Nicoletta Gruppi: Maciste sul Gange

Dal giugno 2024 è in distribuzione il saggio Maciste sul Gange. Gli italiani che fondarono Bollywood 1920-1932, di Nicoletta Gruppi, pubblicato da Algra Editore.

Suketu Mehta: Questa terra è la nostra terra

È in vendita nelle librerie italiane Questa terra è la nostra terra. Manifesto di un migrante, di Suketu Mehta, pubblicato da Einaudi. Nella presentazione si legge: 

'Le migrazioni sono una costante della storia umana. E oggi piú che mai, perché le conseguenze del colonialismo, delle guerre, del cambiamento climatico hanno reso la vita impossibile nei loro Paesi d’origine a milioni di persone. Siamo un pianeta in movimento e Suketu Mehta, con la chiarezza e la passione che l’hanno reso celebre, ci racconta perché questa è la cosa migliore che potesse capitarci. (...) Partendo dalla sua esperienza personale - lo scrittore è emigrato ragazzo da Bombay a New York con la sua famiglia -, Mehta fa il giro del mondo per delineare il quadro della situazione in Occidente: dalla frontiera tra Messico e Stati Uniti, alla recinzione che separa il Marocco da Melilla, alle politiche islamofobe di molti governi europei, il sentimento prevalente è la paura. Perché le storie di chi ogni giorno lavora e lotta duramente per conquistare diritti che dovrebbero essere scontati sono offuscate dai discorsi altisonanti pieni di retorica populista. E allora tutti a difendersi, chiudersi, respingere invece di accogliere. È un errore, e Mehta lo racconta in questo vero e proprio manifesto a favore dell’immigrazione: non si può che trarre vantaggio dall’apertura, dall’accoglienza, dallo scambio. Appassionato, intenso, tenero, pieno di storie e personaggi memorabili, Questa terra è la nostra terra è una lucida lettura del presente, e un incoraggiamento a cambiare il futuro'.

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa dallo scrittore a Nandini Nair, pubblicata da Open il 15 agosto 2019. Suketu Mehta: From America with Love and Anger:

'In 1977, a 14-year-old Suketu Mehta moved to the US with his parents and two sisters. In Bombay, he left behind his closest friends. To them he would write letters, not of the aching loneliness or isolation he felt at the all-boys’ Catholic high school in Queens, New York. He did not tell them that a bully had christened him ‘Mouse’, and would trip him in the hallways. He did not mention the time when his family found hate painted across their car. Instead, he would share with his friends pages from comic books, which were available in the US, and were coveted back in India. Speaking on the phone from New York, he says, “The stories immigrants send back home is, ‘Look, we’ve gone to America, this is the dream.’ But it is actually not. It is a very emotionally fraught kind of storytelling.” As an immigrant, even a teenage Mehta knew that the stories one shares with those one has left behind, are stories of success, anecdotes of joy, to prove that the move to the new land has, indeed, been a successful one. The role of stories, those which we tell ourselves, those we recount to our family, and those which politicians tell us, play a pivotal role in Mehta’s most recent book This Land is Our Land. An Immigrant’s Manifesto. (...) He writes, ‘The first thing that a new migrant sends to his family back home isn’t money; it’s a story.’ It could be about the first snowfall, or the first sight of Brooklyn bridge or the first taste of a hotdog.

But if stories bind, they can also sever. And of late, they’ve been used as tools to create discord and divisions. Mehta writes, ‘Stories have power, much more power than cold numbers. That’s why Trump won the election; that’s why Modi and (...) Orbán (...) and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte won power. A populist is, above all, a gifted storyteller, and the recent elections across the world illustrate the power of populism: a false narrative, a horror story about the other, well told.’ It is these false narratives that Mehta redresses in his book. He says, “The debate around migration is a contest of storytelling.” He believes that all “these populists” - whether it is Trump on television, or Bal Thackeray at Shivaji Park - know how to tell a story, how to build a brand, and they do it adeptly, through lies. The only way those false stories can be fought is “by telling a true story better.” And that is the job of journalists and writers. “Why are all these people demonising writers and journalists,” he asks, “it is because they are truth tellers. (...) I felt I had to write this book now. The US 2020 election will be won or lost on the basis of immigration. It is the single most pressing issue for Americans. (...) I felt it almost like a calling. I did this because I felt angry. This book was born out of rage. Because of the staggering global hypocrisy built around migration.” 

This Land is our Land is an excellent example of crystallised rage. This is not the rage of spit and bluster, that leaves the recipient of it annoyed, but unmoved. Instead it is a rage borne from moral clarity and fostered by the truth. It is a rage that has been harnessed into adamant arguments, and which only the wilfully blind and selectively deaf can choose to ignore. Mehta comes to the issue of migration from personal experience, but through the stories of others, and in-depth research on the topic, he proves that we are all migrants. The fear of immigrants is stoked only by politicians to earn votes, make money, and to vilify the ‘other’. “Trump calls migrants robbers or rapists, I call them ordinary heroes,” Mehta says. (...) In this book, Mehta underscores that the great animating force of migration is that most human and innate of desires - to do better for one’s family, to provide for one’s children, and to toil towards a future that is brighter than the present.

