Author: TheSeer Team

Big Little Stories

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Novels containing stories larger than life or stories so real that they are hard to believe attract us immediately. But short stories encapsulate a world of their own leaving the reader with memorable charm. The session ‘Big Little Stories’ was all about it – the stories of people around us and their eccentricity. The panel had Deepak Unnikrishnan, Shubha Mudgal, Julia Prendergast moderated by Premanka Goswami. 

 

Deepak a writer from Abu Dhabi is the inaugural winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing for his book Temporary People. When asked about why does he have so much violence in his stories, he was quick to pitch in his very humorous way his perspective about violence. He quotes an example of a man flying out of the country. He says the man standing in the line of immigration is anxious, vulnerable, and scared. He finds this act of scrutiny as violent. He shares his own experience of how his father behaves so differently in such times. Further he adds that violence offers an opportunity to introspect, so it’s not as bad as we think.

 

Shubha, an acclaimed Hindustani classical singer talks about her debut novel Looking for Miss Sargam , a collection of stories of music and misadventure. Though the stories come from the music world, Shubha claims that they are a pure work of fiction and at the same time, contain some of the amusing anecdotes she came across, one of them being that musicians gift each other some of the finest compositions on marriage which they might not even give to the best of their disciples. Knowing such facts, she has built up her stories adding her own imagination from the contemporary world.

 

Julia, a lecturer in Writing and Literature in Australia is a prolific writer and was the 2019 Director of the Australian Short Story Festival, held for the first time in Melbourne. She takes us through the stories of love and loss. Her characters are sometimes drawn from her own experiences which make the stories more relatable and touching.

 

At the end, all of them read an excerpt from their stories. Deepak and Shubha impersonated the accent of the native of their characters belonging to various regions of India which brought a lot of laughter and cheers from the audience. Premanka did not forget to quickly request a song from Shubha to which she politely agrees. Shubha sings her personal favourite penned by great lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi – “Ao koi khwaab bune kal ke vaaste”, yet again mesmerising the audience with her unique voice and style.

 

 

About the Author: Bhumika Soni is a literature enthusiast working in the field of data analytics, I have always found words more charming and powerful than numbers. Still searching for The Enchanted Tree created by Enid Blyton to travel to various magical worlds. She currently writes for TheSeer.

Small Town, Big Dreams

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Small town, is not just a matter of small town but big dreamers who come out of that with flying colours. Andaleeb Wajid, a Bengaluru based writer who has authored several books on different topics like food, relationship etc. has herself made a confession that she never lived in a town. She couldn’t imagine on being a part of town as she grew up in the city of bengaluru.

 

The discussion began with Abdullah Khan who has written ‘Patna Blues’. A man has grown up in a small village from northern part of Bihar where there was no electricity and other basic facilities. On his first visit to the capital city ‘Patna’, after seeing the river Ganges, has a question in his mind which he asks his father, as to whether ‘this is an ocean?’. Table fan was a luxury during his times. His feelings towards his own town and usual aspirations of middle class town people led him to pen this book.

 

Tanuj Solanki, who has lived in Muzaffarnagar, felt that the soul of a country actually lived in various social media like whatsapp and facebook. He agreed that small towns do play a big role as he had lived in Muzaffarnagar for 17 years. He mentioned the communal riots and tensions that big districts or cities have which are unusual in towns even today.

 

Parimal Bhattacharya, another speaker told the gathering that he hadn’t actually grown up in a town but moved to Darjeeling in his twenties as a teacher. But only after 15 years of returning from that place he wrote the book ‘No Path in Darjeeling Is Straight: Memories of a Hill Town’. He also said that Darjeeling is very different from other towns or villages where different communities live peacefully together.

 

Gillian Wright, a translator and writer said that there was something that broke us apart from towns to cities, but there was some continuity also in terms of culture, poetry etc. She feels and says big voices come from small places. 

 

Small towns may be a nostalgia for people who are obsessed with cities and its pollution. 

 

 

About the Author: Rohini Mahadevan is political science graduate and works as a content writer. She likes reading books, drawing, painting, and writing short creative pieces. She currently writes for TheSeer.

Children | Literature | Fun (C | L | F) – Day 1

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The youngest reporter and blogger on the team, Devaarsh Mehta attended a few of the CLF sessions for children in his age category (12+) at the Bangalore Literature Festival, Day 1. Find his take on these sessions that are specially designed for children to have fun and also take home a lesson or two.

