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SADEHA 02.mp4

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Part 1 · VIDEHA MITHILA MAITHILI DISCUSSION CRITICISM SERIES PART 1

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1. 0:00–0:30अवाजिन यूर स्दूक आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आ� आ� आ� आप आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� �
2. 0:30–0:34writers, theater artists and activists.
3. 0:34–0:35Just standing right in the middle of the asphalt.
4. 0:35–0:37Standing right there on the asphalt
5. 0:37–0:38and they are reading poetry.
6. 0:38–0:41It's just such a remarkable scene to picture.
7. 0:41–0:44And the reason they are halting all this traffic,
8. 0:44–0:46the whole machinery of daily commerce,
9. 0:46–0:49it's not about lower taxes or cheaper fuel.
10. 0:49–0:50No, not at all.
11. 0:50–0:51They are out there doing it
12. 0:51–0:54because their language is dying
13. 0:54–0:58and they are basically demanding to be written
14. 0:58–1:01into the constitution of a nation before they just,
15. 1:01–1:04well, completely disappear from history.
16. 1:04–1:07That blockade, that just desperate
17. 1:07–1:10and honestly beautiful demand to be heard,
18. 1:10–1:13that is the absolute core of what we're getting into today.
19. 1:13–1:15Welcome to today's deep dive.
20. 1:15–1:16We're so glad you're here with us.
21. 1:16–1:17We really are.
22. 1:17–1:19We are traveling into the beating heart
23. 1:19–1:21of a linguistic ecosystem
24. 1:21–1:24that is fighting for its very survival.
25. 1:24–1:25We're talking about the Mathili language
26. 1:25–1:27and the culture of the Mathila region.
27. 1:27–1:29And for those of you listening,
28. 1:29–1:30whether you're a linguist or someone
29. 1:30–1:32who's just fascinated by history,
30. 1:32–1:33or even if you're just intensely curious
31. 1:33–1:36about how ancient traditions sort of collide
32. 1:36–1:37with the digital age.
33. 1:37–1:39This is a journey you are gonna wanna take.
34. 1:39–1:41So let's just jump right in.
35. 1:41–1:43Yeah, to really grasp the stakes here,
36. 1:43–1:46I think we first need to understand the geography
37. 1:46–1:48and the sheer scale of the community
38. 1:48–1:49we are actually discussing.
39. 1:49–1:53Because Mathilia is not just some minor dialect.
40. 1:53–1:54Oh, absolutely not.
41. 1:54–1:57It's a language with this massive historical footprint.
42. 1:57–2:01It's primarily spoken in the northern part of the Indian state of Bihar and also the
43. 2:01–2:03eastern Turai region of Nepal.
44. 2:03–2:08So we are talking about tens of millions of native speakers.
45. 2:08–2:10Literally tens of millions.
46. 2:10–2:16And it has this incredibly rich literary heritage that stretches back centuries, way before
47. 2:16–2:18modern borders were ever drawn.
48. 2:18–2:23But despite those millions of speakers and that really diphistory, it occupies this
49. 2:23–2:27incredibly precarious position in the modern world right now.
50. 2:27–2:27It really does.
51. 2:27–2:31It's marginalized economically, politically, and culturally.
52. 2:31–2:33Which brings us to the really fascinating window
53. 2:33–2:35we have into this world today.
54. 2:35–2:38We are exploring the events, the fierce debates,
55. 2:38–2:42the art, all of it, chronicled in the 2009 and 2010 issues
56. 2:42–2:44of a publication called Videa.
57. 2:44–2:45Right, Videa.
58. 2:45–2:49And Videa is just revolutionary in this specific context.
59. 2:49–2:52It was the first ever Mathili Fortnite Lee E Journal.
60. 2:52–2:54And the specific era we are looking at today,
61. 2:54–2:56which is centered around their 50th issue,
62. 2:56–3:00It just captures a community in a state of absolute chaotic transition.
63. 3:00–3:01It's messy, it's brilliant.
64. 3:01–3:04It's this collision of ancient folk traditions,
65. 3:04–3:09skating political critique and like bleeding edge digital preservation.
66. 3:09–3:11Well, let's talk about that digital preservation for a second,
67. 3:11–3:15because the scale of what the Vadeha project accomplished is staggering.
68. 3:15–3:16It's hard to overstate, honestly.
69. 3:16–3:20Right, because this wasn't just a few people casually scanning old poems
70. 3:20–3:21into a computer on the weekends.
71. 3:21–3:26No, they recognize that for a language to actually survive the 21st century,
72. 3:26–3:28it had to become native to the internet.
73. 3:28–3:32Yeah. So they compiled 6,000 pages of new literature.
74. 3:32–3:346,000.
75. 3:34–3:37And they built a 5 million word digital corpus.
76. 3:37–3:38Which is huge.
77. 3:38–3:43And they digitized hundreds of audio and video files of, you know,
78. 3:43–3:46traditional plays, rituals, ceremonies.
79. 3:46–3:50But maybe the most crucial technological emancipation they achieved
80. 3:50–3:53was publishing the first printed Mathilli book
81. 3:53–3:55using the Unicode font standard.
82. 3:55–4:00Okay, I want to pause on that for you listening because the word Unicode, it might sound like
83. 4:00–4:05dry technical jargon, right? It does sound pretty dry. But why was that such a monumental,
84. 4:05–4:10basically life or death achievement for this specific culture? Because it is literally a
85. 4:10–4:15matter of digital existence versus digital erasure. Think about the early days of personal
86. 4:15–4:20computing and the internet. Right, it was very English centric. Exactly. Standard encoding
87. 4:20–4:26was built almost entirely around the Latin alphabet. So English essentially. If you wanted to type or
88. 4:26–4:31publish in a complex index script, you had to build these really hacky proprietary fonts.
89. 4:31–4:37So like you would type an A on your keyboard and the software would draw a specific Mathuli
90. 4:37–4:43character instead. Yes, exactly. But the problem is if you sent that file to someone
91. 4:43–4:47who didn't have your exact custom font installed on their machine, it would just look like
92. 4:47–4:48Barbage.
93. 4:48–4:49Pure garbage.
94. 4:49–4:54It would just render as a screen full of chaotic, unreadable boxes and random symbols.
95. 4:54–4:54Wow.
96. 4:54–4:57It was essentially like a digital tower of Babel.
97. 4:57–5:00You just couldn't communicate with the outside world at all.
98. 5:00–5:01Precisely.
99. 5:01–5:03You couldn't build searchable databases.
100. 5:03–5:07You couldn't have web browsers natively understand the text.
101. 5:07–5:11And crucially, you couldn't index the language on search engines like Google.
102. 5:11–5:12So you're just invisible online.
103. 5:12–5:13Completely invisible.
104. 5:13–5:16So by standardizing Mathili into Unicode,
105. 5:16–5:20The Vidae project basically dragged the language out of technological isolation.
106. 5:20–5:30They made it visible. They ensured that, you know, a teenager in a village in Bihar and a diaspora student living in California could read the exact same poem on their phones.
107. 5:30–5:35Look how downloading specialized software, yeah. It was a declaration that Methili belongs on the global internet.
108. 5:35–5:40And they even took accessibility a step further, right? They published the first Methili book in Braille.
109. 5:40–5:48They did. It's just a soaring noble mission. They are practically digitizing the cultural DNA of an entire people
110. 5:48–5:52Just to protect it from the ravages of time and migration. It's so inspiring but uh
111. 5:52–6:00As with literally any passionate community fighting for limited resources and prestige the moment you build a shiny new platform
112. 6:00–6:08Human ego inevitably crashes the party. It always does the friction between high-minded ideals and baseline human behavior is just universal
113. 6:08–6:14It really is. Which brings us to this wildly unexpected, almost surreal scandal that erupted
114. 6:14–6:17right as this digital frontier was being opened.
115. 6:17–6:21Yeah, we are going from the noble preservation of ancient literature to what is essentially
116. 6:22–6:24a regional cyber thriller.
117. 6:24–6:28It's so crazy. The editor of the journal, a man named Good Gender the Core,
118. 6:28–6:35had to issue this very public, very detailed banning of a writer named Pankaj Parashar.
119. 6:35–6:39And this wasn't a band for like writing a controversial opinion or having a bad take?
120. 6:39–6:45No, no. This was a band for a deeply orchestrated campaign of intellectual theft and digital forgery.
121. 6:45–6:51Pankaj Parashar wasn't just submitting plagiarized work. He had constructed an entire network of
122. 6:51–6:53fake aliases.
123. 6:53–6:58It's wild. He was submitting articles under his own name, sure, but also posing as a writer
124. 6:58–7:00named Udikot. Right.
125. 7:00–7:05and as the highly respected Hindi poet Arun Kamal
126. 7:05–7:07and incredibly as Douglas Kellner.
127. 7:07–7:09Douglas Kellner, the audacity is just striking
128. 7:09–7:11and the way the journal handled it
129. 7:11–7:13reveals so much about the new digital reality
130. 7:13–7:14they were operating in.
131. 7:14–7:16Yeah, they didn't just quietly reject the submissions
132. 7:16–7:16and move on.
133. 7:16–7:19No, they publicly listed the specific IP addresses
134. 7:19–7:20he was using.
135. 7:20–7:22Like they literally printed the IP address,
136. 7:22–7:25like 227. whatever.
137. 7:25–7:27They went full forensic investigator on this guy.
138. 7:27–7:28Really did.
139. 7:28–7:30But why do that, though?
140. 7:30–7:33I mean, listing an IP address in a literary journal
141. 7:33–7:35feels so incongruous to me.
142. 7:35–7:37Why not just say, hey, this person is a fraud,
143. 7:37–7:39we are ignoring him?
144. 7:39–7:42Because in a marginalized linguistic community,
145. 7:42–7:45the currency of prestige is incredibly fragile.
146. 7:45–7:47And it is fiercely, fiercely guarded.
147. 7:47–7:48Oh, I see.
148. 7:48–7:50When you are fighting a daily battle
149. 7:50–7:52just to prove that your literature is legitimate,
150. 7:52–7:55that it deserves to be read and funded,
151. 7:55–7:57a fraudster doesn't just hurt the publication.
152. 7:57–7:59They threaten the credibility of the entire movement.
153. 7:59–8:00Exactly.
154. 8:00–8:02By publishing the IP addresses, the editors
155. 8:02–8:05were setting this very stark warning, basically saying,
156. 8:05–8:08the digital world might offer anonymity,
157. 8:08–8:10but we have the tools to police our own borders.
158. 8:10–8:11Don't mess with us.
159. 8:11–8:14It's a fascinating psychological phenomenon
160. 8:14–8:15that makes you wonder why someone
161. 8:15–8:18would go to such extreme lengths to counterfeit prestige
162. 8:18–8:19in a relatively niche environment.
163. 8:19–8:20Yeah.
164. 8:20–8:23If you were going to fake an identity, why do it here?
165. 8:23–8:27Well, it speaks to the intense craving for validation.
166. 8:27–8:32When a community feels ignored by the broader national or global culture, the internal hierarchies
167. 8:32–8:34become hyper-important.
168. 8:34–8:39So to be published in Vedea was to be recognized as an absolute intellectual leader in that
169. 8:39–8:40space.
170. 8:40–8:41Exactly.
171. 8:41–8:45Parishar wanted that status so badly that he tried to like siphon the brilliance
172. 8:45–8:47of established figures.
173. 8:47–8:52He was essentially translating and adapting the works of the real Arun Kamal and the
174. 8:52–8:53real Douglas Kellner.
175. 8:53–8:55And just passing those insights off
176. 8:55–8:57as his own original contributions
177. 8:57–8:59to Mithili critical thought.
