behenji quote of the day

and no, its not by me. am not 'that' self-indulgent. picked this up from an old newspaper article.

'she looked so domesticated that she would have given the worst behenji a run for her money. '

identity-i dent it easily

talk about idenity theft and the world becoming flat-a very fascinating article about a vicar in england, who wrote under a pseudonym 'rahila khan' and published stories about south asian identity in england. once the publishers caught on, they canned the book. the irony is that the stories, apparently, are quite authentic. again, click on the title folks.

a snippet-

The vicar’s understanding of the tragic world of Muslim girls living in British slums, caught between two cultures and belonging fully to neither, possessing little power to determine their own fates, seems to me to be equally accurate. Indeed, he explores this world with considerable subtlety as well as sympathy.
The girls are vastly superior, morally and intellectually, to their white counterparts. Their problem is precisely the opposite of that of the white youths: far from nihilism, it is the belief in a code of ethics and conduct so rigid that it makes no allowances for the fact that the girls have grown up and must live in a country with a very different culture from that of the country in which their parents grew up. In the eyes of their parents, the girls are easily infected with, or corrupted by, the dream of personal freedom, and since the only result of such personal freedom that the parents see around them is the utter disintegration of the white working class into fecklessness and slovenly criminality, where every child is a bastard and families are kaleidoscopic in their swiftly changing composition, they become even more rigidly conservative than they might otherwise have been. They cling to what they know, as to a plank in a storm at sea.

if you feel gulity about not writing enough, read this

a fun article that behenji stumbled across about the so-called 'prolific' writer. here's a glimpse-

then along comes a chap like Alexander McCall Smith, who seems to regard book writing not as some rarefied art but as a form of daily exercise, like sit-ups or squats. Where most authors sweat to produce 1,000 words a day without self-mutilation, McCall Smith has been known to bang out three times that in a single sitting. He’s a living rebuke of the notion that novel-writing is the least bit arduous.

i feel marginally better now, about not having written my novel. the link is above in the title folks, until my shift and ctrl keys start working again....and now as the clock nears midnight here in the west coast, bon nuit, as they say in paris.

whatcha readin...

is it me, or are there others who read multiple books at a time. sometimes i really do feel that ADD-attention deficit disorder-is not codswallop. but i do know quite a few bookworms, who have multiple books going and somehow they get finished...if they are good. despite the books gathering dust on my shelf, couldn't help but go to the local library and pick up some more to read. currently languishing on my bookshelf are v.s. naipaul's 'magic seeds, ' nadeem aslam's 'map for lost lovers, ' gregory david's 'shantaram' and uzma aslam khan's 'tresspassing'-all fine books. what did i get from the library, you might ask-well, i got anita rao badami's 'hero's walk' and 'tamarind woman,' adrienne rich's 'arts of the possible' and a book called 'giving their word- conversations with contemporary poets.' i am so excited to metamorphose into bookworm behenji.

am currently savoring tarun tejpal's 'alchemy of desire' like a glass of cabernet sauvignon or bottle rather. speaking of cabernet, i have yet to see the ending of SIDEWAYS. woe is behenji...in a good way. sorry i can't provide links to any of these books. behenji's keyboard refuses to cooperate, mainly the shift and control keys. a new computer is on the way, courtesy of panditji. until then, go check out your favorite bookstore or else...what else...the library.

rushdie's pen

a few sundays ago, rushdie had an essay in the NYT, which sadly, i only got a hold of today. a quote that leapt out at me:

In many parts of the world -- in, for example, China, Iran and much of Africa -- the free imagination is still considered dangerous.

something to think about, bhaiyo and beheno...

a knot in the plot

behenji, in the hopes of trying to write a novel--much like tarun tejpal's 'secretly maligned by the media' protagonist--has been sputtering, starting then fizzling as far as anything remotely close to a plot goes. for inspiration i have called on mj rose's blog backstory. i really enjoyed reading about the genesis of a novel by various writers and can see that it takes a few, before you hit the right/write note. behenji thinks she is better off polishing her poetry at the moment. but nonetheless, she is armed with pen, paper and an open mind for whenever the novel writing muse wishes to pay a visit.