The Fiction of truth, the truth of fiction

"The End of the World" in libraries in Ayudhaya

2012-01-29T21:51:00.000-08:00

I grew up seeing Thai Airways' beautiful photographs on the calendar on my father's desk, and I was fond of Thailand long before I set a foot there. When the floods happened, the one little contribution a writer could make was to offer some books. So this is what I did. The books were donated by Books for Thailand, which operates under the auspices of the book distribution projects of the Asia Foundation.

Here's a letter from Khun Burin.

Dear Sushma,

Last week, Books for Thailand, the Annika Linden Foundation, The Asia Foundation, and The Nation Group went to Ayudhaya, our ancient capital, and distributed books to both primary and secondary schools, totaling about 250 schools. We distributed all copies of your book, too, so definitely the students and teachers will be reading it and will be able to related it to their experiences during our recent floods.

Again, thanks.Best, Burin

To donate books in Thailand and across Asia, contact the Asia Foundation which has programs to distribute books in many countries.

(Here's a photograph of my tuk-tuk driver who took me around Ayutthya. He was very pleased with the little bamboo grasshopper toy I gave him as a parting gift--proving that a gift doesn't have to be big to make people happy!)

2012-01-16T23:07:00.000-08:00

Terry Hong, resident BookDragon for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program, reviews my book here.

I'd like to share a little anecdote: during the civil conflict in Nepal, where educated people were fleeing in mass numbers from Nepal for better pastures abroad, I met a young man. He had studied in the States, and he had returned home. When I asked him why he wasn't leaving, he answered: "My life is here, with these 26 million people. Whatever happens, I'm not leaving them. We'll have to go through this together." I'd like to clarify that what comes across as "resigned acceptance" in the last story (I could see how it could be read in this manner) is also another way to write about this innate homing instinct of Nepali people to return home, from whereever they are.

An author photo

2012-01-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

Yangchen and I went to see "Happy Feet" today and I was heartbroken from it--remembering the glaciers breaking off and crashing into the sea in Alaska in 2001, where I went to Juno to study at the Breadloaf School of English during the summer. We saw some seals and we saw some humpback whales, singing in the sea. Will these animals--along with the penguins--last beyond the next five decades?

Yangchen took this photo and told me I look like a writer in this one. I think I'm pretending to be happy when deep inside I am saddened by human behavior and the way we are destroying the planet and each other through our acts. So here it is... the author photograph.

The Gorkhalis of Myitkyina: Irrawaddy Magazine

2012-01-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

Check out my article "The Gorkhalis of Myitkyina" in Irrawaddy. It was initially published by Himal South Asia in November 2011.

visita a mytkyina: El Ghibli

2012-01-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Check out my travel diary "A Visit to Myitkyina", now on El Ghibli. It has been translated to Italian.

l mio volo per Yangon del 18 giugno è stato cancellato. La Thai airways annuncia che hanno chiuso l’aeroporto di Yangon per le pesanti piogge. Nell’irrequieta oscurità della sala d’aspetto iniziano a spargersi le voci. L’esercito birmano ha occupato l’aeroporto, sussurra la gente. Manca un giorno al compleanno di Aung San Suu Kyi. È capitato qualche avvenimento mentre sono stati fuori? I giovani padri siedono fissando il vuoto, chiedendosi se potranno mai tornare a casa...

Video from Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, 2009

2012-01-09T09:35:00.000-08:00

Here's yours truely in Bali. Just found myself on the web! :-)

I'm not sure why the video gets cut off abruptly--I think I was being asked if I had attended any other writers festival and I was just about to wax eloquent about the PEN's International Festival in New York (where I was actually just a member of the audience, not a featured writer or anything) before my 7 seconds of fame came to an end.

Check it out, cool background, reminds me of lovely Bali. And damn, I really like that little knitted thing I'm wearing. Bought it for $6 in Ubud and it was really quite a nifty sartorial invention!

Post-apocalyptic zombie book: next magnum opus from SJ

2012-01-09T08:23:00.000-08:00

So today I went to Amazon and I saw that most people who downloaded my book also downloaded a bunch of other books--all to do with sci-fi, horror, zombies, and post-apocalypse. Now all of this could be coincidence, of course. Except that I don't believe there are any coincidences in the world. I take all this stuff very seriously.

I mean, I write a funny (sometimes funny, sometimes sad) book of short stories about life in contemporary Nepal and it ends up being shelved with the Christian post-apocalyptics and the zombies. Now what does this mean? First, I am taking it as a sign that God (or possibly the sci-fi reading, zombie loving public) wants me to write a post-apocalyptic book. Second, I always WANTED to write a post-apocalyptic book. "White Noise" by Don DiLillo was the triggering catalyst. I haven't gotten to Margaret Atwood's "The Year of the Flood" yet, although I did enjoy reading sections of Paolo Bacigalupi's "Windup Girl" in Bangkok's Asia Books section at the Siam Paragon Store. The guard glared at me dreadfully for standing there and reading and reading. (Sorry fellow author, I just couldn't afford to buy the book.)

Well, on that note, I will settle down to writing a new book with a post-apocalyptic premise. Which is not that difficult after all, since we are only a few steps away from it, in my own private opinion.

So this is how it starts. Its a grey winter day in Kathmandu. There's a cold but persistent rain pissing down on the streets. A taxi driver with a hooded driver passes by. A girl gets into the taxi. The taxi driver is friendly... (Note to self: This is beginning to sound like Bulwer-Lytton's "It was a dark and stormy night." For those of you who forgot how it goes, here it is: "...the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.")

What do you think? Should I move to sci-fi or should I stick to writing literary fiction about Nepal? Comments in the little box below please. i see lots of you are reading my blog every day. And I know quite a few of you originate in the Transylvania part of the planet! :-)

2012-01-03T02:58:00.000-08:00

Bangkok Post review of "The End of the World":

"The End of the World" now out in Kindle

2011-12-31T03:35:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, family and readers:
A very wonderful new year 2012 to you all!

Thank you so much for your wonderful support and enthusiasm during my publishing struggles and adventures.

I wanted to let all of you know that "The End of the World" is about to be published in Kindle (in around 24 hours, as we speak) and that you can soon download it on your Kindles.

I will also soon have my novel "Loving the Enemy" available as an e-book online shortly. Thank you all again for your thoughtful support and love of literature.

I hope this new year brings you new joy and new directions for spiritual and planetary growth.Love to all, Sushma

Daily Times of Pakistan

2011-12-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

The Daily Times has a reportage of our reading:Ameena Hussein, writer and publisher, Sri Lanka; Sushma Joshi, writer and film-maker, Nepal; Ayesha Salman of SDPI Pakistan; and Harris Khalique, human rights activist and development practitioner of Pakistan, said the literature works as a means to expand minds and to provide deep insights on social and political issues that should be expressed to attain the greater goal of human development.Read the article here.

Visting Pakistan

2011-12-19T06:36:00.000-08:00

I visited Pakistan from 12-17 December. This was my first time there, and I was surprised by several things. Stay tuned for my op-ed!

Here are the links to the conference in which I presented in the panel on literature, titled appropriately `Literature in South Asia: building bridges through fact and fiction`, along with Ayesha Salman of Pakistan and Ameena Hussein of Sri Lanka.

It was a very interesting conference that brought together people from all over South Asia. Perhaps the most interesting part was the swing towards "looking East". For more, read on: Crises in West necessitate looking towards East for development

Podcast: "Cheese" read aloud

2011-11-29T06:48:00.001-08:00

You can now listen to ten minutes of my story "Cheese" online. Here is the link on Podomatic. Let me know what you think!:
http://sushma.podomatic.com/entry/2011-11-29T05_15_49-08_00

A Fortuneteller Told Me

2011-11-11T19:17:00.001-08:00

I will be in Oxford in July 2012 to talk about my writings on the Nepali diaspora in Thailand and Myanmar. I traveled around those two countries last year as an Asia Fellow, with support from the Asian Scholarship Foundation.

(Here's the Asia Fellows from 2010-2011. I am on the far left. If I look fat, its because I was eating too much Thai food!)

My aim is to write a book like Tiziano Terzani's "The Fortune-teller Told Me". All my friends who like to mock my fascination with astrology, fortune-telling and prophesizing the future--please read this book! It is possible to be a journalist for a publication as serious as Der Speigel, do excellent reportage and still weave these fascinating tidbids into your book, as Terzani did.

If you have a literature related group in Oxford or London and want me to come and read from my book(s), contact me at: sansarmagazine@gmail.com. I haven't been in the UK since 1995--I'm looking forward to this visit...

The Istanbul Literary Review: A Bowl of Zuppa

2011-10-31T21:59:00.000-07:00

Look at the gorgeous Istanbul Literary Review.

Don't you just wish you were in Istanbul!

They published my "A Bowl of Zuppa" in their May 2011 issue.

World Literature Today: The Little Girl Who Died

2011-10-31T21:54:00.000-07:00

World Literature Today just sent me the new link where they had put my story "The Little Girl Who Died." They have a new website and some of the links were broken. So you can read it in FIRST WORDS here.

Japanese translation of "Betrayal"

2011-10-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

Hi friends, fans and readers! I am very pleased and happy to have my short story "Betrayal" translated in Japanese. Kazue of Happano.org has translated it, and here's the story in Japanese!

South China Morning Post article

2011-10-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

Here's an article about Sansar Media and why I started it, by the South China Morning Post, Hongkong. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Review of "The End of the World" in Guru Magazine, Friday supplement of the Bangkok Post

2011-08-22T00:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends! "The End of the World" is now published through Sansar Media.

Here is a great review of "The End of the World" by Guru Magazine, the Friday supplement of the Bangkok Post. The book is now available in Asia Books, Bangkok. Don't forget to pick up a copy if you are in the Swarnabhoomi airport.

(Note this book--or any other edition of my book--is now no longer legally available in Kathmandu. Due to unaccountable and illegal practices of publishers and bookstores in Kathmandu, I only sell my books outside Nepal. If you would like to get a copy and support the writer, please wait to purchase the legal edition.)

"The Best Sand Painting of the Century" is now printed in Emanations

2011-08-01T02:04:00.000-07:00

Our expectations descend through chasms of arcane wonder, where the Internet shapes marvelous new communities, even as the Academy breaks the chains of worn convention and formal discipline, sending forth a new class of scholars to explore the frontiers of unique realms. Amidst this progress, strangely enough and yet quite appropriately, consciousness rebels. In these pages are stories, poems, and essays that are exuberant, eloquent, and original—where expression and intelligence commingle in a flash of awakening. Whether this new consciousness is human or perhaps something greater remains to be seen, but by looking into our emanations we might find an answer. The first anthology to be released by International Authors, Emanations showcases the work of sixteen writers from around the world. With illustrations by Kai Robb, Dario Rivarossa and Vitasta Raina. Find it in Amazon.

Stories for Sendai

2011-07-15T01:55:00.000-07:00

"After the Floods" is now printed in "Stories for Sendai", an anthology whose profits will go to benefit people who were affected by the earthquake in Japan this year. You can buy the book via Amazon through this link here. An author interview is printed here.

"The End of the World": now in Bahasa Indonesia

2011-07-12T06:16:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like going to Google one fine morning and finding your story translated into an unknown language. First it happened in Vietnamese. Now an Indonesian friend has confirmed for me that the language below is indeed Bahasa Indonesia. I'm not sure how a story about the end of the world fits into a blog devoted to writings on love, but I am moved nevertheless by the translator's intuition that somehow this story has to do with love. Also honored to find myself in the company of Khalil Gibran and Pablo Neruda. Thank you Zeventina!

Akhir Dunia (The End Of The World) Suatu hari, semua orang berbicara tentang hal itu. Ia bahkan telah dicetak di koran. Seorang sadhu besar dan belajar telah dinubuatkan sebuah kebakaran, bencana alam sehingga proporsi lebih dari setengah populasi dunia akan dibunuh.

To read it in Bahasa, click here.

Guff-suff With Sushma Joshi | The Buzz | Book | wavemag.com.np

2010-09-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

Guff-suff With Sushma Joshi

In numerology, Sushma means inspiring, intuitive, and creative. These characters define Sushma Joshi, writer of a collection of short stories entitled The End of the World. She talked to Wave about her fascination with Paul, the future telling Octopus.

FROM ISSUE # 176 (August 2010) \|

PHOTO SEBASTIAN MEYER/GRAPHICS WAVE

Who do you write for: you or your readers?
I write because the story begs to be told. I don't think about myself or the readers. How do you choose the names for your characters?
Sometimes I take them from myths, sometimes newspapers. What is the most hurtful thing people have said to you?
I can't remember now, so they can't have been that hurtful.
What is the strangest thing you have done while researching a book?
I took an acting class in graduate school. Strangely enough, it helped me get into the minds of the characters, much faster than taking a class on how to write fiction.
Which five people would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Ang Lee, Oprah, William Dalrymple, Virginia Woolf and Tin Tin.
If you were deserted on an island, which book would you like to have with you?
Rumi's Rubaiyat. Am I allowed to take a few comics on the side?
Which fictional character do you resemble?I played Catherine in "Proof" and people said I was the spitting image of her—more so than Gwyneth Paltrow. I guess I look like a genius mathematician and she looks like Shakespeare's lover.
What distracts you from writing?Kathmandu. It's a big whirl. I need to go to some quiet, deserted island.
Who is your hero/heroine outside of fiction?Paul the octopus. I am deeply fascinated by beings that have the ability to foretell the future.
Are you happy with where you are in life?
Ask me in 2.2 years, and then I'll tell you.

New Asian Writing: ‘I Woke Up Last Night and I Cried’

2010-09-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

‘I Woke Up Last Night and I Cried’ by Sushma Joshi (Nepal)

“I will be researching the stories of Nepali migrants in Burma and Thailand.”

2010-08-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

– Interview with Sushma Joshi by Voicu Mihnea Simadan

24/08/2010

Sushma Joshi is a Nepali writer and filmmaker who was born in 1973 in Kathmandu. She has published The End of the World (2008), a collection of short stories, Art Matters (2008), a books of essays about contemporary art, and New Nepal, New Voices (co-editor, 2009), a selection of articles. In this interview she talks about her books, writing, Nepal and her future trip to Thailand.

Mihnea Voicu Simandan: Your collection of short stories, The End of the World, has quite a few references to politics, especially the Maoist struggle for power. What is the relationship between fiction and politics?

Sushma Joshi: Politics can be an incomprehensible beast. How better to describe the complexities of the cotemporary moment than through fiction?

MVS: Your concern with injustice and the tough life of poor Nepalese is an obvious theme in The End of the World. Does literature have the role to raise awareness of social injustice?

SJ: No, I don’t think that’s necessarily the job or obligation of literature. I love this Leo Tolstoy quote and I subscribe by it: “The aim of an artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably, but to make people love life in all its countless, inexhaustible manifestations. If I were told that I could write a novel whereby I might irrefutably establish what seemed to me the correct point of view on all social problems, I would not even devote two hours to such a novel; but if I were to be told that what I should write would be read in twenty year’s time by those by who are now children and that they would laugh and cry over it, and love life, I would devote all my own life and all my energies to it.”

MVS: How was the book received? Is it still available in bookstores? I bough my copy at a secondhand bookstore in Bangkok.

SJ: I am one of a handful of authors writing and publishing in English in Nepal, so there was great deal of interest in the book. Unfortunately, the publishers did not give me royalty, and so we parted ways. It is currently out of print (if the bookstore sells you one, it’s a pirated copy). I am planning to publish it myself in case I don’t find another publisher outside Nepal.

MVS: What is your writing routine?

SJ: I write between jobs. I take a month or two off every year. I edit multiple times!

MVS: When will you publish another book of fiction?

SJ: My new novel is a love story set in Nepal’s civil conflict. I was working for the UN during the conflict—I realized the scope of the stories could only be captured by fiction. I’m trying to find publishers in the UK and Europe. Hopefully you will get to read it soon.

MVS: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

SJ: Keep writing. Don’t give up hope. Take pleasure in the writing process. Keep fighting for your rights as writers.

MVS: Apart from being a writer, you are also a filmmaker, telling stories through a different medium? Is there a strong connection between ‘the writer’ and ‘the filmmaker’?

SJ: Film is a visual medium in which you tell stories without many words. It forces you to visualize. Being a filmmaker makes you a better writer, and vice versa.

MVS: You have been awarded the Asia Fellowship and will travel to Bangkok in October. Give us more details.

SJ: I will be researching the stories of Nepali migrants in Burma and Thailand. I am excited at this opportunity to learn more about my own people and the way they moved throughout Asia, and also excited at the chance to live and learn about two other Asian countries. I’ve lived in the USA and England, but not in any country in Asia.

MVS: From a literary point of view, where does Nepal stand today?

SJ: Nepal is at the crossroads between India and China. We have almost 30 million people. Nepal is full of mythologies, histories, stories. But publishing in Nepal is run by a small number of publishers who rarely pay writers, and booksellers who pirate books. Writers become dispirited and are not motivated to work in this environment. I think if there is less tolerance of copyright violations and piracy, more young people will produce exciting work in the coming decades.

MVS: Give us three reasons why a trip to Nepal would be rewarding.

SJ: Nepal has amazing artistic traditions, from painting to sculpture to architecture. Nepal has incredible geography—it amazes me even though I was born here. And most of all, it has amazing people. So come see for yourself!

MVS: Thank you for your time. I’m looking forward to reading your next book.

SJ: Thank you Mihnea!

Un piatto di zuppa in El-Ghibli

2010-06-22T01:03:00.000-07:00

Il nano che mi serve il piatto di zuppa così bollente da infuocarmi le guance e riscaldarmi il cuore, è basso e tarchiato, con un ampio sorriso benevolo. La tovaglia è di cotone, a quadretti rossi e gialli. Il tavolo è coperto di oggetti di vetro, sembra la bottega di un farmacista. Il giallo dell’olio d’oliva e il rosso dell’aceto brillano lucenti dentro eleganti bottiglie. Bicchieri da vino di differenti fogge e misure stanno l’uno accanto all’altro. Tovaglioli color giallo sole giacciono arrotolati tra le pieghe dei loro contenitori in legno. “Roma! Roma!” Il cameriere si mostra impaziente mentre cerco di scoprire di più sulle origini di quest’allettante zuppa. “Genova? Sardegna?” Dal brodo spesso sale del vapore.

