How Social Media Dishonoured Qandeel Baloch

Qandeel Baloch sometimes looked like Amy Winehouse; her death was as tragic as Amy's. Both were on drugs. Winehouse was on the hard stuff; Baloch on the harder one.

Addiction to social media is narcotic. I do not mean the persistent need to check the walls and timelines or click on likes, or even to voice an opinion or an inanity, but the recreating of life online — to be completely subsumed by the persona one has birthed as well as the perceptions. In fact, Baloch was no more her own creation. She was an opinion. As she had said, "Love me or hate me both are in my favour. If you love me I Will always be in your heart, if you hate me I'll always be in your mind."

In the real world, she was killed by her brother — sedated and then strangulated, as her parents slept in the other room, sedated too. This murder falls into the honour-killing category. And immediately, we hear of the yawn-producing argument that these murders should be called dishonour-killings because, they ask, where's the honour.

Such ridiculous assertions forget that by doing so they suggest the victim would have brought dishonor as much as the perpetrator has, when we are in fact talking about misplaced ideas of honour, prevalent in almost all societies.

In Pakistan, the victim's family can forgive the man. Baloch's father has refused. He wants to wreak vengeance upon the son. One article even quoted the parent calling out, "Qandeel, Qandeel!" Strange, because that was not the name she was given at birth. She was Fouzia Azeem. Qandeel Baloch was the pseudonym she chose for herself. To escape, among other things, memories of being forcibly married off by her parents when she was a teen.

It was her new life that took care of them. Baloch was the only earning member. Her brother says he killed her because of the stuff she posted. But it could also be because his male ego could not handle being dependent on a sister, that too one who was unapologetic about her self-portrayal.

The latest news is that her mother says the brother was taunted by his friends regarding his sister's shenanigans, somehow softening the opinion against him. Nobody seems to want to take responsibility for judging her. She is now, as she was then, just a daughter, a sister, a trigger for the self-righteous.

Qandeel Baloch was not as unusual a phenomenon as is made out. The pretty provocative at 26 is often what rebellions are made of. I watched an interview in which she referred to herself as a social media sensation. That was her identity.

It is no different from the social media celebrities around who primarily feed their followers minutiae of their lives — the animals they rear, the food they eat, the places they visit, the clothes they wear. They flash these as a badge of frankness, when what such trivia does is to act as a camouflage for their opinions and feelings or, more likely, lack of them.

They feed on events and trolls. The more trolls they get for a stray comment the more they begin to market their boldness. Being in-your-face is projected as honesty. The cliques to which they belong — and they sure as hell wouldn't survive without them — ensure that their machinery is well-lubricated with their fan-like leech behaviour.

The Qandeel supporters were different. They might have enjoyed her exhibitionism, but they could not possibly invest in her emotionally because they felt they were not equal. As long as she could be patronised, it was okay. In some cases, she reminded them of their own struggles. But, yet again, there was a kid glove treatment.

I watched The Ali Saleem Late Night Show where she appeared alongside Pakistani comic actor Rauf Lala. The latter had the audacity to leer at her and make it seem like doing so was a part of his acceptance of her. He resorted to the typical subcontinental trope of, "You are like my sister." She shot back, "Can't you say daughter?" He agreed, in the same leering manner, "Ok, ok, like a child I've rocked in my lap."

If you think this was just another character from the entertainment industry, then you are wrong. I've witnessed much sniggering by Pakistani liberals online. Upon her death, they might have surely spoken some shit about how horrible honour killing is and how she was merely a misguided youngster. Short of calling her a floozy, because they are so desperate to be politically correct, they meant just that.

Qandeel, obviously, had a different opinion of herself and her agenda. In a Facebook post a day before her death, she had written:

"I believe I am a modern day feminist. I believe in equality. I need not to choose what type of women should be. I don't think there is any need to label ourselves just for sake of society. I am just a women with free thoughts free mindset and I LOVE THE WAY I AM."

But this love for herself was the result of going regularly viral due to the 'love' of others. Did the liberal society ever grant her the status of feminist? Even Mathira, a model and actress known for her item numbers, had mentioned in an earlier interview about her drawing the line somewhere as opposed to Qandeel, who apparently knew of no such line.

Qandeel did a bad version of twerking, she wore transparent clothes and seduced the camera. The viewers were added bonus. And she sang. That's what she wanted to do. That's what nobody was interested in. Unless she sang wearing night clothes in bed just before signing off in a video she shot to share with strangers.

Did anybody notice her voice? Clearly not. Even in that 'understanding' interview with Ali Saleem, the host made her run on a treadmill and sing. To be fair, he made the other guest do so too, but Rauf Lala had no singing ambitions. Qandeel did.

But she was just time-pass for those on social media who even as they while away the hours in their echo chambers look down on people like Qandeel who do the same.

They refuse to accept her not only on her terms, but even on theirs, should she have made it. She had to be kept in her place, even as they pretended not to show her her place.

In the end, the social media voyeurs were witnesses to the murder of Qandeel Baloch.

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An earlier one on Amy Winehouse

Walk like an Egyptian

Much more than his face, I liked his voice, including the lilt. A bit woozy and timorous, it had the steadying quality of a sage. There was no choice left but to like Omar Sharif.

I watched him a few years ago in 3D at the Trocadero Centre. It was in a documentary on Egypt. He had become a bit stocky, and his face had spread out; the gap-tooth smile remained. As he stood amongst the mummified remains and history, it became evident that Hollywood might have embraced him but he continued to walk like an Egyptian.

