Resource available: Urdu poetry performed on cassette

[Jim Wilce]

I'm forwarding this message to the list on behalf of Maggie Ronkin who is
doing her dissertation fieldwork in Pakistan.  The cassette is available in
the U.S.

>
>A Cassette Recording of Modern Urdu Poetry/Bypassing the Mechanisms of
>Censorship in Pakistan
>
>Mitti Ka Khuda: Asher Mahmood ke sath ek mehfil-e-nazm (Audio Cassette)
>Cabeiri deBergh Robinson, Cornell University (Editor & Producer)
>
>The forthcoming publication of Asher Mahmood's first collection of poetry,
>Mitti ka Khuda, was first announced in literary journals and newspapers in
>1997. Various Pakistani publishing houses offered to
>publish this collection provided Asher remove several poems that have
>religious, political, or sexual implications that they anticipated might be
>found objectionable and incur government censure. Asher refused to release
>his collection without these poems and the collection therefore remained
>unpublished. Changes in the cultural economy of the Urdu literary world have
>led to a growing dependance on print media in the last decades.
>Correspondingly, increasing state control over print and electronic media in
>Pakistan has effectively mixed political expediency with artistic
>considerations and independent publishers in Pakistan have increasingly
>become the front line of (unofficial) government censorship.
>
>I wanted to support Asher's efforts to publish his collection and to fulfill
>what he sees as his responsibility to speak the truth about the society in
>which he lives. Asher is also a gifted young poet
>whose work speaks to and about contemporary Pakistani society while
>maintaining an aesthetic link to both modern Urdu poetic forms and Sufic
>poetic sensibilities. He draws on a subcontinental tradition
>of devotional poetry that transcends the political borders of modern South
>Asia. In short, his is a collection highly deserving of publication.
>
>I sought a form of publication that would permit the distribution of Asher's
>collected poetic work beyond the immediate and limited context of a
>particular poetry reading and also highlight the aesthetic
>and cultural context from which his poetry grows and about which it speaks.
>As one of the people who Asher requested review his collection as he
>prepared it for publication in 1996, I was well familiar with his work. I
>had also attended several musha'irahs (group poetry readings) in which he
>participated, and I have often noted that his poetry has an even stronger
>impact in oral presentation than in written form because of his sensitivity
>for the inherent musical qualities of words. In Pakistan, a continuing
>vibrant culture of musha'irahs is still the foundation of local literary
>communities, and participation in such readings is the basis of entrance
>into the literary circles within which a young writer develops a mature
>literary sensibility. I decided that a cassette recording of Asher reading
>his poetry would be an excellent way to both publish his collection and
>highlight its aural qualities.
>
>The most aesthetically successful publications are those in which the artist
>maintains ultimate control over the composition and production of his or her
>work and thus I worked closely with Asher Mahmood throughout the conceptual
>and production stages of this recording. The cassette was professionally
>recorded at The Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Foundation in a live reading setting.
>
>We invited a group of local poets well acquainted with Asher's work to a
>sound studio for a live recording of this mehfil-e-nazm. Accompanying it is
>a brochure in English that explains the political and artistic impetus
>behind the project and provides an introduction to Asher Mahmood who,
>despite his young age, already has a strong reputation in Pakistani literary
>circles for the quality of his poetry and his activities as the independent
>publisher of the monthly "Literary News".
>
>This cassette was released in the US and Europe in October 1999 and in
>Pakistan on December 5, 1999. The decision to release the cassette overseas
>was taken in the light of Asher's experience, as an
>editor and journalist, of unofficial censorship in Pakistan in which
>semi-independent institutions act to impede the production and release of
>information in such a way as to make legal remedy in the courts irrelevant.
>By distributing the cassette overseas in the South Asia diaspora and widely
>publicizing its release in Pakistan, we sought to create an environment in
>which any criticism had to be made openly and to which we would have a
>chance to respond. The cassette has received extremely positive critical
>response from the Urdu literary community in Pakistan, India, and the South
>Asian diaspora.
>
>We are distributing the cassette directly and independently because
>distributers, as publishers, have felt unable to assume the responsibility
>of distributing the material. Income from the sale of the cassette goes
>directly to Asher Mahmood to support his continued literary endevors. The
>cassette is accompanied by a pamphlet that introduces Asher's work and the
>political and artistic impetus behind this project.
>
>Thank you for your support.
>
>To order the cassette:
>
>Cassette Cost: $8.00/cassette
>Shipping & Handling: $2.00/cassette
>$1.75/ cassette for 3 or more
>
>Send Order Request and Payment to:
>Dr. Grace Clark
>5511 Roland Avenue
>Baltimore, MD 21210
>USA
>
>Make Checks or Postal Money Order Payable to:
>Cabeiri Robinson
>("Mitti ka Khuda" in subject line)
>Cabeiri deBergh Robinson
>PhD Candidate
>Department of Anthropology
>265 McGraw Hall
>Cornell University
>Ithaca, NY 14853
>USA
>______________________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
Jim Wilce, Associate Professor
Anthropology Department
Box 15200
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200

fax 520/523-9135
office ph. 520/523-2729
email jim.wilce at nau.edu
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22/ (includes information on my 1998 book,
Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural
Bangladesh, ISBN 0-19-510687-3)
http://www.nau.edu/asian