Auroville Film Festival 2009 will feature 115 films

Other States - Puducherry

Auroville magic, mores through celluloid

Staff Reporter

94 films will be judged by three eminent personalities

— Photo: T. Singaravelou

Tinsel town air: Actor Revathy, who is one of the jury members at the Auroville Film Festival 2009, Puducherry, in conversation with Marco Feira, the organiser of the festival.

PUDUCHERRY: Over 100 enthusiastic people, mostly Aurovilians, sitting beneath the open skies, cheered loudly as the Auroville Film Festival 2009 was declared open.

The first edition of the film festival will feature 115 films under three categories – films made by Aurovilians and residents of the bioregion and films shot in Auroville by guests of Auroville, films made about Auroville, and films made by students of schools in Auroville.

The 94 films in the competition will be judged by three eminent personalities: actor-director Revathy, reporter and documentary filmmaker Gerard Perrier, and theatre person and journalist Gowri Ramnarayan.

“My association with Auroville has lasted over 20 years, and I’m happy to be a part of this festival,” said a smiling Revathy.

According to Marco Feira, the organiser of the festival who also runs Cinema Paradiso, the aim of the festival is to project a certain image of Auroville, and at the same time explore the perception that outsiders have about Auroville. The winning films will find a bigger platform when they are screened in big cities in India and abroad, he added.

“We live in an era of images, and our idea was to adopt an educational approach towards making films,” he explained.

In an attempt to realise this, Cinema Paradiso decided to conduct filmmaking workshops for participants aged eight and above, in the run-up to the festival. “This is when the award-winning French experimental filmmaker Saguenail arrived at Auroville, and became the cheese on the pasta,” quipped Mr. Feira. He went on to conduct workshops for 65 students over 10 days on all aspects of filmmaking, such as camera work, sound and editing. He also trained Aurovilians to conduct these workshops so that this tradition could continue for future editions of the biennial festival.

In all, three adult workshops and six school workshops were conducted, and most of the films made during the course of these workshops will be screened. The audience may also vote for three of the best films in their opinion.

The festival will be on until September 27, with films being screened daily at Bharat Nivas and MMC, Auroville.

Bhasha Research and Tribal Arts and Culture

National Consortium of Tribal Arts and Culture : : NCTAC
The National Consortium of Tribal Arts and Culture is funded by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India. It is a project that involves the ...

The National Consortium of Tribal Arts and Culture project was initiated by Bhasha Research and Publications Center and a selected team of experts. They have been constantly engaged in coordinating with the participating museums and in the work of digitization of research materials and the creation of the interactive display and project website.
Funding for the NCTAC has been provided by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India, a body responsible for planning, policy, formulation, and coordination of programmes relating to the development and welfare of Scheduled Tribes.
The Museum of Voice at the Adivasi Academy, Tejgadh, Gujarat has helped to develop the model for documentation of the objects and acquistion numbering.
All research content and data has been supplied by the staff of the Tribal Research Institutes and their Museums.
Each of these organizations has contributed their time and resources towards the development of the National Consortium of Tribal Arts and Culture.

The NCTAC hope to continue expanding in the coming years through the increased participaiton of private and government owned museums that house collections tribal art and culture.
We therefore invite all such institutions and private individuals to come forward and contribute towards this consortium.
We also look forward to hearing from individuals interested in contributing their time, experience and creativity to this project.
Please address all correspondence to:
The Project Co-ordinator, National Consortium of Tribal Arts and Culture C/o Bhasha Research and Publication Center 62 Shreenathdham Duplex Bh. Dinesh Mills, Akota Vadodara 390 007
Ph: 0265 2331968 Fax: 0265 2359059 Email: administrator@bhasharesearch.org.in

Film to chronicle not only the physical but also spiritual experiences of Sri Aurobindo

Other States - Puducherry The Hindu : Other States - Puducherry News : Filming of documentary on Sri Aurobindo begins
Monday, Aug 31, 2009 - Staff Reporter — Photo : T. Singaravelou

Minister of State for Planning, Parliamentary Affairs and Culture V. Narayanasamy at the launch of the documentary film in Puducherry on Sunday. Welfare Minister M. Kandasamy and writer Manoj Das are in the picture.

PUDUCHERRY: Union Minister of State for Planning, Parliamentary Affairs and Culture V. Narayanasamy on Sunday sounded the clapperboard for a documentary film on Sri Aurobindo. The film, directed by ‘Gunavathy Mainthan’ Ravi, will be released on April 4, 2010, marking the centenary of Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in Puducherry.
Mr. Narayanasamy said that little was known about Sri Aurobindo, the freedom fighter, and his life as a revolutionary. He expressed the hope that the film would throw more light on Sri Aurobindo’s political life such as his partnership with Bal Gangadhar Tilak and his stints as editor of nationalist magazines.
Welfare Minister M. Kandasamy was also present. Member of Legislative Assembly S.P. Sivakumar said that in commemoration of Sri Aurobindo’s arrival in Puducherry, a postal stamp would also be released .

Writer and professor of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre for Education Manoj Das said that the filmmaker had taken on a difficult task by attempting to chronicle not only the physical but also spiritual experiences of Sri Aurobindo.
Mr. Das wanted the first house Sri Aurobindo stayed in Puducherry to be declared a national monument. This was because it has great significance to the beginning of his spiritual journey.
Mr. Ravi, who has made 15 documentary films so far, said that the 60-minute docu-drama would depict Sri Aurobindo in all his avatars - freedom fighter, writer, intellectual and yogi. Produced by K.I. Manirathinem of Anugraha Cultural Akademi, it would be made in Tamil and English under the guidance of Mr. Das. Shooting would be held in Kolkata, Vadodara, Darjeeling and Puducherry over the next few months.

***

A tri-lingual documentary on Sri Aurobindo Asian Tribune
Tue, 2009-09-01 11:30 — By Gopal Ethiraj, Chennai
Puducherry, 01 September, (Asiantribune.com):

Noted documentary film-maker Gunavathy Maindan’s next documentary venture “Sri Aurobindo” was inaugurated by the Union Minister of State for Culture V.Narayanaswamy in Puducherry on Sunday.
The film is being made in commemoration with the centenary year of the coming of the Mahan Aurobindo to Puducherry (April 1910 to 2010). It is planned to shoot as a tri-lingual—Tamil, English and Hindi.
The one-hour documentary would be shot at Puducherry, Baroda, in Gujarat, Kolkatta and Darjeeling in West Bengal where the Indian Nationalist and freedom-fighter, writer, poet, philosopher and yogi had lived and worked.
Sri Aurobindo had his schooling and higher education (Cambridge) in England and returning to India, his mind flowed to what he had missed of his motherland—its culture, philosophy, literature and languages. What struck him more was the nationalism.
He joined the movement for India’s freedom from the British rule in 1905. The famous Alipore Bomb case in which he was implicated proved to be a turning point in his life.

