European Language Bias of the Nobel Prize

When I first heard that Pinter has won the 2005 nobel prize for litterature, I thought they were talking about Luigi Pintor, an Italian writer who had died earlier this year. Pintor, a rebel, was ousted from the Italian communist party and established his own newspaper and magazine, il Manifesto. He wrote simple, small books, that are a real delight to read with their profound insight into human psyche.

I vaguely knew about Harold Pinter, the British playwright and the Nobel prize winner. I had not seen or read any of his plays, but I had seen him on the "HardTalk" on the BBC in December 2004, when he had said that both Bush and Blair should be tried for their war crimes. This interview and the episode of HardTalk can still be seen through internet.

His acceptance speech for the Nobel prize is equally hard hitting. He feels that while there has been a lot of debate and discussions on effects of Soviet empire and communist rule, similar debate has not touched on "American activities of eliminating people-friendly democracies by declaring them communists and killing innocents till such countries have despots friendly towards multinationals and American products and at that point, they are called democracies". He gave some examples of Latin America, before talking about Iraq. This speech can also be read on internet.

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I am sure that Pinter is a wonderful writer and does deserve his nobel prize. Yet, I also feel that Nobel prize committee is biased towards writings in European languages. Otherwise, I can't imagine, how writers of the stature of Mahashweti Devi can be ignored? There have been some wonderful and very prolific writers in India, who would have been considered Nobel prize worthy, had they written in an European language.

Yet the painful truth is that the writers in the so called "local" or "indigenous" languages spoken by millions of persons are easily ignored, till someone can translate them in some more "mainstream" European languages and then they can be "discovered". Till then they do not exist.

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Roman Adventures

When I came to Rome on Friday, I was telling myself, this time I must go out and be a tourist, and not remain closed in the meetings. But when I arrived it was raining. Our

meeting was in a place run by nuns close to the circular road, la circomvallazione, that runs all around the city, not too far away from the Vatican city.

As often happens in the old cities, streets may be narrow with high walls of houses huddling together, yet as you enter the gates of an old house, suddenly you find yourself in big open spaces, sometimes with beautiful gardens. I had that experience a couple of times in old Delhi. This place, where we were staying, was like that. Really huge with different buildings, gardens and a church hidden inside the high walls.

 

I love this picture (left), it seems to sum up the narrow streets of Rome with its cross and the Vespa parked underneath!

Yesterday (Saturday morning), I woke up early, with the idea of going out and doing some sight seeing. Terme of Caracalla, I had already decided that this time I wanted to see to the old spring bath of Caracalla built in second century DC where more than 1300 persons could take bath and relax. I had a hurried breakfast, making plans about how to go there but when I came out, it was raining heavily. Unwilling to give up my plans, I opened my umbrella and set out resolutely. It was cold and there was a lot of strong wind. In a few minutes, in spite of the umbrella, I was drenched and shivering. So I had to beat a hasty retreat, literally with my tail between the legs. Terme di Caracalla must wait for another visit to the eternal city.

In the end I did manage to see some spring bath ruins, from the outside, not of Terme di Caracalla but of Terme di Declezio, right outside the Termini railway station, before I caught the train back to Bologna today. When they were built, these Declezio spring baths were even bigger than those of Caracalla. Till some months ago, they were occupied by poor emigrants, who would squat around, cook food, talk with friends. Now the whole place has been fenced and closed and to enter, you must pay a ticket. I didn't have enough time to go in for a proper visit.

The whole street in front of the Terme was jam-packed with vehicles and pavements were full of people from some East European country, probably some part of ex-Yugoslavia. The vans had brought the east European beer, vodka, dried fish and other delicacies and had set up makeshift shops on the pavement. All the homesick east European emigrants had gathered around to chat, to smoke, to drink their home beer, to talk in their own language and perhaps, for a few hours imagine that they were back in their homes. I am using the word "east European" to cover my own ignorance. They could have been Serbian or Polish or Czech or Romanian. It was strange walking in their middle and listening to their Slavic language.

