(bdnews24.com, June 24, 2011)
Many years ago, my parents decided it was time to have a child and went about the job with one aim in mind: they wanted a daughter. They got one. And they were happy. But this not always the case in this country that I call home: India.
A long time ago, or so we were taught in school, most Indian families wanted boy-children, for various reasons, some religious, some financial, some a matter of prestige and power. Most of all, a boy was necessary in a Hindu family, since only men were considered suitable to light the funeral pyre of the male head of the family when he died.
To make things worse, the girl child had to be married off at the appropriate age and to get that done, a dowry had to be provided; which meant extra expenditure for the family. Put all this together and it is understandable that a female infant was not preferred by many couples. But we would all expect that attitude to change with time, progress, education and better socio-economic status. In fact, the change has happened, though not for the better.
According to the recently released results of the census in India (2011), the sex ratio, instead of improving in favour of females, has become even worse. The number of girls per 1,000 boys in the age group 0-6 over the last ten years is now 914, down 13 points. Any plans to decrease or prevent female foeticide and infanticide are, the authorities admit, not working well at all.
Astonishingly, these figures reflect not just in what most would consider ‘backward’ areas, but in urban, educated populations as well. Sex determination, though made illegal and punishable by law, is still being practiced in the worst way possible, sometimes with scores of female foetuses being aborted by clinics of doubtful repute, the remains found dumped in gutters or septic tanks to rot or be eaten by vermin.
Way back in 1990 reputed economist Amartya Sen spoke of the “missing women of Asia” when he tried to understand why 50 million women in China and 100 million in India were just not there any more. He explained that on a global level, at birth there are many more boys than girls; women last longer and survive better, since they are hardier. This is the case even in sub-Saharan Africa, devastated as it often is by natural calamity and war.
However, in much of Asia, especially India and China, the numbers are reversed and there are far more boys than girls, men outnumber women significantly. As Sen says, “These numbers tell us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess mortality of women.” He believes the reason to be, simply and emphatically, a matter of gender discrimination, something that could possibly be corrected with a suitable environment of employment, literacy and economic rights, including property rights.
But I, as a woman, a girl child, empowered, educated, literate, employed, economically stable, with a right to family property, wonder about that one. I have seen my own peers, classmates in college and colleagues at work worry that the child they carry within themselves as young to-be mothers could be female. I have even heard, much to my amazement and a certain incredulous horror, a close friend telling me with great relief that she was glad that her baby had been a son, or else life would have been far more difficult.
To make the situation even more confusing and, to me, irksome – to say the least – I read a CNN report recently that told me this: “If Americans could have only one child, they would prefer that it be a boy rather than a girl, by a 40 percent to 28 percent margin”. This, the report says, is not too much different from “what Gallup measured in 1941, when Americans preferred a boy to a girl by a 38 percent to 24 percent margin”. And this, in what considered itself to be the most highly developed nation in the world.
But Bangladesh seems to be in a rather more enlightened zone with reference to this particular subject. According to reports, the country’s population is more balanced apropos the male-female ratio, at about 0.93 (male to female) in the adult age-group.
What bothers me is one simple fact – for a nation that reveres the female deity, Shakti, in Her various forms and powers, India is abysmally ignorant in its behaviour towards women and its overall attitude to the girl child. The female cannot stay the weaker sex, as she is generally thought to be, and needs to be given her rightful place in society, in the family, in the ethos of the people.
We as a nation seem to forget one small but very important fact – if there were no women, there would be no men!
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
MF Husain...RIP
(Written for the Hindu, but used rather differently there....)
So much has been said and written about the artist often called the ‘Picasso of India’. Many speak of the sadness that MF Husain felt at being exiled from the land that was his home and most feel that he would have wanted to end his life in India. But the ‘barefoot painter’, as he is known, died in London, with friends and family in attendance, leaving behind a host of memories and an enormous body of work. That work, and the aura of the man himself, will live for ever. As artist Anjolie Ela Menon has said, “I consider him sort of immortal in my mind – even if he is not physically there, his whole body of work stands.”
Artists old and young see him as an icon, almost a God, albeit a very human one, perhaps even something that he himself may have painted. Jitish Kallat intellectualises his impression of Husain: “He forged a language very early on, in the decades immediately after Independence,, that in some ways merged the tenor and texture of an emergent India with the language of modern Europeanism – he found a novel middle ground with his typically agile and intuitive manner.” To Kallat, “He will always be seen as a visionary cultural figure, for the entire transformative effect he has had on the landscape of contemporary Indian art and for expanding its circumference to where we have it today.” And doom and gloom was not the artist’s story once he fled the country. “He dodged the tragedy of his exile and the legal brouhaha through humour, a kind of insightful equanimity,” and his fantastic artistic legacy is more relevant than the hate felt by the few who objected to some of his works so many years ago.
The lawsuits, the exile, the analysis – all this did not detract from the very warm and funny human being called Maqbook Fida Husain. Geeta Mehra of Sakshi Gallery remembers, “Whenever I was in Dubai or London I would call and meet with him – on one occasion I was going to visit some gallery and he immediately put his Jaguar and driver at my disposal! In the morning of the same day he invited me over to tea and in the backyard he had a proper Bedouin tent set up, fully furnished, tent style, and served me chai from a samovar. And he told me that if I had come in the evening, he would have arranged for a belly dancer!” He was always great fun, Mehra says fondly, “His joie de vivre was amazing – i use to tell him he was always my ideal person. He had time for everyone actually, no matter who they were, and the capacity to take whatever he found in anyone.” And exile was not that big a deal, for Husain, she believes. “I think he was a man who lived practically out of the boot of his car – it held audio cassettes, CDs, a quilt, books and brochures, even an Armani suit! He could sleep anywhere, travel at short notice; he carried his paintbrush and some paints and could set up a studio anywhere. He lived in his head – he did have his favourite restaurants and tea stalls, but that we all have terms of endearments. He was having a ball living between continents.”
