By Nazarul Islam

On March 24, 1960, the small though influential biweekly Human Events published the following earthshaking claim: “Millions of American men and women would gladly have given their lives if it meant ending World War II a day sooner than it did. I believe one man had a chance to shorten the conflict by more than 18 months – and brushed it off.”  Seventeen years had passed. But the next sentence delivered the shocker: “His name? President Franklin D. Roosevelt.” The exclamation mark after the title “FDR’s Tragic Mistake!” failed to mitigate the understatement.

The claim sounded so preposterous it would have been dismissed out of hand were it not for its author’s impeccable reputation: former Pennsylvania governor George H. Earle was no crank. Appointed U.S. Minister to Austria and Bulgaria by FDR, and later assistant U.S. Naval Attaché in Istanbul, he had been a one-man CIA, the president’s trusted personal agent. A singularly unorthodox arrangement, the relationship would have been history-altering, were it not for one insurmountable problem: FDR paid no heed to him. Worse, he resented information that contradicted his instincts, ideology, and information received from White House aides, some of whom, wittingly or unwittingly, and surely unbeknownst to him, were parroting the Kremlin line.

Extraordinary exploits are seeing the light of day in a new book titled “Exiled Emissary: George H. Earle III – Soldier, Sailor, Diplomat, Governor, Spy”, by former counterespionage officer Chris Farrell, whose excellent training in counterintelligence operations, insightful and extensive study of modern totalitarianism, and a natural aptitude for information warfare, a personal commitment, renders him ideally suited for the task. But no less important, Farrell first learned the story from his grandmother, who revealed her husband’s partnership with then-governor George Earle, in 1936, to help Jewish businessmen and their families escape from Nazi Germany.

True to his Mayflower ancestry, Earle had always been a staunch champion of equal rights. A year earlier, in 1935, Earle had worked with African-American state legislator Hobson Reynolds, who introduced an “equal rights” bill which Earle promptly signed. The bill “enable[d] any Negro in Pennsylvania to bring suit for damages if he is discriminated against by a hotel, restaurant, shop, or theatre.” The two had pulled it off without a hitch. “In this regard,” writes Farrell, “George Earle was 30-years ahead of the rest of the country. This was yet another moment wherein Earle demonstrated the courage of his personal conviction.”

Looking deeper into the life of his grandfather’s erstwhile partner, Farrell learned that Earle had proved faithful to his commander in chief long after the latter turned his back on him, ignoring both their personal friendship and Earle’s impeccable service to the country. Farrell was outraged that so important a matter was all but unknown to the public. As if any additional proof were needed that historical record-keeping, too often censored by entrenched interests, obscures uncomfortable truths about the real character and actions of individuals at the highest level, this case is surely among the most scandalous.

It had started as a close personal and professional relationship. President Roosevelt did not hesitate to call on Earle to uncover what was really going on in Europe at that critical and dangerous time before and during World War II, to report his findings unvarnished, bypassing bureaucrats. FDR had every reason to trust this brilliant businessman, who had made large contributions to the president’s campaigns. Indeed, in 1940 he unflinchingly stepped aside from the nomination for the presidency in order for FDR to make an unprecedented run for a third term. A Navy Cross recipient, having doubtless inherited some of his great-great-uncle Benjamin Franklin’s patriotic genes, Earle was fearless, yet also savvy and insightful.

Cultivating invaluable intelligence sources in the murky complexity of the Balkans could have changed history, had it not proved too effective to avoid raising the enmity of rivals within the national security bureaucracy – both in the intelligence agencies and the State Department – and of close advisors within the White House.

As Earle soon learned, FDR was surrounded by Soviet sympathizers and agents of influence, witting and unwitting fellow travelers. Only later would de-classified archives confirm the full extent of that infiltration, exposed in superb analyses by Herb Romerstein, M. Stanton Evans, Eric Breindel, Diana West, Harvey Klehr, John Earle Haynes, and others.

But advisors are not solely to blame. FDR thought of “Joe Stalin” as his friend, and trusted him. In his foreword to the book, senior intelligence officer Jack Dziak writes that the president himself shared their perspective: “FDR was not at all sympathetic to data, assessments, and intelligence that pointed to Stalin’s massacres, his other crimes, and his intelligence operations against the U.S. both before and during World War II.”