A little further, a woman vendor from Peru was complaining in Spanish to some Latin American tourists about people selling counterfeit cheap coke and other drinks. A little ahead, a Chinese woman had set up her noodles shop and Chinese couples were standing around to buy it, while some were sitting along the side of the pavement, to eat them with evident gusto. They chattered in Chinese.

Small pleasures for the often denigrated and despised emigrants running the shops for their country-people! Each in the safety and security of their own language, food and company.

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Winter Snow in Bologna

It is winter finally. And we have a thick blanket of snow in Bologna.

 

I had been hearing that it was going to be the worst winter in the last twenty years but the temperatures in Bologna had continued to be good. It felt more like spring than winter. Then, ten days ago, finally the winter came. Still I was going out with a light jacket.

Acquaintances from our apartment block would slowly shake their heads and complain, “It is so cold”. Actually, I didn’t think so, but I played along and said, “It is time now for winter. Almost the end of November. It won’t be right if it was not cold!”

Talking about the temperatures and the seasons with casual acquaintances is like a game. In the summer it goes like “It is so hot you know!”

 

“This heat is unbearable.”

 

“I wish this heat would end. I am tired of it.”

 

And then it becomes, “It is so cold you know!”

“This cold is so tiring and depressing.” “I am waiting for the spring.”

 

Like steps of Waltz - predictable like the steps of the dance. You say this, then I say this and then you say that and then we will shake our heads, smile at each other and go away happy, that we played our parts well.

***

But now real winter has come. Before going to Geneva, I looked at the expected temperatures in Switzerland on the internet. Minus sixteen! I almost felt sick.

 

So off went the light jacket and out came the thick winter overcoat. It was a wise decision as it turned out. It was very cold and it snowed. And it was so windy, almost like London, with cold gale brushing over the bumpy waters of the lake Leman, pushing hard at you.

“Katarina!”, I told myself. I was making joke of John Grisham when he was in Bologna for receiving a honorary degree and had been startled by a loud thunderstorm, and had explained his fear by talking about Katarina cyclone in the USA.

 

But every time, there was some wind in Geneva, it was the first thing that came to my mind, Katarina. Wonder what do all the Katarinas of the world think about the idea of giving names of girls to typhoons. Must have been some unhappily married man or a tormented father, who had come up with this idea?

The journey back from Geneva was very eventful. My flight was through Munich, and it was buried under the snow - it looked like a big white wedding cake with lovely icing on the top. Actually more like a big thick white blanket that the town had pulled up to save itself from cold. The flight to Bologna started late and on the seat next to me, there was a grumpy man, who made faces when he had to get up to let me pass.

 
“What injustice, that I have to share this row of seats with others” he seemed to say. Said something in German, that I didn’t understand and perhaps it was better that way. When the flight started, he bullied the air-hostess to go to an empty row in business class. Good riddance, I thought.

I had my camera ready but the Alps were lost under the clouds. Bologna too was lost under the clouds and after going around in circles for some time, the pilot announced that Bologna airport was closed due to heavy snow and we were going to Pisa. The grumpy old man started fighting with the air-hostess. “We should go to Rimini, that is closer”, he insisted. This time speaking in Italian.

The air-hostess smiled at him and told him nicely to sit down and put on the seat belt. “Ignorant bitch” he hissed, loudly enough. To punish him probably, the pilot started to rock the little aircraft, up and down it went till the old man calmed down.

God, I am going to miss Marco’s wedding, was my first thought. Probably they will cancel the marriage, I consoled myself.

But we didn’t crash. And it was raining in Pisa. It took us three hours of bus drive to reach Bologna, through the snow and all. And, all the time, I was thinking, we were in Pisa, they could have organised a small trip for us to go around the city. A picture in front of the leaning tower! That would have been lovely.

 

However, I am not complaining, the snow in Bologna is lovely.

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All Creatures Great and Small

I know I have this thing about a role and a place in the world for all creatures of the God including bacteria, viruses and ants. I am kind of obsessed with this idea and I don't like the indiscriminate use of ""antiseptic" products for killing bacteria promoted by the industry. But today, I read something that did warm my heart. And it proves my theory that God or nature or whatever you believe in, has created all creatures for a purpose, even if we can't understand it.