In fact, part of his charm was his difference. Would the West have been as excited about him if he was called Michel Chelhoub, which was his real name? It was not the filmmakers that renamed him though. The actor himself wanted something that his fellow countrymen could pronounce, it seems. Why would they not, if it was a naturally Middle Eastern name? Was this a little trick he was given to play — not sure about himself so making things easier for others as a preemptive exercise?

I did not start to write this with pop analysis. Like most, I found him attractive. However, what simmered was more beguiling than what was obvious. His much-feted 'Lawrence of Arabia' outing struck me as exotica overload. Dr. Zhivago did better, but morphing into a Russian for the Americans was exotic too.

Omar Sharif could have been Clark Gable in 'Gone with the Wind', and it is not surprising that the memorable line the character utters is, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Sharif's casual charm certainly did not.

While my exposure to his cinema was limited, I assumed he had some political inclination, if not history. One reason was that his works were banned in Egypt after he was shown making love to a Jewish woman in 'Funny Girl'. That he and Barbra Streisand were also a couple made it worse. An Arab and a Jew? His response was a throwaway, “When I kiss a woman, I never ask her nationality or her religion.”

The Jewish question seemed to be of some humanist consideration for he went on to produce and act in the French film 'M Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran' (Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Quran); in English it was just 'Monsieur Ibrahim'. It is about a Jewish teenager who befriends a Turkish shopkeeper. I've watched it and its message stands out simply because it is not shouted out.

Sharif certainly had views on the region he came from, and he did not think much of America. In a land of upstarts, his old world refinement, and to an extend bacchanalian tendencies, were bound to feel adrift.

He lost money in casinos where he went because he was lonely, and it was one place where he could eat without being stared at.

I revisited this video after a long while and was once again struck by gems like, "Arab society is extremely tribalistic", "democracy is not the panacea", "I have none (religious beliefs) that I can prove"...and on his deathbed he said he would call out to his mother to take him...

Sunday ka Funda

"I've laid in a ghetto flat
Cold and numb
I heard the rats tell the bedbugs
To give the roaches some
Everybody wanna know
Why I'm singing the blues
Yes, I've been around a long time
People, I've paid my dues"

(From: "Why I Sing The Blues")

There is always a reason why we do things, and sometimes the reasons become the things we shall always do.

I cannot claim to know much about the Blues, but the genre is rooted in pain, a pain that reaches out. The sweat and tears gush forth in the voice.

This cannot claim to be a tribute to B.B.King, for I know little about him on my own. He had said that playing the blues was "like having to be black twice", and instantly one understands. One understands how art will be judged by who the artiste is when he says that the blues was like a "problem child" only because you are concerned about how it will be perceived by the world. In that itself is an indictment of such perceptions that see the colour of the singer, and not the shades of the song.

However, a true artiste would mesh with his art. For B.B.King, “The blues was bleeding the same blood as me.”

Undrawing the Line: R.K.Laxman

He was the only public intellectual in India who could make sense of the nonsense. The good thing is that he would baulk at being referred to as an intellectual. R.K. Laxman is dead.

Those who think a cartoonist cannot be an intellectual just need to trace his work. He could pare down the tonnes of bibliography and tomes to one box. He distilled them and came up with a trenchant take.

While some of it made us smile, he was certainly not a comic. His work was political and social commentary at its best. And he exposed it without moral pretensions. You instinctively knew that he was not scoring any points or patting himself on the back, something that latter-day cartoonists in India seem to revel in.

He did not appear to be friends with politicians, but he was no enemy either. That imbued him with a practicality and it reached the reader as an objective and concerned voice.

His caricatures were precise, taking one sharp feature to delineate the personality. You knew Indira Gandhi would follow the moment you saw the nose line. I thought he captured her hauteur perfectly. There are many more of other leaders and I would urge you to look for them.

However, his creation of the common man surpassed everything else, so much so that the dhoti-clad, checked raggedy jacket, half bald caricature has become to represent the aam aadmi. No political caps claiming the common man will ever be able to take the place of the Laxman one, because it came from a penetrating eye and a deep sense of anguish that did not disappear to get political mileage.

His common man is an observer occasionally forced to be a participant. But he does not lose himself. And when the need arises he even contributes with his commonness to become rather special. This gesture is not covered with tinsel as a celebration, but rather subtly it gives us a peek into what equality really means.

R.K.Laxman does not need a photograph to be recognised. His lines are intimations of, pardon the hyperbole, immortality.

Flanagan's Wake

I like Richard Flanagan already. He has won this year’s Booker Prize for ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ that I have not read. I have read nothing by him, but following the award the search has yielded some wonderful insights.

Of course, I like him for saying that he is “ashamed to be Australian” because of the environmental policies of the government. But, what is more interesting is how he gets into the mind of another real person. A good writer does not only create characers out of thin air. S/he can make the most simple reality appear profound or mystical or mythical.

Flanagan has done it with David Walsh that I now know so much about Walsh and so little about Flanagan. This he manages to do without any self-effacing sophistry. In fact, he pushes the boundaries of language to create something out of somebody. In the essay for The New Yorker, he wrote:

Attempting to describe Boltanski’s devil is like trying to pick up mercury with a pair of pliers. At fifty-one, Walsh has the manner of a boy pharaoh and the accent of a working-class Tasmanian who grew up in Glenorchy, one of the poorest suburbs of the poorest state in the Australian federation. His silver hair is sometimes rocker-length long, sometimes short. Walsh talks in torrents or not at all. He jerks, he scratches, and his pigeon-toed gait is so pronounced that he bobs as he walks. He is alternately charming, bullying, or silent. As he looks away, he laughs.

