Third Eye

Saturday, August 15, 2015

KALI PARASURAMAN: THE MAN RESISTS OPPRESSION FROM WITHIN AND OUTSIDE IN ORDER TO KEEP THE ANCIENT PRIDE OF THE TAMIL CULTURE.

AN EXPONENT IN THE ART OF PARAI MELAM AND PARAI MELA KOOTHTHU KEPT ITS DIGNITY AMID CULTURAL TSUNAMI OF THE CASTE OPPRESSION.

PARAI MELA KOOTHTHU IS A VIBRANT ART THAT KEEPS THE NERVES STRAIGHT AND MAKE THE PEOPLE DANCE IN JUBILANT.

THIRDEYE LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS ACTIVISTS GROUP IS WORKING WITH THE STALWART OF THE ART KALI PARASURAMAN AND HIS DISCIPLE SON KIRUPAKARN AND TEAM FOR A GREAT EVENT OF PARAI MELA KOOTHTHU IN BATTICALOA.

THIS PROGRAM WILL TAKE TOUR TO DIFFERENT PLACES.

Dr.S.Jeyasankar

Friday, August 14, 2015

Birth Centenary Year of Poet Tambimuttu

Poetry London (1939–51)
Poetry London–New York (1956–60)

Poetry London/Apple Magazine, which had just two issues.

A Sri Lankan Tamil from an affluent English-speaking Roman Catholic family, M. J. Tambimuttu arrived in Britain at the age of 22. Having already published three volumes of poetry in Ceylon, he soon immersed himself in the literary world of London’s Soho and Fitzrovia. Within little more than a year of his arrival he had founded the magazine Poetry London (1939–51) with the writer and musician Anthony Dickins. While Dickins' involvement quickly diminished, Tambimuttu edited the first fourteen volumes of the magazine and a number of books, as well as writing his own poetry.

In July 1943, with the backing of publishers Nicholson and Watson (on the recommendation of T. S. Eliot who was an admirer of his), he established Editions Poetry London, which published contemporary verse and prose, as well as art books, in hard cover. Tambimuttu was also a regular participant in the BBC radio series Talking to India during the Second World War. A man of charisma as well as a talented editor, he had an array of friends and acquaintances with whom he enjoyed the pubs and cafes of Fitzrovia.

Tambimuttu returned to Sri Lanka in 1949 then moved to New York in 1952 where he launched the magazine Poetry London–New York (1956–60) as well as continuing to publish short fiction and poetry of his own, and lecturing at the Poetry Center and New York University. In 1968 he returned to London where he founded a final magazine, Poetry London/Apple Magazine, which had just two issues, and a publishing company, the Lyrebird Press. He died of heart failure in London in 1983.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

On Resisting GMOs: "Saving Seeds Is a Political Act"

On Resisting GMOs: "Saving Seeds Is a Political Act"

By Vandana Shiva and Sarah van Gelder

Source: Yes Magazine
November 17, 2013

Trained in physics and philosophy, Vandana Shiva is renowned for her activism against GMOs,
globalization, and patents on seeds and traditional foods. She co-founded Navdanya, which
promotes seed saving and organic farming and has more than 70,000 farmer-members.

Sarah van Gelder: The seed has been a major part of your work. Could you
say a little about what a seed is at its essence?

Vandana Shiva: The seed in its essence is all of the past evolution of the Earth,
the evolution of human history, and the potential for future evolution. The
seed is the embodiment of culture because culture shaped the seed with careful selection—women
picked the best, diversified. So from one grass you get 200,000 rices.
That is a convergence of human intelligence and nature’s intelligence. It is the ultimate expression
of life, and in our language, it means “that from which life arises on its own, forever and ever and
ever.”

van Gelder: So what is it worth?

Shiva: It’s priceless. There is no price to seed, which is why the commodification of seed is such an
outrage. Every culture that I’ve come across believes that destroying seed is the ultimate sin.
Communities have starved to death rather than eat the seed grain.

van Gelder: The prevailing worldview separates humans from the natural world, and it has had
terrible effects. How are people healing this separation, and how are seeds part of that work?

Shiva: No matter what problem you look at, every ecological problem comes from this illusion that
we are separate from nature.
I believe overcoming the separation is a longing much deeper than the
recent rise of ecological awareness. The healing is coming from reclaiming
our oneness with the web of life, with the universe itself.

Some people do it through meditation and yoga, but a lot more are doing
it by just planting a seed and growing a garden. In planting a seed you are one
with the cycles and regenerative capacity of life. We hear the same thing again
and again from children we work with sowing gardens of hope with seeds of
freedom. When you ask, “So what did you learn?” they always talk about the
miracle of life—that a tiny seed bursts into a plant and gives an abundance,
and they can harvest a seed from it.

A seed sown in the soil makes us one with the Earth. It makes us realize that we are the Earth. That
this body of ours is the panchabhuta—the five elements that make the universe and make our
bodies. The simple act of sowing a seed, saving a seed, planting a seed, harvesting a crop for a
seed is bringing back this memory—this timeless memory of our oneness with the Earth and the
creative universe.

There’s nothing that gives me deeper joy than the work of protecting the diversity and the freedom
of the seed. Every expression of diversity is an expression of freedom, and every expression of
monoculture is an expression of coercion.

van Gelder: Can you say more about that? What is the relationship of freedom
to biodiversity?

Shiva: Life is self-organized. Self-organized systems evolve in diversity. You
are not identical to me, because each of us has evolved in freedom. The self-organizing capacity
of life is expressed in diversity. Diversity of culture, diversity of humans, diversity of seeds.
Uniformity is constructed from the outside. It is coercive. So a farm of only Roundup Ready soya is
actually a battlefield. Chemical warfare is going on—spraying of Roundup to kill everything green,
to kill the soil organisms, to kill the diversity, but also to kill the potential of the crop to manage itself
and diseases. Monocultures can only be held together through external control, and
uniformity and external control and concentration go hand in hand.

van Gelder: How do we, the people, get strong enough to counter the enormous
power of Monsanto and the like?

Shiva: We are dealing with life itself, so the first place we get power is by
aligning ourselves with the forces of life. That is why the act of seed saving
is such an important political act in this time. And that is the part that is
linked to self-organizing—organizing yourself to save the seeds, have a community garden, create
an exchange, do everything that it takes to protect and rejuvenate the seed. But at this point,
industry is hungry to have absolute control. They will not tolerate a single farmer who has
freedom in his seed supply. They will not stand a single seed that grows on its own terms.

van Gelder: If anything, things have gotten more dire since the last time we
talked. How do you get energized and keep your own spirits up?

Shiva: You know it is true that on the one hand, the concentration of power is
more than ever before. But I think the awareness about the illegitimacy of this
power is also more than ever before. If you take into account the number of
movements, the number of protests taking place, and the number of people building alternatives,
it’s huge.

The first place where I get joy as well as the energy to continue is the positive
work of seed saving, promoting a peaceful agriculture, working with farmers, and now increasingly
working with non-farmers. In the course we are running on the farm right now, we have 55 young
people—someone from a banking system, someone from a software firm, three filmmakers.

No matter where in the world you are, people are realizing food is important. They are realizing food
begins with seed, and everyone wants to learn. When I see those processes get unleashed, when I
see how rapidly gardening has become such an important way of healing violence—I just met a
young man who’s working with ex-convicts to spread gardens. That’s his work! He’s created a firm,
and they are the owners, and the board members—how can you not be charged with energy?

Sarah van Gelder interviewed Vandana Shiva for How To Eat Like Our Lives Depend On It, the
Winter 2014 issue of YES! Magazine. Sarah is executive editor of YES!