A brief meditation on selfies and resilience

Once upon a time, I was judgmental about selfies. From film stars to your third cousin, everyone was pouting, clicking, and uploading selfies on social media, and I was disapproving. A photograph taken by others captures more of the physical environment, a more uncertain expression, a likeness that you cannot fully control. Selfies, on the other hand, give their subjects too much control. The selfie-taker is intent on being seen as they see themselves rather than on capturing memories. And how much memory could a selfie possibly contain?

I bit down on my disapproval though, and read scholarly commentary on the sociocultural implications of relentless self-portraiture: what does it say about our generation? What does it say about societies where women are unsafe when they become visible, or where self-fashioning comes with a side of grievous harm? Perhaps selfies were good for something after all, if they could help us understand ourselves?

I cringe now to think of that former self—so blinkered, she didn’t even know how to look at herself squarely in the eye. How, then, did I get to a point where I have a folder full of goofy selfies and where my own self-portraiture is unapologetic?

The answer lies buried in an analogue photo album.

Read the full essay here: https://frontline.thehindu.com/society/white-space-annie-zaidi-i-click-therefore-i-breathe-the-journey-of-a-former-selfie-sceptic/article67437578.ece

Book alert!

Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (Aleph 2023) is just out. This is a new edition of Known Turf (2010), with a fresh Introduction chapter and a lot of footnotes that update the book's information with newer data, which lend it fresh context. 

This book of essays was nominated for the Crossword book prize in the non-fiction category when it first came out, and had a bunch of mostly good reviews when it first came out. It attempts to tell the story of our country in our times, with brief dips and detours into banditry, caste crimes, gender violence, displacement, hunger and malnourishment, faith and identity. All of these are, as I have learnt over the years, interlinked processes. I urge you to buy and read the book. 

Review links from 2010: 

"Annie Zaidi’s collection of essays, Known Turf, is arresting and unforgettable; about realities we prefer didn’t exist. Starvation deaths, female infanticide and communal intolerance step out of the anonymity of statistics to become people like us. They remind us of our defence mechanisms in the face of horror and sorrow; our efforts to stay sane and functional" - Karthika Nair in Tehelka

"Known Turf is a wonderfully engaging example of a puzzling trend in contemporary Indian writing in English. Despite the hype surrounding the novels-with-large-advances, the best writing today is happening in non-fiction." Alok Rai in Outlook

"Tragic and tender and brutal and funny." Known Turf covers a lot of turf.

"At its best, the book combines a reporter’s on-the-spot perception and a writer’s reflection and language to etch interesting, nuanced portraits of that half-mythical being in the throes of constant change: contemporary India. Known Turf is definitely worth reading, and not just for the sake of Gabbar Singh." Tabish Khair in Mint

"...anyone who has braved the railways without a confirmed reservation will get cathartic pleasure reading Zaidi’s graphic account of sitting on the corner of a seat, at a 45 degrees angle, with an RAC (Reservation against cancellation) ticket in a train to Lucknow" Alpana Chowdhury in DNA

"A book like this, written by someone who may once have been just as sheltered as they were, will resonate with Generation iPad in a way that a more world-weary account would bypass entirely." Manjula Padmanabhan in Outlook Traveller

"It’s a rare look into the lives of dacoits minus caricature.  Zaidi’s writing attempts to evoke an understanding of their reality." The Reporter and her Beat in Civil Society

"Among all the issues that Zaidi touches on, I find molestation to be the most moving. Though she puts in a lot of information on the other subjects she chooses, the whole force of her personality comes into play only when she starts speaking of molestation and eve teasing." From here

More reviews here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Sad Stories You are Old Enough to Hear

Eight years ago, I had my first essay accepted in the Griffith Review. 'Embodying Venus' was a meditation on women's bodies and (un)covering and the politics around it. There were a few more pieces in the journal since: 'Golden Girls' about the rise of young female wrestlers in India, 'Dangerous Little Things' about the significance of student politics, and a short story about ideological wars on Twitter, 'Cows Come Home'.

This year, again, I have a piece in their newest edition, Creation Stories. It is written in the form of a letter to a beloved young person who is growing up in fraught times: Sad Stories You are Old Enough to Hear

Dear A, 

The other day, I told you to stay out of it when two adults were talking about something serious. I saw your face, startled perhaps that this should come from me. I regretted it at once, partly because you are not a child. You are what we call ‘young adult’ in the world of literary endeavour and a young adult must be allowed into adult conversations. I know that my concerns may not be yours and perhaps even your sense of identity is not the same as mine. Perhaps you will be content to define yourself through pronouns or talent and no other struggle will be necessary. Still, we share blood, history and a love of stories, and I want to tell you some true stories today. Destabilising stories that offer neither resolution nor catharsis. Stories that go on, like an underground railroad loop inside your head. Stories that may explain the prickly, fragmented being you sometimes catch a glimpse of, before I clumsily gather myself. You will not remember it, but there’s a fragment of me permanently embedded on a railway platform in Mumbai...