Read the rest of my story "un piatto di zuppa" in El Ghibli here.

Shelling Peas and History Lessons

2010-06-22T00:51:00.000-07:00

My story is now out in Mascara Literary Review in Australia. Check it out!

The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF

2010-06-07T03:16:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I got an email from Mike Ashley. Would I, he enquired, give him permission to reprint my story "The End of the World" in an anthology about apocalyptic fiction?

Sure, I said. The idea of being published in an apocalyptic anthology thrilled me (as those of you who know me knew it would).

And so here it is: The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic Sci-Fi, at #393 in the Amazon.com ranking in the UK, which is not a ranking to sneeze at at all. Even if you have just been dosed with Anthrax.

The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF
The last sixty years have been full of stories of one or other possible Armageddon, whether by nuclear war, plague, cosmic catastrophe or, more recently, global warming, terrorism, genetic engineering, AIDS and other pandemics. These stories, both pre- and post-apocalyptic, describe the fall of civilization, the destruction of the entire Earth, or the end of the Universe itself. Many of the stories reflect on humankind's infinite capacity for self-destruction, but the stories are by no means all downbeat or depressing - one key theme explores what the aftermath of a cataclysm might be and how humans strive to survive.

About the Author
Mike Ashley is a leading authority on science fiction, fantasy, crime and weird fiction. He has written or edited over 90 books, including The Mammoth Book of King Arthur, The Mammoth Book of Extreme SF, The Mammoth Encycopedia of Crime Fiction and Starlight Man, the biography of Algernon Blackwood, which, in total, have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Chatham, Kent with his wife, three cats and over 30,000 books.

To buy this Mammoth Book, go to:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mammoth-Book-Apocalyptic-SF/dp/1849013055

Just don't blame me if the world comes to an end...

Early Memories, NEPALESE CHILDHOODS

2010-05-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

PRIMARY COLORS

The sun hot and drowsy, the mat with the faint musky fragrance of new straw scratching under my skin. My grandmother, slowly peeling the membrane of an orange and popping them in my unresisting mouth. I am absorbed, absorbed in my playmate Parvati, a strawdust stuffed rag doll slightly taller than me. I try pushing little orange bits in her mouth too, but they just fall on the ground, squelching on the clean ochre straw, getting coated with a layer of white powdery dust of the ground. It is warm and drowsy, and the hum of bees is in the air.Then red silk everywhere, and glittering sequins. A wedding. My mother is carryi ng me. There is loud music and laughter, and the air is weighed down with the heavy smell of perfume, tears and turmeric. Turmeric mixed with cream, and rubbed on the soft white body of the bride. And I am crying, my tears loud as my inarticulateness. My mother gets angry at me, because I am incapable of explaining with my two year old vocabulary that the tiny, glittery stars on her sari are rubbing my skin raw. Green, everywhere would be green then. Lime green of the magnolias, dark green of the bamboos. Wheat, ripe in the sunlight, waving under the load of its ochre grains. The sky a bright blue stone. I’d run, running barefoot over the hot tin roofs, chasing the string as what seemed like hundreds of colorful kites filled the air, tying the sky together in one giant web. I’d be holding my cousin’s hand. Clapping my hand in glee as our brothers’ kite cut off a rival one, and it floated slowly away from the sky. Then the battle would start all over again. And again. Again. Again. Again... until the night caught us unawares, when a coalblack sky would take over the turquoise and we could no longer distinguish the colors of the kites from the light of the burning stars. (Text by Sushma Joshi, ECS Magazine, 2010)

VOW Top 10 Women Competition

2010-04-19T03:51:00.000-07:00

REPUBLICA
KATHMANDU, April 19: I was one of the panel of judges for the sixth VOW Top 10 Women Competition. I was a judge for graduate level students. Singer Robin Sharma and businesswoman Seema Golccha were also on the same panel.

The final 10 winners were awarded prizes at a ceremony held at the Hotel Radisson in Lazimpat on Sunday.

FIRST WORDS: World Literature Today

2010-01-15T01:03:00.000-08:00

In each issue, First Words will introduce a writer new to our pages. Read the beginning of a previously unpublished story by the writer in our print edition, then read the whole piece here on our website. This issue, read Sushma Joshi’s (Nepal) gripping story “The Little Girl Who Died.” Joshi is a writer and filmmaker whose stories have appeared in many publications worldwide. Her “End of the World” was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Joshi has a bachelor’s in international relations from Brown University and a master’s in English literature from Middlebury College.

WOMEN TO WATCH 2010

2010-01-11T04:11:00.000-08:00

One writer amongst..."23 woman achievers who have made a mark in their field and have the talent and determination to do so much more."

Read about us in VOW's annual list of Women To Watch 2010!

“I eat god, I drink god, I sleep on god…”

2010-01-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

I was at the Jaipur Literature festival in January 2010, blogging for Himal Magazine. See the blog posts "Freedom for Sale", "Twenty-first century identities" and "I eat god, I drink god, I sleep on god..." here.

The Most Significant Event of 2009

2009-12-12T22:48:00.000-08:00

France 24 interviewed me about the most significant event of 2009. I said the climate change talks in Copenhagen was the most significant event of the year.

VENT Workshop: Fiction and Non-Fiction Writing

2009-12-10T09:26:00.000-08:00

V.E.N.T! Magazine teamed up with author, journalist and filmmaker Sushma Joshi to present a 2-day writing workshop. The Fiction Writing workshop provided participants with an opportunity to sharpen their writing skills through sessions that focus on different aspects of story writing. The Non-Fiction Writing workshop offered participants with the opportunity to take a deeper look at the genre of non-fiction writing. In this interactive workshop, participants discussed and analyzed articles, and emerged with knowledge on the basic principles of this genre and experimented with a bit of on the spot writing.

December 12, 2009 and December 13, 2009
Time: 12:30-4:30pm
Venue: Today’s Youth Asia office at Babarmahal Revisited
Facilitator: Sushma Joshi

Republica: When The Young Write

2009-12-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

Meet the new alphabets of writing.

For Sushma Joshi though, the mass that we have now is enough to be the driving critical force. “Yes! We are already making a difference. A new wave of developments in writing and the publishing scene means we witness a diverse range of writings and young people actively involved in all kinds of projects these days,” argues the 36-year old author of The End of The World, a short story anthology and contributes to an English language daily as their columnist.

It's my stomach that will kill me

2009-12-04T04:01:00.000-08:00

It's my stomach that will kill me: "End of the World" Republica reviews

Reading at the Indian Cultural Center

2009-12-03T08:19:00.000-08:00

See Quixote's Cove event listing here: "The program started around 5:45pm after Geeti Sen welcomed the guests and provided a brief introduction to Sushma Joshi and her book, The End of the World...

Unlike Indian writers who write in English, Sushma said that writers in Nepal are not ready to tackle the middle class yet. Later, the floor was open for audience to ask questions. Afterwards, there was tea/coffee and sandwich to enjoy."

A slight clarification: I said that unlike English literature from India, which has a long history of books and stories about rural India, and where writers have made some internal self-reflections about the need to write about the urban middle class (from which they mostly originate), Nepal still lacks a body of literature in English that deals with rural Nepal. Nepali writers have to do both--start to write stories about the globalized, jetsetting middle class, but also not forget that we have yet to tell our stories about the other Nepal.

La Gazette De Bali

2009-11-08T23:41:00.000-08:00

L’ubud writers festival frappe encore

Qui sont donc ces « Dangerous Women » ? Femmes écrivains passionnées, esprits aiguisés au parler vrai, la langue bien pendue et culottée, ainsi de la Népalaise Sushma Joshi, seule femme journaliste pendant le conflit civil où plus d’une fois elle avoue avoir eu chaud aux fesses. Lee Su Kim, auteure malaisienne de « Nyonya au Texas » dénonce de son côté, non sans humour, l’ignorance des Américains qui lui demandent si chez elle on vit « encore dans les arbres » et si elle « descend d’une tribu », à quoi elle répondra en riant sous cape que oui elle descend « de la tribu des Nonyot » (parties intimes). Shamini Flint originaire quant à elle de Singapour, la peau sombre et d’un humour hilarant, ancienne avocate d’affaires, quitte l’entreprise quand elle constate que « les plus grands malfaiteurs sont les avocats eux-mêmes. » Elle prend la tangente et utilise son savoir du milieu judiciaire pour écrire... des polars. Elle y dénonce les incohérences de la législation et son 2ème livre s’inspire de Bali : « Inspector Singh Investigates : A Bali Conspiracy ».

Les rêves d’un gosse du ghetto ont inspiré Vikas Swarup, un nom difficile à mémoriser qui est pourtant devenu synonyme de succès, dont l’équation se résume à 2 mois, 42 langues, 8 Oscars. En deux mois effectivement, ce diplomate d’origine indienne posté à Londres, va écrire « Q&A » (Questions & Answers), son premier livre. Un beau record, surtout quand on sait qu’il va être traduit en 42 langues, preuve que le thème du gosse des rues devenu millionnaire nourrit l’imaginaire de toutes les cultures. Le livre deviendra un film : “Slum Dog Millionnaire” qui ratisse 8 oscars... Vikas se considère comme un « raconteur d’histoires » dont le message essentiel est qu’il importe moins de savoir d’où l’on vient que vers quoi on va...

Savoir où il va est le cas du florentin Marco Calvani, 28 ans, venu présenter sa pièce « The City Beneath » (La ville en dessous) et qui utilise le théâtre comme élément fondamental des besoins humains. Calvani est convaincu que « les gens cherchent d’abord nourriture et abri, et sitôt fait, ils veulent raconter leur histoire. » C’est là que commence le théâtre.

Raconter sa propre histoire ou celle des autres, les biographes Jamie James et Jennifer McKenzie se sont penchés sur ce Je(u) est un Autre. L’an dernier, Jamie James nous transportait dans l a j u n g l e ave c s a b i o g r a p h i e d u « S n a k e Charmer », cette fois il se lance sur les traces de « l ’ h o m m e a u x semelles de vent », a l i a s Ar t h u r Rimbaud, une enquête qui le conduit en France. « Il faut être absolument moderne », s’écriait le poète dans les dernières lignes de « Une Saison En Enfer » et « Absolument Moderne » sera le titre de cette bio encore inachevée et très attendue. Quant à Jennifer McKenzie, elle n’a pas hésité à remonter au IXème siècle à la recherche de l’architecte de... Borobudur ! Son enquête, commencée en 1975, s’est poursuivie par des voyages, de l’écriture et des recherches et fait songer aux « Mémoires d’Hadrien » de Marguerite Yourcenar qui recréa à la première personne la voix d’un empereur du 3ème siècle, pas un mince exploit... Ce qui permet de juger de la belle qualité du présent festival malgré les critiques, mmmmh...

La cerise sur le gâteau pour finir, avec le toujours très attendu concours « Poetry Slam » qui rassemblait près de 30 poètes de 11 à 78 ans, tous frappeurs de (bons) mots en deux minutes chrono (gong !) face à 5 juges (ndlr : dont votre petite rapporteuse) impitoyables et incorruptibles, ahah... La palme revint à l’artiste australienne Kerry Pendergrast-Pranoto qui dans une envolée comique à la vision futuristique d’un Festival « Global-Yoga-Writers- Earth Day-Meditation » . Ici on sait rire de soi !

Marie Bee

VOW: 49 Women we love

2009-11-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

I've been VOWed! Check out the rest of the 48 women...

ECS Living: A Room of One's Own

2009-11-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

Words Amidst Beauty: The Star (Malaysia)

2009-10-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

Once again on beautiful Bali, writers and readers from around the world gathered to share their thoughts and experiences. Read Lee Su Kim's article here.

KATIE JACOBS AT THE UBUD WRITERS & READERS FESTIVAL

2009-10-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

Sunday, October 11, 2009
KATIE JACOBS AT THE UBUD WRITERS & READERS FESTIVAL
The sessions I attended on Saturday at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival left the overt political sessions behind and it was a much more literary day.

"A panel on "Writing the Sub-Continent" featured Vikas Swarup, (pic left), author of Q&A, Mohammed Hanif, who also attended the Auckland Readers &Writers Festival earlier this year and is the author of "A Case of Exploding Mangoes, and Sushma Joshi, a short story writer, essayist, and documentary maker from Nepal। The first questions asked about place and sub-continent as characters within their fiction, but somewhat surprisingly, especially given the importance of place in all their works, they professed that the settings were mostly incidental, and the plot itself the only consideration."

I responded to this blog:
Hi Beattie, I was surprised to find your blog post and to read that the writers commented that place was not important in their work. I would like to clarify that all three of us said different things and had different takes on our writing process... I do not subscribe to the ethos that place is not important to my writing, especially since all my writing is about Nepal, and it plays a very central part in whatever I write! Thanks again for giving me the chance to comment...
Warm regards, Sushma Joshi
Kathmandu, Nepal

Beattie's Book Blog

Jakarta Post on Ubud Writers Festival

2009-10-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

Carnival Lights Up Ubud Fest

Dangerous women at Ubud Writers Festival

2009-10-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

After a thought provoking start to the day lunch took on a lighter note. The literary luncheon entitled ‘Dangerous Women’ was held at the stunningly beautiful Alila Ubud Resort’. Entering the resort through an expansive emerald green rice field, I immediately exhaled. A panel of passionate female authors such as the hilariously funny Shamini Flint (launching her book ‘A Bali Conspiracy’ on Sunday) and Sushma Joshi made lunch side splittingly witty and a complete joy.

See the complete entry at

Jo's Blog

here on the Ubud Writers and Readers' Festival website.

Ubud Writers Festival 2009

2009-10-09T04:44:00.000-07:00

Suka-Duka was the theme of the Ubud Writers Festival in 2009. I was on a panel about the subcontinent alongside two writers: Vikas Swarup, who wrote "Q and A", the book that was made into the Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire, and Pakistani writer Mohammad Hanif.

Five Books on Nepal: A Highly Subjective List

2009-09-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

I compiled this list for ECS Magazine's tenth anniversary edition. Read on...
____________________________
Ranking books is, of course, a highly subjective enterprise. Some books withstand the test of time, but which ones? Trying to hone it down to the top five is a tough, but not entirely dissatisfying, exercise. Please feel free to disagree.

Fatalism and Development
By Dor Bahadur Bista (1991, Calcutta: Longman)

Agree or disagree with the now vanished Mr Bista, there is no doubt that this is one of the most cogently written, most interesting critiques of Nepali society. Why is Nepal a basket case? Read this book to find out. Intelligent men have disagreed with this classic. Western expatriate workers make this their Bible when they arrive and get jeered by those who want more complexity in their analysis. Yyoung students swoon over it. Liberal Brahmins have bemoaned how the book has been influential in justifying policies that discriminate against Brahmins in the development sector. Unfortunately, Mr Bista―anthropologist, adventurer, provocateur―was last seen over a decade ago getting on a bus in far west Nepal and cannot be reached for comments. Those who die young are immortal, as the saying goes. Those who vanish trekking in far western Nepal also may be immortalized, especially if they leave behind such divisive and provocative works.

The Snow Leopard
By Peter Matthiessen (1978, New York: Viking)

This classic travel book, about the writer's search for a snow leopard in Dolpa, has withstood the test of time. As we feel the rush of a vanishing world of flora and fauna, this search for a rare species of snow leopard takes on a particularly acute poignancy. As the world warms and species vanish with alarming rapidity, never to return, this book will remind us how we are tied to nature. Man's search for the big cat is akin to man's search for his own soul, and existence.

Devkota’s Muna Madan
Translation and analysis by Michael Hutt (1996, Kathmandu: Sajha Prakashan)

Michael Hutt's Rs.50 translation almost doesn't do justice to the greatest poet of Nepal, Laxmi Prasad Devkota. But whether you chose to buy it or skim it in the bookstore, you can't really ignore the most popular epic poem ever written in contemporary Nepal. Madan is going to Lhasa to do business, Muna tells him not to go, but he goes anyway... Listen to this classic about a man's journey into the unknown and difficult reaches of his own self as he realizes he should have listened to his life partner before making an important decision.

Adventures of a Nepali Frog
By Kanak Mani Dixit (1996, Kathmandu: Rato Bangla Kitab)

I admit it. I'm a fan of the travel genre. And what Bhaktaman Bhyaguta, Kanakmani Dixit's excitable frog barely out of his tadpole teens, does is to sate this travel bug. This young frog manages to make his way all across the country and have a roaring good time. The book is a masterful blend of childish humor and effortless language. Available in a variety of languages, from French to Nepali, the book has proved itself over the years as a classic for children (and adults) alike.

The Brick and the Bull: An account of Handigaun, The Ancient Capital of Nepal
By Sudharshan Tiwari (2002, Kathmandu: Himal Books)

As I mulled for my last and most definitive book (Guiseppe Tucci’s Journey to Mustang? Frederick Gaige's Regionalism and National Unity in Nepal?), and soul-searched with important questions―Where are my ethnic writers? Where are my Dalit writers? Why am I privileging male writers? etc. ―I went on a walk to Ichangu Narayan with a friend. This friend kept on touching inscriptions on stones, and the lintels of temples, and talking about how she read it all in The Brick and the Bull. Amidst the glorious riot of marigolds and mustard flowers bursting into yellow glory under the hot blue November sun, there is really no way but to fall in love, all over again, with the Kathmandu Valley. And I admit it—I live in Handigaun, the oldest inhabited settlement of the valley. How can you not obsess, all over again, with all the art and the architecture and the careful detective work of all where it all may have started from? On the way back, touching the authentic stone lions and bemoaning the ugly statues that seem to have replaced the originals (whether the older statues were removed to wear and tear or to thievery we will never know), there is nothing to do but dust off my copy of this classic, and start reading it all over again.

As they say, there is nothing quite like a jatra from Handigaun. See you there at the Saraswoti temple, where the patron goddess of the arts is sure to bless those of you who take literature to heart!

This list of top books was assembled by Sushma Joshi, a Nepalese writer. End of the World, her book of short stories, was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in 2009. (Please wait and purchase the improved second edition, due out from Sansar Media in 2010.) She is also the author of Art Matters (Kathmandu, 2008), an anthology of art essays.

