Around sixty writers from nine countries across the subcontinent, who looked like children from broken homes, flocked to the grand literary mela organized by the Foundation of Saarc Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) an apex body of the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation) in Agra from 13-16 Feb 2009 to debate and discuss the role of writers in the context of widespread political violence and instability in the region. It was obviously a very educative experience. One learnt, for example, that the youth in Afghanistan were crazy about Hindi films and television serials to an extent that one young Afghan poet recited a poem in Hindi, a language that he had picked up from Hindi cinema. Rab Ne Bana Dee Jodi, incidentally, was his favourite film.

 The most interesting thing was, however, that the jodis( made by the Rab himself) of countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, India and Pakistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India, who are not exactly on friendly terms, shared the same cultural platform and did their best to show that they were langotia chums and it was their politicians and priests who generated hatred. The culture minister of Pakistan Mr Fakhar Zaman delivered a lively speech denouncing the mullas and maulvis and the military dictators who hijack Pakistan and urged Pakistani writers not to accept civilian honours given by the junta. He quoted Neruda and others and said that the writers who rebel against the establishment are the most important writers and so on. Most of the writers said that culture and literature can establish peace in the region tormented by hatred and religious fundamentalisms of all sorts. This obviously is official line. However, if by culture you mean the lifestyle, values, religions, institutions and so on then it precisely culture which is a divisive force.

 The official position was that literature and culture could abate terrorism and generate an atmosphere of peace. Like all official positions it only exhibits self-deception and certain ideological simple-mindedness. A much-needed reality check was offered by a provocative lecture by the noted folklorist Prof Jawaharlal Handoo. He pointed out that most of the discussion on terrorism is off mark because it separates terrorism from the question of violence. He demonstrated how violence pervades our day to day discourses, religious texts, films, televisions and literature. These discourses actually reinforce human violent instincts. He was in favour of discarding and forgetting all the religious texts (like the Mahabharata, for instance). He said that the source of violence was in the tenacious feudal structure of our society and it is the culture originating from the palaces and durbars which promote hatred of all kinds. This social structure generates all discourses of violence and deeply indoctrinates our psyches. Our psyches are feudal, in spite of our modernity.  He gave an illustration of the Sati system saying that killing a harmless broken hearted widow would not benefit anyone except the Palaces. If the woman has an affair with a sweeper that would bring disgrace to the Palace and if the woman demanded a share in property it would be a great loss. So it was convenient for the Palaces to promote this horrible tradition. This is how the feudal system (The Palace Paradigm in Handoo’s phrase) generates violence. The source of terrorisms of all forms lie in this Paradigm and the psyches steeped in these values and discourse they generate. This was the very subcontinent that had murdered Gandhi and banished Buddhism, he said.

 Some people from the audience protested saying that Prof Handoo was straying away from the topic. Actually, he had hit the nail on the head. A very young man stood up responding to Prof Handoo’s comments on Sita in the Ramayana. He said that by portraying the character of Sita in a particular way and by putting her in a particular situation, the composer of the Ramayana was actually glorifying Sita and raising her up in the eyes of people. Prof Handoo said that he wouldn’t want his daughter, mother or sister to be treated in the same way as Sita was.

Interacting personally with Prof Handoo was also fascinating. He believed that most of the writers on the subcontinent are neglected because they seek feudal patronages in various form and indulge in subtle and often not too subtle in sycophancy. Hence most of the cultural texts promote the vested interests of Palace Paradigm. That’s why writers spend most of their time writing about romantic love, a relatively harmless subject, praising ` woman’s nathni etc’ in Handoo’s words, to please their patrons. Prof Handoo also talked about how historians have done absolutely no research on what actually went on the palaces of kings in India. They limited themselves studying coins and ruins of the palaces. There are hardly any records of what went on in the palaces and the only place where you could find `history’ was in folklore and oral memories. But historians are not very interested in these texts, he complained. He also said that if the things like incest could be repressed by kinship systems, we can devise a social system which more or less successfully represses aggressive instincts.

