Frontier, started its journey in April 1968. The journal, founded by Samar Sen, continued to be edited by him till his death in August 1987. It was a time of great political upheavals not only in the state of West Bengal but also at certain parts of India as well as the globe. There were uprisings everywhere. The students, workers, peasants, middle class people, every section of the society was looking for a change and Frontier was among the most faithful reflector of that period of turmoil.
Category: Culture
It is indeed noteworthy that the only organised and consistent resistance to state and vigilante censorship in India has been from the community of documentary filmmakers. Individual filmmakers have had their battles with censorship and the Censor Board over many years.
A friend called. ‘The days are empty and listless’ I said.
‘There’s little to do but look at the lake, and listen to the tear gas shelling from across the waters.’
‘And write poetry’.
In every community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. A song by Phil Ochs
In the recent decades right wing politics has appropriated not merely tribal historical figures like Rani Gaidinliu in Nagaland/Manipur but also many such tribal icons across the country. A similar story emerges within the context of the Indal offerings associated with the tribal Barela and Bhil tribal communities of Western Madhya Pradesh.
Jashn-e-Azadi
Kashmir is no longer yours
Kashmir is no longer mine
Kashmir is for those
who are alive
in the breathe of Kashmir
Man, don’t you know I’d be hard to stop
When I find that big uranium rock
Money-money honey, the kind you fold
Money-money honey, rock ‘n’ roll
Rake it in, bale it up like hay
Have a rockin’ good time and throw it all away
Ka Beh Dieiñ Khlam Jwai, Ialong, Chyrmang, Tuber wa ha kiwi ki thaw jar i por jar I taiaw da poi,shi sien shi snem ialang kawi ha i thaw shad thaw noh rot wa ioh u duwai phirat ha u Tre Kirot, waroh waroh shirup ia lai sha aitnar wow nguh Blai, ka khlam ka kjut ioh u mait tyrut, ym toh du i kjut man bru, i kjut mariang, i kjut pyrthai- i duk i kyrduh ki wa katni bam duh ki ia ka pyrthai. Ah bei ah pa, phi ki Blai ah phi ki ryngkew ki basa ia i to da. Ka Ka Beh Deiή khlam ka wa em jingmut..
Behdieiñkhlam is often defined by its literary meaning which comprises of three words beh-dieñ-khlam. ‘Beh’ literarily means to chase or to rid off and ‘dieñ’ means wood, tree or log and ‘khlam’ means plague, epidemic or pestilence. So literarily Behdieñkhlam means the festival to get rid of epidemic, plague and pestilence but is that what Behdieñkhlam is all about?
Finally, having received the go ahead from PMO and CBFC. Proud to present brand new Digital Suicide music video #AMNESIA featuring MODI on drums.
In Pnar, Myntdu is known as “katawiarkatakan,” meaning “our guardian angel.” Ironically, the “guardian angel” today is lifeless; decades of coal mining in the Jaintia Hills have all but destroyed this once thriving river. Elders, who are founding members of Borghat-Jaliakhola Aquatic Life Welfare Association (BJALWA), are hosting the riverine festival to take a stand for the health of their “mother” in deep peril.The mission of BJALWA is to reconnect tribal communities with Myntdu, revitalize their culture and to spark action and dialogue for restoration efforts.
“Write simplistically about “North Eastern” stuff like villages, mountains, sacred groves, tribal customs, you know pristine crap like that ” and nine other tips
“As kids we would go in a big group every night and watch jatra,” quips my maternal uncle. Then he launches into telling me about how jatras or Bengali folk theatre used to be the main attraction in Raas melas.
My roots, and house and home and forest, my village –
All that I had left behind, in the folds of lost time.
Where was it that my traces were once alive –?
Medinipur or Bankura or was it Kalahandi?
Where else?
And then came Adobe Photoshop – Sanghi idiots can’t get enough of it so watch the video and learn the art of photo retouching
In the second part of the ongoing series of interviews with Varavara Rao, founder member of Virasam, by playwright Ramu Ramanathan, the Maoist ideologue and Telegu poet narrates his revolutionary journey, about people’s movements in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, about writing and publishing revolutionary literature and how the movement has produced some great writers
In the first of the two part interview with Varavara Rao, founder member of Virasam (Revolutionary Writers’ Association), by playwright Ramu Ramanathan, the Maoist ideologue and Telegu poet reaffirms the role of an intellectual and reflects on the history of repression of the Indian states, and on the issues surrounding the statehood of Telangana
“I remember Bah Kelly Lyngdoh playing the song ‘Ramona’ in the dead of the night in the streets of Jaiaw and one would see the lights coming on through the windows just so people can listen to the melody coming out of his Viola while Bah Syndor blew the clarinet”
In the beginning was Ayurveda. Then came Baba Ramdev, and all Things were made by him. And begat he a shampoo-to-noodles empire, and all around him were vanquished.
Avner Pariat of Raiot Collective talks to Patrick Rogers about various lives of Living Root Bridges of Meghalaya
” Isn’t it the bitterest irony of all that a town that likes to call itself ‘Rock Capital’ has largely forgotten or remains ignorant about a period of their history that might actually measure up to some claim of exceptionalism?”
I was a reclusive geek back in college. Every day during the off period of two hours, I would tread peacefully from Shillong College to the State Central Library to sit there and read. There was a classmate of mine who would accompany me there.