 

Tickle Me, Don’t Tickle Me | Jerry Pinto

First we had Jerry Pinto the great
He interacted a lot like my best mate
His book was tickle me don’t tickle me
Which was written during his poetic spree
Be ready to grab an idea he said
You’ll get many just before bed
Language is full of magic
Happiness excitement and tragic
Reading is language’s fun
Even after being finished you won’t want to be done
Language when used well
(What he said is something to dwell)
Is the secret of being a human

 

How Now, Brown Cloud? | Bijal Vachharajani

Bijal Vaccharajani has written ‘A Cloud Called Bhura’. Bijal is an environmentalist and has written many other books including ‘So You Want to Know About The Environment‘.

She was funny and kind.

She asked us many questions and gave a quiz. We made paper planes, wrote letters, and had fun.

 

 

How to Write a Book in a Year | Balaji Venkatraman

Balaji Venkataraman spoke all about how to write a book in a year.

He has written books like Pops! and Flat-Track Bullies. Balaji read a few excerpts from his books and gave us six points –

Get a notebook

Read for half an hour

Pay attention to detail

Look at the fun side

Write four pages on weekends

Give it a title

 

He also did a few small experiments and gave rewards to those who answered the questions that he asked about the experiments.

 

 

Embody & Imagine | Akhshay Gandhi

Akhshay Gandhi did things a little differently. He did activities with us and told us that most stories start by letting yourself free. The ideas mustn’t be pushed out. They will come in their own. We played a few games and a sort of questionnaire with no wrong answers.

 

The Lizard of Oz | Khyrunnisa A

She is an animal lover and her book The Lizard of Oz has more than ten animals in different stories. She was really funny. The reason for the book is to show that insects aren’t that bad. She also uses many funny similes and metaphors.

 

 

Who Changed the Game? | Devika Cariapa

Devika Cariapa has written 25 Game Changers. She has written about the people who faced discrimination and yet went on to become some of the most famous people. The people who changed the tragic, underdeveloped India to the happy, developing one that we live in today. She gave us a trivia test. It was awesome.

 

Tinkle – Make Your Own SuperHero | Savio Mascarenhas

Savio Mascarenhas’ session was a lot of fun. He taught us how to turn Tinkle comic characters into heroes and villains. He took our suggestions to make  Suppandi supervillain. We also learnt many things about comics.

 

Ramayana Vs. Mahabharata | Devdutt Pattanaik

He has written many good mythical stories. He was quite funny. He wrote a double book which is like a book which has two stories in it, one from front to back and the other from back to front. It was a lot of fun.

 

So Who Wants to be a Space Scientist? | Minnie Vaid

Minnie Vaid is a brilliant author who has written about women space scientists. She spoke about the Mangal Mission and Chandrayan. I loved it.

 

 

 

About the Author: Devaarsh Mehta is a certified bookworm, guitarist (almost), riddle maker, puzzle solver, and earth warrior with a huge collection of books in his personal library. He currently writes for TheSeer.

A Death in The Himalayas

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As intriguing the title of this topic of BLF was, so was the discussion of the book ‘A Death in the Himalayas‘ by Udayan Mukherjee. Udayan Mukherjee, who has spent two decades working in CNBC was in conversation with Aruna Nambiar, who is also a well-known author of ‘Mango Cheeks, Metal Teeth’. Section 144 in the Bangalore city did not spoil the mood of the fest and the audience were glued to their chairs in this very interesting unfolding conversation about the book.

The dark cover of the book with the title in the red font stating ‘A Neville Wadia mystery‘ creates an enticing curiosity in itself. Aruna, who has read the book claimed that the book has all the elements of a good murder mystery. It has lots of suspects with motives but no alibies. 

Another salient feature of the book is the classic throwback, almost literary feel, that the book associates with. 

Udayan believes that one has to be a voracious reader to be a writer eventually. Unlike other children who had superheroes like Spiderman and Batman, his heroes were always writers since childhoods. He confessed that the world of television never gave the same pleasure as writing did.

