Laxmi and Me

The Bombay 'Bai' is quite a famous caricature. MTv uses it in it's promos 'bai' now become 'bhai', a desi pun on the word 'by'. Maids are different all over, in Bengal for example one encounters mild mannered soft-spoken maids, artistic and ladylike, while the cankerous, rough speech and agressive behaviour of the Maharashtrian bai's has been used as comic relief in many films. Maids are an integral part of Indian household and and their lives and habits have often offered rich material for scripts and manuscripts.

Laxmi and Me is a film shot by Nishtha Jain of her 20 yr old part time maid Laxmi and explores the life of a maid in Bombay. It is an unusual film, not so much so because of the subject but because it puts the filmmaker, who is the employer into the picture as well. There are various documentaries and stories which deal with the plight of the poor workers from different classes of society, but usually the filmmakers use the camera and script from a superior platform. In this particular film it was refreshing to see the subject and the filmmaker put on the same plane.By doing so, the story breaks away from the mold of pontificating on how the 'other side' lives but throws up an interesting plethora of issues while exploring the relationship between Laxmi, the maid and Nishtha Jain who is filming her.

In daily life few people acknowledge the role of the maid in the house. She comes, cooks, cleans, does the laundry and the dishes, is always a flitting presence in our lives, from one room to another, but in most cases we know her just as 'Bai'. In this film Nishtha Jain becomes involved in Laxmi's life, seeing her not only as a maid but in her many roles as a daughter, sister, friend, wife and eventually mother.

At first we are just shown the drudgery of her life. She works close to 14 hours a day cleaning and cooking in about 10 households, goes back home and does the same in her house. She works for a pittance, often puts in extra hours without any extra pay, and can hardly ever take a day off, even when she is ill and pregnant. There is no union for maids as a result they cannot bargain for standardized pay, work hours, holidays or benefits. They know if they demand better working conditions they will be easily replaced by ten other girls in similar circumstances willing to take their place.

Over the 2 and half years of filming many bonds are formed and lines blurred between the employee and the employer, but the class divide is so deeply ingrained in us that it startles you at first when seated at the same dining table as her employer, Laxmi considers herself Black and her employer as White! Another profound moment is when Laxmi is on leave and Nishtha while cleaning the floors herself wonders “Why it is so difficult for us to get down on our knees.”

Slowly as Laxmi lets Nishtha into her life, one's concepts of modernity and education get a jolt. You see that in spite of being uneducated, she is less inhibited than educated woman , she is the man of her household, makes her own decision and is even the first one to propose marriage to a boy her family is against because of the difference in castes. In contrast we are shown another lady who employs Laxmi, and who in spite of being educated, well off and 'modern' sits in the house playing solitaire. Laxmi on the other hand has the courage and clarity of thought to decide to have her baby even if she has to take care of it alone. A decision many of us so called modern educated woman would not take.

In the end though I think Laxmi was far luckier than most girls in her circumstances. Few would stand a chance of survival with being pregnant, thrown out of the house, afflicted with TB and Chicken Pox and still working 14 hours a day and then in the end being abandoned by one's husband because of typical male prejudices, ALL at one go.

Laxmi and Me has beautiful clean shots and has been skillfully edited, it unassumingly covers caste, gender , class and poverty without sermonizing.

Ignorance is Bliss: ( April 2006)

The dyed lock of hair twisted around the gigantic nose ring is the symbol of a married woman in this tiny village in the interiors of Kutch,India. Cut off from civilization, located in the scorching 'banni' area with only a herd of 250 goats and a seasonal well, no industry, not even a carpenter or ironsmith for that matter, theirs is a resigned, peaceful existence by virtue of not knowing anything better. A huge contrast to the wretched existence of the urban poor, who see progress but are not part of it.

