'Landmark Khmer Rouge trial starts' : BBC

BBC's website carried a lead story in afternoon yesterday, on Cambodian genocide by Khmer Rouge. The report said 'The long-awaited UN-backed trial of a former Khmer Rouge leader in Cambodia has opened at a Phnom Penh court, 30 years after the murderous regime fell.
Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Duch - was head of a notorious prison camp and is accused of presiding over the murder and torture of at least 15,000 inmates.

The trial is the result of a decade of painstaking and often ill-tempered negotiations, a BBC correspondent says.'

Khmer Rouge, a Communist movement was founded by Pol Pot (Saloth Sar) during 70s in Cambodia. He was said to be forced the city people into villages to bring agrarian civilisation. But history held him responsible for death of two million people, who died from starvation, overwork and execution as the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities to send people to work on collective farms during its four years in power.

This reminds me a book written by Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father:A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. The book shares a real story of her childhood and beginning of Pol Pot regime.

Loung's family was forced to flee to countryside with leaving everything behind except some money and clothes. I was aghast when I read the description of her family's separation, hard work, hunger and cruelty at children camps. One incident I must mention here, the family left with no food at all and in order to survive, her mother cooks earthworms which grow on deadbodies, for the siblings.

Slowly, she looses her father, brothers, sisters and mother too.Finally she and two brothers managed to escape to Vietnam, then Thailand, then finally to America.

The story was really horrible. The communist regime was criticised by her for destroying a complete generation. But I think, some part of the section, mostly weaker, always undergo such a severe pain whether the regime is communist, capitalist or even democratic. Just think of India, where 77 per cent of our population (836 million people) live on a per capita consumption of less than Rs 20 a day, (Arjun Sengupta report ). The question is how they live?

At Reading in Beijing, Noted Writer Is Stabbed-NYT

Last time I wrote about freedom of speech and today read in New York Times 'A prominent Chinese writer known for provocative, anti-establishment Web postings was stabbed and wounded during a book reading on Saturday.

The writer, Xu Lai, a newspaper reporter, novelist and blogger whose satirical Internet postings are widely followed by students, journalists and the Chinese literati, may have been singled out for his writings, his friends and associates said.'

I wish I could have read his writings or altleast his blog. But that is Chinese. I will wait till it comes in English.

Freedom of Speech and Revolution

I read a news of New Delhi dateline, 'a Bangladeshi author, who was forced to leave his motherland about five years ago because of edicts issued by fundamentalists, can now return home, thanks to the new government in Dhaka which seems to be open to the idea of freedom of expression.

Salam Azad, like controversial writer Taslima Nasreen was accused of being anti-religious following release of his novel "Bhanga Math" (Shattered Dream), in which he had compared the status of minority communities living in Bangladesh in the pre and post 1947 period.

Following publication of the book, fatwas were issued against the author-cum-human rights activist, forcing him to live exiled life in India since Aug 13, 2004. The previous Bangladesh government also disfavoured his return because of apparent pressure from the fundamentalists. However, with the Sheikh Hasina government taking over, he has got permission to return home.' (News from PTI).

I think this is a very positive step in order to preserve freedom of expression of an indivisual. Earlier, Nasreen was thrown out of her own country and India also failed to provide her political asylum. I wish she would also be called back like Azad.

I have not read any writings of Azad, now I have to. But I have read Nasreen. 'Lajja', 'Frech Lover', 'Amar Meyebela' (My Childhood). Lajja was definitely better than others. She was in controversy for criticising Islam, hippocratic society and false relationships. I appreciate her courage to speak up very personal experiences like she was repeatedly raped by her uncle in her childhood.

I recently attended a small debate at Kala Ghoda Festival based on the same topic of freedom of speech - 'Meri Juban Kisane Kati' (Who cut my tongue). One of the speakers, who is also my friend mooted a controversial point. He said poor and oppressed have been prevented from speaking or punished till death, since early period of human history.

But the process can be reversed if all poor come together and cut the tongue of the handful of ruling class. He justified the act and said this cannot be counted as violence but fight for equality.

That's great my friend! His statements created havoc among (sophisticated and Gandhian) audience that how can one justifies violence? Why not? That is known as a 'revolution', the friend said .

I Broke My Resolution

11.00am On Saturday after an early morning assignment I go to Oxford to spend some time.

11.30am I scan all the racks in fiction and non-fiction sections.

11.45am Then I turn to classics, though I have failed to read them earlier.

11.46am I see compilation of Four Great American Classics including The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Adventures of Hucleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and Billy Budd Sailor by Herman Melville.

11.47am It was the edition I had seen earlier also.

11.49am My mind in dilemma, whether to buy it or not?

11.50am I am still in puzzle because my resolution of not to buy any book due to slowdown force me to leave.

11.52am book… buying not…. Yes… no… yes…. No… no…

11.55am Time for decision….

12.00pm I buy the book and break the resolution.

12.05pm Resolutions are meant to be broken, says my mind.

I Cannot Read Classics

Last week was really boring. I started reading a classic, Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. I had bought the book years back from Fountain's secondhand book stall. The specialty of the copy is that it is a UK Penguin Edition of 1972 with a beautiful cover page. It also has one more surprise inside the cover page, a portrait of Jane Austin, by her sister Cassandra, which has now kept in the National Portrait Gallery.

But somehow, could not finish even 20 pages and stopped reading. I got confused with characters and so many references. This was the second time that I kept it aside. One of my friends said it’s not of my type book. He may be right because he has read it and I am not.

Then I started with another classic Lady Chatterley's Lover by D H Lawrence. And guess what? I couldn’t read that over 50 pages (though more progress than Pride and Prejudice). The book has metaphorical language which I couldn't digest.

Even love making scenes described in the book are so metaphorical that by the time the two caresses each other, one can achieve orgasm twice in reality. May be I should consider the period when it was written.

But now I am worried that why I cannot read classics? I think I need to read Italo Calvino’s Why Read The Classics, which I saw with a friend of mine to understand them.