[This volume of SouthSide Chatter was distributed on 07/11/2023.]
Dear Friends,
Thank you for all the words of support for our newsletter! We love making it for you and it is a delight to find it provoking discussion, as intended!
We got the date right (finally), and managed to set up a stall at Anushtup's "Ummeed-e-Sahar ki Baat Suno". The passion and enthusiasm of the band and the audience were infectious. Renditions of Faiz's words and Gaddar's songs were sung along with a special version of Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence".
Our stall was right at the back where we watched, along with large crowds of young people and added our own applause to the cheers. Both before and after the program, many flocked to see what we had in stock and asked about other titles and themes that we may have in the works. The very purpose of setting up a stall was this. To meet our readers and find out from them what they might want to see spread out on tables at the back of rock concerts!
We had a wonderful time getting to know everyone that stopped by and bought a couple of books. There will be more such events in the upcoming weeks and we'll update you every step of the way!
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.
This immortal quote by Bertolt Brecht hung behind our stall, above our own banner, at Anushtup's concert. The choice was perfect and the music really embodied it's tenor. It got me thinking about the way in which we view art in times of strife. Art has gone back as far as mankind's earliest days in caves and it will likely stretch on into the future, however that future may look. The desire to codify a story seems to have gripped us for centuries. Some of us may be familiar with the modern, half-comedic, adage, "the cameraman never dies". It can be seen splashed across the comment sections of various social media posts - often of those depicting dangerous and threatening situations caught on camera. It is used in jest as the circular logic is absurd but surviving and telling the story may be linked in more ways than just chronology.
People have turned to music and to words in the darkest of times for reasons too vast and varied to speculate. Some may do it for posterity, as a cry into the void of time, asking to be remembered. Others may do it to make sense of the present. Writing provides clarity to both the writer and the reader. In dark times, works like these are inevitable. Hyderabad's own period of turmoil and chaos came shortly after independence. The year 1948 saw Hyderabad asking questions about its own identity and future in the face of violence and uncertainty. 1948 Readings from SouthSide Books is an anthology that focuses on this era of Hyderabad's history.
One of the chapters is a piece by Makhdoom that was written originally in Urdu and translated for this venture. Aside from being incredibly rare, in this, Makhdoom addresses the present. He is writing for his time and about his time with the passion of a man witnessing something he cannot allow to pass him by. Writing like this shows the "immortal cameraman" in a new light. Maybe the reason the cameraman never dies it because we bear witness to his life.
When it comes to the written word, to speak it out loud, as a reading or a song as Anushtup with Faiz, breathes life into it, This anthology, we hope, will allow you, our reader, to bear witness to the lives in Hyderabad in 1948.
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