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"Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment."
Charles Lamb, 1833


"Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I’d love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers."
Luis Buñuel,
Spanish filmmaker


"I often wonder what future historians will say about us. One sentence will suffice to describe modern man: he fornicated and he read newspapers."
Albert Camus,
French novelist, dramatist, philosopher, 1956

Feedback

It is often hard to come by genuine feedback.  

Margaret Thatcher, for example, couldn't have gotten to know certain reactions to her style of politics were it not for others. Guests on the BBC program "Desert Island Discs" used to be asked which ten records they would like to have if stranded on a desert island. They are also allowed to select two books and one object. When John Cleese (British comedian known for his role in Monty Python) appeared, he asked if he might have one book and two objects. Which objects did he wish to bring? A papiér-maché replica of Margaret Thatcher, and a baseball bat!  

We, at www.penmarks.com, are grateful to all visitors for valuable feedback. Those wanting a papiér-maché replica of the editor of www.penmarks.com and a baseball bat will find our gratitude not dimished by an ounce. 

Here are some excerpts from the recent feedback mails received from readers. Some are known to the author of this site and may have the bias emanating from that knowledge. Readers are free to form opinion about any partisan elements found in feedback mails. Some mails may be edited for reasons of language or space, and at times some references in the mails may be omitted to guard against giving out personal information regarding people unconnected to the site. Feedback about feedback, of course, is even more welcomed. So, please do fire. After all, you've got to get rid of the angst to use that baseball bat.
 

Ref Sacha Sauda, You know better-much better! But to me, the scene is suggestive of some powerful portents. Firstly, the mainline Sikh community gets geared up on this issue, since it touches the core of their internalized self, to which in any case, their day-to-day conduct does not correspond. But the self still survives- as if in the fantasy of the adherents, suggesting that they are heirs to a great guru and a great legacy. In fact it gives them such a vibrant self-glorification that they forget to iron out several oddities from their own life- even form the secular domain of their life. It hardly matters that only an infinitesimal portion of Sikh community observes the five Ks and /or the rehat maryada, since the historical memory of baptism at Anadpur Sahib is a strong enough binding force for them to nurture a strong "we" feeling. As the Sacha Sauda episode is poised, one cannot anticipate what direction the events would take, since a lot of political wheeling- dealing may be involved, but one thing is certain that the 'occurrence' has left a watershed which would provide some motive-force to the Sikh community to deal with the 'significant others'

Yours
jsgandhi May 24, 2007

Dear S P, Interesting story about Bittu meeting Bardhan. 

Chaman Lal
(Professor,Centre of Indian Languages(SLL&CS)
Jawaharlal Nehru University (J.N.U.) New Delhi-110067
President, JNU Teachers Association 

Dear S.P. 

Nice .....  Really   ..... Nice 

I know  very well that u have a great  command  on your Pen. I will be visiting your site  regularly as I find it is really wonderful. Really nice article about Tohra ji but see two of Tohra men won also, one being Hira Singh Gabria and the other being late Basant Singh Khalsa's son Bikramjit Khalsa. 

With Regards  

Harjinder Singh Lall
Columnist AJIT group of newspapers

Hira Singh Gabria was present at Bhaini Sahib, bowing before the man Badal thinks is "Satguru". Basant Singh Khalsa does not even utter the word 'Tohra' anymore. Exactly my point. These are the Pardhan Ji's men. Should have included them in the story of course, but they have little stature. Gabria has age, still didn't grow. Basant doesn't even have that; he couldn't even grow past his father.  -- Ed. 

Dear SP 

I read your column -------. It is characteristically your way of bemoaning the death and dwindling of the institutions of the secular polity. Accounting for the assasination of GST's memory, you say towards the end "What matters is what decisions you take at crucial moments". Besides, I think, what crucially matters is also the lack of its current relevance or functionality (i.e. in the given or expected politcal configuration). In other words, it is not the employable tinder in the struggle that rages now. However, if ever the Badalites fall through despite their expected coming to power, may be pro-GST shibboleths become relevant for condemning them........may be. 

Joginder S Gandhi

Formerly Head
Department of Sociology
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi  

This (column about politically reversible jackets)  indeed is an authentic piece of scholarship showing besides other things that you are not cut out to be writing merely columns- weekly or daily.  You may laugh at my senility- but reading you  I am reminded of Horace Walpole. P.S. If possible ,just dig up that piece he wrote about Mary Antionet- before she was gullotined.by the French revolutonaries ! 

Joginder S Gandhi

Formerly Head
Department of Sociology
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi

great website, i must say.  

your website is excellent, though i felt a bit intrigued there; i ran into so many links that after a few minutes i had lost touch with home. perhaps that's the way blogs and such websites are designed. i would prefer one with minimum links so that i focus full attention on what's at the home site.  

Anyway, it seems to me both from the site and the way you are driving it that you are damn serious about it. and i have also found that you have a clear intention to write opinion on Punjab with a great bias for its western counterpart... 

Another element that could have intrigued me but failed was the glossary. while it does seem to give an academic pretension to your journalism, i suspect there may be a very functional/pragmatic intention behind it; you might be aiming at readers (if i may call the visitiors of websites by that name) who are not familiar with Punjabi. They may be Americans, Bengalis or Pakistani mohajirs. it did not as much amuse me as it made me feel glad that you are not seeking readership among Punjabis alone. indeed, i observed a lot of disparate elements on your site; a link to some israeli paper, an american political opinion website and some sites which just won't open and when they did they seemed to fit quite nicely into the general diversity, some anecdotes about writers and journalists and a sense of a world in an accelerating whorl...  

You are a mature journalist who may or may not be wanting to pose as a wanna-be writer.

in final analysis (it may not be so as a website is always in flux), your site looks like a smart thing about Punjab. no one has done it before. you either have websites on sikhism or on saronh da saag issues.  

Punjab does deserve a smart website. i suggest you must add more matter on it (most from your own reports) about social and economic situation in Punjab so that anyone who wants to look up Punjab on the internet doesn't have to wade through a boring morass of bare facts, bad english or a variety of pastoral nostalgia. 

A friend of ours says your language has a tinge of Punjabi....he is spot on... well one must have one's own style. i reckon if i ever spot your piece without your byline on a website on cross-currents of Incan epistemology and Irish druidism, i reckon, i will certainly find your hair-fringed face behind it.... most inteliigent writers fail to succeed because they learn everything but can't cultivate a tone. and without tone reading is, well, like listening to a headless man, a torso. i congratulate you on putting up a website which is so vocal and so smart and so full of expression.... 

dharminder

Simply great, dear friend, I am not certain  whether I have the right to say so.
 
To see an immensely talented "friend" travelling on a path to glory gives loads of satisfaction and of course limitless pleasure.
 
This is a time to look ahead and obviously not at grotty little plays decreed by dark souls.

SSD
(Sarbjit Dhaliwal)

Dear SP,

I have read your columns- wriiten on very telling events of the day in very ulikely- yet delightful linguistic mode. You use your wordy blade cutting  through the complex  of frivolities- whether of politicians or planners (ur piece on Chandigarh ,etc) with the ease of a child. That is indeed beauty- I feel reverential about ! I shall continue to avail of all the diverse fare that you spread on your site...

Prof J S Gandhi
Formerly Head
Department of Sociology
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi