E-LAUNCH RE-MARKINGS' 20th Anniversary Volume March 2021: A Day to Remember
RE-MARKINGS and 18th March: A
Date with History
Nibir K. Ghosh
"Time present
and time past/ Are both perhaps present in time future/ And time future contained in time past.” – T. S. Eliot
March 18, 1944 is one of the most historic
day of India's independence struggle. On this day, Azad Hind Fauj (Indian
National Army) of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose entered India crossing Burma
border. It was a prelude to the INA’s victory against the British forces at Moirang. It was at
Moirang that the flag of the Indian National Army was first unfurled on April
14, 1944. The INA Memorial Moirang reminds us of the noble sacrifices made by
the INA soldiers under the charismatic leadership of Netaji Subhas Chandra
Bose.
This day is no less historic for Re-Markings. It was on 18 March 2017 at
Agra that our special number entitled Bose: The Immortal Legend of India’s
Freedom, published in January 2017, was launched at Agra at a grand event
in the majestic presence of Prof. Sugata Bose and numerous Bose scholars from
various parts of India.
It is a happy
coincidence that on this auspicious day we are all together to celebrate the 20th
Birth Anniversary of Re-Markings in the presence of historical figures like
Prof. Sugata Bose, eminent Harvard University Historian, Chairperson NRB,
Kolkata, former M.P. Lok Sabha, grand-nephew of Netaji, and the guiding light to
Re-Markings. We truly miss the gracious presence this evening of Mrs. Zeenat
Ahmed, wife and long-term companion to Col Mahboob Ahmed, Military Secretary to
Netaji who is unable to be with us on account of mild ailment. Ahmed madam has
enriched our special Bose number with her interview conducted by Tara Sami Dutt
and Zara Urouj. We, my wife and I, had the pleasure of meeting her at Patna a
few years ago.
No less historic is the presence of
Mrs. Anita Auden Money, an educator and writer based in London. She is the
maternal grand-daughter of Shri W. C. Bonnerjee, the first President of Indian
National Congress. With great affection I announce the presence of Prof. Jonah
Raskin from Santa Rosa, California who visited us in Agra a fortnight after we
launched the Bose special number. On going through the volume, he instantly
became a big fan of Netaji. Also with us is the video presence of Dr. Tijan M.
Sallah, the leading poet of the Gambia and former World Bank executive.
On the cover of our 20th
anniversary number that is due for formal launch today we have an endorsement
by the US National Book Award winner, Charles Johnson, that says “Re-Markings
is India’s finest literary ambassador to the world.” In our midst today, I am
proud to share the presence of many ambassadors of Re-Markings who are
distinguished academics, critics, writers and poets and who have played a
significant role in Re-Markings’ grand march to the 20-year milestone. Equally
noteworthy is the presence of members of the Re-Markings’ great fraternity of
readers and contributors bound by ties of brotherhood and friendship.
On behalf of the Editorial and
Advisory board, it is my privilege and honour to welcome you all with feelings
of love and gratitude to this momentous event.
Thank You.
Re-Markings 20th
Anniversary Special Number (44th Edition)
18th
March 2021
E-Launch Address
Shanker A. Dutt
Launched in March 2002, Re-Markings has completed twenty
enriching years of publication with its 20th anniversary special
number in March 2021, and today, we have gathered in times of masks, hand-washes
and physical distancing in a digitally invented world to celebrate this
significant milestone.
A number of
literary and cultural journals have, over the years, provided space for the
publication of scholarship in India. However, many of these have often
struggled against the vagaries of quality, trying to find an appropriate
balance between the excellence of established names and the need to create
space for young researchers. Other qualities appreciated in a good literary
journal are the value of the editorials, its ethical responsibility and the
punctuality of its publication. These are three areas where Re-Markings has
scripted its success.
