Wake, my cherished daughter, And see who waits at your door. Step forward, welcome it warmly -- This dawn, a guest meant for your heart.
Dawn is a dense foliage, alive with its flame. Look how it rushes to embrace you. Pluck it from the sky, let its glow Fill the vase of your waiting soul.
Inhale the sacred scent it offers, A divine aroma to ease your sorrow. Exhale your grief into the morning light, For your heart -- steadfast and jewelled -- endures.
Through every shadow, my love remains, A constant light to ease your pain. No trial too heavy, no wound too deep, My arms are here, your fears to keep.
Fairy tales are not birthed in heaven. They do not spring from the void. Remember, they are our creation, And you, my dear, bring them to life.
Your father held you once in his arms, Steadying you to explore new paths. Be not despondent; time will mend the scars. Dreams with edges are dreams that endure.
Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the EPFL, Switzerland. He is a poet, academician, researcher, author of nine scientific books, and a former Editor-in-chief (1999-2019) of the international scientific journal “Optics and Lasers in Engineering”. He was an honorary Professor at the IIT Delhi between 2000 and 2004. He was a guest Professor at the IIT Gandhinagar between 2019 and 2023. He is presently an honorary adjunct Professor at the IIT Jammu.
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Tuberose, a perennial species of the asparagus family and a native of Mexico has somehow found a home in India too. It blooms at night, which makes sense as in Hindi, it’s a compound of two words – ‘Rajni’ means night, and ‘gandh’ is the smell. It exudes the intense smell of the night, and the long, slender stems supporting the white waxy flowers at the top reinforces its nocturnal beauty. In the world of perfumery, tuberose is a prime source of scent production.
shaam kī ḳhāmosh rah par vo koī asrār pahne chal rahī hai rajnī-gandhā kī mahak bikhrī huī hai duur peḌoñ meñ chhupī dargāh tak
(In the silence of the evening She is wearing a mystery The aroma of rajnigandha is scattered As far as the hidden shrine among the distant trees)
-- Dhoop Ka Libaas (The Robes of the Sun) by Yameen( 1286-1368)
Like the aforementioned nazm, the perfume of tuberoses seem emanate from Basu Chatterji[2]’s 1974 film Rajnigandha too, a movie based on Mannu Bhandari’s story Yahi Sach Hai (This is the Truth). Deepa, played by Vidya Sinha, is the protagonist of the film who struts across the road, waits at a bus stop, with her saree pallu[3] resting on her right shoulder, and is annoyed at Sanjay’s constant tardiness. Sanjay, portrayed by Amol Palekar, is a freewheeling man with a chronic urge to converse excessively and forgets almost everything he was supposed to do. But when she looks at the bunch of Rajnigandha he brings for her, she forgets all her qualms about him. Rajnigandha phool tumhare yunhi mahke jeevan mein (May the fragrance of your tuberose keep blossoming in life), the verse from the film’s song, likewise, is Deepa’s prayer for life.
Deepa, a headstrong woman living in the Delhi of the 1970s, is in the final stages of writing her PhD thesis and is on a job hunt. Sanjay, on the other hand is a more laid back fellow with “just a BA” working in a firm, and fortunately does not suffer from a fragile male ego which feels threatened by a more qualified female partner. A job interview entails Deepa traveling to Mumbai where she meets her former flame, Navin (played by Dinesh Thakur). Seeing him again rekindles her feelings for him. Navin is a go-getter living the fast life of Mumbai, whose advertising job made his way into the party life of the city. Navin’s personality symbolises thrill and adventure, whereas Sanjay on the other hand perhaps defines stability, if not standstill, in life. Deepa is thrown into the dilemma of who should she choose, Navin or Sanjay, much like the film’s song, Kai Baar Yunhi Dekha Hai (Often, I have Seen), which essentially is the musical expression of Deepa’s situation, that says “Kisko Preet Banau? Kiski Preet Bhulau?” (‘whose love shall I accept, whose love shall I forget?’). While Navin does notice Deepa’s appearance, manages to be on time, he is also the one who broke her heart in college. Sanjay, on the other hand, who is hardly on time, forgets the film tickets he was supposed to bring, fails to notice what saree Deepa was wearing, and annoys her to the core, would probably never go as far as breaking her heart.
