The Real Lokamanya
“To combat a deadly disease, drastic remedies are required,” said Dr. Ambedkar when some around him wondered if the decision to go to Mahad and drink the water from the Chowdar lake was an “impatient” one. Following the act of Babasahaeb and his comrades of concern, the upper-caste people of Mahad had not just beaten up the Dalits of the village but also performed a ritual to ‘purify’ the Chowdar lake, which according to them had been polluted by the untouchables. Mere education, creation of awareness and exposing the truth of scriptures wouldn’t be sufficient to battle untouchability, opined Ambedkar and decided to launch another Satyagraha at Mahad.
This decision was welcomed and supported by the non-Brahmin leaders Dinkarrao Javalkar and Keshavrao Jede. But the two leaders had a condition for Dr. Ambedkar. They wanted no Brahmin to participate in the proposed conference at Mahad or in the whole of the second phase of Mahad satyagraha. The bitter memory of what had happened in Mahad earlier was probably what prompted Javalkar and Jede to make such a request, and it was not unjustified. Babasaheb strictly said no to the condition put forth by Javalkar and Jede saying “the view that all Brahmins were the enemies of Untouchables was erroneous,” and explained that what he hated was the men who were possessed with the spirit of Brahminism. He added that “a non-Brahmin filled with such ideas of highness and lowness was a repellent” to him as a “Brahmin free from this spirit and sense of these privileges and unjust power” was welcome to him.
The stand taken by Ambedkar, so different from the position of Javalkar and Jede, reflects the worldview of his. In addition, it is possible, it is a glimpse also of his own experiences- shaped by some true allies of anti-caste struggle coming from the Brahmin community. One among them, a close associate of Ambedkar and his fight against Untouchability was Shridhar Balwant Tilak alias Shridharpanth!
Shridharpanth who founded the Pune branch of Samata Samaaj Sangh, an organization started by Ambedkar, and also served as its Vice-President, was the son of Balgangadhar Tilak. “It is a miracle that an Ambedkarite was born in an extremely brahminical set-up,” says Shatrughn Jadhav, author of a book on Shridharpanth and his close association with Ambedkar.
Though it shouldn’t be expected of the children that they always follow the footpath of the parent, the overpowering influence the family environment has on individuals, especially during their formative years, is undeniable. An Ambedkaraite coming out from the Tilak family appears like a miracle, not just because of the influence parental figures have on children, but also because the battle of ideology, and the social-political and legal fights that were happening between the two camps, the conservative Brahmin nationalists, whose idea of a nation was based on a castist idea of a society, and the non-Brahmin warriors of social justice, who envisioned political independence through the lens of social justice.
The intensity of the battle between these two streams can be better understood by having a closer look at the saarvajanik ganeshotsav (collective celebration of Ganesha festival) in Pune.
At the end of the 19th century Sardar Krishanji Kashinath alias Nanasaheb Khajgiwale witnessed the public celebration of Ganesha festival in Gwalior and replicated the same in Pune the next year. Though there was only three public celebrations of Ganesha that year in Pune, the idea captured the imagination of Balagangadhar Tilak who in his Kesari editorial wrote great words of appreciation about the new culture. As a result of this and the calculated and concentrated effort of Tilak around 150 public celebration of Ganesh were held in Pune the next year.
Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav popularized by Tilak has been hailed as a master stroke since it played a role in mobilizing people against the colonial rule. But along with creating a political awareness against the colonial regime, these public celebrations were also used as political tools or weapons against the majority of Indians. This needs a bit of an elaboration. Those days with the blessings of Balagangadhar Tilak a music troupe named Sanmitra Mela, who sang during the Ganesha festival. The songs of the Sanmitra Mel would ridicule and belittle the political opponents of Tilak, namely Gopalkrishna Gokhale, Firoze Shah Mehta, Rajaram Shastri Bhagawat and the song package of Sanmitra Mela also had songs that were anti Dalits and spat venom on girls going to school, and upholding the views of Tilak against girl education. These songs were harming beyond the public celebrations, when children listening to these songs would go to school and repeat them before girls and Dalits. Many of the girls and Dalits finding it humiliating, in addition to other humiliations caused by caste discriminations, opted out of school! This condescending and dehumanizing music culture continued for many years with the blessings of Tilak.
Some years later, as a response to the Sanmitra Mela, under the guidance and leadership of Jede and Javalkar a new music troupe came into existence. The new troupe was called Chatrapati Mela. The songs churned out by the Chatrapati Mela sang the glory of Shivaji, Shahu Maharaj and mainly Phule. The songs also took on themselves to spread the values lived and upheld by these icons and leaders. Also, the songs of Chatrapati Mela critiqued the vision and action of the Tilakites. Javalkar collected these songs and published them as a book under the title Chatrapati Padya Sangrah.
The fight between these two forces got so intense that from mere battle of bands, it got physical when to combat Tilakites formed a vigilante group to tame the Chatrapati Mela. In response to this move by the Tilakites, another group of vigilantes was formed by Jede and Javalkar.
If one is to observe this battle of titans closely, it does seem like a miracle that an Ambedkarite emerged from the house of Tilak!
Shridharpanth, unlike his father Balagangadhar Tilak, held views against untouchability, girl child marriage, shaving the heads of widows, and also worked towards their abolition. This shows how his views and understanding came very close to that of Babasaheb, who in his writings had shown how these very elements – girl child marriage, enforced widowhood, degradation of widows- were at the heart of caste system’s formation. Hence fighting against these matters were essential to the politics of Ambedkar and preaching superficially against untouchability alone wasn’t sufficient to annihilate caste. Shridharpanth shared this dream, and also worked with Ambedkar on the same lines.
Even before coming into contact with Ambedkar, Shridharpanth held progressive opinion and anti-caste views. He would argue with his father saying political freedom and social justice are both important, while his father largely believed that the matters of social justice were a mark of ‘loss of nationality’ and it ‘denationalized’ persons. This deviation of Shridharpanth from the path of his father caused a lot of discomfort among the colleagues and followers of Balagangadhar Tilak.
The discomfort of Tilakites reached its peak because of three reasons. One, the political views of Shridharpanth became sharp after him coming to contact with Ambedkar. After the Dalit students’ conclave in Pune, the young Tilak not just took Ambedkar to Gaikwad-waada of Tilak, this and him starting the Pune branch of Samataa Samaaj Sangh made this friendship and camaraderie very clear and loud. To make it worse, outside the Gaikwad-wada he put a board that read ‘chaturvarnya vidhwamsak samiti’. These became the second reason. To top it all, Shridharpanth organized an inter-caste dining at Gaikwad-wada and invited nearly 200 people from the Untouchable communities, which included many singers and instrumentalists from the Chatrapati Mela. The main guest of this inter-caste dining was none other than Babasaheb Ambedkar. This became an unbearable matter for the Tilakites, majorly those from the Kesari-Marhatta Trust. They sweated quite a bit to stop this inter-caste dining from happening. When all their efforts failed they broke the electric wire and cut the power connection from Gaikwad-wada when the guests were about to arrive. Though this created a small commotion, Shridharpanth handled it calmly. He requested the members and allies of Samaaj Samtaa Sangh to bring in lanterns and lamps from their homes, which they did, and finally the inter-caste dining happened with hundreds of lamps and lanterns providing the necessary illumination.
What followed this was tragic!