Udayan lives for the most part of a year in a little village in the Himalayas and spends months together in his solitude working on the book writing. He told the audience that seeing a big crowd overwhelms him as there are times where for more than a month the only people he meets in the Himalayas are his wife and the caretaker. Aruna and Udayan discussed how it is not important to compare writing one book in four years in a city to writing four books in one year in a quiet place like the Himalayas. A lot of factors including discipline and the busy city life affects the writing process.

Before speaking about the book and its plot, Udayan spoke about how locales and milieu of a place are equally important for his books as the ending of solving the mystery itself. ‘A Death in the Himalayas’ is a book about a Scottish British author Claire Watson who wrote a contemptuous book on the plight of minorities in India. How it made her unpopular with government and politicians and made her take refuge in a Himalayan village. The book unfolds further when Claire is found dead in a stream in a jungle one fine morning. Clair’s neighbours were a Parsi couple from Mumbai, Neville Wadia and Shahnaz Wadia. Neville is a retired police officer who gets involved in resolving the mystery of Claire’s death. 

Udayan explained that, according to him, the key to a murder mystery is not just the plot. One might not remember the story but the characters stay. Two most interesting characters in the book are the protagonist Neville Wadia and the actual inspector in the investigation. Neville Wadia is portrayed as a handsome sixty-year-old retired top cop. He is slender, refined and charming. Aruna teased Udayan asking if he sees the character as his alter ego.  

Udayan explained that he wanted to depict Neville as a gentle soul and does not want him to come across as the stereotyped boorish police inspector. Neville is a reclusive, quiet-looking good soul who wants to help people in distress. Shahnaz Wadia, playing Neville’s wife, is also shown as a very intriguing and nice woman. To offset Neville’s personality, Satish, the actual inspector, is portrayed as a rugged character. 

While the book is a crime thriller, it also is a literary delight. The entire setting is a very integral part of the book. The Himalayas should not be considered as just a pretty locale to set up the plot. On the contrary, how Himalayan villages bring with them the aspects of insecurities, conflicts and politics of the village. It touches on topics about social problems of a village, including illegal land acquisition and outsiders coming to the village.

The conversation unfolded a very different aspect of the Himalayas and how they lend themselves to murder mysteries. Himalayan people are shy and reclusive. The physical appearance of mountains has an eerie aspect to it. Sometimes afternoons can be quieter than nights. 

It was interesting to hear the social problems that the mountain people face, how they need city people but also resent them and the intrusion. In the book, Claire is a quintessential outsider and so is not accepted by the villagers. 

Udayan talked about his views about north Indian villages. Two key things that struck him were misogamy and xenophobia. These also play an important role in unveiling the story. The title of the book could have very well been ‘A Death of the Himalayas’ instead as Udayan feels that we are ruining the Himalayas. This book seemed to be very layered and uncovering it will be a mysterious delight.

Udayan then took the audience’s questions and explained how beauty and evil coexist in a quiet place. Mumbai has a noise that interferes with the writing and hence he finds writing in the Himalayas more productive. His favourite author is P.D. James and the detective character Adam Dalgliesh. He loves some of the well-known French mystery writers as well. Udayan has kept it at a lower price because he wants this book to be read as a literary crime novel. 

About the Author: Neha Agrawal is an expressive-impulsive woman with the halo of positivism and energy, a smile that emanates from the heart and wants to reach out to the world. She loves books, children, rawness, originality, and nature – not in any particular order. A budding poet and a writer under the handle #fursatkealfaaz on Instagram. She currently writes for TheSeer.

The Story of an Acid-Attack Survivor

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Two women, two horrifying life-changing incidents. They don’t give up; instead, they determine to emerge like a phoenix to inform the world about what it takes to rise out of an acid attack and bring back normalcy in life.

Reshma Qureshi, an acid attack survivor and Tania Singh, CEO of the NGO Make Love Not Scars (MLNS) join hands to present the story of Reshma and many other girls like her who faced acid attack, in their book ‘Being Reshma’.

As the moderator, Preeti Gill an independent literary agent welcomes the two brave ladies. Reshma and Tania confidently retell their stories of the fight against this ugly war.

Reshma was just 17 when she was attacked by her brother in law on her way to school. Nobody turned up for her help. On top of that when she went to the hospital, she was first asked to lodge an FIR. She had no option. Filing complaints and interrogation took almost 7 hours and she was still unattended. Later on, she was provided medication but because of this delay, she lost an eye.