“Crafting Sanjay—a loquacious character who never explicitly expresses love but conveys it through his eyes—without making him seem selfish, was a challenge,” writes Amol Palekar in his memoir, Viewfinder. Both men however, had one similarity – the zeal for protesting, for unionising against injustice in their respective positions, a virtue that presumably was not surprising for the people belonging to the first generation of young independent Indians. The Deepa that Mannu Bhandari writes about appears firmer and bolder in her stances than the one Basu Chatterji crafted on screen, who is more shy, more reticent and even more confused.
While India did get its first and only woman Prime Minister by the 1970s, in Bollywood, it was the era of the ‘Angry Young Men’ that defined the careers of actors like Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, and Rajesh Khanna, who embodied the larger-than-life character of the ‘hero’ in Hindi cinema and received a cult following as well. On a parallel but divergent plane, there emerged a different kind of male protagonist: he was the guy next door, a middle-class, urban, white collar office goer, who travelled in public transport and spoke no flashy dialogues. A point to be noted here is, that the said definition of the character also included that they were primarily English-educated and from a comparatively well-off background — compounding to the ‘middle-class’ phenomenon in urban India. This was the characterisation that Amol Palekar adopted with films like Rajnigandha, Chhoti Si Baat (A small Matter, 1975) and Baaton Baaton Mein (Between Conversations, 1979). Basu Chatterji’s films underscored this portrayal of the ordinary, urban middle class milieu which was often absent from the mainstream commercial Bollywood films from that time.
With no surprises, the men in these films, like Sanjay in Rajnigandha, are not perfect feminist characters. From a snapshot in the film, Sanjay tells Deepa to keep her money to herself after marriage because the household shall be run with “his” money. Ideally, in an equal household, if both partners have a source of income, the expenses should be shared by both of them, which defines the ‘partnership’ in a relationship in the most literal sense of the term. Considering the time and space of when the film was made, it appears that while Chatterji, consciously or not, did try to incorporate modern ideas of women’s financial independence, he also at the same time, could not completely erase how a conventional ‘man’ from a patriarchal ethos would react — by still upholding the status quo of hierarchy between the two sexes.
Despite these few shortcomings in the film, Deepa’s character contains a multitude of complexities, unlike many films of the seventies where female characters are often reduced to archetypes as that of the demure, submissive wife, the sacrificing mother or the unattainable love interest. She is not an overtly assertive individual but is also neither a passive receiver of love nor a woman who blindly conforms to patriarchal conventions; rather, she is someone who constantly engages with her emotions, doubts, and desires. Her emotional conflict—to choose between thrill and stability, novelty and convention—reflects the larger question of female autonomy in a culture where women were often expected to follow predetermined roles. Although Deepa’s predicament is not a radical departure from typical romance plots, her internal journey is far more introspective and self-aware than the majority of female characters in the films belonging to that era. She is not a mere object of male desire or a meek heroine waiting to be ‘saved’ by a male hero. She is an individual in her own right, capable of making difficult choices that reflect the evolving understanding of herself.
Deepa’s decision-making isn’t straightforward or even particularly idealistic, but not once does she lose her individual agency to feel for herself and the emotional depth in her character offers a fresh perspective on the representation of women in Hindi cinema, portraying them as individuals with competing needs and aspirations, rather than as mere props for male narratives. Maeve Wiley, the protagonist from the Netflix show, Sex Education, calls “complex female characters” her “thing.” Well, this author’s proposition would be to include Rajnigandha’s Deepa as well into this list.
