Oriya theatre festival

Annapurna Theatre to stage a marathon drama festival Friday, October 27, 2006 Source: The Pioneer

Cuttack: Annapurna Theatre (B Group), Cuttack, is going to stage a marathon drama festival consisting of six plays on October 29. These plays will be staged one after another without any break or screen drop and by the same number of artists. This epoch making venture will be first in the history of theatre. Nowhere in the world such marathon drama festival has been staged till date, said Himanshu Parija (Chandi), noted director of Ollywood and a former theatre actor at a Press conference on Wednesday.

The plays, which have been staged in the last six months have been directed by Umesh Dash (Tania). Each drama consists of 13 actors, two actresses and two child artistes (one boy and one girl). The drama festival will begin at 5 pm and will continue till midnight. This adventurous mission of Annapurna Theatre has been intimated to the office of Limca Book Of Records and response from their side is awaited said, Jugaprakash Kanungo, president of the theatre. The dramas to be staged in this festival are Baimana Ho, Eti Eka Jugara, Daktar Babu, Asha -The Family Pension; Mahapap- Murder in the Dark and Kataka- End is the Beginning. A medical team along with an ambulance will remain alert for any contingency arising on the day. Inspite of adversity and financial scarcity the organisers have not dithered from their path.

Their belief is not unfounded as it is the theatre, which gives the initial grooming in acting and actors from this stage later have made it big in Ollywood and television said, Umesh Dash the director. The 17 actors who are participating in this unique venture are Sandip Pani, Kabula Mohanty, Dillip Choubey, Hemant Dash, Sunil Nayak, Yogesh Acharjya, Saroj Samal, Kailash Kar, D Prakash Rao, Tapan Samal, Ajay, Amar, Rajesh women actress are Sasmita Singh and Angurbala Nayak. The two child artists are Kanha and Nikita.

We are a noisy species

Greeting Chitra Raman Thursday, October 19, 2006: I know what you are thinking. Who needs another blog? Not you. As you read this, your mind is a scrolling marquee of things to do next, truncated conversation fragments, leapfrogging ideas, an obsessively recurrent tune. With a slight movement of your finger, you can launch yourself back into the noiseless din of intersecting URLs. Perhaps what we all need is a space where we can take a break from listening to what we hear, and start listening to what we know. This is my place to do just that.

We are a noisy species. We crave validation and agreement. And so, we prefer the company of like-minded people. I am no different; but as I prepare to pour my ideas into the void, I prepare myself also to welcome all fellow travelers, whether kind or critical. So get up and pour yourself your favorite beverage, and stay awhile. I cannot promise to always deliver a spa experience; but I do promise to try not to bore you. Posted by Chitra at 12:50 PM 10 comments

Without any affectation or sense of alienation

I.K. Sharma seeks to present O.P. Bhatnagar as “a critic with a rare generosity of understanding,” to quote Prema Nandakumar (from her letter to him). In the first essay, Bhatnagar convinces us that poets such as Toru Dutt, Aru Dutt, Romesh Chander Dutt and Manmohan Ghose wrote with Indian history and culture wedded into their medium. Tagore and Sri Aurobindo were keen about their poetic content rather than the medium, and without any affectation or sense of alienation, “exile or worked-up nostalgia for the country or language or loss of identity” noticed in Nissim Ezekiel, R. Parthasarathy or A.K. Ramanujan. Poets such as Kamala Das, I.K. Sharma, Narsingh Srivastava and Jayanta Mahapatra write with a sense of “participation in the creative act” rather than demonstration of “western attitudes”, mode or style of expression. posted by R.K.SINGH: INDIAN ENGLISH POET at 11:39 PM

Right and Wrong

In his forthcoming book, "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong" (Ecco), and in other recent papers, Hauser suggests we may have a moral "faculty" in our brains that acts as a sort of in-house philosopher-parsing situations quickly, before emotion or conscious reason come into play. Hauser compares this faculty to the mental quality that allows human beings to acquire and use language naturally and effortlessly.

It's a suggestive analogy, inviting questions about just how far the similarities run. Is human morality, like language, largely universal (gratuitous killing is bad) but with plenty of room for local variation (in some cultures, killing your daughter if she loses her virginity before marriage is not considered gratuitous)? Is it easy for children to adapt to these local differences, depending on where and how they are raised, but difficult for adults-just as it's hard to learn French at 40?

Whether the analogy to language is "airtight" or "useful because it allows you to ask good questions" is an open issue, Hauser says. But scholars think the answers to these questions are of more than academic interest. "My hope is that by better understanding how we think," Greene writes on his personal website, "we can teach ourselves to think better." Christopher Shea's column appears biweekly in Ideas. E-mail critical.faculties@verizon.net Globe Newspaper Company

Great Poems to Teach

Compiled by the Teachers & Writers Collaborative, this list contains 341 poems submitted by teachers who participated in a workshop organized by TWC. Selected for participation by C. K. Williams, teachers applying to the workshop were asked to supply a list of poems which they had successfully taught in high school English and Language Arts classrooms. Poems on Poets.org
Maya Angelou "Alone" "Still I Rise"
Matthew Arnold "Dover Beach"
W. H. Auden "In Memory of W. B. Yeats" "The Unknown Citizen"
Elizabeth Bishop "Filling Station"
William Blake "The Chimney-Sweeper" "The Lamb"> "A Poison Tree"> --> "The Tyger"
David Bottoms "Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump"
Anne Bradstree "The Author to Her Book"
Joseph Brodsky "Odysseus to Telemachus"
Rupert Brooke "The Great Lover"
Gwendolyn Brooks "The Bean Eaters" "the sonnet-ballad" "We Real Cool"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning "How Do I Love Thee?" "My Letters! all dead paper. . . (Sonnet XXVIII)"
Robert Browning "My Last Duchess" "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"
Lewis Carroll "Jabberwocky"
Siv Cedering "Hands"
Lucille Clifton "homage to my hips (audio only)" "miss rosie" "wishes for sons"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge "Kubla Khan" "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
Hart Crane "To Brooklyn Bridge"
E. E. Cummings "anyone lived in a pretty how town" "Chansons Innocentes: I"
"i sing of Olaf glad and big"
"maggie and milly and molly and may"
"my father moved through dooms of love"
"Spring is like a perhaps hand"
Emily Dickinson "Because I could not stop for Death (712)" "Fame is a fickle food (1659)" "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)" "I heard a Fly buzz (465)" "I taste a liquor never brewed" "I'm Nobody! Who are you? (260)" "There's a certain Slant of light (258)" "To make a prairie (1755)"
John Donne "The Baite"
Denise Duhamel "Buying Stock"
Paul Laurence Dunbar "Sympathy" "We Wear the Mask"
Robert Duncan "Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow"
Ralph Waldo Emerson "The Snow Storm"
Robert Frost "Birches" "Home Burial" "Mending Wall" "The Road Not Taken"
Tess Gallagher "Red Poppy"
Thom Gunn "The Man with Night Sweats"
John Haines "If the Owl Calls Again"
Thomas Hardy "The Darkling Thrush"
George Herbert "The Collar"
Oliver Wendell Holmes "The Chambered Nautilus"
Gerard Manley Hopkins "God's Grandeur" "Pied Beauty" "Spring and Fall: To a young child"
Langston Hughes "Dream Variation" "Dreams" "I, Too, Sing America"
James Weldon Johnson "The Creation" "Go Down, Death"
John Keats "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" "Ode on a Grecian Urn" "To Autumn"
Etheridge Knight "The Idea of Ancestry"
Maxine Kumin "Purgatory" "Woodchucks"
Stanley Kunitz "The Portrait"
Edward Lear "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat"
Denise Levertov "The Secret"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "Paul Revere's Ride"
Robert Lowell "For the Union Dead"
Archibald MacLeish "Ars Poetica" "You, Andrew Marvell"
Andrew Marvell "To His Coy Mistress"
Edgar Lee Masters "Lucinda Matlock"
Claude McKay "The Tropics of New York"
Sandra McPherson "Poppies"
Edna St. Vincent Millay "Renascence" "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)"