Munyori: After the Floods

2009-07-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

"After the Floods" is published in Munyori literature journal.

WAVE Magazine Review

2009-07-15T23:11:00.001-07:00

Sushma Joshi starts a new beginning for English medium literature in Nepal
by EMMA SCIANTARELLI

FROM ISSUE # 163 (July 2009) | IN THIS ISSUE

Good literature plays a much deeper role in the grand scheme of history than just being a good way to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon. It's an account of culture and history, with a flare of authenticity giving a face to those who lived the time. Authors like Jane Austen, Victor Hugo and the likes became literary giants not only for their ability to entertain, but also for their ability to capture history through a narrative voice. When a writer pens the everyday lives of real people amidst a certain cultural, social, or political backdrop s/he offers an entirely different insight than a textbook ever will.

As a fan of South Asian literature and an avid reader of the regions most celebrated writers, I've waited for a writer to represent the country I love most, Nepal. Every time I go into a bookstore abroad and find the shelf where the works of Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and the likes live, my soul instantly sings as I feel connected back to this beloved subcontinent. But my momentary high sinks down when I think, "Why is there nothing, absolutely nothing, written by a writer from Nepal?"

Now there is.

The only Nepali so far to be nominated for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, her short story collection, The End of The World has already helped Sushma Joshi gain international recognition. And why not? Her stories are simple and fun, yet show so many different facets all too common to the Nepali community. In a brief 176 pages, examining religion, migration, marriage, war, friendship, love and loss, Joshi leaves no stone unturned in her presentation of what it means to be Nepali. A boy's first experience with international cheese, the life of a Bombay migrant worker turned Maoist, and the book's namesake, a testimony of the day, 'the end of the world', Joshi paints a few of the many different faces of Nepal, keeping it all in context with the political instability that's remained at the crux of the country for the last decade. While not many of her stories left me pondering for days, it was still a fun read and a testimony to life in Nepal that's yet to be written.

Although at times a bit spotty when it came to editing-clumsy sentences and a few blatant grammatical errors that any decent editor would have polished up–the book was worth the Rs 250 I had spent. Most importantly, however, is that Sushma Joshi's writing and perseverance has not raised the bar in English medium literature in Nepal, but created it when there was virtually none. The End of the World was Sushma's great gift to Nepal, not only for what it dealt with, but also for conveying the message that literature is a tradition that must not be lost.

(Editorial comment: Samrat Upadhyay's book "The Royal Ghosts" was shortlisted for the Frank O Connor in 2006.)

Writing workshop at the British Council Library

2009-06-20T01:07:00.000-07:00

I taught a one day creative writing workshop for this event. Organized by Quixote's Cove, the competition was aimed to encourage writing amongst high school students in Nepal.

Inter School Literary Competition
[20 June 2009 ]

The Inter-School Short Story Contest is targeted towards promoting literary arts amongst students. Inter-School Short Story Contest is open for students from Grade 8 to 10 from government and private schools around Kathmandu Valley. It will be held in the last week of July at the British Council. A panel of judges comprising of literary figures, journalists and academicians will select the top five winning entries. The winning entries will be published alongside professional Nepali writers in an anthology of short stories targeted towards school students.

Prior to the contest, a series of creative writing workshops will be conducted to encourage participating students. The workshops are optional and are being conducted to provide a platform for students to explore the nature of creative writing and receive feedback on their writing from professional writers.

The Award:

1. The top five entries as judged by a panel of judges will be published in an anthology of short stories along with professional Nepali writers writing in English.
2. Cash prizes will also be awarded to the top five entries.
3. All participants will receive a certificate of participation
4. All participating schools in the competition will be mentioned in the anthology

End of the World

2009-06-07T01:15:00.000-07:00

This is the actual cover...

Reading of "End of the World" at Center for Art and Design

2009-05-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

I Read "Betrayal" from my book "End of the World" at Kathmandu University's Center for Art and Design this afternoon. Here are is the link to the center.

Joshi in running for Frank O’Connor award, Nepal News, Breaking News

2009-05-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

Joshi in running for Frank O’Connor award, Nepal News, Breaking News, Hot News, Enter Nepal, News - National

Joshi in running for Frank O’Connor award
May 15, 2009
source: kantipuronline

Nepali writer Sushma Joshi has been selected in the long-list for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, which has the single biggest cash prize for a short story collection, €35,000, in the world.

When she found she was nominated, she said, “I am very excited. Just to be a part of the long list which has noted writers such as (Kazuo) Ishiguro and (Chimamanda Ngozi) Adichie is a great honour, for Nepal as well as Nepali writers, as the other writers who have been short-listed are very well known.”

Joshi' short story collection, “The End of The World”, has eight different stories, all based around loss and longing. The title story itself, is a prophetic tale about the mass hysteria created by a holy man's predictions about the end of the world. She says she wanted to capture the way people react to such news, and that the story “reflected the current political scenario in the country, where every small thing spirals into a big issue.”

Joshi also said the long-list nomination was in itself a great thing, as “it brings good international exposure, especially for short story writers. Also, it is very encouraging for young writers who want to pursue a career in this profession.” However, a slight mistake has led to Joshi being nominated as a British writer.

The Frank O'Connor award is an annual award that was introduced in 2005. Its past winners include Pulitzer-prize winning Jhumpa Lahiri, noted Japanese writer Haruki Murakami and Chinese writer Yiyun Li. While the long-list has 57 di-fferent writers from around the world, including two from India - Jahnavi Barua and Jasmine Anita Yvette D'Costa - the short-list of either four or six writers will be announced in mid-July, and the winner on September 20 in Ireland. Joshi writes a weekly column, “The Global and The Local” for The Kathmandu Post.

The Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award

2009-05-14T04:07:00.000-07:00

The End of the World is longlisted! Other books on the list--Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes, Faber and Faber Limited, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing Around Your Neck, Fourth Estate LTD. I feel honored!

http://www.munsterlit.ie/FOC%20Award%20page.html

The End of the World: Himalmag Review

2009-05-14T03:51:00.000-07:00

The End of the World
by Sushma Joshi
FinePrint Books, 2008

This compilation of short stories, Sushma Joshi’s first book, is firmly rooted in the Nepali experience, especially of the past decade. Themes of loss, distrust, the state’s betrayal of its people, and out-migration in search of opportunity – all are realties in the country’s recent past, and these colour most of the narratives.

Yearning – whether a grown man’s lifelong craving for cheese; a young police cadet’s hunger for the neighbour’s vegetable patch (and daughter); or a dejected villager’s longing for the ancestral land with which he was forced to part – is also central to these stories. Joshi does well in giving voice to these desires, drawing the reader in with poignant and humorous portrayals of the characters’ quests for fulfilment... (Surabhi Pudasaini)

Himalayan Book Club: Kathmandu Post, April 27, 2009

2009-04-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

Joshi takes centre stage
PR
Himalayan Readers Bookclub (HRB)' with support of Learning Zone members of British Council discussed Sushma Joshi's collection of short stories "The End of the World" on April 25, Saturday, at British Council, Lainchour.

It was a monthly roundtable discussion which HRB organises at the same venue. This time along with 24 participants, Prof. Sanjeev Uprety (author, Ghannachakkar) and another author Sheeba Sivangini Shah commented on Sushma's writing. During the programme Sushma was delighted to see young readers engaged in literature reading and writing. She expressed her hope to see lots of writing from group members.

Commenting on Sushma's writing, Uprety said, "Sushma's stories are excellent pieces of social realism. Her descriptions are vivid, dialogues sharp and the narratives well constructed. Her stories depict sadness, poverty, hunger and other tragic aspects of life. But they are written with lots of humour. The mixture of the serious and the tragic, of light humour and the undertone of serious issues is the main strength of her writing."

Seebha S Shah thanked HRB for their efforts at bridging the gap between the authors and readers. All participants took part in the programme with great enthusiasm.

Book Tour Launch

2009-04-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

Quixote's Cove is conducting a book tour for Sushma Joshi's new book, a short story compilation entitled, "The End of the World." The book tour shall start on the 23rd of April 2009 and will go on till the 30th of April 2009. During the tour, Sushma will be reading extracts from her book at 10 different venues around Kathmandu Valley.

Sushma Joshi has also published a book, “Art Matters”, on Nepali Artin the present age. She co-edited “New Nepal, New Voices”, an anthology of short stories published by Rupa in 2008. She also contributes to “The Global and the Local”, a weekly op-ed column for the Kathmandu Post, a national daily.

We invite you to participate in this book tour and attend the readings.

Venue: Quixote's Cove

Time: 5:30 pm

Date: Thursday, 23rd April 2009

Book Tour Schedule:
23rd April - Book Tour Launch at Quixote's Cove, New Orleans, 5.30 pm

24th April - WWF Nepal, 3.30 - 5 pm (for staff only)

25th April - British Council 1 - 3 pm (for members only) & Public Reading at Kathmandu Guest House, 5 pm

26th April - Nepal Investment Bank Limited, 4.30 pm (for staff only)

27th April - Beed Management and Himal Media, 4 pm (for staff only)

28th April - USEF Nepal, 3.30 pm (for students only)

30th April - Kathmandu University - School of Arts, 12 pm (for students only) & Public Reading at Kaiser Library, 3.30pm

A GLIMPSE OF THE DIVINE

2009-03-18T06:12:00.000-07:00

SUSHMA JOSHI
ECS Magazine, 2009

My mother is a big gardener. Ever since I can remember, she has snipped off tiny branches of this plant or that from other people's gardens, from the ditches of abandoned roads, from the corners of dusty junkyards, bringing that life back home to replant in her garden. Flowers, she's decided, belong to everybody. This means that she will happily sweep up an entire basketful of yellow forsythia for devotees who ask for it in the morning, and uproot a flowering plant if a visitor asks for it. She will hand the plant over since she believes flowers and plants must be shared. This sometimes causes us annoyance since we'd rather not hand over our fern to some stranger who takes a fancy to it—after all, our friend from Australia hand-carried from the forests of Nimbun, and perhaps it would be nice if our mother asked permission before uprooting it. But all of this seems not to matter to our mother, who, like birds or bees, is inexhaustible in her energy in both disseminating and gathering plants. She can't keep track of all the beautiful colors of impatiens and crysanthemums and marigolds she once had. All of them are lost or die out or are stolen by gardeners. Gardeners have become her special nemesis—every once in a while one of us hires a gardener who manages to destroy an ancient creeper, or who snips off the leaves in odd ways, or who steals precious plants for some secret nursery where they work part-time. I think at times she remembers things from her dreams and transplants them into a dream garden that never was. She's recently taken to putting big blocks of ice on our plants ("There's no water, the plants will die!"). The plants seem to appreciate this ice treatment for they bloom blissfully even in the dryness of a Kathmandu winter.

Through my mother, I came to appreciate the smell of earth after a light rain, the beauty of weeds, and the flow of life which follows the wilderness. Around autumn, I noticed that my nephew had taken to accompanying my mother on her garden activities in the early morning—picking out bugs, testing the ground for earthworms, marveling at a fresh upsurge of mint, discovering that a bulb thought dead was now sprouting new shoots. In our little corner of Kathmandu, my mother maintains, stubbornly, her little patch of wildness—tangled weeds, bamboo, unidentified herbiage. She refuses to tame her garden. No neat rows of potted plants for her, no cultivated roses, no scrupulous uprooting of weeds. Big civil wars erupt inside our family when a tree is to be trimmed—half the family (including me) opposing any destruction of greenery even if the jackaranda trees threaten to cover up the house with their canopies, the other half longing for easily managed urban space devoid of messy green leaves, untidy trees, rotting organic matter.

The miracle of nature, which we always forget in the gloom of winter, is renewal. Dusty winter trees give way to fresh spring leaves which cover the blue sky with new color. Nature inspires art not just by giving us a chance to copy what already exists—but also by encouraging us to work with what its given us and to rework it in new ways. In the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, I saw a still-life drawn by one of the most well-known still-life artists, a French woman from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The baskets of fruit were luscious, and the strawberries so ripe and juicy you felt you could pick them out of the canvas, five hundred years after they were painted, and pop them inside your mouth. Juan Sánchez Cotán, a Spanish artist and Carthusian monk, painted still-life paintings that are revered in Spain. His still-life in the Prado Museum, which was a break from the gigantic canvases that paid homage to religious devotion, is simple—it shows a vegetable, perhaps a radish, cut at the top and standing upright, with lemons, carrots and some dead game birds. Words cannot really describe the quality of light that lights up this canvas—it is as if the light of heaven were falling down upon it, making the life of the everyday come to life, showing us how the simplicity of daily life can be a spiritual vision.

After touring the Prado Museum in Madrid and staring very hard at Zurbaran's other masterpiece—a simple, rectangular canvas which depicts four pots, I went to sleep the next day and woke up the next morning with a vision. I woke up with a vivid feeling that I had just glimpsed the transcendent, something not of this world. In Sanskrit this is called darshan, the vision of the divine. For me, the darshan was of the light of heaven falling on four small and ordinary pots found in a kitchen during Zurbaran's time. For a few seconds upon awakening, I felt a profound peace and happiness.

Everybody with whom I shared this, of course, thought I was being extremely amusing. People go all the way to Nepal to have a spiritual experience and you had yours in the Prado Museum, my friend Maria said, laughing. I still remember Graham, a college friend, telling me how he'd climbed a mountain in Nepal, met up with a sadhu, had a conversation, and had a profound religious experience. I sense that cultural dislocation in another country where they can't speak the language, as well as alienation and silence that comes over people when they cannot answer back, puts them in a space where their perceptions and senses are strangely heightened. Phenomena is experienced with special clarity during those moments. Hence the religious awakenings Europeans and Americans experience in Nepal and India, when they are submerged in religious practices but are unable to clearly articulate their feelings. I had walked for six hours through the Prado Museum, seeing manifestation of religious devotions from one century to the next, one country to the next, and all that religious fervor amalgamated for me into one rectangular piece of canvas depicting the simplicity of daily life. No wonder then that Zurbaran's pots, and his still-lives of pots and lemons continue to light up people's conciousness about what God really is.

Art, nature, the spiritual experience: all of these are integrally tied, and inspire each other. For me, waking up each morning and walking to the garden is an experience that brings together all three—not only am I surrounded by the greenery of nature, but also the hand of God which has shaped it into art. My nephew comes to sit on my lap as I sip my tea. Look, Babu, do you see that bird? I say, pointing to a small black and white bird that is pecking away at an avocado in the ground. Where, where? He asks. There, I point again, but he can't really see the bird. He runs up, and the bird flies away. He comes back and sits with me again. We giggle at the dog, who has laid down at our feet and is making funny noises as he scratches his ear fussily. Then we sit in silence and watch the garden. Both of us are aware that there is a special magic to the morning which cannot be explained. This wordlessness is what captures the divinity of everyday life—the tea, the dog, the child, the morning. This, then is the art of God—his hand visible in the colors of greenery, the browns of the earth, the blue of early morning. His canvas is vast. And we artists, humble humans, must try to capture a small keyhole glimpse of that infinity as best as we can.

Narratives on Art and Nature

2009-03-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

H.E Finn Thilsted, Ambassador of Denmark inaugurated a reading on Narratives on Art and Nature, at 4:00 pm in Gallery 32 @ Dent Inn, Heritage Plaza, Kamaladi.

Narratives on Art and Nature is a compilation of short articles by four writers based in Nepal writing on the themes of art and nature. During the event Sushma Joshi, Rabi Thapa and Pranab Man Singh read pieces they wrote for the compilation.

Narratives on Art and Nature was published by Quixote’s Cove and the reading was organized by Gallery 32 and Quixote’s Cove.

The readings started with a short reflection by H.E. Finn Thilsted on the art event, Trees: Artifacts of Nature, organized by Quixote’s Cove on 3rd March 2009 at the GTZ Office gardens in Sanepa. Narratives on Art and Nature is an attempt to establish a unique Nepali narrative for art and nature. It was published and launched during the art event, Trees: Artifacts of Nature. The exhibition, Trees: Artifacts of Nature, runs at Gallery 32 till 30th March 2009.

Kathmandu Post review: The End of the World

2009-03-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Longing and loss
Sophia Furber
Hunger, both literal and metaphorical, is the driving theme behind Sushma Joshi's The End of the World. A diverse cast of characters, ranging from a policeman driven to stealing vegetables to stave off his hunger to a young worker returning to his famine-stricken village, grapple with their desires, resentments and everyday sufferings in this engaging collection of eight short stories.
Loss and longing are dealt with against a variety of social backdrops; a rural village stewing in a pre-monsoon torpor, the living quarters of small-town police station, an uptight upper-caste Kathmandu household, the living room of a wealthy Allahabad family during the Second World War. Joshi's stories plaintively ask the question of whether the hunger of the human heart can ever be satisfied.

The first story, Cheese, stands out as the most well crafted of the collection. A young boy, Gopi, sent to Kathmandu to work for his wealthy relatives as a household help, is denied the chance to taste cheese brought back by the family's eldest son on his return from Switzerland. Gopi vows that one day he too will taste this alien and glamorous foodstuff for himself, an obsession which remains with him long into adulthood. Joshi captures the mixture of awe, curiosity and envy that a returnee from foreign lands evokes in her young protagonist, and almost sacred quality with which foreign goods, right down to the tin-foil wrappers of Swiss chocolate, are imbued by members of the family. Cheese -- which Gopi hears as the Nepali word chij, meaning 'thing' -- becomes the focus of inexplicable longings, and is elevated to almost mythical status; "the humble thing-i-ness of the word had suddenly travelled to the exotic underworld of the senses and came up packaged in silver foil and cardboard, smelling of timezones and jetlag... the word suddenly had status."

The kind of simple literalism of the cheese/chij confusion is a recurring motif in the collection, as the characters grasp for solutions to their problems or means to satisfy their desires in a confusing world. In the final story, The Blockade, a young man takes a detour on his way back home from India to track down Ram Bahadur Bomjom who has learnt to survive without food or water, so that he can discover the famous 'Buddha boy's' secret and help the inhabitants of his native village to survive a famine. In the story The End of the World, Kathmandu is sent into a frenzy by a sadhu's predictions that the end of the world is near -- and a man from a hard-up family decides that the natural reaction to the coming of the apocalypse is to blow the household budget on ingredients for a lavish final meal, to his wife's dismay. The sacred and mundane sit very close together throughout this collection of stories.

