Stepping Stone

" People thought they would attain redemption by abusing Manto openly. Every day he received letters..."

Fri, 11 May 2012 04:46:51 -0400

“” People thought they would attain redemption by abusing Manto openly. Every day he received letters filled with threats and abuses. I was, however, immune from all these calamities because, except for a few editors, nobody knew my address. Moreover, I used to tear up these letters and throw them away after going through the first couple of lines. I would soon forget them altogether. But Manto would read these letters again and again and would also read them aloud to his friends. They put an end to his peace of mind. One day, just to tease him, I said, ‘Manto, when you die, people will worship you and call you a standard-bearer of all greatness. People will permanently attach the word “great” to your name. They’ll call you an expert psychologist and a national reformer.’ [[181]] Manto got very mad at all of this and began to shout while trying to scowl at me as best he could with his very large eyes. ‘By God,’ he said, ‘if that happens, I’ll come out of my grave and haunt them.’ ” - Ismat Chugtai on Manto”

- txt_ismat_interview_mahfil1972

"And after contemplating for half a century we have realised that it might have something to do with..."

Fri, 11 May 2012 02:27:39 -0400

“And after contemplating for half a century we have realised that it might have something to do with your insistence on calling a shalwar, a shalwar. - Mohd. Hanif on Manto”

- Our case against Manto | Herald

"In modern India, there are no political ideologies; there is just political power, or the lack of..."

Tue, 08 May 2012 01:23:47 -0400

“In modern India, there are no political ideologies; there is just political power, or the lack of it, or the ambition for it, or the misuse of it, or the abuse of it. - Dibankar Bannerji”

- The Dibakarian Way of Life | OPEN Magazine

"When a Dalit discards his sectarian caste politics and sees his emancipation along with all..."

Mon, 07 May 2012 11:57:56 -0400

“When a Dalit discards his sectarian caste politics and sees his emancipation along with all oppressed through class struggle, he suffers exclusion among Dalits as a Marxist, in the left as an Ambedkarite and repression from the state as a naxalite, all together. He is thus pushed back to his caste cocoon where he belonged by birth. This cruel and complex reality of the contemporary Dalit existence is brilliantly brought forth by Anand Patwardhan in Jai Bhim Comrade (JBC) through an innocuous and unlikely medium of song and music.”

- Jai Bhim Comrade, A Soulful Song Of The Nowhere People By Dr Anand Teltumbde

"The small neighborhood where the film’s main characters live was the only one not destroyed in the..."

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 02:33:31 -0400

“The small neighborhood where the film’s main characters live was the only one not destroyed in the bombings—and the only one with curvy streets, everything else has been built in an arrow-straight grid plan. But now this particular strip has also been completely demolished. The bulldozers were waiting; we bought the area an extra week of life. As always, the most interesting scenery is destroyed to make room for malls. The process often is that the working people are first driven outside the city, out of sight, and they realize they were driven to the most beautiful place. And then they are turned out of there, too. The corresponding American example is New Orleans—the indifference of the federal state and the exploitation of its “the natural disaster” were shocking”

- Aki Kaurismäki: The Uncut Interview | Filmlinc.com | Film Society of Lincoln Center

"I would like to explain the violence in this film. Because it makes me uncomfortable. The problem is..."

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 05:23:47 -0400

“I would like to explain the violence in this film. Because it makes me uncomfortable. The problem is this story had to start with violence. So I wanted to at least make it honest. Because if people want to see violence looking good, there is something wrong with their heads. So I make it look as it really is, fast and ugly. This is my rule and my explanation. Hollywood has melted everyone’s brains. In the old days you had one murder and that was enough for a story. Now you have to kill 300,000 people just to get the audience’s attention. And in Helsinki the violence is not glamorous. It is nameless. There, someone hits you just because they are in a bad mood. - Aki Kaurismaki”

- Aki Kaurismäki - Biography

"For mankind, I can’t see any way out,” he says in his deadly monotone, “except..."

