Tidbits of region’s media

"As Neeli writhed her way to some kind of climax in Sajjad Gul´s Jo Dar Gaya Woh Mar Gaya, the journalist from Nepal cringed. It took him some time to get over the film. After mulling over it for a couple of days, he was finally able to discuss it: ´I have never,´ he said, ´seen anything so crude, so vulgar. I have seen a lot of films that are considered bold or obscene. But this was something else. Not erotic, not pleasurable to watch. Just crude.´" That was the lead paragraph in an article, "Clothed Crudity", on film censorship in Pakistan in The News on Friday. Funny thing is, 1 have watched Jo Dar Gaya, and remember feeling exactly as the Nepali journalist did.

Guess what the custodians of Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, have decided to do at the place where misguided archaeologists recently ran amok, digging into the Mayadevi temple and supposedly identifying the very rock on which the Sakyamuni was born? Well, with the blessings of the custodians of the hallowed ground, no doubt, the Hotel Association of Nepal has decided to celebrate Lumbini Festival ´96. This sounds like a crass attempt to merchandise the sanctified birthplace, and we could do without it. Just take a look at the hideous logo they have just unfurled. Buddha eyes with the Ashoka Pillar serving as a nose, reaching up like a phallus, all on the back of a dove of peace with no eyes, fronted by the worst fonts that any desktop computer programme could come up with. Festival? Lumbini is about to be desecrated.

"Shame on us," said The Economist on 20 July, apologising (not very nicely, too snide) for having named Pik Botha as the longest serving foreign minister in the world (17 years) when the Maldives´ Fathulla Jameel can lay claim to 18. Well, shame on you all over again, Lady of the West, for having overlooked Bhutan´s own Lyonpo (minister) and Dasho (nobleman), Dawa Tshering (he of Chinese ancestry), who has served as foreign minister, according to my count, for 20 years or more. Mind you, he was not always called that, but such was the function he served. For the sake of SAARC bonhomie, rather than go for one upmanship within our august regional body, I propose that we add up the services of both Mr Jameel and Mr Tshering and dare any other foreign minister duo (by region or worldwide) to better that one.

There is going to be held in Kathmandu on 9-16 October a World Assembly of NGOs for Disaster Reduction. A press release asks the question: Why in Kathmandu? Why indeed? The press release says because the SAARC Secretary General had agreed to help, the NGOs were cooperative, and the government was committed to disaster relief. I would say that the main reason to choose Kathmandu is due to the unprecedented devastation which will visit it when the expected +8 Richter earthquake hits the valley in the next few years. With the unplanned mushrooming of spurious architecture, just watch the fires bum, epidemics rage, and the people die. Wouldn´t wish anyone to be in Kathmandu when that happens. There is an inmate in the Government Mental Hospital in Amritsar, named Vinod, who keeps mumbling an address in Lahore: "4 Nisbat Road". He also talks about attending S.D. School. Vinod is one of several mentally ill patients with Hindu names who were transferred from Lahore to Amritsar in 1947, just as those with Muslim names were deposited in Lahore, reports Vipin Pubby of The Indian Express. Wonder who in 4 Nisbat Road still remembers Vinod?

None of the press barons of India want foreign conglomerates to be allowed to put their nose into the Indian media tent. They howl for protection, but listen now to bandit-turned-lawmaker Phoolan Devi, whose intentions are honourable. After a spate of media reports on how she allegedly made an express train follow her personal travel schedule, according to UNI, she accused the Indian media of wanting "to tarnish the image of upcoming social workers" like herself. Well, we will let that pass. But listen to this. The Member of Parliament wrote to Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan: "This kind of false publication is dangerous to the democratic set-up of India. Media persons are up in arms to destroy downtrodden people in all aspects….I request you to introduce a Bill to allow foreign media´s operation in India." I have many arguments for and against the matter at hand, but this one takes the dish antenna. And Ms Devi (which is doubtless how he would address her), what makes you think that Rupert Murdoch will be any more interested in reporting on behalf of the downtrodden than those dastardly down-home Indian journos?

