Since the Jaipur Literature Festival is going on please read
my article 'The Role of Art, Literature and the Media' .
I regret I do not see any great art and literature today. Where is the Dickens of today? Where are the Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Maxim Gorky, Balzac, Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Goethe, Schiller, Pablo Neruda and Cervantes of today ? Where are the Kalidas, Kabir, Premchand, Sharat Chandra, Tulsidas, Ghalib, Faiz, Mir, Firaq and Manto of today ? Where are the Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Paine of today?
There seems to be to be almost total literary vacuum. Everything has become commercialized today. Writers write only to earn some money, not to help people in their struggle for a better life. As I said in my article, in a poor country like India art and literature must help the people in their struggle for a better life by highlighting their socio-economic problems and inspiring them to get rid of our huge social evils like poverty, malnutrition, price rise,unemployment, lack of healthcare and good education for the masses, ill treatment of women, etc. Hence the Jaipur Literature Festival seems more like a tamaasha to me, rather than a real literature festival.
I regret I do not see any great art and literature today. Where is the Dickens of today? Where are the Tolstoy, Victor Hugo, Maxim Gorky, Balzac, Shakespeare, Bernard Shaw, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Goethe, Schiller, Pablo Neruda and Cervantes of today ? Where are the Kalidas, Kabir, Premchand, Sharat Chandra, Tulsidas, Ghalib, Faiz, Mir, Firaq and Manto of today ? Where are the Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Paine of today?
There seems to be to be almost total literary vacuum. Everything has become commercialized today. Writers write only to earn some money, not to help people in their struggle for a better life. As I said in my article, in a poor country like India art and literature must help the people in their struggle for a better life by highlighting their socio-economic problems and inspiring them to get rid of our huge social evils like poverty, malnutrition, price rise,unemployment, lack of healthcare and good education for the masses, ill treatment of women, etc. Hence the Jaipur Literature Festival seems more like a tamaasha to me, rather than a real literature festival.
Everything has become commercialized today/// Yes every medium is loosing its social responsibility. We are measuring every individual with his ability to earn and it depends on in which caste he has born, we are not concerning the way how he thinks and act.
ReplyDeleteFlooding finance capital - maximizing its profits everywhere. Running behind Profits will not help our country grow. Controlled economy and policies focused on poor india is indeed.
There is more to commercialization than commercialization. Not only people are oriented towards profit, but also due to increased competition it becomes almost impossible to compete without being oriented towards profit.
DeletePeople are then viewed by banksters and others as lizards with dollars stuck on them that they are trying to suck.
With all due respect, Dickens was equally commercialized. He was paid by the number of words written, hence the long novels. And why, We have Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, VS Naipaul, Shashi Tharoor, Rohinton Mistry and so many more in India. Indian writing is peaking and is probably at it's best now..
ReplyDeleteShashi Tharoor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Julm na karo hazoor!!
DeleteI liked the Great Indian novel and Riot too..!! Zulm karne ke liye maine Bhagat ya Shobha De nahin bola..!!
DeleteThis is what a novelist think about for masses. We have been very fortunate that we don't write so on one can blame us. But side by side blaming ourselves even being educated can't help anybody by any means. State of the young generation or one can say circumstances one has got in order to make oneself urbanize pour in unnecessary time. What would one do of western culture, modernization, broad thinking, natural resources if people can't use them properly? We have been practicing in socially backward area, whenever get time, to eradicate poverty, malnutrition, price rise, unemployment, etc,. problems for human cause.
ReplyDeleteYou write so powerfully that comes up with a rebel feelings in our heart and mind. Thank you sir and I hope you keep writing for all of us. I forget novels when I see your post on your blog and read first. That is very pride moment for use to have a person like you.
This is what a novelist think about for masses. We have been very fortunate that we don't write so on one can blame us. But side by side blaming ourselves even being educated can't help anybody by any means. State of the young generation or one can say circumstances one has got in order to make oneself urbanize pour in unnecessary time. What would one do of western culture, modernization, broad thinking, natural resources if people can't use them properly? We have been practicing in socially backward area, whenever get time, to eradicate poverty, malnutrition, price rise, unemployment, etc,. problems for human cause.
ReplyDeleteYou write so powerfully that comes up with a rebel feelings in our heart and mind. Thank you sir and I hope you keep writing for all of us. I forget novels when I see your post on your blog and read first. That is very pride moment for use to have a person like you.
Dickens was equally commercialized. /// Yes you may right. But, here the argument is about - the role of writers in a society. Weather he is getting paid or He is writing for his own passion, he must reflect the voice of every souls of his time.
ReplyDeleteI dissent to some extent. A playwright or a novelist even one who pens poem, does it out of the feeling and creative struggle in the mind. I do not see how that has to be translated to helping society or alleviate misery in the world.
ReplyDeleteWe do have Naipaul, Arundati Roy, Rushdie and many in regional languages who in fact are as eligible to elevated like the Dickens , Steinbacks or Hugos.
However , among the young ones of contemporary generation , I.m afraid ( my opinion) many are found wanting, insipid and bore.. They are the ones who pen for a Booker or a literary accolade from the west.
There is no harm if writers or the publication industry grow financially but are they socially responsible and sensitive is the question?
ReplyDeletesame is applicable to the readers,how many of us have read dalit literature or vernacular literature or even Hindi literature with pride and not just considered ENGLISH as the only literature worth discussions.
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ReplyDeleteIndia's greatest reflection in the world today is Narendra Modi. Yet not a single book penned on this living legent. Think how he had been victimised since 2002? Gothra was Islamists act and reaction to this heinous act a massive reactive riots all over Gujarat. Narendra Modi immediately rings and send fax to Digvijay a Congress CM of Madyapradesh who feels for muslims of India but failed to sent police force to aid Narendra Modi, for Digvijay Gujarati Nuslims were not humans! Same was the case with Congress CMs of Maharastra and Rajasthan.
ReplyDeleteToday after ten years Narendra Modi on 20th December 2012 received 54% of Muslim votes for his constructive policy 'development for all and appeasement for none'. What has Narendra Modi done for Gujarat that he has managed to transformed the state that was just ordinary into the one that is extra ordinary? Yes Narendra Modi tackled all issues affecting people simultaneously, first he dealt with Gundas like Abdul Latif, next he sorted farmers issue reference electricity and water, thereafter attacked major infrastructural development issues so every village got elecricity, school, food, water, health and sanitation. He also requested judges to sit at nights and rid the backlog of pending cases, he got most government services on internet. And now Narendra Modi is focusing on higher education. Man has made Gujarat agricultural & indusrial positive and now with emphasis on service and education he will make all Gujaratis the proud citizens of India. Yet these literary fest over looks interaction with intellectual and practical man like Narendra Modi.
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The voice of anyone with radical opinions ( and that's what set apart the authors you list ) would be curbed by the administration and the judiciary would postpone the hearing to n + 1 day.
ReplyDeleteThe artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
ReplyDeleteThe highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
Please excuse arts from bounds. The perfect art may be useless but an imperfect art may not be useless. And there is no such thing as a perfect art.
DeleteIndeed, it is difficult to argue for anything created to be completely useless. The artist had a purpose in mind even though the artist may not be bounded within practical considerations. If the artist had no purpose in mind, then his work is merely a figment of randomness, a goop.
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ReplyDeleteIt will great to see the authors, activists, journalists and academicians in one events.
ReplyDeleteTravel Guides >> Holiday Ideas >> Festivals >> Jaipur Literature Festival 2014
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