He migrated to Puducherry in 1910, then under French regime, continued his freedom struggle, possibly under the garb of spiritualism. For him spiritualism and nationalism were same as Sanatana Dharma. While practicing both, spiritualism seemed to have overtaken him, with which he is known to the world. He was a contemporary of the nationalist poet Subramaniya Bharathi.
Puducherry stood to gain largely from his presence here for forty years, and also with his prime disciple the Divine Mother.

As the Union Minister sounded the clap-board and started the shooting of the film, the invited dignitaries hailed the writer-director Gunavathy Maindan, who has 14 documentaries to his credit. The speakers included Welfare Minister Kandaswamy, Prof. Dr. Manoj Das, Prof. Dr. Murali Sivaramakkrishnan, Dr. P. Raja, Dr. Ritanath Kesari, MLA S.P. Sivakumar, Dr. K.I. Manirathinem, Chairman, Navasaksti Township Developers and Journalist Gopal Ethiraj. - Asian Tribune

***

We all know that Sri Aurobindo's life was rich with events and involvements, voluntary or otherwise, that would fill up volumes of interesting biographies. But it is also known to all of us what he told one of his earliest would-be biographers – that there was nothing on the surface of his life which could justify writing a biography. Obviously what he thought to be the real purpose, works and achievements of his life were matters that remained beneath the surface.
But I realise that we cannot help writing about his life. I have not been able to restrain myself from doing it in a small way. Auroville Today > Current issue > Current issue > August 2009 “We cannot help writing about His life” – Manoj Das

Digital version of the French Salons or the Greek Agora

A cosmopolitan anthropology via The Memory Bank by keith on 9/10/09 Emergent world society is the new human universal – not an idea, but the fact of our shared occupation of the planet crying out for new principles of association... The task of building a global civil society for the twenty-first century, even a world state, is an urgent one and anthropological visions should play their part in that...

Anthropology does not sit well with the modern university. We retain the will to range freely across disciplinary boundaries; the humanism and democracy entailed in our methods contradict the bureaucratic imperatives of corporate privatization at every turn. Anthropology has always been an anti-discipline, a holding company for idiosyncratic individuals to do what they like and call it ‘anthropology’... The rapid development of global communications today contains within its movement a far-reaching transformation of world society.

The internet is a wonderful chance to open up the flow of knowledge and information. Rather than obsessing over how we can control access to what we write, which means cutting off the mass of humanity almost completely from our efforts, we need to figure out new interactive forms of engagement that span the globe and to make the results of our work available to everyone. Ever since the internet went public and the World Wide Web was invented, I have made online self-publishing and interaction the core of my anthropological practice. And recently I have stumbled into what may turn out to be the most powerful vehicle for this project yet: the Open Anthropology Cooperative.

It matters less that an academic guild should retain its monopoly of access to knowledge than that ‘anthropology’ should be taken up by a broad intellectual coalition for whom the realization of a new human universal – a world society fit for humanity as a whole — is a matter of urgent personal concern. Paper presented at the inaugural conference of the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies, University of St. Andrews, ‘A cosmopolitan anthropology?’, 15-16th September 2009 11:14 AM

Speculative Realism Wiki via Larval Subjects . by larvalsubjects on 9/7/09
Michael Austin of Complete Lies has cleaned up the Speculative Realism entry, substantially improving it... Given the important role that blogging has played in the SR movement, however, I do think more needs to be written for that section...

If SR has truly been the first philosophical movement that’s unfolded on the internet, it is important to reflect the vitality and breadth of this net presence and also avoid hierarchializing works published in journals and presses over research and theoretical elaborations that have been written in other mediums. The day is quickly approaching where the book and article are going to be significantly called into question or undergo a profound transformation in how they are produced and circulated. SR has been at the forefront of these shifts. The entry should also include links to these blogs.

SR has been, perhaps, the first philosophical movement to take new media seriously, given the claims that certain variants of SR make on behalf of objects, it is important not to treat one set of objects as being more real than others. One of the most attractive features of the SR movement is the manner in which it has been a “grass roots” movement that has circumvented traditional power structures presided over by the academy. That could, of course, mean that it is a movement dominated by a bunch of cranks– certainly few of us are at marquis institutions –but I prefer to think of it more as a contemporary, digital version of the French Salons or the Greek Agora.

Philosophy should not seek converts, but rather should aim at the proliferation of differences

Of Cranks and Olives from Larval Subjects . by larvalsubjects
Recent discussion surrounding trolls, minotaurs, gray vampires and the whole growing bestiary have gotten me thinking about a post I wrote my first year blogging entitled “In Praise of Irritation” later published in Reconstruction. [...]

The measure of a successful philosophy, in my view, is not whether or not it manages to earn converts. In this respect, the very thesis of the grey vampire as the subject that always seems just about ready to agree or endorse a position is deeply, in my view, mistaken. The true measure of a successful philosophy, I think, is whether or not it becomes a difference engine. As I understand it, a difference engine is an entity that is perpetually adept at producing differences. This is not an egalitarian, happy go lucky free for all. There will be antagonisms, conflicts, wars, and so on. But nonetheless differences are produced. The differences that a difference engine produces can be unexpected projects that a philosophy manages to spawn. I have been surprised as a somewhat militant atheist, for example, at the manner in which my onticology has been picked up and sent in very different directions by certain theologians. This is something that I would have never expected.

However, a difference engine is not simply the production of sympathetic projects. It is also to be found at the level of antagonistic projects. If a philosophy can generate antagonisms, alternative thoughts, opposing thoughts, and so on, it has been successful as a difference engine. This might be a painful admission or observation as none of us like existing in a state of warfare and conflict or witnessing our painstakingly developed thoughts trod upon. However, not only has a philosophy made a contribution to the symbolic world in functioning as a stimulus of creating antagonisms and therefore shifting the frame of discourse, but also I think philosophies benefit self-reflexively from the others or the antonyms they generate insofar as they’re forced to generate new concepts, lines of argument, and applications.

In this regard, I cannot agree with the sortal of “grey vampires”, no matter how much I sympathize with and admire those who are formulating it. In my view, the evangelical model of philosophy is a monstrosity. Philosophy should not seek converts, but rather should aim at the proliferation of differences. The difficult issue is how to distinguish between the verb of trollery where the aim is to shut down any and all discourse through shouting and wearing guns on ones hip, and the verb of grey vampirism where it is possible to produce some productive differences.

However, in this medium, in this strange universe of the blogosphere, I think it is above all important to remember that from the perspective of the academy, we’re all cranks, trolls, and gray vampires despite any philosophical and theoretical difference we might have. Our very mode of engagement, from an institutional perspective, is illegitimate and lacking in seriousness or productivity. We are cranks, trolls, strange new minotaurs of an electronic world. There is no division here. We’re all selected in one and exactly the same way. The real question is not whether these judgments are true, but whether or not we identify with those who make those judgments.

Further, it should never be forgotten that those of us who have attained some success in this medium are outsiders and marginalized figures in an entire institutionalized setting. They are folks who got sick of submitting materials to shriveled and tired dusty figures functioning as the real minotaurs at the gates of journals, conferences, and presses, submitting their work to a scrutiny by these minotaurs to decide whether or not they were worthy of their gate (to be read as worthy of being submitted to their university discourse or established habitus), and who preferred to accept their minor, marginalized status and do what they really wanted to do anyway: think, invent, and talk to other interesting cranks.

