Vaani

I Would Like to Be a Dot in a Painting by Miro

vaani — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:39:00 +0000

I would like to be a dot in a painting by Miro.

Barely distinguishable from other dots,

it’s true, but quite uniquely placed.

And from my dark centre

I’d survey the beauty of the linescape

and wonder — would it be worthwhile

to roll myself towards the lemon stripe,

Centrally poised, and push my curves

against its edge, to give myself

a little attention?

But it’s fine where I am.

I’ll never make out what’s going on

around me, and that’s the joy of it.

The fact that I’m not a perfect circle

makes me more interesting in this world.

People will stare forever –

Even the most unemotional get excited.

So here I am, on the edge of animation,

a dream, a dance,a fantastic construction,

A child’s adventure.

And nothing in this tawny sky

can get too close, or move too far away.

Moniza Alvi

Dr. Jung Chang

vaani — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:22:00 +0000

“I remember when my mother pointed to a stone, and she said this was the kind of stone people used to place on the feet of the baby girls to stop them trying to climb away and unbind their feet.” This is one of the famous quotes by Dr. Jung Chang born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China in 1952, now a British woman writer.

Dr. Jung Chang is the author of the best-selling books:

1. Wild Swans 2003 - 562 pages – Three Daughters of China, which has been said to be the most read book about China.

Chang paints a vivid portrait of the political and military turmoil of China in this period, from the marriage of her grandmother to a warlord, to her mother’s experience of Japanese-occupied Jinzhou during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and her own experience of the effects of Mao’s policies of the 1950s and 1960s.

2. Mao: The Unknown Story (co-written with husband Jon Halliday) 2005 - 814 pages

3. Romance of the Three Kingdoms: San Guo Yan Yi – 1995 – 174 pages

All the books have been translated into more than 30 languages, and together sold some 15 million copies.

She is inspired by her father who was deeply interested in literature. She quickly developed a love of reading and writing, composing poetry as a child. Mao’s extremist policies and projects eventually lead her parents who were working as high-ranking officers, to oppose him. They were targeted during the Cultural Revolution and were publicly humiliated as ink was poured over their heads and they were forced to wear placards denouncing them around their necks, kneel in gravel and to stand outside in the rain, followed by imprisonment, her father’s treatment leading to lasting physical and mental illness. Their careers were destroyed, and her family was forced to leave their home.

The disruption of the university system in China lead Chang to spend several years as a peasant, a barefoot doctor, a steelworker and an electrician, though she received no formal training because of Mao’s policy, which did not require formal instruction as a prerequisite for such work.

The universities were eventually re-opened and she gained a place at Sichuan University to study English, later becoming an assistant lecturer there. After Mao’s death, she passed an exam that allowed her to study in the West, and her application to leave China was approved once her father was politically rehabilitated. She left China for Britain in 1978 and was awarded a scholarship by York University, where she obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 – the first person from the People’s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British University. She has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the Universities of Buckingham, York, Warwick and the Open University and Bowdoin College, USA.

Dr Jung Chang maintained her faith in Mao’s policies for a long time until she heard the news of her father’s death. His death in a way liberated her.

On the occasion of Mao’s death she wrote in her book that,

“The Chinese seemed to be mourning Mao in a heartfelt fashion. But I wondered how many of their tears were genuine. People had practiced acting to such a degree that they confused it with their true feelings. Weeping for Mao was perhaps just another programmed act in their programmed lives.”

Dr Jung Chang gives lectures and presentation in various events and Universities on China’s Cultural Revolution. A gifted storyteller, her presentations stimulate emotions and leave audiences reflecting upon her powerful and moving messages, taking them on a thoughtful and, at times, emotional journey. Kaz Ross of the University of Tasmania deemed Wild Swans to have been a forerunner of a new genre: “‘faction’ – history told by fictional narrative means.”

New Year Wishes!!

vaani — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:38:00 +0000

Here is wishing you A VERY VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Lets start the new year with firm resolutions and lots of laughter. Here are a few funny quotes for you to enjoy.

Mark Twain New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.  

Brooks Atkinson Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go.  

Bill Vaughan Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.  

P. J. O’Rourke The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year’s Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you’re married to.  

Jay Leno Now there are more overweight people in America than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average… which means, you have met your New Year’s resolution.  

James Agate New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.  

Eric Zorn Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.  

Bill Vaughan An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.  

Charles Lamb New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday.  

Oprah Winfrey Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.  