Chicken! is what you must call South Block the next time you pass by Raisina Hill. Why? For having succumbed to presumed Chinese displeasure by disallowing the filming in India of two Hollywood productions whose story-lines revolve around the Dalai Lama. Kundun (The Presence) is to be on the life of the Tenzin Gyatso (the DL´s calling name) by Martin Scorcese and was to have been filmed in and around Leh. Seven Years in Tibet, directed by Jean Jacques Arnaud and also starring the Sikkimese actor Danny Denzongpa, would have been shot partly in Mysore with its large Tibetan refugee settlement. Well, neither is to be, as the proud nation state of India is fearful that Beijing will not be pleased. So, the Indian hoteliers, the Indian extras, the Indian production crew, the Indian airlines, all lose. Who wins? Argentina, which is where both film crews are now headed!

Landed on my desk, a new weekly from Sikkim (one column is titled "Sab Garbar Hai Per No Problem") with the name Wichar.

Hang on there now. Nice column title, but whence the letter ´w´ on the moniker? I know the editors mean to refer to the Sanskrit for ´thought´, but if Sikkim is by now a majority Nepali-speaking state, and if this magazine represents such a populace, then in my humble view the proper usage would have been Bichar with a ´b´. Or is Sikkim more sanskritic than I had been led to believe?

Bravo to Sanjoy Hazarika for an article in The Telegraph which gives a different angle on an Indian region. Focusing on what he calls India´s Far East, and taking it far from the heartland-centric view of most Indian commentators, he writes that this region is "the natural trading partner for Bangladesh, Bhutan, eastern Nepal and Myanmar, and vice versa". Focusing on the historical trade links between Bangladesh and the far east of India, Mr Hazarika writes that the two regions must use each other´s comparative advantages in trade, promote cross-border interaction, and plan to utilise the accessibility of Chittagong port. All of it making eminent sense, and good that these things can now be uttered in mainstream journalism by those who are capable of looking beyond the heartland states.

The secret is out on how come the coalition government in Nepal headed by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has the largest cabinet in South Asia. From a chain letter that just arrived on my desk, which invokes Guru Rimpoche, I learn: "Last year our Prime Minister Shree Sher Bahadur Deuwa had got this letter and he ordered to photocopy to make 27 copy and he sent to all the Parliament member so now all the ministers are found only who has got the letter and made the copy and sent to others friend of them." So Nepal has a prime minister who answers chain letters? Uh-oh.

Participants at a seminar on "Heartcare Awareness"  in New Delhi in late July maintained that the presence of something called a "thrifty gene" makes South Asians more susceptible to coronary heart disease than other populations, reported The Hindu. The article rambled on for a while on this and that, and then had Dr J.K. Jain, former Rajya Sabha member and the man behind Jain Television say that there was need for good medical journalism in the country. And that was it. End of report. No-explanation about the "thrifty gene" and what it does to us poor South Asians. Oh Dr Jain, I agree with you; we do need good medical journalism!

Those of us who carefully peruse newspapers and magazines (especially thisone) do know of the Tibetan refugees, the Lhotshampa refugees of Bhutan and the Burmese dissidents among our midst. But few South Asians know or care for Uygur dissidents. That is because these activists opposed to Chinese rule in Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan) have gravitated not towards New Delhi or Kathmandu, but headed out all the way to Istanbul. In Istanbul, they were able to make a splash during the recent United Nations conference on cities, which brought the world there. What concerns these Uygur dissidents? Han influx and the use of Lop Nor for nuclear testing, where China continues to try out all its devices. Here´s a map so that you get your geography right. It´s good to know these things, for future reference.

Looks like the SAARC Secretariat is going in for major interior deco, going by the "For Sale" notice brought out in Kathmandu papers. The Secretariat building itself is a poor example of post-modern Kathmandu architecture (built originally to house Nepal´s Ministry of Tourism) and the interiors have been nothing to write home to Islamabad about. So the new Secretary General, Naeem U Hasan, has decided to get rid of 38 categories of items, including one unit each of alarm clock (Chinese), bamboo cane hanger, white metal tray, plastic bathroom bowl, gas cylinder (C-Type), pressure cooker, rice cooker, garden umbrella, carpet (200 sq ft), stainless steel water filter, aluminium water filter, and so on. Now, is this a notice which should have been flashed in papers all over SAARC, so that there is equal opportunity?

The most laughable headline of the month had India Hockey Federation president K.P.S. Gill (he who pinched the behind of a sitting IAS officer, and brought order to terrorised Punjab using means fair and unfair) in the Times of India making the plea that (as the body of the report stated) "the results at the Atlanta Games were not a true indicator of the Indian team´s performance there." Ahem, ahem.