Destination South Asia

Here’s a taste of some of the talks at Destination South Asia which took place at the University of British Columbia on March 23, 2013.

“Why is Poverty Declining so slowly in India,” Dr. Ashok Kotwal

1. India continues to be so poor because most of its population continues to be employed in agriculture which pays so little if anything.
2. Indians need to shift into non-farm jobs, like manufacturing but India does not have enough skilled labour partly because.
3. Indians are so poorly educated or not educated at all

Some other points from Dr. Kotwal’s paper on the subject (http://www.ideasforindia.in/Article.aspx?article_id=110 )

1. Most Indians (93%) have no job security nor access to credit, infrastructure or skills training as they work under the table (the ‘informal sector’), and;
2. Unskilled and poor workers have benefited little from the “high growth” because they lack the skills to take part in such skill-intensive sectors as business services (which employ only a small part of the labour force anyway).

How will India reap its “demographic dividend” when its people are unskilled, undereducated, malnourished… ?

“Beyond Political Frames: Literary Voices on Partition,” Nabila Pirani

Short-stories on Partition are written by writers alive at the time of the event, offering the benefit of immediacy to the reader, but can bring out the human and social aspects of Partition more effectively than purely historical or political narratives.

Summarizing the stories “Siqqa Badal Gaya,” “Lajwanti” and “Khol Do” by Krishna Sobti, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Saadat Hassan Manto respectively, Pirani, and the following discussion, revealed the many textures and tones of the Partition era.

In “Siqqa,” Pirani underlines how for many Punjabis, the violence of partition was mostly in the background and how the experience of partition changes through the perspective of a woman writer and protagonist. In “Khol Do,” Manto upsets the apple cart by suggesting that men from a particular community may have raped their own women. Lastly, in “Lajwanti,” Pirani looked at the invisible walls that develop between a husband and a wife who had recently been returned to her husband after being classed as “missing.”

“Pakistan’s Fading Cultural Heritage,” Umair Jaffar

The Institute for Preservation of Art and Culture (IPAC) is a Pakistani non-profit organization which seeks to support struggling artists and ustads and to preserve and propagate the classical and folk musical and artistic heritages of Pakistan.

The soul of Pakistan can be heard in the ballads of Marwari women in the Southern Punjab anticipating the return of their husbands from war as it is in the Nur Sur tradition of Baluchistan, a folk story-telling tradition stretching back to the Greek period. There are the instruments, like the Sindhi “borindo,” have been found in excavations in the Indus Valley from over 4000 years ago. And, we see how ancient instruments like the Baluchistani “banjo” can produce the sounds of the modern electric guitar.

Jaffar points out that public media presentations of folk and classical music performances were banned during Zia’s time resulting in a growing number of Pakistani youth over the years who have become disconnected from those traditions. At the same time, some traditions have also enjoyed an upsurge, such as in Baluchistan where folk music traditions have revived as part of a general cultural revival in recent years. I argued that folk and classical music traditions are bound to decline in a country where the languages held in greatest esteem (Arabic, English and Urdu) are not connected to nor supportive of its folk traditions. On the other hand, the traditions of poetry and music connected to the mother tongue helped produce the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

 

“History of Intercultural Dialogue and Engagement in Vancouver,” Naveen Girn

Girn’s presentation including rare photographs, news excerpts and audio clips and now part of the public archive, serves as a reminder of the history of South Asians in Vancouver.

The story of South Asians in Vancouver can be said to begin with the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. To attend the Jubillee in London, England, the army regiments of the subcontinent had to first pass through Vancouver. By 1907, a sizeable number of South Asians had settled in the city and that year saw the opening of the 2^nd Avenue Gurdwara in Kitsilano, the first gurdwara in North America.

More than a sacred space, the gurdwara was a meeting ground for Indians of different communities, including socialists, revolutionaries and members of the Ghadr party. The early community lived through the 1907 race riots in Vancouver and the Komagata Maru, published their own news magazine (associated with the Ghadr movement), forged associations with members of Anglo-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian communities and sent delegates to Ottawa to petition the government to grant South Asians the right to vote. The gurdwara also hosted Rabindranath Tagore, who Girn points out slept in the basement there after being turned away from the Hotel Vancouver and Nehru, who visited in 1949.

Remembering a legend – A tribute to Mehdi Hassan‏

A voice that ruled the hearts of South Asians for nearly half a century; a voice in which Lata Mangeshkar said she had found Bhagwan, continues on but the singer is no more with us.

The Shanshah-e-Ghazal Mehdi Hassan (1927-2012) passed away June 13 at 84.

To pay tribute to this great legend, the Committee of Progressive Pakistani Canadians (CPPC) and Naad Foundation are hosting an event. Program details are as under:

When: Sunday 17th June at 2:00 pm
Where: Naad Center for performing and visual arts
Unit No: 109, 12414- 82 Ave, Surrey BC.

Rest in Peace Mehdi Hassan Khan Sahab – you’re no longer with us but we will always remember you!

