Love, Iranian Style/A new novel pits passion and repression.
by James Wood June 29, 2009
Shahriar Mandanipour’s lovers are forever trying to elude the morals patrol; narrative play is conditioned by political reality.
Sometimes, the soft literary citizens of liberal democracy long for prohibition. Coming up with anything to write about can be difficult when you are allowed to write about anything. A day in which the most arduous choice has been between “grande” and “tall” does not conduce to literary strenuousness. And what do we know about life? Our grand tour was only through the gently borderless continent of Google. Nothing constrains us. Perhaps we look enviously at those who have the misfortune to live in countries where literature is taken seriously enough to be censored, and writers venerated with imprisonment. What if writing were made a bit more exigent for us? What if we had less of everything? It might make our literary culture more “serious,” certainly more creatively ingenious. Instead of drowning in choice, we would have to be inventive around our thirst............................
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Who Killed the BJP ?
Who Killed The BJP?
Everyone, especially those presently most vocal, has blood on their hands
VINOD MEHTA
Everyone, especially those presently most vocal, has blood on their hands
VINOD MEHTA
I do not consider myself as part of the country’s privileged commentariat. I prefer my last-page Diary where I can combine mischief and malice with some (I hope) serious current affairs analysis. It gives me the opportunity to do some "roaming" and "joking" even as I survey the national scene with a card-carrying pseudo-secularist’s eye. Very occasionally, when I am angry or disgusted or nauseated by humbug, I reluctantly join the commentariat. All this by way of inflicting on you, dear reader, 821 words on the "volcano" erupting within the BJP.......................
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan
Ustad's Califate
California may not be Maihar, but sarod great Ali Akbar Khan has made it his exiled gharana
KAMLA BHATT ON ALI AKBAR KHAN
"We take care of our tummy, our tongue, our nose, our eyes, but we rarely take care of our soul. Our soul needs music, nice good music and that is the food of the soul. It opens your mind. Raga, you see, is the language of God."
—Sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan
ON the edge of downtown San Rafael in upscale Marin County, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge that connects to San Francisco city, stands the imposing building of the Ali Akbar College of Music (AACM). You can't miss the college because of the massive, colourful glass image of Sarasawati that dominates its facade. This is considered the abode of music in the Bay Area, where sarod (spelt sarode in these parts) maestro and Padma Vibhushan Ustad Ali Akbar Khan has been teaching for 35 long years the language of God, where the spiritually hungry come to devour food for the soul..................
California may not be Maihar, but sarod great Ali Akbar Khan has made it his exiled gharana
KAMLA BHATT ON ALI AKBAR KHAN
"We take care of our tummy, our tongue, our nose, our eyes, but we rarely take care of our soul. Our soul needs music, nice good music and that is the food of the soul. It opens your mind. Raga, you see, is the language of God."
—Sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan
ON the edge of downtown San Rafael in upscale Marin County, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge that connects to San Francisco city, stands the imposing building of the Ali Akbar College of Music (AACM). You can't miss the college because of the massive, colourful glass image of Sarasawati that dominates its facade. This is considered the abode of music in the Bay Area, where sarod (spelt sarode in these parts) maestro and Padma Vibhushan Ustad Ali Akbar Khan has been teaching for 35 long years the language of God, where the spiritually hungry come to devour food for the soul..................
Radio Insurgency
Pakistan's Taliban radio insurgency
By Dawood Azami
BBC World Service
Transmitters are unsophisticated and cheap to make
With mullahs and militants using the air waves to broadcast propaganda against their opponents and Western governments, illegal FM radio stations have mushroomed in Pakistan's north-west
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7813632.stm..............
By Dawood Azami
BBC World Service
Transmitters are unsophisticated and cheap to make
With mullahs and militants using the air waves to broadcast propaganda against their opponents and Western governments, illegal FM radio stations have mushroomed in Pakistan's north-west
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7813632.stm..............
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
