All Souls Saved

My Halloween musings, in a poem:

The day splits open like a pumpkin
Orange and sunny

Seeds are birds
They peck on dark leftover clouds in the corners

Clouds or souls that pine to leave
With night, fog and disembodied leaves
Dropping one two three
From the great white oak on the lawn

It is still slender
Yet to grow in girth
Mimics the dreams and mysteries this day
May bring or night may savor –

Brief passion, eyes of amber, skin that sizzles
And masquerades to waltz with the wind

A crazy reveler who talks to the dead
In a tongue that lives, forever lives.

A Few Things of Remembrance

Okay, so there's a brothers and sisters festival coming up soon. It is observed mostly in the eastern part of India and is known by two or three different names. I had written the poem below not exactly addressing this sentimental occasion, but generally as a musing about my brother and me when we were kids, and above all, brats. The poem is an exercise in some kiddish recollections... but for a change I like it. Sometimes, a brief vacation from the adult world refreshes me. Hence this me-created nursery rhyme, edited a bit from the existing version on Sulekha.com...

A Few Things of Remembrance

He would always do
such nasty things,

My brother. He'd always upset me.
Once he had snuck open my sketchbook


And doodled a darn bird
That mocked my unruffled
sunrises and gregarious waterfalls


With that cock-a-doodle-doo trick.
Defiant, brash, energetic,

It showed me the lack of sound and movement in my art.

He had secretly scribed it in there with no one watching, not me.
A darn springy little chick.

I got hold of his toy train tracks,
vendetta of course!


And hammered it altogether
Just to make the point that I

did not need a plucky rooster
To animate the heart of my art
However immobile or inert.


I made sure his toy engine would
not puff and rush along like before


My hammer made sure it flattened them all,
a neat rejoinder
Against a scrappy bird mocking my part.

My brother stole my watercolor
tablets the next time

And soaked them well
In a plastic bucket; especially

his favorite ones – red and blue
So he could paint his tiny face
Usually cherubic and chaste.

He chose a droopy holiday
afternoon for the venture


Finding me tired doing those clock-time math
homework and sleepy,
He let the colors run without trace.

I coaxed him into acting in
my dance drama – a ploy –


He was made up as a girl.
Wearing pink frock and frills,

blue liners and painted ruby lips –
A fairy child framed on the walls
Of my Roman Catholic school.

Little did he know how I laughed with
my mischievous friends, called him names,


Punishing him for spoiling my watercolors,
have him dance and jig
Like a girly girl!

My incorrigible sibling stole my
new dolls, actually kidnapped them.


They were barely acquired.
Even before I opened the packing,

examined their tubby face and lace,
Georgette gown and pageboy hair,
Brother and sister –– an adorable pair,

He fed them gumdrops in captivity and
suddenly became a brother to them.


Then realizing something he surrendered to me
unconditionally,
Entire cache! How rare!

I would always do this to make
you understand, he mewed:


I thrive in your playthings.
So I took your dolls, rainbow

paintboxes, sketchbook and games
Tiny balls of clay dough clinging
Candy-coloured blocks for building

Our pools of friendship where I’d swim
like a busy fish, with you


In the waters of life that perhaps would
recede steadily everyday

Until our parting.

My brother and I indeed left our
home of tales and so it feels now


I can let him have it all,
Visit it at will with his perky doodles,

funny designs and secret doors
Through where we now travel

To a childhood untroubled,
Every now and then together following
trails that he or I uncannily left


After all fights and quarrels were done and
stolen moments came home
never to double.

Looking at the broken engine, one-legged
carts, dollhouses, cracked fishbowls,


I want to tell him how our silly kiddish
capers now make me smile,


Coming back like dreams
All of it really seems
Coloured leaves we gather as we go on

into a prolonged autumnal spell.

Assam clashes: The communal angle came from the news media

My journalist-writer friend Subir Ghosh has taken out an exciting and deeply investigative study. Those of you who are political animals and in general are interested in the North East of India, do read the news release below. Clicking on the title of this post will take you to the detailed report, downloadable and free.