Re-Markings is an
international refereed
biannual journal of English Studies that aims at providing a healthy forum for
scholarly interpretations of multiple cultural texts as evidenced in
literature, art, television, cinema and journalism with substantial focus on
Contemporary Studies in English including translations and creativity. Its
Chief Editor, Professor Nibir K. Ghosh, wrote rather poetically in the 10th
issue:
‘It is
perhaps a happy coincidence that Re-Markings, like the equinoxes,
appears in March and September each year. The vernal and the autumnal equinoxes
set the globe in perfect gravitational balance and become the harbingers of the
Spring of life and the fruits of its Autumn. I am optimistic that Re-Markings
will continue to offer, through a clockwork precision of the biannual event,
the hope and cheer that one finds in the songs of Spring and the music of
Autumn’.
It is with this
exacting precision of nature’s laws that one has to expect the arrival of
Re-Markings and I cannot recollect an occasion to be disappointed. I stopped
believing in magic almost 6 decades ago but when India Post delivered my 20th
Anniversary special number in February, I entered my second childhood to
re-discover magic. In my mind I re-wrote Shelley's wind inspired lines: 'If
winter comes, can Re-Markings be far behind'?
Re-Markings has
provided space for discussion and interrogation of cultural productions in
English and brought together a band of critics and commentators from different
parts of the world on a truly globalised forum for expression and exchange. If the journal enjoys the distinction of publishing contributions of celebrity
writers and distinguished academics, scholars and researchers from over 80
countries of the world including Nobel, Pulitzer, U.S.
National Book Award, Padmashree, Sahitya Akademi and other award winners, it is no less significant that it has given ample encouragement to newcomers and young scholars by introducing their work to the
academic fraternity in the country and all over the globe.
While each issue of the journal provides
a diverse range and variety of intellectual resources to its enlightened
readers, special sections on V. S. Naipaul (March 2002), Communalism
(September 2002), Racism (March 2003), John Steinbeck (September 2003), David
Ray (March 2004), W.H. Auden (March 2007), and Doris Lessing (March 2008) have attracted
considerable attention from academics and researchers worldwide.
Special numbers on
Langston Hughes (January 2014), Bose: The Immortal Legend of India’s Freedom
(January 2017), A World Assembly of Poets: Contemporary Poems (November
2017) and India: Diversities and Convergences (May 2018) have decisively
enriched the Re-Markings’ treasure trove.
Re-Markings has a
distinguished list of advisors: Dr. Charles Johnson, Professor Sugata Bose,
Professor Morris Dickstein, Jayanta Mahapatra, Dr. Ramesh Chandra Shah, Prof.
Jonah Raskin and Prof. Amritjit Singh. These
luminaries have enriched the journal with their regular contributions. The
editorial collaborators along with Professor Ghosh, Dr. A. Karunaker, Dr Sunita
Rani Ghosh and Sandeep Arora ensure production-quality and punctuality. These
eminent personages contribute to the authenticity of the journal’s distinction
and encourage qualities of scholarship, good writing and some remarkable
creativity that one has come to associate with Re-Markings. Its outreach has
been enhanced through its web version, created and aesthetically designed by
Sandeep Arora, that provides convenient access to readers and scholars across
the globe.
In his 2002
editorial Dr Ghosh wrote, “What is,
therefore, needed is an effective forum which can function as a repository for
a coherent system of thoughts and ideas. I strongly believe that in addressing
specific issues and concerns central to the human predicament, Re-Markings
will play a seminal role,’ and in continuation with that idea he further writes:
‘a good work of art
invariably leaves its indelible markings on the shifting pages of time. It may
or may not offer solutions to the problems that beset mankind but its sublimity
lies in the way it contributes not only to the profound understanding of the
age in which we live but also in making us aware of our private fears and
insecurities, our joys and hopes’.
And, indeed, the
prophecies of twenty years ago have manifested over time in meaningful dialogue
with texts. Umberto Eco spoke of written texts as being machines to generate
interpretations. Readers from different cultural contexts and personal
backgrounds engage with texts in different internal dialogues revealing
multiple meanings. The author thus is relegated to being a controlling devise
as readers vie for space to interpret and explain. It is this valued space that
Re-Markings provides. The canvass of Re-Markings is varied and vast, comprising
articles on canonical and marginal representations of human experience. In the
editorial of twentieth anniversary edition Professor Ghosh writes, 'In these
times of crisis, upheavals and cataclysmic changes we must accept the fact that
the personal and the political are inextricably intertwined and that no policy
of isolation is possible. As responsible citizens of the world, it is incumbent
upon us to rise above our own limited interests and objectives and become
empathetic to the oppression, poverty, discrimination, trauma, violence,
bigotry, pain and suffering that we witness all around us.'