John Milton "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent"
Marianne Moore "Poetry"
Edgar Allan Poe "Annabel Lee" "The Bells" "Eldorado"
Ezra Pound "In a Station of the Metro" "The River-Merchant's Wife"
Edwin Arlington Robinson "Miniver Cheevy" "Richard Cory"
Carl Sandburg "Fog"
Robert W. Service "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
William Shakespeare "All the World's a Stage" "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)" "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)"
Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ozymandias"
Charles Simic "Eyes Fastened With Pins" "Watermelons"
Stevie Smith "Not Waving but Drowning"
Gary Snyder "Four Poems for Robin"
May Swenson "Water Picture"
Lord Alfred Tennyson "The Lady of Shalott"
Dylan Thomas "Do not go gentle into that good night"
César Vallejo "To My Brother Miguel in memoriam"
Walt Whitman "I Hear America Singing" "Mannahatta" "O Captain! My Captain!" "Song of Myself, I, II, VI & LII" "To You" "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer"
William Carlos Williams "The Red Wheelbarrow" "Spring and All" "This Is Just To Say"
William Wordsworth "The Daffodils" "My Heart Leaps Up" "We Are Seven" "The world is too much with us; late and soon"
W. B. Yeats "Easter 1916" "Leda and the Swan" "The Second Coming"

Long afterwards - it wells up again from the depths

In a general and almost absolute way, if you truly wish to profit from these readings, as from all of Sri Aurobindo's writings, the best method is this: having gathered your consciousness and focused your attention on what you are reading, you must establish a minimum of mental tranquillity - the best thing would be to obtain perfect silence - and achieve a state of immobility of the mind, immobility of the brain, I might say, so that the attention becomes as still and immobile as a mirror, like the surface of absolutely still water. Then what one has read passes through the surface and penetrates deep into the being where it is received with a minimum of distortion. Afterwards - sometimes long afterwards - it wells up again from the depths and manifests in the brain with its full power of comprehension, not as knowledge acquired from outside, but as a light one carried within. In this way the faculty of understanding is at its highest, whereas if, while you read, the mind remains agitated and tries to understand at once what it is reading, you lose more than three-quarters of the force, the knowledge and the truth contained in the words. And if you are able to refrain from asking questions until this process of absorption and inner awakening is completed, well, then you will find that you have far fewer questions to ask because you will have a better understanding of what you have read.- The Mother [CWMCE, 10:7] posted by deepti 1:05 AM Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Psychic poetry

Thursday, September 14, 2006 ART AND POETRY: Art and poetry can be the media though they are not adequate. But one who attains the supermind does not sit down to write philosophy about it. That is just like using poetry to teach grammar, so as to take all poetry out of it. Even when supermind finds expression it would carry its meaning only to the man who knows; as the Veda puts it, " Words of the seer which reveal their mystery only to the seer". One can`t express the whole supramental truth, but something of it can come through.

There are different types of poetry. That is to say, poetry there may be and yet the the psychic element in it may not be strong. Vedic poetry is on the plane of intuitional vision. There is rhythm, force and other elements of poetry in it, but the psychic element is not so prominent. It is from a plane much higher than the mental. It has got its own depth - but psychic poetry differs from it in its depth and feeling. (After Sri Aurobindo ; Evening Talks : - 3rd edition -1982) posted by Phani Basu at 6:47 AM

Building blocks of my mind, my heroes

It was in 1994 at Trivandrum, the capital city of my state, that a cultural organization named Soorya celebrated the hundredth year of the birth of cinema. In the city’s biggest theatre rented, they screened world classic films for fifteen consecutive days. Each day, exactly at 7.58 A.M., Soorya’s logo would appear on the screen. At about 12 P.M., the screening would end. Thus, fifteen days. Seven films each day. A total of one hundred and five films.

These fifteen days, almost literally, I lived in the theatre. I ate and slept in the too short intervals, inside the theatre. Went to my lodge after 12in the night and returned before 8 next morning, to take my seat. Thus, I saw all the one hundred and five classics. But that of course didn’t change my life. It had already been changed. Even two years before that event, cinema had mesmerized and captivated me. A perpetual seizure. I wandered along the length and breadth of kerala for years, seeing classics screened by various film societies.

It was the same with literature. I just shut in my room and read for months and months and chewed up pages. Thus I read all of Doestoyevsky. All of Victor Hugo. All of Kazantzakis. Amos Oz. Carpentier. Kafka. Mann. Kawabata. Amado. Rulfo. Marquiz. Fuentis. Llosa. Bulgakov. Anand. Cortazar…And visited art galleries. Sat in meditation before opened pages of books of painting. Caravaggio. Velazquez. Dali. Brughel. El-Greco. Munch. Chirico. Rousseau. Manet. Renoir…It was the most fruitful years of mine…I found myself reflecting in the mirrors of art. And I loved being myself. Those years formed me…and what I try here is to make a list of films, books and other art forms that for the rest of my life energized me and decided my destiny.
***
My Most Favorite Films: Sacrifice, Ivan’s Childhood, Stalker (Tarkovsky), Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, Silence (Bergman), Red Desert (Michelangelo Antonioni), The Passion Of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer), Colour of Pomegranates, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Sergei Pandjanov), Journey Through The body, In the name of the son, Diapason (Jorge Polaco) The Sleeping Man (Kohei Oguri) Aguirre, the wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo (Herzog), The Hungarian Rhapsody, Silence and Cry (Miklos Jansco), Theorem (Pasolini), Nazarin, The discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel), The Tree of life (Farhad Mehranfir), Gabbeh (Mohsen Makmalbaf), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene), Spring, summer, fall, winter…and Spring (Kim Ki-Duk)

If I have to choose just ten from the above, I will choose: Sacrifice, Stalker, Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Journey Through The body, The Sleeping Man, Theorem, Aguirre, the wrath of God & Red Desert.

If I have to choose just seven from the above, I will choose: Sacrifice, Stalker, Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, Aguirre, the wrath of God, Journey Through The body & The Sleeping Man.

If I have to choose just five from the above, I will choose: Sacrifice, Stalker, Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers, & The Sleeping Man.

If I have to choose just three from the above, I will choose: Sacrifice, Stalker, & Seventh Seal.

If I have to choose just one from the above, I will choose: Sacrifice

The strangest film from the above series: In the name of the son by Jorge Polaco.

My Most Favorite dialogue from a film: “I will remember this moment. This silence. This dusk. This pot full of wild strawberries. This milk. Your faces in twilight. Sleeping Michael. Jof with the tambourine. I will remember all we have discussed. And I will keep this memory like this bowl filled to the brim with milk. That would be a good sign-it’s enough for me”

(Antonious Bloc, the Knight in the film Seventh Seal, says this to Mia and Jones, the gypsy performers. Sitting on a meadow, the knight is relishing the wild strawberries and the bowl of milk presented to him by Mia and Jones. He says the above, holding the bowl of milk in his hand. Then he departs with his chessboard for his final play with Death.)