Thus that first unwelcome fact that Earle revealed to FDR, which led to the “tragic mistake!,” fell on all but deaf ears.

To be fair, it does sound like the script of a B-rated movie. Earle writes: “In 1943, while I was serving as U.S. Naval attaché at Istanbul, two high-placed Germans risked their lives to approach me with peace feelers. One was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of Hitler’s Secret Service.

The other was an agent of Franz von Papen, the Nazi ambassador to Turkey. This agent laid before me a fantastic proposition. Papen and other high-ranking German Army officers, some of them members of the Prussian aristocracy, were prepared to revolt against the Nazi regime, kidnap Hitler, seize control [sic] of the Nazi war machine and surrender to the Allies. They asked one thing in return: the containment of Russia. The still formidable German Army would line up with American and British troops at the Russian border and say to the Reds: ‘Stop. Stay back – where you belong.’”

By 1943, Earle had absolutely no illusions about the USSR. As minister to Austria in 1933-34 and in Bulgaria during 1942-42, he “had talked with fear-crazed refugees from Russia – Jews, Mohammedans, Christians.  Their stories were shocking testaments to inhuman Bolshevik brutality.  All of Russia was a monstrous concentration camp.”

He knew as well that “Russian leaders were creatures of lies and treachery,” they could not be trusted. So he jumped at the improbably fantastic German initiative, ironically realistic for its very audacity: “here was a chance to stop them in their tracks.” Earle contacted the president immediately, with no effect. None- The implication was clear: approval was always met with glowing acknowledgment by return courier. “But when a dispatched jarred or displeased him, I never got an answer.”

Farrell describes Earle’s revelation as “one of the most audacious and astounding clandestine acts of the Second World War.” If he stops short of adding “indeed of all time,” the reader would be justified to so. Equally astonishing, however, is his next observation: “It is also probably the least known German resistance overtures and one of the best kept secrets of the entire era.”  It is impossible to resist wondering why that is so – especially since the solo flight to Scotland by Deputy Fuhrer Rudolph Hess for an attempted, albeit failed, peace bid in May 1941 is well known.

Therein, almost certainly, lies the clue. By contrast, Canaris and Earle meeting, as Farrell points out “actually had some possibility for real success.”  That is precisely why FDR ignored it. The president would have had to have had an interest in ending the war. Indeed neither did the British, who were even more alarmed by Earle’s escapades – which undoubtedly deserves another book, all its own. In retrospect therefore, it makes perfect sense to suppress that uncomfortable episode.

Explains Farrell: “The ‘court history’ and victory’s propaganda simply does not allow for inconvenient, factual narratives to take hold or gain purchase in the contemporary conscience of establishment history,” speculates Farrell. “Legacy preservation trumps reality.” At this time of self-critical historical revisionism, it may be worth revisiting the nation’s sins in ways less ideologically skewed.

The second most important message among the many that Earle sent to a president unwilling to hear was delivered in May 1944. Having traveled to Washington, he was waiting for FDR to arrive when he chanced to meet Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, who lamented: “My God, George, you and I and [U.S. Ambassador to the USSR] Bill Bullitt are the only ones around the President who know the Russian leaders for what they really are.”

Still Earle had to make sure his commander-in-chief saw all the evidence demonstrating beyond doubt that the USSR was responsible for the slaughter of approximately 22,000 Polish officers, intellectuals, and religious figures in 1940 in the Katyn Forest. Unfurling countless photos, affidavits, Red Cross reports, autopsy documents, and interviews conducted with his extensive network of Central and Eastern European contacts, should have convinced the stubbornness skeptic.

But FDR “did not want to hear Earle’s analysis and conclusion.”  In fact, as Earle would later testify to Congress in 1947 and 1952, FDR rejected it all out of hand: “George, this is entirely German propaganda and a German plot. I am absolutely convinced the Russians did not do this.” Dismissing all of Earle’s warnings about Russia, the president predicted with casual confidence that “when the war is over she will fly to pieces like a cracked centrifugal machine at high speed.”

It would take another forty-seven years for the truth to emerge: in 1990, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev confirmed Soviet culpability. Two decades later, in November 2010, the Russian State Duma issued an official acceptance of responsibility.