 

BTW, the title "All Creatures Great and Small" is from a much loved James Herriot book, about a country vet and his animal patients.

A scientist from Nottingham, Mr Pritchard believes that hookworms can prevent asthma and allergies and links the recent rise in number of persons with asthma and allergy problems in the developed world to the use of clean water and mass de-worming treatments.

According to him, hookworms in the human intestine, they affect the body's immunity mechanisms and thus reduce the chances of having asthma and allergies. He has a research project in which they will give people a limited dose of hookworm larvae and measure their immunity and the effect of this treatment on the asthma episodes.

However, in the poor communities in developing countries, hookworms are also responsible for worsening of anaemia and malnutrition, so even if he proves his point, how are we actually going to apply this kind of treatment?

 

I think that if his hunch is correct and the hookworm does affect body's immune system and allergies, then next step would be to understand how do they have this impact, so that we can search for new treatments for allergies.

 

***

This idea of a purpose for all big and small creatures, also reminds me of a scene from a book called "She Was Called Two Hearts" about a woman going through Australian outdoors with a group of Aborigine people. In this scene she tells about feeling dirty because of not taking baths and constant travelling in the dust. And then they encounter a swarm of small insects that surrounds them. She panics but then sees that the Aborigine people are facing the flies calmly, letting them do what they wish. The flies enter her ears, flutter inside and clean it and then come out and fly away.

So next time you are ready to kill a cockroach or a mosquito, think first, what its role can it have in the nature? However, to be honest, mosquitoes may be useful somewhere, but while waiting for someone to discover for what, I prefer to use a repellent cream and may be even kill some of them, if I can.

***

Airport Encounters - Strangers' Confessions

"Do you mind if I sit here?"

I looked up at her. I was really engrossed in my book, the glass of tomato juice almost forgotten on the table. It took me a moment to understand her question. "Sure", I nodded, moving my bags to make place and removing my jacket from the other chair, putting it at the back of my chair.

She seemed to be around thirty, a big round red bindi in the middle of her forehead and wearing a crumpled pale chicken kurta. She took off a big black bag from her shoulder and then removed the big ruck-sack from her back. Sighing deeply, she sank onto the chair. I went back to my book. She sat there cupping her chin in her hands, her elbows on the table, looking at the queue in front of the cash counter, persons waiting to give their orders. I couldn't concentrate on my book but tried to go on with my reading, forcing myself to not to look at her.

Finally I looked up and took a sip of the juice from the glass. She was still sitting there with her chin in her hands, looking at the queue, lost in her thoughts, unaware of every thing else. Then her telephone rang. She moved slowly, bending down to pick up her black bag and searching inside for the telephone. By the time she found it, the telephone had stopped ringing. She looked at the telephone screen, pressing some buttons and her lips tightened. She put it back in the bag and closed it, placing it on the ground.

The telephone rang again almost immediately. This time she did not move. After a while it stopped ringing. I was suddenly embarrassed. As if I had trespassed into her privacy. I looked at my watch. Perhaps, it was time for me to move. My flight was from the northern terminal and I had to take the shuttle train.

I picked up my jacket and the bag. Then I nodded at her but she was lost in her own world. As I walked away, her telephone started ringing again. I stopped briefly to look at her. She still sat there with her chin resting on her hands, her eyes closed.

 

I wonder if she would have liked to talk about it. It is easier to talk to strangers, to tell things you would never tell to others, because you know that you are never going to meet them again. She had looked so vulnerable. I sighed, it was too late to think about it and I had my flight to catch!

***
I had put on two shirts, one over another but I was still shivering. I was almost tempted to wrap the woollen blanket in the room around me as I went out for dinner, but I resisted. Outside, it was still raining.

 

After the Concord crash, all the flights had been cancelled from the Paris airport and we had been taken to a hotel inside the Asterix World theme park. The only problem was that it was much more cold than what I had been expecting.

In the dining room, I was looking around for a place when I saw him. He smiled at me and nodded, pointing to the empty chair in front of him. I vaguely remembered him as we had waited at Bologna airport for the flight to Paris. He had missed his connecting flight.

