SAJA Convention: Chowk Insights

#36 Ras

You have misunderstood my article. I wont go into more explanations other than to request you to read the article within its context--which was a convention for South Asians.

#37 Urstruly

I seriously dont know how many SAJA members are of Pakistani origin. Also, Padma and Salman aren`t just patrons of SAJA. They are significant on the literary scene. And No, people who bad-mouth their country of origin arent necessarily members of SAJA :) and in the member application they dont ask you to badmouth Pakistan. You dont have to put down India to be Pakistani or vice versa--perhaps that is the new political reality of South Asia.

regards

S

urstruely


are you looking for SAMJA?

ras -- agree with u 100 per cent -- saima shah seems to be an apologist for saja for no apparent reason -- and of course politics has a role in everything -- to deny that it somehow doesnt is to act very naive --

Ras

The problem with SAJA like organizations is that a Pakistani is not ``accepted`` among equals unless he or she bad mouths his country, religion of the people, their values, history, and discredit anything that is Pakistani, first. When the patron saints of an organization are people like Rushdie and Padma then what else do you expect. Any Pakistani who wishes to move in this crowd and choses to speak high of his country and its values is cast as a close minded bigot and a cave dwelling conservative. This is the reason I asked Saima Shah as to what is the approximate proportion of Pakistanis in SAJA. I highly doubt that her answer that she didn`t know is accurate. I like to know how many Pakistanis have and are willing to pay this price to be accepted as contemporary intellectual equals.

RE:#33

Nobody can overlook India in the South Asian realm. But one is not asking for something unreasonable here. When something positive happens from Pakistan which is admittedly rare, a mention of it in a report would not be unreasonable. SAJA and a number of other organizations and forums are supposed to be about a South Asian representation within the media here. So let us give some exposure time to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka etc. as well.
And since I am of Pakistani origin, I sometimes prefer to ask about Pakistani endeavors too. It is not a “feel good” request but the stating of a fact. Let us not over-compensate India because it dominates the South Asian writing world. Some Indian writers are indeed superb. CHOWK publishes some of their work too. Indian society has been a lot more encouraging towards the arts. Pakistanis and others need to learn from them.
The success of CHOWK has been the rare window that it has provided to Pakistani talent in the writing arena. Indians have other windows available too. For example, India Currents in the San Francisco Bay Area is a very good one.
May main purpose for hanging around here at CHOWK for so long is because I like to read good writing from relatively unknown Pakistanis. Too bad some of them do not write under their own names. I have already read volumes on Rushdie and Zakaria. Rushdie is nothing less than a superb writer who by the way started off writing as a Pakistani (unimportant but factual trivia). Zakaria is a success story that we all know about. Some Indian name-dropping is fine, but a mention of the other neighborhood talent cannot hurt anyone’s honesty as a writer or reporter.

Ras

Before this article leaves the front page and hides itself under some cover, I would like to pay more respects to the Asia Society; one of the best cultural organizations with a focus towards asian policies, culture, business, and education. Last but not least the Society`s programs are geared towards educating the Americans on the latest and greatest developments in Asia. The Society is run by a very dedicated and devoted group of people. The new location on 725 Park Avenue is far nicer and beautiful than the old one. Period! A must see!!! And, now... they have a museum as well. Having attended several well organized and beautiful programs conducted by the Society over the course of the last 8 - 9 years, I would strongly recommend anyone who is in the area (NY) to checkout their upcoming events. There is variety. There is flavor. There is something new to learn and know. There is life; and there is color in their programs. http://www.asiasociety.org/ I simply love this organization!

#33: Saima:

[I expect that over time you will have more opportunities to be proud of Pakistanis who sucessfully integrate with Western/other cultures and add to the `knowledge`, `science` `technology` and creativity that we so admire in the West.]

Excellent Point! Ditto.

Great response to post #30.

#22

Urstruly.

I dont know.

#21 Romair various:

Romair you have made some assumptions in your comments. In my opinion, the best articles in any given day/week should be published, period.
As for finding a Shakespeare, what do you think? isnt that exactly what Chowk has been doing for writers? Giving them a chance.