RSVP
Amarjeet Singh 778-883-2627
Shahzad Nazir Khan 604-613-0735

Photo from Mirza Ghalib group on Facebook.
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‘Chasing Fireflies’ by Avtar Singh

Pervaiz Elahi, Chief Minister of Pakistani Punjab, gave Capt. Amarinder Singh, his sarhad-paar counterpart, a horse. The good Captain reciprocated a few months later with a tractor. In the interim, a World Punjabi Conference was held, East and West Punjab games announced and a general atmosphere of cordiality and bonhomie prevailed. A reporter asked the Pakistani CM whether he felt he’d been one-upped by the Indian; if the eighty horses the tractor packed under its hood in effect trumped Pakistan’s solitary ghodi. Elahi laughed it off and said, ‘Muqabala mohabbat ka hai’, that the competition was one of love. The audience roared, the cameras clicked, the premises were awash in esprit de Kaur.

This happened almost a decade ago, in the mid-2000s. A scant few years previously, the Punjab countryside had been on the verge of being mobilised, with farmers hiding their vehicles for fear that the army, then moving en masse to the border, would commandeer them. A war had just been averted, neighbours with a history of bellicosity eyeing each other with disfavour across a mined and wired border. A sardar with deep roots in undivided Punjab had nominally taken charge in Delhi, but in Islamabad lurked a Mohajir general with no reason to love either Punjab or its products. So what, with respect, were these two chief ministers playing at?

A friend of mine, whose political acuity is aided by his interest in history, laughed at my question. The knickerwalas will never see an Akhand Bharat, he told me. But Punjab? That’s a different story.

The Pakistani Punjabis don’t care about the rest of their country. Neither, he pointed out, do you lot on this side. You feel besieged by no-hopers and laggards, just as your cousins across the border do. You share a language, cultural markers, even dream of the same things for your children. Cars, education, jobs abroad. You like sports and music and tikkas of all descriptions and you party like it’s still 1999.

Akhand Bharat? Never. But a united Punjab? Without testy Balochs and testing Biharis? Why not?

So it was a throwaway comment and events since haven’t panned out the way Messrs Singh and Elahi planned. The horse died, the games languished and the Punjabi conferences are now held in Canada, where the stated aim is to reflect on Unesco’s dire prediction that Punjabi as a language will die in this century. No, I haven’t seen the report. But I know that Punjabi literature is under threat on this side and I’ve seen the problems Punjabis across the border are facing from the onslaught of Urdu instruction. Gurmukhi and its Pakistani equivalent, Shahmukhi – apparently a Punjabi edition of the Nastaliq script more commonly available across the rest of the northern subcontinent – are at the mercy of texts that use the delivery systems of Devanagari, English and what have you and possibly you’ll see Punjabi degrade from a bhasha to a boli in our own lifetimes. It’s a sobering prospect.

But go to that other forum where the young Punjus conference. Youtube is its name. A new video, a new dance edit, a new take on ‘Jugni’: audit the responses among the comments underneath. Within the excoriations – ‘go back to Pindi, you f***in’ pendu’ – and the encomiums – ‘badasssss song, mate’ – lurks a pattern. A clear divide, to begin with, between nation. Then the creeping notion, first and foremost among the diasporic respondents, of a perceived commonality that transcends said nations. Then an impassioned plea from a resident Punjabi, writing in her mother tongue, albeit in a Romanized fashion, to rise above this petty state-ism and to recognise what binds ‘us all’ together. To enjoy the music, to listen to the words. In effect, to dig beneath the beats and the mastering and the bling. To remember.

What is a memory if not a dream?

What is a dream if not a template for the future?

Perhaps I’m reading too much into the drunk vapourings of foreigners homesick for a place they’ve never known.

But youtube pulls me back, again and again. I like the various ‘Jugnis’ I see there. A firefly’s fitful, brilliant incandescence is a wonderful thing. To catch one in a jar on a summer night is to see light and dark in the blink of an eye. Epic poetry, a sufi tradition, a bhakti saint and his descendants: an attachment to the land, a Sikh kingdom, a syncretism that may or may not have ever existed; harmony and cataclysm, rivers and deserts, Ghazis and Akalis, peace and war.

A civilization without a deciphered script that is still being excavated. Alexander defeated by the marshlands and the many rivers he had to cross, a world-conqueror stopped in his tracks. A proto-university in Taxila. Gandharas and Hunas, Buddhists and fire-worshippers, soma in pancha-nada.

Faridkot on this side and Ganj-e-Shakar across.

Pakistan? India?

Fireflies in a jar. The blink of an eye.

My father was born across the border in Lahore. He and his brothers went to school there. His mother studied there, who along with her sisters was among the first women in the community to attend Kinnaird College. Naturally, she went there wearing a veil.

