Amitava Kumar Comments

by: Did You Know?

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:36:06 +0100

very nice blog.. can we exchange links??? pls reply to my blog

by: B

Tue, 13 May 2008 19:11:19 +0100

This is a different field. Do literary scholars have time to add new tools, of questionable value, to their arsenal? To the extent that research and scholarship flows into teaching (and isn’t that the point?) is it wise to compromise the heart of the humanities? Should all college courses be the same? Why don’t we just have computers write the literature and cut out the middle man?

by: Arvindh

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:31:07 +0100

Ah! This is interesting! And makes perfect sense. As someone said, the Clintons are Black-friendly only when the minorities know their place.

by: Shruti

Wed, 07 May 2008 16:39:28 +0100

I wish I could have caught his photo exhibition at some point while it was touring with the NGMA. I was always a city behind the tour. (I did, however, manage to catch the excellent Raghu Rai exhibition in Delhi.) Anyway, Bartholomew’s photos are amazing, and anyone with the chance to see them up close should definitely take advantage of it.

by: Shaili Sathyu

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:22:11 +0100

If you wish to order a DVD copy of Garm Hawa - please contact M S Sathyu at mssathyu@gmail.com

by: sourabh

Sun, 04 May 2008 10:44:38 +0100

Amitava, I met MS Sathyu, Garam Hawa’s director, many times during the Chadigarh Film Festival in March 2008. He was standing outisde the goverment museum auditorium and wondering how they would screen his film without a projector. “I have only brought the master copy from Bangalore,” he said softly, exhaling. Then looking distraught, the man with silvery hair and beard murmured: “Are they going to screen it on a DVD?” So he called up the orgainser from my phone and asked the same question. The organsier said he would do something about it. In the evening, people of Chandigarh watched Garam Hawa with the film’s director in an auditorium designed by Le Corbuier on a DVD. But they did use the original film rolls to screen the movie later that night at a nearby multiplex.
The next evening I met him again at dinner at a hotel. He said he seemed tired of meeting journalists. With disdain, he said he not read anymore what they wrote about him.

by: Szerelem

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:35:23 +0100

On my last visit to Delhi I went crazy looking for a DVD/VCD of Garam Hawa. Apparently the master copy of the movie has been destroyed, I hope that that is not true for it would be a terrible, terrible loss. At any rate, there’s no copy of the film available in the market as of now.

by: Ruchi

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:59:25 +0100

I can’t help but agree, the movie is one of my favourites.

by: moi

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:03:32 +0100

I think Anjaan Singh might have been a little more nuanced in his/her comment, but there’s little doubt that Waris is responding in the most limited and literal sense possible. I don’t know about all the signatories, but Victoria Brittain looks pretty white to me (even if she is really from Bengal). In any case, whether someone’s skin color is black, brown, or white is irrelevant in this debate. Tariq Ali, if I’m not mistaken, is British-Pakistani, and Vijay Prashad is from an elite Indian background and, if I’m not mistaken, a permanent resident of the United States. They have a stake in the white-dominated US and UK. I’m not sure whether that’s what Anjaan was trying to get at. Although they are distinguished scholars and writers, it is not altogether surprisinig that these signatories’ concerns seem largely removed from the reality of the peasants in Nandigram — and, in that sense, utterly academic. The signatories are effectively saying the peasants of Nandigram must share in the world’s burden of resisting those who were put in office (or at least allowed to take office) by American voters. That is offensively self-absorbed. American and British citizens/ permanent residents can fight their own battles at home, make their democracies work, and remove the “rancor” from their “public space”. They should leave the peasants of Bengal alone if they can’t actually support their right to live securely on their land, and practice their way of life. Especially if they call themselves leftist.

by: mordenti

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:26:37 +0100

What is needed is a live webstream–and global participation– of your discussions in this literature of 9/11 class.