My favorite festival with a faux-Muslim name starts in just a week. SALTAF, the South Asian Literary and Theatre Arts Festival, will indulge your culture-vulture proclivities in D.C. this October 1st weekend (thanks, Pooja). It sounds remarkably highbrow for a NetSAP/NetIP event.
The list of numinaries includes poet filmmaker Deepa Mehta, Vijay Seshadri, Nadeem Aslam (Maps for Lost Lovers), Anita Desai, M.G. Vassanji (Toronto South Asian Review and my fave title ever, Amriika) and Shyam Selvadurai. With that literati-centric lineup, maybe they should just name it SAJA Delhi and call it a day 
This documentary on the parallels between kathak and flamenco looks interesting:
Firedance by Vishnu Mathur
Two renowned Toronto performers… each [tell how]… Kathak and flamenco shared an ancient history. Soon they started working together… Joanna and Esmeralda demonstrate in the documentary how similar the foot and hand movements of these two dance forms are – and they trace the evolution of the differences that came about in the course of time; Flamenco using shoes for sound and subtle nuance, Kathak bells and bare feet for its rhythmic expressions.
Here’s the festival schedule.
It’s interesting to see that while there are many Indian sponsors (Indian Embassy, TATA etc) for this event and some American/SriLankan sponsors, one does not see any Pakistani, Bangadeshi sponsors for this “South Asian” event, which has as its chairperson a Pakistani – Lubna Naseem. Even their 2004 festival had Indian and American sponsors, but no Pak/Bangla sponsors.
Despite this, Pak/Bangla “culture” is represented adequately in these events.
In Wall Street, we would call this Low ROI(Return on Investment). In main-street, it’s called a Sellout. In Hindi it’s “Dil Apna our Preet Paraya”.
M. Nam
Have to disagree with you; not having non-Indian, South Asian sponsors doesn’t mean the organizers have somehow ‘sold out.’ Without knowing which sponsors were approached, and which ones agreed to be sponsors (or even responded to invitations for sponsorship), we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this is a South Asian event in name only, based only on the types of sponsors they got. There’s usually more to the story than what we see on the surface, no?
Moornam’s not saying SALTAF is insufficiently South Asian, he’s saying its too South Asian. He’s suggesting that SALTAF is insufficiently Indian, and has to many damn Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and thus the Indian sponsors are getting a “low ROI”.
Underlying this is a view that Indians should never sponsor/support anything that involves Pakistanis, as this is being a ‘sellout’.
Note that the line-up is extremely heavy on Canadians as well (Vasanji, Selvadurai, Mehta), but there are no Canadian sponsors — so by ‘MoorNam’s law’, Americans who attend are also ‘sell outs’. Don’t you feel ashamed?
(On the actual list of Sponsors, the only Indian group is the embassy of India. The rest appear to be American. But on a blog, you should never never let facts get in the way of an argument).
Apologies to Moornam — Tata is inded an Indian sponsor. And a sellout against the hono(u)r of the proud Indian Nation by supporting a disproportionately Pakistani event.
All of you Indian attendees must repent by — I dunno, doing something really patriotic like watching Sunny Deol’s ‘Border’. American attendees must repent by refighting the war of 1812 — maybe this time you’ll win.
Ikram: “Moornam’s not saying SALTAF is insufficiently South Asian, he’s saying its too South Asian. He’s suggesting that SALTAF is insufficiently Indian, and has to many damn Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, and thus the Indian sponsors are getting a “low ROI”.”
To be honest, I had read Moornam’s comment to be questioning why only or primarily Indian sponsors are on the “South Asian” bandwagon, i.e. where is the Pakistani and Bangladeshi commitment to a “South Asian” platform? Perhaps I am wrong, and should just let Moornam explain…
Umair: To be honest, I had read Moornam’s comment to be questioning why only or primarily Indian sponsors are on the “South Asian” bandwagon, i.e. where is the Pakistani and Bangladeshi commitment to a “South Asian” platform?
I read it the same way. In fact, its a good question for all ardent “South Asianists”(and there are alot here). How much do Bangladeshis and Pakistanis contribute to “South Asian” institution-building? Do the Pakistani and Bangladeshi embassies co-sponsor such events?
Would love to know.
Get that chip off your shoulder Ikram
Mark/Umair,
You got me right.
M. Nam
Good lord, people. I’m one of the organizers, and an ex-President of NetSAP, so I think I’m qualified to speak here.
Timepass got it right. Get off the assumption bandwagon for just a minute and stop implying that the organizers have complete control over who sponsors the event. Money is hard to come by, and authors take convincing. We strive really hard to have a good mix, but people are people. One rather renknowned author with exactly one book under his belt asked for a rather hefty fee (to the tune of $7500…sorry, we’re a non-profit, and we don’t offer honoraria). Others have tight schedules, conflicting book tours, movie releases, protests, you name it. And the sponsors? We take money from anyone that can support us without conflicting with NetSAP’s 501(c)3 status, and that means we get a lot of in-kind sponsorship, and not a lot of money.
The event, by the way, costs upwards of $20,000 a year to put on. We strive to break even; if we ever make a profit, it’s very modest (a few hundred dollars, at best) and it all goes back into the organization.
Hopefully, this portrays a more accurate picture of how hard it is to organize. Lubna, Shalini, and the rest of the organizing committee do a fantastic job, spending many many many hours a week, and they never make a penny off any of it. Give them props, tell people about the event, but for heaven’s sake, no bitching. We like keeping our morale up, ok?
And I tried to ignore Manish’s offhand comment about “remarkably highbrow” NetSAP events, but I feel compelled to say something.
A NetSAP event is only as high- or low-brow as the people involved in organizing it.
I’d like to point out that not a lot of people bother to get involved in the organization, while quite a few seem willing to critique from the sidelines.
M. Nam,
Whats funny about this entire discussion you sparked is your ASSumption that a muslim name (Lubna Naseem) denotes that she’s a Pakistani.
She is, in fact, an Indian who is a muslim, one of many that exist in this world. Nice ASSumption, mate. She and the rest of the volunteers worked their asses off and put on a great event. Everyone walked away culturally enriched. Maybe you did too and you hopefully learned in that time that there are Indians that are muslims as well as hindus.
Happened to stumble on this blog…Just wanted to reiterate that Lubna Naseem is a Muslim Indian and also I know first hand (as an organizer) that the Pakistani embassy refused to help with the festival. M Nam is truly ignorant.
I guess this is not warranted here, but just thought that I would make a ‘clarion call’ or rather a queston as to is this ‘Moornam’ character still alive and kicking or what, do not see any write up from him lately ?!!