Re-imaging, Re-imagining

I have been wondering of late if I was 'meant' to be a writer, and if my recent foray into the world of filmmaking and cinema theory is a broadening of my creative interests, or if I'm simply losing focus. Then I began reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, and after only about twenty-five pages, have a new-found appreciation of writing for all kinds of artists, and of the image for all sorts of writers.

What I am doing these days is a lot of blogging, writing for my personal journal and thesis, but also creating a scrapbook of memories to include as the opening sequence in my documentary. I have so far shied away from images of myself in the film, but now realise that this is crucial to tell a story that is both honest and poetic. Such a re-imaging of the past in the present, then, is a re-imagining of the journey that me and others like me interviewed in the documentary have undertaken. Why do we need to re-image and re-imagine our private and collective stories? Perhaps the desired effect is a refraction of my/our experiences, a re-contextualisation rather than a de-territorialisation. The originary place of our socio-cultural milieu may be geographically removed, but it continues to be reinvented in the new spaces that our bodies and minds now inhabit.

Diaspora and Dispersal

I have nearly finished interviewing people for my documentary titled, I Journey Like a Paisley, and am now well on my way to editing it into a coherent piece of cinema that articulates the Indian-Australian experience through my individualised artistic lens. What have I learned from these interviews that is different from my academic research into diaspora theory and cultural practice? Is there a single, unequivocal message? Who is my audience? Why am I passionate about this story?

Perhaps what I have to acknowledge first and foremost is that it is indeed my own experience of living away from the land of my birth (an experience that is gradually acquiring diasporic undertones) which has fuelled my interest in diasporic narrative(s). But an old feeling tells me I was curious about diasporic writers, filmmakers and members of my extended family living abroad even when I was 'wholly Indian'. Why did the Deepa Mehtas and Mira Nairs always haunt my dreams and linger on the horizons of my imagination? A worshipper of Arundhati Roy's brand of writerly-activism in my teenage years, I was still more puzzled by the likes of Salman Rushdie, and continue to be fascinated by his amalgamation of recklessness and wisdom. Reading his book of essays called Imaginary Homelands while undertaking a third-year university course on world literature, I figured I was always drawn to the idea of home(s) away from home(s), probably destined to wander.

Wandering reminds me of a story my grandmother told me on my last trip to India. Always keeping me up-to-date on Sikh folklore, she said that once Guru Nanak went with one of his disciples to a village where the locals treated him indifferently. On his way out, he wished the villagers well, saying may they stay here and prosper. In the next village he visited, he was showered with respect and gratitude. This time, he wished the villagers left their abode and dispersed. The perplexed disciple was told that the latter set of villagers were good-at-heart, and hence it was better for the world if they wandered around and shared their spirit. The former village folk, on the contrary, were better off staying put and not polluting others' with their negativity.

And thus, I believe wandering spirits have a higher purpose. Sometimes, however, evidence of extremism or frozen cultural practices amongst those living in the diaspora (Indian and others) questions my faith in the liberalism of transnational populations. Aren't there bad apples everywhere though? While academia tell me that diasporic citizens are merely 'complex', one of my interviewees proclaims himself a 'confused desi'. What do I think/feel? The path becomes less muddled as time passes - choices are made both consciously and sub-consciously, accents are shed and acquired in context, clothes and jewellery learn to make adjustments. Hence, I have come to view the diasporic experience as an ongoing negotiation rather than a confusion of values or a complexity of heritage. It is a process of self-discovery, creative-expression and knowledge-sharing that is as enriching as enlightenment itself, provided you do not succumb to the pitfalls of nostalgia for the motherland, contempt for anything ostensibly foreign, or an uncritical attitude towards the economic and social advantages of the new society. This is my message of hope from the diaspora, but it is for everyone. The message is not new, but I/we have travelled far and wide to disperse it. The stories of our diasporic lives are a testament to this dispersal of humanity, of universal values, of cross-cultural sharing (not just understanding or co-existence).

Slumdog Millionaire (Dir. Danny Boyle)

There was a whole lot of Gen Y jargon occupying my headspace as I sat down to watch a preview session of this internationally-acclaimed co-production. My mind was a mish-mash of emotions and questions, more real that usual because I was on the brink of a decision. Am I, a tertiary-educated, well-travelled, career and family-oriented 20-something woman making the right choice(s)?