178. 8:59–9:01And the collision of those two worlds,
179. 9:01–9:03the hyper-local Mithili literary scene
180. 9:03–9:06and the global academic sphere,
181. 9:06–9:08it resulted in my absolute favorite detail
182. 9:08–9:09of this entire saga.
183. 9:09–9:10Oh, the email.
184. 9:10–9:12The actual Douglas Kellner got involved.
185. 9:12–9:15Yes, Douglas Kellner is this very prominent professor
186. 9:15–9:17of education and philosophy
187. 9:17–9:21at the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA.
188. 9:21–9:23He's a major figure in critical theory.
189. 9:23–9:27Somehow an email from this UCLA professor makes its way into a mathilly literary journal
190. 9:27–9:29based thousands of miles away.
191. 9:29–9:30It's incredible.
192. 9:30–9:35Kellner literally writes to the editor to thank him for his, quote, detective work in
193. 9:35–9:37catching the plagiarist using his name.
194. 9:37–9:42It is such a bizarre, wonderful proof of how small the internet has made the world,
195. 9:42–9:43you know.
196. 9:43–9:44Truly.
197. 9:44–9:49A critical theorist in California and an editor preserving our regional language in India
198. 9:49–9:52teaming up to take down a literary identity thief.
199. 9:52–9:53It's like a movie.
200. 9:53–9:55It highlights a profound shift.
201. 9:55–10:01Before the internet, if someone in a regional community plagiarized an American academic,
202. 10:01–10:04I mean it might take decades for anyone to notice, if they ever did.
203. 10:04–10:06Like who would ever cross-reference that?
204. 10:06–10:07Nobody.
205. 10:07–10:11The digitization of Methioli didn't just expose the language to the world, it exposed
206. 10:11–10:13the writers to global accountability.
207. 10:13–10:18It is a perfect illustration of the growing pains of a culture moving online.
208. 10:18–10:23While the digital gatekeepers were busy fighting off fraudsters, the genuine foundational titans
209. 10:23–10:27of the language were waging an entirely different war against the establishment.
210. 10:27–10:32Yes, and that brings us to an incredible figure, the acclaimed writer, Jeevakant.
211. 10:32–10:37Jeevakant is just a towering presence. The extensive interview conducted with him by
212. 10:37–10:42Vinny Udpal provides this masterclass in how a writer is forged outside the traditional
213. 10:42–10:44polished academic pathways.
214. 10:44–10:51His origin story is utterly captivating because it just completely upends how we usually think about literary education.
215. 10:51–11:00It really does because he was born in 1936 in a rural village setting and he didn't have the typical trajectory of a recognized intellectual.
216. 11:00–11:06Not at all. He started his formal schooling quite late actually and largely on his own initiative.
217. 11:06–11:12But his true education, the spark that created one of the sharpest minds in Michaeli literature,
218. 11:12–11:14it didn't happen in a classroom?
219. 11:14–11:16No. It happened on the front steps of village homes.
220. 11:17–11:22He describes this deeply communal, intensely intellectual environment that is just
221. 11:22–11:25the absolute bedrock of oral tradition.
222. 11:25–11:28He paints this incredibly vivid picture of his childhood.
223. 11:28–11:32He says the older men in his village would gather on the thresholds to play cards.
224. 11:32–11:34Right, just a casual game of cards.
225. 11:34–11:39But while the cards were being dealt, the conversation was exclusively about poetry and philosophy.
226. 11:39–11:43Specifically, they would debate the Ramayana written by Tolsidas.
227. 11:43–11:47Yeah, Givkant recalls how they would take a single line from the epic and spend hours,
228. 11:47–11:49literally hours, arguing over it.
229. 11:49–11:53Offering 10 entirely different interpretations of a single phrase.
230. 11:53–11:56This is a crucial mechanism of cultural transmission, right?
231. 11:57–12:01We often mistakenly view oral tradition as this passive exercise.
232. 12:01–12:06Like, an elder tells a story and the younger generation just quietly memorizes it.
233. 12:06–12:10But Jivakant's experience shows that it is wildly interactive.
234. 12:10–12:14It is critical, participatory, and highly argumentative.
235. 12:14–12:15Exactly.
236. 12:15–12:20Young Jivakant is sitting there, washing these men passionately dissect literature,
237. 12:20–12:21and a realization hits him.
238. 12:21–12:25He thinks, well, if there can be this much intense debate and varied meaning
239. 12:25–12:28over what Tolsidas wrote centuries ago…
240. 12:28–12:30Why shouldn't I write something that people will talk about?
241. 12:30–12:31Exactly.
242. 12:31–12:34That environment taught him a fundamental lesson.
243. 12:34–12:38Literature is not a static object meant to be quietly admired.
244. 12:38–12:40It is a living argument.
245. 12:40–12:42It is a tool for provoking thought
246. 12:42–12:43and challenging the status quo.
247. 12:43–12:46And well, when you learn that literature is an argument,
248. 12:46–12:47you tend to become a very good fighter.
249. 12:47–12:49You really do.
250. 12:49–12:51And Jeevikan's critique of the modern Mithili
251. 12:51–12:54literary establishment is absolutely blistering.
252. 12:54–12:55Oh, it's brutal.
253. 12:55–12:58If the editors were policing the digital borders,
254. 12:58–13:03Jeevakan was basically trying to burn down the corrupt institutions from the inside.
255. 13:03–13:07He views the literary scene of his era as deeply compromised.
256. 13:07–13:12He looks at the critics and the gatekeepers and sees a system infected by pervasive factionalism
257. 13:12–13:13and castism.
258. 13:13–13:17The imagery he uses to describe these critics is unforgettable.
259. 13:17–13:21He says the establishment figures quote, drink stupidity and vomit poison.
260. 13:21–13:24Wow, it's a brutal visceral indictment.
261. 13:24–13:28He argues that the ecosystem is entirely backwards.
262. 13:28–13:32Instead of nurturing brilliant new voices, he says the critics actively suppress genuinely
263. 13:32–13:36talented writers who don't belong to the right social circle.
264. 13:36–13:38Or the Dominic casts, yeah.
265. 13:38–13:42Meanwhile, they elevate people with zero artistic merit, simply because they have the right
266. 13:42–13:43connections.
267. 13:43–13:44Right.
268. 13:44–13:47He actually compares the leading critics to someone trying to perform the incredibly
269. 13:47–13:52delicate work of a goldsmith, but while using the heavy, destructive hammer of a
270. 13:52–13:53blacksmith.
271. 13:53–13:54It's a great metaphor.
272. 13:54–13:59And to fully understand the depth of his frustration here, we have to look through the specific
273. 13:59–14:01analytical framework he used to view the world.
274. 14:01–14:03Which was Marxism, right?
275. 14:03–14:04Yes.
276. 14:04–14:08G. V. Kant was deeply steeped in Marxist theory and socialist philosophy.
277. 14:08–14:13When he looked at the casteism and the factionalism in the literary establishment, he didn't
278. 14:13–14:15just see bad manners or personal grievances.
279. 14:15–14:17He saw systemic oppression.
280. 14:17–14:20He saw an elite class hoarding cultural capital.
281. 14:20–14:21Exactly.
282. 14:21–14:26believed that literature had a duty to address that systemic oppression.
283. 14:26–14:30Now just a pause here for everyone listening. We want to explicitly state that we are
284. 14:30–14:34neutrally reporting the contents of the source text here. We aren't endorsing
285. 14:34–14:38Marxism, socialism, or any political ideology. We're just conveying
286. 14:38–14:42Givakon's documented personal beliefs and how they influenced his writing.
287. 14:42–14:46Right. We're just looking at his lens on the world. And through that lens he
288. 14:46–14:50argued that the basic foundational culture of the region was rooted in a
289. 14:50–14:52philosophy of let all be happy.
290. 14:52–14:56But he felt that the Marxist framework provided the necessary vocabulary to articulate the
291. 14:56–15:00struggles of the deeply impoverished masses in Mithila.
292. 15:00–15:04He pointed out that focusing on poverty wasn't even a modern political invention.
293. 15:04–15:10He traced it all the way back to the ancient, universally revered, mathilly poet, Vidyapati.
294. 15:10–15:14Noting that the themes of economic disparity have literally always been woven into the
295. 15:14–15:16fabric of the language.
296. 15:16–15:20But what makes Steve Kent such a compelling thinker is that he wasn't just this rigid
297. 15:20–15:22ideologue reading from a script.
298. 15:22–15:24He was fiercely independent.
299. 15:24–15:29Yeah, even while adopting Marxist frameworks to critique casteism, he openly criticized
300. 15:29–15:33the practical applications of Marxism when he felt it betrayed its own ideals.
301. 15:33–15:34Right.
302. 15:34–15:39He specifically pointed to the extreme nationalism that can infect political movements.
303. 15:39–15:43He cited the aggressive actions of China and Tibet and Bhutan as examples of ideology
304. 15:43–15:45losing its moral compass.
305. 15:45–15:50He just refused to let anything stagnate, whether it was a political philosophy or poetry itself.
306. 15:50–15:55He was adamant that literature must continuously evolve or it will simply die.
307. 15:55–15:59He mapped out this historical progression, arguing that poetry naturally shifted from
308. 15:59–16:01the Romantic era to the Nationalistic era.
309. 16:01–16:06But then, looking at the catastrophic devastation of the Second World War, he concluded that
310. 16:06–16:10extreme nationalism had proven itself to be utterly destructive.
311. 16:10–16:14Therefore, the focus of literature had to shift once again.
312. 16:14–16:19He believed the new frontier for poetry wasn't grand national narratives anymore.
313. 16:19–16:23It was the intricate, grounded reality of human relationships, the friendships, the
314. 16:23–16:27daily survival, the interpersonal dynamics of ordinary people.
315. 16:27–16:31The analogy he uses for this evolution is brilliant, I think.
316. 16:31–16:35He compares the progression of poetry to watching a child grow up.
317. 16:35–16:36Yeah.
318. 16:36–16:40You have the naming ceremony, the toddler years, the transition into adulthood.
319. 16:40–16:43At every single stage, the child is fundamentally different.
320. 16:43–16:46They require different care, different conversations.
321. 16:46–16:48The literature he argues has to undergo
322. 16:48–16:50that same relentless maturation.
323. 16:50–16:52It is a profound framework,
324. 16:52–16:55but it also presents a pretty terrifying scenario
325. 16:55–16:55for you to ponder.
326. 16:55–16:56It does.
327. 16:56–16:58Because if we accept Javikant's premise
328. 16:58–17:00that poetry is like a growing child,
329. 17:00–17:03we have to ask what happens if the growth stops.
330. 17:03–17:06If a culture's literature gets trapped in a cycle
331. 17:06–17:09of repeating the same old romantic tropes
332. 17:09–17:11or the same dusty nationalistic anthems.
333. 17:11–17:14has the culture itself suffered in arrested development.
334. 17:14–17:15Exactly.
335. 17:15–17:18And that is the exact anxiety that hangs over the next major issue
336. 17:18–17:20addressed in the Videha discussions.
337. 17:20–17:24Because if the literature stops evolving, or worse,
338. 17:24–17:27if it evolves into something completely unrecognizable
339. 17:27–17:28to the common person.
340. 17:28–17:29You face an existential threat.
341. 17:29–17:30You lose your readers.
342. 17:30–17:31Right.
343. 17:31–17:32And that crisis of readership is
344. 17:32–17:35explored in really deep, uncomfortable detail
345. 17:35–17:38in a conversation between the editor, Gajendra Thakur,
346. 17:38–17:42and another highly influential literary figure, Raj Mohan Chah.
347. 17:42–17:45Raj Mohan Chah diagnoses a tragic disconnect here.
348. 17:45–17:47He argues that the writers and the everyday people
349. 17:47–17:49they are supposedly writing for,
350. 17:49–17:51they're living in two completely different realities.