The real test is whether or not one identifies with those minotaurs guarding the gate [...] Sometimes its better simply to collect sea glass and talk about turtles and mothmen. Although we have quasi-minotaurs that appear here in the blogosphere, that’s not where the real minotaurs are to be found.

Mukherjee's mâ tujhé bulâtî hai sung in Paris

from Prithwin Mukherjee prithwin.mukherjee@gmail.com to "Tusar N. Mohapatra" tusarnmohapatra@gmail.com date 15 Aug 2009 19:13 subject Darshan Day
Bhâi Tusar,

The Ambassador, H.E. Ranjan Mathai had informed me last month about a possibility of programming my patriotic song mâ tujhé bulâtî hai for 15 August ceremony. Yesterday evening my musician friend Bittoo Banger confirmed that he has been invited by the Ambassador to sing it this morning after flag hoisting, janaganamana and the President's message : he had forgotten to intimate me!

It has been a grand success: everybody seems to have caught the spirit behind the composition. I had composed it fifty years ago, as a protest against Chinese aggression, and our Ashram choir had interpreted it ardently. The senior poetesse Vidyavati 'Kokil' was so happy with it that she sent a copy of the words to Sumitranandan Pant-ji. Recently I have worked electronically on the orchestra accompaniment.

Wish you all the best.
Prithwindra

Philosophy in its purest form, its most productive form, is 'blogosophy'

Maverick Philosopher: In Praise of Blogosophy
by Bill Vallicella Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Philosophy is primarily an activity, not a body of doctrine. If you were to think of it as a body of doctrine, then you would have to say there is no philosophy, but only philosophies. For there is no one universally recognized body of doctrine called philosophy. The truth of course is one not many. And that is what the philosopher aims at: the one ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, including the ultimate truth about how we ought to live. But aiming at a target and hitting it are two different things. The target is one, but our many arrows have fallen short and in different places. And if you think that your favorite philosopher has hit the target of truth, why can't you convince the rest of us of that?

Disagreement does not of course prove the nonexistence of truth, but it does cast reasonable doubt on all claims to its possession. Philosophy aspires to sound, indeed incontrovertible, doctrine. But the quest for it has proven tough indeed. For all we know it may lie beyond our powers. Not that this gives us reason to abandon the quest. But it does give us reason to be modest and undogmatic.

Philosophy, then, is primarily an activity, a search, a quest. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant remarks that "Philosophy cannot be taught, we can at most learn to philosophize." I agree. It cannot be taught because it does not exist as teachable doctrine. Philosophy is not something we profess, except perhaps secondarily; it is something we do. The best professors of philosophy are doers of philosophy.

How then should we do philosophy? Conversation face-to-face with the like-minded, intelligent, and sincere is useful but ephemeral and hard to arrange. Jetting off to conferences can be fun especially if the venue is exotic and the tab is picked up your department. But reading papers at conferences is pretty much a waste of time when it comes to actually doing productive philosophy. Can you follow a technical paper simply by listening to it? If you can you're smarter than me.

So we ought to consider the idea that philosophy in its purest form, its most productive form, is 'blogosophy,' philosophy pursued by weblog. And there is this in favor of it: blogging takes pressure off the journals. Working out my half-baked ideas here, I am less likely to submit material that is not yet ready for embalming in printer's ink. Posted at 09:32 AM in Blogging, Metaphilosophy Permalink

Philosophy, then, is primarily an activity, a search, a quest.

Independent philosopher Jeff Meyerhoff has a paper titled "Arguments beyond reason", where he says:

"It's commonly thought that once the participants in a rational discussion have exhausted all rational means of coming to agreement there is nothing more to do except to agree to disagree. By following a line of thought justified by current outcomes in contemporary analytic philosophy, I argue that there is a further investigation that rational discussants can pursue which is called for because our deeply held beliefs are held for non-rational rather than rational reasons. I further argue that this exploration into the basis of belief — rather than the belief itself — does, contrary to the genetic fallacy, affect truth and objectivity. While distasteful for most intellectuals to contemplate, the basis of individual beliefs in personal psychologies makes necessary the individual and joint exploration of the irrational"

One of the arguments used by Meyerhoff (to support his position) is:

"If we examine our reasons for believing what we believe beyond the reason-giving we do to defend our beliefs we find the animating core which motivates us to have the beliefs that we have and deploy the reasons that we do. The reasons we give for believing as we do are not the real reasons we believe because they always ultimately end in circularity, regress or assumptions.[6] Since all belief-systems if pursued far enough will end in circularity, regress or assumptions we cannot say that reasons are what ultimately cause us to believe. There must be something else which causes us to adopt our particular chain of reasons or web of beliefs. Since in terms of their ultimate rational foundation our belief system is as good as an opposed belief-system, there must be something else which causes us to choose, and which holds us to, our particular belief-system. What is characteristic of us is not only the combination of beliefs we have woven together, since everyone does that with greater or lesser originality, but why we adhere to this, rather than that, belief-system. In our rational discussions there is a way in which we completely miss the point since it is not the reasons we are deploying that cause us to believe. If we are trying to convince another person or challenge our own beliefs then we should, for more efficiency, go to the source of the belief, which is the emotional and psychic need to have the world be the way we believe it is" http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_article_96.html

As far I disagree with some of Meyerhoff's ideas, I think he's right about the "non-rational" motives of beliefs (including, philosophical beliefs). His thesis explain why highly brillant philosophers, discussing about the same problem, can't get a rational agreetment about it, according to the truth and the best arguments for it. But it rarely ocurrs.

Meyerhooff's thesis also explain David Lewis' assertion "philosophical theories are never refuted conclusively". The reason is that one position considered "decisively refuted" by many (e.g. substance dualism), isn't considered refuted by others (like Bill Vallicella, Edward Feser or a non-professional philosopher like me). Are we more rational, wise, intelligent or informed than the others anti-dualistic philosphers? It could be the case or not, but I doubt it's the core of the problem.

Given that refutation is a technical concept in logic, we'd expect that rational philosophers be agree when a thesis is "refuted conclusively" or not. But even in that simple logical question they disagree! (suporting partially, again, Meyerhoff's thesis)

Meyerhoff's thesis, pushed it consistently throught its ultimate implications, could imply relativism. But even relativism isn't "conclusively refuted"; in fact, there is contemporary defenses of it in analytic philosophy. One of them can be seen here:
http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articles/relativism.html

For the record: I'm a firm believer in realism, I believe in objective truth, I support substance dualism and I think positions like eliminativism (and other forms of materialism) are probably false. However, I'm not 100% sure that my reasons to believe in them are totally due (only) to rational motives, and these doubts tend to get stronger when I see informed professional philosophers (wiser than me) defend views that (in my opinion) are completely absurd or ridiculous. Posted by: Jime Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 02:47 PM

Technically it's impressive, but morally it's a horror

Swans Commentary » swans.com January 26, 2009
The Poverty Of Slumdog Millionaire
by Jeff Meyerhoff Film Review (Swans - January 26, 2009)

The beloved new movie "Slumdog Millionaire," directed by Danny Boyle, exploits the poverty of India's orphans to tell a fanciful love story. Technically it's impressive, but morally it's a horror. The movie uses the devastatingly horrible life of Indian street orphans to tell what is essentially an escapist love adventure and preposterous rags-to-riches story, complete with a hero who rescues a fair maiden from a castle where she's being held by an evil mobster/monster. The audience forgets the horrors he and the other orphaned children endure because they're all redeemed by our hero becoming rich and getting the girl of his dreams.