The members of the Keasri-Marhatta Trust who were against the property being handed over to Shridharpanth, sketched conspiracy against him and his brother Rambhavu who too was a progressive minded person, and began torturing them psychologically by making a legal move with regard to the ownership of Kesari and Marhatta newspapers and the Trust. The brothers faced a lot of humiliation, ridiculing and harassment from the Trustees who were being supported even by the extended family of Tilak, after Shridharpanth organized the inter-caste dining at Gaikwad-wada. They began speaking lowly of him in public, tarnishing his image and thus creating a public opinion against him. Some relatives of Shridharpanth, the well-meaning ones, unable to see the targetting of brothers, requested them to reconcile with the Tilakites and give up their ideological beliefs. But both the brothers refused to do so.
Probably striking a balance between a tender heart and a sharp mind became difficult for Shridharpanth. Unable to bear the torture of the conservatives, he jumped under a running train and killed himself on the 25th of May in the year 1928. He was just 32 then.
Just before killing himself by suicide, Shridharpanth wrote three letters. One to the the then Collector of Pune, one to the newspapers and one to his friend B.R. Ambedkar. In his letter to Babasaheb he wishes best to the anti-caste struggle, expresses his solidarity with the movement and Samaaj Samtaa Sangh, and in a moving line says he is going ahead in time to let the Almight know about the grievances of his Dalit brothers and sisters.
The day this letter reached him home, Ambedkar was in Jalgao where he first got the news of Shridharpanth’s untimely death. Ambedkar in his obituary to Shridharpanth wrote about how he kept wishing that the news was a false one. But since the news came from the Pune members of the Samaaj Samta Sangh, of which Shridharpanth was the vice-president, the chances of it being a lie was less and Ambedkar had to believe the news and this, he says in his obituary, made his heart heavy with pain. He also speaks about how he immediately saw that it could not be a natural death and was restless to know what had caused the death. On reaching home Babasaheb went to pick up the newspaper to read the details of Shridharpanth’s death and along with newspaper he also found a letter written to him by Shridharpanth. It is said that Ambekar wept on reading the letter by Shridharpanth. In the same obituary Ambedkar holds the conservatives of Pune and the Tilakites responsible for the death of Shridharpanth and also calls his untimely death a great loss not just to Maharashtra but to the whole of India.
Later in the obituary, recollecting how Balagangadhar Tilak spoke dismissively about his paper Mookanaayak, and also about the Dalits, Ambedkar declares that a man like Tilak is not worthy of the title Lokamanya. He says that the ‘loka’ (world) of the so called Lokamanya was casteist and non-inclisive. This was not the case with his son Shridharpanth, says Ambedkar, and declares that Shridharpanth is the real Lokamanya.
(Originally written in Kannada for my fortnightly column daarihoka for the webportal ee-dina)
Ibrahim, the maverick
“Hello. Would you have the contact details of Ibrahim Rayintakath?” asked a stranger via DM on Facebook. When I told the stranger I was not in touch with Ibrahim and did not have his contact details, the person said, “I am impressed by his illustration featured as today’s google doodle. So I wanted to contact him”. What?- I exclaimed! I had not seen that day’s google doodle. So Immediately I checked and it was an illustration whose style, though brilliant, did not seem like that of Ibrahim. I checked if it was actually by him and yes, it was by him. A smile appeared on my face- ear to ear! I kept looking at the google doodle for a while and then just lifted my head a bit to look up at a painting hanging on the wall of my room; a painting of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, which Ibrahim had painted for me when we were still students at the film institute (FTII). Looking at both- Faiz and the google doodle of that day- I realized how his style had changed quite significantly, and I was happy that he, unlike many including me, was not stagnating, and was growing as an artist. The smile on my face was still in place and the stretched smile relaxed only when unconsciously a voice from my heart took wings through the lips- Kutty!
Kutty- that is how Ibrahim was referred to and popularly known on campus.
A decade ago… Few months had passed since we entered the campus and our batch of screenwriting was at a crucial junction in developing our first screenplay for submissions. My writing had kept me awake even at an hour when the hostel had gone silent, which wouldn’t happen a couple of hours past midnight. Unable to fight sleep anymore, I decided to shut my laptop and hit the bed. Just when I was about to switch off the light, I saw the water bottle on my table was almost empty. Picking it up from the table, I walked out of the room, to get the bottle filled from the water cooler placed on the floor below ours. As I got down the stairs and reached the floor below, there, next to the lift, stood a lean guy, with sandpaper beard, sketching on the wall. The sketch was a portrait of the maverick filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak! Who is this fellow?- I asked myself in silence, with jaws dropped. Though tempted to ask the man himself, his unwavering focus on his work made it not just difficult but impossible. I stood for a while admiring Ritwik Ghatak being brought to life telling myself, “If God exists and s/he really ‘makes’ us and sends us to earth, maybe this is how s/he worked in the time of Ghatak’s creation”. I filled the water, got back to the same spot, stood for a while more till Ghatak’s painting was completed, and then went back to my room.
Next day I narrated all of this to my roommate Lohit. Incidentally, our friend Maisam, from the Direction dept, was visiting our room then. He said, “That is Kutty. He is from the Art Direction department”. The Direction and Art Direction students had some common classes during the first module and that is how Maisam knew of Kutty, who largely remained silent and recluse from things happening on campus. “Do you know him?” I asked and Maisam answered in the positive. I requested Maisam to take me to Kutty’s room and introduce me to him. Maisam agreed and we went to Kutty’s room. In my mind, I had decided to request Kutty make a painting of Gulzar on the walls of our room. I had shared it with Lohit and taken his consent as well. While discussing this, Maisam had spoken about how Kutty has done paintings of his fav filmmakers on his room wall! When we knocked at the door and Kutty’s roommate opened the door, I could immediately see on the wall a huge painting of my fav filmmaker G. Aravindan! I was floored by how Kutty in his painting of Aravindan had not just done the face of the man but also captured the serenity and calmness of his personality, which was starkly different from the restless personality of Ghatak, which he had captured in his painting of Ghatak too, which I had witnessed just the previous night! Now realizing the extraordinariness of Kutty, I hesitated to ask him if he would do a painting of Gulzar in our room. While I was tossing a coin in my mind, Kutty, who was not visible until then came forward. Maisam introduced me to him. Kutty smiled and said nothing. The smile was welcoming. The coin I had flipped in my mind was still mid-air, Maisam told Kutty why I wanted to meet Kutty. I got a bit uncomfortable and irritatedly turned towards Maisam, almost asking- why did you have to say it? But before I could say anything, I heard someone in the other direction say, “Okay. Will do”. That was Kutty! Now I was smiling ear to ear, which did not end even when the joyful ‘thank you’ came out of my mouth! I immediately asked Kutty, “Please tell me how much you charge for a painting?” Kutty shook his head to say he doesn’t charge. I said, “No, that is not done”, and Kutty interrupted to say, “No, its okay”. It is hard to argue or negotiate with people who are largely silent and keep to themselves. I asked if I could at least get the paints that would be required, and Kutty said no, this time not by shaking his head but by gesturing the same with his hands. We then decided on a day and time for Kutty to come to 404, New Hostel, and do a painting of Gulzar.