And then I was confronted by the image of a boy in the slums of Mumbai, covered in shit (there isn't a sophisticated way of putting it), and sprinting to get an autograph of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. This image was disgusting and endearing at the same time and set the tone for the rest of the film - about rags and riches, money and love, God and death, tourist and native, class and power, violence and envy. There are countless movies of all genres in the market on the above themes, but what sets Slumdog Millionaire apart is its unabashed representation of the most gory details of poverty and its accompanying ills. Thus, my dilemmas began to dissipate in the grime and sheer reality of the streets of Mumbai. The director invited me to take up the point of view of his three musketeers - Salim, his brother Jamal, and Jamal's sweetheart Latika, so I accepted the invitation.

The part of the film I enjoyed the most was the orphaned brothers' adventures through India - riding on trains and hanging off the roof of one to steal a passenger's chappati through a window, inventing novel ways of making money by stealing shoes and embezzling foreign tourists at the Taj Mahal, working in local restaurants and re-filling old mineral water bottles. Needless to say, one had no choice but to surrender western notions of morality to empathise with the boys and applaud their ingenuity. However, morality of all kinds was put under a cloud when Salim, by then an adolescent, decided to have Latika to himself after rescuing her from the hands of her evil benefactor who he shot, and subsequently throwing his naive younger brother Jamal out of the hotel room where the trio were putting up. Betrayal of blood, of family! What do we do now? We stood by Jamal as his 18-year old self alternatively sat in a police officer's chair and the contestant's seat on India's 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire?' and flashed back to the confronting stories of his past. Did he win the coveted prize money? Was he even after the money? What about Latika? Why was he being questioned by a cop? What was his destiny?

I will deliberately leave the aforementioned questions unanswered so your curiosity bones are tickled and you have adequate motivation to go watch the film when it is officially released in Australia on 18 December. All I can say is that I liked it probably because it is a film of this generation - not overtly stylistic like a Deepa Mehta or Mira Nair work, not escapist like most of commercial Hollywood and Bollywood, and not pretentiously cerebral like some art cinema. Slumdog Millionaire is an in-your-face and on-your-skin kind of film - let it in or leave it out!

Tossing

I find myself tossing between extremes

A meditation retreat and a holiday in Sydney

A treatise on film and experiential cinema

A spiritual read and a style magazine

A physical craving and emotional detachment.

But are they really so dialectical

If they are present in me 

And assert themselves 

With equal vigour?

Perhaps I don't toss

But flow.

Fall

Rise

Tide over

Tide out

Double up

Cross over

Sprinkle 

Fold

Free

Prudes and Prejudices

Six years ago, I remember driving out of a posh Hyde Park cafe with a university pal and casually mentioning that it would be boring to tie the knot with someone of the same ethnicity/background. My friend, a few years older and a bit more factually-oriented (perhaps as a direct result of being male) correctly pointed out that most people marry within the same post code. How unimaginative, I thought! Three years later, I had a reference from popular culture to add to my strengthening belief in the appeal of being and being with someone 'wild'. It was the scene from Sex and the City (yes, again) where Big is getting married to a 26-year old and Carrie walks up to him and asks why it wasnt' her. He is non-commital, and finally says that it just got too hard, after which she brushes off the hair falling on his forehead, and repeats the much-acclaimed line - "Your girl is lovely, Hubble". The episode ends with a usual Carrie-esque epiphany, but this time she is not pining away for a man, simply acknowledging the possibility that maybe she just wants to be free and run wild until she finds someone who can be wild with her. Kudos to kinky-haired girls!

Now, a certain degree of practical experience later, I am wondering if I (and many of my fellow women) are so open-minded and kinky after all. Can we, for instance, date someone so different from the way we were brought up that their good qualities overshadow our own prejudices? A conversation with a stranger who turned out to be a blue-collar worker made me realise that I am more conditioned by my class and upbringing that I am willing to admit. The man in question was quick to point out that I must be upper-caste Indian because of my proper English. (An aside - questions/remarks to do with the Indian caste system, arranged marriage, and Bollywood do not constitute good pick-up lines or initmate conversation topics). While the formative years spent poring over Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens and others have contributed to this 'properness' (or an illusion of it anyway), I can't help but wonder a) if this is a reaction to dissociate oneself from any assumptions about a rustic brand of 'Indianness', and b) whether being well-read and worldly can free one completely from the often prudish attitudes of the birth culture.

