the Kerala model- why it wont work elsewhere.

Kerala is different. Why? It's actually quite a nice place to live. Kidnapping isn't a heavy industry. Movies and novels and magazines aint utter shit. That means some Doctors are going to want to live even in backwater villages- especially if they've inherited land there.
Furthermore, its radically  fucked economy means you have cheap nurses part of whose reproductive cycle occurs in the province.
But what happens if Kerala's economy gets a little less fucked coz like the Cubans are backtracking and. anyway, the other alternative of cutting off the hands of lecturers is soooo last decade?
Well, then the statistics go into reverse- like what happened in China when the barefoot doctors got shoes and ran the fuck out of the rural backwaters and didn't stop running till they'd started to do well for themselves.

Still, the Kerala Model DOES offer a beacon of hope, not alas! for Kerala but for ...urm... dunno...Cambridge?

Some place with a lot of caste complexity. Oh yes, and land reform.

So not Cambridge then. 

Pity.

But don't tell Amartya Sen- there's a dear.

In any case he turns up his nose at poor old England's N.H.S, preferring the other Cambridge for medical help.

This I think is his lasting contribution to the Capital reswitching debate and the War between the two Cambridges. Joan Robinson would have been so proud!

From Vivian Grey to Dorian Grey- what changed?

Beating kids is important. It's what Civilization is about. But, for some strange reason, a lot of kids don't like being beaten. Worse, their Moms and Dads- especially the horny handed blue collar sort- show a regrettable tendency to thrash the school-master unmercifully if he lays hands on their little dears.
It's no good complaining to the Village police-man or the Curate or whatever. Teachers are considered a good punching bag for the rising generation of farm hands.
For this reason, school masters throughout history have wanted to educate the children of the elite, or- even better- become Professors of some sort.
This is because, traditionally, it is okay to beat the kids of the elite and talk poisonous hateful shite at the University level.
I recall my young friend Disraeli writing what I thought quite a promising little roman a clef- Vivian Grey was its name- in which the hero pulls a pistol so as to inflict revenge upon the usher who'd given him a flogging in the School Room. But, by taking umbrage at a mere usher and treating a puerile punishment as a personal affront- Disraeli gave the lie to the notion that he was indeed 'a man of fashion'.
Only children of the lower orders resent a flogging.
Wilde's Dorian Grey is a horrible example of what happens to a blue blooded gentleman (his aristocratic maternal grand-father had gotten his father killed in a duel) who hasn't had the stuffing beaten out of him at Public School. But, by then, it was already too late. Schoolmasters had become a sentimental bunch- Wittgenstein, the last of of the Cambridge sadists, plied his cane only  in Austria, till that is, his old School-fellow, Hitler purified Aryan pedagogy of its last trace of a grand Civilizing mission- and Saki, bewailing England's inevitable collapse in 'When William Came' puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the lower orders whose Moms wouldn't let them be flogged. 'Our Alf- he never done it!' they'd squawk, the slatterns and their 'Our Alf, he never!"' became the dirge of Old England's winding sheet.
More generally, I maintain, the West ceased to exist the moment kids refused to take a beating. Indeed, with the mass production of cheap flick knives and bicycle chains, a fundamental plank of Western Thought, Western Culture, simply ceased to exist.
It is in this context that Post Colonial Theory has a contribution to make. It mourns the violence it invokes as constituting its episteme in precisely the same way as any other random thing you can think of, only don't forget to add in something about the far deeper violence, nay genocide!, involved in Globalization and how like isn't it ironic that something or the other happened on Twitter and anyway I will now write a book about- not Gramsci, I did that last week- urm, Gandhi and passive revolution or something.

Prynne and translating 'difficult' poetry

This is a link to a talk by the great British poet, J.H. Prynne on the difficulties involved in translating 'difficult' poetry- including his own.
Before proceeding to mangle his arguments, may I advance my own little nugget of wisdom? I may not? Fuck you.

The first thing that struck me was that Prynne reckons Shakespear's Sonnets are a case of difficulty of language being part and parcel of difficult thought. Difficult mark you, not costive, not crapulous, but  difficult.
Are there any difficulties of thought in the Sonnets?Well, perhaps, if one wishes to get away from allegory and seeks some psychological or historical information from them. But, isn't that Nineteenth Century historicism gone mad?
Still, let Shakespear's sonnets stand as difficult poetry in the sense that a smart guy like Prynne can get a lot more out of them than a dumb Curry & Chips Cockney.
Not that I didn't like the Sonnets. I read them  when I was 19 and thought 'this shit dun be okay'- except I didn't think this thought to myself but to Jack the Ripper as played by Jerry Lewis in that daydream I had when listening to a lecture about the reswitching debate during the War between the 2 Cambridges.