Kutty came casually carrying the essentials- pencil, paint, and brush! We moved the bed, cots, and tables in the room and made space for the magic to begin. Kutty stared at the blank wall, made a mental assessment, and took out the image of Gulzar I had given him. Rahul, my classmate, immediately ran to his room and got his camera. “Let me capture the entire process,” he said. Kutty was moving his fingers in the air, staring at the wall from a distance, making an invisible draft of the painting. After a while, Kutty slowly moved closer to the wall. Rahul began to set the focus of his camera. Kutty raised his hand which held a pencil and drew the first line. Click came the sound from where Rahul stood. Magic had begun to unfold.
In the next couple of hours, Kutty brought Gulzar to life in our room. It was like Gulzar had slowly emerged out of the wall. Rahul had captured every stage of the painting on his camera. We proudly said- Now Gulzar is also our roommate! In the end, Kutty posed with the painting for the camera, and Kutty and I together also posed with Gulzar for the camera. These pictures, in a day, went on Facebook. The whole of campus got to know about the painting Kutty did in our room. Some friends visited the room to see the painting and if we ever kept the room door half-open, passersby would peep in and say a word or two admiring the painting. Above all the room’s atmosphere changed with Gulzar coming in, through Kutty. The space which through our living there had already become personal, became even more personal, and our attachment to the room got a bit more intense! Because of Kutty!
Life went on and whenever Kutty and I crossed paths we just exchanged smiles and travelled in our own orbits. But that simple, unpretentious smile of Kutty would recharge my soul. We never met for coffee/ tea. We never sat and discussed cinema or art or even our own lives. But we developed fondness for each other in silence. Some months later, on realizing that I would have to vacate the hostel at the end of the course and with that my relation with the Gulzar painting would come to an end, I requested Kutty to do a painting on canvas which I can carry home with me. He suggested this time we do something other than Gulzar. I had to decide and after much thought, I decided to request Kutty to do a painting of Faiz. I went and bought a good canvas, some paints and brushes in the next few days and informed Kutty about it. One fine afternoon Kutty came to 404 and brought Faiz to life on canvas. Though he had not read Faiz, he almost gave the painting a touch that captured the mood of Faiz’s aesthetics. The strokes of the Faiz painting were different from that of Gulzar, both captured their essence. How did Kutty grasp this? – I still do not know. The magical and mystical nature of creative energy is such, perhaps!
I again took a photo of the painting made by Kutty and posted it on Facebook. Several weeks later one night while sitting and chatting under the Wisdom Tree, fellow student Shwetabh Singh asked, “How do you convince Kutty to do paintings after paintings for you?” and I very casually said, “It requires no convincing. Make a request and he will just do it. He doesn’t throw weight.” Shwetabh expressed disbelief by staring at me with raised eyebrows for a moment. He then told me how some of them had requested Kutty to do a painting for them in their room and Kutty made some excuse! It just made me feel very very special, though I couldn’t understand why he had not agreed to do painting for others. Kutty is a man who follows his heart, his intuition- I realized, and I was glad his intuitive feeling had not come in the way between him and me.
Recollecting all of this, when a stranger on Facebook asked me about Kutty after seeing the google doodle made by him, I wondered where Kutty was! I had not kept in touch with him after I left the campus. We had hardly spoken, so keeping in touch via email or texts made no sense to me, or rather felt very artificial for our silent friendship. But after all those years now I just wanted to know where Kutty is and wished to get in touch with him. I immediately rang Lohit, my former classmate and roommate at the film institute, who had taken admission in the Direction course and was back on campus. He told me how Kutty discontinued his schooling at the film institute after the first year and never got back to complete it! He also told me that Kutty did not keep in touch with anyone from the batch and so nobody knows where he is! I was shocked. But on reflecting the kind of person and artist Kutty as I had seen him, I realized it isn’t surprising that Kutty did not complete the course, discontinued schooling and did not keep in touch with anyone. He was his own master and will always be- I told myself.
That evening Lohit called to tell me Shahi is in touch with Kutty and said he had collected Kutty’s number from Shahi for me. I was overjoyed when he said this and promptly sent me the number soon after disconnecting the call. Once the number landed in my inbox, I wasn’t sure if I should contact Kutty, because we had hardly spoken and also because he had consciously not remained in touch with many from the institute. Contemplating on whether to get in touch with Kutty or not, I took two days to finally drop a text to Kutty. “Hi, this is Samvartha,” I texted. After a few hours, when Kutty saw the text, he immediately replied, “Man! So good to hear from you” and followed it up with, “It has been long,” and then immediately with something that I did not expect coming. He said, “Did you make any films? If you are making films, I will do the posters for all your films.” Kutty had again brought a broad smile on my face and tears into my eyes! “I haven’t done any films yet. I don’t see myself doing one either. But, in case some miracle happens and I end up doing a film, you can do the posters!” The conversation, as expected, did not last long. But it did not feel abrupt, awkward or anything. Even in its brevity it was complete and fulfilling.
For over a year we occasionally texted each other- never asking how the other person is- but sharing some work which we thought/ felt the other person would be interested in engaging with. Then there was a long period of silence. It is during this phase that I had started working on translation of Nagraj Manjule’s poetry collection unhaachya kataaviruddh to Kannada.
After four drafts when I finally met Nagraj Manjule, had an elaborate discussion with him about his poems and my translation, I had decided to rework on the translation one last time and that would be my final draft. Soon after my return from Pune I began reworking on the final draft and also getting ready to go to Trivandrum for the International Film Festival of Kerala, a yearly ritual friend Rachita and I had put into place. Since it was the final draft I was working on and because my translation had been approved by Nagraj, I had started dreaming about the book coming out soon. I had happily communicated to the publisher Kishore that the final version of the translation will be ready soon and suggested he gets ready to publish the book. Kishore was happy and got into the logistics of it. He said, “Once your manuscript is ready we need to do pagination, get an ISBN, and we also need to get the cover page designed”.
After the conversation with Kishore, I was telling Rachita how nice it is to have her by me when these developments are taking place because she was by me when the whole act of translation began. I was also updating her about the journey the translation work has made and how now we are discussing the final stages. Maybe because I was in Kerala or maybe because I was with a friend from the film institute, or maybe because of both combined, or maybe because of destiny, while being preoccupied with the cover design, about which I was discussing with Rachita, I suddenly remembered Kutty! I jumped in the middle of our walk back to the room after dinner, stopped Rachita then and there and asked, “How about asking Kutty to do the cover design?” Of course it had been years and Rachita couldn’t immediately recollect Kutty. “Who Kutty?” she asked. “arrey!” I exclaimed and said, “Ibrahim Kutty, the one who painted Gulzar on the hostel wall”, I said. “Wonderful!” said Rachita in her signature style. Once we got back to the room, I kept typing messages, editing it, rephrasing it etc to send Kutty, to check if he could do the cover design for my book. I was unhappy with every text I had typed, so I decided to give it time and do it the following day.
