Fake Tree, Real Death
Anil Kumar Yadav [The original Hindi version of this essay appeared in Tehelka yesterday, May 1, 2015. Translation: HUG] —————————————– Among the things with which the future shall take stock of and measure our times, surely facebook will be one.Events used to be enacted twice even in the earlier times. The first time in real terms; and the second, within the inner retreats of human beings. But this occurrence of the second time often gets manifested now in the form of a many-hued poetry of diverse emotions on the pages of facebook. If we refrain from getting judgmental, it can be assumed that the poems that used to die within our selves can now see the light of the day; how long such flickers stay alive would depend on their internal fibre though. After that many-textured incident took place among the crowds, in full glare of the camera, a poem by Krishna Kalpit came into being: एक नकली किसान/एक नकली मुख्यमंत्री के सामने/एक नकली पेड़ से लटककर मर गया/और नकली पुलिस और नकली जनता देखती रही/सब नकली थे/लेकिन मृत्यु असली थी! A fake farmer/in front of a fake chief-minister/died hanging on a fake tree/and fake police and fake crowd kept watching/everything was fake/but death was real! One needs to have some courage in order to pen the very first line of this poem. For this is being penned after a death has just occurred, amidst a countrywide spell of fake outcry on the issue of farmer-suicides. The poet can be easily pulverized.Pilloried.But if you could imagine yourself standing beside that bearded dead-body among the clapping throng at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, then you would know that a whole fake people has not only been manufactured, but this condition has become complicated to such an extent that it is impossible to get back the very idea of people—janta— in the old sense anymore. This throng, having exorcised all its feelings and occupying that hazy zone between truth and falsehood, is ever-ready to be shoved and propelled in any direction. An unsurpassed example of this predicament is the deceased Gajendra Singh himself. He was aware of the ruined realities of the farmers. Having been a regular in quite a few political parties, he had mastered the finer art of attracting the attention of the leaders. Contrary to the farmer sensibility, he had also chosen a kind of work for himself for which he would be rewarded with tipping—बख्शीश, rather than caring to earn an honest workman’s wages—मजदूरी. Literally mounting slices of amusing spectacles, he would tie turbans onto the heads of the political leaders. He would be tipped by those kinds of people who, aided by turbans, swords, crown and butter, would help the political leaders play-act the game of being maharajas for those daily brief moments of harlequinry that caricatures our times. And hope to climb up a few rungs themselves in the wake. Actually he wished to follow the successful mercenary imprints of those leaders who were singing paeans to a pedigreed clan or stoking the self-conceit of a single arrogant man. Pity, in this pursuit, he could only become an attention seeking pawn—in life and in death. In this multi-textured event that testifies to a retrogressive political culture, much more staggering than the death of this mercenary farmer is the death of a party and a man who, people had once thought, wanted to establish the aam admi (common man) at the front and centre of the political arena. The last time, having sacrificed the 47 days government in an ambition to proliferate across the nation, Arvind Kejrwal was slapped by an auto-wallah. Arvind went to his place after paying homage at Rajghat. At that point people suffered from the crazy hope that perhaps our lost ideals and political embodiments could be reinstated by this man. The same Arvind went ahead with his political speech even after the death of a man, as if a hovering insect got scorched in the glamour of his blazing petromax. From the rapidly unscaling layers of his persona this time, it is evident that the lessons of humility, idealism, mercy and piety, his readings from the Hind Swaraj, were all but mere rites of passage to power—well thought out and practiced. Not unlike those against whom he had come out in war in the first place. Now,at some point if he implores the people of Delhi, citing humanism, to transport maimed and dying people from the streets to the hospitals, he will surely be asked in reply whether he is the same man who can stop a meeting in deference to azaan emanating from a mosque but cannot do so when a man dies. More fraudulent is that dissonant and hoarse clamour for the farmers from people who actually make policies for the rich and the influential and who are, every passing day, enclosing the spaces of all resistance. In modes of pure farce, the symbols, allegories and the metaphors of language are all lurching towards the villages. In order to conceal one’s true aims, a whole alternative cosmos has been created, where everything is illusive. And every bit delusory, non-existent. Recall that the poet had also spoken of a fake tree in which the man had hanged himself. *** adminhumanitiesunderground.org
No More Flat Feet
