1st Edition

Multi-stories Cross-cultural Encounters

By Kalpana Sahni Copyright 2010
    224 Pages
    by Routledge India

    224 Pages
    by Routledge India

    This unique work explores, through personal narratives, the overlapping and intermingling of cultures as well as the immense cultural diversity across the world. This exploration inevitably questions notions of higher or lower cultures, and civilized or uncivilized peoples. Indeed it questions the very concept of superiority amongst peoples. Apart from cross-cultural encounters, this work also discusses how various democratic and non-democratic governments and organizations have attempted to conceal cross-cultural influences by inventing superiority, purity, and authenticity of cultures and civilizations to the detriment of others. Yet cross-culture pollination, an ongoing process, always reveals itself through the ignored cracks of history. The book shows that India is no exception and has been and continues to be porous. The numerous examples of cross-pollination — with Algeria, Indonesia, Cambodia, to mention a few — force us to re-look cultural constructs and indeed the very meaning of culture.

    List of Plates Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The Black Virgin 2. Travelling Buddha 3. Coffee 4. Cultural Baggage 5. Words’ worth 6. Batata Aloo 7. Halo! Halo!  8. Tuneful Maladies 9. Candy’d Talk 10. Tongue Untied 11. The Kashmiri Magician 12. Encounters 13. Head to Toe 14. Home and Away 15. Wear with All 16. I am Bandit 17. Badghizi 18. Blackouts 19. Oh Bokhara! 20. Fiddler on the Loose 21. The Game of the Name 22. The Tulips 23. Chewing rice for Others 24. Repetersburg 25. Jokes Apart 26. Juvenile Delinquants/ 27. Earthquacks???/ 28. Crosswords/ 29. Food Traffic/ 30. Once Upon a Time 31. A Tribute 32. Teri Mary Maa 33. Size Matters 34. ‘Georgia on my Mind’ 35. The ‘Civil’ Servant 36. Devotion 37. Authentiques 38. To the Holy Pope 39. Linguistic Creativity 40. Paper Trails 41. You’re in Safe Hands 42. How to Steal a Billion 43. Bollywood 44. Emptiness 45. Two Sides of a Coin 46. Rosy Prospects 47. We Owe the Armenians 48. A Wondrous World Wide Web 49. Winter Sonata 50. Linguistricks 51. Maali Blues 52. Stutter Nonsense 53. This Order, That Order 54. Telling Time 55. ‘Red Roses in the Sun’ 56. Rung Interpretation 57. African Indians 58. From Havana to Kabul with Love 59. Phantom Foes 60. Wagah Woes About the Author

    Biography

    Sahni, Kalpana