The whole piece is behind a paywall but do read it here: https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/sad-stories-you-are-old-enough-to-hear/?fbclid=IwAR2xV0B2_KcjkLdCvNQH2TT9yRNNS697-_Slrq2GwCd43R5RKtlTFlC64hI 

A review of Moyukh Chatterjee’s Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities

If a government is driven by the need to secure majority mandates, what incentives does it have to secure minority rights? In fact, if all institutions are ultimately answerable to majoritarian sentiments, if the creation of an unyielding majority is a constant political necessity, it stands to reason that the re-creation of minorities is also essential. Moyukh Chatterjee’s Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of Minorities addresses this question in direct and rather unsettling ways...

He argues that violence against minorities is not an exceptional event in the Global South, that it is essentially political violence – garbed as religious or ethnic violence – used to construct more or less permanent majorities and minorities. While this book focuses on India, it reminds us that modern Western states like the US and Canada were built on ‘the expulsion and subjugation of Indigenous and Black people’ and that contemporary violence against such racial minorities is ‘not a deviation from modernity but an integral aspect of the making of the modern nation-state itself.’ There is something foundational about antiminority violence and as postcolonial countries have developed into modern democracies, their respective pogroms and ethnic ‘conflicts’ have served to establish dominant racial or religious majorities as stable political majorities. 

Posing the question – ‘What can India tell us about the power of public violence against minorities to act as a catalyst for the creation of a permanent majority?’ – the author attempts to answer it through this book. His title – composing violence – is an attempt to understand ‘how violence persists, motivates, and animates social and political life beyond the scene of horror,’ and to move away from the idea that violence is ‘a breakdown, interruption, and exception,’ to instead describe it as ‘a constitutive force.’ This transformational quality of violence serves as a catalyst for turning Muslims in India into permanent minorities and ‘outsiders’. 

Read the full review here: https://thewire.in/books/book-review-majoritiarian-violence-moyak-chatterjee

 

A belated note of gratitude

I had intended to do this around the new year but better late than never. I have been thinking about unpaid labours of love, art and so on. Gender stuff aside, I have benefited from other people putting their work and their knowledge into the world for free. They do this via multiple platforms (many people make apps and other software and tech stuff available for free too) and in diverse media. I sometimes get tired of sitting and reading all the time, so the videos and podcasts and explainers made by strangers, friends and acquaintances have not merely enriched my life, but probably helped my physical and mental health, especially over the last three years. I am making a brief list of the ones that come to mind immediately. 

People who read aloud fiction and poetry: There's Jameel Gulrays and others at Katha Kathan, and also the Adbi Duniya YouTube channel. Some other narrators have read short fiction that I have heard on Audible and I'm grateful that at least some content is free. Rekhta and its videos bring poetry and fun discussions to me even though I haven't been able to attend. I have watched and enjoyed a lot of Hindi Kavita and Urdu Studio videos too, over the years. Am also grateful for people who organize litfests and music concerts and then share the videos later. So many recordings of shows held in the 1980s and early 90s are now popping up and some of them are a joy. Also people who share Hindi film songs from the 1950s and 60s.

People who do explainers of literary theories or texts: The University of Hyderabad has some stuff up on YouTube. Raja Masood also has some clear videos which help people who are either intimidated by or just totally new to literary theory. Even after you read an essay or book, you may struggle with its context and wonder why these ideas are significant. The videos offer conversational aid, sort of base tutorials, or online engagement for people who aren't getting enough of it within their institutions. I am not a fan of online instruction. However, many people find it impossible to continue formal education. Even those of us who return to education after a long gap, as I have, or those who have jobs but would like to improve their understanding of literature, psychology and gender, do benefit from such videos. 

So much thanks to YouTube, for talks from historians and watching musicians and dancers. I really like listening to Amit Varma's podcast Seen and the Unseen. It brings me closer to my community of writers, offers deep conversations with people I cannot meet or talk to in person. Also, a shoutout to Mariyam for her podcast, Main Bhi Muslim, and to heritagetimes.in, and more recently, Ruchika Sharma's Eye makeup and Itihas channel. 

Also, thank you to people who put up cooking recipe videos, sewing and knitting tutorials. And those who do how-to videos that help fix errors on heating systems, and how-to cut and sew dresses videos (I have successfully cut and stitched a shalwar during the pandemic by watching 3 different YouTube videos). And people who make memes (I am a top fan of Mad Mughal Memes). 

A note of gratitude to stand-up comics too. Many of them young people who have obvious grief lurking in the backdrop of their lives, and who put up at least some of their work on YouTube for free. They have been a much-needed source of laughter at the end of the day, and there must be millions  who look for levity in the midst of their gloom, but can't afford to buy tickets too often. 