Between the Lines

The best buys are the ones that you stumble upon-that is the experience which a stroll through the cool hushed ambiance of the Pune Book Fair provides one with. Having missed the fair this year I have fond memories of it from last year. Though not on the grand lines of the New Delhi and Kolkatta book fairs, the Pune Book Fair provides an important meeting ground for publishers, booksellers, book distributors, librarians, professionals, academicians and book-lovers. It cater to people with more distinct taste and expectations in literature. The topics and themes on display are slightly offbeat and many in vernacular languages which makes the event a wonderful platform for smaller or individual publishers to display their books. In turn this also offers book-lovers a truly diverse linguistic and quantitative experience, which was evident at the venue, where, books on Konkani literature, classic erotica and Falun Dafa, the banned and brutally persecuted practice in China, were all on offer, often at throwaway prices. The exhibition, held every year at Ganesh Kala Krida manch hosts over a 100 stalls; few of which stand out more than the others. Ebrahim Aghajari, who was pursuing his Ph.D in engineering and instrumentation in Pune, ran the stall on Iranian culture. Aghajari guides you through the intricacies of Persian, Urdu and Arabic literature and the wonders of ancient cities of Tehran, and Kashan in Isfahan. He spoke softly but passionately about his country and it's rich heritage of architecture, some old worn coffee table books with gorgeous pictures of the old city backed his claim. As I finally tore myself away from the exotic books and warm conversation he presented me with a quaint booklet on Iran. In complete contrast to this quiet corner is the Lokayat, a stall that bursts with revolutionary literature, slogans and posters. Be it a dissertation on Nandigram, writings of Noam Chomsky, documentaries on Godhra riots, Ayodhya issue or discussions on our post-modern world, it is sure to find a place here. Magazines play a prominent part in this fair too. Rohan Book Centre which houses magazines from across the globe, is a place where one can pick up original copies of Vogue and National Geographic for a steal, apart from other lesser known but equally interesting foreign journals and publications.I found a unique copy of Black and White photography for 50 bucks. Adjacent to it is the Heritage India stall, a Pune based publication. Each page contains a slice of India's rich and varied heritage from wildlife to art and history. The magazine is beautifully packaged with high quality photographs. The Vivek Book Depot and Pragati Book Centre are also places where with patience one can unearth good second hand books. The former especially stocks classics by Henry James, Daniel Defoe and William Makepeace Thackeray. The fair abounds in vernacular literature, be it philosophy or mythology based comic books, all is on offer in Hindi and Marathi. World Health Organization (WHO) also makes its presence felt, disseminating health information and researched publications on health problem in Africa and South – East Asia. Pune book fair is truly a hunting ground for bibliophiles. I went to the Iranian stall again on the last day to show Aghajari his article in the newspaper, but it was time for Namaz and he was in the an empty stall praying, so I left the clipping with his wife. It was sad to hear that this year this stall, sponsored by the Iran Culture House did not even sell one book on it's first day.

Flu Fanatics

Fee fi fo fum, the flu has come, the flu has come.

Classes shut, masks on

lazy,faceless existance dawned!

We hardly see faces anymore, only eyes peeking out from different coloured masks. The masks have equalized masses, on the streets atleast. Everyone, irrespective of clothing, looks the same, from a bus driver to college students to bankers. The streets of Pune have become quite interesting really. A sort of bubble of faceless existence. Never has eye contact and expression been so integral to interpret non-verbal communication. When you see the guy at the bus-stand, the girl sitting in class, or the car driver at the cross-roads when you are about to cross, you only see the slits for eyes, what are they thinking, are they friendly or hostile or indifferent? Is he going to let me cross or run me down?. Late last night while returning home I saw 4 boys kidding around on bikes , taking chances and riding risky, and all 4 had medical masks on, it just seemed a strange sight for some reason.

The last one week has been a mad frenzy where nothing has been left to imagine. The swine flu epidemic seems to be mutating into the flu news epidemic. The worst part of it is the derogatory way in which the media has maligned reputations of all those associated with Reeda Sheikh's death that occurred in Pune. While the grief of the bereaved family is understandable, the pointing of fingers at private practitioners, always a soft target, for treating an epidemic of a new kind is not. We as inhabitants of this city see the monumental task that the medical authorities are coping with, for every person tested positive doctors painstakingly track all the people they have been in contact with and start treatment. In Reeda Sheikh's case that was 80 odd people, in some it is more. Now that the flu has mutated into a community virus where contact cannot be traced the doctor's job has become all the more complicated.

Doctors should be shown respect and consideration and not be threatened and driven into a corner. Sensational journalism will put the safety of countless of individuals at stake. No doctor will feel safe to attend to a patient, fearing backlash. The obvious course will be to shunt the patient to the nearest government hospital to deal with the increasing number of swine flu cases. At the best of times our government hospitals are over burdened, during a crisis like this, one can only imagine then how inadequately, the sheer increase in the volume of patients will be screened. I am sure some of the positive cases will return to the community provoking a further spread of the epidemic.

According to a recent World Health Organization report there are at least 162,380 cases of swine flu reported worldwide, of the 338 deaths reported in the last week of July 300 were in the Americas, given these static, a developing nation like India has done a fair job in setting up a rough but working infrastructure and medical services to contain the outbreak. I wish the media would put some sanity into the thinking. Communication based on rational guidelines and advisory should be sent to every hospital. The medical fraternity needs to be strengthened by positive journalism to give rise to a logical thought process which may lead to effective control of this serious problem and not hounded after every death.

p.s ( With healthcare being in the news so much these days, Im wondering what happened to the G.P or general practitioner? Everybody seems to be going to hospitals and clinics and health-care has become a very machinized, factory process. I remember in Calcutta there was a very strong tradition of family doctors, general practitioners who treated the same families for generations. They not only know your case history but your fathers and grandfathers as well. The nuggets of information prove very useful in diagnose. Also since these doctors would visit families in the same area they formed an important part of the social fabric, respecting patients confidentiality, but still a part of gossip, births, marriages, illness and deaths. G.P's were quite a cozy, reassuring concept._)

Graduation

"WHAT KIND OF AN IDEA ARE YOU? Are you the kind that compromises, does deals, accommodates itself to society, aims to find a niche, to survive; or are you the cussed, bloody-minded, ramrod-backed type of damnfool notion that would rather break than sway with the breeze? The kind that will almost certainly, ninety-nine times out of hundred, be smashed to bits; but, the 100th time, will change the world."

