[Reader-list] The 2007 Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowship Programme : 3-7 December 2007

[Vivek Narayanan]

PROGRAMME

Working Questions: the 2007 Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowship Workshop
3-7 December 2007


Each year Sarai-CSDS’s unique fellowship programme gives grants for all 
kinds of practitioners—artists, performers, writers, filmmakers, working 
professionals and academics too—to pursue their own (sometimes serious, 
sometimes quirky) research projects. The results of this research can be 
applied in any direction and, in recent years, has eventually led to all 
kinds of things, from comic to public actions to films to books. This 
year, Sarai’s yearly Independent Fellowship workshop will be a special 
gala event, in the centre of town, looking back over the five years of 
the fellowship. It will feature presentations from this year’s 
Independent Fellows, who will be coming in from various corners of the 
country, as well as some previous recipients of the Fellowship. Expect 
an unconventional convention. Expect talks (both academic and 
non-academic), musical and theatrical performances, books, videos, 
listening booths, slide shows, arguments, dialogues, merriment and 
controversy. A special curated multimedia exhibition accompanies the 
events.


Monday 3 December
Venue: Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, CSDS

6.00 – 8.00 pm
Launch of Working Questions (the Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowship Book)

Opening Remarks
by Professor Rajeev Bhargava
Director, CSDS

Reflecting on Five Years of the Sarai-CSDS Fellowship Programme
Shuddabrata Sengupta
Vivek Narayanan
Debjani Sengupta
Mahmood Farooqui



Tuesday 4 December
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

10.30 – 12.00
History Versus Reminiscence
Chair: Debjani Sengupta

Anuja Ghosalkar
Papa Ajoba: My Grandfather, the Film Make Up Artist

Renee C. Lulam and Julius L. Basaiawmoit
Changing Faces of Democratic Spaces in Urban Cosmopolitan Shillong

Sugata Nandi
Eventful Adolescence, Memorable Youth: The Politics of Personal 
Reminiscence in Calcutta, 1947-1967


12.15 – 1.15
Proving Residence
Chair: Shveta Sarda

Ajit K. Dwivedi
Sealing ke Nazar Mein: Sealing Banam Pusta ka Visthapan (Media Study: 
Comparative Reporting on Land Ceilings and Displacement from Jamuna Pushta)

Bipul K. Pandey
The Residence Proof


1.30 pm – 2.30 pm
Sub-metropolitan Dreams
Chair: Iram Ghufran

Nalin Narain Mathur
B-Grade Engineering College Culture

Syed Zaigham Imam
Sapno ke Rail (The Train of Dreams: Narratives from the 
Allahabad-Jaunpur Passenger Train): a short documentary film


2.45 – 4.15
Hearing Spaces, Seeing Spaces
Chair: Aarti Sethi

Shahnawaz Khan
Entertainment Ghosts in Srinagar: A Tale of Cinema Halls in the City

Zubin Pastakia
A Photographic Study of Bombay’s Cinema Halls

Sayandeb Mukherjee
Corridors: An Exploration of Sound and Space


4.30—6.30 pm
Special Panel: The Past of Research and the Present of Practice

Featuring: TP Sabitha, Yousuf Saeed, Mahmood Farooqui and Rahaab Allana
Discussant: Shuddhabrata Sengupta

7.00—7.30
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar”
by Inder Salim: Space limited to 25 persons only—first come, first serve.


Wed 5 December
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

10.00 am – 11.30
Distant Communities
Chair: Ravikant

Surya Prakash Upadhyay
Guru on the Air: Televised Hinduism in Contemporary India

Neelima Chauhan
Blogit Hindi Jati ka Linkit Man: Blogon mein Hindi Hypertext ka 
Adhayayan (The World of Hindi Blogs)

Raman Jit Singh Chima
The Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State



11.45 – 1.15
In the Midst of Conflict I: Looking Back and Looking Ahead
Chair: Ravi Sundaram

Arvind Kumar
Caste Violence in Urban Maharashtra: A study of the 1974 Worli Riots in 
Mumbai and the Dalit Panthers Movement



P. Jenny and C. Christy
Chitralekha’s Burning Autorickshaw: Caste, Class and Gender in the Urban 
Space of Keralam

Meena Menon
Recovering Lost Histories: Riot Victims, the Communal Polarisation of 
Mumbai and Its Impact on People and Perceptions about Communities


11.00 – 11.30
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Short film on ragging—Listen, Little Man-- by Madhavi Tangella;
[See also discussion with Shivam Vij on Friday’s programme below.]