Earle’s Congressional testimony had come long after FDR had severed both their personal and official relationship, indeed with unpardonable cruelty. On March 24, 1945, a full year after Earle had handed him the incriminating Katyn documents, FDR dispatched the following missive to his long-time friend: “I specifically forbid you to publish any information or opinion about an ally that you have acquired while in office or in the service of the United States Navy.

In view of your wish for continued active service, I shall withdraw any previous understanding that you are serving as an emissary of mine and I shall direct the Navy Department to continue your employment wherever they can make use of your services.” Two weeks later, FDR was dead. But Earle was exiled to Samoa. There he would become assistant governor to 16,000 island natives.

He remained in Samoa until recalled by President Truman, four months later.

Earle met his fate with typical equanimity. As he wrote to his friend General Albert C. Wedemeyer on December 11, 1958, “I felt I was perfectly safe in Samoa and that the longer I stayed there the more damning it would be for the pro Russians in our government,” who couldn’t but be irked by their failure to break him psychologically or to damage his reputation. Yet he would soon suffer a debilitating stroke, which eventually killed this fearless American, who surely deserves to be better known.

Earle never wavered in his belief that FDR missed the biggest chance of his presidency. “If President Roosevelt had accepted Papen’s peace offer and agreed to its one condition, it is my firm conviction that the war would have ended by January, 1944, at the latest!” He went on: “Most important of all, without the help of the German scientists they ultimately captured, the Russians would never have been able to develop long-range missiles or nuclear weapons.

The military supremacy of the United States would be clear and unchallenged.” But in truth, so much else would have had to be different; FDR’s was no mere mistake.

The enemy had turned out to be not only external but had been festering within. We had met him and learned, as had the famous diminutive strategist Pogo exactly half a century ago, that “he is us.”

Nazarul Islam

The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his 119 articles.

The post Error or not, FDR was us… first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Kaia Alderson

During World War II, Black newspapers rallied African-Americans behind the “Double Victory” campaign to fight the war against ethnic oppression abroad as well as racial oppression at home. But the African-American women who served during this time also had a third enemy – the one that held them back because of their gender.

The Double Victory campaign was inspired by a letter published in the Pittsburgh Courier on January 31, 1942 entitled “Should I Sacrifice To Live ‘Half-American?” In the letter, James G. Thompson explained that the first V was “for victory over our enemies from without” and the second V was “for victory over our enemies from within.” The paper would later proclaim “this slogan as the true battle cry of colored America.” The Pittsburgh Courier debuted its Double V logo the next week in the February 7 edition, and would continue to print it as part of its masthead for the remainder of the war.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers was hard at work on a bill to create a women’s branch of the U.S. military. Many women had served as volunteers during World War I but were not eligible for veteran’s benefits since they had not been official members of the U.S. military. Rogers wanted to make sure that this did not happen again during this new war.

Once the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later WAC) was established, Mary McLeod Bethune went into action. Bethune was the head of the Negro division of the National Youth Administration as well as founder of what is now Bethune Cookman University. She was also an advisor to four presidents, including President Franklin Roosevelt. She had seen how Black young people, especially Black women, struggled to find good jobs during the Great Depression of the 1930s. With her access to the highest reaches of the U.S. government, she used her influence to ensure that Black women would be able to have meaningful opportunities within the WAAC – Ones that would position them to be eligible for those educational and professional veteran’s benefits too.

In general, the women who joined the WAC were subjected to sexist assumptions about their virtues and ability to make meaningful contributions to the war effort as a part of the military. Male soldiers and officers were vocal about their beliefs that women had no place in the service. Inside and outside of the military, a common assumption was that these women had enlisted so that they could “service” the male service members. They were not issued weapons nor given any weapons training – even when ordered into hostile areas – because brandishing a gun was considered “unladylike.” However, the Black women who served had to deal with a unique set of challenges.

These challenges included being subjected to double segregation. Black men in the military were segregated only on the basis of their race. Black women were separated by their race and gender. To get into the WAC, a woman had to meet high standards of morality and femininity; white women might be able to loosen up a little once they were officially in. But Black women had to meet the highest of these standards at all times. Even when they continued to maintain those standards, they were more often than not perceived as only capable of performing domestic duties despite their educational and professional backgrounds.

The stripes that the Black female officers wore made them even more of a target. It enraged some members of the American public that a white soldier who held a lower rank was expected to salute these women and follow their orders. This led to Black female officers experiencing encounters with the police because they were assumed to be imposters and worse. One was hospitalized after being beaten up on a train platform in Tennessee.