351. 17:51–17:53He says that modern Mathili literature
352. 17:53–17:56has alienated the masses by transforming
353. 17:56–17:58from a reflection of life into a quote,
354. 17:58–18:00philosophical object.
355. 18:00–18:03A philosophical object, that is a perfect term for it.
356. 18:03–18:04It really is.
357. 18:04–18:06Because it implies something that is placed
358. 18:06–18:11a pedestal to be analyzed by experts rather than something you keep in your pocket to help you get
359. 18:11–18:16through the day. Right. The literature became an academic exercise. It was being written by professors
360. 18:16–18:22for other professors to be debated in university departments. Completely bypassing the villager
361. 18:22–18:27or the factory worker. It's the ultimate failure of art to communicate. But during their discussion,
362. 18:27–18:33they highlight one glaring, fascinating exception to this rule of alienation.
363. 18:33–18:34The author, Hari Mohan.
364. 18:34–18:41Yes. Hari Mohanja is the anomaly that proves how complex literary popularity can really be.
365. 18:41–18:44Raj Mohanja points out that if you travel into the rural villages,
366. 18:44–18:48the everyday people might not know the names of the modern award-winning poets,
367. 18:49–18:54but they absolutely know Hari Mohanja. They read his books, they relate to his characters.
368. 18:54–18:59But here's where it gets incredibly thorny, because Hari Mohanja was universally popular,
369. 18:59–19:08Yes, but he was also the subject of intense, valid criticism from the progressive wings of the literary community.
370. 19:08–19:17Critics pointed out that his massive popularity was built on narratives that almost exclusively depicted a specific, uppercast elite society.
371. 19:17–19:24The critique was that his work completely alienated and erased the experiences of the Dalit communities and the extreme poor.
372. 19:24–19:27It introduces a massive paradox.
373. 19:27–19:33How can an author who is criticized for writing about a narrow, privileged slice of life be
374. 19:33–19:37the only one who maintains broad, massive popularity across the wider public?
375. 19:37–19:38It's so tricky.
376. 19:38–19:44I mean, it suggests that accessibility in prose, the use of humor, and just the sheer narrative
377. 19:44–19:49momentum of a story will often attract readers more effectively than highly intellectualized
378. 19:49–19:50literature.
379. 19:50–19:53Even if that intellectual literature has better representation, if it's impossible
380. 19:53–19:54to read, people won't read it.
381. 19:54–19:55Exactly.
382. 19:55–20:00between writing what the elite critics believe should be read and what the public actually
383. 20:00–20:01wants to read.
384. 20:01–20:05And that exact tension, the war between the elite gatekeepers and the reality of the language,
385. 20:05–20:10it explodes in a massive controversy surrounding the Sahitya Academy Awards.
386. 20:10–20:11Right.
387. 20:11–20:15And for you listening who might not be familiar, the Sahitya Academy is India's national
388. 20:15–20:17academy of letters.
389. 20:17–20:20It is the premier literary institution in the country.
390. 20:20–20:21It's a huge deal.
391. 20:21–20:25Winning a Sahitya Academy Award is not just about getting a shiny trophy to put
392. 20:25–20:28on your shelf, it means national prestige.
393. 20:28–20:30It often comes with significant financial grants.
394. 20:30–20:34It guarantees your book will be purchased by libraries across the country.
395. 20:34–20:36It essentially cements your legacy.
396. 20:36–20:37Right.
397. 20:37–20:41And in a marginalized language community, an award like this is survival money.
398. 20:41–20:43It is the ultimate brass ring.
399. 20:43–20:48Which is exactly why the fights over it are so unbelievably vicious.
400. 20:48–20:53The journal documents this deep boiling frustration within the Methili community regarding
401. 20:53–20:56how these specific awards are managed and handed out.
402. 20:56–20:59And the primary grievance they talk about is absolutely wild.
403. 20:59–21:01Authors are furious because the prestigious awards
404. 21:01–21:03meant to celebrate Mathili literature
405. 21:03–21:06are frequently being given to direct,
406. 21:06–21:07literal translations of works
407. 21:07–21:09originally written in other languages.
408. 21:09–21:11Like Hindi or Bengali, right?
409. 21:11–21:12Yes.
410. 21:12–21:15So brilliant, completely original works,
411. 21:15–21:18conceived and written natively in Mathili
412. 21:18–21:21are being passed over in favor of translated imports.
413. 21:21–21:23That is so infuriating.
414. 21:23–21:25but the allegations go even deeper than that.
415. 21:25–21:28There is this pervasive belief documented right here
416. 21:28–21:30in these interviews that the juries determining the winners
417. 21:30–21:33don't even bother to read the books they are judging.
418. 21:33–21:36Which is just, how do you even judge a literary award
419. 21:36–21:37without reading the books?
420. 21:37–21:41Right, you rely on the exact factionalism and castism
421. 21:41–21:43that Giva Kant was screaming about earlier.
422. 21:43–21:46The allegation is that the judges look at the author's
423. 21:46–21:48name, identify which social clique
424. 21:48–21:50or political faction they belong to,
425. 21:50–21:52and hand out the prize based on patronage,
426. 21:52–21:54rather than literary merit.
427. 21:54–21:56It is an ecosystem suffocating on its own gatekeeping.
428. 21:56–21:59But Rajmohan Chah, even while acknowledging this corruption,
429. 21:59–22:02he takes a surprisingly nuanced stance
430. 22:02–22:03on the issue of translation itself.
431. 22:03–22:04He does.
432. 22:04–22:06You might expect him to demand the translations
433. 22:06–22:09be banned from award consideration entirely,
434. 22:09–22:12but he actually defends the practice.
435. 22:12–22:12He does.
436. 22:12–22:16And his defense is grounded in a really deep understanding
437. 22:16–22:18of how languages survive globally.
438. 22:18–22:21He argues that translation is the absolute lifeblood
439. 22:21–22:23of comparative literature.
440. 22:23–22:25A language cannot exist in isolation.
441. 22:25–22:26No.
442. 22:26–22:30By taking great complex works from global or national literature
443. 22:30–22:32and translating them into Mephili,
444. 22:32–22:34you are essentially stress testing the language.
445. 22:34–22:37You are forcing Mephili to develop the vocabulary
446. 22:37–22:41and the syntactical muscle to express new foreign ideas.
447. 22:41–22:43It expands the capacity of the language itself.
448. 22:43–22:44That makes perfect sense.
449. 22:44–22:45You don't build a strong language
450. 22:45–22:46by building a wall around it.
451. 22:46–22:47No, you don't.
452. 22:47–22:51But Rajmohan Shah ultimately points to a much darker,
453. 22:51–22:53much more existential tragedy that renders
454. 22:53–22:55the entire award debate somewhat moot.
455. 22:55–22:57Right, because you can argue about
456. 22:57–22:59who wins the trophy all day,
457. 22:59–23:01but it doesn't matter if there is no one left
458. 23:01–23:02to read the winning book.
459. 23:02–23:04And this is the core crisis.
460. 23:04–23:07He identifies a dying love for the language itself
461. 23:07–23:09and the primary engine of that death
462. 23:09–23:11is mass economic migration.
463. 23:11–23:12The reality of the Mathila region
464. 23:12–23:15is that economic opportunities have historically
465. 23:15–23:16been very scarce.
466. 23:16–23:18So what happens?
467. 23:18–23:24the youth leave, they migrate to the massive urban centers, to Delhi, to Mumbai, or they
468. 23:24–23:25go abroad for work.
469. 23:25–23:29And when they leave, the linguistic tie is almost immediately severed.
470. 23:29–23:36Raj Mohan laments that within a single generation of moving to a city like Delhi, families entirely
471. 23:36–23:38adopt Hindi or English.
472. 23:38–23:40The children just don't learn Mithili.
473. 23:40–23:43The language isn't just suffering from a lack of readers today.
474. 23:43–23:47It is rapidly losing the people who are supposed to speak it tomorrow.
475. 23:47–23:49It is literally bleeding out its future.
476. 23:49–23:53So if you are a writer operating in this environment where your audience is migrating away, your
477. 23:53–23:58critics are corrupt, and your language is fighting for breath, what do you do?
478. 23:58–23:59You stop writing philosophical objects.
479. 23:59–24:00Yes.
480. 24:00–24:02You write literature that screams...
481. 24:02–24:06You abandon the abstract and you confront the visceral reality of the society around
482. 24:06–24:07you.
483. 24:07–24:08Exactly.
484. 24:08–24:11And that shift is brilliantly captured in a book review featured in the journal.
485. 24:11–24:15A critic named Chandrash reviews a short story collection by an author named Rambaros
486. 24:15–24:18who writes under the pen name Bramar.
487. 24:18–24:19And the collection is titled,
488. 24:19–24:22Hoogli Upar Bahit Ganga,
489. 24:22–24:25which translates to the Ganga flowing over the Hoogli.
490. 24:25–24:26And let me tell you,
491. 24:26–24:29this is a million miles away from romantic poetry
492. 24:29–24:30about the monsoon rains.
493. 24:30–24:32Oh, definitely.
494. 24:32–24:37This is a plunge into raw, gritty, unsparing realism.
495. 24:37–24:40It is literature holding a cracked dirty mirror
496. 24:40–24:41up to a society in crisis.
497. 24:41–24:44The review highlights several of the 32 stories
498. 24:44–24:49in the collection and they tackle the absolute darkest corners of systemic exploitation.
499. 24:49–24:52The title story, for instance, centers on a character named Sonobai.
500. 24:52–24:53Who is a sex worker?
501. 24:53–24:54Right.
502. 24:54–24:56And her interaction with a client named Hira.
503. 24:56–25:01It is a story that confronts the total commodification of the human body, driven by just desperate
504. 25:01–25:02poverty.
505. 25:02–25:05But the narrative pivot is what makes it so striking.
506. 25:05–25:06It is heartbreaking.
507. 25:06–25:10The climax of the story isn't a moment of violence but a moment of profound psychological
508. 25:10–25:11shock.
509. 25:11–25:13Hira, the client, doesn't exploit Sonobai.
510. 25:13–25:18Instead, he treats her with genuine, unadulterated human compassion.
511. 25:18–25:22And the text knows that Sonabai is utterly paralyzed by this, because she feels she is
512. 25:22–25:26witnessing a pure human for the very first time in her life.
513. 25:26–25:28It is a devastating indictment.
514. 25:28–25:32The story is arguing that the socioeconomic conditions are so degrading, so brutally
515. 25:32–25:38transactional, that basic human decency has become a shocking anomaly.
516. 25:38–25:41The society has been stripped of its humanity.
517. 25:41–25:46And Bromar's relentless examination of that societal decay continues throughout the collection.
518. 25:46–25:51The reviewer unpacks how the stories continuously target the destructive nature of unchecked
519. 25:51–25:54desire and the corrupting influence of wealth.
520. 25:54–25:58There's another story about a character named Regga, whose pursuit of purely physical,
521. 25:58–26:04material desires leads her to completely obliterate her own home and family structure.
522. 26:04–26:09But perhaps the most horrifying and potent story highlighted in the review directly addresses
523. 26:09–26:11the crisis of migration we just discussed.
524. 26:11–26:16It's about a migrant worker who has left his family behind to perform grueling labor in
525. 26:16–26:18the state of Punjab.
526. 26:18–26:21The psychological toll of that separation is the core of the narrative.
527. 26:21–26:25This man finally returns home from Punjab only to discover that his wife has given
528. 26:25–26:29birth to an infant out of wedlock during his long absence.
529. 26:29–26:34And the story culminates in an incredibly dark, devastating scene where the returning
530. 26:34–26:36husband murders the infant.
531. 26:36–26:42It is horrific, but it is deeply symbolic of the fracturing of the entire culture.