Serge Berna, Jean-Louis Brau, Guy-Ernest Debord & Gil J. Wolman Internationale Lettriste #1 (November 1952) _________________________________________ Sub Mack Sennett director, sub-Max Linder actor, Stavisky of the tears of unwed mothers and the little orphans of Auteuil, you are Chaplin, emotional blackmailer, master-singer of misfortune. The cameraman needed his Delly. It’s only to him that you’ve given your works, and your good works: your charities. Because you’ve identified yourself with the weak and the oppressed, to attack you has been to attack the weak and oppressed — but in the shadow of your rattan cane some could already see the nightstick of a cop. You are “he-who-turns-the-other-cheek” — the other cheek of the buttock — but for us, the young and beautiful, the only answer to suffering is revolution. We don’t buy the “absurd persecutions” that make you out as the victim, you flat-footed Max de Veuzit. In France the Immigration Service calls itself the Advertising Agency. The sort of press conference you gave at Cherbourg could offer no more than a piece of tripe. You have nothing to fear from the success of Limelight. Go to sleep, you fascist insect. Rake in the dough. Make it with high society (we loved it when you crawled on your stomach in front of little Elizabeth). Have a quick death: we promise you a first-class funeral. We pray that your latest film will truly be your last. The fires of the kleig lights have melted the makeup of the so-called brilliant mime — and exposed the sinister and compromised old man. Go home, Mister Chaplin. _________________ Translated by Sophie Rosenberg adminhumanitiesunderground.org
Gathering Shadows, Shamsher Bahadur Singh
Lakshmidhar Malviya (Gathering Shadows, Shamsher Bahadur Singh. Years covered: 1961-1975) __________________________________________________ ईमान गड़बड़ी में है दिल के हिसाब में लिक्खा हुआ कुछ और मिला है किताब में (Top Floor, Just Fit, 1961) *** कठिन प्रस्तर में अगिन सूराख। मौन पर्तों में हिला मैं कीट। (Shamsher, the tenant, peeping: barsati above Just Fit Tailors, Allahabad, 1961] *** आज फिर काम से लौटा हूँ बड़ी रात गए ताक़ पर ही मेरे हिस्से की धरी है शायद (Just Fit Tailors, Bahadurganj, Allahabad, 1961 ) *** उसे बदलियों में भी पहचान लोगे कि उस चांद-से मुँह पे’ हाला पड़ा पड़ा है वो जुल्फ़ों में सब कुछ छुपाए हुए हैं अंधेरा लपेटे उजाला पड़ा है (Premlata Verma and Shamsher, 1961) *** मेरी बाँसुरी है एक नाव की पतवार – जिसके स्वर गीले हो गये हैं, छप्-छप्-छप् मेरा हृदय कर रहा है… छप् छप् छप्व (Neighbourhood, Just Fit, 1961) *** तू मेरे एकान्त का एकान्त है मैं समझता था कि मेरा तू नहीं । (Shamsher, Sketch : Malayaj, 1961) *** जी को लगती है तेरी बात खरी है शायद वही शमशेर मुज़फ़्फ़रनगरी है शायद (Allahabad, 1962) *** सूरज उगाया जाता फूलों में: यदि हम एक साथ हँस पड़ते। (With Shrimati and Shri Naresh Mehta, their year old son Babul, an unnamed person and Shamsher, 1961) *** वरूणा के किनारे एक चक्रस्तूप है शायद वहीं विश्व का केंद्र है वहीं कहीं ऐसा सुनते हैं। (Sarnath: the dharmshala where Shamsher often lived during the first half of the 1960s) *** मैं समाज तो नहीं; न मैं कुल जीवन; कण-समूह में हूँ मैं केवल एक कण । (Delhi, 1971) *** दिल्ली बस-स्टैंड से ही कार्ड मिला था मुझको। काश फिर लिखते – ‘वही है जो गिला था मुझको1।’ ताकि हम कहते कि ‘है जुल्म सरासर अब तो!’ (Delhi, 1971) *** काल, तुझसे होड़ है मेरी: अपराजित तू- तुझमें अपराजित मैं वास करूं । (Delhi, 1961) *** कहाँ है वो किताबें, दीवारें, चेहरे, वो बादलों की इन्द्रधनुषाकार लहरीली लाल हँसियाँ कहाँ है ? (Delhi 1971) *** हम अपने खयाल को सनम समझे थे, अपने को खयाल से भी कम समझे थे! होना था- समझना न था कुछ भी, शमशेर, होना भी कहाँ था वह जो हम समझे थे! (Delhi, 1971) *** वाम वाम वाम दिशा, समय साम्यवादी। (With dear friend Mugisuddin Faridi and Shobha Singh, Delhi 1971) *** एक नीला आईना बेठोस-सी यह चाँदनी और अंदर चल रहा हूँ मैं उसी के महातल के मौन में । (Delhi, 1975) *** [This set of photographs were first published in Jalsa, 2011. HUG is grateful to Asad Zaidi for making the volume available.] adminhumanitiesunderground.org
The New Between Past and Future: The Question of Method in the Humanities II (Video Clips)
Dear HUG Readers: Here are the youtube links to the video clips of the forum (second & final in the series) on ‘The New Between Past and Future: The Question of Method in the Humanities II’ —a collaboration between MargHumanities and the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Study, JNU, (April 13, 2015). —————————- Speakers: Milind Wakankar (IIT, Delhi) , Rakesh Pandey (CSDS, New Delhi), Achia Anzi (Artist and SL, JNU) , Asad Zaidi (Poet and Three Essays Collective) Moderator: Prasanta Chakravarty (Delhi University) The proceedings of the forum have been broken into 11 clips. All the clips are live on this page. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVhlmKwZZoA 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvElJydYZsc 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqIdV9bPKJw 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgkCbmIi82M 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acjidg14J-A 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY-H0mkGrzk 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loSWs2VOizg 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-YB1887qn4 9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAQykO_1P_o 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B9EBhvUTHU 11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVxy1eVqgu0 ——————————————- adminhumanitiesunderground.org