The film that made me burst into tears: Cries and Whispers.

The most curious films I have seen: Luna Papa (Baktiar Khudojnazron-Austria), & Bird people in china. (Takashi Miike)

The most poignant film I have seen: Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)

My Most Favorite Short Film: Ithaca (Phylis Katrapani-The film is based on the poem by Kawafy, with the same title. I remember, after seeing the film, having met Phylis and congratulated her, more than 10 years ago when she came to a film festival at Cochin, Kerala. After some years, I also met her mother, Gonul Donmez. If they, or somebody personally know any of them see this blog, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.)

My Most Favorite Documentary: Glass (Bert Hanstra.)

My Most Favorite Novels: One Hundred years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance (Robert Pirzig), White Hotel (D.M.Thomas), On Heroes and Tombs (Ernesto Sabato), Aarogyaniketanam (Tharashankar Banerjy), Terra Nostra (Carlos Fuentes) The house of sleeping Beauties (Kawabata) Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann), Brothers Karamazov (Dostoyevsky), Govardhante Yaathrakal (Anand), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera.), Les Miserable, The Hunchback of Notre Dam (Victor Hugo),

If I have to choose just five from the above, I will choose: One Hundred years of Solitude, Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance, Terra Nostra, White Hotel & On Heroes and Tombs.

If I have to choose just three from the above, I will choose: One Hundred years of Solitude, White Hotel & Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance.

If I have to choose just two from the above, I will choose: One Hundred years of Solitude & Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance.

If I have to choose just one from the above, I will choose: One Hundred years of Solitude.

My Most Favorite short stories: The third Bank of the river (Juao Guimares Rosa), The Cinnamon Shops (Bruno Schulz), The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Alan Poe.)

The following stories are from my language, Malayalam: Chithrasalabhangalude Kappal, Athbutha Samasya (The ship of butterflies, The wondrous Riddle by Thomas Joseph), Aarkkariyaam? (Who Knows? By Paul Zacharia), Pakshiyude Manam (Scent of the bird by Madhavikkutty), Panthrandam Manikkoor (The Twelfth hour by V.P.Sivakumar), Naalamathe Aani ( The fourth Nail-by Anand),My Most Favorite Single Poem: Sunstone ( Octavio Paz)My Most Favorite Poetry series: Duino Elegies (Rilke)

My Most Favorite Lengthy Poem: Odyssey a Modern Sequel (Kazantzakis)My Most Favorite Autobiography: Report to Greco (Kazantzakis)

Other Books I love the Most: All Books by Osho Rajneesh, Tao of Physics (Fritzjof Kapra), Freedom from the Known (Jidhu Krishnamoorthy), Jnaneshwary (A descriptive commentary on Bhagavat Gita written by Sage Jnaneshwar of the 16th century.) The Sleepwalkers (A detailed historical sketch of man’s changing vision of the universe, lives of cosmologists from Babylonians to Newton, by Arthur Koestler), Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Autobiography of Carl Jung), The Story of San Michele (Autobiography of Axel Munthe), The Occult (A detailed study of the arcane knowledge; cabbalists and others, by Colin Wilson ) The Land that Never Was (Early explorations into the Arctic, by Vasily Passetsky), The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (About the secret continuation of the lineage of Christ up to the modern era, detailing the mysteries shrouding Knights Templar and other secret organizations, by Mike Beigent & Richard Leigh),) Admiral of the Ocean Sea (About the life and Times of Christopher Columbus, by Samuel Eliot Morison ), Einstein; The life and Times (Ronald W.Clark), The signs of the gods, Chariot of the gods, In search of ancient Gods (Eric Von Daniken.)

My Most Favorite Geographical Explorer: Thor Heyerdahl.My Most Favorite Painters: Dali, Chirico, Velazquez, El-greco & Rousseau.My Most Favorite Fashion Photographer: Patric Demarchelier.

My Most Favorite Landscape art: Running Fence (Christo).

My Most Favorite Subjects Other Than Art: Science, Semitic literature and History, Ancient history, Upanishads, Cosmology, Psychology & Anthropology. (As it could be well imagined, I have a deep knowledge in none.)

My Heroes: Bergman, Tarkovsky, Dali, Marquez, & Einstein.

My Torch Light Upon Life and Its Eternal Philosophic Enigmas: Osho Rajneesh.

posted by a j muhammed shafeer @ 11:59 PM 0 comments Friday, September 01, 2006

A critical study of Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri

Savitri: A Spiritual Epic

Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1984, pages 164.

(A critical study of Sri Aurobindo’s epic Savitri). R.K.SINGH

MEMORIES UNMEMORIED by RAM KRISHNA SINGH

A short collection of poems, all untitled, but read like part of a long poem, with a variety of themes and structure. Berhampur: Poetry Time Publications, 1988

Tabla bols

Dhe-te-Dha-a-n-Dha-a-n-Dha. Ab aaye sam par. Hi. I'm saattvic. That's my name. My complete name. No surname. But more on that later. Maybe in another post. As of now, let me tell you a little about 'Dhe-te-Dha-a-n-Dha-a-n-Dha'. They're tabla bols. I play the tabla. Have been doing so for 11 years. I love it. Some others love it too, but that's ok. Dhe-te-Dha-a-n-Dha-a-n-Dha is a piece we use to arive at the 'sam' (pronounced sum). Is this confusing you? ok.

There are three types of people. Those who know indian classical music. Those who don't care. And those who do care but don't know. Hope you're the third type. Let me start over.Hindustani classical music (there is another indian classical form - carnatic. but if i say indian classical, take it to mean hindustani classical) is primarily for soloists. Sometimes you get duets. But usually just one artist. Most times this artist is either a vocalist or an instrumentalist (sometimes he is a percussionist, ie he plays the tabla or the pakhawaj or some other percussion instrument, but more on that later). A tabla player always accompanies vocalists and instrumentalists. His basic function is to keep the beat. Most times a tanpura plays in the background to provide the base note. Vocalists are also accompanied by a harmonium or sarangi for support.

A vocalist or instrumentalist plays with notes. These notes are represented by symbols. Westerners will be familiar with 'do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti'. Indians have this as 'sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni'. They're the same notes, they just have different symbols. 'do' and 'sa' are the same note. so are 'me' and 'ga'. Funnily enough, the second note is 're' in both styles of notation.It follows that most of what a vocalist or instrumentalist plays can be captured on paper as a string of notes. The idea of the musician coming up with something first and then it being captured on paper is the exact opposite of the western tradition.

There a composer composes everything and an orchestra plays it. Here, most music is based on improvisation. The musician comes up with the piece based usually on a raag and within the raag, a bandish. A raag is a collection of notes. Raag Bhopali is 'sa-re-ga-pa-dha-sa, sa-dha-pa-ga-re-sa'. The ascent is called the aaroh and the descent is called the avaroh. A bandish is a composition within the raag, usually lasting one or two beat cycles (more on beat cycles later). This bandish then forms the base for all the improvisations. Well, I'll go into the details of a classical music performance in some other post.

The accompanying percussion instrument in hindustani classical is usually the tabla or pakhawaj, depending on the style of the main musician. His job is to maintain the beat cycle and improvise in tandem with the main artist within that beat cycle. A beat cycle is of utmost importance to hindustani music. All bandishes are set to a cycle of beats. The most common is a cycle of 16 beats called teentaal. This cycle repeats itself, and so all work in that piece has to adhere to the 16 beat cycle. The first beat in a cycle is called the sam. Most bandishes have a distinct point of emphasis and a definite sense of marking a partition between cycles at the sam. Most improvisations finish at the sam, or lead into the bandish, which provides emphasis at the sam.

