possible to avoid the ‘abortion’, such as the selection of preferred gender, semen for a healthy and non diseased child, keeping a tentative pregnancy, doing all medical check up to see the ‘product’ called child in a ‘factory’ called hospital. Even death today becomes very McDonaldized, you can now compare all the leading point of McDonaldability of death also. Death becomes a rather entertaining business. Read this adv.

‘You will now have a choice! Louiseville’s affordable funarel home is your best choice; professional services $995; metal caskets as low as $160; opening May 1, 1994’

After all McDonaldization is nothing but the Americanization of society in a bad way.

This letter to the boss of McDonalds from a very passionate consumer when the main shop was in a verge of closing down: ‘Please don’t teare it down! Your company’s name a household word, not only in the United states of America, but all over the world. TO destroy this major artefact of contemporary culture would, indeed, destroy part of the faith the people of the world have in your company. (ER. Ship).

Like many of our scholars, Ritzer does not end up the book without any creative suggestion, but from the very first page he is telling how to lead a unMcDonaldized life today, in the concluding chapter he puts forwards a number of practical solution to escape from the McDonaldization, but the million dollar question is whether we learn a half lesion from it?

First Flight Journey (Part 1)

2012-07-22T03:42:00.000+02:00

Most of you guys might raise your eye brow when you read this post. True, the same feeling I also will have if I read a bit of penning about ‘my first bus journey, or ya at least ‘my first train journey’. Flight now is not an unusual thing. Today in facebook, I saw people were hashing out MA Yusaf Ali’s resignation from the post of Air India Board in repudiating the step motherly attitude of Air India to its travelers, I felt that most of my buddies from Gulf countries partook that news in their wall, that’s obvious. So this post is not for you, dears, but some others who still can’t deem that a machine called aeroplane carries people and goods through the air. They only have a mind of what they think about an aeroplane. In my childhood, the picture of an aeroplane was always fixed with a line of a mappila song my mother always sang. Its UK Abu Sahla’s song, I still only can recollect those two lines,

Vaanil parakkum vimaanamedukkuka

Athu kannakalum thorum cheruthaakum

(oops! Blur memory yaar! I skipped a line!, anyone memorize that line?)

Its translation is almost ‘take the example of an aeroplane which float through the air

It becomes smaller when our eyes are far away!

So my image about the aeroplane in those days was something which grew to be smaller and smaller when it went to the colourful sky. We in our toddler days really envisaged only a rocket could make the white marks, so we were wondering these rockets were coming every day, or three, four in a single day! But later we were aware of that those were not the marks of paths of rockets, but any flying object could make those marks.

I still remember my first train journey, from Calicut to Ernakulam. Train, always resemblances a huge maggot! Yup! In the film MIB (I), the very first scene is placed in a railway station where a small worm suddenly grows up bigger and bigger and takes the railway track to dart smoothly. What an imagination, I appreciate it. Both train and maggot have so many similarities. The railway station was mackerel packed with a huge crowd. The train was approaching. I had taken a general ticket, but I did not really know which compartment I must get in. When I enquired to my co-travellers, they replied but a snigger. Train came and I jumped into any of an 'S' bogie. To my luck, TTR did not catch me, so I escaped from the jail or at least a penalty.

Forgive me! I realize that I have much diverted from the topic. I was telling this all only to say, that when you read this, don’t feel, ‘ ho! This guy did not get any other topic to talk about or prrr! This boring sort of flight experience I heard so many time, and I heard about the Anna Hazare drama less than this!’

When I saw the airport first? It was on 25^th April 2012and when I saw the airport, all my beautiful imaginations about an airport has just broken down, or at least shattered! I felt it was nothing but just a Secunderabad railway station (I must not say it looks like Secunderabad bus station, because it’s quite big!). I had to fly to Germany and my plain was at 9.15, so I must report at airport at least three hours before the departure.

Those days it was very hot! Sweat dropped out from every part of my body, especially from fore-head, if it were in red colour you must believe that blood was oozing out! I got up very early from my bed only to wake up to an imaginary world where I would have flight, air, cloud and air hostess as my company. My classmate was also with me and she had already flied home by air. So I thought nothing was to be wired.

The previous day, I had called my uncle, Salam Kodiyathur.

‘Hi! Uncle! I am calling you this busy time only to clarify one doubt.’

‘Ok, what is that serious doubt?’

‘What must I do whenever I am given the panji and water by airhostess?’

Panji and water? What do you mean? It sounds like absurd.

