The house within

Naiyer Masud’s multi-story Adabistan.

Our car comes to a halt a few metres from a main crossing in Turiaganj, also known as Victoriaganj. At first we cannot locate the house, so we climb up a few flights of stairs to a row of shops. There, a shopkeeper points straight ahead and, opposite us, behind shops packed together like a deck of cards, a haveli rises. From afar, it almost seems like a child’s sandcastle, with none of the frills commonly associated with havelis of North India. Instead, it seems to have been inspired by gothic architecture, two towers on either side of the conical façade rising up. Crescent-shaped swirls like half-drawn flowers are engraved on their arches, and perpendicular pillars are topped with football-shaped concrete blocks. A plaque above the arch of the left tower reads ‘Adabistan‘ – the abode of literature. As we enter, the haveli greets us with LIVE AND LET LIVE carved along the roof’s boundary wall.

Naiyer Masud’s childhood was spent in the rooms and passageways of Adabistan. ‘Ghar ke bahar nahin likh pate hain,’ he says (I am not able to write outside the house). But once in Adabistan it does not matter which corner he is in – the stories come to him. As a child Masud would tell his mother he was affected by jinns and she, fearing for her child, would say, ‘Ya to fakir ban jaoege ya pagal ban jaoge‘ (Either you will become a fakir or a madman).

Continue reading on Himal Southasian

Journalism

Self-consciously pulp

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp

Fiction, Vol II
edited by Rakesh Khanna

translated by Pritham K Chakravarthy Blaft, 2010

In her Translator’s Note for Volume I of this series, Pritham K Chakravarthy wrote that the work, which was also the first publication by the Chennai-based Blaft, was ‘an attempt to claim the status of “literature” for a huge body of writing that has rarely ever made it into an academic library.’ These works of popular fiction, she explained, were typically not considered ‘serious’ or ‘meaningful’ enough to be translated. Her colleague and co-founder of Blaft, Rakesh Khanna, who started the publishing house in 2007, adds that the idea behind Blaft was to ‘capture different voices’. For instance, Charu Nivedita, a Tamil writer who wrote overtly sexual prose, was one among many writers whom Blaft began to translate and publish.

Blaft’s first project focused on translating works of popular fiction from the Tamil. For decades, these pulp novels have been sold in tea stalls and railway bookshops, and have been enjoyed by both men and women. In her translator’s note, Chakravarthy also writes about the culture of reading Tamil pulp in mid-1960s Madras, where in her household, ‘all the women at home’ read and shared popular magazines such as Anandha Vikatan, Kumudham, Dhinamani Kadhir, Tughlaq and others. As a child, she used to sneak copies given to her by her school driver. She writes that people would collect these stories and ‘would have them hard-bound to serve as reading material during the long, hot summer vacations’.

Continue reading on Himal Southasian (Requires subscription)

Journalism

Nursing a foreign dream

Unhappy with wages, working conditions, nurses are leaving the country in hundreds every year — bad news for a health care system facing a shortage of nurses

Leeja VR (25) came to Delhi in 2005 from Cochin, Kerala, in the hope of finding work in a good hospital. She joined Mata Chanan Devi, a west Delhi hospital, in 2006 as a ward nurse.

Now, with three years’ experience behind her, she’s migrating abroad for “better salary and better living conditions”.

“A relative is there (in the United Sates),” Leeja said.

“She asked me to come.”

The relative, a cousin, is also a nurse.

Low wages, a heavy workload, bad working conditions and a sense of sometimes not being treated with respect are making Indian nurses migrate to the US, the UK and other countries, in thousands.

Continue reading on Hindustan Times

Journalism

Mother Tongues endangered due to government neglect

In a globalizing world where Hindi and English hold currency, mother tongues are becoming endangered. The government doesn’t acknowledge they exist nor are they taught in schools. People who speak minority languages or ‘mother tongues’ are too old or not interested in passing them on to their kids.

“The concept of non-discrimination lies at the heart of human rights,” reads the first line of a statement issued by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, this year on December 10, recognized the world over as Human Rights Day.

Pillay’s statement underscores the fact the spirit of human rights lies in “non-discrimination.”

Yet, discrimination on the basis of language, among others, is a common, although often ignored grounds for human rights violations in India.

Our linguistic diversity is under threat because linguistic minorities are gradually letting go of their mother tongues. This coupled with the government’s passive attitude towards preserving these languages has earned India the dubious distinction of being the country with the most number of endangered languages – in the world.

Continue reading on Hindustan Times