In its subtle critique of the pressure on women to conform to the traditional idea of womanhood, this film however does not provide any revolutionary discourse to the existing social and cultural norms surrounding women’s roles. It still runs on the same old conventional path that expects a woman’s happiness and worth to be defined by her relationship with a man. But it nevertheless has been able to depict a self-reliant woman whose existence itself is an act of revolution in male dominating spaces such as that of earning a doctorate in the 1970s.
Basu Chatterji, known for his ‘middle-of-the-road’ cinema was part of the Film Society Movement. According to historian Rochona Majumdar, the Film Society activists grappled with the definition of a “good” film. Was it’s primary goal to improve the lives of the Indian people, a goal that mainstream (profit-driven) “commercial” cinema had failed to accomplish? Or was it just to “mirror the aspirations of common people” through cinema, as one early film society activist put it? In line with the same thought, this film with no dramatic plot twist or a visible antagonist per se, stands out as a celebration of the ordinary, an ordinary man, an ordinary woman, travelling in public transport, with ordinary aspirations. Not to mention, this ‘ordinariness’ had a certain class and religious position as well.
The tuberoses could also perhaps be taken as an allegory of the ordinary. While conventionally, a rose is sought to be the flower connoted with love and romance, with countless romantic poems mentioning it, the tuberose in comparison appears to mundane. When one buys a bouquet, two-three tuberose stems are often seen given the geographical and seasonal context, but just as a supplement to the more prominent flowers wrapped in it. So, does this flower in the film symbolise a sense of yearning or through it, is it an attempt to tell an ‘ordinary’ love story?
The film’s title Rajnigandha does not just symbolise love or longing but aptly reflects the emotional tone of the film. Just as the flower blooms at night, Deepa’s journey towards self-realisation and emotional clarity unfolds in the quiet, introspective passages in the story, rather than in conspicuous expressions of passion or drama. Her feelings and relations are complex, layered, and occasionally challenging to describe, much like the flower’s euphoric yet elusive nature.
It won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie, with two songs penned by the Hindi lyricist Yogesh, bagging Mukesh[4] the National Award for Best Male Playback Singer, and no distributor willing to buy the film initially, Rajnigandha also passes the Bechdel Test which examines how women are represented in films with distinction. This to me is its greatest triumph. Its delicate yet profound meditation on love, choices, and identity, is a masterwork of Indian cinema that contemplates on the silent, unpronounced qualms of daily life by fusing realism with emotional profundity. An honest depiction of human emotions, tastefully rendered in a small, intimate canvas, is what all works of Basu Chatterji (not just the film in question) deliver as a welcome diversion in an age of exaggerated melodrama and action. And Rajnigandha is a film that reminds people to value the nuances of human relationships and the elegance of slow, quiet cinema, making it a timeless classic.
[4] Mukesh Chand Mathur (1923-1976), playback singer in films
Bibliography:
MAJUMDAR, ROCHONA. “Debating Radical Cinema: A History of the Film Society Movement in India.” Modern Asian Studies 46, no. 3 (2012): 731–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41478328.
Tomorrow we will see When my solitude barks And dances, the gift I’ll give, To my awaited self.
It’ll be a small bouquet Of tears stitched with a string, Wrapped in the world’s eye.
Without your insisting, we will See the house in which, Next to memory’s sparrows, Someday I will die.
Today, inside me the pigeons Are dying, and I wonder Who will gather their bones, For the ultimate doomsday?
Between today’s dying And tomorrow’s death we will Watch the grand comedy, On life’s psychiatric screen.
We will hear the laughter To claim the evanescent tragedy, And bury our unblinking, Eyes in our hands.
Dr. Owais Farooq is an aspiring writer from Kashmir currently based in Delhi. He has done his PhD on the poems of Agha Shahid Ali from the University of Delhi.