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:22:13 -0400

“For mankind, I can’t see any way out,” he says in his deadly monotone, “except terrorism. We kill the 1%.” Which 1%? “The only way for mankind to get out of this misery is to kill the 1% who own everything. The 1% who have put us in the position where humanity has no value. The rich. And the politicians who are the puppies of the rich. - Aki Kaurismäki”

- http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/apr/04/aki-kaurismaki-le-havre-interview

"main kisan hoon aasaman men dhan bao raha hoon kuchh log kah rahe hain ki pagale! aasaman men dhan nahin..."

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 07:27:00 -0400

“

main kisan hoon
aasaman men dhan bao raha hoon

kuchh log kah rahe hain ki
pagale! aasaman men dhan nahin jama
karata

main kahata hoon gegale gogale pagale !
agar zamin par bhagavan jam sakata hai
to aasaman men dhan bhi jam sakata hai
aur ab to donon men se koee ek hokar rahega
ya to zamin se bhagavan ukhadega
ya aasaman men dhan jamega.
- vidrohi

main kisaan hoon
aasmaan mein dhaan bo rahaa hoon

kuchh log keh rahe hain ki
pagale! aasmaan mein dhaan naheen jamaa karta

main kahataa hoon gegale gogale pagale !
agar jameen par bhagvaan jam sakataa hai
toh aasmaan mein dhaan bhee jam sakataa hai
aur ab to donoN mein se koee ek hokar rahegaa
yaa to jameen se bhagvaan ukhadegaa
yaa aasmaan mein dhaan jamegaa.

-Vidrohee

”

- vidrohi kee kavitayen

emissions: An extraordinary trailer for Anhey Ghorhey da Daan...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:13:35 -0500

emissions:

An extraordinary trailer for Anhey Ghorhey da Daan (Alms of the Blind Horse). Sallitt says it played at Venice and is playing at NYC’s South Asian Fest on 11/13.

Noticed that the film is being marketed by the same guys who are representing A Mysterious World, Gerhard Richter Painting, and People Mountain People Sea all of which were the standouts from Toronto. I hope this film does well.

"The potential force of desire is proverbial in all cultures. Perhaps because an awareness of being..."

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 06:18:41 -0500

“

The potential force of desire is proverbial in all cultures. Perhaps because an awareness of being desired bestows a unique sense of invulnerability, and when this sense is multiplied by two almost anything can be risked. [ … ]

Desire, when reciprocal, is a plot, hatched by two, in the face of, or in defiance of, all the other plots which determine the world. It is a conspiracy of two.

The plan is to offer to the other a reprieve from the pain of the world. Not happiness (!) but a physical reprieve from the body’s huge liability towards pain.

Within all desire there is pity as well as appetite; the two, whatever their relative proportion, are threaded together. Desire is inconceivable without a wound.

If there were any unwounded in this world, they would live without desire.

The conspiracy is to create together a place, a locus, of exemption, and the exemption, necessarily temporary, is from the unmitigated hurt which flesh is heir to.

The human body has prowess, grace, playfulness, dignity, and countless other capacities, but it also intrinsically tragic - as is no animal’s body. (No animal is naked.) Desire longs to shield the desired body from the tragic it embodies, and what is more it believes it can. This is its faith.

There is naturally no altruism in desire. The offer of shielding, of conferring exemption is made through the offer of the whole self, both physical and imaginative. From the start two bodies are involved, and so the exemption, when and achieved, covers both.

The exemption is bound to be brief and yet it promises all. The exemption abolishes brevity - and along with it the hurts associated with the threat of the brief.

Observed by a third person, desire is a short parenthesis; experienced from within, it is a transcendence. In both cases, however, day-to-day life continues around, before and after it.
Desire promises exemption. Yet an exemption from the existing natural order is tantamount to disappearance. And that is precisely what desire, at its most ecstatic, proposes: let’s vanish.

”

- From “Another Side of Desire” in John Berger’s Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance (via actuallyaisha)

"When the moon comes up, the sea blankets the earth, and the heart feels like an island in infinity."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:10:46 -0500

“When the moon comes up, the sea blankets the earth, and the heart feels like an island in infinity.”