However, despite these unique challenges, Black female soldiers fought back in creative ways. They used the power of their personal connections and of the Black press to overturn discriminatory policies and practices, such as having the “Colored” signs removed from the mess hall tables during the first WAAC officer training class. They studied Army policies until they knew them backwards and forwards. So when Major Charity Adams responded “Over my dead body, sir” to a general’s threat to have her replaced after refusing his frivolous order, she had the documentation to back her up when he attempted to have her court martialed. They even went as far to stop work, effectively going on strike, when pigeonholed into intolerable working conditions at the Fort Devens Hospital in Massachusetts in 1945.

Despite these extra burdens, Black women who served in the WAAC/WAC during World War II went on to distinguish themselves. The 6888th Postal Battalion Directory was given the “impossible” task of getting the backlog of mail moving in six months. They cleared the backlog in three. Black female officers trained all of the Black women who enlisted in the corps. They showed the top brass what Black women were capable of achieving, if only given a chance.

______________________

Kaia Alderson’s debut historical novel Sisters in Arms: A Novel of the Daring Black Women Who Served During World War II was published in August by William Morrow/Harper Collins and was named November’s selection for Stephen Curry’s book club.

Courtesy: History News Network

The post The Black Women Veterans of World War II first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Saaz Aggawal

Gulabrai Mansukhani was a successful criminal lawyer and practiced in the Karachi High Court. The family was affluent with a home opposite the YWCA, a car and driver. Gulabrai was a member of the Masonic Lodge of England and the Grand Lodge of Scotland. He was appointed Worship Master and was awarded a gold medal by the Prince of Wales. Sadly, Gulabrai died in 1936, when his daughter Mohini was just four and her brother Prabhu was two. Gulabrai had earned well – but he had spent a lot and donated a lot. Gulibai moved into smaller quarters and bought a plot of land in Jamshed Quarters not far from Karachi Jail, from her cousin Lokumal Mirchandani, an engineer who owned the adjacent bungalow. As she began construction, the Second World War broke out and cement and other material became scarce. Money ran out. Mohini remembers going to live in the incomplete bungalow with bare girders and unfinished furniture. There were no bolts on the doors so before sleeping at night they would move chairs and tables to block it so that it could not be pushed open from outside. The windows had to be painted black, a wartime ordinance because Karachi was a target that could be bombed.

While Prabhu studied at the WB High School for Boys, Mohini went to DB High School for Girls. DB stood for Dhamibai Basantsing, whose son Bhagwansing Advani had built the school in her memory.

Mohini remembers mocking the boys, “You are at Wangan Basar School” and they would reply, “And you are at Dabroti Bedo School” to which the natural response was, “Yes, but dabroti-bedo is so much better than wangan-basar – egg with bread is so much better than brinjal with onions!”

The principal of Wadhumal Bulchand School was Chandiram B Advani and Vice Principal was Gulab Idnani – both of whom were related to Mohini’s mother. After Partition, Chandiram (whose sister Dadi Bhoji ran the Nari Shala at Shyam Niwas) was entrusted by Sadhu Vaswani to establish Mira Mission High School in Poona.

Mohini’s principal was Sona Sadarangani and she loved this bright girl who was also a tomboy who loved skating, cycling and horse riding.

Time passed, the war ended and the house was completed with money Gulibai raised by selling her jewellery. Dr. Srichand Lulla, a Shikarpuri psychiatrist, took up tenancy and Guli’s mother and brother also came to stay. In the next lane was Krishna Kunj where Sadhu Vaswani lived. Mohini remembers attending his Gita discourses and the fact that he did not permit anyone to touch his feet. So, to express their reverence for him, they would crawl and touch his wooden sandals. Sadhu Vaswani preached vegetarianism so the family took it up. Another teacher Mohini remembers is Dada Chellaram who taught them from the Guru Granth Sahib at the Gurmandar.

As Partition approached, Guli’s mama Jagatsingh Idnani, who was Attorney General of Sindh, advised her to sell the house. Mohini had just completed her matric and joined DJ Sind College but classes had been disrupted. Gulibai put her fifteen-year-old daughter on the SS Barpetta to Bombay in the care of an acquaintance, an Idnani.

