sabotabby | Entries tagged with india

As you know (you know about this, right?), India's government, which is led by the corrupt, far-right Modi, recently passed the anti-Muslim Citizen Amendment Act. There are widespread protests and things are looking very, very bad, but I'm going to give you one little spark of hope, which is that protestors in West Bengal came up with a truly ingenious way to block a highway.

According to a report by the Calcutta News TV, police personnel witnessed the scene as mute spectators while men chopped onions, potatoes and tomatoes to prepare biryani on the blocked road.

This has raised questions over the kind of protest. Police personnel did try to disperse the men making biryani but failed to do so as the protesters surrounded them.

More biryani-based protests please!

As I'm sure you also know, I consider Brazil's Bolsonaro to be the single greatest threat to continued human existence on the planet. And it looks like his terrible environmental policies have come back to bite him on the ass. Or the ear. Anyway he might have cancer. This is the rare time where I'm rooting for the cancer.

Crossposts: https://sabotabby.livejournal.com/1601469.html

Midnight's Children was amazing. Just go see it if you haven't already.

See, this is what I'm talking about in this post. You can get more time for drug possession.

Zizek on Avatar and the Indian state of Orissa.

To choose between "either accepting reality or choosing fantasy" is wrong: if we really want to change or escape our social reality, the first thing to do is change our fantasies that make us fit this reality. Because the hero of Avatar doesn't do this, his subjective position is what Jacques Lacan, with regard to de Sade, called le dupe de son fantasme.

ILU, Žižek. Never change.

Seriously, though. He makes a good point:

[I]n Orissa, there are no noble princesses waiting for white heroes to seduce them and help their people, just the Maoists organising the starving farmers. The film enables us to practise a typical ideological division: sympathising with the idealised aborigines while rejecting their actual struggle. The same people who enjoy the film and admire its aboriginal rebels would in all probability turn away in horror from the Naxalites, dismissing them as murderous terrorists.

Zizek on Avatar and the Indian state of Orissa.

To choose between "either accepting reality or choosing fantasy" is wrong: if we really want to change or escape our social reality, the first thing to do is change our fantasies that make us fit this reality. Because the hero of Avatar doesn't do this, his subjective position is what Jacques Lacan, with regard to de Sade, called le dupe de son fantasme.

ILU, Žižek. Never change.

Seriously, though. He makes a good point:

[I]n Orissa, there are no noble princesses waiting for white heroes to seduce them and help their people, just the Maoists organising the starving farmers. The film enables us to practise a typical ideological division: sympathising with the idealised aborigines while rejecting their actual struggle. The same people who enjoy the film and admire its aboriginal rebels would in all probability turn away in horror from the Naxalites, dismissing them as murderous terrorists.

Recommended story: Toba Tek Singh.
Two or three years after Partition, the governments of India and Pakistan decided that just as there had been a cordial exchange of prisoners, there should now also be a similar exchange of lunatics.

Unrecommended article: 10 Things Schools Don't Teach Well. This is the entire curriculum in today's public schools. I don't know what these people are talking about.

Recommended band: Juke Baritone. Tom Waits-esque cabaret music. It's a great deal of fun.

Another recommendation:

revolution_grrl linked to a comic called Axe Cop, written by 5-year-old Malachai and illustrated by his 29-year-old brother.

Pictures and more recipes to come. It's 12 am and I'm lazy.

curgoth: Dal Puri

neeuqdrazil: Spanish Beans with Spinach

culpster: Spring rolls with shiitake mushrooms. (These were excellent; the curry ones blew my mind.)

I made aubergine and butter bean biryani, adapted from this recipe. It is super-easy and quick to make.

What you need

1 tin of butter beans (Or 2 tins if you like them) [I like them so I used two.]
8 oz. brown rice [I used basmati. I don't like brown rice.]
1 medium aubergine [I used a big one, and called it an eggplant.]
1 red pepper, sliced
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Poppy seeds
Mustard seeds
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tbsp. soy sauce
3 tbsp. natural yogurt [I used soy yogurt because we were expecting poor sick corbet. Anyway, it's vegan if you either omit the yogurt or you use non-dairy yogurt, so might as well make it vegan.]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Slice the aubergine in two lengthways and sprinkle generously in salt. Leave for half an hour. This draws out the bitter juice from the aubergine. Rinse the aubergine and cut into cubes.

Heat a little vegetable oil in a large, heavy pan. Add poppy and mustard seeds and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the brown rice and cook for 3 or 4 minutes.

[At this point in the recipe, sabotabby runs upstairs: "zingerella! Is it okay to cook rice without water? Will something explode?" She assured me that it was possible so, gritting my teeth, I went back down to the kitchen to try it out.