In another world, Tania was studying business in Singapore where during a fire accident she burnt her hair and was going through the treatment in best of the hospitals there. As she wanted to return to India, she looked for medical facilities for burn victims here. But to her dismay, she found it to be pathetic. Most of the preventable burn victims lost their lives because of poor medical services. In her research for the betterment, she came in contact with the NGO MLNS. Here, they started a campaign to provide dignity to the acid attack survivors for which Reshma volunteered to become the face of the campaign and the journey of togetherness started.

Tania tells about the campaign which was a beauty vlog by the acid attack victims presenting online makeup tutorials with hard-hitting taglines like “Most important tip: You will get an eyeliner for Rs 100 but a bottle of acid for only for Rs 30 and that is why girls are so easily attacked with it.” The campaign went viral and led the government to ban over the counter sale of Acid.

Reshma who has been to New York Fashion Week is happy with the awareness being spread but she believes still a lot has to be done. According to her, even as we discuss it, someone might be still under attack. The offenders should be punished strictly. As Tania puts it, India has one of the stringent laws for women protection but implementation is where we are lacking. A great sigh of relief is that the incidents have been increasingly reported contrary to earlier times when a stigma was attached to such kind of incidents.

As we come to the end of the session, Reshma appealed to everyone to not run from an acid victim but instead help them to get first aid relief which can be a life saviour. Preeti Gill concluded this life-affirming story while it touched all of us somewhere deep down in our heart.

About the Author: Bhumika Soni is a literature enthusiast working in the field of data analytics, I have always found words more charming and powerful than numbers. Still searching for The Enchanted Tree created by Enid Blyton to travel to various magical worlds. She currently writes for TheSeer.

The Endgame

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The Yayati stage arena at the Bangalore Literature Festival’19 witnessed a remarkable burst of energy amongst the audience at 12.45 PM as Kunal Basu took over the stage. Kunal, the author of critically acclaimed novels such as – The Opium Clerk, Kalkatta, etc. was accompanied by Teesta Guha Sarkar, the Senior Commissioning Editor at Pan Macmillan India. The session basically revolved around familiarizing the audience with Kunal’s upcoming novel- ‘The Endgame’ which releases this December while Teesta moderated the session. 

 

The Endgame is Kunal’s first novel to be translated from Bangla (originally Tejaswini O Shabnam) to English. However, he did not take up the translation work of his novel. He further went on to narrate how The Endgame as a novel took shape. It started off 2 years back when a Bollywood producer approached Kunal to do a story on the notion of trafficking which he, in turn, wanted to turn into a film. Even though the anguish and rampant about trafficking kept him miles away from writing about it, a small voice from within seemed to call out to him to explore the unexplored. He agreed upon writing such a novel with a word from the producers to get in touch with the trafficking victims from the villages and the traffickers. He narrated how a visit to an NGO that was arranged for him completely changed his take on the entire subject. Prepared with his “toolkit of a writer” he entered a derelict shed where 11 little girls between the age of 14-18 years waited for his questions. “I broke down”- said Kunal. As a result, his gaze into those 11 pairs of eyes melted together to become a character called ‘Shabnam’.

His novel, The Endgame revolves around the tale of two girls- one raised in India and another in New York who ends up meeting in the battlefields of Iraq. Kunal explains his reasons for locating the novel in the context of the conflict by stating that he wanted to see the subterranean connection- war over women’s bodies fought in our country. “Wars never end”, said he. 

 

The 63 years old writer says that he belongs to a bilingual tribe and in spite of being a bilingual writer he kept aloof from translating this novel on his own because he believes going back to translate his own work from Bangla to English is a tedious affair. On his distinctness of style, he expresses his views on making his story the hero of his novel. Coming off the land of Ramayana and Mahabharata, story making he said is fundamental to his outpost. He addressed the audience in this regard by telling them how he needs to think of “a story that would keep people awake at night”. “The writers do not seem to understand the readers’ thirst for stories”, he added.

 

The session ended with him reading out a portion from the manuscript of ‘The Endgame’ and several questions from the audience to which he responded with his need to engage with imagery to bring a story to life, valuable advice to read a lot and write a lot without restricting oneself to any one particular genre, about how writing a novel changes the writer as it changes the readers. He concluded with another significant advice to budding writers – “Research to fertilise your imagination. Not detailing. Imagination will do the detailing.