I explained what I saw in a Malayalam film, Vettom in which Dilip was foxing the heroine.

Uncle burst into a laugher and after five or seven seconds, he explained that it is just another joke from Dilip, nothing serious in it.

We booked a taxi to fetch us to the airport. Taxi was very luxurious and when the driver turned A/C and a Tolliwood film song, the luxury started to augment. My brother Punnodi was with me, he was actually in an ecstasy. He always talked to the driver in a broken Telugu. When the comfortable cold inside began to diffuse slowly into my mind, I, bit by bit, went to a snooze. Driver was rushing to the spot, but whenever he crossed maximum speed limit the car stopped with a shriek and it got me also up.

The Rajive Gandhi airport in Hyderabad is very spacious. A kind of fright slowly erupted from my toe and it suddenly reached to my brain, that moment I felt to go to toilet. I said my brother to go back only when he got my missed call. We entered inside the airport. I smiled when our frog caged in a well, came to my mind, and I was thinking whether that frog and me had any similarity. Only 20 KG were allowed in our baggage. When my luggage was given, I saw it just crossed 20. If the lady at the counter (Is she also an air-hostess?) had asked me any additional charge for extra weight, I would have preferred to throw away two KG of washing powder, I soliloquized.

I already mentioned that I felt the airport as just an extended railway station, all the announcements resemblanced it. The destinations are same, Delhi, Vishakapatanam, Chnnai, Cochin, Kozhikode, Coimbathur, Ambala... I felt very hungry and it was the time of breakfast. I had time till my flight expected to arrive. I went in search of some food. When I heard the prize of a single kattan chaya, my belly murmured me, ‘daay! I am ready to put hold your hungry till you are provided a vegetarian ‘Hindu meal’ in the Air India. I felt very pleased to my suffering stomach! After a long waiting a sugary voice got nearer through the announcement box:

Flight number 2324 from Hyderabad to Delhi has just arrived and passengers are requested to board on. I queued to feel my first plain journey.

Book Review: A social history of Indian Football: Striving to Score

2012-07-20T15:16:00.002+02:00

A social history of Indian Football: Striving to Score by Boria Majumdar and Kausik Bandyopadhyay

Today I am writing about a book recently I winded up reading. Why did I like and enjoy this book? My answer is a little perplexed, but one is very apparent, after my graduation I have not read any book with such an enthusiasm and felicitouse. After coming to Germany it was not at all my concern to read something out of my area of research. I went through two three American novels (Falling Man by Dilio) and some culture studies books. But when I saw this book at the South Asian Studies Dept. Library I felt I must read it. Those days the Euro cup was in its ecstasy. My favourite teams Deutschland and France were enjoying their easiest first round victories. I took the book, but it took me time to open it. For two weeks I have not even touched it. By the time, in Euro Cup, Germany fell down hit by Bellaolli’s two goals in the semi final and Spain again revenged Italy to satisfy the German (and to me, of course!). When all ruckus ended I started reading my usual books, Post Modern Theory, Society and Culture and all others. But suddenly I got a chance to beat a football for a kick or two, I felt so nostalgic and remembered my country. In that occasion, this book came as a soft hand to pat on my head. Really when I was reading it, I felt I was in a big maidaan playing football before a huge crowd. The ceaseless sounds of the supporting fans were everywhere. I usually read it in the Potsdam Library, and most of the time either I burst into laugh or made unusual movement with my legs as if I were in the Salt Lake maidaan in Kolkatta.

What is the special with this book? It delineates the earlier days of Indian football. As cricket, football also was infixed by the British. They explained this foot game as a moral tool. Football teaches the physical exercise, loyalty to the master, discipline, team spirit and a tight time schedule. As part of civilizing mission, football suddenly became a cane to teach the Indian schools about the colonial morality. The circular available in the archives have clearly shown the civilizing mission of Briton through the aired ball. It also was a tool of Whites to prove their physical strength and prowess. Every time only the British teams won in the ground, but once this notion fell upside down when Mohan Bagan foiled the British packed team in 1911. In that day football instantly became a symbolic gesture of nationalism. That moment Britain unproved whatever they were proving as a solid truth. See the feeble, weak, effeminate Indian team played with their bare feet against strong, powerful, masculine Britain with their strong booted feet! But when India proved they could easily defeat the Briton, it led a serious discrimination from the Briton, every time they tried to discriminate Indian team or were not ready to play with it. The 1911 victory was celebrated by all, newspapers wrote editorials on that great victory. But the British historian used that victory as a success of British imperialism!. One British historian wrote, Indians should be very grateful to Britain in this victory, because of Britain gave them enough confidence and mental strength even to defeat their masters. So I was in such a colonial football ground, there I saw the two teams literally fought each other with a weapon called football. Hence Mohan Bagan suddenly puffed with the nationalist spirit.

