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.
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)
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On Trustfully Submitting
“I din’t understand the intensity of these matters earlier,” he said as we walked towards the parking area. “In fact, I dint even consider these problems as real ones”.
I had recieved a call from him that morning asking to meet “immediately”. There was urgency and anxiety in his voice. I asked him to brief me about the matter of concern and promised to meet him soon. I wanted him to brief me not just because it would unburden his heart slightly, but also because I wanted to be able to think through the matter, in the time between the phone call and us meeting.
A family member of his was going through severe distress, and the psychological stress had begun to impact every other aspect of their life. He felt a clinical intervention was necessary and had called me.
Though not a mental health professional, I have been quite vocal about my own mental health issues, as a personal battle against the stigamtization of mental health matters. For over a decade and a half now, ever since I began to speak of my issues openly in public and social media platforms, I have had people speaking to me about their issues and at times seeking my suggestion. Knowing my limitation in the scheme of things, I have patiently listened to them and guided them to meantal health professionals and tried my level best to be a support to them till they sail through the rough tides.
This time too, like earlier, I listened patiently and then suggested him that his family member be taken to a particular Doctor, who I know, for therapy. He agreed and we went to the hospital to take an appointment. The particulr Doctor wasnt available that day and the Social Worker who was in conversation with us suggested another Doctor. We politely refused because we felt a lady Doctor would be better since the person in distress was a teenage girl, who we assumed would be more comfortable speaking with a lady Doctor. We got an appointmet for the next day and we were walking towards the parking space when he said till couple of years ago he never considered mental health issues as real issues at all.
“Once a classmate of mine spoke to me about she undergoing depression,” he began to recollect an incident from two years ago. The classmate, he said, spoke at length about the way depression fractured her day to day being and living and functioning. Listening to it all he, who was a staunch believer and practicing Muslim, had told his classmate, “It is all because our generation has deviated from the spiritual path,” and went on to say that the psychological issues were unreal and the distress was brought upon oneself by a non-spiritual path of life. Not stopping with that he continued to say, “The solution is in submission to the Almighty”. The classmate lost her cool and gave him a piece of his mind which he now recollected before me laughingly, the laugh being at himself. “Now my perspective has changed and I understand things better,” he told me. I smiled and hugged him before we dispersed.
His words, originally told to his classmate and recollected before me after two years, saying, “The solution is in submission to the Almighty” kept playing in my mind with a small edit. I just couldnt ignore the words, “The solution is in submission.” In a strange way this edited sentence threw light on something important.
It was in the year 2004 that I first walked to a Psychiatrist seeking help. I was a naive teenager back then. From then on till about 2016, when I finally decided never to take any medical/ clinical help, I was consulting psychiatrist regularly and for a long period was also on medication. In 2016 when I finally decided to never take any medical/ clinical help, it was largely because I felt they were all ineffective. I could see in retrospect that over a decade of these interventions had changed nothing significantly for me. Calling medication as “life jackets” which only keep us afloat but do not take to the shore, I decided to “work on myself”. I rejected the “life jacket” hoping to learn how to swim and carry myself to the shore.
Since then I have been discussing this matter with many friends and those concerned with the issue of mental health, and surprisingly have found many people echoing the same: therapy being ineffective. That would drive the discussion into a different direction of how the world order is at fault and the pharmaceutical mafia which believes a patient healed is a customer lost, etc etc. All valid observations and commentaries which strengthened our beliefs and antagonized the system at large, the health care system and its methods too. But in between these I kept seeing some people benift from therapy. Most of them were those who had consulted me and had been guided to a therapist by me. This added to my frustration because I was not finding any healing/ solution while those who I was guiding, were finding a way out and thanking me for helping them. Along with adding to my frustration these made me ask why is it that some were able to benifit from therapy while some of us were not. The question only angered me and frustrated me further. But I could find no answer. In a strange way the words, “The solution is in submission” (minus the last part, “to the Almighty”) made me find an answer or rather see what is at the heart of the problem, or rather what appeared now to me as the heart of the problem.
Be it myself or these other friends and fellow beings who, like me, found therapy ineffective, have all been extremely skeptic in our approach to life. It wouldnt be a coincidence that most of us bred on critical thinking in our humanities education, have had our brains tuned to critique, doubt and counter everything that is presented before us in an almost dismissive manner. If on one side this has enabled us to see things beyond the surface, on the other hand it has divorced us from the ability to arrive at harmony and has created severe trust issues with the world in general. Trained to think critically and dismiss things off, we never were able to invest trust and faith not just in the therapist but also in the process of therapy. To submit, we believed unconsciously, is to become submissive and lose agency. Trained to listen not to understand or comprehend but to find loopholes and tear apart the point made through that loophole, we observed everything uttered by the therapist in suspicion, preparing ourselves with counter-arguments to strike off all that is said. We never let our guards down and allowed ourselves to come in touch with the process of therapy entirely in a healthy manner. To be able to faithfully/ trustfully submit to a process is something that skipped our minds that has been conditioned to take extreme views under the pressure to think critically, which would equate submission to an unequal power structure, hence consider it as something unacceptable. This inability to submit to the process, I would say faithfully/ trustfully submit to the process, is probably what made the possible effectiveness and success of therapy impossible to a large extent.