He quotes T. S.
Eliot as an instrumental testament to Re-Markings, 'to do the useful thing, to
say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough
for one man's life'.
It assumes
special significance in an age of considerable bitterness and despair, when the
world seems to be ideologically partitioned, when development and progress have
many, often contradictory definitions and core human needs are subservient to
lifestyle choices, it compels us to engage with literature and the kindred arts
in search of understanding.
Some years ago,
commenting on Re-Markings, I had written to Prof. Nibir Ghosh: ‘it must be a daunting task to publish a journal with the
editorial responsibility of sorting out variable quality and the publisher's
jugglery to balance finance and production. I really liked the honesty with
which you have written the editorial in the March 2006 edition of Re-Markings.
Often we do not problematise, question or challenge received knowledge because we are daunted by the reputations and
the linguistic magic of what we read. You have taken the lid off manufactured
mysteries in a short but telling editorial. Many congratulations for the
excellent work you are doing’. Today, as the twenty- year milestone is crossed,
it is a pleasure to reiterate what I had written and state that Re-Markings is
getting better with each passing equinox.
I
wish to conclude with a sample of the Salman Rushdie magic in his Commencement
Address for Bard College, New York:
'For
in the years to come, you will find yourselves up against gods of all sorts,
big and little gods, corporeal and incorporeal gods, all of them demanding to
be worshipped and obeyed - the myriad deities of money and power, of convention
and custom that will seek to limit and control your thoughts and lives. defy
them; that is my advice to you. Thumb your noses; cock your snooks. For as the
myths tell us, it is by defying the gods that human beings have best expressed
their humanity.'
I am optimistic
that Re-Markings will continue to express the best of humanity.
20th
Anniversary Celebratory Number of Re-Markings
Anita
Auden Money
I am very glad to
be taking part in this Zoom meeting to celebrate the 20th
Anniversary Number of Re-Markings and appreciate its international range and particularly
the balanced approach of Nibir Ghosh.
His essays in Mirror from the
Indus, provide an antidote to what appears currently to be a very immature
trend in reaction to Colonialism, Race and Gender that is creating a false
reality that divides rather than unites people in a period of turmoil where COVID
reminds us of our universal kinship in susceptibility to a virus.
His essay on Tagore
points out how much Tagore disliked a narrow Nationalism and, I quote, “strove
to remain far above the narrow confines of the nation-state debate that seems
to flourish in the academia today. If he desired to share India’s message of
cultural synthesis with the rest of the world, he also ascertained the need for
India to incorporate others’ messages into her own cultural repertoire.” The essay on Kipling also offers a fuller
understanding of Kipling’s views on the East and West which are really best
understood in relation to individuals rather than to races and this is a key to
the question of prejudice.
I was introduced
to Nibir Ghosh and Re-Markings by a friend of mine - Shanta Acharya, a poet,
writer and more unusually an investor, and was delighted that Nibir appreciated
and admired my uncle W. H. Auden. As I
am half Indian (my mother Sheila Bonnerjee was Bengali, and my father John
Auden, Wystan’s brother, worked for the Geological Survey of India), I wanted
to feel that India could understand Wystan. Nibir’s book W.H Auden: Therapeutic
Fountain published in 2010 does indeed
illustrate a genuine sympathy and understanding and the Re-Markings Commemorative
Issue that was published in 2007 to celebrate Wystan’s birth Centenary also
showed a wide appreciation.
As many
of you are aware, Wystan has been
subject to a good deal of criticism of
his later work both here in the UK and in America, some of it justified as no writer or poet develops without making
mistakes, but showing a great lack of understanding of what he was trying to
achieve.
In A Certain World, Wystan’s commonplace
book which gives a very good picture of what interested and inspired him, he
says in the section ‘Writing’: “What the poet has to convey is not
‘self-expression’ but a view of reality common to all, seen from a unique
perspective, which it is his duty as well as his pleasure to share with others.