Art collector Ashwini Kakkar owns six Husains, last count. “My favourite work is Bull Leading a Procession – it never had a formal name, but it is from the Bull series and is almost like a Ganpati procession, with people dancing and singing, except that the Ganpati head is replaced by a bull-head.” And Kakkar has a favourite memory to share of the “man with a very large heart”, one that has him laughing as he tells it: “One day I was driving out of my office in Mumbai and saw this man walking along barefoot - it was so hot, the peak of summer and the road must have been burning – I offered him a lift. He was going to Regal cinema. We chatted in the car and when he got off, he said ‘You send your car to me tomorrow and I will paint the whole thing for you!’ It was a brand new white Fiat and I completely chickened out – to this day I regret not having sent my car to him!”
There are some who may never have spoken to Husain, but revere him. Artist Sudarshan Shetty explains that “I never met him formally, I only saw him a few times. The first time I really saw his work was when I was in art school, in a book published in the ’80s by Abrams. I think his work in the ’50s and ’60,s was truly marvellous. Moreover, I was always fascinated by the distinction that he was able to create between the artist and his persona.”
There will always be life after death, in a legacy that lives forever. After all, that was the way Maqbool Fida Husain would have painted it!
So much has been said and written about the artist often called the ‘Picasso of India’. Many speak of the sadness that MF Husain felt at being exiled from the land that was his home and most feel that he would have wanted to end his life in India. But the ‘barefoot painter’, as he is known, died in London, with friends and family in attendance, leaving behind a host of memories and an enormous body of work. That work, and the aura of the man himself, will live for ever. As artist Anjolie Ela Menon has said, “I consider him sort of immortal in my mind – even if he is not physically there, his whole body of work stands.”
Artists old and young see him as an icon, almost a God, albeit a very human one, perhaps even something that he himself may have painted. Jitish Kallat intellectualises his impression of Husain: “He forged a language very early on, in the decades immediately after Independence,, that in some ways merged the tenor and texture of an emergent India with the language of modern Europeanism – he found a novel middle ground with his typically agile and intuitive manner.” To Kallat, “He will always be seen as a visionary cultural figure, for the entire transformative effect he has had on the landscape of contemporary Indian art and for expanding its circumference to where we have it today.” And doom and gloom was not the artist’s story once he fled the country. “He dodged the tragedy of his exile and the legal brouhaha through humour, a kind of insightful equanimity,” and his fantastic artistic legacy is more relevant than the hate felt by the few who objected to some of his works so many years ago.
The lawsuits, the exile, the analysis – all this did not detract from the very warm and funny human being called Maqbook Fida Husain. Geeta Mehra of Sakshi Gallery remembers, “Whenever I was in Dubai or London I would call and meet with him – on one occasion I was going to visit some gallery and he immediately put his Jaguar and driver at my disposal! In the morning of the same day he invited me over to tea and in the backyard he had a proper Bedouin tent set up, fully furnished, tent style, and served me chai from a samovar. And he told me that if I had come in the evening, he would have arranged for a belly dancer!” He was always great fun, Mehra says fondly, “His joie de vivre was amazing – i use to tell him he was always my ideal person. He had time for everyone actually, no matter who they were, and the capacity to take whatever he found in anyone.” And exile was not that big a deal, for Husain, she believes. “I think he was a man who lived practically out of the boot of his car – it held audio cassettes, CDs, a quilt, books and brochures, even an Armani suit! He could sleep anywhere, travel at short notice; he carried his paintbrush and some paints and could set up a studio anywhere. He lived in his head – he did have his favourite restaurants and tea stalls, but that we all have terms of endearments. He was having a ball living between continents.”
Art collector Ashwini Kakkar owns six Husains, last count. “My favourite work is Bull Leading a Procession – it never had a formal name, but it is from the Bull series and is almost like a Ganpati procession, with people dancing and singing, except that the Ganpati head is replaced by a bull-head.” And Kakkar has a favourite memory to share of the “man with a very large heart”, one that has him laughing as he tells it: “One day I was driving out of my office in Mumbai and saw this man walking along barefoot - it was so hot, the peak of summer and the road must have been burning – I offered him a lift. He was going to Regal cinema. We chatted in the car and when he got off, he said ‘You send your car to me tomorrow and I will paint the whole thing for you!’ It was a brand new white Fiat and I completely chickened out – to this day I regret not having sent my car to him!”
There are some who may never have spoken to Husain, but revere him. Artist Sudarshan Shetty explains that “I never met him formally, I only saw him a few times. The first time I really saw his work was when I was in art school, in a book published in the ’80s by Abrams. I think his work in the ’50s and ’60,s was truly marvellous. Moreover, I was always fascinated by the distinction that he was able to create between the artist and his persona.”
There will always be life after death, in a legacy that lives forever. After all, that was the way Maqbool Fida Husain would have painted it!
Killing the story
(bdnews24.com, June 17, 2011)
Over the past few days in India, all media headlines have been focused on one issue – the killing of crime journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, in the daytime, in well-populated Mumbai city. The story is tragically simple – Dey was riding his motorbike, on his way home to his wife, when four other bikes veered around him. He was shot a number of times before the bikers sped off. He died of his wounds before he could be admitted into hospital.
The murder took all of 45 seconds. Just last month, Pakistan – a country facing more trouble than ever before as regards law and order is concerned – was the scene of a ruthless killing. Journalist Saleem Shahzad had vanished soon after leaving home in Islamabad, headed for a studio to film his segment for a television talk show. He was found dead two days later, his body showing signs of interrogation under torture, it was reported.
According to the organisation Reporters Without Borders, since the beginning of 2010, 16 journalists have been killed in Pakistan. The country ranks a dismal 151 of 178 countries in its press freedom index.
In the Philippines, in Nabua, Camarines Sur, Romeo Olea was on his way to a radio office when he was shot, most likely for some story that he had done or was working on. This was the third murder of its kind in the nation in 2011. And there have been many more over the past year.
In Bangladesh, the toll is two (in recent times) – Hossain Altaf, publisher of the daily Bajrakontha, was found in a decomposed state in the septic tank of his own home, nine days after he was reported missing. Mahbub Tutul of the Ajker Prottasha and Ajker Surjodoy was killed in Chittagong, but the crime is likely to be business connected, since he had already quit journalism a few years ago.
