[Reader-list] new issue of rouge

Tue Nov 25 23:18:54 IST 2008

Dear Alexander
good to read your post, and subsequent reflections....

i think Blind Patriotism will gives some very boring Nation-State
Songs, we need to remind ourselves that it is 2008 and no  pre-47 Gora
is around....

that is that,
perhaps, what boosts the human spirit to live a honest life is one's
commitment to some fundamental values, such as ethics etc
Existentially speaking, i believe, we are mostly driven by some inner
drives, which are often indifferent to what is largely written on the
wall....

Well, anybody can claim a veritable understanding of Nation State as
deeper and  complex one , in comparison to others.  So, those who are
obsessed with Nation-State can say it loudly since the loudest
instruments of Nation state are seen as the only legitimate faces in
comparison to others. Here, the faces of 'the others' are sharply in
contrast with  say Judiciary, Parliament, Police, Administration and
even Religiosity of explicit kind....

Thus, profane is simply a synonym of  criminality in society. We don't
 need a complex thinking to discover a linkage between a criminality
or  terrorism even, and that in turn deeply linked to the very
political fabric of Nation Sate.

The Theatre of Life is brilliantly set to make us laugh on seeing
things running  under the very nose of those who think  beloveds are
replaceable by  Nation-State, even. I dont how a politician with
constitution in his/her hand becomes a sign that is not in variance
with what Nation State theoretically stands for, and in practice we
have tons of ugliness under this very gloss, sad, because i feel
helpless...

The word Bakhti in Desh Bakthi  ( Patriotism ) is not too far from
those well orchestrated ways of falling in love with God. So, the
routes which Nation-State-Lovers take are easier ones, they eventually
find an ENTER to enter the mainstream and join greasy hands of the
privileged, most of it is unwitting, but we need to think about the
masses who fall out of the mesh, and go in any direction, are the
millions of landless Indians criminals, because they simply dont know
what Nation Sate is all about ??

Needless to point out that how complacency creeps in any govermental
institution, be it police even, unless there is some vested
interest,.... here, i think of famous film Sholey, where an police
officer, without his his arms, ( also symbolically ) employs two
criminals to get rid of a bigger criminal ( gabbar singh ) . But, if i
will make Sholey part ii, i will employ Gabbar himself to get rid of
some bigger criminal hidden in some high rise. Not surprising that we
all will finally discover the biggest of the biggest criminal hidden
under the very respectable seat of Nation Sate.( like Nag Raj hidden
under the chair of Lord Indra )

that day, let  us see what we need to do, that will be a collective decision,

even the meaning of voting will be different then, right now it
is....( all we have )

with love
is

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:05 AM, Vivek Narayanan <vivek at sarai.net> wrote:
> Kshemendra,
>
> Some on this list seem obsessively sensitive (you less so) to any kind
> of criticism of "India" at all.
>
> I'm afraid I don't consider this "pride"; I can only read it as
> insecurity.
>
> When will you ever understand that some of us are dedicated to continual
> critique not because we hate it here, but because we are deeply, deeply
> invested in and committed to the fate of this place?
>
> Vivek
>
> Kshmendra Kaul wrote:
>> Many on this List seem to be obsessed with and thrive on highlighting negative aspects of India. You will rarely, if ever, see such people able to talk about anything positive to  celebrate about India. There seems to be a scare that if they do so they might be accused of promoting a "Nation State". If that is the reason then such people either do not understand what is implied by "Nation State" or have an extremely limited understanding of India.
>>
>> In the midst of such attitudes on this List,  it is good to see Alexander Keefe drawing attention to the essay by Vinzenz Hediger who mentions that for a 'supranational' European cinema 'that transcends regional and national cultural boundaries', the Hindi cinema can serve as an 'instructive example'.
>>
>> As compared to those List members I referred to earlier, Vinzenz shows better understanding of India not being a "Nation State".
>>
>> Interestingly, (Vinzenz seems to be unaware of it), there is not much "Hindi" in "Hindi cinema". The overwhelming majority of films from "Hindi cinema" use "Hindustani" which is a mixture of "Hindi" and "Urdu". The 2 languages are 'sisters' by 'linguistic' norms with many of the Nouns, Adjectives and Adverbs in each finding their roots in Sanskrit in the case of "Shudh (pure) Hindi" and from Persian, (some) Turkish, (and increasingly now) Arabic in the case of "Khaalis (pure) Urdu".
>>
>> To the "Hindustani" of the so called "Hindi cinema" sometimes get added words from other languages in India, both in the dialogues as well as in the "lyrics" of the songs.
>>
>> Javed Akhtar is quoted as proposing to think of Hindi cinema as 'India's 17th member state'. Conceptually brilliant. Factually incorrect. Last I knew India had 28 States. Either Javed Akhtar is misquoted or the reference is lost on me.
>>
>> Kshmendra
>>
>>
>> --- On Mon, 11/24/08, Alexander Keefe <alexanderaugust at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> From: Alexander Keefe <alexanderaugust at gmail.com>
>> Subject: [Reader-list] new issue of rouge
>> To: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
>> Date: Monday, November 24, 2008, 2:56 PM
>>
>> At long last, the new issue of Rouge has come out: http://rouge.com.au/
>>
>> Of particular interest to list-members will be the lead essay "Politique
>> des
>> archives" <http://rouge.com.au/12/hediger.html> (in English, despite
>> the
>> title) by film and media theorist Vinzenz Hediger.
>>
>> During a long discussion on the possibilities and conditions for the
>> emergence of a "European cinema," he takes a detour through the
>> theoretical
>> implications of Bollywood's supraregional status in India, noting that
>> "Hindi cinema's condition as a post-colonial, not-quite national, or
>> rather
>> hyper-national cinema that incorporates a multiplicity of cultural
>> differences without giving preference to any specific set of cultural
>> traits, a condition that is undoubtedly one of the key elements of Hindi
>> cinema's enduring success in India and with Indian audiences residing
>> abroad. At the stage of European unification that we are now, European
>> cinema could be similarly thought of as an imaginary 26th member state, an
>> imaginary territory, located everywhere and nowhere in Europe, inhabited by
>> everyone who chooses to live his or her life of dreams and aspirations
>> through films originating from somewhere close to that territory,
>> incorporating a multiplicity of cultural differences without giving
>> preference to any specific set of cultural traits. However, despite all the
>> best efforts by state and European authorities, and even though many cinema
>> networks, particularly of the avant-garde, have always been European rather
>> than national in scope, such an imaginary 26th member state has so far
>> failed to emerge on the European stage. Hence also, and sadly so, there was
>> no European cinema there to blame for its failure to provide the necessary
>> supranational projections and thus preventing the failure of the European
>> constitution. "
>>
>>
>
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