Via: mamta mantri
This happened last week. I met Mr. Salim, the manager
of Shalimar cinema, and was simply chatting with him.
(He was really cold last time, but opened up this
time). So apart from other things, the conversation
boiled down to why was I not getting married?), very
obviously. (of course, I could have stopped and run
away, but wanted to see the fun). So he gave numerous
logical reasonings ---- So what if they want dowry,
So what if you earn more and are more educated than
him, you must get married.[ A woman is meant to serve
only, according to the Quran---was his explanation].
Of course, he would not be interested in listening to
my side of the story.
Going, going, going, the monologue boiled down to
Islam as a religion. His many reasoning--- simplest
religion, no one goes away once converted to Islam,
Hindus worship the sun, but it does set down; some
one does it and thats Allah, of 4 people in the
world, 2 are Muslims, because the procedures are
simple, The French are scared that they will rename
their nation as Islamic Republic of France. (I am
nodding my head in knowing silence). You must read
the Quran, it is available in translation, Be open to
the idea (I was waiting for this to happen, but not so
soon), Get married, theres no happiness and
belongingness like ones own home and children.
Anyways, he asked me about my fathers occupation. He
is an accountant in a Marwari Pedithe cloth market at
Kalbadevi, I replied. He assumingly said that he
would not be earning more than 6-7000. (Oh my
gawd!!!!, how could he say such a thing, we are
definitely better off than what he thinks us to be).
Well, all this time, I was thinking of the duality of
two different systems and their values, one that
English education taught us- individualism,
secularism, liberalism etc etc; as against his values-
community, womanhood, kids, religion etc. But this
comment about our financial statues was a real turner.
I now wanted to find a chance to look down upon him,
and I was lucky that day. He was about to leave for
home, and I saw his very purana scooter with the
side guard (which was old and rotten iron patra, and
full of holes).
I was glad I could look down upon him, forgetting
about the conversation and the larger issue
(religion/fundamentalism). I guess thats what
happened to our freedom fighters. Guess thats how we
got our freedom?
mamta
Via: mahmood farooqui
Bhai, is baar main pakka gunahgaar hoon...nikalte nikalte mujhe laga
ki der to ho chuki hai magar baharhaal ise daal hi deta hoon, na sahi
haazri, aagahi to hogi..
agli baar aisa na hoga, mere hamdam, mere dost...
On 31/01/06, Yousuf wrote:
> Mehmood
> Why do you always inform about such interesting events
> at the eleventh hour.
>
> Yousuf
> --- mahmood farooqui
> wrote:
>
> > Resurrecting Dagh from the Tawaifs- S R Faruqi will
> > speak about Dagh
> > as a classical poet and Gulzar Dehlavi, hailing from
> > a family of
> > Dagh's disciples will share anecdotes about Dagh.
> >
> > Today at Aiwan-e Ghalib, 11 am.
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and
> > the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to
> > reader-list-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the
> > subject header.
> > List archive:
> >
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
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Via: Prashant Pandey
Great job
On 1/31/06, mahmood farooqui wrote:
> Dear Shankar and Jeebesh,
>
>
> There are many ways one could begin to respond to the happy ending of
> the workers' struggle.
>
> As a real life Swades, with Shankar arriving here as an academic,
> getting radicalised with and by the workers and fighting along side to
> win this settlement.
>
> As a post-historic comment on the unresolved dead-end in Aaghaat,
> Goving Nihalani's offering about how to lead a workers' struggle in a
> third world country where violence is a norm when inflicted upon the
> workers and an aberration when committed by the workers.
>
> As a glorious affirmation to the mail Jeebsh wrote, a mail which one
> can call admonitory if not chastising, on the occasion of the whole
> world and myself running to town about the police beating workers in
> Gurgaon, a few months ago.
>
> As a unique triumph of a strategy of protest and resistance, conceived
> and put into practice by a genuine collective in which the bourgeois
> organiser and the toiling worker merge their roles into each other.
>
> As one of the very few instances of justice being earned by the
> workers in this our belighted land.
>
> The workers's victory may consign them back to the hell that was their
> working condition, as Shankar had pointed out in his photographic
> essay in Tehelka, but it is not an end of their journey.
>
> I could say more but there is hardly any point in getting
> sentimental-perhaps it is time for us to hear what the victors have to
> say about it all...
>
> Chalte raho saathi, doobte suraj ko raah dikhaane ke liye, taaki use
> palatne ki raah mil sake...
>
> Mahmood
>
>
> On 30/01/06, Jeebesh Bagchi wrote:
> > Dear friends,
> >
> > I am very happy to inform you that the twenty Michael
> > Aram Exports workers along with Ramdev's widow, Shibu
> > Devi, were appointed this week as permanent employees
> > of Michael Aram's new, operational company, MA Design
> > India Private Limited, Okhla Industrial Area Phase I.
