 Hello and welcome to the Indian Writers Forum and news click once again here. We are with Said Akhtar Mirza for his latest book memory in the age of Amnesia brought out by Context Westland Thank you very much so for your time. I know it's been an exhausting day So as he enthused just a young people I'm on their side today. I'm I'm interested in some of the things that you said yesterday and it's it finds resonance in your book as well You say that you talk about the 69 percent a lot like the 31 percent Of course you mentioned them in one of the earlier essays in your book But you're also very enthusiastic about that 69 percent and so tell me something about that the 69 percent You know, I've I've traveled across India I Don't see it. In fact, that's one of the reasons for my back problem with my knee problems because I've traveled by road across India a number of times In fact one journey that I did was For five and a half months continuously on the road I did about 57,000 Kilometers and it was it was a journey to find just to meet people and I've done this a number of times So I believe that I Know this land in a certain kind of way. I'm not suggesting that I'm I'm the The ultimate expert, but I do know people know now Strangely enough when I say 69 percent You know you every political party no matter which one it is anywhere in the world it has a several tricks up its sleeve and If it happens to be an incredibly right-wing stroke borderline fascist party There are lots of tricks up their sleeve besides the regular political pie and their tricks up their sleeve because They can always use things like war patriotism terrorism Religion Outsider insider the other as their weapons To create all kinds of scenarios for their political gain and I saw all those weapons being used Because what is happening in the official media was one thing of so-called minor Communalism casteism major themes of so-called development But it's a party that speaks with all kinds several nine tongues simultaneously One doesn't see the other eight tongues operating And it it those are those are things that it flitter through the ground unseen Then what seem I was talking yesterday the little Clips that she's getting of riots and tension and horror and fear They shut those are always there always like So let us assume because all these tricks were used and Despite that 69% of the people did not vote That way With all the tricks in the trade being applied it says something It used religion it used fear it used the other you it used the outsider it used everything Emotional peace patriotism Goddari, it's every single bloody element was used But what is it? What is it about the 69% that you met in your travels? Like what was it about them? Do you know I met 100% at that time? I'm divining it now because of the of the of the electoral results But the point that what I did feel was an incredible generosity of spirit Yes, there is a caste system. No question about it. Yes, there is a communal situation. No question about it. Yes but Superstiting over overarching across that something also it's also operates And that is a an incredible generosity of spirit at a one-to-one level The mode it runs into into a tribe or a clan something a stick shape One-to-one level Something else happens and that's what I'm talking about So I'm talking about 69% it Reveals a lot about this country It doesn't mean that tomorrow morning that the the upper caste or the Backward castes gonna share a meal with with the Dalit and say come on to my house, you know, but by and large Or of you know, I don't know But by and large I feel that Somebody sitting next to them is not a problem It's a step forward and a joining meal. It's a step forward We are casted in of course we are Accentuated by the political parties absolutely accentuated but despite the barriers are being broken and with this emotional Jingle a stick appeal that this party use and despite that This is a net result. It says a lot to me and After this result What happened in Delhi was a shocker and nobody talks about it. I want to know what is what is it? Or what is it all about? Why is nobody talking to me about what happened in 2014 and in December and 15? And when they were stopping their tracks and they use the same appeals In the capital of India where by and large by and large people are far better off in a sense in quotes Everything's in quotes and clean the wife in the in the slums, but they're better off in quotes and large pockets of India Despite that didn't work it reveals a lot to me and It says that Under a certain circumstance and a certain projection of a political party people vote in a certain kind of way and their Humanity or the humanness is touched. They mean you know Do they do respond? I'm us Beyond caste color creed religion. They respond In a unified kind of way and that to me is fantastic This is a let's This is a very valid thing about the political class that you say But I'd like you to also talk a little bit about something that is very close to you the film Institute, right? And I Mean outside of like say the 69% that you've been talking about I think it has found its biggest voice not just not really in parliaments or or in official institutions But really in the streets, you're the students of FTI for instance