His Lahore is one I’m familiar with from other people’s memories. Fruit cream in canteens, horse-carriages in the old city and cars in the new one. Well-dressed men in suits in the colleges, new restaurants being planned and along the margins, as a young boy will remember it, a town in the grip of some intellectual ferment. In the distance is a world war, accounts of which are to be woken up to and tabulated and closer to home is a pressing demand for independence but in the interim there are cricket teams to be tried out for. He has close friends from distant places who bring their own servants to the dormitories and the stories they tell him of their faraway homes match those of his own grandparents for their foreignness from the urban milieu he knows. Tellingly, his clearest memory of a visit to his paternal grandmother in her village home is being up on the roof and hearing a man softly singing Heer. If he’s on the roof, then it’s the summer holidays.

There must have been fireflies.

The tumult to come would disrupt his lifestyle to the extent that he had to shift schools and form new friendships. His maternal grandfather, on the other hand: he didn’t want to leave Lahore. His lands were on that side and so were his friends and what difference did a new dispensation make anyway to a man born under a foreign flag?

His son-in-law, my grandfather, had to physically remove him. Like many other men of his generation, perhaps he never really recovered.

Decades later, as my father’s generation started to marry their own children off, I began to meet the friends from that faraway school they’d never lost touch with. They would come with their own children to the weddings on this side and my elder cousins would go to their celebrations and they’d return with tales of monstrous feudalism that would make my father and his brothers chuckle. But no matter how differently we’d turned out, individually and collectively as Indians and Pakistanis, there was much to connect us. From the music at our weddings to the arcs our education had followed, both here and abroad: it would seem fated that we would remain friends.

I’ll grant you that this is the commonality of elites the world over. Clearly there are other narratives. A writer friend from Pakistan who is also a landlord described to me in great detail how the peasantry in his part of southern Punjab has now been radicalised by outsiders. From Pathans unable to protect their Sikh neighbours in the NWFP, for the first time in living memory, to bombs in Sufi shrines in the Punjabi heartlands; there is a pattern there as well and better minds than I will use it to rebut the theorists of commonality above all.

But. Even as the invitations of the last few decades have degraded to warnings of strife at home and hints that perhaps this wedding or that jubilee might be worth avoiding; even as the Old Boys on this side have progressed into their twilight decades and the points of connection now seem fewer and fewer; there is still something there. A look in my father’s eye as he describes Lahore, an uncle’s tale of a dancer’s beauty at a mujra, the sheen of the menus another uncle had had printed for a restaurant that never saw the light of Independent day.

Memories. Templates. Dreams.

My maternal great-grandfather’s unwillingness to leave the new state of Pakistan wasn’t an aberration. A friend of mine once told me the story of his own grandfather, who was so loath to leave his land in the new state, he was quite happy to consider conversion and circumcision and a new name. Men of their generation had known the hukumat of the British. What difference who ran the sarkar, what price the sound of the prayer or the script it’s printed in, when all that matters, the land itself, is still yours?

That old man was dragged kicking and screaming from his home and deposited in a new one across an arbitrary border. There were others who stayed and they are now part of the soil of Pakistan. Partition had greater victims, of course. The suffering of women left without choice in a landscape of cruelty that was at once methodical and insane is only starting to be documented. But it is instructive to remember that even men with ostensible options chose in a way that seems completely counter-intuitive to us, now, saddled as we are with the baggage of history. Nationalism, whatever you may think of it, is a powerful lens. It refracts what is there, whether we like it or not. India and Pakistan just are, complete with their founding myths. End of story.

Except it isn’t.

Imagine that firefly from my father’s childhood, listening to a peasant sing from Heer. Now she’s in a garden in Central Delhi, where Arif Lohar and friends are referencing her in a production from Pakistan’s popular Coke Studio. Arif Lohar’s father, Alam, was of course a legendary folk singer himself, who along with Asa Singh Mastana and Surinder Kaur first brought ‘Jugni’ to the attention of the record-buying public. That firefly is in a well-dressed whirl, as togged-out Dilliwalis who’ve never known a day’s worth of hard labour on anyone’s land swing and sway to a rhythm that speaks, it seems, to something deep within. These words, these references, the insistent beat: like a reflection, a refraction, a missive from the past.

Do you think this firefly wastes any time thinking over the criticisms of people who ‘know’, who claim that it is naive to believe that ‘Jugni’ is just a firefly? Does she spare a thought for the peasants over whose worlds she’s flown; does she giggle at the suggestion that those ‘simple’ peasants don’t know a narrative device when it’s sung to them by the dhadhis they’ve grown up with, that metaphors are foreign countries to those fools from the Punjab plains? Does she remember Bulleh Shah entreating his lover to come out from behind a veil and Nanak likening creation to an aarti? Or does she just listen and glow, glow as one does when all was darkness and suddenly everything is lucid and clear? Even if it is only for that moment, that evening, the length of that song.

Fireflies don’t live very long. Certainly not in Central Delhi. But a digital recording is apparently forever.