- Federico Garcia Lorca (via daisydandelions)

(via contrive)

"It surprised her that hate is an astonishingly translucent and pure emotion, just like love. Like a..."

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:14:16 -0500

“It surprised her that hate is an astonishingly translucent and pure emotion, just like love. Like a diamond.
- U R Ananthamurthy”

- Apoorva by U R Ananthamurthy, Translated by Deepa Ganesh; Online Short Story; Out of Print Magazine; September 2011

"ਕਲਾਕਾਰ ਦੀ ਕਲਾ ਇਸੇ ਵਿਚ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਕਿਸੇ ਇਕ ਸ਼ੈਅ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਦੂਜੀ ਦਾ ਝਉਲਾ ਪੈਂਦਾ ਹੋਵੇ. ਅਣਦਿਸਦੇ ਦਾ ਪੂਰਨਾ ਦਰਸ਼ਕ ਦੇ..."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:02:00 -0500

“ਕਲਾਕਾਰ ਦੀ ਕਲਾ ਇਸੇ ਵਿਚ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਕਿਸੇ ਇਕ ਸ਼ੈਅ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਦੂਜੀ ਦਾ ਝਉਲਾ ਪੈਂਦਾ ਹੋਵੇ. ਅਣਦਿਸਦੇ ਦਾ ਪੂਰਨਾ ਦਰਸ਼ਕ ਦੇ ਮਨ ਉਤੇ ਉਕਰ ਜਾਂਦਾ ਹੈ ਅਤੇ ਬnਦੇ ਇਸ ਪੂਰਨੇ ਨੂn ਆਪਣੀ ਸੁਰਤ ਤੇ ਸੀਰਤ ਮੁਤਾਬਕ ਪੂਰ ਲੈਂਦਾ ਹੈ. ਅਗੋਂ ਉਸ ਦਾ ਗਿਆਨ ਅਤੇ ਤਜਰਬਾ ਅਮੂਰਤ ਨੂn ਸਮੂਰਤ ਕਰਕੇ ਮਾਅਨੇ ਸਿਰਜ ਲੈਂਦਾ ਹੈ. ਚnਦ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਚਰਖ਼ਾ ਕਤਦੀ ਸੁਆਣੀ ਜਾਂ ਸਮੂਰਤ ਹੁnਦੀ ਰੋਟੀ ਬnਦੇ ਦੀ ਕਾਲਪਨਿਕ ਉਡਾਣ ਦੀਆਂ ਹੀ ਤਾਂ ਮਿਸਾਲਾਂ ਹਨ. ਪnਜਾਬੀ ਬੋਲੀ ਹੈ, ‘ਸਹੁਰੇ ਕੋਲੋਂ ਘੁnਡ ਕਢਦੀ, ਨnਗਾ ਰਖਦੀ ਕਲਿਪ ਵਾਲਾ ਪਾਸਾ.’ ਹਥ ਦੇ ਪਰਛਾਵਿਆਂ ਨਾਲ ਕnਧਾਂ ਉਤੇ ਸਪ ਅਤੇ ਚਿੜੀਆਂ ਬਣਾਉਂਦੇ ਬਚੇ ਕਾਇਨਾਤੀ ਕਲਾ ਦਾ ਰਸ, ਬੁਕਾਂ ਭਰ-ਭਰ ਪੀਂਦੇ ਹਨ. -
———-
ਜੇ ਡੂnਘੀਆਂ ਰਮਜ਼ਾਂ ਅਤੇ ਚਿਰਕਾਲੀ ਅਰਥਾਂ ਨੂn ਨਜ਼ਰਅnਦਾਜ਼ ਵੀ ਕਰ ਦਿਤਾ ਜਾਵੇ, ਤਾਂ ਵੀ ਇਸ ਦੇ ਕਈ ਫੌਰੀ ਅਰਥ ਨਿਕਲਦੇ ਹਨ. ਇਸ ਵਿਚ ਮਸ਼ਕਰੀ, ਸਾਜ਼ਿਸ਼ ਅਤੇ ਚਲਾਕੀ ਦੇ ਅnਸ਼ ਰਲੇ ਹੋਏ ਹਨ. ਲਿਖਣ ਵਾਲੇ ਨੇ ਭਾਵੇਂ ਕੋਈ ਇਕ-ਨੁਕਾਤੀ ਨਿਸ਼ਾਨਾ ਮਿਥਿਆ ਹੋਵੇ ਪਰ ਪੜ੍ਹਨ ਵਾਲਾ ਤਾਂ ਇਸ ਨੂn ਸਾਰੀਆਂ ਸਿਆਸੀ ਪਾਰਟੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਇਬਾਰਤ ਵਜੋਂ ਪੜ੍ਹ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ. ਹੁਣ ਇਹ ਕਿਸੇ ਇਕ ਜਣੇ ਦੇ ਪnਜਾਬੀ ਵਿਚ ਲਿਖੇ ਤਿnਨ ਅਖਰ ਨਹੀਂ ਹਨ ਸਗੋਂ ਇਸ ਵਿਚ ਸਮੇਂ, ਸਥਾਨ, ਇਤਿਹਾਸ, ਮਿਥਿਹਾਸ ਅਤੇ ਸਿਆਸਤ ਦੀ ਮਿਸ ਗੁnਨ੍ਹੀ ਹੋਈ ਹੈ. ਇਹੋ ਇਨ੍ਹਾਂ ਤਿnਨ ਸ਼ਬਦਾਂ ਦੀ ਤਾਕਤ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਇਹ, ਅਰਥਾਂ ਦੇ ਘੇਰੇ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਹਰ ਜਾ ਚੁਕੇ ਹਨ.
- ਦਲਜੀਤ ਅਮੀ”