#19 Farzana

Farzana--

No. I disagree. I think an insightful piece of writing would find an audience regardless of whether it is written by x name or y name. I think that as South Asians we have way more paranoia about our names and identities than is warranted. I also think that William Dalrymple is an excellent writer and researcher. That if instead it had been written by Ramesh Rao (name made up), his books would be just as good and recognized. The way I look at it is this: The majority reading public in English has historically been of Western Origin. Books written by Westerners who visit India eg. William Dalrymple, would be written from that point of view--which would find resonance with the western public who are non natives of India. That is hypothetical since I feel that William Dalrymples also writes with empathy of a native which is what makes his books so charming, and I, a native of the sub-continent soil get carried away in those books without feeling that an `outsider` is looking at mughal India. In fact his books make me feel that I indeed witness India of those times. It may well be that the reason is that our identity of being desi has mingled with the western identity. So that we are at once foreigners to our own culture even as we live and breathe it. We study it from afar, in terms and frameworks provided by the knowledge of the West. Anyway I digressed a bit here...thank you for the welcome back. I am never far from Chowk but it is nice to be `back`. :)

Various replies:

As for the whole issue of Pakistani authors vs other authors. Pakistani authors in English are a hybrid breed, people who have mutated from being pakistani to other identities. Now that is a hard thing to do for the Pakistani person since through out history the goal has been to preserve their way of life. It is in the last few decades that the `progressive` Pakistani wants to mingle or borrow from other cultures for various reasons on which I shall not spend time here.

I expect that over time you will have more opportunities to be proud of Pakistanis who sucessfully integrate with Western/other cultures and add to the `knowledge`, `science` `technology` and creativity that we so admire in the West. At that time, I may write about people of Pakistani origin who added to the pool of knowledge in the West. At this time, I wrote about the attempt of people originally from the sub-continent to bring together intellectuals and provide a networking opportunity.

#30
South Asian content and diaspora is dominated by India. Now that is a geopolitical fact as well as a social one. Whether good or bad or whether some people resent it and wish it were otherwise, no comments from me. It is nice that a movie made by a Pakistani won an award at SAJA. A number of creative endeavours were rewarded at SAJA. Why dont you ask me about those as well, why just Pakistani? Also how come it didn`t win anything in Pakistan? What does Ras think I should have said? Something feel good for the Pakistani readers? Sorry, I dont write that way. Many people and writers were commemorated at SAJA, why should I just mention a Pakistani movie. I watched some wonderful stuff by Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani film-makers ( hey btw, many are AMERICAN now). I covered the convention and presented some insights for its rational.

I am not here to pat the backs of Pakistanis, Indians or whoever. My purpose as a writer is to report what I see as honestly as possible.

zahraJ u sound like a female version of uncle tom

Romair/29: ````P.S. when I hire people as employees, one of the things I look for in an interview is how much they complain about the, ``system,`` for the lack of their success, in their careers. I never have problems with hiring individuals who say they failed at this or that, due to their own incompetence. However, I rarely hire people, who say they failed at this or that because of the, ``system`` was stacked against them, or because of, ``politics,`` etc. ````

Good thinking, I think.

Saima seems to have overlooked the Pakistani aspect here...
Believe me, even I`m beginning to wonder about CHOWK!



SALMAN`S ``ROCK STARS AND THE MULLAHS`` DOCUMENTARY

WINS TOP HONOURS AT SAJA AWARDS!!!!


The BBC internationally aired a documentary starring Salman Ahmad of Junoon recently entitled, ``The Rock Star and the Mullahs``. The documentary which covered Salman and Junoon in Pakistan, has won the first place award at the South Asian Journalists Association Awards in the category of ``Outstanding story on South Asia - Broadcast`` category! The production company, ``Wide Angle`` beat out competition from top news outfits like 60 Minutes, Nightline, and CNN for first place!!!! The Awards ceremony will be held at Columbia University in New York City on the 20th of June where Junoon has been invited to attend to receive the award.

The results of the awards are listed here: http://www.saja.org/pr-awards2004results.html

omar_r #28: I don`t know much about the relationship between Indians and Pakistanis, in the literary circles of the USA, since I don`t belong to that circle (I don know about the details of it in the IT circle).

My view has always been that one cannot keep a good man (or woman) down (perhaps in Pakistan, but not in the West). Talent will always shine through, regardless of it being Indian, Pakistani, or Bhutani. The best way for someone to make a mark is not solely by participating in these functions, writing about them, complaining about them, etc. etc. That is required also. However, that can never be the main thrust of any community`s advancement in any field.