Mark Twain New Year’s Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.  

Judith Crist Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let’s just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that.  

Anonymous Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits.  

Joey Adams May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions!  

Anais Nin I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.  

Oscar Wilde Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.  Robert Paul I’m a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit rounder, but still none the wiser.  

Anonymous A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.  

Leonard Bernstein From New Year’s on the outlook brightens; good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining.  

G. K. Chesterton The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Lots of love and best wishes

Vaani

Rani Manicka

vaani — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:41:00 +0000

Rani Manicka was born and educated in Malaysia. She divides her time between Malaysia and the UK. Her first novel, “The Rice Mother,” won the South East Asia and South Pacific Region 2003 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, has been translated into 17 languages and gained international acclaim.

An economics graduate, Rani used to be a management trainee and after that had her stint in the restaurant trade; ‘a rather awful place where absolutely everyone will try to rip you off’ in her opinion before she began writing books. She reads Mario Puzo, Margaret Atwood, Anita Brookner, Anne Tyler, Martin Amis, and very recently Sarah Hall.

Rani is inspired by her grandmother. She believes that if she lived in our time, she would probably be running a Fortune 500 company. Rain’s mother is the core inspiration for whom she says that ‘My library was in my mother’s head.’ The dinnertime stories of her mother are the backbones of the stories of her novels. Her religious belief reflects her inner simplicity as well as the complexities of the characters that she portrays so deftly in her novels. She says that she is a hindu because her father is a hindu but she could very well be a muslim or a christian or bahai for that matter because she believes that there’s just one God.

About the characters in her novels she says that ‘All my characters are flawed often terribly so but I forgive them.’ Rani is a very modest person who doesn’t claim to be any better than everyone else. She is the kind of author who warns us of the darkness within her stories before reading them. And yes we find darkness but it also has the hidden shine that uplifts the humanity. Her novels are:

· The Rice Mother (2002) 

· Touching Earth (2004) 

· The Japanese Lover (2010) coming soon

There is very little material available on the web about her, so if you know more please write to us. Many Thanks.

Hong Ying

vaani — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:37:00 +0000

Hong Ying grew up in the slums of Chongquing on the Yangtze River in China. A bestselling author and poetess, she is best known in the English-speaking world for her novel, Summer of Betrayal, and an autobiography, Daughter of the River. Her collection of short stories, A Lipstick Called Red Pepper, has been translated into ten Western languages and Japanese.

Hong Ying was born in Chongquing in 1962 into a boat sailor’s family. She was the sixth child in a family of eight, and she endured great poverty and hunger as a child. She spent her childhood in the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution, which claimed the lives of tens of millions, including several of her relatives. Her mother had to work as a brick laborer to feed the family, while her father was too ill to work. She later discovered that she was in fact the illegitimate daughter of a lover her mother took, while her father was in prison. Growing up in a slum on the bank of the Yangtze River, in a neighborhood veiled in fog and superstition, she was constantly aware of the sacrifices her family made so that she would survive. And as she neared her eighteenth birthday, she became determined to unravel some of the enigmas that had troubled her all her life: a stalker who had shadowed her since childhood, an anomalous record in her father’s government file, and an unshakable feeling that she was an outsider in her own family.  

At the same time, she began a relationship with a history teacher at her school, who awakened her to the possibility of dissent and to her own emerging womanhood. But, as she learned, the truth cuts both ways. While the professor taught her how to think outside of the borders the government had set, he himself was under political pressure that would prove unbearable. Hong Ying’s search for truth led to the discovery of family secret’s that changed her life–and her perceptions of her parents, her sister, and herself–tragically and irrevocably. But these same events also set her free to leave home for good and become a writer. She started her freelance writer’s career in early 1980s. One of the very few free-lancers at the time, she wrote both fiction and poetry. In late 1980s she studied in Lu Xun Creative Writing Academy and Fudan University. In 1991 she came to England and settled down in London, where she married Henry Zhao.

Hong Ying is known for her writings that demonstrate raw intensity and fearless honesty. She is a controversial Chinese author focusing on the sexuality of women in China, both the positive and negative aspects. A few of her books are:

Children Of The Flowers (2009) 
Daughter Of The River: An Autobiography (1999) 
Death In Shanghai (2005) 
K: The Art Of Love (2002) 
Peacock Cries (2005) 
The Concubine Of Shanghai (2008)

On August 22nd Adam Williams and Hong Ying were married by the Mayor of Force, Dr Augusto Curti, at a civil ceremony in the town hall of the hill-top Italian village in Le Marche where the couple have a second home. To read more and see some pics click here. Her thoughts on London could be read here.

