Your Sunday Antiserious Readings 3
Hello there! We have been busy posting announcements. As you would know, we are expaaaanding our team. You can also join us. If you like…
Hello there! We have been busy posting announcements. As you would know, we are expaaaanding our team. You can also join us. If you like what you read in that link.
I think we did not send you the letter last week. We are tying to forget more often so that we can send you more pieces together. Like instead of one chocolate you get a box of them. With new writers coming in, the BOX would sound less of a lie.
So in our latest sophia.pandeya, after the killing of Pakistan’s qawwali singer Amjad Sabri, writes about the slow death of the qawwali music. She remembers the vibrant qawwali scene of the yore. The time of Habib Painter, Aziz Mian, the Sabri brothers. She remembers Amir Khusro. There was after all a time not very long ago when qawwals could openly challenge the authority.
The Silencing of Amjad Sabri & The Slow Death of the Heterodox Qawwali
Amjad Sabri was the scion of one of Pakistan’s most beloved qawwal families, the Sabris. For decades they were headlined by his legendary father Ghulam Farid Sabri and his uncle Maqbool Sabri. Within 24 hours of the murder, Hakeemullah, the head of the TTP or Tehreek é Taliban Pakistan, a homegrown offshoot of the Afghan Taliban at war with the Pakistani State, made a statement that the killing of Amjad Sabri was ordered because of his “blasphemous” qawwalis.
In my childhood, growing up in Pakistan in the pre General Zia era such “blasphemous” content was unarguably mainstream, a music whose popularity cut across all classes and segments of society. It was hard to miss the ubiquitous sounds of qawwali, of which there were many exponents, the Sabri Brothers, Munshi Raziuddin, Bahuddin, Mansoor Niazi, and Aziz Mian to name a few. Read more here: https://antiserious.com/qawwali-habib-painter-amjad-sabri-cd9530a6a1af#.ebbyxm9bp
Elsewhere, Debojit Dutta looks at Fearless Nadia, the female superhero of Indian cinema, who broke stereotypes, resisted assimilation and challenged the way women are portrayed in cinema.
How Fearless Nadia Threw the “Perfect Lady” Out of the Window
When Mary Evans, who was by then already Nadia, was introduced to the Wadia brothers, J.B.H wasn’t too sure about introducing a blue-eyed, large-bodied, blonde woman as an Indian heroine. Nadia, born in Perth, Australia, whose mother was Greek and father British, was a woman of as many cultural identities as skills. She was an acrobat, singer and a dancer. So when she went to meet the Wadias at their mansion for a meeting organized by the manager of Regal Theatres, Bombay, the movie moghuls could not escape her charm. But there were two issues — Nadia would not look convincingly Indian, Nadia was too strange a name for a Hindi movie star. Solutions were suggested. The result: Nadia refused both the conditions put in front of her. She would neither wear a wig nor change her name to Nanda Devi (!) as proposed. The conversation, as Geetanjali Gangoly notes in Bollyworld: Popular Indian Cinema Through A Transnational Lens, went as follows:
She was told she would have to work hard with a voice coach on her Hindi, to change her name and to wear a wig or dye her hair: ‘otherwise people will think you are a buddhi’. She claims she did try an auburn tint but it went lighter than before so she decided to let it be. But she flatly refused a black wig with long plaits: ‘Look here Mr Wadia, I am a white woman and I’ll look foolish with long black hair.’ She also refused to change her name to the Hinduised Nanda Devi: ‘That’s not part of my contract. Nadia rhymes with Wadia and besides … I’m no devi.’
Read more: https://antiserious.com/fearless-nadia-hunterwali-feminism-d375341d1dbf#.u1aqlu8v4
And just to move you back in time, a little. Here’s Rini Barman looking at a woman looking at signboard in a railway station.
Entry-Out Language: A Picture of the Comings and Goings
A mother stares at this board at the Nainital railway station. It does not bring her the popular laughter it provokes in those who understand Hindi and English. This board is special to her.
Read more here: https://antiserious.com/entry-out-language-a-picture-of-the-comings-and-goings-bcb7cbff7e40#.jegrj65lg