 

 

About the Author: Upasana Mahanta is an MA in English with Communication Studies student from CHRIST (Deemed To Be University) – Bengaluru, who firmly believes that there is nothing more exhilarating and liberating as poetry. She finds solace in writing poems and travel blogs and has amongst her laurels a 1st Prize in the English category of the All India Poetess Conference, Meghalaya Chapter’s Seventh Poetry Competition cum North East Poetry Festival. She currently writes for TheSeer.

Putting the ‘Science’ in Science Fiction

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So what if it was a peak afternoon in Bangalore at the Literature Festival! At 12:30 PM, the Red Couch was brimming with audience awaiting the interesting conversation between the SriLankan science fiction writer, Navin Weerarante and the award-winning playwriter Thomas Manuel. 

Navin opened the conversation by comparing the audience to that he would have expected in Sri Lanka, that is just a maximum of 1/10th. (By a show of hands, it was evident that while the audience had five-six scientists, most were science-curious population.)

Navin spoke about how he got excited by science fiction in his early childhood at around nine years of age when his dad once gave him the third book of Odyssey by Arthur Clarke. A book with no picture, no gun, and no clear bad guy. It had a place called Europa and it made Navin extremely curious. The concept of a human as a small speck in one little speck of dust in the solar system intrigued his curious little brain. 

Navin holds on to the belief that reading something about the future that could be real is very fascinating to a human brain. When you write hard science fiction you make sure its factually right and at the same time, you add a predictive aspect to it too. He beautifully explained how homo sapiens that have been around for 300,000 years were the first believers of fiction. Our children and the next generation will create the next set of humans who will be nothing like us. This is the future we are rushing into. Artificial intelligence and technology are making things happen. Climate change will destroy the present. We need to be ready for it and curious enough to bring changes.  

On the other hand, Thomas brought in a different perspective to hard science fiction and the science within it. He doesn’t think of it in terms of usefulness. To him, hard science fiction is interesting because science is one of the few ways of knowing. It is the language of learning and being curious. He sees no reason to assume that someone who designs computer science web applications will also be equally inquisitive about the universe and it’s working. Different things will interest different people. Personally, Thomas said his interest in science fiction comes from his interests in other things like art, science etc. and to know what happens if we change one aspect of this being. Thomas made a statement which got audiences applauding, “We come for the robots but stay for the humanity!”

 

Navin continued the conversation while assuring that he doesn’t want to come across as a hard science fiction snob. He continued explaining that the reason he was compelled to write his book “100-gram mission” was that he is terrified by the current climate change. He spoke about Syria and Libya situations and how they are warnings of what is in store in the future.

 

Thomas very clearly articulated that hard science fiction stories can be considered to be of two broad categories. The first kinds are those that Navin writes. An example would be the book ‘Martian’ by Andy Weir. The most exciting part of this category writings is the realism of problem-solving. The second kind of stories are more fiction oriented and they create a sense of wonder, like “Three-body problem’ by a Chinese writer, Cixin Liu. A detailed narrative of this book was unveiled to bring out a key point that scientists might find no realism in them. But criticism is not what will help. These stories have their role to play. They excite people in a different way. It gives a feeling of vertigo that this is something very novel. 

 

It was interesting to see two aspects of science fiction writing. One that demands and brings across legitimacy and second serve the purpose of creating a sense of wonder and awe. Navin expressed his trouble with understanding how are we tolerating this world where people are bragging about their ignorance of environmental changes. He left the audience with daunting questions. He added that science fiction writers have a responsibility to make people see the wonder and make them curious, inspire people to think about science.

The authors also agreed on the importance of soft science fiction and social science fiction genres. The session ended on a lighter note that there are no bad genres but only bad writers. 

 

Navin and Thomas also helped the audience understand how they can self-publish their science fictions on amazon and join Facebook groups and not let the gatekeepers keep you waiting. Our only chance to survive with our current living standards is the need to marry science and technology responsibly. 

 

 

About the Author: Neha Agrawal is an expressive-impulsive woman with the halo of positivism and energy, a smile that emanates from the heart and wants to reach out to the world. She loves books, children, rawness, originality, and nature – not in any particular order. A budding poet and a writer under the handle #fursatkealfaaz on Instagram. She currently writes for TheSeer.