Then in 1920s, the picture slightly changed and the ball became a weapon used against the two religions. The poor ball which we see in ground is not the Football, but it changed as a round shaped weapon carries ideologies, political propaganda, religions symbols. When Muhammedan Sporting Club became a passion in 1920s, the ground became a battlefield of communal violence and serious discrimination on religious ground. In the book, one chapter very seriously asked why Mohammed Salim, one of the pioneer footballer of anytime was neglected in football history. Not Butia, but Mohammed Salim went to play in an English Club! But both he and his team Muhammaden Sprt Club were written off from the pages of history book. Surprisingly he played with his bare feet even in England!

Salim’s confidence encouraged Hashim (his coach) to speak to William Maley, the Celtic Manager: ‘ A great player from India has come by ship. Will you please take a trial of his. But there is a slight problem. Salim plays in bare feet.’

Maley laughed, the idea of a bare footed armature from India competing against Scottish professional was difficult to believe. But Hasim was persistent and the Celtic manger finally agreed to give him a trial. However, he emphasized the need to seek permission from the Football Federation for someone playing bare feet. If the federation gave their permission, he would give Salim a trial. Permission was eventually granted and Salim was asked to demonstrate his skill before 1000 club members and three registered coaches. He had never faced a trial like this before, and was understandably nervous. The coaches took him different corners and asked him to demonstrate his skill in six different ways. When salim finished his demonstration, they were astonished. Salim, the shy Indian, then asked Hasheem to seek permission to demonstrate three further styles of play. Eventually, they were convinced that an exceptional talent had arrived in Scotland. In his first match for Celtic against Hamilton, he was in great form. In fact, he was exceptional and Celtic won the match 5-1. In his second match against Galston, Celtic won 7-1 and his performance led the Scottish Daily Express of 29 August 1936, to carry the headline: ‘ Indian Juggler – New Style’. Salim was also offered a professional contract to paly in Germany.

The book again showed that how then the football became a tool to show the regional rivalries when East Bengal team was formed. The persistent opponents Mohan Bagan and East Bengal traced back in 1930s. Moham Bagan represents the Ghatti Hindus and East Bengal represent ‘Bangali’ Hindus. The ground became a battlefield for fighting for sub-regional and religional pride with a weapon called football. Above all football in Indian soil grew up, flowered and seeded. And in a certain moment, first time in history Indian team qualified for World Cup 1950! India did not go to play in world cup, because the FIFA laws did not allow anybody to play with bare feet.

The book then examines the growth of Indian states in regional and state base. It checks also the status of women’s football in the country. For getting more clarity it describes the story of ‘;Bend it Like Beckam’, a film screened in 1990s. And once when a women football match about to start, a team did not find enough players, at last their coach with her brocken leg agreed to stand under the post! If you go through the book, you will go through a number of incidents which shows the enthusiasm and over joy of fans to their clubs/ teams. I am only giving you some hints of only certain stories explained in the book. A supporter of Moahn Bagan committed suicide after a debacle of his team against east Bengal. He wrote in his suicide note: ‘I am taking my life now, only to reborn as a footballer in my next janam to avenge this defeat’.

An old man came very late to the ground, and the match was about to start. He was repeatedly asking whether the match started or not. Some acquaintances in the ground asked why he was late that day, he said: ‘ my son passed away today. And I came here from his funeral place to watch this match. After the match between East Bengal and Mohan Bagan the fans were traveling in the tram in Kolkotta, a toddler was overrun by the same tram. Somehow he managed to get it but he did not notice his toe was taken away by the tram. A toe in the road and a pool of blood in the tram later realized him that he lost his toe!

And when his favourite team posts its fourth goal, a man in the gallery broke his heart over the ecstasy!

To wind up this note I quot a description from the book:

‎'Mohan Bagan took Bombay literally by storm. One of the big banyan trees at the South - East corner of the Cooperage ground still bears witness to that terrible tornado. A huge branch with a load of 50 enthusiasts crashed to the ground when the Indian team took the lead against the Durham Light Infantry in the final match. It is said that this was the result of a burst of cheering'

(semi) Final match: Deutschland Vs Italy

2012-06-30T04:01:00.000+02:00

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

-Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1860

It was a thunder storming in Berlin today as predicted by the weather men. I was feeling the rain and of course, the thunder! standing alone in the rain listening a Bollywood song in background. I know each raindrop was the tear of the Germans which they dropped in the previous day. These droplets evaporated and precipitated again to their hearts! I spotted my tearlets from the millions of drops and those were falling down through my barren breast! I noticed every German had the same feeling, everyone could recognize their own went-away-tears.

