These are the faces of dispossessed tribals from Jharkhand reduced to working in coal mines. We are busily uprooting forests, fertile lands, eroding mountainsides for progress... but for what result?
Something that's really worrying me..... click here
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Shame?
Hungry World
Right at this moment, world hunger is on my mind.
Every day, farmers around the world are either getting poorer, or the small cultivators are being ousted out from their fields.
In India, several tribal communities who cultivate essential crops and herbs are being brurtally pushed out so that the aluminuium, iron ore, and coal can be open-mined from under their lands, destroying forests, underground water systems and fertile fields forever.
In other places, mineral water plants are sucking up the ground water and leaving surrounding villages with drought stricken fields.
Food crops are being replaced by cash crops, and even edible oil is being replaced by the jethropa so that 'bio-fuels' can be made so that automobiles have an 'alternative fuel'.
If we don't wake up and smell the scorching fields and look at the shrinking crops, tomorrow, we're going to have a famine on our hands that will change the face of this earth.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Discourse
I am amused when some of my friends and a few blog readers wrote in to ask about my poetry : are my poems addressed to men?
Someone who often scans these pages even wrote a comment: 'It gets queerer and queerer.'
What if?
Were Shakespeare's poems addressed to men? Many say they are. Perhaps that is why the guy who made 'Shakespeare in love' [the film] was so desperate to portray the Bard of England firmly on the 'hetero' side of the discourse divide.
Does it matter whether the subject of my poetry is a biological male or female? Why must people fall into the cliche and assume that poetry must necessarily reflect 'emotional states'? I believe my poetry reflects my 'political' stance more than anything else.
And as for the discourse
Let's say that this blog is taking a litte saunter on the Wilde side of the literary sidewalk.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Timespan
The ice –cubes forming in your heart
When winter winds whisper his name.
Your pulse gagged and kicking inside your throat
And you struggle to stave off
Prying eyes in the office elevator.
This too, shall pass.
His face mocks you from the covers
Of every Mills and Boons on the bookshelf
And no place for you in the story
Even this shall pass.
You smile a little more brightly
Your laugh is a trifle loud
The wine, bitter-sweet, makes you dizzy
And tears wet your face in the dark.
Yet sunset follows sunset
And dreamless nights
Will slay the lurking dragons
All in good time.
Even this shall pass.
Ask me.
I’ll tell you a first-hand story
With names and dates and faces
Animation, lights and special effects.
Ask me.
Even this excruciating extract of eternity
This too, shall pass –
Except, perhaps,
For the print of his fingers
On the wall-paper of your mind.
Frank Krishner, February 1994, Patna, Bihar.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Metamorphosis
Walks with head held high –
Shoulders broad enough
For some pretty head to cry on.
He moves away from me
Moves on toward the sunrise.
Strides tall enough
To span continents, space, time.
He grows away from me.
Grows up and onwards –
From jock-straps and gym shoes
Wet kisses and cuddling
To ‘Debonair’ and dinner-jackets
Deadlines and meetings of the Board.
He turns away from me
After an awkward adieu –
An abrupt but necessary cutting of the ulumbical
He floats free.
I smile and wave him on
Padlocking the bedroom door
To stifle
The sounds of my soul
Gasping and crying lungfuls
Into the dying, frigid night.
Frank Krishner, 15, January 94, Ranipul, Sikkim. Edited 18 June 2006.
Note:
Jock-straps: Anglo-Indian boarding school slang for underwear or briefs [from Jockeys]
‘Debonair’ was a popular gentleman’s magazine in India in the 19990’s.
Alternative voices
Films from Jharkhand dominated the recently concluded Abhivyakti 2008 at Ravi Bharati, Patna. A report.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
eXTREME BODY PIERCING ACT
Jharkhand state in Eastern India. They say seeing is believing.
Some call it an act of faith. Others say that they are clever sleight of hand artists... but an entire village?
The Bhokta festival held every year in honour of Shiva –Parvati is mind-boggling. Held at Pundru Village under Bokaro’s Chas Block, it takes body piercing to an extreme as every family of the village, coming from 26 diverse castes is represented in a gory spectacle that parades through the streets.
Thousands of spectators from nearby villages congregate at Pundru to witness the event.
Hooks, nails, arrows and other sharp materials are pierced into the flesh. One of the extreme stunts performed by a devotee is to suspend himself from a bamboo pole fifty feet high by iron hooks pierced through their backs or chests.