Nepal's turbulent politics of recent years are never far from Joshi's mind in this collection. The spectre of political violence hangs over a sleepy afternoon at the village tea shop in Waiting for the Rain, in which a taxi driver comes to while away a day with his relatives discussing forthcoming elections, and wonders why his old friend Harka has become so burdened with grief. Betrayal tells the story of a friendship forged between two young men during years of migrant labour in India which is put to the test when the pair gets involved with the Maoist insurgency on their return home. Throughout her collection of stories, Joshi views political turmoil through the prism of the sufferings, desires and foibles of individuals, while the specifics of political parties, the state and the insurgency ultimately merge into the background. Betrayal goes as far as to give us a narrator whose decision to break with the Maoists and turn back to capitalism boils down to poor rice rations (“I was just getting really tired of the old useniko rice. You know what I mean? After fifteen years of eating good rice in Mumbai you don't want to go back and be eating some stinking shit stolen from an army barracks”). While Joshi's focus on the individual hungers and desires amid the conflict is successful throughout much of the collection, there are a few moments at which her attempts to marry political narratives with personal ones are less convincing, such as the first-person descriptions of life with the insurgents in Betrayal.

What makes The End of the World stand out as a collection of short stories is Joshi's masterful and elegant use of language. This volume is packed with delightfully inventive turns of phrase -- a personal favourite is the ironic discussion of the virtues of Switzerland compared to Nepal in Cheese ("That land of mountains, that mirror image of peaks, but so much more Westernised, so much more modern than Nepal's own mythologically burdened ones")

The End of the World is a confident debut collection for Joshi, in which the deceptively simple exterior of her prose peels away to reveal multiple layers of investigation into human longing and emptiness.
Posted on: 2009-03-07 20:48:48 (Server Time)

THE COLONEL GETS A VISITOR

2009-01-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

Read the story here in the Kyoto Journal.

2009-01-26T14:12:00.001-08:00

REGULAR FEATURES
FICTION
82 Hunger by Sushma Joshi

POETRY
85 Two Poems in Praise of Enka by Kevin Simmonds
87 Four Poems by Kim Seung-Hee
Translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Hyung-Jin

IN TRANSLATION
90 The Wrong Paradise by Rabindranath Tagore
Translated from Bengali by Srinjay Chakravarti

Internazionale

2008-12-23T00:30:00.000-08:00

The New York Times Guide for Immigrants to New York

2008-12-21T21:25:00.000-08:00

I worked on this guide while a graduate student in New York. Ah, New York!

Internazionale

2008-12-15T00:25:00.000-08:00

"New Nepal, New Voices” is listed in the Internazionale's latest edition.

Other Side of Terror: An Anthology of Writings on Terrorism in South Asia

2008-12-15T00:06:00.000-08:00

Published by OUP India
Indian sub-continent • Collections & anthologies of various literary forms • Terrorism, freedom fighters, armed struggle

Editor: Majumdar, Nivedita ISBN: 978 0 19 569696 7 Format: Hardback Pages: 368 List price(s): 24.99 GBP 52.00 USD Publication date: 31 January 2009
Full description
South Asia offers an instructive instance for studying the phenomenon of terrorism। The Other Side of Terror offers insights from the literatures of India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The Nepali writings concern the Maoist insurgency; those from Sri Lanka, the Tamil militancy. The Indian selections engage with manifestations ranging from the militant wing of the Independence movement to the various post-Independence terrorist movements, such as separatism in Punjab, the insurgency in Assam, and the Naxalite movement in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh. The selections, comprising both original writings in English as well as translations from regional languages, include short stories, poetry, and excerpts from novels and plays. The volume will appeal to all those concerned with the phenomenon of terrorism in South Asia, cultural studies, history, literature, as well as general readers.

Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; INTRODUCTION; SECTION I: FREEDOM AND TERROR; BANKIM CHANDRA CHATTERJI, ANANDAMATH (EXCERPTS); AUROBINDO GHOSE, KARMAYOGIN: EARLY POLITICAL WRITINGS (EXCERPTS); BHAGAT SINGH, STATEMENT IN THE SESSION COURT DURING ASSEMBLY BOMB CASE, 6TH JUNE 1929 AND STATEMENT BEFORE THE LAHORE HIGH COURT BENCH; SARAT CHANDRA CHATTERJEE, THE RIGHT OF WAY (EXCERPTS); RABINDRANATH TAGORE, FOUR CHAPTERS (EXCERPTS); BAL GANGADHAR TILAK, THE COUNTRYS MISFORTUNE AND THESE REMEDIES ARE NOT LASTING; EDMUND CANDLER, SIRI RAM: REVOLUTIONIST; SECTION II: REVOLUTION AND TERROR - INDIA; MAHASHWETA DEVI, MOTHER OF 1084 (EXCERPTS); TARIT KUMAR, WE NEVER WANTED; SAROJ DUTTA, THE NIGHT OF THE FULL MOON; BANI BASU, THE ENEMY WITHIN (EXCERPTS); ASHIM RAY, AUNI; NEPAL; SAMRAT UPADHYAY, A REFUGEE; LI ONESTO, DISPATCHES FROM THE PEOPLES WAR IN NEPAL; SUSHMA JOSHI, WAITING FOR THE WAR TO END; PANKAJ MISHRA, THE PEOPLES WAR; TENZIN TSUNDUE, I AM A TERRORIST; SECTION III: IDENTITY AND TERROR - SRI LANKA; JEAN ARASANAYAGAM, IN THE GARDEN SECRETLY; A. SIVANADAN, WHEN MEMORY DIES (EXCERPTS); JERUSA, YOUR FATE TOO; CHERAN, AMMA DO NOT WEEP; PUNJAB; PASH, BEGGING FOR ALMS OF FAITH; ANITA AGNIHOTRI, ENCIRCLEMENT; MOHAN BHANDARI, COMB YOUR HAIR, MY DEAR!'; KHUSHWANT SINGH, MY BLEEDING PUNJAB (EXCERPTS); KARTAR SINGH DUGGAL, HER DUE OF A DAUGHTER; THE NORTH-EAST; ROBIN S. NGANGOM, NATIVE LAND; NIRANJAN CHAKMA, WHEN DEBATE HAS NO ROOM; SAMMER TANTI, GO GIVE THEM THE NEWS; ROBIN S. NGANGOM, POETRY IN A TIME OF TERROR; BIMAL SINGHA, BASAN'S GRANDMOTHER; MITRA PHUKAN , HOPE; MAMANG DAI, THE SORROW OF WOMEN; KYNPHAM SING NONGKYNRIH, FOREBODINGS AND LAWSOHTUN; SANJIB BARUAH, A NEW POLITICS OF RACE: INDIA AND ITS NORTH-EAST; KASHMIR; NEERJA MATTOO, THE STORY OF A WOMAN'S COLLEGE IN KASHMIR; SHEBA CHHACHHI, FINDING FACE: IMAGES OF WOMEN FROM THE KASHMIR VALLEY; ZUTHSHI, SOMNATH, WHO ARE THESE DURYODHANS?; ANEES HAMADANI, THE BURNT OUT SUN; SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

sympathiemagazin.de

2008-11-17T01:06:00.000-08:00

Read my article in sympathiemagazin

"Hunger"

2008-11-08T02:32:00.000-08:00

Hunger in Kyoto Journal

See the latest issue of the Kyoto Journal, a wonderful Asia-based English language journal, to read my story "Hunger". Its published in their winter 2008 issue. And if you are in Japan mail me a copy!

"A Mythic Picture" in das gefrorene meer

2008-11-08T02:22:00.000-08:00

October 2008 issue of "das gefrorene meer", or the Frozen Ocean, features my story "The Mythic Picture." Check it out here.
The story is here.

Sushma Joshi:
Sushma Joshi wurde 1973 in Kathmandu geboren. Sie studierte in den USA an der Brown University, wo sie einen Abschluss im Studiengang International Relations machte. Sie ist Mitherausgeberin einer Auswahl von Kurzgeschichten, New Nepal, New Voices (Rupa 2008), in der nepalesische Autoren ihre Texte in englischer Sprache veröffentlichen. Im September 2008 erschien eine Sammlung mit eigenen Kurzgeschichten der Autorin, End of the World (Rupa). Derzeit arbeitet Sushma Joshi als Medienberaterin für das Office of Transitional Initiatives, ein USAID-Projekt, das sich mit Friedenskonsolidierung in Nepal befasst.

"Rain" in Cold River Review

2008-11-04T00:29:00.000-08:00

The Autumn 08 Issue
THE NATURE OF NATURE
Volume 3 Issue 3
The Autumn Interview
Talking with Malidoma Patrice Somé
“Ritual, Remembeing & Healing”

New Fiction: from Sushma Joshi "Rain"

Encounters at the End of the World
by Teresa Podlesney

"Transformed" by Jim Rousmaniere

Mountains and Waters Sutra
by Dogen Zenji

Poetry from: Leah Meryl Harmon, Eric Trethewey, T.S. Eliot, Tim Mayo, Charles Wright, Jay Parini, Michael Blumenthal

"Initiation: Remembering One’s Purpose" Malidoma Patrice Somé

"New Nepal, New Voices" in Literary Review, the Hindu

2008-11-03T00:57:00.000-08:00

Insights into Nepal
PRERANA MARASINI
Short stories that traverse many topics but remain rooted in the Nepali context.

New Voices, New Nepal; edited by Sushma Joshi and Ajit Baral, Rupa, Rs. 195.
New Voices, New Nepal is a collection of stories written by Nepali writers, living in different parts of the world.

The aim of the anthology, say the editors, is to give a feel of these writers' association with their country, in which many stories are successful.
Among the best are "The Hill" and "Of Heroes and Onions". The Hill, written by Greta Rana is a story of a lush-green hill with thick forests, which loses all its beauty when marble miners devastate it. Greta writes: "The quarry was a deep wound into the main body of the hill: a huge Caesarean section that was performed by several mechanized monsters with pincered shovels….Under artificial lighting the machines plunged in and out in a kind of macabre simulation of gigantic copulation: continual rape." Simple but powerful The story won the prize for the best text at the Inernationale Arnsberger Kurzprosa in 1991.

"Of Heroes and Onions" is a story about people rising. The story revolves around a great leader who gives high hopes and makes incredible promises for the Janta. The leader is highly supported by the people who are in desperate need of positive changes in the country — food and clothes for the poor and a stable economy for all. Quite relevant in the context of Nepal, that is being restructured to be named 'New Nepal', the writer, Sanjeev Uprety then goes on relating the leader with an onion, when he lets down the people's expectations.

Warning?
It seems Uprety is trying to warn all the leaders (the Maoists mainly), in a changed context of Nepal, to fulfil their commitments and be different than those who could not keep the promises in the past.

"Love and Lust in Maoist Hinterland", a journey of a British photojournalist during the time of armed struggle in Nepal, describes how his desire to stay with the Maoist militias could not be fulfilled when they didn't grant him permission.

Though the editor Sushma Joshi claims that the collected stories speak of the Nepali context, "The Face of Carolynn Flint" does not shed any light on Nepal. Written by Prawin Adhikari, it's, however, an interesting story about an American woman with changeable faces.

This anthology has stories from all spheres — from inept bureaucracy to politics, from aspirations of the youth to cynicism of the elderly, all mostly in Nepal's context. As far as language is concerned, renowned writer Samrat Upadhay says, "The narratives are distinctively Nepali, but they also move ahead the boundaries of the parochial, landlocked Nepal and reveal a country whose physical space is as fluid as its national identity."

Art MATTERS

2008-10-19T03:53:00.000-07:00

ART MATTERS, a collection of my art reviews, is now out in book form with the generous support of the Alliance Francaise in Kathmandu. Check it out in the bookstores in Thamel.

New Nepal, New Voices now out from Rupa

2008-10-18T23:12:00.000-07:00

The anthology has 15 stories from writers from Nepal. The book is available in India and Nepal. In Kathmandu, check Pilgrims, Mandala, Vajra, United and others!

"New Nepal, New Voices" launch

2008-09-01T02:30:00.000-07:00

"New Nepal, New Voices" launched at the Alliance Francaise:

The book will be launched at Alliance Française in Kathmandu on Friday, September 5th, 6.30pm in the presence of some of the authors, who will read various stories at that occasion.

All are welcome till hall is full. Refreshment will be offered.

Review: New Nepal, New Voices

2008-08-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

Anglicised Portraits

Despite the initial hiccups, the anthology is an impressive collection of stories from Nepal — a country with no dearth of ideas or talent. It is a promising sign of things to come.
—Jyoti Thapa Mani
http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/Books-and-Guides/Innovations-That-Enrich-Lives.html

New Nepal, New Voices review in kantipuronline.com

2008-08-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=157235

To cut a long story short

The other day I was browsing the internet when I stumbled upon a web posting in ECS magazine by a guest columnist. The beginning sentence: "You may have wondered, as I did, why there are so few anthologies of fiction from Nepali writers writing in English."
Then there is the mention about the difficulty in editing an anthology, and a casual remark: "When faced with no stories, something is better than nothing."

The excerpt by Sushma Joshi, a prominent writer and filmmaker, is important as it throws light upon...truth about the dearth of good short stories written by Nepali writers.

In recent years, there has truly been a huge surge in the number of people who produce and consume English literature. What is ironic is the fact that no one makes a living from writing short stories anymore. And yet, short stories have survived through the rough years and even freed itself from the dictates of a few. Short stories these days are often less formulaic and less imitative than they used to be. There's no preferred style or mode anymore, and there are now dozens of different camps of short-fiction writing, all coexisting happily. Many of them are on display in New Nepal New Voices, an anthology edited by Sushma Joshi and Ajit Baral.

One very good story, Smriti Ravindra's "Old Iron Trunks", about an oppressed wife and her daughter who steal from an old trunk belonging to a lecherous husband, is so well made, so clear and unassuming in its writing, that in this racy volume it marks a presence of its own. Two of the other best-written stories in the book, Peter J Karthak's "Dark Kathmandu Sideways" and Sushma Joshi's "Law and Order" are a perfect blend of narrative pyrotechnics and colorful imagery. While the former is laced with a scathing parody of individuals' moral degenerations feeding upon each other for promoting and fertilizing the Nepali brand of feudalism itself that has been crippling the state till date, the latter makes fun of the miserable life of the new recruits in the police force who long and lunge for something so trifle as garden-fresh vegetables.

What qualifies a story to be "new" here is not entirely clear; some of them are more than 10 years old while others such as Great Rana's "Hill" and Sanjeev Uprety's "Heroes and Onions" have been already published elsewhere. Nor are all the authors young; some are middle-aged, in fact, and many have not come up with anything substantial for years. In the introduction, Sushma Joshi says that what is new about this work is that the authors are all "exploring" in an entirely stylistic way the transition of Nepal from "feudal to democratic, from old to new, from conflict to peace" and are trying to "puncture our inattention". These are stories, in other words, that are written from a certain sense of anxiety about an audience – about whether anyone is paying attention to the change in the country.

But the most striking stories in the volume are those that are built around conceit and that create little parallel worlds. The narrator of "Interview" works in a bureaucracy-themed setting, and the story unfolds in a dystopian landscape where an interviewee is shocked by the bizarreness of the office and the weird way things work in government offices in the country. On a larger scale, this reflects the sense of hopelessness young Nepalis face while seeking decent jobs and opt to migrate abroad in search of opportunities.

These and similar stories are so energetic, so filled with invention, that they seem almost hyperactive; they also seem to assume a reader whose taste and interests have been formed by politics and by the changing culture as much as by literature. Yet in their gimmickry and occasional luridness, their quickness of pace and their way of developing a single clever idea, there's something old-fashioned about them.

For most of the last century, short story writers in English — or the great ones anyway; writers like Hemingway, O'Hara, Salinger, Cheever — were busy dismantling the Victorian machinery of the story form, dispensing with surprise endings, for example, and eventually with beginnings too, and even with the plot itself, to create a kind of story that was deeper, quieter, moodier: the kind of story that on the evidence of this anthology, many of these "new" writers don't quite trust anymore. Despite all their flaws and foibles, one thing is for sure: There are stories here that won't let themselves be put down.

(Reviewed by Monica Regmi)
monica@kantipur.com

Candid Reads: A Literary Open Mic

2008-06-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

Candid Society launches its monthly Open Mic series, inviting the closeted literati out there to step up and take the mic. Bring out your literary prose and poetry to share with friendly and supportive enthusiasts of the written word. All languages welcome! This session we open with feature readers Sushma Joshi, Kai Bird and Sanjeev Uprety. Sign up at the event or drop us an email if you’d like to read your own work.

Sushma Joshi is a writer and filmmaker. She recently co-edited New Nepal, New Voices, a collection of short stories by 16 Nepali writers, to be published by Rupa in 2008. Her writings appear in Utne Reader, Ms. Magazine, East of the Web, Cold River Review, Mosaic, Samar Magazine and elsewhere. Joshi has had stories translated into Italian, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Kai Bird is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist, best known for his biographies of political figures. He was an associate editor and columnist for The Nation magazine from 1978-82. His biographical works include Making of the American Establishment and Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History. Bird and co-author Martin J. Sherwin won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in biography and the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. He is currently writing a memoir about the Middle East.

Sanjeev Uprety is the coordinator of M. Phil in English program and has been teaching at the Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University for the last eighteen years. He writes regularly on art, literature and culture for newspapers. He also acted as the poet protagonist of Nyayapremi, a Nepali version of Albert Camus’ play Les Justes. He is the author of a recently published bestselling Nepali Novel Ghanchakkar. The play version of the novel was performed both at National School of Drama (Rashtriya Natya Vidhyalaya), New Delhi and at Gurukul Kathmandu. He is currently working on the English version of his novel Ghanchakkar.

"Betrayal" in Asian Cha

2008-05-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

Read my story "Betrayal" in Asian Cha's latest issue.