The best way to establish credibility is to write a great book. Once someone does that, then they do not need to rely on associations and grants and the goodwill or ill-will of others. And once, one person does that, he/she makes it much easier for others, who are following.

As an example, take the IT industry. The relations between Indians and Pakistanis are actually quite good in IT. But you will see so many prominent Indians. And very few prominent Pakistanis, at the moment. Other than the obvious disparity in numbers, the main cause is that Pakistani arrived in bunches, in the USA, a good fifteen years after the Indians. You will hardly find any Pakistani in his/her 40s in the IT industry. They are all within my group, i.e. 30-40. You will find many Indians in their 50s.

The 30 somethings Pakistani group is now at the Senior Manager/Director level in companies, or are fledgling entreprenuers. Soon we will be VPs, CIOs, CEOS, and our businesses will grow. Once that happens, it will be much easier for any young Pakistani to advance to similar positions, because there will already be examples of success stories available.

So, to summarize, when (and if) some Pakistanis start writing good and successful books, the politics of SAJA and universities etc. (if they exist) will become immaterial.........

It is very difficult to keep a good man/woman down in a free society...........

P.S. when I hire people as employees, one of the things I look for in an interview is how much they complain about the, ``system,`` for the lack of their success, in their careers. I never have problems with hiring individuals who say they failed at this or that, due to their own incompetence. However, I rarely hire people, who say they failed at this or that because of the, ``system`` was stacked against them, or because of, ``politics,`` etc.

romair -- youre right about the fact that getting 100 or so articles doesnt say anything about quality -- btw one of the well known writers that u spoke of, who doesnt have the time to comment on his articles, however does follow the discussions although he doesnt want to get drawn into what inevitably becomes a mudslinging match -- he also has a problem with taking part in debate where people hide behind assumed identities --

urstruly asked a pertinent question -- i was an undergrad at the same university in the early 90s -- then they had an association called club zamana, still there, but it was over-represented by the indians and perhaps the pakistani students werent too keen -- then the year i graduated the pakistanis formed a separate club which now i believe is some 200 plus strong -- even at grad school, where i was in the dept of south asian languages and civilizations i found that getting to do some research on pakistan or using research on pakistan as reference was a herculean task because the other identities tended to be swamped -- if u said u were researching on south asian people assumed that it would be something to do with india -- ayesha jalal had the same problem at my college when she clashed with the rest of the faculty and because of the fact that the southern asian institute at columbia had got a huge grant from the hinduja family -- rumours were that they wanted pakistan to be cut to size, not that there were too many courses on pakistan but prof jalal`s work and books were quite blunt and probably disliked by most indophile scholars at columbia

Thank you for a decent overview of the Saja Event.

There are some organizations that are worth a lot of respect and SAJA is definitely one of them. I must mention that Asia Society leads all of them in its culture, programs, organization and delivery.

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nikki7777 #23: ``Thank you Romair``

Don`t mention it......

I am, myself, quite interested in this subject. Unfortunately, very few people on this site, seem to share that interest. The site has tilted more and more towards the topics I mentioned in my earlier reply.

Michael Ondaatje from Sri Lanka (....Ceylon) wrote The English Patient. His brother is a multi-millionaire in Canada. They have quite the riches to rags, back to riches story. His brother writes, as well. Rohinton Mistry is a Canadian-Indian, who is, perhaps, the best Indian writer in the business today. Naipaul being born outside India. Rushdie, is obviously excellent also, but he gets most of his publicity for mostly the wrong reasons.

My money is on Mohsin Hamid. Do read his book, ``Mothsmoke.`` He is the only Pakistani writer I have read, who, I think has huge potential. A Dragonfly in the Sun is actually quite boring, though somewhat informative. There do seem to be a group of young Pakistani authors emerging. But it is basically a growing group of hard-working, but very average or below-average, authors. I think getting published is considered, ``success enough`` in Pakistan.

Tariq Ali, an athiest (infact an apostate), has authored a trilogy on Islamic culture, which is interesting. Though the writing is somewhat wanting.

But true literature in Pakistan is really in Urdu (and whatever is available in Punjabi. I cannot understand the other languages, so I don`t know what is available there). Parvin Shakir, is (was) one of the most accomplished minds of our generation of South Asians. Her and Bulle Shah are two poets, whom I would love to translate, if I ever have time (and the talent).............