Here, the festival has been celebrated in an unbroken chain for 169 years, with Hindus and Muslims both taking part in the proceedings. It is one of the big festivals of the area and is celebrated in its own ethnic style.
One member from each family of Pundru village participates in the ritual events organized on the day of the festival. The participants on the festive day present themselves in tableaux in the procession -- Bhisma on his bed of arrows, even a representation of Christ on a cross -- which passes through village roads.
Legend has it that the Lord Shiva, carrying the lifeless body of his consort Parvati, pain searing in his heart walked through the area before performing his dance of destruction. The rituals are to placate Shiva.
Thousands of spectators from nearby villages congregate at Pundru to witness the event.
Hooks, nails, arrows and other sharp materials are pierced into the flesh. One of the extreme stunts performed by a devotee is to suspend himself from a bamboo pole fifty feet high by iron hooks pierced through their backs or chests.
Here, the festival has been celebrated in an unbroken chain for 169 years, with Hindus and Muslims both taking part in the proceedings. It is one of the big festivals of the area and is celebrated in its own ethnic style.
One member from each family of Pundru village participates in the ritual events organized on the day of the festival. The participants on the festive day present themselves in tableaux in the procession -- Bhisma on his bed of arrows, even a representation of Christ on a cross -- which passes through village roads.
Legend has it that the Lord Shiva, carrying the lifeless body of his consort Parvati, pain searing in his heart walked through the area before performing his dance of destruction. The rituals are to placate Shiva.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
It's Queer
It’s queer that the Indian discourse on Gay rights has been entangled with the HIV and AIDS debate.
Somehow, it has been the need to address HIV transmission issues that has blown open the great Indian closet.
read more here
It's queer
It’s queer that the Indian discourse on Gay rights has been entangled with the HIV and AIDS debate.Somehow, it has been the need to address HIV transmission issues that has blown open the great Indian closet.
However, ‘Gay’ is an entirely Western concept, and that is why the discourse on the right of a person to have a same-sex partner will continue to be a thorny one.
Male bonding has always been a part of the socio-cultural paradigm, and intense male bonding that may or may not include penetrative acts was never really a problem until the Brits came along and imposed that draconian section 277 into the Indian penal code.
The bottom line is that most traditional Indian (and Asian) thought doesn’t look at play between males as ‘sex’.
It could be argued that some organisations, [with westernized Gay identified activists] in their zeal to find a space for the right of an adult to the privacy of his/her bedroom, have antagonized a whole section of males who don’t want to be labelled “Gay’ or ‘Bi’, just because they indulge in a bit of horse-play with the other guys. Or because they happen to ‘h
old hands’ in public. In India, the common man thinks ‘indecent’ girls hold hands with men in public!Only westerners [the Anglo-Saxon kind] have the peculiar notion that ‘straight men’ only hold hands with women. And these strange ‘western’ ideas are spread through English medium ‘missionary’ education : the result is that we have a whole lot of totally confused males running around thinking they are ‘closet queers’.
These guys on a steet in Bihar are certainly not 'Gay', but they have no hassles expressing their fondness for each other.
The only hitch is that sometimes that expression might just become safer if there was a tiny bit of rubber involved!
Monday, April 07, 2008
Festival of Alternative voices
Patna, Bihar 11 ,12, 13 April
The 8th Ravi Bharati Video Festival
Since the early 1990’s when VHS was a new medium, and the video cassette recorder was making its way into middle class homes throughout the country, Ravi Bharati organised the first All Bihar VHS video festival to encourage local video-film makers in the new medium.
The idea was to enlist camcorder in the cause of social communication; to use the relatively low-cost VHS as an alternative to the expensive, establishment-oriented ‘mainstream’ mass-communication machine.
Today, with computers and convergence media bringing down costs still further, the role of video as a narrator of the realities of the marginalised, the displaced, and the alternative, is evident to many.
Every two years, Ravi Bharati celebrates this with a three day alternative low-cost festival, inviting videos made by enthusiasts, students, children, idealists, social workers, educationists, documentary film makers and assorted activists. In 2004, “Abhivyakti”, the word for expression in Hindi has been chosen as the name of the festival. The films are intended to provoke discussions and ideas, and there is time for discussion after each film
The 8th Ravi Bharati Video Festival
Since the early 1990’s when VHS was a new medium, and the video cassette recorder was making its way into middle class homes throughout the country, Ravi Bharati organised the first All Bihar VHS video festival to encourage local video-film makers in the new medium.