Now, just like the doings of vocalists and instrumentalists can be captured in writing through various combinations of sa, re, ga, etc., percussion can, too, be caught on paper. What we do is, verbally imitate the each sound produced be the percussion instrument (as there is no scope for notes) and use that verbal imitation as the symbok for that sound. For example, if I stroke the outer rim of the tabla with my index finger, keeping the tip of the ring finger on the tabla for support while keeping all other fingers off, the resultant sound sounds like 'ta'. If at the same time, I stroke the baiyaa (the tabla is composed of two drums - one called the tabla and the other the baiyaa. the baiyaa basically provides the bass while most of the work is done on the tabla), the resultant sound sounds like 'dha'. So, most of what a tabla player does can be recorded on paper too.

Now back to Dhe-te-Dha-a-n-Dha-a-n-Dha. Now, this is a string of sounds produced by the tabla. This particular string is a small piece used at the end of a beat cycle to arrive at the sam. So, that was one bit of me - my tabla. Expect some musically inclined posts in the future. posted by Saattvic at 3:46 PM 1 comments Just a bit of me

Fakir Mohan Senapati

Chandrahas Choudhury: That’s just because I read quite widely, and think everyone should as well - unsystematic reading is one of life’s great delights. Also, in India, there’s not a great deal of attention given by the newspapers to books from around the world - most newspapers only have one page for books in a week. I find I have a great deal to say but nowhere to say it, so that I put all that onto my weblog.

I now have a great deal more traffic from the US and the UK than I used to, so I feel that in some small way I help to bring writers from around the world to the attention of Indian readers, and Indian writers to the attention of readers from around the world. (This may only be in my imagination, but even illusions are vital motivating forces for work.

In fact, blogging itself is based upon the illusion that one will one day become rich and famous out of doing work for free, mostly for people who have nothing better to do than sit around surfing the Web). Fakir Mohan Senapati, for example, or Bibhutibhushan Bandhopadhyay - these are Indian writers whose work is easily the equal of anything in world literature. And Etgar Keret, or Osip Mandelstam - why shouldn’t more Indian readers be reminded of their work? Chandrahas, 1:14 PM email this to a friend permalink (2) comments

Mahabharata in 3 minutes

Maggi Lidchi-Grassi's three novels, presented below, form a trilogy, imaginatively retelling the familiar story of the Mahabharata from a particular dramatic perspective. She uses the person of Arjuna and his inner development as the lens through which to view and understand the compelling personalities of this epic, the events leading to the battle of Kurukshetra, the great story of that fight to cleanse the earth of adharma and the effects of the struggle on its main protagonists, and their adventures that follow after the end of the war. Arjuna's story is the crucible through which the reader comes to understand how we are moulded into our own divinity.

The Battle of Kurukshetra
- Maggi Lidchi-Grassi Publisher: Writers Workshop, CalcuttaBinding: Hard CoverPages: 394Price: Rs 500
The first volume in the author's trilogy version of the Mahabharata, this novel is a subjective interpretation and retelling of the events leading to the great battle of Kurukshetra, the dramatic and psychological centrepiece of India's monumental epic. Using first person narratives, the story is told in turns by Ashwatthama and Arjuna, who come to stand on opposite sides of the battlefield, but whose interwoven lives and shared history bring an intense existential focus to the lines of war drawn up by the dictates of dharma. The book is a study of their characters and how they affect and are affected by the flow of events in the Mahabharata.

The Legs of the Tortoise
- Maggi Lidchi-Grassi Publisher: Writers Workshop, CalcuttaBinding: Hard CoverPages: 392Price: Rs 600
This second volume in the Mahabharata trilogy resumes the story from the moment of Arjuna's anguish prior to the start of the battle of Kurukshetra and follows his evolution during the course of the epic battle, to Indraprastha after the war, and through the Ashwamedha campaign. The sentiments and conflicts of the main protagonists as developed in the novel are based on encounters, incidents and speeches from Veda-Vyasa's Mahabharata, but the author's treatment of the story has been greatly influenced by the writings of Sri Aurobindo from Essays on the Gita, The Secret of the Vedas, and Hymns to the Mystic Fire.

The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata
- Maggi Lidchi-Grassi ISBN: 81-7595-864-2Publisher: Writers Workshop, CalcuttaBinding: Hard CoverPages: 300Price: Rs 700
In this third volume of her trilogy, as in the previous two, it is through Arjuna's experiences that the author develops the central themes of her interpretation of the Mahabharata: surrender and sacrifice. Arjuna the great warrior, the beloved friend of Krishna, the favoured disciple of Drona, the best-loved of Draupadi, Arjuna the epic hero is revealed also to the reader as Arjuna the man. We follow him through all the events of this final part of the story as he comes at last to understand Krishna's teaching and becomes a hero of the highest order: a man who finally knows his true self and fulfills his spiritual destiny. SABDA SRI AUROBINDO ASHRAM PONDICHERRY 605 002 INDIA

The many faces of Chau

The tribal belt where the tribals and other common people perform Chau dances is distributed into three adjoining states, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, after the dissolution of the princely states in 1950. The three forms of Chau are named after the district or village where they are performed, i.e. the Purulia Chau of Bengal, the Seraikella Chau of Bihar and the Mayurbhanj Chau of Orissa. Surprisingly the earlier writers have exercised considerably to understand the origin of the word Chau and to ascertain its classical origin as also they have tried to establish the origin of the word Chau from Sanskrit root word ''Chaya'', while others have tried to justify its martial base and the derivation of the word by suggesting that the word Chau is derived from the local dialect meaning an army camp.

However, they have overlooked the outcries of the performers or the drummers during performance. Particularly in Purulia, the singer drummer often rushes to the new characters "by shouting "cho... cho...cho..." with excitement, before they enter into the arena. By doing this he infuses the same enthusiasm in the dancer. During the course of the performance also such excitement and outburst of joy are expressed by the singers and other members of orchestra. Similarly this author heard the same utterances by the hunters who assemble at a particular hill top during the annual hunting expeditions on the full moon day in the month of May. While chasing the game exclaim they exclaim "cho... cho...cho..." (A broader pronunciation of Chau), in order to fright the animals or invoke the spirit of animal for easier gain of the game. Most likely it is this word associated with the natives' earliest hunting occupation that is now associated with their dances to express joy and excitement...

A generic name usually points to the root character of the class it denotes. The character, even after any degree of evolvement, remains an integral part of the class either overtly or as an underlying base. And if various styles of dances known as chhau are analyzed, it is found that they all have martial strains. The word 'chhau', now obsolete, means to attack stealthily. The basic steps and gaits of Seraikelaa and Mayurbhanj styles of chhau not only are practiced holding a sword and a shield, the rudimentary dance are known as ruk-maar-naaclia (meaning the dance of attack and defense) in Mayurbhanj and phari-khandaa-khela (meaning the play with the sword and shield) in Seraikelaa. In Asanapaat, a village in Orissa one can find a dance called paaikaali, that is unmistakably the mother of chhau because the leg extensions are exactly like that of chhau and they perform a kind of attack and defense dance almost like ruk-maar-naacha. The musical instruments used in paaikaali are exactly the same as those of chhau.

