The interview has been paraphrased and condensed for clarity, at the interviewers discretion. Part of this learning was also why photographer Asim Rafiqui and I created the free UN/DO Photography workshops to think about image-making in relationship to power. That, perhaps, is the only way to avoid further destruction in the region. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, GQ, The Boston Review, The Hindu, and Foreign Policy, and she has appeared on NBC news. Suchitra Vijayan is the executive director of the Polis Project. She is the founder and executive director of The Polis Project, and the author of Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, recently published by Context, Westland. We must realise that its the grassroots media, who represent themselves, document what mainstream media ignores, and bring to notice what is important. Also read: Book Review: Looking Through Dalit Sahitya And Ambedkar. Many TV newsrooms were transformed into caricatures of military command centers, with anchors assessing military technology and strategy (sometimes incorrectly). Do you think the future is borderless? Vijayan began her journey in Kolkata. Each of these subscription programs along with tax-deductible donations made to The Rumpus through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, helps keep us going and brings us closer to sustainability. Its impossible for a writer not to be affected by their personal life. At worst, its navel gazing peppered with white guilt, but always politically vacuous. I spoke with Suchitra by email in July about Midnights Borders, the power of literary nonfiction, new possibilities of Indian American literature, neoliberal politics, and the importance of supporting underrepresented stories. Panitars division is as cruel as it is arbitrary: here, the houses on either side of one dusty lane occupy two neighbouring countries. How do you think the media ought to responsibly report on peoples lives and experiences? You need a community of people to support you. This Life Draws Attention to Life Behind Bars and the Transcendent Power of Rap, Wrestling with Reality in The Big Door Prize. The images, however, are not all bereft of hope, as children from both India and Bangladesh use a border pillar as a cricket stump, while men on opposing sides of the war on terror in Afghanistan gather around in a cold evening, smoking and sharing stories. It took me 8 years to write the book. Last edited on 23 February 2023, at 09:35, Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer Telugu, 2nd South Indian International Movie Awards, "Suchitra going through certain emotional condition: Husband Karthik on her tweets", "Will Trisha sound like Trisha in Mankatha? The result is a gripping, urgent dispatch from a modern India in crisis, and the full and vivid portrait of the country weve long been missing. Suchitra Vijayan. In this stunning work of narrative reportagefeaturing over 40 original photographswe hear from those whose stories are never told: from children playing a cricket match in no-mans-land, to an elderly man living in complete darkness after sealing off his home from the floodlit border; from a woman who fought to keep a military bunker off of her land, to those living abroad who can no longer find their family history in India. Suchitra was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, as the daughter of Ramadurai and Padmaja. Born and raised in Madras, India, she is the author of the critically acclaimed book Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India (Melville House, New York). document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. Husain Haqqani: Pakistan released the Indian pilot. In her15,000-kilometre journey, spread over seven years, Vijayan mulls over the meaning of freedom, belongingness in a land of imagined communities, created by territorial demarcations. Thoughbordersare conventionally recognised as real or artificial lines of spatial and political demarcation, there may also be an arbitrariness to them. A memorable, humane museum of forgotten stories that we must all read and remember. M, What experiences and lives unfold in these pages. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. A: This geopolitical violence is not new, theres a long bloody, brutal history to thisa cyclical, ongoing and never-ending history. Why dont people see the ground shifting beneath their feet? And this is always at the expense of others. That capacity to be able to go away and then come back profoundly affects how you write because then you are still rooted. Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA from PSG Institute of Management. The two officers who avert the attack narrowly escape death but are left with broken bodies and broken lives. Worse, we have been disciplined to accept injustice and inequality as given. In Midnight's Borders (Westland Publications, 2021), author and photographer Suchitra Vijayan travels the 9,000 miles of India's borders to understand what Partition did to individual lives and . More Buying Choices 1,732.00 (16 Used & New offers) Audible Audiobook 0.00 Free with Audible trial 586.00 ( 9 ) In 1971, East Pakistan seceded and became Bangladesh. Vijayan creates a constellation of micro-histories of people who have lived through the violence . But for me hope is radical; hope is the last bastion of our defense. Already a subscriber? Its an immense privilege to be able to write and be published. She responded to an ad for the post of an RJ in Radio Mirchi. For instance, if you went to school with, say, Indias most powerful publisher, or your dad plays golf or socialised at the Gymkhana with the politically powerful and the culturally influential, then that system is built to get you the resources. Rumpus: Toni Morrison said that she writes from a place of delight, not disappointment. Also read: Examining My Caste And Its History Is Eye-Opening: A Personal Essay On Casteism And Ancestry. She was part of a music band at PSG. That was my starting point. Now, border security policies are linked to domestic politics. Nine years ago, she began documenting stories from her travels along the borders of India. More from this author , Tags: Aruni Kashyap, Asian American, bollywood, Brahmanism, caste system, democracy, Hindu, Hinduism, Hinduphobia, Hindutva, immigrants, immigration, India, Indian American, Indian American literature, Leni Riefenstahl, Midnight's Borders, Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India, model minority, Modi, Narendra Damodardas Modi, Narendra Modi, neoliberalism, photographs, photography, Polis Project, Politics, Priyanka Chopra, south asian, South Asian American, South Asian diaspora, Stan Swamy, Suchitra Vijayan, travel writing, Filed Under: Features & Reviews, Rumpus Original. Rumpus: The book utilizes more than one medium: photography, narrative nonfiction, journalism. Ten years later, you were in Kashmir, where you 'hoped to find answers' by talking to a family that had lost a son. Fear seems to be a constant motif in the book we see versions and types of it. Photograph of Suchitra Vijayan courtesy of Suchitra Vijayan. A: This is a very loaded question. All rights reserved. India has consistently warred against its own citizens; this book is about some of these wars. Suchitra was married to actor Karthik Kumar between 2005 and 2017. Its a hard book to name, and I kept going back and forth. