[Reader-list] notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism..

[Ravikant]

Abir,

I think Rajkamal prakashan published the novel in the original. Finding the 
Hindi version is not a problem. You can go to Hindi book centre on Aruna Asaf 
Ali Road, near delite cinema or to their own showroom at 1-B Netaji Subhash 
Marg, Daryaganj in Delhi. I will certainly buy a couple of copies but I need 
to know who translator is. Penguin does not have a great track record with 
translations. They slashed eighty pages in Shrilal Shukla's fabulous satire 
Rag Darbari's English version! 

Ravikant


On Sunday 24 Nov 2002 9:30 pm, abir bazaz wrote:
> It is after a long time that we are on the threshold of a really
> interesting discussion. But what I want to know for now is where I can buy
> a copy of the novel in Hindi. Penguin India (the publishers of the English
> translation) had written to Shukla that if he didn’t buy the unsold copies
> of his own novel, the copies would be turned into pulp. Can some of us buy
> the remaining copies on the rate offered by Penguin to Shukla- Rs 30?
>
> It may also be a good idea to have a screening of Mani Kaul’s film on the
> novel at Sarai. I’ll try and post some of Mani Kaul’s own reflections on
> his film based on Naukar ki Kameez. Shukla had collaborated with Kaul on
> the screenplay for this film.
>
> Abir
>
> On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 lush inkk wrote :
> >notes- trying to look at the question of english, fascism..
> >
> >
> >
> >I read Naukar ki Kameez . Read it very late. thought and rethought about
> > it. felt discontented by the end.  by the way the wife and baby to be
> > give the all important respite, refuge and self affirmation. wondered at
> > my discontent. perhaps it was with loading the wife with too much-
> > correct emotion. keeping cynicism/ post modernity ( how the word rings
> > for me) completely out of that relationship. the complete faith, the
> > perfection of that reciprocated love made me uncomfotable. it seemed too
> > much like a wrested ending.
> >
> >
> >
> >a novel is not reality. and this novel is definitely an artifice- a work
> > of art- that small bit by painstaking bit, creates/ wrests a space for
> > dignity in the face of ugly dehumanised/dehumanised power. what startled
> > me about the novel was the ( created, i have to keep reminding myself)
> > existence of a character who recognised the manipulations of power so
> > clearly,  and equally clearly , kept open a fierce place of dignity and
> > life for himself.
> >
> >
> >
> >the novel brought in, in new permutations, spaces inhabited by some people
> > i have known. lower middle class houses holding onto their dignity. not
> > sunk into poverty but in a continuous struggle to stay afloat.
> >
> >
> >
> >Pratap Pandey's remark, many mails ago, about the need for an ethnography
> > of fascism has stayed with me a long while. some people i have known from
> > spaces like in naukar ki kameez- or at least spaces close to this- have
> > veered into fascist thought- some kind of vocal support whenever they
> > feel the need to do so. ( i do not know much about those that have not-
> > though of course they must be there, they are there and i should renew my
> > intimacies)
> >
> >this book is written in 1979, with what seems like a deep intimcay with a
> > matrix, and the creative power to make/salvage from it, with love and
> > pain, a dignity.
> >
> >i think of the people i know in the early 1980's, in similar contexts, and
> > try to see if i can move in some small configuration about a  ethnography
> > of fascism.
> >
> >a lower middle class hindu family lives in a lower middle class
> > neighbourhood in a town in western u.p. which has had a dominant muslim
> > culture.the father of our hindu family works in a petty job in the
> > bureaucracy. there is the strong consciousness of being a minority in the
> > area, seeing the conservative ways of families around( not educated,
> > finding their way by keeping cattle, doing some small business and
> > building up their compound wall when there is some money. and keeping
> > their women in). here in the hindu family, pride of education, gentility
> > of poverty. and pride of caste which is not expressed vocally but
> > somewhere it is there- i think. i feel the pride of the upper castes in
> > their caste is so deepy ingrained..( although in naukar ki kameez, the
> > realities of poverty bring are also accompanied by a sense of deep irony
> > about religion, especially about a picture of laxmi dropping coins into
> > the water that the protagonists wife has stuck into the inside lid of her
> > trunk)
> >
> >back to the west u.p. city -elsewhere in the city, in a more mobile middle
> > class area, a close relative of the hindu family is prospering slowly but
> > surely. a better paid job, the wifes timely( 1970's -80's) insistence on
> > an englsih elite education for the children, ( it was an education she
> > always dreamed of for herself- herchildren will have it) easier promotion
> > and movement in the job, in an organisation which is partly public sector
> > but is opening up.
> >
> >
> >
> >family 1 wants to be proud of family 2. same family, there must be a
> > shared sense of success. the 2 sets of parents must be trying, one lot to
> > not let their children be bitter, another lot to not let them be
> > supercilious. superciliousness is more easily warded off, but bitterness?
> >
> >the parent attempts to give the child dignity by salvaging for it: have  a
