[Reader-list] On Sarai postings

[Nazneen Anand Shamsi]

Dear Pawan,

Thank you for your mail. I think it is no one's case to defend or
attack any one's sense of likes or dislikes. At best one can only
persuade. At worst merely abuse. People have thick skins and thicker
heads. Hence all of us have to try harder. For, the war on reader list
is a war of thoughts and the prize is just an acknowledgment, a nod.
We will have to try harder to get that nod. I appreciate Shuddha's
mail, because being an immature writer myself, I can perhaps get a
sense of amount of effort, he must have invested to say what he
thinks. In a manner which is not insulting to our sensibilities.

Between you and me let this be clear for all times to come. I want to
be persuaded by your thoughts.

Just charm me.

Write carefully, thoughtfully and show me some respect. I am your
reader. I am like the guest whom you allow to visit your house of
thoughts.

So lets spare each other this nauseating smell of categories and lets
us invite each other for a feast of ideas. Eid is coming soon so is
Diwali. And I would love nothing more than to spend some time on the
reader list and check what's cooking.

Warm regards

Nazo




Dear Nazneen,
Someone posted an article , "traitors without a trial". And it seems that
you are also from the same group who classify people according to your
own preferences.

What may not be provocative to you , may be provocative to me. I have all
the right to defend my thoughts and fight the disinformation [ according to
me ].

The problem is that when we write something you dont like it, and when
someone like Shuddha writes, whose knowledge about Kashmir is as good as
Ricky Pontings knowledge about cooking Sambar- Dosa, you do nothing but
appreciate it.

I appreciate the passion of Shuddha and Shivam, but for them it is beyond
that. It is now lust for them.

God Bless ! [ No puns to the communist friends ]

Pawan




On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 1:12 AM, Nazneen Anand Shamsi <
nazoshmasi at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Dear Tapas,
>
> Thank you for your rejoinder. I am sure that many people on this list would
> agree to what Tapas thinks. The issue is quite simple. The list is a place
> for people to come and talk. Sarai does not prohibit anyone to come. They do
> not prohibit anyone to speak also. All that is fine. The scene becomes
> unpalatable when some of us start vomiting on other people's faces and
> expect others to do the same. What fun haan!
>
> All this is of course done in the guise of social engagement. The list
> becomes a site of disengagement. In this case, I am forced to think, do our
> list members who do all this, really want to 'expose' some of us or do they
> just want people like us, the 'sarai-junkie', to become (what Tapas
> articulates as...) 'disgusted' with the list.
>
> In other words, we the 'sarai junkie' are the real targets of attacks on,
> if I may use Pawan's euphemism, 'sarai express'.
>
> I just want to urge everyone to MAKE NOISE to not let this SARAI EXPRESS
> become SARAI MAIL or SARAI CHUK CHUK!
>
> Either devise a strategy to counter this unwarranted abuse or mass mail
> Sarai people to put in place a set of directives for formal public
> engagement.
>
> So that we really do not have to 'desist from clicking send'
>
> Best
>
> Nazo
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:48 PM, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Nazneen,
>>
>> My personal reasons for joining this list and staying on as long as I have
>> are the same as yours. Just as you find some of the posts very rich and
>> illuminating, so do I.
>>
>> But I have been completely ... disgusted is the word ... at times with
>> some of the exchanges. I do not know if you were a subscriber when a group
>> of members, who are very active in the current debate/shouting match as
>> well, had tried to drown out opinions opposed to theirs. This went on for a
>> long time, too long in my opinion. List administrators stepped in
>> eventually, and things were better for some time. But only for some time.
>>
>> Since you have urged everyone to take up this issue, I have forwarded to
>> you and Radhakrishnan, a little while ago, two messages on this subject,
>> which I posted recently along with Aarti's response to the first. That
>> wasn't the first time I had appealed for some semblance of civility. I have
>> been asking for some system of moderating the posts, but this has not been
>> accepted so far.
>>
>> However, this is not simply a matter of civility. It would have been bad
>> enough had it been so. It is also about fostering rational critical debate.
>> What we have here probably is nominally rational and critical, but lacks an
>> essential *condition* for such a debate - I mean the absence of coercion (or
>> attempts at that), bullying, etc.
>>
>> It is of course not possible in reality to have a discourse of purely
>> communicative reason. A conversation is *never* purely an intellectual
>> exercise and people *always* have motives other than finding the truth in
>> ideas. It is not even the case that consensus over what is good or necessary
>> can be reached on every issue. But the point is that in these exchanges, the
>> purposive, strategic element - specifically, the urge to establish hegemony
>> over opponents - seems to be pushing the real thing to the edges, or at
>> least warping the debate far too much.
>>
>> That should be the real concern, I think.
>>
>> Tapas
>>
>>
>> Nazneen Anand Shamsi wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Tapas, dear all,
>>>
>>> I don't want to either agree or disagree with you, Tapas. The reason for
>>> this is, because, by either agreeing or disagreeing one is forced to take
>>> sides. I don't subscribe to reader list to either form my belief system or
>>> change it. I subscribe to reader list because, I want to, in all my
>>> earnestness, engage with all that is happening around me.
>>>
>>> I value Aditya's, Pawan's or Radhikarajen mails as much as I do
>>> Shuddha's, Shivam's or Inder's. What I don't like is sometimes unhealthy
>>> nature of conversation. Now, for the longest time, I was silent. I thought
>>> it was okay. I thought maybe this is the nature of a public conversation and
>>> so on. Then there were these excellent writeup by many people on how to or
>>> how not to comment/respond. I was okay with that too. But then in the middle
>>> of all this, something changed and now I want to say, something. And I would
>>> urge everyone, who's been subscribing to participate.
>>>
>>> Only we can correct ourselves. We have to find some way of engaging with
>>> each other.
>>>
>>> I really don't care now whether a Pawan is right or an Aarti  is correct.
>>> What I WANT is a strict protocol of engagement from the Sarai team.
>>>
>>> This is the only way we can have a decent conversation. If Pawan wants to
>>> expose someone. Then I am all for it. All hypocrites, pseudo-secularists,
>>> fake nationilsts must be exposed. If someone wants to have a total anarchy
>>> and is disgusted with the Indian Nation state, I say good that you have this
>>> position. Good that you can articulate it really well and I would love to
>>> read what you have to say.
>>>
>>>
>>> But this DING-DONG must stop.
>>>
>>> Sarai people are silent because these poor fellows are committed for a
>>> non-moderated list.
>>>
>>> We are not. and I want to plead to the all my fellow members of the
>>> reader list and ofcoruse to tongue tied memebers of Sarai community to
>>> please have a system in place for people to nicely engage with each other.
>>>
>>> PLEASE!
>>>
>>> Nazo
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com <mailto:
>>> tapasrayx at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>    It's like a shouting match here between union types trying to decide
>>>    the fate of the nation in a stuffy and hot college canteen with
>>>    greasy walls and little oxygen. No wonder some folks are getting a
>>>    little confused.
>>>
>>>
>