 Though I agreed with almost everything Prof Handoo said and I am grateful to him for his incisive insights, I find it difficult to agree on what he has to say on the violent literature of the past like the Mahabharata or the religious texts. What needs to be done is not to `forget them’, because one cannot do so, but to continue to read them in the way Prof Handoo reads them, without glorifying violence and injustice, by exposing the cruelty of the people who are considered great. Another problem was that his argument that the artists and writers should stop promoting and depicting violence in their texts could be read as if it was the holy duty of the writers to write escapists kind of `soft cosy’ texts. I don’t think he really meant that.  He did not have very clear opinion on the problem of the role of writers in such a predicament as ours on the subcontinent.

 My views on the subject of the role of writers or artists in the times of global violence and corruption are rather old fashioned, or rather Aristotelian in nature. Aristotle pointed out that the truth of creative writing, or imaginative writing, is superior to historical or philosophical writings because it is concrete, and microscopic in nature compared to generalized and abstract discourses of history. I only have to add to Aristotle’s views. The truth of poetry and all art is superior, not only to history, `theory’, philosophy but also to the truths of media and all forms of propaganda. Poetry, literature and arts have to remain loyal to this superior form of imaginative truth; the truth one finds in Kafka, Shakespeare, Kabir, Yeats, Ghalib or Manto. In contemporary context, it is superior to documentary realism or newspaper or television reports because it sees which these discourses cannot. Function of Art in the post-global era is to show what propaganda or sensationalist media cannot see or does not want to see. It should not entertain anything but doubts. The function of art is not to sing paeans to peace but to expose what lies beneath the peaceful exterior. Artists have to remain true to their imagination, because it is precisely the thing which can not merely see what does not exists but can also produce what does not exists. In our dreams, as the Irish prophet said, begin our responsibilities. I would again alter it a bit to suit my purpose: in our nightmares begin our responsibilities.

 Kanji Patel, a noted Gujarati poet, accompanied me and the gentleman who compeered the poetry reading session said that we are used to hearing unpleasant things from Gujarat, now lets have something pleasant. When my turn to read the poem came, I pointed out that the term metaphor in its etymological sense means `going across’. If an event becomes a metaphor, it is precisely because it can be grafted into another context. In this sense, what happened in Gujarat is a metaphor because it can happen anywhere in the world and that it has happened in so many other places. It would be unfair to single out Gujarat and demonize it.  The poem which I read at the festival was the poem I had written on 28 Feb 2002 when the news of what happened at Godhra had just started arriving.  The poem uses a metaphor of the Banyan tree of Hatred that is flourishing all over the world. The poem says that we, all of us, and not just our politicians and priests, have nourished it and its roots are to be found deep within us. I was merely echoing what Prof Handoo had said only that it was written seven years ago. I quote the poem in its full:

The Tree of Total Eclipse

(The Godhra carnage and the subsequent riots in Gujarat, Feb 2002)

Who knows how long

We have to live

Under the cyanide shade

Of the sky-high banyan tree of total eclipse

We have grown in our yard.

 No one has guts

To unravel the mystery

Of its source, spread and increase

As we nurtured it ourselves

With the manure

Of the crushed infant skulls.

 We have never looked at it

With the eyes

Of the tattered weeping vulvas.

 Under it

The dreadful stench

Of the incinerated skin

Spreads

And we typical orthodox onlookers

Flee plugging our nose.

 We will never get to its roots

Because while digging for them

We will find

Deep within our own chest

Its arsenic ariel-roots

Returned from the Kala Ghoda Festival yesterday evening, exhausted and contented. Listened to Lata heavenly rendering of Ghalib followed by Asha, the queen bee, crooning ` Meraj-e- Ghazal’ in her usual seductive and honeyed voice on my return flight. I used to listen her bewitching ` Heraito ke silsile’ when I used to commute to Navasari by the Ahmedabad Passenger on my walkman for years. The song still spoke for me. Has the song changed? Has the listener changed? From thousands of feet above sea level, the megacities of Mumbai, Surat and Vadodara looked like jewels studded necklace on an empress.

I flew after a long time. My earlier experience of flying was in 2000 when I visited the UK for a conference. The trip, of course, was fun and the sight of mountains slouching like herd of dinosaurs was exciting. The hateful venonmous clouds of pollutions hanging over the star studded cities was not exactly a pleasant site.

The best thing about the weekend at the Kala Ghoda Festival on 13 and 14th Feb was meeting friends whom I met only on Orkut! I stumbled upon Prajakta, Alka Gadgil, Kiran Kendre and Vandana Khare on Orkut and met them in real life only on my last visit to Mumbai. I met Prajakta after almost 2 and half years of `online friendship'! That was indeed exciting.

