The not-so Merry Wives, Sisters and Mothers of Southall (and Smethwick)

British-Indian Women & Domestic Violence

Having lived in the UK for a while now, and going to the 'Indian' part of town once too often, there's one question that keeps nagging me: How different are lives of British-Indian women from those of Indian women?

What are their 'options' in terms of sovereignty in life choices, whether it is pursuing a career or not, getting married or staying single, getting a divorce, having a same-sex partner, becoming an entrepreneur? Is the way women are viewed and treated by their families in the UK any different from India? And if there is a difference, how does it fit in with the construct of social life in the UK?

GENERATIONAL SHIFT?

Going back to the beginning, the UK city that I live in, has a whole different 'Indian' area, where most first, second and third generation Indians (the older ones still decidedly-Indian in attire) buy Indian clothes and Indian groceries from Indian-owned business establishments. In fact, when I first went there, it took me a while to orient myself; it was almost as if the chaos of Delhi's Karol Bagh or Mumbai's D.N. Road had been replicated in this green and perennially-misty land ! So complete was the mind-boggling 'operation' of moving Indians and Indian quirks to the UK, lock, stock and two spicy biryani barrels, that it took me one full day to recover from 'British-Indian' accents and heavily made-up Indian women, who all looked the same.

The critical question is what lies behind the dainty white lace curtains of insulated windows in neatly laid-out British-Indian homes? Is the reality of life for Indian-origin families here revealed by and limited to the cultural spectrum offered by movies such as Bend it Like Beckham and Provoked: A True Story? Is honour killing and honour-based abuse as rampant today as it was in the 80s and 90s? Are Indian-origin men here just as intrusive, abusive and sexually-deviant, both in public spaces and within four walls, as they are notorious for being in India? Is there more to the story than violence, abuse and coercion in the name of family values, religious traditions and cultural affinity?

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE….

I met Raheema (not her real name) at a University event. During lunch break, we got talking about the Tamil Nadu village her family belonged to and how she loved visiting India, especially the Marina Beach in Chennai. "My husband used to give me £50 per week for household expenses. The rest of his salary went to his family in India. Then one day, during an argument, he hit me with a broom and then slapped me. I had to divorce him after that," she told me. Despite her best efforts, tears welled up in her eyes. Raheema is a second generation British-Indian, and is Indian only in attire. An intelligent middle-aged woman, with a successful career, she was fortunate enough to be able to divorce an abusive husband who arrived in the UK on a spouse visa and then brought along several of his family members, paying for their living expenses on priority while sidelining and being abusive toward his wife.

Mindy Chawla (not her real name) was born in the UK to a second generation British-Indian father; her mother arrived here from India post-marriage. Mindy is quite the party animal, clubbing and dining out atleast twice a week. Her active sex life and scores of like-minded friends keep her social calendar full, and she is as independent in life choices as any British-Indian woman would want to be. She faces other problems, though. "My family reported my 'social drinking' to my GP, who then put me on this programme of mental health counselling. I told the GP I was not an alcoholic but only drank on and off, on social occasions. He just did not get it and it left me so frustrated !" she says.

APATHY AND IMPUNITY

When this writer went to meet a representative of Birmingham and Solihull Women’s Aid (BSWA), she was asked to email questions to Sally Dennis of BSWA. Sally could not reply but Nasheima Shaikh, Assistant Chief Executive at BSWA wrote back saying, "I am afraid we do not have the capacity to do this (answer questions) presently."

With regard to official statistics on Domestic Violence in the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) gave this reply on its website to a question on the ethnicity of victims of domestic violence in the UK: “The exact information on the number of victims of domestic violence by UK area that you require is not available…”

In their study on Indian-origin victims of domestic violence across the world, researchers Sundari Anitha, Anupama Roy, Harshita Yalamarty, Nalini Trivedi and Anjali Chahal spoke to 57 women who had faced abuse. Twenty-eight of the 57 women interviewed for this research had been married to men resident in the UK, eight of the husbands were from Italy, four each from Australia and USA, with smaller numbers from other countries.

Titled “Disposable Women: Abuse, Violence and Abandonment in Transnational Marriages (Issues for Policy and Practice in the UK and India)”, this study was conducted between December 2013 and May 2015 in the Indian states of Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat, which have a long history of out-migration to the UK and other countries in the West.

“The majority of the women reported that they had experienced physical violence perpetrated by their husband, in-laws or both. All the women were subjected to coercive control, isolation and financial abuse. A third of the research participants disclosed sexual abuse perpetrated by their husband, while just under a quarter disclosed sexual abuse by male in-laws. A fifth of the research participants had been coerced into undergoing abortion(s). A majority of the women who experienced sexual abuse indicated that our interview was the first time they had disclosed this abuse,” the study states.

