Author: Tarun Kumar Saint
Publisher: Seagull Books
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 193
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8170461901
Description
This unusual volume explores India's history of recurring communal violence through the feelings and emotions of poets and writers and of those who comment on society and politics.
This unusual volume explores India's history of recurring communal violence through the feelings and emotions of poets and writers and of those who comment on society and politics. Poems, short stories, memoirs, essays and a panel discussion together probe how it feels when violence erupts, turning neighbors into enemies and home into an alien land.
In a time when religious identities hardened in the public sphere (manifested in the form of communalism), and exploded time and again into riots, artists and writers sought to articulate the 'subtler truths’ of lived intercommunity experience. They also gave expression to the shock and outrage of the people at the barbarisms visited on the country. A plurality of voices, in different genres and languages, exists; this selection highlights some of the distinctive attempts to contend with the reality of modern-day communalism, juxtaposing translations with the reality of modern-day communalism, juxtaposing translations with writings in English to allow a comparative perspective to emerge.
In these writings, several ways of dealing with the communal predicament in imaginative terms become visible. Such literary efforts bear witness to the mutilation of our dreams, as well as to the struggle to keep the lamp of understanding and good sense burning. Secular India may be under siege, but, as these contributions indicate, it is certainly not yet dead.
Contents
Preface
Balle-Balle Jawahar Lal
Take me home
The Death of an Empire
The Final Wish
Balloon
Ravan
The Ghosts of Mrs. Gandhi
Venue for a speech on Tamas
Khandit Kand Poems
The Foundation Stone
The Tiger
City of Sieges
Two Poems
Dharavi (December, 1992)
Broken Mirror
Thoughts on Democracy, Secularism and Religious Fanaticism
Roznamcha—The Diary
He Said, Pani
Four Poems
Notions of Communality and communalism in the imagination: A Panel discussion
Notes on contributors
Glossary