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MF Husain at the opening of the exhibition “A Tree In My LIfe” in 1995. With him are Dolly Narang (who conceptualised the show) and others. Fifty one artists from all over the country were invited to participate. The exhibition included M.F. Husain, Raza, Ganesh Pyne, Paritosh Sen, Arpana Caur, Vivan Sundaram along with promising and emerging artists. Photo provided by Dolly Narang
It was 1989 when I turned my passion for art into reality by opening The Village Gallery. My experience from conceptualising till the launch of my new initiative, as I negotiated unchartered waters, brought me in contact with artists and the art world. And I had some interesting experiences as I began to fathom the nuances of this unique field.
Growing up, I was a dreamer living in my own world of happy make believe. Enveloped by the warmth and attention of my joint family I was the cherished firstborn of my parents and my grandfather, Bauji[1]. Their adoration wrapped me in a cocoon sheltering me from the outside world. I grew up safe, protected and loved in our home in East Patel Nagar in West Delhi.
My mother laid claim to my creative spark. She revealed one day that while she was in the serene hills of Shimla with her parents as she carried me, she was learning how to paint. My mother proudly attributed my artistic side was all because of the genes passed on from her. Her creativity much later matured into fashion design and she became a successful fashion designer in the 1960s opening a high fashion boutique catering to New Delhi’s expat and diplomatic community. Her design skills were honed. She was much ahead of her time.
My Naniji[2] embroidered sequins and beads (maternal grandmother) on small evening clutch bags as gifts. That was her passion as it helped to overcome the grief of the loss of my grandfather who passed away suddenly in his mid 40s following the Partition and the trauma of 1947, when the Indian subcontinent was split into two. My Uncle, my father’s youngest sibling, unleashed his photographic skills to capture my childhood. He won a prize for one of these photographs.
I remember as a child being fascinated by Bauji making decorative paper lanterns. He used fragile kite paper of vibrant green, pink and yellow, slowly and meticulously applying glue on the paper to paste them onto thin bamboo sticks. I must have been four or five years old. The memory is so clearly embedded in my consciousness. He was a banker with a hectic work schedule involving travel. Our family had been uprooted during the Partition from Lyallpur in 1947 and we were in the throes of resettling ourselves. Yet, he found time to follow his creative calling.
As a child, I was fascinated by art and spent hours by myself doodling and drawing. Growing up, I have fond memories of my art class when I was in 7th or 8th grade in school. This was my happy space. My art teacher, Mrs. Dorothy Rahman, I remember was helped me to nurture my creativity with kindness and patience. She gave me special permission to work in art class during lunch hour. I loved working with my hands. Feeling the clay between my hands was exhilarating so clay was my chosen medium. Mrs. Rahman gave me a piece of soapstone a soft material and chiselling tools to chisel. This new medium opened up thrilling moments of more exploration.
My class had some students who were naturally gifted. Their effortless creativity left me feeling somewhat inadequate. At the same time, this pushed me to work harder to hone my skills. The confluence of my family’s creative influences and the circumstances unfolding before me led me to dream of starting an art gallery and I did do exactly that.
I nurtured a desire to start my gallery with the art of the famed MF Husain. Though it seemed an impossible dream, it happened. I went ahead and I shared my idea with Arpana Caur, my childhood playmate and college mate who had made a niche for herself in the art world and received recognition as a painter of great talent and promise. Caur encouraged me to chase my dreams. The first one person show at my newborn gallery was of Husain serigraphs and lithographs. It was a coup of sorts if I may say so myself for a new and unknown gallery and it stirred some excitement.
When I tried to contact him, Husain Sahib finally answered the phone. The conversation was polite and formal. He gave me appointment at his Canning Lane residence in Delhi, a charming colonial style government accommodation.
I had been warned of his proclivity for not arriving on time or not showing up at all. I reached his house expecting in all probability not to find him there.
His single storey home lay in a verdant environment. I was seated in a simple and well-appointed living room surrounded by vibrant colors of his paintings adorning the walls. Without keeping me waiting, a towering, calm and dignified figure emerged from the adjoining room. I introduced myself somewhat timorously trying to read his expression as I spoke. I remember saying, “Husain Sahib, I am planning to open a gallery in a new location, Hauz Khas Village. I would like to have a show of your limited-edition prints. I won’t be able to buy your works though. I was wondering if it would be feasible to pay for the prints once they are sold at the exhibition.”