532. 26:42–26:45The extreme poverty forces the migration.
533. 26:45–26:50The migration destroys the traditional family structure and creates unbearable psychological
534. 26:50–26:51pressure.
535. 26:51–26:56And the ultimate result is violence and the destruction of the next generation.
536. 26:56–27:01Brahmar is drawing a direct line from economic marginalization to moral collapse.
537. 27:01–27:05But reading the critics' review of this collection, I noticed significant hesitation.
538. 27:05–27:06Oh, yeah.
539. 27:06–27:12The reviewer, Chandraesh, praises the bravery of the themes, but he strongly critiques the
540. 27:12–27:13execution.
541. 27:13–27:17He notes that Brahmar often relies too heavily on visceral shock value.
542. 27:17–27:18Right.
543. 27:18–27:22He argues that the author is so desperate to deliver these brutal moments like the murder
544. 27:22–27:25of an infant that he neglects the actual craft of writing.
545. 27:25–27:30The characters are left underdeveloped, serving as mere props to deliver a social message.
546. 27:30–27:33It is a classic literary debate, you know, the tension between the urgency of
547. 27:33–27:40message and the aesthetics of the craft. But it makes me wonder, is there a profound danger in that?
548. 27:41–27:47If a writer becomes so consumed by the need to enact social reform that the message completely
549. 27:47–27:53overpowers the art of storytelling. Doesn't it just become propaganda? Does it cease to be literature?
550. 27:53–27:58That is a very fair question. If you are analyzing a novel sitting in a comfortable,
551. 27:58–28:04stable society, but we have to adjust our lens when evaluating the literature of a marginalized
552. 28:04–28:09threatened community. In an ecosystem dealing with crushing poverty, mass migration and systemic
553. 28:09–28:15exploitation, literature rarely has the luxury of existing simply as art for art's sake.
554. 28:15–28:17You don't have time to worry about perfect senate structure when the house is on fire.
555. 28:17–28:22Exactly. When a society is suffocating, its literature doesn't politely clear its throat,
556. 28:22–28:27it screams. The reliance on shock value that the reviewer criticizes might not be a failure
557. 28:27–28:30of craft, but a deliberate, desperate strategy.
558. 28:30–28:33It is a demand for humanism and social justice.
559. 28:33–28:39The writer is prioritizing the ugly, urgent truth over aesthetic perfection because survival
560. 28:39–28:41is on the line.
561. 28:41–28:43It is heavy, heavy material.
562. 28:43–28:48We have adult authors writing visceral stories about murder and sex work to wake up the
563. 28:48–28:50conscience of the society.
564. 28:50–28:55We have elite critics engaging in bitter factional warfare over academy awards.
565. 28:55–28:57It's a lot of conflict.
566. 28:57–29:01But here's where our exploration of the Vedea Journal takes a sudden incredibly beautiful
567. 29:01–29:06turn because while all of that chaos and intellectual warfare is raging at the top
568. 29:06–29:12of the cultural pyramid, the actual practical mechanism of the language's survival is
569. 29:12–29:14quietly operating at the very bottom.
570. 29:14–29:16Yes, it is happening in the cradle.
571. 29:16–29:20This section of the journal provides one of the most profound insights into how culture
572. 29:20–29:21actually functions.
573. 29:21–29:26We are diving into an incredibly detailed documentation of Methili children's folk literature
574. 29:26–29:30compiled by Ful Chandrashah, who writes under the name Praveen.
575. 29:30–29:34And to be clear, this is not literature written by scholars in universities and then published
576. 29:34–29:36in books for children to read.
577. 29:36–29:39No, this is the organic, oral literature of the folk.
578. 29:39–29:44It is the rhythmic poetry created by mothers, grandmothers and older siblings.
579. 29:44–29:49Used as practical tools to raise human beings from the moment they take their first
580. 29:49–29:50breath.
581. 29:50–29:52and the text is brilliant.
582. 29:52–29:55It starts with a genre they call lullan polan,
583. 29:55–29:57which translates to rearing rhymes.
584. 29:57–30:00These are highly specific functional chance
585. 30:00–30:02embedded into the physical mechanics of childcare.
586. 30:02–30:05The intimacy of these details is just breathtaking.
587. 30:05–30:08For instance, the text documents the specific
588. 30:08–30:11phonetic rhymes used during an oil massage.
589. 30:11–30:13Right. In many South Asian cultures,
590. 30:13–30:15massaging a newborn with warm mustard oil
591. 30:15–30:18is a daily ritual believed to build bone strength and health.
592. 30:18–30:22and health. And while the mother is physically rubbing the oil into the baby's head, she doesn't
593. 30:22–30:29just do it in silence. She chants, chai chai chai, bua, sut hai bua. It is purely phonetic and deeply
594. 30:29–30:34rhythmic. The rhythm of the words matches the physical rhythm of the massage. It is designed
595. 30:34–30:38to soothe the infant, but simultaneously it is washing the fundamental phonetic sounds of the
596. 30:38–30:43Mathili language over the child's developing brain. And as the child's body grows,
597. 30:43–30:48The literature evolves to push them forward. When a toddler is struggling to balance,
598. 30:48–30:53trying to take those terrifying first steps. The family gathers around, clapping
599. 30:53–30:56their hands to provide a steady beat, and they chant,
600. 30:56–31:03The Thetaia, The Thetaia, Degba-dia. Which roughly translates to an encouragement for the beloved
601. 31:03–31:08child to push their feet forward step by step. It is literal linguistic scaffolding.
602. 31:08–31:13They are using the bouncy, arrhythmic cadence of the spoken word to teach the physical
603. 31:13–31:18rhythm of walking. It's amazing. And then of course the journal documents the most universal of
604. 31:18–31:24all childhood literature. The lullaby. But the imagery contained within these specific
605. 31:24–31:29methilly lullabies reveals so much about the socio-economic reality of the region. The lullabies
606. 31:29–31:34are never just about getting a child to sleep. They are encoded with the anxieties and the
607. 31:34–31:38aspirations of the parents. Look at the variation of the famous Chanda Mama rhyme
608. 31:38–31:42documented here, the mother is singing to the moon, referring to the moon as an uncle,
609. 31:42–31:47asking him to come from across the river. But she asked the moon to bring a golden bowl
610. 31:47–31:52filled with rice and milk to feed her baby. Think about the context we established earlier.
611. 31:52–31:57This is a region historically plagued by deep economic hardship and food insecurity.
612. 31:57–32:03The image of a bowl made of solid gold filled to the brim with rich milk and abundant rice.
613. 32:04–32:07That isn't just a whimsical fantasy. No, it's a prayer.
614. 32:07–32:13Yes. It is the projection of a mother's ultimate desperate aspiration for her child's wealth,
615. 32:13–32:17health, and security woven into a nightly song.
616. 32:17–32:22It is the contrast between the harsh reality of the day and the golden promise of the dream.
617. 32:22–32:27There is another lullaby documented called Nina, where the singer is calling for sleep to come
618. 32:27–32:31to the baby's eyes. But they are highly specific about the geography of sleep.
619. 32:31–32:37The rhyme asks sleep to travel from the mother's ancestral village or from the uncle's village.
620. 32:37–32:42That is a brilliant mechanism. Before the child can even formulate a sentence before they can walk,
621. 32:42–32:46the Lullaby is installing a mental map of their extended family's geography.
622. 32:46–32:50It teaches them their place within a wider network of villages.
623. 32:50–32:52But the children don't stay in the cradle forever.
624. 32:53–32:57As they grow older and move out into the dusty courtyards, the literature shifts from the
625. 32:57–33:02intimate Lalon-Palon-rearing rhymes to the realm of play and entertainment.
626. 33:02–33:08And the games documented by Pervin are incredibly complex social and linguistic exercises.
627. 33:08–33:13The playground is where the language is truly stress tested by the youth.
628. 33:13–33:19The journal catalogs fast-paced word games like the Atkin MatCon rhyme. It's an elimination game
629. 33:19–33:23that involves chanting rapidly about seeds, leaves, and natural elements.
630. 33:23–33:27Requiring the kids to make split-second choices based on the rhythm.
631. 33:27–33:33They also document the aggressive staccato chance used during Kabati, a highly physical tag game
632. 33:33–33:37where the chants actually dictate the breathing and the stamina of the players.
633. 33:37–33:42But the most sociologically fascinating game documented is undoubtedly the Gurgit Rani or
634. 33:42–33:47the Lizard Queen game. Oh, I was mesmerized by the description of this. A group of girls will
635. 33:47–33:51stand in a circle and physically interlock by holding each other's legs, forming this strange
636. 33:51–33:56interconnected human structure. And as they hop around in this precarious formation,
637. 33:56–33:58They chant a call and response song.
638. 33:58–34:02They address the lizard queen, asking her where she has traveled from
639. 34:02–34:05and what exotic gifts she's brought back from distant lands,
640. 34:05–34:09asking if she brought elephants, horses, snakes, or tigers.
641. 34:09–34:12If we step back and analyze this, it is staggering.
642. 34:13–34:17Think about how a human being actually acquires their native culture.
643. 34:17–34:20You don't learn how to be a part of your community by reading a grammar textbook
644. 34:20–34:23or memorizing historical dates.
645. 34:23–34:26You learn it through the cadence of your mother's voice during an oil massage,
646. 34:26–34:29and the negotiated rules of a playground game.
647. 34:29–34:35These faux crimes, these seemingly silly chance about golden bowls and lizard queens,
648. 34:35–34:37they are the base operating system of the culture.
649. 34:37–34:40I look at it like a massive ancient tree.
650. 34:40–34:42The elite authors and critics we discussed earlier,
651. 34:42–34:47who are arguing over Marxist theory, translation rights and Sahicha Academy Awards,
652. 34:47–34:50they are arguing about the shape of the branches and the color of the leaves.
653. 34:50–34:53But these lullabies, these playground chants,
654. 34:53–34:56They are the root system hidden deep underground.
655. 34:56–35:01And that metaphor brings us right back to the terrifying warning from Raj Mahansha
656. 35:01–35:07about mass migration. When families are forced to leave Missila for a tiny apartment in Mumbai,
657. 35:07–35:10they might pack a few Mathili books, but the environment changes.
658. 35:10–35:14The courtyard is gone, the extended family network is gone,
659. 35:14–35:17the kids start speaking Hindi to fit in at their new schools.
660. 35:17–35:21The roots are severed, and if you lose the lullabies and the playground games,
661. 35:21–35:25No prestigious literary award in the world is going to keep that tree from dying.
662. 35:25–35:27It is a devastatingly fragile system.
663. 35:28–35:31But the story doesn't end in the cradle or on the playground.
664. 35:31–35:36Because what happens when the children who were raised on these rhymes, who witnessed the poverty
665. 35:36–35:39and who understand the threat of migration, finally grow up?
666. 35:39–35:41They don't just sit quietly and write poetry.
667. 35:41–35:44They realize that to save their language,
668. 35:44–35:47they have to demand space in the physical and political world.
669. 35:47–35:50And that brings us to the final explosive section of our deep dive.
670. 35:50–35:54the sociopolitical awakening chronicled in Videha.
671. 35:54–35:58The journal is brilliant because it recognizes that literature does not exist in a vacuum.
672. 35:59–36:03It actively chronicles the political movements that forge the writers.
673. 36:03–36:07We see this perfectly in a deeply personal essay by a writer named Amarnath Jha.
674. 36:08–36:13He provides a retrospective look at how the political landscape of his youth shaped the
675. 36:13–36:16literary consciousness of his entire generation.
676. 36:16–36:19He contrasts two wildly different moments in modern Indian history.
677. 36:19–36:23First, he recalls the 1971 war.
678. 36:23–36:27He remembers being a young boy in his village, sitting around a fire, watching the older
679. 36:27–36:28men.