While saying this I wouldnt deny the existence of pharmaceutical mafia, poor structure of systems to attend to mental health in this country and extremely narrow approach on the part of practitioners of mental health profession. But it is also true, I have come to believe, that the inability to invest trust has also played a role in the difficulty to outgrow the crisis. To faithfully/ trustfully submit need not mean to blindly submit or submit uncritically. While it is necessary to identify the need of rationality to fight supersition, a point to which blind faith can take us humans, it is also necessary to identify, it appears to me, the limitations or the hurdles that rationality and extreme critical thinking can bring upon our lives.
As much as it is important to be critical, to see through things in a highly hierarchical and profit driven market capitalist world, it is also important to be able to submit, so that we can be touched by a process that could bring us healing or at least enable us to manage things well. The way out, I feel, is in the strange space where there is an interlocking of opposites, where trust and skepticism coexist in a healthy manner and healthy proportion.
When I saw a mind possesed by faith, make way out of it to an extent and embrace a scientific method and process, I felt that may be even the mind obsessed with rationality and skepticism also has to make way out of it and and be able to trust and allow to be touched.
A Wounded Heart
When a gesture of kindness, love and compassion is met with spite and despise (whatever the politically correct sounding justification might be) the loving heart is pushed to believe that kindness and compassion is a blasphemy, a crime. It erodes not just the heart’s ability to feel kindness, compassion and love but also shrinks the space for kindness, love and compassion in the world we inhabit. It makes the world a poorer place to exist, for hearts to breathe.
A wound inflicted on a loving heart is a wound inflicted on the whole of humanity.
Songs For Dark Times
Bertolt Brecht, the German dramatist and poet, in a poem asks if there will be songs in the dark times, and answers the question as, “Yes there will be songs about the dark times.” Nada Maninalkur who now is on an all-Karnataka journey asks and also answers the possibility of turning songs into light, not just to walk cutting through the dark times but also to fight the darkness.
***
As Nada Maninalkur sings the song by Janardhan Kesaratti which asks the listener to cleanse the dirt accumulated in the mind (manssiganTida koLeya tikki toLeduko) he pauses to ask, “How many of you feel healthy?” and the high-school students raise their hands. “Do you notice that all of you have raised your right hand?” asks Nada and the students wonder what is so unusual about it. When Nada follows it with, “Why do you raise your right hand always when you have to ask a question in the class or know the answer to a question asked by the teacher?” the students are pushed to think why for the first time. Nada helps them to find the answer when he says, “We have all been schooled to think that right hand is superior to the left, like white is superior to black. This hierarchy and discrimination is taught in the form of culture.” The students are visibly unsettled by the new thoughts but also have started finding such hierarchy wrong.
Nada Maninalkur has been travelling across all the districts of Karnataka since August, 2018 with around 50 songs which speak of various issues like gender, caste, superstition, social inclusion, pluralism etc. When Nada announced his ‘Karnataka Yatra’ on social media, individuals, organizations, educational institutions from all districts invited him to come perform for them and promised audience too.
In a B.Ed college, a set of students who earlier walked out of the concert by Nada come sit by him while having lunch post-concert. They say, “We disagree,” in a self-guarding tone. Nada smiles and continues to eat. Later when he is about to leave the campus the same students come to him again and say, “We have been thinking about it. But still we disagree.” Nada says, “I am glad you are thinking,” and continues to say, “My job is done.”
The back story of this story goes like this:
At this particular B.Ed. College, Nada decided to begin the concert by singing kalisu guruve kalisu, a song which originally is a letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to his son’s teacher. Like the method he employed for this journey, this song rendition too was paused for conversations after every stanza. At one point the conversation moved to the popular Kannada folk song govina haaDu (song of the cow) which tells the tale of a tiger killing itself after witnessing the truthfulness of a cow named Punyakoti who it wanted to eat earlier. Nada Maninalkur, referring to this song, spoke about poetic imagination and its politics which made some among the audience uneasy and restless. Next when Nada sang the song, namma elubina handaradallondu, (There are places of worship- temple masjid church- and Gods in our skeleton) a bunch of students got up to say, “This song is unscientific. How can there be a temple or a masjid inside us?” Not satisfied by the question they raised, the statement they made the students also walked out of the concert. Later at the mess he met the same set of students who came to him to register their disagreement yet again.
Recollecting these episodes Nada Maninalkur says, “Change is a process. When the first stone is thrown it stirs the water and muddies the water. But slowly it also creates ripples.” He continues the conversation to say, “Songs by themselves are inadequate. But they can initiate a dialogue in a much effective manner than a lecture or a sermon. Hence I use songs while the most important thing for me is to have a dialogue with people.”
Nada Maninalkur who started Arivu, an NGO, in 2012 arrived at this understanding slowly through personal experiences. The one major incident that made this realization dawn on Nada was a series of programmes they held after an infamous rape incident of a young girl in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. The Arivu team visited college after college and discussed body politics using theatre, songs and literature. That made students open up, though it made the lecturers uncomfortable. “Education is left with no space to think alternatively and think rightly. This space needs to be filled and songs can become an effective and immediate way to build bonds and initiate a dialogue,” says Nada and recollects another story from the same time period.
A lady teacher who came from a conservative family came in contact with Nada and team while they were working with some of her students. Over a period of two years the teacher who earlier would insist on purity of food, water and not share her food or water with anyone, eventually cast off her casteist worldview and now holds a liberal outlook. This was possible, according to Nada, only because of a continuous interaction with humanistic ideas and continuous dialogues with fellow humans, outside the boundary of caste class and gender. Now the same teacher helps over 200 students a year to shed off their biases and reinvent their ‘self’, says Nada.