These countries figure on the CPJ Impunity Index published this year. In the latest index, unsolved journalist killings that occurred between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2010 have been examined and analysed and the 13 nations with five or more such cases included in the list. To explain a little, the Community to Protect Journalists is an independent, non-profit organisation formed in 1981 to promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report news without any fear of reprisal. The index was first published in 2008, with the aim of identifying countries where journalists are murdered more frequently than natural deaths occur, and governments fail to solve the crimes – not identifying the culprits or not bringing them to justice. “The index calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population” is the way the process is defined.
The focus of the 2011 Impunity Index is to highlight countries where “journalists are slain and killers go free”. On top of the list is Iraq, still a lawless and dangerous place to be, where killers of 92 media persons were never caught and/or punished. Pakistan joins the list at number 10. Unfortunately for your country and mine, Bangladesh, Brazil and India follow close behind.
As the executive director of CPJ Joel Simon says, “The findings of the 2011 Impunity Index lay bare the stark choices that governments face: either address the issue of violence against journalists head-on or see murders continue and self-censorship spread.”
But somewhere along the way, there is a flip side to the whole story. It is not just doom and gloom and the fault of governments or nations, or even the criminals alone. Many journalists rush in where armour-plated fighting machines fear to roll in, and are killed because of their foolhardy behaviour. Sure, it is the job of a journalist to hound for news. But in countries like Iraq or, more currently, Libya, there is strife, ongoing for a while now. This could better be defined as a state of war rather than armed hostility.
In other words, for a journalist to run into such an environment, it needs caution, training, protection and, always, always, always, full knowledge that death could be around the corner.
The same goes for a more ‘safe’ country where news is being made. A city like Mumbai, for instance, has crime, has an underworld, has dealings that, if exposed, could create a situation of grave personal danger for a journalist. There should be protection from the state, yes, but the media also needs to be ultra-cautious about getting into corners that there is no backing out of. Tragedy is often the result of a misstep.
They say that Dey was killed for knowing too much about the wrong people. Perhaps he died because he did not keep the right people informed about what he knew?
Over the past few days in India, all media headlines have been focused on one issue – the killing of crime journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, in the daytime, in well-populated Mumbai city. The story is tragically simple – Dey was riding his motorbike, on his way home to his wife, when four other bikes veered around him. He was shot a number of times before the bikers sped off. He died of his wounds before he could be admitted into hospital.
The murder took all of 45 seconds. Just last month, Pakistan – a country facing more trouble than ever before as regards law and order is concerned – was the scene of a ruthless killing. Journalist Saleem Shahzad had vanished soon after leaving home in Islamabad, headed for a studio to film his segment for a television talk show. He was found dead two days later, his body showing signs of interrogation under torture, it was reported.
According to the organisation Reporters Without Borders, since the beginning of 2010, 16 journalists have been killed in Pakistan. The country ranks a dismal 151 of 178 countries in its press freedom index.
In the Philippines, in Nabua, Camarines Sur, Romeo Olea was on his way to a radio office when he was shot, most likely for some story that he had done or was working on. This was the third murder of its kind in the nation in 2011. And there have been many more over the past year.
In Bangladesh, the toll is two (in recent times) – Hossain Altaf, publisher of the daily Bajrakontha, was found in a decomposed state in the septic tank of his own home, nine days after he was reported missing. Mahbub Tutul of the Ajker Prottasha and Ajker Surjodoy was killed in Chittagong, but the crime is likely to be business connected, since he had already quit journalism a few years ago.
These countries figure on the CPJ Impunity Index published this year. In the latest index, unsolved journalist killings that occurred between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2010 have been examined and analysed and the 13 nations with five or more such cases included in the list. To explain a little, the Community to Protect Journalists is an independent, non-profit organisation formed in 1981 to promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report news without any fear of reprisal. The index was first published in 2008, with the aim of identifying countries where journalists are murdered more frequently than natural deaths occur, and governments fail to solve the crimes – not identifying the culprits or not bringing them to justice. “The index calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population” is the way the process is defined.
The focus of the 2011 Impunity Index is to highlight countries where “journalists are slain and killers go free”. On top of the list is Iraq, still a lawless and dangerous place to be, where killers of 92 media persons were never caught and/or punished. Pakistan joins the list at number 10. Unfortunately for your country and mine, Bangladesh, Brazil and India follow close behind.
As the executive director of CPJ Joel Simon says, “The findings of the 2011 Impunity Index lay bare the stark choices that governments face: either address the issue of violence against journalists head-on or see murders continue and self-censorship spread.”
But somewhere along the way, there is a flip side to the whole story. It is not just doom and gloom and the fault of governments or nations, or even the criminals alone. Many journalists rush in where armour-plated fighting machines fear to roll in, and are killed because of their foolhardy behaviour. Sure, it is the job of a journalist to hound for news. But in countries like Iraq or, more currently, Libya, there is strife, ongoing for a while now. This could better be defined as a state of war rather than armed hostility.
In other words, for a journalist to run into such an environment, it needs caution, training, protection and, always, always, always, full knowledge that death could be around the corner.
The same goes for a more ‘safe’ country where news is being made. A city like Mumbai, for instance, has crime, has an underworld, has dealings that, if exposed, could create a situation of grave personal danger for a journalist. There should be protection from the state, yes, but the media also needs to be ultra-cautious about getting into corners that there is no backing out of. Tragedy is often the result of a misstep.
They say that Dey was killed for knowing too much about the wrong people. Perhaps he died because he did not keep the right people informed about what he knew?
Monday, June 13, 2011
MF HUSAIN: An artist who made history
(bdnews24.com, June 10, 2011)
Many many years ago, when I was a very small girl, I remember going to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai with my parents and looking up at an enormous wall. There were these huge horses galloping toward me, all black, white, grey and brown, their tails flowing, their manes waving, their eyes wild, nostrils flared. They were beautiful, free and fast, running against the wind along an open plain. And I was awed, even then, by the fast that all that freedom, all that movement, all that speed, was captured in just a few brushstrokes on a wall. The artist was a man who epitomised the spirit of the city he made his home for many years, Mumbai, colourful, always excited, youthful and just that wee bit crazy. He was MF Husain, who went on to earn titles like ‘Picasso of India’, and died earlier this week in London at the age of 95.