To small truths as well as great, St. Augustine’s words apply: The
truth is neither mine nor his nor
another’s; but belongs to us all whom thou callest to partake of it, warning us terribly, not to account it
private to ourselves, lest we be deprived of it.”
As to how
he was going to apply this to poetry he writes elsewhere: “The ideal at which I
aim is a style which shall combine the drab sober truthfulness of prose with a
poetic uniqueness of expression.” He did
not find this easy and in a letter to a friend, speaking about ‘Thanksgiving
for a Habitat’ he comments: “To keep the
diction and prosody within a hairsbreadth of being prose without becoming it is
a task I find very difficult”
Auden is
lucky to have Edward Mendelson as his Literary Executor who has also written so
wisely about him, John Fuller, poet and academic, who wrote the Commentary and
introduced his work to a number of his students at Oxford. There are also a
variety of poets and writers whose appreciation of the later work matters – to
name a few and apologies to those not mentioned – Peter
Porter, Hongbin Liu (the Chinese poet who has been published in Re-Markings in The World
Assembly of Poets), Grey Gowrie, Glyn Maxwell (whose understanding of Auden
was influenced by Derek Walcott), Lachlan Mackinnon, Hamish Robinson who gave
an excellent talk at The National Theatre in relation to Alan Bennet’s ‘Habit
of Art’ pointing out that Auden’s poetry
was ‘in the profoundest sense liberal, a
poetry released from poetic theologies and free to draw its sustenance from all
sorts of profane sources,’ and Alexander McCall Smith whose ‘What W. H.
Auden Can Do For You’, is a personal appreciation. It is good also to read
Thekla Clarks ‘Wystan and Chester’, and Humphrey Carpenter and Richard
Davenport-Hines’ biographies.
Wystan in a letter
to my father written in 1941 said: “Every ohm of private happiness and decency
is, I am convinced, a political asset to the world.” This belief in the
individual as unique and the need for individuals to take responsibility is a
key to understanding Wystan’s deep concern for humanity.
In his address in 1951 to the “Indian
Congress for Cultural Freedom” Wystan
reminds that there are two parallel realities - Nature and History:
The natural material world,
the physical world, the world of mass, of number, not of language. A world in
which freedom is indeed consciousness of necessities, a world in which justice
means equality before the law of physics, chemistry, physiology.
The historical community of
persons, the world of faces, the world of language where necessity is the
consciousness of freedom and justice is the command to love my neighbour as
myself, that is to say, as a unique, irreplaceable being.
Unreality comes when either world is treated as if it were the other one. I think this is part of the problem now.
Bringing the World
Together: 20th Anniversary Milestone
Tijan M. Sallah
2020 was a sad year—so much lives perished, got
harvested by the grim reaper. Mainstream and social media bristled with news
about the Corona Virus. COVID, COVID everywhere—grim headlines assaulted
us—breakfast, lunch, dinner. Uncertainty and fear went viral. It is
truly a malignant year, perhaps best described as Annus Horribilis.
But
all is not gloom and doom. As we get diminished by the somber news and
the countless funerals globally, there are anniversaries to celebrate: the
discovery of efficacious and hopefully safe vaccines— Pfizer’s and Moderna’s
and Astra Zeneca’s, as well as promising new therapies. Beyond that are
also the continued bright signs of the joys of life: the musical, the visual
and the literary arts. The world has witnessed major trials this year, but it
is not about to end. The sun is still rising. Just look out in the morning.
In
this spirit of optimism, I am excited about the twentieth anniversary of Re-Markings,
a literary and cultural publication that brings the world together through
creative and critical oeuvres that celebrate the cultivation of humane impulses
and the triumph of the human spirit. The world has in the past few years
been usurped by authoritarian and nativist leaders across the globe preaching a
vile nationalism. They want to erect walls rather than build bridges. They want
to imprison rather than unleash the human spirit. They simplify complex
problems and pit the innocent against each other. They deny science, including
climate science—and withdraw to crude atavism. I am reassured by
platforms like Re-Markings where dialogue triumphs over
tone-deafness, where our common humanity is celebrated over the hereditary
differences of tribe, belief or geography. Twenty years might be youth for a
human life but a significant, non-trivial milestone for a literary publication.