I started writing this thinking I’d come up with a single alternative, if you will, to the current diorama. Imagine if the schism had never happened, I was instructed. Ignore Amrita Pritam calling Waris Shah out of his grave, ignore Ahmed Faraz’s query to the celebrants, asking them which dismembered state’s founding they were jumping up and down about. I’m a Punjabi Sikh. The way ahead was clear.

But it’s not.

The schism just is.

So what?

Punjab’s always been riven. By invasion, by geology. Between brothers, even. Even when land wasn’t so damned expensive.

Perhaps we don’t know how to get along. And all we have to look forward to is the occasional kindness of a taxi driver in a foreign city who recognises a word, an accent, a name, and comps you the fare because the village his senile grandfather cries about at night is the one you still call home.

Or perhaps you could, like I did, chase fireflies on youtube. From Mika’s thin tone to the full-throated hoarseness of a dhadhi from Patiala in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, there’s more than enough to keep you occupied. Peel back the layers and find Latif Mohammed’s versions. Yes, Kuldeep Manak. Jasbir Jassi and Madan Gopal Singh reference him in their very modern take. Gurdas Maan, Rabbi Shergill, Mukhtar Sahota: the list goes on. And the debate rages on below the videos themselves. There’s a lover for every hater.

Kind of like Punjab. And the only binary that’s new is the simple one of the computer code itself, that enables people from everywhere and nowhere, India and Pakistan, you and me, to imagine the world afresh with the tools we’ve always had.

I’d like to think that one day I’ll be able to get that firefly to sit down and have a drink with me. Well, four or five. She’s Punjabi too. And I’d like to think I know what she’d say, when she judged the moment right to unship the wisdom of her wandering about to me.

‘F*** India. F*** Pakistan. Punjab te Punjab hai.’

Presented in April 2012 at
A COUNTRY OF OUR OWN
a symposium on re-imagining South Asia
http://www.india-seminar.com/2012/632.htm

http://www.india-seminar.com/2012/632/632_avtar_singh.htm

Pointed to by Amarjit Chandan
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A Song to Die For – Iranian Rapper Shahin Najafi: Solidarity May 26/12

‘Shahin Najafi was sentenced to death by two high level clergymen in Iran assignning one hundred thousands dollor price on his head. The Iranian Rapper sang a song in which he made fun of a religious figure. In solidarity with him, a facebook page is created and on Saturday May 26th, people around the world will come into street to protest Shahin’s death sentence and defend freedom of expression…’

Here’s the song in English

Naqi

Naqi! for sake of your sense of humor
For sake of this deportee man out of ring
For sake of the threatening life’s big penis sitting back to us
Naqi! For sake of the width and lengths of sanction and uprising dollar and the sense of humiliation
Naqi! For sake of paper made Imam
For sake of Ya Ali saying infant trapping in the womb
For sake of jurisprudence lesoon in the nose operation’s room
For sake of Agha* [the leader] and prayer bead and rug made in china
Naqi!for sake of Sheith Rezaeie’s* thumb [an Iranian football player who fingered his playmate in live broadcasting match]
For sake of the missed out religion and the religious football

Chorus:
Hey Naqi, hey Naqi, hey Naqi!

Hey Naqi! Now that Mahdi has slept, we are calling you:hey naqi!
We are ready wearing our shrouds, hey naqi! Rise up! (2)
Naqi! For sake of love and Viagra
For sake of legs up in the air and chakra
For sake of bread, chicken, meat and fish
And Silicon breast and striped virginity
Naqi! For sake of Golshifte’s* tits [an Iranian actress who pose nude for Cezar film prize trailer]
For sake of our lost prestige which was taken
Naqi! For sake of Aryan’s race
And the plaques overhang the neck
Naqi! Please for sake of Farnood’s* dick [an Iranian child who goofed in a live TV show]
And three thousand billion* under the sapphire sky [the amount of government embezzlement from Iran's Saderat Bank]
Persian Gulf and Uromieh Lake were fictional
By the way! What was the Green Movement leader’s name?!

Chorus (2)
Hey Naqi, hey Naqi, hey Naqi!

For sake of fart-rending* demise of nation’s Imam [it points to a goof from an Iranian TV's host, who used fart-rending instead of the word "Heart-rending"]
For sake of fossilized political commentators far from homeland
For sake of high class widows roaming in discos
For intellectual discussions in chartrooms
For sake of notorious men’s order
For sake of female men rights’ supporters
For sake of colored revolution on TV
For sake of 3 percent book readers of people
For sake of fake & hollow poets
For sake of this fickle crowd
Who say “viva” in the morning & “down with” in the evening
For sake of fantasy fiction’s hero

Chorus (2)
Hey Naqi, hey Naqi, hey Naqi!

