Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy ...

... finally in available in a Dutch translation

‘You too will marry a boy I choose,’ said Mrs Rupa firmly to her younger daughter.

This is the opening sentence of Vikram Seth’s brilliant novel A Suitable Boy, first published in 1993 and instantly becoming a world bestseller. Now, 15 years later, the book will finally appear in a Dutch translation - De Geschikte Jongen - that is slated for release in Amsterdam on Friday 25^th April.

It took Seth some ten years to finish his magnus opus, and with over 1400 pages Seth’s magnus opus does not exactly qualify as a short story ;-)

Vikram Seth himself will be in the Netherlands to celebrate the occasion. On Thursday 24th April he will do a reading and signing session at De Duif, Prinsengracht 756 in Amsterdam. He will be interviewed by renown Dutch journalist Jeroen van Kan. It all starts at 20.00 hrs. Want to be there? Please order your tickets through www.aub.nl

If 24th April does not suit your schedule, you get a second chance on Friday 25th April. At nine o'clock in th evening, Seth will give a lecture in the Public Library of Amsterdam as part of the International Literature Festival. And no, it is not for free. You do have to pay € 7,50.

So who is Vikram Seth?

Vikram Seth was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1952. He took his A-levels in the UK and was trained as an economist at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Seth presently lives near Salisbury, England.

Dad Seth, was an executive of the Bata India Limited shoe company who migrated to post-Partition India from West Punjab in Pakistan. Mum-dear Leila was the first woman judge on the Delhi High Court as well as the first woman to become Chief Justice of a state High Court, at Simla.

His younger sister, Aradhana, is a film-maker married to an Austrian diplomat, and has worked on Deepa Mehta's controversial movies Earth and Fire (yes the one with Shabana and Nandita).

Seth has always been candid in acknowledging that many of his fictional characters are drawn from life; he has said that only the dog Cuddles in A Suitable Boy has his real name — "Because he can't sue". Justice Leila Seth has said in her memoir On Balance that other characters in A Suitable Boy are composites but Haresh is a portrait of her husband Prem.)

A Suitable Boy

A Suitable Boy centres on Mrs. Rupa Mehra’s efforts to arrange the marriage of her younger daughter, Lata, with a “suitable boy”. At the heart of the novel it is a love story, set in a young, newly independent India. The fictional town, Brahmpur, along with Calcutta, Delhi, Kanpur and other Indian cities, forms a colourful backdrop for the emerging stories.

Lata is a 19-year-old college girl, vulnerable, yet determined to have her own way, and not be influenced by her strong mother and opinionated brother, Arun. Her story revolves around the choice she is forced to make between her suitors, Kabir, Haresh and Amit.

The novel is not simply based on one story. This epic novel covers the various issues faced by post-independence India, including Hindu-Muslim strife, the abolition of the Zamindari system, land reforms and the empowerment of Muslim women.

PS Rumour has it that the book is being made into a film ...

Magic

photo credits: Peter Adams

Some call it fusion. Some call it lounge. I call it magic, for what else can it be when you are listening to Prem Joshua's music on a bright blue cold April morning in Hilversum, Holland, with temperatures slightly below zero and only being able to think of India, a country I have never been to. If that ain't magic, then what is?

Through tracks like 'Water Down The Ganges' and Nisha I feel India running through my veins faster and faster, both its beauty and its ugliness, from the Taj Mahal, the Ganges, the temples, the mosques to the sorrows of the downtrodden in Indian society and the courage of ladies like Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das who defy Bollywood kitsch to give voice to these people. I know Das lives in New Delhi and everytime someone from New Delhi visits this blog I think of this actress.

Asha Miro, a Catalan Daughter of the Ganges

photo credits Ganges pic: Anthony Plummer
photo credits Asha pic: Spanish literary magazine
Just finished reading Traces of Sandalwood (Sporen van Sandelhout), a book by Asha Miro and her literary agent Anna Soler-Pont. It is actually Miro's third book dealing with her own adoption and migration, her first two books being Daughter of the Ganges and The Other Face of the Moon.