This was the general tone of my brief monologue as he listened politely and patiently. I waited anxiously for his response. There was none.
Our meeting must have lasted fifteen minutes with mostly me muttering something to prove my credentials and at the same time trying to gauge his reaction as I continued with my monologue.
Once I finished talking, he stood up and walked into a room attached to the living room where we were sitting. I waited, confused by his disappearance. Soon he emerged with a thick roll of black sheets and handed it to me saying you can have a show of these prints. I accepted it in complete disbelief. Thanked him and left. I thought later that I did not give my contact details and neither did he ask for them. This was my first meeting with MF Husain.
Once the gallery interiors were ready I requested Husain Sahib if he could come to see the new space and give his suggestions before the inauguration. He arrived on the appointed day accompanied by his son Mustafa, a tall and dignified young man who came with a camera slung around his neck.
Both father and son walked around the gallery silently. It had a raw rustic interior with a cement floor and lime washed walls. I waited for their reaction, not quite sure how they would respond to the raw rusticity of the environment both internal and external. To make matters worse, a buffalo belonging to a villager put its head through the entrance door and snorted loudly. ‘This is all I need,’ I thought, ‘especially when I am trying to make an impression.’ Just as I was going to apologize, to my surprise Husain Sahib smiled and softly said, “That’s nice.”
Mustafa added: “My father loves the rustic environment”. Both lingered for a while enjoying the peaceful and unpretentious village setting as Mustafa took photographs.
While planning the execution for the show of his graphics, I had the opportunity to interact more frequently with Husain Sahib. He wanted the show to have the title ‘Husain Graphis 89’. “The word graphics to be spelt without a ‘c’, as it is spelled in French,” he said. Cards were printed announcing the exhibition of “Husain Graphis 89”. As the exhibition cards were delivered to their addressees, I was inundated with calls advising me that the word “graphics” had been misspelled in the card. I had a lot of explaining to do in call after call.
Photo provided by Dolly Narang
The prints were up on the gallery walls. A few days before the opening of Husain Graphis ‘89, the artist himself visited the gallery. As he made himself comfortable in the midst of his serigraphs and lithographs, he said something that has stayed with me as a source of guidance ever since. He waved his hands gently across the wall and said: “Make the walls of your gallery something that every artist will be proud to hang their works on.” These words illuminated my path forward as I was inspired to conceptualise a series of shows which went onto make history.
The inauguration of Graphis’ 89 was done by SK Misra, the Secretary of Tourism at the time and a close friend of Husain Sahib’s. He had wanted him to inaugurate the show. Husain Sahib flew off to Bombay the same evening so was not present at the inauguration. Of course, we were all disappointed. The inauguration was on schedule with Misra painting a lamp on a canvas. This unique idea was suggested by the eminent scenographer, Rajeev Sethi. Misra was caught off guard when asked to paint a lamp instead of lighting it. However, he painted with the flourish of a seasoned artist.
There was a self portrait of Husain on display in Graphis’89 exhibition which had a thick red line running down the face. It generated much curiosity and many queries from viewers who wanted to know the deeper meaning behind the red line, expecting a profound philosophical response about the artist’s thoughts or his life experience behind this. During a visit to the gallery, I mentioned to Husain Sahib that I was being asked repeatedly by visitors what was the meaning behind this thick and bright red line. He simply said: “I liked it and I painted it.”
