Sunday, October 13, 2013

Guy Delisle: Graphic Novels you must read!

A package arrived from Lahore via TCS on my birthday. Sent by Maleeha Azeem. It was longish and fat … and I thought the girl must be really mad to send me Sugar-Free Laddoos, Barfees, & Gulab Jamuns from Nirala (and I thought again, for the hundredth time, "Why the fuck have they closed their shop in Karachi?").

I hurried to open it and put the contents into the fridge … and, lo and behold, there were two gifts inside. Worth a lot more than the Sugar-Free stuff.

There was a box of 100 Comic Magazine Covers and a book: "Jerusalem" by Guy Delisle. The cards were a thrill to view quickly and be put aside to view again at leisure. But Delisle! I had to start reading it right away.

The first page had this, of course.

I had liked this French-Canadian cartoonist when I read his "Burma Chronicles", mainly because it went back to a land that I had visited three times in my early shipping days. It has changed an awful lot, since then, though the people still seem to be as aggravated as ever if they are in uniform.

I remembered how, in 1959, I had put my pass down at the main desk to go out, once. A very, very drunken guardsman had pulled out a cocked gun and pointed it a couple of inches from my head because he felt that the paper made a noise while he was sleeping. He was shaking wildly and said my body can be taken back to the ship when he was through, swearing in Burmese.

Trembling, Stanley Fernandes (a Second Engineer who was with me) and I pleaded with him and apologised as profusely as one does when facing death. Fifteen minutes of standing there, with a gun at your head is a terrible experience, let me tell you. Finally the guard agreed, took all the money we had, and let us go out.

Photo by Luigi Novi

Guy Delisle draws simple things wonderfully well!
Take a look at this mess/mass of wires …

… that reminded me of Karachi,

as did the sketch of a plug point inside the house.

So does this:

Right on!

It reminds you of how close to our home Burma is! (It's called Myanmar, now, by many countries except US and a couple of others who do not recognize it's Government and insist on calling it Burma.)

The trip to Burma with his wife who works at Doctors Without Frontiers shows you their life for a few months in that country, introducing you to its people, their customs, their religion, the repression that takes place there, and much more that could remind you of our own military rule.

•••••

So getting to read Jerusalem was essential! Once again, I thought how amazing these people are. Away from us, they think very much the same way as we do, give or take a few points.

I am not sure if we can find Mullas who would be anything like the anti-Zionist Jews, apart from the 'seven kids', their 'fashions', and the 'variations' among their personal beliefs that make everyone else a kaafir.

The Arabs, naturally, are even more like us.Which is why we like them? Don't we?

The buses and the clothes. Wow.

The books takes us into their places that are strictly Jewish, strictly Arab, and includes the mistreatment of the Arabs by the Israelis (which is plenty!), and offers you a run down of the city that is (was?) a home to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

The book also suggests, as most Muslims do, that the Second Mosque is in Jerusalem. There was no mosque at the Meraaj (Isra' in the Qur'an) of The Prophet at Jerusalem, of course. It was built much later. The Second Mosque, as you may know, is never named in the Qur'an. It just states that it is the furthest mosque. Also the Qur'an says that the First and Second Mosques will have Peace … something that this Mosque has never really had. The First Mosque is the Kaaba and the Second Mosque is the Masjid Al Nabvi — both known for Peace!!! This statement is now accepted by a few scholars. You can go to Google or YouTube and find a video from Mohammad Sheikh about this.

The priests there, too, have a sacrifice of animals, and seem to love blood! No wonder there's so much killing of humans in both parts because this must allow them to get over the feelings I and many others have about killing.

When I was 10 years old a Mulla came to do the sacrifice at our downstair neighbour's house. He gathered all the children and said that the way to do this is to look straight at the animals eyes … "and that will help you kill kaafirs in a Jihad without fearing." I wonder how many kids are taught this at Madressahs.

The Jerusalem book was superb and I learnt a lot more about the Jews despite having read many of their writings. My paternal side of the family that came from Turkey used to be Jews three generations before they migrated to India with Babar, who brought Kazi Kidvah with him to be the head of his court. I was most amused to find out about the Messianic Jews. (Read the book and you'd be surprised, too.)

Now I am waiting to read "Pyongyang" - a slightly older book by Guy Delisle - and learn more about Korea.

words of wisdom

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have scrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness - that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that the saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought and, though it might seem too good for human life, this is what - at last - I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.Bertrand Russell

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.Noam Chomsky

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.Albert Einstein

Each century seems to take on a particular character as we view it in retrospect. How will the 20th Century be remembered? My guess is that this dramatic span of 100 years will ultimately be marked not by computers or the Internet, but by the drive toward individual freedom, the breaking of human barriers of prejudice, and the opening of society to include all people.John S. Spong

DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.Max Ehrmann