New Delhi, October 23: The ethnic clashes between indigenous Bodos and Bangladeshi migrants which broke out in Assam in the first week of October 2008 gave unnecessary importance and prominence to the “Muslim” aspect of the latter.

The finding is from a study by Newswatch, an independent online entity which monitors, collates and documents news and information pertaining to the news media and journalism. The Newswatch (http://www.newswatch.in/) probe was conducted over an eight-day period starting the day the clashes broke out (October 3). The study —Identities and descriptors: How the news media described the Assam clashes — was meant to be a qualitative analysis, and not a quantitative one. The idea was to look at the way the news media covered the issue, and not quantify the exact number of publications or news outlets that did a story, or did not. “Sectarian violence in Northeast does not always make it to the front page of newspapers. But this one did — coming as it was in the backdrop of the attacks on Christians by Hindu rightwing elements in Karnataka and Orissa, and a palpable sense of Islamophobia that seemed to be all-pervading in the aftermath of the serial blasts in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and New Delhi. The prime objective of this study was to look at how the media uses descriptors and modifiers in ethnic conflict situations,” explained Newswatch editor, Subir Ghosh.

Altogether, 597 stories published during the period were tracked down by the researchers. After leaving out duplicates (mainly because of news agency creeds), the number was brought down to 187. The next round of elimination was done to exclude non-English stories and ones that ran into 100 words or less. In the end, 138 stories were selected for the content analysis.Very few stories, it was found, desisted from naming the two communities involved in the clashes. It would be wrong to say very few “publications” did so, since different news items emanating from the same outlet used varied descriptors for the two groups of people. In other words, there seemed to be a dearth of policy when it came to naming communities or ethnic groups involved in clashes. The study found 26 sets of descriptors and modifiers which were used to describe the Bodo tribals which ranged from “local Hindus called Bodos” to “non-Muslims.” In case of Bangladeshi migrants, the number was 27, with the descriptors and modifiers varying from “Bangladeshi Muslim migrants” to “Muslim migrant settlers”. Many terms, both correctly and wrongly, were used as synonyms.

The study also looked at the use of the term “Muslim” both in the headlines as well as in the body of the copies. Seven news items (of six outlets) played up the Muslim card in the headlines. As many as 66 stories used “Muslim” to denote Bangladeshi migrants either in the first two paragraphs, or later in the copy (if this community was first introduced only in a latter part of the story concerned). Though the Bangladeshi migrants, by and large, are Muslims, the over-emphasis on the “Muslim” aspect of this particular community went a large way in adding a communal colour to a clash that was not essentially communal in nature. It was rather surprising that the coverage of a clash which left over 50 dead and rendered about 100,000 homeless, saw only 21 Bodos/Assamese/Bengalis and 8 Bangladeshi migrants being quoted in 138 stories. This filtering of voices becomes all the more lopsided given that most of the stories analysed directly or through insinuation projected Bangladeshi migrants (even mostly mentioned just as Muslims) as being the victims of orchestrated violence against them. The lopsidedness in the count of both sources and voices of the people may be gauged from the fact that almost half the stories (65) originated from Guwahati.

The report can be downloaded from here: http://www.newswatch.in/research/1754

Details of the report:

Pages: 10

Format: PDF

Colour: All-colour

Price: Free

Size: 640 KB

For more information contact: Subir Ghosh, Editor-Publisher, NewswatchTel: 0-9811316305Email: editor@newswatch.in Website: http://www.newswatch.in/

TUPELO HONEY-- a poem by JOY LEFTOW

This is one of my favorite poems by Joy Leftow. Read more at http://joyleftowsblog.blogspot.com/ (clicking on the title too will take you to her blog)

JoAnne is one tough broad,

Italian Irish descent

from the Northeast Bronx

Through sacrifice and dedication

JoAnne is now a nurse at

Presbyterian Medical Center

***

This is her story

bout a methadone baby

born addicted

on JoAnne’s ward

This boy had tupelo

honey colored skin,

and hazel brown,

almond eyes

Birth mama’s blond and curly haired

A blue eyed Nuyorican

Daddy is a dark skinned African

***

Mama named the baby Shonequon

The nurses called him “Sweet”

