[Reader-list] Post Peepli [Live]

[Inder Salim]

given the over narcissistic bureaucratic system in India, i see more
terrible things in store for us.

What A.Nandy has written is very interesting, because there is
something for us to look into our systems that govern us,  The Farmer
suicides, unlike those earlier industrial  suicides are certainly
crucial to the our nature of politics which is different from American
...

However, the suicide for me still is a subject which if difficult to
enter, given the fact that the subject is not there to speak on
her/his behalf. it reminds me of those college some days of despair
when a friend told me that " hardest of misfortunes are those which
never come " but they do come in ones life if drives to commit
suicide. Thanks , there are good friends around, unlike greedy
politicians who never come to stop a farmer from this extreme step..

Here each farmer may not be looking similar to other farmer, since i
believe every body has a different story to tell, and therefore, every
suicide different.

Further, the word " existential "  is  very vital to discussion, and
may ask us the question about how much we ourselves are alive ?

What is that thing which makes us feel that we are truly alive, thus
happy or sad even. Or the question cant be asked at all, since it is
existential in nature ?

similar to discussion between two friends on whether the table is or is not?

they were both on the table for a cup of tea

love
is





On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 11:16 PM, Shailesh Rai <rai.shailesh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, a farmers' advocacy group which keeps a
> record of farmer suicides in the region, objected to Peepli Live because
> they had a similar interpretation. Here's what the head of the group said:
>
> http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_vidarbha-farmers-demand-ban-on-peepli-live_1424459
>
> Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti president Kishore Tiwari said: “Farmers are
> driven to suicide because of wrong policies by the government. Instead of
> focusing on the deep-rooted problems responsible for farmers’ distress, the
> film highlights greed. It sends a wrong message to the public on a crucial
> issue."
>
> The point being made, as I see it, is that desperation is a more appropriate
> justification for suicide than self-interest.
>
> Shailesh
>
> On Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 4:27 AM, Jeebesh <jeebesh at sarai.net> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>
>>
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