Dear reader! If you are still baffled, I will explicate what had actually happened here in the previous day. Yesterday was a fine and sunny day. For Germans it was a feting day. The Deutschland team was going to face up Italy in Euro cup. Everybody was sure about the outcome of the match and from every nook corner of the country the far-famed slogan was coming out Wir für Deutschland! Wir für Deutschland! The team had not lost any game since they played in the last sixteen matches and it would never lose its seventeenth match against Italy that was everybody’s anticipation. The entire town was adorned with German flags and signs. Everywhere people were putting up big screen to watch the match. I was slightly bemused to decide which place I must go. Each corner pulled me into them to pep up with them. We made up our mind at last to go to Potsdam University ground where the university students put up a very large screen. We were four, Sujith sir, Vivek Sigh, Aparna and me. When we reached there, we knew that the jubilation had already started. Students were carrying out different physical performance. It was so impressing that two guys were dancing in the air according to the background music. They jumped in the air and convoluted their body in different direction and somersaulted sometime in the air only to come down in their normal position! It was about 8.45 and it was the time the play about to start. I was standing in the left side of the screen but the big screen was partly seen there and every inch of the ground was occupied by the ebullient German fans. I was sure, if I was standing there like that I would never be able to watch the match. I suddenly thought back the match I was watching at Kavanur mini stadium and the way I usually get into the ground!

Those days it was easygoing to me to enter the ground even without the ticket. If you love something passionately the way to get in will be easier. Then I remember the old proverb, even in the mackerel packed town an elephant finds out its own way. I am not an elephant, so why don’t I try my way, was I thinking that time. Vivek might have thought the same proverb. So I intruded the already packed ground and easily got a place. I was observing the students around me. They were in a dreamy state. The queue before the nearby beer shop was fattening in each moment. Suddenly a girl with her Italian dress stood up and waved an Italian flag. Everybody noticed her and I was so scared and I thought I must go for her protection! She was very brave to express her solidarity to her team even in such a tense situation. But Germans were very disciplined fans and they had much sportsman spirit to allow her to express the team spirit. Everybody was decorating their faces with beautiful colours; some wore black-yellow-red hats and dress. Some were waving the German flag. When I noticed some were busy with tingeing their faces with colours of German flags, we asked them the colouring marker. Very gently they gave it us. Seriously yaar I have never painted my face with the colours of flags of any country, but now the spectators gathered there silently asked us to conjoin with them. We also decorated our faces with the colours of German flag. The pattern of German flag is Black on the top, red in between and gold at the bottom.

The German Flag designates the overall background is Red, black and gold. The description of the German Flag is as follows: Three equal horizontal bands of black (top), red, and gold. According to Ancient and Heraldic traditions much symbolism is associated with colours. The colours on the German flag represent the following:

Yellow - a symbol of generosity

Red - hardiness, bravery, strength & valour

Black - Determination

They are derived from the similar colours of the Imperial coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire.

Black (determination) should come first. I did a mistake, the flag was pasted upside down, and I did not notice it. The girl behind me pointed out that fault and immediately she collected a NIVIA facial cream and a serviette from somewhere, so I redrew the flag. People respect their cultural symbols and national identities. After painting German flag, I suddenly felt the all anxiety of each and every German around me. It was the time of national anthem, for respecting it, the whole crowd stood up and bowed down their heads.

Match started! It was the time when the German soccer style began to rain there. The spectacular movements composed a beautiful poem on the ground. People were dancing with the steps of German players. Drums were beaten up obstreperously, the sound of band reached above the cheers of the students. Everywhere the endless summer just started. But all of a sudden the all the mood of festivity paused when Mario Balotelli’s header pierced through a vulnerable German defence.

But the men in white were not tired yet, they were attacking to break the Italian goal net. Another shot of Mario Balotelli again perforated to the German goal post and he took off his shirt and stood on the ground in Gejini style. Then every noise was suddenly stopped. There was a pin drop silence everywhere. Suddenly I realized a teardrop had just fallen down from my eyes along with the millions of German fans. I stood up and just went away from the crowd. I looked at the sky, the sun was about to leave from the sight and the clouds were coming from afar. And at the same time a message came to my mobile informing the weather forecast that there would be a thunderstorm in all over the Deutschland within 24 hours!

