My Father Tells a Story -- poem in "Indian Literature" (Sahitya Akademi)

"MY FATHER TELLS A STORY" is another poem from the four recently published in "Indian Literature" from Sahitya Akademi, the national academy of letters in India. I thought of putting this up on my blog especially because the question of roots, origins, and nationality always interest me a great deal, and a recent rendezvous with Edouard Glissant's talk and a documentary film about his Poétique de la Relation. (Poétique III; Paris: Gallimard, 1990) fanned some more introspection in this regard. For the strategization of language and identity to be either a linear entity or a parallel to a certain historical/atavistic notion is something all of us tend to seek. But stories are different as you inadvertently have to peel the layers, often subconsciously. For a 'colonial to a post-colonial' identity, a poem such as this cannot be seen as an exercise in a uni-dimensional "root" adherence. The "story" -- told many times over through someone to my father to me and to others who have experienced similarly in diverse histories, not just the Subcontinent -- lends itself to further re-telling, an enhancement in terms of linguistics and historicity.

MY FATHER TELLS A STORY

The young girl in a sari

Was walking to the library

She naturally didn’t see

The truck creep up behind her

Stuffed with soldiers wearing

Leafy helmets, false implants in

The heart of that shell-shocked

Macadamized Bengal town

**

Her face a sorry storybook

Quite a few pages torn

When they found her by

A garbage dump, stared at

By the ancient panhandler

The poor bastard refused arrest

Shouted abuses, got suitably

Thrashed by the police

**

The young man whispered

Show me your palm your

Red henna peacock from

Last night’s festivities

Then she read him a poem

About crocodiles in snare

Until they fell asleep in

Each other’s arms, dreaming

**

There was a river, grass and

Flowers shrouding its banks

Its depth unknown, but easy

For the rebels to swim

The same night Yahya Khan

Made quick plans to strike

Universities where students

Danced to songs of Tagore

**

That was a night when nervous

Sirens screamed on, his

Would-be bride was picked up

And thrown. Folding up

Maps that fooled, didn’t show

A country of hearts, he left

A peacock mourned for her

And him. No country yet for them.

**

Image from the Internet: Jamini Roy, Untitled; gouache on paper.

"Footprints in the Bajra" reviewed in Pioneer newspaper

PIONEER, a newspaper from Delhi, has the latest word on my novel FOOTPRINTS IN THE BAJRA.

In case it opens up, here is the PDF or the e-page on the "Books Agenda" page. You might have to scroll for the page.

A six-column review, it says a lot of things. However, I must add as a comment that I am not per se interested in the "reform" of a Maoist and that was not what I intended in my book with the protagonist Muskaan. The end is, in my opinion, more nuanced than what prevalent political interpretations are whenever it comes to topics on Maoism and the parties engaged against the ideology or in solidarity with it.

If you so not wish to see the link, read the review below:

Reform of a Maoist

Footprints in the Bajra
Author: Nabina Das
Publisher: Pustak Mahal
Price: Rs 175

Shwetank Dubey says Nabina Das ably recreates the milieu of Maoist-infested regions of India

Reform is always good, especially when it concerns someone who has been misled, used, lied to and then forsaken by those who she thinks are her well-wishers. The only thing that such a person can do is give back what she got, albeit with much more intensity. Everyone has to wake up some day or the other and smell the coffee, and that is what Muskaan, the protagonist in Nabina Das’ novel Footprints in the Bajra, did. After feeling betrayed by her mentor, she finally took refuge in the advice given by her student-activist friend from New Delhi and decided to chart her own life, for once.

For anyone who comes from the rural areas of Bihar, Chhattisgarh and parts of West Bengal, Maoism is nothing new. It has been there as a part and parcel of their lives since decades. Illiteracy being a common curse in such regions, it plays a very important part in helping Maoist rebels build an army to fight against the administration and the Government. The simple villagers are made to believe that they are better off fighting the Government than supporting it. And that is what the main villain in the novel, the village teacher, Suryakant Sahay aka Comrade Suraj, cashes on. With the help of his second in command, Nirav Saxena alias Comrade Avadhut, they perform the most unsaintly acts of attacking and killing the Chaudharys of Chabutara, the upper class village, as well as devising strategies against the Government.