An ‘Immigrant's Manifesto’ is an apt title for the book because it is as much an exploration of migration, as it is a proclamation. This Land is Our Land is a public declaration of the belief and aims of all immigrants. It is a manifesto, which in no uncertain terms declares, ‘I claim the right to the United States, for myself and my children and my uncles and cousins, by manifest destiny. This land is your land, this land is our land, it belongs to you and me. It’s our country now. We will not reassure anybody about their racist fears about our deportment; we’re not letting the bastards take it back. It is our America now.’ Mehta stakes a claim to America, as he believes all immigrants can lay ownership to the richer world, because of the past workings of colonialism and the present machinations of capitalism and climate change. Migrants from poorer parts have a right to settle into richer parts, and that right is essentially restitutionary. (...) For Mehta the restitutionary nature of immigration can be simply explained by - we are here, because you were there. Mehta adds, “The British ran India not as civilising endeavour. But to make England rich.”

While the US can choose to obfuscate and declare that they don’t owe anything to India, since they were a colony themselves, they need to be held accountable for the ruin they are unleashing upon the planet today. While the US military alone is a bigger polluter than 140 countries combined, the “US has walked away from the Paris Accord and will do nothing about climate change,” says Mehta. “Indians are suffering, and will continue to suffer, at enormous rates,” he adds, “because the developed countries, built up their economies, with fossil fuels.” Climate change of today has replaced the colonialism of the last century, as we will continue to see the rich countries get richer, and the poor countries get poorer. Mehta believes that the catastrophic effects of climate change, when entire countries get submerged, will unleash the kind of human migration that history has yet to witness. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, when it comes to movement,” he says, and even over a trans-Atlantic phone line I can hear his assertion in all capitals.

It is little surprise that Mehta’s book has been met by a range of reactions. (...) He notes how one reviewer on Amazon said he should be ‘skinned alive’ and must return to his ‘turd-world country,’ while someone else tweeted, ‘This cockroach needs sent back to whatever shit hole he crawled out of.’ But for Mehta what is interesting and meaningful is the appreciation he has received from people like him. He says, “I have been getting all these letters from Indian Americans, saying that my book has really made them stop apologising, for moving. People who came here in the ’60s, they are professionals, they are expected to be really grateful to America for letting them in. My book points out that this country would fall apart without immigration.” Now is not the time for the Indian American community to merely enjoy its economic success, instead they need to contribute to the public sphere, possibly join politics and “claim our place in the country,” he asserts.

According to Mehta, everyone benefits from migration. For the refugees, it might make the difference between life and death. For the recipient country, it will bring young and enterprising migrants who having left home and embarked on an arduous journey will work hard and honestly. The immigrants will send back money to their homes, and the remittances will benefit the countries that they’ve left behind. As Mehta writes, ‘They will make their new countries richer, in all senses of the word. The immigrant armada that is coming to your shores is actually a rescue fleet.’ Mehta might have written This Land is Our Land from anger, but it is ultimately “an angry book with a happy ending”. And the happy ending is that immigration benefits everybody. Mehta adds, “The end of the book is also a renewal of my faith in America.” He loves America because it is one country made up of all other countries'.

The short-lived glory of Satyajit Ray's Sci-Fi Cine Club

[Archivio] Ma com'è che mi era sfuggito questo incredibile articolo di Sankhayan Ghosh? Pubblicato il 9 maggio 2018 da Film Companion, rivela un aspetto segreto e sorprendente (almeno per me) di Satyajit Ray, maestro del neorealismo indiano: il suo amore per la fantascienza. The short-lived glory of Satyajit Ray's Sci-Fi Cine Club:

'The SF Cine Club in Calcutta began its journey with much fanfare. The kind of attention unimaginable for a film club in India, let alone one that called itself 'a club of devotees of Science-fiction and Fantasy films'. Walt Disney, from Disney Land, California, wrote a congratulatory letter; the Prime Minister and President sent encouraging messages; sci-fi literary legends like Arthur C. Clarke (...) and Ray Bradbury (...) sent their best wishes. The Press Trust of India carried a report, it was in the city's leading papers and the news segment in the radio the next morning. In the inauguration ceremony, on 26 January, 1966, people queued up in the portico of the Academy of Fine Arts, to collect their membership cards - at an annual membership of Rs 6. (...)

Brochures and souvenirs were handed out. All design-related work, from the hand-drawn insignia of the club, to conceptualising the cover design of the brochure, to selecting the type of font, was done by Satyajit Ray, whose feted masterpieces (...) had by then established him as one of the greatest filmmakers in the world, and who was a life-long fan of science-fiction and fantasy. Some of the first stories Ray ever wrote were science-fiction. (...) Ray (...) was the President of the SF Cine Club. "A science-fiction addict for close to thirty years," he wrote in the brochure, "the SF Cine Club may very well be one of the first of its kind - here or abroad". It was the same year that Ray went to Hollywood to pitch his sci-fi script, the ill-fated The Alien. But that's another story, a comprehensive account of which is given in Travails with the Alien by Satyajit Ray: The Film that was never made and other Adventures with Science Fiction, the new book by HarperCollins India - which also features previously unpublished memorabilia of the SF Cine Club. (...) Ray, not new to the workings of a film club (he had co-founded the first film society of independent India in 1947), curated the screenings. (...) 