In Nada’s opinion, “In our growing up years we spend most of our time in educational spaces and hence it is important to speak in educational spaces.”
“Working with ‘Self’ is important,” opines Nada and elaborates on it. During this ‘Karnataka Yatra’ at a school in the district of Shimogga when Nada sang a song on menstruation, the dialogue with students arrived at the issue of Shabarimala. During this discussion a student said, “Respecting belief and practice is a part of our democratic values.” Nada spoke the importance of respecting people’s faith and practice and went to speak about the beliefs and practices which harms human, like caste etc and also narrated the story of Nangeli. The student then agreed with Nada when he said, “We need to get rid of beliefs and practices when they do not respect human dignity and doesn’t believe in equality.”
In other schools, Nada remembers, whenever he sang the song on menstruation, the students would either giggle or put their heads down in embarrassment. In a school, he recollects, a girl who spoke about menstruation covered her face with a scarf while speaking. The girl said that this issue is not discussed in a normal way even among girls. “We are made to believe that it is a shameful thing,” Nada says and adds in a firm voice, “We haven’t worked on ‘self’ and hence we fail to build on the idea of rights and justice. First we need to realize and make people realize that the dignity of ‘self’ is of utmost importance.”
Though most of the concerts of Karnataka Yatra have been in schools and colleges, Nada as a part of this Yatra has also performed in Temples, Masjids, Central Jail. He has also accepted invitations of activists, youth groups, journalist circles etc. In all these places, he says, he would first asses the audience and on the spot makes a choice of the songs to be sung for them. He has been singing 4-5 songs in each concert from his archive of around 50. Most of these songs are from contemporary Kannada poets. But his archive also includes verses by the 12th century Vachana movement and of saints like Shishunala Shareef, Kabeer etc.
Even when Nada is in the last leg of his Yatra, to his credit, not even once he has been stopped from singing or discussing in any of the districts of Karnataka. But yes there have been discussions of high voltage, which is okay according to him since there is still dialogue happening there. This, he says, is the power of songs. It makes you introspect, he opines, and it doesn’t have the aggression which one way communications such as lectures and seminars carry. Songs make space for a dialogue, for conversations to take place, opines Nada. The proof, he says, is seen in the invitations he got from teachers in several schools to teach the same songs to the students and also the invitation he received from some teachers to come stay with them for that day. The students, he says, either openly come and talk to him or write letters to him or tag him on social media and thus express their acceptance of and appreciation for the pedagogy he employed.
Nada also has some funny anecdotes to share like instances where people considered him to be a religious saint and would come and offer dakshinNe (money offered in kindness) and a particular instance where someone equated him with an extreme right wing speaker saying, “You too travel to inspire the youth, like him.” Nada’s reply to this person was simply, “I am not here to inspire youth but to sensitize the youth. That is the difference. Also, he speaks politics and I speak about humans and human self.”
A friend of Nada suggested him to bring out a CD of these 50 songs with which he travelled across Karnataka and Nada politely rejected the idea. His reason for it is spelled out like this: “If brought out as a CD, these songs will turn into a commodity of entertainment and it will just become one with the innumerable songs of this world which some sing and some remember. To me the dialogue that these songs initiate is important.” That is precisely why Nada says that when he was asked to teach these songs, he suggested a one month residential workshop, “because it is not just about learning the lyrics of the song in a particular tune and singing it in a melodious manner. It is not about songs but responding to the times and holding a dialogue. For that one needs to be trained in things other than music.” Nada himself isn’t a trained singer nor is he trained to play the two stringed instrument he plays.
“When I started this journey, I started with great despair. But this travel has made me hopeful. I have learnt during this journey that there are innumerable human beings out there in the world who are doing several work in small scale which is making a positive impact on some life. There are unimaginable number of people who in their daily lives are keeping the spirit of humanity alive. This they are doing not because they think it is their duty but because it is their default nature,” says Nada before he continues with his journey with songs in his pocket.
Bajrang Dal Men Torched Two Muslim Women’s Canteen Accusing Them of Selling Beef
A make-shift canteen run by Khamrunissa (70) and Shamim (50) at Sakleshpur in Hasan district of Karnataka was vandalised and then set on fire by miscreants, allegedly belonging to the Bajrang Dal, who accused the women of selling beef at their canteen.
For forty years, Khamrunissa has been running the canteen at the weekly market where she sells idly and paratha with chicken and mutton curry. She has been accompanied in the business by her sister-in-law, Shamim, for several years now.
The incident took place on Thursday, January 31 at the APMC market ground during the weekly town market at 15:30 hrs.
The Bajrang Dal unit in Sakleshpur later on their Facebook page shared photos of the make-shift canteen being vandalised and claimed responsibility for the attack saying, “Good beginning for Sakleshpur Chalo. Destroyed the illegal selling of beef at the town market,” and “While creating awareness at the APMC market, with the support of public, a shop selling beef illegally was attacked and damaged.”
As a run-up to the Sakleskpur Chalo event to be held on February 14, with cow protection as its central issue, the organisers—Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)—took out a precursor rally on January 31 through the streets of Sakleshpur. It also passed from near the APMC market area.