* Naqi: also known as ‘Alī an-Naqī was the tenth of the Twelve Imams. His full name is ‘Alī ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Alī. The exact date of his birth and death are unknown, but it is generally accepted that he was born between 827–830 CE(Wikipedia)

Translation by aftab.nfill in by ali.d
From YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rDXhjIN030

Download Song
http://www.bargmusic.com/1704-Shahin-Najafi-Naghi

Facebook Page
http://www.facebook.com/shahinnajafi666

Protest in Vancouver, Saturday May 26, Vancouver Art Gallery, 6-7pm, Event information
http://www.facebook.com/events/143207225812780/
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Indian Classical Music at Surrey Arts Centre‏ – Nov 5/11

Virasat Foundation
Presents A Concert of Indian Classical Music
Saturday November 5th 2011
At 7pm
Surrey Arts Centre
13750 88 Avenue, Surrey, BC

The concert will feature renowned musicians Pandit Manu Kumar Seen on sitar and Ustad Akram Khan on tabla.

Pandit Manu Kumar Seen is a brilliant sitar player from Jalandhar, Punjab. Born into a family of musicians, he has inherited his talents and abilities from his father and Guru, Ustad Lacchman Singh Seen the renowned and legendary musician of the Punjab Gharana. His father instilled into him the deep spiritual nature of Indian Classical Music and opened his mind to the feelings and the meditative aspect of the various ragas. Punjab has it’s own unique style of playing sitar and this is what has been handed down to him from his father. Pandit Manu Kumar Seen is also fortunate to have learnt sitar form the world renowned sitar maestro Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan who has taught him the subtle techniques of sitar playing used in the Etawah Gharana.

In 2002 Virasat Foundation awarded Pandit Manu Kumar Seen with the “Indian Classical Music Award”. He has since been honoured by many other organizations including receiving the Surmani Award by Sur Singar Samsad Mumbai and has given sitar performances in many prestigious festivals like Baba Harballabh Sangeet Sammelan Jalandhar Swami Haridas Sangeet Sammelan Mumbai, Tirupati Balaji A.P., Bhaskar Rao Sangeet Sammelan Chandigarh, National Program of Music All India Radio, Globe Fest 2003, World Sacred Music New York, India Habitat Centre New Delhi and Saptak Ahmedabad which is one of India’s biggest music festivals.

Ustad Akram Khan is arguably the finest contemporary performer of tabla from the famous Ajrada Gharana. Ustad Akram Khan received his initial training in music from Late Ustad Niazu Khan who was known for his technical style and guidance. He is also fortunate to have learnt from his great grandfather Ustad Mohammed Shafi Khan. He continues his riyaz and training under the able guidance of his father Ustad Hashmat Ali Khan.

Ustad Akram Khan began performing at music conferences at a very young age. Since then, he has been participating in prestigious festivals across the globe to much acclaim. In 1987, he performed with the great Ustad Vilayat Khan in Japan and in 1992 he accompanied the maestro to the United States. He has performed before enthralled audiences at the Kennedy Centre and the Lincoln Centre in U.S.A. He was part of the celebrations for the 50 years of India’s Independence in India, as well as abroad. He is a leading tabla player of international repute and is in much demand both as an accompanist and a soloist.

Virasat Foundation is delighted to be presenting this exquisite concert featuring these gifted artists and welcomes everyone to attend. This will be an opportunity for everyone to listen to sitar and tabla at it’s finest and also Pandit Manu Kumar Seen will be singing and playing some traditional folk songs from Punjab. Please contact Virasat Foundation in advance for tickets.

About Virasat Foundation:
Virasat Foundation is dedicated to preserving and promoting the rich culture, traditions and heritage of India.

For Further Information:
Bhupinder S. Malhi 604 765 3063 or Jaspal S. Randhawa 604 897 4512
Email: info@virasatfoundation.com
Website: www.virasatfoundation.com

Forwarded by Shahzad Nazir Khan
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Way to go, Jagjit Singh!

Jagjit Singh, the ‘King of Ghazal’ who sang Ghalib so well, moves on at 70.
His wonderful contributions to this world will still remain.
Thank you for all the songs.

Love and respect to Chitra Singh.
http://jagjitchitrasingh.com/

Jagjit Singh, the ghazal maestro, dies
NEW DELHI: Renowned ghazal singer Jagjit Singh, 70, passed away at 8.10 am in Lilavati Hospital on Monday morning.

Jagjit Singh was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital on September 23 after he suffered brain haemorrhage in suburban Bandra where a life-saving surgery was performed on him.

“Jagjit Singh passed away at 8.10 am after having a terrible haemorrhage,” Dr Sudhir Nandgaonkar, hospital spokesperson, told PTI.

He is survived by his wife Chitra Singh.

Jagjit Singh was born in Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan. He had four sisters and two brothers and he is known as Jeet by his family.

Popularly known as “The Ghazal King”, he gained acclaim together with his wife in the 1970s and 1980s, as the first ever successful duo act (husband-wife) in the history of recorded Indian music.