This comes somewhere in the beginning, so it has to be tantalising. Flanagan certainly knows about a good way to grab attention. From his subject as arriviste, to his perversities, his enterpreneurship of the arts and his inner demons, it is a sheer treat.

Walsh’s favorite novel is “Crime and Punishment,” and conversations with him can sometimes feel like talking to the deranged narrator of Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from Underground”: possessed, but rarely less than compelling. His obsessive desire to explain makes his thoughts sometimes seem to proceed algorithmically. Though the condition has never been diagnosed, Walsh and those around him believe that he has Asperger’s. It would explain his extraordinary gift with numbers, but it is hard to know where the condition ends and bad manners start. Walsh’s rudeness is legendary. “Let’s face it,” a close friend told me. “David can be a complete cunt. But he is also the kindest and most generous man you will meet.” Walsh funds a major tennis tournament, the Moorilla Hobart International, as well as Hobart’s MOFO music festival. There are also many and ongoing private kindnesses: kids he sponsors at Hobart’s Quaker school, support of several families, and friends he constantly helps. Pointing out that Walsh has always spent more than he has earned, Ranogajec said, “David was never motivated by money.”

I doubt if the idea behind the Booker Prize is to make you fall in love with a person the writer writes about, but here you have it. I am in love with David Walsh and I couldn’t be bothered about finding out anything more than I know about him through Richard Flanagan.

The side villain

Sudhir on the left in both pictures

We know about the big names, we remember the characters they essay, the titbits about their personal lives that make it to the gossip columns.

We remember the clothes they wore, the way they styled their hair and made up their faces. We remember the good guys and the bad guys who made the good guys look good. This was before grey became trendy. It was all black and white. The black bow-tie, the white shoes, the white jacket. Or the velvet gown that reminded of last night’s sins.

It was a world of sin. The flesh beneath the flounces of voluptuous molls. The dark lips chomping on cigars or blowing smoke rings into other eyes. And in this world, somewhere behind the curling smoke was Sudhir. I do not know his real name. It is there somewhere, but I don’t care.

He was the leering presence in neon-lit rooms, the one with the lighter, the guffaw, the fake laugher. And the sneer. He was the sidekick with so much attitude that you could not forget him. He spoke as though he was biting right into his gums or chewing or sarcasm had lodged itself on his tongue. You knew what he would do and how he would do it. No surprises. It was just like the formula you expected from a hero.

It set me thinking about those who stand and stare who we rarely notice. Each time a Sudhir dies, a satellite that circles the centre disappears.

Tittle-tattle as Tribute

It’s a good thing that in a wired world we connect with information we might not have had access to so easily. But, together with that, there is also an excess of ‘uber facts’ that pass for knowledge. And then there is the surfeit of tributes – to coupling, to uncoupling, to botched-up cosmetic surgeries, to products, to people as brands, to débutantes, to the retired, to the living, to the rumoured dead. To the dead.

It does not matter whether you know anything about the deceased, or of the others, but it has become mandatory to add to the info pool.

Today as I signed in to access my mail, I saw a caricature of a man playing the table. But my eyes were riveted by the second ‘g’ and ‘l’ of google. They reminded me of Mahatma Gandhi’s glasses and walking stick. The link, of course, takes you to Ustad Alla Rakha. It is to celebrate his 95th birth anniversary. Who decides which year is worth commemorating? How many people who do not know him or about him would be enthused enough to read up or listen to his music?

Here is a short documentary on him:

What we end up with is over-the-top ‘connoisseurs’ who seem to know all, or the jejune attempts at keeping up with the Joneses that sometimes takes the form of distasteful parody.

On Monday, Zohra Sehgal turned 102. It is a remarkable moment for a remarkable lady. But the photograph that made it to most newspapers and websites was of her holding the knife high and, as one media outlet said, “attacking the cake”. She is an effervescent woman, but somehow her stance and the onlookers seemed to be at odds. Who were they? Family? Neighbours? Close friends? Where were the celebrities who keep throwing sound bytes about her achievements, about how lovable she is? I found the cake-cutting and the observers incongruous.

The picture I have chosen is gentler. There are personal moments when people end up as performers for an audience that only seeks certain characteristics, and thereby reduces them.

On her hundredth birthday, I had written:

There are times she acts as a link between generations, between spaces, between ideas, like a sutradhar, the perennial story-teller who weaves the chains together.

We don’t seem to care for stories anymore. The whispering gallery is where we stand and assume to understand life.

---

Here is the piece on her 100th: A hundred seas: Zohra Sehgal

"My life is rolling on..."

They weren't really the mop-tops, the rubber lips, another brick in the wall; they didn't just call to say hello or get into orgasmic ecstasy over love to love you baby. And yet, 40 years later music lovers are celebrating the start of their journey.

I had written my reminiscences, mainly about Donna Summer, here. ABBA was mentioned, yet it is most of their songs I recall. I mucked up the lyrics, but they filled up pauses in my sentences. Or even explained what I was too shy to state...”Mother said I began to sing long before I could talk...”...or a note of hope... “Chiquitita, you and I cry/But the sun is still in the sky and shining above you”... or just to express angst...“Where is the spring and the summer/That once was yours and mine?”... And of course “gimme, gimme, gimme” for things one did not even want.