- ਲਹਿਲ ਕਲਾਂ ਦਾ ਝੋਟਾ ਤੇ ਮਾਇਆਵਤੀ ਦੇ ਹਾਥੀ — daljitami.blogspot.in — Readability

"The judgments on India were much less harsh before the days of European empires, when the..."

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:59:47 -0500

““The judgments on India were much less harsh before the days of European empires, when the inferiority of native peoples became an article of faith. Travelers from Europe did not deny that they had in India come up against a culture much older, and in many ways more sophisticated, than the one they belonged to. Voltaire, for instance, often invoked the virtues of India and China in order to show up the inadequacies of eighteenth-century France. But the nineteenth century brought new attitudes. A series of scientific, economic, and political revolutions gave Western Europe a new idea of itself. India, and more generally, Asia, became a place against which the traveler from the West measured his own society, and usually found it superior; it became the gigantic but often invisible backdrop to understanding his emotional state, and the refining of his moral and philosophical vision. The nineteenth century also saw the British complete their conquest of India and become the paramount power in the world. Unlike the Persian and Central Asian conquerors of India before them, the British never looked as if they meant to stay on in India and make it their home. They either went home or died young. India remained, despite a veneer of modernity, a profoundly foreign country; and travelers from the West continued to record its alienness and their own sense of difference and bewilderment.” —Pankaj Mishra, “India in Mind””

- shain.in

"The word han actually comes from the Chinese, and as Gary Rector, a writer and editor who lives in..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:32:20 -0500