Recollecting the attack before the Karwan-e-Mohabbat team, Khamrunissa said, “We were selling mutton when eight Bajrang Dal goons came to our shop around 3:30 that noon and accused us of selling beef. There was no space given to us to explain that it wasn’t beef but chicken and mutton. They were very aggressive and they smashed all the vessels in the shop. They kicked the stove on which we were boiling the curry and threw the hot curry on my body. They threatened me with fatal consequences if I were to sell meat again in my shop. They burst the stove to set the shop, which we build every week with a tarpaulin sheet, on fire.”
In-depth: Bajrang Dal Men Torched Two Muslim Women’s Canteen Accusing Them of Selling Beef
“Some of the boys who vandalised my shop grew up before my eyes,” said seventy-year-old Khamrunissa.
By Samvartha Sahil On Feb 7, 2019 Last updated Feb 8, 2019
Bajrang Dal Men Torched Two Muslim Women’s Canteen Shamim stands helplessly as the Bajrang Dal goons vandalise their shop.
A make-shift canteen run by Khamrunissa (70) and Shamim (50) at Sakleshpur in Hasan district of Karnataka was vandalised and then set on fire by miscreants, allegedly belonging to the Bajrang Dal, who accused the women of selling beef at their canteen.
For forty years, Khamrunissa has been running the canteen at the weekly market where she sells idly and paratha with chicken and mutton curry. She has been accompanied in the business by her sister-in-law, Shamim, for several years now.
The incident took place on Thursday, January 31 at the APMC market ground during the weekly town market at 15:30 hrs.
The Bajrang Dal unit in Sakleshpur later on their Facebook page shared photos of the make-shift canteen being vandalised and claimed responsibility for the attack saying, “Good beginning for Sakleshpur Chalo. Destroyed the illegal selling of beef at the town market,” and “While creating awareness at the APMC market, with the support of public, a shop selling beef illegally was attacked and damaged.”
Bajrang Dal
Sakleshpur Bajrang Dal claiming responsibility, in a celebratory tone, for the attack on Khamrunissa’s shop.
As a run-up to the Sakleskpur Chalo event to be held on February 14, with cow protection as its central issue, the organisers—Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)—took out a precursor rally on January 31 through the streets of Sakleshpur. It also passed from near the APMC market area.
Recollecting the attack before the Karwan-e-Mohabbat team, Khamrunissa said, “We were selling mutton when eight Bajrang Dal goons came to our shop around 3:30 that noon and accused us of selling beef. There was no space given to us to explain that it wasn’t beef but chicken and mutton. They were very aggressive and they smashed all the vessels in the shop. They kicked the stove on which we were boiling the curry and threw the hot curry on my body. They threatened me with fatal consequences if I were to sell meat again in my shop. They burst the stove to set the shop, which we build every week with a tarpaulin sheet, on fire.”
Khamrunissa amidst her destroyed shop
She added that nobody in the whole market came to their help as everyone was scared at the sudden outbreak of violence. She also said that she overheard the Bajrang Dal goons calling the police, asking them to come to the market, “By the time the police came to the spot, the shop was reduced to ashes.” The police, she recalls, asked the goons why they were called after they (the Bajrang Dal) had already damaged everything.
Khamrunissa further said, “My husband passed away very early. For 40 years now, I have been running this make shift shop during the weekly market and running my family.” She explained that for over 40 years, the customers who come to her shop have been from all religions and this sort of attack had never happened. “There was harmony in our town between religions for long. But in recent times, the inter-religious harmony has been disturbed,” she said, adding, “Some of the boys who vandalised my shop grew up before my eyes and some years ago lived close to our home.”
The burning down of her shop has left Khamrunissa with a loss of nearly Rs.50,000/- when her granddaughter’s wedding is just a month away. She said she would not stop setting up her shop at the weekly market fearing the Bajrang Dal. But she seemed worried about the fear that the attack has caused in the minds of the people, which might reduce the number of customers to her shop.
The police did not register Khamrunissa’s complaint the same evening and an FIR was filed (under the IPC sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 323, 354, 427, 436 and 504) only on the next day. The police confirmed that the meat being sold at Khamrunissa’s shop was not beef.
In-depth: Bajrang Dal Men Torched Two Muslim Women’s Canteen Accusing Them of Selling Beef
“Some of the boys who vandalised my shop grew up before my eyes,” said seventy-year-old Khamrunissa.
By Samvartha Sahil On Feb 7, 2019 Last updated Feb 8, 2019
Bajrang Dal Men Torched Two Muslim Women’s Canteen Shamim stands helplessly as the Bajrang Dal goons vandalise their shop.
A make-shift canteen run by Khamrunissa (70) and Shamim (50) at Sakleshpur in Hasan district of Karnataka was vandalised and then set on fire by miscreants, allegedly belonging to the Bajrang Dal, who accused the women of selling beef at their canteen.
For forty years, Khamrunissa has been running the canteen at the weekly market where she sells idly and paratha with chicken and mutton curry. She has been accompanied in the business by her sister-in-law, Shamim, for several years now.
The incident took place on Thursday, January 31 at the APMC market ground during the weekly town market at 15:30 hrs.
The Bajrang Dal unit in Sakleshpur later on their Facebook page shared photos of the make-shift canteen being vandalised and claimed responsibility for the attack saying, “Good beginning for Sakleshpur Chalo. Destroyed the illegal selling of beef at the town market,” and “While creating awareness at the APMC market, with the support of public, a shop selling beef illegally was attacked and damaged.”
