kriticulture

Summer and Fall 2013 Vol 5 No. 3 & 4 Editorial The unprofitable work of literature Rajesh Sharma     The oldest memories with me include a balding and bespectacled old head reading a book held up by a hairy hand with cracked brown skin. A reflective grin spreads or shrinks, prompted by mysterious proceedings in the magic mirror in front. Memory’s selection tool functions strangely.             Sood Uncle. He ran a shop that never had more than… ten books? A banyan had grown in the shop’s forehead, hanging down like hair from aging eyebrows. Seven steps into the shop you faced darkness that tasted damp with the odor of rats’ droppings. I bought my first books, on credit to be paid by my mother’s brother, from Sood Uncle. My mother’s mother once confided to me that this Sood Uncle was a legendary kanjoos . Unlimitedly kanjoos , she said.        ...

An extract from Sasenarine Persaud's review of South Asian Ensemble : "Stories, excerpts, poems, essays, photography, paintings, reviews and interviews all go into making this eclectic publication. The contributions are not only by, or about, South Asians. The great strength of South Asian Ensemble is the translations from Indian languages." - Sasenarine Persaud's Complete review here: http://poets-and-co.blogspot.in/

Mainstream, VOL LI, No 1, December 22, 2012 [Annual 2012] Critical History of Our Times Rajesh Kumar Sharma BOOK REVIEW The Underside of Things: India and the World: A Citizen’s Miscellany, 2006-2011  by Badri Raina;  Three Essays Collective; 2012;  Pages: xxii+758;  Paperback Rs 850.   Badri Raina is like an all-season fruit-bearing tree. And the more he ages the mellower gets the fruit he bears. The 134 essays gathered between the covers of this book and written for Z-net over six years between 2006 and 2011 are ample testimony to his engaged critical productivity. Each essay is a timely, more than instantaneous, response to some pressing issue—be it embodied in an event, a pronouncement, a person, a law, a policy, a report, or a possibility crying imperatively to be cast into action. But beyond this, the essays also transcend the contingency of their moment under the force and lucidity of Raina’s reason which, aided by a rea...

By Badri Raina Source: Znet   Duniya banAnei vAlei, kya  tere mann mei samAyei, kAhei ko duniya banAyei? (whatever got into your head, o creator/ why did you create the world?) Lines from a film song that  have  comprised  absolutely my mother’s most favourite  poser.  And mine as well. She has now entered her one hundredth year—you heard that right—and  is  tough-minded  enough to say she still does not have an answer, although her ninety nine have been full of observance and piety. So, does she not fear death and the alleged aftermath?  I suspect she takes cognizance of those things, but refuses to attach herself to an order of  constructions that she remains unconvinced about.  Mama, I salute the integrity of your mind and  heart. Being of a high intellectual calibre, and honest to the core, she is unable to say that watching cinema in a theatre or drinking a shot of whisky now and t...

Rajesh Kumar Sharma Has the spirit of the 60s finally arrived in India? Is the new economic order set to liberate our libidinal economies too? Are we at last graduating into the freedom which Nietzsche, Marx and Freud foreshadowed? Imtiaz Ali's Rockstar , released this November, tempts you to wonder. As a cinematic text embodying the present moment in India's cultural history, the film provokes reflection. Such an irreverent and raw yet tightly crafted challenge has not been thrown at social taboos by any other Indian film in recent years. Indeed, the film narrativises success in terms of a progressive transgression of taboos. And the success is measured in terms of a heady trajectory of self-realization through art. The real irony – the irony of the real – lies in the way the chipping away at social taboos gathers increasing social approval. It all begins with a mofussil middle class dream fired by the pedestrian teachings of a college canteen guru. The pedestrian, with it...

Daljit Ami Finding one of his primary school classmates doing menial jobs, Gursharan Singh got the shock of his life at the age of twelve. Tears rolled out of his eyes that Shingara despite having the most beautiful handwriting among classmates had to drop out of school.  Gursharan could not help himself and tears kept on rolling from his eyes throughout life, every time he talked about Shingara. At the age of 82, Gursharan breathed his last on September 27, 2011. He kept his commitment with his childhood friend and fought against all forms of injustice in society. Theatre was his tool to raise loudest possible voice against any kind of exploitation and inequality. The energy he enthused into his performances remained unparallel. How can a person maintain such intensity and energy for such a long time? Dr. Areet, his daughter shares that he could never talk about Shingara without crying  Born on September 16, 1929 in Multan (now Pakistan) Gursharan Singh was one of the mill...