Mix the spices in a cup and add a little water to make a paste. Pour the paste over the rice and add aubergine and red pepper. Drain the butter beans and add to the pan. Add the tinned tomatoes, 1 pint of hot water and soy sauce. Cover the pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the rice is cooked. Add the yogurt.

The recipe said that it serves 2-4, which is not true. We had seven people over, six of whom had some, and there's enough for a few lunches left over.

I also bought frozen paneer paratha made by Deep Foods and they were incredibly tasty. So next time I'm down on Gerrard I need to get more. I didn't know pre-packaged food could taste so good.

( Food porn under the cut )

Pictures and more recipes to come. It's 12 am and I'm lazy.

curgoth: Dal Puri

neeuqdrazil: Spanish Beans with Spinach

Dear white liberals,

Please stop talking about Gandhi until you have read at least one (1) book about Indian Independence (that was not written by a white liberal) and until you can spell his name properly.

kthnxbye,

sabotabby

January 24, 1857: Arson in Calcutta marks the start of the First Indian War of Independence.

O hay what's that?

But I thought that Bush started the Cedar Revolution and Lebanon was all shiny and happy now. At least, that's what that Right Brothers song said. o__O

Also, why is hardly anyone talking about the train bombings in India?

In media news, Andrew Cash has this patronizing article in NOW about On Our Own Terms: Muslim Youth Speak Out at UofT. Now, I didn't go to it or anything, being neither a Muslim youth or a UofT student, but it sounds like it was an interesting event that featured a broad degree of opinions. What is cringe-worthy are Cash's assertions that "progressive" Muslims like Irshad Manji are being silenced by the rest of the community, just Cash's father rejected progressive Catholics* back in the day, expressed in passages like this:

It left me wondering if some of these youth see themselves as Muslims who happen to also be Canadian or Canadians who happen to be Muslim.

"We don't see a contradiction between our Canadian identity and our Muslim identity. We are both," says Malik. "But it is jarring when that identity is called into question. You know, like: Which are you more, Muslim or Canadian? People don't think about it. This is home."

When I ask Malik who should speak for the Muslim community in the media, the soft-spoken poli-sci student chooses her words carefully.

"Well, we are a community with a diversity of voices, and maybe it's about time we accept and deal with that," she says. "There's no way that one voice can represent the whole community."

I don't see anything reactionary or crypto-reactionary in Malik's words. Is it possible that she just, I don't know, thinks that it's perfectly fine that different voices represent the Muslim community?

This is a lefty rag, by the way, and this is a presumably lefty writer. At least he makes the point that there's no way our Toronto Turrists can get a fair trial. Oy.

* Additionally, I wonder at his definition of what constitutes a progressive Catholic. Cash isn't talking about Liberation Theologists, I don't think; he's talking about people who wanted Mass in languages other than Latin.

Current Location: Comma Mines

It left me wondering if some of these youth see themselves as Muslims who happen to also be Canadian or Canadians who happen to be Muslim.

"We don't see a contradiction between our Canadian identity and our Muslim identity. We are both," says Malik. "But it is jarring when that identity is called into question. You know, like: Which are you more, Muslim or Canadian? People don't think about it. This is home."

When I ask Malik who should speak for the Muslim community in the media, the soft-spoken poli-sci student chooses her words carefully.

"Well, we are a community with a diversity of voices, and maybe it's about time we accept and deal with that," she says. "There's no way that one voice can represent the whole community."

Current Location: Comma Mines

...except that in New Brunswick, the last hospital that performs provincially funded abortions is about to stop. It's already hard to get an abortion in New Brunswick—unlike in the rest of the country, you need the permission of two doctors. Abortions at the private Morgentaler clinic cost $750 in a province where the average yearly income is around $7000 less than than the national average.

Read this. (Hat-tip to the author. ;))

It's not a ban, of course; just market forces. We have several years still before we catch up to the wingnuttery levels of our ~~ideological masters~~ neighbours to the South, but it's nevertheless an attack on women's reproductive rights and universal health care. And it serves the wingnut agenda just fine—ensuring that poor women have no choices, while ensuring that if their own daughters should wind up in a delicate situation, they'll have access to discreet and private care.

OMGsquee. I must read this stuff: Bengali science fiction from the 1880s.

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The Antisocial Socialist

i'll tell you all my secrets but i'll lie about my past

Entries tagged with india

A few more good news items in the day

Shortest of short reviews

Bhopal murderers get a slap on the wrist for 25,000 deaths

Žižek on Avatar