The exploited experiences linger as the movie induces us to forget about them and move on with the story. There's the hero's brother who's been put in charge of a crew of abandoned orphan-beggars. He threatens a little girl that he'll drop a screaming baby on the ground if the girl doesn't hold the baby and keep her screaming to get more handouts on the street. At first, the girl refuses and the audience gets to experience the nightmarish prospect of this parentless, crying baby being dropped on the ground, but then, reluctantly, she agrees to hold the baby. The scene ends and the audience is guided back to the flowering love story.

In another scene, a little boy is intentionally blinded by the mobster who pimps the pack of orphaned beggar children. Years later, we encounter the blind boy again, older, but fated to stand in the subway singing for handouts, his useless eyes crossing every which way. He cheerily tells our hero a fact that comes in handy later in the movie and so, having served his purpose, can be forgotten too.

The audience is traumatized with these and other horrors, any one of which should have been the subject of a movie but here usefully serve as the horrible contrast that makes the hero's fanciful victory satisfying.

We'll allow ourselves to be exposed to Conradian horrors such as these, as long as we feel entertained and we get full redemption in the end. It's much like the TV show "Animal Rescue 911" on Animal Planet Channel. Abused animals are found and then saved. The audience is terrorized and then relieved. What's hidden is the reality of all the suffering animals that don't get saved and die horrible deaths we couldn't bear to imagine and would never agree to watch. "Slumdog Millionaire" gives us a glimpse of "the horror" to further its story and then induces us to forget. Review of Slumdog Millionaire from philosophy autobiography by Jeff Meyerhoff

Injustices and abuses that arise in anarchy are left off-stage, or, at best, used as stage-dressing and color

Keith M Ellis Says: August 8th, 2009 at 10:10 am Another way of looking at libertarianism is to see it as classic liberalism’s evil twin.

Keith M Ellis Says: August 8th, 2009 at 11:26 am
This is part of why I said it’s not just a product of the Western US, but also that it’s a product of the Western as a film genre. It’s a fable, a myth, and quite a ways removed from reality. It’s what Americans like to believe about themselves, as exemplified by the Western, and now rationalized into a political philosophy. It egregiously ignores the role that government played in making the settling of the West possible and prosperous and ignores all the ways in which lack of governance allowed horrible exploitation and ruthless monopolies.

I watched Rio Bravo the other night and I think it’s an interesting example in both how it exemplifies a typical exception to this rule and how both the Western and libertarianism square that circle. There is, occasionally, a large landowner (typically a rancher) who is ruthlessly greedy and corrupt. The character of “Nathan Burdette” plays that role as antagonist in Rio Bravo.

But notice that the film mostly elides the government’s role in controlling Burdette and bringing him to justice: John Wayne’s character, Sheriff John T. Change acts on his own (deputizing locals as necessary!) to uphold the law in the town—the courageous individual, the David facing Goliath. It would all be for naught weren’t for the Federal Marshal coming to pick up his prisoners, but we never see this. The entire situation is portrayed as a wholly local phenomena that is resolved locally. But, of course, a great many aspects of it aren’t local and involve government.

Even when one looks at something as ostensibly realist and cynical as the recent TV series, Deadwood, most of the injustices and abuses that arise in anarchy are left off-stage, or, at best, used as stage-dressing and color. Swearengen is a sort of robber-baron, but he’s a sympathetic robber-baron who is, in his own way, contributing to the greater good. What we don’t see is anything beyond the merest glimpses of life among the Chinese. Or, for that matter, the prostitutes. Indeed, even in Deadwood, there’s a lot of hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold mythology that is the essence of the traditional Western tavern girl. And, above all, the show teems with the energy of individualistic desire to build and improve. And this is among the very few most cynical examples of the Western genre, ever!

This careful blindness is precisely mimicked in libertarian philosophy. The poor, ruthlessly exploited by the greedy monopolistic rich, are either off-stage or delivered from their oppression by a brave individual acting on his own moral authority. Good will triumph! It’s a matter of faith and a very selectively blind worldview. 12:24 PM

Human unity through Hui Ward’s music

Home > Andrea Guy, Reviews > SATCHITANANDA” and “SAT (EXISTENCE)
SATCHITANANDA” and “SAT (EXISTENCE) August 7th, 2009

Hui Ward takes us to a new level of consciousness with both music and spoken word with the albums Satchitnanda and Sat (existence). Perhaps to fully appreciate the beauty of this recording would be to understand the journey that Hui Ward took to create this beautiful work. This journey led here to Auroville where she discovered Matrimandir, which is a city that was created by Sri Aurobindo Ashram that is “a universal town where men and women are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.”

The soundscapes of Satchitananda correspond to the levels of consciousness that are embodied in the design of the 12 gardens in Auroville. Does that sound too hard to comprehend? Perhaps so, but you can achieve human unity through music, and Hui Ward’s music on these two albums should inspire you to explore that higher level of consciousness that has fascinated many over the years.

The three twelve minute soundscapes on Satchitananda are Existence, Consciousness and Bliss and the other three on Sat (Existence) are Light, Life and Power, fittingly those are the first six of the twelve gardens. Its very easy to lose yourself in the music, so beautiful are the sounds of the violin and bansuri and Hui’s voice that is often like Bjork’s but with less of an edge that sometimes make’s the later difficult to listen to for long periods of time.

The spoken word portions of both discs may alienate the listener, especially if they are of the casual variety and not quite open to understanding Hui’s journey and how she’s sharing it. If you fall into that category, step back and listen to the music a few times. Let the bansuri take your spirit in its flight, as it seems to be like the instrumental equivalent of a bird, singing its sweet song for all to hear. Listen to Hui’s voice and let it fill your mind. That’s what the music should do. Fill your mind and your soul. Listen to the six musical tracks in a row and I guarantee that your outlook will be much improved, your body more relaxed and your mind more open.

Its likely that not all of the listeners will be able to achieve the human unity that Hui is trying to create with her Om Creation series, but certainly everyone that gives these two discs a listen will take away with them a better understanding of one person and her music. The mixture of Northern and Southern Indian music is very pleasing to the ear and when combined with the vocal is a unique listening experience that one should savor.