In Orissa the soldiers were being called paaika-s. Therefore, chhau in its origin was unmistakably a weapon-dance or a war dance. Even the use of masks in Seraikelaa Chhau and Purulia Chhau, and in their less evolved folk versions, does not disprove the assumption, but rather strengthens it. Otto Bihalji-merin in his Mask of the World writes, "A mask dance is often preliminary for war. The dancers portray in pantomime the actions they plan, sneaking up to the enemy, javelin throwing, close combat and finally victory. This serves as a magic spell, as physical exercise, as spiritual preparation, and at the same time as conquest of fear through the anticipation of victory. The helmets of classical antiquity were also masks of fear and magical protection. Greek helmets had fixed visors with eyeholes. During the bloody gladiatorial combats in the Roman arenas the swordsman (hoplomachus) confronted with the net man (retiarius) wore a helmet a wire-netting visor to protect his face."

Chhau then in its formative period in a primitive culture was not only a war dance but also a ritual meant for spiritual preparation, and at the same time as the conquest of conquest of fear, through the anticipation of victory. May be because of this, the religious associations and rituals connected with the three styles of evolved chhau have so many similarities. Another very significant similarity among the three styles is that the dances as well as the rituals connected with them culminates in a festival on the last day of the lunar month of Chaitra, corresponding to April 12th. The deities worshipped in the religious rituals are Shiva and Shakti. This leads us to believe that the tantric cult has greatly influenced chhau during its formative period. NIC Purulia District Centre

From the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth

Sri Aurobindo

It will be more fruitful to take the main substance of the matter for which the body of Mr. Cousins' criticism gives a good material. Taking the impression it creates for a starting-point and the trend of English poetry for our main text, but casting our view farther back into the past, we may try to sound what the future has to give us through the medium of the poetic mind and its power for creation and interpretation. The issues of recent activity are still doubtful and it would be rash to make any confident prediction; but there is one possibility which this book strongly suggests and which it is at least interesting and may be fruitful to search and consider.

That possibility is the discovery of a closer approximation to what we might call the mantra in poetry that rhythmic speech which, as the Veda puts it, rises at once from the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth, — the discovery of the word, the divine movement, the form of thought proper to the reality which, as Mr. Cousins excellently says,

"lies in the apprehension of a something stable behind the instability of word and deed, something that is reflection of the fundamental passion of humanity for something beyond itself, something that is a dim foreshadowing of the divine urge which is prompting all creation to unfold itself and to rise out of its limitations towards its Godlike possibilities".

Poetry in the past has done that in moments of supreme elevation; in the future there seems to be some chance of its making it a more conscious aim and steadfast endeavour. Works Of Sri Aurobindo > Future Poetry Volume-9 > Introductory Page – 7

The Plays of Sri Aurobindo

PERSEUS THE DELIVERER was originally published in serial form in the weekly Bande Mataram, Calcutta, 1907. Subsequently it was included in Collected Poems and Plays of Sri Aurobindo, published in 1942, with the exception of two scenes which were not available at that time. The missing scenes (Act II, Scenes 2 & 3) were later found and included in the 1955 edition.

VASAVADUTTA exists in several versions, not all of them complete. What seems to be the last complete version has this note at the end: "Revised and recopied between April 8th and April 17th, 1916." An earlier version has a similar entry at the end: "Copied Nov. 2, 1915—written between 18th and 30th October 1915. Completed 30th October. Revised in April 1916. Pondicherry." The first edition of VASAVADUTTA was published in 1957. It was reprinted in 1965.

RODOGUNE belongs to the end of the Baroda period. It is dated February 1906, just before Sri Aurobindo left Baroda for Bengal. It was first published in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, 1958, and also issued in book-form in the same year.

ERIC was written in Pondicherry in 1912 or 1913. Several drafts were made of some of its acts and each carries its own later corrections. One is not always sure which corrections were the last to be made. The text published now is more or less a combination of two or more drafts wherever it was thought that the author's purposes would be served better by this arrangement. Alternatives, however, have been given in the footnotes. ERIC was first published in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, 1960, and also issued in book-form in the same year.

The VIZIERS OF BASSORA is one of the early works of Sri Aurobindo on a major scale. Written in Baroda, it has a curioushistory attached to it. Sri Aurobindo seems to have had especial fondness for this early creation of his. He particularly mentioned it in the Introduction to Collected Poems and Plays as one of the two works, lost—the other being a translation of Kalidasa's Meghaduta (Cloud-Messenger). By a strange turn of destiny the drama was recovered from theGovernment Archives in 1951 along with other manuscripts which had been exhibits in the Alipore Conspiracy Case. This play was published in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, 1959, and also issued in book-form in the same year.

PRINCE OF EDUR was written, as noted in the manuscript, in1907, that is to say, in the very thick of Sri Aurobindo's political activity. It is not complete as it has only three acts and not five. THE PRINCE OF MATHURA, available as a fragment and printedhere for the first time, is a different version of the same theme. PRINCE OF EDUR was first published in Sri Aurobindo MandirAnnual, 1961.

THE MAID IN THE MILL and THE HOUSE OP BRUT are both in-complete and belong to Sri Aurobindo's early Baroda period. They were printed in Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, 1962, for the first time.

Works Of Sri Aurobindo > Collected Plays Part-I Volume-6 > Bibliographic Note-06 > Collected Plays Part-II Volume-07 > Bibliographical Note

Eyes of Light

Roy, Dilip Kumar (1897-1980) musician, singer, writer, was born on 22 January 1897 in Krishnanagar under Nadia district, west bengal, son of dwijendralal roy. He lost his mother in childhood and was brought up by his father. At the age of 16, however, he also lost his father and was brought up by his wealthy maternal grandfather. In 1918 he passed BA with honours in Mathematics from Presidency College and went to Cambridge, earning a Tripos in Mathematics.

Dilip Kumar had his first lessons in music from his father. He then received lessons from Surendra Nath Majumder, Radhika Prasad Goswami and Achchhanna Bai. During his stay in London he passed the first part of a course in western music. He went to Berlin to learn German and Italian music, returning to India in 1922. He then practised classical music under the guidance of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, Ustad Fayaz Khan, Pundit Bhatkhande etc.

Dilip Roy was a distinguished composer and singer, whose varied musical experiences transcended the boundaries of his native land. He was equally adept in composition, notation and singing. During 1922 and 1927 he travelled extensively all over India coming in close contact with its entire musical world.

In 1927 Dilip Roy travelled to Europe to deliver lectures on Indian classical music. He had discussions on musical theories with the two chief music experts of his time Rabindranath and Roma Rolland. He had friendship with subhas chandra bose and Jawharlal Nehru. He was also fortunate to get in touch with great men like Mahatma Gandhi and Burtrand Russel. His rendering of songs composed by Dwijendralal Roy, atulprasad sen, kazi nazrul islam, himangshu kumar dutta and Nishikanta was largely responsible for making them popular. He was close to Kazi Nazrul Islam. He played the leading role in publicising and popularising Nazrul's ghazals. Receiving no approval from santiniketan for his attempt to add variety to the music of Rabindrasangit, he gave up singing Rabindranath's songs. He recorded more than 100 songs.

Dilip Kumar was one of the exponents of critical appreciation of modern songs. Backed by his wealth of musical knowledge and creative imagination he attempted to add a new dimension to the musical trend. However he embraced sannyas (renunciation of family life) in the year 1928 and entered Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry where he stayed upto 1950. As a member of the music mission sponsored by the Indian government, he delivered speeches on music in many European countries, the USA, Japan and Egypt in 1953. Returning home he stayed, at the invitation of his friend JV Mehta, at the latter's residence in Pune. Under his influence, Mehta's home gradually turned into a 'Sri Harikrishna temple'.