Lokumal Mirchandani sold his property and left. Everyone around was selling and leaving and Gulibai found herself alone in the area. She started receiving threats against Prabhu and sent him to live with her older stepdaughter who lived in Gadi Khato and loved her children dearly. She kept a dog and slept under the bed with a dummy on the bed. On some mornings she would find a dagger in the compound with a threatening note stuck to it. One day, a displaced Muslim family entered her home forcibly with their belongings and set up house; they even started cooking. Gulibai took help from the police to have them evicted. Now she was desperate – if she left without at least something in hand, they would starve.

The people who had bought Lokumal Mirchandani’s house were Bohris who had a Hindu daughter-in-law. They took pity on Gulibai and bought the bungalow, clinching the deal at Rs.18000 for a property previously valued at Rs.70000. It was a risk to take cash – a person with a bag of money was easily plundered or killed; such cases had been reported. Gulibai was escorted to the Karachi docks by the family who had bought her house. She might have considered making a home in Bombay but her brother lived in Calcutta and Mohini had been sent ahead there. So in January 1948, Gulibai arrived in Calcutta with a bank draft received from the sale of her house and handed it over to TR Lalwani of Bank of India to encash for her.

Mohini had had her own share of adventures. The very first evening on the ship, Idnani got drunk and began making advances. She went to the ship’s captain for help and managed to keep herself safe and away from him. At the Bombay docks, Idnani stood near the ship’s exit, waiting for her. Luckily she saw Mr Captain, a Parsi friend of her father’s from the Masonic Lodge, who took her to his sister’s house in Dadar. The next day they left for Calcutta where Captain was to join a sugar mill. Gulibai had received a letter from Idnani telling her that unfortunately Mohini had got lost. Fortunately this was soon followed by her own letter telling her mother that she had arrived safely.

In Calcutta, Mohini was received by her mamo Kishinchand Bhawnani and his family. He was a businessman settled in Calcutta well before Partition, with a number of restaurants and bars including the Royal Botanical and Imperial restaurants, a soda water factory and motor parts shops. They were also Railway contractors and dealt with Hiro Jagtiani, a general manager of the Railways.

Mohini was keen to join college but her mamo was not in favour of higher education for girls. And so, when her mother arrived, they set up their own home so that Mohini could continue her education. With refugees from East Pakistan pouring into Calcutta, no houses were available and at one time they lived in a garage, sharing bathrooms with others and putting off lights and bathing in the dark for privacy.

Mohini had no migration certificate and got help from the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge on Park Street for her college admission.

As she remembers sadly, just before the examinations, she lost her mother. Gulibai had lived under great stress for a long time. She developed gastric ulcers which worsened when she refused food, subsisting on tea. She was admitted in hospital and when Mohini needed money for treatment, TR Lalwani helped her to release funds as she was still a minor.

Mohini will never forget the condolence visit from the secretary and president of the Sindhi Panchayat. In her words:

My mother’s body was still in the house. They ordered me that I would have to go and live with my mama. When I did not reply, they threatened to outcaste me. My mother had clearly told me that in case she died, I should not go to anyone. We knew that my mama would not allow my education to continue. I gathered courage and told them, “This is not Sindh.”

My life carried on. Many years later, in 1972, I was elected secretary of that same Sindhi Panchayat, the only female among twelve committee members. I felt grateful to God.

After her mother died in 1950, Mohini sold her father’s gold medal from the Prince of Wales to pay for her and her brother’s education and daily expenses. The eight-tola medal fetched her Rs45 which was soon spent. She went to work in a school and, continuing her studies, gave a competitive examination to enrol as an engineer in the telephone office. Mohini was placed fourth among four hundred candidates and the only woman and thereafter got a job with the telephone department.

In 1957 Mohini married Sujan, her mama’s son. He had told his mother that he would marry Mohini and no one else. So, soon after her mama died, her mami approached her, and the wedding took place. Mohini was married into a wealthy family but she continued working and as the years passed, she was promoted to higher positions.

With her husband’s support, Mohini was connected with many social organizations, and served as President of Telecom Engineering Association for three consecutive years; Secretary of Business Professional Women’s Club; member of Lion’s Club and member of the Women’s Coordinating Council. In 1972 she and other volunteers of the Council took part in the rehabilitation efforts during the war of liberation of Bangladesh and cooked twenty kilos of mutton daily and delivered it to the airport. A plane would come from Kalaikunda, pick up tins of the mutton, rice and water and para-drop them for the Mukti Bahini. Mohini’s husband supported her career too, only once stopping her from attending a training program in Alcatel in Paris. Travelling is Mohini’s passion and she has been all over the world.