2008-03-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

"Cheese" in Buran

2008-03-16T23:02:00.000-07:00

Cheese in Italian

(traduzione di Ilaria Dal Brun)
Gopi fece la conoscenza del formaggio due anni dopo essere giunto a Kathmandu.
Prakash Babu tornava dalla Svizzera. Paese di miracolosi orologi che spaccavano sempre il secondo, non come l'ora del Nepal, in ritardo o in anticipo di qualche minuto. Paese gemello di montagne, immagine speculare di cime, ma molto più occidentalizzate, molto più moderne di quelle del Nepal, grevi di mitologia. Erano tutti convinti che le montagne della Svizzera dovessero essere un po' meglio, un po' più belle, un po' più civilizzate di quelle del loro povero, arretrato paese. Che il Nepal avesse le cime più alte del mondo non contava -l'altitudine era irrilevante, c'erano cose più importanti a cui pensare, la pulizia e l'igiene ad esempio. La modernità e la precisione. L'altitudine non contava, se si potevano avere le montagne più pulite, più asettiche, più moderne del mondo.
Prakash portava con sé una valigia piena di regali: maglie di cashmere, scarpe italiane di pelle, orologi al quarzo, uccelletti di legno che sbucavano fuori da casette di legno facendo "Cucù!", figurine di porcellana con secchi e zappe in rosa e oro. E infilata in una tasca laterale della valigia rigida di vinile, c'era la cosa più importante: un assortimento di oggettini della compagnia aerea, con il marchio a rilievo della compagnia stessa. D'altro canto, come sarebbe stato possibile provare di aver volato con una compagnia aerea senza portarsi via calzini color senape, mascherine nere per dormire, piccoli contenitori di plastica con marmellata d'arance, cucchiai e coltelli di plastica, mentine? Come sarebbe stato possibile convincere un paese di scettici miscredenti che quelle affermazioni erano vere al cento per cento? Certo, il cioccolato francese andava sempre bene, un concreto pezzo di amaro materiale straniero che ti si scioglie sulla lingua e che parla di distanza, viaggi, avventura, verità. Ma di questi tempi persino il cioccolato si poteva comprare in negozio e non rappresentava più un affidabile indizio di viaggio lungo e lontano. L'unica prova sicura, di questi tempi, era il formaggio.
Il formaggio destò un lieve scalpore in casa, a Mahaboudh, e diede inizio alle chiacchiere dei vicini prima ancora che Prakash Babu arrivasse. Sharmila, la novella nuora, era talmente elettrizzata da andare a vantarsene nientemeno che con Fulmaya, la signora del negozio di tè: "Prakash Babu ci ha scritto dicendoci che porterà del formaggio. formaggio dalla Svizzera, se ha presente. Ma come può fare un nepalese ad apprezzare il formaggio vero se non ne ha mai assaggiato?" Già in tarda mattinata Fulmaya, che davanti a un gustoso pettegolezzo non si era mai tirata indietro, aveva fatto circolare la storia del formaggio in tutto il quartiere. "I Tiwari continueranno a parlare del formaggio - formaggio dalla Surjya, se ha presente" diceva, imitando il tono sussiegoso della sposina, "- per i prossimi dieci anni". La vecchia che sedeva nella piccola macelleria accanto sbuffò. "Sì, Sanokanchi. Ma ad ogni modo chi cazzo si crede di essere quella scemetta? Il formaggio possono anche infilarselo in quel posto, per quanto c'importa. Tanto noi non ne vedremo mai neanche un pezzetto, no? No?"

Fu dunque in un quartiere trasudante pettegolezzi e risentimento che Gopi, il cugino decenne fatto venire dal villaggio per dare una mano in casa, mise piede per svolgere le sue mansioni quotidiane. I suoi compiti includevano:
1. Portare il vassoio di rame per l'anziana signora e trotterellarle dietro con la giusta andatura quando lei usciva a pregare, alle cinque del mattino.
2. Portare la legna, il carbone e gli sterpi affinché la nuora potesse accendere il fuoco.
3. Portare l'acqua dal pozzo fino al quinto piano, dove si trovava la cucina.
4. Tagliare le verdure, lavare il riso, mettere in ammollo le lenticchie, sgusciare i piselli e in genere qualunque altro lavoro impegnativo che si rendesse necessario in una cucina munita di mortaio, pestello e ben poco altro.
5. Accudire i bambini più piccoli e soddisfare le petulanti richieste di quelli più grandi; in generale, essere agli ordini di chiunque altro, in una famiglia di ventiquattro persone, avesse voglia di sfruttarlo diciotto ore al giorno.
6. Starsene zitto senza proferir verbo, a meno che non gli fosse rivolta la parola.
7. Addossarsi la colpa di tutto quello che andava storto, inclusi calamità, eventi della natura e follia genetica.
8. Sorridere e accettare tutto questo di buon grado ("Cosa credeva di venire a fare, l'impiegato statale, per starsene seduto a far niente?").

Prakash Babu tornò in una di quelle gelide mattine invernali in cui Gopi avrebbe solamente voluto rannicchiarsi e continuare a dormire. Ma la signora non glielo permise. "Gopi!" urlava affannata, stringendosi nello scialle di lana. "Va' a chiamare un taxi! Dai, muoviti! Tra un po' atterra l'aereo!" L'aereo sarebbe dovuto atterrare alle dieci del mattino ed erano solo le sette. La fitta nebbia ancora avvolgeva il lattaio che arrivava facendo tintinnare i contenitori del latte, ma Gopi non voleva litigare con Mami. Fuori casa, nel cortile coperto di muschio, i figli più grandi si mettevano in fila e chiacchieravano, mentre la madre li sollecitava a prepararsi.
"Gopi!", gridò la signora, irritata. "Perché i vasi non sono ancora stati portati qui fuori?"
"Li sto portando, Mami", rispose forte Gopi. La chiamava Mami, Madre, proprio come i figli. Loro erano parecchio più grandi di lui, che aveva semmai l'età dei nipoti. Pur tuttavia, la chiamava "Mami", uno stratagemma dei ricchi di Kathmandu per dare l'illusione che i parenti poveri venissero trattati come membri della famiglia, non come servi. Gopi diceva "Mami" con l'ironia di un ragazzino di dieci anni che sa qual è il suo posto nel mondo e non vede l'ora di cambiarlo.

Gopi corse con due vasi di rame colmi d'acqua e li collocò ai lati delle porte di legno. Per sbaglio, rovesciò dell'acqua. Ops. Beh, se qualche discolo di casa fosse scivolato e caduto, non è che gli sarebbe poi dispiaciuto tanto.
"Adesso va' a chiamare un taxi. Sbrigati, dai!" disse Mami, spargendo un po' di vermiglio e sistemando qualche fiore d'ibisco color rosa nei vasi, come solenne benvenuto al figliol prodigo.
Gopi aprì il grande, cigolante portone di lamiera e corse lungo il viottolo. Non era facile fermare un taxi. Pur senza nessun passeggero a bordo, furono in molti a oltrepassare quel ragazzino dalle scarpe sporche che si affannava a segnalare, prima che davanti a lui ne rallentasse uno di piccolo e ammaccato color turchese. "Dove, capo?" chiese il guidatore. Abbassò gli occhi alle consunte scarpe da ginnastica cinesi di Gopi, poi gli guardò quell'informe camicia da adulto sul corpo di un ragazzino decenne e sputò per terra.
"All'aeroporto" rispose Gopi. La voce era a metà tra la gioia di far sapere a quell'arrogante tassista di dover andare all'aeroporto, via d'uscita verso il paradiso di luoghi lontani, e il timore che l'uomo non azionasse il tassametro e gli facesse pagare il doppio, così che la signora si sarebbe arrabbiata ancora di più con lui.
"Oh". Le sopracciglia dell'uomo si arcuarono in un'espressione cordiale. "E il tipo viene da qui o da fuori?" chiese.
"Da fuori" rispose Gopi, fissando con noncuranza dal finestrino. "Fa' partire il tassametro, dai!"
"Ok, ok. E da dove arriva?" chiese il tassista, tornando a osservare l'aspetto smunto di Gopi dallo specchietto retrovisore.
"Svissira".

Gopi spalancò il portone di lamiera per far entrare il taxi, quindi aspettò che tutti - Mami, i suoi tre figli e i due nipoti - vi si pigiassero dentro, dopodiché si strinse nel sedile posteriore. Mami, che aveva forme generose, occupava più della sua legittima parte di sedile.
"Svizzera!" disse il figlio minore, pronunciando la parola come un riverente mantra alla figlioletta, seduta in braccio. "Tuo zio torna dalla Svizzera". "Cosa ci porta?" chiese Rukmini tutta eccitata, i codini che rimbalzavano su e giù. "Avrà di sicuro mangiato carne di manzo per tutto l'anno" brontolò il fratello maggiore dal sedile davanti. "Spero che non ne abbia anche portato con sé". "Ssst, Babu! Non parlare così oggi!" lo ammonì Mami, frugando nella borsa di plastica per controllare che le ghirlande di calendule e il vermiglio fossero a posto.

Gopi adorava andare all'aeroporto. Gli piaceva guardare attraverso le vetrate, così trasparenti che aveva paura di sbatterci contro. Gli piaceva l'odore che la gente si portava dietro, l'odore della stanchezza che si impregnava addosso dopo ore trascorse nella pressione dell'altitudine. E gli piaceva il rombo degli aerei che sollevavano la grossa pancia e decollavano, il corpo d'acciaio più leggero dell'aria. Il rumore degli aerei lo aveva udito per la prima volta un anno fa, quando era giunto a lavorare nella casa dei suoi lontani parenti, giù nella Valle. Era così forte da farlo scappare a nascondersi dietro la signora. Ora invece lo attendeva, amandolo e temendolo con uguale intensità.
Fece scivolare le dita lungo i divisori che tracciavano una linea di velluto rosso sangue tra nepalesi e stranieri. Sfiorò il vetro e osservò il radar ruotare per controllare quei magici atterraggi dal tetto di cemento dell'aeroporto di Tribhuwan.
Seguì i familiari e uscì sul tetto appena in tempo per vedere l'aereo della Royal Nepal sorvolare in cerchio la Valle una, due volte; un'aquila con ali d'acciaio che, come per miracolo, eludeva le cime dei colli. Poi atterrò. Minuscole persone con minuscole scalette gli corsero attorno, aprendo le porte. Gopi allungò il collo per vedere Prakash scendere dall'aereo. Quando tra la folla anonima ne distinse la sagoma lunga e magra, lo salutò con la mano e gridò forte come gli altri.
Prakash Babu uscì, salutò con un cenno e sorrise. Sembrava pallido ma in buona forma, con quell'indefinibile aspetto che accompagna chi trascorre del tempo in un paese straniero. "Babu! Quanto sei dimagrito!" disse l'anziana signora precipitandoglisi incontro, adornandolo con le ghirlande di calendule e spalmandogli generosamente in fronte il vermiglio. "Ama, attenta ai miei occhiali" disse lui cercando di schivare le calendule che gli avevano fatto bruscamente scivolare via le lenti, lasciandolo in un vuoto confuso e sfocato. La signora amava tantissimo il suo terzo figlio, dovette ammettere Gopi osservando la donna riposizionargli occhiali sul viso. Non era mai venuta a prendere in aeroporto nessun altro dei suoi figli quando tornavano da un viaggio, cosa che facevano spesso per lavoro.

Prakash però era stato in un paese straniero, al di là dell'oceano. A differenza dei fratelli, che avevano solamente valicato la frontiera con l'India, Prakash era andato in Europa. Il governo lo aveva scelto con altri nepalesi per andare a studiare presso la Scuola Alberghiera di Losanna, in Svizzera. Era un grande onore. Di recente il paese aveva aperto le frontiere al mondo esterno, facendo entrare per la prima volta un piccolo flusso di stranieri. In cambio, gli altri paesi avevano gentilmente messo a disposizione il loro sostegno e la Svizzera, che era tra questi, si era offerta di insegnare ai nepalesi le norme dell'ospitalità commerciale. L'aeroporto di Tribhuwan era stato costruito solo di recente e con un'unica pista, attorno alla quale, prima e dopo gli atterraggi, pascolavano ancora le mucche. Era un momento di incontri: un piccolo flusso di persone vi si riversava dentro da una direzione o dall'altra, portando storie di altri mondi, altri orizzonti, altri modi di essere.
Mentre lottava con le pesanti valigie Samsonite, Gopi notò che erano tappezzate di piccole etichette e variopinti adesivi. Swiss Air, Lufthansa, Air India, Royal Nepal. Lui non conosceva l'inglese né l'alfabeto della sua lingua, ma ne sapeva abbastanza da capire che erano i nomi delle compagnie aeree con cui Prakash Babu aveva appena attraversato il mondo.

Di ritorno a casa, Prakash Babu attese la sera, quando tutti i fratelli e le loro mogli erano rientrati dal lavoro, per aprire le valigie. Tutti confluirono nella stanza degli anziani genitori, anche Suntali, la cuoca settantenne, e Lati, la donna che lavava i piatti in totale silenzio perché non aveva mai imparato a parlare. La stanza era talmente affollata che non c'era posto per sedersi, quindi Gopi rimase sulla porta a guardare. Seduto su un cuscino in mezzo alla stanza, Prakash disfava le valigie e raccontava. Di come l'aereo avesse subito un ritardo, di come la sua fosse la scuola alberghiera più famosa, di come il professore gli avesse dato buoni voti.
Ritardo. Scuola alberghiera. Professore. Le parole straniere riempirono la stanza assieme agli odori e ai vivaci colori delle valigie appena aperte. Con studiata lentezza, Prakash tirò fuori dalla valigia un regalo dopo l'altro. Orologi luccicanti, morbidi involucri, giocattoli fatti con ingranaggi veri. I doni si susseguivano senza sosta, ognuno più affascinante, più nuovo e inverosimile dell'altro.

"Per te padre, un orologio. Quello che hai chiesto" disse Prakash.
L'uomo bevve un sorso di latte caldo e lo sputò fuori dalla finestra. "Il latte è troppo caldo" disse. La sua voce attraversò tagliente la stanza con la quotidiana ira della tirannia domestica. La nuora più anziana si alzò per prendere il bicchiere. Lo porse a Gopi, perché lo mettesse in una ciotola di acqua fredda. "Che tipo di orologio?"
"Un Rolex, Baba" rispose il fratello maggiore. Sfiorò le maglie, fatte d'oro massiccio. Era proprio come quelli pubblicizzati dentro la copertina di Time, con tennisti famosi e nuotatori olimpici.
"Un Rolex?" chiese l'anziano. Prese da sotto il guanciale la custodia degli occhiali, alitò sulle lenti per appannarle, quindi le pulì con uno straccetto giallo. Infine, inforcò gli occhiali sul naso e ispezionò l'orologio. Vi fu un minuto di silenzio; tutta la famiglia osservava l'uomo.
"Di prima classe" decretò infine. Prakash apparve sollevato. Era difficile accontentare il padre.
L'anziano aspirò una lunga, gorgogliante boccata dal suo hookah. "Ma le maglie non sono a ventiquattro carati" disse.
"È comunque oro" ribatté il fratello maggiore, tentando frettolosamente di mitigare l'insoddisfazione dell'uomo.
"Non oro vero". Lentamente, l'uomo bevve un lungo sorso di latte. "Il latte è troppo freddo".
In silenzio, la nuora più anziana prese il bicchiere d'acciaio e lo porse a Gopi, perché lo riscaldasse di nuovo.

Prakash aveva comprato una stola di cashmere per la madre. La donna toccò la lana, sospirò, aprì la cassaforte di metallo con il mazzo di chiavi che teneva appeso in vita e vi ripose dentro lo scialle. "È bellissimo, Babu. È bellissimo" lo rassicurò, con il tono di chi ha rinunciato a trarre piacere dalle piccole cose ma ancora finge di farlo. Quasi come per un ripensamento, spinse la mano più in fondo nella cassaforte e tirò fuori un pacchetto di zucchero cristallizzato per i bambini.
Oggi però i bambini non si lasciavano distrarre dalla banale dolcezza di un tesoro così comune. Sedevano incantati davanti a cose sconosciute, ma sicuramente più importanti. C'erano orologi svizzeri, meno appariscenti ma comunque autentici, per i fratelli. Per l'unico figlio di Prakash c'era un trenino giocattolo rosso e marrone che faceva "ciuf ciuf" e si muoveva su piccoli binari. Il trenino, lungo quasi due metri e mezzo, aveva finestrini veri e panche all'interno, e uno sterzo nella cabina del macchinista. Il ragazzino se ne stava lì seduto a bocca aperta mentre il padre gli porgeva l'enorme giocattolo.

Per le cognate c'erano scialli dagli eleganti colori grigio e marrone. Le donne presero gli scialli e se li posero in grembo, tutte composte. Il colori non erano particolarmente belli, ma c'era qualcosa nella loro stessa piattezza che indicava l'indefinibile marchio dell'autentica esoticità. Le donne li avrebbero indossati con orgoglio, non perché i colori donassero loro (non lo facevano) ma perché sapevano che tutti avrebbero immediatamente riconosciuto lo status di oggetti chiaramente importati. In seguito avrebbero parlato a lungo della qualità pessima, della tirchieria di Prakash Babu e di come sicuramente lui avesse regalato alla moglie una catenina d'oro, che però non faceva vedere agli altri membri della famiglia. Ma ora non c'era posto per le lamentele. Prendevano quello che veniva dato loro e facevano in modo di apparire soddisfatti.
I lucidi pacchetti avvolti nella plastica sembravano quasi finiti. Le bambine stavano già per ingoiare la loro delusione, quando lo zio frugò di nuovo nella borsa e tirò fuori cinque tavolette di cioccolato avvolte in oro e rosso, che diede alla più grande.
"Cioccolato" disse. La maggiore, Rita, accettò con solennità le tavolette, lanciando alle altre occhiate torve in caso avessero provato a togliergliele dalle mani.
"Voglio la carta" disse Rukmini cercando di prendere una tavoletta dalle mani della sorella. Sull'involucro, nello sfondo, brillavano argentee le Alpi.
Rita tenne la tavoletta sospesa sopra la testa. "Puoi tenerti la stagnola".
"La stagnola la voglio io!" ribatté Roshana, la più piccola.
"La divideremo in tre" disse Rita, suddividendo con cura la carta dorata in tre parti e porgendone una a ciascuna sorella. Le bambine ripiegarono i quadratini d'oro per usarli in seguito e li misero tra le pagine dei loro libri di testo, perché fossero al sicuro.
Rita spezzò il cioccolato e lo distribuì. Gopi osservava, sgomento e rapito, la fanghiglia marrone che colava dalla bocca dei bambini. Suntali, la vecchia cuoca, mise in bocca il suo quadratino, strizzò il viso come un limone rinsecchito e corse a sputare.
"Danne un po' a Gopi" rammentò Mami. Gopi, dieci anni e affamato di esperienze, aspettava con impazienza; alla fine gli porsero di malavoglia il suo quadratino di cioccolato. Tolse l'involucro di stagnola, un lucente, frusciante tesoro dorato. Si aprì in un quadrato perfetto e le increspature sparivano come per miracolo man mano che lui ci premeva sopra. Si cacciò in bocca il cioccolato. Un vago odore, come quello dell'alcol, ben presto cedette il posto a una spessa e amara fanghiglia anche sulla sua lingua.

