On the Ritual called AMU Hall Magazines

I hate Hall magazines in Aligarh! Well, most of them.

Surprised? Agitated? I won’t grudge it if you are.

In the spirit of democracy and my inalienable right to express myself, allow me to explain.

I have been following campus magazines in Aligarh ever since I joined as a wooly-eyed teenager in 1993. For various reasons. My love for writing was one, and a general interest in creative endeavours was always there. But a desire to explore the contours of the famous ‘Alig culture’ was the most important reason. And it still is.

Why would I look forward to the magazines every year?

I expected to be introduced to the history of the so-called Aligarh movement, its major protagonists, its limitations and of course, successes. I expected to be guided through the hallowed Aligarh Hall of Fame and be impressed by the distinguished line-up of its alumni. I hoped to read on Aligarh’s ‘contemporary history’ and gain some perspective on the place the university enjoyed in the larger universe of Muslim/minority politics and aspiration. I expected critical writings on the debates and issues within the Muslim/minority question – both national and global.

In fact, I would have been contented had they only contained good Urdu poetry!

In short, I expected interventions – intelligent, informed and insightful, as is natural to expect from a community that indulges in knowledge production and distribution.

But what would I rather get? Well, as I said, most of the times.

I will get the uncritical display of a ritual. The ritual of inviting contributions, of processing them and then putting them together, of publishing them through official funding, and finally, of archiving them – more as some sort of trophies than as dynamic pieces of writing intended to provoke discussions and debates.

It is this fixation with ritual that has been the hallmark of most of Aligarh’s activities. But I am going to limit myself to the Hall magazines and the frequent intellectual apathy they suffer from.

Let me explain the ritual. Open any of the more than a dozen Hall magazines published every year in Aligarh. You will inevitably find a picture of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan staring at you. The same portrait found everywhere on the campus, with an almost divine aura. Then you have the Vice-Chancellor’s portrait, followed by the Editor’s and then the Editorial team with the Provost of the Hall. 

I am yet to see a Hall magazine that dares to break this yawn-inducing and predictable pattern… or an editor who refuses to abide by the ritual.

Go to the contents now. Count the number of times you find Sir Syed there. Not that there is anything wrong in writing on Sir Syed. But it is precisely at such moments of tribute that the process of writing turns into a ritual. Fixation is contagious, and symptomatic of the inward-looking behaviour that Aligarh frequently demonstrates.

Look at the contents carefully. Essays on Sir Syed as a scientist, a journalist, or an architect! It’s amazing to see the different ways the Aligarh community has reinvented its founder, often stretching the eulogy to unreasonable and unfounded theories about his life and work.

In fact, I have a simple thumb rule for it. If the number of writings on Sir Syed exceeds those on other topics, close the magazine.

It is not only the Aligarh fixation with Sir Syed that is a problem here. The content is severely compromised because of a fixation with form. The magazines do not even pretend to engage intellectually. You often find engineering students blabbering on the latest on thermodynamics, or Unani medicine students on the benefits of neem leaves.

When writing becomes a ritual, banality creeps in. 

In Aligarh, it’s almost impossible to differentiate between two Hall magazines. That explains why most of them go unread. The ritual lies in collecting them (since you paid for them in your hall dues), but not in engaging with them.

So what is missing? My contention is simple. Hall magazines can – and should – be an exercise in critical intervention and thought. Rather than coming across as dull, boring pieces of literature, they should rather be dynamic enough to provoke discussions, encourage debates, probe the stereotypes, challenge the dominant, and question the present. They should be annual chronicles of political, social, educational and cultural churning that the university went through in the past year. They should live and breathe.

And of course, they should be an exercise in creativity. Not passivity. In short, they should be the barometers of what can be called the Aligarh life.

Anybody listening (or rather, reading)?

I hope somebody does.

The MNIK of My Dreams

I cannot think of a better space to say this. And any stylized articulation will destroy it in my head, for obvious reasons. So here is the reproduction of a dream I just saw, without any efforts of moderation, if at all such a thing is possible.

So I was forced to wake up by a knock on my door five minute ago. I am having one of those freaking night shifts and hence was sleeping in my room. I was completely involved in the most surreal dream that I can 'imagine'.

From the remnants of the impossible dream, here is a peek. So I remember sitting in a theatre with strange seats - they were more like those cane 'modhas' than actual seats - to watch My Name Is Khan. I also found myself on a raised platform which made the theatre look like a valley with a few other balconies protruding at different heights. I remember a very old classmate of mine sitting a few seats away, worried over something. I also remember cheering him up, and in the process, doing something that i cannot otherwise do - not pay attention to what is happening on the screen.