The film club was the product of the efforts of a group of sci-fi crusaders in Bengal in the '60s. It was led by Adrish Bardhan, its secretary, who had approached Ray with the idea. Bengali sci-fi writer Premendra Mitra was the Vice President. Bardhan (...) had been running Aschorjo, the little magazine dedicated to Bengali sci-fi by local authors, from a room in his ancestral house on 97/1 Serpentine Lane (which would also double as the office for the cine club) since 1963. Ray was the magazine's chief patron and contributor, and together they started producing sci-fi radio plays. (...) Bardhan, in the editorial of 1966 February issue of Aschorjo, wrote, "A Monthly magazine, radio and cinema: these 3 paths now will forge the victory of sci-fi." The issue carried an extensive coverage of the inaugural ceremony; a detailed synopsis of the SF Cine Club's next screening would appear in the last section of Aschorjo - which has been archived by the members of Kalpabiswa - a Bengali sci-fi/fantasy webzine. Many of the stories of the cine club are recounted by Ranen Ghosh, an acolyte of Bardhan, in a Norwegian journal about the sci-fi 'movement' in Bengal, that was published last year. He was an integral part of three bengali sci-fi magazines, which came one after the other, Aschorjo, Bishmoy and Fantastic. Ghosh often wrote stories with multiple aliases, taking names of family members. He is one of the few active members of the cine club who is alive. 

How did the seemingly successful SF Cine Club lose its steam so abruptly, and shut down in 1969, 3 years after it had started? Ray got busier. (...) And Bardhan had his own battles to fight - Aschorjo was in financial trouble, and his wife fell sick. "I think Ray also lost interest in it after a point. Otherwise, he would have managed to keep it running," says Ghosh. The audience, he says, also started dwindling. Many members who weren't accustomed to watching English-language films, wouldn't be able to grasp the films. (...) The problems were identified, discussed in the meetings (which Ray didn't have the time to attend), but never addressed'. 

A proposito del volume Travails with the Alien, nel sito di HarperCollins Publishers si legge: 

'Satyajit Ray was a master of science fiction writing. Through his Professor Shonku stories and other fiction and non-fiction pieces, he explored the genre from various angles. In the 1960s, Ray wrote a screenplay for what would have been the first-of-its-kind sci-fi film to be made in India. It was called The Alien and was based on his own short story "Bonkubabur Bandhu". On being prompted by Arthur C. Clarke, who found the screenplay promising, Ray sent the script to Columbia Pictures in Hollywood, who agreed to back it, and Peter Sellers was approached to play a prominent role. Then started the "Ordeals of the Alien" as Ray calls it, as even after a series of trips to the US, UK and France, the film was never made, and more shockingly, some fifteen years later, Ray watched Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and later E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and realized these bore uncanny resemblances to his script The Alien, including the way the ET was designed! A slice of hitherto undocumented cinema history, Travails with the Alien includes Ray's detailed essay on the project with the full script of The Alien, as well as the original short story on which the screenplay was based. These, presented alongside correspondence between Ray and Peter Sellers, Arthur C. Clarke, Marlon Brando, Hollywood producers who showed interest, and a fascinating essay by the young student at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism who broke the Spielberg story, make this book a rare and compelling read on science fiction, cinema and the art of adaptation'.

Maria Rosaria Borrelli: Raccontare la notte dell'anima. Il cinema di M. Night Shyamalan

È in distribuzione nelle librerie italiane il saggio Raccontare la notte dell'anima, dedicato al noto regista M. Night Shyamalan. L'autrice è Maria Rosaria Borrelli. Pubblica Shatter Edizioni.

Jhumpa Lahiri: In altre parole

A fine gennaio Guanda ha pubblicato il saggio In altre parole, la prima opera scritta direttamente in italiano da Jhumpa Lahiri. Dal 2011 l'autrice vive (anche) a Roma con la famiglia. Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Jhumpa a Fulvio Paloscia, pubblicata da La Repubblica il 5 giugno 2015. Jhumpa Lahiri, "l'italiano una scelta di libertà":

'Benvenuta nel Paese di Salvini.

L’altro giorno, a Roma, in una piazza stavano giocando a calcio. La palla mi è capitata tra i piedi, e l’ho resa a quei ragazzi, che mi hanno ringraziata con un “thank you”. Mi sono chiesta: quanto si voleva sottolineare il fatto che io sono straniera? Cosa vuole dire essere italiani? Essere bianchi? Ecco, questa è solo una sfumatura di un fenomeno preoccupante in un’Italia che mi ha dato tanto. Sono ottimista: questo Paese è in trasformazione, e troverà un equilibrio.

Il suo amore per l’Italia è nato dalla lingua, in un viaggio a Firenze.

La storia della città, le conversazioni che ascoltavo per strada, la cadenza (e il fatto che il nostro albergo fosse a pochi passi dalla casa di Dante) si sono connesse in un’ossessione. Una volta partita da Firenze, dove ero arrivata per studiare l’architettura rinascimentale, la lingua ha rappresentato per lungo tempo la città e ciò che di inspiegabile mi aveva lasciato addosso. L’aver studiato latino forse mi aveva predisposta all’italiano, però ho capito subito che questa lingua mi aspettava e attraverso di essa anche questo Paese, la sua cultura, erano ad attendermi. 