The best fun was the “ahan” after ‘Voulez-vous’. Such permutations were discovered!

Then there was ‘Chiquitita’... “Now I see you've broken a feather/I hope we can patch it up together...”

And, to end, these words that do not end:

“Even if we had to lose, there’s no regret. If I had to do the same again, I would my friend...”

Lighting up the dark

There are scenes that stay with you. They don't leap out but slowly touch your skin, your eyes; you can smell the pain, the pining; taste the slivers of light. Kaaghaz ke Phool remains one of my favourite films, and a lot of it has to do with how it could be seen. Guru Dutt's magnificent paean to angst was to a large extent realised by his cinematographer V.K.Murthy, who is now gone to another world of lights.

The only tribute I can pay is with a few images from just one film. He has many more that he lit up...with shadows...

Mandela...

Everybody wants to claim Nelson Mandela. India has appropriated that right with its most bankable crutch: Mahatma Gandhi. Mandela, who fought against apartheid, was imprisoned for 27 years, is seen in India as the man inspired by Gandhi.

Of course, he expressed admiration. Yes, Gandhi was thrown out of a train in South Africa. But their lives and politics were vastly different.

That ought to not even be a point right now. Just as quoting Barack Obama on Mandela, except as an obituary, makes no sense. Mandela was the product of a violent struggle in his lifetime and was called a terrorist. He did not initiate a war on terror, he did not live to send drones to other countries.

In his own words: "Armed struggle must be a movement intended to hit at the symbols of oppression and not to slaughter human beings."

He was not a traditional pacifist when it mattered. As he said, "During the times of tensions, it is not the talented people who excel, who come to the top, it is the extremists who shout slogans."

In the rush to pay tributes, people don't seem to realise that they are conveying something entirely different from what they intend to say, simply because they are saying it badly.

Take this ad for a dairy product company.

It has sensibly not put in a reference to its butter. But, how exactly did Nelson Mandela rise each time we fell? Who are the 'we' represented here?

This does not even sound complimentary; rather, it is an insult. Did Mandela rise when others faltered? Does it mean that his whole struggle was about such flawed behavior on the part of the rest instead of a fight for what he believed in?

There is a quote by Confucius, which seems to have inspired the ad:

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

Mandela did not give up despite the incarceration. It was his glory, his achievement. He did not wait and watch for others to fall so that he could rise.

In fact, prior to the 1994 elections, he said: "If there is anything I am conscious about, it is not to frighten the minorities, especially the white minority. We are not going to live as fat cats."

End note:

"Nelson Mandela Becomes First Politician To Be Missed" — Headline in The Onion

© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

This is not an obituary. Manna Dey has appeared on these pages in several forms, and twice to emphasise how it took him to reach the age of 90 for the government and the film industry to confer any recognition.

In a recent editorial in The Times of India, the headline called him the Amadeus of India. Not only is there no connection, but even in a tribute we need to compare one who gave so much to Indian music.

I know almost all his major songs, and am partial to his semi-classical songs. I have earlier mentioned that I felt "Pyaar hua iqraar hua" was the triumph of music directors Shanker-Jaikishen and not so much Manna da. I still think so. I have returned to his peppy numbers or the songs from 'Chori Chori' that he sang for Raj Kapoor because Mukesh was apparently not available. He was the second choice, although he was a trained, and in many ways, more accomplished singer.

This is, therefore, about the nature of what we call 'playback singing'. Raj Kapoor often said that Mukesh was his soul, and he did a stupendous job of it. Manna Dey had joked that he was always given songs that were picturised on beggars and boatmen.

Part of it is that despite his classical base, his low notes were brilliant. Unlike Talat Mehmood, there was no quiver in his voice, but there was a quiet, excellently expressed in his tribute to the Mohammad Rafi number in 'Pyaasa': Yeh kooche, yeh neelam ghar... It is unfair to include this here, but it reveals two facets of a song, as well as immense bonding in what could have been rivalry.*

For today, because I have been listening to this in a loop, I choose 'Phir koi phool khila, chaahat na kaho usko...". The scene from 'Anubhav' is a humdrum existence of a married couple where a bud flowering is not seen as some grand love, as the lyrics suggest.

And then there are these lines:

man ka samundar pyaasa hua, kyon kisi se maange dua
laharon ka laga jo mela, toofan na kaho usko

Essentially, why pray to anyone as the mind's sea thirsts and just because waves pile up it does not forebode a storm...

This is less detachment and more the beauty of now.



Manna Dey. A life, a sea.

Sartre was born today...was? is?

I said I was an Existentialist without quite knowing what it meant. Between the crevices of poetry and philosophy, my life was worming its way. I hid my growing teenage form behind big books – shy, afraid, unsure. Among those saviours was Jean-Paul Sartre.

I admit the initial fascination was for the great love story. Simone de Beauvoir seemed to be the perfect foil. It excited me to know that people could have open relationships. Later, I realised that such freedom does not prevent the tumult, the feeling of being tied down, of role-playing.

What Sartre gave me was intangible. An acceptance of nothingness. Confidence about angst.

But, was it just so pat?

“Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.”

I recently told someone, “What pain is pain if it does not stay alive?” This is not self-destructive. The mind that keeps one agonising is what keeps one awake.

