[Reader-list] WHO IS AFRAID OF ARUNDHATI ROY?

Parvaiz Bukhari parvaizbukhari at gmail.com
Sat Oct 30 08:31:27 IST 2010


Anxiously waiting for the fear to spread more so that more may survive
Indian politicians, media and the court historians of the day...

On 30 October 2010 05:46, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:

> Some people on this list are afraid of 'Arundhati Roy - the joke' ( BTW, a
> joke is not a joke) because they are afraid of laughing for obvious
> reasons:
>
> a) they are afraid because some other people simply love her and are not
> afraid to confess that
> b) they are afraid because she used to visit some upper-class gym in skimpy
> clothing
> c) they are afraid because she married twice and is finally officially
> single
> d) they are afraid because she supports maoists and for them maoist is a
> term of abuse
> e) they are afraid because she supports the Aazadi of Kashmiri people from
> the repressive Indian state
>  f) they are afraid because she writes bewitchingly beautiful prose for
> subversive, anti-national purposes
> g) they are afraid because they think she is publicity hungry
> h) they are afraid because she is some day certainly going to win the Nobel
> Prize
> i) they are afraid because she is simply beautiful in those curly hair and
> that mellow childlike voice; and those mesmerizingly wondrous eyes which
> are
> not afraid to sing for you the serenades of freedom
> j) they are afraid because they cannot NOTREAD what she writes in a 32 page
> long essay after walking with the comrades in the jungles of Dantewada
> k) they are afraid because the Indian state is now terribly scared of
> putting her in jail for that shall certainly fetch her the Nobel Prize and
> win Kashmir the Aazadi
> l) they are afraid because she shared dais with SASG and made him realize
> that Kashmiris are not alone in their struggle and also that Kashmiris also
> need to know that there is a wider world surrounding them that is also
> struggling and that they need to acknowledge it and support it; and that
> the
> Kashmiris have the histories of India and Pakistan ( both collective and
> separate) before them to take strict lessons from, to fashion a
> nation-state
> that does justice to the sacrifices of the people who have fought, are
> fighting and shall continue fighting for Kashmir; and that all struggles
> against the tyrant are essentially connected
> m)they are afraid because she hops from one issue to another ( Narmada
> >>Maoists>>Kashmir>>which next?)
> n) they are afraid because she goes against their normative definitions of
> beauty and gender
> o) they are afraid because 'even a rickshawala' is praising her saying that
> she is a 'pseudo intellectual' (?) (Isn't it a pity that a rickshawala of
> such a potential is not on the sarai list?).
> p) they are afraid because the Indian media -the stooges of Indian state -
> don't know what to do with her (even supremely articulate ones from the
> media (like Karan Thapar) make an ass of themselves while interviewing her)
> q) they are afraid because she spits on their faces and is not wee bit
> apologetic about it because she knows that they deserve it and that its her
> duty to do that
> r) they are afraid because she is fast becoming a role model for the
> beautiful, well-connected upper-class convent educated women who are
> devouring her from cover to cover secretively like mills-and-boons even in
> their bathrooms ( so that their businessmen fathers and social butterfly
> mothers don't catch them reading her) and dreaming about being her in their
> fantasy worlds (one of them confessed to me) ( in this manner the
> phenomenon
> called Arundhati becomes a past-master in reverse engineering)
> s) they are afraid because she has made them realize that capitalism is
> like
> a deadly virus that shall one day surely eat itself away
> t) they are afraid because she thinks with a beautiful heart (hence a
> 'pseudo-intellectual')
> u) they are afraid because she converts "aesthetics of deferral" ( one
> scourge that afflicts most of the 'intellectuals' of todays world) into a
> beautiful "aestheto-ethics of arrival", no mean feat i should say
> v) they are afraid because they unconsciously compete with her and finding
> her a sure winner are afraid to take the challenge
> w) they are afraid because she challenges the very rationale of their being
> and becoming
> x) they are afraid because she happens to be a woman (like them)
> y) they are afraid because the Indian state has done a beautiful job in
> bringing them up on a steady diet of 'nationalist' propaganda through first
> beginning with NCERT textbooks in brainwashing saloons called 'Schools' (
> the reason behind the popularity of Bollywood and Cricket)
> z) they are afraid because despite their manifest hate for her they have
> serious doubts that some where down there they love her too.
> ...
>
> BTW, who is afraid of what comes after Z? Jump the gun please.
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