"As Neeli writhed her way to some kind of climax in Sajjad Gul´s Jo Dar Gaya Woh Mar Gaya, the journalist from Nepal cringed. It took him some time to get over the film. After mulling over it for a couple of days, he was finally able to discuss it: ´I have never,´ he said, ´seen anything so crude, so vulgar. I have seen a lot of films that are considered bold or obscene. But this was something else. Not erotic, not pleasurable to watch. Just crude.´" That was the lead paragraph in an article, "Clothed Crudity", on film censorship in Pakistan in The News on Friday. Funny thing is, 1 have watched Jo Dar Gaya, and remember feeling exactly as the Nepali journalist did.
Guess what the custodians of Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha, have decided to do at the place where misguided archaeologists recently ran amok, digging into the Mayadevi temple and supposedly identifying the very rock on which the Sakyamuni was born? Well, with the blessings of the custodians of the hallowed ground, no doubt, the Hotel Association of Nepal has decided to celebrate Lumbini Festival ´96. This sounds like a crass attempt to merchandise the sanctified birthplace, and we could do without it. Just take a look at the hideous logo they have just unfurled. Buddha eyes with the Ashoka Pillar serving as a nose, reaching up like a phallus, all on the back of a dove of peace with no eyes, fronted by the worst fonts that any desktop computer programme could come up with. Festival? Lumbini is about to be desecrated.
"Shame on us," said The Economist on 20 July, apologising (not very nicely, too snide) for having named Pik Botha as the longest serving foreign minister in the world (17 years) when the Maldives´ Fathulla Jameel can lay claim to 18. Well, shame on you all over again, Lady of the West, for having overlooked Bhutan´s own Lyonpo (minister) and Dasho (nobleman), Dawa Tshering (he of Chinese ancestry), who has served as foreign minister, according to my count, for 20 years or more. Mind you, he was not always called that, but such was the function he served. For the sake of SAARC bonhomie, rather than go for one upmanship within our august regional body, I propose that we add up the services of both Mr Jameel and Mr Tshering and dare any other foreign minister duo (by region or worldwide) to better that one.
There is going to be held in Kathmandu on 9-16 October a World Assembly of NGOs for Disaster Reduction. A press release asks the question: Why in Kathmandu? Why indeed? The press release says because the SAARC Secretary General had agreed to help, the NGOs were cooperative, and the government was committed to disaster relief. I would say that the main reason to choose Kathmandu is due to the unprecedented devastation which will visit it when the expected +8 Richter earthquake hits the valley in the next few years. With the unplanned mushrooming of spurious architecture, just watch the fires bum, epidemics rage, and the people die. Wouldn´t wish anyone to be in Kathmandu when that happens. There is an inmate in the Government Mental Hospital in Amritsar, named Vinod, who keeps mumbling an address in Lahore: "4 Nisbat Road". He also talks about attending S.D. School. Vinod is one of several mentally ill patients with Hindu names who were transferred from Lahore to Amritsar in 1947, just as those with Muslim names were deposited in Lahore, reports Vipin Pubby of The Indian Express. Wonder who in 4 Nisbat Road still remembers Vinod?