Address by Chief Guest
I thank you very much Prof. Nibir
Ghosh. First of all, may I congratulate Professor Ghosh and everyone associated
with Re-Markings on the publication of this wonderful 20th anniversary celebratory
number. It was very good to hear Jonah Raskin and Anita Auden Money. It is so
wonderful that Re-Markings has had special issues on Doris Lessing and W. H.
Auden. No historian of the 20th century can afford to not cite W. H. Auden. He
has a brilliant poem on every major historical event to have occurred in the
last century including, of course, on partition which Ayesha Jalal and I quote
in full in our book Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy.
The 18th of March is of
course a red-letter day in South Asian history. On march 18th 1944,
the Indian National Army moved into North-eastern India towards Imphal and
Kohima. With "Chalo Delhi" on their lips, the Azad Hind Fauj crossed
the Indo-Burma frontier and carried the armed struggle for liberation onto the Indian
soil. They marched singing their battle song "kadam kadam badhaye ja."
Step by step they would advance until the Indian flag fluttered over the red
fort of Delhi. On that historic occasion, Netaji issued a lyrical order of the
day in which he dwelt on the theme of sacrificial patriotism:
“There,
there in the distance-beyond that river, beyond those jungles, beyond those
hills lies the promised land—the soil from which we sprang—the land to which we
shall now return. Hark! India is calling! India’s metropolis Delhi is calling! three
hundred and eighty-eight million of our countrymen are calling. Blood is
calling to blood. Get up, we have no time to lose. Take up your arms. There, in
front of you, is the road that our pioneers have built. We shall march along
that road. We shall carve our way through the enemy's ranks or if God wills, we
shall die a martyr's death. And in our last sleep we shall kiss the road that
will bring our Army to Delhi. The road to Delhi is the road to Freedom. Chalo
Delhi."
The INA soldiers were ecstatic to be on Indian soil, and journalists reported
scenes of jubilation and camaraderie as they closed in on Imphal and Kohima.
My father Dr. Sisir Kumar Bose invited Abid Hassan, a very close aide of
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, to deliver the Netaji oration in Calcutta 51 years
ago, on January 23rd 1970. That morning Abid Hassan delivered his
beautifully crafted and deeply moving Netaji oration titled “The Men from
Imphal.” He had chosen to foreground in his oration the harrowing retreat of
the brave soldiers of freedom after their march to Delhi had been halted at
Imphal. In one brilliant paragraph, he portrayed the character of the army of
liberation to which he belonged:
"What a group we were and ours
was but a unit among many of its kind in our army. I felt proud and I feel more
proud today that I belong to it. Baluchis were there among us and Assamese,
Kashmiris and Malyalis, Pathans and Sikhs and Gujaratis. Proud members of
classes called the Martials and those still then denied reputation for martial
valor but who proved in battle that they could, by their deeds, claim equal
honour. Every region in india was represented. Every religion and every caste
mixed inseparably together, not only in bigger formations but even in small
platoons and sections. Each unit being a living tribute to the unity of India.
We had our different private faiths and we had our different languages but, in
our purpose, and in our political belief, we were a well-knit, determined and
indivisible whole.”
Once they reached Mandalay, Netaji came to meet them. The Sikhs oiled their beards; the Punjabi Muslims, the Dogras and Rajputs twirled their moustaches. We the indiscriminate, Abid Hassan said, “put on as good a face as we could manage." As Netaji spoke to them, their weariness seemed to depart and they felt refreshing new blood circulating in their veins. Abid Hassan understood the essence of his leadership: "he was all we had as our leader to whom each one of us however humble meant something and who to us all meant everything. He belonged to us, to us all of the Azad Hind movement and entirely without any compromise." Abid Hassan then flashed back to October 1943 to illustrate the meaning of “without any compromise” by telling the story of Netaji's visit to the Chateau temple in Singapore. He had turned away the Head Priest saying, "What, come to your temple where even Hindus of other castes are not permitted entry, not to speak of members of other communities who are equally near and dear to me?" He agreed to go when the High Priest returned with an invitation to an Indian national demonstration. When we came to the temple, Abid Hassan remembered, "I found it filled to capacity with the uniforms of the INA officers and men and the black caps of South Indian Muslims glaringly evident. The memory I retain is one of an invigorating music as that of a symphony dedicated to the unity of the motherland. That music sustained him during his travails on the battlefield."