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. They dont. 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Suchitra Vijayan. As a graduate student at Yale, she researched and documented stories along the Af-Pak border and was embedded with the US forces in Afghanistan. I believe it can teach us to ask these questions again. In retaliation, the Indian Air Force carried out an airstrike on an alleged militant training camp in Balakot in Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The world we know is already being remade in ways we cant fathom. One of the ways she upholds the humane in this book is through her interaction with the men in the security forces. We play an ever more important role in these times when there is a fascist authoritarian regime in India and a deeply racist police state in the US. Thats part of the political imagination that I believe we need for political movements or any sustained acts of resistance. Q: As you wrote this book, you dont hesitate to meditate on how your personal life bidirectionally impacted the book. Vijayan is no stranger to stories of violence. When your investigations in Kashmir came to an end, what changes did you observe in your 'grammar of dissent'? How "The Family Man" champions the carceral security state. The pandemic showed us that crises and recurrent disasters that annihilate our lives are here to stay. Its not sustainable, it fractures who we are, chips away and erodes what it fundamentally means to be human. I cant think in terms of the future being borderless, I can only think in terms of fracturing. There are already about 20 million climate refugees around South Asias borderlands. I had to cut those out, as my editor felt this might not work. History and memory is localwhich means its almost impossible to write about India. After being detained at one of the checkpoints for over two hours, I made my way to one of the villages closest to the Line of Control. In recent years, the narrative of hate has escalated with the reelection of the right-wing Narendra Modi government in 2019. Midnight's Borders by Suchitra Vijayan. Why the Modi government lies. According to a new World Health Organization report, we lost as many as 4.7 million people in India. I think its the other way round, these communities have always been speaking, writing, documenting, teachingwe must simply listen rather than represent them in any way. I kept detailed audio notes that I recorded each night when I traveled. This is a challenging task for the writer. Excerpts from the #BBC documentary telecast about PM . She sang her first song for the movie, Lesa Lesa under the composition of Harris Jayaraj and her co-singer was the legendary, K. S. Chitra. News organizations such as India Today, NDTV, News 18, the Indian Express, First Post, Mumbai Mirror, ANI and others routinely attributed their information to anonymous government sources, forensic experts, police officers and intelligence officers. No independent investigations were conducted, and serious questions about intelligence failures were left unanswered. Without a political solution, Kashmir will undoubtedly emerge in upcoming news cycles. Rumpus: Were you trying to write a hybrid-genre book? Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. In the same chapter of the book, Kamal says, "If I am an Indian, then why am I afraid?" She has a sister named, Sunitha. There is also a lot of deep-seated misogyny, casteism, and anti-Black racism in our communities that need to be addressed. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, and the longing for a better future. I wrote a book along with it comes love, scorn, and sometimes even ridicule. The black and white pictures accompanying the chapters add a thousand words more. The credit goes to my agent Lucy Cleland who suggested this title. British India was partitioned into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the eve of independence in August, 1947. I dont have apprehensions. FII Media Private Limited | All rights reserved, "Imagine how it would be for someone coming from a Dalit/Bahujan, Muslim, Adivasi, working class background, who wants to come into thisit is especially difficult if youre a woman coming from these backgrounds. March 20, 2021 09:50:40 IST. Through these real histories of the people, she gives readers another perspective on old wounds like Partition and new divisionary tactics like the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Suchitra Vijayan is a writer, photographer, lawyer, political essayist, and a lecturer. Suchitra Vijayan. The show deals with interesting international happenings. Its a vicious cycle. Legislations such as National Register of Citizens and Citizenship Amendment Act threaten to render millions of people, especially Muslims, stateless. But, more importantly, I wanted my readers to walk away with a sense of empathy. The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, Supreme Court forms expert panel to probe any regulatory failure on Adani issue, India makes renewed push for consensus at G20 Foreign Ministers meeting, Hindenburg Research report on Adani Group | Supreme Court verdict on expert committee on March 2, High debt on Vedanta books puts investors on tenterhooks, Employees Provident Fund: How to activate UAN online, 1947: Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act passed, RMA 0-1 FCB, El Clasico highlights: Barcelona leads on aggregate after beating Real Madrid courtesy of a Militao own goal.