It goes on to say, “Socio-cultural norms against divorce compelled women to remain in abusive relationships. Insecure immigration status prevented marriage migrants from seeking help. The findings suggest that cultural practices like dowry, son preference, and dominant social norms which make for patriarchal control and devaluation of women played an important role in the violence and abandonment that ensued in all marriages,” which makes one wonder if there really is ANY difference at all between the status of Indian women in the UK and those in India.

The demographic characteristics of the women and statistics relating to the nature of domestic abuse they experienced are as follows:

 

Age             Number of women           Percentage                           

18-24                      6                                   11%

25-34                    30                                   53%

35-44                    18                                   32%

45-54                      3                                     5%

Religion

Hindu                    36                                    63%

Sikh                      19                                    33%

Muslim                  1                                        2%

Christian               1                                        2%

Type of marriage

Arranged by family     53                               92%

Love/self choice           4                                 8%

Number of children

None                          38                                67%

One                            16                                28%

Two                              3                                  6%

Domestic Abuse

Walked out of the marriage   13                        23%

Forced out of in-laws’/husband’s home  44       77%

Financial abuse

Dowry demanded/given to in-laws      57              100%

Dowry related violence/harassment    39              68%

Appropriation of wages        7                                   14%

Abuse related to domestic labour      56                  98%

Physical abuse

Violence from husband only          15                           26%

Violence from in-laws only             11                              19%

Violence from both                         16                                          28%

Denial of food and medicine           27                           47%

Psychological abuse

Verbal abuse                                  53                                                   93%

Coercive control/intimidation          57                          100%

Isolation                                          56                                                            98%

Sexual abuse and denial of reproductive rights

Sexual abuse from husband only    18                     32%

Sexual abuse from in-laws only       13                        23%

Forced abortion                                11                                                 19%

Post-abandonment actions

Reported to police                            53                                             93%

Recovered dowry                               3                                                  5%

Obtained financial compensation       4                          7%

Percentages are rounded off

SOURCE: Disposable Women: Abuse, Violence and Abandonment in Transnational Marriages (Issues for Policy and Practice in the UK and India)

Lessons Learnt? Prevent 'Natural' Disasters through Early Education Initiatives

Scenes from an apocalyptic nightmare have become quite common in India.

Sometimes there are visuals of large-scale flooding, gushing waters breaching bunds and inundating everything in sight --- from schools to offices and homes to hospitals; at other times, there are heart-rending images of crumbled houses and cities razed to the ground by earthquakes. 

Cyclones, floods, droughts, earthquakes and other natural disasters are occurring with alarming regularity in India. Be it the Kashmir floods of 2014 or the devastating Uttarakhand earthquake a few decades ago, devastation seems par for the course as human population increases exponentially and resources are drained like never before in history.

And although we like to term them ‘natural’ disasters, the fact is most of these calamities are caused due to and exacerbated by human activities. As far back as October 2001, a study by the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington D.C.-based environmental research organisation had found, “More people worldwide are now displaced by natural disasters than by conflict. In the 1990s, natural catastrophes like hurricanes, floods, and fires affected more than two billion people and caused in excess of $608 billion in economic losses worldwide -- a loss greater than during the previous four decades combined. But more and more of the devastation wrought by such natural disasters is “unnatural” in origin, caused by ecologically destructive practices and an increasing number of people living in harm's way.”

According to National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) statistics, in June 2013, there were 4,094 fatalities in the mountainous states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh due to landslides and floods. Similarly, in 2008, the state of Bihar recorded 527 deaths, with 19,323 livestock perishing, and 2,23,000 houses suffering damage, leaving a total number of 3.3 million persons affected. Data on the NDMA website goes back to 1977, when in the coastal state of Andhra Pradesh, a cyclone left in its wake 10,000 humans fatalities, 40,000 livestock dead and thousands of people homeless.

All this leaves us wondering if preventive action can reduce the impact of disaster events (not limited to ‘natural’ disasters). The main reasons why natural calamities turn into large-scale disasters are unchecked and unplanned construction activity, blocked drainage vents (both along rivers and in residential areas), unawareness about impending calamitous events, faulty public warning systems and sometimes, plain callousness in giving advance warning of potential disaster situations.

Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment had termed the 2013 Uttarakhand flooding a ‘man-made disaster’. Contending that development must account for terrain and ecological-sensitivity, Narain had told The Hindu newspaper, “We cannot have roads on the Himalayas like the ones on the Alps. The Himalayas are young mountains… we need to look at ways of development without destroying natural resources.”

