The year that was 2013

Picture from the net
 

The BIGGEST success of 2013 was the whooping growth of Social Media, which increasingly is being accessed on handset, Tabs, or dear old, laptop.

For me, starting with my declaration (which was highly edited by partner!) Up Close: Another colour of the rainbow, did excellent and brought forth what I love most – lots of laughter and admiration. I received calls from friends saying how much they enjoyed the piece.

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/01/up-close-another-colour-of-rainbow.html

Soon , followed my first meeting and interview with my all time favourite, Sanjna Kapoor. Along with the photographers we stood below her house in Delhi on one wintry morning late December 2012, to do the interview. She was her classy best and the interview was warm and full of memories of the past, her father, mother, grandfather and her new baby, Junoon. Of course like all mothers, she did stop  by to talk only for a bit though, about her biggest joy, her son.

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/01/mission-junoon-sanjna-kapoor-talks-of.html

March 2013 was a winner!

My partner’s book, Transgressing Boundaries was released by Zubaan book.

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/03/book-release-transgressing-boundaries.html

The interview with one of the greatest writers of our times, Madhulika Liddle followed.

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/04/madhulika-liddle-engraved-in-stone.html

Then, what I would love the world to remember him for – the last interview Rituparno Ghosh did was with me at his residence in Kolkata where he spoke on many things which are close to him and most of all, about himself. Talking to him was easy, as we shared something(s) in common, Advertising & Media being one. I am sad he is no more with us, because, at least the world would have seen a film surely on what he thought of the Nirbhaya issue and the way Media handled it. His question was: had she not been a girl in her early twenties, and hence, within quotes, at the marriageable age, fertile with the ready mix of stats that collate with how patriarchy looks at women, would Media be interested in the case? Hence, is Media not patriarchal at core? We may say that again, in the recent Tarun Tejpal case as well. If the woman was past her 50s, would Media, care too hoot?

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/04/rituparno-ghosh-shaking-you-out-of-your.html

In September, my publishers Xynobooks LLC, released my second Book, Laughing Stock Productions. A bag of laughter, it is what I call my Govinda Film – paise wasul – Get your money’s worth!

Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Laughing-Stock-Productions-ebook/dp/B00EXSR9G8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381149332&sr=8-1&keywords=laughing+stock+productions+by+julia+dutta …

Closely followed the death of our friend Betu Singh.

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/10/silent-is-lamp.html

October brought with it, the publishing article on one of my most favourite academic person, who can laugh and be joyous as well. Uma Chakravarti, whose work on the 1984 riots in Delhi, was path breaking. As a feminist and a historian, she has many books to her credit, but what she is doing now, is going to leave a stamp on Visual Art and Film making.

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/11/uma-chakravarti-larger-than-life-picture.html

In November, I completed the first draft of my third book. In a nutshell the how to, lies is a magic formula – become single for a month, if you are partnered, write, outsource everything else, dramatise and play out your book in front of the mirror, take short breaks, drive yourself with your deadline of 30 days to write the full novel. You might do it in 21 even with the breaks, as I did!

To take a break from the mundane, I did my first translation/transcreation of a Tamil song I so, love.

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/#!/2013/11/nee-you.html

Come December, I have been partying and rejoicing! I am truly grateful to 2013, for all that it brought to me and I know in my heart as surely as one good day, gives birth to an excellent one the next, or what the sages have said: The future is what you make of the present, 2014 will bring to pass all I want in my heart and carry my passion of writing to another level.  And so, I sit with my arms open to what will be, will be!

 

Happy New Year 2014! May it bring all the goodness of life, joy and happiness!

 

 

 

Nee… / நீ…You...

Nee...lyrics by Aisoorya Vijayakumar

Nee…You!

With your coming
the pain sleeping in my eyelids
has subsided.
The little plant hiding in the seed
has sprung up to meet the sky.
My heart has come alive
with our relationship.

My eyes have opened
with ecstasy
Surprise, shock
laughter, goose bumps
admiration sparkle
in these eyelids.

