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dam-l LS: NewsIndia Times on Arundhati in US

>>Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 20:16:22 EST
>From: NewsIndia Times - EagleEye Column
>>
>>THROUGH A FLOOD GATE DARKLY
>>BY EagleEye(tm)
>>(WeAreEagle@HotMail.com)
>>
>>ENFANT TERRIBLE
>>With the $1 million publishing advance for her first and only novel, The God
>>Of Small Things, safely in the bank, Arundhati Roy could be enjoying bliss
>>on the banks of any river of her choice.
>>Her book, after 39 language editions, and 49 weeks on The New York Times
>>bestseller list, would still be producing sufficient royalties to meet her
>>weekly grocery bills and leave something over for pin money.
>>With the whole Indian nation bowing and scraping obsequiously over her
>>Booker Prize, no one would have held it against the 38-year-old writer if
>>she had opted to live out the rest of her days making ribbon-cutting
>>appearances.  Or the rest of her nights as the decadent darling of the
>>chattering classes.
>>Instead, Arundhati Roy has thrown her lucid mind, her eloquent words, her
>>celebrity, and her wiry frame behind far-reaching challenges to social,
>>economic and political decisions and structures that have enjoyed a long
>>reign of unchallenged hegemony over the common wisdom.
>>
>>I'LL CRY ME A RIVER OVER YOU
>>The four foot-something former architect breezed through the USA last week.
>>After touching down briefly at San Francisco, Berkeley, and Boston, she
>>packed two gatherings in New York.
>>The first was at Barnes & Noble at Union Square Monday, Nov 1 evening.
>>Earlier she had visited with Lenny Lopate on WNYC's daily two hour talk
>>fest, New York & Company, which has an ardent following among book lovers.
>>The following day took her to The New School's Tishman Auditorium on 12th
>>Street.
>>At all three venues, Roy read from her new nonfiction work, "The Cost Of
>>Living".
>>In it, she argues compassionately, yet forcefully, against major dam
>>projects, especially a massive complex being built on the Narmada river.
>>Such projects were to haul India into the modern age, but instead she finds
>>that they have built middle class affluence on the backs of the poor and
>>displaced hundreds of thousands of members of minority tribes.
>>A second essay in the book rails against India's nuclear weapons development
>>policy and the detonation of India's first nuclear bomb, with all its
>>attendant Faustian bargains.
>>Replying to a "What do we do next?" question at the Barnes & Noble reading,
>>Roy asked writers, artists, poets, painters, dancers, musicians and assorted
>>intellectuals to retake the moral high ground and re-tool their imagination.
>>The fun has just begun.
>>
>>STORMY PETREL
>>"Arundhati Roy's polemic is necessary and important.  She combines brilliant
>>reportage with a passionate, no-holds-barred commentary on two great Indian
>>betrayals masquerading as progress.  I salute both her courage and her
>>skill," says Salman Rushdie, whose winning of the Booker Prize inspired a
>>whole generation of Indian writers of English-language fiction.
>>Roy also has her detractors.
>>"The Greater Common Good", the first of the two essays in the book,
>>criticized the Supreme Court of India's decision to lift its four-year-old
>>stay on construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada.
>>The justices then spent three days examining whether Roy had "undermined the
>>dignity of the court".  They ultimately refrained from acting, this time,
>>while expressing the hope that Ms. Roy would abstain from further "contumely
>>".
>>Politically, it would be pragmatic for Arundhati Roy to hold her tongue.
>>But Ms. Roy is not playing politician.
>>She is not playing any role at all; she is merely being the artist that she
>>is.  And pragmatism and art are not the best mix.
>>"We've spent a long time being right; now it's time to win," Ms. Roy told
>>the rapturous New School audience.
>>I'm betting that she will soon be standing before the Bar of the Supreme
>>Court of India.
>>
>>PICTURE CAPTIONS:
>>
>>
>>THE COST OF LIVING     By Arundhati Roy     Modern Library Paperback
>>Original     $12
>>
>>
>>THE SARDAR SAROVAR DAM UNDER CONSTRUCTION
>>Photo by Patrick McCully.  Courtesy World Rivers Review, a newsletter
>>published by International Rivers Network.
>>
>>
>>NUCLEAR SITE
>>22" X 28" acrylic on canvas painting is a part of Delhi-based Amrut Patel's
>>month-long exhibition entitled "VAST SILENCE, EPIC SPACES" commencing
>>November 11 at ADMIT ONE gallery.
>>