I have had a couple of mails since last month about people finding it hard to find copies of my book in bookstores. Which brings me to a wistful reality, it is two full years since Touch was released! But this current unavailability in bookstores is because Frog Books has migrated from one company to another and therefore, they have had to withdraw all their titles (possibly for stocktaking etc) and it will be refurbished/returned to bookstores soon. In the meanwhile, if you are desperate to lay hands on my book, do write to me. (meena84 [at] gmail [dot] com)

I will get into some arrangement with my publisher to send you the book. Or, if I am feeling particularly generous I will part with my author copies.

An interview with me in the Telugu daily Andhra Jyothy. Neelimaa, the journalist who interviewed me was a firebrand feminist, so this is one of those wonderful interviews where I am ON, full-blast. I have spoken at length about the dalit movement and feminism and the need for a coming-together.

: )

Heck, I put away blogging for these many days, because I thought I could wait awhile and give you the good news of having got a job. But, it isn’t so sure yet, and I am scared if I don’t the job through some twist of fate or whatever, so I kept waiting till I got the announcement. But looks like the University isn’t just going to fill this one post in my department, but 150+ posts, so it is going to be a long, drawn-out procedure (Which is exactly why I hate universities). The only way in which I keep my impatient self happy is by reminding myself that the classes for the freshers has to start on 08/08/08, and by then they should have these teachers in place, which means I will have to wait for only twenty or more days at the maximum.

Everyone in my department tells me that the job’s all there for me, and so on, and I am buying into it. This time, I have decided to be shamelessly optimistic. I will write in detail about my interview experience once I know for sure if I have/n’t got the job.

Yet, there’s one thing I am very, very, very sure of. That finally, finally, I have secured respect in my parents’ eyes. Their eyes are shining in a way I haven’t seen anything sparkle. Both of them are into academics, both of them are the best-loved teachers I have seen, and this (my entering academics, as a lecturer) must have been what their best dreams are made of. I don’t know if it’s the safety, or the security, or the fact that their blithe-spirit-of-a-daughter has decided to settle into something. Personally, I am very happy for them. And I am also quite cheerful for myself. The reason? This is the FIRST time in my whole goddamn life that I am doing something which the world approves of and endorses. This is the first time that I don’t have to explain myself hoarse or wear a mask of fake apology for the choices I have made. This is the first time that I feel have earned a semblance of respectability, precisely because I happen to be just like all the others. Part of a herd. Fade in, fit there.

: )

searches

In case this was not explanatory enough. These are the top ten searches that have got people to this blog. : )

My general euphoria went for a toss today. In some not-so-occasional fit of fun I had agreed to do the subtitling for a short-film taken by a close friend. In all earnestness, I had expected something light. What I got instead was something poignant and powerful. Parzania, anyone? Yes. Turns out that he has set his story in the midst of the Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom and God, it was really one hell of an experience. It was only a 13 minute film, but when you are doing the job of subtitling, you have to linger with it for a couple of hours and that way, tragedy seeps in much more slower and much more painfully. And Gujarat is not something anybody can ever erase from the collective and individual consciousness. Yes, 2002 looks like six years back, but to somebody like me, it looks like yesterday. The whole goddamn fear of something as brutal happening closer home because of Hindutva’s sinister designs is always there.

The genocide and riots in Gujarat somehow for me evoke images from my own life during that period. In 2002, I was editing The Dalit and we were wrapping up one of our issues. Gujarat was all over the papers. And we were a bimonthly, so we couldn’t put away coverage of something as important. Everything I read everywhere was depressing and benumbing. Gujarat was far away, but its horror was right under our skins. I still remember sitting next to my layout artist and doing the centrespread with pictures of all those children, their charred little bodies arranged in such neat rows. Grim and gruesome and ghastly. It hurt us to work with those pictures. I was only eighteen then. My layout artist Alice akka was pregnant. She was the one who suffered the most. She couldn’t bare to see the pictures. She, who carried another life within her. We wept. We would both walk away from the computer screens. We were both hurt, and we didn’t talk about it because it would only hurt us more. We couldn’t say we weren’t brave women. But in such cases, being strong wasn’t a solution.