Saaz Aggarwal

Saaz Aggarwal is an independent researcher, writer and artist based in India. She is author of several books. Her body of writing includes biographies, translations, critical reviews and humour columns.

Courtesy: Saaz Aggarwal – Sindh Stories

The post Sheer Courage and Constant Effort first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Nazarul Islam

India’s great film director Satyajit Ray never took the path of lengthy descriptions. Yet, you can see—even feel—it all happening. That’s enough to bring out the goose pimples!’ Clearly, here the filmmaker in Ray gave him an edge over other writers. His words were brief, simple and lucid. But the impression that emerged was extraordinarily rich in detail.

Satyajit Ray’s films often see him as a social commentator. Without taking a moralistic stance it is as if his characters reflect social realities that he observes around him. It was true of his portrayal of the sex worker in three of his films as well.

In Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder), Chutki, a poor girl from a lower caste is pulled into prostitution by hunger which the brickfield agent takes advantage of during the infamous Bengal Famine in 1943 during World War II.

Historians now establish that it was totally man-made as the British administration hoarded rice to feed soldiers about to arrive in the East. When the Brahmin’s wife Ananga who Chutki is very fond of, guesses what is happening, she refuses Chutki’s offer of rice from her ‘earnings’ though her family is equally hungry. “What can I do? I always feel hungry,” Chutki defends herself.

She runs away to the city with the agent perhaps to disappear in the red light district eventually.

Ashani Sanket (1973) based on Bibhuti Bhusan Bandopadhyay’s novel, offers an insight into a rural woman’s desperate response to hunger. When driven to starvation, Chutki, unlike Moti who dies of starvation, or Ananga, who adjusts to the grim reality, is prepared to exchange sexual favours for a fistful of rice from a hideous, scarred man she abhors.

Conditioned morals of a patriarchal society mean little to Chutki when hunger stares her in the face. Women like Chutki are not uncommon in contemporary India. Ray perhaps can be credited with the first non-voyeuristic but sensitive look at prostitution in the Indian context through cinema.

In Pratidwandi (The Adversary,1970) Ray introduces his viewers to a different kind of sex worker. She holds a job as a qualified nurse but moonlights as a sex worker. Much against his will, the hero Siddhartha Choudhury, a medical college dropout due to his father’s sudden death and depleting finances, is introduced to her by his friend Adinath.

It’s obvious that he is uncomfortable in her presence and is surprised to find that she is actually a nurse. Is Siddhartha scared to reveal in his friend’s presence that he is a virgin? Or is his discomfort rooted in the fact that he is not easy in the company of females?

The woman speaks in a flirtatious, even mocking tone, and comes out in a bra and petticoat. When she finds that Siddhartha is nervous, she asks him for a cigarette. She is quite open about her double life and it appears that she manages to keep the two occupations apart. This woman is not into prostitution out of poverty but wants to earn some extra dough. Perhaps she has a family to take care of? Ray leaves it unsaid.

Rather he offers a glimpse of the rapidly changing scenario in Kolkata where an educated man like Siddhartha cannot land a job despite a good academic record, suspects his own sister of compromising with her boss in order to become a model, and where a qualified nurse takes to sex work as just one more source of earning.

The common thread that runs through Ray’s treatment of prostitution is its organic evolution as an integral, indivisible act within the evolution of a society now overrun with greed, consumerism and corruption not necessarily in that order.

His Jana Aranya (The Middleman, 1976) is a scathing comment on the erosion of values arising partly out of a decadent education system and partly out of unemployment and associated corrupt practices encroaching into the lives of the urban middle-class.

In Jana Aranya, Ray also offers a glimpse of the system of disguised prostitution in Kolkata. The climax of the film suggests that the hero has reduced himself to prostituting his conscience to eke out a livelihood through meagre contracts gained at the cost of procuring a woman for the contractor.

If you take some words at random and put them together, it becomes gibberish, and everyone who knows the meaning of words knows it as such. But if you take unrelated moving images and string them together, there will always be some people who will hold that the resultant strip of celluloid aims at some profundity.

