It's hard to watch from afar. Maybe even harder to watch at all. A colleague just returned from KTM this weekend saying how shocking the living conditions are there: garbage in the streets piled high (the waste management system workers have been on strike since last may), loadshedding up to 18 hours/day (not enough time to charge a converter to get power).
Here are two articles -
First about STILL having no concensus on the constitution that is due to be finished on 28 May of this year.
Second about India and Nepal relations in times of difficult economy - will India support Nepal through this crisis spring?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Jewel in the Crown is India
Often, when we, from the United States, begin to talk about colonial imperialism, the topic presents a conundrum not easily sorted out. Examples from Franciphone Africa, China and its occupied territories, the mess left in South Africa, Brits in India, and (if we are brave enough to talk about it honestly) British in the US resulting in the genocide of Native Americans. The topic overflows with examples of brutality, racism, oppression, servantry, power, control, and economic development. If we're lucky, the discussion doesn't stop at the floodgates of guilt that quickly bubble up depending on how much one has thought about the topic of one's social identity and come to terms with these dynamics. Isn't it?
One of the books (or sets of books) the students can choose to read before coming to India is the Raj Quartet by Paul M. Scott. Jewel in the Crown is the first, but also the title of the miniseries that has been called the best miniseries of its time.
Literary works of art - novels of the best storytelling and intrigue. What makes a good story? Lots of characters that you can identify with - characters with tragic flaws, ones that you fall in love with along with the storyline, ones that you hate because you see them one dimensionally until the secret behind them is revealed, and even then, you hate them a little bit for their cruelty. Historical fiction works in this way - giving context of the time period (In JITC's case, 1942 - 1947 in India) by following characters along their journeys. Characters that may or may not have actually existed at the time, but it doesn't matter. The characters are telling the story of the history.
Themes: Social commentary - Brits in India, or the history of Brits in India juxtaposed with India's own history, or the powerlessness to interact with it - power dynmaics and how they play out - WWII - Independence - Muslim/Hindu conflict -privilege - 'home' - graciousness/manners - drinking - love and how quickly or slowly the interaction takes place - taboos of sexuality -trust -...
I noticed how the characters never call each other out on their shit. They just kind of bear it, sometimes to 'vent' to someone else about the behavior or decide what to do about it, but never to their faces. (Example, Merrick, Susan's insanity) Misunderstandings frustrate the viewer.
Colonialism is like a bad marriage - filled with frustration, angst, abuse, exploitation, joy, and sometimes love.
Most of the Indians portrayed in the series are servants, sometimes cunning and stealing, sometimes supporting their Memsahibs perfectly. Lady Chatterjee, Nawab and his family, and Hari Kumar have substantial roles. It is quite skillful of the writer/director to spend such a time with Hari and Daphne creating an intense connection with them, then tragedy strikes. They are not in the series physically for the rest of the episodes, but they hover in the storyline as a reminder of the ambiguity of disaster, unfortunate events, questions of identity and love; they ARE the main storyline, even though we finish with the Laytons and Ahmed's fate. Hari and Daphne are the ominous bookends to the story, reminding the viewer that complications and dissapointment are the themes of the work.
Each episode includes actual wartime footage from WWII telling the story from the Indian/British perspective of the time. Sarah, Merrick, Guy, and other characters are fully engaged in the security forces at different levels. The footage brings reality to the stories of the characters and helps the viewer understand what the context is for their lives during each episode. Another technique used is the ambiguity of the ending of each episode, sometimes in flames, sometimes just quietly ending without fanfare sneaking up on the viewer creating a feeling in me of expectation, tragic anticipation, or frustration at times. There is no happy ending. This solidifies the view that colonialism is like a bad marriage.
Pandit Baba, Gandhi/Nehru,
First Draft.
One of the books (or sets of books) the students can choose to read before coming to India is the Raj Quartet by Paul M. Scott. Jewel in the Crown is the first, but also the title of the miniseries that has been called the best miniseries of its time.
Literary works of art - novels of the best storytelling and intrigue. What makes a good story? Lots of characters that you can identify with - characters with tragic flaws, ones that you fall in love with along with the storyline, ones that you hate because you see them one dimensionally until the secret behind them is revealed, and even then, you hate them a little bit for their cruelty. Historical fiction works in this way - giving context of the time period (In JITC's case, 1942 - 1947 in India) by following characters along their journeys. Characters that may or may not have actually existed at the time, but it doesn't matter. The characters are telling the story of the history.