680. 36:28–36:32The atmosphere was one of quiet, stoic, unified national pride.
681. 36:32–36:35It was a moment of absolute national consensus.
682. 36:35–36:39But the political climate shifted violently in a very short amount of time.
683. 36:39–36:40Exactly.
684. 36:40–36:43Just a few years later, that quiet pride is completely shattered by the arrival of
685. 36:43–36:46the 1974 JP movement.
686. 36:46–36:50For context, this was a massive, fiercely passionate political movement led by the activist
687. 36:50–36:51Jayaprakash Narayan.
688. 36:51–36:52Right.
689. 36:52–36:57Now, again, just jumping in here for neutrality, we're reporting Amarnath Shah's historical
690. 36:57–37:02recollections of the J.P. movement purely as they appear in the source text.
691. 37:02–37:06We're not endorsing any political stance or historical interpretation.
692. 37:06–37:07Absolutely.
693. 37:07–37:09We're just looking at how it affected him.
694. 37:09–37:13And it started in Bihar, the heartland of Maifali speakers.
695. 37:13–37:18It was a student led uprising protesting against systemic corruption, inflation, and the political
696. 37:18–37:19establishment.
697. 37:19–37:22Which eventually led to the declaration of the national emergency.
698. 37:22–37:26The socioeconomic conditions in Bihar at that time were a powder keg.
699. 37:26–37:31High unemployment, soaring food prices, and a feeling of total disenfranchisement among
700. 37:31–37:35the youth created an environment where rebellion was inevitable.
701. 37:35–37:38Amrnaath Shah describes how that environment electrified him.
702. 37:38–37:43The quiet stoicism of the older generation was gone, replaced by fiery student protests
703. 37:43–37:46and anti-corruption slogans filling the air.
704. 37:46–37:48He recalls being just a middle school student,
705. 37:48–37:51completely swept up in the revolutionary fervor
706. 37:51–37:52to the point where he sat down and wrote
707. 37:52–37:55his very first revolutionary poem.
708. 37:55–37:56It is a beautiful anecdote,
709. 37:56–37:59especially because he admits that his older brother
710. 37:59–38:03found the poem, laughed at it, and tore it to pieces.
711. 38:03–38:06Right, but the destruction of the poem doesn't matter.
712. 38:06–38:08What matters is the catalyst.
713. 38:08–38:11For Amarn of Tau examining his own past,
714. 38:11–38:16It was the political turmoil of the JP movement, the friction with political entities like the
715. 38:16–38:22Congress party, and the eventual rise of groups like the BJP that awakened his need to express
716. 38:22–38:27himself through literature. The political awakening birthed the artistic expression.
717. 38:27–38:32And that marriage of art and political activism wasn't just historical memory in the journal,
718. 38:32–38:35it was actively happening on the ground in the present day.
719. 38:35–38:38Which brings us back to that incredible scene I asked you to imagine at the very
720. 38:38–38:43beginning of this deep dive. The journal features a remarkable piece of on-the-ground news reporting
721. 38:43–38:49by Jitendra Chaw. He reports from Janakpur, Nepal, which is a major historical cultural hub for
722. 38:49–38:54the Mathili language. The events in Janakpur are a perfect real-time synthesis of everything this
723. 38:54–39:00culture is fighting for. The report details a chaka jam, which literally translates to a
724. 39:00–39:07traffic jam or a blockade. Writers, theater artists, poets, and cultural activists organize
725. 39:07–39:09a massive blockade on the main highway.
726. 39:09–39:11But they didn't utilize violence.
727. 39:11–39:13They weaponized their literature.
728. 39:13–39:16They blocked the road with a poetry reading.
729. 39:16–39:17They halted the economy with art.
730. 39:17–39:21And their demand was hyper specific and existentially vital.
731. 39:21–39:22At that time,
732. 39:22–39:25Nepal was undergoing a massive political transition
733. 39:25–39:29and drafting a completely new national constitution.
734. 39:29–39:32These Mephili artists weren't asking for a literary grant.
735. 39:32–39:34They were demanding that the new constitution
736. 39:34–39:38officially recognize and designate a specific mytholus state.
737. 39:38–39:42They understood that without political recognition and protected boundaries,
738. 39:42–39:46their linguistic identity would be swallowed whole by the dominant national culture.
739. 39:46–39:52It is such a powerful image. The poets taking their verses out of the philosophical textbooks
740. 39:52–39:56and bringing them to the asphalt, demanding to be written into the laws of the land.
741. 39:56–40:00But the reporting in the journal also makes it clear that protesting on the physical street
742. 40:00–40:02is only half the battle in the 21st century.
743. 40:02–40:06If you want to exist, you also have to conquer the screen.
744. 40:06–40:09Media representation is the final crucial battleground.
745. 40:09–40:11If a culture is invisible in the media,
746. 40:11–40:14it becomes invisible to its own youth.
747. 40:14–40:16The journal intensely documents the struggle
748. 40:16–40:18for broadcast visibility.
749. 40:18–40:21They proudly announced the launch of Sapaagamithila,
750. 40:21–40:24which is framed as a dedicated television channel meant
751. 40:24–40:28to broadcast Mathili culture directly into people's homes.
752. 40:28–40:30They also detail the exhausting, ongoing fight
753. 40:30–40:33to carve out just a few minutes of dedicated airtime
754. 40:33–40:36on much larger, dominant broadcast networks,
755. 40:36–40:38like Nepal One and Sahara Samay,
756. 40:38–40:42which typically only broadcast in Hindi or Bochpuri.
757. 40:42–40:45It is a desperate fight against media homogenization.
758. 40:45–40:47If a teenager in mytholid turns on the television
759. 40:47–40:49and only ever hears Hindi
760. 40:49–40:51or only ever sees the dominant culture reflected,
761. 40:51–40:54the implicit message is that their native Mithili culture
762. 40:54–40:57is archaic, irrelevant, and unworthy of the modern world.
763. 40:57–41:00And this fight extends to audio media as well.
764. 41:00–41:03The text includes a review of a traditional audio cassette tape.
765. 41:03–41:08The album is called Priya Pahun, recorded by a singer named Anshumala.
766. 41:08–41:12It is a comprehensive collection of traditional Methili marriage songs, detailing every step
767. 41:12–41:17of the ancient ritual, from the ceremonial arrival of the groom to the emotional, tearful
768. 41:17–41:18departure of the bride.
769. 41:18–41:22The reviewer makes a profound observation about this cassette tape.
770. 41:22–41:25As the physical traditions begin to fade under the pressure of modernization and
771. 41:25–41:31migration, these modern media formats, whether it is a cassette tape, a TV broadcast or an
772. 41:31–41:36MP3, are absolutely required to keep the ancient traditions alive.
773. 41:36–41:38You cannot rely on village courtyards anymore.
774. 41:38–41:41You have to digitize the tradition to save it.
775. 41:41–41:45And that observation brings this entire epic journey full circle.
776. 41:45–41:49If we pull back and synthesize the vast spectrum of human behavior we've explored today,
777. 41:49–41:52a striking undeniable pattern emerges.
778. 41:52–41:55Think about the poets sitting on the highway in Nepal.
779. 41:55–41:57traffic with their verses.
780. 41:57–42:02Think about the digital editor forensically tracking IP addresses to ban a plagiarist
781. 42:02–42:05and protect the integrity of a new online archive.
782. 42:05–42:10Consider the author deliberately writing gritty, uncomfortable, visceral stories about
783. 42:10–42:14a sex worker's shock at basic human decency.
784. 42:14–42:19And envision the mother sitting in a courtyard rubbing mustard oil into her infant's head
785. 42:19–42:22while chanting a rhythm about a golden bowl of milk.
786. 42:22–42:26They are all, every single one of them, fighting the exact same war.
787. 42:26–42:30They are engaged in a desperate, multi-front battle against cultural erasure.
788. 42:30–42:35They are utilizing every conceivable tool, from the phonetic rhythms of ancient oral
789. 42:35–42:41lullabies to the technological breakthrough of Unicode fonts, from raw, street-level
790. 42:41–42:44political protests to high-minded Marxist literary critique.
791. 42:44–42:48They are doing everything in their power to ensure that their language, their unique
792. 42:48–42:51way of describing the universe, doesn't simply fade into static.
793. 42:51–42:54It is the total anatomy of a culture refusing to die quietly.
794. 42:54–42:57It truly is breathtaking when you view it from that altitude.
795. 42:57–42:59We have covered an immense amount of brown today.
796. 42:59–43:00We really have.
797. 43:00–43:05We started at the bleeding edge of digital pioneering with the Vita Journal building its
798. 43:05–43:07five million word corpus.
799. 43:07–43:12We navigated the corrupt gate kept halls of literary awards and the raw unsparing
800. 43:12–43:16honesty of authors demanding social reform.
801. 43:16–43:19We dug down into the phonetic roots of playground rhymes and we stood on the
802. 43:19–43:22the highways with poets demanding political statehood.
803. 43:22–43:25It is a testament to the sheer resilience of the
804. 43:25–43:26Mathilly spirit.
805. 43:26–43:28It is a remarkable testament.
806. 43:28–43:31But as we bring this deep dive to a close,
807. 43:31–43:32I want to leave you, the listener,
808. 43:32–43:35with a final, highly complex thought
809. 43:35–43:38that builds upon everything we have explored today.
810. 43:38–43:38OK, let's hear it.
811. 43:38–43:41We have seen how intensely, how passionately
812. 43:41–43:44this community is working to digitize their traditions.
813. 43:44–43:47They are taking fluid lullabies, dynamic marriage songs,
814. 43:47–43:49and interactive playground games,
815. 43:49–43:54and they are meticulously encoding them into PDFs, audio cassettes, and permanent online archives.
816. 43:54–43:59The goal is to save them from being forgotten by a migrating modernizing generation.
817. 43:59–44:05It is a heroic effort to stop time. But here is the philosophical knot to untangle.
818. 44:06–44:09Oral traditions, like the Ramayana debates Givakot listened to,
819. 44:09–44:13or the Lizard Queen game the girls play in the courtyard,
820. 44:13–44:17survive and remain culturally potent precisely because they are fluid.
821. 44:17–44:18They're living things.
822. 44:18–44:21Right. They change with every single generation that speaks them.
823. 44:22–44:26The mother adapts the lyrics of the lullaby to reflect a new anxiety.
824. 44:26–44:30The children alter the rules of the game to fit a new urban environment.
825. 44:30–44:35So by writing these oral traditions down, by permanently freezing them in a rigid digital
826. 44:35–44:40archive to preserve them, do we risk fundamentally altering their nature?
827. 44:40–44:45Exactly. Do we risk turning a living, breathing, adaptable cultural organism
828. 44:45–44:51into a static museum exhibit. How do we preserve a culture without accidentally putting it in a glass case?
829. 44:51–44:56That is an incredibly heavy, brilliant question to walk away with. Does the very act of saving a
830. 44:56–45:01culture fundamentally change what it means to live in it? You have given us a whole new set of
831. 45:01–45:05depths to ponder and I love it. It's a lot to think about. It really is. Thank you so much for
832. 45:05–45:11joining us on this deep dive into the resilient, arguing, beautiful world of Mithili literature.
833. 45:11–45:16Keep questioning the world around you, keep exploring the hidden histories, and most importantly,
834. 45:16–45:17keep your curiosity alive.
835. 45:17–45:18We will catch you on the next one.

