Things have changed over the years. Look back, and you see that laws are enacted, structures are designed to protect the less privileged. And yet, I look around and I find the world remains an arena of hostile formations, and most of intellectual wherewithal we keep piling up is directed against the marginalized. It comes in the garb of working for a better future and yet it is pathetically flawed.
How do we decide when to take sides and with whom? With time, as we get better in understanding identities and the politics of identities, we develop a mind engrossed in polemic, a tongue equipped with quick-wit responses and even when parochial to the core, we pretend to be fair and secular.
And no one can beat the proverbial Brahmin in this art of pretense. The parochial mind will argue in its defense that suppressing identities is the worst kind of violence and hence a casteless society is not in the interest of the non-Brahmin castes. As if someone had sought such an advice from the expert. Yes, the fellow traveler is on the wrong side, but you must empathize and find why they are refusing to correct their mistakes. In the mean time, forget all the damage done to you. And the adviser is a rebel, born of higher privileges, but has been through the red flag and what not.
And with the most exclusive social formation deciding on what should be our values, call it human values. How can a group mostly consisting of members from privileged sections claim to know what human values are?
Sometimes I wonder if the idea, the concept, of subaltern is subverted and usurped by the privileged. The approach of the liberal intellectual has somehow always seemed to be one of deception rather than of a purpose that it claims to have. Thirty years ago, with my immature vocabulary, I wrote in anger against the liberals. A friend, a true liberal, read it and with great sympathy praised the article. And today I remain equally immature not finding appropriate words to comprehend the liberals, the revivalists, the identity theoreticians, constituting the privileged. Somehow I feel great comfort in being with the less cultivated.
Tuesday 25 October 2011
Thursday 13 October 2011
This should be good.
Funny, posting a blog after years.
Well, as I mentioned in the previous posts, I have been writing in Hindi with decreasing frequency but more or less regularly. Why I am so unwilling to write in English? Some friends might argue that I write better in English than in Hindi. I mean, I am poor in both, may be marginally better in English than in Hindi.
I guess there is a resentment about English that I carry from my childhood. I, like most lower middle class kids in India, spent half my childhood learning English, a language alien to us all, and yet one that we cannot do anything about - its just there like so many things unfair in this universe. Those who write in English from our generally non-English world are either not part of us or of course, there is a large bunch of idiots, who think they can write in English. What do I mean that some amongst us writing in English are not part of us? Any one who knows anything about languages, knows that every word comes with a world, a world-view, an entire universe of its own. So when you listen to a beautiful ghazal and translate it for an English speaking person, oh man, it just sounds so stupid! So all these guys who are supposed to be great writers are actually part of a world view that cannot be possibly ours. So we have a whole bunch of neoliberal Indians taking over contemporary social sciences, I do not understand how really, but a world full of sense and nonsense, if not entirely bullshit! The other issue is that they are not honest. They should tell the world about the quality of literature that exists in Indian languages, instead they have the attitude that writing in English is what people should pay attention to - the fact is that writing in Indian English is nowhere close to writing in Indian languages in quality. Let us not talk about quantity,
Anyway, today coming back from Necklace road to Lingampally by train, I read a piece by Amitav Ghosh and I kind of got convinced that writing in English may not be that bad after all. Well, I am not that bad really, I have read some Indian English - of course, all that is not Indian I have only read in English. In fact, I have read Amitav Ghosh before, not always greatly satisfying, but I have read it nonetheless. I read two of his novels. Today I read his piece on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and it made a lot of sense to me. Those fateful days I was in Princeton and I remember the hypocrisy and the bigotry I saw in Indian community there, while all the time being worried about what my father would have gone through had he not died nearly a year ago. I remember running, strangely, from one dormitory to other, to see the same sight on TV channels, of a Sikh man being burnt alive by the rioting mobs.
India has not changed much. In fact, the reason I was at Necklace Road today was to participate in a vigil protesting the attack on my friend Prashant Bhushan yesterday by some goons claiming to belong to some outfit called 'Ram Sene'. Some sick individuals, who have no respect for democratic values.
Coming back on the train and reading Amitav Ghosh, prompted me to write this.
Hopefully, I will continue writing in English. Sometimes, it does seem odd that I cannot communicate to those amongst my students, who cannot read Hindi. This should be good.
Well, as I mentioned in the previous posts, I have been writing in Hindi with decreasing frequency but more or less regularly. Why I am so unwilling to write in English? Some friends might argue that I write better in English than in Hindi. I mean, I am poor in both, may be marginally better in English than in Hindi.
I guess there is a resentment about English that I carry from my childhood. I, like most lower middle class kids in India, spent half my childhood learning English, a language alien to us all, and yet one that we cannot do anything about - its just there like so many things unfair in this universe. Those who write in English from our generally non-English world are either not part of us or of course, there is a large bunch of idiots, who think they can write in English. What do I mean that some amongst us writing in English are not part of us? Any one who knows anything about languages, knows that every word comes with a world, a world-view, an entire universe of its own. So when you listen to a beautiful ghazal and translate it for an English speaking person, oh man, it just sounds so stupid! So all these guys who are supposed to be great writers are actually part of a world view that cannot be possibly ours. So we have a whole bunch of neoliberal Indians taking over contemporary social sciences, I do not understand how really, but a world full of sense and nonsense, if not entirely bullshit! The other issue is that they are not honest. They should tell the world about the quality of literature that exists in Indian languages, instead they have the attitude that writing in English is what people should pay attention to - the fact is that writing in Indian English is nowhere close to writing in Indian languages in quality. Let us not talk about quantity,
Anyway, today coming back from Necklace road to Lingampally by train, I read a piece by Amitav Ghosh and I kind of got convinced that writing in English may not be that bad after all. Well, I am not that bad really, I have read some Indian English - of course, all that is not Indian I have only read in English. In fact, I have read Amitav Ghosh before, not always greatly satisfying, but I have read it nonetheless. I read two of his novels. Today I read his piece on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and it made a lot of sense to me. Those fateful days I was in Princeton and I remember the hypocrisy and the bigotry I saw in Indian community there, while all the time being worried about what my father would have gone through had he not died nearly a year ago. I remember running, strangely, from one dormitory to other, to see the same sight on TV channels, of a Sikh man being burnt alive by the rioting mobs.
India has not changed much. In fact, the reason I was at Necklace Road today was to participate in a vigil protesting the attack on my friend Prashant Bhushan yesterday by some goons claiming to belong to some outfit called 'Ram Sene'. Some sick individuals, who have no respect for democratic values.
Coming back on the train and reading Amitav Ghosh, prompted me to write this.
Hopefully, I will continue writing in English. Sometimes, it does seem odd that I cannot communicate to those amongst my students, who cannot read Hindi. This should be good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
