The employees at the Callus call centre in Bangalore juggle false identities, abusive customers and the tugs of family and community. An Anglo-Indian trainer is aghast at the overt Americanisms adopted by her eager trainees. A van driver who yearns for a son petitions the god Ayyappan by playing devotional songs inside the van. A brash Jimi Hendrix-loving agent tries to change the music and stokes the driver's deep resentment. A young girl travels across the great divide between the slum she lives in and the shiny glass complex where she works as a toilet cleaner. Through fifteen linked stories Bangalore Calling explores the social costs of outsourcing ? the erosion of cultures, the displacement of vernacular languages and accents ? in a world that's not yet flat.
Explores globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks--environmental, social, and political.
Shadowlines: Women and Borders in Contemporary Asia explores the often ambiguous and contradictory roles of Asian women in the postcolonial world. As globalisation advances, labour mobility is transforming traditional definitions of women’s work. The commodification of female sexuality in both the international and the national marketplace generates conflicting dynamics of oppression and liberation, as do the wider possibilities of employment and migration more generally. The consequences can be enslaving or empowering, depending on context. How do the women themselves experience these changes? What are their opportunities for engagement with the wider political world which shapes these processes? In this volume, a range of eminent academics address these questions by placing the testimony of individual women within the wider discourse of postcolonialism and gender studies.
Founded by the chieftain Kempe Gowda around 1537, the story of Bangalore has no grand linear narrative. The location has revealed different facets to settlers and passers-through. The city, the site of bloody battles between the British and Tipu Sultan, was once attached to the glittering court of Mysore. Later, it became a cantonment town where British troops were stationed. Over time, it morphed into a city of gardens and lakes, and the capital of PBI - Indian scientific research. More recently, it has been the hub of PBI - India's information technology boom, giving rise to Brand Bangalore, an PBI - Indian city whose name is recognized globally. Hidden beneath these layers lies a cosmopolitan city of sub-cultures, engaging artists and writers, young geeks and students. People from every corner of PBI - India and beyond now call it home.In this collection of writings about a multi-layered city, there are stories from its history, translations from Kannada literature, personal responses to the city's mindscape, portraits of special citizens, accounts of searches for lost communities and traditions, among much more. U.R. Ananthamurthy writes about Bangalore's Kannada identity; Shashi Deshpande maps the city through the places she has lived in since she was a young girl; Anita Nair draws a touching portrait of a florist who celebrates the glories of the Raj; Ramachandra Guha describes his close bond with Bangalore's most unusual bookseller; and Rajmohan Gandhi recounts the Mahatma's trysts with the city. From traditional folk ballads to a nursery rhyme about Bangalore, from poems to blogs, from reproductions of turn of the twentieth century picture postcards to cartoons, Multiple City is the portrait of a metropolis trying to retain its roots as it hurtles into the future.
Extending current scholarship on South Asian Urban and Literary Studies, this volume examines the role of the discontents of the South Asian city. The collection investigates how South Asian literature and literature about South Asia attends to urban margins, regardless of whether the definition of margin is spatial, psychological, gendered, or sociopolitical. That cities are a site of profound paradoxes is nowhere clearer than in South Asia, where urban areas simultaneously represent both the frontiers of globalization as well as the deeply troubling social and political inequalities of the global south. Additionally, because South Asian cities are defined by the palimpsestic confluence of, among other things, colonial oppression, anticolonial nationalism, postcolonial governance, and twenty-first century transnational capital, they are sites where the many faces of empowerment and disempowerment are elaborated. The volume brings together essays that emphasize myriad critical approaches—geospatial, urban-theoretical, diasporic, subaltern, and others. United in their critical empathy for urban outcasts, the chapters respond to central questions such as: What is the relationship between the politico-economic narratives of globally emerging South Asian cities and the dispossessed? How do South Asian cities stand in relationship to the nation and, conversely, how might South Asians in diaspora construct these cities within larger narratives of development, globalization, or as sources of authentic ethnic identities? How is the very skeleton—the space, the territory—of South Asian cities marked with and by exclusionary politics? How do the aesthetic and formal choices undertaken by writers determine the potential for and limit to emancipation of urban outcasts from their oppressive circumstances? Considering fiction, nonfiction, comics, and genre fiction from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka; literature from the twentieth and the twenty-first century; and works that are Anglophone and those that are in translation, this book will be valuable to a range of disciplines.
Studying the work of important continental theorists, Joe Moran explores the concrete sites and routines of everyday life and how they are represented through political discourse, news media, material culture, photography, reality TV and more.
Life is all about transitions. Changes. We encounter experiences and peoples, and our life is never the same after that. In his new volume of poems, TRANSITIONS: POEMS, dedicated to three Cambridge University graduates, the poet H. C. Kim beautifully explores wonders in human experiences. Kim's artful skill as a poet is the Impressionistic way in which he is able to capture events, people, experiences, and life. The reader is guided through a life's journey as if in a cinematic experience. Poems come alive and invite the reader into the world of fantasy and poetic empathy. Kim's poems are good for reading at the beach for relaxation as well as for more intense analysis into metaphor, symbolism, and socio-cultural significance. H. C. Kim is quickly becoming not only a commentator on modern life and experiences but also a poetic muse-prophet of possibilities and hope. Those who have enjoyed his other poetry volumes, such as GOING THE DISTANCE: A POETRY COLLECTION and TOTAL DEPRAVITY: POEMS, will particularly appreciate his artful addition to "poetry-in-motion" that is quickly becoming a genre in its own right.
One of the most controversial topics in the news is the outsourcing of American jobs to other countries. Outsourced jobs have extended well beyond the manufacturing sector to include white-collar professionals, particularly in information technology, financial services, and customer service. Outsourcing America reveals just how much outsourcing is taking place, what its impact has been and will continue to be, and what can be done about the loss of jobs. More than an exposé, Outsourcing America shows how offshoring is part of the historical economic shift toward globalism and free trade, and demonstrates its impact on individual lives and communities. In addition, the book now features a new chapter on immigration policies and outsourcing, and advice on how individuals can avoid becoming victims of outsourcing. The authors discuss policies that countries like India and China use to attract U.S. industries, and they offer frank recommendations that business and political leaders must consider in order to confront this crisis—and bring more high-paying jobs back to the U.S.A.