Era destino, insomma.

L’italiano dà voce al mio desiderio di libertà creativa. È una lingua che ho scelto io, una lingua del disagio visto che devo fare un notevole sforzo per parlarla e scriverla: la mia incertezza nel trovare la parola giusta tra mille tentativi è però anche sperimentazione. Certo, nello scrivere in italiano c’è anche una costrizione dettata, ad esempio, dall’attenzione continua alla costruzione grammaticale. Ma considero la costrizione una condizione propizia per la creatività. 

Lo studio dell’italiano l’ha spinta a leggere ed amare i romanzi di Elena Ferrante.

Ammiro moltissimo la scelta di non essere, perché rappresenta la libertà totale, conferisce una maschera efficace, una barriera potente. La mia scelta linguistica ha una motivazione simile, anche io nell’uso dell’italiano provo questa protezione. Uno scudo da me stessa, una sana distanza.

L’italiano ha influito sul suo scrivere in inglese?

Non lo so. Sono tre anni che utilizzo l’inglese solo per la corrispondenza privata e di lavoro. Adesso mi godo questa bolla in cui riesco a parlare, pensare, sognare in italiano. La vostra lingua è come l’ossigeno: un bisogno, un’esigenza, perché rappresenta una trasformazione. Come scrittrice e come persona.

A cosa è dovuto il rifiuto dell’inglese ?

La libertà è troppo preziosa. Tutti gli artisti prima o poi sono in fuga: io per troppo tempo ho cercato il mio punto d’origine, e nell’italiano questo punto non c’è. Percepisco uno scarto tra me ed ogni lingua della mia vita: non leggo il bengalese, l’inglese non appartiene al cento per cento ai miei genitori. Tra me e l’italiano, addirittura, c’è un abisso. Ma è stata una scelta e, come dice Pavese, anche se difficili le scelte sono sempre piacevoli, non opprimono.

Tradurrà lei In altre parole?

No, l’ho affidato ad altri. Mi sembrava di fare un passo indietro, un ritorno, ma io voglio andare avanti. Volevo che la traduzione fosse uno specchio vero del mio italiano e non una specie di italiano inesistente. Adesso ho davanti due libri che mi paiono diversissimi tra di loro.

Anche la copertina di un libro, tema di cui parlerà nella lectio magistralis [a Firenze per il Premio Gregor von Rezzori], è una traduzione, in immagini.

È una maschera. Può ingannare, può tradire, perché deve rappresentare un’opera anche metaforicamente. È stato un analogo saggio di Lalla Romano a ispirarmi questo argomento: è un tema che ha implicazioni molto profonde per uno scrittore, eppure nessuno ne parla. La copertina è la superficie del libro, ma non è superficiale. È come la pelle. È l’identità, che è il tema di tutti i miei romanzi, dove da sempre mi chiedo chi sono, come sono percepita. È struggente affrontare una copertina quando un tuo libro viene pubblicato. Rappresenta la prima lettura collettiva di ciò che hai scritto, percepisci che il libro andrà in mano a un pubblico che non conosci. E dal quale magari vorresti difenderti. 

In Italia è stata fortunata: le copertine di Guanda sono di un artista d’eccezione, Guido Scarabottolo.

Mi sono sentita rappresentata dal suo tratto semplice, suggestivo, leggero. C’è un’ambiguità che amo. Mi piacerebbe molto far parte di una collana con uno schema che si ripete. Cerco da sempre l’uniformità, l’appartenenza. Ma lo spaesamento fa parte anche del mio destino editoriale. 

Il vestito dei libri è il titolo della lectio. E spesso nei suoi libri gli abiti sono metafora della disappartenenza. Nelle pagine di In altre parole il suo amore per la lingua italiana è raccontato attraverso lo smarrimento di un golfino nero.

Nel testo che leggerò a Firenze spiego l’origine del rapporto conflittuale con le mie copertine attraverso i vestiti, che per me hanno avuto un significato ben oltre la moda. Da piccola il mio armadio era diviso in due: abiti indiani, abiti occidentali. Quando andavo a Calcutta in visita ai parenti, non mettevo vestiti occidentali perché non volevo essere considerata diversa. Ogni bambino vive la diversità dai suoi coetani come una condanna. Agognavo le divise scolastiche dei miei cugini, che davano identità e al tempo stesso ti confondevano tra mille studenti vestiti uguali. Conferivano anonimato. Già allora cercavo l’invisibilità, ma tutto invece mi rendeva “altra”. Sempre. Forse sono diventata scrittrice per sentirmi invisibile. Mentre scrivi sei solo mente, interiorità. Lì l’aspetto non c’entra'.