Next morning while having breakfast, I decided to send a voice note to Kutty instead of a written text. “You once told me you would do the posters for my film. I don’t see myself doing films. But now I have a book ready to be published. Will you do the cover page for it?” I asked in a long voice note where I also explained about the collection unhaachya kaTaaviruddh and the poet Nagraj Manjule. In no time Kutty replied saying he would happily do the cover page. I was overjoyed. Kutty then said to do an appropriate cover design he wanted me to send him the translation of the poems because he did not understand Marathi! Damn! With a sad face I replied to him saying my translation was in Kannada and not in English. “I understand neither of them,” said Kutty and before I could process it, he said, “But I want to do this”. Kutty and I then got on to a call… I was hearing the voice of Kutty after so long! I was happy that he wanted to do the cover page and that I was hearing his voice after so long. In that joyful conversation without me realizing the coffee on the table got cold. But Kutty and I had made a breakthrough. Kutty asked me if I could do an English translation of the poems and also suggested that I could come up with two books simultaneously. I laughed aloud and told Kutty that I am not confident about my English. Kutty asked me to forget about publishing the English translation, but asked if I could do an English translation of these poems just for him to get a sense of the poems. I wasn’t confident even to do that. So I suggested doing a prosaic English translation of the poems and give explanations for the same. Kutty agreed to it. I told Kutty that I would not do a prosaic translation of each poem but only a few, the ones which I think are important and capture the mood of the collection, sufficient enough to hint Kutty on the kind of cover page he could design.
In the next few days I did a prosaic translation of six to seven poems of Nagraj Manjule into English. All for Kutty. On returning home I added Kutty to the chain mail that was being exchanged between Kishore, the publisher, Prajna who was doing the proofreading of all the drafts and me. Introducing Kutty to Kishore and Prajna, I announced that Kutty would be doing the cover-page and also shared with them his earlier works- of Gulzar and Faiz- for them to get an understanding of Kutty and his works. The two of them happily applauded the decision of bringing in Kutty. In a couple of weeks Kutty sent a design for the cover page, an absolutely new style from Kutty! In a few lines he had explained how he did not want to illustrate any poem’s content but wanted to create, through his art, an emotional atmosphere that tunes the readers to the poems. As much as I liked the idea and the thought behind it, I somehow wasn’t convinced entirely by the cover he had prepared. Maybe it was my own bias which was looking for a certain style of Kutty which I associated him with. But Kutty, being the maverik artist that he is, continuously redefining himself and growing in style, had reached newer horizons. Since my relation with Kutty hasnt been either intimate nor just transactional, I could just sit and write a mail to Kutty explaining what about Nagraj’s poems speaks to me, why I find that voice important, why this collection, this translation means so much to me and where I personally stand in my life, what my worldview is and how this project is a reflection of all that. Kutty, the aloof and silent, did not reply to the mail. But in a few days he sent me a rough sketch of the gulmohar flowers, and in a line responded to my mail which showed how he had grasped the essence of my thoughts just perfectly. The cover design by itself spoke for it too! Kutty again made me smile ear to ear… But it was not for too long. Now, Kutty shared his vision of not wanting to use any available font for the cover. “A handwritten text of the title will go well with this,” he said. I agreed with his vision but how were we to make it happen? Kutty doesn’t know Kannada, and I don’t know how to use technology, software etc. Years ago when Kutty had to write a couplet of Faiz on canvas, to accompany the painting, I had written the text in Devnagri script. It was possible also because Kutty and I were in the same physical space and it was manual. Now we were not in the same space and the writing involved technology! There was a knot which had to be disentangled. Kutty then came up with an idea. He said, “Write the text in Kannada and send it to me. I will replicate it here and then you can check if I have got it right.” The idea appealed to me. But now the problem was this- over the years, unused to writing after making a shift to typing, my handwriting had turned worse than what it originally was. So, I made my parents write on a sheet of paper ‘bisilina shaDyantrada viruddha‘- Kannada title of the book, took an image of it and sent it to Kutty. I had used arrow marks to show how the strokes move while writing. Following the cue, Kutty recreated the Kannada alphabets and sketched the title which looked ragefully blossomed- like the central image of the title poem! With that the cover page was almost final. Kutty shared it on the chain mail and Kishore and Prajna also welcomed it.
The time and effort that went into translating unhachya kaTaaviruddh is a story in itself. It took over 6 drafts and the story spans between 2016 and 2022. The process of translation which began in full force in the 2018 monsoon, reached a final stage at the end of 2019 Dec. The plan then was to release the book in 2020 April. When the pandemic hit and the planned release of bisilina shaDyantrada viruddha had to be postponed indefinitely, it ached my heart very much. In those days I have just watched the cover page designed by Kutty and felt better.
In the time between 2020 and 2022 when the release got delayed, I narrated to all my students, batch after batch, the story of translating Nagraj’s poetry collection and also showed them the cover page designed by Kutty. When the world was moving at a different pace and life was flipping between the real and the unreal, and the journey of translation began seeming distant and hence a bit unreal, the cover page made the entire journey seem real. I held on to it.
During this phase, I did get frustrated several times and expressed it before Nagraj Manjule. At times I urged him to agree for an online release event. But Nagraj Manjule convinced me in return to be patient, wait for things to get back to normal. “When you have put so much of effort, why not have the book released in a celebratory manner?” he would ask. Then one day he said, “Even my film has not released because of the pandemic. So I understand your frustration. Let Jhund release first and then after a month of its release, let us release your book”. Those words convinced me entirely.
In Feb 2022 when the release dates of Jhund was announced, I could slowly see my book also coming to life. A conversation with Nagraj enabled us to decide on a tentative date for the release. I immediately dropped a text to Kishore and Kutty to get ready for the final lap of the journey. My enthusiasm was out of control and in consultation with Rajaram Tallur, the preparation began. But there was no response from Kutty. Weeks passed and Kutty hadn’t responded. I sent reminders. No response. Knowing Kutty’s elusive and maverick swabhaava, his sudden disappearance wasn’t surprising. But then, I was getting worried about both- Kutty and the book. So finally I sent a melodramatic text saying it was urgent and Kutty replied saying he has been unwell and has moved to his hometown and his laptop, in which all the works are there, is not with him! My concern about both reached next level. But it is not possbible for me to prioritize anything over human life. Hence, I decided to ask Kutty to not worry and take care of himself. But by then Kutty said its possible that the raw files of the page are on his mail which he can access. He asked for some time to look for it. In a couple of hours the raw files landed in my inbox. On the other hand, by then, the inner pages of the books were designed and ready. Now the cover page was wedded to the inside pages and made ready for print. And in a day, the book was sent to the press.
Few days later Kishore sent some images of the published book. People from the press had clicked photos and sent it to Kishore, which he had forwarded it to me. The quality of the image wasn’t that great and as a result the book cover looked a bit weak. My heart became heavy. But I did not know what to do but hope that the books in real look much different from what it looks in the photograph. That night when Kishore and I spoke, we decided that it would be better if the books are sent to Udupi directly where the book launch event is happening rather than sending them to Bangalore where Kishore lives and then him bringing them to Udupi. Two days later the books were sent to Udupi from Bombay where the book was printed. With my friend Vivek I went to the bus-stop to collect the cartons that carried the books. I was keeping my fingers crossed while driving back home with a carton of books before me, and Vivek sitting behind me on the scooter holding one carton of books.
On reaching home, very anxiously I opened the carton and against all my fears, the book cover had come out extremely beautiful. I held the book in my hand like a young girl holding her birthday gift- a frock that she had desired for long! After checking if the print of the inside pages are fine, and showing my parents the copy, I immediately rang Kutty. It was a video call for I wanted to show him the book. I wasn’t sure if he had recovered, and if he would answer. To my luck Kutty answered and I saw Kutty’s face after almost 9 years! He was smiling, as he always did, ear to ear, and on seeing his face, I too was smiling ear to ear. I showed him the book, with twinkle in my eyes. He got super excited and said, “Oh! Finally!” and I joined him in repeating, “yes, finally!”