That the Kala Ghoda Festival, organized by the Times of India, offered space for the regional languages is indeed welcome and the organizers ought to be congratulated and thanked for this. The crowd, which usually frequents this festival, is not the one that is really concerned with something as Page 30 –ish like regional languages. I don’t think the Gore Log who swarm Kala Ghoda Fest can be blamed for this state of affairs.  The people who hardly have any option other than the regional languages, too, are hardly concerned about their own languages.

 I conducted two workshops in Marathi on 14 Feb 2009. The first workshop on creative writing in Marathi was a pleasant experience. I don’t know of similar workshop on the subject in Marathi held before the one I conducted. Refreshingly, participants to the workshop were people of the age group as varied as a standard eight student to a sixty five year old woman who wanted to learn more about creative writing. There was a young Maharashtrian wrote the tasks in English and a well-known young Marathi poet friend of mine was curious about such a thing as a `creative writing in Marathi’. The widespread attitude among Marathi speaking people with whom I shared the idea before conducting the workshop was that you can’t really teach something like creative writing. My argument was that as creative writing is a form of art, it can be taught to a certain extent like other arts like dancing or music or painting. Though you can’t really substitute basic things like the natural gift, `riaz’ and study, you can indeed learn more about the craft of writing from such a workshop. I engaged with the nuts and bolts of writing techniques like literary devices of metaphor, point-of-view, plot, character, symbol, image and dictums like ` show-not-tell’. I gave warm up exercises and prompts. The participants were happy with the workshop and felt that it was necessary to have a daylong workshop on the topic.

 The second workshop on translating Marathi poetry was a different thing even though many participants were the same. Translation workshop is not a new thing in our country, unlike creative writing in regional languages. The reason for this is probably the secondary status of translation! People feel translation is a craft and can be learned by labour while creative writing comes ` naturally’ like a leaf to the Keatsian tree!! People seem to forget that literary translation is a creative activity too, and probably it requires a ` gift’ as well. On the other hand, creative writing too has a side where merely having a `gift’ wont suffice. You need labour, practice and extensive study. I emphasised this in my creative writing workshop. Art requires labour and scholarship and that a good writer has to be invariably a good reader. Some of the participants in Marathi poetry translation workshops were experienced translators and sharing experiences with them was interesting. I pointed out in the theoretical section of my workshop schedule that the contemporary translation studies does not see the original and the translation in a hierarchical way and that the idea of thinking about translation in a negative way is outdated. The idea that something is `lost’ is translation and the attitude of mourning attached to translation is erroneous. The idea of `loss’ or ` gain’ is actually a relative thing. The `loss’ is from the standpoint of a person who knows the source language and the target language. Such a person does not need translation. However, from the perspective of a reader who does not know the source language, any translation however bad, is always a gain because she has no other alternative. My statement did not go down well with some participants who felt I was supporting bad or mistranslations. Nevertheless, the workshop was significant.

 Two other events which featured yours truly were the Panel Discussion on ` Globalization and its Impact on Contemporary Marathi poetry’ and Poetry Reading Event. The panel discussion on globalization and its impact on Marathi poetry was very interesting. A well-known contemporary poet and critic Saleel Wagh began the discussion by converting into a debate. He said that globalization has no or little impact on contemporary poetry, as 95% of Marathi poetry is unaffected and the remaining is reactionary and superficially affected. I pointed out that if such was the case, Saleel’s own poetry belonged to the remaining 5%. Remaining panellist spent their time countering Saleel’s proposition. Probably that’s what he wanted. I argued that globalization has indeed affected life style, values, and political equations and so globalization is one of the most important contexts of contemporary Marathi poetry. What has happened is Marathi poetry has shed ` red tape’ mentality that it had previously. When we talk of contemporary Marathi poetry, we mean of serious and creative poetry and such kind of poetry is marginal in every period, hence to say that 95% poetry is unaffected is not valid. I also asked Saleel why he was underestimating his own poetry, which can be read only in the context of globalized metropolitan culture.

 My throat was in a bad shape by the time we came to reading our poems and croaked like a hoarse frog in the poetry reading session.

 It was with such a throat that I had a workshop with project fellows of Pukar, a renowned NGO working on urbanization and related issues on Sunday. The workshop was on the basics of writing blog.