The next logical question is why do we keep repeating the same mistakes while commissioning/planning new construction activities, especially in eco-sensitive areas with high risk of disaster? The answer could lie in (a) a lack of awareness and (b) an indifference towards long-term impact of ‘development’ activities.

Consequently, the most comprehensive effort at disaster mitigation will, logically, have to begin at the educational level. When knowledge of the catastrophic impact of human activities is ingrained into young citizens from an early age, its effects pass over to their families and from there to entire communities in a kind of positive ‘domino effect’.

The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, 2016, published under the aegis of UNESCO, states much the same with its enhanced focus on the inter-relation between climate change--natural disasters--education systems.

The GEM Report states: “Climate change and natural disasters severely affect education systems and outcomes. The growing frequency of natural disasters and extreme weather increases the vulnerability of many low income countries, and such events have multiple direct and indirect effects on education systems and outcomes.”

The report mentions how the challenge of climate change demonstrates the complexity of, and urgent need for, using education to address environmental crises. “All three approaches...are required: learning at schools, in communities and through lifelong learning, along with integration between types of education and collaboration between education and other sectors. Thus deployed, education can contribute to actions to address climate change, including prevention, mitigation and disaster preparedness.”

By conservative estimates, between 1995 and 2014, 15,000 extreme weather events caused more than 5,25,000 deaths worldwide and losses of nearly US$3 trillion. A 2012 report by the Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institution has highlighted how the effects of climate change have serious implications for the functioning of education systems, and require adaptive strategies.

In September 2012, the Global Partnership for Education, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Save the Children put forward a proposition for better aid for education in emergencies. “The Global Partnership for Education, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Save the Children put forward a proposition for better aid for education in emergencies,” reads the Brookings Institution report. “The Call to Action, endorsed by leaders from governments, international organisations and civil society at the U.N. General Assembly, calls for education to be integrated into Humanitarian Action Plans, and for education systems everywhere to incorporate emergency prevention, preparedness, response and recovery,” the report states further.

With the average number of natural disasters expected to increase by 320 percent over the course of the next 20 years, schools could become avenues to provide knowledge and skills that the next generation will need to respond to disaster. It would not be an exaggeration to say that better education, leading to greater knowledge of occurrence and prevention of disaster events, could potentially reduce the fatalities and losses incurred from such events.

Finding Benjamin Zephaniah: All in a decade's work

PUNE, INDIA, 2006-07: When I last spoke to Benjamin Zephaniah, it was in Pune's Koregaon Park. A rookie journalist then, I had to meet what my editor called "this famous writer/poet from England". It was one of my few 'big' interviews till then and I went in the hope it will be carried half-page on or next to the Op-Ed page.

Benjamin Zephaniah spoke of many things that day and it was a memorable  conversation. Post that interaction, a lot more than just my journalistic greed had been addressed. I had the op-ed piece and I would get the half-page coverage!

But what I did not tell anyone, and dared not admit to myself, was how the interview had turned my entire worldview (if a 26-yr-old has a well-threshed-out worldview in the first place) upside down. So much that did not make sense about this world -- its politics, its violence and wars, its hurtling down a cul-de-sac way of living, its treatment of nature and of people, and a lot more -- began appearing to me for what it really was -- a sham, a trap, a scam, all dressed up in Moulin Rouge gaudiness.

BIRMINGHAM, UK, JANUARY 2017: Nearly a decade past that interaction, it was time for another conversation, this time over the phone. In October 2016, Britain's second city had played host to the Birmingham Literature Festival and slotted Benjamin's session at 8.30 pm! Unable to attend and regretting it, I finally managed to track down the elusive writer who was now also a Professor, through persistent emails.

After having spent the first few days of the New Year amid the verdant greens and Arthurian atmosphere of Somerset and finding myself back in the industrial moodiness and Brutalist architecture of Birmingham, I missed the peace and calm that only nature and deep reflection affords. But a conversation with Benjamin Zephaniah always leaves your mind whirring happily. This time, we spoke of Black Lives Matter, spirituality of the Indian variety and what it means to say no to an OBE while still living in Britain...!

A patient listener, almost intuitive, Benjamin talked of unreported police brutality towards detainees in the UK and how his cousin had died after being run down and gassed by police. This becomes especially poignant in light of what passes for 'acceptable' behaviour by law enforcement officials, particularly towards women, minorities and special needs citizens. "All lives matter. That there is a conversation about Black lives is a welcome development," says the poet who seems like a modern-day version of Bob Marley, with both dreadlocks and piercing gaze in place. "What is rarely reported is how many people are killed in police custody, while being thrashed in the back of the police van on way to the police station," he adds. "Over the past 30 years, more than 1,000 people have died in Britain in police custody. In that time, only two officers have been convicted as a result," the poet-professor had written in this Guardian piece.