The second time Gujarat’s reality terrorized me was when I was talking to my close friend Shazia. She was telling me that for a whole year she was in one massive depression. That existence became meaningless, and yet, under threat. That never before did we know that despite everything, we were really helpless people. And it was then that I figured that I was in the same predicament. We were young people, we had become disillusioned by this state terror, by this rabid communalism. We yearned to have normal dreams.

Everyone speaks of how 9-11 changed people’s lives and their perceptions, but as far as India is concerned, I think that unholy glory belongs to the Gujarat carnage.

The final line-up (names in alphabetical order (last name-wise)–for those who are wondering at this arbitrariness)

Usha Akella, Meena Alexander, Anoopa Anand, Jane Bhandari, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sujata Bhatt, Sampurna Chattarji, Rimi Chatterjee, Pervin Chhapkhanawala, Roselyn D’Mello, Mamang Dai, Kamala Das, Nabina Das, Atreyee Day, Eunice De Souza, Mira Desai, Nandini Dhar, Imitiaz Dharker, Tishani Doshi, Reshma Ghosh, Uddipana Goswami, Anjum Hasan, Abha Iyengar, Mamta Kalia, Meena Kandasamy, Lajwanti Khemlani, Preethi Krishnan, Chicu Lokgariwar, Gayatri Majumdar, Sharanya Manivannan, Meena Menon, Monica Mody, Monidipa Mondal, Anita Nair, Sandhya Nambiar, Suniti Namjoshi, Gopika Nath, Marilyn Noronha, Sukrita Paul Kumar, Meher Pestonji, Joan Pinto, Anuradha Pujar, Ratna Rajaiah, Lekshmy Rajeev, Anupama Raju, Mani Rao, Mukta Sambrani, Bina Sarkar Ellias, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Anindita Sengupta, Shefali Shah Choksi, Yogita Sharma, Menka Shivdasani, Sushmita Srivastava, Arundhati Subramaniam, Pooja Susan Thomas, Sridala Swami, Payal Talreja, Pali Tripathi, Ruth Vanita, Annie Zaidi

I have included the names of the poets from whom I solicited submissions, and the names of the poets who probably decided to give this a try. I think this is just the collection that I have always wanted to read, and that I never imagined I would ever put together. There are a lot of new, new names and I am happy I did that. Someone decided to give me a chance because they liked my way with words and that’s why I am where I am today. So, I haven’t been swung around by established names alone. I loved doing the selections and I love the ones I have handpicked. I did love a few other poets (I mean, their poems), but sometimes the theme didn’t match. And to those who can’t see their names here, I am not sending any rejection mails. If it isn’t here, it isn’t in the book. That’s all. Besides, Sunil Poolani might be using a few great poems that didn’t go into this book for Urban Voice (with the poet’s permission of course). So, it is not a complete rejection, really. Thank you dears for making this so wonderful.

The pre-press will swallow the rest of July and some part of August. The book will be out in early September 2008.

• I missed the internet and my blog like crazy. But I discovered just how wonderful it was to research. (I can imagine all of you laughing at me. All these days how I polambified to you!) I never took people seriously when they told me to express my social concerns in academic terms, but hell this sort of subtelty surely takes the cake. It’s two years since I registered and right now I want to complete this whole thing within the next six months. One more semester is what I think I spend on this. I am the kind of person who is scared of growing roots.

• Finished my comprehension examination, and got an ‘A’ on it. And wonderful viva with very very supportive set of professors. Much of my panic came from the fact that I suddenly realized: This is going to be the last three-hour examination I am going to take in my life. ; )

• I will face my first-ever job interview for a teaching position on July 15. I am thrilled to bits. Friends have asked me to wear a sari and I am sooooo scared about the prospects. If I turn out to resemble something graceful, I promise to post photos. Ditto, if I turn out to be my own sweet sloppy self.

• How else do I explain this long absence? Well last week of June, I typed out a 12k monograph on Gender in Translation. Late this year, or early next year, I will publish my translations of Periyar’s writings and speeches on women/women’s rights with one helluva critique/introduction, and I guess this writing helped it as a sort of run-up. I think this time too, Stree-Samya, Kolkata will be the publisher.

• Thanks to all of you for standing by me when I got so insanely worried about curious googlers. At the end of the day, my life has been boiled down to a gossip snippet in a Tamil mag. (Everyone I know act as if they haven’t even read it. My sweeties). And the basis for their slanderous “breaking-news” had been a cheesy three-year-old rumour. Amen.