India's 2008.

"Amitabh Bachchan slept with a gun." Also speaking out on the terrorist attacks in Mumbai have been Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, who recently blogged, "There is an Islam from Allah and very unfortunately, there is an Islam from the mullahs." Anupama Chopra in the Los Angeles Times: "This impassioned, unflinching outburst is rare for Bollywood.... [D]espite its cultural clout, Bollywood has largely been an insular, apolitical space":

But the terrorist attacks, which claimed 164 lives (plus those of nine gunmen), have forced the film industry to abandon its customary neutral stance. In blogs, media, petitions and peace marches, Bollywood has come forward to denounce the attacks and demand better governance. Most significantly, many leading Muslim stars who until now rarely delved into the controversies of religion have condemned the attacks as "un-Islamic." They have, as Gyan Prakash, professor of history at Princeton University put it, "reclaimed their religion." In an interview, actor Anil Kapoor, now appearing in Slumdog Millionaire, called the attacks "a tipping point," adding: "I think things will be different now."

Ramachandra Guha opens a special New York double issue of Outlook India, "Thank God It's Over": "For the citizens of India, the calendar year 2008 was marked and scarred by the malign activities of Islamic fanatics, Hindu bigots and linguistic chauvinists; by the arresting of the onward march of the Indian economy; and by cyclones and floods. This listing probably overlooks some other nasty things that took place this past twelvemonth. But even the incomplete evidence offered above begs the question - was this the worst year experienced by India (and Indians) since the country was founded?"

Of course, the movies of the year are revisited, too, in a special photo essay.

Infinite thØught is currently coming at us from India:

[A]s extreme as the economic disparity between the techno-elites and the crippled men who beg at car windows may be, the sweet smell of aspiration is everywhere: in every advert for a new apartment block, in each boast for the speed of broadband connection on signs by the side of the road, in every school promising to teach you e-knowledge and business English. But why not? Although India will suffer as everyone will from the dire outcomes of all the combined Ponzi-schemes of the Anglo-American financial imaginary, they are buffered slightly by a more old-fashioned kind of economic morality that says don't borrow too much more than you can pay off, don't have too much personal debt, don't lend to people who won't be able to return the cash. Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger darkly invokes the figure of the India entrepreneur, all dynamism and techno-affirmation, but it's still relatively difficult in India to borrow money or employ people against the promise of financial pixie dust. Besides, if 70% of your population lives on 20 rupees a day, it's going to be hard to intricate them into a web of complicated mortgages and large personal debt.

"As Quantum of Solace shows us, the radical Muslim clerics and ex-Mujahideen don't have a monopoly on the human technology of harnessing the anger of the young for their own, cynical purposes," writes Gleb Sidorkin in the Tisch Film Review. "Before going into the psychological similarities between Bond and his handlers and Ajmal Amir Kasab and the militant masterminds that recruited, trained and dispatched him, I want to mention another striking similarity between the two killers: their use of gadgets."

As for those blogs mentioned up at the top, here are Amitabh Bachchan and Aamir Khan. I've looked for Shah Rukh Khan's, but can't figure out which of the many that claim to be really are.

Posted by dwhudson at December 27, 2008 8:37 AM