The idea was to enlist camcorder in the cause of social communication; to use the relatively low-cost VHS as an alternative to the expensive, establishment-oriented ‘mainstream’ mass-communication machine.
Today, with computers and convergence media bringing down costs still further, the role of video as a narrator of the realities of the marginalised, the displaced, and the alternative, is evident to many.
Every two years, Ravi Bharati celebrates this with a three day alternative low-cost festival, inviting videos made by enthusiasts, students, children, idealists, social workers, educationists, documentary film makers and assorted activists. In 2004, “Abhivyakti”, the word for expression in Hindi has been chosen as the name of the festival. The films are intended to provoke discussions and ideas, and there is time for discussion after each film
Abhivyakti 2008
Patna, Bihar 11 ,12, 13 April
The 8th Ravi Bharati Video Festival
Since the early 1990’s when VHS was a new medium, and the video cassette recorder was making its way into middle class homes throughout the country, Ravi Bharati organised the first All Bihar VHS video festival to encourage local video-film makers in the new medium.
The idea was to enlist camcorder in the cause of social communication; to use the relatively low-cost VHS as an alternative to the expensive, establishment-oriented ‘mainstream’ mass-communication machine.
Today, with computers and convergence media bringing down costs still further, the role of video as a narrator of the realities of the marginalised, the displaced, and the alternative, is evident to many.
Every two years, Ravi Bharati celebrates this with a three day alternative low-cost festival, inviting videos made by enthusiasts, students, children, idealists, social workers, educationists, documentary film makers and assorted activists. In 2004, “Abhivyakti”, the word for expression in Hindi has been chosen as the name of the festival. The films are intended to provoke discussions and ideas, and there is time for discussion after each film
The 8th Ravi Bharati Video Festival
Since the early 1990’s when VHS was a new medium, and the video cassette recorder was making its way into middle class homes throughout the country, Ravi Bharati organised the first All Bihar VHS video festival to encourage local video-film makers in the new medium.
The idea was to enlist camcorder in the cause of social communication; to use the relatively low-cost VHS as an alternative to the expensive, establishment-oriented ‘mainstream’ mass-communication machine.
Today, with computers and convergence media bringing down costs still further, the role of video as a narrator of the realities of the marginalised, the displaced, and the alternative, is evident to many.
Every two years, Ravi Bharati celebrates this with a three day alternative low-cost festival, inviting videos made by enthusiasts, students, children, idealists, social workers, educationists, documentary film makers and assorted activists. In 2004, “Abhivyakti”, the word for expression in Hindi has been chosen as the name of the festival. The films are intended to provoke discussions and ideas, and there is time for discussion after each film
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Billy Bean: not my lover
William Daro "Billy" Bean (born in Santa Ana, California) is a former Major League Baseball player who made news in 1999 when he made his homosexuality public
Born 11 May 1964 Bean was a high-scoring outfielder in a career that lasted from 1987 through 1995: Detroit Tigers 1987-89, Los Angeles Dodgers 1989, San Diego Padres 1993-95. Bean joined the Detroit Tigers in 1987 tying an MLB record with four hits in his first major league game
After acknowledging that he is gay, Bean went on to write a book, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball.Bean is only the second former major league player to reveal his homosexuality; the late Los Angeles Dodger and Oakland Athletic Glenn Burke is the only other ex-player to have acknowledged his homosexuality.He is also a current panelist on GSN's I've Got A Secret revival, and a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation.
Billy Bean may be in the middle of a long and overscheduled book tour, with speaking engagement and signing parties crowding every free minute of the day, but it's not that hard to find a way to carve out some extra time for, say, a visit with a reporter.
Just ask if he wants to play some early morning tennis. He'll be up for it. At 38, Bean still has the earnest, boy-next-door look of an athlete fresh out of college, and when he talks about his love of sports, you can't help but feel a bit of longing for those little league glory days that may lurk in your own past
His competitive streak is just as apparent -- playing a few quick, games on Adams Morgan's public tennis courts, he plays every point as if it were a tournament. It's not necessarily about winning, but about playing the best he can, whatever and wherever the game may be.
When Bean left behind his life as a professional baseball player, he let go of a dream he had pursued since childhood. But his life as a closeted gay man had grown too stressful, and he could no longer balance the closet with the clubhouse. As a closeted player, he had divorced his wife and secretly moved in with his first lover, Sam. When Sam died of AIDS, Bean was so frightened of his secret being revealed that he didn't attend his lover's funeral.