There are many views about Sartre, some accusing him of not being true to his own ideas. I prefer seeing it as ideas overtaking. He was not quite perfect, and would probably find the thought of perfection reprehensible. I am not providing a detailed essay on his works. I confess that at some point I outgrew them. He is indeed the pop star of philosophy – to my mind a strange mix of Woody Allen, T.S.Eliot and a brooding Marlon Brando.

I don’t want to go into a detailed discussion on Existentialism. I would have to agonise over it, for I am dealing with ennui. Sartre would comprehend this!

There is another quote I’d like to examine:

“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”

This is so complete. If I were to deconstruct it, then he has captured the very essence of existence. Survivalists may not wish to even go there. The moment we think of life as an open-and-shut case with death as the destination, then we are rather obvious pragmatists. And fatalists, too. The eternal does not exist in real terms, therefore one has to imagine it. Life cannot be defined, but it has meaning and value only if we know that it is a continuum.

And he said it best:

“That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.”

Illusions. Eternal.

© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

...“ghayal kiya re mora jigar..."

Shamshad Begum had 'died' so often by rumours of her demise that when early this week she passed on I could merely think of one word that truly encapsulated her for me: the 'other'.

As a youngster, whenever her songs were played and people at home seemed to enjoy them, I would think about all those who mimicked her by holding their noses. The top notes of her voice are indeed nasal, but if you just wait and get drawn into the depth you can trace the plaintiveness that suggests walking the razor's edge.

She rarely sang for the female lead. She became the voice of the other woman, in more ways than the typical one. There was a challenge in the way she sang, saucy and irreverent. “Duniya hai mere peechhe, lekin main tere peechhe (the world is after me, but I chase/long for you)" or "Kaheen pe nigaahein, kaheen pe nishana (the eye looks one way, but aims darts another elsewhere)"

This quality shone in this 'Mughal-e-Azam' qawwali. I watched it a few years ago in its tarted-up colour version and was blown over by the fact that Lata Mangeshkar may sound like the nightingale, but Shamshad Begum at least in this one recognised the battle. Prince Salim had pitted the slave woman and the courtesan against each other. You can sense the hunger in Shamshad Begum's voice, wonderfully enacted by Nigar Sultana. There was a complacency in the Madhubala-Lata combination that relied only on lyrics.

Since the prince could not decide, he presented Nigar with the flower and Madhubala with a thorn. Her riposte is now part of 'dialogue' lore when she said, “Kaanton ko murjhane ka khauf nahin (thorns don't have to fear withering)".

She was the heroine. But I can sense the edginess in Shamshad Begum that would have crushed the rose even before it could die.

Many-layered women and memories: Yash Chopra's lamhe

How often have some of us quoted the lines, “Main aur meri tanhai aksar baatein kiya karte hai” (my loneliness and I often talk to each other) and “Kabhi-kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai” (sometimes, my heart thinks these thoughts)…they encapsulated the cinema of Yash Chopra and of many of our own lost and found memories.

He has been called the King of Romance, and perhaps rightly so, but I’d not limit him to that. There are two ways of seeing a movie – the way in which it is projected and the emotional chord that touches us. I do like the sight of large expanses of tulips and love expressed in song right in the middle of these flowers, but it is in the tight close-ups, the speaking eyes, the quivering lips, the short lines and longer monologues that we may find something more to relate to.

Yash Chopra was most certainly not making candyfloss, and I am not saying so because he is no more. I cannot think of a single weak woman in any of his directorial ventures. Even in Deewaar, made famous also by that one line “Mere paas ma hai” in the conflict between the two brothers, between good and evil, it is so obvious that the mother figure had nurtured the good. The son was not making the choice; she had made him capable enough to have her close to him. And in the death scene, when the bad son lies in her lap, he does not need any god. His retribution is complete.

It also quite blatantly showed a non-traditional woman, despite smoking and living with the man, as someone in control of her life. There did not appear to be any judgement passed on her, nor did it look like the guy was doing her a favour and making a good woman of her.

In Kabhi Kabhi too there was the ‘other’ man/woman. Imagine a situation where a woman on her wedding night sings a song based on the poetry of the man she was in love with. Here was readymade material for a tear-jerker. Instead, she chooses to move on and build a beautiful and happy life. The man, now the other, also happens to be the other to his own wife, who when taunted with her past (and a daughter from that relationship), chooses to confront him about his double standards and makes ready to leave rather than live with the hypocrisy.

In Trishool, the ‘encounter’ scene between father and abandoned son relied on just one truly cutting sentence, when the younger man tells the older one, “Aap mere najaaiz baap ho" (You are my illegitimate father).

Yash Chopra did deal with 'irregular' relationships within the ambit of mainstream cinema. That is why it was difficult to hail him for these qualities and instead many chose to stick to the romantic genre, which can actually mean so many things.

Take Daag. Much of the film was relegated to the indoors, in the dark. A man with two wives, reuniting with his old love and having to stealthily convey it, “Mere dil mein aaj kya hai, tu kahe tau main bataa doon, teri zulf phir sawaroon, teri maang phir sajaa doon…mujhe devta banaakar teri chaahaton ne pooja, mera pyaar keh raha hai main tujhe khuda bana doon”. Trapped in circumstances, all he can do is ask her if she will permit him to express his feelings. The stream of worship-godliness is woven into this narrative.