A Visit to The Berlin Wall

2012-06-27T03:27:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I visited the (in)famous Berlin Wall with Vivek Singh and Aparna. I had some constructed images of already widely circulated wall of Berlin, but I was wondering to see the only left 2 KMs of the infamous 155 KM long wall. The tempestuous German people did not desire to see the wall at all, so when they got a chance to spifflicate it, they remorselessly did it. Now I am giving you some historical background of the wall, and later will write the art works and what they really meant. Again I will drop a line about two books which I read to know the history of the Berlin wall. Still I hope my writing will never feel you, readers, bored if I write so lengthily. And if you really feel so, then think a moment about the people who were separated each other from their beloved country for years.

Think, the wall was such a long long one! It had been concreted into 155 KM and the East German Government was solidifying it day by day, yet the longing of the people to re-unite its hereditary and friendship smashed the wall completely within moments! That’s amazing and astounding me. We can’t pick up more examples like this from the history to acknowledge the people’s wrath against the government. Now the wall is seen very rare places. Still I can’t believe the intensity of the people to crush the year long slavery of the Wall of Shame. We asked everyone about the leftovers of the wall, and knew that east side gallery was the lone remnants of the wall. There are some other places also but there, only a very few parts of the wall preserved.

The first brisk was put to build the Wall of Shame in a rainy morning of August 13, 1961. It was after all a ‘13th’ day this wall started to be constructed. Why was the wall constructed? It was to check the own people to migrate from GDR (German Democratic Republic) to the western part of the Germany. (but both places were actually shared among four countries!, USSR, America, Britain and France!). People suffered even if they were in east or west Germany. So Berlin became a focal point to express the power of both the communists and the capitalists! Both were waging war in expense of the German people. Berlin's unique situation as a city half-controlled by Western forces, in the middle of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany, made it a focal point for tensions between the Allies and the Soviets and a place where conflicting ideologies were enforced side-by-side. The Berlin Wall was the physical division between West Berlin and East Germany. However, it was also the symbolic boundary between democracy and Communism during the Cold War.

When Soviet Union realized that the people were in great numbers migrating to capitalist West side, the idea of a wall evolved. It was not a rumour, Soviet actually wanted to block the people, so the wall became soon a reality. Soviet was so powerful they blocked the eastern part from western part within 24 hours! First they put up a huge barricade to preclude the movement. Before people realized what was actually going on, the wall was reared. In the beginning, the Soviet justified the wall that the barricade had been raised as an ‘anti-fascist protection wall’, and that they had moved to prevent a third world war. The version of the ‘Wall’ that started life in 1961 was in fact not a wall but a 96 miles barbed wire fence. However, after this incarnation proved too easy to scale, work started in 1962 on a second fence, parallel to the first but up to 100 yards further in. The area in between the two fences was demolished to create an empty space, which became widely known as "death strip" as it was here that many would-be escapers met their doom. The strip was covered with raked gravel, making it easy to spot footprints, it offered no cover, was mined and booby-trapped with tripwires and, most importantly, it offered a clear field of fire to the armed guards – who were instructed to shoot on sight.

In every stages of the constructing the wall, the people’s endless spirit to escape jumping over the wall compelled them to find out different survival methods! Some dared to face the mines, bullets, trench in between the wall and all other calamities. Even the 80+ old-citizens tried to escape only to get a six feet space to be buried in a free land. Women experimented themselves by jumping from high-roofed building near to the wall and the relatives from the other side caught her! Some families escaped making huge hydrogen balloon and some making small holes under the wall! But hundreds of people had their last breath in between the east and west of the country! As Communism began to falter in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in 1988 and 1989, new exodus points were opened to East Germans who wanted to flee to the West. Then suddenly, on the evening of November 9, 1989, an announcement made by East German government official Günter Schabowski stated, "Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR (East Germany) into the FRG (West Germany) or West Berlin."

People were in shock. Were the borders really open? East Germans tentatively approached the border and indeed found that the border guards were letting people cross. Very quickly, the Berlin Wall was inundated with people from both sides. Some began chipping at the Berlin Wall with hammers and chisels. There was an impromptu huge celebration along the Berlin Wall, with people hugging, kissing, singing, cheering, and crying.

The Berlin Wall was eventually chipped away, into smaller pieces (some the size of a coin and others in big slabs). The pieces have become collectibles and are stored in both homes and museums.