Giacomo Fasola, Ilario Lombardo, Francesco Moscatelli: Italian Cricket Club

È in distribuzione nelle librerie il saggio Italian Cricket Club. Il gioco dei nuovi italiani, a cura di Giacomo Fasola, Ilario Lombardo e Francesco Moscatelli, pubblicato da Add Editore. Nel comunicato stampa si legge: 'In molti angoli d’Italia c’è un parco dove ogni domenica pachistani e indiani sikh incrociano le mazze, dimenticando le tensioni fra i loro Paesi di origine. Miracoli del cricket, il secondo sport più praticato al mondo. Sono scene che ai nostri occhi sembrano curiose, ma che nascondono la lunghissima tradizione che questo sport si porta dietro. In quei campi, spesso contesi alle partite di pallone degli italiani, si cela un mondo fatto di mille destini che si incrociano e che hanno trovato una casa in Italia. Italian Cricket Club è un viaggio alla scoperta del Subcontinente indiano o, meglio, della sua versione tricolore. In quei campetti, dietro l’eleganza del cricket, dietro i suoi rituali antichi ma sempre fedeli a se stessi, c’è qualcosa di più di uno sport: c’è un esperimento sociale di integrazione, che prova a spazzare via confini geografici e culturali, e c’è un paradosso, perché qui, in campo, è l’italiano “lo straniero”.' 

(Grazie ad Andrea Mosconi di Add Editore per la segnalazione).

Meenal Baghel: Death in Mumbai

Vi segnalo la recensione del saggio Death in Mumbai di Meenal Baghel, firmata da Gautaman Bhaskaran e pubblicata oggi da Hindustan Times. Il volume analizza un famigerato fatto di cronaca: l'omicidio di Neeraj Grover. Neeraj era un dirigente della casa di produzione televisiva di Ekta Kapoor. Aveva intrecciato una relazione con l'aspirante attrice Maria Susairaj. Il fidanzato di Maria, Emile Jerome Mathew, uccise per gelosia Grover, ed è tuttora in carcere. Ram Gopal Varma ha tratto dalla vicenda il film Not a love story.

'It is never easy to write about an actual murder, a brutal one at that, and Mumbai Mirror’s Editor Meenal Baghel has penned a gripping account of the 2008 Neeraj Grover killing. A young television company executive, Grover may well have been as ruthlessly debonair, callously arrogant and dashingly playboyish as Prem Ahuja was in 1959. When the highly decorated Naval Commander, Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati, found his beautiful wife, British-born Sylvia, having an affair with Ahuja, the enraged husband shot the lover dead. [Aggiornamento del 16 maggio 2022: anche da quel fatto di cronaca è stato tratto un film, Rustom, diretto da Tinu Suresh Desai e interpretato da Akshay Kumar]. Grover’s case appeared to run parallel to the Nanavati story. But unlike the naval officer’s life, Grover’s was one of glamour, part of the celebrity circle that he was. When he met Maria Susairaj, a small-time television actress aspiring to make it big in Bollywood, Grover probably saw several opportunities here. He could have made her a star, and, well, had a passionate sexual affair. Susairaj wanted to fly, but she really did not have the great good looks to hit stardom. Maybe, she saw in Grover, a hope, however faint, to fulfil her dream. But Susairaj was engaged to Emile Jerome Mathew, a dashing naval officer, and this man was jealous, and so horrendously that his fiancée could not even fathom.

Baghel pieces together the events leading up to what can be called a Shakespearean tragedy, and whose dramatis personae were three young people who could not care how they lived their lives or how bloody the road they chose to travel. Here was a woman who played around with the emotions of two men - with one ultimately butchering the other. Here was one man, who threw morals to the winds and slept with one whom he knew was engaged to be married. Here was another man so consumed with jealousy and distrust that he could not hold himself back. Baghel of course had a classic plot to fall back upon that ran like a pulse-pounding thriller, but she goes beyond mere retelling of the murder, mere reportage. And herein lays the book’s value. (...) Baghel bases her work on extensive interviews with the families and friends of Grover, Mathew and Susairaj to take us deep into the psyche of all three. Neeraj was a flirt, a small-town boy with the drive of a big town dreamer. Maria was certainly manipulative, a no-holds-barred climber, while Emile was an upright guy who fell for the wrong woman. (...) 

Baghel also tries to tell us about the pressures of the entertainment industry and how they drive men and women to the precipice. Her chats with Ram Gopal Varma, who made a film on the Grover murder, Not A Love Story, Moon Das, who was offered a role to play Maria’s character in a movie, and Ekta Kapoor, Neeraj’s boss in Balaji telefilms, are insightful. Although Baghel attempts to stop herself from sympathising with any of her characters, it is apparent that she has a soft corner for Mathew. He really was no murderer as Susairaj was a seducer and Grover a womaniser. Yet, Mathew remains in jail, while Susairaj has walked out after serving a three-year sentence. As much as killing can never be condoned, the one who provokes a murder, the one who manipulates emotions must, in the final analysis, bear the cross of guilt'.

Autori vari: Amul's India

Vi segnalo la recensione del saggio Amul's India, firmata da Anwesha Mittra e pubblicata oggi da The Times of India. Nel subcontinente il burro Amul è da cinquant'anni un'istituzione. Le campagne promozionali commissionate dall'azienda sono rimaste praticamente invariate nella concezione, ma con uno slogan nuovo (e una vignetta nuova) quasi ogni settimana. In modo arguto e colorato commentano qualsiasi argomento, dalla politica alla cronaca all'intrattenimento. Un fenomeno pubblicitario forse più unico che raro. Il volume include anche un contributo di Amitabh Bachchan.