He seemed happy to have found an "Italian" co-passenger and he was a little suprised when I told him my name, that was clearly not Italian - it made me happy because it meant that I looked sufficiently Italian!

I slowly sipped a glass of red wine, hoping it would warm me up. It was July and yet so terribly cold. In the mean time, he was gulping down big sips of a dark liquid, that was surely stronger than my wine. Emptying the glass, he raised his hand at the waiter for a refill.

I am not much of a drinker and after a little wine, I tend to become silent, if not downright sleepy. He was the other kind, the type who opens up after a few glasses. Soon he was telling me about himself. He lived in Reggio Emilia, about 30 km north of Bologna and worked for some factory that exported machines.

He didn't ask me any questions and I was content to listen to him, feeling the wine take away a bit of that chill that had seeped down to my bones. Soon he was telling me about his wife. She was anorexic and refused to eat. She was worried about gaining fat and in the process, had become thin as a skeleton. She had been admitted in hosiptal twice but nothing seemed to work. He said that he was stressed and not too sure if he could continue much more with this stressful life. In front of him, she tried to eat but he was sure that afterwards she went to the toilet to vomit.

I was horrified. I knew about anorexia but I had never thought about living with someone anorexic.

Soon he was crying. Big tears coming down on his cheeks. He was catholic he said, and divorce won't be right. But he had no other way. It was destroying him and he couldn't bear it any more.

We walked outside and the rain drops probably helped in stopping his crying.

"Good night, I am really tired, must go back to bed now!" I said. "Good night" he mumbled after me as I walked towards my room, thankful that it was in another wing of the hotel.

In the morning, when the airport bus came to pick us up, he didn't even nod at me. It was as if we were strangers. That is the beauty of confessing to strangers we meet at the airports. I hope that talking to me had given him the courage to make decisions about his life.

***

Crumbling Papers and Vanishing Memories

I am transcribing old articles of my father in Hindi for my website, Kalpana.it. Those articles written by papa, when he was alive, during 1960s and early 1970s. There also some articles written about him, after his death, by other writers and journalists.

Mummy, my mother, she collected all of those writings and made neat packages. Mankind articles here, Kalpana articles here, stories here... All his life's work collected into yellowing, crumbling papers. His and hers. He did it for living and she did it for him.

She is retired, let her do it, it will keep her busy, I'd thought.

Then she wanted them to be printed. Collected works of Om Prakash Deepak... all his essays on the students' movement of Bihar during the 1970s guided by Jai Prakash Narayan (JP), all his articles on the famines, on Gandhi, on socialism, and so on. She has made the photocopies of the files, sending them to this or that person.

An old friend of papa said, "Why don't you pay to get them printed? Two of you (I and my sister) are living abroad. All of you earn good money. What does a little money mean to you? Pay to get them printed, they will be useful."

Pay to get them printed? I felt a little offended. Print it because only you want it, no publisher wants it because it won't sell any way. It hurt me, because I thought it was true.

And my mother, her memory is becoming fleeting like the RAM memory of my computer, it gets erased quickly.

Give them to me, few at a time, I will transcribe them, I offered. And then I will put them up on the web at Kalpana, I thought. We went together to the old cupboard, that once used to hold the medicines in my clinic. It is full of rotting papers. Old files smelling of crumbling papers. She hardly remembers, what is there in which file, and gets worked up when I ask her. I can't forget watching her sitting there on our old sofa with old papers strewn all around her, the pain in her eyes.

And so, these days I sit here at my computer. Slowly learning how to type in Hindi, transcribing his articles in Hindi for internet. Writers, journalists, socialist leaders, friends and colleagues of papa, they are all there in these papers.

 

It was his world, that I knew about but I hardly stopped to look at. I was there, but I was too busy living my life. Now I read about them and fragments of memories come back slowly. Kishen Patnaik, Ashok Seksaria, George Fernandes, Jai Prakash Narayan... names and faces. His old papers are introducing my father back to me. I realise that he was gone too soon and I had no opportunity to know him as a person, I had only known him as my father.