Sweet’s a boarder baby who

lived on the ward

for 2 and a half months

BCW tryin to decide

what to do with that tiny

methadone addicted baby

***

Now me amiga esta sin ninos

she has no children

e quiere uno mucho

she wants one very badly

so she fell in love with Sweet

talked about him constantly

***

JoAnne said,

Sweet is cryin all the time

He holds his body rigid

his cryin is so fitful

Kindled by the pain

cause Sweet’s addicted to meth

and this is how he sounds

eeehhhhhh

eeeehhhhhh

eeeehhhhhh

eeehhhhhh

***

Sweet’s tiny fists

are always clenched

his spindly arms crossing

his scrawny chest

This baby can’t relax!

He’s got a monkey on his back

Sweet’s addicted to meth

***

The Doctor confides

he wishes he could

keep Sweet tranquilized

cause he’s screamin so fretfully

eeehhhhhh

eeehhhhhh

eeehhhhhh

***

JoAnne loves to nurture Sweet

She embraces him reverently

comforts him with the rhythm of her heart

she whispers soothing sounds

cajolingly,

***

her voice falls like soft waves

caresses tender hollows

of his frail anatomy

her soft warm breath

glides down his velvet neck

Sweet responds with purring sounds

***

JoAnne’s gentle devotions

linger on

like a mango blossom’s scent

fragrant on a breeze

Sweet watches her giddily

clinging with his

tightly gripped fists

***

Yesterday Sweet smiled for the

very first time

JoAnne bragged

as though he were her own

Sweet, my boarder baby

is delayed in his response

and yesterday was the

first time

God graced me with his smile

***

Her eyes rimmed with blurring droplets

Dewdrops silhouette

I love him, she said

I want him to be mine

***

Even though he’s HIV

and surely won’t survive

I want him to be mine

***

Child Welfare lets his Mama visit

she hardly came at all

Daddy was there

mostly every day

but he was always drunk

***

Today they let her come and

take my Sweet away

Honey, JoAnne said,

This baby’s in a lot of pain

he suffers from anxiety

***

You don’t have to hold him

24 and 7,

but you need to let him

see your face

smiling, talking

into his

***

Sweet’s Mama answered

I know mucho more than you do

let me tell you somethin’

You don’t know what I been through

All my kids are born on meth

and that’s the way it’s always been

***

The baby started fussin’ then

his spindly arms

clenched across

his scrawny chest

eeehhhhhh

eeehhhhh

eeehhhhhh

***

Sweet opened up his eyes

and focused on JoAnne

reaching out his scrawny arms

***

But Mama reached the baby first

and took him from his crib

Esta te quieto, nino

she said as she rocked him

dispiritedly

to her methadone beat

Esta te quieto, nino

***

It’s gonna be okay Mama said

Grandma said she’s gonna help,

She’s carin’ for my other five

My oldest girl’s gonna be there too

And like I told ya,

All my kids are born on meth

And that’s the way it’s always been,

but we know how to get by.

***

"Floodlight Reflection" and "Autumn Breezes" are among the other poems that I like on Joy's blog, also "Mimicking Marguerite Duras: A Tribute ". So, go there, and imerse yourselves, dear readers.

Fiction forthcoming in Mirage Books short story collection

This was a nice surprise:
My short story selected to appear in a collection by Mirage Books (http://www.miragebooks.com/), India. The story is "Tara Goes Home" that I originally wrote last year, as an entry for Orange Prize (ambitious, ambitious!), UK. It didn't make the cut there and I felt the story had too many loose ends and quite a bit of fluff. So I edited it over and over again. Finally, this year Mirage Books picked it up and I thought, OMG, they like this story? No way! I had contributed three stories (all within 1,500 words and only one to be selected), and my preference rested on either of those other two. Those were really nice tales! But this probably has more gravitas in the theme. Who knows?

Anecdote: When Nadine Gordimer wanted to stick to the title of her novel "A Sport of Nature", her publisher kept arguing against it citing some silly reason like this title might have the book mixed up with sports books! What I mean is, publishers and writers allegedly have totally different world views... (Now I'm not Nadine Gordimer, so let's move on...)