I've also looked for, and found, audio recordings of several plays, some classic and some modern. Some cold reads that popped up during the pandemic. These have helped and continue to help.

I do buy a lot of books. I watch plays when I can. I do subscribe to Netflix and Prime and I do watch the comedy specials and the longer acts. I am hoping all these guys make their fair share of money. But there are many people who cannot afford the subscriptions or the comedy clubs, the tickets to readings, the samplers of literature that help them broaden their horizons. Those who offer to share the little they can afford to share by offering time,  know-how, insights for free, thank you. 

City of Incident: Reviews

"We are reminded that the author’s voice, shining through the telling, illuminating the prose, is what keeps the novel vital and alive. While binge-watching leaves us exhausted and glazed-eyed in the wake of a series, when we dive into the quiet, transformative pool of powerful prose, we emerge renewed."

- A review by Devapriya Roy in the Indian Express

"Sight and insight; every episode, and there are twelve interlinked ones, appears at first glance a stand-alone narrative even though the blurb advises us they are interlinked. But the interlinks are subtle and demand of the reader the embrace of that same cinematic gaze that defines the telling of this novel: the reader has to remember that a the plastic bag will reappear as a defining moment in the emotive core of other protagonists inhabiting this city whose own core is defined by the precincts of the railway line at one end and high rise apartments at the other. In between the skywalk on which the dispossessed make their homes as ladies in their clackety-clack heels pass by. For Zaidi, this contrasting scene of poverty and middling affluence is not the site for social realism, breast-beating about the iniquities that plague the city. They are the locations of illusions, of yearnings, and glimmers of redemption from love denied or a life despised."

- A review by Ashoak Upadhyay in The Beacon

"Haruki Murakami once asked, “Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves.” Zaidi posits a painful answer to this question, unflinchingly marking the social divisions that proliferate her web.

Some of these social markers inevitably crisscross – like gender complicating class relations. Zaidi also pays attention to how these divisions are uniquely manifested in the space of a city, which is as merciful as alienating in its bequeathal of anonymity."

- A review of City of Incident by Gayathri Shankar in Scroll.in

"This sense of something just beyond — something nameless that is tantalisingly within one’s grasp, but recedes as soon as one stretches out a hand to it — unites Zaidi’s characters, all of whom labour under different forms of constraint: everyday constraints imposed by class, patriarchy, age."

- A review by Gautam Bhatia in The Hindu

"City of Incident captures the aspirations and losses of a bunch of people irrespective of their socio-economic status—there’s a trinket seller, a bank employee, a policeman, a security guard, etcetera. Most of them are unhappy in their own ways, some more than the other. As an author, Zaidi doesn’t provide her characters with many dialogues. She sets the stage simply by establishing the scene and ruminates on the peripheries that carry it forward."

- A review by Karthik Keramalu in Open magazine

"This is where people meet; this is where they fall in love and this is where they settle down. Those riding its trains, buses and ferries have their dreams too, though mostly unfulfilled. That is a given. But one cannot brush them aside or push them under the mildewing carpet of memory."

- A review by Ganesh Saili in The New Indian Express

"The narration is lively and attractive. The story is not to delve deeper into the lives but to understand the merging of the city, its color, and the people’s psyches."

- A review by Swapna Peri in Storizen

"Short sketches are meant to be packed with detail, not a word out of place, and this is exactly the vividness that characterises this collection. And yet there is a sense of universality about the sketches as the reader will instantly recognise such characters in their lives too. The empathy with which she writes is at the heart and soul of every story. The stories linger with the reader after the book is closed."

- A review by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose 

"A diverse cast of characters — a cop, a bank teller, a security guard, a fragile woman having an affair, her lover, his ex-wife… — show up and, one by one, reveal parts of themselves: their thoughts, their observations, how other people see them, how they see other people, a significant life-altering incident. The local train runs in the backdrop."

- A review by Saudamini Jain in HT

Other reviews on Goodreads: 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60123555-city-of-incident---a-novel-in-twelve-parts?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=9JILgnWEtR&rank=1

More reviews on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.in/City-Incident-Novel-Twelve-Parts/dp/939065212X 

Meta gaslighting

I've written recently about my struggles with Facebook, its 'security' viz logins, and it restricting me from commenting on posts. Over the last week, I have been carefully trying out the identity-confirmation-via-comments option. It is confusing, disorienting and as one of my friends here pointed out, rather creepy. Even so, the option does not work and the gaslighting has reached 'meta' proportions. Even when I choose my own comments, FB/Meta insists that I am wrong.

I attach below a sample (took screenshots finally, though this has happened for three days consecutively). I have clicked only my own comments; the rest are either not mine at all or at least not made in recent months. The 4 options I clicked were the correct ones, but... So, clearly this is either some major glitch, or Meta is getting into the business of convincing me that I did not say what I did, or said things which I didn't.