But pace my own difficult thoughts or difficulties in thinking, Prynne brings enormous sensitivity to the entire semantic field and stresses 'choice'- choice of word, choice of image, choice of allusion- as that which defines difficulty. We are far off from the notion of the poet as 'sweet Nature's child, warbling his wood notes wild'- or of poetry as 'sphota', an explosion of meaning, like a boil full of pus which bursts to general merriment and applause.
Equally, the schizophrenic's word-salad and Paranoid, Poundian, pseudo Profundity are not the object of Prynne's meditation- difficulty is neither a mental illness nor a linguistic imposture- on the contrary, Prynne's method makes room for actual Philological scholarship, for attentiveness to genuine advances in the Physical and Social Sciences rather than the schwarmerei of  fashionable charlatans,- and as such appears perfectly legitimate and praise-worthy (even if his poems are above our heads).

Prynne's focus on word choice appears, in denying Bhratrhari's sphota theory, to be enamoured of a strong version of Chomskian i-language such that words are more important than their shaping, poets present us with a Cornell box and politely fade away into the aether- rather than getting drunk and trying to have sex with the vacuum cleaner.

 However, I feel Prynne still hasn't gone far enough. I think poets should be dissected, turned into cat food, and then be forced to clean that stain under the sofa which you thought I wouldn't notice, you bastard- I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE!

Hailing Heroes of Hindutva- Rajini Narayan

Rajini Narayan set fire to her husband's penis after he called a fat, dumb, bitch. Strangely, the Australians prosecuted her for murder. She explained that she was only trying to purify his penis with fire- an ancient Hindu custom.
The Ozzies have convicted her of Man-slaughter- a clear example of anti-Hindutva paranoia- she would have been acquitted quickly enough if she'd explained all she was just throwing a little shrimp on the Barbie...

But for you, these lands were rich

But for you, these lands were rich.

Rabid Dogs is God your bitch?

 You bark in the Manger

Is Religion in danger?

Go die in a ditch.

God is Music's Middle Class.

Pluck taut strings, you strangle tyrants

Modulate your timbre, or kill giants

For God is Music's middle class

Shadows too have exams to pass.

My verdict on Ayodhya

Which would I prefer- to see a Temple commemorating Lord Rama or a Mosque commemorating Emperor Babur? Well, I like Babur- he was a great writer, a conossieur of wine, and the story of his circling the bed of his son Humayun 'praying God lift/ His Evil from his best Gift/ and take back the taker, not the Gift' is truly touching.

But, Babur is a secular figure not a fountainhead of Spirituality.

It is tragic figures, tragic that is from the point of view of the Secular World- figures like Lord Christ, Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Hussain, but also Lord Rama- who represent the true glory of Spirituality which has the power to redeem even the most selfish and stupid glutton and drunkard.

What if, instead of Emperor Babur, the disputed structure commemorated Hazrat Ali or Hazrat Hussain or another such impeccable Spiritual personality? What then indeed! There would never have been a dispute in the first place. No doubt some nut-job suicide bomber would have it down on his hit list- but any damage he may cause would swiftly be repaired and people would be more closely knit together.

(Watch Ram tera ghorak dandha video - here)
The Marxists have their own view of things. It is unfortunate that, for purely tactical purposes, they have sought to divide the Faith Community along Hindu/Muslim lines. If the disputed structure had commemorated the accursed Yazid, the Maoists would still be demanding its reconstruction. Why?
In the same way that Charile Manson wanted to spark a Race War in the U.S.A, they want to spark a Sectarian War in India. They believe they can pick up the pieces and inherit everything when the storm blows over. They are wrong. What they are doing is marginalizing themselves- rendering not just themselves irrelevant save as puppets- but also marginalizing the cause of Social Justice- which doesn't actually mean anything more sinister than letting a young girl go to School so can become more productive in employment, which in turn means a bigger dividend for my Pension fund and more money for me in retirement..

Oh. Right. I see. Okay, so maybe the Marxists have a point.