My attention was drawn towards the screen by something bizzare. Two people, an old male and an equally old female, started talking loudly in the passage right in front of our balcony. First i thought they were rude viewers, but they soon turned out to be characters from the film. The balconies on my right also melted away to give space to a raised verandah in a huge house where some women were staring at the characters talking. They nodded in agreement.

They were talking about some elder brother of the main protagonist, Shah Rukh Khan, who had apparently not visited the house (actually had left them in poverty) and now had written from Italy that he will be coming for the wedding. It's obvious by now that nobody likes him in the house. And there are at least 50 people in the haveli, with huge rooms and long corridors.

As the discussion over the elder brother got intense, I suddenly found myself standing in a corner of the huge hall where it was going on. Here is the funny part: I remember telling to myself that this is perhaps the best scene of the 'film' while also marveling at the fat that this is more like a staged play. I remember being impressed at the thought of a Karan Johar with a fairly middle-class family.

The long and amazing discussion among a host of family members ends with absolute darkness in the house. There is light, very bright light, after about 10 minutes, and all the women of the house are dressed for the wedding. I now realize what must have happened is that the light was put out so that the characters can go and change their costumes for the next act, just like a play.

The next act was the wedding. I suddenly realize that the familiar pretty girl I was sitting with is actually there with four or five youngsters from the family, who sit with the bride or groom at the special stage towards which everybody's gaze is directed. Since the family members and guests are trickling it for the wedding, I am soon asked by a family elder to vacate the seat for them. I am pretty sure he knew i am only a spectator while the family needs the space to 'perform'. I leave that central space and stand in a corner. the brightly lit haveli soon starts echoing with the sound of the wedding sangeet.

I decide to take a walk around. I soon find myself in a courtyard where a huge screen is playing the shaadi. It is actually playing the 'film' while the people in the courtyard are also a part of it! I remember seeing that old and menacing-looking elder brother from Italy, dressed in sherwani and pagdi, throwing flowers at the screen.

I walk into the next part of the haveli where it's a morning. And it is there that I see Shah Rukh Khan in a sherwani with red patterns - something of a kind that I now distinctly remember seeing in a random Facebook album. SRK has a sword in his hand, which he now puts in his mouth and it becomes an old, rough-iron version of modern saxophone. He comes towards me, recognizes me immediately and greets me with a hug. Then he presents the same sword to me, and even says: I first thought of giving you the one that had 'power' engraved on it, but the 'idea' one sounded better." I turn the grip of the sword and see 'Idea' written in English on it. Then he takes my hand and does the most amazing thing. He draws a long and elaborately designed autograph on my hand in henna. I swear, in henna. It has his signature in the middle with some strange design around it. I laugh and ask, "You're always prepared for this?", to which he replies with a smile: "You never know."

I walk away from him, thrilled and happy. I find myself at the entrance of a haveli, with media and police jostling with eager visitors. There is a green carpet at a distance, and I distinctly remember seeing a familiar couple walking towards the haveli, hand in hand. The man got married recently; his wife, who I know is very thin, is quite curvy in the dream.

As I see them, I hear a knock. I get up with a start, rush to the door angrily and open it to find a man asking for some cable TV money that the earlier tenant had not paid. What a waste.

I cannot help but think of two things as I conclude. One, I wish Freud had read this! And two, where the heck is Kajol?

From a location to absolute dislocation

The blog got resurrected yesterday, after two long years.

For those not familiar with Urdu, 'nawa-e-sarosh' means 'whispers of angel'. For those familiar with the language, the attribution to poet Mirza Ghalib is immediate.

The transition is unsettling. Jhumritilaiya was a comfortable space. It had history, both as a place and as a myth. It was tangible, and hence, materially and intellectually comforting. The place was a readymade template for imagination, with its diverse associations as well as mythology. It was familiar.

'Nawa-e-sarosh' is a new territory. Like one of those forbidden rooms in a forgotten castle, this blog suddenly becomes, to coin a word, a 'strangeland'. The thoughts in my mind suddenly resemble the abandoned street urchins who care a damn about a direction or purpose. They are enigmatic and attractive. I try to pin them down to an idea or a tyrannical reason, and they escape the mind like the blushing beloved who escapes the seductions of her lover.

I have little choice but to continue to woo the elusive thought in this space.