Tuesday, March 31, 2009
ആദ്യ കടമ്മനിട്ട അവാര്‍ഡ് സച്ചിദാനന്ദന്
അന്തരിച്ച പ്രശസ്തകവി കടമ്മനിട്ടയുടെ പേരിലുള്ള പ്രഥമ സാഹിത്യ അവാര്‍ഡിനു കവി സച്ചിദാനന്ദന് അര്‍ഹനായി. എം.മുകുന്ദന്‍, പ്രഫ.ബി.രാജീവന്‍, ഡോ.കെ.എസ്.രവികുമാര്‍ എന്നിവരുടെ കമ്മിറ്റിയാണു സച്ചിദാനന്ദനെ തെരെഞ്ഞെടുത്തത്. കുവൈത്തിലെ പ്രവാസം ഡോട്ട് കോം. ആണു 50,000 രൂപയുടെ അവാര്‍ഡ് നല്‍കുന്നത്. ഏപ്രില്‍ 30 നു കുവൈത്തില്‍ വച്ച് കടമ്മനിട്ടയുടെ ഭാര്യ ശാന്ത അവാര്‍ഡ് സമ്മാനിക്കും. (കടമ്മനിട്ടയുടെ ഒന്നാം ചരമവാര്‍ഷികമാണിന്ന്‌).
Saturday, March 28, 2009
ബെല്‍റ്റിനു താഴെ
ഈയാഴ്ചയിലും കോണ്‍ഡം ഉപയോഗിച്ചില്ല
റിസഷന്‍, ബോസ്! റിസഷന്‍!
കടകളൊക്കെയും നേരത്തെ അടയ്ക്കുന്നു
നേരത്തേ പോയി വാങ്ങിയാലും
എക്സ്പയറി കഴിഞ്ഞ സാധനം തന്നാലോ?
സാരമില്ലെന്ന് അവള്‍ പറഞ്ഞു
പേടിക്കേണ്ടെന്നും.
പോവാന്‍ നേരം കടം പറഞ്ഞപ്പോള്‍
സാരമില്ലെന്ന് അവള്‍ പറഞ്ഞില്ല
റിസഷന്‍ കാരണമാണീപ്പണിക്കി
റങ്ങിയതെന്ന് കരഞ്ഞു അവള്‍
അതു തന്നെ എന്‍റേയും
കാരണമെന്ന് ഞാനും
റിസഷന്‍, ബോസ്! റിസഷന്‍!
കടകളൊക്കെയും നേരത്തെ അടയ്ക്കുന്നു
നേരത്തേ പോയി വാങ്ങിയാലും
എക്സ്പയറി കഴിഞ്ഞ സാധനം തന്നാലോ?
സാരമില്ലെന്ന് അവള്‍ പറഞ്ഞു
പേടിക്കേണ്ടെന്നും.
പോവാന്‍ നേരം കടം പറഞ്ഞപ്പോള്‍
സാരമില്ലെന്ന് അവള്‍ പറഞ്ഞില്ല
റിസഷന്‍ കാരണമാണീപ്പണിക്കി
റങ്ങിയതെന്ന് കരഞ്ഞു അവള്‍
അതു തന്നെ എന്‍റേയും
കാരണമെന്ന് ഞാനും
Sunday, March 22, 2009
ബിനീഷ് കോടിയേരിക്ക് കുവൈറ്റ് മാംഗല്യം
ആഭ്യന്തരമന്ത്രി കോടിയേരി ബാലക്രിഷ്ണന്‍റെ മകന്‍ ബിനീഷ് വിവാഹിതനാകുന്നു. വധു കുവൈറ്റിലെ യുണൈറ്റെഡ് അറബ് ഷിപ്പിങ്ങ് കമ്പനിയിലെ ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥന്‍, തിരുവനന്തപുരം സ്വദേശി പ്രദീപിന്‍റെ മകള്‍ റെനീത.(തിരുവനന്തപുരം മാര്‍ ഇവാനിയോസ് കോളേജില്‍ ബികോം വിദ്യാര്‍ഥിനി). കുടുംബസമേതം കുവൈറ്റിലെ അബ്ബാസിയായില്‍ താമസിക്കുന്ന പ്രദീപ് നേരത്തേ 'കടല്‍ത്തീരത്ത്‌' എന്ന രാജീവ്നാഥ് ചിത്രത്തില്‍ അഭിനയിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്. ബിനീഷ് കോടിയേരിയുടെ പ്രതിശ്രുത വധുവിന്‍റെ ഏകസഹോദരന്‍ കുവൈറ്റില്‍ ഉദ്യോഗഥനാണ്.വിവാഹത്തീയതി തീരുമാനിച്ചിട്ടില്ല.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The White Tiger’s dark side
The unique selling property of this debut novel that it bagged the Booker prize of 2008 is sadly not its saving grace. It happens to be the literary disappointment of the year. It elevates you to a realm of seemingly new insights of a rising India, journeying into the heart of darkness strikingly and drops you flat remorselessly, just like Balram Halwai, the backward protagonist who killed his boss to become a successful entrepreneur. When you finish reading of this stream-of-consciously written monologue in the form of e-mail addressed to the Chinese Premier, you wonder where literature is heading post IT revolution. If the White Tiger is the pick of the Booker committee, the jungle of literature is kingless and chaotic!
The story unfolds partly in a north Indian village and the rest in India’s bureaucratic capital, New Delhi where Balram the hero works as the loyal driver of a landlord. Balram, the storyteller has a clear-cut distinction between the old and new Delhi; the haves and the have-nots; the rustic rural region and the upbeat urban empire. The hero, taken out of school to work for the family, breaks the mould of the oppressed class to become a rich entrepreneur in India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore. (Bangaluru, as the city is now known, was made famous in the book-world by Thomas Friedman through his best selling ‘The World is Flat’). Balram addresses himself as the White Tiger, a rare species standing out from the submissive animal class.
Later, the animal in him rises as the solution to the problem of poverty and oppression. The extreme solution is in line with the Naxalite philosophy by which the oppressor has to be annihilated by murder. The landlords, according to the hero, usually own even the village river, taking a cut of every catch of fish caught by the fishermen. The schoolteachers steal the money the government provides for students’ food. The politicians buy villagers’ fingerprints wholesale for the election. The village folk whose spine resemble a ‘knotted rope’ work endlessly and their caste determines what work they should do. The hero mocks the caste system by saying ‘in the old days there were 1000 castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat- or get eaten up’.
‘The White Tiger’ indeed entertains the readers with its portrayal many-sided paradoxes of modern India. It has characters like Mohammed the cook who works at the home of a prejudiced feudal lord who didn’t like Muslims. Just to get a job and feed his starving family, Mohammed acts as a Hindu! The novel has hundreds of village scenes from the water buffalo in a pond to men defecating et al. The style is blunt, often sprinkled with mordant wit and subtle sarcasm.
Aravind Adiga, a non-resident Indian for many years, formerly a Time Magazine correspondent, has ‘a beak’, to use his own phrase, into the matters of the rich-poor dichotomies. About the rich he says:
‘The cars of the rich go like dark eggs down the roads of Delhi. Every now and then an egg will crack open – a woman’s hand, dazzling with gold bangles, stretches out of an open window, flings an empty mineral water bottle onto the road – and then the window goes up, and the egg is resealed’ (page 134).
And about the poor class:
‘…Men with troughs of mud on their heads walked in circles around the machines; they did not look much bigger than mice. Even in the winter night the sweat had made their shirts stick to their glistening black bodies’ (page 158).
The negative side of this novel is that it doesn’t grow from entertainment to enlightenment. Seemingly sympathizing with the marginalized, the novel ends up nowhere leaving anarchistic and nihilistic debris in the reader’s mind. The novel is no more than the kitsch in the ‘Murder Weekly’, the hero’s driver friends are fond of reading. Its plot and style have killed it altogether because to talk about the wretched class the author had to succumb to a disintegrating frame trapping himself without having any redeeming thought to offer. The email form at the beginning of the novel loses on its way as the 320-page story drives past, forgetting it is still an email. The result of this blanket adoption of a gossip formula is that the White Tiger is attacking its Frankenstein creator.
It would be interesting to compare the novel with ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ since both speak of rags to rich Indian stories. While Slumdog escorts you in a possible dream of you-can, the Tiger eats you belching you have no escape from poverty. It would also be worth noting why Oscars, Bookers and Miss World titles are flowing to India. More than the merit side, one is tempted to think that the prize market has its eye on the consumerist India. Writing, just like filmmaking, is an industry, after all. The saleable commodity of India in the literary world is ‘her’ poverty.
Thus the ‘White Tiger’ comes as a package: a humanitarian tale set in rural India mocking everything about her; from parliamentary democratic system to 36,000,004 gods. It’s an all-win formula! Alas! The formula doesn’t hold! The White Tiger becomes just like one of its characters, Mr Ashok who is a first-gear type: likes to start things but nothing holds his attention for long.