Update

vaani — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:22:00 +0000

Hello everyone

We hope that you are snuggled up all cosy in a duvet along with your laptop writing away the fantasies that you can conjure up in this dark cold weather.

Meanwhile, we are planning to bring in lot more fun stuff to our blog. Things like interviews of Asian women writers, regular features (all suggestions welcome) and writing and publishing tips etc.

We are hoping to get a brand new website for us as well in the near future. Part of the job is done as we have bought the domain name and the web designing is under way.

Any advice, suggestions or ideas to promote our VAANI are most welcome from members and none members alike. So please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.

Until next time
Be good, keep writing!

Meera Syal -Series of Asian women writers.

vaani — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:43:00 +0000

Meera Syal was born in the Midlands and was brought up in a mining village in the early sixties. Her parents had recently arrived in England from India.
Meera Syal’s father was Hindu and her mother was Sikh.
Her fringe show One of Us won an award at the Edinburgh Festival. Since then Meera Syal has been a success in both writing and acting. An early success was the sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me. Meera Syal also wrote and played the granny in the BBC comedy series The Kumars at No 42.
2009 saw Syal cast in Holby City and in the film Mad, Sad and Bad.
Meera Syal’s book, Anita and Me, was short-listed for various awards and was made into a film for which she wrote the screenplay.
Her diverse skills were confirmed when she wrote the musical Bombay Dreams, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Meera was awarded an MBE in 1997 and won the Media Personality of the Year award at the Commission for Racial Equality’s annual Race in the Media awards (2000), as well as the EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) for Media Personality of the Year in 2001.
Through her success as an actor and writer, Meera Syal has joined the list of Britain’s richest Asians, with an estimated fortune of £4m. She feels her creative forces owe much to the dual identity she has embraced.
Meera Syal is the woman behind some of the UK’s biggest hits, hits that have put Asian faces on our screens and stages.

A monologue by Gopali Ghosh

vaani — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:04:00 +0000

Perhaps the way to begin is not this but I must speak while
I still can. Let me bring an end to imaginary conversations where
I have spoken for both your voice and mine; where I have asked and you have
Smiled in assurance and I have been lulled into hoping.
Perhaps the time is now to end this sham and end this pretence of ours
Or rather mine, where I have thought I am the centre of your existence
And inspiration for each has been the other.
Geminus anima.
Now I know that this is mere delusion, a mirage in the barren lot of my life
That gave succour and sustenance; mana in the desert of the Israelites
I must speak whilst I still can……
Perhaps you can hear me still, perhaps you do not care
I have heard the nightingale sing when you speak
“Now more than ever seems it rich to die
To cease upon the midnight with no pain”
But come, I become maudlin with grief, I cannot weep now.
It is that first day of Ashadh and the rain weeps instead for me, coming far
From the cloud messenger; it knows my shade too well
I must speak while I can ……
Perhaps even pretend I am yours once more.

Summer Holidays Fun!

vaani — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:10:00 +0000

Hi Everyone

Hope all of you are having a great sunny spell! It’s been late but I am back again with the photos of the Asian Women Education Fair. It was a fabulous experience to be had. So many women in one room! It was hard to imagine but true all the same. The Mayor of Redbridge Cllr Thomas Chan presided over the function. He presented the most notable Asian women Achiever award as well to Adiba Iqbal for her outstanding record of voluntary and community services over the past four decade.

We managed to introduce ourselves to various organisations like Redbridge Adult Education Institute, East London University etc. Over five hundred and fifty people from all over the borough took part in it.

It was an amazing experience. Please click here to read the Uel’s blog in detail.

Some of the pics uploaded to share with you all.

Until next time

Take care and happy writing.

The Editor

Asian women Education and Training Fair-Upcoming Event

vaani — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:26:00 +0000

Hi All

Good news! We are taking part in the Asian Women Education and Training Fair along with Redbridge Central Library. It is on 16 July 2009. It is an exciting time for all of us at Vaani. We are moving forward!

We hope to introduce ourselves to a wide community in this fair. Many well known institutions are taking part. Some of them are University of East London, Victim Support etc. It would be great opportunity to forge friendships.

Wish us luck and when we come back we will update you on all the happenings.

Until then,

Happy writing!