The selected story is about a young woman named Tara who lives in Delhi. She is chided and goaded by her family to bear a son while she keeps getting pregnant with girl babies (revealed by illegally done ultrasounds) that are aborted one after the other. So, finally one day, she steps out of her conservative home and gets on to a bus. The bus meets with an accident and Tara lands up in a hospital. There, half-conscious, she takes a strange decision about her life. This is all about Tara Goes Home.

Here's part of the e-mail that came this morning from Mirage Books editor:

"Hi Friends,
Announcing the winners of the contest -
[From the list below, you can check if your story has been selected, but do come back to read the following message.]
First of all, I'd like to thank all of you for participating in our contest. The response for it has been much better than what we had expected, initially. For us this has been quite an enriching experience and I hope you enjoyed participating as well.
These short-stories which we have selected will be published in our next book and each story will be followed by a short bio and a photograph of its author: That is the Prize.
The very reason why we announced this contest was to promote writers and story-writing. There are so many good writers who don't get the opportunity to get published: Well, today we feel that fifty talented writers will be added to the select group of – 'Published Authors'. Congratulations Winners!
For the ones whose stories don't feature in the list, I'd like to say: Most of the stories we received were good and it has been quite a tough task selecting the ones which we did.
Here is the list of the stories which have been selected:

SELECTED STORIES
01
Nandita Mundle
Ink And Lead
02
Anu Chopra
Arranged Marriage
03
Asma Siddiqui
Beyond Love
04
Ankita Aranke
Desert Faith
05
Ketan Joshi
Drilled
06
Padmaja Menon
From The Mouth Of Babes
07
Saurabh Turakhia
Call Of Nature
08
Vijaya Prakash
A Good Bargain
09
Susan Smith
Aware
10
Sunil Sharma
Butterflies Grandma And Me
11
Pooja Nair
Recipe For Disaster
12
Vandana Jena
Second Sight
13
Shantanu Dhankar
And I Burn
14
I D Atkinson
First Contact
15
Lilia Westmore
Escape To Hopeland
16
Gerardine Baugh
Father
17
M Annamalai
Million Steps
18
Anusarat Kothalanka
Nishgandha-A Dreamscape
19
Pratik Shah
Wavering Bounds
20
Rachana Shah
Gulabjamuns In Syrup
21
Cyril Sam
They Say I Am Crazy
22
B S Keshav
Fast Forward
23
Nathia
Mirage
24
Nabina Das
Tara Goes Home
25
Kenneth Cross
A Healthy Dose Of Insanity
26
Farahdeen Khan
Mona
27
Divya Mohan
The Silent Brook
28
Anita Baruwa
Just Rs 499
29
Sunil Tarini
Betrayal
30
Ribal Haj
Chased By The Wolves
31
Leo Mukherjee
The Fly Who Knew Too Much
32
Anubha Yadav
The Gift
33
Kamal Sharma
Ghost
34
Bharadwaj Vijaysarathy
Tom Dick And Harry
35
Chandru Bhojwani
The Love Letter
36
McKenzie Hightower
The Lost And The Forgotten
37
Sweta Vikram
Challenges Of Breaking Rules
38
Eva Bell
Perfect Execution
39
Kirin Gupta
Now
40
Ramprasad Adpaikar
The Baby
41
Sindhu Ramachandran
Happy Teacher's Day To Life
42
John Wolf
Earth Dogs
43
Vivek Shivram
A Conversation With The Damned
44
Salil Chaturvedi
Ta Rat Thing
45
Malavika Shridharan
The Shooting Star
46
G S Vasukumar
The Last Drop Of Tear
47
Joe Pfeffer
Supreme Reflections
48
Tia Rohit
Darkness Behind The Bush
49
Carmalin Sophia
Love Me Dear
50
Swapneel Khare
I Am Sorry

[This list is subject to the authors' furnishing the details and complying with the rules.]
The authors of these selected stories need to furnish some details, for which we will email them, individually, very shortly.