Bajrang Dal
Sakleshpur Bajrang Dal claiming responsibility, in a celebratory tone, for the attack on Khamrunissa’s shop.
As a run-up to the Sakleskpur Chalo event to be held on February 14, with cow protection as its central issue, the organisers—Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)—took out a precursor rally on January 31 through the streets of Sakleshpur. It also passed from near the APMC market area.
Recollecting the attack before the Karwan-e-Mohabbat team, Khamrunissa said, “We were selling mutton when eight Bajrang Dal goons came to our shop around 3:30 that noon and accused us of selling beef. There was no space given to us to explain that it wasn’t beef but chicken and mutton. They were very aggressive and they smashed all the vessels in the shop. They kicked the stove on which we were boiling the curry and threw the hot curry on my body. They threatened me with fatal consequences if I were to sell meat again in my shop. They burst the stove to set the shop, which we build every week with a tarpaulin sheet, on fire.”
Bajrang Dal Men Torched Two Muslim Women’s Canteen
Khamrunissa amidst her destroyed shop
She added that nobody in the whole market came to their help as everyone was scared at the sudden outbreak of violence. She also said that she overheard the Bajrang Dal goons calling the police, asking them to come to the market, “By the time the police came to the spot, the shop was reduced to ashes.” The police, she recalls, asked the goons why they were called after they (the Bajrang Dal) had already damaged everything.
Khamrunissa further said, “My husband passed away very early. For 40 years now, I have been running this make shift shop during the weekly market and running my family.” She explained that for over 40 years, the customers who come to her shop have been from all religions and this sort of attack had never happened. “There was harmony in our town between religions for long. But in recent times, the inter-religious harmony has been disturbed,” she said, adding, “Some of the boys who vandalised my shop grew up before my eyes and some years ago lived close to our home.”
The burning down of her shop has left Khamrunissa with a loss of nearly Rs.50,000/- when her granddaughter’s wedding is just a month away. She said she would not stop setting up her shop at the weekly market fearing the Bajrang Dal. But she seemed worried about the fear that the attack has caused in the minds of the people, which might reduce the number of customers to her shop.
The police did not register Khamrunissa’s complaint the same evening and an FIR was filed (under the IPC sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 323, 354, 427, 436 and 504) only on the next day. The police confirmed that the meat being sold at Khamrunissa’s shop was not beef.
Sakleshpur Bajrang Dal claiming responsibility, in a celebratory tone, for the attack on Khamrunissa’s canteen.
Naveen Sadaa, a reporter from a local daily named Haasana Vaani, was not allowed by the police to take photos of the vandalised and burnt-down shop. This, he says, hints at the close nexus between the police system and the Bajrang Dal in Sakleshpur. Another reporter, on condition of anonymity, told the Karwan-e-Mohabbat team that Raghu Sakleshpur, under whose leadership Sakleshpur Chalo is being organised on February 14, is a rowdy history-sheeter who has several criminal cases registered against him.
“How is such a man given police permission to hold such an event on the 14th and what is the guarantee that no violence will erupt on that day in the town?” asked the journalist. The fear of the journalist wishing to remain anonymous stems from a press note issued by Dharmesh, the Bajrang Dal President of Sakleshpur Taluk. In the note, Dharmesh accuses a journalist named Mehboob of stirring communal tension in the town by highlighting the issue of the attack on Khamrunissa’s shop.
Speaking to the Karwan-e-Mohabbat team, ex-President of the VHP’s Sakleshpur unit Jai Maaruthi Devraj said that although Raghu Sakleshpur’s team claims to be Bajrang Dal-VHP and are using the names of Bajrang Dal and VHP in organising Sakleshpur Chalo, he does not belong to either of the outfits. Raghu, he claimed, had started his own organisation named Ramadhoota Sanghatane. He added that the higher-ups in the VHP and Bajrang Dal are unaware of Raghu’s workings and they have not been taken into confidence in organising Sakleshpur Chalo.
“It has become difficult for us to oppose this since we are in solidarity with the issue but at the same time, we cannot support it also since the name of our organisation is being misused,” said Mr. Devraj.
The Bajrang Dal unit in Sakleshpur, on their Facebook page, have quoted Raghu having said in a speech at Belthangady, “Our next aim is to hoist the Bhagwa flag on Mosques.”
When reached out to, Sakleshpur MLA Mr. HK Kumarswamy said, “This is nothing new and is just an extension of what you see in Mangalore and Udupi. These are done by immature people lacking wisdom,” adding that the police was looking into the matter and would be quick to act. Later that night, the Karwan-e-Mohabbat team learnt that five people from the Bajrang Dal were arrested.
The arrested are Karthik (24), Deepu (21), Prathap (29) and Raghu (20) and a fifth whose name wasn’t revealed to protect his identity as he is a minor. The Bajrang Dal, on their Facebook page, expressed anger over the arrests and called for a protest on the following day (February 6) at 11:00 in the morning.
(This article originally published in Newscentral24x7.com was supported by the Karwan-e-Mohabbat media fellowship.)