Themes: Social commentary - Brits in India, or the history of Brits in India juxtaposed with India's own history, or the powerlessness to interact with it - power dynmaics and how they play out - WWII - Independence - Muslim/Hindu conflict -privilege - 'home' - graciousness/manners - drinking - love and how quickly or slowly the interaction takes place - taboos of sexuality -trust -...
I noticed how the characters never call each other out on their shit. They just kind of bear it, sometimes to 'vent' to someone else about the behavior or decide what to do about it, but never to their faces. (Example, Merrick, Susan's insanity) Misunderstandings frustrate the viewer.
Colonialism is like a bad marriage - filled with frustration, angst, abuse, exploitation, joy, and sometimes love.
Most of the Indians portrayed in the series are servants, sometimes cunning and stealing, sometimes supporting their Memsahibs perfectly. Lady Chatterjee, Nawab and his family, and Hari Kumar have substantial roles. It is quite skillful of the writer/director to spend such a time with Hari and Daphne creating an intense connection with them, then tragedy strikes. They are not in the series physically for the rest of the episodes, but they hover in the storyline as a reminder of the ambiguity of disaster, unfortunate events, questions of identity and love; they ARE the main storyline, even though we finish with the Laytons and Ahmed's fate. Hari and Daphne are the ominous bookends to the story, reminding the viewer that complications and dissapointment are the themes of the work.
Each episode includes actual wartime footage from WWII telling the story from the Indian/British perspective of the time. Sarah, Merrick, Guy, and other characters are fully engaged in the security forces at different levels. The footage brings reality to the stories of the characters and helps the viewer understand what the context is for their lives during each episode. Another technique used is the ambiguity of the ending of each episode, sometimes in flames, sometimes just quietly ending without fanfare sneaking up on the viewer creating a feeling in me of expectation, tragic anticipation, or frustration at times. There is no happy ending. This solidifies the view that colonialism is like a bad marriage.
Pandit Baba, Gandhi/Nehru,
First Draft.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Using Metaphor as a teaching tool...
As an observation of the students that I am working with this semester, my boss and I have have many chats about the fact that the students don't understand metaphor. Makes it quite difficult to understand poetry, art, and interpretations of history for that matter. The students seem to be constantly staring at us with blank looks when we use metaphors to explain concepts in music, dance, and history.
One way I have addressed this in the past is to see it from their shoes - what metaphors make sense in their lives? There is flat understanding when a teacher uses a metaphor from his/her own life that the students just haven't experienced yet. Example - having kids, being married, graduating, turning 30, spending 5 years working on a degree that you never end up using in your work. Is it the teacher's responsibility to come up with the metaphors that work for the students? Can the teacher know the students' experience well enough to do that? As the teacher gets older and the students stay the same age, does this process become more and more difficult?
I am looking for some research that my old boss told me about sometime that I always use as an example but can never remember who did the research - that our brains develop fully by the age of 25. Something about the corpus callosum being the last part of the brain to fully develop? So juniors and seniors in college still have a difficult time navigating things outside of their worldview - i.e. they process things through their own lens and have a difficult time empathising with others' experiences because some part of the brain is not developed fully yet. It is a difficult world for them because at the same moment, they are expected to understand how to manage their time, be socially savvy, excellent writers and processors of information, build their resumes with heartfelt humanitarian work, and mind their manners. That's a lot when you are doing it from one perspective.
That's not to say that holding them to committments and expectations isn't important - if you've been aware of a paper that is due on Friday at 5 pm for three weeks (and it is one of those papers that you have to do a lot of work on for three weeks rather than something you can write in two hours), don't ask for an extension at 2 pm on Friday afternoon! And teachers, it's our responsibility to say NO to the extension. Of course, in a skillful way that builds your relationship to the student - asking the right questions (rather than telling them, or putting them on the defensive) to help the student understand how they have been managing their time.
OI - so this come back to metaphor? somehow. Nuance. More than taxonomic understanding. making connections. I've always been a visual learner - I notice myself, when a lecturer or facilitator is presenting a metaphor to help me understand some concept, I visualize it in my mind. I draw the picture in my mind of a cave, a fire, a huge wall, and people looking at the wall and feeling fearful of what they see when someone is describing Plato's allegory.