Abid Hassan returned to us and stayed at our home in 1976 and we interviewed
him over three days. On the basis of that interview, my mother wrote a
long-form article “The Memory of a Soldier.” Krishna Bose's diary which I was
reading the other day, contains an important entry on March 14 1976, regarding
the tape recording session that day. Abid Hassan says, she notes on 17th
August 1945 in Saigon, he would have accompanied Netaji and Netaji himself
wished so but because of military protocol, Colon Habibur Rahman was asked to go.
He was senior anyway, all of them were to follow him shortly so they did not
realize that it would become a matter of such importance at the moment.
Jonah Raskin mentioned Ravi Shankar
so I should tell you that during this period of the interview on March 15 1976,
Pandit Ravi Shankar came to see the Netaji Museum, Netaji Research Bureau, from
where I am speaking today and we showed him around. On January 23rd
of that year, he had presented a wonderful birthday concert for Netaji
performing the ragas Shayamkalyan Charukeshi and Machhkhambhak on the occasion
of the second International Netaji Seminar that year. The first one had been
organized by my father in 1973. Since this is the 20th anniversary
of a journal, I thought I’d read to you a letter that Abid Hassan wrote to my
father about the Netaji Research Bureau's new journal The Oracle in
1979: "My dear Sisir, thanks ever so much for sending me a copy of The
Oracle. You have brought it out very well indeed, much better than I
expected. But then you are always so thorough and painstaking attending to all
my minute details, just like your uncle and it is the drudgery of attending to
details that pays dividends in the end. I know so many people envy you when
success is achieved but, of course, they are not there to help you with a hand
at the wheel pulling the cart out when it is stuck in the mire. How many years
day in and day out have you been attending to the Netaji Seminar. It is, thanks
mainly to your efforts, that it has now turned out to be a veritable scholarly
research institute." I know that not only Nibir Ghosh but also the team
around him, attend to the details and that is what makes Re-Markings such a
wonderful journal.
51 years ago, Abid Hassan had, in
his Netaji oration, referred to these frustrating times "when India again
seems to be a house divided against itself." The times have turned even
more ominous now and in human acts that Abid Hassan deplored, are becoming an
everyday reality in today's India. His oration was, in Sisir Kumar Bose's
words, a moving affirmation of the revolutionary faith given to us by our
leader. Abid Hassan had closed his oration with a message of hope "the
people of India will accept any leadership provided the call remains the same
and the call cannot be but forget not that the grossest crime is to compromise
with injustice and wrong."
I know Nibir had made a special request to me to end with a little bit of
music. Now as he was about to proclaim the formation of the Azad Hind
government, Netaji asked Abid Hassan to get the national anthem Jan Gan Man rendered
in Hindustani, so that soldiers of the Azad Hind fauj could appreciate the
meaning of Rabindranath Tagore's song. In Singapore Abid Hassan got the
lyricist Mumtaz Hussein compose the Hindustani song in three verses, rather
than five of the original. Ram Singh Taku wrote down a band score based on the
original tune. Mumtaz Hussein did not attempt a translation but sought to
capture the spirit of Tagore's song: "joyo hey" naturally became
"jaya ho" long before A. R. Rahman made "Jai Ho" famous,
the world over. The first verse that mentioned several place names bore a
strong resemblance to the Bengali lyric. A comparison of the second verse
evoking unity, which is not part of today's national anthem, gives a clear
sense of the connection between the Bengali original and the Hindustani
version.
Tagore had sung:
অহরহ তব আহ্বান প্রচারিত, শুনি তব উদার বাণী
হিন্দু বৌদ্ধ শিখ জৈন পারসিক মুসলমান খৃস্টানী
পূরব পশ্চিম আসে তব সিংহাসন-পাশে
প্রেমহার হয় গাঁথা।
The Azad Hind version went thus:
"सबके दिल में प्रीत बसाए
तेरी मीठी वाणी
हर सूबे रहने वाले
हर मज़हब के प्राणी
सब भेद और फ़र्क मिटा केसब गोद तेरी आ के
गूँथें प्रेम की माला"
So, I really do hope that Re-Markings will play a role in binding, not just all
of the communities of India but all of the communities and peoples of the world
with a garland of love, through their literary pursuits which has always been
both politically engaged and ethically informed.