Often taken for a sadhu in India, Benjamin reminisces his experiences of reading poetry in India. "It takes me double the time to read the same poems in India than in Britain, because the audience laughs at every line," he says as we veer from the topic of police brutality towards the pleasanter aspect of Indian spirituality. Ever the dissenter, I ask him if Indian-brand spiritualism is grossly overrated. "There can be no generalisations; there are some things that are good, like Yoga and mindful living. And then there is the caste system and one wonders how does that work?"

Speaking of wonderment, among the many manys, what really left me agape was Benjamin's no -- in November 2003 -- to an OBE. Writing in The Guardian about why he was turning it down, he had said, "I've never heard of a holder of the OBE openly criticising the monarchy. They are officially friends, and that's what this cool Britannia project is about. It gives OBEs to cool rock stars, successful businesswomen and blacks who would be militant in order to give the impression that it is inclusive. Then these rock stars, successful women, and ex-militants write to me with the OBE after their name as if I should be impressed. I'm not. Quite the opposite - you've been had."

Did he not fear a backlash, given that he continued to live in Britain after refusing an award many would pay billions (atleast) for, I asked Benjamin. "One of my friends did write a piece criticising my decision. But there was no way I could have accepted it. You have to be very clear about what you want."

And so went a conversation that had begun nearly a decade ago, and still remains incomplete. One line has stayed with me though and is quite the talisman in these tumultuous times, not least because it comes from a former borstal resident who writes and teaches poetry and is vegan in a world gone mad from killing animals for food and destroying nature for greed.

"You have to be very clear about what you want."

Randi-ing & Raving, and Carrying On

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The Universality of 'Arches'

1. Dakshineshwar Kali Temple, Kolkata, INDIA

There are 04 photographs here.
The first one is of the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple, Kolkata (India). A temple dedicated to Goddess Kali, the building has a distinct structure. Its most remarkable features are the wide arches that bend gracefully towards the pillars.
In the second photograph, which is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (Turkey), we notice the same pattern of arches repeated. Only here, they are shorter and steeper. The Hagia Sophia, over the centuries, has been both a church and a mosque.
The third photo is of the St Andrew of Patras Cathedral in Patras (Greece). A pattern highly similar to that of the Kali Temple of Kolkata can be noticed here, too. This is especially true of the three-arched entrance, the sweepingly beautiful arch above it and on the sides of the structure.
This brings us to the fourth and last photograph, of the Valday Iversky Monastery in Russia's Novgorod Oblast. Again, the same design -- of the arches -- is repeated here. In this elaborate structure, the base of the building houses arches over windows in groups of two. This is topped off with the main structure of the monastery, with its distinctive, wide, sweeping arches.

2. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, TURKEY

3. St Andrew of Patras Cathedral, Patras, GREECE

COMMON STRUCTURAL FEATURES:

1. ARCHES -- In all four buildings, if an onlooker was to point out one defintive feature, that which is 'striking' & 'eye-catching', it will have to be the Arches. They are distinctly-shaped and REPEATED all over the building.

2. SEVERAL LEVELS to the building -- All 04 buildings are built on multiple levels. Design elements found at the base of the building get 'pronounced' at its top

3. DOMES -- Though different in shape -- ranging from elongated, oval, nearly-round to egg-shaped -- Domes are the other common factor between these 04 structures. Acting as the crowning glory here, quite literally, they gracefully lend stability and regality to these already-impressive buildings.


4. UNIFIED across Continents -- Separated by several thousand kilometres in distance and hundreds of years in time, all four temples/churches/mosques bring together disparate design elements in the building and make them work beautifully together. One cannot help but wonder about the unifying influence of structural design spread across continents. How unique, how unifying!

4. Valday Iversky Monastery, Novgorod Oblast, RUSSIA

From JAPANI with love

By mid-September, as autumn knocks on the doors of the Kullu Valley, a fruit called Persimmon quietly replaces the ubiquitous apple and Manali fruit stalls acquire a distinct orange-y hue. This fruit is called Persimmon Kaki in Japan and so, according the erstwhile world power due credit, Manali calls this round-and-tucked-in-around-the-sides-and-base orange-coloured fruit "Japani".