Since time immemorial, landlords have been touted to be major oppressors so much so that the divide created by the upper castes has led to even a greater help to the Maoists. As Nabina Das puts it in her novel, with the help of the Internally Displaced People (IDP), Maoists built a strong army. Such IDPs were made to fight for the “cause” and inducted in the Red Army. After a lot of investigative journalism, as well as the changed stance of the Government, it has now become common knowledge about how uneducated people in rural areas, especially those living in places where the Government and administration takes a lot of time to reach, have been cheated by the Maoist brigade since decades, in the promise of a better life and “revenge” from their erstwhile oppressors. Added to this is the fact that farming also underwent a drastic change wherein grain crops were replaced by poppy fields. This turned into a major funding device for the Maoists. All this has been quite prominently woven into the story by Nabina Das.

Everything undergoes change, and so does Muskaan’s life. The various upheavals in her life, right from being a child soldier, being held captive by the Chaudharys, being kept in a safe house, to joining the non-Government organisation Shaktishalini and pursuing higher studies and, finally, of closing the entire chapter by being an “emancipator” of the masses, are few things to be reckoned with.

Being betrayed is a very heart-breaking feeling and Muskaan faces this throughout her life, till she decides to hold the reins herself. Her first lover, Palash, decides to break up with her after she is abducted by the Chaudharys after an attack by the so-called Hunting Brigade formed by the upper castes with the help of the administration to quell the Maoist menace, the details of which are revealed much later in an emotional outburst to Nora.

Nirav and Sahay use her for their own interests in furthering their cause. After their group is disbanded, they find it in their best interests to tie-up with the Maoist brigade from across the border in Nepal. They realise the Red Brigade in India is mismanaged and there is no common thinking or a leader. Moreover, for their cause to survive, they decide that the best option is to adopt the stance taken by the Nepal Maoists — take to politics. Muskaan plays a very important role in this (as a pawn for Sahay and Nirav) after she joins Shaktishalini. The NGO is hacked by Nirav for his tie-up with the Nepal Maoists, while Rehana (who runs the NGO) thinks that she has found the perfect mentor for her cause of upliftment of women.

Nabina Das has chosen the first person account of narrating a story from the main characters of the novel, Nora the sheherwali (urban dweller), Muskaan the rebel, Suryakant Sahay the crafty clandestine planner and Avadhut the frontrunner of all the operations. While the narratives are quite detailed when read from the perspective of it being a scholarly article (footprints of good education and reading prowess among the main protagonists are inadvertently displayed), there are various other details that could have been made clearer. The motive of people like the headmaster and the businessman for joining such a cause is a bit muddled.

However, the book deals with something that no urban resident is bound to know on his own — the life and times of people living in Maoist infested areas and why do they give in to the temptation provided by the Red Brigade.

SIX-MILE-CREEK: A Postcard-Poem

Former Tompkins County Poet Laureate Katharyn Howd Machan, also a poetry instructor at Ithaca College, had organized an "arts for all marathon" at the Community School of Music and Arts in 2009. The idea was to engage area poets on a common project and to raise funds for CSMA programs that would mainly benefit children and youth.

The Arts for All Marathon was a 26.2-day postcard-poetry project. Great fun and immense education.