- Salman Rushdie, 'Satanic Verses'

And then there were none.....

(I had written this at some obscene hour of the night after watching Gulaal when it released and forgotten to post it.)

Bollywood ( I refuse to call it Indian film Industry or whatever cause that is long gone, rather struggling to survive), eats up cinematic revolutions on the brink of take off. Glitzy, glamorous bollywood is obsessed with creating non entities like Katrina Kaif, Sonam Kapoor, Imran Khan and Randheer Kappor and countless others into instant celebrities. Honestly speaking neither Abhishek Bachchan nor John Abraham, Aishwarya and even Kareena deserve half the status that has been accorded to them. They may be celebrities, but they are not fine actors. This aggressive marketing and branding of cast and film taints whatever it touches.

We had Nagesh Kucknoor who started of with Hyderabad Blues and continued with refreshing scripts like Rockford and 3 Deewarein. As long as the media admired him from a distance and there were more magazines than newspapers interviewing him, Iqbal and Dor made it out safely. Then he was lauded and labelled, it is when bollywood says you've arrived that you ought to be wary, no sooner had he firmly established himself than did Bombay to Bangkok release, which in spite of two fine actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Shreyas Talpade was a mind numbing horror and then Tasveer,which I don't know how many of you paid to watch, but I certainly did not.

Similarly no sooner did Rakeshy Omparakash Mehra finish with Aks and RDB, than Delhi 6 started showing signs of being sucked into the vortex.No sooner did Farhan Akhtar create the gentle DCH and quirky Lakshya, than he went and made Don. Ashutosh Gowarikar takes the cake, with first the Oscar nominated Lagaan, then clean and controlled Swades and then wasting 3 hours of people's lives with Jodhaa-Akbar The only good I see coming of this trend is that it may have an opposite impact on Karan Johar who will hopefully surprise us by making films instead of sets.

But the saddest loss, if indeed he looses himself will be Anurag Kashyap. After creating sheer cinematic fun like Black Friday and Dev -D, we see Gulaal colouring his judgement ,of when much is toooo much. He needs to change tack and fast. Enough of the repeated highlighting on smokes and liquor, the pointed (very wannabe) scenes of rolling joints and smoking ganja, you are cool and give a damn, we get it and we also liked it but can you do more than that?

Gulaal was the limit, Dev D stamps all over Gulaal with the neon bar-lighting fixation, sexual implications and portrayal of woman. It is hard to figure out where Dev D leaves and Gulaal begins at times. The movie had so many brilliant aspects if picked out individually but seemed forced into coercion in the film. If only he had focused on the rural student socio- political story line, which was the theme of the film. What was the need of a jilted maniacal lover going berserk in the end or of both the female characters, Mahi Gill and Jesse Randhwa, who just kept slipping in and out of scenes. The eunuch was an unusual touch and not uninteresting, but what was the point? Yeah I get that Kashyap loves placing hidden metaphors in his film, but this one seemed to be about the metaphors gaining precedence over the main plot.

The film is still extremely watchable with sizzling performances by (in order of what I enjoyed the most) Piyush Mishra, Kay Kay Menon, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal and Ayesha Mohan. Ayesha Mohan may not be upto scratch but I did think it was remarkable that she held her own amongst a cast of show-stealers in a debut performance! Deepak Dobriyal is a quiet bundle of surprise, it took me several moments to realize that Bhatti(Gulaal), Kareena's fiance in Omakara and the Halwai in Delhi 6 were all played by him! Besides, the soundtrack is just mind blowing. Piyush Mishra is a genius, whether as an actor or as a lyricist. An entertaining film no doubt but it's just painful to watch the brilliance in it being clouded over by the exuberance of a pot-ridden brain. Let's hope bollywood doesn't suck this one in as well.

Rub-a dub-dub

Rub--dub-dub Three men in the tub, A butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker, If the tub would have been stronger My tale would have been longer.

The Great Indian Transport System One of the innumerable ghats of the Ganga. Cooking Boat Nav ka Bawarchi: People called home with tears in their eyes, describing the taste of freshly caught and cooked shrimp. Blogger uploading KILLS the pictures... so please click on the pics for a better view.