If ever a papaya (claiming descent from the mango family) fell in love with a guava (who was an apple from the mother's side), Japani is what their progeny would look and taste like. The shell boasts a waxy sheen and encases a just-right, not-too-ripe-not-too-soft pulp that tastes like (as just mentioned) a mango+a papaya+an apple+a guava rolled into one not-so-tiny fruit bursting with flavour.

For all its claims of a Japanese connect, though, its highly likely that the Japani fruit available in Manali is an Israeli variety called the Sharon Fruit. Israeli tourists have till recently made up the highest number of foreign visitors to Manali. Who knows which one of the Zohan-lookalikes brought along a few seeds/saplings and transplanted them in the Kullu Valley?! Whoever it was, Toedahrahbah, My Friend!

Japani or Persimmon Kaki a.k.a. Sharon Fruit sells for about Rs 80 per kg in Manali Bazaar

HOW TO LIGHT A 'TANDOOR' -- LOCAL MANALI WOOD-FIRED OVEN

A Manali tandoor is a wood-fired, metal oven used for cooking and heating
during winters, when the electricity is erratic and the cold bone-chilling

A tandoor is a very Manali-specific thing. It appears to have no parallels anywhere in the world. I've may be caught a fleeting glimpse of a 'tandoor-like object' in northern Syria on TV. Apart from that, despite an extensive online search and re-search, I came across nothing that resembles a Manali 'tandoor'.

So, what exactly is a tandoor? It is a metal oven (the metal is iron, the thicker the iron sheet the better) that can be used both indoors and outdoors for the purpose of heating your house and cooking your food in the punishing cold winters, when the minimum temperatures can touch -20C. 

The tandoor (most foreign tourists can't pronounce it right and call it 'tandoori'! may be after having many tandoori rotis on their India sojourn) comes in many shapes -- oval, square, rectangular, sizes -- small, medium, large (depending on the size of the house/room to heat) and price ranges -- from very reasonable Rs 1600 to an astronomical Rs 50,000!

Most local families in Manali and increasingly, the growing population of settlers from Punjab and other states, use the tandoor extensively during the winter months -- November to March, when the electricity is erratic and the cold is so extreme that only a made-in-Manali tandoor can keep it at bay.

Most old families in settlements around Manali town -- Old Manali, Vashisht, Burua, Shanag, Goshal, Prini, Shuru, Jagatsukh, Kanyal, Simsa and many others -- use the tandoor through the year, mostly for cooking and usually, out of habit. While settlers dismantle this wood-fired contraption once the bitter winters are over, the old families are inseparable from the tandoor. It occupies the pride of place in these homes and is almost like the centrepiece in a house. The entire household is drawn to its warmth and familiarity and their daily chores revolve around the glowing tandoor.

On a winter day, with the sky packing up and a snowstorm just a few minutes away, a typical Manali household is usually gathered around the tandoor emanating gentle, welcome warmth, the aluminium kettle filled with tea simmering away on the metal oven and the crackle of groundnuts roasting in its pit. In Manali, "Home is (truly) where the tandoor is"....  

 HOW TO LIGHT A 'TANDOOR'

 A tandoor has three main components

1. The base --  Made of heat-repelling materials like bricks, stones or sand

2. The main surface -- Made of iron, with one or more burners, used for cooking/heating

3. The exhaust -- Made of tin pipes, either in a single piece or with an attachment, to direct the smoke out of the house/room

A tandoor has a tin pipe attached to the main oven, which carries the
smoke out of the room. It can have 2-3-4 burners, along with lids, depending on its size 

Any dry wood works just fine in getting the tandoor going.
Here are some branches trimmed off apple trees. These serve as the base for the fire. 



Some larger pieces of wood can then be used to make a neat pile 

Place the thinner, easier-to-light wood at the bottom and thicker wood over it.
Pour some oil over the wood or use some tinder to get the fire going.

The water's on the boil! Use aluminium utensils, preferably.
Keep the burner lid on or place the utensil directly on the flame.

Once the tandoor begins warming up, the smoke from the exit
end of the tin pipe will appear something like this -- dense, black

As the fire picks up and the metal surface of the oven heats up, the smoke will look like this -- translucent, barely-there. That's when you know the tandoor is well on its way to fire (and brimstone!)

The triangular cuts at the door of the tandoor ensure enough air goes in to keep the fire alive.
The fire's going and the smoking kettle is such a welcome sight!

Top view. Most people wipe the tandoor with a wet cloth
once it's cooled down and then oil it, for longevity and 'good looks'. 

Good Luck..!

