Flotsam & Jetsam: July 2008

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Earthsync Laya Project

This weekend saw a remarkable documentary on National Geographic Channel called
Earthsync :The Laya Project. Was absolutely blown away by it, if you missed it make sure that you catch it on the repeat if not then you can buy the DVD on line its something worth listening to..

Laya Project's musicians are the people of coastal and surrounding communities in the 2004 tsunami affected regions of Sri Lanka,Thailand, Indonesia, Maldives,Myanmar and India.

The production is based on regional folk music traditions, recorded and brought back to the studio to create a composition that mixes and
enhances the original recordings,and embarks on a visual and musical journey crossing borders,while preserving the music of the people.
Some of these performances are rare, and are documented for the first time in this production.
For the international team who came together for this production, Laya Project is a personal and collective tribute to the resilience of
the human spirit, and is dedicated to the survivors of the 26th December 2004 Asian tsunami.

The Laya Project Website
Earthsync Website
Picassa Web Album Earthsync
Earthsync's Channel on YouTube

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Ugly Duckling from Revenge Ink.

I recently came across this book and I must say I really liked the way she writes.

At last some Indian Authors who are willing to be bold and add a much needed raw edge

Ugly Duckling by Amita Mukerjee
Naïve young Indian-American Mia Makarand is in Paris trying to start a career in translation and interpretation. But finding work is hard and she’s feeling lonely and isolated.
Worse yet, her dream of becoming a writer looks like it’s dead in the water. But Mia is tougher than she thinks. And her sharp eye and caustic wit are helping her to see that success and happiness are important, but nowhere near as valuable as self-respect and that little thing called dignity.

Amita is a former translator and interpreter, now writer, entrepreneur and publisher. She wants not to write (or publish) polite novels that perpetuate crumbling Victorian notions about women not enjoying power, sex or intelligence. She wants not to have anything to do with high-poetic writing that smacks of lazy summer afternoons and all the lyrical claptrap that goes with poor little rich girls complaining about the woes of womanhood. Amita wants to write hard, funny, vituperous fiction in stark opposition to the moanings of a self-pitying undersex that has nothing but uteruses and patriarchy to complain about. Amita grew up in India, the United States and Britain. She has studied foreign and Indian languages, English literature, traditional Indian music and acting. She likes cooking but hates travel. She has always been an aggressive tomboyish rabble-rouser, developing entirely to her own detriment, an angry, subversive and pretentious attitude about women’s writing and women’s struggles in the third world that she carries with her to this day. She often writes about her former profession and how hard it is to be angry while owning a snatch. We hope you enjoy her books.

In March 2008, Revenge Ink launched a contest in India to prove that the subcontinent can produce genuinely interesting contemporary and original fiction. Winners were announced in June at a function at the BCL Mumbai.
It’s abundantly clear that Indian fiction goes way beyond a cliched pandering to the West’s insatiable appetite for squalid narratives of caste and gender oppression set in exotic beach-front locales.

http://www.revengeink.com/who.htm