[Reader-list] The importance of names???

[inder salim]

PLEASE CLICK
http://indersalim.livejournal.com for image (parodied, an illustration
from Derrida for beginners )

1.  First a little joke : there was Pandit in south of Kashmir who
named his four sons as Ram, Vishun, Krishan, and Shanker. One good
neighbour asked him why he named his sons like this. Aptly he
answered,  that at the moment of his death when he will utter the name
of any of his sons, it will be also about Parmatma (Gods). Time
passed, and it just happened that all his sons abandoned him. So, at
the time of death he  simply managed to utter MUHAMMADA'.

( please feel free to hear the sound Muhammada merely as shell for the
disappeared sounds of his dear sons. Or the sound Muhammada had
nothing to do with the earlier calculations, but functioned as a
simple material available at the time of need)

2.  When Aga Shahid Ali recollected 'Kashmir' as many other
arrangements of different  alphabets, he perhaps underlined the fact
that Kashmir is truly politicized and it has a written history.….

Sounds are part of visuals as we know in Cinema even, and therefore,
any sound which is uttered in Kashmir makes a difference. Or may be I
only feel it so strongly ?

So, I believe, in Kashmir, every blade of grass is politicized.  Every
window looks different. I am not talking about the abandoned houses,
but I felt this difference in the most recent constructions even.

One can observe in Kashmir 'Anantnag' as the written word and
'Islambaad' as the oral tradition.  So if I apply a little Derrida
here like a good mathematician, then the written word is 'degenerate'
in comparison to 'speech' which is natural.   Of course, with
Kashmiri Pandit population  in Kashmir 'Anthnag' was the oral and
'Anantnag' was the written. The sound  Islambaad was always something
Pakistani. But first of all, do we agree that 1990 changed things
dramatically in Kashmir and surprised  many a political pandits here
and abroad.  Here, again if we see kashmiri armed uprising as mere
terrorism then we cannot understand the  relationship between Anantnag
( the written ) and the Islambaad ( the oral ). We need to see why
political is paramount in every sound. The word ' Azadi ' too is
written in many sense, but the sound oral 'Aazadee' is interesting and
is uttered by invariable by Kashmiris in Kashmir.  Yasin Malik's
Safray Azadi is again a written version of the same political struggle
and is likely to under-represent the core ' aazadee' of the masses.
Things will change, and it would be interesting to see how the oral
word devours the written in the end, and how finally meaning is like
that serpent devouring its own tail. But till then it is political,
and the hidden demand for Islambaad is not out of place.

3.    Oscar Wilde once said , 'the world does not exist beyond
appearances'. That is  quite profound, I guess.  Because when we are
dealing with language which is behaving truly as a vast surface then
we have something at hand, even to subvert, to arrive at new sounds,
new life. Here, even silence becomes part of those liberated sounds
that float…

" What is in the name " is liberating but how to throw the sound '
rose' into the sea. It will return back as a slave monster who yearns
for ' aazadee', so it might be a better idea to open the petals of the
rose without letting the petals know what is opening.  Quite a
difficult job, as deconstruction itself is, or may be it is as simple
as breathing.

How lucidly Lall Ded said ' Mov zaan Haindu tai musalmaan….( please
don't discriminate between Hindu and Musalmaan, if ur are truly
thoughtful, be one with God)  That was 600-700 years ago when oral
tradition was strongly in practice as we see in other cultures as
well. We celebrate the sound.That is culture as well.

4.    Gowhar Fazili has rightly pointed out   " How can you prevent
people from calling a place whatever they want to call it? You can't
use military or militant diktats to impose names "   That is precisely
what is happening in Kashmir. For example, there is a CRPF sign board
in Srinage Lal Chowk which reads ' Hum aap ki azadi ki nigahbani
kartay hein. "  (We guard your freedom ).  Though ironical, but, here
again the Azadi is as written word, and that is why there is J&K
Government in place. But the issue of ' aazadee' remains unresolved,
precisely because it is more and more a question of oral tradition
versus the written one now.  Of course when this too will behave as a
written word then this too needs a deconstruction, but till then…it is
political, or I only see it this way?

