There is a new dating website out of Bombay, named after the erstwhile Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi.

“We were inspired by Laloo Prasad and the marital bonding he shares with his wife,” said Bullet Mehta of Wiantech, the Mumbai-based software company promoting the website ‘laloorabri.com’.

I have often wondered about the peculiar “inspiration” Lalu and Bihar in particular excite in the national Indian imagination. Most people are apt to roll their eyes in despair at the mention of Bihar, followed by a sigh of relief that they don’t actually live there. On the other hand there is a constant invocation of Bihari-ness that seems very important to national life. To take a ubiquitous example, Hindi movies that need a rustic character would be bereft without a Bihari. Indian village life is always somewhere in ‘Dehat,’ a sort of netherworld in the Eastern UP/Bihar region, and as such a fixture in our national cinema. I had blogged earlier about a film called Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav, and the general impression that most people think of Bihar as a joke, and if it doesn’t irritate them, it amuses them.

I wonder what role this folklorization (I use this term loosely and not entirely accurately, but you know what I mean. I hope) has to play in making sure Bihar never develops, and never stops being the provider of much of India’s raw materials and cheap labor.

Also look at Amitava Kumar’s rant about a newspaper ad in Bombay.

After seven weeks in India, its back to George Bush’s America. With its headlines about Bush vowing to overturn Roe v. Wade, and words like “freedom,” “truth” and “democracy” being hurled about like missiles. It occurs to me that no matter how bad things get in India it never feels quite this depressing. The Indian government would have to resign on charges much less serious than Abramoff, Katrina and of course the war.

I finally know I am home after reading our erstwhile neighbor, Joe Sacco’s documentary comic on the Rumsfeld case (Thank you Thom Powers). It makes for depressing reading, but its a fine piece of documentation, not the least because of what it has to say about the act of documenting atrocities.

Update: The link to the comic is a pdf download

Bollywood Terror will be screening as part of the opening of the Documentary Fortnight series at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York City. If you plan to attend please say hello, I will be attending the February 9 screening.

Thursday, February 9, 6pm
Saturday March 11 at 4:00pm

Roy and Niuta Titus Theater at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street,
New York, NY 10019-5497

Click here for ticketing information. And here for directions.

Acting Like a Thief is being screened in several cities as part of the Tri Continental Film Festival. Journalist Dilip D’Souza and author of Branded By Law: Looking at India’s Denotified Tribes will be available for discussion in Mumbai, and playwright Dakxin Bajrange will be attending the screening in Bangalore.

Jan. 27, 10:30 am, Little Theatre, NCPA, Mumbai
Jan. 31, 10:30 am, Alliance Francaise, Bangalore
Feb. 1, 9:15 pm, South Indian Film Chamber Theatre, Chennai

We are midway through our time in Ahmedabad. It has been absorbing and exciting. We have met many interesting people and had some wonderful conversations.

A few days ago we went to Maninagar, where a group of formerly nomadic tribes have been living since 1960. There are Rajbhois who make ropes, Vaghris who work as laborors and Sansis who sell maps. There are about 191 families in this community, and none of the children go to school. The reason? The community has been bulldozed at least ten times in the past year. The disruption it has caused in their lives is incalculable, not only have the children lost their enrollment in school, even the social worker who came to give them lessons has stopped doing so. This is not the worst of what has happened to this community. Two children have died from exposure, and the week we visited, three members of the community had died because they did not have adequate shelter. They are living on the sides of a wall under a bridge, with a plastic sheet as the only form of protection from the elements.

Ahmedabad has decided it needs to be a “mega city” with shopping malls and multiplexes. Several communities have been uprooted to accommodate this ambition, not all of it legal, and none of it humane. See Roxy Gagdekar’s blog for some more details about what is happening in Maninagar.

The day we were in Maninagar, Ramsaroop Sansi, a very soft-spoken fifty year old man, offered us tea, and spoke without bitterness of the travails of this community– how their legal claims have been disregarded, and the uncertainty faced by them. When we got ready to leave, the people of this community, who have nothing, presented us with a map of India. When we refused, Ramsaroop said, “They make the rules, but we still sell their maps, please take this.”

Please write and tell the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to give the residents of Maninagar somewhere to live!
info@egovamc.com