"Why was it so impossible to think that a baseball player could grieve for a man?" he says. "I just didn't think I was worth enough to ask, and that sucked. That was a terrible, terrible decision I made."
Once out of the closet, Bean found himself in love with man who is now his partner, Efrain Veiga. And he found himself the center of attention in a gay and lesbian community looking for ways to break down the barriers of homophobia in sports. Bean is blunt about how strong that barrier remains -- he doesn't foresee any professional baseball player coming out and continuing to play in the near future, a view that has caused some critics to question his commitment to encouraging people to come out.
His new book, Going the Other Way, is in part an answer to that criticism -- while he hopes for gay players to eventually be as commonly accepted as any other, he also believes his experience shows what a hard road that will be for the one who chooses to take it. Even so, he says his goal is to deliver a positive message for gays and lesbians, and their friends and families.
"This book is not a sad story about a victim of homophobia, or baseball mistreating me," he says. "It's about what it's like to live in the closet and to try to realize a dream under those restrictions."
Born 11 May 1964 Bean was a high-scoring outfielder in a career that lasted from 1987 through 1995: Detroit Tigers 1987-89, Los Angeles Dodgers 1989, San Diego Padres 1993-95. Bean joined the Detroit Tigers in 1987 tying an MLB record with four hits in his first major league game
After acknowledging that he is gay, Bean went on to write a book, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball.Bean is only the second former major league player to reveal his homosexuality; the late Los Angeles Dodger and Oakland Athletic Glenn Burke is the only other ex-player to have acknowledged his homosexuality.He is also a current panelist on GSN's I've Got A Secret revival, and a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Athletics Foundation.
Billy Bean may be in the middle of a long and overscheduled book tour, with speaking engagement and signing parties crowding every free minute of the day, but it's not that hard to find a way to carve out some extra time for, say, a visit with a reporter.Just ask if he wants to play some early morning tennis. He'll be up for it. At 38, Bean still has the earnest, boy-next-door look of an athlete fresh out of college, and when he talks about his love of sports, you can't help but feel a bit of longing for those little league glory days that may lurk in your own past
His competitive streak is just as apparent -- playing a few quick, games on Adams Morgan's public tennis courts, he plays every point as if it were a tournament. It's not necessarily about winning, but about playing the best he can, whatever and wherever the game may be.
When Bean left behind his life as a professional baseball player, he let go of a dream he had pursued since childhood. But his life as a closeted gay man had grown too stressful, and he could no longer balance the closet with the clubhouse. As a closeted player, he had divorced his wife and secretly moved in with his first lover, Sam. When Sam died of AIDS, Bean was so frightened of his secret being revealed that he didn't attend his lover's funeral.
"Why was it so impossible to think that a baseball player could grieve for a man?" he says. "I just didn't think I was worth enough to ask, and that sucked. That was a terrible, terrible decision I made."
Once out of the closet, Bean found himself in love with man who is now his partner, Efrain Veiga. And he found himself the center of attention in a gay and lesbian community looking for ways to break down the barriers of homophobia in sports. Bean is blunt about how strong that barrier remains -- he doesn't foresee any professional baseball player coming out and continuing to play in the near future, a view that has caused some critics to question his commitment to encouraging people to come out.
His new book, Going the Other Way, is in part an answer to that criticism -- while he hopes for gay players to eventually be as commonly accepted as any other, he also believes his experience shows what a hard road that will be for the one who chooses to take it. Even so, he says his goal is to deliver a positive message for gays and lesbians, and their friends and families.
"This book is not a sad story about a victim of homophobia, or baseball mistreating me," he says. "It's about what it's like to live in the closet and to try to realize a dream under those restrictions."
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Holi Terror
A four hundred year old ghost plays spoilsport in this Jharkhand Village
While the rest of Jharkhand may have celebrated the Holi festival with the usual amount of gaiety, there was certainly no cheer in a little hamlet just twenty kilometres away from Bokaro city.
There is no music, no dance and no colours on Holi. A pall of gloom shrouds the village of Durgapur in the Kasmar block, along the Bokaro-Ranchi route. The fear of Holi can easily be seen in the eyes of the villagers.
The villagers, eight thousand of them, daren’t play Holi for fear of antagonising the spirit of a tribal chieftain who held sway over the territory some four centuries ago.