5.	Meem Hai Zafar ( Kashmiri poet, intellectual of Kashmir ) during
his discussion at Burzhama ( place near Dal Lake inhibited by people
during  2500 B.C )  with Gulshan Majeed, reader at Central Asian
Studies Kashmir University, talked about the need to inherit that past
without prejudice. Zafar regretted that Kashmiris hesitate to inherit
the past but feel proud  to inherit the properties of their deceased
elders. There was a past which existed in the material form as
researched scientifically by various scholars, and there should be a
debate on its real significance in the valley.  Indian policy to
balance the power politics in the recent past has damaged that
possibility immensely. They should restore whatever is left in the
valley.

Though it is another debate, but I remember, how G.R. Santosh, M.L.
Saqi regretted that India has never  bothered to name a road after
some great  Kashmiri sufi saint here in New Delhi . It is about
dignity as well. It is politics, now quite in the arrogant form in
Kashmnir, therefore, difficult to negotiate.

Now for an outsider, like India, to deny the right to function as
'naming aunty' in Kashmir is quite about that politics as well. There
is something which is breathing out there, we can feel it, or I am
alone feeling that way?

indersalim




On 10/15/07, gowhar fazli <gowharfazili at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am bamboozled  by your response gowhar2... or 1 for
> that matter let me take a deep breath... recover n
> then respond!
>
>
> --- gowhar yaqoob <gowharjacob at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
> > When Shakespeare wrote: "What's in the name",
> > perhaps his sensibility was gliding through a truly
> > liberated psyche of populace, yet, when Oscar Wilde
> > wrote: The Importance of being an Earnest, there was
> > along with Wilde's well-known wit an unmistakble
> > insistence to capture within the matrix an
> > Imposition fulfilled through the jargons! (names).
> >
> >   Ofcourse to many just a semantic quibble, is
> > 'baptizing' (naming) not an issue replete with the
> > diktats (pro-government or otherwise) with
> > linguistic politics getting under way and hasn't the
> > historical deceit(s) taught us how names were made
> > accessible for indexing - writing (deforming) the
> > past(s); henceforth imposing many unknown
> > potrait(s): of people(s), citie(s), culture(s)
> > through juxtapositions untimely to manifest the
> > hegemony.
> >
> >   Yes, the two names 'Anathnag' and 'Islambaad'
> > would continue to remain interchangeable as long as
> > certain provocations would not allign again towards
> > some form of deceit (political correctness). ''Some
> > fools politicize the names and insist on using one
> > or the other." If it were so naive?  A well worked
> > out conviction that decide to priviledge one of the
> > binaries is not at all just a fool's politics.... It
> > harps at deeper levels beyond people's recognition;
> > with redoing and undoing of the past(s) with which
> > the present (whatever) is legitimized, and hegemony
> > ("pro-government" or "otherwise") imposed further !
> >
> >
> >   gowhar fazli <gowharfazili at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >   The two names 'Anathnag' and 'Islambaad' were/are
> > used
> > interchangeably in daily conversation. Some fools
> > politicize the names and insist on using one or the
> > other. But the larger population keeps insisting on
> > the mistake/s.
> >
> > Who is this naming aunty Indian State? What right
> > does
> > the Indian state have to confer names to places?
> > People use whatever they like and there is no need
> > for
> > bans or conferment or to get worked up about this.
> > How
> > can you prevent people from calling a place whatever
> > they want to call it? You can't use military or
> > militant diktats to impose names. It wont work. The
> > name controversy is a big joke.
> >
> > I buy all the myths about kohimaran, Kari parbat,
> > killah, shankracharya, takhte suleiman and so do
> > most
> > people. As a child, it made Srinagar an interesting
> > place to live in. Imagine all the deamons, rishis
> > and
> > prophets flying around! One knew then to relish a
> > story....
> >
> >
> > There is this other insistence on making Baramulla,
> > Varmul to make it sound more Kashmiri and in the
> > same
> > vein, Kupwara-Kopwor Pulwama-Pulwom and so on...
> > This
> > is the hight of self-righteousness. As though by
> > doing
> > this one would undo the history of colonialism! Why
> > does a place have to have an official name... All
> > name-variants in different languages/traditions
> > carry
> > their own stories and significance, that tell us of
> > the different versions of our past. Reflection on
> > these stories is more interesting than the tongue
> > twisters and political correctness of names. I think
> > we can afford to have a hundred names for each
> > place... the ones that make it harder to roll the
> > tongue will drop out eventually!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ---