Stefan Collini on New Left Review at 50 | Books | The Guardian

Stefan Collini on New Left Review at 50 | Books | The Guardian

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Remembering Maninder Singh Kang

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(18.5.1963-4.2.2013) By Rajesh Sharma I visualize him watching his own burning corpse and laughing a philosopher’s laughter. “Oye pandatā , this Kang was a dog’s tail of a man. Look, he is poking even the flames to laugh. What a struggle the wind and the fire are waging over his body. And look at the rain, it refuses to stop. His death seems to have released an excess of the five bhoots , making nature go berserk.”                 Listening to him, I try to make sense of his bizarre inner geography.                 “He’ll be impossible to replace. It’s such a loss,” he adds in an altogether different mood.       Maninder had this ability to move effortlessly between gaiety and gravity. He probably had found the thread that connects the extremes.        ...
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Punjab Finance Minister Wants a Punjabi Ku Klux Klan

March 1, 2010. Punjabi University, Patiala. The second day of the Conference on Transnational Punjabi Literature and Culture: Challenges and Opportunities organised by the well-meaning World Punjabi Centre and Sahitya Akademi. The young Finance Minister of Punjab, Manpreet Singh Badal walks in without the spectacular paraphernalia of gun-wielding security men. The calls made by all and sundry for nurturing Punjabi language move him deeply. And therefore, as he rises to speak, he is at his oratorical best. And most irrational. He unspools anecdote after anecdote to lace his very sincere speech. The climax comes with a call to the Punjabis to take a leaf from Ku Klux Klan, the American far right hate group which, in the Hon'ble Minister's judgement, showed enviable commitment to the threatened white supremacy. The Punjabis could form a society like the KKK, he innocently opines, to secure the supremacy of Punjabi. But he could just be using a metaphor, you may say. I agree. I ag...
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Remembering my teacher

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