Mir Bahay: Peace Home in the Himalayas

One of the two cottages at Mir Bahay

• What do you call a place that seems like a real-time execution of a mountain home you had only conjured up in your dreams?
• Where you can do so much in so little time -- ponder on world affairs :-) perched on 'the deck' looking out over the valley, hear the crackle of wood in the fireplace as you look up from your novel on the notorious millionaire mobster who made it from Dongri to Dubai, consume sufficient quantities of great home-cooked food, served with genuine warmth and a ready smile !

• 

  BHAI-REE IMPRESSIVE: The library is brilliantly eclectic
  and you can find everything here, from Tintin to National Geographic,
  and all that lies in between!
   

• Where, even if you head there on a monsoon weekend, the mighty Himalayan ranges play hide and seek with you, breaking through the thick mist just enough and not more, to leave you raving for a proper look at them once the skies clear for good...
• Where there's no Wi-Fi and you thank god profusely for that little push you needed towards a much-planned but always tentative electronic detox.
• Where you wake up to the sounds of songbirds conversing in heavenly tweets ! and go to sleep as the conversation in your head in the quiet luxury of your cottage finally dies down and gives way to rejuvenating slumber. And the only other sounds you hear, if you are lucky, are of local pre-teens reciting the alphabet, in the sweetest, most endearing little voices, in the village school nearby ! Sounds too good to be true? Is this place for real?
• It is and MIR BAHAY is that place. A homestay that lives up to its promise, Mir Bahay is located near the town of Almora in Uttarakhand. Mir is Russian for Peace and Bahay means Home in Filipino.



A view of Mir Bahay from the jungle behind the property

 

• Built on three levels, the homestay like no other, has the main bungalow, with the dining area, the kitchen, the impressive, eclectic library, the deck and the fireplace. Then there are the two cottages; the one I stayed in was done up in perfect doses of bucolic charm and essential comforts. A terrific mix of the best of both worlds!

• 

  When rustic charm meets luxurious comfort, this is what you get
  
   

• So, if you want some homestay-style peace in 'this' world, you know where to head.
• Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong, Mountain Mama..... taaaaake me Home......

• 

  A cup of ginger tea never tasted better than in the
  company of rustling pines and whistling winds
  
   

• WHERE: MIR BAHAY, Sundarpur, Village Gadauli, Almora – Bageshwar Road, Almora (Uttarakhand)
• How to Get There
• CONTACT DETAILS: Phone: +91 8826220002
• Email: contact@mirbahay.com
• WEBSITE: http://mirbahay.com/
• FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/mirbahay

A memorable sunset from Mir Bahay

 

Be right back....

 

 

(The writer, Shalini Rai, paid for her stay at Mir Bahay.
Mir Bahay is a solo traveller-safe property.)


 

PK: When Alien Met Right-Wingers

As protests against PK got increasingly virulent, the film fast acquired a cult status among movie-goers and seriously threatened fundamentalist fringe groups

The protests in December 2014 against Rajkumar Hirani’s PK – a delightful, landmark film that has charted new cinematic territory while remaining moored in the ethos of cinema as both epoch-maker and manifestor -- can be explained in this line -- Ee saara khel darr ka hai! (This whole charade is based on fear!)

In one memorable scene half-way through the film, Aamir Khan as PK is condemned to purgatory by Parikshit Sahni, who plays the godman-fearing father of TV journalist Jagat Janani (Anushka Sharma).

Wide-eyed, perennially-perky PK had just questioned Sahni’s blind faith in godmen like the ubiquitous Tapasvi Maharaj, who determines, directs and dictates everything Sahni and his family does – from extracting a tooth to disowning their feisty daughter for her unconventional life choices.

But as PK rightly says, “Ee saara khel darr ka hai!”
It’s probably why -- despite the fact that PK earned over Rs 600 crore in two weeks and was loved equally by English-espousing techies, Hindi-heartland business families and Bhojpuri-speaking masses across the country of all religious affiliations and irrespective of these -- there were demands to ban the film, calibrated incidents of arson and increasingly violent protests to stop its screening.

Here’s why you must see PK -- a cinematic labour of love.

Remote Sensibility

PK (does it mean Psychokinesis – a supernatural psychic ability?) is an otherworldly being who is sent to Earth to “research” human beings. Within minutes of landing somewhere in the Thar Desert, he is robbed of the remote that will help him summon the spaceship back home – a planet quite, but not really, like ours.

In pursuit of his remote thief, PK arrives in that biggest rumoured meeting ground of thieves in the country – Delhi! It’s in this city of nearly 2 Crore that, unable to find his remote, PK instead seeks God – who according to earthlings, is the panacea of all ills, the deliverer of all evil, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.

