Chowk: What does it mean to me?

Re: # 17

I regret and apologize today for what I had said about three years ago. I don`t remember in what state of mind I was then.

I wonder if Saima Shah is a female as her /his name shows. She has put me in `Bhumblebhoose` as I never saw a woman thinking like her. All religions, `Ilhami or non-Ilhami` hold the woman as a `sub-human` creature with constitutionally lower mental faculties as compared to man. But she weilds the power which can make a fool of a man. Even a female name like `Saima`, a name made famous by a film star, attracts a lonely man who is pining for talking with the opposite sex but he is perplexed when he reads her thought process. It is more manish than a womanish. A woman is either a woman or as they call in Punjabi a `Phundar`. She cannot be a man or full human being even when she looses her functtion as a woman after menopause. So,excuse me dear Saima, if I ask you what you are, a man or a woman, or inbetween?

Two Cheers for Hindi Cinema!

Thanks for the happy review of Lagaan.

I was particularly struck by the comment: ``If India produces more movies as authentic as this, Indian Cinema looks set to become the most humanistic cinema of this century leaving the acidic, clinical and impersonal style of modern Western cinema behind.``

For some years now I have felt that in modern India, Hindi cinema has willy-nilly played the role of building a common language (albeit north

Indian), of perception, communication, vocabulary, symbols, icons, idoms, song and music - in a highly complex, diverse and pluralist society where almost everything else has had the effect of pulling people apart. Perhaps no other formal or institutional effort has had such an impact on social integration.

Two Indians can watch a movie and thus share a space, when perhaps nothing else in their life circumstances would bring them to a shared

space. In that sense, the society has been held together and built positively in considerable measure because of the cinema.

In turn, this helps to create other kinds of unifiers. Thus, a Kannada speaking Hindu in south India and a Nagamese speaking Christian in

northeast India could be even closer than blood siblings out of their common passion for the songs of Rafi saab. In recent times, the

success in Bollywood of the south Indian director Mani Ratnam`s films like Roja and Bombay, and of the south Indian music director AR Rahaman,

suggests that a two-way cultural exchange is also possible.

Raj Kapur`s Teesri Kasam comes to mind. Surely, this is one of the most brilliant films ever made in India. As cultural education, nothing any Indian receives in school or university can equal this. From such a perspective, many films could be re-assessed. I am also reminded of the immense drama, about cultural allegience and conflict

underlying the song ``mudh mudh ke na dekh mudh mudh ke`` in Shree 420. There is a place and need for such things in modern India.

Yes, there has been a steady degeneration and the reasons for that are manifold. Several films from as late as the 1970s are still eminently

watchable, while most of the current output can be forgotton in minutes. There is hardly any story-line any more. For a long, long

time, no major work of literature has been filmed; reports of a new version of Sarat Chandra`s Devdas, starring Shahrukh Khan, are

therefore very encouraging. As are the attempts of Nagesh K through Hyderabad Blues.

If there are people who love cinema, who have been fed, formed and made decent Indians by cinema, then they too now have a responsibility

to claim for themselves this heritage, and help renew it through their creative interventions today - and thus renew and build Indian

society in the process.

I still wait for a proper assessment to be made of the role of Hindi cinema in modern India, one that is not discoloured by intellectual

elitism. What the cinema has done for the society needs to be celebrated, and the various colourful characters who worked to build the whole edifice hailed as pioneers and nation-builders.

Generous

Saima Shah

[Somewhere beyond vision and sight exists reality]

Reply #: 6 veeresh/Reply #: 8 FARANGI_KUSH

[energy is nothing but time going backwards]

Is it that we`re talking of the Arrow of Time ? If enough energy was harnessed and the mass reduced to travel at a speed greater than light, that would be a journey through the past towards the present as time keeps slowing down as we near the speed of light (dilation of time) and eventually reverses as we overtake it.