Unfortunately Kutty couldn’t attend the book launch event. Few days after the launch, I sent Kutty a copy of the book. When it reached him, Kutty sent an image of it via whatsapp. I could imagine him smiling ear to ear. I texted back asking if he is happy with the outcome. “Definitely am!” he said and added, “Its the first book cover I’ve made.” It was followed with a “Haha” which made me first go “Oh” out of surprise and then laugh with Kutty hahahaha.
I secretly want to believe that many might have approached him for a book cover, but he refused to do it. Maybe some day some Shwetabh will ask me, “How did you convince Kutty to do the cover page?” I wouldn’t have an answer for that. But I would have this long story of my strangely beautiful association with Kutty to share, and a beautiful cover-page to flaunt!
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A Fable
My mentor and I sat down to have lunch at a small hotel in our hometown. We were comfortable being silent in each other’s company though we were meeting after a long time. We ordered our food and while we waited for our meal to be served, the couple seated at the table next to ours paid the bill and got up to leave. While leaving, they greeted my mentor. I looked at them closely and then looked at my mentor. “You don’t know them,” he said. My preoccupations made me unzip my lips and say, “Yeah, I don’t know.” By then the server came with our meal plates and placed them on the table, repeating what was told to him while placing the order- “One plate rice and sambar. And one plate boiled rice ganji.”
Silence sat with us for a while, while we were having lunch. Being preoccupied with certain recent occurrences, I broke the silence, wanting to discuss.
“You may have an answer to this. Even if you don’t, I know you will understand what I am trying to say.” My mentor paused as I began speaking and looked at me, without taking the next handful of rice to his mouth. “In such an opinionated world how is one supposed to find their place?” I asked and heard laughter from the other side of the table. “I ask you because I know you too have been facing this issue since you too hold unpopular opinions and have refused to fall into the trap of binary thinking.” Looking into my eyes with compassion, helplessness, and understanding, all at the same time, my Mentor said, “This problem has existed always in the world”. Though I did not disagree with the answer, I wasn’t comfortable listening to a generic answer. I looked within and asked myself what exactly is troubling me about a divided world. “Maybe it has existed always, ” I agreed and continued to say, “But that fact doesn’t lessen the loneliness of being in this position.” Taking a deep sigh, in a very defeated tone I stated, “It gets very lonely.” My mentor nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, I know,” he said. “Yes, that is why I brought it up with you,” I explained. “Also, social media gives great courage to people to vehemently put forth their opinions and because of social media’s algorithms, it feels like these opinions are pouncing on us. All of this not just makes it difficult to have views of one’s own, but it is also making me doubt my own views and positions. I am constantly wondering if I did not understand something which others seem to have understood,” I spoke in one breath and exhausted myself.
The moment I stopped, immediately my Mentor exclaimed, “That is the truth.” I looked at him with a question mark on my face. “The truth is that you haven’t understood,” said my mentor with a certain force in his voice and then immediately altering the tone a bit, he continued to say, “The truth is that others also haven’t understood it.” He took a pause. “The problem is that while everyone believes they have understood it entirely, you believe you have missed the point entirely.” Without interrupting the brief silence that followed, I waited for him to break the silence and continue. “The truth is that all of us are learning. While others want to be right and correct, you too want to be right and correct. While others are trying to prove their learning to the correct one, you are trying to prove that you aren’t wrong. Others are trying to prove to the world and you are trying to prove to yourself. Hence it is lonely for you. If you try to prove it to the world, you will certainly find an echo chamber,” said my Mentor and his words began creating innumerable thought ripples within me. While I was still trying to digest his words, he said, “But finally in terms, all of their and our understanding and learning is limited, which we do not want to acknowledge. All we want to know is who is right and who isn’t.”
With hearty laughter, my mentor summarized it all with a beautiful metaphor. He said, “Forming opinions even before learning and understanding if not entirely but at least understanding the magnitude of the subject that one is trying to understand and learn about, is like building a temple for baala-Krishna (Krishna as a child). It museumizes Krishna in his infancy and doesn’t take into account that he turned out to be something else as he grew.”
I too joined him and laughed.
Life Lessons With Deepali
Taking a seat, we recollected how we had first spoken to each other on the way to the very same Cafe almost five years ago. “We had come here on your birthday too,” I said and she nodded saying, “Yes, I remember.”
Deepali and I were meeting after 4 years and the time spent together, four years ago, looked distant and close at the same time. Memories smell fresh when you archive them in your heart with love. They appear so close that the distance traveled in time from those moments surprise you when highlighted.
We had decided the previous night that the following morning we would go to Good Luck Cafe for breakfast, and we did. Taking bites of bun-maska we continued to discuss our common love for old Hindustani film songs and arrived at the song Khaamosh Sa Afsaana from the unreleased film Libaas. I expressed how much I loved the line, “dil ki baat na poocho dil toh aata rahega,” for its simplicity of expression and complexity of experience and also the beautiful way in which that line has been composed and sung. That line took us back to our conversation around how emotions, often opposing, are interwoven and such interweaving holds the truth about us and about the complex nature of life; a conversation which had stemmed out of our session on updating each other about our respective lives in the last four years.
The whole of that day we kept singing that one particular line and kept wondering whether the line expressed fear, relief, hope, or disgust. We were also struck by how the line begins with a denial to engage with the question (na poocho) and ends with a kind of understanding/ surety (aata rahega) of things unfolding/ happening the way they ought to happen. That “aata rahega” also voices, we recognized, is a kind of giving in to life and a willingness to go with the flow. This denial to engage and the willingness to go with the flow with the understanding/ surety that things will happen the way it has to, we came to believe, is beautiful not because the truth lies between them but because the truth lies in their coexistence.
The previous evening, when Deepali and I sat at a restaurant with our friend Dharma, she had explained the tattoo on her hand, something which wasn’t written on her skin when we were studying together at FTII. This new tattoo which looks like her obsession with music, she explained to us, is actually more than just a reference to the icons on the music player. She said, “the rewind button stands for a past that exists, the forward button reminds of the future that is to come. The pause icon is a reminder of life/ relationships/ associations not stopping ever but only pausing temporarily. In my life there is no Stop button. There is also an icon of mix which indicates that life doesnt flow in chronological order. all these icons are there in black, which means they are not in motion though they all exist. The only icon in motion, hence in red, is the play button icon. life is moving on and I am moving on with life.”
While returning to the campus from Good Luck, Deepali said she would like to record the song and it was decided that at night we would record the song in her voice. Making this decision Deepali started rehearsing the song in a very non-rehearsal kind of way, while we continued with our conversations, cooking, eating, and walking. As she kept rehearsing, I kept wondering at the similar undercurrent between what we conversed the previous evening and our conversation on the following day- about life, about humans, about relationships.
Life unfolds in its own way and probably the only way to be in tune with life is to go with the flow, dance to its rhythm, and breathe its air.
Every time she rehearsed, the line sounded different and I remembered what Sheila Dhar in an essay had mentioned about recording music/ singing. Sheila Dhar, I recollect from my memory of reading the essay, says that recording is only a reference to the raga and not the raaga itself. She says every raaga is like an incense stick and every rendition like the smoke that the incense stick exhales. The pattern, the formation, the movement differ every time though it is the same raaga. Similarly, though the same song it was different each time Deepali rehearsed it and sung it.