1.30 – 3.00
In the Midst of Conflict II: Reading Between the Column Inches
Chair: Sanjay Sharma

Shiju Sam Varughese
The Public Sphere as a Site of Knowledge Production: Science in the 
Malayalam Press

Alok Puranik
Bazaar Reporting in Hindi Newspapers

Shubhra Nagalia
The Representation of Communal Conflicts in Hindi Media: A Case study of 
the 2005 Mau Riots


3.15—4.45
Other Traditions
Chair: Priya Sen

Priya Babu
Traditions of the Aravani (Transgender) Community in Tamilnadu

Mithun Narayan Bose
Tracing Life from the Stroke: Documenting the Rickshaw-Painting of 
Kolkata Streets

Deepak Kadyan
Popular Musical Traditions and Configuration of Jat identity in Haryana, 
1900-2000




5.30 – 6.00 pm
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar”
by Inder Salim: Space limited to 25 persons only—first come, first serve.


7.00 – 8.15
(Back in main auditorium)
“Creeper”, a play written and directed by Ram Ganesh Kamatham, recasting 
the Vikram and Vetal myth in a contemporary urban setting. Featuring 
Mallika Prasad and Abhishek Majumdar.


Thurs 6 December
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

10.00 am – 11.30
Medicine and Modernity
Chair: Awadhendra Sharan

Gyaltsen Lama
Shamans in Gangtok: A Graphic Novel

M.S. Harilal
Adopting Modernisation and Negotiating Modernisation: Placing Modern and 
Traditional Ayurvedic Sectors in the Context of Transformation


Burton Cleetus
Urbanisation, Western Medicine and Modernity: The Rockefeller Foundation 
in Travancore


11.00 – 11.30
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Short film on ragging—Listen, Little Man-- by Madhavi Tangella; see also 
discussion with Shivam Vij on Friday’s programme below.


11.45 – 12.45
Two Views of the Changing Industrial Landscape
(short documentary films & discussion)
Chair: Jeebesh Bagchi

Ranu Ghosh
The Story of a Laid-off Worker’s Resistance to Eviction in Kolkata

T. Venkat and Meghna Sukumar
Building the Indian Dream: Living and Working Conditions of Migrant 
Workers on Chennai's IT Corridor


1pm – 2pm
Tracking Literatures
Chair: Ravikant

Rajiv Ranjan Giri
Saraswati ki Sarvajanik Duniya, 1900-1920 (The Popular World of the 
Journal Saraswati, 1900-1920)

Gopal Ji Pradhan
Hindi mein Uttar Purv (The North-east in Hindi Literature)


2.15 –4.15
Special Panel: Where Does Research Go?
Featuring: Zainab Bawa, Parismita Singh, Madhavi Tangella and Prasad 
Shetty.
Discussant: Vivek Narayanan.


4.30 – 5.45 Work In “Progress”: Feature-length video by 2007 Sarai-CSDS 
Associate Fellow Debkamal Ganguly


6.15 – 6.45
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar”
by Inder Salim: Space limited to 25 persons only—first come, first serve.


7.15pm – 8pm
Solo Performance: Pritham K Chakravarty
The Life of an Actor in Chennai’s Sabha Drama


Fri Dec 7
Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

10.00 – 11.00
Proofreading: Identity and Publishing
Chair: Mahmood Farooqui

Vijay Kumar Pandey
Meerut ka Prakasan Udyog (The Publishing Industry in Meerut)

Yoginder Sikand & Naseemur Rahman
Islamic Publishing Houses in Delhi


11.00 – 12.15
(In Upstairs Gallery Space)
Side Effects: Collaborations and Conversations Between Independent Fellows.
Short film on ragging—Listen, Little Man-- by Madhavi Tangella; 
discussion and commentary by Shivam Vij, who studied ragging for his 
Sarai-CSDS Fellowship. Introduced and moderated by Iram Ghufran

11.15 – 12.15
Maps for Lost Cities
Chair: Shuddhabrata Sengupta

Surojit Sen
The Displacement of Prostitutes: A Tale of Two Cities in Two Centuries

Mohit K. Ray & Soma Ghosh
Heritage Ponds of Kolkata: A Contemporary History
Dates available: 5,6,7


12.30 – 1.30
Rethinking the Social
Chair: Vivek Narayanan

Santana Issar and Aditi Saraf
Rethinking Animal Activism in an Urban Context

Arnab Chatterjee
Beyond Private and Public: New Perspectives on the Personal and 
Personalist in Social Work



1.45 pm – 3.45 pm
Special Presentation: The SARAI-CSDS Associate Fellowships

Nancy Adajania: A New Journal for the Arts: Prototype Issue, 2007

Debkamal Ganguly: An Imaginative Text Based on Contemporary Travel 
Through the “Forests” Described in Bibhuthibhushan’s Memoirs (see 
complete video by Debkamal Ganguly on previous day.)

Chair: Monica Narula

4.00 – 5.30 pm
Towards a Future for Independent Research: Interactive Open Discussion


7.00 – 8.30 Punches Ponytails Ringtones: Women Boxers in India
A film by Pankaj Rishi Kumar (82 mins)
Introduced by Shuddhabrata Sengupta

-- 
www.sarai.net

Vivek Narayanan
The Sarai Programme 
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29,Rajpur Road, 
Civil Lines
Delhi 110 054.