Case in point is a character named 'Prudie' in the film, The Jane Austen Book Club. Prudie is a French teacher who is ashamed of the fact that she has never been to France and who, according to her bohemian mother, dresses like a flight attendant. Not only has she gone the other way because of her hippy commune upbringing, but she is also constantly finding fault with her neanderthal husband. An episode of lust towards a student makes her wonder if her mother is dormant within her, although she eventually chooses to stay loyal. Perhaps the moral then (if there is any such unequivocal 'thing' as a moral) is that all one can do is not beat oneself up about what one is or isn't. True open-mindedness lies is recongnising the limitations of the self as much as being empathetic to the flaws of the other. Prejudices welcome...

iPause (Intro)

I have flirted with ‘Atheism’, ‘Buddhism’ and everything in between during the last eight years of living away from my parents’ home, but feel the time is now ripe to ‘settle down’. These flirtations have often been the consequence of beliefs and opinions held by current and former nears and dears, alongside the desire to be unethnically cool. However, their shallow roots in my heart now lay exposed, and the soil of my soul is seeking a new seed. This seed better be mine if it is to yield a lifetime of resilience and contentment. What is this seed? What is its texture and colour? What is MY opinion on/of God?

I look through school photos as well as pictures of my early years in Australia and see a recognizable but not entirely familiar face staring back. That girl is an unmistakable nerd in her loosely fitted clothes, her round glasses, her plaited hair and her intellectually timid demeanor. This girl, even though ‘academic’, as pointed out recently by a good friend, is no longer the Goody two-shoes idealistic achiever of her younger years. She/I now would rather read a classy women’s mag or bead a bohemian necklace on a lazy Sunday afternoon than attempt to finish my tutorial readings before time or brush up on the latest in US politics. I would rather babysit my best friend’s ten-year old brother (even if it involves successive defeats on Playstation car games) than lock myself in a room and write an impassioned piece on the trauma faced by first and second-generation immigrants. Where is the career woman, the Miranda (of Sex and the City fame) that I always envisaged myself to be? Why do I feel like a mixture of Carrie and Charlotte? What is MY destiny as a young woman who wants a balance between enjoyment of material comforts, devotion to worldly causes and the pursuit of creativel hobbies?

I am sporting a fringe after years of having nothing but long, dark, straight, and increasingly boring hair. After experimenting with hair scarves, layers, partings, side ponytails, I was simply looking for something more expressive of me. This ‘radical’ new hairstyle received a warm reception from friends and colleagues in Adelaide, but I was wary of the reactions it would provoke back home. To my pleasant surprise, my parents did not utter a word of protest and my can’t-keep-anything-to-herself sister said I looked like a doll. Me? A doll? I took this well, but when my mum later commented on her eldest daughter being a firang (foreigner), I was taken aback. True, I will celebrate my sixth anniversary of being in Australia in early 2009, but I love Indian textiles, silver jewellery, Mughalai cuisine, anarchic politics, Hinglish writers, Sufi musicians and other cultural artifacts even more than most ‘Indian Indians’. Perhaps this nostalgia, this romanticized notion of India’s highest potential is what makes me a foreigner in the land of my birth. Perhaps my now-persistent whining about the smallness of Adelaide and the back-of-beyondness of Australia implies that I am actually mirroring the regular Aussie whinger. Perhaps I just need to stop thinking about where I belong, and ask a more pertinent question. What is MY culture as a hyphenated, globe-trotting, transnational citizen?