So so the 31% installs a person Chairman of the premier But the 69% again and maybe more I mean the whole Institute, I'm sure Rises up in revolt. So what what do you think of that of that moment? It's a it's a it's a it's incredible It's incredible, but there's a history behind that space. There are a lot of ghosts Yeah, but I The ghost of a Ghatak or a Tagore or a or a or a or a faeze. I don't know they're ghosts Over there and Those people live with those ghosts and memories you think this They'll allow this to chat to enter into the into the into this into this World of dreams and ghosts and nightmares and Why make a dog on a rind Well, that's up. I'm on it. That's just it's a space which has a history of debate dialogue Confrontation contrary in appearance allowed Allowed it's allowed Not just one kind It's not just left-wing what a waste of time to be left-wing, you know, God all kinds here. Subtiva and I'll just quote a couple of places from the book and talk a little bit about this You say the Vietnam war really is a Is like one of the in the early parts of the book at least it sort of takes most of the space and in your head space it seems to be a To be one of the most important factors when you are in your early 20s Yeah, I'm presuming these young men and women are also in their early 20s Yeah, and you would join FTI soon After the war when you see or experience the war How how do you think that that that international event which didn't happen here, but it had such an important space in your memory It was not it could not be ignored You know Unless one war blinkers It could not be ignored anywhere in the world There's nothing that it did not touch This one war And like I said, I've got this friend called Ray Fisher. He says the only good thing about the shitty What was that it is rather the age of questioning What a tragedy that the people have Vietnam had to pay for that But actually across the world it launched the age of questioning from there If you realize the entire Dalit Panthers Dalit writers and they were like like the black panther We were you know the Dalit writers and you had them, you know I to me it was it was the next like movement comes into into place happening with that And you've got farmers agitations. You've got further on later on. They really will have the emergency coming into play And the Jai Prakash Narayan movement comes in what I'm getting at is that upsurge started then 1965 war It had repercussions in India. It found it's all other kinds of manifestations of it But it was the Vietnam war the overall overarching umbrella Which launched or a thousand ships It's the war People might deny it. It's the truth one war and God, what a war What a spirit of people And I was there It was amazing just to Just to shake a hand But why did you do you say that you took you so long to finally be there? I don't know I got caught up in a lot of but it is always it is always with me all at the back of my head There was Vietnam When I thought I couldn't be dying I've got good of Vietnam before I die That you discover a tumor in my bloody head is that I'm gonna be at time because when I was in the hallucinating in that ICU That image of the young girl running Skin peeling off her body napalm with very chemical weapons unleashed little the seven-year-old girl running me Screaming pain as the body's skin is peeling off her. It was most iconic images of the Vietnam war The world is brought upon that image Right the whole world And do you know the anti-war movement what shapes and forms it took across the world mass mobilization of people That's part of your collective memories. We asked what role did it play in India? It is the same bloody role Everybody knew about this war called Vietnam I'm our name to my name Vietnam Vietnam in Bengal in Bengal, but the thing was The world knew about this war. It wasn't a hidden war. It came out in the open and The questioning process about wars and to realize the difference between a just war and an unjust war Pay to your little up at stake now. You're questioning patriotism You're questioning nationalism. Look at the question that are being raised from that one bloody war Lies of the media It's all being debated now, which is being debated today, but one more Whether media becomes the echo chamber for either For war or or against and then the anti-war movement could not be ignored because there's such large bloody numbers Hey, hey, LBJ. Where the hell how many kids did you kill today and Martin Luther King? You know that it's all the Vietnam war movement is all of that is happening and then of course you've got Che Guevara your Ho Chi main you've got look at the images And yeah, yeah, you were the night. It was incredible incredible But miss miss a it's it's that what that was a time and you're reading of the media is really brilliant It doesn't look like a filmmaker has written this book when you're writing about Turkey in a writing about Gaddafi Libya it seems like someone who has who's who's a teacher at say one of these Media's the IMC is who's writing and how you have to objectively objective Objectively verify facts written in the New York Times and it seems like and it seems that that seems to come from the same the way absolutely absolute to question and verify and Don't get swayed