Again these albums aren’t for just anyone, but if you seek to find even just a small piece of enlightenment, these albums are as good a place as any to start. The music is ethereal, soothing and uplifting. Truly a delight to the ears and possibly a path to paradise even if you can only stay there as long as the album plays. Reviewed By Andrea Guy http://community.livejournal.com/mossip/

The poems are certain to initiate empathy and déjà vu

‘Silent Horizons’ is the debut collection of poems of Parthajeet Das which has all the shades of his age captured beautifully in words. The two aptly named sections of the book, 'Restless Pilgrim' and 'Still Restless' mark the transition of the author not only in terms of poetic style and form but also in maturity of thought and expression. But, as the names suggest, the fundamental driver for the author remains the same - an irrepressible restlessness.

The restlessness arises from the author's experiences, his inability to answer the questions that gape at his face and also from not so successful attempts to elicit answers. The author in the space of the poems swings from being the inquisitive teenager to the wise old man and to the restless young man that he is. The poems are certain to initiate empathy and déjà vu among readers. The author experiments with form and expression but all the poems are marked with lyricism and internal rhythm and make a delightful reading experience.

Labels allusion (8) first draft (1) Kabir (6) micro-fiction/Stories (8) Poems (34) random (2) sustainability (2) Travel/Experience (15)

Science, Culture and Integral Yoga on the mountaintop

[Science, Culture and Integral Yoga Re: Yoga, religion, and fundamentalism in the Integral Yoga Community by Lynda Lester
by Debashish on Sun 30 Nov 2008 03:42 AM PST Profile Permanent Link
Dear Ned, Let me speak for myself. "Inadequacies and flaws" are a given in what is known as "the human condition" and I cannot claim any other kind of condition for myself. But that said, I am not making any claim to stand for "truth" or against "falsehood." What I am standing for here is simply the right of ignorance to struggle for and discover knowledge. What I am standing against are knowledge-claims which try to force themselves on the world... Indeed, this is a judgment call, and I cannot speak for anyone else, only myself. From my sense of the stakes involved in this case, at this time and place, I feel called upon to take this stand. Our growth from "inadequacies and flaws" are not the better achieved on the mountaintop; it is through action that we must grow. (I know Koantum may say it is equally achieved on the mountaintop and I will not argue with that; for me, at least, it is "not better achieved" on the mountaintop). Reply]

[A Chronology of Modern Indian Art and Thematic Considerations By Debashish Banerji
by Debashish on Tue 10 Mar 2009 10:25 PM PDT Permanent Link (Click this link to see the Contours of Modernity Picture Gallery) Science, Culture and Integral Yoga
The regime of modernity in India can be said to begin from the turn of the 17th/18th c. with the setting up of trading interests in Calcutta by the British East India Company. The British occupation of India swiftly replaced the indigenous miniature schools with naturalistic Company Painting and institutional forms such as art salons and art schools generated a new breed of Indian elite painters who turned to oils and water colors in a British style, though often with Indian subjects from myth, portraiture or landscape... Rameshwar Broota, on the other hand, distills a bleak essence of the human condition with his hirsute ape-like monumental forms standing blankly in dark landscapes. An unrelieved monotony and stark animality seem like unbreakable chains invisibly tied to this form of self, which is less national or individual than the global anonymous image of dehumanized modernity... While spirituality in the Indian context is justifiably seen by many as a trite buzzword or an essentialized form of cultural economy prioritized by Orientalists and used as a convenient device of modern self-labeling by nationalists, spiritual practices continue to proliferate in a variety of ways throughout the subcontinent and the quest for the liberation of consciousness from every form of subjection continues to be an individual possibility not merely for Indians but as an active discursive field available to the world. Contemporary Indian artists, while they have been wary of exotic or romantic definitions of Indian spirituality, have not kept themselves incubated from the expression of specific ideas, practices and experiences emanating from yogic traditions.]

[Here, he is saying (as per the reviewer since I have not read the book) that Science should make its "pure" seeking for Knowledge subservient to the human condition of suffering. Of course, Science, though it claims its "purity" and "freedom" from social concerns is already tainted by much worse than what the Dalai Lama is calling for, as has been brought home by contemporary philosopher-critics of the Enlightenment. More specifically, Science form the beginning obeys a hidden subservience to the purposes of Power - control, manipulation and exploitation for the possession and enjoyment of the object of scientific attention through Technology. If this is recognized, then "Science" should not find it difficult to uplift is subjection from the "rajasic" or "asuric" to the "sattwic" and "daivic" subservience that the Dalai Lama is suggesting. However, the dialog on compassion is an attempt to translate to a different cultural field the nomos of the Indic field of Knowledge. Here, Knowledge is subservient to the specific practical goal of an ontological transformation which answers to a proposed solution to the human condition. A field of modern subjetive Science can avoid the hubris and lack of the totalistic nomos of western objective Science by founding itself on these practical and dialogic bases. DB Re: "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality" by the Dalai Lama Science, Culture and Integral Yoga
by Debashish on Sat 18 Nov 2006 04:22 PM PST Profile Permanent Link Reply]

[It's interesting though, that in the genre of portrait painting, I have yet to come across a "subjective" interpretation of Sri Aurobindo or the Mother. It seems here that the closer to reality the painting, the truer to the "divine image." But then, if this "reality" betrays any "physiological blemishes", it is not considered satisfying. If there is anything to these cultural histories of taste, then we have to ask the question as to whether these are unchanging essences and "never the twain shall meet" or whether they can be related or even synthesized? And if the second is possible, is there only one way to relate and synthesize them or many? Contemporary western art practice also grapples with issues of this kind. The mid-19th c. saw a wholesale rejection of "naturalism" in art in favor of "subjectivism." But contemporary practice has come to assert that the "naturalistic" or "illusionistic" is no less subjective than the "expressionistic." The photographic signifier hides and discloses the subjective signified. Our practices of reading have tuned to an objective-subjective taste as a result. This indeed is one kind of synthesis and I find the Lives of Sri Aurobindo very successful in this regard. I find no lack of "spiritual look" in it, just another kind of representation which bridges the eastern and western tropes in one way. Perhaps our friends with the so-called "Indian look" can try to do the same in their own way, instead of this sad rejection and aggressive hostility? DB Re: Corrections to textual excerpts of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs Science, Culture and Integral Yoga
by Debashish on Thu 16 Oct 2008 09:24 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link Reply]

Riccardo Carlotto began his musical studies at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education

Violin-piano concert at Alliance Times of India - New Delhi, India TNN 27 July 2009 BANGALORE:

Bangalore School of Music (BSM) will present a concert featuring Ladislav Brozman (Switzerland) on violin and Riccardo Carlotto (Italy) on piano, on Juy 31, 7.30 pm, at Alliance Francaise in Vasanthnagar. The popular duo is part of the BSM's East West Festival of 2008.

Brozman, born in the former Czechoslovakia, started playing violin at the age of 7. His repertory comprises all the sonatas, solo sonatas and concertos by Bach and Vivaldi, besides violin works by Mozart, Beethoven, Tartini, Brahms, Saint Sakns, Debussy, Ravel and Prokofjeff. In 2002 he toured India and Europe with Swiss piano virtuoso Christina Zulauf.