He, therefore, is as much, if not more, a prostitute than the prostitute he procures for his prospective clients.

All three films denote, in subtle ways, different periods in the social history of Bengal in general and Kolkata in particular, how even prostitution becomes almost a normal feature in the big churn.

Nazarul Islam

The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his 119 articles.

The post Accepting Prostitution in the big churn… first appeared on Sindh Courier.

It was December 7, 1941 when the peaceful shores of Arizona become a battlefield… people started crying… the explosions destroyed houses, ships and individuals.

By Yasir Qazi

“Mary had a little lamb… Its fleece was white as snow… Merry had a little lamb…” I was singing as a 2-year child in front of my house along the shores of the Pacific, on a cold Sunday morning of December 7, 1941… Suddenly the stratosphere became full of terrible clamours of war-aircrafts, which not only were flying but also detonated over Arizona… The peaceful shores of Arizona become a battlefield… people started crying… the explosions destroyed houses, ships and individuals. In a wink of an eye, a smiling settlement became a dell of death.

This all is shared with me by Jimmy Lee (the eye-witness of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941) at the USS Arizona Memorial, Honolulu, Hawaii in the United States. Lee was 76 years old in 2014 when I met him. Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, is the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and marines, thrashed on the USS Arizona (BB-39) during the outbreak on Pearl Harbor by Japanese imperial forces and observes the events of that day. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the island of Oʻahu was the action that led to the United States’ direct involvement in World War II. Lee’s story not only reveals the miseries of modern-day war and its undesirable impact on the region but beyond the streams of the pacific, I can even peep deep into the far-past of Honolulu, Hawaii and the purlieu…. the exquisiteness of the beaches around Honolulu, including Waikiki and the Kailua.

Kailua Beach is positioned in the East of Honolulu. Kailua Beach Park has been termed one of the best beaches in America. The park has it all, offering visitors parking, showers, picnic areas and abundant shade. The fine white sand beach expends for over 2.5 kilometers, where there are always alert lifeguards on call. The seaboard break is generally calm and offers safe swimming conditions year-round. In case of any peril, an emblem is posted at the harbour. Jellyfish can be blown in when trade winds are strong so always ask a lifeguard if there are any warnings that day.

Waikiki is one of six beaches of the district, along with Queen’s Beach, Kuhio Beach, Gray’s Beach, Fort DeRussy Beach and Kahanamoku Beach. Waikiki Beach is said to be human-made entirely. Not only these beaches, but the calm waters of the Pacific and the rocks and sand depleted throughout the island and around the shores tell the untold and unwritten stories of ages… even of much before the humans took over this earth… even before the water revolution on earth… even since when the earth was a globe of fire – even when some other curious creatures would have ruled over the globe… even before the five major devastations on our home – Earth. Have any of the story-explorers among us tried to ask these stories from these rocks and water-coasts? Have any of the travelers among us attempted to interview these nature-driven presences? And tried to understand, what they retort as a response to our strange interrogations. When the near-past tales about the constituency amaze us, like numerous parts of the world, how can we be bold enough to ask these rocks and cliffs regarding the activities of ages ago? When moving a few kilometers forward through the Pacific, I find the amazing Pali cliff, which is said to be the site of the Nuʻuanu War, one of the bloodiest battles in the history of Hawaii, in which Kamehameha-1 invaded the Oʻahu Island, conveying it under his rule. In 1795 Kamehameha-One sailed from his native island of (Hawaii) with an army of 10,000 combatants, including a lot of non-Hawaiian immigrants. After conquering the islands of Maui and Molokaʻi, he moved on to Oʻahu. The pivotal battle for the island occurred in the valley of Nuʻuanu, where they were trapped above this Pali cliff. Kamehameha’s warriors forced Maui Chief Kalanikupule’s men to their deaths off of the cliff. Approximately a number of 400 people died in this battle. After this battle, this cliff is marked as a Hawaiian chant and memorial of respect to the martyrs of this battle. This cliff still speaks of those brave men.

__________________

About the Author

Yasir Qazi is a freelance radio and TV broadcast and print journalist, poet, prose-writer, researcher, columnist, blogger, translator, media expert, and author of 7 books in Sindhi. He writes regularly for English, Urdu and Sindhi dailies and websites.

The post Arizona, and beyond the shores of pacific first appeared on Sindh Courier.