Warm Regards,
Huned Contractor
[Editor: Mirage Books]

FREE WRITING -- A Poem

The atavistic life of ancient
Turks or for that matter, Romans, before that Scythians
and who knows who else, is a testimony to the fact that human beings have, time and again, perfected the art of lying,
deception and inflicting misery on others who they (or is it we)
saw
as
'others'. This is so much like a road

taken again and again
and very much like what I read in Kay Ryan's poem last night,
that a road NOT taken is a road closed to all, to paraphrase Ryan.
The road is here, there,

everywhere. To me it looms
like blue elephants, slow and majestic.
Or it also becomes dry flowers that usually fall in concentric
rings from trees that hardly care.
My pets, my books, my dear ones, are all strewn
along this road dusted with my little deceptions, obsessions and disharmony.
What is atavistic?
What does it mean?
I can't even remember because I don't have my dictionary
or my thesaurus with me. See, how I deceive myself too?
I'm always taking the aid of these tools,
and to a large extent, my computer -- the Internet.

I war

on my senses, my own
memory. I keep them gagged.
And we as humans have been doing this over
and over again until some roads -- especially those that are NOT
taken and those that WANT
to be taken by so many -- are forever closed.
War, deception, memory
linger on like sticky cheese on fingers, making
me sad. Sad because I wish it were different.
But to tell a secret, it also makes me happy, immensely, to note that rigor
is a name applied to anything and everything.
So, there's a chance!

Random thoughts... with Hillary out, will Palin iron shirts now?

Random thoughts are good. They don't stay long! On a propitious day such as Columbus Day (that plunderer...) I am thinking hmm, now that Sarah Palin is the Republican mascot, will anyone stand up in her meetings and holler: "Sarah iron my shirt"? How's that going to fare? As it is, some complaining noise was made about how either her opponents are harsh with her 'because she is a woman' (or a pit bull wearing lipstick) trying to compete with men or too soft on her because 'oh poor thing's woman' and should be back to womanly things only.

Somehow, opponents of Hillary have forgotten that there had been folks holding up signs or screaming "Hillary iron my shirt" (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/01/07/hillary-hecklers-yell-iron-my-shirt-at-new-hampshire-campaign-stop/) at her campaign meetings. Now I'm randomly forced to think, will this happen in India when Mayawati or Sonia Gandhi or Renuka Chowdhury stand up speaking at their meetings. Will a Mulayam, Advani or any other supposed supporter of "male" privilege of being in politics do or say this sort of a thing, ever? NO.

Well, I don't mean to say anti-woman stances are not there among prevailing Indians, but not blatantly at least.

What is it that in a country like India, where gender biases run deep, where patriarchy can assume ugly forms, and where women are seen as means of reproduction, no one dare stoop so low regarding a woman in politics, government and policymaking. No sir, no one will say "Sonia make my rotis", "Maya clean my dishes" or "Renuka wash my undies"...! They might say, let's see, "Mayawati is a megalomaniac", "Sonia is manipulative" or "Renuka is unrealistic" -- things that politicians are supposed to say to each other.

So why, in America the land of freedom and other sundry stuff associated with that, will men stand up saying "Hillary iron my shirt"? Now don't try saying that to Palin, or you'll be branded a misogynist, for sure... Random thoughts.

BETRAYAL BEYOND BELIEF

This is taken from the SACW dispatch that I receive by e-mail:

-- by Badri Raina

Agreed you were Adi Indians,

Long before the Aryans came;

Agreed we made you Dalit

To set off the conqueror’s name.

Agreed you are illiterate,

Agreed you have no say;

Agreed you are untouchable,

Agreed you are kept at bay.

Agreed that our development

Makes you resentful, red;

Agreed, in fact, we prosper

Upon your sweat and blood.

Agreed we rape your women,

Agreed we stray, at worst;

Agreed you may not use our wells

To quench your low-born thirst.

Agreed our Constitution

Is ours and ours alone;

Agreed our hallowed temples

Will not let you in.

Agreed your land, your forest

We grab, we chop, we burn;

Agreed our banks, our markets

Will never serve your turn.