"Six-Mile-Creek" was chosen by Katharyn and has been printed on a postcard along with poems from other writers. This one was a favorite of mine as soon as I wrote it down! While I write letters to friends on the poetry-postcards (I have two sets so I can keep one bunch all for myself), read the poem below:

SIX-MILE-CREEK

Sleep is a sharp river bend
Geology too, on a face-smooth rock
One that climbs up the banks

From the creek that flows
Behind my hill on a cascading street
Called water, silent at night

They say the trout should
Flock after this neon winter passes
And now only sprigs float

Below the dam after six miles
Where half-nude youngsters jump into
The liquidy sheet ignoring signs

That say “don’t”. They still do
With their sudden laughter waking up
Us who sleep on the rocky shore.

**

Image from the Internet: Six-Mile-Creek, Ithaca, a painting by John Clum

Reading from "Footprints in the Bajra", April 17, 4-5 p.m.

I shall be reading from my first novel FOOTPRINTS IN THE BAJRA on Saturday, April 17, 4-5 p.m. at Buffalo Street Books in downtown Ithaca. See the event details here.

If you are in the area, please come for the reading. See a review of Footprints in Danse Macabre journal (USA) and a book interview in Daily News and Analysis (DNA), Bombay.

I must mention, my neighbors at Maplewood Park, a Cornell University housing area, where I have lived for 7 long years because Mr. M did his PhD here, have been very sweet to invite the residents to this reading. They even made a poster of the event!

Photo courtesy: Maplewood Park staff Priyanka Bangale.

"Wood-Story Before the Millennium and Now": New Poem in DM 34

Brand new poem on DANSE MACABRE XXXIV's all-poetry April issue "Belles-Lettres".

This is from a series I am writing under my Sarai-CSDS fellowship "The Migrant City". You can read it here or below:

Wood-Story Before the Millennium and Now

This is a table where we used to keep a glass vase in the nineties

the sun a syruping gooseberry often tumbling out of it reckless

a wooden table, smooth-plank body of a tree dressed for our

weekend dinners. Some clutter as it happens with faces clustered

coats of varnish and heavy-lashed lacquerware, dead-white ceramic

this will still be the same surface where we will spill the gravy

push the sparkling tea across, lick any fallen crumbs with thumbs

**

Keep the fast, it gives long life

to your husband, those elderly

women will implore and

let the table carry ornate

plates of offerings you won’t easily touch

only after the moon does first

its shadow on the water on your silver tray.

And then the table can sing like a cricket

all that crockery clattering

we will eat everything before

the moon-shadow devours the mind

ignoring what the women say.

In fact, you will know, I only cared

about just crickets because they

love the blackness of soul just as I do.

**

When I close my eyes I see my aunt lissome and dark with her braid

long like those thick twines for hauling country boats to shore

she smiles and shows a tooth we were told is of the elephant, rare.

I see her on her back on the bed tossing a red plastic ball over her chest

lob and drop and lob and show the gajadanta smile while my uncle

sits two feet away on a table, the one they never dined on, used as a shelf

for things, littered for the most time. He dangling his black-shoed feet as

if he is a kid watching the unbelievable enchantress woman’s trick

of lobbing a red-desire ball high up; the head of the old-fashioned bed

preventing him to leap forward, also because I zip into the room

looking for my cousin as uncle shifts, legs undangle, the table creaks.

**

The life story of woods

when they come from

forests of greenness

tells of more lines and stars

than found on our palms.

**

I don’t remember when Habib Tanveer or Gangubai the siren throat died

when was it bringing home wads of cash that quick dirty jobs paid was cool

money for home, food, electronics, but no song or lines; but I do remember

rehearsing one afternoon with Habib for a play we would perform in a street

where racketeers and launderers ran their shops; they watched, we stood

on the dust as if on breadcrumb crusts strewn on a table top, hewn uneven

because no one cleaned; a china cup stayed back, the old tea leaves telling

a tale of the millennium as they should, like all things emancipated and sweetly old.

This work is supported by Sarai-CSDS, New Delhi.