No amount of preparation can guarantee you that a song will be sung the same way as imagined in the mind. Probably it is the song which guides us each time and each time, we follow it differently. Maybe that is true of life too.
Prajney & Karuney
Though a bit nervous, I still didn’t miss spotting the Buddhist Seminary across the road. As I walked towards the examination center, getting down from the auto, I decided to visit the Seminary after the exam.
It was May 2009 & I was in Bangalore to write my M.Phil entrance exam, for which the venue was the Kendriya Vidyalaya, in Sadashiva Nagara.
As soon as the exam got over, I walked across the road and entered the Seminary. There was nobody inside. I sat there for a while, feeling my breath, and felt relaxed after feeling anxious for nearly two days.
When about to leave, I felt the urge to see the idol from near and went close to the sculpture of Buddha. I had one of the most basic phones those days with a very poor camera. Since it never promised good images, I had never clicked a single photo with it. But that day when I stood there, I found myself slowly pulling out the phone from my pocket and click the image of the idol (Image 1) of Buddha. That was my first step in mobile photography!
“Not bad”, I told myself looking at the image I had captured and began walking towards the door, to exit from the Seminary. And, there I came face to face with a monk who greeted me with great warmth! He asked me for my name and where I came from. On learning that I had come to write my entrance exam, he took me to their office, made me sit, and asked me what course I had applied for. He was happy to know that my plan was to quit my job and go for higher studies. “There is no end to learning,” he said and took out from their cupboard a small idol of the Buddha (image 2) and handed it over to me, saying, “Carry this along with you when you go for higher studies.” I smiled and accepted it.
Not knowing what to say, I sat there silently. After few seconds, the monk broke the silence saying, “prajney (wisdom in consciousness) and karuNey (compassion, kindness) are very essential for humans,” and suggested that whatever I do in life, the aim of my actions must be to lessen the pain of people around me.
I bowed down to the monk and left…
I still carry the idol and also carry his words in my heart, perpetually trying to practice and failing at it, but never giving up.
(Vesak, 2021)
Holy Rights: a brave film essaying complex battle for gender rights by Muslim women
Shot and edited between 2016 and 2019, at a time when Hindu fundamentalism in India has tightened its grip on state apparatuses and Islamophobia has evenly spread across the society, Holy Rights by Farha Khatun contextualizes the incredibly complex battle for gender rights by Muslim women.
While the entire Muslim community is under threat, a parallel battle for gender justice and gender equality by Muslim women could turn counterintuitive to their original vision and politics. By capturing and chronicling the complexities of this multiple and parallel battles, without diluting the central vision of gender justice, or forgetting the overarching Islamophobia, Holy Rights emerges as one of the strongest and also one of the most courageous films to be made in current times.
Holy Rights follows Safia Akhtar, a resident of Bhopal, who is one of the first women to become a Qazi (Muslim Clerics, traditionally male, whose verdict is final on issues related to Muslim personal law), in India. She was also at the forefront of the fight to ban instant triple talaq.
Lost in Interpretation
Very early on in the film, we see few women confiding in Safia their personal stories of divorce by instant triple talaq. One woman speaks about how she got separated from her husband after he uttered talaq thrice over the phone. Another lady narrates the humiliating experience of being divorced by her husband on a busy street, followed by the strangers, who had gathered, loudly declaring that the marriage is over now.
To these women, Safia explains what the guidelines for talaq as per Quran are and asks how the male Qazis can overrule the words of Allah and sanction validity to instant triple talaq?
Here we realize not just that the Qazis have misinterpreted or rather mister-interpreted the Quran through their gendered gaze, but also realize it is such occurrences which prompted Safia to undergo the necessary training (along with 30 other women) to become a Qazi.
Safia and her comrades went on to challenge the men within the community, who importantly are male religious heads, and also engaged in a bold battle to demand ban of the non-Quranic and non-Islamic triple talaq, by moving to the Supreme Court and writing to the Government.
Layered and entangled complexities
Right in the middle of the 53-minute long film, there is a defining sequence that reveals the complexities of the matter and also the politics of the film.
This is how the sequence flows:
A religious Safia while about to perform namaaz (prayer), asks the filmmaker, a non-practising Muslim, whether she offers namaaz every day. On hearing the answer in the negative, Safia in a seemingly disappointed tone tells the filmmaker, “galat baat,” (It is wrong) and without stopping there, she repeats, “bahut galat hai” (It is very much wrong) and suggests Farha to take time out of her busy schedule and pray every day.
Cut to…
Safia speaks about a news/rumour in circulation about a Fatwa to be issued expelling her from Islam. Responding to this she asks in an unshaken firm voice, “Who are they to expel anyone from Islam?” Declaring her faith a personal matter between her and “my Allah”, and that she is only following the Quran’s path, Safia announces, “Merely their saying or issuing Fatwa will make no difference. I am Muslim, I love Allah, I fear Allah, and I am following Allah’s path. So I am Muslim.”
Cut to…
Taajul Masjid, Bhopal. An all-woman meeting is held under the banner of Bharateeya Muslim Mahila Andolan. The organizers of the meeting ask the gathered women to introduce themselves and insist they be loud enough to be audible to everyone in the assembly. “We also want you to get rid of your inhibitions, your shyness so that we have the strength to speak to people,” explains Safia. Housewives, girls who dropped out of education after high-school – all introduce themselves. Spelling out the purpose of such an organization and such meetings, which is “to gain knowledge about everything”, Safia reassures them that it is a safe space and the ladies, “should be able to discuss frankly”. As the meeting progresses, she tells the gathering, “The biggest issue with Quran is that it is written in Arabic…”
The spoken words continue but the shot cuts and shifts to an interview Safia is giving to India TV, where she continues with the same sentence…
“… Because of that nobody understands the meaning.” Then she goes on to explain what problems this gives rise to. Whenever women have any problem concerning their marriage, talaq, or property, Safia says, they go to the Qazi or Mufti who are considered the ultimate authority on Islam and are believed to be right, even when they are wrong.
Safiya then elaborates on the struggle she and her comrades of concern are battling: “So we make women aware, and tell what rights they have in Islam. Our Quran speaks of equality, justice, mercy, and wisdom. So our Constitution and our Quran both have the same values. So we want that our law is made as per the Quran. So it is obvious that the country in which we are living and its Parliament will pass that bill. So we have given a letter to the Prime Minister that the draft on this matter should be considered and that our laws should also be codified and we should get the same benefits that our religion provides us.”
Cut to…
Safia and her husband Syed Jalil Akhtar are watching TV while having dinner. They are watching Ravish Kumar’s Prime Time where he speaks on how cow smuggling is being used as a justification for lynching and criminalizing people from the Muslim community. With statistics about lynching and criminalization of Muslims, Ravish Kumar speaks about how after 2014 there has been a rise in Islamophobia and communal violence against Muslims.
This sequence which comes at the centre of the film captures the heart of the struggle of both Safia and the filmmaker. It also brings forth the levels and layers of the battles being fought.
Appropriation and expulsion
At a time in history, when a communal and a fascist regime has declared war against an entire religious community, fighting a parallel battle that locks horns with the people within the community is certainly not easy. It does not just run the risk of the battle being appropriated by the larger political enemy but also of being antagonized within, if not out-casted from the community.
When this battle for the ban of instant triple talaq began, we see in Holy Rights, how certain media houses that have a communal gaze, enthusiastically amplified the voice of Safia. We also see how the gendered gaze of the interpreters of the Quran and their allies found Safia to be a traitor and wanted to expel her from Islam.