But running into a roadblock again, all that the wide-green-eyed alien finds at every step is manufactured (by man) divinity – in the form of superficial religious rites, baffling nomenclature, fear-inducing beliefs and conflicting spiritual practices.

Soche bin samjhe jatan karta hee jaata hoon, Inn karodon ki tarah main sar jhukata hoon (Suspending belief and logic I keep exerting and bow down before you, like these crores of others!)

PK’s prized possession eludes him until he meets TV journalist Jagat Janani (Jaggu) who helps him recover the remote from corpulent Tapasvi Maharaj, who is showing it off to his millions of devotees as a serendipitious benefaction, straight from Lord Shiva.

Interstellar Line-up

After Lagaan, Aamir Khan stopped being only a romantic hero or just an actor and became more than the sum of his parts. For the vast majority of Indians, post-Lagaan, Khan turned into that favourite, familiar, fraternal figure who can be trusted to take on the role of empathiser, activist, crusader, conscience-jolter. Always, always, wearing his heart on his sleeve (even when there’s no sleeve or when the sleeve is covered in garish cotton/polyester prints like in PK) and seen as being willing to risk his skin to prove his platitudes. In PK, despite being an alien, Aamir has never appeared more familiar, more engaging, more human, more humane.

Boman Irani as Jerry Bajwa, the tormented-by-Tapasvi-Maharaj-editor of a TV channel expertly essays the role of the kind, large-hearted, avuncular mentor to Jaggu. Jerry is a kindred soul, someone the best of us owe our professional success and moral well-being to.

Anushka Sharma as Jaggu is a delight in most scenes of the movie and a treat in the song sequences, with Sushant Singh Rajput as Sarfaraz Yusuf ably lending romantic charm and underplayed gravitas to the movie. Saurabh Shukla as Tapasvi Maharaj is every bit as manipulative and mercurial as any real-life godman.

Where’s the mark? Thappa kahan hai?

PK comes up aces on all cinematic fronts. Its narrative opening smoothens the way for an even-paced, high-on-humour screenplay that sets the rhythm of the movie with a serious (potentially explosive) theme and prevents it from becoming pedantic. PK’s songs are memorable in their seamless contribution to the film’s narrative, adding expertly to rather than taking away clandestinely from the story. The camera memorably captures all the nuances, every inflection, each fleeting emotion traversing PK’s visage – as he tries, so earnestly and hopelessly, to make sense of life on embattled Earth. Raju Hirani expertly wields the director’s invisible wand, as he works magic on celluloid through the sheer force of his affirmative belief in all things bright and beautiful. And noble, and brave.

Because, if PK can be described in one word, that word is brave. Always remaining on the less glamourous side of brave – bravura and never crossing over to the other, more appealing one – bravado, Raju Hirani and Aamir Khan, with much help from Boman Irani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra, have scripted a box office success story that treads lightly on socio-cultural landmines and comes out alive and laughing.

Consider this: PK has no idea of sin or atleast of sex being sinful (a reference to the golden era before the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden) and so he wanders around unclad till he is forced to look for clothes in ‘dancing cars’.

He learns Bhojpuri, one of the most lyrical languages on Earth, in a brothel from a prostitute, thus subtly and poignantly bringing redemption to a vocation legitimised and endlessly stigmatised by men. Then with his insatiable, childlike curiosity, PK wanders the pediatric wards of Delhi hospitals looking for the thappa (mark) of religion on newborn babies.

He also ‘borrows’ money for his daily sustenance from firmly-secured donation boxes in temples overflowing with cash. Any other film, with double the talent, could not have completed this journey as valiantly as PK and rejoiced, at finding, by the end, the vast majority of Indians – pluralistic and peace-loving, as its fellow travellers.

That leaves us with the anarchist fringe groups that resorted to violence in the name of protecting an ancient symbiotic religion by demanding a ban on a film.

To them, here’s what PK would have said, “Jisne itti badi duniya banayi, ee sab kuch banaye, Uski raksha tum hiyaan apne itte se gole par baith kar karoge? Usko tumhari raksha ki jarurat naahi hai, haan! (The Creator who created this entire universe and everything in it, including you, does not need you to protect her!)

Haider: To Review .... or Not

"To be, or not to be? That is the question —
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?"

Kya karein kya na karein...

Vishal Bharadwaj's Haider is forced to battle this question through a forced adaptation of a foreign ethos in a language foisted upon less-than-proficient-in-English Indians since the British "Raj".