Image from Danse Macabre literary journal

Interview: Footprints in the Bajra is a portrait of Muskaan, a Maoist rebel from the age of 13

Daily News and Analysis (DNA), a prominent financial newspaper from Bombay, published my book interview in their Sunday Mag, March 28. You can go to the digital link here or see the PDF page here. Or read the interview in full here below:

Footprints in the Bajra is a portrait of Muskaan, a Maoist rebel from the age of 13

By Uttara Choudhury

In her debut novel, Nabina Das writes about an India where social divides stand taller than multistoried shopping malls. Footprints in the Bajra, inspired by what she saw while touring the interiors of Bihar as part of a travelling theatre group, inquires into why the Maoists have an influence over a large section of Indian society. Das talked to Uttara Choudhury in New York about her book, and its protagonist Muskaan.

What prompted you to take up such a complex issue in your debut novel?

On a primary level, my interest in socio-political movements with a current portent, especially in India, goaded me to tell this story. The complexity is not regarding Maoism per se, but the state’s inability to offer a cohesive system for its people.
On a deeper level, I am interested in lives. The novel is really just a slice of life story, about Muskaan the young Maoist rebel, and Nora, her friend from the city. Maoism is mentioned in the background only to paint these lives. In no way is the book a primer on Maoist philosophy.

As a journalist and NGO worker, I have had access to lives affected by Maoism and the state’s actions. Bloodshed and killings were the only gains these people came home with. Those stories stayed with me as examples of harsh reality outside the TV screen and disposable newsprint. I felt compelled to let these characters speak in my book.

Your novel delves into the life of a Maoist recruit — a teenage girl named Muskaan. Did your research for the novel point to the fact that young women are drawn to the Naxalite movement?

It is a fact that in ‘modern’ India young people from regions with little development find themselves on the sidelines. Their anger with the system has percolated upwards. The recent mining claims in Orissa sparked off huge protests, not just in the villages but also among city folk who until recently had no idea about the Kondh people — Dongria, Kutia and Jharania — and their ways.

Generations of caste and class atrocities together with government apathy has helped mobilise ranks on the side of the extreme left. Sometimes these young rebels don’t know what being a Maoist means. I had once asked a person in jest who proudly called himself a Maoist, whether he was happy not to be called a Stalinist. He promptly said if being a Stalinist helped avenge his people, he’d happily be one.

These are my characters in Footprints. They live in Durjanpur, Banka or Patalgarh — names that are linear views, hence negative in connotation.

For the marginalised, the situation is stark. Muskaan is a Maoist recruited as a child soldier at 13. She is an example of how these ‘renegade’ movements use young people as a staple for propagating their adventurist tactics. We have examples of such far-left movements in other parts of the world, like the Shining Path in Peru.

Would you say the Maoists are a greater threat to India than global or cross-border terrorism from Pakistan?

Sadly, what gets lost in the debate is the plight of a huge chunk of people. Maoism or Naxalism does appear to be an option for the disadvantaged, especially Dalits and tribals, although I am aware of people who are striving for alternative movements away from guns and gore.

When it comes from the government, the word “threat” certainly is the key operative here. Whether Maoists are delighted at that labeling I have no idea, for I’m not a practitioner of the movement. But calling Maoism a “threat” helps situate the public view about this far-left movement. Threats justify the forming of counter-attack groups and human rights negligence. This precludes any investigation into how the poorer swathe of India eats, works, sleeps and dies.

The threat works well for the government in distracting the people. Meanwhile, deaths and displacements continue in the middle plane whether in Kashmir, Manipur, Orissa or Chhattisgarh.

Do you think American audiences will be able to relate to Muskaan and a story about a slice of rural India?

American writing is rich and diverse. Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Diaz and Nam Le have successfully drawn readers into worlds outside their own familiar confines. Muskaan’s India may not be familiar to a lot of readers even in wealthy, urban India.

Since you live two lives, shuttling between the US and India, will your second novel be cast in India or America?

I plan to work on a book based on Assam, my home state, and the upheavals it has witnessed. Tentatively, it’s called “The Boatman of New York.” It would be a generational story across continents.