Another interesting thing was GN Devy interviewed by Dilip Jhaveri. He does have a great knack for impressing people and I remember how awestruck we were when we were studying under him. He can be very intense and honest in his conviction and articulation. We all admire him for his work and for being who he is.

 It was a hectic but exciting weekend.

 Hemant Divate declared that he wished to discontinue Abhidhanantar and asked the gang of his friends what they thought of it. I said it was a good idea as the historical work that Abhidhanantar set out to do was almost done. Its function was to give a platform to new poetry produced in a new society transformed by globalization. I congratulated Hemant for knowing where to stop. The magazine is around from 1992 and has done a remarkable work of freeing Marathi poetry from ` red tapism’ and `licence raj’ mentality of the 80s. This was because Abhidha played a momentous role in `reprivatizing’ the `nationalized public sector poetry of the 80s, thus freeing it from bureaucratic outlook that had shackled Marathi poetry.  Whenever the history of 21^st century Marathi poetry will be written, it would be incomplete or dishonest without taking account of Abhidhanantar.

 It was Valentine Day when we were discussing these things in the Gokul Restaurant near Plaza in Fort area of Mumbai. In the bar, a handful of Pretty Young Thingies were having a boisterous time with their boyfriends. The PYTs however were drowned in their drinks and we had to raise our voices to drown theirs. The guys were not so noisy, they zhelofied all the slaps and claps with patience of the Padmapani Buddha. Conclusion: It is easier to salvage a bibulous guy than a gal who has drowned in her drink.

  The quest for an authentic cultural identity and negotiation of multiple cultural heritages were prominent preoccupations in his writings.  This theme is typical of the postcolonial generation of modernist poets. This quest was different from the quest for national identity of their precursors, the poets of colonial period like Sri Aurobindo, the Dutts and Sarojini Naidu in the sense that these post colonial poets looked beyond the high-textual Sanskritic traditions. They sought to identify and enter into a dialogue with the rebellious spirit of the Bhakti poetry and the marginal oral traditions which they saw as more authentic and true. In a sense they sought to discover or rather invent a native modernity which was non-colonial and non-Brahminical at the same time. In this process of identification and negotiation they sought to decolonize and debrahmanize themselves and the culture in which they wrote. Translation became a very important tool in their hands to achieve this purpose.

Today however, there are two reasons for remembering AKR:

 First is that he was one of the faculties in this Department. Before leaving for the United States in 1959, he worked in many Indian Universities, including the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara. In 1962, he became an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, where he was affiliated throughout the rest of his career

  The second reason for remembering AKR is that the very idea of memory seems to be getting obsolete in contemporary times. The meaning of memory today seems to have changed.  The injunction of ` improve your memory’ seems to imply upgrading your RAM or cache memory of your motherboard. The whole idea of `quest for identity’ appears quaint and distanced.  The idea of search for identity is replaced by the idea of surfing for identity. We seem to be living in a perpetual present where the breaking news of this moment is forgotten with the next. History is what is telecast live and reality means reality show. In such a state of affairs, it is necessary to reread and rewrite figures like Ramanujan in much the same way they reread and rewrote the Bhaki poets. There is a need to translate these writers into a contemporary language. It is important to tell the younger generation that these poets were the ` breaking news’ once and that they were ` brand names’  in their times and they `hacked’ into multiple cultural codes and languages.

  GN Devy, another prominent faculties of this Dept, uses the phrase ` after amnesia’ to describe the post-colonial generation’s awakening to true identity. Amnesia is not exactly the term one can use today. It seems to be Alzheimer’s that we seem to be up against and in such a situation, re-membering Ramanujan, his legacy and his work is one way of remedying the premature memory loss.