After the Berlin Wall came down, East and West Germany reunified into a single German state on October 3, 1990.Anyhow after the cold war ended, the gates of the wall was ready to open, but the people instead crushed it down in 1989. So the wall which stood as a Chinese wall in between August 13, 1961 -- November 9, 1989 found its own inevitable desitiny at last.

Two books on Berlin wall

After visiting the wall, I had a strong intense to read the history of Berlin wall, I searched and searched, but found only a very less books written about the wall. There are books, but those are about to publish, may be because of the event was so recent. Anyhow I managed to get two books, one is in German language and the other is in English.

Was Fur Ein Jahr! Deutschland 1990

This book is a pictorial representations what happened in German in 1990 the year after the Berlin wall. The arrangements of pages are very seminal. The first page shows the people destroying the wall, the symbolic fence to separate the people. Again the following page is shown the German football team who won the 1990 world cup championship. The two pictures directly speak the intention of the people, from separation to the re-joining and the win over the world. They defeated all most all the European and Latin American powers to get the cup. Again the next page is about their economy, a man very proudly raises the German currency, Mark. Only after these pictures, the author of the book considers the political leaders to be shown in the pages. Next picture is some political leaders (really, I could not distinguish who they are!). The people are the king basically, so the book focuses on the tears and joy of the mass. This book is not an important book, anyhow it tells the past history of a country through pictures.

The Berlin Wall

This is an old book written by Deane and David Heller. The book actually was written in 1962 just after the wall started to be a reality in the country. On the book, there is a seal of US Army of occupied West German, so it is clear it was a prescribed book for the soldiers and officials. The book is written like a diary and it anecdotes the day by day incidents in very details. I read the book only to feel the people’s sufferings and their saga of struggle to get rid of the fence. The author is anyway so biased in writing the history. But I felt the screaming and paining of the thousands of masses in each pages. The book is written in 1962, and the very first page there is a prophetic word of Kennady about the demolition of the ‘wall of shame’

‘What is unnatural will not endure. Thats why one day the wall in Berlin will come down’

The portrayal of Khruschchv and Kennady is very different. Both were talking the same language of war, threatening, nuclear bomb, world war 3, but David Heller compares Khrushchv with Hitler and the Eastern German with the concentration camp, and Kennady’s talk as a polite, gentle and needy. Ok, I write two lines of the portrayals of Kennady and Khrushchv in the book.

“The president Kennady called upon the United States to take steps to prepare for a possible war. ‘ We do not want to fight, he said in a voice tense with emotion, but we have fought before, it would be a mistake for others to look upon Berlin, because of its location, as a tempting target. Modern warfare, the president warned, ‘could rain more destruction in several hours than in all the wars in human history. The last remarks made a profound impression. Not since the Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbour had the Americans people been so angry and so united as on the Berlin Crises. 82% of the people agreed with President Kennady on Berlin.

In Mosco, in his arm waving tirade, Khrushchev shouted that, ‘Hundreds of millions would die in a nuclear war. Two other items in his long outburst deserve note. He concluded with a defiant threat and a macabre prediction of war.

From third chapter it describes the suffering of the people and their attempts to escape from their own land in searching of prosperity. An eighty two year old man escapes the wall after a tremendous attempt only to get a free air to be buried! A lady jumped from the 5th floor to escape and her relatives on the ground spread their arms to hold her. All are attempts to escape; people thought death is better than caged. The book gives a sober description of the sufferings of the people. So its worth reading and I am sure, after reading you can’t control your tears to fall down in thinking of the ill-fated people.

Next Post: East Side Gallery

First word

2012-06-04T13:50:00.004+02:00

My most beloved friends!

This is my first blog post. I have destined to be a blogger and to write something, to share anything and ya, at least to adjudicate in which genre I must pen. I mulled over to drop a line on films, magazines, books, cricket, football, or my personal anecdotes.

Seriously, friends, I want to compose everything, everything means everything. So I got hold a suitable name to my blog http://myeverydayreading.blogspot.de/. How is it? Now I am free to write all, whether it’s a book review, film analysis, personal anecdotes, about my country, friends, sports, etc and etc...

So I am keeping an eye on the society, everyday lives of the people, any film, book, or even the unwanted stuffs, and I am going to write something about it. Are you with me?

and lastly,
Dear Reader! Here I am writing you my pain and pleasure.. You well know how a post in a blog is born. So kindly read it and comment something. Your comments, whether its negative or positive are highly appreciated