Recipient of Padma Bhushan award, he has sung in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Nepali.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
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‘Mehboob-e​-Ilahi’: Sufi Kathak by Manjari Chaturvedi – New Delhi Sept 23/11

‘Mehboob-e​-Ilahi’
Sufi Kathak by Manjari Chaturvedi
September 23, 2011
6:30 PM
Lotus Temple, New Delhi

FOR PASSES CONTACT:
Ipshita Roy
Sufi Kathak Foundation
sufikathakfoundation@gmail.com
+91 9871310119
www.sufikathak.com

Manjari Chaturvedi is the creator and only performer of Sufi Kathak in the world.

Sufi Kathak Foundation, a non-profit registered society (Regd.No 61883) aims to create awareness for Sufi Kathak and provides scholarships to students pursuing classical and Sufi music and dance, and pension and medical insurance to ailing artists.
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150 Years of Tagore! Richmond BC – Sept 10/11

On behalf of
World Poetry Richmond
Vancouver Tagore Society, and
The City of Richmond
We would like to invite you to
A special Life Celebration of
Poet and visionary Rabindranath Tagore

The event will be full of music, poetry, lectures, displays, dance and features.

Admission is free, fun-filled family event, something for everyone.

150 Years of Tagore!
11:00am – 5:00pm
Saturday September 10, 2011
Richmond Cultural Centre
#100-7000 Minoru Gate
Richmond, BC.

World Poetry Richmond, City of Richmond & Vancouver Tagore Society
Proudly Present
The Life Celebration of Rabindranath Tagore
Hosts Ariadne Sawyer, Alejandro Mujica-Olea, Anuradha Mitra & Duke Ashrafuzzaman
First Nations Welcome
Roberta Price
Biography of Tagore
Lee Tan
Featured guests
Dr. Stephen Gill, Cornwall, Ontario
Ashok Bhargava, Vancouver, BC.
Dr. Jianhua Zhang, University of Alabama, Birmingham
Tapestry of Words
World Poetry Multilingual Tagore Poems
Dances
Koyali Burman, Jasmine Dance Club, Arno Kamolika
Songs and Music
Sanzida Habib Swati, Shankhanaad Mallick, Tanaya Guha, Avik Ranjan Dey, Amlan Das Gupta, Saif Islam, Arno Kamolika, Sabuj Mazumder, Subhamoy Dasgupta
Lectures
Tagore and Universalism: Lee Tan
Tagore and Rural Reconstruction: Santanu Mitra
Tagore and Emancipation of Women: Leena Chatterjee
Tagore and the Crisis of Civilization Today: Ananda Lee Tan

Lectures interspersed with live Tagore music, poetry and dance.
Tagore Exhibits & World Poetry Display.
Children and Youth activities.
Refreshments.

Free Admission

For more information Vancouver Tagore Society: 604-635-4378
World Poetry: www.worldpoetry.ca
604-526-4729
City of Richmond: 604-276-4391
Facebook Event: 150 Years of Tagore!.
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Sufi Kathak By Manjari Chaturvedi at Royal Festival Hall, London April 15/11

Manjari Chaturvedi, ‘the creator and only performer of Sufi Kathak in the world’ will perform this Friday april 15 at Jahan-e-Khusro, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre in London UK.

Sufi Kathak Foundation, a non-profit registered society (Regd.No 61883) aims to create awareness for Sufi Kathak and provides scholarships to students pursuing classical and Sufi music and dance, and pension and medical insurance to ailing artists.

FOR TICKETS KINDLY CONTACT:
http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/

www.sufikathak.com
sufikathakfoundation@gmail.com
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Sufi Kathak by Manjari Chaturvedi at Jahan-e-khusrau, New Delhi, March 13/11

6:30 PM
Sunday, March 13, 2011
at
Jashn-e-Khusro
Arab Ki Sarai, Humayun Tomb
New Delhi
sufikathak@gmail.com
www.sufikathak.com

‘Manjari Chaturvedi is the creator and only performer of Sufi Kathak in the world‘

Sufi Kathak Foundation is a non-profit registered society (Regd.No 61883) that aims to create awareness for Sufi Kathak, and provides scholarships to students pursuing classical and Sufi music and dance; and,  pension and medical insurance to ailing artists.
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‘UmraN langhiyaN pabbaN bhaar’ tackled by Kuljeet Bhamra

From Press Release

A Song For All Seasons…

‘UmraaN LannghiyaaN PabbaN Bhaar’ (A Lifetime on Tiptoes) was sung by Asad Amanat Ali Khan in the 70’s and became a hit in the Punjabi world. Once again, Mazhar Tirmazi’s famous lyric is being re-created by Kuljeet Bhamra, who has worked extensively in the U.K. Film & TV Industry, Hollywood and Bollywood. He has created a unique soundtrack in Mumbai, India, and recorded the song in London. It has been sung by a young British born singer, Shahid Abbas Khan.

The album is being launched around Valentine’s Day by the name of ‘Heartfelt’ on BBC London.

Mazhar Tirmazi, a renowned British Pakistani Punjabi poet and playwright is visiting Lahore these days working on new projects – translations of his poems into English, his next creative workshop using puppets who spout poetry, ongoing collaborative project with Welsh Poets, and audiovisual expressions set to the music of late Salamat Ali Khan, Saira Altaf’s photos and Mazhar Tirmazi’s poems.