The next exhibition that I curated in 1989 was ‘Self Portraits’. Twenty-four artists, from masters to beginners, were invited to showcase self-portraits in this exhibition held in October 1989. Husain Sahib loaned his self-portrait, an oil on canvas. Fortunately, Husain Sahib was in Delhi for the opening. He arrived walking barefeet down the kuccha[3] path leading to the gallery. Just a few feet ahead of the gallery he saw the Choudhry[4] of the village reclined on his charpai[5] smoking his hookah. Husain Sahib was so excited by this sight that he requested for the charpai to be shifted outside the gallery. I conveyed his request to Choudhry Sahib who immediately agreed and pulled his charpai over. Both Husain Sahib and Choudhry Sahib sat together on the charpai savoring the experience.
The guests at the opening, several of them old friends of Husain Sahib were surprised to catch him here. There was rambunctious camaraderie and backslapping in full public view on this village street. It occurred to him that he wanted to have his good friend and gallerist DV Chawla there. He requested that I send the car to pick him up from the Oberoi Hotel where his gallery was located. Delhi being free from the dense traffic that the city is afflicted with today, he arrived soon enough.
As Mr Chawla arrived, there was more lively celebration of old friendships. they all enjoyed the exhibition. The self-portraits were replete with humor or marked by self-mockery. Some were self-effacing while others, thought provoking
Husain Sahib joked that the real Husain was in the painting hung on the wall of the gallery and the flesh and blood sitting outside was fake.
The exhibition of self-portraits was followed by ‘The Other Ray’ in 1990, an exhibition of the graphic design, children’s drawings, and film sketches, set design drawings, film posters by Satyajit Ray. Together, we selected the works for the exhibition. In the process Ray was surprised to see all the work that he had created compelling him to remark: “I had forgotten I had done all this work.”
Husain at the Village Gallery. MF Husain liked walking bare-feet. Photographs provided by Dolly Narang
The opening was in October 1990. I met Husain Sahib to invite him for the preview. When he heard of ‘The Other Ray’ exhibition he asked me where the works were lying as he wanted to see them. I told him that they were lying at home and suggested it would be better to view them once they are properly hung in the gallery. But he was insistent on seeing them right away and didn’t want to wait for the opening. So, we drove to my house from AIFACs. He was overwhelmed to see the works and started to reminisce of his association with Ray. Unfortunately, I did not have a tape recorder at the time to record his thoughts but fortunately The Illustrated Weekly carried these reminiscences as an article in an issue. It’s a truly poignant piece filled with precious memories.
We got into the car to drive him home and had driven away for just a few minutes. All this while it was churning in my mind. Should I, should I not. But finally plucked up courage to tell him that it was my birthday a few days later and could I request him for a drawing.
He asked the driver to turn back to the house. He asked for sketch paper. And resting the paper on the bonnet of the car made a drawing.
These are some of the memories I am penning down here. There are many more…
The sketch made by Maqbool Fida Husain for Dolly Narang on her birthday: Husian signed himself McBull, a humorous take on his first name, Maqbool. He was known to sign his name in various ways. Photo provided by Dolly Narang
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[1] respectful address for an elder patriarch of the family
Dolly Narang , a gallerist, has conceptualised innovative pathbreaking exhibitions. A recent student of sculpture, she has the satisfaction of experiencing both personal and spiritual evolution as a Pranic healer and as a grandmother.
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Based on an interview with the Amitabh Prashar, the maker of a BBC documentary on female infanticide, Aparna Vats shares a spine-chilling narrative about crimes that were accepted in the past but are now under reform.
Aparna Vats
The Female Infanticide Protection Act was enacted in India 1870, 154 years ago. However, female infanticides continued to haunt some areas of Bihar well into 1990s. The number given out by a government of India report for 2019 is 36 in the whole year, with none reported in Bihar. A journalist called Amitabh Prashar came out with a new BBC documentary on this issue in 2024 after investigations carried out over thirty years in Bihar, called The Midwife’s Confession. Prashar, wrote in a BBC article of a 1995 report: “If the report’s estimates are accurate, more than 1,000 baby girls were being murdered every year in one district, by just 35 midwives. According to the report, Bihar at the time had more than half a million midwives. And infanticide was not limited to Bihar.”