'Amul’s little moppet in a red polka dotted dress and a blue ponytail delivered on a regular basis a humorous take on everything that bothered us, everything we thought deserved a repartee. Like a true spokesperson of the masses, she rose to every occasion, be it a cricketing double century, scandals surrounding politicians, to controversial diplomatic policies, with an infallible gut and a tongue-in-cheek attitude. And in the process made Brand Amul synonymous with honesty, purity and subtlety.

Since her birth in the 60s, (...) she has remained an icon of sorts in the advertising world, surviving odds of the trade and yet being steadfastly consistent. Our impish little Amul girl today not only looks the same, but retains that crispy cheekiness with which she pranced into out hearts the first time and said naively, “Give us this day our daily bread: with Amul butter.” As a deserving tribute to Amul’s journey across five decades and a massive advertising success on its back, the book Amul’s India is an attempt to deconstruct the brand, the little things that went into making a heroic success of the Amul girl, sentiments of its makers, and of those who loved to pass by an Amul hoarding each time. Like a celebration of the memorable Amul hoardings, the book in a non-linear pattern chronicles decades of having fun with subjects such as politics, Bollywood, sports and personalities among others. (...)

The journey was of course not a seamless one as the brand landed up in a couple of legal wrangles only to emerge unfazed and stronger than ever. (...) But there were those like painter M.F. Husain who loved Amul’s ‘Heroin Addiction - Fida on you’ that had the barefoot artist paint Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit, and requested for a personal copy for his studio. (...)

Amul’s India is another interesting way to get different perspectives on popular ads that formed an inexplicable part of our growing up years. (...) Amul through various hoardings over a period has mocked at men, celebrated female achievements or at least brought them to the fore, and depicted the rapidly changing status of women. (...) Some popular brands lost out to competition in a desperate bid to change their mascot. Time and again companies attempted to reposition themselves, but Amul never did. It didn’t have to, nor does it need to, for we prefer its unvarnished views of India in that ‘utterly butterly delicious’ manner'.

Irrfan Khan in un film di Marco Amenta?

Irrfan Khan interpreterà un film tratto dal saggio Il banchiere dei poveri di Muhammad Yunus, premio Nobel per la pace nel 2006. La pellicola, diretta dal regista Marco Amenta, è una coproduzione fra Italia (Eurofilm), Francia, Germania e India. La sceneggiatura è redatta da Massimo Gaudioso, Sergio Donati e Marco Amenta. Vi segnalo l'articolo Irrfan turns nobel laureate for next film, di Subhash K. Jha, pubblicato oggi da The Times of India: 'Apparently, the makers of the film zeroed in on Irrfan as the real-life hero of the downtrodden after they saw him play (...) in Mira Nair’s The Namesake. Irrfan confirmed the news and said, "I have been in talks for that film for a long time. I have already given my consent." However, he did not divulge any further details for contractual reasons. A friend of the actor said, "The challenge here is to recreate a living character of such distinguished achievement. Irrfan will meet Muhammad Yunus and spend as much time with him as possible. When he played Paan Singh Tomar, he relied on his imagination. But playing Prof. Yunus is a far bigger challenge since he is a much revered living personality. Irrfan will take a few months to get into the character".' Conoscete un modo migliore per rallegrare un piovoso lunedì?

Aggiornamento del 14 giugno 2012: ho contattato l'Eurofilm via email. Niccolò Stazzi conferma la notizia: 'Il film è in fase di pre-produzione. Il regista sarà Marco Amenta e gli sceneggiatori sono Massimo Gaudioso e Sergio Donati. Lo script ha vinto un premio al Tribeca Film Festival. Maggiori dettegli potrò darglieli tra circa un mese'.

Aggiornamento del 10 maggio 2022: purtroppo il progetto non si è concretizzato.

Naresh Fernandes: Taj Mahal Foxtrot

Vi segnalo la recensione di Taj Mahal Foxtrot - The story of Bombay's jazz age di Naresh Fernandes, recensione firmata da Amitava Sanyal e pubblicata da Hindustan Times il 17 febbraio 2012:

'A delightful book on Bombay’s jazz past that takes readers beyond jazz as well as Bombay.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when India was coughing awake to light and freedom, the charmed people of Bombay and Karachi were celebrating in swing time. In Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel, jazz bands led by saxophonist Micky Correa and trumpeter Chic Chocolate were playing the new national anthem with a young J.R.D. Tata and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit in audience. At the Karachi Club a night later, Ken Mac’s band played a special request by Muhammad Ali Jinnah - Paul Robeson’s ‘The End’, which the Quaid-e-Azam apparently used to hum while visiting his wife’s grave in Mazagaon, Bombay.

Such vivid snapshots take Taj Mahal Foxtrot, Naresh Fernandes’ book on jazz in Bombay, to a field larger than either jazz or Bombay. Fernandes’ eight-year transcontinental research gives the American-born genre of music a new historical home this side of the Suez. His doggedness at getting close to the likes of Ken, Chic and Micky leads to a unique portrait of Bombay musicians. In the middle is the sketch of a fad-following Brilliantined society - one that worried more about slowing down the quicksilver ‘Paris speed’ to ‘Bombay speed’ than about the morning after - that Fernandes projects as jazz loving Bombay.