> > pride in language( good hindi)and a desire to work hard to better your 
> > situation. to keep your mind clean, to not feel bitter about the
> > cousins(' their father grew in the same mud as your father- he struggled
> > out, you must too' i imagine might be the underlying evident thought)
> >
> >
> >
> >the distance instead, is from the muslim neighbour, with the lack of
> > education,  a fear of what brews behind those high walls.
> >
> >
> >
> >  the children will  find it hard to struggle out as the 80's turn into
> > the 90's. for reasons of the times. because they did not manage
> > engineering or medical or a bank job in time- ( it is a time when public
> > sector bank jobs are now not as good as they used to be?)
> >
> >  because two of them are girls.
> >
> >also because they cannot be bitter.  the struggle out is defeating, except
> > for the providence of a good match for one of the girls.
> >
> >
> >
> >how is english implicated in this story? ( remembering a bit of something
> > else pratap pandey  addressed in one of his mails)
> >
> >the pride of hindi is a myth maintained among all the children to keep a
> > certian real world at bay. the cousins have genuine affection also for
> > each other- and in that space where bitterness/superciliousness is kept
> > scruplously out of, a lot of the games are- about the pride of hindi-
> > jokes about one's ignorance of hindi, sharing of things in hindi one has
> > read.
> >
> >english cousin does not share much of her english world- it would not
> > seem- correct, she might have felt(superciliously)
> >
> >
> >
> >will  struggling out of the mud  necessarily mean an increasingly clear
> > road to conservatism? especially because they are brahmans?
> >
> >  what are other struggles out of this situation like?)
> >
> >
> >
> >the one cousin who does not become bitter stays quietly in the class he
> > was born into. he does not stretch out his legs too much, he struggles at
> > a small job. he refuses favours from his uncle quietly .he is laughed at
> > a bit and loved a lot from a distance for being a good man.
> >
> >this is where he salvages his togetherness from what he has.
> >
> >
> >
> >the english cousins will grow with a small sense of context to their
> > privilige, some guilt and a certain lack of superciliousness. some of
> > these qualities will wax and wane.
> >
> >maybe they will bear the possibility of being downwardly mobile? maybe.
> >
> >
> >
> >the uncle who came out of the morass- the father of the priviliged
> > children, will work harder and harder. be - honest- in his work, and
> > tough on many people like his job often demands.he will try and help
> > relatives and friends of relatives. he will look around at others in his
> > workplace who have had it easier- who were to the manor born. he will
> > hold them in some- contempt.
> >
> >
> >
> >his children have known, not prosperity, but definitely privilige,
> > oppurtunity, the ease that comes with an education in english.
> >
> >he will feel somewhat distanced from them, his children, who have lived
> > their early lives more easily. this is the early 1990's. the distance
> > will increase(waxing and waning- love affection a desire to love and
> > comprehend will mitigate the process)
> >
> >
> >
> >he will slowly become in what he says- a supporter of the fascists. so
> > will some( or many- or all?) of the relatives he has bailed out from
> > lower middle class poverty.
> >
> >
> >
> >what are the threads running through this mans life that get tugged at in
> > the 90's??
> >
> >the awe struck wonder of the child when he saw nawabs and rich gentry come
> > to patronise a famoussinger- cars and carriages. as part of the legacy of
> > his city and his own rasik nature- he will always love the music too. his
> > situation- he has friends from all communities, in his head those people
> > will always remain his friends.
> >
> >  he will tell his children about the worlds they have not known- the
> > apples he wanted to eat as a kid but never could- his mom would tell him
> > they are given to people when they are ill- he would long to be ill.
> >
> >
> >does he always hold dear the dignity of being a poor brahmain- the
> > adherence to that fiction of a superiority- of caste - that was needed to
> > keep them afloat when they were badly off??
> >
> >the contempt and anger towards the english speaking- those who had it
> > easy. by the 1990's he labelelled them those who had easy secular
> > politics- his own children too..
> >
> >
> >
> >the girls of family one- denied oppurtunity.
> >
> >one discovered some kind of conservatism in her bitterness at being denied
> > oppurtunity, at the failure of the pride of hindi to fulfil its promise,
> > of the glory of school being very different from the situation outside.
> > the conservatism probably increased with her good marriage into a
> > reasonably well off family who was into private business.
> >
> >
> >
> >the other one maintained her love for hindi and would not be bitter about
> > her own relatives. she maintained her love for a culture rooted in that
> > hindi, engaged with the complexsities of married life as mirrored in that
> > literature?
> >
> >to her vajpayee must be gentle articulate complex? advani a man of his
> > word?
> >
> >what of the memory of those muslim neighbours- i do not know.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  hansa
> >
> >
> >
> >---------------------------------
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