I do my best when I am the one presenting the metaphor to actually picture it in my head while I describe, or tell stories in hopes that the image comes across through my words. Would the Matrix (Morpheus explaining the matrix to a newly awakened Neo) work better for these guys?
Bringing it Home:
Buddhism is filled with allegory and seemingly mythical stories that one can interpret at many levels - stories and hagiographies telling of powerful beings, manifestations of the compassionate mind, legendary diligence, and boundless wisdom. These stories serve to inspire us to engage - to search for our own relationship to meaning. It's our responsibility to figure this out. (Here are some examples in a recent IDP blog...) The point that these metaphors serve is to wake us up. To shake us from our habit. To help us recognize our nature through identifying and then detaching from that identification, for we can see that way how strongly we identify, if we pay attention.
I need a metaphor to explain it. :)
One way I have addressed this in the past is to see it from their shoes - what metaphors make sense in their lives? There is flat understanding when a teacher uses a metaphor from his/her own life that the students just haven't experienced yet. Example - having kids, being married, graduating, turning 30, spending 5 years working on a degree that you never end up using in your work. Is it the teacher's responsibility to come up with the metaphors that work for the students? Can the teacher know the students' experience well enough to do that? As the teacher gets older and the students stay the same age, does this process become more and more difficult?
I am looking for some research that my old boss told me about sometime that I always use as an example but can never remember who did the research - that our brains develop fully by the age of 25. Something about the corpus callosum being the last part of the brain to fully develop? So juniors and seniors in college still have a difficult time navigating things outside of their worldview - i.e. they process things through their own lens and have a difficult time empathising with others' experiences because some part of the brain is not developed fully yet. It is a difficult world for them because at the same moment, they are expected to understand how to manage their time, be socially savvy, excellent writers and processors of information, build their resumes with heartfelt humanitarian work, and mind their manners. That's a lot when you are doing it from one perspective.
That's not to say that holding them to committments and expectations isn't important - if you've been aware of a paper that is due on Friday at 5 pm for three weeks (and it is one of those papers that you have to do a lot of work on for three weeks rather than something you can write in two hours), don't ask for an extension at 2 pm on Friday afternoon! And teachers, it's our responsibility to say NO to the extension. Of course, in a skillful way that builds your relationship to the student - asking the right questions (rather than telling them, or putting them on the defensive) to help the student understand how they have been managing their time.
OI - so this come back to metaphor? somehow. Nuance. More than taxonomic understanding. making connections. I've always been a visual learner - I notice myself, when a lecturer or facilitator is presenting a metaphor to help me understand some concept, I visualize it in my mind. I draw the picture in my mind of a cave, a fire, a huge wall, and people looking at the wall and feeling fearful of what they see when someone is describing Plato's allegory.
I do my best when I am the one presenting the metaphor to actually picture it in my head while I describe, or tell stories in hopes that the image comes across through my words. Would the Matrix (Morpheus explaining the matrix to a newly awakened Neo) work better for these guys?
Bringing it Home:
Buddhism is filled with allegory and seemingly mythical stories that one can interpret at many levels - stories and hagiographies telling of powerful beings, manifestations of the compassionate mind, legendary diligence, and boundless wisdom. These stories serve to inspire us to engage - to search for our own relationship to meaning. It's our responsibility to figure this out. (Here are some examples in a recent IDP blog...) The point that these metaphors serve is to wake us up. To shake us from our habit. To help us recognize our nature through identifying and then detaching from that identification, for we can see that way how strongly we identify, if we pay attention.
I need a metaphor to explain it. :)
Hindu rajya jai ho! (?)
From Times of India, a Hindu saint with supernatural powers has taken up a seat at Pashupatinath in Kathmandu to pray for Nepal to resume its status as a Hindu state, with all the rights and privileges thereto appertaining. .
Seems politicians who voted in 2006 during the end of the people's war to recreate Nepal as a secular state (a decision which actually reflects the religious and ethnic beliefs as as country and is in line with socialist agendas of the Maoists) are taking time to visit with Kalidas Dahal at Pashupatinath.
It is unclear from the article how long these pujas (prayers) will go on. Depending on patronage, it could be an effort of activism on the part of the Hindu rightwing to answer to Prachanda and the prepubescent Maoists' bid for total power.
All this while the Constituent Assembly continues to drag its heels...