The streaming begins and what you witness through Ranjan Palit’s lens is never a linear story. In Camera – Diaries of a Documentary Cameraman places before a viewer, collages—haunting landscapes and lives—from the fault-lines of Indian democracy.
It was that day I realized that unknowingly I was subscribing and preaching the very form of yoga I find so repelling; and that is yoga which is rigid and fixed. Comfortable in my usual routine, I had forgotten that one of the most essential trait to be a yoga teacher, is the ability to mould the ancient practice in a form that will benefit all, be free of judgment, religion and politics.
A profile of Hoshang Merchant, poet, teacher, male, gay, who says he ‘seeks the queer in each one of us’
Rochelle Pinto reviews Filipa Lowndes Vicente’s ‘Other Orientalisms – India between Florence and Bombay 1860-1900’, a book tracing the interaction between Florence and Bombay
This is something I wished I never had to write about. But somehow I am compelled after reading the editorial in The Shillong Times regarding the nuisance created by street-hawkers in Shillong. My mother used to be one of them. That was many years ago, while I was in high school. And it made me wonder if my mother was a nuisance to the beautiful and sanitized Shillong, people love to portray. How does Shillong look like from below, from the margins, from the fringes of society? Marginal on the basis of community, class and even neighbourhood.
I was shot in my leg and spent 56 hours hiding from the army without food or water. I watched helplessly as flies laid eggs which started eating my wounded flesh.
His work is a demonstration of how to rescue inauthentic from the jaws of reality. How to make spontaneous look orchestrated and vice versa – an art where so many rights are turned into one big wrong. He has mastered the skill to turn all conversation into a monologue, and then ignore one’s own voice, remove irresolution, and erase all personal music in the service of his war-like ‘humanism’
Andrew Lyndem, 25, is nocturnal and starts his day at 3 pm ending it at the witching hour. Ratul Hajong, 24, is awake before him but in circulation around the same time. Together, they are Cryptographik Street Poets (CSP) a rap act in Shillong, Meghalaya. Touched by the civil rights/black power movements in intangible ways, their sigil is the raised fist of solidarity and revolution, the Black Panther Party logo. Although they live in separate homes with their parents, they are in constant society with each other.
Publishing is business. A publisher would consider a book only when sure that it would sell. This is why Chetan Bhagat is a big deal. He sells. This is why a new publishing venture like Juggernaut signs Sunny Leone to write a book.
The JNU episode hasn’t just questioned the manner in which citizens and students approach politics, but also shady media practices, doctored videos and rabid television presenters.
After the Cleanest Village in Europe tag for Mawlynnong and Rock Capital of Panama tag for Shillong, Meghalaya adds another feather to its turban. According to agencies, EA, the makers of Sim City, have decided to rebrand it as Meghalaya.
I met the man decades ago and even then he was manipulating his pictures.
I have watched him rig his pictures when he was shooting chrome film.
I must have been a ten year old when I first heard of Cassius Clay, the American black boxer, the olympic and world heavyweight champion, and that he had become a Muslim and taken the name of Muhammad Ali.
I don’t like the boring drone of talk about literature. Instead let me now tell the story of a mosquito.
Muhammad Ali was also a symbol of black protest, a cipher for the anti-Vietnam movement, a martyr (or traitor, depending on one’s perspective), a self-regarding braggart, and many more things beside. While there have been several sports icons, none have approached Ali in terms of complexity, endowment and sheer potency.
It’s important to be politically aware. But if no one knows how aware you are on Facebook, does it still count?
How I really wish that someday, you would stop taking care of us and set yourself free. I am longing for that day when you would go smoke some ganja, have some nice drinks and forget about the world. Your presence in our lives has vanquished your absence.
When I started observing your photographs a few days ago, I stood witness to this very manifestation of dissent, and sensed an inchoate breeding of camaraderie—an unsettling urge to respond—taking shape between us. I did not resist. I kept writing, thinking that I was writing directly to you: a peripatetic nomad. But to this very moment, I do not know you. When I call you a nomad, I am trying to describe your photographs—the itinerant obliqueness, an almost euphoric derangement of your frame. I wrote as if I was corresponding with a boundless romantic, myself being one in the first place. You narrated stories to me through your images; I responded with words.
Three hours into the run and I can start feeling the strain. Glycogen in the body has almost depleted and thirst has also started setting in. I have a last hard climb for about two miles and my long run is done. The uphill is hard, the body aches and the panting starts picking up, as I try and push a little bit more to end with a strong kick, I only get what nature gives me. I hit the stop button in my watch and bend my knees to catch my breath. As I recompose, the pain fades into the background and I am filled with a sense of deep inner peace and happiness. Why I love running? I don’t really know…I just love running.
The Frustrated Rationalist
In our society speaking about religion (forget criticizing it) is considered taboo. Heads turn around, eyebrows are raised and legs are shuffled uneasily whenever religion is mentioned. This atmosphere of terror around any public mention of religion is partly because of the mistrust and paranoia that has been (and is being) propagated and mostly due to the severe indoctrination of religious views, the fear of having them refuted, ridiculed or judged. Nobody ever likes to have public debates about God or religion here, because the “other” opinion is simply not allowed to exist. And yet, ironically, religion dictates the everyday life of society.
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