[Reader-list] Post Peepli [Live]

[Jeebesh]

dear All,

Peepli Live has been talked about in different ways in many forums.  
Both Manmohan Singh and L.K.Advani commented on the film. Advani  
observed that the film maybe mocking the framers families who had to  
live in the wake of these suicides. He claimed a "i have seen them"  
authenticity to his observation. On the other hand Manmohan Singh  
directly addressed Natha and reminded him of "historical necessity" of  
the unfinished job of capitalism in India.

The eloquent silence of Natha in the film will slowly get filled with  
a range of  statements. Advani and Manmohan has produced the pole  
within which this filling up will happen.

Could we read Natha's silence in other ways.?

Here is a quote by Nandy, written in 2000 as an intro to a book, that  
i found extremely illuminating.

"The Indian farmer did not commit suicide the way some businessmen did  
in the 1930s, during the great depression in the United States. Even  
in their desperation, these farmers retained some tenuous grip on life  
affirmative forces. For instance, many of them hoped that the  
compensation the family would get on their death would itself mitigate  
the suffering of their family. Their self-destruction often came  
packaged in a self-designed, calculated, self-sacrifice. To that  
extent, they remained, even in their death, just outside the rim of  
true despair and the self-destruction that comes from the amalgam of  
utter hopelessness and total meaningless of life. Their suicide was  
not merely a response to the existential question: why should we not  
commit suicide.? It was often a response to a question that had a very  
different philosophical tine to it: are we not more useful to the  
world dead than living?"
(- Ashis  Nandy, pg xi, in Despair and Modernity, Dehejia, Jha and  
Hoskote, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 2000.)

Could we read Natha's silence as a deeper philosophical position to  
the world, that we mistake as weakness or muteness or ignorance.?

warmly
jeebesh