Farzana Versey's Blog
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Nov.23.2011
You’ve got the bird home, dressed it in its best Thanksgiving suit, and placed it in the warmth of the oven or the stove, the heat causing the flesh to melt softly inside and the juices to spill out and settle over its body. You will bring it out for the family dinner – an event so positive, so...
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2 comments
Nov.22.2011
What is the fuss about? A porn star enters a reality show as a contestant and even the so-called feminists start grunting. Who are we to judge someone in such a narrow manner when being in adult films is only one part of her? Sunny Leone is of Indian origin and works in the adult film...
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Nov.21.2011
V.S.Naipaul has not had dinner. At least, not with you. You are among the people he meets to concretise his ideas about the place he is writing about. You are raw material, and he cannot possibly sit with both a cooked meal and raw meat. At the literal level, yes. But I find some of his recent...
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8 comments
Nov.17.2011
How can you ‘unhate’? Is it like undress or undo? Benetton is known for its use of stereotypes to display its supposed egalitarian stance. Where money speaks who would anyway care about colour or race? The new campaign has images of people in positions of power, supposedly belonging to different...
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4 comments
Nov.11.2011
11.11.11. It adds up to six. Six flanked by two sixes is the devil’s number. I have never called. Will he answer? Or, she? I like numbers. I walk with numbers on my palms. My fingers are numbers, and so are my toes. I can count my eyelashes, especially when they are wet with unrealised dreams, and...
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Nov.11.2011
It is like Moulin Rouge in the streets. Unlike the US, elections in India are a combination of dance, drama, pantomime, jugglery, and the acrobatic skills of purveyors of false hope. You will hear of the new voices raging like matadors towards bulls, but the red rag is often a cloth of blood. Or a...
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Nov.09.2011
The only reason anyone might want to call past midnight is if they are horny. The smarmy camaraderie of “Oh, I have a 3 am friend” makes me cringe; it has been reduced to a throwaway line. I know it essentially conveys that you can call the person at any time. But is that necessarily true...
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6 comments
Nov.03.2011
If she is of no consequence, why is literary giant Salman Rushdie picking up a challenge to write about her? The arrogant blahster, of course, announced that it was a "once-only, never-to-be-repeated Kim Kardashian Limerick". In Caps, like an acronymn?
Here is his supposed jibe on...
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2 comments
Nov.02.2011
Forget a chair named after you at a tony university. Several dead bodies can soon claim to have been at your place if you have the honour to win the online poll for the best crime writer. Ten authors have signed up for the ‘Million for a Morgue’ campaign. Those who get the most votes will have a...
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Nov.01.2011
Imagine a situation where a few years from now she could be married and forced to become the shared booty between brothers because she survived
Across the globe, the seven billionth addition to the human population has been welcomed symbolically. Baby deaths, another vital statistic, can be pushed...
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Oct.31.2011
The painting had fallen. Loose. Hook. A woman's face looked up. It was a face I was familiar with from its inception. I was not the artist. Nor the art. I had seen the work before. Somewhere. Then it was with me. Some said it was me. I knew it was not. The yellow hair was not meant to be blonde. It...
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Oct.27.2011
Writers who think blogging is a waste of words are like men who don't masturbate for fear of wasting their sperm or making them weak.
~FV
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18 comments
Oct.27.2011
Two of the largest democracies – America and India – top the list of countries wanting to snoop on their citizens. How is that for wonderful liberalism? Can these countries talk of censorship with a straight face?
In a bid to curb terrorism and other anti-social activities, US, India, France,...
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Oct.23.2011
She touched my face
imprisoned it within her palms
small hands they were
that seemed to trap
nose, eyes, lips
breath
She released me
a few minutes in the dark
and then her fingers rolled over cheeks
the scent of lavendar
the feel of cream
moulding clay
She ran the...
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2 comments
Oct.20.2011
Readability versus what? Instead of going round and round about “dumbing down”, has anyone posed that query in clear terms? Awards these days come dog-eared with controversies. Ironically, the ones upholding non-populist writing make it into page-turners with their cussed dismissal.
I have...
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15 comments
She writes with anguish and pessimism, a journey into hearts of darkness with no light at the end of that distorted prism, mainly because as she astutely observes, “every few years Pakistan writes a new fiction” to keep the embers alive. ”
—India Today
About Farzana
To be categorised is near-death. It would be nice to say that one is a literary vagabond, but it just does not convey fully the sense of rootlessness and ruthlessness one strives for constantly.
Have written opinion pieces, feature articles and interviews for...
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Farzana’s Favorite Books
Every writer, besides the ones I have listed, who has had something to convey that leaves me with the taste of bitter chocolate...that I like.