Carlotto, born in Italy, began his musical studies on the recorder and piano at an early age at Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry. He continued his studies of music in Spain, from 1989-1991, before studying at the Vienna University.

Blogging is genuinely a new form of writing, thinking, and intellectual engagement

Thursday, July 23, 2009 Interview with Levi R. Bryant
Today we interview Levi R. Bryant, author of Difference and Givenness: Deleuze’s Transcendental Empiricism and the Ontology of Immanence and co-editor (along with Graham Harman and Nick Srnicek) of the forthcoming The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism. Many of you will also know Levi from his excellent blog Larval Subjects.

However, it could be said that the more recent shifts in my thought have very much been a product of my experience with blogging. Blogging is genuinely a new form of writing, thinking, and intellectual engagement when done properly. This point and blogging’s difference can be illustrated in terms of evolutionary theory.

One of the primary ways in which speciation takes place is through geographical isolation. Two populations of a single species come to be reproductively isolated for some reason or other and as time passes their phenotypes diverge and the respective populations become homogenous. It is really no different in traditional academia. You talk to people who share the same interests as you, you attend conferences devoted to your particular issue or thinker, you publish in journals devoted to your privileged thinker, and you read texts on your privileged thinker or problem. These are all forms of geographical isolation that lead to “academic speciations”.

This sort of isolation isn’t operative in the world of blogging. While you certainly encounter specialists in your particular area, you also encounter thinkers from entirely different disciplines, practices, and orientations and you have to find a way to engage with them that doesn’t assume the daunting scholarly apparatus of your particular thought-framework. You encounter all sorts of characters like satirists and trolls, but also housewives, people in business, activists, artists, politicians and all the rest... Posted by Paul Ennis. Labels: Interview, levi r. bryant, phenomenology, philosophy, speculative realism

Larval Subjects July 28, 2009 Design Ontology Posted by larvalsubjects

My philosophical thought has changed fundamentally since I began blogging, as can be observed from the nature of my style when I wrote primarily on online discussion lists and in the early years of this blog. Part of this has been the evolution of my thought. Another part of this has been the nature of the medium itself. Discussion lists, for example, are organized around “master-thinkers”, so they tend towards scholarly discussion of the intricacies of that thinker or questions about where something might be found in the thinkers body of work.

Writing articles for journals tends to be a largely solitary exercise that involves careful engagement with scholarship and composition. Blogging, by contrast, involves a cacophony of voices, each with their own interests and backgrounds, hyperlinked cross-blog discussions, multiple forms of media, and so on. The medium in all these cases plays a formative role in the formation of content. [1:31 PM]

Jul 21, 2009 (title unknown) from enowning by enowning Critchley, B&T, week 7. The inauthenticity of blogging.

for Heidegger, inauthentic life is characterised by chatter – for example, the ever-ambiguous hubbub of the blogosphere. Conscience calls Dasein back from this chatter silently. It has the character of what Heidegger calls "reticence" (Verschwiegenheit), which is the privileged mode of language in Heidegger. So, the call of conscience is a silent call that silences the chatter of the world and brings me back to myself. [6:04 PM]

Francis Rothluebber moderated a panel highlighting the power of unity in action as experienced in the city of Auroville

City of the Dawn, Auroville, India - Awareness of Oneness: Seeing the Power of Unity in Action
By Noreen Kelly July 1, 2009
“The New World is not only a possibility ~ it’s happening”

City of the Dawn is a remarkable documentary about a modern, universal city with 2,000 people from 40 nations who have developed innovative and inclusive solutions in every aspect of human social life: caring relationships, participative government, arts and education, architecture and building materials, complementary medicine, reforestation, and sustainable industries. The city of Auroville in Southern India provides a demonstration of what is possible when people attempt to live together in a community beyond the boundaries of nation, religion, and race that separate us. Their experience raises questions about what can be accomplished on a broader scale when awareness of oneness drives our actions.

The film premiered at the Awareness into Action: The Power of Living as One conference, held on June 27, 2009, in Chicago, IL. “City of the Dawn” started with the desire of Francis Rothluebber to create a documentary about Auroville to demonstrate the power of conscious unity. Francis was formerly the director of Columbiere Retreat Center in Idyllwild, CA; president of the School Sisters of St. Francis, an international Franciscan community of more than 1,050 sisters and associates headquartered in Milwaukee, WI; and teacher and principal of Alvernia High School in Chicago. She was inspired to learn more about Auroville after reading the works of Sri Aurobindo on evolutionary spirituality and visiting the ashram of Mother Mirra Alfassa, who founded Auroville.

After the film showing, Francis Rothluebber moderated a panel highlighting the power of unity in action as experienced in the city of Auroville. The panel included current and former residents from Aurorville who share the challenges and accomplishments of living in conscious awareness of oneness as a community. Panelists included Jean-Yves Lung, Economist; Bhavana Dee DeCew, Community Organizer; Deepti Tewari, Educator; Julian Lines, Chair, Auroville International; and Bryan Walton, President, Auroville International USA and his wife Fanou.
Life in the city of Auroville:
- The Art of Giving (Gift Economy)
- No money
- No Police/Laws
- No dogma
- Unity first
- Your life is a school; we’re here to learn
- Perspectives, not ideologies
- Work for the joy of discovering new activities
- Free education
- Meaningful life
- Develop a deeper sense of seeing
- Go within
- The less I know, the more sure I am
- We come from a single consciousness
- Getting along; learning how to listen
- Change things by the power of the inner Spirit
- Hurrying … less time to Be
- Knowing is Being
- Be a willing servitude of Divine Consciousness
_________________
New Momentum for Human Unity
Francis Rothluebber organized New Momentum for Human Unity, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization in 2006. Its mission is to create a better life on and for this planet through the evolution of human consciousness and the transformation of human relationships, by encouraging mindfulness of our interconnection and by the power of selfless love. Through programs and projects that offer tools and resources, New Momentum intends to help people create the inner shifts - the changes in perspective and motive - that lead to changes in the world that will become evident in renewed and improved relationships with each other and the environment.

Haunting parable of love and destiny

The Circle of Fate (Hardcover) by Raja Mohanty (Author), Sirish Rao (Author), Radhashyam Raut (Author) Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Above the peaks of the Himalaya, Garuda, the divine eagle of the god Vishnu, sees the Lord of Death hastening toward an exquisitely beautiful little bird. He decides to save it and hides it away-but can death be cheated?
This haunting parable of love and destiny is illustrated in the delicate and ornamental Patachitra tradition of Orissa, eastern India.

Radhashyam Raut is a young painter, trained in the traditional art of Patachitra mural paintings of Orissa, where he lives and works.