Even so, your villainous move

To leave the Hindu fold –

How could we ever forgive you

Betrayal so beastly, bold?

Go tell these priests who dupe you

That all plants, animals, men

Were created Sanaatan Hindus

The minute the world began.

Do you then prefer Christian ease
To family atrocity?
How traitorous, how ungodly

Can this world of vermin be!

The sarcasm is clean and ringing! For Badri Raina's writings, go to Badri's ZSpace Page >> at zmag.org.

On this note, it is astounding that the Indian Cabinet is divided on the demand for ban on VHP-Bajrang Dal-Sangh. More evidence is needed, is the refrain. Aghast as I am, I hope more evidence piles up from the rightwing outfit's past exploits. What's been going on in Orissa in the past few weeks, is only a glimpse into the dark deeds of the Sangh Parivar practised and honed through years (Gujarat is the golden age... Nanavati may not agree). Combined with it is the issues confronting the Dalit community and other under-privileged citizens of India and also the "intervention" by Maoist groups in rural areas of Orissa and Karnataka. India has a huge challenge here, only a rising GDP and a booming stock market does not guarantee smooth business while other matters remain highly discordant.

A lot has already been written about it ... but the "encounters" in Jamia Nagar in Delhi (pic below) after the recent bomb blasts have naturally put another community more blatantly under the scanner than ever -- the Muslims of India. Two young men and a police officer had died in the shootouts. It is said the bullet that killed the officer is not being found. Why? How do we then know who killed him -- terrorists or his own men or a stray or a ricocheted bullet? Do we remember in broad daylight in Delhi some years ago, police had gunned down two men on the suspicion of being dangerous antisocials? The whole case has been turned over and the dead men found not guilty! Forget that the police actually had planted "evidence" that these men were real targets and ultimately they were punished by the court. And wasn't there a report about the police faking tomato ketchup as blood to 'create' encounter scenes and have medals awarded to themselves? What encounters are these anyway?

I'm not trying to blame the police. The sodden force must be under Himalayan pressure. I just wonder what 'intelligence' leads to such incidents.

And oh, the name "Indian Mujahideen" is really popular now. Apparently they masterminded these blasts. So now there's an identity tag to it -- Indian -- as opposed to let's say Afghan Mujahideen or Pakistani Mujahideen!! Nationalism in terrorism at last, may I say?!

Other India Stories: Indians win 'alternative Nobel' --- some recognition?

I would love some comments on the BBC news article: Indians win 'alternative Nobel' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7647718.stm)

During my tenures with NGOs in India, working on projects whose beneficiaries were the under-privileged, most often the human faces that would stare us in the face were Dalits, Tribals and other marginalized sections.

My former employer, the National Foundation for India (NFI) does terrific work with women, especially the Girl Child, and their proposals usually seek to aid both Dalits and Muslims without really determining a target group only by those specific configurations. As astounding as it may sound, the 'other India' is still a humongous mass of people who are not only low-income, but also inevitably low in the caste hierarchy. And it serves no good purpose to ignore any dialogue on this aspect.

The likes of Jagannathan and Krishnammal, from Tamil Nadu, may not be overwhelming in number in India, but there are significant ones who work without any recognition. Besides, how many of our silent crusaders work in order to get an award? At least from my NGO experience I can say, quite a few even have to weather threats posed by unfriendly population, dominant upper-caste groups, apathetic government officials and other infrastructural, monetary and logistical hurdles. The award to the Jagannathan couple is heartening for those of my friends who are trying to promote the condition of India's Dalits, through education, direct intervention, awareness programs and even Internet dissemination of information.

Cannot somehow stop here without remembering Sanjoy Ghosh, who was allegedly abducted and killed while working on Assam's Majuli island (the largest riverine island in the world) working among the locals -- not all Dalits -- to raise awareness about flood management and soil erosion. Some say he was picked up by ULFA, a raging bull on Assam's political landscape. Whether that's true or not, we haven't had another Sanjoy back there, a testimony to the fact that the situation is still terrible for Assam (see Sanjoy's Assam).