Dilip Kumar wrote a number of valuable books on music. At the request of the government he wrote in 1938 two books Gitasagar and Sangitiki for the syllabus of Music Department of Calcutta University. Other books he composed on music are Surbihar, Hasir Ganer Swaralipi, Gitamanjari, Dwijendragiti etc. Besides he has written a number of books on various subjects. A total of 80 books are credited to his name.

The notable of them are: novels- Maner Parash (1926), Dudhara (1927), Dola (two vols, 1935), Taranga Rodhibe Ke, Bahuballabh, Dvicharini; drama- Apad O Jalatanka (1926), Sada Kalo (1944), Shri Chaitanya (1948), Bhikharini Rajkanya (1952); essays- Sri Aurvindo O Dharma Bijnan, Chhandasiki, Kavirsi O Gunishilpi (discussion on Aurovindo, Rabindranath, Atulprasad and Sharat Chandra, 1978); travelogues- Bhramyamaner Dinpanjika (1926), Abar Bhramyaman (1944), Bhusvarga Chanchal (1940), Edeshe Odeshe (1940), Deshe Deshe Chali Ude (1955); Satire- Aghatan Ajo Ghate, Chhaya Pather Pathik, Ashruhasi Indradhanu; remembrance- Udasi Dwijendra Lal, Amar Bandhu Subhash, Tirthankar, Sri Aurovindo Prasanga (1942), Among the Great (1940) etc. He also wrote a poetry book titled Eyes of Light (1945).

He was awarded 'Sangit Ratnakar' for his valuable contribution to music. He was also conferred with the membership of the Indian Music and Drama Academy (1965) and the honorary degree DLit of the universities of Calcutta and Rabindarbharati. He was also a fellow of Sahitya (literary) Academy. He died on 6 January 1980 in Mumbai. [Mobarak Hossain Khan] [Chief Editor's Preface] [Board of Editors] [Contributors] [How to Use] [Team: CD Version] [Home] Index:[A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z ] We are highly expecting your Comments. You may write your comments here Or send us mail banglapedia

Mansingh’s influence upon Bidyut Prabha

Sachidananda Mohanty The Critic as the Mentor - Mayadhar Mansingh and Bidyut Prabha (1)Dedicated to the memory of Bidyut Prabha Devi, Panchanan Mohanty, Mayadhar and Hemalata Mansingh

What the Mayadhar Mansingh – Bidyut Prabha association foregrounds is a set of issues central to contemporary critical thinking: the complex role of education for literary creativity, the role of male patronage in the shaping of female literary imagination, and finally, the working of aesthetic and ideological factors in the formation of literary communities. My aim here is not to undertake an “influence study”, comparative in character between Mansingh and Bidyut Phrabha’s poetry, underlining parallel concerns (and there are many), the inevitable differences in approach, and the indebtedness she shows to a senior poet and literature’s influence in terms of idiom, diction and style. This is generally a traditional and expected fare in centennial occasions, and quite legitimate too. But it seems to me that by so doing, we shall be missing the true significance of literary events and personalities, and the complex and ambivalent manner in which they leave a lasting legacy behind them. We must at the outset offer a few caveats. Mansingh’s influence upon Bidyut Prabha, as a writer, although substantial, was not the only one. Nor was it the final or the most decisive one.

There were other significant male literary role models in Bidyut Prabha’s life such as her father: the writer compiler N.C.Das, a relative and short-lived poet Gagan Bihari Mohanty, well established poets and critics like Radha Mohan Gadnayak, Kunja Bihari Das and Krushnachandra Kar, associates like Brajanath Rath and Jadunath Das Mahapatra and later in life, writers and fellow spiritualists such as Mohapatra Nilamani Sahu, Chittaranjan Das, K.C.Pati, Ramakrishna Das and others. Similarly, outstanding women writers both dead and alive such as Kuntala Kumari and Sarala Devi too played their part.

However, a close study of Bidyut Prabha’s life and career shows that Mansingh’s role was unique. In talking about Bidyut Prabha, he raised important questions about the formation of the female poetic self in the regional context and played a vital role in the early shaping of her career. In turn, we find that the younger poet’s respect for Mansingh was deep, consistent and abiding till the end of her life. It bordered on reverence and adulation. His early realization of her promise and his life satisfaction in seeing her swift achievements, his appreciation of her domestic and educational constraints, and his lifelong regret that she could not blossom fully as a poet due to her being denied higher education, are incredibly insightful to his critical assessment and acumen.

I shall attempt to show, basing myself on select literary correspondence hitherto unpublished, as well as some of the archival material that I have collected, that the Mansingh – Bidyut Prabha episode is a significant chapter in Orissa literary history. It illuminates greatly our understanding of the quest of a woman’s literary self in a largely patriarchal order. In being denied higher education by her conservative father, Bidyut Prabha might have missed a vital exposure to trends and experiments in poetry and literature of the larger English-speaking world. But she shows paradoxically and steadfastly throughout her career, as evidenced by the notes and correspondence she has left behind, that one could be self taught and gain entry into multiple traditions of a hybrid kind, which are not automatically granted to the products of higher education. In any case, as Mansingh declares in his History of Oriya Literature that has gone into several reprints, that in the hand of an artist, all exposure into alien traditions need not translate automatically into a native voice.

Regardless of one’s views about Mansingh’s assessment of Oriya modernists like Guruprasad Mohanty, Bhanuji Rao or Binode Nayak,2 it has to be admitted that the question of the influence in the shaping of new voices and genres that Mansingh raised is far from being a settled one. It has to be stated that Mansingh, the critic, was well versed in western literatures, literary canon making, and experiments such as those by T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound, just as he was widely familiar with the literary scene in Bengal and other provinces as well. His travel to England and his correspondence with academics in the former USSR3 would show that he was not a nativist of an exclusive or chauvinist kind and did not rule out influences from outside in the working of the indigenous literary mind. Mansingh’s correspondence with Bidyut Prabha spans practically her entire career.

Rational spiritual enlightenment

Postmodern spirituality A dialogue in five parts Part V: Can Only A God Save Us? Postmodern Proto-Spirituality And The Current Global Turn To Religion Roland Benedikter integralworld.net

The two poets and thinkers who maybe gave us the best phaenomenological description of inspiration as “free”, open, rational, meta-ideological and spiritual core state of a possible postmodern consciousness of the future, may be the poet of “A moment of true feeling” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1977), Peter Handke (*1942).

Handke is, in my view, one of the most important European poets and writers of the 20th century, at least for my generation. We read every book from him for 20 years now, and we were deeply influenced by him, more than by most of the academic philosophies. I think he should receive the Nobel Price for Literature well ahead from most other poets. And the other one is the author of the “Philosophy Of Freedom”, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). He was the founder of Anthroposophy and of the radically democratic political movement of “Social Threefolding”, which currently plays such an eminent role in globalization (cf. Ibrahim Abouleish and Nicanor Perlas, of whom we talked in our first dialogue).

Their works can help you to understand, as an experience but also as a cognitive philosophy in the strict sense, what inspiration is. The best work of Steiner on this topic probably is: Rudolf Steiner: The Levels Of Higher Cognition: Imagination – Inspiration – Intuition. Collected Works No. 12, Dornach 1986; but also his “Truth And Science. A Cognitive Theory” (Collected Works No. 3, Dornach 1992). With re-studying these works, we may progressively understand better, where the void of postmodern deconstruction can positively lead us. And we must not forget: The works for the future, for continuing postmodernity in the 21st century, have still to be written, of course...