Il sapore era così inatteso che Gopi voleva correre a sputare. Si guardò attorno. Le bambine erano estasiate e masticavano felici il cioccolato, gustandoselo. Sarebbe stato umiliante essere l'unico dei bambini a sputarlo. Dominò l'impulso, chiuse gli occhi, trattenne il fiato e mandò giù. Sapeva che le femmine lo avrebbero deriso se lo avessero visto fare come la cuoca. Loro ne volevano ancora, ma il cioccolato era sparito. Avrebbero dovuto aspettare qualche mese o anche qualche anno prima che un parente partisse ancora per l'estero.
La valigia ora sembrava proprio vuota. Non c'erano più doni da ricevere. Gopi, le papille ancora confuse da una sconosciuta amarezza, avvertì la delusione fin nello stomaco. Era già finita la festa? Non c'era proprio altro, oltre agli spigoli duri e netti di oggetti sfornati dalle macchine? Perché sembrava come se la certezza di un ignoto approdo si fosse clamorosamente infranta contro una promessa avvolta d'oro? Gopi sentì la fame di desideri insoddisfatti riecheggiargli nel vuoto dello stomaco.
Ci dovrebbe essere dell'altro, pensò guardando il coperchio della valigia vuota chiudersi di colpo.
"Oh, quasi dimenticavo" disse Prakash Babu togliendo con cura da una tasca laterale un pacchetto bianco, avvolto nell'argento. "Ecco il formaggio".
"Chij!" dissero i bambini. Gli occhi riflettevano il desiderio. Prakash aveva portato con sé una confezione di formaggio l'ultima volta che era tornato dalla Svizzera e i bambini lo avevano assaggiato. Da allora ne parlavano con deferenza, infilando disinvoltamente e misteriosamente nella conversazione la parola "chij". Nella sua ignoranza, Gopi si chiedeva perplesso perché continuassero a menzionare quella "cosa" che avevano mangiato. In nepalese "chij" significa semplicemente "cosa"1. Gopi non poteva certo sapere che il "chij" delle parole dei bambini era una cosa di monumentale importanza. Una cosa che era quasi ambrosia, quasi un cibo degli dei, reperibile unicamente in luoghi remoti. L'umile "cosità" della parola d'improvviso si avventurava nell'esotico aldilà dei sensi e risaliva avvolta in cartone e stagnola argentata, lievemente odorosa di fusi orari e jetlag, ricoperta dallo sporco delle sale d'attesa e dall'asettico crepitare della carta moneta. La parola di colpo acquisiva prestigio.

Adesso seguivano avidamente con lo sguardo lo zio che tirava fuori il pacchetto. Ne volevano un pezzo, ma sapevano che forse non l'avrebbero avuto. Nella stanza erano in ventisei. Prakash Babu porse la preziosa merce alla madre, delegandole la responsabilità di fare le porzioni. La signora chiese un coltello e, quando le fu portato, tagliò la piccola e tonda torta bianca in pezzetti disuguali. Gli uomini ebbero quelli più grandi. I bambini quelli più piccoli. Se li infilarono in bocca con ingordigia. Si sciolsero come burro, quei pezzetti bianchi, spariti in un secondo.
"No, grazie" disse la nuora più anziana quando la signora gliene porse un pezzo. Le nuore dovevano seguire le regole della modestia e non potevano accettare alcuna ghiottoneria. La signora, una devota bramina con un rigido regime di tabù alimentari, non mangiava nulla di preparato - e dunque inquinato - dal corrotto mondo là fuori. Pomodori, cipolle e aglio comparivano nell'elenco dei cibi proibiti. Evitava anche di usare il vetro, il cui grado di empietà non era dato di conoscere. Il formaggio, quindi, le era inaccettabile per tre motivi: primo per le sue origine pubbliche, secondo perché preparato da mani ignote e terzo perché legato all'atto impuro della fermentazione.
"Gopi, prendimi un piatto per favore" disse la signora. Nel tormento dell'attesa, Gopi corse di filato in cucina, prese un piatto e tornò in un minuto. Cominciò a sperare. C'erano parecchi spicchi bianchi nel piatto davanti alla donna. Magari sarebbe riuscito ad assaggiare quella cosa di cui i bambini parlavano in continuazione.
Un istante più tardi, il formaggio era quasi finito. Nel piatto ce n'era un'unica fettina. Gopi non ce la faceva più. Tutti i bambini masticavano soddisfatti. Che sapore aveva? Cos'è che lo rendeva tanto buono?
Gopi trattenne il fiato. Tutti ne avevano avuto un pezzo, anche la vecchia cuoca, che aveva sputato di nuovo la sua parte con la medesima aria di sofferenza in faccia. Mami avrebbe dato a lui l'ultimo spicchio?
"Mami, posso avere l'ultimo?" chiese Roshana. Roshana, la più piccola, sedeva composta e, per una volta, evitava di giocherellare continuamente con le croste del ginocchio scorticato. Roshana, che lui portava in giro in bicicletta e con cui giocava al volano tutto il giorno. Mocciosetta ingorda. Sapeva che Gopi se ne stava sulla porta. Sapeva che non aveva avuto neanche un pezzetto. Ma cosa poteva farci, lui? Non poteva chiederlo come invece era libera di fare lei.

"Non mangiarne troppo" disse distrattamente la nonna, porgendole l'ultimo spicchio. Gopi avvertì la delusione sprofondargli in corpo come un sassolino mentre la bambina si infilava trionfante in bocca il formaggio. Kookurni2. Sapeva che lui lo aveva agognato per tutta la sera. Lo sapeva, ma aveva ignorato Gopi come se lui non ci fosse nemmeno, nella stanza. Come se non esistesse.

Da quel momento, Gopi non riuscì a togliersi dalla testa il pensiero del formaggio. Lo desiderava a tal punto che era diventato una smania incessante nella sua testa, una smania che lo seguiva da sveglio e quando sognava.
Quella notte sognò il formaggio. Enormi dischi bianchi con dentro buchi giganteschi stavano appesi sul soffitto. Il suo corpo si muoveva a scatti, irrequieto, man mano che si arrampicava sul formaggio usando i buchi come appoggio per i piedi, fino ad arrivare in cima. A quel punto, vi affondò dentro i denti e intraprese la discesa a suon di morsi... no, un attimo, tutti i buchi sparivano e non c'era modo di scendere. Era come Kalidas, che aveva reciso il ramo su cui sedeva, rendendosi conto troppo tardi che stava cadendo dall'albero.
Il giorno dopo, mentre sfacchinava nell'orto a zappare e piantare cavolfiori e soia, pensava con vivo desiderio a quel morbido biancore in bocca.
Ci pensò così a lungo e intensamente da arrivare a capire che per lui l'unica cosa da fare era ottenerne un pezzo. C'era solo un piccolo problema: costava così tanto che persino le famiglie ricche non lo mangiavano. Anche se metto da parte tutte le monete che mi arrivano in mano, non riuscirò a comprare un etto di formaggio finché campo, pensava disperandosi. In cambio del suo lavoro, la signora gli dava cinque rupie al mese, il dal bhatt3, l'alloggio e i vestiti smessi dei figli. Le cinque rupie, che nel giro di dieci anni sarebbero diventate dieci, venti, cinquanta, cento, duecento e infine cinquecento, confluivano tutte nel giornaliero mantenimento della sua numerosa famiglia al villaggio, dall'olio di senape e il sale dei pasti quotidiani fino al tabacco pigiato nell'hookah del nonno.
Una settimana dopo essere giunto dal villaggio per lavorare in città, Gopi aveva scoperto l'esistenza della Nepal Dairy, un'istituzione che forniva il latte alle famiglie di Kathmandu. "Ve li ricordate i tempi in cui le mucche ancora giravano per le strade? Il latte era così fresco allora" rimpiangevano i vecchi, scordandosi che le mucche, con ogni probabilità, mangiavano l'immondizia in strada e fornivano un latte che aveva il sapore del vitto cittadino. Nei loro ricordi, le mucche, il latte e le grandi famiglie allargate si ammantavano di un'aura nostalgica. Erano quelli i tempi, ormai andati, i meravigliosi tempi in cui nessuno era costretto a bere latte in bottiglia. Ah, quelli erano tempi. Nessuno sapeva con precisione da dove provenisse il latte della latteria, ma si facevano lunghe e fosche congetture sulle sue impurità, la sua temuta composizione e il suo strano colore azzurrognolo.

Uno degli esotici articoli della famosa latteria, oltre il gelato, era il formaggio. Prakash Babu una volta vi aveva portato Gopi e gli aveva comprato un cono. La bocca gli si era quasi gelata dallo shock del freddo e lo zucchero gli si era attaccato al dente cariato, facendogli provare un momento di lancinante dolore. A causa di quel dolore, senza volerlo gli era spuntata una lacrima in un occhio, ma Gopi aveva sorriso dicendo che gli piaceva. Però ancora non aveva assaggiato il formaggio.

A Gopi occorsero vent'anni per realizzare il suo sogno. Vent'anni, durante i quali crebbe, si sposò, si fece crescere la barba, sviluppò un curioso difetto di pronuncia, difese con ardore la sua ambiguità verso la politica, costruì una casa, fece cremare il padre e riconsiderò la sua ripugnanza verso quel viscido ortaggio chiamato gombo. Durante tutto questo tempo, assistette tra l'altro all'interminabile flusso di parenti che, in aereo, partivano o facevano ritorno nel Nepal. Anche i suoi nipoti, che lui aveva aiutato a scuola, tornavano da paesi stranieri con valigie colme di regali. Tuttavia le sue responsabilità, che parevano aumentare di anno in anno, erano ancora così vincolanti da non permettergli di mettere da parte trenta rupie per comprare qualcosa di non strettamente necessario. La voglia di formaggio era diventata un sogno rinviato che lentamente gli maturava in testa, anno dopo anno. Dal giorno in cui Prakash Babu era tornato dalla Svizzera dovettero passare vent'anni prima che Gopi, il quale finalmente era riuscito a rimediare un tanto agognato lavoro in albergo, avesse a disposizione dei soldi in più per soddisfare il suo desiderio. In una giornata di un azzurro terso, costellata di macchie violacee dei fiori di jacaranda, Gopi salì sulla sua vecchia bicicletta cinese e pedalò verso la città. "Oggi vado a comprare del chij" disse alla vecchia cuoca, sferragliando attraverso il portone di lamiera ondulata nuovo di zecca.
"Perché vuoi spendere soldi per quel diabolico cibo? Puzza di marcio e sa di vomito". La vecchia cuoca era troppo vecchia per badare al linguaggio che usava, ma Gopi non intendeva lasciarsi dissuadere dalla sua missione.
"L'ho aspettato per quasi vent'anni, Didi" le confidò. "Non ho intenzione di fermarmi adesso".
Lainchowr distava quasi venti minuti. Il sole mandava raggi roventi, ma Gopi era così felice di sentire le banconote frusciare nel taschino che cantò il motivetto della pianificazione familiare per tutto il percorso, fino ai cancelli della Nepal Dairy.

In cortile c'erano grossi carretti pieni di bottiglie di latte. Tutto il posto odorava di latte che pian piano inacidiva, mischiato a quello decisamente rancido del grasso vecchio. Le antiche congetture sulle impurità del latte prodotto dalla Nepal Dairy erano infine diventate fatti, allorché sui quotidiani era comparsa la notizia. Quando la udì, Gopi era davanti al televisore.
Il latte della Nepal Dairy era radioattivo a causa dell'oscuro, quasi inspiegabile incidente tossico di Chernobyl. La Polonia, presa dall'affanno di sbarazzarsi delle vecchie scorte di latte in polvere, lo aveva scaricato sul mercato del Terzo Mondo. Un anno dopo che la notizia dell'incidente era rimbalzata sulle televisioni di tutto il mondo, i cittadini di Kathmandu un mattino si erano alzati, avevano bevuto il loro tè e letto i giornali agli angoli delle strade, scoprendo sgomenti che la radioattività stava ancora piovendo sul "Terzo Mondo" e che il Terzo Mondo erano loro. All'improvviso la notizia era diventata la loro vita, la loro storia. La cosa era un tantino inquietante.
Per un breve istante crollò la placida, sorridente facciata dei nepalesi, che si ribellavano alla radioattiva incursione nel loro intimo, un'incursione che penetrava nelle ossa e nel sangue. Per una breve settimana i ceti medi di Kathmandu si rifiutarono di acquistare il latte dalla Nepal Dairy Corporation. Le bottiglie si accumulavano nel cortile di Lainchowr e alla fine il presidente, disperato, andò in televisione a bere a garganella un'intera bottiglia di latte. Fece oscillare la bottiglia e urlò nello schermo: "Guardatemi! Sto bevendo questo latte! È il latte che i miei figli bevono ogni giorno!"
La gente era rimasta colpita. Non dalle sue frottole o dal dichiarare e assicurare che la sua famiglia beveva il latte della Nepal Dairy. Chiaramente tutti sapevano che un uomo scaltro come lui non avrebbe mai fatto niente di simile e che chiunque con un po' di buonsenso e di denaro comprava il latte in polvere dall'Australia. No, la gente era rimasta colpita dall'audacia del suo exploit, da quella retorica assolutamente brillante che sarebbe riuscita a indurre tutto un popolo a bere latte radioattivo semplicemente perché quelli della Nepal Dairy avevano intascato una generosa mazzetta dalle industrie polacche. L'audacia era allettante. La gente sapeva di venire esposta a sostanze cancerogene. Allo stesso tempo però, era costretta ad ammirare la veemenza, il pathos, il teatro dell'assurdo. Era costretta ad ammirare la fede politica dei leader, che parlavano con tanta convinzione e con il cuore in mano, e che credevano alle loro storie a tal punto da indurre i dissidenti a dubitare di ciò che sapevano. Pertanto, una settimana dopo il gran tumulto la gente, che aveva dato voce alle proprie obiezioni e quindi chiuso il capitolo della protesta politica, tornò alla propria vita di sempre e ricominciò a fare la coda fuori dalla latteria, per comprare la quotidiana bottiglia di latte azzurrognolo.

Gopi, che non si curava delle futuristiche possibilità del latte radioattivo, chiuse il lucchetto della bicicletta e raggiunse la coda che si snodava nel cortile fino alla finestra munita di grata. La gente faceva la fila per acquistare la razione quotidiana. Il corteo, sudato e polveroso, si trascinava lento verso la grata. Mentre Gopi aspettava, il sudore gli gocciolava dal viso. Dopo venti minuti giunse infine il suo turno.
"chij, Sauji" disse.
L'uomo, una riga nera di sporco lungo il bordo dei polsini di cotone azzurro, lo squadrò da capo a piedi con impazienza.
"Quanto?" chiese. Aveva da fare. Non gli piacevano gli ordini da poco.
"Trenta rupie" rispose Gopi d'un fiato.
L'uomo tirò giù da una mensola sopra di lui una grossa e gialla forma rotonda. Gopi, che lo osservava con apprensione, si impensierì. Il formaggio, alla fioca luce filtrata, appariva giallo. L'altro formaggio era bianco. Mentre l'uomo ne tagliava una fetta, Gopi chiese con riluttanza: "Ma il formaggio non dovrebbe essere bianco?"
"Beh, sì, se di solito prendi quello svizzero" ribatté l'uomo con umorismo villano. "Qui abbiamo il formaggio della latteria oppure quello di yak. Quale vuoi?"
Lo yak era un animale relativamente familiare eppure poco conosciuto. Per uno come Gopi, nato e cresciuto nelle colline, l'idea dello yak si contaminava di pericolosi e ignoti tabù.
"Quello della latteria" rispose esitando.
L'uomo, esasperato dalla lentezza della decisione, tagliò svelto una fetta, raschiò i bordi e incartò il resto in un pezzo di giornale.
"Poi?" chiese, porgendo il formaggio.
"Basta così" rispose Gopi con una vena di timore nella voce, mentre tendeva il suo frusciante mazzetto di banconote. Non vedeva l'ora di metterselo in bocca. Allo stesso tempo, adesso che teneva in mano quella cosa aveva paura di sapere. E se non fosse stata all'altezza delle sue aspettative?
Il cortile era pieno di gente che litigava per arrivare davanti prima che il latte finisse, cosa che accadeva spesso. Gopi ne uscì a piedi, stringendo in una mano il suo prezioso formaggio e con l'altra trascinandosi dietro la bicicletta. Mentre usciva, un cane rognoso si avvicinò a grandi passi, dirigendo verso la borsa di plastica il muso caldo e umido. "Ja! Ja!" gli gridò contro Gopi. Il cane, prevedendo imminenti percosse, si allontanò a lunghi balzi, avvilito.