I spent last two evenings with the `main stream' Marathi literature, thanks to the annual literary programme of the Baroda Marathi Vangmai Parishad. On Friday, we were offered  what the organizers felt was ` Marathi Love Poetry'. Well, the Maharashtrians dont really have a reputation as lovers. I cant think of Marathi counterparts to Sohni Mahival, Heer Ranjha, Dhola Maru , Devdas Paro or Romeo and Juliet and other romantic pin ups. Bajirao Mastani is not exactly a love story.  Mastani was Bajirao's kept rather than a lover. Keeps and mistresses are common; love is rather rare in Maharashtra (as anywhere else probably). Predictably, most of the traditional love poetry in Marathi is mildly sentimental erotica consisting of the hackneyed nature imagery and lyricism. The famous love poetry in Marathi is made famous due to brilliant musical compositions and heavenly voices of the singers rather than the geniuses of the poets. There is neither imagination, nor passion in most of the `love poetry' that is sold across the counter here. Don’t expect to find Octavio Paz or Pablo Neruda or Lorca or Donne. Don’t even expect to find Kabir or Meera. Marathi manus is basically quarrelsome and bickering and brawling is what comes natural to him. Egoism and love are rather incompatible bedfellows. Women poets who write love poetry. Please don’t even mention them. Sentimentality minus lust takes away even the least interesting thing in love poetry. Why did I go there? Simply out of curiosity, because I find the term `Marathi love poetry’ something of an oxymoron.

Interestingly young Marathi people were absent. Not because they find traditional Marathi poetry boring, as some of us would like to believe, but simply because they are not interested in poetry, literature, or things like that. Marathi youngsters in Baroda are irresponsible because they have left something like poetry in the hands of old. Maharashtrians in Baroda are Marathi merely because of historical reasons now.  Many Marathi youth in Baroda prefer not to use Marathi out of shame, and in case they do, well they do have reasons for being ashamed. Marathi in Baroda is a dialect of Gujarati rather than being a dialect of Marathi.

The programme on Saturday, yesterday that is, was Ms Mangala Khadilkar's logorreal cultural gossip about the so-called greats. The pretty woman talked non-stop for two hours without a break. She is a famous media person who is reputed as an anchor and reporter. She shamelessly (well, she was paid for it and that is what the audience wanted) dropped all the famous names she had encountered and talked about how an anchor is peripheral to fame and how a good anchor should not mistake the closeness to the celebrities as a real intimacy and that sort of things. I was interested because her Marathi was good and the chances of hearing good Marathi are rather rare in Baroda.

Today, we have the noted actor Sharad Ponkshe who played Nathuram Godse in ` Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoi’. That will be interesting because, it is Nathuram, rather than Gandhi , who is hot in Gujarat. He is the sinner whom people identify with rather easily. Gandhi is a saint and saints are not meant to be identified with. I look at Gandhi’s attempt to identify with the ` common man’ and `the lowest among the low’ rather suspiciously. I think it was a strategy on the part of the Mahatma to promote himself circuitously as a saint. The` common man’, if such an animal really exists, would be more interested in Nathuram today I suppose.

What is really fascinating about the `popular literature’ and culture is its allergy for intelligence. You can’t be intelligent in your work and be popular in India. If you are really intelligent, like Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh Bacchan, you have to intelligently keep intelligence out of your work.

Spare a thought for a short story of Vignan Vivek Vartul, an ephemeral movement to popularize science in a small coastal town in the Southern Gujarat called Valsad in the nineties. Vignan Vivek Vartul literally means the Circle of Discerning Science Lovers. It organized talks of renowned scientists like Dr JJ Rawal, a famous astrophysicist from Science Centre, Mumbai, and Prof Mehta, a well known physicist and mathematicians on the subjects like `Our Universe’ and the Black Holes. It arranged sky watching programmes at the time of eclipse, comets and meteor showers. It also carried out a survey on the cause and effect of stress on the students of twelfth standard (science) in the schools in Valsad. It collaborated with Science Centre in Dharampur and organized various events for school and college students. The Circle met occasionally and discussed things like the relationship between science and spirituality. The movement fizzled out in the late nineties.

It was started by motley of young science enthusiasts sheerly out of their interest in science. The spearhead was Vikas Upadhyay, a bright psychology student, amateur astronomer, who presently works as the chief editor of a local Gujarati daily and the spear chiefly consisted of people like Satish Kulkarni, a chemistry graduate, Hitesh Parekh, an economics graduate, Kalpesh Desai, a chemistry graduate, Kandarp Trivedi, a lawyer and poet, Sunil Agarkar, an amateur aero-modeller and professionally a legal consultant, and Sachin Ketkar, a not-so-bright writer among others. These men were in their twenties or thirties then.