The Courtesan Project

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The enlightening talk given by Manjari Chaturvedi covered the works of her initiative, Courtesan Project. The motto of her project, to acknowledge the ‘Tawaifs’ (female performers at the kings’ courts) as she states in Urdu “unko unki wajood de” was well justified. 

 

We would find around 1000 male ghazal artists dated back to a century on the internet but barely a woman ghazal performer’s name. Manjari feels this is due to the lens of gender by which we have seen an art form through centuries. She narrated a story of an artist, Zareena Begum who worked under a pension scheme from her foundation. This woman who wished to sing on the stage in a banarasi saree wasn’t sponsored for her shows since she was labelled a Tawaif or a prostitute by the society. 

 

Speaking about the North Indian traditional art forms, she strongly feels that these women so-called prostitutes were the ones who kept art forms such as Kathak, Ghazal and Thumri alive. 

The reason women performers aren’t documented in our history is due to the patriarchal system. The creator of Sufi Kathak, Manjari took an example of Birju Maharaj, a well known dancer at the court of Wajed Ali Shah and Malka Jaan a female performer at the king’s court whose name isn’t found anywhere in history. 

 

She broke the stereotype of a tawaif’s attire. Their outfits show nothing but their faces, wrists and feet as opposed to the idea of tight cleavage showing outfits with bosom heaving dance moves. This prejudice is amplified by Bollywood that feeds us with this wrong image of a Tawaif or a Baiji. 

She mentioned through an example of the All India Radio where female performers were allowed only through the backdoor. But these women were commercially viable for them. 

 

“You’ve taken their art, their attire but snatched their identity by labelling them as characterless hence refusing to acknowledge them,” she states. The contributions of these women to the art forms can only be brought through oral narratives which could be difficult but can be made possible through thoughtful projects such as this one. 

 

 

About the Author: Ayesha is a student pursuing Media Studies, Psychology, and English. She is an appreciator of new things, places and people. She believes good food and a trip to a beach can heal the soul. Her personal blog covers themes such as mental health and travelling. She currently writes for TheSeer. Instagram handle – gudiyaaa_

 

The Ailing Economy: Passing Flu or ICU?

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Is the economy in the passing flu, or is it strong? Narayan Ramachandran introduces the debate with this question to the key economists – Dr. Indira Rajaraman, Dr. R. Jagannathan, and Vivek Kaul.

 

The session proceeded as each economist took their stand about the question posed by Ramachandran. Indira talked about how she would not call the present economic phase of India, flu. It is merely a global slowdown, as has been ongoing since demonetization. Neither is the economy in the Intensive Care Unit, as Narayan had suggested, as the economy is not terminally ill. She referred to the World Bank report, that ranked India in terms of its growth and advocated the present economic state to one major failure- the failure to enforce contracts. Indira calls the deferral of payments an “Indian disease”.

 

Jagannathan took a more critical look at the land reforms and its implementation. There have not been enough reforms since 1991, and there were very few reforms at the macroeconomic level. He posited on the effects of technology- how these effects can be utilized to polarize the workforce. “We have to address this structural thing of business,” said Jagannathan.

 

The mic was passed on to Vivek Kaul, who asked the audience to raise their hands if they had taken an uber or an ola to the occasion today. He, thus, proceeded to prove his point about car sales. He stated how there has been a 30% drop in car sales. He proceeded to blame the Modi government, and how they have failed to acknowledge the problem. In a very engaging explanation, Vivek told the audience how salaried incomes have no growth, and the real incomes have fallen. Vivek calls the current economic problem to be structural, as well as cyclical. The economy will soon end up in the ICU.

 

“The patient is seriously ill”, Narayan commented by synthesizing the economists’ arguments. The question raised, however, is how should we tackle the structural issues in this cyclical slowdown?

Indira stated her views first, by saying that the problem is mainly a ‘legacy issue’. The government should not be defensive. The argument about fiscal deficits was raised by her, as companies going into default will have a negative impact. “The fisc is deeply troubled”, she said as she ended her argument.

 

Jagannathan made a funny statement about how most of the problems are due to economists themselves. They, themselves, are very contradictory in their approach towards the economic problem. He told the audience not to worry about the fiscal problem. His approach was more central to the non-economic reforms, like agricultural and police contract reforms.

