Xmas is just around the corner and the festive season is already here. Apparently - according to some figures from Visit London - London is a “Christmassy” city - and “evokes” xmas ” here to the extent that ppl are rushing in from all over europe to do a bit of shopping and enjoying the xmas jollities. (Any excuse for a party eh?)
Things seem to be rushing along quicker this year - don”t know why that is? Is it the usual Sod”s Law situation - when you”re trying to cram more things in - the less time there appears to be. A trip to the exotic east - the Indian sub-continent - lies in wait for me around the corner: we will soon be off (7 days to go!) to a wedding in Bombay; and then hopefully on to Calcutta and Darjeeling after that, and winding up in Dhaka for a week in Jan. Should be exciting - what with Dhaka getting all geared up for elections ( yes I do hope the violence is of a “manageable” level when i”m in town) and New Years” Eve on a white sand beach. And the hill station should be lovely and peaceful and cold.
Thinking of the “exotic east” and India, I have recently finished reading a fantastic book called Shantaram - I urge you all to read it too - and this has just given me a whole lot of local colour to look forward to for the Bombay leg of the trip. Leopolds” - I”ll definitely be checking that place out. Hopefully there will be plenty of photos and travelogue style anecdotes to share when I get back. {Of course - I still haven”t gotten around to uploading our Turkey photos + travel journal - what a marvellous setting that was - Ancient Lycia! More on that later}
So plenty to do this week before rushing off - endless amounts of work to finish off + there”s plenty been happening I want to write about. Time is fast approaching for the “as the year draws to a close” reflections.
Amartya Sen will be speaking on what Bengal”s history tells us about living with multiple identities.
Not a free lecture i”m afraid - £10 at the British Museum today at 6:30 p.m.
“Bengal has arguably the longest history of engagement between East and West, stretching back over several centuries of settlement, with Calcutta once the capital city of the British in India. For Bengalis, the British were just one chapter in a long history of cultural exchange and accommodation. That history has seen a cultural heritage shared across faiths (in particular, Hinduism and Islam) and then split, in the twentieth century, across two nations: India and Bangladesh. How does this story of multiple identities - of faith, nation, culture - shed light on the challenges of globalisation in the twenty-first century as many Bengalis migrate across the sub-continent and across the globe? How do those diaspora identities, whether in Tower Hamlets or Delhi, refashion their past and what insights can history can offer for the increasing primacy of religious identity?“
Part of the Voices of Bengal season at the British Museum
even more hilarious¬! - scroll down to read to hear some first-class racism straight from india via the indian capitalist. ( see the comments on the post below)
( i wonder what the indian blogosphere would have to say about his comments by the way..seeing as he”s making blanket statements about india and indians im sure they ought to be interested..)
apparently since i”m “asian” i am “culturally inferior” - isn”t that brilliantly funny? The poor thing couldn”t deal with the fact that not all of “us” have inferiority complexes so we must needs be inculcated with one.
Great!
actually i suppose he couldn”t deal with the fact that not all people think in conventional prejudiced monocausal linear terms e.g. black/white ; capitalism/communism etc. etc. and i suppose he can”t understand how differing economic systems aren”t necessarily not going to display the same social problems i.e. power and distribution of power, dogma and all the rest of it.
Human nature is interesting: a recurring theme appears to be : ” if i suffer, i want to know that others are suffering too. and if they think they aren”t suffering - bullshit! surely that”s not true..they must just be fooling themselves because of course they suffer, they suffer in the same way i do..” ( replace suffer with “ i think this way” and it works as well)
i think this is all fascinating - providing so much material for my future Phd. thesis.
the fun on the guardian blogs goes on. i’ve been posting on the News Blog - an old article dating back from last wednesday titled -” Burberry checks ferret fashion” (! indeed) Still a lot of activity on this particular one - thanks to indian capitalist. take a look at the blog and see what all the fuss is about. providing quite a lot of amusement all round i think, generally the idea appears to be if you want to rant against a bunch of lefty-types, what better place to do that but the Guardian!
this person appears to think that environmentalism is a ‘bogey’ invented by socialists and communists. ( apparently bracket includes not just Stalin and Mao [and those other lovely authoritarian fascists that IC seems to have so much in common with - haha- ] but basically anyone who likes to share their cookies around)
also anything that’s wrong with the world according to IC can be blamed on the ‘germ of communism’ - which apparently - was spread to asia from europe. ( oh right - we asians aren’t capable of thinking for ourselves…??)
Whatever next. Does anyone know this person?
p.s. if you’ve read a book called ‘a thread of life’ by anoop verma, (shristi publishers: new delhi) then do let me know. i’d like to know what it’s like but don’t fancy spending any money on it. having looked at the blog link from the guardian posts, it seems to indicate that the author of this book and indian capitalist are one and the same.
see what a lot of lovely publicity i’ve generated for you mr. IC - you should be grateful -no? After all, going around and mouthing off has always been the best PR stunt, and if you’re a die-hard capitalist you ought to appreciate that. i’m always happy to channel money towards entertaining causes.
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