If you are in the state of inspiration, new concepts are generated out of the productive void. But it will not be long that you discover: It is not your own normal egoistic “I” which creates them alone. Because this “I” has, at least partially, disappeared. When you are inspired, it can happen, that something subjective-objective is occurring in your mind at the same time. And, again: You feel it. You feel that you are not alone, when you are truly inspired. There is something which helps you, which guides your intuitions. As we said in one of our previous dialogues, it may be the famous “Geist” or “spirit-mind” (as I would translate the term “Geist”) which Hegel underscored so much, when he said that the goal of rational spiritual enlightenment is the discovery that not I myself are producing and thinking my thoughts, but the order of the cosmos is producing my thoughts and thinking through me. (Cf. Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford University Press, USA 1979)...

First undergo a true kátharsis, which is the only way to “deconstruct” your illusions properly, by creating inner images of the good, the true and the beautiful. And only if you have created these images in a subjective-objective way, you can proceed safely into the realm of inspiration - by cancelling even those images, and remaining only with the pure pre-formal energies which created those images, and with nothing else. Than you will be able to think safely and rationally in a pre-linguistic, pre-imaginary and pre-formal “subjective-objective” way.

If you try instead to go directly into the inspiration state of thinking, you may possibly fall into new, even more dangerous illusions, than the egoistic and linguistic illusions could be. You will, for example, have the illusion that every thought you think is valuable and great, even if in reality it is not. Being inspired does not mean being infallible; therefore, you first have to learn how to behave precisely in the realm of the subjective-objective. The best school, according to Steiner, to learn precise rational thinking in the realm of the subjective-objective, is to exercise imagination.

For example, making a picture of the sky in the morning, and then imagining how the weather may be in the afternoon. You form a judgement out of that imagination. And in the afternoon you control, if it was true or not. With time passing, your imagination will become always more precise. And in the end, you will know with a high percentage of success out of pure observation of the sky in the morning, how the weather will be in the afternoon. Steiner called that “the empirical exercise of practical imagination”. That was the method Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Steiner spiritual father, used to exercise his faculties of imagination. And only having learned that, you should proceed. Only then, it may be safe enough.

Postmodern emancipation

Postmodern spirituality A dialogue in five parts Part III: The Postmodern Mind – And Its Future Roland Benedikter integralworld.net

Because I cannot make an object out of it. I can try to do that, but I will just become aware that the one who does this trying is the one who would be the one to reach. I become aware that the one who does this trying is the one from which everything else depends. Everything, in the strictest sense of the word. Every sensorial perception, every concept, and every state of ego and “I” I can ever be or imagine. The whole world.

But this one cannot deconstruct itself, because he or her is the one who is trying to do the deconstruction. Therefore, that “I” (or witness) must be something like a last, pre-egoistic, pre-conceptual and pre-objective basis for everything else – an “individual, i.e. non-divisible self” or a “permanent origin in itself” (Jean Gebser: The Ever Present Origin, Reprint Edition, Ohio University Press 1986). This “permanent origin” or “pure pre-conceptual life-stream of attention” (Georg Kuehlewind), or, if you want to call it that way, “last meta-conscious basis of postmodern emancipation and every day life” (cf. Roy Bhaskar: The Philosophy of Meta-Reality, SAGE Publications 2002) seems to be the essence you wake up with in the morning. It is the first think that appears in the morning, then you awake.

It seems to produce every concept, every perception, as well as the pictures and illusions of the normal ego which then become a self-reflected mask or “persona”. It is the witness which does the deconstruction of the normal ego. Deconstruction obviously does not happen “from alone”. Somebody has to do it. And this somebody can be only your “other” or “pre-objective” “I”: the “I” behind the normal “I”, the “I” which is able to observe even the illusionary “I” from the standpoint of “the other” (Lévinas), and to deconstruct it from the standpoint of “the other”. Who is it? And what remains, if the normal ego and its world, its beliefs and its reality eventually have been completely deconstructed?

That's what a normal human being, a contemporary subject who takes postmodernity seriously, must ask, sooner or later, without any chance to avoid these questions. And then, an answer, for a rationally self-aware, contemporarily enlightend (aufgeklärt) subject must be found through and out of deconstruction, not avoiding it.

Speculative connections with literature

This is a list of the current and forthcoming commentaries in the Hermeneia series. For more series, see my post on commentary series

The Hermeneia series is noted especially for its comprehensive attention to parallels in other literature. This will almost invariably involve many speculative connections with literature not necessary for interpreting the biblical text and just amounts to distraction. A number of these commentaries are absolutely excellent and in fact the scholarly standards on their respective books (e.g. Psalms 51-100, Song of Songs, Amos, I Peter. Others are outdated or eccentric (most notably John and the earlier Bultmann I-III John), and such books might be better served by other commentaries.

It uses the original language and will be harder to read by those unschooled in Hebrew and Greek, but there is usually a translation of any non-English, which makes it much easier than some other series. Even though it's more detail than necessary in most cases, some of these volumes really are the best detailed exegesis of the book they cover, and I'll indicate some of those when I do the review of commentaries for each book. In most cases, scholars will need to refer to them, but expositors will not. The series is still very much in process in the Old Testament, with only one volume on the historical works in print, and that was just this year. The prophets and wisdom literature have much better coverage, and the NT is much further along. Non-canonical books also appear in this series.

One misleading element of the following lists is that many volumes are translations of German or French works, and the delay between the original and the Hermeneia translation is sometimes more than a decade. Some of these are much older than they seem to be from the date given, which is the date of its release in English translation in this series . Others were new works produced in English. Volumes out so far: Continue reading... - Jeremy at 09:30 AM Comments (2) TrackBack (0)

"Multiple readings” is intellectual shopping

Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It, by Thomas de Zengotita

One of the points of de Zengotita's book is that we live in a media-saturated age, to such an extent that it is almost impossible for people to have "unmediated" experiences anymore. In other words, we are shut off from the real, and are surrounded by images and messages directed toward us, which facilitates both narcissism and solipsism: "Everything is firing message modules, straight for your gonads, your taste buds, your vanities, your fears." This is such a sharp change from previous generations, that we have failed to appreciate its effect on consciousness, on our very being. One of the effects is that the media present us with so many options of how to be, that we become detached from who we are.

de Zengotita makes a direct connection between our postmodern, mediated selves and academia, noting that one can well understand “why destabilizing fixed categories and opening up multiple readings” is “all the rage at the university.” He calls it “intellectual shopping,” that is, “perpetually entertaining options among undecidables, exercising them provisionally, in accordance with a context and the needs of the moment.... One may lease, as it were, a reading, but one never buys, for interpretations are bound to multiply, and no definitive documentation, no historical condition or authorial intent, will ever secure a settled meaning and resolve the play of language--any more than the purpose of soap or shoes can restrain the way commodities are packaged and marketed as representations of something or other, or the way you construct yourself over time by choosing among all these options--soap, shoes, health practices, readings, relationships, careers, whatever.”

Of course, the purpose of adolescence used to be to sort through the various possibilities of identity, and to eventually settle on one. But now, it seems that people become permanent “adultolescents,” identifying with one’s options rather than a real identity.