In the screaming mind
loneliness persisted
but emerging from behind the curtain today
the frozen, cold moments sped away
the heavy burden days disappeared.

Half comfort
half happiness
thus, surprise
laughing
smiling
Goosebumps
admiring
In these eyelids

(is)You!

Rough translation/transcreation Julia Dutta & Kanchana Natarajan

Credit:

http://coffeebeanzone.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/nee-%E0%AE%A8%E0%AF%80/

More lyrical scribbles:

http://coffeebeanzone.wordpress.com/rhythm-and-reason/

Note: I wish to thank Coffeebeanzone for the permission to reproduce the song here with its translation from Tamil to English for a wider audience. I would like to admit, that the song has haunted me for the last one month so much, and evoked the transcendental in me, so much so, I could have left the world and gone up to the Himalayas for good, if not for you, dear reader, who dwells in my heart and for whom, I write my blog. Thank you all for listening, reading and your silent appreciation, which continue to show in the stats :)

Altered body; altered mind

 

Psychologists have said that parallel thinking is perhaps the most lasting therapy for survivors of abuse. What this means is that, in order to overcome the trauma of abuse and look at one’s self in a new light, it is best to reconstruct one’s identity, change the way one looks and behaves, indeed, change the ideas in the mind and get into a brand new body of thoughts which finally affect the person, inwardly, and outwardly. Thus, the guilt and shame carried in the mind of the abused, which were in any case, the burden carried forward from the mind of the abuser, is laid to rest in the back burner. And the survivor of abuse lives happily ever after.

Or so it seems.

In another instance, especially in India, one can see hoards of men and women who leave their homes to join a spiritual path, leaving behind their families, cities, village or whatever, to start a life of penance with the hope of ultimate salvation and breaking the cycle of birth and death. The mendicant leaves behind and never revisits his/her home, village, or even talks about the past. Ask a sadhu, about the past, the answer is met with silence.

Here is another instance of putting aside an ‘inheritance’ by birth, to alter the past and accept a new mind and body, shaven of hair and over indulgence of the body, by care, to focus on altering the mind with severe and austere spiritual practice. Whether the goal is met, is only known to the person itself, but having once spoken to a Naga sadhu long ago, it seems it is.

“Where do you come from? Where are your parents?” I had asked, green behind my ear, for I learned later that, that is not a question one ever asks a sadhu.

“I am from a village in Bengal,” he volunteered kindly, ‘but, neither I remember my parents and they too may have forgotten me, for it was so long ago, when I was a boy, I ran away from home.’

His altered body, with jata, his scanty clothing exposing a chocolate dark athletic body, tanned by the sun, was not the body he had earlier I am sure. But, I do remember, wondering about his obsession with the chillum he smoked almost at half an hour to forty five minutes causing me to believe, that it served two purposes, one, to forget his past, or manage the guilt, if any, for suddenly disappearing from home, and of course, as a Shiva bhakth, a life lived in imitation in pursuance of his goal, single minded concentration and focus, which is the end of all spiritual practice.

In my recent conversation with renowned film director Rituparno Ghosh (see Atelier India, March 2013 issue), talking of his latest film, Chitrangada he believes that the alteration of the body, is a constant, otherwise, Beauty Parlours would not exist.

“We are all working toward sculpting our own gender identity; women alter their bodies at Beauty Parlours, men get six packs. No transformation is actually over, it is a process; it is fluid.”

The question therefore is: does an altered body, mean an altered mind? Does the external change of the body induce an inward change of the mind? Can one really change one’s identity and settle for a new, or induce one to become a reality, so that one can believe that this new identity is the new self? Going back to what psychologists say, parallel therapy has met with success, is it possible to be and live an altered self?

The recent release of the book by Dr Kanchana Natarajan, (see http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/2013/03/book-release-transgressing-boundaries.html ) brings to light, for the first time in English, the life of a woman saint, in 17^th Century, Tamil Nadu, India, the fact that it is possible to leave one’s painful, Brahminical widowhood, to pursue the path of salvation. Would she ever face the same question I am posing today, does an altered body make for an altered mind?