The Chieftain, named Durga, lost a battle during the Holi festival and took an aversion to colours. On his deathbed, he warned his people that misfortune would visit them and their descendants if they did not stay away from colours.
The priest Belaram Mahto says that the people believe that the curse is binding. “The King would give severe punishments to the people who disobeyed his orders.” Even after his death, it is believed that anyone who played Holi in the village encountered severe misfortunes, wasting sickness and gruesome death.
“Our ancestors have warned us against touching colours during the festival. In our village, the inhabitants do not perform the ritual bath at Holi. They still believe that if they celebrate the festival, it will bring bad omens and that the spirit of the king will punish them. A few years ago, some fishermen who were visitors, broke the tradition by playing with colours on Holi. An epidemic brought much suffering to the village that year.”
Every second person in the village has strange tales to tell about the vengeful ghostly spirit of the Chieftain. Superstition or not, no resident of Durgapur village touches colours during the festival. Even the folk living in the neighbouring villages avoid Durgapur around this festival.
There is no music, no dance and no colours on Holi. A pall of gloom shrouds the village of Durgapur in the Kasmar block, along the Bokaro-Ranchi route. The fear of Holi can easily be seen in the eyes of the villagers.
The villagers, eight thousand of them, daren’t play Holi for fear of antagonising the spirit of a tribal chieftain who held sway over the territory some four centuries ago.
The Chieftain, named Durga, lost a battle during the Holi festival and took an aversion to colours. On his deathbed, he warned his people that misfortune would visit them and their descendants if they did not stay away from colours.
The priest Belaram Mahto says that the people believe that the curse is binding. “The King would give severe punishments to the people who disobeyed his orders.” Even after his death, it is believed that anyone who played Holi in the village encountered severe misfortunes, wasting sickness and gruesome death.
“Our ancestors have warned us against touching colours during the festival. In our village, the inhabitants do not perform the ritual bath at Holi. They still believe that if they celebrate the festival, it will bring bad omens and that the spirit of the king will punish them. A few years ago, some fishermen who were visitors, broke the tradition by playing with colours on Holi. An epidemic brought much suffering to the village that year.”
Every second person in the village has strange tales to tell about the vengeful ghostly spirit of the Chieftain. Superstition or not, no resident of Durgapur village touches colours during the festival. Even the folk living in the neighbouring villages avoid Durgapur around this festival.
Nobody dares to smear a native of Durgapur village with colour either, for fear of the breaking the taboo.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Whither education? Whither values?
I write this with a sense of sadness, bordering on despair.
The billions of dollars poured into the so-called education programme in states like Bihar is of no use.
When the system is corrupt and the teachers are dishonest, what can be expected? Except for those who have the 'good fortune' to study in private schools run by missionaries or other societies, those left to scrape up an education from the government education sector learn nothing but how to become corrupt.
In Miller school, ironically renamed after the youngest of the 'Martyrs' whose statues are raised in front of the Bihar secretariat, the teachers abet and encourage the students towards corrupt practices.
Just think. A boy studied the whole night in preparattion for his Class 11 examination, only to find that, in the morning, several of the students walking around with photo-copies of a question paper... which later turn out to be the one that has been set for the exam!
Now it gets better. Students bring in guess books, chits, and freely copy from them, and the older teachers discourage the younger ones from taking action. against the wronmg doers.
The treason of course is that the teachers haven't even completed a quarter of the syllabus, because for the first three months of the year, they have not taught a thing. Their excuse -- we were not sure about the 'new' CBSE pattern syllabus.
"What is the use of studying?" asked a boy who was thoroughly discouraged by being in a room where the ideaks of integrity, honesty, and courage have no value, despite the picture of Mohandas Gandhi suspended from a hook on teh wall.
In reality, Gandhi and his ideals has been suspended long ago. These vultures disguised as teachers grow fat on increased salaries. There is no accountability. In a better world, they would have been put before a firing squad and shot!
Will those who trumpet about bringing changes to Bihar kindly start with seeing if they can clean out the Augean stables of Higher education?
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Silent war
The war against polio rages on with 17 problem blocks in Bihar having a substantial 'refusal' rate : parents unwilling to vaccinate their kids against the crippling disease.
Some members of the Muslim community - especially
the information poor -- fear that the drops are an American plot to make their children impotent.
The young educated community members, especially women have taken issue with the rumour mongers, and have become part of an active polio vaccination campaign... their aim is to have every child receive the polio vaccination in their neighbourhood.
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