Now I am torn between saying that I am going to go off FB altogether and fighting this nonsense. At any rate, there's no way of getting away from it unless I also quit WhatsApp. It's going to be tough. Just putting this out there for the record. 

Strange little security problems

Something odd has been happening with Facebook/Meta for me. Since I've not given FB permission to take all 'cookies', and since I do not accept the prompt asking me for permission to use my display picture instead of my password, it has been putting me through a 3-step login security process. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind the extra security, but this has been disconcerting lately. First, I sometimes find that the security code shows up as wrongly. Second, I keep getting the message that this 'device' is not recognized, no matter how many times I log into the same device, and clear 'security'. 

Third, and most disconcertingly, I am offered the option of clearing security by identifying my own recent comments. A few times, I do so successfully. More often, FB informs me that my choices are incorrect even when I can swear those are the only correct choices possible. Worse, this has the effect similar to cognitive dissonance: I see a generic comment like 'many happy returns' and sure, that could be mine, but also, maybe not? Did I, or did I not, remember to wish a particular FB friend this year? It makes me very uncomfortable too, seeing comments made by other people on the walls of mutual friends, people I don't know and whose comments I would not otherwise have read.

A fourth reason I have been annoyed is that FB keeps telling me that my access is restricted when I try to comment. I am then prompted to click 'disagree with decision', which I do. I am also encouraged to go figure out why this is happening, but when I go to the relevant page, I see 'no violations'. There is no explanation for why my reach or access should be restricted when there are no violations. There is no clear and easy way of figuring out why these things happen, and I am getting very sick of 'disagreeing with decision' each time I have to say congratulations, or happy new year, or even respond to someone's comment on my own page.

I know, logically and through reading investigative news reports, that we users of social media have very little control over what we see, or how it impacts us. Knowing doesn't make it less distressing. We have all noticed already that posts involving links, or things that are shared, get little or no traction. The whole point of being on social media is that you get to share stuff that matters to you. Photos matter little to me, sharing ideas, articles, etc matter a lot. So this limited reach for 'links' is doubly infuriating. 

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that, if my reach is further restricted, please know that I have not violated anything. Or, if I decide to deactivate the account myself, as I have done before, don't be too surprised. I have zero desire to live in the metaverse and a sub-zero desire to embed fb/meta deeper into my life.

I do maintain this blog/site, and while it is no longer so active, I shall be making more of an effort to keep it updated viz my work.

On truth, post-truth and checks on truth

 Ankhon dekhi, a Hindi phrase referring to an event that one has personally witnessed, was adopted as the title for a 2013 film where Bauji, the middle-aged protagonist, realises that there is a great gulf between what he was told about his daughter’s suitor and what he sees with his own eyes. Henceforth, Bauji refuses to believe anything he has not personally witnessed. He loses his job at a travel agency for he cannot reassure customers that a flight does, in fact, go to its intended destination. He refuses to believe that lions roar until he has heard one roaring.

This tragi-comic film is predicated on the practical limits of an individual quest for truth. Society delegates this task to reliable agents: journalists, investigators, and increasingly, recording devices. In the 21st century, however, we find that not only are our human narrators unreliable, we cannot even trust the evidence of devices. Images, video and audio clips are new tools for discombobulation. Take an old video, ascribe to it a new location, and voila! Falsehood emerges, harder and more resilient than truth. 

India is one of the world’s more misinformation prone nations. A 2017 study of Indian news consumers showed that nearly 83% of respondents were concerned about fake news, and 72% of them found it hard to distinguish between truth and disinformation. In 2019, Microsoft’s Digital Civility Index showed that the likelihood of Indians encountering misinformation was 7 points higher than the average in the surveyed 22 nations. That was in a year the Economic Times termed “the year of fake news.” But 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic, pushed the disinformation stakes higher. There was a spurt in fake news that had already been debunked.

According to a Lokniti-CSDS survey in 2017, over half of the respondents said they trusted newspapers and television news channels, compared with only 29% who said they trusted information received through WhatsApp or Facebook. This was despite the fact that cheaper data and higher Internet penetration have translated into at least 400 million users of WhatsApp in India, which has a population of nearly 1.4 billion. Another report, focused on urban India, found that print news leads in the Media Credibility Index, while the CVOTER Media Consumption survey of 2020 also suggests that newspapers are perceived as more credible than TV or digital media.

The relatively higher degree of public trust in traditional news media represents a double bind. On the one hand, people are more aware that the information they confront on social media is not necessarily credible. On the other hand, they are more vulnerable to disinformation if it arrives by way of TV channels and newspapers.

And it does arrive...

Read the full essay here: https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/ruptured-reality-fact-checks-and-counter-checks-truth-trade