Maqbool Fida Husain, born in Pandharpur, a Hindu pilgrimage town in Maharashtra. His father made kandeels, or lanterns and the family was not very wealthy. The young Maqbool made his way to Mumbai, where he eked out a living – at one stage, he hand-painted posters for Hindi films, developing a passionate interest in the world of cinema, which led him to make a couple of movies with popular Bollywood stars. By the late 1940s, he was making a name for himself as an artist and had joined FN Souza’s Progressive Artists’ Group, a clique of like-minded artists who wanted to foster the avant-garde, with an Indian flavour, and break away from the more traditional portrayals familiar in the Bengal School of art. In 1952 he had his first international showing in Zurich and over the next few years had become known all over the United States and Europe. Along with his art, he also made films – his 1967 Through the Eyes of a Painter won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; Gaja Gamini, starring Madhuri Dixit (who became his muse after he saw her in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?) showed off the various manifestations of a woman; Meenaxi: A Take of Three Cities was a paean to actress Tabu. None of these was commercially successful, but they were appreciated by a discerning audience. A film on his life, his autobiography, is planned for a film called The Making of a Painter.
Controversy could have been Husain’s very believable alter ego. Some of his works have been incomprehensible, mystifying fellow artists, critics and viewers alike. I remember, when I had just started working as a journalist, I walked into a major Mumbai gallery to see Husain’s new show. Called Shwetambari, it made little sense to me, but it somehow gave me a feeling of clean serenity, a peace that could only come from within and radiate towards the rest of my world. Seen from a more practical perspective, it was all about white – the walls of the large space were draped in white handloom fabric, while the floor was covered in torn, crumpled bits of newspaper. When asked about it by a rather outraged public, Husain’s explanation was simple, and in a strange way, logical: “It is a powerful statement that is meant to be experiences, not understood and interpreted,” he maintained, “I wanted people to come and stand there and feel the overabundance of white, which is the basis of all colour.” To him, the man with the artistic soul, it was only in the presence of white that other colours could be seen and felt and appreciated. From that point of view, it all made perfect sense.
I have seen Husain often in Mumbai, wandering around art galleries, at parties, in hotels, even in bookshops. He was usually barefoot – until the time he, as rumour had it, developed some kind of fungal infection in the foot and was made to wear shoes – and carried a long paintbrush. His white beard was immaculately neat, his glasses glinted with his passion for life and he eyes watched the world as it moved around him. He walked fast, spoke gently and laughed delightedly. And he got into messes of all sorts – from the controversial works of goddesses as nude figures to an unclad Mother India used in an advertisement – which, eventually, made him flee India in 2006 to settle in the Middle East. Qatar was thrilled to have him there and offered him citizenship, which he accepted in 2010. Even in exile, he had to face problems – the government of Kerala was to give him the Raja Ravi Varma award, but a petition was filed against it for various reasons.
Right now, in India, there is a sadness at the death of an artist of such stature. But many of us feel another grief – that we ourselves could not prevent a treasure slipping out of our own hands. And even here there is controversy – many believe that he wanted to be buried in his homeland, India. He did say in a television interview last year, “My heart will always be in India...it is my beloved land.” But his family tells us that “He said he should be buried wherever he dies.” And though he is no longer here, he will live for ever in the work that he left behind – work that is thought-provoking, thoughtful, beautiful and always worth seeing.
Many many years ago, when I was a very small girl, I remember going to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai with my parents and looking up at an enormous wall. There were these huge horses galloping toward me, all black, white, grey and brown, their tails flowing, their manes waving, their eyes wild, nostrils flared. They were beautiful, free and fast, running against the wind along an open plain. And I was awed, even then, by the fast that all that freedom, all that movement, all that speed, was captured in just a few brushstrokes on a wall. The artist was a man who epitomised the spirit of the city he made his home for many years, Mumbai, colourful, always excited, youthful and just that wee bit crazy. He was MF Husain, who went on to earn titles like ‘Picasso of India’, and died earlier this week in London at the age of 95.
Maqbool Fida Husain, born in Pandharpur, a Hindu pilgrimage town in Maharashtra. His father made kandeels, or lanterns and the family was not very wealthy. The young Maqbool made his way to Mumbai, where he eked out a living – at one stage, he hand-painted posters for Hindi films, developing a passionate interest in the world of cinema, which led him to make a couple of movies with popular Bollywood stars. By the late 1940s, he was making a name for himself as an artist and had joined FN Souza’s Progressive Artists’ Group, a clique of like-minded artists who wanted to foster the avant-garde, with an Indian flavour, and break away from the more traditional portrayals familiar in the Bengal School of art. In 1952 he had his first international showing in Zurich and over the next few years had become known all over the United States and Europe. Along with his art, he also made films – his 1967 Through the Eyes of a Painter won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; Gaja Gamini, starring Madhuri Dixit (who became his muse after he saw her in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?) showed off the various manifestations of a woman; Meenaxi: A Take of Three Cities was a paean to actress Tabu. None of these was commercially successful, but they were appreciated by a discerning audience. A film on his life, his autobiography, is planned for a film called The Making of a Painter.
Controversy could have been Husain’s very believable alter ego. Some of his works have been incomprehensible, mystifying fellow artists, critics and viewers alike. I remember, when I had just started working as a journalist, I walked into a major Mumbai gallery to see Husain’s new show. Called Shwetambari, it made little sense to me, but it somehow gave me a feeling of clean serenity, a peace that could only come from within and radiate towards the rest of my world. Seen from a more practical perspective, it was all about white – the walls of the large space were draped in white handloom fabric, while the floor was covered in torn, crumpled bits of newspaper. When asked about it by a rather outraged public, Husain’s explanation was simple, and in a strange way, logical: “It is a powerful statement that is meant to be experiences, not understood and interpreted,” he maintained, “I wanted people to come and stand there and feel the overabundance of white, which is the basis of all colour.” To him, the man with the artistic soul, it was only in the presence of white that other colours could be seen and felt and appreciated. From that point of view, it all made perfect sense.