The vulnerable section within the community become more vulnerable by the very support they receive. But the women risked the vulnerability of being weaponized by the state and fought for a liberatory political demand.
Fight against power and not for power
When we hear Safia say, “Who are they to expel anyone from Islam,” while responding to the news/rumour about a Fatwa, we realize the depth of Safia’s politics. Even in a moment when she has become the individual target, her question is not “Who are they to expel me?” but “Who are they to expel anyone from Islam?” It is not the kind of privileged feminism that bell hooks warns us against, where the battle is for a share in the power. It is a kind of feminism that bell hooks propagate – a feminist politics driven by a love-ethic formed on the idea of love, justice, and equality. For Safia, the struggle is not just to occupy the male-dominated space of religious leadership, but to liberate the community from the hegemony of patriarchy and its interpretation of the Quran, which is wronging its women.
The larger battle
The film Holy Rights, while documenting this struggle and also participating in this struggle, doesn’t forget the larger battle the community is fighting against communalism and Islamophobia. Though not unaffected completely by the current socio-political scenario, we don’t see (at least in the film) Safia engaging much with it. But the filmmaker has consciously chosen to engage with it by highlighting the issues of lynching, criminalization of Muslims and the violence against them.
To counter the popular narrative about Muslims lacking love for the country, the filmmaker underlines the patriotism among these women by showing them singing “jis desh mein Ganga behati hai” and putting up a play which speaks of Constitution with great respect. We see through this filmed play, how these women locate the rights of Muslim women within the Constitutional values. We see how the women identify themselves as rightful citizens of the country which, at least in its Constitution, guarantees them liberty, equality and justice.
The necessary battle
While engaging in a parallel battle against the male dominance in religious leadership and the wronging of women in the community, Safia and her comrades of concern, also realize the importance of another battle at an individual level among the womenfolk within the community. And they engage in it too. They not only make the women folk aware of their rights as per the Quran and the Constitution but also assist them in finding their voice and strengthening their voices.
Exploring complexities and resisting stereotyping
While showcasing these struggles, which like vortex go deep and turn more intense as one goes deeper, the filmmaker problematizes the struggle and also resists stereotyping at the same time in two extremely significant moments in the film.
At the All India Muslim Personal Law Board Conference held in Kolkata, where the men on stage are speaking about the protection of women’s rights and upholding the Shariah law, the filmmaker moves to the corner where women are seated and puts the mic before them. While some young women initially speak to the filmmaker and critique the Govt’s intention to ban instant triple talaq and defending the custom of instant triple talaq, other women around them first request and then instruct the filmmaker to leave them alone. Some tension is built between the filmmaker and the women gathered on the side-lines of the conference. When the filmmaker tries spelling out that there is a difference between listening to men and women about issues concerning women, a burqa-clad young lady tells the filmmaker in clear English, “Whatever you wish to know is being spoken by the men on stage. Just listen to them and let us also listen.” The filmmaker is then immediately asked to leave the “segregated place”.
While on one hand, this moment shows what Safia at the beginning of the film says about women viewing themselves “through the eyes of the men,” the same moment also punctures the majoritarian and stereotypical view of Muslim women as being submissive and uneducated.
The woman, who initially narrates her experience of getting separated from her husband after he uttered talaq thrice over the phone, is seen in one of the end sequences of the film coming to Qazi Safia with her husband and seeking intervention. Safia explains to the husband that as per Quran instant triple talaq is not valid. The lady’s husband disagrees with Safia and, in a desperate, restless, and slightly vulnerable tone, says, “As it is I have committed a sin by giving talaq. Now I can’t commit another sin by staying with her.” He repeatedly says he cannot agree with Safia’s (miss)-interpretation of the Quran and cannot accept his wife back because he has to “face Islam, face Allah” and that he “cannot go against Islam.”
The words of the husband reveal how deeply the interpretation of the male Qazis and Muftis about the custom of instant triple talaq has been etched in the minds of the members of the community, and how difficult it is for anyone to change it, even though the change is in accordance with the sayings of Quran. At the same time, it also shows how the man who somewhat regrets his decision and action of instant triple talaq (“As it is I have committed a sin by giving a talaq”), now doesn’t want to reunite with his wife, because he subscribes to the interpretation of the Quran by the Qazis. The husband, who otherwise would have reunited with his wife, now sticks to his decision, and goes against his heart because he wants to “face Islam”.
The film exposes how an inhumane custom, which largely harms women, also traps men and with the slight glimpse of the man’s vulnerability and complexity, also punctures the majoritarian and stereotypical view of men and specifically Muslim men.
This aspect is underlined thickly by introducing Safia’s husband Syed Jalil Akhtar, a very tender and supportive partner to Safia.
Safe spaces: making the politics personal
By showing the loving relationship between Safia and Jalil, which undoubtedly adds to the strength of Safia, the film brings forth an argument for the need for safe and loving spaces at a personal level and how it is an essential part of and for politics.
The confession of Jalil Akhtar saying earlier he wasn’t the way he is now, makes one wonder if it is Safia who turned him into what he is or is it the love-bond between them which enabled him to become what he has eventually become. What gets communicated is the strength of love to humanize us and create safe spaces, and also the necessity of safe and loving spaces for us to humanize ourselves and gain strength as individuals.
The necessity to create safe and loving places gets highlighted throughout the film. We see how Safia and her comrades of concern create a safe and loving space for women to meet, bond, share, and organize. We see how this safe and loving space not just enables these women socially and politically, but also by creating an atmosphere for them to let their guard loose, makes it possible for them to express themselves (seen through dancing, singing, and merrymaking) and just be themselves unhesitatingly.
By highlighting this creation of safe spaces and making a case for them, Holy Rights silently reminds us that the collective fight finally is to make the world a safer and healthier space, and it can begin only by creating such small pockets of safe and loving spaces.
What one cannot ignore is how despite the intrusive nature of the camera, Farha still manages to create a safe space where the entire struggle reveals itself in all its complexities. The empathetic and sensitive gaze of Farha, her sympathy for women and their traumas, and the trust she builds with all of them is what creates the required safe space for the film to mediate the politics of the struggles, and also build the politics of the film.
If Safia and her husband’s relationship establishes a safe space for feminist politics, and the relationship between the women demonstrate the safe space for feminist praxis, then Farha’s craft exhibits the safe space of filmmaking for a kind of honest internal critique and solidarity amongst Muslim women, and the film as a cultural product aspires to create a safe space where an honest introspection could possibly occur.
It is only in such safe spaces that a religious Safia and a non-practising Muslim filmmaker Farha can come together, befriend each other, and become a part of the essential political action geared towards creating a healthy and safe space for all.
Through this, the film Holy Rights also tells us how for political action and social change, solidarity and political consciousness by itself isn’t enough. They have to be supported by a culture of love. The film also speaks how a political battle for equality cannot be fought overlooking the social battles and that the social battles cannot be fought overlooking the security of individual rights and building safe and loving spaces for individuals.
But then, as the final shot of the film says, at one level, these battles can feel lonely at times. However, the battle is also to fight political and personal loneliness.
(This article was originally published in TwoCircles.Net on 17 Feb 2021)
Relationship with Languages
Someone with whom I shared an intimate bonding, once told me, “I can have sex only in English.”