Asha Miró was born in a little Indian town called Shaha, not far from the holy city of Nasik, at the bank of the Godavari river. She spent the first seven years of her life between Nasik and Mumbai. In 1974 she was adopted by Joseph Miró and Electa Vega in 1974 and became a citizen of Barcelona.

Asha finished her studies in Educational Sciences in the Blanquerna University of Barcelona and studied music and piano in the Municipal Conservatory of Barcelona. From 1989 until 2001 she worked as a music teacher, mainly in the Escola Brasil of Barcelona. Her interest in the world of cooperation led her to work as a volunteer in work-camps in India, Rwanda and Chiapas. She has collaborated in the organization of many solidarity events, peace concerts and conferences with young people from all over the world.

Concerning the international adoption, she has become a leading figure and her presence has been required in congresses, debates, television programmes and courses to train future adoptive parents.

From the year 2000 onwards, she has presented many public events, she has collaborated in many radio programmes and she has been the presenter of AD, a television programme about the advertisiong world from Canal 33, of Líneas in Via Digital Channel and of the weekly programme Filmets which she still presents today.

She also works in the Communication and Promotion department of the Universal Forum of Cultures Barcelona 2004, while she continuosly promotes her first book Daughter of the Ganges. On the last Day Saint George Day, the International Day of the Book, it was the best-selling book in Catalan, and was also a success in Spanish. Daughter of the Ganges has been translated into Dutch, French and Italian. A documentary based on the book has been filmed, and a cartoon TV series which will be called Asha has been inspired by the book.

An absolute must see: the work of Tarek Atrissi

Exhibition at De Levante, Amsterdam: 2 May - 22 June

His work has been on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and is in the permanent Design collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in the Affiche Museum Holland and in the Design collection of the University of Amsterdam .

That said, the work of Beirut-born Tarek Atrissi has remained one the biggest secrets in the Dutch arts scene. Chances are that this is about to change, for De Levante Foundation in Amsterdam will exhibit the Graphic and Typographic Design work of this leading Lebanese-Dutch designer.

The exhibition will feature a varied selection of Tarek Atrissi's work developed over the last ten years in Lebanon, New York, Dubai, Qatar and The Netherlands- for commercial and non-commercial projects & commissions around the world.

The Graphic Design work displayed will include Posters, Visual Identities, Typographic and Calligraphic Work as well as interactive design work; a selection of work which is often distinguished by a strong cross-cultural flavour and often described as a modern Arabic Graphic Design Language.

Feel free to drop by and view Atrissi’s work which will be on display from May 2nd 2008 until the 22nd of June 2008.

The artist
Atrissi has worked and studied in Lebanon, the Netherlands and the United States. He holds a BA in Graphic Design with distinction from the American University of Beirut; a Masters of Arts in Interactive Multimedia from the Utrecht School of the Arts in Holland and an MFA in Design from the School of Visual Arts in New York- where he studied under people like Steven Heller, Paula Scher and Stefan Sagmeister.

His projects were featured in major international design magazines and books in Korea, Germany, France, Russia, Australia, China, Japan, Holland, the United States, England,Canada and the Arab world. He is the principal of his own design studio, Tarek Atrissi Design, based in the Netherlands and serving a variety of clients, big and small, in Europe, the Middle East and the United States.

Prem Joshua: the bestselling World Music artist in India

Prem who? Prem Joshua, that sitar player and flautist who perfectly blends the magic of Eastern music with modern Western sounds.

Born to a musical family in Germany, Joshua began learning the flute at the age of five, becoming a fine flautist while still a child. He vividly remembers hearing Indian music for the first time, age 16 - a crackly vinyl record of a sitar performance by Ravi Shankar: “I had never heard anything like this before,” Joshua recalls.

This experience changed his way of perceiving music completely. And so, in the late seventies, at the age of 18, he left home, high school, abandoned all career plans, and travelled to India instead, visiting Greece,Turkey,Iran,Afghanistan, Pakistan in between.

When he finally reached India it was like coming home! He started playing with musicians from all over the world and learning from some of India's finest teachers, among them Maestro Ustad Usman Khan, who became his sitar mentor.