Manja
Few days after my book rooparoopagaLanu daaTi, in which 74 poems from various languages and cultures have been translated into Kannada by me, was released in June 2016, I met a friend who is one among the few schoolmates I have stayed in touch with. This friend very casually asked, after congratulating me for the book, “In school you were never interested in reading and writing. When did the enlightenment happen finally? And why were you not interested in reading and writing back then?” I just smiled saying, “May be something was wrong with the school.”
Why I was disinterested in reading and writing in school can have various reasons; the system of education, the environment at school, my own nature, my growing up atmosphere etc. I who was disinterested in reading and writing going on to become a writer is not a great feet actually. But then at one level it is a sort of small leap given the fact that I am a second generation educated OBC boy. Still, the world need not stop and assess itself and its order of things when presented by this story of my disinterest in reading and writing, being branded as a dull student who went on to become a writer, whatever the literary quality of the writing be. But the world certainly needs to look at itself in the mirror for how the life of Manjunath, a batch-mate of mine during school, spanned out.
The school where I studied had two sections, one where the medium of instruction was English and the other where the medium of instruction was Kannada. We, for no justifiable reason, felt we were superiors and looked down upon the students who were from the Kannada section. Some of the students there had earlier studied in the primary school (Government school where the medium of instruction was Kannada) where my mother used to teach and were her students, including Manjunath who was popular as Manja.
My first memory of Manja is from the football ground where Manja was known for his rough game. Though small in physique I have always been a head-strong fellow who would never be cautious and avoid Manja. As a result of this nature of mine I was injured several times, thanks to the forceful kicks of Manja. This went on for some time.
When we were in class ten for the first time the school organized an extempore poetry writing competition. I was surprised when I went for the competition and found Manja seated on the same bench allotted to me on the other end. The reason for my surprise was that it was difficult to imagine the rough and tough aggressive football player Manja holding the pen to write poetry. We were given patriotism as the topic for writing poetry, if I remember correctly. Also I remember seeing from the corner of my eyes Manja writing poem with great concentration and focus. Its only when the results of the poetry competition were announced that I got to know that the aggressive football player Manja is also a poet!
The poem written by Manja was published in the college magazine of that academic year which was handed over to us when we went to either take admission for class eleven or take a transfer certificate to migrate to another college for class eleven. I was mighty impressed by the poem written by Manja. When I looked for him to congratulate him for the poem I got to learn that he had failed in the 10th board exam.
I did not see Manja in college and also conveniently forgot him till he suddenly I met him one day in the college. When I met him and told him how much I liked his poem he thanked me and said he had cleared the board exams in the supplementary exam and would be joining college soon opting commerce as his stream. I had opted for Arts stream and Manja and I would be in the same class for Kannada language class for the next two years. Its during this course of time that we actually got to know each other better and became friends, though we dint speak much to each other in comparison to the conversations we used to have with others separately.
When we were in class 12 one day Manja came home in search of me and speaking to me about general matters very hesitantly told me that he had written a novel and asked me if I could read it and give him my feedback. On listening to me say, “Will be happy to read it,” Manja said he would quickly go home and bring the manuscript. I said he need not go home and come back again and suggested that he and I can go together and he can give me the manuscript. He immediately changed the plan and said he would give it to me the next day in college, which made me ask then why he couldn’t have spoken about this in college. “People might listen to our conversation and that would make me uncomfortable,” he said. “Wont people know when you handover the manuscript tomorrow?” I asked Manja to which his answer was, “No. They will think it’s just a note book.” I was not able to understand why he quickly changed his mind and pushed the matter to the next day and to college. But when he forgot to bring the manuscript the next and I insisted he takes me home and hands over the manuscript that I understood why he was trying to avoid taking me home.
Manja’s house was a small shack like structure. His sister was heating water in a corner. Taking out a 200 page long note book from an old trunk Manja said, “Come lets go out and talk.” When Manja handed the book, in which he had written the novel, to me I opened it and saw the title of novel written in bold letters in blue ink on the very first page. ‘Shaanta’- was the title of his novel. “It’s a story about a lady like my mother. While writing I could see my mother in the place of the protagonist, which made me cry profusely while writing it. You read and let me know what you think of it,” said Manja and when I was about to leave added, “Be careful with the book. I don’t have another copy of this work. Its impossible to sit and write all of it again.”
I couldn’t read the novel for a long time. But finally during vacations I picked it up from my shelf and read it. I have forgotten the details of the novel by Manja which appeared very autobiographical to me back then.
After the results of class 12 was announced I went to a different city, not very from Manipal, for higher studies. I used to come home every weekend. On one such weekend Manja came home and asked me if I had read the novel and if he could take it back. On telling him that I had read it and liked it he said, “Its an ordinary story based on the life of my own family. Nothing extra ordinary,” and asked if it is readable. I said it is and he was happy. Manja went home that evening after telling me that he was doing his BA in Manipal itself and had learnt from other common friends that I had joined a college in Mangalore.
On that evening Manja had asked me if anyone would publish his book. I knew no publisher back then and said I don’t know but also told him that I would inquire and find out. But I dint inquire anyone or made any effort in finding out. Not because I dint want to but because my access and circles were limited and also because I was trying to focus more on my own growth.
In the time that followed whenever I met someone from the same college as Manja’s I would ask them for updates about Manja. But slowly my world became more and more distant from the world which I belonged to earlier and the chances of me crossing paths with older friends decreased.