Completing his Shakespearean trilogy with Haider, an adaptation of Hamlet, VB seems to have lost much filmmaking edge as he sends his lead actor over the edge of sanity and his film's plot over the edge of plausibility, while himself teetering under the White (now Brown) Man's Burden.

~ It's 1995 in Kashmir -- Kashmir of the Dal Lake, of DD's Gul-Gulshan-Gulfam, of locals with long wintercoats, hot kangris and endearing accents (Baai for Bhai, Garr for Ghar, Zurur for, well, Zarur).
~ It's also 1995 in Kashmir of downtown Srinagar, of Kaul Sahab's abandoned house with coloured window panes, of Indian Army officers, curiously, mostly South Indian and stocky and moustachioed, of armoured white gypsies with red beacons and of Salman Khan doubles who double up as police informers/henchmen.

It's in this 1995 winter of Kashmir's discontent that Haider (Shahid Kapoor) returns home from Aligarh Muslim University and defiantly tells an Army man he lives in Islamabad (a Srinagar locality now renamed). He wanders muck-lined Srinagar streets looking for his disappeared father Dr Hilal Meer (Narendra Jha), while somewhat-sexually obsessed with his primary-school teacher mother Gazala (Tabu) and hoping his traitorous advocate-politician Uncle Khurram (Kay Kay Menon) dies ignominiously.

In between, he also finds time to enlighten his Salman Khan-lookalike police informer friends about the finer points of "chutzpah" versus AFSPA and romances old friend-journalist Arshiya (Shraddha Kapoor) in rooms lit by open fireplaces, with wood smoke and lust hanging heavy.

Not on the "side of life"
From the moment Hilal brings home and shelters an injured militant leader, claiming to be on the "side of life", he exposes his cloistered middle-class existence to the army-police-militant masquerade Kashmir has perfected into a 'martial' art form. Exploiting the chance to eliminate his brother and marry his 'Baabijaan' :-) -- sister-in-law -- Khurram snitches on Hilal, who is packed off to Mama II (a pervert, hilarious renaming of an infamous "interrogation centre"), never to return home. Hilal's journey from the despair of Mama II to the cold embrace of a graveyard makes up much of the film's narrative. It takes Haider to Roohdaar (Irrfan Khan), who further confounds the plot -- in Haider's head -- and adds to the slothful pace of the movie.

Irrfan Khan as Roohdaar

Character assassination
Narendra Jha as Hilal, the militant-sheltering surgeon, gets the tiniest details and the overall sonority right. Tabu tries to make the most of playing stoic Gazala and fails. In her weakest performance till date, Tabu seems to be going through the paces -- apparently resigned to the mindnumbing charade of militant religiosity, unwavering family commitments and the spectacle of men killing each other to assert their rights over women's -- mothers, sisters, wives etc -- bodies!


Kay Kay Menon as the conniving Uncle

Kay Kay Menon plays to perfection the role of Khurram, the lesser man condemned to heap misery and misfortune upon others in pursuit of a semblance of self-worth. He looks the part of the slithery advocate-politician, in some scenes, dripping malice and evil.



Star-crossed

Shraddha Kapoor as Arshiya lights up the screen with her grace and innocence and her faith in a policeman father who kills militants in cold blood and then sits down for a hot meal with his daughter.
Shahid Kapoor, in one of his best performances till date, becomes the character. As the AMU student looking for his disappeared father, the lost lover consumed by Arshiya's death and the wannabe militant who picks up the gun but can't quite press the trigger, Shahid makes for compelling viewing.

Main hoon ki main nahin

Hum hain ki Hum nahin...?
Where Haider loses the plot, literally, is where the plot -- screenplay by writer Basharat Peer and VB -- leaves him stranded and bounces off on a unilinear narrative to condemn any and everything 'Indian'. In this narrative, militants are god-fearing people 'forced' to kill; all 'Indians' are either anti-militancy or anti-'azaadi'; AFSPA is the devil's own accessory, imposed upon a land full of peace-loving albeit gun-toting people; Chutzpah (pronounced Hootspa, not like in the film -- with a certain delight; It means audacity, insolence, cheek) is somehow funny because it sounds like a woman's genitalia but not quite; and where wizened men dig graves in the dead of winter and get trigger-happy while humming a song that means, well, not much.

Mother. India-n?!

By the end of Haider, the conundrum remains,
To be or not to be...
To die, to sleep...
To sleep, perchance to dream...
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

Haider confounds and stupefies, more because of what passes off for fact in the movie than for the sluggish, unfeeling, mechanical narrative. Watch it -- if for nothing else then -- for one filmmaker's misguided re-telling, in insipid monochrome, of the many-hued truth of Kashmir.