Does not the past lie in waiting, in the subconscious mind, waiting to raise its head at any given moment? If not, then why the tautness of the body, which speaks for itself, hiding its struggle to release itself from the demons of the past?

Would sitting silently, doing nothing, but allowing the thoughts to rise and pass, developing the habit of not holding on to those thoughts, or allowing them to take hold of one’s mind, not silence the thoughts in time, thus, not having to alter bodies, but remaining in the same? Does the mind hold the body or is it vice versa, or both? Is effort really necessary?

Even sitting silently, doing nothing is an effort. But, submitting, resigning to acceptance is not.

What is the answer then? What is the real face of truth – an altered body results in an altered mind? Or an altered state of mind causes the nullification of the body? And everything attached to it, good and bad experiences?

Or as Bertrand Russell once said, no matter, never mind! 

 

                         

Book release: Transgressing Boundaries by Kanchana Natarajan

Transgressing Boundaries: The songs of Shenkottai Avudai Akkal

Shengottai Sri Avudai Akkal, a remarkable eighteenth-century woman saint from Tamil Nadu, was a self-realised advaitin who sang passionately about the spiritual union with the Absolute.

A desolate and stigmatized Brahmin child-widow, she was initiated into Vedanta by the great Master Tiruvisainallur Shridhara Venkatesa Ayyawal. Her songs, a radical elision of the metaphysical sublime and personal devotion, are narrated through existential tropes sourced from daily life, and also offer a powerful critique of the oppressive orthodox socio-religious practices of the period.

Composed in simple, colloquial Tamil, and bringing hope and solace to women in general and widows in particular for almost three centuries, these songs by Avudai Akkal were preserved within the oral tradition by Brahmin women of Tirunellveli District of Tamil Nadu, who sang them on all occasions. The songs were documented in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and have appeared in many Tamil publications. However, they appear in English translation for the first time in this book. Each song is accompanied by annotations and themed essays.

The book, dedicated to all the anonymous widows and other women of Tirunelveli and Madurai districts who sang and still sing Akka’s songs, preserving and sharing a sublime spiritual treasure, has been handled with some excellent editing by Smriti Vorha. The book will be available on bookstores in India, by March end.

To book your copy(s), you may also write to the publishers of the book.

Author: Dr Kanchana Natarajan
Publisher: Zubaan
an imprint of Kali for Women
128 B, Shahpur Jat, 1^st floor
New Delhi 110 049
Email: contact@zubaanbooks.com
Website: www.zubaanbooks.com
Price: INR 695

About the author: Dr Kanchana Natarajan teaches Indian Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi, India.

Also read: Avidai Akkal, the 18^th Century woman Vedantin saint in Tamil Nadu, short review in 2010

http://juliadutta.blogspot.in/2010/01/avudai-akka-18th-century-woman-vedatin.html

Avudai Akka - The 18th Century woman Vedatin Saint

Call it a spirit of rebellion or a desperation for Self-realisation, but for a young fourteen year old, born to a conservative Tamil family, in the 18^th Century and married and widowed even before her first menstrual onset, Avudai Akka of Chengottai, proved much ahead of her times, when she broke the lakshman rekha of the boundary wall placed by her family and the society she lived in, and rushed to the feet of her Master, the famous scholar of those times, Tiruvisainallur Shridhara Venkatesa Ayyawal, who belonged to the tradition of namasankirtan. The scholar was on his way to Travancore to offer puja on shivratri, when passing by the village he encountered Avudai Akka, weeping for her liberation at his feet. 

To the disgust and shock of the people at the agraharam, Akka, left the safety of her home to follow her Master to a secluded mandapam near the river, to be initiated in the path of a Vedantin. In the words of the writer – “As he passed Akka’s house, where the threshold was neither swept clean nor decorated with the customary kolam because of the inauspicious presence of the child-widow, his legs became transfixed. He stood there singing the name of God. Akka flew out of the house like an arrow leaving the bow of a deft archer, fell weeping at his feet and begging him to save her from her fate as a widow”.

