Cultural disconnect and crass commercialism

-




He is an author of kids books, so I would have ignored it but for the title - The Penguin Annual Lecture. A writer if he is going to speak, especially on children's literature, I am keen to listen. I am out of touch with what kids read these days, and daughter considers me weird because I haven't even read Harry Potter. I asked her if she wants to listen to Jeff Kinney, author of Wimpy Kids and she immediately said yes.


I can't say disappointed, for there was nothing in the whole programme that I could relate to except for the venue which is one of most familiar and most haunted in the last two and half decades I have spent in the city. First of all there was a whole lot of kids, unruly and screaming at the top of the voice. A few south Mumbai schools had also brought their students for the programme. Second, some DJ/VJ came up and did some reality/magic whatever show you call it, and I was bone dry. I had no emotions left, just stayed on even as I continue to defend myself on Whatsapp over allegations of spreading falsehood and negativity.


Thought things would get better once the author's speech started. Kinney entered the hall to huge uproar from the kids and I could sense his popularity. He started a power point presentation, and showing pictures of his book being present to The Pope, he and his kids on the White House Lawn etc., Trying to show off and no more.


Kinney mumbled something on the cultural divide and there is still so much in common between the American kids (his books are all based in America and the kids and teenagers lives there) like school, homework etc., Haha, what a phenomenal cultural connect, the burden of school homeworks.


Then came the cultural bloomer - he said how we should get over stressful things, sometimes vacations are stressful, and next time Diwali happens instead of celebrating one should travel to get over stress Kinney recommended. Unfortunately, I didn't get the mike to ask a question - whoever told him Diwali is just another vacation and we can travel instead of celebrating. Unless there is a death in the family, Diwali or any particular festival that one celebrates doesn't get cancelled. Now I dread a time he may come up with a book where a Halloween and a Diwali would be culturally the same.


Finally, the crass commercialism of the programme came in the form of selling only signed books. Just a month ago at the Tata Literary Festival Amitav Ghosh spent time every day that he was there signing books and taking selfies with his readers. Here comes an author called Kinney who didn't deliver any lecture, and sorry, he had no time to sign the copies kids had brought with them. My daughter carried his latest book, and gave me a copy her friend had given to get them signed. Landmark put up a stall there and sold signed copies. I am sure they sold at least a 500 copies yesterday. Well, the crowd wouldn't mind buying an extra copy, after all a 399 rupees isn't much for them. Daughter said she bought her copy from a "Book Fair" where she would get 75% cash back if she returned her copy and so a new copy isn't a 100% waste. So, the copy was bought, but with great regret.



Who are these authors, what value do they add to our kids' lives, Malgudi Days are boring for them. What modern literature are we producing to bring out contemporary Malgudis? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Elegant temple and the exotic maidens

-
Image
 The Kakatiya grandeur at Palampet, Telangana  In the book ‘Royal Patrons and Great Temple Art’, Shehbaz H. Safrani, author of the chapter on the Ramappa Temple in Telangana compares the patron of the temple General Recherla Rudra to Pericles for his statesmanship and also for his famous temple, the Parthenon. Across India there are scores of temples that have been built, endowed by queens, generals, traders, trade guilds etc., While one can think of local comparisons, to the Somanatha Dandanayaka a general of Hoysala king Narasimha III who built Somanathapura, a global comparison is beyond me. However, the size and effort of Pericles being compared to Recherla makes one sit up and take note of the size of the temple and tank he constructed and also his role and importance in the reign of an illustrious Kakatiya king Ganapatideva. While historians of the Marxist school or the post-modernist have not been kind to the kings and the temple builders, mostly attributing them to p...
Read more

STRAIGHT T(W)ALK – Andal and Ammaiyar

-
Image
  ‘The Gallery of Upside Women’ - the title taken on from the legend of Karaikkal Ammaiyar's walk towards the Kailasapathi which we who grew up near Thiruvalangadu believe ended there. Nataraja performed Urdhva Thandava at the Ratna Sabha, and told Ammaiyar to go to Thiruvalangadu if she wanted to witness the rare dance. A modern, cosmopolitan poet, a spiritual practitioner and a researcher on lady bhakti poets was speaking about them at the book reading of the latest and the last of her trilogy.  A couple of things, very commonly found statements either touching on feminism, marginalization, emancipation etc., came up, naturally. The title of sainthood that adorned the bhaktas doesn't seem to go well either with the academicians or the city readers. Nor does the idea of saranagati (surrender or servility is the word used in general as the translation by those who think saranagati as regressive) seem to be acceptable.  Then came a question from my friend - “were the...
Read more

Shyaamalaam Saralaam Susmitaam Bhuushitaam

-
Image
Silent revolutionaries - Sowbhagyalakshmi Srirama Bharati It was May 2017, and that trip to Chennai was not just a routine stopover on the way to Kanchipuram. In April I had won the Justice Telang Fellowship in Indology - with just no more than a love for Alwars and their verses and a deep interest in traditional performing arts I had chosen the topic 'Araiyar Cevai - Millennial Retrospective'. I didn't know where to begin. Someone told me Kalakshetra had archived 'Araiyar Cevai' and I thought I will begin there. That is when a friend told me how she was part of the team that worked on that archiving, archiving works of Srirama Bharati, the man who took Araiyar Cevai from its traditional practitioners and setting to a secular stage. I had heard about his moving, devotion soaked Cevai but just around the time I got to know about him he passed away. Too young and too early - in 2000 when he was just 50. In May ‘17 when I searched for his videos on...
Read more