Let me explain this further. Since we can only perceive the world through our senses, all human perception occurs at the point when light`s rays arrive at the planet earth travelling at 186000 miles per second. Our perception of reality is thus actually what occured eight and one half minutes ago if we consider the sun as the source of all light i.e. the time it took sun`s light to reach earth. If we dispute the sun as the only source of light (the sun deflects light from other planets from it`s curved surface) then that difference would range from 4.5 hours to over 100,000 years as the next light emitting planets are that much farther away from earth. That would make our entire perception of present reality an illusion, while arriving at the `real` present is only possible by travelling back through the `Arrow of Time` ( Ref : A brief history of time : Stephen Hawkings).

As the Sufi Saints had said .. Sab Paani Ka Bulbula. Reality is nothing but an illusion.

Rgds.

p.s. Only the soul travels at that speed.

Chowk provides excellent forum for us, citizens of developing and newly industrialized countries to discuss our socio-economic problems and ways to arrive at their resolutions.

I hope everybody on this forum realizes this that Chowk is a precious forum where freedom is no problem where we can really say what we really feel and not expect to be punished for that.

Goodluck to you all,

What Chowk means to me is a forum for my sometime cathartic - sometime coherent - expression i.e. when I manage at all to step out of a temporary loss of reason.

More accurately, it means a window (dareecha) of the soul from which I peek out and find there are others like me peeking out of their respective ``dareechas`.

I like the re-design of Chowk because of many improvements incorporated but mainly because of the prominence given to it`s trademark graphic on the welcome page. Who is the artist by the way ? My compliments. It`s a masterpiece.

Rgds

Amid B2C niche portals and B2B eCommerce sites, ASPs and anchor sites, univeral shopping carts and smart bots, sticky services and slotting fees, lunchplays (acquisitions)and homeruns (IPOs), Chowk remains, as you say, a live, gangly organism.

CHOWK

The interesting thing is that Chowk is like a democracy wall in Pakistani society. And, this wall is growing and popping up in every home. It

provides free access to people who have never bothered to write to newspapers. You can write about crooked Pakistani bankers, scams of multinational financial institutions and other ripoff artists. Even crooked judges and their crooked sons. I have a dream !

The chowk is hardly an unbiased forun - although it is in line with my outlook on life :), a conservative might criticize it for only selectively representative of liberal ideas atleast in terms of articles - I have hardly seen any articles which radically challenge my outlook on life :). Nonetheless I shall conceed that the responses on chowk by far & large are uncensored - not neccesarily the most intelligible- but regardless of content at times quite radical and even paradoxical.

What is radical about this forum is that provides an opportunity for Pakistanis to discuss & debate issues in public without fear of physical Harm ( atleast I hope so :)) -and to collectively agree to disagree.... - That I think
is quite revolutionary in the evolution of the Pakistani Neanderthal.

Even so, the chowk is hardly representative of our true feelings, emotions or prejudices, - Veracity after all is hardly a strong cultural trait. Regardless, it still a welcome thorn to the ``mutual exclusivity`` being practised in our society, - and that we as individuals tend to view others in terms of ``shades of grey`` ......

As a friend once aptly put it - the south asian pshyche just stepped from the year 1000 to the 2nd millenium - and the ensuing paradoxes it creates is fascinating reading.

The most fun comes from the delusion of our self righteous ( at times almost messainic) pontificates that transform us into very demonic beings ( albeit a mirror image) of what we are trying to oppose. I often laugh at the very messages I have posted onto this forum for taking it too seriously at times.....

What irritates me the most is the presence of all those who are

vituperative, full of hate, mud-slingers, with

just an axe to grind. Many don`t even ever bother to check facts----

such as what was the name of M.A. Jinnah`s mother while

pretending to inform us on the subject.

Please do bother to spellcheck your messages before

posting them. Too many typos to be swallowed at one go.

I tend to agree with Indians that Pakis comparatively have

really bad command of English. Even though we are the ones who

have traditionally considered the Farangis as our `maa` baap`.

Chowk does have many serious and well-informed people.

Specially those like bahmad and Umairr are the saving grace.

They really maintain their cool and explain everything

with great patience.

