At The Edge

If any people choose to think of me, then I should like them to say: 'This was the man who, with all his mind and heart, loved India and the Indian people. And they, in turn, were indulgent to him and gave him their love most abundantly and extravagantly.' Sir, please stop making extravagant and abundant appearances in Newspapers on your death anniversary. -0-

From year 1979.  From year 1982. -0- At least , we could have picked a more interesting topic. How does NCERT deal with this topic? Maybe in another decade of so we will have public discussions on the issue. Of course, triggered by a controversy. Cartoon caricaturing Ambedkar's decision to resign from the Law Ministry over the failure to implement the Hindu Code Bill. Shankar's Weekly, October 7, 1951. From the book 'The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India' by Anupama Rao. Update: Funniest thing. I just realized that the caption 'Note the use of Hindu themes to represent what was, in fact, Ambedkar's challenge to Hindu hegemony.' is essentially wrong and it miss appropriates symbols. The obvious reference that Shankar was making in the cartoon was to an important scene in the story of Buddha, his renunciation....

In 2009, after an entire day of experimentation with a scanner and a photo-editing tool, I posted an interesting newspaper cutting from year 1997 pertaining to year 1947. It was front page of The Hindustan Times, 15 August, 1947 . I am a Kashmiri. It was probably an eventless day for my ancestors. If I think about it well enough, the day is not supposed to mean anything to me. Just a footnote on myth building and nation building. Paper selling. But what about other people? Do they see through it too? Do they too know the absolute endgame of an epic nation building process? Car Sales. This morning I found the image used as a pointless prop in a stupid car ad. In the morning I felt like a mad dog who has been chasing fast cars for too long. If things keep going like this I will probably have to start an ' 8ate Impact ' section on this blog about how media from media industry posted here is re-consumed by media indust...

Indian Express, Aug 6,1938 Indian Express, Jul 28, 1938 A throwback from sustained British efforts at curing native alcoholism using tea. -0- -0-

Like all things in India, this story too begins with religion. In around 1664 a Jesuit named  Athanasius Kircher in his writings described a magical device that could be used to project demons. Later when this device got made, this  Magic Lantern  * became a favorite of conjurers, magicians and missionaries. Although people found it magical, but for some it still wasn't magical enough. The images couldn't move. And they remained immobile for another one hundred and fifty years till in around 1828, a Belgian researcher named  Joseph Plateau  got an idea on how to make the images move. In around 1832, Plateau came up with a device called  Phenakistoscope  that could create an illusion of motion. Soon all kind of devilish ideas started popping in human head. Man wanted to see motion. See himself in motion. In 1891, Edison came out with a  Kinetoscope . That motion could be captured on camera became a...