The story unfolds partly in a north Indian village and the rest in India’s bureaucratic capital, New Delhi where Balram the hero works as the loyal driver of a landlord. Balram, the storyteller has a clear-cut distinction between the old and new Delhi; the haves and the have-nots; the rustic rural region and the upbeat urban empire. The hero, taken out of school to work for the family, breaks the mould of the oppressed class to become a rich entrepreneur in India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore. (Bangaluru, as the city is now known, was made famous in the book-world by Thomas Friedman through his best selling ‘The World is Flat’). Balram addresses himself as the White Tiger, a rare species standing out from the submissive animal class.
Later, the animal in him rises as the solution to the problem of poverty and oppression. The extreme solution is in line with the Naxalite philosophy by which the oppressor has to be annihilated by murder. The landlords, according to the hero, usually own even the village river, taking a cut of every catch of fish caught by the fishermen. The schoolteachers steal the money the government provides for students’ food. The politicians buy villagers’ fingerprints wholesale for the election. The village folk whose spine resemble a ‘knotted rope’ work endlessly and their caste determines what work they should do. The hero mocks the caste system by saying ‘in the old days there were 1000 castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat- or get eaten up’.
‘The White Tiger’ indeed entertains the readers with its portrayal many-sided paradoxes of modern India. It has characters like Mohammed the cook who works at the home of a prejudiced feudal lord who didn’t like Muslims. Just to get a job and feed his starving family, Mohammed acts as a Hindu! The novel has hundreds of village scenes from the water buffalo in a pond to men defecating et al. The style is blunt, often sprinkled with mordant wit and subtle sarcasm.
Aravind Adiga, a non-resident Indian for many years, formerly a Time Magazine correspondent, has ‘a beak’, to use his own phrase, into the matters of the rich-poor dichotomies. About the rich he says:
‘The cars of the rich go like dark eggs down the roads of Delhi. Every now and then an egg will crack open – a woman’s hand, dazzling with gold bangles, stretches out of an open window, flings an empty mineral water bottle onto the road – and then the window goes up, and the egg is resealed’ (page 134).
And about the poor class:
‘…Men with troughs of mud on their heads walked in circles around the machines; they did not look much bigger than mice. Even in the winter night the sweat had made their shirts stick to their glistening black bodies’ (page 158).
The negative side of this novel is that it doesn’t grow from entertainment to enlightenment. Seemingly sympathizing with the marginalized, the novel ends up nowhere leaving anarchistic and nihilistic debris in the reader’s mind. The novel is no more than the kitsch in the ‘Murder Weekly’, the hero’s driver friends are fond of reading. Its plot and style have killed it altogether because to talk about the wretched class the author had to succumb to a disintegrating frame trapping himself without having any redeeming thought to offer. The email form at the beginning of the novel loses on its way as the 320-page story drives past, forgetting it is still an email. The result of this blanket adoption of a gossip formula is that the White Tiger is attacking its Frankenstein creator.
It would be interesting to compare the novel with ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ since both speak of rags to rich Indian stories. While Slumdog escorts you in a possible dream of you-can, the Tiger eats you belching you have no escape from poverty. It would also be worth noting why Oscars, Bookers and Miss World titles are flowing to India. More than the merit side, one is tempted to think that the prize market has its eye on the consumerist India. Writing, just like filmmaking, is an industry, after all. The saleable commodity of India in the literary world is ‘her’ poverty.
Thus the ‘White Tiger’ comes as a package: a humanitarian tale set in rural India mocking everything about her; from parliamentary democratic system to 36,000,004 gods. It’s an all-win formula! Alas! The formula doesn’t hold! The White Tiger becomes just like one of its characters, Mr Ashok who is a first-gear type: likes to start things but nothing holds his attention for long.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
divorced women's society
Dancing one's tears out...
The music is loud. There are about ten women in the dimly lit room, dancing hysterically in a way to make the darkness of the night come alive. Blinding themselves from the busy world outside the room, once in Salmiya and another time in Mahboula, the young mothers shed their sweat and tears together until they are reunited the following Thursday.
The mothers in their 30s are mostly Americans, now divorced or on the brink of separation. These are the women who came to Kuwait some years ago with their husbands and bore their children before eventually deciding to go on their own. Some say they are victims of male chauvinism, others had miscalculated expectations and some are now proponents of individualism. Their group is on the rise in Kuwait, not as a leftover of the war between tradition and modernity, but more as the aftermath of an idea that pro
claims each person for herself. The women are economically independent, something that helps them live their lives in their own way. Is it a bad idea for such lonely ex-wives to gather together once in a while?