About the Author: Raja Mohanty has written and illustrated ten books, many of them made by his own hand from adaptations of Chekhov stories to 'silly tales' for children. He teaches courses in design and visual arts at the Industrial Design Centre of Mumbai's IIT, and is involved in several projects on Indian art and cultural traditions. [Prof. Raja Mohanty]

Blemished Revised Edition of Savitri

An hour comes when fail all Nature's means—an Editorial Issue
by RY Deshpande on Thu 16 Jul 2009 02:17 AM IST Permanent Link Cosmos

In many places Sri Aurobindo scans ‘inspires’ or ‘desires’ with three syllables, trisyllabic though generally they are disyllabic; so too could be taken ‘hour’ as ‘ho/ ur’. As far as rhythm is concerned, it is a matter of one’s taste and association, one’s predilections also; nor can there be any strict formula everywhere for the same poet; it could depend upon the situation. Then, while in the ‘arrival’-line there is a strong ‘r’-alliterative effect, in the ‘comes’-line the additional ‘m’-alliteration brings a kind of self-closing poetic result. Nor is this line that kind of a mantra in which nothing can be changed, the exact word in the exact position. There is neither the inevitability of ‘arrives’ nor of ‘comes’.

And yet there is a problem... One way of looking at the situation, as vehemently suggested by the upholders of the ‘arrives’, the editors of the blemished Revised Edition, is as follows. [...]

We have argued about some of these aspects in Editing Savitri—a Brief Discussion but a more detailed look into it is essential. This can happen only if there is access to the archival documents. Until then one can only point out uncertainties in the revised text and leave the matters at that. Savitri: the Light of the Supreme Recent Articles
An hour comes when fail all Nature's means—an Editorial Issue
An hour comes when fail all Nature's means—and there is the help
An hour comes when fail all Nature's means
Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate—arrival of the fated day
Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate—a story written long ago
Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate—a Query
Twelve passionate months led in a day of fate
The Issue—a Synoptic Rendering
The Issue—Related Letters from Sri Aurobindo
The Issue—as summarised by AB Purani
The Issue—Complete with Paraphrased Text and the Mother’s Explanation
The Issue—Paraphrased Text and the Mother’s Explanation [5]
The Issue—Paraphrased Text and the Mother’s Explanation [4]
The Issue—Paraphrased Text and the Mother’s Explanation [3]
The Issue—Paraphrased Text and the Mother’s Explanation [2]
Recent Comments
Re: The rushing of soul and oversoul into each other by RY Deshpande
Re: Re: Re: Typal being born as Human being by RY Deshpande
Re: Re: Typal being born as Human being by RY Deshpande
Re: Typal being born as Human being by auroman
Re: Sessions with Savitri—Open Page: July 2009 by Navneet Kukreja
Re: Sessions with Savitri—Open Page: July 2009 by auroman
Re: Sessions with Savitri—Open Page: July 2009 by narendra
Re: Sessions with Savitri—Open Page: July 2009 by RY Deshpande
Re: Sessions with Savitri—Open Page: July 2009 by auroman
Re: Sessions with Savitri—Open Page: July 2009 by RY Deshpande

***

The Melodrama of Difference (Or, The Revenge of the Colonized) by Jean Baudrillard Debashish Wed 15 Jul 2009 03:29 PM PDT

What I have scrupulously avoided and consider as illegitimate in the many commentators who continue to do it, is a flattening of the mystery of the Unknowable by "explaining" it. This is more so the case with Sri Aurobindo than anyone else. Meditations are meant to be meditated on. Poetic writing is an engagement with the Other and bears the sensible imprint of the Other. This is what makes it speak in so many tongues to so many people and not exhaust itself.

Baudrillard's piece here is perfectly coherent once one catches the Idea behind it. In detail it may take some time to unravel, but that's what staying with a text is about. Just as Shiva destroyed the three worlds with one arrow, Baudrillard's text achieves its powerful ramifications with one Idea which yet retains its silence. DB Re: The Melodrama of Difference Debashish

Sri Aurobindo deserves more attention than he has managed so far

#1 Tusar N. Mohapatra URL July 25, 2007 12:32 AM

Sri Aurobindo is excluded from the author's list of recommendations. His Savitri is a marvel. [Savitri Era Learning Forum: The Life Divine should sometimes also ...]

#2 Vivek URL July 25, 2007 03:10 AM

Aurobindo does not find mention because as a poet he is quite an unknown entity; perhaps he deserves more attention than he has managed so far, but fact of the matter is that the poets I mentioned here are not only the most celebrated authors in their languages, in most cases they are the most influential thinkers, writers, poets of their age and their appeal is universal.

I should have included Valmiki, Ved Vyas, Ovid, and some Chinese poets as well as poets from many other languages.

Vivek Sharma is a Pushcart nominated poet, an engineer with a PhD, a career scientist and an Indian-American writer. His work is published or forthcoming in Poetry, Atlanta Review, The Cortland Review, Kartika Review, Bateau, etc. He contributes columns and verses to Divya Himachal (Hindi newspaper in India) and his research is published in science journals. Vivek spend his childhood in Himachal Pradesh, undergraduate days in IIT Delhi, doctoral days in & around Georgia Tech, Atlanta and is currently a postdoctoral research associate in Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (MA). Vivek's first collection, "Saga of a Crumpled Piece of Paper" (63 poems, English) will be published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta in 2009.

Savitri is much more than a great poem

Sri Aurobindo's poetry and Rod's commentary

I want to thank very sincerely Robert for transcribing Rod's lectures. I am so glad that i got to read them, as in this case i find i can "get it" better through reading (and reciting the poetry outloud of course), than i could at the lectures themselves.

The introduction to English poetry and Sri Aurobindo's approach to it, filled in a big gap in my education. But more important than that was the fresh and intense perception, and reconfirmation, that Savitri is much more than a great poem, it is actually the Divine Word, bridging between our current state of consciousness and the supramental waiting to be perceived.

Being brought awake to that, through Rod's skillful illucidation, meant i spent hours after completing reading it in a state of heightened awareness. It seems to me that each such foray is part of the global awakening process, so on behalf of us all i thank Rod and Robert and Vladimir and of course Sri Aurobindo for helping move us in the direction of our common aspiration. Tue, 04/14/2009 - 7:51pm — Bhavana Dee

The Poetry of Sri Aurobindo: MANTRA, METRICS AND MEANING complete.pdf Rod Hemsell

I treat texts as performative in a situated sense - I read a text within its social embeddedness and not psychologically

Re: A Matter of Mind by J. Kepler Science, Culture and Integral Yoga
by Debashish on Wed 24 Jun 2009 09:32 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

I'd like to clarify here that I'm not a proponent of the New Criticism movement, where the meaning of texts is only to be sought within their internal structure taken in isolation. I do hold that texts are related to their author, but in a much more complex way than the assumption of transparent psychological motives.

I treat texts as performative in a situated sense - where performances are creative acts of negotiation and communication and situated is to be understood historically and discursively. Thus I read a text within its social embeddedness and not psychologically. By performance here I don't mean that the production of a text is an entirely deliberate act but a creative act, which attempts to integrate a select array of plural discourses within its dialogic expression. I also avoid criticism, which assumes formal and ahistorical standards, seeing myself more as a cultural historian, who is interested in understanding what discourses are addressed in the text and how. DB

by Debashish on Thu 25 Jun 2009 12:48 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

A text in its own time (the writer's cultural milieu in which s/he is situated) and in present time (wrt contemporary concerns) stands as a negotiation among a variety of dicsourses. These are not merely echoes of personal voices or styles but ideological orientations which subsume a variety of standpoints. Important "authors" are like placeholders for such standpoints (author function). A text reveals itself to be a dialog with several such discourses.