I have seen Husain often in Mumbai, wandering around art galleries, at parties, in hotels, even in bookshops. He was usually barefoot – until the time he, as rumour had it, developed some kind of fungal infection in the foot and was made to wear shoes – and carried a long paintbrush. His white beard was immaculately neat, his glasses glinted with his passion for life and he eyes watched the world as it moved around him. He walked fast, spoke gently and laughed delightedly. And he got into messes of all sorts – from the controversial works of goddesses as nude figures to an unclad Mother India used in an advertisement – which, eventually, made him flee India in 2006 to settle in the Middle East. Qatar was thrilled to have him there and offered him citizenship, which he accepted in 2010. Even in exile, he had to face problems – the government of Kerala was to give him the Raja Ravi Varma award, but a petition was filed against it for various reasons.
Right now, in India, there is a sadness at the death of an artist of such stature. But many of us feel another grief – that we ourselves could not prevent a treasure slipping out of our own hands. And even here there is controversy – many believe that he wanted to be buried in his homeland, India. He did say in a television interview last year, “My heart will always be in India...it is my beloved land.” But his family tells us that “He said he should be buried wherever he dies.” And though he is no longer here, he will live for ever in the work that he left behind – work that is thought-provoking, thoughtful, beautiful and always worth seeing.
‘I want a thali of movies...'
(Hindu Magazine, June 12, 2011)
... says film journalist and author Anupama Chopra as she discusses her addiction to Bollywood films, her writing on that subject and her latest book First Day First Show, released recently.
Of movies and more...
She is passionate about Hindi movies, be it the classic Sholay (a ‘ perfect film') or the rather disastrous Kambakth Ishq, which she drove miles to see when holidaying in the US because she had serious withdrawal from the song-and-dance routine she is addicted to. For many years now Anupama Chopra has been expressing this passion through reviews, articles, interviews and so much more, as a film journalist and writer. She has compiled a number of these articles, written for India Today, Variety, the New York Times, LA Times, NDTV (from her popular review show, Picture This) and more in her latest book, First Day First Show. This is her fourth, after Sholay: The Making of a Classic, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema.
Chopra says about her latest, “The idea was to sort of create a way to see the history of modern Bollywood, because it has evolved so much from when I started; 1993 to 2011; it's another world now. We wanted to record that change. The articles are not chosen for being the best written, but for being a snapshot of the time. When I look at it, I look at the kind of questions being asked, the issues discussed and the kind of films being made, I realise how much things have changed and how much things haven't. This book is my testament to my enduring love affair with Hindi movies!”
Surprising choice
Bollywood was a rather surprising choice of journalistic focus for Chopra, who grew up in privileged South Bombay (as it was then). Educated in St Xavier's college, with a first class first in English Literature, she laughs, anything filmi was considered déclassé. “I was just seduced by Hindi cinema. When I began, my mother was mortified that I would think of film journalism!” Her mother Kamna Chandra — who wrote two very big films Prem Rog for Raj Kapoor and Chandni for Yash Chopra among others — said things like “You say you want to roam around Film City and interview Sunjay Dutt and Sunny Deol! Oh my God, how can you! What did we do wrong?”
Chopra recalls, “You just did not go into movies in any capacity! I did not grow up watching a lot of Hindi films; if you were a South Bombay person, you didn't even go beyond Worli! But, truly, I just did it first as a lark, a job to have because I did not know what I wanted to do.”
But she knew what she did not want to do. “I wanted to do film journalism, but knew I couldn't spend my life worrying about who is sleeping with whom.” She went to Northwestern University, US, because “I wanted to learn the craft of journalism and I came back after working for a year at Harper's Bazaar magazine. I got myself a job at Sunday magazine and then joined India Today specifically with the aim of covering the film industry in a way that looks at the movies.”
At the right moment
She was exceptionally fortunate, because just when she came into the field (1994-95) things changed. “If it had been somewhere with just the men in safari suits and suitcases of cash, I don't know how long I would have lasted, but 1995 was DDLJ and Rangeela; there was a generational change. And I had a ringside view on this complete evolution. It was really fortunate I was at the right place at the right time.”
The attitude of film-folk towards journalists has also changed. “You have the classic stories of Dharmendra chasing Devyani Chaubal and Anupam Kher slapping someone from a magazine, but now I think everyone is savvier; marketing teams have realised that they need the media to sell movies. Some journalists have great relationships with some stars, but I also hear stars complaining that they are asked either very offensive questions or very inane ones. I just hope it doesn't get more aggressive like in the West. There is such a hunger for scoops, for information, it's hard to sustain quality and standards.”
With all her passion for and knowledge of Hindi films, Chopra will not consider writing a film script. She insists, “Never ever! I think it takes way more talent than I have. I tell other peoples' stories, which is much easier and does not require the same level of talent or confidence or ambition. To write fiction you need a great soaring imagination, to be able create other worlds. I honestly don't think I have the talent or have ever had the interest. I have no interest in creating, I just like to consume.”
Anyone would think that Shah Rukh Khan was her favourite person, considering that three of her books feature him prominently; he starred in DDLJ and has written the foreword for her new book.
She is amused, “So many people say that to me! He is somebody I first interviewed in 1996 or 1997. Since then, our paths have crossed often. As it happened, Salman never talked to the press and Aamir was extremely reserved and not accessible. Shah Rukh is superbly articulate, superbly entertaining, tells the best stories, so it's never been a chore to go back to him. It's so much fun. He talks very passionately; he always seems engaged in the conversation. There is never a boring moment. I have a great time listening to him. He said to me that he needs to entertain all the time, whether on the big screen or one on one. He has this compulsive need to make you happy!”
Improved quality
In her tracing of cinema for all these years, has there been improvement in the quality of films from Bollywood? “Oh my God, yes! You see some of the films made in 1992-93, they are appalling! People hammed like crazy! I think they have vastly improved. You are getting more voices, and there aren't as many second generation kids as those from other backgrounds. In terms of craft, it has hugely improved. What we do need to go back to is the fundamentals of storytelling; we do not invest enough in writers or time in writing. But in every other way we have really moved ahead.”
