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Write is right
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Post-colonial angst was deconstructed with bonhomie as writers, critics and academics got together for ACLALS 2004, writes MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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Dizzy over deconstruction Photos: P.V. Sivakumar
WOULD THAT literary theory classes were as packed as some of the sessions of 13th International Triennial of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS)! It however is not everyday that one gets the titans of literary theory Aijaz Ahmad, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak together at a conference - in fact Spivak said this is a first!
Papers dissected every aspect of Nation and Imagination ranging from Ritwik Ghatak's films moving from the mimetic to the intellectual montage of Eisenstein (Subhabrata Bhattacharyya) and the Narrative of Nation Building and popular Indian Cinema (Anuradha Ghosh) to bi-sexualism in Shobha De's Strange Obsession (Sissy Helff and Vera Alexander) and a bulimic discourse on Lady Diana (Priscilla Walton).
While the days were dedicated to hard-core theory, the evenings were dedicated to great writing and catching up with friends. The city had its eyes, ears and souls uplifted as the who's who of the written word from Vikram Seth to Sashi Despande; Girish Karnad to Jayant Mahapatra read their works.
"What a feast it has been to listen to all these great writers," Aparajita Roy Sinha exclaimed. "I feel proud to be Indian and privileged to be here. There have been murmurs about the conference being held in a five-star hotel. But I think we should be realistic - there is the whole issue of creature comforts. When I asked a Canadian writer to join me for a meal outside, she declined as she has a host of allergies. These things could be best taken care of in a five-star comfort."
Jayanta Mahapatra who held the audience spellbound with his exquisitely evocative lines (The weight of the unknown buries me), smiled gently as he said, "I am just a writer. I am enjoying myself meeting friends, meeting people I have known for many years. It is wonderful to share thoughts."
Actor-playwright Girish Karnad who chose to read from his play Tipu Sultan as "Tipu was the first Indian to fight the British and he was the first to articulate thoughts on the nation," said the conference was "lovely and successful. It has worked wonderfully well. It was simply marvellous to meet up friends and fellow writers." As Karnad masterfully drew the audience into Tipu's dilemma of keeping his sons hostage with the British, Shankar Melkote of the Little Theatre commented, "It has been a fabulous conference! Meenakshi (Mukherjee) deserves accolades for bringing ACLALS here. I am so excited! Did you hear Karnad? That is how a play should be read! The drama, the passion, it all comes through so clearly!"
Dr. Sachidananda Mohanty from Hyderabad Central University said the conference "was extremely fruitful. It was a great opportunity to meet celebrity theorists. I particularly like Homi Bhabha's reading of W.B. Dubois and the Indian connection. It was good to interact with specialists. Hyderabad's cosmopolitan nature facilitated such a gathering."
As one surrendered to the magic of K. Satchidanandan's lines (Each time we stammer/ we are offering a sacrifice/ to the gods of meaning), the words of fellow poet and critic Makarand Paranjape comes to mind. "Thank god it happens only once in three years,' is what you think before going to an ACLALS conference. Once the conference is over, you think thank god it happens at least once in three years!"
A little to the Left
SOMETHING'S ROTTEN - not in Elsinore and nor is this about Jasper Fforde's new novel. This is the feeling a section of people have about certain issues pertaining to ACLALS - chief among them being venue. "There is something not quite right about talking about the third world in five-star comfort," Dr. Mohan Ramanan from the University of Hyderabad comments.
A professor commented that the venue "makes people from small towns feel self conscious. Academics are all about give and take and the venue gives rise to power groups where the so-called celebrity writers talk only among themselves or to people with white skin. This is not what is expected in a conference on commonwealth that is supposedly moving away from colonialism and imperialistic hegemony!"
"There was a definite reason for choosing a five-star hotel for the venue," says ACLALS executive member T. Vijay Kumar. "Basic things that most delegates take for granted like air conditioning and clean toilets are guaranteed. In the hotel (Taj Residency) we were able to conduct six simultaneous sessions within close range where people can move between sessions.
To a comment that the plenary sessions should have been open, Vijay Kumar asserts, "the conference is for ACLALS members. For example, would anyone be welcome in a FICCI conference? There is no direct membership in ACLALS, you have to be a member of the Indian chapter of ACLALS and membership fee is Rs 300 for three years. Anyone with the slightest interest in writing is most welcome to join. We had a 50 per cent discount for students and Rs 1,000 for five days with high profile speakers is a very good deal. When regular university conferences charge anything between Rs. 600 and Rs. 800 for a conference, I do not think the ACLALS conference is over priced."
Reacting to the charge that Telugu and Urdu writing was not represented in the conference, Vijay Kumar said, "These are unself-reflexive questions. Did anyone ask why there was no Vikram Seth in a Telugu writers' conference?"
Ferrying the speakers to an academic institution would be "a logistic nightmare," Vijay Kumar said. "And frightfully expensive as well." On the one hand, writer Amitav Ghosh turned down the Commonwealth Writer's Prize, as he finds something wrong in the reasoning that the writing has to be in English, "you do not need to know English to participate in the Commonwealth Games," and on the other, the conference provided a platform to deconstruct the notion of the nation. Let the polemics continue!
MAC
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
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