Tirmazi’s collections of poetry include ‘Dooja Hathh Sawaali’, ‘Kaya Kagad’, ‘Thandi Bhubhal’, and ‘Jagda Sufna. His poems have appeared in the anthology ‘Mother Tongues’, published by King’s College, London.

This new collaborative effort spearheaded by music director Kuljit Bhamra promises a refreshing take. Bhamra is known to straddle jazz, classical, folk and pop. He has given music for some renowned films like Bend It Like Beckham, Bhaji On The Beach, Alexander, Four Features etc. He has his own percussion band called ‘Taala’.

Mazhar Tirmazi and Kuljit Bhamra remain rooted in their cultural ethos yet take us on an innovative flight which we await with bated breath… A Lifetime On Tiptoes.

http://mazhartirmazi.wordpress.com/
www.kuljitbhamra.com
www.sairaaltaf.com
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Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq Conference on Faiz, Woodbridge, Feb 5/11

Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq Shomali Amrika
(Literary Friends Network of North America)
61st meeting
To celebrate the 100th Birthday of Pakistani Revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz
- Time: 1:00 PM
- Day & Date: Saturday, 5 February 2011
- Location: Dr. A.J. Ferlazzo Building (Cafeteria)
- 15941 Donald Curtis Drive, Woodbridge, VA 22191 USA
http://www.pwcgov.org/default.aspx?topic=040059000300001675#2

Subjects of Discussions
1. FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
Pakistani Urdu poet, journalist, editor, author of books and human rights defender
http://www.faiz.com
http://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/faiz.html
- Videos of Faiz’s Revolutionary Poem ‘We Will Witness’
- Pakistani Singer Iqbal Bano
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbOrdBRtIUw
- Pakistani Singer Masooma Anwar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPmxIeZmO6g
- TV Video Biography of Faiz Ahmed Faiz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYyZidwlvVE
2. Mr. KHALID HASAN
Pakistani journalist, translator and author of books
http://www.khalidhasan.net

Speakers
1. Mr. AKMAL ALEEMI
Pakistani journalist, editor, ex-VOA Urdu radio broadcaster and author of books
http://www.AkmalAleemi.net
http://www.facebook.com/akmalaleemi
2. Dr. MOAZZAM SIDDIQI
Pakistani journalist, professor and ex-VOA Asia Director
3. Dr. SATYAPAL ANAND
Pakistani/Indian poet, professor and author of books
4. Other eminent persons

Features
Pakistani-American singer and music composer Omar Waqar will sing his English poem about Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Other Pakistani singers will recite the poetry of Faiz

Admission to this public event is FREE

For more information
Dr. ABIDA WAQAR RIPLEY
Pakistani journalist, VOA Urdu radio broadcaster and teacher/educator.
Program Coordinator
Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq Shomali Amrika (HAZSA)
E-Mail: abidaripley@gmail.com
Telephone: 703-799-6666
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Dance and Women’s Empowerment

The Centre for Race, Autobiography, Gender and Age (RAGA)

Invites you to

An Oddissi Dance Performance by Sitara Thobani

Followed by Discussion

Dance and Women’s Empowerment

A Fundraiser for the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre

Thursday, February 10, 2011

7-8:30pm

Langara College

New Berry Hall A130

(by the front entrance off 49th Avenue)

100 West 49th Avenue, Vancouver BC

Coast Salish Territorries

Admission by Donation

More Information:

www.raga.ubc.ca

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Poet in the City: Faiz Ahmed Faiz – 17th Jan, London UK

An event celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the most prominent poets of the Indian sub-continent, who wrote in both Urdu and Punjabi, and whose humane work was filled with love, dignity and resistance to injustice.

This spectacular event will feature:
Javed Majeed, distinguished professor of postcolonial studies at Queen Mary, University of London, and an expert on Urdu poetry, who will provide a biographical introduction and will speak about Faiz’s great contributions to poetry and to world culture.
Poems by Faiz will be read in the original language and in translation:
In Urdu: Senior journalist, Saqlain Imam who now works for the BBC’s Urdu World Service in London
In English: Actress and playwright Sudha Bhuchar, Artistic Director at Tamasha Theatre company
In Punjabi: Renowned Punjabi poet and translator, Amarjit Chandan whose latest book is ‘Sonata for Four Hands’.

Musical settings of Faiz poems will be performed by Swati Natekar, a renowned vocalist from a hereditary musical family in Mumbai, accompanied by distinguished tabla player Hanif Khan.