Gopi appoggiò la bicicletta contro il muro che circondava il Palazzo reale e si issò su una bassa sporgenza. Lentamente, aprì il prezioso involucro. Dentro c'era un grosso triangolo di chij color avorio. Lo sollevò da un lato e lo portò piano alla bocca. L'odore era leggermente rivoltante, ma Gopi non aveva intenzione di lasciare che un odore ora gli impedisse di assaggiare quella cosa.
Gli diede un morso. I denti vi affondarono morbidi, appagati. Sentì la saliva avvolgerlo in un gorgo. In bocca gli si formò un lieve sapore come di ammuffito, sudaticcio, fungino. Masticò ancora, ma il sapore diventava via via peggiore, più intenso, passando da quello di funghi a quello di grasso lattiero in decomposizione, da quello di grasso lattiero in decomposizione a quello di biancheria sporca, da quello di biancheria sporca a una specie di vuoto esistenziale, un qualcosa di vomitevole in bocca. Inorridito, mandò giù.
Mandar giù fu un rigurgito in direzione opposta. Non appena ebbe deglutito, il suo corpo reagì, il suo stomaco reagì e Gopi fu preso da conati di vomito presso le mura del Palazzo reale. I conati proseguirono fino a che tutto il formaggio non venne fuori. Gopi si pulì la bocca dal muco giallastro. Si guardò attorno imbarazzato per controllare che nessuno lo avesse visto vomitare. Aveva mangiato la cosa, ma era come se non fosse stato lui a mangiarla, era come se la cosa avesse mangiato lui. Tutto quel desiderio giù, in fondo allo stomaco, era stato rigettato fuori assieme al muco giallo. Lentamente si asciugò la fronte, si legò al collo una piccola sciarpa e pedalò verso casa.

(1) Gioco di assonanze tra il nepalese chij = cosa e l'inglese cheese = formaggio (N.d.T.).
(2) Puttana (N.d.T.)
(3) Piatto nepalese assai diffuso, a base di riso, verdure e lenticchie speziate (N.d.T.).

Testo segnalato da: Buràn
Link alla versione originale: Qui

"Cheese" in Buran

2008-02-19T01:07:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, Hombres y Mujeres, Signori e Signore

Buran 4 is online:
www.buran.it

41 novels
30 countries
13 photographers
29 translators

Thank you for your cooperation, for your love for writing, for everything.
Next issue in june, to write and read about the Body.
--------
El nùmero 4 de Buràn ya està.
Participaron 41 escritores de 30 paises, 13 fotografos y un equipo de
29 traductores.

Muchas gracias por vuestra colaboraciòn y por la pasiòn que todos
teneis para la escritura y la vida.
Vamos a salir en junio, con un nùmero dedicado al Cuerpo.

Brunella Saccone

redaktion

2008-02-19T01:04:00.000-08:00

Liebe Freunde, Mitstreiter und Interessierte,

Am Mittwoch, dem 20. Februar, laden wir zum zwölften Mal zur Lese- und Film- Reihe cinéma littérature, einer Kooperation der Zeitschrift das gefrorene meer mit dem Dresdner Programmkino Thalia - Cinema. Coffee and Cigarettes. Veranstaltungsbeginn ist 20.00 Uhr im ebendort, (Dresden, Görlitzer Str. 6)

In guter Tradition werden Gedichte und Erzählungen im Original und in Übersetzung inszeniert. So erzählt eine Geschichte der Nepalesischen Schriftstellerin Joshi Suhma in englischer Sprache von der Suche nach einem wahrhaft mytischen Bild. Dierk Knechtels Kurzerzählung berichtet vom einem letzten Hindernis, das überwunden werden muss, ehe ein alter Mann endlich den Tod in seine Arme schließen darf. Die Gedichte der bekannten russischen Dichterin Marjana Gaponenko lassen greise Bienen fliegen und erzählen von der Hand im Maul des Scheesturms.

Nach einer kurzen Pause wirft der Film "Control" einen Blick in das kurze und reiche Leben des Joy Division Sänger Ian Curtis. Mit wunderbaren Bilder und einem
außergwöhnlichen Soundtrack, gibt es dieses Regiedebut des Fotografen Anton Corbijn im Original mit Untertiteln.

Auf unserer Webseite finden Sie neben einer ganzen Reihe von neuen Texte der letzten Monaten - www.dasgefrorenemeer.de -
auch Informationen zur Veranstaltung:
http://www.dasgefrorenemeer.de/annonce/cl.html

Näheres zum Film und Veranstaltungsort gibt es auf der Webseite des Kinos:
http://www.thalia-dresden.de/

Wir hoffen, Sie/Euch am Mittwochabend zu Lesung und Film begrüßen zu dürfen
mit herzlichen Grüßen,
die redaktion

P.S.: Möchten Sie unseren Newsletter nicht mehr empfangen, dann schreiben Sie bitte eine kurze Notiz an untenstehende Emailadresse.

Book Addiction

2007-09-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

READ Magazine, Issue 3, September 2007, Kathmandu

READ magazine published a book review/personal narrative piece called "Book Addiction" this September. I'll try to post what I said in bite-sized pieces for the blog...
sushma

Introducing Women's and Gender Studies: A Teaching and Resource Collection

2007-08-17T07:08:00.000-07:00

My article You Will Know What I'm Talking About As You Grow Older is included by the National Association of Women's Studies in its collection of resources!

NEW: Introducing Women's and Gender Studies: A Teaching and Resource Collection.
Compiled by Elizabeth Curtis
(click to download)
Contributions were included when they focused on the wider overview provided in most introductory courses. In the “Introductory Courses on Special Topics,” however, some courses constructed around specific themes were included to show how courses that are structured in this way provide an alternative method to traditional survey method for introducing students to the discipline.

The range of student populations that these teaching materials have been crafted for range from middle school to the graduate level. To help locate the reader who is navigating this wide range of resources, demographic information about courses and their instructor preface each item. Although attempts were made to recruit resources from K – 12 practitioners, only one submission in this area was received. While educators working with these groups may be disappointed, I am hopeful that a future collection focusing on K – 12 could be developed. - EC

"End of the World" in Cold River Review

2006-12-04T00:38:00.000-08:00

The Winter Issue: Volume 1 Issue 4
Things to Come

Interview: The Thinker/Writer Richard Heinberg talks of a future with less oil. Read the Interview .

Poets: William Butler Yeats, Naomi Shihab Nye, Timothy Steele , Tim Mayo and more...

An Essay: "After Tomorrow" by Peter Demenocal.

Fiction: "End of the World" by Sushma Joshi.

Book Review:Suzanne Orlando writes about the book Incidents in the Life of a Salve Girl by Harriet Jacobs.

Film Review:Teresa Podlesney writes about the film Born in Flames, a 1983 movie by Lizzie Borden.
"Most likely we’ll see oil wars for control of the world’s remaining resources, because oil is a strategic material. We have had many oil wars before, even when oil was quite abundant. As it becomes scarcer, it is very likely that we will fight over what is left. Then we will see a collapse of the economy, because we won’t be able to sustain easy economic growth.". -Richard Heinberg from the interview.

वियतनाम translations

2005-12-01T01:49:00.000-08:00

Phô mai in Viet Bao.

Cheese in Saigongate.

End of the World in nguyenhuuhuan.

Lucid Dreaming

2005-11-18T14:59:00.000-08:00

Lucid Dreaming, originally uploaded by subcontinental.

Defending our Dreams

2005-11-07T22:53:00.000-08:00

Defending our Dreams

Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation
Edited by Shamillah Wilson, Anasuya Sengupta and Kristy Evans

My article: 'You'll know what we are talking about when you grow older': a Third Wave critique of anti-trafficking ideology, globalization and conflict in Nepal appears in Chapter 6.

This pioneering collection presents the original experiences, perspectives and visions of young feminists seeking to understand the current world order and shape a better future. Engaged as advocates, organisers, protesters, researchers and strategists, their energies, creativity and passion help to define social movements globally. The book brings together analyses by feminists of diverse identities on themes including women's rights and economic change, new technologies, sexuality, feminist organisations and movements. It presents key issues arising out of the experiences of young women living in both North and South, the challenges confronting young feminists, and the agenda for a new era of feminist leadership and activism.

WHAT READERS SAY

'Leading the way to the future, this multi-cultural collection of the voices of young feminists illuminates the issues that are or will be in the crucible of feminist struggles to come. It also shows us both how the lives of women have and have not changed in the past few decades. A lively and thought provoking read -- a must for anyone concerned with the future as seen through the wisdom of young women activists today' - Charlotte Bunch, Centre for Women's Global Leadership

'This book represents the most powerful, eloquent and thought-provoking collection I've seen in a long time. It brings together a poetic, jarring, often painful chorus of voices together. These are not naïve, headstrong young women with blinders on; they are experienced, committed and thoughtful activists whose challenges are complex. Each of the writers in this book brings a rare and sparkling truth to the table - what we, who read, choose to do with this truth is our choice; these young women have done their job.' - Sisonke Msimang

'Is 'young feminist' an oxymoron in a time that some people like to call post-feminist? This book challenges 'in the box' thinking while addressing a range of issues old and new. Its energy, thoughtfulness and honesty invigorate, even if they discomfort. Highly recommended for feminists, old and young, female and male, of whatever stripe, hue, shape or identity!' - Gita Sen, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Shamillah Wilson is the Young Women and Leadership Programme Manager for the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID). Anasuya Sengupta has been for the past three years Co-ordinator of a UNICEF project with the Karnataka police, working on violence against women and children. Kristy Evans is a recent Young Women and Leadership intern for the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID).

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Foreword - Peggy Antrobus
Introduction
1. Will dualism tear us apart? The challenges of fragmentation in identity politics for young feminists in the New Global Order - Suzan M. Pritchett
2. Channelling discourse, effecting change: young women and sexual rights - Aziza Ahmed
3. From tragedy and injustice to rights and empowerment: accountability in the economic realm - Alison Symington
4. Seeking Techno-Justice - Ann Elisabeth S. Samson
5. Smokescreen or solution? Genetic engineering and food insecurity - Haidee Swanby with Shamillah Wilson
6. 'You'll know what we are talking about when you grow older': a Third Wave critique of anti-trafficking ideology, globalization and conflict in Nepal - Sushma Joshi
7. From orphaned china dolls to long distance daughters: a call for solidarity across borders - Indigo Williams Willing
8. www.coming? Imaginings on a world of wealth and well-being - Anasuya Sengupta
9. Reflections on the World Social Forum: a space for alternative engagements - Marìa Alejandra Scampini
10. Rooting out injustice: discussions with radical young women in Toronto, Canada - Jennifer Plyler
11. A human rights instrument that works for women: the ICC as a tool for gender justice - Zakia Afrin and Amy Schwartz
12. Cyber girls: hello ... are you out there? - Kristy Evans
13. Feminine whispers: notes on hysteria and loving commitment - Gabriela Malaguera Gonzalez
14. We exist! Voices of male feminism - Dean Peacock
15. Separation anxiety: the schisms and schemas of media advocacy, or 'Where are you tonight, Langston Hughs? - Paromita Vohra
16. Moving the personal to the political: personal struggles as a basis for social justice advocacy - Salma Maoulidi
17. Feminist leadership for feminist futures - Shamillah Wilson
Poem: You wonder why I say I'm feminist - Gabrielle Hosein
Editors and Contributors
Index

Release Date: 30/11/05
Womens' Studies / Development
Hb ISBN 1 84277 726 2 £55.00 $85.00
Pb ISBN 1 84277 727 0 £17.95 $27.50
Extent: 272pp
Features: Notes Bibliography Index
Format: Metric Demy

Italy!

2005-11-01T15:01:00.000-08:00

New Masks, originally uploaded by subcontinental.

Beyond the Commons

2005-06-03T01:07:00.000-07:00

Beyond the Commons

CHEESE

2005-05-31T04:30:00.000-07:00

CHEESE is up at the short stories section of East of the Web. It is published in a Filipino textbook, and has been translated in Vietnamese.

A Few Good Words

2004-10-27T03:21:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, October 27, 2004
A Few Good Words
By Christina Waters, AlterNet.

A new book offers a provocative lens through which to reconsider words suffering from deft right wing manipulation.

"At this moment, peace, that word so glibly appropriated by all sides, feels soiled, tired, and beaten-up."

So says artist Sushma Joshi, summing up the reaction of many Americans battered by escalating political rhetoric. "Security," writes journalist Mary Louise Pratt, "is one of those words, like 'celibacy' or 'short' that invokes its opposite. As soon as you mention security, you suggest there's a danger, or a potential danger. Otherwise the subject wouldn't be coming up. So talking about security is one of the most effective ways to cause fear."

More and more words have acquired strange, new inflections. "Imagine you are a U.S. state governor or corporate CEO who wants to slash spending, fire employees, close branches or plants, and avoid pension obligations. How can you put it across; how can you minimize the 'turbulence'; how can you sugarcoat this bitter pill?" asks political scientist James Scott. "It will help if you call it 'streamlining.'"

Consider the phrase "shock and awe," a recent military appropriation of terms describing altered states of consciousness. "Twist and Shout." "Shuck and Jive." Even the rhythm of the phrase plays with emotionally charged memories and associations. "Shoot to Kill." Just in time for the upcoming election, a new book, "Shock and Awe: War on Words" reappropriates that phrase – and many more, providing a bracing antidote to prevailing polit-speak. The first publication from the über-alternative New Pacific Press, "Shock and Awe" is the brainchild of University of California, Santa Cruz's Institute for Advanced Feminist Research. Inquiring minds numbed by the voodoo of media propaganda will find refreshment in this slender text, composed of essays, photographs and poems. As history is busily rewritten by battalions of script-writers and strategists, the contributors to "Shock and Awe" are passionate about reclaiming a few good words.

The motivation for this compilation of "the political trajectory of words" sprang from a seminar on Feminisms and Global War. "It was a call to take back language that had been so debased in the aftermath of 9/11," explains IAFR Director Helene Moglen. Moglen, who also holds a Presidential Chair in Literature at UCSC, was amazed at the vigorous response from over 75 contributors. While acknowledging the leftist perspective of "Shock and Awe," Moglen insists that "the meanings of words are dependent on who has the power, and the right definitely has had the power lately." Co-editor Jennifer Gonzalez, a visual historian at UCSC, recalls the book's inception. "We had something of the Orwellian concern that our mass media and even political discourse was becoming an intolerable form of "newspeak."

For Moglen et al., the elasticity of language has become shaped and frozen by those in control – hence the "war on words" of the book's subtitle. Organized as meditations upon single words or phrases, the book offers a diversity of styles. Some, like the illumination of "the Disappeared" by Angela Davis, lace taut historical lessons with controlled anger. Others – the opening poem by L.R. Berger, for example – resonate with equal helpings of humor and defiance. Co-editor Anna Tsing helpfully includes the passage from "Alice in Wonderland" which has immortalized the very issue of words and their ownership. "When I use a word," says the reigning Humpty Dumpty, "it means just what I choose it to mean." To wit, George W. Bush's use of the expression, "evil-doer."

The political right, through such wordcraft as "partial birth abortion," managed not only to spin the political platter their way, but in the process generated slogans with the sort of instant sex appeal adored by the media. Soon the airways were clogged with journalists repeating these sound bites and unwittingly reinforcing the perspective of the dominant political party. UC Berkeley cognitive linguist George Lakoff is another academic exercised by the implicit agenda embedded in public discourse. The linguistic "frame," as Lakoff calls a given metaphor of choice, gives potent spin to the conversation. Yet most people rarely look past the debate in question to notice that the delivery system, in this case the rhetoric, is what actually twists, skews, and spins the point in a particular direction. If words are the arrow, then the linguistic metaphor – the frame – is the bow. Gonzalez agrees that viewed in stride with Lakoff's work, "Shock and Awe" might be thought of "as a new framing device which serves to reclaim meanings for words that had been usurped by the mass media and the Bush administration."

At best, repeating the linguistic context of the party in power perpetuates a lopsided perspective and at worst, it succeeds in complete, if invisible, distortion of the issues. Psycho-linguistic metaphors give underlying shape to the landscape they describe. But all rhetoric is designed to shape and control from a chosen agenda/position. So what is "Shock and Awe"'s agenda?

As a collection of meditations, "Shock and Awe" performs its own deft retelling, reclaiming and revisiting of pithy words, by resetting the metaphorical thermostat. The claim is not that the words have been restored to something like a "true meaning," but that each passage offers a "corrective" lens through which to look. Providing "alternative genealogies" of words, the contributors invite us to become reacquainted with some old friends, former linguistic allies which have become battered out of shape by ill (make that "Republican") usage. Words like "airport" and "security" have been co-opted by ideologists with hidden, often imperialistic, agendas – whereas the contributors are ostensibly more forthright in copping to their own attitudes.

Make no mistake, the left can spin with the best of 'em. Kerry notes that Bush is "sending our kids to war," and the listener pictures a group of bloody children carrying AK-47s. Clinton contends, "I did not have sex with that woman," and suddenly we are asked to accept a definition of "sex" that flies in the face of common sense. Nonetheless, Moglen agrees, the more illegitimate the government, the more defensive its rhetoric. Hence the euphemistic urge to create such Hallmark moments as "collateral damage." Or the warm and fuzzy, "friendly fire" in place of "accidental killing of soldiers by their own comrades." Think of those linguistic spin maestros, the Mafia. From this underground culture pundits extract such useful terms as "hit" (rather than murder) and "contract" (again a murder, but one set within the frame of a legal obligation). And consider the fictional Corleone spin on "family." At what point does euphemism start to decay and erode into out-and-out deceit?

"Shock and Awe" succeeds in considering words that have been held hostage by what the editors consider to be abusive agendas. There is occasional nostalgia for past usage as well as rage over linguistic rape. Moglen's own contribution to the book riffs on the word "family," and in it she notes the curiously "melancholic urge" on the part of both the feminist left and the "Moral Majority" right to return to the idealized nuclear family of the past – even long after such a family unit has dissolved in the cauldrons of civil rights, personal choice, gay liberation, as well as the darker realities of poverty, drug abuse, job loss and terrorism. "It has always been the role of the family to create this deep sense of longing for something that never existed," Moglen believes. Like a June Cleaver mom in starched shirtwaist dresses and pearls.

Through creative reframing and intellectual black ops, "Shock and Awe: War on Words" hopes to liberate value-charged words and restore them to their original power. The point, says Gonzalez, is "to change the terms of the discussion so that other positions might be possible." Whether or not such a retrospective agenda overcomes the odds, it certainly provides that most potent political tool of all – thoughtful examination.

Christina Waters, Ph.D., is a lecturer in philosophy at UCSC and writes about social issues, food, wine, art and the environment for the alternative press.

