Sundar Sarukkai: Thinking and Learning in the Age of Maggi Noodles

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In this remarkable lecture, Sundar began by telling us about a pedagogical experiment they have initiated at his University, wherein ‘themes’ are the fields of study and not particular disciplines. One of the ‘themes’ that they are dealing with is ‘Thinking and Imagination’. From this academic context, one question emerges: “What is the relevance of ‘thinking’ in education, especially in our times of ‘instant culture’?” Ironically, the constant complaint that one hears in our Maggi noodles times, even as it seems one can instantly access ‘happiness’ with less work, is that one has ‘no time for thinking’. There seems to be constant anxiety about things one has ‘to do’ despite the availability of ‘instant’ means of doing them; about the isolation that one feels despite technology bringing a network of ‘friends’ and resources from across the world to one’s fingertips; about the loss of political consciousness and ‘voice’ as one makes rapid, short exchanges with a lot of ‘faces’, instead of long reflective conversations with people whom one has a connection with. Academic capitalism seems to be facilitating tie ups that do nothing but perpetuate this anxiety, and bring into focus one’s inability to cope with the stress of doing it all (alone?).

Sadanand Menon: State of Arts Institutions in India

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Sadanand Menon provocatively opened a puzzle box for us, while speaking of the state of arts institutions in the country. Some of us are still reflecting on the tensions he articulated. Sadanand began with a reflexive question, ‘what makes me a part of the moribund arts bodies of the State?’. A brilliantly layered lecture followed, focused on the dangers involved in the political construction of various cultural fields – forms as well as institutions – promoting a homogenized the idea of national culture. The measures to ‘protect’ the country’s unity in diversity, paradoxically result in the erasure of the voice of the conflicts integral to creative expressions, and in turn send all diversities into exile from the ‘united nation’ of the arts. This ultimately results in the establishment of a machinery that continues the customary without confronting the radical; it regulates people’s spontaneity, weakens institutions from within, and abdicates all forward-looking perspectives.

Ambai: Ways of Seeing: Text, Translation and Authors Who Refuse to Die

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At LILA, we look at translation as a fundamental human act, with applications and implications that go way beyond the interlingual space. We are pleased that Lakshmi saw and appreciated the essential creative play that we are trying to integrate into the fields of knowledge and understanding. While the academic industry is inundated with theoretical papers on translation, Ambai’s lecture, the ninth in the LILA PRISM series, offered a seamlessly creative and witty study on the politics embedded in our myriad engagements with texts. Touching upon the difficulties involved in translating from other Indian languages to English with special reference to Tamil, she emphasized the need to let some linguistic mysteries be, so that cultures remain alluring.

Mary E John: Re-Thinking Violence Against Women

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“Re-Thinking Violence Against Women” discusses how there can be no doubt that violence against women, especially sexual violence and rape, has gone well beyond being headline news. Something extraordinary happened in the wake of the Delhi gang rape of December 2012, whether at the level of the scale of the protests, or the range of institutional responses both negative and positive. Contestations through speaking and writing have also been prominent. This lecture seeks to contribute to this moment by opening up to further analysis of the following. First, the commonsense experience regarding rape as the most heinous of crimes. Second, the construction of normal and ‘aggravated’ sexual assault by the law. And third, new feminist thinking on rape culture and impunity. It will be suggested that the universal framing of violence must go beyond gender and patriarchy and take the risks of including those structures – both everyday and institutional – that divide both women and men.

GN Devy: Why Do the Adivasis Want to Speak?

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There are numerous obvious reasons that a progressive Indian could cite to answer the question: Why do the Adivasis want to speak? The exploitation stories; the lack of education and resources; rights denied. Sure, these are all valid reasons for the Adivasis to start speaking for themselves today. And for their fellow citizens to stand by them, to help them empower themselves and take up their causes. But Ganesh Devy showed us the subtler, deeper reason which prompts the Adivasis to speak now, in these times. And this reason is not concerning their own welfare. It is aligned with the socio-environmental vision dear to the Adivasis: the well-being of every other being in the world is more worthy of their care than their own. People who sustain this worldview would be careful not to let even their shadows poison their medicinal plants. In other words, the concern of an Adivasi in the forest would not be what the plant might give her, but how the plant could be kept from any possible harm.

SALMA: Inspiring Minds l The Many Tongues of Poetry

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It was heartening to see a full house in early evening in Delhi; people from all walks of life… From this event, we will definitely cherish and keep warmly in our memories the translators’ meet, with Anamika (Hindi), Roomy Naqvy (Gujarati), Rabiul Islam (Ahomiya), Himanjali Sankar (Bangla), Kaif Ali Taqvi (Urdu), along with Salma herself. Nivedita Kalarikkal, who did a sensitive Malayalam translation of Salma, unfortunately could not join us as she fell ill, but Satchin Joseph Koshy of LILA represented her. As the translators had to work on the basis of Rizio Yohannan Raj’s English translation, this was also a good chance for the translators to exchange notes, and observe the possibilities of translation among different Indian languages.

Michael Fisher: Extending Indian History into Britain

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Michael H Fisher’s lecture was an extraordinary tour de force. Of course, it was a much-awaited treat for those familiar with Prof. Fisher’s rigorous and thorough scholarship. The presentation took the audience on a spectacular journey through maps, rare photographs, paintings, books. It was exciting to travel with Fisher through the indoor lives and public images of men and women who visited or settled in England during that period: from seamen to Indian spouses, hired scholars to entrepreneurs, diplomats to students, servants to officials… His voice so vividly revealed how their diverse lives and what they wrote and published have affected the later courses of Indian and European histories. The evening was also ‘special’ for a certain kind of magnetism that brought two unlike poles together. Indeed, Prof. Jonathan Gil Harris, whose PRISM lecture ‘The First Firangis’ explored the notion of Indianness vis-a-vis foreignness in the context of the first settlers in India, served as Chair during the lecture. Getting Fisher and Gil Harris to share a desk helped LILA see itself as a space facilitating exchange of ideas and actors from different spaces.

Kanika Batra: Theatre and the Right to Food Staples in India

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Dr. Kanika Batra’s lecture on ‘Theatre and Right to Food Staples in India’ gave our series a definitive cultural turn. It lucidly merged the question of cultural representation into the sociological, mediational and economic concerns raised by the previous PRISM lectures about the inclusivity of our growth processes. Evoking the plays of Premchand, the productions of Jana Natya Manch in the 80’s, and the works of Arjun Appadurai and Jayati Ghosh, Dr Batra asked why theatre and other cultural sites no longer consider ‘hunger’ a relevant theme of our times. Have we surpassed our hunger pangs? Where has hunger disappeared? Or has there been a systematic attempt to expel the hungry from our nation? Dr. Purabi Panwar chaired the lecture, and the Q&A hour raisedt very important questions and observations.

Jayati Ghosh: Incorporation and Exclusion in the Indian Economy

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Prof. Jayati Ghosh delivered the fourth lecture of the LILA PRISM Lecture Series. The packed house included a lot of students from city colleges, a heartening thing to see! Ghosh’s lucid, jargon-free presentation carried passion and energy even as she systematically dealt with the tragic effects of incorporating the weaker sections of the society on unequal terms. Her analysis of the Indian economy through the prisms of education, globalisation, gender, society and castewas eye-opening in many ways. Dr. Kanika Batra chaired the session.