The problem is, in the postmodern world, reality is “ironized,” so that people are too detached and reflexive to make a commitment to it. Everything is placed in quotes, so to speak, so that sophisticated people no longer speak of patriotism but “patriotism,” not truth but “truth,” not identity but “identity.” Beginning especially with the 60’s generation, all of these and other categories were thrown so radically into question, that now they are no longer seen as quite real. I don’t want to suggest that I was unaffected by this. For example, I’m quite sure it was one of the reasons why I waited until relatively late in life to have children--children represent one of our last connections to the real--they are simply “given” in the same way that primordial nature is, thereby sharply limiting one's options. Children--especially very young children who have not yet been corrupted by mediated images of themselves--simply are. Furthermore, once you are a parent, that is it. One experiences the same thing to a certain extent in getting married, because that too forecloses the limitless choices ahead of us. But nowadays, even marriage has been destabilized by the nagging thought that there is someone else, somewhere, some other choice, who will better complete the self. There are so many choices that we are affected by "buyer’s remorse" in every single area of our being--relationships, religion, career, truth. Everything can be different than it is, and we are existentially haunted by that fact.

The postmodernists are half right about language, truth, identity and being. It is true that, in the past, we were naive about the infinite nature of language and about the diverse possibilities inherent in human existence. Where the postmodernists go wrong is in using this fact to throw out the possibility of Truth--that some interpretations and identities are truer than others. In other words, while past generations may have prematurely foreclosed the world by insisting on one particular truth, postmodernists foreclose the possibility of transcendent Truth by insisting on absolutizing the relative. Ironically, this is why progressives make progress impossible, because progress is measured by its approximation to transcendent Truth. Instead, they give us only "progress." posted by Gagdad Bob at 8:30 AM 9 comments

Integrity and life are irreconcilable

On Baricco’s Homer Nick Tosches The New York Times: August 6, 2006

Now his “Iliad,” derived from the respected Italian translation of Maria Grazia Ciani (who receives no credit on the cover, title page or copyright page, but is acknowleged in “A Note on the Text”), recasts the song of Troy into a series of monologues by several of Homer’s characters.

In his introductory note, Baricco celebrates the “paradox” of translating a translation. “Borges would undoubtedly have been ecstatic,” he writes, as if certain that Borges would have found this work of interest, as if translations of translations were something new. (Arthur Hall’s “Ten Books of Homers Iliades,” published in 1581, was a translation of a French translation.) Why not inflate the chest even further and say that Homer himself would undoubtedly have been ecstatic?

Baricco’s preciosity detracts from his book’s modest pleasures. His note at the outset aggrandizes what follows, and his note at the end announces a movement for peace that “will succeed, sooner or later, in taking Achilles away from that fatal war.” But Achilles cannot be taken away from that fatal war. As Cedric H. Whitman, the most perceptive of Homeric scholars, wrote, the fate of Achilles, “death-devoted, already dead,” is to learn that “integrity and life are irreconcilable.” Baricco’s “Iliad” is not heroic. It is not much of anything. This is a shame: a waste of Baricco’s considerable gifts, a misrepresentation of something great. « Previous Page Nick Tosches is the author of the novel “In the Hand of Dante” and many other works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

SABDA – Distributors of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publications

Ilion An Epic in Quantitative Hexameters — Sri Aurobindo

Price: Rs 175 Hard Cover Pages: 148 Dimensions (in cms): 22x28 Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department, Pondicherry ISBN: 81-7058-169-9

Sri Aurobindo had admired the hexameter – the chosen vehicle of Homer, Virgil and other great Greek and Latin poets – since his school days in England. He began work on Ilion – an epic in quantitative hexameters – in 1909 when he was an undertrial prisoner in Alipur Jail. Depicting the events leading up to the fall of Troy, this epic centres around the conflict between the mighty Greek Achilles and the warrior-queen Penthesilea. A Deluxe edition with glossary of proper names and Greek and Latin terms.

Theater emphasized pedagogy, idealism and harmony

THE INFLUENCE OF THE ANCIENT GREEK WORDS ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
(This writing is published to demonstrate that one can write a sophisticated article by using exclusively words of Greek origin)

The genesis of classical drama was not symptomatic. Aneuphoria of charismatic and talented protagonists showed fantastic scenes of historic episodes. The prologue, the theme and the epilogue, comprised the trilogy of drama while synthesis, analysis and synopsis characterized the phraseology of the text. The syntax and phraseology used by scholars, academicians and philosophers in their rhetoric, had many grammatical idioms and idiosyncrasies.

The protagonists periodically used pseudonyms. Anonymity was a syndrome that characterized the theatrical atmosphere. The panoramic fantasy, the mystique, the melody, the aesthetics, the use of the cosmetic epithets are characteristics of drama. Eventhrough the theaters were physically gigantic, there was noneed for microphones because the architecture and the acoustics would echo isometrically and crystal - clear. Many epistomologists of physics, aerodynamics, acoustics, electronics, electromagnetics can not analyze - explain the ideal and isometric acoustics of Hellenic theaters even today.

There were many categories of drama: classical drama, melodrama, satiric, epic, comedy, etc. The syndrome of xenophobia or dyslexia was overcome by the pathos of the actors who practiced methodically and emphatically. Acrobatics were also euphoric. There was a plethora of anecdotal themes, with which the acrobats would electrify the ecstatic audience with scenes from mythical and historical episodes.

Some theatric episodes were characterized as scandalous and blasphemous. Pornography, bigamy, hemophilia, nymphomania, polyandry, polygamy and heterosexuality were dramatized in a pedagogical way so the mysticism about them would not cause phobia or anathema or taken as anomaly but through logic, dialogue and analysis skepticism and the pathetic or cryptic mystery behind them would be dispelled.

It is historically and chronologically proven that theater emphasized pedagogy, idealism and harmony. Paradoxically it also energized patriotism a phenomenon that symbolized ethnically character and phenomenal heroism.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU FROM OMOGENIA INTERNET Thank you DR John Karalas for writing such article, Thank you National Hellenic for posting it and thank you Mr. Theofanides from the Bank of Cyprus for searching and finding this article.

“Starless” has made me weep

07.29.2006 permalink Music We are often cursed with liking a piece of music which leaves our friends and lovers cold and underwhelmed. I've often thought that the song “Starless” off of King Crimson's Red album was a pinnacle of rock music. It is one of the few songs that I can listen to over and over and over…. “Starless” has often put me into that “eye of the hurricane” state that you access when listening to really intense music and usually leaves me breathless and wanting for more.

But we have the web which can be used to hunt down people who also like what we like. There's comfort in collective solipsism :-) I found the following two “reviews” by Stephanie Sollow and Eric Tamm respectively to be more than adequate validation for my beliefs regarding “Starless.”

Here's an excerpt from Stephanie Sollow: ”You are being wound tighter and tighter and the scale is being slowly climbed, higher and higher you go…and then off into another direction, though tighter still till we explode into a flurry of saxophone notes. We are now scattershot, pieces of the self here, there and everywhere - chaos ensues. Oh, this goes through so many different tempos and moods, I'm not really going to try visualize them all. But, my god, this is some damn terrific stuff. What was I thinking in not playing this often?”

And this one from Eric Tamm: ”“Starless” is more than all that, though: in my opinion it is simply the best composition King Crimson ever committed to record. It is also the only King Crimson piece that has ever made me weep - those tears that tend to issue out of a direct confrontation with what we feebly call “artistic greatness” but is really a portentous and rarely glimpsed secret locked away at the heart of human experience.” Access: Public Type: Blog Add Comment posted by Anand