Veeresh:#6

You piqued my curiosity by this----//energy is nothing but time going backwards//--.Pray tell me where did you read it and please eloborate as clearly as possible(I am 5 years old) what you mean by it.Is this the new definition of Entropy? If so I still need help.

I am a generalist and have the bad habit of trying to be nosy about something of everything & am a miserable failure at that too!!!!

Wassalaam.

Chowk to me is a place where I have seen people interact,fight,argue,discuss and agree.Chowk has has been to me a window to the dangers that exist in our part of the world,of the love that exists between the two south asian neighbours and the awareness that some of us have regarding what this millenium has in store for us and our nations.Chowk has been the inspiration for me to do better,much better than what anyone has ever done.

regards,

TM.

Re: Temporal

Thanks Temporal. Your idease are wonderful. To clarify what I mean by journalism.

For me journalism is a huge word. It is the recording and communicating of any event, fact, thought in a society. it records the evolution of culture in a society. like a camera of perspectives. by real-time, I mean that the camera has an immediate response to the environment.

Hope this clarifies your question.

I rather like the pulse analogy too. the camera seems to be virtually alive....:)

CHOWK -- AN ECLECTIC PULSE

Saima:

Nodded and enjoyed this line, “As I write this, I think of so many Chowkwalas and wonder what kind of replies I’ll get. I smile ruefully at every sentence, and think what it will evoke.”

Now smile, and tell me if you could have predicted my previous response to Zehra?

Some comments first and then I will take you up on the invite.

“A major function of intelligence is finding sensible, sustainable patterns.”
----I will continue this sentence thus: a major function of intelligence is finding sensible, sustainable patterns out of chaos. Chaos that is life. Life with all its innuendoes, charm, mirth, irritabilities, zest, promises and drawbacks. Chaos that is living.


“....Chowk is real-time journalism ---”
----If by journalism you mean,(n: The collecting, writing, editing, and presentation of news or news articles in newspapers and magazines and in radio and television broadcasts) I will disagree.
---- And if you mean (n: The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation) I will still disagree. Why? *grin * read on ---

For me Chowk is a ECLECTIC PULSE. A living, throbbing, pulse. A microcosm of the Southwest Asian cognizance.

It is one link in the allotted 2,649,024,000 heartbeats of an average Chowkie. One heartbeat that links you with me and others in that time space continuum. The click of the mouse is the ‘khull jaa sim sim’ command for this Ali Baba’s cave. Once in there, we may not see each other for a while; for their is enough for all eclectic taste. I rush, to add ‘almost’ all! There is that word again, eclectic. Let us dwell on it some.

Eclectic: adj: (a) Selecting or employing individual elements from a variety of sources, systems, or styles: or (b) Made up of or combining elements from a variety of sources.

There we have it: Chowk an eclectic pulse.

Or do we? Is it a pulse or impulse? I guess it is time to visit the dargah and meditate!

love,

t

Zehra O Zehra: KahaaN Ho?

See, see this heading? “Somewhere beyond vision and sight exists reality.A reality that all see differently.”

Regarding the opening lines in your poem “Untitled”, you wrote “i want to change around that first line too..idea is there but im not getting it..”

To which I replied, “ If you change `use` to `close` and then read the poem it all falls into place for me. If I CLOSE my eyes, what will I see? immediately forces the reader to open up the mental eyes, and start seeing not the peripheral but the beyond. Loaded vision plus the baggage we carry from over all those centuries. Makes for far more interesting read. “

Then at that chance encounter recently you brought up the subject saying you wanted to convey the vision with eyes wide open not shut.

I know we disagree on this but when I read Saima’s heading, I thought I should let you know of this ‘divine’ help from unexpected sources. Just kidding. *grin *

(Ofcourse, between us, we know this does not belong here. Ah, but the temptation ---- specially after what Saima wrote about predicting responses....)

lve

t

You refer to the ``intimacy of reading others...`` That is what attracts me to chowk too. One can exchange of ideas as intimately as with a very close friend, but with people whom one will never meet or get to know in real life. So the intimacy is pure thought, and postings on chowk are often thoughtful, and I find that to be very attractive.