Years later, in the early nineties Joshua returned to the West after many years of study in India. He and his music had totally changed - it was time to share the overflow and time for his music to really blossom.

Until today he has released 14 albums under his name and played on countless studio recordings. Joshua is now the number one bestselling World Music artist in and the daily newspaper "The Times of India" has lauded him as the new "Guru of Fusion". In 2003, the BBC nominated him for its prestigious “World Music Listeners Award”.

In early 2005 the music channel "MTV" invited Joshua and his band to give a half-hour live performance during one of their regular MTV live shows in Bombay. His performance was broadcast on TV several times - a rare opportunity for a musician of his genre to be featured on a TV music channel that otherwise concentrates mainly on mainstream music.

In 2007 Joshua received the award "Best Film Music on Indian TV" at the Indian TV Awards in Mumbai.

Islamic heritage under threat ... by Muslims

The Satanic Verses. Submission.The Danish cartoons. Fitna. In order to voice their discontent Muslims haven taken to book burning, murder, street protests and, in a best-case scenario, dragged people to court.

Yet there is an almost deafening silence when Saudi radicals – in line with the doctrines and habits of Wahhabism, demolish Muslim and Arab cultural heritage and erect Manhattan-like skyscrapers around the Kaaba instead.

Again lips are sealed when it comes to the attacks on holy Shia shrines carried out by Saudi-incited Sunni terrorists. Islamic heritage is literally bulldozed off the face of the earth under the pretext that it is shirk.

Someone who refuses to keep quiet is Dr. Irfan al-Alawi, a leading Islamic scholar on the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. He is also the co-chairman of the Islamic Heritage Foundation and director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism. He's a university lecturer and barrister of Law.

Al Alawi has written extensively on the subject for renown British newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent, drawing attention to the outrageous decadence displayed by the Saudi royalities, like the diamond studded Mercedes of Prince Al-Walid.

While visiting me in Hilversum, Irfan showed me loads of pictures of the unbridled destruction spree of the Wahabis, such as the grave of Muhammad's mother, Amina bint Wahb, that has been bulldozed. And let's not forget about the house of Abu Bakr Siddiq, the closest companion of Muhammad, that has been replaced by the Mecca Hilton Hotel.

Another holy place that was sent into oblivion was the house of Khadija, the prophet’s first wife. Its presence was concealed by sand and to make things worse, public toilets were erected on the spot where Muhammad had slept. The aim, once again, was to discourage prayer at the site.

And we worry about the Danish cartoons or Fitna … In my book that is called double standards. Irfan is presently in Leiden, Hotel De Doelen, and will only be here for two more days before going back to the UK.

Post scriptum
One latest example of these ‘pious’ Muslims with their petrodollars: The crown prince of the United Arab Emirates of Dubai who bought a female camel yesterday for a record sum of 2.72 million dollars at a camel beauty pageant.

Salva Mea

Eclectic as I am when it comes to music, it should come as no surprise that I am a great fan of the British band Faithless, or rather the leading vocalist and rapper Maxi Jazz.

I only found out recently that Mr Jazz is a Soka Gakkai Buddhist, a particular form of Nichiren Buddhism, based on the teachings of the 13th century Japanese monk Nichiren (1222–1282).

Now, if Maxi Jazz is such a strong believer, why then choose a name like Faithless. The story goes that this all happened when writing the song Salva Mea (Save me). Maxi was asked to write a song about frustration, something he knew a good deal about having been through a great number of frustrating situations in his life he didn't ever believe he could get through. What Maxi was writing about was about those that have no faith, no confidence and so the name Faithless was born.

In 2006 Maxi Jazz provided the vocals for the hit Tiësto track, Dance 4 Life. It was one of the biggest club hits of the year for Tiësto and the trance community.

He currently lives in West Norwood, in the London Borough of Lambeth.

Fusion

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
Where no one sees you,
But sometimes I do,
And that sight becomes this art.

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
(Afghan poet 1202 - 1273)

I know there are some people who only visit my blog because of the music. Hope you are not too dissapointed with the reshuffle of my playlist.