> > They received appointment letters in hand, along with
> > back wages, bonuses, dearness allowance arrears, and
> > other due payments, on January 25, 2006.
> >
> > Michael Aram is seeking to put these workers back to
> > work ideally within a revitalized version of their
> > former unit, B156, or else at a proximate and as yet
> > undetermined factory site. Please check
> > www.justiceforworkers.org for updates on this
> > transition process.
> >
> > May I express my deep thanks to all of you for your
> > advice, empathy, support, and encouragement throughout
> > this struggle.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Shankar Ramaswami
> > Ph.D. Candidate
> > University of Chicago
> >
> > Justice for Workers
> > www.justiceforworkers.org
> >
> > _________________________________________
> > reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> > Critiques & Collaborations
> > To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> > List archive:
> >
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> List archive:
>
Via: mahmood farooqui
Dear Shankar and Jeebesh,
There are many ways one could begin to respond to the happy ending of
the workers' struggle.
As a real life Swades, with Shankar arriving here as an academic,
getting radicalised with and by the workers and fighting along side to
win this settlement.
As a post-historic comment on the unresolved dead-end in Aaghaat,
Goving Nihalani's offering about how to lead a workers' struggle in a
third world country where violence is a norm when inflicted upon the
workers and an aberration when committed by the workers.
As a glorious affirmation to the mail Jeebsh wrote, a mail which one
can call admonitory if not chastising, on the occasion of the whole
world and myself running to town about the police beating workers in
Gurgaon, a few months ago.
As a unique triumph of a strategy of protest and resistance, conceived
and put into practice by a genuine collective in which the bourgeois
organiser and the toiling worker merge their roles into each other.
As one of the very few instances of justice being earned by the
workers in this our belighted land.
The workers's victory may consign them back to the hell that was their
working condition, as Shankar had pointed out in his photographic
essay in Tehelka, but it is not an end of their journey.
I could say more but there is hardly any point in getting
sentimental-perhaps it is time for us to hear what the victors have to
say about it all...
Chalte raho saathi, doobte suraj ko raah dikhaane ke liye, taaki use
palatne ki raah mil sake...
Mahmood
On 30/01/06, Jeebesh Bagchi wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> I am very happy to inform you that the twenty Michael
> Aram Exports workers along with Ramdev's widow, Shibu
> Devi, were appointed this week as permanent employees
> of Michael Aram's new, operational company, MA Design
> India Private Limited, Okhla Industrial Area Phase I.
> They received appointment letters in hand, along with
> back wages, bonuses, dearness allowance arrears, and
> other due payments, on January 25, 2006.
>
> Michael Aram is seeking to put these workers back to
> work ideally within a revitalized version of their
> former unit, B156, or else at a proximate and as yet
> undetermined factory site. Please check
> www.justiceforworkers.org for updates on this
> transition process.
>
> May I express my deep thanks to all of you for your
> advice, empathy, support, and encouragement throughout
> this struggle.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Shankar Ramaswami
> Ph.D. Candidate
> University of Chicago
>
> Justice for Workers
> www.justiceforworkers.org
>
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request@sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header.
> List archive:
>
Via: sidharth srinivasan
Hi fellow fellows!
I am an independent filmmaker who shuttles
between Mumbai and Dilli, or between head and heart respectively! I
have been based in Mumbai on and off for the past 5 years but Delhi is
the city I belong to. I graduated from St. Stephen's College having
studied Economics and immediately jumped into a life of filmmaking and
glorious uncertainty! After 2 years assisting various people I went
independent and my initial foray into direction was a short film
titled THE TIGHTROPE WALKER (35mm, 15mins, Hindi) which made it in
competition to Venice in 2000. The film was an experimental short on
the anonymous life and (imagined?) love of a young woman who lives in
a suburban highrise in Bombay. I followed this up in 2001 with one of
the country's first digital feature films titled DIVYA DRISHTI (DVC,
95mins, Hindi) which was banned by the then censor board owing to
profanity/street lingo and the casual depiction of a gay love affair
between two married men (the cesnors said that homosexuality was
against Indian culture). However to my joy this small film has carved
a niche of its own being screened at various festivals (Singapore,
Commonwealth, Karachi etc) and museums (Walker Art Centre, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Nova Cinema etc). Currently I have finished my debut
"multiplex" film, if you will, a supernatural thriller titled AMAVAS
starring Konkona Sensharma, Victor Banerjee and others. The film
should be released by mid 2006. I also make documentaries and most
recently have shot a film on the endangered world heritage site of
Hampi for UNESCO.