With Lamhe, he broke so many shackles. A girl falls in love with the man who was in love with her mother. Of course, she does not know it, and her mother did not know about his feelings either, since she was in love with someone else who she married.  Here too, the young woman is strong-willed, expressive and even when she discovers the truth, she makes him realise that he loved an idea, a thought. Those moments – lamhe – were lost.

I find it strange that this is seen as the Elektra Complex (in fact, it is mistakenly referred to as the Oedipal Complex). Freud is a good way to study anything, but the girl grows up without even seeing the man, who is her guardian. She is also in love with an idea, expressed with birthday gifts that she leaves unopened. It is that heartbeat of meeting him when she is old enough and sees a man, a male, who she first had a vague idea about and who became real enough to fantasise about.

Yash Chopra’s last film as director was Veer Zaara. It is perhaps one of the finest ‘messages’ in terms of communalism, Indo-Pak relationship, prisoners (real and caged by love), and nostalgia. However, he did not stop at the pining. He gave it a fitting ending. Yes, I did wonder why the Pakistani woman came to India and lived her life as she would if she had married him. The answer lies in every moment he spends in chains behind the prison walls, incarcerated without trial, aware that he was protecting her honour. This sounded old world, to an extent even regressive. How important is such honour? But this was early years after Partition; it had to do with families, reputations. It had to do with love that had to be silenced.

Greying, but still running about and active, she does not regret the life she chose. She built a new life, without any monument, without fanfare. We know of it only towards the end when he is free, aided by a strong and empathetic woman lawyer. We know if it when he holds up one of her anklets from those many years ago, not as shiny anymore, that he had kept as remembrance.

 “Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon

Pal do pal meri kahaani hai

Pal do pal meri hasti hai

Pal do pal meri jawaani hai.”

Sahir Ludhianvi conveyed this best in the Kabhi Kabhi song - My poetry, my life, my identity, my youth are but for a moment or two…only those who create lasting impressions understand the value of such evanescence. 

PS: I have not named the characters deliberately, for as I implied in the beginning it could be you, it could be me.  

Sunday ka Funda

...for Dr Verghese Kurien 


"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall."

- Che Guevara 

Dr. Verghese Kurien did not need to do that. He just made the villagers of Anand in Gujarat realise that the milk their cattle produced could reach all of India if they got together. It came to called the White Revolution in the mid-70s. The brand Amul is now part of every household in some form.

I once saw him at Mumbai airport. Bureaucratic safari suit. Eyelids with many folds. The face of a philosopher. To my surprise, many people recognised him - those one might consider to be more likely fans of film stars or cricketers were either staring at him or wanting to talk with him. It was the sheer power of what he had created. How else could one explain this at a time in the mid-90s when there was no exposure via social media or quick snapshopts on TV? At a time when I recommended to a friend visiting from overseas the film Manthan (produced by the milk cooperative) that I had watched thrice and his response after the first few scenes was, "Did not know you were such a dehati (villager)?

I can recall so many scenes and that simmering one where Smita Patil is washing her legs and her eyes meet those of Girish Karnad, loosely based on Dr. Kurien, and the rustic Naseeruddin Shah who keeps spitting out "Aa sisotee" (this society, for the cooperative).

The song from the film continues to be used in ads. This is what revolutions are - when people are not encouraged to protest but create. And the milk and movement continue to flow...

All quiet at the crematorium: A.K.Hangal

How the social hierarchy reveals itself is evident in how many people did not attend actor A K Hangal’s funeral. He lived to be 98 and half of these years were spent in the Hindi film industry.

This is showbiz, and most of the people in it make it a point to be present for various reasons. At one of the prominent funeral pictures, I spotted two well-known stars having a good laugh. Could the joke not wait? Or were they, as has become so trendy to say, “celebrating his life”?

Okay, so why were no prominent names who Hangal saab acted with present? They will run to see a newly-born baby who will come out all swathed to hide her from the world; they will rush to the hospital for an actor who suffers from fever or routine checkups; they will visit to condole the death of a parent/grandparent of one of them.

Of the few character actors present, Raza Murad did not mince words:

“The actors would’ve come if a political party summoned them. But they didn’t have an hour to spare to pay their last respects to the man who gave 50 years to the industry and worked with all top stars.”

I’d also ask the media the same question: where were they? They will climb atop trees to capture a baraat they are not invited to; they will sit for hours outside vanity vans waiting for some star, or even starlet, to turn up after giving 40 retakes to get a sound byte; they will do their Entertainment slots with loops that make no sense. Had they landed there, some stars might have turned up.

Of course, they tweeted about it, or gave their two paise worth.

“A K Hangal, passes away this morning!! A veteran, a gentleman, a congenial co artist and a master at his work” – Amitabh Bachchan

But he is not Uddhav Thackeray getting an angioplasty, right? Besides, what are those two exclamation marks for to announce a death?

“An era comes to an end. Theatre and film were enriched by him” – Shabana Azmi

So what happened? After all, he was part of the great theatre movement IPTA, a card-holding Communist that Ms. Azmi admires so.

“Undying father figure in world of theatre n hindi cinema lived for 50 years in this profession only because he was disciplined n a thorough gentleman, who would bring theatre discipline on sets of a film shoot too . He worked with me in ‘Krodhi’ n ‘Khalnayak’ and we used to call him ‘humble sahib’. Great soul, indeed” - Subhash Ghai

I suppose Mr. Ghai thought he was so humble he would not have wanted to feel conceited about people attending his last rites.

