Taamul

In review:  Empire’s Garden: Assam And The Making Of India •by Jayeeta Sharma • Permanent Black • Rs 695 Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution ushered in the modern era in Europe and ultimately to the entire globe, notably through the institutions of capitalism and colonialism. Colonial and capitalist induced transformations as well as the resistances offered against such changes initiated complex processes whereby many modern nations and nationalities were formed. India is but the result of such processes. Although there is a considerable volume of scholarship on the origin of the idea of India, the respective histories of its numerous divergent constituent nations are often washed out and obliterated in the process of creating a grand assimilative history. Also missed out are the subaltern perspectives of nationhood from lesser known ethnic societies. For Assam and the northeast in general, who have been purportedly over-marginalized in the popular and academic

On the long treeless walks, The unyielding Sun shone hot and hard. You had an umbrella. Did I love you? Or did I just wish some shade? Classes were boring hostel moribund. You pure entrancing charm. Did I love you? Or did I just want myself to lose unto you? My songs sucked. And you had the Bee Gees the Carpenters and Dan Seals Did I love you? Or did I just wish Music? Life not interesting, death not arresting, yet enough. You seemed both, yet more. Did I love you? Or did I just wish to inhabit A third world? Thoughts were insipid And you were my La belle mélange Did I love you? Or did I just aspire to indite, poetise, criticise? Mind was complicated And you had a neck, two breasts. Did I love you? Or did I just long to indulge in your innocent simplicities? I was lost And you were paths. Promising me a home, a light. Did I love you? Or did I just seek religion?

By Allwin Jesudasan & Rajkamal Goswami An edited version of this article appears in the print edition of  Down To Earth, July 15, 2013 “Varsham muluka naa TV paathutu beedi suthitte irrupen. Varshathulle inthe oru vaaram oru kavalai illaame na inge thanguven.” (All year I sit in front of the TV, rolling beedis. In the one week that I spend here, I just relax and enjoy my stay here without worrying about anything else in the world) remarked a middle-aged woman ‘pilgrim’ from a small hamlet of Alangulam Taluk of Tirunelveli District of Southern Tamil Nadu.  She was replying to our query as to why she came to visit the the Sorimuthu Iyyanar Temple inside the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) during the annual Adi-amavasya festival. We had asked this question because to us, it was difficult to understand the motivations that drove hundreds of thousands of people to travel and camp inside forests. During this festival a large area of the forest around the temple gets i

An edited version of this article was published in Down To Earth, April 30, 2013 At one point in his memoir, A Writer’s People, V S Naipul notes, “All my life I have had to think about ways of looking and how they alter the configurations of the world.” The celebrated writer's method holds true for not only a novel but also an academic work, especially when it is set in a politically volatile and culturally diverse region. Seen this way, Bengt G Karlsson’s ' Unruly Hills-Nature and Nation in India’s Northeast' is an honest attempt to document the land, its people, its economy and socio-cultural textures through the disciplines of ethnography and political ecology. It begins with the story of the destruction of a sacred grove in Meghalaya, Law Kyntang of Lum Shyllong. The episode sets up the book's aim: tracing changes that have led the worshipers to desecrate their “sacred” icons. Community forests encroached by a limestone mine in Meghalaya        

Seeking empty spaces to deal with the emptiness within Looking for empty spaces, I go and crowd places. Abdicating the cacophony here, I subvert the quietude there. I go to see this, I go to see that. Browsing through the SD card, I see only myself. In front of this, and in front of that. Inexplicably wearing, My paradoxical hat.

Can you uproot the uprooted? Strong limbs, s ubmissive lives,  Bruised palms, egos , souls  untroubled  Abstracted friends,  love  forlorn,  Ghost families Burnt faces,  tireless  dreams. Undeserved,  even of punctuations? In the ditties of growth Where did paan,  bidi,  or gutkha pitch-in to   make-over,  build, develop? Unacknowledged martyrs, uncelebrated piety Killed, burnt, maimed Uprooting the uprooted fulfilling convenient whims, Of unbeknownst nations,  obtuse destinies. Wiped from imaginations Subtracted from reality. Quietly born and raised To mop, pull, push, drag civilizations'  humdrum burdens  Underneath the ordinary  where , high heaven Is the dusty earth. yet why the head  droops down and down?

From the deepest, and the darkest nook, alleys and mazes of my thoughts, Hidden  f rom facebook,  Not allowed even in my dreams.  I have hidden her from myself too. Is she shameful or is she immoral? Dogmatic, academic, eerie or fearful? So tender, so nimble, that the faintest touch. Create tenacious memories. Lest it can’t be stopped. I am never looking, yet I keep finding. Right now, I am waiting. Just to lose her,  forever.