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अवाजिन यूर स्दूक आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आप आ� आ� आ� आप आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� आ� � writers, theater artists and activists. Just standing right in the middle of the asphalt. Standing right there on the asphalt and they are reading poetry. It's just such a remarkable scene to picture. And the reason they are halting all this traffic, the whole machinery of daily commerce, it's not about lower taxes or cheaper fuel. No, not at all. They are out there doing it because their language is dying and they are basically demanding to be written into the constitution of a nation before they just, well, completely disappear from history. That blockade, that just desperate and honestly beautiful demand to be heard, that is the absolute core of what we're getting into today. Welcome to today's deep dive. We're so glad you're here with us. We really are. We are traveling into the beating heart of a linguistic ecosystem that is fighting for its very survival. We're talking about the Mathili language and the culture of the Mathila region. And for those of you listening, whether you're a linguist or someone who's just fascinated by history, or even if you're just intensely curious about how ancient traditions sort of collide with the digital age. This is a journey you are gonna wanna take. So let's just jump right in. Yeah, to really grasp the stakes here, I think we first need to understand the geography and the sheer scale of the community we are actually discussing. Because Mathilia is not just some minor dialect. Oh, absolutely not. It's a language with this massive historical footprint. It's primarily spoken in the northern part of the Indian state of Bihar and also the eastern Turai region of Nepal. So we are talking about tens of millions of native speakers. Literally tens of millions. And it has this incredibly rich literary heritage that stretches back centuries, way before modern borders were ever drawn. But despite those millions of speakers and that really diphistory, it occupies this incredibly precarious position in the modern world right now. It really does. It's marginalized economically, politically, and culturally. Which brings us to the really fascinating window we have into this world today. We are exploring the events, the fierce debates, the art, all of it, chronicled in the 2009 and 2010 issues of a publication called Videa. Right, Videa. And Videa is just revolutionary in this specific context. It was the first ever Mathili Fortnite Lee E Journal. And the specific era we are looking at today, which is centered around their 50th issue, It just captures a community in a state of absolute chaotic transition. It's messy, it's brilliant. It's this collision of ancient folk traditions, skating political critique and like bleeding edge digital preservation. Well, let's talk about that digital preservation for a second, because the scale of what the Vadeha project accomplished is staggering. It's hard to overstate, honestly. Right, because this wasn't just a few people casually scanning old poems into a computer on the weekends. No, they recognize that for a language to actually survive the 21st century, it had to become native to the internet. Yeah. So they compiled 6,000 pages of new literature. 6,000. And they built a 5 million word digital corpus. Which is huge. And they digitized hundreds of audio and video files of, you know, traditional plays, rituals, ceremonies. But maybe the most crucial technological emancipation they achieved was publishing the first printed Mathilli book using the Unicode font standard. Okay, I want to pause on that for you listening because the word Unicode, it might sound like dry technical jargon, right? It does sound pretty dry. But why was that such a monumental, basically life or death achievement for this specific culture? Because it is literally a matter of digital existence versus digital erasure. Think about the early days of personal computing and the internet. Right, it was very English centric. Exactly. Standard encoding was built almost entirely around the Latin alphabet. So English essentially. If you wanted to type or publish in a complex index script, you had to build these really hacky proprietary fonts. So like you would type an A on your keyboard and the software would draw a specific Mathuli character instead. Yes, exactly. But the problem is if you sent that file to someone who didn't have your exact custom font installed on their machine, it would just look like Barbage. Pure garbage. It would just render as a screen full of chaotic, unreadable boxes and random symbols. Wow. It was essentially like a digital tower of Babel. You just couldn't communicate with the outside world at all. Precisely. You couldn't build searchable databases. You couldn't have web browsers natively understand the text. And crucially, you couldn't index the language on search engines like Google. So you're just invisible online. Completely invisible. So by standardizing Mathili into Unicode, The Vidae project basically dragged the language out of technological isolation. They made it visible. They ensured that, you know, a teenager in a village in Bihar and a diaspora student living in California could read the exact same poem on their phones. Look how downloading specialized software, yeah. It was a declaration that Methili belongs on the global internet. And they even took accessibility a step further, right? They published the first Methili book in Braille. They did. It's just a soaring noble mission. They are practically digitizing the cultural DNA of an entire people Just to protect it from the ravages of time and migration. It's so inspiring but uh As with literally any passionate community fighting for limited resources and prestige the moment you build a shiny new platform Human ego inevitably crashes the party. It always does the friction between high-minded ideals and baseline human behavior is just universal It really is. Which brings us to this wildly unexpected, almost surreal scandal that erupted right as this digital frontier was being opened. Yeah, we are going from the noble preservation of ancient literature to what is essentially a regional cyber thriller. It's so crazy. The editor of the journal, a man named Good Gender the Core, had to issue this very public, very detailed banning of a writer named Pankaj Parashar. And this wasn't a band for like writing a controversial opinion or having a bad take? No, no. This was a band for a deeply orchestrated campaign of intellectual theft and digital forgery. Pankaj Parashar wasn't just submitting plagiarized work. He had constructed an entire network of fake aliases. It's wild. He was submitting articles under his own name, sure, but also posing as a writer named Udikot. Right. and as the highly respected Hindi poet Arun Kamal and incredibly as Douglas Kellner. Douglas Kellner, the audacity is just striking and the way the journal handled it reveals so much about the new digital reality they were operating in. Yeah, they didn't just quietly reject the submissions and move on. No, they publicly listed the specific IP addresses he was using. Like they literally printed the IP address, like 227. whatever. They went full forensic investigator on this guy. Really did. But why do that, though? I mean, listing an IP address in a literary journal feels so incongruous to me. Why not just say, hey, this person is a fraud, we are ignoring him? Because in a marginalized linguistic community, the currency of prestige is incredibly fragile. And it is fiercely, fiercely guarded. Oh, I see. When you are fighting a daily battle just to prove that your literature is legitimate, that it deserves to be read and funded, a fraudster doesn't just hurt the publication. They threaten the credibility of the entire movement. Exactly. By publishing the IP addresses, the editors were setting this very stark warning, basically saying, the digital world might offer anonymity, but we have the tools to police our own borders. Don't mess with us. It's a fascinating psychological phenomenon that makes you wonder why someone would go to such extreme lengths to counterfeit prestige in a relatively niche environment. Yeah. If you were going to fake an identity, why do it here? Well, it speaks to the intense craving for validation. When a community feels ignored by the broader national or global culture, the internal hierarchies become hyper-important. So to be published in Vedea was to be recognized as an absolute intellectual leader in that space. Exactly. Parishar wanted that status so badly that he tried to like siphon the brilliance of established figures. He was essentially translating and adapting the works of the real Arun Kamal and the real Douglas Kellner. And just passing those insights off as his own original contributions to Mithili critical thought. And the collision of those two worlds, the hyper-local Mithili literary scene and the global academic sphere, it resulted in my absolute favorite detail of this entire saga. Oh, the email. The actual Douglas Kellner got involved. Yes, Douglas Kellner is this very prominent professor of education and philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA. He's a major figure in critical theory. Somehow an email from this UCLA professor makes its way into a mathilly literary journal based thousands of miles away. It's incredible. Kellner literally writes to the editor to thank him for his, quote, detective work in catching the plagiarist using his name. It is such a bizarre, wonderful proof of how small the internet has made the world, you know. Truly. A critical theorist in California and an editor preserving our regional language in India teaming up to take down a literary identity thief. It's like a movie. It highlights a profound shift. Before the internet, if someone in a regional community plagiarized an American academic, I mean it might take decades for anyone to notice, if they ever did. Like who would ever cross-reference that? Nobody. The digitization of Methioli didn't just expose the language to the world, it exposed the writers to global accountability. It is a perfect illustration of the growing pains of a culture moving online. While the digital gatekeepers were busy fighting off fraudsters, the genuine foundational titans of the language were waging an entirely different war against the establishment. Yes, and that brings us to an incredible figure, the acclaimed writer, Jeevakant. Jeevakant is just a towering presence. The extensive interview conducted with him by Vinny Udpal provides this masterclass in how a writer is forged outside the traditional polished academic pathways. His origin story is utterly captivating because it just completely upends how we usually think about literary education. It really does because he was born in 1936 in a rural village setting and he didn't have the typical trajectory of a recognized intellectual. Not at all. He started his formal schooling quite late actually and largely on his own initiative. But his true education, the spark that created one of the sharpest minds in Michaeli literature, it didn't happen in a classroom? No. It happened on the front steps of village homes. He describes this deeply communal, intensely intellectual environment that is just the absolute bedrock of oral tradition. He paints this incredibly vivid picture of his childhood. He says the older men in his village would gather on the thresholds to play cards. Right, just a casual game of cards. But while the cards were being dealt, the conversation was exclusively about poetry and philosophy. Specifically, they would debate the Ramayana written by Tolsidas. Yeah, Givkant recalls how they would take a single line from the epic and spend hours, literally hours, arguing over it. Offering 10 entirely different interpretations of a single phrase. This is a crucial mechanism of cultural transmission, right? We often mistakenly view oral tradition as this passive exercise. Like, an elder tells a story and the younger generation just quietly memorizes it. But Jivakant's experience shows that it is wildly interactive. It is critical, participatory, and highly argumentative. Exactly. Young Jivakant is sitting there, washing these men passionately dissect literature, and a realization hits him. He thinks, well, if there can be this much intense debate and varied meaning over what Tolsidas wrote centuries ago… Why shouldn't I write something that people will talk about? Exactly. That environment taught him a fundamental lesson. Literature is not a static object meant to be quietly admired. It is a living argument. It is a tool for provoking thought and challenging the status quo. And well, when you learn that literature is an argument, you tend to become a very good fighter. You really do. And Jeevikan's critique of the modern Mithili literary establishment is absolutely blistering. Oh, it's brutal. If the editors were policing the digital borders, Jeevakan was basically trying to burn down the corrupt institutions from the inside. He views the literary scene of his era as deeply compromised. He looks at the critics and the gatekeepers and sees a system infected by pervasive factionalism and castism. The imagery he uses to describe these critics is unforgettable. He says the establishment figures quote, drink stupidity and vomit poison. Wow, it's a brutal visceral indictment. He argues that the ecosystem is entirely backwards. Instead of nurturing brilliant new voices, he says the critics actively suppress genuinely talented writers who don't belong to the right social circle. Or the Dominic casts, yeah. Meanwhile, they elevate people with zero artistic merit, simply because they have the right connections. Right. He actually compares the leading critics to someone trying to perform the incredibly delicate work of a goldsmith, but while using the heavy, destructive hammer of a blacksmith. It's a great metaphor. And to fully understand the depth of his frustration here, we have to look through the specific analytical framework he used to view the world. Which was Marxism, right? Yes. G. V. Kant was deeply steeped in Marxist theory and socialist philosophy. When he looked at the casteism and the factionalism in the literary establishment, he didn't just see bad manners or personal grievances. He saw systemic oppression. He saw an elite class hoarding cultural capital. Exactly. believed that literature had a duty to address that systemic oppression. Now just a pause here for everyone listening. We want to explicitly state that we are neutrally reporting the contents of the source text here. We aren't endorsing Marxism, socialism, or any political ideology. We're just conveying Givakon's documented personal beliefs and how they influenced his writing. Right. We're just looking at his lens on the world. And through that lens he argued that the basic foundational culture of the region was rooted in a philosophy of let all be happy. But he felt that the Marxist framework provided the necessary vocabulary to articulate the struggles of the deeply impoverished masses in Mithila. He pointed out that focusing on poverty wasn't even a modern political invention. He traced it all the way back to the ancient, universally revered, mathilly poet, Vidyapati. Noting that the themes of economic disparity have literally always been woven into the fabric of the language. But what makes Steve Kent such a compelling thinker is that he wasn't just this rigid ideologue reading from a script. He was fiercely independent. Yeah, even while adopting Marxist frameworks to