Living away from Delhi and returning there from time to time made me
look at the city differently. Hanging out at Safdarjung, Aurobindo
Place and Green Park I was struck by the rambling and dilapidated
ruins of monuments lying amidst the urban space of markets and
colonies. I realized that I had taken them for granted to such an
extent that I didn't even know what these structures looked like from
within. A few trips made were enough to get my juices flowing and soon
the germ of an idea took place in my mind.
Delhi unlike Bombay was an urban city with space for clandestine love.
Mosques and mausoleums, tombs and temples dotted the city and in turn
were dotted by names of anonymous lovers etched forever on stone and
granite. Who were these secret lovers, what was there story, for
surely they had a story to tell, and by extension, there must be
countless such myths and folk tales surrounding these various heritage
sites...I decided to weave a contemporary clandestine love story among
the ruins of Delhi - a love story where the young man and girl in
question become influenced by the past to such an extent that it
starts overtaking their conscious waking life...
As a filmmaker I also took a conscious decision to treat the proposed
film differently. Some years ago I had the good fortune of seeing
Chris Marker's legendary film "La Jetee" a sci-fi film comprised
entirely of still images with voice-over narration and sound design -
Marker called the film a photoroman. The film was so influential that
not only did Hollywood make an ugly remake (12 monkeys) but a La Jetee
Bar also exists in Tokyo! I came up with the decision to make my film
in a similar fashion albeit do away with voice over narrative and in
its stead have many voices of both the present and the past imbue the
sound design.
And that is where SARAI/CSDS thankfully came in. My research is
ostensibly on "excavating" the various stories, myths, legends, folk
tales and "sthalapuranas" surrounding the heritage spots of Delhi City
which would find there way into the script for my proposed photoroman
- in short my research is on all the stuff that never finds its way
into the text books. So if any of you have any bizarre, grotesque,
cute, strange and downright fascinating stories to tell about nooks
and corners and gullies and gates in Delhi please inform me. Also, if
you know any wise old men and women who love hearing the sound/s of
their own voices and talk about Delhi as if it were a loved one please
put me on to them. I look forward to hearing from you and wish all of
you all the very best with ur proposed research...
Best,
SIDHARTH SRINIVASAN
Via: Naresh Kumar
Hi everybody,
I am NareshKumar and as Sarai fellow I am working on "the festival of
music in the city of sports-Harballabh Sangeet Mela of Jalandhar".
Along with a paper I am planning to make an audio-documentary.
For taking interviews and field-recordings I use tape-recorder. But
it's a very difficult job to transfer the data on computer from
cassette. So, I'm looking for a digital recorder with computer
connectivity. Please, let me know about any such device, which is
handy, reasonable and easy to operate. Let me tell you one thing more
that I am visually challenged. So please see if any device is
available with key-beeps as we have in mobile phones. Because the
things which I've seen so far don't have this facility. Then selecting
the mode, retrieval etc become slightly difficult. Moreover, beep
assures you that recording has begun. I hope that I would definitely
find some solutions to my problem.
Kindly enrich me with whatever you have for sharing- any book or
article on any music-festival, your own experiences about concerts as
an audience, any theoretical insight on emerging public sphere and
most important, your valuable comments.
Bye and have a nice day
Via: Prashant Pandey
iTunes goes desi
Karishma Upadhyay
DNA
Monday, January 30, 2006 19:22 IST
Hailed as one of the biggest consumer brands of the recent times, the
iPod has changed how the world listens to music. The latest deal
between Steven Job's Apple and Hungama.com means that Indipop as well
as Bollywood soundtracks can be downloaded from iTunes across America,
Europe and Asia.
"Hungama.com is the first Indian company to formally enter a deal with
iTunes. We should go up in another ten days. Our deal for now is
exclusively with T-series and we expect to put close to 30,000 tracks
from their catalogue in the next six months," says Hungama's CEO,
Neeraj Roy. The first series of albums that will go onto the iTunes
site include chartbusters like 'Main Hoon Na' and 'Chalte Chalte'
along with more recent releases like 'Aashiq Banaya Aapne'.
In an industry where sales of cassettes and CDs have been dwindling
for a couple of years now, any additional form of revenue generation
is more than welcome. "Like royalties from ring tones or radio
channels, being on iTunes is definitely going to benefit the music
industry," reiterates Bhushan Kumar, T-Series, adding, "piracy is a
huge issue for us not just in India but also abroad. With more and
more people using iPods, it just makes sense for a record label to
make your music available on iTunes."