Seems politicians who voted in 2006 during the end of the people's war to recreate Nepal as a secular state (a decision which actually reflects the religious and ethnic beliefs as as country and is in line with socialist agendas of the Maoists) are taking time to visit with Kalidas Dahal at Pashupatinath.
It is unclear from the article how long these pujas (prayers) will go on. Depending on patronage, it could be an effort of activism on the part of the Hindu rightwing to answer to Prachanda and the prepubescent Maoists' bid for total power.
All this while the Constituent Assembly continues to drag its heels...
Good Russian Words
Pochemuschka: someone who talks too much.
As in...
"Stop being such a pochemuschka and mind your own business."
As in...
"Stop being such a pochemuschka and mind your own business."
Uprising 2010
Short article from Global Times site regarding arrest of Thinley Gyatso, a said 'ambassador' of HHDL, in Nepal two days ago.
The article seems to be written from a Chinese nationalist perspective citing conservative views regarding Tibet Autonomous Region. Never clearer is the understanding that Nepal is for One China.
The article seems to be written from a Chinese nationalist perspective citing conservative views regarding Tibet Autonomous Region. Never clearer is the understanding that Nepal is for One China.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Today I learned...
that Gandhi and Nehru could have agitated the British further during the beginning of WWII potentially executing their campaign for home-rule while attentions were distracted with fascist regimes in Europe. Not the case - They decided, along with the Bengali intellectual contingent (Tagore, Coomaraswamy and Nandalal Bose) that the fight against fascist regeimes was more important at the time than independence.
Others such as Subhas Chandra Bose did not agree. He wanted to take advantage of the weakened British state to gain independence. He spent time with Hitler looking to connect on the "aryan" thing - meaning the Aryans origninated in the Indus river valley civilization, thus Bose saw himself as an Aryan, yet, Hitler didn't know what to do with him - he had dark skin and didn't fit the bill. Hitler sent him to Japan. Japanese didn't know what to do with him, so they sent him in to Burma to fight the Brits. That lasted for a bit and then he was killed (more info needed). There are some that think he is still out there in a cave somewhere waiting until the time is right when he will emerge as a messianic figure to lead India on to global domination.
The dangers of developing a national identity - seems Gandhi and the Bengalis had their feet on the ground and were able to balance their inspiration from the Russian and European idealist identity writers (Hegel, Tolstoy...) with the understanding of human empathy and Truth. Bose missed the boat on that one.
One can draw an argument here from looking at the development of the nation-state theology in the late 18th c. and take Hitler's third reich as an example of how destructive (yet mesmerizing) developing national identity can be. The other example are the Indian nationalists in the middle of the 20th c.
hm.
Others such as Subhas Chandra Bose did not agree. He wanted to take advantage of the weakened British state to gain independence. He spent time with Hitler looking to connect on the "aryan" thing - meaning the Aryans origninated in the Indus river valley civilization, thus Bose saw himself as an Aryan, yet, Hitler didn't know what to do with him - he had dark skin and didn't fit the bill. Hitler sent him to Japan. Japanese didn't know what to do with him, so they sent him in to Burma to fight the Brits. That lasted for a bit and then he was killed (more info needed). There are some that think he is still out there in a cave somewhere waiting until the time is right when he will emerge as a messianic figure to lead India on to global domination.
The dangers of developing a national identity - seems Gandhi and the Bengalis had their feet on the ground and were able to balance their inspiration from the Russian and European idealist identity writers (Hegel, Tolstoy...) with the understanding of human empathy and Truth. Bose missed the boat on that one.
One can draw an argument here from looking at the development of the nation-state theology in the late 18th c. and take Hitler's third reich as an example of how destructive (yet mesmerizing) developing national identity can be. The other example are the Indian nationalists in the middle of the 20th c.
hm.
Monday, March 1, 2010
China supporting Nepali Constitution Process?
China has offered to support Nepal in the tenuous constitution writing process. Hm.
Koirala (PM of Nepal) says the HLPM will produce the desired result in three month's time.
Here's an article from Telegraph Nepal about China's patronizing involvement and Nepal's continued ability to suck-up to those who the government believe are powerful.
Koirala (PM of Nepal) says the HLPM will produce the desired result in three month's time.
Here's an article from Telegraph Nepal about China's patronizing involvement and Nepal's continued ability to suck-up to those who the government believe are powerful.
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