From 6.30pm on Monday 17 January 2011
Hall One at Kings Place
90 York Way, London N1 9AG

How to buy tickets
Booking now open online, by phone or in person from the Kings Place box office:
Tickets cost £9.50 if booked online via www.kingsplace.co.uk
Otherwise tickets cost £11.50.
Box Office 020 7520 1490

For enquiries relating to your booking please contact tickets@kingsplace.co.uk.
To check ticket availability please use the online booking service.
For general enquiries or comments, please use our online feedback form or email info@kingsplace.co.uk

This event is presented by Poet in the City in partnership with the friends of Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Faiz by Sadeqain

Faiz, Ghalib and Iqbal by MF Husain

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Pakistan’s famous ‘misfits’

Every system has its misfits but the religion-based political structure of Pakistan seems to have generated more than its share. Here is a list of a few famous writers, musicians and other creative people who were hunted down in Pakistan instead of having been recognized for their contributions.

I am presenting it here in the hopes that this list will grow with more information from Uddari readers about Pakistan’s ‘misfitting’ famous and non-famous creative people.

THE MISFITS
By Waseem Altaf

Today i.e. on Sunday 25th July, I was watching a program on Qurattulain Haider on a private channel and I recalled that she had come to Pakistan in 1949. By then she had attained the stature of a world class writer. She joined the Press Information Department and served there for quite some time. In 1959 her greatest novel ‘Aag ka Darya’ was published. ‘Aag Ka Dariya’ raised important questions about Partition and rejected the two-nation theory. It was this more than anything else that made it impossible for her to continue in Pakistan, so she left for India and permanently settled there.

Sahir Ludhianvi, one of the finest romantic poets of Urdu language settled in Lahore in 1943, where he worked for a number of literary magazines. Everything was alright until after partition when his inflammatory writings (communist views and ideology) in Savera magazine resulted in the issuing of a warrant for his arrest by the Government of Pakistan. In 1949 Sahir fled to India and never looked back.

Sajjad Zaheer, the renowned progressive writer Marxist thinker and revolutionary who came to Pakistan after partition, was implicated in Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case and was extradited to India in 1954.

Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan was a Pakistani citizen, regarded as one of the greatest classical singers of the sub continent, was so disillusioned by the apathy shown towards him and his art that he applied for, and was granted a permanent Indian immigrant visa in 1957-58. He migrated to India and lived happily thereafter.

All of the above lived a peaceful and prosperous life in India and were conferred numerous national awards by the Government of India.

Saadat Hassan Manto a renowned short story writer, migrated to Pakistan after 1947. Here he was tried thrice for obscenity in his writings. Disheartened and financially broke he expired at the age of 42. In 2005, on his fiftieth death anniversary, the Government of Pakistan issued a commemorative postage stamp.

Zia Sarhadi the Marxist activist and a film director who gave us such memorable films as ‘Footpath’ and ‘Humlog’, was a celebrity in Bombay when he chose to migrate to Pakistan. ‘Rahguzar’, his first movie in this country, turned out to be the last that he ever directed. During General Ziaul Haq’s martial law, he was picked up by the army and kept in solitary confinement in terrible conditions. The charges against him were sedition and an inclination towards Marxism. On his release, he left the country to settle permanently in the UK and never came back.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz, one of the greatest Urdu poets of the 20th century was arrested in 1951 under Safety Act and charged in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case. Later he was jailed for more than four years.

Professor Abdussalam the internationally recognized Pakistani physicist, was disowned by his own country due to his religious beliefs, went to Italy and settled there. He could have been murdered in the land of Islam but was awarded the Nobel prize in the West for his contribution in the field of physics.

Ustad Daman, the ‘simpleton’ Punjabi poet had a flair of his own. Due to his unorthodox views, many a times he was sent behind bars. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru offered him Indian citizenship which he refused. The reward he received here was the discovery of a bomb from his shabby house for which he was sent to jail by the populist leader Mr.Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

I was wondering, had Mohammad Rafi the versatile of all male singers of the Indian sub-continent chose to stay in Pakistan, what would have been his fate. A barber in the slums of Bilal Gunj in lahore. And Dilip Kumar selling dry fruit in Qissa Khawani Bazaar, Peshawar.

Ustad Salamat Ali a bhagwan in Atari turned out to be a mirasi in Wahga all his life. Last time I met him at his rented house in Islamabad, he was in bad shape.

This state was not created and is not meant for these kind of people. Put on a sherwani and recite nahmadahu wa nussali ala rasool e hil karim if the spirit of times so demands. Or put on a designer suit with puppies in both hands and talk of enlightened moderation. Don’t ever defy the status quo, be a part of it, promote it and therein lies the perfect recipe for success.
mwaseemaltaf@hotmail.com
From Socialist Pakistan News (SPN)

I know, i can add more names to this list including my own. There are many artists living in Pakistan who have dedicated their lives to their art but have to live through ongoing harassment. Kathak dancer/teacher Naheed Siddiqui in Lahore, Bharat Natyam dancer/teacher and an activist Sheema Kirmani in Karachi have performed miracles by surviving in Pakistan as women creative artists. Fahmida Riaz had to leave with her family to live in India during General Zia’s period.

If you know of another ‘misfit’, please add their name to this list via Comments or send us a message at uddari@live.ca.
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