It all began with a literal pause...a night when everything around me seemed to be in slow motion. After initially dismissing it as a simple case of fatigue, I spoke about 'it' to a few good friends, all of whom recognised it was a larger malaise, perhaps along the lines of an 'existential crisis'. Sounds like a post-modern Agatha Christie mystery? Well, it gets better. For there were no love notes or last letters, but there was a new life. Encouraged by friends and colleagues, I decided to travel to India for a couple of months and take a real 'break'. Cliched it may be, but I began to look at the trip as a 'spiritual journey', although it later acquired emotional and intellectual dimensions, thereby convincing me that spirituality is integral to a fulfilling personal and creative life. Amongst the holiday reads I took along was a best-selling book by Elizabeth Gilbert called 'Eat, Pray, Love'. Another cliche perhaps, but it worked. And the first song that played on my iPod as I sat on the flight back to India was Joni Mitchell's 'I get the urge for going, but I never seem to go'.

I went, paused, came back. I still try to pause everyday. Not to reflect on my day, or analyse my situation, or judge those around me, but just to sense the present moment. Call it meditation, or positive thinking, or a love of life, all I know is that it is immensely empowering and calming at the same time. It has given me my grace back, and endowed me with gumption.

And so I have decided to write a non-linear book called 'iPause' to understand the pause and share the journey. Sounds like an Apple gadget with a bohemian spin? Well, I'm not getting paid by Steve Jobs or the Dalai Lama. They can donate a spare Mac and a speck of Elightenment if they like...

The Inner Glow-Torch

The inner glow-torch that

e x t e n d s

from the pit of my stomach

to the sheath underneath my facial skin

and produces a luminescence

that no amount of good food can explain

and no creams can re-create

beacause it comes from knowing that someone

is loving me and watching over me

every hour of every day

so that I can give and receive love

graciously

and be grateful

for the light

in my inner and outer lives

that is really

just one

life

Race and Gender

We Journey like a Paisley (Intro)

This film is a snippet in time. It is an attempt to capture the lives of young people of Indian origin or ethnicity living in Adelaide in the spring of 2008.

What does this spring being forth? What do these lives bring forth? How do I, as a fellow Indian living in Adelaide, as an interviewer cum director cum country cousin cum peer function in such a situation? 

I am exploring where I belong through their belongings, as well discovering their multiple affiliations through our shared location. They have journeyed. I have journeyed. The film is a testament to our past journeys, as well as a beacon for the journeys yet to come. This film is a paisley - fluid yet shapeful, rooted yet cross-cultural. This journey is a paisley. We journey like a paisley...

What is the genre of my life?

If I were to write a screenplay of my life and pitch it to a potential producer, how would I describe it? How would I sell it? How would I make it short and sweet? Would it be a comedy or a tragedy, or something in-between? Would it be a sophisticated Woody Allen take on the cosmopolitan lifestyle of a 20-something female lead in a leafy Adelaide setting? Would it be packed with Martin Scorcese twists and turns in the life of an adveturous young woman in a home away from home? Would it be the subject of a Gurinder Chadha drama on the funny and no-so-funny aspects of being a modern Indian woman? Would it be a Richard Linklater conversation between a smart lady and a bright gentleman at the transit lounge of an international airport? Would it be a Karan Johar extravaganza with a blooming girl who breezes through life by dancing at Hindu weddings and in Swiss streets with equal aplomb? Would it be a new-Bollywood Farhan Akhtar flick packed with friends, lovers and the self-discovery of youth in a swish urban background?

I wish there were a genre called 'life'. And that would make life easier for all kinds of writers, directors and agents. Ne need to explain a plot that doesn't have an end. No need to apologise for a heroine who can look good and think. No need to hide the objects of affection that arrived before the soulmate. No need to elaborate on other-worldly cultural references and colours. No need to load every spoken word with a formal statement of intent. No need to push characters beyond their paper existence.

Experience and instinct tell me that good writing must have clarity as well as elegance. So here's my pitch - I want to make an ordinary film about an ordinary life, and the audience can decide if it's special. The life I want to depict is ordinary because there is a lot of reading, writing, talking, eating, loving and leaving involved. The film I want to make about this life is ordinary because it will use cameras, tripods, microphones, lighting, computers and editing equipment. And hence, you must invest in it because it will transcend its ordinaridess in its specificity. Every detail will be illuminated until it becomes the centre of your audio-visual universe. Logic and meaning will arise from lingering, not cutting. You will feel texture in two dimensions.