Texts may be conscious of their dialogic nature to different degrees - to the extent of its originality as an integrative text, one can read various clear ideological positions and the stand taken in the text in relation to them. I made the difference between a deliberate production and a creative production to point to the fact that an author does not necessarily start out knowing what s/he is going to answer and how, but through a creative act brings these discourses into focus and relates itself to them.

Take The Life Divine for example. Sri Aurobindo is very conscious of the historicity of various discourses which provide different trajectories for human becoming and negotiates his integral ground by addressing all these. Outside of his own intent, contemporary thought has introduced new concerns (which are often old concerns in new bottles) which the text can be seen to have anticipated in certain ways and hence retains its fertility. The question of bias arises in a situated study very clearly. In untangling the discourses and their genealogies in a text, the biases of the text also reveal themselves. DB Reply

by Debashish on Thu 25 Jun 2009 01:04 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

Literary or art critics have to use some standard by which to judge whether a work is good or bad. Such standards tend to be "true for all time" (ahistorical) and based on certain ideas of the value of style and form (formal). Or else, they attempt a psychological reading - as you say, by trying to judge whether a writer has prejudices or not. As I pointed out, to judge personal prejudices from writing is a dangerous and illegitimate reading in my opinion, since texts are opaque regarding author intent beyond a certain point. Only in some very obvious cases, usually lacking any complexity (eg. Mein Kampf) can such claims perhaps be legitimately made (not by me though).

On the issue of formal criticism, I don't believe in it. Culture prepares the ground of appreciation, though taste certainly has an intuition of beauty within such preparation. However, even this does not interest me. What is of concern to me is the way in which a text functions to take a stand in the culture of its time - this is the approach of cultural history as against that of literary or art criticism. Reply

Kautilya, Omar Khayyam, Firaq Gorakhpuri, & Ruskin Bond

TREASURE TROVE Bibliophile's Paradise
Times of India - ‎Jun 9, 2009, Sumit S Paul

It was 1953, College Street, Calcutta. An old professor of English, Rajnikant Chatterjee, would religiously come to College Street every evening and intently read and buy rare old books. At one such visit, he stumbled upon a few torn pages inside an equally hoary old book. Curious, he began to read and lo, those were the lost translations of the legendary English orientalist Sir Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat-e-Umar Khayyam, written in Persian. Students of English literature all over the world are aware that Fitzgerald's English renditions of 11 exquisite quatrains weren't available till 1953.

Even Oxford and Cambridge varsities failed to find those 11 rubaiyat. But, Chatterjee luckily chanced upon them and because of him, the English translation of all the quatrains is available to students as well as readers. The world of literature is immensely grateful to Chatterjee and the famous College Street, dotted with dingy bookstalls, that have some of the rarest books in the world.

I make it a point to visit College Street on my every visit to the city. I spend a considerable amount of time with old books. What adds to such intellectually fruitful visits is the bargaining part. I once found eight odd copies of foreign editions from the Reader's Digest of 1934! I bargained hard and bought them for Rs 12 only. A casual visitor will not enjoy the ambience of College Street's small book shops, sardine-crammed with books of all hues and shades. You have to be a hardcore connoisseur of books to enjoy the place.

A few such bookshop owners are astoundingly well-read and help you pick up the most sought after books. Some of the rare books are so delicate that their pages have become like dry leaves and one has to handle them very carefully. I also found Raghupati Sahay 'Firaq' Gorakhpuri's first collection of ghazals, Zere-Aasmaan (Under the Sky), there. Very few copies of this book are available anywhere in the world and it's not available even in the library of Allahabad University, where Firaq taught English and Urdu for over three decades. The beauty of this stretch called College Street is its old world charm.

This nostalgic aura beckons you again and again. It is indeed a bibliophile's paradise. Whoever is thinking of visiting the city must visit College Street. Otherwise his sojourn will be as incomplete as visiting London and not going to Oxford Street.

Happy Khayyam Day Tehran Times - ‎May 17, 2009‎
Khayyam is chiefly known to English-speaking readers through the translation of a collection of his quatrains in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859), ... Omar Khayyam: Persian Mathematician, Astronomer and Poet findingDulcinea Iran Honors Omar Khayyam's Day Fars News Agency
Iran observes Omar Khayyam day Haber 27 all 6 news articles » Email this story
Through the dusk an angel shape Economic Times - ‎Jun 8, 2009‎
For though we know he openly advocated a nihilistic lifestyle including dawn-to-dusk drinking, the Rubaiyat also contains the following quatrain: And this I ... Iran, Russia Team Up for Omar Khayyam Biopic Cultural Heritage News - ‎Jun 10, 2009‎
Khayyam (1048-1123) is chiefly known to English-speaking readers through the translation of a collection of his quatrains in “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” ...
Vienna to unveil statues of Iranian scientists PRESS TV - ‎Jun 9, 2009‎
Omar Khayyam was an eminent Persian poet, astronomer and mathematician who is best known for his collection of quatrains (four-line poems) The Rubaiyat of ... Statues of Iranian luminaries unveiled at UN Office in Vienna Tehran Times all 7 news articles » Email this story

This Bond, 75, depends on ghosts for ideas Press Trust of India - ‎May 19, 2009‎
Lucknow, May 19 (PTI) Writing comes naturally to Ruskin Bond, a stalwart of children's literature, who at 75, still finds it difficult to gauge the mood of ...
Views from the hilltop Indian Express - ‎Jun 11, 2009‎
Ruskin Bond's latest memoir, A Town Called Dehra, is beautifully written. It is set mostly in Dehra Dun, although other places do intrude (Shimla, Delhi). ...
Ruskin Bond turns 75 Express Buzz - ‎May 18, 2009‎
He is one of India's favourite writers, Ruskin Bond, whose writings have come to represent simplicity, calm, a delight in the small pleasures of life and a ...

Most Read Articles Indian Express ‎
1909 was the year in which the first near complete text of Kautilya's Arthashastra was published. Four years earlier, Rudrapatnam Shamashastry had ...
Alok Sheel: Of economists and historians Business Standard - ‎Jun 12, 2009‎
... Artha Shastra and Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah deliberated these matters over the ages, long before the classical economists of the seventeenth century. ...
Economics of War (and also peace) Lanka Business Online - ‎Jun 2, 2009‎
Kautilya, the Indian economist who lived in the fourth century BC, in his economic treatise, The Arthashastra, not only covered warfare but also advised the ...
Special Article The Statesman - ‎May 30, 2009‎
There are ample principles in the Arthashastra and Dharmashastras to justify protection of Nature as a duty and a systematic ecological theory can be ...
Friday evening honour roll - 8 Livemint - ‎May 29, 2009‎
Like its earlier Indian predecessor the Artha Shastra, which book was written primarily to educate a ruler -- in this case, Lorenzo de Medici -- in ...