For Chopra, the world of movies is a driving need. And she likes her dose of masala as much as she likes an off-beat thriller. She says, “I think anything different is a good thing. It's great to have the traditional Bollywood film, mainstream masala, but it's also great to have a Shor in the City! But I was heartbroken when Karan Johar said he was going serious with My Name is Khan. I loved Udaan, but am as happy to weep when Shahrukh died in Kal Ho Naa Ho. I want it all, the Guju thali of movies, not a minimalist French meal with one dish at a time!”
... says film journalist and author Anupama Chopra as she discusses her addiction to Bollywood films, her writing on that subject and her latest book First Day First Show, released recently.
Of movies and more...
She is passionate about Hindi movies, be it the classic Sholay (a ‘ perfect film') or the rather disastrous Kambakth Ishq, which she drove miles to see when holidaying in the US because she had serious withdrawal from the song-and-dance routine she is addicted to. For many years now Anupama Chopra has been expressing this passion through reviews, articles, interviews and so much more, as a film journalist and writer. She has compiled a number of these articles, written for India Today, Variety, the New York Times, LA Times, NDTV (from her popular review show, Picture This) and more in her latest book, First Day First Show. This is her fourth, after Sholay: The Making of a Classic, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema.
Chopra says about her latest, “The idea was to sort of create a way to see the history of modern Bollywood, because it has evolved so much from when I started; 1993 to 2011; it's another world now. We wanted to record that change. The articles are not chosen for being the best written, but for being a snapshot of the time. When I look at it, I look at the kind of questions being asked, the issues discussed and the kind of films being made, I realise how much things have changed and how much things haven't. This book is my testament to my enduring love affair with Hindi movies!”
Surprising choice
Bollywood was a rather surprising choice of journalistic focus for Chopra, who grew up in privileged South Bombay (as it was then). Educated in St Xavier's college, with a first class first in English Literature, she laughs, anything filmi was considered déclassé. “I was just seduced by Hindi cinema. When I began, my mother was mortified that I would think of film journalism!” Her mother Kamna Chandra — who wrote two very big films Prem Rog for Raj Kapoor and Chandni for Yash Chopra among others — said things like “You say you want to roam around Film City and interview Sunjay Dutt and Sunny Deol! Oh my God, how can you! What did we do wrong?”
Chopra recalls, “You just did not go into movies in any capacity! I did not grow up watching a lot of Hindi films; if you were a South Bombay person, you didn't even go beyond Worli! But, truly, I just did it first as a lark, a job to have because I did not know what I wanted to do.”
But she knew what she did not want to do. “I wanted to do film journalism, but knew I couldn't spend my life worrying about who is sleeping with whom.” She went to Northwestern University, US, because “I wanted to learn the craft of journalism and I came back after working for a year at Harper's Bazaar magazine. I got myself a job at Sunday magazine and then joined India Today specifically with the aim of covering the film industry in a way that looks at the movies.”
At the right moment
She was exceptionally fortunate, because just when she came into the field (1994-95) things changed. “If it had been somewhere with just the men in safari suits and suitcases of cash, I don't know how long I would have lasted, but 1995 was DDLJ and Rangeela; there was a generational change. And I had a ringside view on this complete evolution. It was really fortunate I was at the right place at the right time.”
The attitude of film-folk towards journalists has also changed. “You have the classic stories of Dharmendra chasing Devyani Chaubal and Anupam Kher slapping someone from a magazine, but now I think everyone is savvier; marketing teams have realised that they need the media to sell movies. Some journalists have great relationships with some stars, but I also hear stars complaining that they are asked either very offensive questions or very inane ones. I just hope it doesn't get more aggressive like in the West. There is such a hunger for scoops, for information, it's hard to sustain quality and standards.”
With all her passion for and knowledge of Hindi films, Chopra will not consider writing a film script. She insists, “Never ever! I think it takes way more talent than I have. I tell other peoples' stories, which is much easier and does not require the same level of talent or confidence or ambition. To write fiction you need a great soaring imagination, to be able create other worlds. I honestly don't think I have the talent or have ever had the interest. I have no interest in creating, I just like to consume.”
Anyone would think that Shah Rukh Khan was her favourite person, considering that three of her books feature him prominently; he starred in DDLJ and has written the foreword for her new book.
She is amused, “So many people say that to me! He is somebody I first interviewed in 1996 or 1997. Since then, our paths have crossed often. As it happened, Salman never talked to the press and Aamir was extremely reserved and not accessible. Shah Rukh is superbly articulate, superbly entertaining, tells the best stories, so it's never been a chore to go back to him. It's so much fun. He talks very passionately; he always seems engaged in the conversation. There is never a boring moment. I have a great time listening to him. He said to me that he needs to entertain all the time, whether on the big screen or one on one. He has this compulsive need to make you happy!”
Improved quality
In her tracing of cinema for all these years, has there been improvement in the quality of films from Bollywood? “Oh my God, yes! You see some of the films made in 1992-93, they are appalling! People hammed like crazy! I think they have vastly improved. You are getting more voices, and there aren't as many second generation kids as those from other backgrounds. In terms of craft, it has hugely improved. What we do need to go back to is the fundamentals of storytelling; we do not invest enough in writers or time in writing. But in every other way we have really moved ahead.”
For Chopra, the world of movies is a driving need. And she likes her dose of masala as much as she likes an off-beat thriller. She says, “I think anything different is a good thing. It's great to have the traditional Bollywood film, mainstream masala, but it's also great to have a Shor in the City! But I was heartbroken when Karan Johar said he was going serious with My Name is Khan. I loved Udaan, but am as happy to weep when Shahrukh died in Kal Ho Naa Ho. I want it all, the Guju thali of movies, not a minimalist French meal with one dish at a time!”