Sarah McDonald is the coordinator of a rare group of separated wives who meet on a regular basis. It was a daring step on her part. She met her would-be family man in the US ten years ago when she was in college. Coming from a broken family, she craved a life outside the US. Landing up in Kuwait opened a new chapter in her life because for the first time, she was working and earning money aside from enjoying the pleasures of being a wife, mother and daughter-in-law. Her cheers were turned to tears when her
husband asked her to quit her job for the sake of their children, something indigestible for an educated, ambitious woman like her. Soon came the end of their relationship and Sarah went on with her life as a single expatriate. After she met women who had similar stories, she decided to form an informal gathering of 'birds of the same feather.'
It was a Thursday evening," Sarah recalled. "and there were only three of us in my Salmiya flat in the beginning. We just talked and shared some food. The next time, two more people came along after hearing about our gathering from their friends. After a while, one of us suggested: Why don't we dance? As time went on, we had more members, more food, more time and so it went." Sarah acknowledges that their time is never spent accusing their husbands or their families. Instead, they share the little joys fr
om their work places, shopping, cooking and other activities. According to Sarah, some of the divorcees still contact their school age children, occasionally meeting them and giving them pocket money. "Although we intend to not bring up family issues, children come up nonetheless.
Rosanna, another divorcee and a member of Sarah's group, sees such a gathering of likeminded people of the same background as relieving and rejuvenating. "For me," she confessed, "dancing is redemptive. It is the only moment I am totally with myself and I forget the unforgettable memories of my life. I have a sound proof room and we dance all night long and sleep all day the next morning, giving us enough charge for the week." Rosanna heard about the group through her colleague, who was one of the early me
mbers who left without a trace. "There are people who have come and left us, saying they had enough noise in their life," she said.
Whether noise is their choice or not, these ladies have come out of their otherwise shattered lives and into a sense of belonging. They are proving that if life has a Good Friday, it has a day of resurrection as well.
Note: Names have been changed for privacy reasons.
http://kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTg5NzgyOTU3
The music is loud. There are about ten women in the dimly lit room, dancing hysterically in a way to make the darkness of the night come alive. Blinding themselves from the busy world outside the room, once in Salmiya and another time in Mahboula, the young mothers shed their sweat and tears together until they are reunited the following Thursday.
The mothers in their 30s are mostly Americans, now divorced or on the brink of separation. These are the women who came to Kuwait some years ago with their husbands and bore their children before eventually deciding to go on their own. Some say they are victims of male chauvinism, others had miscalculated expectations and some are now proponents of individualism. Their group is on the rise in Kuwait, not as a leftover of the war between tradition and modernity, but more as the aftermath of an idea that pro
claims each person for herself. The women are economically independent, something that helps them live their lives in their own way. Is it a bad idea for such lonely ex-wives to gather together once in a while?
Sarah McDonald is the coordinator of a rare group of separated wives who meet on a regular basis. It was a daring step on her part. She met her would-be family man in the US ten years ago when she was in college. Coming from a broken family, she craved a life outside the US. Landing up in Kuwait opened a new chapter in her life because for the first time, she was working and earning money aside from enjoying the pleasures of being a wife, mother and daughter-in-law. Her cheers were turned to tears when her
husband asked her to quit her job for the sake of their children, something indigestible for an educated, ambitious woman like her. Soon came the end of their relationship and Sarah went on with her life as a single expatriate. After she met women who had similar stories, she decided to form an informal gathering of 'birds of the same feather.'
It was a Thursday evening," Sarah recalled. "and there were only three of us in my Salmiya flat in the beginning. We just talked and shared some food. The next time, two more people came along after hearing about our gathering from their friends. After a while, one of us suggested: Why don't we dance? As time went on, we had more members, more food, more time and so it went." Sarah acknowledges that their time is never spent accusing their husbands or their families. Instead, they share the little joys fr
om their work places, shopping, cooking and other activities. According to Sarah, some of the divorcees still contact their school age children, occasionally meeting them and giving them pocket money. "Although we intend to not bring up family issues, children come up nonetheless.
Rosanna, another divorcee and a member of Sarah's group, sees such a gathering of likeminded people of the same background as relieving and rejuvenating. "For me," she confessed, "dancing is redemptive. It is the only moment I am totally with myself and I forget the unforgettable memories of my life. I have a sound proof room and we dance all night long and sleep all day the next morning, giving us enough charge for the week." Rosanna heard about the group through her colleague, who was one of the early me
mbers who left without a trace. "There are people who have come and left us, saying they had enough noise in their life," she said.
Whether noise is their choice or not, these ladies have come out of their otherwise shattered lives and into a sense of belonging. They are proving that if life has a Good Friday, it has a day of resurrection as well.
Note: Names have been changed for privacy reasons.
http://kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTg5NzgyOTU3
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