 

In his papers, he is not my Papa, in his papers he is himself, Om Prakash Deepak, journalist, thinker and writer.

*****
Additional Note: There was a comment yesterday.

I treasure them since they are so rare. It is from someone called Arundhati. Could it be ... for a moment I thought of the fleeting meeting at Delhi airport, a few years ago. No, it is not. The name of her blog is almost an answer to my "Jo Na Keh Sake" - "Leave it unsaid".

 

It is another Arundhati, who writes about silences to answer declarations of love, and about becoming one, merging together with her loved one. She has written:

"Huh!

I prefer being myself and her being herself. That way it is more fun. I suddenly think of how little time we actually spend together, we are too busy in running all the time. Or in writing blogs (only me!).

She will wake up soon and come smiling for the first hug. And then she will bring me coffee. That is how we do it, I sit in front of the computer and she brings me coffee or prepares sandwich for taking to work. And the day starts.

And she doesn't like silences for answers. Nor do I, while I come to think of it."

 

I think that perhaps she is talking of her mother? Is her mother also losing her memory, I wonder, probably not!

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Does Blogging Matter?

How many persons read, what I write? That was the question, I was asking myself. I mean, is it worth spending time writing things if no one reads it? There are hardly any comments to what I write in English or Italian.

 

However, in Hindi, there is a close network of persons encouraging each other to write in Hindi, so my Hindi blog "Jo Na Keh Sake" (That I was unable to say) is most satisfying since it gets me lot more feedback. So I finally decided to link all these blog pages with an Italian tracking programme to see how many persons read these blogs.

After a week, I am surprised about the results of this tracking. The Italian blog has been read just once by one person this week. The English blog, this blog, has been read by 139 persons and only 8 of them are regular readers of this blog, means they come back regularly to look at the updates. The Hindi blog has been read by 85 persons though 28 of them are regular readers and overall they look at more pages and spend more time reading what I write.

This morning, while walking in the park with my dog, I was trying to reflect about these results. Does it mean that I should not waste my time writing the Italian blog? I mean, I know the one person who reads it regularly and why not send her an email? When I started to write, I used to think that I am writing for my pleasure and it does not matter, if someone reads it or not. And, now I am thinking that perhaps it matters?

 

If I start worrying about who reads my blog and why, etc., is it not going to influence the way I write and the things I write about? I am still reflecting! I think that they joy of writing is worth it, even if very few read it. Another aspect is that I only started blogging a few months ago and it would take time for people to find out about it.

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There was an anonymous comment for my post about Ramlila, which I had written from Delhi in October. The post asks if I can explain "what is written above". I am still wondering what does it mean? Does it refer to the sprinkling of Hindi words used in that post? Or is it asking I explain the comment in Italian?

I don't want to explain the occasional Hindi words I use in my posts. I think that I want people from India to read my blog and if others can't understand these words, too bad for you.

 

Then I think of our Indian association in Bologna. With members from Karnataka, Kerala, UP, MP, Maharashtra and Delhi, often we end up speaking Italian since many of those who came here long time ago, do not remember English so well. So I ask myself, am I writing only for Indians? I am still reflecting, though I would say that I write for everyone who would read me.

***
While thinking about self-expression and if my father would have liked reading my blog, my thoughts went off a tangent in another direction.

 

I hardly spoke to my father about so many things that interested me. Fathers and sons didn't have that kind of dialogues once. Respect and obedience were important qualities of father-son relationships!

 

I prefer todays' fathers and sons, who can be less bound with the chains of respect and obedience, and have a good time together. I love seeing fathers with their small babies or playing with their children.

***

It is a bit sad to see places that were once happening places and that are almost forgotten now. Like the Antica trattoria (old eating house). Not very far from our house, on one of the old tracks that leads to the river and an abandoned old port, this place was in once a key location, right next to a busy port, where travellers and boats carrying goods crowded it. Now it is forgotten except for some old persons who still go there for their glass of wine.

 

I want to write about it and other such places in my blog - reading about them in the blog, someone might try to restart them?

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