- - -

This is only one of the concerns. More important is the fact that Hangal saab could not afford treatment when he fell seriously ill last year.

I have written this earlier, but let me repeat it. The day after it came out, the film industry woke up. Some contributed quietly, some raised issues of ‘doing something for our seniors’. Jaya Bachchan sent a message to be conveyed that his ‘daughter’ remembers him (he played her father in many movies) and her office will handle his medical bills. How dismissive is this. Office? Could she not visit him or just keep silent about who would manage it? Why this announcement?

Upon mild recovery, Mr Hangal was on the ramp in a wheelchair. The reason? Part of a fashion show was organised by designer Riyaz Gangji to generate money for the ailing actor, according to Mumbai Mirror.

Helpless to save his health

This was insensitive and gross. Was he a showpiece? Can there be no dignity in such charity? Imagine someone who was a “freedom fighter” - incidentally everyone is mentioning this having discovered one more use for their patriotic fervour - expected to display himself and his “abject poverty” to get a decent life. These people get mileage and our seniors have no choice but to go along.

Following this, another case was highlighted about someone leading a penurious life. The editor of Sholay, a blockbuster and pathbreaker of its time, was living in Dharavi. Shocking? Yes and no. How many of us ever bothered to find out who edited the film? What about all those researchers who did critical tomes on these movies? Why such discoveries now?

M.S. Shinde worked on a salary of Rs. 2000 and he has no regrets:

“I worked with Sippy Films on a salary of Rs 2,000 (per film) all my life. I didn’t mind the salary because they allowed me to take up work outside.”

At one time even film stars, the visible beautiful faces immortalised in black and white, led lonely forgotten lives. They did not invest their money and instead chose to flash their Bentleys. That was stardom and glamour in the pre-red carpet days. It also had to do with splurging arising out of insecurity if they had made it from the pavements.

Think also about art house cinema before it got sponsors and acquired marketing skills. A whole bunch of idealists would descend on the city and often crashed at someone’s place. Or took the train back home after performing in a few street theatre plays.

This is not to deny the genuine problems faced by our veterans, but before we dismiss it as callousness think about the hierarchy that has always been prevalent. Even today the actors are paid much more than the director. We won’t get into the subject of junior artistes, at one time called ‘extras’, who have to await their turn and often cosy up to the ‘provider’. It is not a business that is organised and therefore a risky proposition for almost everyone concerned.

Mr Shinde might have had it better if there was mandatory provision for provident fund and retirement benefits.

Newspapers and TV channels, if they do take notice do so in a patronising manner: to announce how people came forward to help after they ‘broke’ the story.

The Hindi film industry is acting out a farce with its fake philanthropy helped along by the media.

- - -

I’m afraid, this should have been a tribute to a fine actor, but this attitude upsets me. About Hangal saab and his most-remembered character of the blind Rahim chacha is Sholay, I have some reservations. It was a stereotype, the token nice Muslim posited against the rough terrain of thakurs and dacoits. His blindness, of course, gave it added pathos of not seeing the bad and therefore understanding the good.

But I cannot forget being creeped out by him as the lecherous old skirt chaser in Shaukeen. I disliked him, so credible he was. He, Ashok Kumar and Utpal Dutt, all wonderful, formed the trio of shaukeens. Dutt was always stylised; Ashok Kumar had his mannerisms. A.K. Hangal had the ability to not act. After seeing him as the genial grandpa or the family retainer in other films, this was a shocker.

I mentioned elsewhere how it is perhaps our moral obsession that makes all tributes glorify his Rahim chacha character and of course, the famous line, “Itna sannata kyon hai bhai?” (Why is it so quiet here)

It was indeed very quiet at the crematorium, for no one was there.

A CounterPuncher Forever...

 
“Alexander Cockburn no more” would sound like a terrible headline. The reality of it is as biting as his prose. To think that I just got to know about his death early today shook me up a little more. I crumble easily and almost did. The ‘almost’ worked because every word of his obit on Christopher Hitchens still haunts. To many it was either blasphemous or an excoriating take on a man on a self-indulgent pulpit. I saw it as Alex’s honesty towards his ideas. The subject’s demise would not alter that.

I have gone through a few memorial pieces in respected mainstream publications. "Radical", "iconoclast" are the running themes. It is true he took no prisoners. It is true, and I say this from my experience, that he welcomed whatever skirted the beaten path. One day, about five years ago, when I came in from miles away and got accepted, he and Jeffrey St. Clair made me realise that CounterPunchers was a community.

There are several reasons to respect him for his hard-hitting work, but he was also aware of limits in certain areas. He did not carry one article I sent. He owed me no explanation, but he did. It was about sensitivities. I was surprised, even shocked. The good thing is it was not to coddle up to some commercial enterprise.

There was another piece he carried – an account by his nephew about his battle with schizophrenia. It appeared in the weekend edition and in his diary Alex introduced it. This, to me, is as honest as taking on the system and speaking of truths that are sought to be hidden away.

While he was open to different thoughts, he was human enough to have his own biases. How could we not expect it of one with such strong opinions?

He called his readers a “communicative lot”, forwarded emails that complained to him about publishing me, but expressed genuine happiness when some pieces “got around”. The people who have corresponded with me have been from varied fields based on the different subjects I wrote on – from scientists to academics, from fanatics to the faithful to atheists, from purists to adventurers, from the prurient to sexual libertarians (and, yes, some who wooed). They do not need an open forum.