Over a year and half later once while driving back home I saw Manja having tea at a push-cart shop. I stopped my scooter and went to speak to Manja who was wearing a faded shirt and lungi. He had quit college and had started working a daily wage labourer at construction sites. “It was impossible for two members from the family to get educated. So I decided to drop out because she is very bright. If I shoulder her then probably she can cross this fence. If we both try to jump then the possibilities of both not being able to cross it is higher,” said Manja. I dint know what to say. Manja bought me a cup of tea. Sipping hot tea I asked him if he still continues to write. “I had bought a fresh note book because I had a new idea for a novel. But gave that note book to my sister for she would need it in school,” said Manja. When I was about to ask him about the novel he had already written Manja cut me short to say, “It is a matter of bygone days, an old story.”
New story was flowering in the life of his sister. Manja had scripted the story of his mother’s past taking pen into his hand. To script the story of his sister’s future he had dropped the pen.
That was the last time I met Manja. I guess he left not just Manipal but also coastal Karnataka long ago. Later on when doing my masters in journalism I had written about Manja for the fortnightly magazine we had to bring out as a part of our course. Reading my piece on Manja the faculty in-charge for the fortnightly had said that the article had no story value and also went on to suggest that if it was a story about success against all odds then it could have been considered for the fortnightly.
The world which likes only success stories and “inspirational stories,” cant ever pull the courage to look at itself in the mirror of the lives of people like Manja who have been defeated by the structure of system and order of things.
Once while speaking to my mother I had asked her if she remembers Manja. She said she cant. I tried reminding of him by narrating his story. My mother who served as a teacher in Govt school for 24 years listening to the story of Manja said, “That is the story of most of my students. If they had the right atmosphere, right encouragement and right facilities they would have done so much better in life. But most of them couldn’t even complete their primary education.”
Dil Sau-Sau Ka Chutta Hai…
After watching Jagga Jasoos I kept humming the song Dil Ullu Ka Patta Hai, probably the only thing I carried back from the hall. I couldnt help but keep admiring the brilliance of Amitabh Bhatttacharya. I was particularly stuck with the line, “dil sau-sau ka chuTTa hai.” I messaged some friends about this line in particular and also how much I admire Amitabh Bhattacharya for his lines like this and how I feel deeply that he understands the characters and their emotions better than the director themselves.
Later when I fell asleep I had a special guest in my dream. No it wasnt Amitabh Bhattacharya. It was Gulzar.
I woke up wondering how Gulzar had come into my dream when I had gone to sleep thinking about and admiring Amitabh Bhattacharya!
Probably my love for Gulzar started feeling insecure after witnessing my high appreciation and admiration for Amitabh Bhattacharya, especially because this time the heart was declaring that it comes and goes like a change of hundred rupees!
Love is independent with its own desires and insecurities, beyond us, though a part of us. Isnt it?
Creative Coincidental Kinship~ 3
It was 13th November 2016. I was sitting in the hostel and trying to work when Dharmakeerthi called to ask if I would be interested in watching an experimental play in Marathi. My first response was in the negative because I wouldn’t follow Marathi. But I changed my mind in no time when Dharma told me the play is titled White Rabbit Red Rabbit, a play about which Shrunga had spoken to me, while in Bangalore, couple of months ago.
The play white Rabbit Red Rabbit written by Nassim Soleimanpour , I was told earlier by Shrunga and by Dharma that evening, is a unique experiment in theater where the play if handed over to the actor for the first time in a sealed cover on the stage in the presence of the audience and s/he is expected to perform while s/he discovers the play while reading it aloud on the stage and performing as per the instruction given by the writer. The play is played only once by a performer and each time a new performer does the play. The prerequisite for the performance is that the performer, before the play, should not know anything about the pay before the performance. The performer is sent a mail 48 hours before the performance where they are told to bring a bottle of water with them and come prepared with an animal impression.
Thus the play opens as a mystery not just to the audience but also the performer.
What grounds this experimental world on earth is the primary reason that led this play to be designed in this fashion. Nassim Soleimanpour, an Iranian, refused to enroll for national service and was forbidden to leave his native Iran for the same. So when restricted from moving outside Iran this theater artist decided to make his words his play travel without him yet with him and wrote the play White Rabbit Red Rabbit, which as he himself says could, “find a way around the Iranian structure of supervising the performing arts.”
Dharma came to pick me up slightly over an hour before the time scheduled for the play to begin. Demonetization had just crashed on all our lives and neither Dharma nor I had money in hand to buy tickets. Dharma requested the organizers to let us pay the next day or on one of the days following and permit us to watch the play that evening. The organizers agreed gracefully.
That evening the play was to be performed by the celebrated Marathi theater and screen artist Atul Pethe. As we waited for the play to begin Dharma told me that Alok Rajwade had earlier performed the same play. Alok was with us waiting for the performance to begin.
Unlike all other plays the performance of White Rabbit Red Rabbit encourages the audience to keep their mobile phones switched on because one “might need to use it,” and begins by uniting all, the audience and also the performer, in a shared experience of nervous excitement.
This feeling of nervous excitement which is quite paradoxical, kind of captures the nature of White Rabbit Red Rabbit which is paradoxical and through the paradox quite profound.