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Book review
(The Times of India Crest Edition, June 4, 2011)
THE CONVERT
Deborah Baker
Once upon a time there was a young woman called Margaret Marcus. She lived in Larchmont, a postwar suburb of New York City, and was born and brought up a Jew. As she grew into an adult, she became absorbed in certain questions that, to her, were important. And these have been discovered, read, mulled over and re-presented by the author as a book that highlights the disconnect between the beliefs and tenets of Islam and the ways of the West. The subject, Margaret, did something unusual for the time and unexpected for her context – she converted to Islam, left her country and moved to Lahore, Pakistan, to live a far more restricted life and yet become one of the best known individuals in the discussion on what Islam is in the modern world. As Maryam Jameelah comes through as a woman not at peace with herself or her life, but one who teeters on the edge of fundamentalism and wrote loud and long and profusely about and against her former existence and the West in general.
As a character with issues Maryam is not the first of her kind that Baker has profiled. She has written about suicidal poet Laura Riding and about the mentally fragile Beats of India. But in Maryam she finds a subject who is the personification of the age-old debate between Islam and the West, sometimes loud and hectoring, sometimes quiet and strangely frightening, always edgy and just that fraction off a balance that could tip either way with unwanted, unwonted results. As she trolled through anonymous grey boxes that made up the archives at the New York Public Library, Baker found a little surprise: a Muslim name where most were Christian or Jewish. There were nine boxes containing letters home to parents and astonishingly contrasting texts written with a fanatic flavour and cited and respected in madrassas, vignettes of a life that changed so dramatically and drastically that it was as if one person had died and another had been born. It was a choice made – “a life lived by the sacred laws laid out in the Holy Qur’an or one blackened by hell-bent secular materialism”.
The book is in some ways confusing, wavering between Baker’s thoughts and Maryam’s rather more radical arguments, but it is absorbing, interesting, informative and, eerily, acceptable. There is a culture that to an Indian – especially a modern-day Hindu - is familiar, but as if seen from behind a veil composed of all the traits, characters and quirks of a religion that is not fully known or understood. And there is a personality that is so swept away by faith and the people with whom she associates that it is difficult to accept that degree of trust. There is suspense, there is an almost-soap-opera like story that twists and turns and goes from secrets about very intimate feelings, situations and happenings to a forum that is very public and global. And there is the underlying and growing awareness that Maryam is indeed a woman who is mentally disturbed, one who has demons to face that only she can see and hear.
Whether Maryam was unusual in her beliefs and decisions is not for anyone except herself and her conscience to say. But whether Baker should have recorded this life should not be in question – it is one worth knowing, if not living.
THE CONVERT
Deborah Baker
Once upon a time there was a young woman called Margaret Marcus. She lived in Larchmont, a postwar suburb of New York City, and was born and brought up a Jew. As she grew into an adult, she became absorbed in certain questions that, to her, were important. And these have been discovered, read, mulled over and re-presented by the author as a book that highlights the disconnect between the beliefs and tenets of Islam and the ways of the West. The subject, Margaret, did something unusual for the time and unexpected for her context – she converted to Islam, left her country and moved to Lahore, Pakistan, to live a far more restricted life and yet become one of the best known individuals in the discussion on what Islam is in the modern world. As Maryam Jameelah comes through as a woman not at peace with herself or her life, but one who teeters on the edge of fundamentalism and wrote loud and long and profusely about and against her former existence and the West in general.
As a character with issues Maryam is not the first of her kind that Baker has profiled. She has written about suicidal poet Laura Riding and about the mentally fragile Beats of India. But in Maryam she finds a subject who is the personification of the age-old debate between Islam and the West, sometimes loud and hectoring, sometimes quiet and strangely frightening, always edgy and just that fraction off a balance that could tip either way with unwanted, unwonted results. As she trolled through anonymous grey boxes that made up the archives at the New York Public Library, Baker found a little surprise: a Muslim name where most were Christian or Jewish. There were nine boxes containing letters home to parents and astonishingly contrasting texts written with a fanatic flavour and cited and respected in madrassas, vignettes of a life that changed so dramatically and drastically that it was as if one person had died and another had been born. It was a choice made – “a life lived by the sacred laws laid out in the Holy Qur’an or one blackened by hell-bent secular materialism”.
The book is in some ways confusing, wavering between Baker’s thoughts and Maryam’s rather more radical arguments, but it is absorbing, interesting, informative and, eerily, acceptable. There is a culture that to an Indian – especially a modern-day Hindu - is familiar, but as if seen from behind a veil composed of all the traits, characters and quirks of a religion that is not fully known or understood. And there is a personality that is so swept away by faith and the people with whom she associates that it is difficult to accept that degree of trust. There is suspense, there is an almost-soap-opera like story that twists and turns and goes from secrets about very intimate feelings, situations and happenings to a forum that is very public and global. And there is the underlying and growing awareness that Maryam is indeed a woman who is mentally disturbed, one who has demons to face that only she can see and hear.
Whether Maryam was unusual in her beliefs and decisions is not for anyone except herself and her conscience to say. But whether Baker should have recorded this life should not be in question – it is one worth knowing, if not living.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Hunger is a good weapon
(bdnews24.com, June 3, 2011)
For the past few months in India, protest has been the name of various games. People want something, they protest; if they don’t want something, they protest; if they think something is wrong, they protest; and, once in a strange while, if they think something is right, they do a little bit of a protest too. And one very Indian way of protesting is to stop eating, the practice known as a ‘hunger strike’.
Many years ago, when I was a student doing a kind of internship at a high-level research facility, the worker’s union at the institute decided to go on a mass hunger strike to protest, among other issues, the fact that I wore a sweatshirt with the official logo emblazoned on it. Why that should have been a point of contention I do not know, since the shirt had been made for me by my father and had nothing to do with any official permissions or commercial transaction.
Any which way, the union members gathered outside the cafeteria at about 10:30 in the morning, nicely fortified with sweet tea, snacks and slogans shouted under a big banner. They sat there reading magazines, gossiping, listening to music and got slowly more and more hungry. Crowds walked in and out, stopped to stare, chat and sympathise, official security did a quick and regular check every now and then and I watched from the balcony overlooking the scene.
It was a long, slow, painful time, as hunger gradually crept upon the strikers, inch by tortuous inch until finally, unable to bear the suffering any longer, they unanimously declared the strike over, their cause, if not won, at least made clear to the management. It was time to stop the protest; it was time to regroup and re-strategise; most importantly, it was time for lunch.