Sandeep K. Arora
Finding appropriate words is a
difficult task when the heart is full of gratitude. The gracious presence of
each one of you on this historic occasion has made the event a thing to
remember for years to come. Thanksgiving can never be a formality when we are
celebrating 20 glorious years of a journey marked by a sense of belonging and
companionship.
On the cover of our 20th
anniversary number we have an endorsement by the US National Book Award winner,
Charles Johnson, that says “Re-Markings is India’s finest literary ambassador
to the world.” We attribute such accolade to the association of a vibrant
community of writers, scholars, academics and avid readers who have given their
very best to make Re-Markings an epitome of excellence invariably committed to values and ideals.
The presence of Prof. Sugata Bose
as the Chief Guest has been truly inspirational. His missionary zeal to
“reclaim patriotism from the chauvinists, religion from the religious bigots,
and politics from the corrupt” is in perfect sync with the Re-Markings mission
statement. Prof. Jonah Raskin has always been an integral part of Re-Markings
like its logo. It has become difficult to imagine any issue of the journal
without his characteristic writings. Ms. Anita Auden’s presence in our midst
will remain a fond remembrance for the Auden admirers in India. Dr. Tijan M.
Sallah’s words echoed his unstinted love for Re-Markings. As always, Prof.
Shanker A. Dutt feelingly shared his lucid narrative of friendship with our
journal.
On behalf of Re-Markings I deem it
an honour to thank one and all for sparing your valuable time to be with us
today.
As one who has been intrinsically
bound by ties of love to Re-Markings since its very inception in March 2002, I
am optimistic that we all will continue to travel together to ever new
destinations to do what is useful, to say what is courageous and contemplate
what is beautiful in quest of a better world.
A special word of thanks go to Mr. Saurabh Agarwal for his technical assistance and guidance in conducting the event with much perfection.
Special Presence
Dr. Deena Padayachee, Dr. Abdul Shaban, Dr. Asim Siddiqui, Dr. Santosh Gupta, Dr. Mini Nanda, Dr. Muniba Sami, Mr. Debasish Chakrabarty, Mr. S.B. Chemburkar, Dr. Sunita Rani Ghosh, Mr. Adnan Ahmed, Mr. Imran Ahmed, Dr. Sukalpa Bhattacharya, Dr. Maya Vinai, Dr. Namita Sethi, Dr. Ajit Mukherjee, Dr. Gunjan Chaturvedi, Dr. Ranjana Mehrotra, Dr. Sudhir K. Arora, Dr. G.L. Gautam, Dr. Seema Sinha (BITS, Pilani), Dr. Tanya Mander, Dr. Charu Mathur, Saurabh Agarwal, Dr. Roopali Khanna, Raja Pandey, Anjali Bhadauria, Sharbani Roy Chowdhury, Dr. Stuti Prasad, Dr. Arati Biswal, Dr. Priti Verma, Dr. Namita Sethi, Insha Iftikhar, Dr. Pramila Chawla, Dr. Mukesh Vyas, Mr. Dheeraj Goyal, Dr. A Karunaker, Dr. Babita Kar, Dr. Suman Swati, Dr. Archana Prasad, Dr. Mandeep Mann, Dr. Rajan Lal, Dr. Shrikant Kulsrestha, Dr. Manju Rani, Mr. Anil Sharma, Dr. Ujjwala Thatte, Dr. Ashoo Toor,
RE-MARKINGS Youtube Channel
Am sharing with immense pleasure the RE-MARKINGS Youtube channel so lovingly created and designed by our Executive Editor Sandeep K. Arora coinciding with the historic E-launch of Re-Markings’ 20th Anniversary issue on March 18, 2021. This provides us with new avenues for bringing together contributors, readers and admirers of Re-Markings from India and worldwide on yet another vibrant platform for discussion and dissemination of ideas central to human concern.
Kindly share, like and subscribe to the channel and remain in touch with Re-Markings.