Sexual Sites, Seminal Atttitudes: Sexualities, Masculinities and Culture in South Asia

2004-09-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

"'Cheli-Beti' Discourses of Trafficking and Constructions of Gender, Citizenship and Nation in Modern Nepal" appears in the anthology Sexual Sites, Seminal Atttitudes: Sexualities, Masculinities and Culture in South Asia

Editor: Sanjaya Srivastava
Publisher: Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd
Pub Date: 02/2004
Pages: 360
The book was put together from papers presented at a conference of the same name in Deakins University, Australia in 1998.

Shock and Awe: The War on Words

2004-09-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

Bregje van Eekelen
Jennifer González
Bettina Stötzer
Anna Tsing
editors

If you don’t know what to say about global war, you need a dictionary. Shock and Awe: War on Words (New Pacific Press: Fall 2004) is just that: a keywords book that participates in a battle over the imagination, acknowledging the force of words, concepts, and images in framing our everyday lives. Located in the borderlands between scholarship and public culture, it re-appropriates our vocabularies by exploring the political trajectories of world-making words, projects, and images.

You hear yourself use the word terrorism, and uncannily find yourself participating in its life, its proliferation, its reality. Willy-nilly you’ve become a participant in a world-making project of anxiety and antagonism. While it is impossible to completely give up on terms like peace, family, and security, to use them is to become a stranger in one’s own world. Yet how can we envision an alternative if our very imagination, the very definition of “the social” and the shape of “the political” are under attack?

Rather than being merely shocked and awed, a group of more than seventy scholars, artists and public intellectuals put their writings on the line. They present fragile genealogies, situated vocabularies, visual provocations and poetry. Tearing apart powerful representations or reclaiming them from being instruments of discipline, exclusion and imperialism, these short interventions populate, recapture, and enliven our sense of the political.

The project concludes that there is hope for the most overused words, and life for the most neutral-sounding concepts, such as:

America (as imagined from elsewhere), anti-terror legislation, barbarian, chicken, civilization, consumer, democracy, economic recovery, exit, family of patriots, fear, fences, homeland, iRaq, Islamic Feminism, lip, military-industrial complex, nomads, patriot, peace, pirate, race, security, speech, streamline, them, time, us, we, words.

Politics is, of course, not only about getting out to vote, but also about seizing the means of imagination. Please help us spread word of these alternative genealogies, fragments of everyday life, glimpses of social histories, and stories of mistranslation and encounter. You can order the book at The Literary Guillotine, 204 Locust Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, 831 457-1195; through Abebooks; or by downloading an order form from the Institute for Advanced Feminist Research (IAFR).

194 pages 7" x 4.5" US $10

From the first article:

Do words sometimes betray you, leaving you a stranger in your own land?
Words can be brutal, frustrating, and exhausting. Consider terrorism, civilization, and even peace, family, and security. Words can also be bridges to new forms of experience and openings for alliance. This book explores the political trajectories of words through pictures, excerpts, stories and exegesis about the politics of the present global situation. Scholars, artists, activists and poets have joined forces to offer alternative etymologies, genealogies, fragments of everyday life, and glimpses of social history as a form of defense and defiance in an escalating war on words.

"Feminisms and Global War Project, Institute for Advanced Feminist Research."
More details
Shock and Awe: War on Words
By Bregje van Eekelen, University of California, Santa Cruz Institute for Advanced Feminist Research, Santa Cruz University of California, Institute for Advanced Feminist Research
Published by North Atlantic Books, 2004
ISBN 0971254605, 9780971254602
185 pages

Waiting for the War to End

2004-09-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

WAITING FOR THE WAR TO END
I see the black smoke of bodies
charred and burning up my dreams, the red tears
of my dismembered country –
Nepal, you used to be a canvas, green and radiant,
now painted darkly with the brush of human despair
and the sticky patina of blood, hope
disemboweled by rusty khukuris and AK-47s
and old helicopters given for free by friendly countries
wanting only security, but do they see –
do they see the dead bodies? We have
become a nation where the mountains and the fields
and especially the rivers are flooded, flooded, flooded –
over and over with the sacrifice of human corpses -
and once again the soul is at large, like modernity
torn forever, mixed with too much hate and ideology
once again we come back to this time and place
back to this impasse, back to this place of power
where the struggle is less for the future than it is
for the bloody now, so here we are, all of us,
here and now and breathing still, waiting for the war to end

Waiting for Rain

2004-09-02T18:53:00.000-07:00

SAMAR | Waiting for Rain

The End of the World

2004-09-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

The End of the World received a hyperfiction prize from East of the Web.
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/EndWorl.shtml

It has been republished in The Cold River Review (winter, 2006)
http://www.riverreview.org/previous%20issues.htm

It has been used by English as a Second Language sites:
http://www.eslme.com/article/1344/1355/1341/2006/200608023100.html

And its been translated in the Vietnamese by Sai Gon Tiep Thi Online.
Read "Ngày tận thế":
http://www.sgtt.com.vn/web/tintuc/default.aspx?cat_id=649&news_id=15491

Sushma Joshi's "Blue" Nepal at Gallery 9

2004-05-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

Read News on Kantipur Online

Sushma Joshi's "Blue" Nepal at Gallery 9

Post Report

KATHMANDU, May 26 - The poignant hues of deep blue in her paintings serve to embody the agonies of the present "Blue Period" in Nepal. A period that artist Sushma Joshi, also a Brown University graduate and a former art model, describes as a state of political stagnation and instability that has reaped nothing but torments and sufferings for the people of this once peaceful country.
"It is high time that we had had a change for the good," she adds. "My paintings are just the reflections of the urgent need for creative and spiritual transformations on both personal and national levels."

The paintings, which are on display at an ongoing exhibition entitled "Transformations" at Gallery 9, also prove the artistic and intellectual talents of the artist in Sushma Joshi. She has used highly symbolic icons and myriad of feminine images to expressively represent the suffering of the people. With attention to the slightest details, even the direction of paint flow on the canvas has been carefully coordinated to create that perfect picture. The emphasis on facial features such as the eyes and nose, and the omnipresent cross on most of her works also, add an individual signature to the paintings.

"Learning to draw a cross by not using straight lines was a challenge. It took me three days before I could draw a cross that did not have perfectly straight lines," recalls Sushma.

Popping out from the otherwise almost entirely blue series of paintings are three small works that are dominated by red color. Named Past, Present and Future, each of these distinctive paintings, as their names suggest, represents the states of Nepal at different times.

"Ive depicted the past and present of Nepal as being violent and bloody," explains Sushma. "And as for the future, it is uncertain and amorphous as are the papers that have been pasted on the painting."Sushma has also used real rice grains in the painting entitled "Present" to, in her own words, appreciate the significance of this cereal to Nepalis.

Sharing the secrets to creating such unique artworks, Sushma reveals, "Learning to see realistically is only the first step. After that, you take off and try to see all the unseen dimensions." She further adds, "Art is more than aesthetics or creating just beautiful pictures. It is an experiment using different media and genres to see and show the phenomena not visible to the naked eyes."

The exhibition continues up to the end of May.
(Art exhibition archived at: www.sushma.com.np)

Talk at Flushing Library: "The People's War in Nepal"

2004-03-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

Mar 21, 2004 - CONFLICT in nepal

"The People's War in Nepal," with speaker Sushma Joshi, 2 pm, Flushing Library, Queens, NY. The library is located at 41-17 Main St. Free.

Anzaldua at the liminal edges of identity

2003-12-02T22:36:00.000-08:00

BORDERLAND CONSTRUCTING AUTOBIOGRAPHY: ANZALDUA AT THE LIMINAL EDGES OF IDENTITY
SUSHMA JOSHI
A shorter version of this was published at Mosaic Literary Magazine

Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands: La Frontera is a book that transcends all boundaries of genre and style. A text that includes poetry side by side with fragments of mainstream history, and intermixes them with personal and collective testimony, memory, revisionist history and journal entries, the closest description of it could be a poetic-political auto-ethnobiography. At once dialogic and polyvocal, the book has been one of the seminal texts in expanding notions of self-representation, and ways of formulating identity in late twentieth century America.

In this paper, I look at some of the ways that Borderlands influenced and expanded the genre and conceptualization of autobiography. Anzaldua is clearly writing herself into existence through her act of creativity, and in this process she acknowledges and brings into being not just the multiple facets of her own existence, but the existence of her entire culture's marginalized history.

I look at the way Anzaldua theorizes a hybrid identity, and how this construction of identity has shaped the genre of autobiographies, especially for political minorities within the US whose histories have been subsumed within a hegemonic, mainstream master narrative. I am also interested in the text's postmodern aspects, and in looking at the links between the fragmented non-linear style and how that style itself reflects and encapsulates a larger, political history. Borderlands leaves us with the possibility that personal transformation could bring about communal change, and I have woven into the paper an analysis of this idea of personal transformation that is linked so inextricably to the notion of political change.

In Borderlands, Anzaldua opens the doorway to the bridging of dualities. Acknowledging that we are always on "the Borderlands" between people, between cultures, between sexual encounters, between classes, she sees this trope as a fundamental one for viewing and understanding one's identity. Instead of searching for an essential, pure aspect, she recognizes the blurry ambiguities of being inbetween multiple states of being, and urges us to accept this as a new form of consciousness.

Anzaldua foregrounds the borders between gender, race, class, sexuality and ethnicity as five important frameworks through which to view one's autobiographical as well as communal history. These five elements, and their intersections, are seen to be integral to the creation of her multiple, complex identities.

As a woman, Anzaldua's private world of Chicano culture is as restrictive, with the same patriarchal structure of tyrannical rules and regulations, as the public world of Anglos who define the boundaries of labor. In one of her autobiographical sections, she mentions that: "Instead of ironing my younger brothers's shirts or cleaning the cupboards, I would pass many hours studying, reading, painting, writing…Nothing in my culture approved of me. Something was wrong with me." # Cultures on many sides are trying to force her into a specific idea of gender, but she refuses to fit the mold. She will neither take on the role of the nurturer who will iron her younger brother's shirt in the same way she refuses her role as the migrant laborer that the mainstream white culture has put aside for her. She struggles to put herself in a space where she is capable of writing herself out of the mother/whore/nun paradigmatic choice given to women, and into one where she can be a self autonomous person who has had the privileges of a education and a career. Through her acts of resistance to claustrophobic gendered molds, she redefines her own conceptualizations of gender.

Writing is an act of self creation, and she is very aware of the creative power of this process. Her book, therefore, takes head on not only the challenges of dealing with the everyday injustices of labor exploitation that happens at the border, but also the challenges of rewriting androcentric history. Borderlands looks explictly at four mythological and historical female figures from the layers of Chicano history: Coatlicue, the divine Aztec mother; the desexed Virgin de Guadelupe; Malinche, or la Chingada, mistress and translator of Cortes and labelled a traitor; and La Llorona, the wailer.

Coatlicue, the Aztec divine mother and the serpent goddess of sexuality, is resurrected by Anzaldua who looks at the way she used to balance the dualities between male and female, light and dark, life and death before she was turned into a dark diety. According to Anzaldua's feminist revision, Coatlicue and other powerful female dieties were driven underground by the Aztec rulers, who gave them monstrous attributes and then substituted male gods in their places.# Coatlicue was then subsumed under Tonantsi, the good mother who was later to be interfaced under the guise of La Virgen de Guadalupe.

According to Anzaldua, in defiance of the Aztec rulers, the common people continued to worship the goddesses of earlier times. This was the reason why the Virgin of Guadelupe, the successor of Tonantsi, enjoyed and continues to enjoy huge popularity with the masses to this day. The virgin, instead of being seen as a foreign interloper, is viewed as the mediator between the two cultures, the colonizer and the colonized. She does not discriminate between the two. She is a synthesis between the Old World and the New.# Anzaldua appropriates this mediator role for herself later in the book when she goes on to talk about her place in a dominant white world.

The figure of Malinche, or La Chingada, who was viewed as a traitor because she slept with Cortes and translated for him, is taken up by Anzaldua, who goes back and looks at the Aztec's already crumbling empire, where outlying states were beginning to rebel against their despotic rule. She concludes that the Aztec empire was defeated by the Spanish not because of Malinche but because they had already lost touch with their common people#. This deft bit of revisionist history, which redeems a fallen woman by looking at the class structure, reminds us that "feminist rebellion as twin to the racialized class rebellion advocated by the cultural nationalists."# Her revision of history is in every case always tied to her own personal history. As a self proclaimed lesbian, whose rebellion through sexuality approaches the same level of treachery as La Chingada's, Anzaldua's allusive writing is very aware that of its links between the past and the present.

Anzaldua also reconfigures La Llorona, the woman who wailed for her lost children. Long seen to be a symbol of defeat, La Llorona is put in a different light by the author who claims that wailing was an collective act of resistance for Indian, Chicana and Mexican women, who were speaking out against a society which glorified the warrior and war. Due to this, Anzaldua feels that she is herself entitled "to rebel and to rail"# against her own culture without betraying it, because it has long been a tradition within it. By appealing to culture and tradition, Anzaldua performs a feminist checkmate where she transforms a potentially disempowering tradition into a enabling justification of empowerment. This act of re-writing and re-transformation permeates her text, illustrating her act of creation of both self and culture.

While Borderlands is above all a feminist text, Anzaldua makes us realize that gender is but one of the elements that make up our identity. Gender is one small fragment, and without the insights of race, ethnicity and sexuality, it becomes irrelevant. All through the text, we are brought face to face with the intertextual interweavings between these different facets that make up an individual's identity.

Anzaldua was no stranger to gender activism. She was a long time activist in the Chicano women's movement, had already been actively involved in the 1970s in publishing the influential anthology This Bridge Called My Back, which questioned the paradigm of mainstream white feminism which claimed that the nature of oppression for all women were the same. This book had led to a "New Mestiza hermaneutics", a feminism that built coalitions across the US-Mexico geopolitical border, as well as internally within the US. Borderlands: La Frontera picked up this theme by disrupting both anglo-centric nationalist histories by challenging the homogeneity of US nationalism and popular culture, as well as the ungendered concerns of the Chicano nationalist agenda.

Anzaldua is very aware of being a non-white, minority woman within a mainstream white Anglo culture. "It wasn't until I went to high school that I saw 'whites'…I was totally immersed en lo mexicano, a rural, peasant, isolated, mexicanismo."# She explains to us as she lays bare her divided loyalties. As a woman who grew up in the shadows of an exploitative and dominant culture, she cannot forget that she is different. At the same time, she is not dealing with the simple black and white paradigm of America, but a broader patchwork of identities.

Anzaldua is more than just "non-white": she is a hybrid who embraces her Spanish, her Indian, her Mexican and her mestiza backgrounds with equal acceptance. Mexican, mestiza, Chicana, mulata, India, Raza, tejana. All of these are categories that Anzaldua identifies with. This ethnic diversity gives her a rich background that links her to many different cultures and histories. At the same time, the multiplicity also reflects the turmoil, both internally and externally, that exist for people who live in the border between many different identities.

While finding herself conflicted about her Anglo acculturation, and the white rationality that often tells her to forget her other realities, she believes in being a mediator between different cultures. For her, exempting one aspect of her identity would be as painful as cutting of another.

One of the most painful struggles in her life come from her acknowledgement of her sexual identity. As a lesbian by choice, she has had to deal with homophobia not just from the outside world but also from her own family. Just as the US-Mexico border is an "unnatural" boundary, Anzaldua view boundaries between heterosexual and homosexual as an unnatural one. "Contrary to some psychiatric tenets, half and halfs are not suffering from a confusion of sexual identity, or even from a confusion of gender. What we are suffering from is an absolute despot duality that says we are able to be only one of the other." # she says. Just as the border is seen as a danger zone where "aliens" cross-over to pollute a well ordered society, so does the sexual borderlands. Anybody who dares to cross over create moral panic Anzaldua sees her choice as a conscious act that breaks down the boundary that separates the male from the female aspects of her personality. The ultimate rebellion for Chicanas is through sexuality, and she embraces the magic aspects of what is sometimes perceived to be an abnormal deviance.

Anzaldua analyzes class issues with the same boldness as she deals with ethnicity and sexuality. As somebody from a working class background who had spent her childhood working as a migrant laborer, she focuses on the concerns of maquiladora, undocumented and migrant laborers as an integral part of the text. Exploitation - of labor, of human beings, of women - take place in the borders. Each crossing puts the crosser in alien territory, and they have to relearn to make sense of knowledge. She sees this violence as transformative. She also insists that class issues cannot be analyzed by themselves, they have to be seen in a gendered light.

Anzaldua ends by urging us all to adopt what she calls una cultura mestiza, the mestiza culture, which embraces all part of a hybrid identity. This new mestiza way leads to a new consciousness - "the new mestiza consciousness"# - that allows people on the borderlands to retain their different homelands, while at the same time embracing multiple subject positions, voices and languages, even the parts that clash. The mestiza way escapes all essentialist, reductive categories while allowing people to accept ambiguity and contradictions into their lives. This total acceptance of the clash of cultures at the borderlands leads to a spiritual reawakening, a revolutionary as well as evolutionary leap of "morphogenesis."#

Borderlands: La Frontera, in many ways, is a true border text that bridges the border between autobiography and political critique, between revisionist history and creative storytelling. It was one of the first to take on the trope of the border as personal as well as political, and translate it into the fragmented liminal work that has come to have a significant impact in the academic community as part of the canon on "border theory", as well as had a fundamental impact on artistic communities.

Melding ideas of personal transformation with ideas of collective change - 'nothing happens in the real world until it first happens in the images in our heads.'#, Anzaldua deals with the fragments of her journal, her memories, her history and her identity, and brings it all together in a style that mirrors the juxtapositions and the contradictions of her own life. By thus giving life creatively to a marginalized history, she also paved the way for other so called "minorities" within the US to think about their lives "autobiographically" in the same intensely personal as well as political way.

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women's Issues Worldwide: Asia and Oceania

2003-09-30T03:21:00.000-07:00

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women's Issues Worldwide: Asia and Oceania
My article on gender rights in Nepal was published in this series.

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Women's Issues Worldwide
Edited by Manisha Desai and Lynne Walters
[Six Volumes] Greenwood Press
Publication Date: 9/30/2003

Greenwood's URL: http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR2787.aspx