Much like the music itself, Fernandes’ research goes on inspired dot-joining sprees. He dives into chapters as diverse as the role of jazz musicians in the nation-building project; on Blue Rhythm, the only Indian magazine on jazz, published by diamond merchant Niranjan Jhaveri and friends in 1952-53; and on the playing up of colour as a signifier of authenticity in bands like the Plantation Quartet. At times, the collected trivia would fall between the dots and need to be parked in footnotes or in the eponymous blog. From one such aside we learn that C. Lobo, leader of the Bengal governor’s marching band around 1900, grudgingly taught western notations and violin to his neighbour, a young boy named Allauddin Khan.

The three musicians in the August 1947 postcards loom large because of their stellar roles in the history. In Finding Carlton, a documentary researched by New York-based artist-entrepreneur Susheel Kurien at about the same time as Fernandes’ book, Ken Mac is identified as the musician who brought jazz to India in the 1920s, a time the self-proclaimed ‘pioneer of European dance bands’ was playing 40 engagements a month. 

Micky Correa provided generations of musicians sustenance through his Taj band during 1939-1961.

Chic Chocolate, on the other hand, was a shape-shifter who showed others how to survive. A Goan born as Antonio Xavier Vaz, Chic first styled himself after Louis Armstrong at the time the African American was emerging as the biggest name in swing, the jaunty form of jazz that stands for the larger genre in the book. After 1947, Chic and several other jazzmen found jobs in the burgeoning orchestras of Bollywood because of their skill with harmonies and western rhythms. In that phase, Chic helped composer C. Ramchandra with some of the biggest film hits of all times: ‘Shola jo bhadke’ in Albela and ‘Eena meena deeka’ in Aasha.

Independence signalled another kind of watershed, too. After 1947, jazz masters such as Max Roach, Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington would come by, but they would never hover for more than few weeks. Gone was the era when jazz musicians, some of them frontiersmen travelling from the racially-segregated US, would spend half a year in residence in Calcutta or Bombay.

One such travelling salesman was Teddy Weatherford, who had the most impeccable jazz pedigree in India at the time. Weatherford had mastered the piano in New Orleans, the US port where ragtime and blues blended into jazz. In Chicago, he had played with Armstrong in a pit orchestra accompanying silent films. His rendition of the Armstrong hit Basin Street Blues is included on the six-song CD that accompanies Fernandes’ book.

The burly American shifted to ‘the Orient’ in 1926. Between his first stint in Shanghai and his last in Calcutta, he played in Singapore, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Surabaya and Colombo. In Calcutta’s Grand Hotel he set up India’s best regarded jazz band of the 1940s. Among the people he hired was Nepali trumpeter Pushkar Bahadur Buddhapriti a.k.a. George Banks, whose son Louiz is a survivor of the itinerant jazz ages that followed.

During one of his Bombay stints, Weatherford was called in to record a song written by Menassch David Silas, a Baghdadi Jew born in Shanghai and settled in Bombay. The ethno-geographic mash was all too jazz-like. As was the song: a paean to the Taj Mahal Hotel, set in foxtrot'.

Naresh Fernandes pubblica testi dedicati al jazz nel sito Taj Mahal Foxtrot. A proposito: vi ricordo che Bombay Velvet, il film in progetto di Anurag Kashyap, narrerà gli sfavillanti anni del jazz nella capitale economica del Paese. Ranbir Kapoor è stato scritturato per il ruolo del protagonista, ruolo offerto in precedenza ad Aamir Khan.

Vedi anche #MumbaiMirrored: All that jazz, 19 settembre 2019.

Kiran Segal: Zohra Segal - Fatty

Kiran Segal, figlia di Zohra Sehgal, ha firmato Zohra Segal - Fatty, biografia della celebre attrice. Fatty è l'affettuoso soprannome scelto da Kiran per la madre, da sempre attenta al proprio peso. Il volume contiene numerose fotografie che ripercorrono la rocambolesca vita di Zohra, ed è stato presentato due giorni fa durante la festa per i suoi primi cento anni. Il cognome Sehgal è stato volutamente modificato in Segal.

Raghuram G. Rajan: Terremoti finanziari

A partire dal 27 marzo 2012, è in distribuzione nelle librerie il saggio Terremoti finanziari di Raghuram G. Rajan, pubblicato da Giulio Einaudi Editore. Prefazione di Franco Debenedetti. Nel sito di Einaudi si legge:

'Raghuram Rajan è stato uno dei pochi economisti al mondo ad avvertire la comunità internazionale della crisi imminente prima che si manifestasse, in un momento anzi in cui il paradigma dominante era al suo culmine. In Terremoti finanziari egli mostra come le decisioni individuali che nel complesso hanno causato la crisi finanziaria - decisioni prese dai banchieri, dai governi e dai semplici proprietari di case - erano risposte in sé razionali ma all'interno di un ordine finanziario globale scorretto. Un sistema cioè in cui gli incentivi al rischio erano incredibilmente fuori misura rispetto ai pericoli che tale rischio poneva. Rajan dimostra inoltre come l'accesso disuguale sia all'educazione sia alla tutela della salute negli Stati Uniti ponga noi tutti in grave pericolo; lo stesso si può dire anche per le scelte economiche di Paesi come la Germania, il Giappone e la Cina, che gravano l'America di un fardello non dovuto. A conclusione del libro Rajan delinea le scelte radicali che dobbiamo assolutamente compiere se vogliamo assicurare un'economia globale più stabile al fine di ricreare una prosperità duratura'. 