 The unusual assortment of animals that constituted `V4’ had only two things in common: friendship and an unceasing itch for discussions on just about anything under the sun- and very often foraying into the things that lay beyond the sun too. The discussions were the usual young collegians’ discussions which frequently began with the Special Theory of Relativity and ended with sex. Very often the discussions were triggered off by the writings of a renowned Gujarati columnist Raman Pathak in the daily called the Gujarat Mitra. He called himself a `rationalist’ and was an inspiration for an organization named Satya Shodhak Sabha in Surat. The work of this Sabha was eradication of superstitions by exposing the all too common `miracles’. Pathak’s column ` Raman Brahman’ (literally `Rovings of Raman’) consisted of sweeping, outrageous and often silly generalizations.  Nevertheless it managed to be provoke and challenge the traditional thinking. He is a communist, a rare thing in Gujarat, an atheist and proponent of science and his writings propagated atheism. Unfortunately, his megalomania and arrogance usually got better of his ` rationality’. Science was presented as counter-traditional and anti-religious,which it very often is, but not always). Therefore it perturbed most of the intellectuals of southern Gujarat. Many of the `intellectuals’ were Gandhians, who saw `spirituality’ as something unproblematic and given. There was a lot of resistance to Pathak and Satya Shodhak Sabha and there was lot of verbiage regarding ` Synthesis of Science and Spirituality’. Spirituality, for most of the intellectuals of region meant Hindu Spirituality and more specifically Brahmin Spirituality. Gujarat, lest we forget it, is also the laboratory of Hindutva. I have witnessed how some version of Gandhism merges seamlessly into Godseism.

Many youngsters who started V-4 were dissatisfied with the polemical and negative approach of Raman Pathak and his followers. They rightly felt that this approach was only interested in ideological quarrels and was doing absolutely nothing about science which was something far more wonderful. They thought science was too important to be labelled as being merely a counter-traditional ideology of promoting atheism. Science, obviously, is not counter traditional for sake of being counter traditional. It is counter-traditional because the traditional framework very often fails to come up with a satisfactory explanation of phenomena under consideration. The term `Vivek’ or Discernment was an ingenious way of distancing itself from the Raman Pathak-Satya Shodhak Variety of looking at science

The Upadhyay-Kulkarni- Ketkar crew decided to make the organization more formal by making late Dr. BG Naik, a very retired lecturer and the principal of  the science college, Valsad, the president of the circle. Late Prof Naik was a respected figure in Valsad. He was a veteran Gandhian and a science teacher. Interestingly, people hardly noticed a contradiction here. Gandhi was extremely allergic to things like Science and Technology and considered them as symbol of the Evil Western Civilization. Hence, Gandhian Scientist is in many ways a contradiction in terms. However, he was elected as president for many reasons. He had a background in academic science as well as certain reputation in the town. Both these things, we hoped, would make things smoother for us to gain access to the schools and colleges in the town. He had also written on various topics like the clichéd ` Synthesis of Science and Spirituality’ etc.

 The senior members of the group consisted of people like Mr Meghraj Bhatt, a senior teacher of mathematics in Sheth RJJ School, Valsad, Mr. Sikligar, a retired science teacher and an amateur radio expert, Prof Lipsa Adhvaryu, a lecturer in Psychology in the Chikli College and Mr Bhatt of Dharampur Science Centre among others. The group met infrequently and discussed and planned the programmes. This went on for around almost a decade or so.

The movement fizzled out due to various reasons. The first and foremost reason was that it was a movement in a wrong place. Valsad, being a small town, displays a typical small town mindset consisting of laziness, complacency and careless self-contentment. `Cultural Activities’ are mostly evening pass time entertainment, comparable to going to the Tithal Sea Beach. Valsad has never been very enthusiastic about genuine intellectual activity. Many people used to call it a `quiet town for retired people’ and most of its cultural and intellectual activities were of `retired people’ variety. Vibrant youth culture was largely absent. As a result except for the team that started V-4, other youngsters did not involve themselves with the movement.  Science requires some sort of intellectually keen, passionate and rebellious spirit which was absent among the young Valsadians. Hence, as soon as the group that had founded the movement was scattered in all directions , it was not replaced by another young group of science enthusiasts.

The second reason as I see it is that the lack of interest in pure science, as opposed to applied sciences like engineering etc, is a characteristic of the Indian society. Thousands of years ago, Indian society was keen on theoretical as well as applied aspects of science. One has only to think of celebrated names like Varahamihir or Aryabhatt or Charaka. The intellectual traditions in India dried up with time and were replaced with cynical anti-intellectual outlook which is characteristic of most of the educated Indians today. The decline of interest in science coincides with the rise of religious fanaticism and bigotry in the nineties.