While the Hungama-T-series deal might be the biggest with iTunes, it
definitely isn't the first. Sa Re Ga Ma's repertoire has been on the
iTunes' site since September 2004 but Atul Churamani, VP, ANR, doesn't
think it's time to celebrate as yet. "In the last three years,
physical sales have fallen by about 55 percent, while digital music
sales are just around five percent as of now. At the end of the day,
iTunes is like any other 'gora' shop where our music will be tucked
away in a corner. After all, we are talking about a very niche content
being available on a global platform," he explains.
Having said that, Atul and the rest of the music industry believe that
with iTunes having an 85 percent share in the digital market, being on
the site is "very encouraging."
==================================================================================================================================
Via: Prashant Pandey
Music e-tailing in India will kick off in a year
Ashish K Tiwari / DNA
Sunday, October 23, 2005 20:02 IST
Leading players in the Indian music industry are getting serious about
making their repertoire available for download in the domestic market,
at a cost though.
While companies like Saregama India, Universal, Sony-BMG Music, etc,
have already made their music available in the international markets
(through sites like www.itunes.com and www.napster.com) for download
at a cost per download, the approach didn't gain momentum in the
Indian market so far.
Non-availability of Internet connections, at desired speed for fast
download, across the length and breadth of the country was an issue
which delayed the entire process. Besides, making available the entire
music repertoire in a digitised format was another aspect which had to
be dealt with to start the process.
Kulmeet Makkar, chief executive - music, Saregama India Ltd, said,
"The fraternity has been considering online distribution of music as
an option to maximise reach and revenue for some time now. With the
telecom boom, broadband services getting better and majority of the
music being digitised, an online distribution model can be expected
soon."
The domestic music fraternity, along with the Indian Music Industry
(IMI) - an association to protect the interests of the music industry
in the country, is believed to have designed a tentative revenue model
for online distribution of music that needs to be finetuned. In fact,
according to a source, the music industry is expected to arrive at a
business model in six to 12 months.
Savio D'Souza, secretary general of IMI, said, "We have been
discussing about this mode of music distribution in India and would
come out with some concrete details after taking into account every
aspect related with this." V J Lazarus, head of IMI which is based in
Mumbai, was not available for comment.
The total size of the Indian music industry is estimated to be about
Rs 1,000 crore. Of which, piracy contributes to the tune of Rs 450
crore. The organised market of film music in India is Rs 400 crore
while non-film music is around Rs 100 crore. Approximately 90% of the
revenue for the music industry comes from the sale of CDs and
cassettes. Over 9% is shared between ring-tone sales and royalties
from Phonographic Performance Ltd while online retailing is under 1%.
The primary reason behind this minuscule percentage of online sales is
illegal download. According to industry observers, there are over 600
URLs that facilitate illegal download of Indian music and legalising
music download at a cost is being viewed as a strategy to deal with
it.
"Illegal download of music is our biggest concern as of now and we are
taking necessary steps to curb it. In fact, IMI is aggressively
working towards making these websites dysfunctional, thereby boosting
revenues for the industry," said D'Souza.
Pioneering the e-tailing approach, Saregama India made its music
available online through the company websites, www.saregama.com and
www.humaracd.com, way back in 2000.
The sites offer a selection of 25,000 songs. One could get a personal
compilation of songs in the range of Rs 275 to Rs 375 for a CD
(shipment cost extra) with the option to customise the look of the CD
as well.
"Though revenue from this initiative has been small as compared with
CD and cassette sales, we see a great potential in this service in the
prevalent market scenario. We are in the process of reviving this
facility making available majority of our music repertoire in the
digitised format which was not the case earlier," said Makkar.
Starting October 1, Universal Music has begun selling its Indian music
repertoire in the international markets through music retailing
websites like 'itunes' and 'napster' at 99 cents per download. "We are
in the process of working out a revenue model for the Indian market,"
said Rajat Kakar, managing director, Universal Music (India) Ltd.
As an experiment, Rediff has recently started selling music online in
India with the launch of singer Sanjay Maroo's album for online music
download. All the 11 songs of this album are available for download
for Rs 10 per song.
Jasmeet Singh, vice-president of product marketing for Rediff, said,
"Normally for any download, the process has to be routed through IMI.
But in this case, the singer approached us for online distribution of
his music and we decided to take it forward.
We'll have to wait and watch for the response and if the figures look
good we will look at regularising it provided the artiste holds online
distribution rights of his/her songs." Singh has been in talks with
IMI and feels that a single-window licence from the association would
help to a great extent in e-tailing Indian music.
Via: mahmood farooqui
Resurrecting Dagh from the Tawaifs- S R Faruqi will speak about Dagh
as a classical poet and Gulzar Dehlavi, hailing from a family of
Dagh's disciples will share anecdotes about Dagh.
Today at Aiwan-e Ghalib, 11 am.