critique casteism, he openly criticized the practical applications of Marxism when he felt it betrayed its own ideals. Right. He specifically pointed to the extreme nationalism that can infect political movements. He cited the aggressive actions of China and Tibet and Bhutan as examples of ideology losing its moral compass. He just refused to let anything stagnate, whether it was a political philosophy or poetry itself. He was adamant that literature must continuously evolve or it will simply die. He mapped out this historical progression, arguing that poetry naturally shifted from the Romantic era to the Nationalistic era. But then, looking at the catastrophic devastation of the Second World War, he concluded that extreme nationalism had proven itself to be utterly destructive. Therefore, the focus of literature had to shift once again. He believed the new frontier for poetry wasn't grand national narratives anymore. It was the intricate, grounded reality of human relationships, the friendships, the daily survival, the interpersonal dynamics of ordinary people. The analogy he uses for this evolution is brilliant, I think. He compares the progression of poetry to watching a child grow up. Yeah. You have the naming ceremony, the toddler years, the transition into adulthood. At every single stage, the child is fundamentally different. They require different care, different conversations. The literature he argues has to undergo that same relentless maturation. It is a profound framework, but it also presents a pretty terrifying scenario for you to ponder. It does. Because if we accept Javikant's premise that poetry is like a growing child, we have to ask what happens if the growth stops. If a culture's literature gets trapped in a cycle of repeating the same old romantic tropes or the same dusty nationalistic anthems. has the culture itself suffered in arrested development. Exactly. And that is the exact anxiety that hangs over the next major issue addressed in the Videha discussions. Because if the literature stops evolving, or worse, if it evolves into something completely unrecognizable to the common person. You face an existential threat. You lose your readers. Right. And that crisis of readership is explored in really deep, uncomfortable detail in a conversation between the editor, Gajendra Thakur, and another highly influential literary figure, Raj Mohan Chah. Raj Mohan Chah diagnoses a tragic disconnect here. He argues that the writers and the everyday people they are supposedly writing for, they're living in two completely different realities. He says that modern Mathili literature has alienated the masses by transforming from a reflection of life into a quote, philosophical object. A philosophical object, that is a perfect term for it. It really is. Because it implies something that is placed a pedestal to be analyzed by experts rather than something you keep in your pocket to help you get through the day. Right. The literature became an academic exercise. It was being written by professors for other professors to be debated in university departments. Completely bypassing the villager or the factory worker. It's the ultimate failure of art to communicate. But during their discussion, they highlight one glaring, fascinating exception to this rule of alienation. The author, Hari Mohan. Yes. Hari Mohanja is the anomaly that proves how complex literary popularity can really be. Raj Mohanja points out that if you travel into the rural villages, the everyday people might not know the names of the modern award-winning poets, but they absolutely know Hari Mohanja. They read his books, they relate to his characters. But here's where it gets incredibly thorny, because Hari Mohanja was universally popular, Yes, but he was also the subject of intense, valid criticism from the progressive wings of the literary community. Critics pointed out that his massive popularity was built on narratives that almost exclusively depicted a specific, uppercast elite society. The critique was that his work completely alienated and erased the experiences of the Dalit communities and the extreme poor. It introduces a massive paradox. How can an author who is criticized for writing about a narrow, privileged slice of life be the only one who maintains broad, massive popularity across the wider public? It's so tricky. I mean, it suggests that accessibility in prose, the use of humor, and just the sheer narrative momentum of a story will often attract readers more effectively than highly intellectualized literature. Even if that intellectual literature has better representation, if it's impossible to read, people won't read it. Exactly. between writing what the elite critics believe should be read and what the public actually wants to read. And that exact tension, the war between the elite gatekeepers and the reality of the language, it explodes in a massive controversy surrounding the Sahitya Academy Awards. Right. And for you listening who might not be familiar, the Sahitya Academy is India's national academy of letters. It is the premier literary institution in the country. It's a huge deal. Winning a Sahitya Academy Award is not just about getting a shiny trophy to put on your shelf, it means national prestige. It often comes with significant financial grants. It guarantees your book will be purchased by libraries across the country. It essentially cements your legacy. Right. And in a marginalized language community, an award like this is survival money. It is the ultimate brass ring. Which is exactly why the fights over it are so unbelievably vicious. The journal documents this deep boiling frustration within the Methili community regarding how these specific awards are managed and handed out. And the primary grievance they talk about is absolutely wild. Authors are furious because the prestigious awards meant to celebrate Mathili literature are frequently being given to direct, literal translations of works originally written in other languages. Like Hindi or Bengali, right? Yes. So brilliant, completely original works, conceived and written natively in Mathili are being passed over in favor of translated imports. That is so infuriating. but the allegations go even deeper than that. There is this pervasive belief documented right here in these interviews that the juries determining the winners don't even bother to read the books they are judging. Which is just, how do you even judge a literary award without reading the books? Right, you rely on the exact factionalism and castism that Giva Kant was screaming about earlier. The allegation is that the judges look at the author's name, identify which social clique or political faction they belong to, and hand out the prize based on patronage, rather than literary merit. It is an ecosystem suffocating on its own gatekeeping. But Rajmohan Chah, even while acknowledging this corruption, he takes a surprisingly nuanced stance on the issue of translation itself. He does. You might expect him to demand the translations be banned from award consideration entirely, but he actually defends the practice. He does. And his defense is grounded in a really deep understanding of how languages survive globally. He argues that translation is the absolute lifeblood of comparative literature. A language cannot exist in isolation. No. By taking great complex works from global or national literature and translating them into Mephili, you are essentially stress testing the language. You are forcing Mephili to develop the vocabulary and the syntactical muscle to express new foreign ideas. It expands the capacity of the language itself. That makes perfect sense. You don't build a strong language by building a wall around it. No, you don't. But Rajmohan Shah ultimately points to a much darker, much more existential tragedy that renders the entire award debate somewhat moot. Right, because you can argue about who wins the trophy all day, but it doesn't matter if there is no one left to read the winning book. And this is the core crisis. He identifies a dying love for the language itself and the primary engine of that death is mass economic migration. The reality of the Mathila region is that economic opportunities have historically been very scarce. So what happens? the youth leave, they migrate to the massive urban centers, to Delhi, to Mumbai, or they go abroad for work. And when they leave, the linguistic tie is almost immediately severed. Raj Mohan laments that within a single generation of moving to a city like Delhi, families entirely adopt Hindi or English. The children just don't learn Mithili. The language isn't just suffering from a lack of readers today. It is rapidly losing the people who are supposed to speak it tomorrow. It is literally bleeding out its future. So if you are a writer operating in this environment where your audience is migrating away, your critics are corrupt, and your language is fighting for breath, what do you do? You stop writing philosophical objects. Yes. You write literature that screams... You abandon the abstract and you confront the visceral reality of the society around you. Exactly. And that shift is brilliantly captured in a book review featured in the journal. A critic named Chandrash reviews a short story collection by an author named Rambaros who writes under the pen name Bramar. And the collection is titled, Hoogli Upar Bahit Ganga, which translates to the Ganga flowing over the Hoogli. And let me tell you, this is a million miles away from romantic poetry about the monsoon rains. Oh, definitely. This is a plunge into raw, gritty, unsparing realism. It is literature holding a cracked dirty mirror up to a society in crisis. The review highlights several of the 32 stories in the collection and they tackle the absolute darkest corners of systemic exploitation. The title story, for instance, centers on a character named Sonobai. Who is a sex worker? Right. And her interaction with a client named Hira. It is a story that confronts the total commodification of the human body, driven by just desperate poverty. But the narrative pivot is what makes it so striking. It is heartbreaking. The climax of the story isn't a moment of violence but a moment of profound psychological shock. Hira, the client, doesn't exploit Sonobai. Instead, he treats her with genuine, unadulterated human compassion. And the text knows that Sonabai is utterly paralyzed by this, because she feels she is witnessing a pure human for the very first time in her life. It is a devastating indictment. The story is arguing that the socioeconomic conditions are so degrading, so brutally transactional, that basic human decency has become a shocking anomaly. The society has been stripped of its humanity. And Bromar's relentless examination of that societal decay continues throughout the collection. The reviewer unpacks how the stories continuously target the destructive nature of unchecked desire and the corrupting influence of wealth. There's another story about a character named Regga, whose pursuit of purely physical, material desires leads her to completely obliterate her own home and family structure. But perhaps the most horrifying and potent story highlighted in the review directly addresses the crisis of migration we just discussed. It's about a migrant worker who has left his family behind to perform grueling labor in the state of Punjab. The psychological toll of that separation is the core of the narrative. This man finally returns home from Punjab only to discover that his wife has given birth to an infant out of wedlock during his long absence. And the story culminates in an incredibly dark, devastating scene where the returning husband murders the infant. It is horrific, but it is deeply symbolic of the fracturing of the entire culture. The extreme poverty forces the migration. The migration destroys the traditional family structure and creates unbearable psychological pressure. And the ultimate result is violence and the destruction of the next generation. Brahmar is drawing a direct line from economic marginalization to moral collapse. But reading the critics' review of this collection, I noticed significant hesitation. Oh, yeah. The reviewer, Chandraesh, praises the bravery of the themes, but he strongly critiques the execution. He notes that Brahmar often relies too heavily on visceral shock value. Right. He argues that the author is so desperate to deliver these brutal moments like the murder of an infant that he neglects the actual craft of writing. The characters are left underdeveloped, serving as mere props to deliver a social message. It is a classic literary debate, you know, the tension between the urgency of message and the aesthetics of the craft. But it makes me wonder, is there a profound danger in that? If a writer becomes so consumed by the need to enact social reform that the message completely overpowers the art of storytelling. Doesn't it just become propaganda? Does it cease to be literature? That is a very fair question. If you are analyzing a novel sitting in a comfortable, stable society, but we have to adjust our lens when evaluating the literature of a marginalized threatened community. In an ecosystem dealing with crushing poverty, mass migration and systemic exploitation, literature rarely has the luxury of existing simply as art for art's sake. You don't have time to worry about perfect senate structure when the house is on fire. Exactly. When a society is suffocating, its literature doesn't politely clear its throat, it screams. The reliance on shock value that the reviewer criticizes might not be a failure of craft, but a deliberate, desperate strategy. It is a demand for humanism and social justice. The writer is prioritizing the ugly, urgent truth over aesthetic perfection because survival is on the line. It is heavy, heavy material. We have adult authors writing visceral stories about murder and sex work to wake up the conscience of the society. We have elite critics engaging in bitter factional warfare over academy awards. It's a lot of conflict. But here's where our exploration of the Vedea Journal takes a sudden incredibly beautiful turn because while all of that chaos and intellectual warfare is raging at the top of the cultural pyramid, the actual practical mechanism of the language's survival is quietly operating at the very bottom. Yes, it is happening in the cradle. This section of the journal provides one of the most profound insights into how culture actually functions. We are diving into an incredibly detailed documentation of Methili children's folk literature compiled by Ful Chandrashah, who writes under the name Praveen. And to be clear, this is not literature written by scholars in universities and then published in books for children to read. No, this is the organic, oral literature of the folk. It is the rhythmic poetry created by mothers, grandmothers and older siblings. Used as practical tools to raise human beings from the moment they take their first breath. and the text is brilliant. It starts with a genre they call lullan polan, which translates to rearing rhymes. These are highly specific functional chance embedded into the physical mechanics of childcare. The intimacy of these details is just breathtaking. For instance, the text documents the specific phonetic rhymes used during an oil massage. Right. In many South Asian cultures, massaging a newborn with warm mustard oil is a daily ritual believed to build bone strength and health. and health. And while the mother is physically rubbing the oil into the baby's head, she doesn't just do it in silence. She chants, chai chai chai, bua, sut hai bua. It is purely phonetic and