The third reason is that though V-4 ideologically distanced itself from the Leftist leaning Satya Shodhak Sabha, it did not categorically distance itself from the hegemonic Brahmanism (read Hindutva). Most probably because the nuclear group of V-4 consisted largely of middle class Brahmins. Brahmins are fond of speculations and debates, but science is not merely speculation and debate. Its nucleus is the spirit of critical inquiry, experimentations and actual physical involvement in the laboratory.  Arm chair science cannot go very far. The group was not really very `counter traditional’, though it opposed the things like `superstitions’ etc. Brahmanism too is not very sympathetic to `superstitions’ which are mostly non-elitist and folk traditions.  The movement would have greater significance had it been openly critical of Brahmanism.

However, the most important thing about this movement that it actually happened in an unlikely place and it was fuelled by unlikely people.  It carried out many interesting activities which others would not have taken up in those times. Valsad, however, is not likely to remember such things. And more importantly for me- I was part of it and I cherish the memories.

As part of the annual literary society activities,  we had `Remembering TS Eliot' yesterday and it turned out far better than I had expected. Only a handful of interested students turned up. Actually not many students were keen on it. Most of the students were worried about exams and books they had to read and that they had very little time to read extra things. If fact, TS Eliot is not exactly `extra reading' because these kids run into Eliot in some form every year. Rajan, my colleague had suggested that we should take up some other author which students are not studying. I really wonder who would have turned up for the event if we had done so.

  On Friday, 10th Oct., yours faithfully was invited to deliver a lecture on `Contemporary Marathi Poetry' in the Dept of Marathi. The thing is I am not a very good speaker when it comes to delivering a lecture in Marathi. I spoke about what we mean by contemporary poetry in the first place. I said that the term `contemporary' is theoretically a problematic term, especially after Einstein’s theory of relativity. Time no longer can be considered as something absolute and homogeneous. Therefore, idea of some `standard' time which can be treated as an absolute frame of reference is no longer meaningful. Hence, the term `contemporary' (`contemporary to whom’) looses its force. Times flows with different speed in say for instance a village and a city. The recent quarrel in contemporary Marathi scenario can be traced to different perception of time ( in a village, a town and a city) and in attempts to prove that one's own sense of time is absolute and other's sense of time is `inauthentic'.

  I added that by contemporary poetry I mean poetry written in contemporary language, from a contemporary perspective, taking one's own life and society as the context and as a frame of reference. Even if one is dealing with `timeless' subjects like God or Death, the poet is writing in the context of his society and life. I gave the example of Varjesh Solanki's poem `Icon' which is addressed to God as an example of a contemporary poetry. I read Hemant's ` Shopping at a Mega Mall' and Saleel's ` Dharan' ( The Dam) as examples of contemporary Marathi poetry.

  The question and answer sessions had the usual questions ( obviously from the teachers) regarding the poetry of Abhidhanantar circle ( if  at all there is something like it) being by and for the elite, being insensitive and all that. I responded saying that poetry, at least creative and serious poetry,  is not written ` for' or by keeping a particular class in mind. Then this poetry was labeled as ` new Ravi Kiran Mandal' .  The questioners had absolutely no idea of the creative process involved in writing poetry. If teachers of literature and some of the so called poet-critics themselves are so abysmally ignorant of this basic process, what can you expect from others?

  When you are doing something new and groundbreaking you have to prepare yourself for all sorts of idiotic responses. Unfortunately in Maharashtra as probably in other places, you are also supposed to educate your readers about what you are doing. This is not plain illiteracy. In fact, it is ignorance of people who are supposed to know and the ignorance of those people whom society thinks they know.

  So a caveat from TS Eliot is useful here: take no critic seriously who has not written a significant work himself. The reason he knows nothing about how poems are written. Besides, it is not the duty of the writer to educate the uneducated literates. A writer cannot afford to go around curing people of their stupidity. Let us leave these `honourable men and women' to their fates. Pound said that even if you get thirty readers for your poems, you have done your job. He meant the real readers of course and even if your poetry is read by more than three hundred people, expecting thirty intelligent readers seems to be too much to expect.