This one left me – for one – in giggles, but not all hunger strikes lend themselves to levity. Take, for instance, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, as we Indians like to call him, the man who fought for freedom and won it by a shrewd mixture of politics, diplomacy and bargaining. He had many routes to getting what he wanted, the most effective, perhaps, being a foodless one. Not getting his way through logical and more devious means of argument, good sense and political discussion, he would take the emotional route and retreat into a shell, either not speaking – because of the intense sadness he felt, he has said – or, as a last resort, not eating.
Fasting was a non-violent way of communicating, of getting the message across, he believed, in keeping with the tenets of satyagraha, or civil resistance. And it worked, though it did occasionally cause the British, who were the opposing team, to dig in their colonial heels and stand firm against such blandishment – on at least one occasion, this brought Gandhi rather too close to death for comfort!
Hunger has been used to make the point not just in India, but all over the world. It was a favourite method of protesting injustice in pre-Christian Ireland, according to the Internet, but had all sorts of rules, caveats and codes by which it could be done. In 1909 suffragette Marion Dunlop decided to go on a hunger strike while she was in jail for wanting the right to vote. She was quickly released, because the authorities did not want her to die in their jurisdiction – unfortunately, many women died after being force-fed, a process that was painful and injurious.
In the US, too, women demanding rights went on hunger strikes and had to undergo force-feeding while in prison. Other such horror stories have come out of Tibet, Cuba, Turkey, Canada and Iran, Japan, Venezuela and Palestine – anywhere that ordinary people have a point to make and no other way to deal with it. This is peaceful, non-intrusive and very personal. And, as history shows again and again, it works.
Why this topic at this time? Various reasons, actually. At the moment, a glorified yoga teacher called Baba Ramdev has been holding my country to ransom as he threatens to go on a hunger strike to protest the government’s inaction against the evils of black money and corruption. Just a few weeks ago well-known social activist Anna Hazare did the same, staying off food for 96 hours – a significant time period considering the gentleman’s age (71) and state of health (needs medication and care) – but at the end of it convincing a recalcitrant government to think about his demands and start the wheels of investigation and change turning, albeit excruciatingly slowly.
But for me, personally, all this makes little sense. Apart from the fact that I like food and I think eating is one of the pleasures of everyday living, it does not make sense to starve to win a battle – where do you get the strength to fight then? How does that work into making the protest, for whatever cause, powerful and convincing?
If someone can answer that one for me, I will fast…at least until dinner time!
For the past few months in India, protest has been the name of various games. People want something, they protest; if they don’t want something, they protest; if they think something is wrong, they protest; and, once in a strange while, if they think something is right, they do a little bit of a protest too. And one very Indian way of protesting is to stop eating, the practice known as a ‘hunger strike’.
Many years ago, when I was a student doing a kind of internship at a high-level research facility, the worker’s union at the institute decided to go on a mass hunger strike to protest, among other issues, the fact that I wore a sweatshirt with the official logo emblazoned on it. Why that should have been a point of contention I do not know, since the shirt had been made for me by my father and had nothing to do with any official permissions or commercial transaction.
Any which way, the union members gathered outside the cafeteria at about 10:30 in the morning, nicely fortified with sweet tea, snacks and slogans shouted under a big banner. They sat there reading magazines, gossiping, listening to music and got slowly more and more hungry. Crowds walked in and out, stopped to stare, chat and sympathise, official security did a quick and regular check every now and then and I watched from the balcony overlooking the scene.
It was a long, slow, painful time, as hunger gradually crept upon the strikers, inch by tortuous inch until finally, unable to bear the suffering any longer, they unanimously declared the strike over, their cause, if not won, at least made clear to the management. It was time to stop the protest; it was time to regroup and re-strategise; most importantly, it was time for lunch.
This one left me – for one – in giggles, but not all hunger strikes lend themselves to levity. Take, for instance, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, as we Indians like to call him, the man who fought for freedom and won it by a shrewd mixture of politics, diplomacy and bargaining. He had many routes to getting what he wanted, the most effective, perhaps, being a foodless one. Not getting his way through logical and more devious means of argument, good sense and political discussion, he would take the emotional route and retreat into a shell, either not speaking – because of the intense sadness he felt, he has said – or, as a last resort, not eating.
Fasting was a non-violent way of communicating, of getting the message across, he believed, in keeping with the tenets of satyagraha, or civil resistance. And it worked, though it did occasionally cause the British, who were the opposing team, to dig in their colonial heels and stand firm against such blandishment – on at least one occasion, this brought Gandhi rather too close to death for comfort!
Hunger has been used to make the point not just in India, but all over the world. It was a favourite method of protesting injustice in pre-Christian Ireland, according to the Internet, but had all sorts of rules, caveats and codes by which it could be done. In 1909 suffragette Marion Dunlop decided to go on a hunger strike while she was in jail for wanting the right to vote. She was quickly released, because the authorities did not want her to die in their jurisdiction – unfortunately, many women died after being force-fed, a process that was painful and injurious.
In the US, too, women demanding rights went on hunger strikes and had to undergo force-feeding while in prison. Other such horror stories have come out of Tibet, Cuba, Turkey, Canada and Iran, Japan, Venezuela and Palestine – anywhere that ordinary people have a point to make and no other way to deal with it. This is peaceful, non-intrusive and very personal. And, as history shows again and again, it works.
Why this topic at this time? Various reasons, actually. At the moment, a glorified yoga teacher called Baba Ramdev has been holding my country to ransom as he threatens to go on a hunger strike to protest the government’s inaction against the evils of black money and corruption. Just a few weeks ago well-known social activist Anna Hazare did the same, staying off food for 96 hours – a significant time period considering the gentleman’s age (71) and state of health (needs medication and care) – but at the end of it convincing a recalcitrant government to think about his demands and start the wheels of investigation and change turning, albeit excruciatingly slowly.
But for me, personally, all this makes little sense. Apart from the fact that I like food and I think eating is one of the pleasures of everyday living, it does not make sense to starve to win a battle – where do you get the strength to fight then? How does that work into making the protest, for whatever cause, powerful and convincing?
If someone can answer that one for me, I will fast…at least until dinner time!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)