The play handed over in a sealed packet stands as a metaphor for the closed worlds and secrecy of the state and authority which through such secrecy not just secludes people but also controls them. While the uncertainty of what is going to happen reflects the uncertainty of life in a repressed society the overwhelming presence of the voice of the author dictating terms not just to the performer but also the audience speaks of how unknown voices, given the stature of authority/ author controls our movement or non-movement through its demand of obedience. At the same time when the actor speaks for the author introducing himself/ herself as Nassim Soleimanpour we see, in a strange way, how censorship works i.e. someone starts to speak through the individual stripping them of their voice.
The structure of the play certainly echoes these ideas, also because of the circumstances under which it was written, though the author says the play which is ‘meeting of social experiment and theater experiment’ only his exploration of the ideas of obedience and collective behavior.
On the flip side of this dark reality told in a gripping way through secrecy and mystery, the play speaks of possibilities within such a restricted, repressive and restrained given reality.
The sealed packet reaching the hand of the performer, to begin with, gives the first hope about words still being able to be transported to the performer even when the author is not allowed to move out of his native. When the performer begins to read the script, s/he, “I am Nassim Soleimanpour,” it shows the transformative power art holds within itself, where the performer becomes the author and author performs through the performer. This, in a way, also hints that the author, the performer, the audience all could be the same kind of individuals in similar situation of life/ world.
The author at one point says, “I can’t see you or hear you, but I consider you somewhere in my imagined world and I write to you.” This while shows the power of imagination it also shows the transgression made possible through word through art. When the author says he had written the play on 25 April 2010 and says he doesn’t know when and where the performance is taking place, the author and the play starts to hint about words being able to travel in time thus sculpting story and history in time and making it travel across space and time.
When Nassim, the author, says through the performer, “I have not seen you but have met you,” he challenges the authority and its power by making his play, a piece of art, turn into a creation of human bond across space and time. He further extends this bond when he invites the audience to write to him and send him photographs of the play. He also promises to respond to the mails “if alive.” This uncertainty of his life, while chokes the audience it also shows the immortality of words and art, which continues to survive beyond the author and tell the story of a particular phase of history in a given land.
While it looks like experimental play it is also an experiential play because the anxiety, authority and uncertainty of a condition of living is made to experience, though in a diluted way, by the audience and the performer and are also made to experience the possibility of breaking such structures through art and words.
The play, through author’s personal anecdotes and through a fable of animals, speaks of freedom, censorship, life and death, obedience, passivity, compliance and the power of communication. By blurring the lines between fact and fiction, performance and actuality and primarily between him and us the author breaks walls and unites the divided word at the level of experience and makes the performer and the audience realize that he, in his closed atmosphere, and we in our closed theater are still connected and a collective.
The play unites the author and the audience not only through the performer but also by making the audience a part of the performance. In a beautiful way of breaking the fourth wall the author prompts the performer to make the audience to count numbers in succession and then making the performer invite audience of some designated numbers to come on stage and perform tasks, take notes, keep time etc. Thus a strange bond takes place between the author, the performer and the audience where the gap between time, country and on-stage and off-stage breaks, uniting everyone in a single thread.
While watching the play with rapt attention because of my inability to understand Marathi I was put into a strange situation when the author Nassim Soleimanpour instructed the performer Athul Pethe to invite number 15 on stage, which was me! I politely told Atul Pethe that I don’t follow Marathi and hence it is better if he invites someone else. While for everyone else only the content was not known, for me even the language in which the content was being expressed was unknown, causing extra nervous excitement. My refusal to get on to the stage was not accepted by Atul Pethe who insisted I come on stage. He said he would translate the instructions to English for me. “Have faith in me, I will help you,” said Athul Pethe, reminding of a performer in US who when interviewed before the performance of White Rabbit Red Rabbit had said, “I am trusting them to not humiliate me.” My fear was not just of being humiliated but also unwillingly, because of my language limitation, diluting the seriousness of the play. But then Athul Pethe was inviting me to invest trust in him who had invested trust in Nassim Soleimanpour to help him navigate through this unique experience of performance. I was confused. I looked at Dharma who was sitting next to me who through mild gesture said I should get on to the stage.
after the performance with the performer Atul Pethe
I went on stage and had to become a bear, on stage, and act with a few other audiences who were also invited on stage, along with Atul Pethe. While everyone else on the stage was following Marathi the instructions for me had to be translated. A play which was originally written in English and translated to Marathi for a Marathi audience was being partially translated back to English! Thankfully it was that part of the play which was meant to be funny. My not knowing Marathi and standing still with no reaction when the instruction was first being read, which the audience understood, added to the humor. The spontaneous translation of Atul Pethe for me and my response which was a delayed response for the audience made the audience involved enactment of a rabbit going to a film without play and a bear checking tickets in the hall, appear more funny.
When the play got over that night Dharma took me to Atul Pethe and introduced me to him. Atul Pethe said, “It was fun to have you on stage.” I smiled and shook hands with him for I dint have anything much to say for I did not understand some of the nuances of the play spoken in Marathi. But I was overwhelmed the fact that a Nassim Soleimanpour who wrote a play in English in Iran had instructed Atul Pethe, who he has never met, in Marathi to invite me, a Marathi illiterate, to come on stage and instructed, in Marathi, to perform some actions, which I had performed after the words were translated to English.
Nassim Soleimanpour’s play which creates anxiety, nervousness and excitement in everyone who watches it and performs it had managed to do the same to me in more than one level, not just through its form and content but also through language. In that I felt more close to the play, the performer and the author!
Crazy Mind's Eye 