Sempre nel sito di Einaudi si trova una breve presentazione dell'autore: 'Raghuram G. Rajan (1963) insegna Finanza presso la University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Attualmente è consigliere economico del primo ministro dell'India. In passato, inoltre, è stato capo economista del Fondo monetario internazionale. Recentemente è stato segnalato da un'inchiesta dell'«Economist» come «l'economista dalle idee più interessanti per un mondo post-finanziario». Presso Einaudi ha pubblicato (con Luigi Zingales) Salvare il capitalismo dai capitalisti (2004 e 2009) e Terremoti finanziari (2012). Terremoti finanziari ha vinto nel 2010 il «Financial Times» and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award'.

Nasreen Munni Kabir: The Dialogue of Devdas - Bimal Roy's immortal classic

Vi segnalo la recensione del volume The Dialogue of Devdas - Bimal Roy's immortal classic a cura di Nasreen Munni Kabir. La recensione è firmata da Shohini Ghosh, e pubblicata da Hindustan Times il 9 marzo 2012. Di seguito un estratto: 

'Writing about Devdas in 1991, film critic Chidananda Dasgupta wrote: “Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote this novel at the age of 17. It is surprising that this immature piece of fiction should have created such an archetypal hero, a romantic self-indulgent weakling who finds solace in drink and the bosom of a golden-hearted prostitute.” This view of Devdas is fairly common so what explains the popularity of this character who, over the last nine decades, has been repeatedly invoked through cinematic re-makes? The Dialogue of Devdas based on Bimal Roy’s 1955 classic allows the cinephile to return to the film and ponder these questions one more time. (...)

The screenplay of Devdas is authored by Nabendu Ghosh, an acclaimed and prolific Bengali writer who wrote many screenplays for Hindi films. The dialogue is written by famous Urdu Progressive writer Rajinder Singh Bedi (...) and lyrics by the talented Sahir Ludhianvi. (...) Dilip Kumar who played Devdas in Bimal Roy’s version (...) writes that Bedi’s “syntax was so perfect” that even the simplest lines “inspired actors to build deep emotions in their rendering.”

The dialogue of Hindi films have a life of their own that spill over onto ours. (...) For many of us who grew up in states (in my case, West Bengal) hostile to the forcible imposition of Hindi as a national language, it was Bombay cinema that triumphed where government diktats failed. The elegant Hindustani of Hindi films was more alluring than the klutzy sanskritised words that masqueraded as the national language. The Dialogue books bear witness to how the language spoken in these iconic films remains indebted to the rich legacy of Urdu. Devdas stands as a splendid inter-text constituted as much by its literary source as its many cinematic versions'.

Il banchiere dei poveri - Recensione

Recensione del libro Il banchiere dei poveri di Muhammad Yunus.

Nicoletta Gruppi: Lo specchio danzante

Presso la libreria Azalai di Milano (via Gian Giacomo Mora n. 15), martedì 21 febbraio 2012 alle ore 18.30 Nicoletta Gruppi presenterà Lo specchio danzante - Guida ragionata a Bollywood, saggio pubblicato nel 2011. È prevista la proiezione di spezzoni di film. A proposito del volume, nel sito di Città del Sole  Edizioni si legge: 'Cinema rozzo e infantile, melenso feuilleton basato su stereotipi e strutture ripetitive, baraonda di colori e balli, belle fanciulle e amori ostacolati; per tutti, critici e non, il cinema di Bollywood è universalmente una produzione di serie B. Eppure è un’industria che gode di ottima salute, continua a resistere senza problemi alla macchina del cinema americano che ha spazzato via due scuole ben più valide e salde, come quella francese e quella italiana, ed è l’industria cinematografica più prolifica al mondo. Questo libro intende aprire una finestra accurata e obiettiva su questo particolare segmento della produzione indiana, mostrandone gli elementi di interesse, e soprattutto sottolineando la sua utilità per comprendere la società indiana, una nazione che rappresenta un sesto dell’umanità'. 

(Grazie a Giovanni per la segnalazione).

Annie Zaidi: I miei luoghi

Da oggi è in distribuzione in libreria I miei luoghi. A spasso con i banditi e altre storie vere di Annie Zaidi. Nel sito dell'editore Metropoli d'Asia si legge: 'La violenza sulle donne, la servitù degli intoccabili, il fanatismo degli indipendentisti. Ma anche i maestri sufi, gli attori di Bollywood e i giornalisti con gli attributi. Annie Zaidi è giovane, donna, fa l’inviata, e la sua passione è capire l’India. Vuole a tutti i costi un incarico per poter fare le sue inchieste. Lo ottiene, e ci fa entrare nella propria fatica, nelle stanze nude delle sudicie pensioni di provincia dove attende con timore il primo contatto con un latitante. (...) Zaidi si mette in cammino e porta se stessa, il suo corpo e i suoi sentimenti dentro le questioni scottanti che lo sviluppo dell’India contemporanea lascia nell’ombra, ma che ne costituiscono l’anima millenaria'.