Cooking Controversy- backstage
What a break!!! A Taslima article kills two in Karnataka; violence around three different locales in the state. Can somebody find out who interpreted the article to the two who died? Did they start to die or was that an unforeseen accident.
Taslima breathes controversy, is it? Poor soul, does she hate controversy now? I read a comment on the TOI article (online) where the reader mentioned Taslima’s intentions to get into politics and the only thing I imagined next is a hot pan. To handle a hot pan you either hold it by the plastic handle, or something else that won’t burn your hands. Taslima is a hot pan without a handle and in India we haven’t invented that ‘something else’ to hold her yet amidst the Hindu Muslim lethargy. Her handle could have been a family lineage, or a strong political affiliation, and she has neither. What ever she says or even notions, even if it’s a wink, there are factions that will pick it up and play ‘party time’.
She is simply not allowed to speak or show up. Even if a few people came to know that she picked up a pair of black bras with blue cusps, there will be a blast somewhere in UP and two more innocent souls will die. It must be such a disgrace for ‘Yamdoot’, I wonder what excuses he makes everytime.
The funny part is that Taslima isn’t allowed to write either. Why? If something like Quran can be interpreted in meanings that are discordant, Taslima is only contemporary. She whacks a fly in her text and there are protest marches all over. Factions clash with the argument and the final question that she is asked is ‘Did the character in your novel whack the fly with the Quran he held in his hands?’ If she says ‘yes’ black flags are seen all over, if she says ‘no’ the black flags still march this time to the CM’s office. And if she says ‘the reader is free to interpret’, the twentieth ‘fatwa’ is slammed on her face.
What if she shuns public appearance and presence altogether? Still doesn’t work, does it? She has sent out too many thoughts already that are being interpreted with variations, like ‘Sanjeev Kapoor’s’ fifty different recipes using the same ingredients.
Some more people who have been baffled by interpretations:
Hussain, the man whose strokes are curves: the old bones better stay still for god knows when they might dislodge with hooting surprises from the Hindu Extremists. M.F. Hussain has been so consistently takes by surprises and interpretations beyond his imagination that he conceded to the artists in all Indians and decided that he needs to sit in rank. Qatar sounded a better than ‘his highness, Indians’ and moreover the trees look the same there.
Mohammed, still looking for Peace: Though long dead, the religious doctors don’t fall short on testing his knee jerks with the small steel hammer.
Osho, who made it big in the newspapers with the nudists: Finally a martyr, but was gored for more than a decade.
Salman Rushdie, the naughty boy who watched his mom: I wonder how his statement on the existence of ‘Jodhabai’ went unnoticed. But he has had other unintended achievements that cut through some dogmatic parlance around the neighborhood.
Thakre, wears controversy around his torso: He knows extremism is dying out. But that’s certainly not going to stop him from belly dancing with the ‘controversy words in shining metal’ around his torso. One ‘thumka’ is enough in a few months….and India knows that his ‘one thumka’ rattles the country around, small birds fly for their lives, the show birds sit clipped.