 

Vivek Kaul took up a different approach to the argument. He did not agree with the fiscal deficit argument, he thought that the government should cut down it’s spending. The problem was where the government is spending, not why.
So, what do we do now? In the current ‘economic flu’, how do we deal with its problems?

 

The economists ponder over the thought, as Vivek Kaul took the mic. He said that the consumption has to go up, as no cooperate will invest unless the capital utilization picks up. Indira, as well as Jagannathan, considered the solution to be government expenditure towards the poor. Indira commented on how the construction sector has been vastly affected by the GST, and our next step is to plead to the government to bring the levy down. She said, “The government can be a part of the solution, only when it recognizes the problem”- a statement that received applause from the audience.

Thus, Narayan concluded the debate, stating that even if he was holding back his own opinion on fiscal deficits, the emphasis on the fiscal deficits should go. The government should make payments where it is due.

 

 

 

About the Author: Passionate about saving the environment, and driven by politics and philosophy, Anusha Basu writes about the musings she perceives everyday. She is currently pursuing her English Hons degree at Christ University, Bangalore. She currently writes for TheSeer.

The Remains of Liberalism

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The stage of Tughlaq was set for a discussion on liberalism by the previous session delving into the history of coextensive rights and obligations and conservatism in India. This session on ‘The Remains of liberalism’ was presided over by speakers Ed Luce who is a Washington based columnist and commentator for the Financial Times and Mukul Kesavan who is an Indian historian, novelist, and political and social essayist. Joining them was Manish Sabharwal, Chairman of Teamlease and a Friend of BLF in the role of a moderator.

 

The conversation began with the basic yet big question of what liberalism means. Without disappearing down the rabbit hole, in his own words, Ed said that liberalism ideally means a system of checks and balances. Adding context to what liberalism means today, Mukul opined that liberalism has become whatever is left after majoritarianism is deducted from the equation. Furthering this line of thought, Manish raised the point on the tension between democracy and liberalism, upon which Ed commented that India was moving towards an illiberal democracy and Mukul noted the strain was caused by majoritarians basing themselves on a particular race or culture.

 

Speaking on whether there ever existed an ideal era for liberalism, Ed, quick with his easy wit answered – “…there has been no golden era of liberalism, maybe a silver era or a platinum era”. He went on to emphasize that liberal democracy is in mortal danger and there is a retreat going on in the West. Picking up on the western perspective, Mukul astutely added that the notion of populism is problematic because the division of Left populism and Right populism in the USA is misleading. He further said that in both India and the USA, majoritarianism has been cultivated and gave an example of The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019. At this point, Manish asked that given the broad history of politics, do we really believe we live in special or unique circumstances per se? To this Ed said, “we are temporary narcissists and what is happening right now in the West is a conclusion of a build-up”. Mukul outlined that what we are looking at is the reconstitution of Republic and we need to acknowledge that the situation is bad. Relating that “A Nation is not given, it is imagined and reimagined”, Mukul acknowledged that what Sangh Parivar or RSS essentially did over the past 100 years is reimagine India.

 

Owing to the paucity of time, the discussion ended contemplating the remains. The back and forth between Ed’s and Mukul’s juxtaposing views on the reality of liberalism in the West and in India offered a critical and educative perspective. 

 

 

About the Author: Charishma V is just another complex, creative pseudo-adult who can wear several hats. Her blog is at charishmavreddy. She currently writes for TheSeer. Instagram handle – @poetry_over_prose

 

Body Sutra

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The event commenced on time at the Red Couch venue with an introductory address by Lucy Nelson followed by an extensive talk by Dr. Alka Pande (famous Indian academic and museum curator). Dr. Pande spoke about her literary safari over the years absorbing the need to explore deeper into Indian history of aesthetics with respect to the depiction of bodies to represent different cultures in the country, instead of tailing behind the western vestiges. Alka elaborated on her use of ekphrasis to cover the historical journey of sensuality in female bodies and their portrayal in Indian art. She talked about her latest book “Body Sutra” which traces the human form through art and imagination.

