At The Edge

-0- Originally written for EPW Blog The newspapers today are filled with congratulations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The nuances vary, depending on the tone, character, and attitude of the newspaper. All, however, agree on one thing: Modi is a man of stature who has already accomplished historically important deeds and faces still greater challenges. He is the kind of statesman found only rarely in India. During his lifetime, he has the good fortune not only to be appreciated and loved by the overwhelming majority of the Indian people, but even more importantly to be understood by them. He is the only Indian politician since 1947 who understood the real situation and drew the necessary hard and firm conclusions. All the newspapers agree on this. It no longer needs to be said that he has taken up work that started in 1857 and intends to complete it. There is enough proof of this even for those who do not believe, or who think ill of him. I therefore do not think it necessa...

She looks at the speed dial They are going to die She smiles -0-

Originally written for EPW Blog   "…how much does he earn?" "Once he gets married, he will start earning too." "So, does he not earn anything now?" "He does but a man can't always win. Sometimes he loses too." "Loses!" "Isn't that's true of gambling?" "So, he's a gambler!" "No, not a gambler but once he gets drunk, he obviously can't help playing a hand or two." "Gambler and a drunkard too. But he's too nice a person according to you!" "Of course! Once married, he will stop visiting that dancer's house and his drinking-gambling days will be over too" "So, he goes to the house of some dancer too!" "What's wrong with that? Only bluebloods have such taste." "Alright then, tell me about his bloodline too" "As soon as we find anything about his bloodline, we will cert...

From Jat land. Hip-Hop for Ganpat's mummy-daddy.   "perhaps, at the very heart of it all, in its [the subcontinent's] climate, with its unendurable heat and unpredictable monsoons" ~Wendy Doniger in 'The Hindus: An Alternative History'" From Desert land... featuring a phenomenon called Rani Rangilee. Angrez log will be forced to go Freudian on this one. Half-way though it...they will be probably orgasmic.   Ram and Sita imagining doing things to each other in 'Rama at Sita' from Philippines.  Annotated notes:   -0- A God for Bladder Control

Sometimes you just want to be a Chicken. Came across this hoarding advertising a Chicken shop somewhere in a place called 'Muvattupuzha' in Kerala. -0- April 1. 2014 Came across this one somewhere near Kakkanad Ernakulam

Ritwik Ghatak's Subarnarekha (1962) -0- Subarnarekha (1962) is often described as Ritwik Ghatak's critique of Partition but that is just an understatement. There is a lot more actually happening in the film. A lot more that is said without being said. The film is in fact Ghatak's meditation on human beings and their condition under cyclic churning wheels of history. It about people going through same deceptive loops over and over again. According to the film, the wheel of history is mechanised, predictable. People would go through the same story over and over again. Failures leading to hopes, false hopes and fallen hopeless people getting up and and running again towards the golden shore, beyond which lies a paradise. We only make fresh mistakes with every fresh beginning. The cycles forever going. In the first few minutes of the film the directors lays before us the process by which the film will emphasis this cyclic churning of history....

A parody poster starring Nirad Chaudhuri as Churchill. 1983. Published in Weekly SUN. It was in response to Attenborough's Gandhi. Came across it in 'Laughing Matters: Comic Tradition in India'  (1987 ) by Lee Siegel. -0-