deeply rhythmic. The rhythm of the words matches the physical rhythm of the massage. It is designed to soothe the infant, but simultaneously it is washing the fundamental phonetic sounds of the Mathili language over the child's developing brain. And as the child's body grows, The literature evolves to push them forward. When a toddler is struggling to balance, trying to take those terrifying first steps. The family gathers around, clapping their hands to provide a steady beat, and they chant, The Thetaia, The Thetaia, Degba-dia. Which roughly translates to an encouragement for the beloved child to push their feet forward step by step. It is literal linguistic scaffolding. They are using the bouncy, arrhythmic cadence of the spoken word to teach the physical rhythm of walking. It's amazing. And then of course the journal documents the most universal of all childhood literature. The lullaby. But the imagery contained within these specific methilly lullabies reveals so much about the socio-economic reality of the region. The lullabies are never just about getting a child to sleep. They are encoded with the anxieties and the aspirations of the parents. Look at the variation of the famous Chanda Mama rhyme documented here, the mother is singing to the moon, referring to the moon as an uncle, asking him to come from across the river. But she asked the moon to bring a golden bowl filled with rice and milk to feed her baby. Think about the context we established earlier. This is a region historically plagued by deep economic hardship and food insecurity. The image of a bowl made of solid gold filled to the brim with rich milk and abundant rice. That isn't just a whimsical fantasy. No, it's a prayer. Yes. It is the projection of a mother's ultimate desperate aspiration for her child's wealth, health, and security woven into a nightly song. It is the contrast between the harsh reality of the day and the golden promise of the dream. There is another lullaby documented called Nina, where the singer is calling for sleep to come to the baby's eyes. But they are highly specific about the geography of sleep. The rhyme asks sleep to travel from the mother's ancestral village or from the uncle's village. That is a brilliant mechanism. Before the child can even formulate a sentence before they can walk, the Lullaby is installing a mental map of their extended family's geography. It teaches them their place within a wider network of villages. But the children don't stay in the cradle forever. As they grow older and move out into the dusty courtyards, the literature shifts from the intimate Lalon-Palon-rearing rhymes to the realm of play and entertainment. And the games documented by Pervin are incredibly complex social and linguistic exercises. The playground is where the language is truly stress tested by the youth. The journal catalogs fast-paced word games like the Atkin MatCon rhyme. It's an elimination game that involves chanting rapidly about seeds, leaves, and natural elements. Requiring the kids to make split-second choices based on the rhythm. They also document the aggressive staccato chance used during Kabati, a highly physical tag game where the chants actually dictate the breathing and the stamina of the players. But the most sociologically fascinating game documented is undoubtedly the Gurgit Rani or the Lizard Queen game. Oh, I was mesmerized by the description of this. A group of girls will stand in a circle and physically interlock by holding each other's legs, forming this strange interconnected human structure. And as they hop around in this precarious formation, They chant a call and response song. They address the lizard queen, asking her where she has traveled from and what exotic gifts she's brought back from distant lands, asking if she brought elephants, horses, snakes, or tigers. If we step back and analyze this, it is staggering. Think about how a human being actually acquires their native culture. You don't learn how to be a part of your community by reading a grammar textbook or memorizing historical dates. You learn it through the cadence of your mother's voice during an oil massage, and the negotiated rules of a playground game. These faux crimes, these seemingly silly chance about golden bowls and lizard queens, they are the base operating system of the culture. I look at it like a massive ancient tree. The elite authors and critics we discussed earlier, who are arguing over Marxist theory, translation rights and Sahicha Academy Awards, they are arguing about the shape of the branches and the color of the leaves. But these lullabies, these playground chants, They are the root system hidden deep underground. And that metaphor brings us right back to the terrifying warning from Raj Mahansha about mass migration. When families are forced to leave Missila for a tiny apartment in Mumbai, they might pack a few Mathili books, but the environment changes. The courtyard is gone, the extended family network is gone, the kids start speaking Hindi to fit in at their new schools. The roots are severed, and if you lose the lullabies and the playground games, No prestigious literary award in the world is going to keep that tree from dying. It is a devastatingly fragile system. But the story doesn't end in the cradle or on the playground. Because what happens when the children who were raised on these rhymes, who witnessed the poverty and who understand the threat of migration, finally grow up? They don't just sit quietly and write poetry. They realize that to save their language, they have to demand space in the physical and political world. And that brings us to the final explosive section of our deep dive. the sociopolitical awakening chronicled in Videha. The journal is brilliant because it recognizes that literature does not exist in a vacuum. It actively chronicles the political movements that forge the writers. We see this perfectly in a deeply personal essay by a writer named Amarnath Jha. He provides a retrospective look at how the political landscape of his youth shaped the literary consciousness of his entire generation. He contrasts two wildly different moments in modern Indian history. First, he recalls the 1971 war. He remembers being a young boy in his village, sitting around a fire, watching the older men. The atmosphere was one of quiet, stoic, unified national pride. It was a moment of absolute national consensus. But the political climate shifted violently in a very short amount of time. Exactly. Just a few years later, that quiet pride is completely shattered by the arrival of the 1974 JP movement. For context, this was a massive, fiercely passionate political movement led by the activist Jayaprakash Narayan. Right. Now, again, just jumping in here for neutrality, we're reporting Amarnath Shah's historical recollections of the J.P. movement purely as they appear in the source text. We're not endorsing any political stance or historical interpretation. Absolutely. We're just looking at how it affected him. And it started in Bihar, the heartland of Maifali speakers. It was a student led uprising protesting against systemic corruption, inflation, and the political establishment. Which eventually led to the declaration of the national emergency. The socioeconomic conditions in Bihar at that time were a powder keg. High unemployment, soaring food prices, and a feeling of total disenfranchisement among the youth created an environment where rebellion was inevitable. Amrnaath Shah describes how that environment electrified him. The quiet stoicism of the older generation was gone, replaced by fiery student protests and anti-corruption slogans filling the air. He recalls being just a middle school student, completely swept up in the revolutionary fervor to the point where he sat down and wrote his very first revolutionary poem. It is a beautiful anecdote, especially because he admits that his older brother found the poem, laughed at it, and tore it to pieces. Right, but the destruction of the poem doesn't matter. What matters is the catalyst. For Amarn of Tau examining his own past, It was the political turmoil of the JP movement, the friction with political entities like the Congress party, and the eventual rise of groups like the BJP that awakened his need to express himself through literature. The political awakening birthed the artistic expression. And that marriage of art and political activism wasn't just historical memory in the journal, it was actively happening on the ground in the present day. Which brings us back to that incredible scene I asked you to imagine at the very beginning of this deep dive. The journal features a remarkable piece of on-the-ground news reporting by Jitendra Chaw. He reports from Janakpur, Nepal, which is a major historical cultural hub for the Mathili language. The events in Janakpur are a perfect real-time synthesis of everything this culture is fighting for. The report details a chaka jam, which literally translates to a traffic jam or a blockade. Writers, theater artists, poets, and cultural activists organize a massive blockade on the main highway. But they didn't utilize violence. They weaponized their literature. They blocked the road with a poetry reading. They halted the economy with art. And their demand was hyper specific and existentially vital. At that time, Nepal was undergoing a massive political transition and drafting a completely new national constitution. These Mephili artists weren't asking for a literary grant. They were demanding that the new constitution officially recognize and designate a specific mytholus state. They understood that without political recognition and protected boundaries, their linguistic identity would be swallowed whole by the dominant national culture. It is such a powerful image. The poets taking their verses out of the philosophical textbooks and bringing them to the asphalt, demanding to be written into the laws of the land. But the reporting in the journal also makes it clear that protesting on the physical street is only half the battle in the 21st century. If you want to exist, you also have to conquer the screen. Media representation is the final crucial battleground. If a culture is invisible in the media, it becomes invisible to its own youth. The journal intensely documents the struggle for broadcast visibility. They proudly announced the launch of Sapaagamithila, which is framed as a dedicated television channel meant to broadcast Mathili culture directly into people's homes. They also detail the exhausting, ongoing fight to carve out just a few minutes of dedicated airtime on much larger, dominant broadcast networks, like Nepal One and Sahara Samay, which typically only broadcast in Hindi or Bochpuri. It is a desperate fight against media homogenization. If a teenager in mytholid turns on the television and only ever hears Hindi or only ever sees the dominant culture reflected, the implicit message is that their native Mithili culture is archaic, irrelevant, and unworthy of the modern world. And this fight extends to audio media as well. The text includes a review of a traditional audio cassette tape. The album is called Priya Pahun, recorded by a singer named Anshumala. It is a comprehensive collection of traditional Methili marriage songs, detailing every step of the ancient ritual, from the ceremonial arrival of the groom to the emotional, tearful departure of the bride. The reviewer makes a profound observation about this cassette tape. As the physical traditions begin to fade under the pressure of modernization and migration, these modern media formats, whether it is a cassette tape, a TV broadcast or an MP3, are absolutely required to keep the ancient traditions alive. You cannot rely on village courtyards anymore. You have to digitize the tradition to save it. And that observation brings this entire epic journey full circle. If we pull back and synthesize the vast spectrum of human behavior we've explored today, a striking undeniable pattern emerges. Think about the poets sitting on the highway in Nepal. traffic with their verses. Think about the digital editor forensically tracking IP addresses to ban a plagiarist and protect the integrity of a new online archive. Consider the author deliberately writing gritty, uncomfortable, visceral stories about a sex worker's shock at basic human decency. And envision the mother sitting in a courtyard rubbing mustard oil into her infant's head while chanting a rhythm about a golden bowl of milk. They are all, every single one of them, fighting the exact same war. They are engaged in a desperate, multi-front battle against cultural erasure. They are utilizing every conceivable tool, from the phonetic rhythms of ancient oral lullabies to the technological breakthrough of Unicode fonts, from raw, street-level political protests to high-minded Marxist literary critique. They are doing everything in their power to ensure that their language, their unique way of describing the universe, doesn't simply fade into static. It is the total anatomy of a culture refusing to die quietly. It truly is breathtaking when you view it from that altitude. We have covered an immense amount of brown today. We really have. We started at the bleeding edge of digital pioneering with the Vita Journal building its five million word corpus. We navigated the corrupt gate kept halls of literary awards and the raw unsparing honesty of authors demanding social reform. We dug down into the phonetic roots of playground rhymes and we stood on the the highways with poets demanding political statehood. It is a testament to the sheer resilience of the Mathilly spirit. It is a remarkable testament. But as we bring this deep dive to a close, I want to leave you, the listener, with a final, highly complex thought that builds upon everything we have explored today. OK, let's hear it. We have seen how intensely, how passionately this community is working to digitize their traditions. They are taking fluid lullabies, dynamic marriage songs, and interactive playground games, and they are meticulously encoding them into PDFs, audio cassettes, and permanent online archives. The goal is to save them from being forgotten by a migrating modernizing generation. It is a heroic effort to stop time. But here is the philosophical knot to untangle. Oral traditions, like the Ramayana debates Givakot listened to, or the Lizard Queen game the girls play in the courtyard, survive and remain culturally potent precisely because they are fluid. They're living things. Right. They change with every single generation that speaks them. The mother adapts the lyrics of the lullaby to reflect a new anxiety. The children alter the rules of the game to fit a new urban environment. So by writing these oral traditions down, by permanently freezing them in a rigid digital archive to preserve them, do we risk fundamentally altering their nature? Exactly. Do we risk turning a living, breathing, adaptable cultural organism into a static museum exhibit. How do we preserve a culture without accidentally putting it in a glass case? That is an incredibly heavy, brilliant question to walk away with. Does the very act of saving a culture fundamentally change what it means to live in it? You have given us a whole new set of depths to ponder and I love it. It's a lot to think about. It really is. Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive into the resilient, arguing, beautiful world of Mithili literature. Keep questioning the world around you, keep exploring the hidden histories, and most importantly, keep your curiosity alive. We will catch you on the next one.

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