 

The famous curator spent 5 years of her life culminating the arguments for this vivid and enthralling expedition about Indian aesthetics of sensuality and form. In the most subtle manner possible she covers the chronological development of ekphrasis in the country. She rendered her perspective on the gender-fluid contemporary India and also enlightened the audience about various cultures, time period, and their approach towards the sensuality of the human body. She looked upon the framework that works behind the pre-modern body, medieval body, modern body as well as the contemporary body. Alka then emitted her expertise about various vestiges of Indian culture and dynamic approaches to a women’s body. She enlightened Lucy about the contradictory muses between western verisimilitudes and Indian version of sensuality which mainly deals with Shringar and Vilas. According to Alka, the concepts of body sutra are mainly inspired by ancient Rasa theories and Natya Shastras. In her book, she mentions about a lot of historical sculptures and monuments which depict the sensuous body of goddesses as well as other women. Her understanding of symbolism in Indian art is beautiful as she goes on to explain the Indian body where she talks about imagery portraying them with pendulous breasts, extremely cervical hips, curled flicks and Mukulas which are eyes formed in the shape of a lotus. This extremely alluring mannerism of women portrayal can be witnessed in a lot of Indian historical venues like Ajanta Caves and Khajuraho group of monuments. The nakedness portrayed in these sculptures refers to the spiritual element of society much more than the commodification aspect. She used a lot of mythological analogy to draw home her point regarding body sensuality. She talked about Arthanareshwar who symbolizes the body of Shiv Shakti, philosophies of Buddha and different portrayals of goddess Kali who is one of the fiercest goddesses in Indian mythology.

 

Dr. Alka explained the aesthetics of the human body and form with respect to her latest book “Body Sutra” in the most subtle manner possible, covering the details of the human body from wide-hipped, voluptuous woman that is Yakshi to her cover for the book which represents a sculpture of goddess Parvati (currently in Los Angeles county museum). This session provided extensive insight into the dynamics of body depictions and portrayals of the human form as a whole, led by the genius of Dr. Alka which paved a new platform for understanding of self and identity in respect to Indian culture.

 

 

 

About the Author: Abhinav Kumar is an MA in English with Communication Studies student from CHRIST ( Deemed To Be University), Bengaluru who believes in “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world”. He is interested in sports journalism and travelogue writing. He currently writes for TheSeer.

A Life Told Through The Body

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A conversation between Shanta Gokhale, a Mumbai based bilingual writer, translator, journalist, theatre critic, and cultural columnist with Jerry Pinto, a Mumbai based Indian writer and journalist.

 

There was an immediate comfort between the two panelists on the stage and Jerry was quick to reveal that he knew Shanta for over 30 years and the discussion kicked off on a familiar note with some personal fun anecdotes and laughter. They first discussed her book, ‘The Engaged Observer’- a collection of writings, how she came about writing it and her writing process in general. Shanta was casual throughout the conversation and made it seem like an easy job. She spoke about how the stories came to her at different points in her life and how she lent a voice to it.

Jerry then went on to tell us how he prodded and persisted Shanta over many years to write her memoir which we now have as ‘One Foot On The Ground: A Life Told Through The Body’. Shanta went on to tell us how she has rather poor memory and can’t remember a thing let alone write a memoir. And then she quickly added, it all came to her one day in the form of a distinct memory. She could suddenly taste the feeling of blood and iron in her mouth just like she did many years ago after a tonsillitis surgery. That one memory triggered her onto many more like her first period, her first tooth extraction and many other physical struggles. That string of thought is what became the structure of the memoir.

 

Jerry then asked her about her precise process of writing, to which she candidly joked if he wanted the real process or what he thought it was. Shanta revealed that for her, the structure is of utmost importance, details come in later. Interestingly she said that she never thinks about the ending of her story and lets it come to her as the story progresses instead of building the story around the ending. I thought that was a great lesson for upcoming writers.

 

Next, they talked about one of her oldest books released in 1995, ‘Rita Welinkar’. She candidly remarked how she was privy to 4 extramarital affairs around her at the time and tried to convince each one of those women to let go of their respective men but to no avail. She then decided that if no one was going to listen to her, she would write a book about it! And that’s how we got ‘Rita Welinkar’. She then said what I thought holds as much today as it did so many years ago, that her feminist friends judged her for her thoughts. She felt distanced and different for voicing an alternate opinion.

Shanta’s anecdotes about how all her books came about was an eye-opener and such a guiding light for new writers.

 

 

About the Author: Pashmi Dutta is a reader, writer, political enthusiast. Trying to talk with ease about things that make us uneasy, she has her blog at PashmiBlog and currently writes for TheSeer.

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