“The word han actually comes from the Chinese, and as Gary Rector, a writer and editor who lives in Seoul and is one of the few Americans ever to be naturalized as a Korean citizen, explained, “The Chinese character shows a heart and it shows a head that’s turned away.” Yi described han sentiment, somewhat dismissively, as “a peculiar mixture of tragedy and comedy,” and Rector, who was interpreting for me, elaborated: “Han is an anger and resentment that build up, and at the same time a feeling of frustration or a feeling of desires that are unfulfilled. So resentment, frustration, bitter longing are lumped together.” Other explicators stress han’s cumulative nature, the steady accretion of a pattern of lesser injuries into one large and abiding sense of woundedness. Humiliation is a key ingredient of han, which is where its ironic or comic side comes into play: the self-mockery of the self-loving who are all too aware of their weakness. It is touted as a keenly Korean emotion because it recognizes the contradictions of the Korean experience: traditionally, the intense nationalism and yearning for purity, so close to German ideas of volk, coupled with an overwhelming experience of victimhood, and, for the past fifty years, the bitter reality of national division. Han at its tenderest is melancholic and wistful, and in its darker forms militant and vengeful; in either case it is freighted with dissatisfaction and the temptations of extremism. Yi, who describes himself as “basically apolitical,” prefers to acknowledge that “there’s always a kind of duality to our existence.” Nevertheless, as he grew up grappling with the burden of his patrimony, he could not find a way to balance the competing public and private claims on his allegiance.
- Philip Gourevitch”

- Letter from Korea: Alone In the Dark : The New Yorker

"Katherine Boo points out in her new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, a chronicle of lives in a..."

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:33:16 -0500

“Katherine Boo points out in her new book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, a chronicle of lives in a Mumbai slum, “in the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions.” But few of these critics of corruption acknowledge that, as Boo writes, “among powerful Indians, the distribution of opportunity was typically an insider trade.” This was demonstrated most recently by a series of taped phone conversations, made public in late 2010 by the news magazine Outlook, between a corporate lobbyist and some of India’s most famous businessmen, journalists, and politicians (some of them can be found among Hazare’s more well-off supporters), which revealed how powerful businessmen not only influenced economic policy-making, ensuring clear playing fields for themselves, but also managed to install their own candidates in senior ministerial positions, such as the telecom minister accused of underselling the mobile phone spectrum to his preferred bidders. - Pankaj Mishra”

- Indians Against Democracy by Pankaj Mishra | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

"Liberal-capitalist societies, being by their nature divided, contentious places, are forever in..."

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:56:29 -0500

“Liberal-capitalist societies, being by their nature divided, contentious places, are forever in search of a judicious dose of communitarianism to pin themselves together, and a secularised religion has long been one bogus solution on offer
-Terry Eagleton”

- Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton - review | Books | The Guardian

"These are not proletarian protests, but protests against the threat of being reduced to..."

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:58:54 -0500

“These are not proletarian protests, but protests against the threat of being reduced to proletarians. Who dares strike today, when having a permanent job has itself become a privilege? Not low-paid workers in (what remains of) the textile industry etc, but those privileged workers with guaranteed jobs (teachers, public transport workers, police). This also accounts for the wave of student protests: their main motivation is arguably the fear that higher education will no longer guarantee them a surplus wage in later life.
- Slavoj Zizek”

- You Pay Your Crisis: Slavoj Žižek: The Revolt of the Salaried Bourgeoisie

Why Should Men Care? An Interview With Matt Damon

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:59:39 -0500

fuckyeahfeminists:

At Bitch Flicks, they’re featuring reviews of the five-part PBS documentary Women, War & Peace. Matt Damon narrates the documentary series, and he was interviewed about his participation. During the interview, he explains why he wanted to be a part of the event and why men should care about how war impacts women, especially when rape is used as a weapon of war.

Watch Matt Damon: Why Should Men Care? on PBS. See more from Women War and Peace.

via Bitch Flicks where you can read their reviews

"“when the Congress appeared to consider Jinnah’sdemand for what had come to be called..."

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:42:10 -0500

“

“when the Congress appeared to consider Jinnah’sdemand for what had come to be called “Pakistan” by the early1940s, Punjab’s minorities protested vehemently. Yet paradoxi-cally, when the Congress agreed to the grouping of provincesunder the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan, an alternative that wouldhave preserved a united India, Punjab’s Hindus preferred parti-tion over grouping. They were far more interested in preserving astrong connection to the centre that was India than they were tothe province that was Punjab. “

- Neeti Nair

”

- Partition and Minority Rights in Punjabi Hindu Debates, 1920-47