That is the reason CP is not a journal. It is a movement. I differ with those who talk about it being non-mainstream. This is what the mainstream should be like. I’ve written for a whole range of publications and websites, and know the difference.

“Please ask your web team to fix it,” I had said in one of my emails about a broken link.

“Le ‘Web Team’, c'est Jeffrey. There's just the two of us. Best A,” was the reply.

So shall it always be…the two of them. And a bunch of writers and readers bound by questioning minds.

- - -

I do not know what world I occupy to be so unaware. Here is Jeffrey's piece:  Farewell, Alex, my friend

Zindagi ka safar: Rajesh Khanna

He did not have screaming fans, yet the frenzy was unparalleled. Is unparalleled. Rajesh Khanna was not the first superstar. He was the only real one Hindi cinema has produced. He was not a durbari or a durbar. He knew the value of keeping that little distance. 

He had no muscles, no abs. He had a pimply skin. He was not tall. He did not have a great voice. Yet. It is that yet...that undefinable aura that made every strand of his hair worthy of emulation. His 'guru' shirts started a trend. Many actors have trends to their credit, so I'd say this was just an occupational bonus in his case. 

To even suggest that Amitabh Bachchan and he were rivals is disingenuous. Bachchan's formula had method - from the angry man to the drunken scenes to the comedic moments. Khanna's acting, even though heavily stylised, did not seem to have any plan. Bachchan may be seen as a pitashri; Khanna was a combination of Arjuna and Duryodhana, and Krishna too. There was an element of narcissism. Which is why the women married his photograph, applied the dust his car passed over as sindoor in the parting of their hair. I have witnessed one kissing his car, her obeisance so complete. They were all Meera; he their unattainable lord, an image, an idol. 

It is, therefore, interesting that he married the teenager who used to stand outside the gate of his bungalow Aashirwaad. Of course, Dimple Kapadia had shot to fame with her debut in 'Bobby', but she gave it all up for the idol. Like all such alliances, it was tumultuous. Rajesh Khanna could not be anything else but Rajesh Khanna. The famous chamchas surrounded him, people who fed his ego and led him to believe that his life was not his own. 

Yet. It is that 'yet' that takes us to how the couple, though separated, continued to be together in many ways. Neither compromised or faked happiness. 

The reason for this personal look is because his stardom cannot be parodied. It lacked affectation, and was intrinsic. The persona and the person became one. 

There are too many roles, too many films to remember. I would not box him into the “romantic hero” category. What about the 'Patch Adams' like cook in 'Bawarchi'? Or the criminal in 'Raaz'? While in and as 'Anand' he made the life of a cancer-stricken patient live after death, for me his character in 'Amar Prem' epitomises true love. Here, he was so much like Devdas - trapped in an unhappy marriage, he finds solace and companionship with a courtesan. The sensuality is unspoken, despite her profession. They do not romance; they share. No dream sequences. Nothing. 

It is a love that endures, and the physical distance means little as they meet again when the hair's turned grey and the gait has slowed down. He still hated tears. 

Rajesh Khanna. Now in another world. 

And the perennial questions of life that his character asks:

"yeh kya hua, kaise hua, kab hua, kyon hua, jab hua, tab hua
O chhodo, yeh na socho..."

(Why did this happen, when, what, it had its time...think not about these now...)

Bahut shukriya

I knew Joy Mukherjee only for this song. Or chose to. This defined him for me - a romantic, and not flashy. In fact, he was a mediocre actor. It was the 'averageness' that endeared him. Like many actors of his generation, it was the songs that made him a hero - the balladeer, the serenader. The music conveyed the emotions.

khushi to bahut hai, magar ye bhi gham hai

ke ye saath apna kadam do kadam hai

magar ye musafir dua maangtaa hai

khuda aap se kisi din milaae

bahut shukriya, badi meherbani

meri zindagi mein huzoor aap aaye

(The happiness is tinged with sorrow

For we measure togetherness with every step we take

But this traveller prays

That god wills we meet again

Thank you for coming into my life)

The steps have halted. He left this world today

Movie: Ek Musafir Ek Hasina

Singer(s): Mohammad Rafi, Asha Bhonsle

Music Director: O P Nayyar

Lyricist: S H Bihari

Actors/Actresses: Joy Mukherjee, Sadhana

Year: 1962

History Through Her Lens

Homai Vyarawalla was always described as the “first lady photographer”, and the thought of someone tiptoeing with a little camera, gently clicking flowers and princesses came to mind. But, when we place her in those historical times, then being a lady was about being many things. And she was.

There is a lot written about her, her photographs of leaders. It is like tracing a period without the need for any other crutch.

These two pictures of Jawaharlal Nehru exemplify this.

1. There is deadpan humour in this one, going where you are not supposed to go. Was there a political message?

2. Here, the image is reminiscent of Michaelangelo. Nehru is releasing the pigeon, but the sky is overcast. One does not know whether Nehru is letting go or wanting to hold on to it, or perhaps reach the sky. It comes across as a pensive, yet optimistic portrait. I’d say it captures the persona of the man and the politician.

And of course among the many others; this is how an Independence Day dance used to be like:

My fascination is with the way she treated her subjects. There is warmth and yet no obsequiousness. She seemed to be part of what was happening, but as a spectator. The black and white images, unfailingly adding a mystique, gave away quite a bit. It seems like a contradiction. It is not. The enigma was in the telling.

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Check out more images curated by NGMA