Their words made me reflect and I realized I feel hungry in Kannada, think in English, experience pain and love in Hindustani, and my struggle with mental-health is in all three languages.
Some people like me are torn between languages.
Kannada has given me the earth to be rooted in, English has granted me the sky to fly and Hindustani has tempered my heart to feel a connection with things. But the language of my inscape always is: silence.
I have a complicated relationship with languages.
(Note written on the occasion of International Mother Language Day observed on 21 Feb)
Life Through Changing Times
Royal Watches, a shop owned by Goddumari Venkateshwaralu, in Ananthapuramu, displays cell-phones and as you enter. As you walk past the narrow space where customers stand inspecting the phones they wish to buy, you see times change. There sits the owner of the shop on his table with a glass case around him, a magnifier glass on his eyes and the walls decorated with old wall clocks.
The shop Royal Watches opened its shutters for the first time in the year 1986 when G. Venkateshwaralu moved to Ananthapuramu from Guntakal after repairing watches there for 16 years. Teaching his younger brother the skills of watch repair he let his brother take care of the shop in Guntakal and moved to Ananthapuramu.
When G. Venkateshwaralu was 16, his father who owned two lorries, sent his son to learn watch repair when their lorries got into a mishap and pushed them to a loss. “I had an eye for technical things and my father identified it,” says G. Venkateshwaralu before explaining how learning watch repair was not an easy task back in those days. “I had to move from one person to another to learn. Nobody would be willing to teach all the tricks of the trade,” he explains. Later his father decided to buy him some tools and asked him to learn by himself based on what he had learnt from others. “Experience taught me more than the training I went through the several watch repairers,” tells G. Venkateshwaralu.
Back in those days when he had just started his life as a watch repairer he would go sit in the weekly markets in the nearby towns and would repair watches there. Slowly he went on to set up his own shop in Guntakal. Remembering his journey from then to now G. Venkateshwaralu says, “There used to be pin watches, winding watches earlier and slowly over the years electronic watches took over. Also, earlier watches were being worn for the purpose of maintaining time. Later it became a fancy. That is when the outer shape of the watches started to change. Slowly a time has come when people do not wear watch. Mobile phones do the work of showing the time.” He says that the watches would last long up to 30 years when he began his work, slowly the life-span of a watch got reduced to 12 years and now it has come up to 2 years. Back then, he says, watches came to him for servicing and repairing. Slowly the rate of servicing decreased and repair increased. In the last one decade the concept of repair has decreased almost completely. “Now the repairer does more of replacing than repairing,” he says. From specific problem being repaired to entire mechanism being replaced, the job of G. Venkateshwaralu has undergone a change with time.
When G. Venakateshwaralu set up his first shop in Guntakal he also started to sell watches in his shop. The ones who would buy watches from him would come to him for servicing and repair. When he moved to Ananthapuramu and set up Royal Watches he continued to sell watches there too. But with the mobile revolution the number of buyers for watches started decreasing. That is when the person in Hyderabad from whom he would purchase spare parts for watches shifted his business to mobile phones. That was a hint to G. Venkateshwaralu about changing times. So the front portion of his shop where he used to sell watches saw watches being replaced by mobile phones. His son took over this area of the shop and G. venkateshwaralu continued to repair watches, on his tiny table at the interior portion of the shop, where he used to sit earlier too.
“Online shopping has had an impact on the sales of mobile phones in shops like ours,” says G. Venkateshwaralu. His customers still are those who couldn’t take a leap into the new technologg completely and still use the watch or those who have a fancy for watches. Some of the new technologies, he says, are such that only company authorized repairers can do the repair work. Others cant. Major part of his work now is replacing some machines in the watch and replacing straps of the watches. He still has some of the old kind of watches in his drawer and the spare parts of the old watches.
When people with old kind of watches come to G. Venkateshwaralu now for repair, he doesn’t take it up because he understand the love they have for their watch which is why they still possess it. “If I am not able to repair because of the machine having become delicate or me becoming old, it won’t be nice,” he explains.
On asked if he find his knowledge and skill, in the shift of times, become irrelevant, G. Venkateshwaralu says, “The question itself is irrelevant. This knowledge and this skill earned me my bread and butter. I could take care of my family and educate my children. It has met the needs of the time for me.” He goes on to say how everything in the world has changed and shares his thought, “We do what we do in order to be able to make a living. It is to make a living that I had to learn watch repairing first, repairing new kinds of watches later on, replacing of machines after that, shift from watch sales to mobile phone sales. I have done it all to make a living and I have had a satisfactory life. If everything I know and did becomes irrelevant now be it. I haven’t failed. I have sailed through.”
(Interview conducted: 20 Nov 2018. Special thanks: Sandeep Nayani)
The Poor Are Also Humans
April has certainly has been a cruel month this time.
Among the innumerable heartbreaking stories from across the world, the story of Mukesh Mandal in particular refuses to evaporate from my mind, even after weeks.
Mukesh, a migrant labourer stationed in Haryana, ended his life early this month, after having no money to feed his family of six. Before hanging himself, Mukesh, sold his celphone for Rs. 2,500/- and with that money bought some ration for his family, a fan for the house and also repayed the remaining debt he had.
Whether there was any pressure on Mukesh to repay the borrowed money or not remains unknown. Even after his death, the family did not speak of any such pressure on Mukesh. But even when faced with an extreme situation of not being able to feed his family and being pushed to take his life, Mukesh did not disappear into absence without repaying the debt money.
While the poverty, hunger, suffering, helplessness and humiliation of Mukesh are all true, let them not eclipse his dignity, his self-respect, for our looking eyes and percieving minds.
The words of one Brahmaji, a labourer in Hyderabad, reported later in the month, continues to echo in my mind, like the story of Mukesh, for the words of Brahmaji, like the final act of Mukesh, speaks of dignity and self-respect, along with a dire situation his life has been facing. He was reported to have said, “We are not beggars. We came to Hyderabad to work and earn money with self-respect. We feel ashamed in taking donations. I personally feel like committing suicide when donors came to distribute cooked rice and clicked a picture with my family.”
Harsh Mander once narrated his experience of having lived and closely interacted with a migrant labourer family, as a part of a project on understanding labour, poverty and hunger. The family which moved from one city to another, across states of India, for work was asked by Harsh Mander of the place they like the most to visit for work. The family said their second favourite place in India was Punjab because there the people treated them with affection. Their most favourite place was Kashmir for they were treated with not just affection but also respect, they said.
Unfortunately our society has never considered Respect and Affection as ‘basic necessities’ of humans. A connection is never seen between them and survival/ living.
In times when a Supreme Court judge asks why the poor would need to be paid wages when they are being fed for free, in a society where a helping hand is accompanied by a camera lens, it is not just hunger and poverty which needs to be confronted. We also need to confront the poverty of heart among the non-poor, which is us, that fails to recognize that those who put under the category of ‘poor’ are also humans and the poverty fo heart in us which also fails to recognize the existing dignity and self-respect among the poor.
Mukesh, who not just repayed the debt but also bought ration for his family and also a fan just before ending his life, was labelled “mentally unstable” by the police. If the system and mainly the State had a percent of the dignity and self-respect that Mukesh had, and for its people a percent of the love Mukesh’s heart carried for his family, then probably the month of April wouldnt have been this cruel.
The shadows of this April will be cast on several months to come. For sure.
Crazy Mind's Eye 