Needless to say, this sight and the later disappearance to the mandapam closed the gates of the agraharam forever to Akka. But to her good luck, she had a Guru who saw through her and did not only lift her from her state of a miserable life of a widow, in a traditional Tamil family, but gave her the Upanishadic mahavakya which released her soul from the terrestrial bondage of life and death and the horrors of a social order bent on annihilating the very spirit of a woman, with its regressive rules and regulations cast upon women, more so a widow.

Avudai Akkal of Chengottai, was a realized woman Vedantin in the 18^th century, whose life is known only through her songs and the Tamil works of Swami Nityanand Giri, who translated some of her songs, as well as the prolific Tamil writer, Gomathi Rajankam. The present English article published in Mountain Path, by Dr Kanchana Natarajan, is part of the oncoming book on the songs of Akka, translated from Tamil to English for the first time.

Avudai Akkal spent her life as a gyani by the side of the Kaveri singing songs of the Divine using language that was common, colloquial language. Her deft reference to daily activities and connecting them to give a deeper understanding of Vedantic notions and realities made her a household name. Even today, in many parts of Tamil Nadu, women sing her songs even as they go about their daily chores of cooking, bathing etc, not to mention, the popularity it enjoys in the “menstruating room” wherever, there is one, where women lock themselves up for all four days of their monthly menstrual circle. The songs although created in the 18^th century ridicule men and expose their hypocrisy. Hence, even in the songs of a gyani the pathetic double-faced reality of the male society around is exposed. Savour this:

“Oh men! You lament ecchil-ecchil* But there is no place without ecchil, Paraparame
The forms of Gods are ecchil,

The honey is the ecchil of the bee
And is not all nourishing mother’s milk also ecchil

Paraparame?

The ecchil of the fish is in the holy waters
the holy Brahmins who dive into rivers are ecchil

Are not pecked fruits the ecchil of parrots, Paraparame

The ecchil of the insect bores and blights the coconut

The excreta of little cats is everywhere, and I know
That space too is covered by ecchil, Paraparame.

The nadam is ecchil, the bindu is ecchil
the four Vedas of the Brahmins are ecchil
Is not the tongue that chants the Vedas ecchil, Paraparame?

The macrocosm and the microcosm, the worlds
are all withdrawn into ecchil.

Do dogmatic, frenzied religious men now even dare

To open their mouths to complain, Paraparame?

While this mouth and body are ecchil
Simply washing their feet every now and then
How will they be cleansed, Paraparame?
Only the Lord, the Truth is not ecchil

Because that Light can never ne expressed
through language, Paraparame.”

Note:

• Ecchil is pollution caused by saliva, anything that is defiled by the contact of the mouth, the refusal of food, left-over, excrement, urine, semen, the residue of sacrificial oblations of pounded rice offered in pots etc.
  
  Paraparame – Title of the song. It is addressed to Paraparam, the Absolute Being, that transcends the duality of both param (Supreme) and Aparam(non-supreme)
  
  

About the writer of the article: Dr Kanchana Natarajan teaches Indian Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Delhi University. She is presently Fellow at Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, translating the songs of Avudai Akkal from Tamil to English. If any reader is in possession of Akka’s songs or essays, you may contact her at: kanchana237@gmail.com

Published in: Mountain Path

Volume 47, No 1, January – March 2010
Price: Rs 30
Pleases address enquiries & remittance to:

Sri Ramanasrmam, Tiruvannamalai

Tamil Nadu – 606 603

Tel: 91-4175 – 237200 Mobile: 91-9244937292 (add 0 before 9244937292 if you are calling from anywhere in India outside Tamil Nadu)

Fax: 91-4175 – 237491

Email: sriramanamaharshi.org

Website: www.sriramanamaharshi.org

Photo credit:
Artist's impression: Ramana Ashram
Mandapam, Present day Chengottai: V Chithra

The Hindu:
http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/reclaiming-akkal/article5335348.ece?fb_action_ids=10202579416267747&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582