Basing his coverage on the confession by dais or midwives, this film unveils the terrifying practise of female infanticide in Bihar. The documentary begins by screening the confession video of Dharmi Devi who stoically confesses to how many children she and her accomplice had killed and buried in the forest.
Prashar started his investigations when he read of a case of female infanticide near his village in Purnia, Kathiaar district. In the documentary, he explained how a news clip that came out in the Hindustan Times of Purnia, a village in Bihar, motivated him. It was a report of a father choking his infant daughter to death and was recorded as the first case of infanticide in the area. He had visited Bihar for the sake of the story as the father had been arrested and the mother was under societal pressure to withdraw the case. Through his interactions with a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) working in the area and the midwives in 1995-96, he realised that the occurrence was not an isolated case. Unmarried and a novice in this field, Parashar said he took the risk to return to Delhi and rent a camera at Rs 4500 per day to start his exploration.
He admitted getting the midwives them confess was a major struggle but an understanding of the interviewee’s personal lives helped him understand their society and circumstances better. Certain key findings were that the infants were killed by the midwives, as the families considered the girl-child a financial liability, especially for arranging dowries. The midwives were themselves struggling to arrange dowries for their own daughters.
In the documentary, Hakiya, a midwife, was the first to confess how post birth, the men of the family used to threaten the midwives with sticks and offer money to them to kill the child as the cost of care, that was primarily dowry (‘Tilak-Pratha’) for them, weighed heavier than the barbarism of this sin. Filing a police report was out of the question. The repetition of this crime had forced these women to accept this carnage. Siro Devi, a midwive who Prashar had been in touch with from 1996, confessed: “Dekhiye sir, aurat ke haath mein marna, aurat ke haath mein jeewan dena (Sir, it is in the hands of women to kill or to give birth).”
Prashar set out to uncover more. He interviewed Anila Kumari, the owner of an NGO who worked with these midwives. Bihar suffered a state of economic crisis in the 1990s when the per capita income was growing at a mere 0.12%. The sheer state of economic desolation and social oppression coerced these women to kill more than 1000 girls in a year in Kathiaar alone, claimed Prashar.
Prashar explained this story is not exhaustive in its list of injustices. Often the sole earners post-marriage, these midwives were recruited sometimes at the young age of ten. It was a customary practice passed on from generation to generation. Their remuneration was conditional to the happiness felt by the families when the child was born which was estimated as per the sex. Unsurprisingly, a girl-child rendered lesser payment.
Kumari started working with the midwives to stop the practice of female infanticide. Families trusted midwives more than doctors. The rescued children were brought to the NGO in life-threatening states and were either registered for adoption or raised by them. One of the adopted girls called Monica was put in focus in the documentary.
Prashar said in the interview that the midwives were from the backward castes and extremely poor. A deeper analysis of the inter-community relations reveal that they were themselves victimised. They also felt guilty for their actions. Rani, a midwife, who was not featured in the documentary due to time related constraints, was such a person. She was herself struggling to get her daughters married while languishing in the guilt of having killed other’s daughters. Some of the midwives were arrested. Parashar said he visited Bihar a few days prior to the release of the arrested midwives to ensure that they did not get into legal hurdles or come under societal pressure.
Mr. Parashar confessed he was but a commoner for the people and visited Purnia at least twice a year for reasons that were unrelated to the documentary. After some initial interactions, the villagers lost interest in his activities and for a documentarian, that was the best scenario. “When characters start to ignore, that is the best thing a director can think of,” he said. He self-funded his project in which shots stretched 200 hours.
The documentary starts with joggers rescuing an abandoned girl child. And then, it plunges exploring darker aspects of this attitude that sees the girl child as a burden leading not only to abandonments but also to female infanticides brought to light by the midwives. The film concludes with a heartwarming interview with the adoptive parents of the girl child rescued by the joggers and their happy eight-month-old ward.
Reference:
Aparna Vats is a student from Bangalore.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are solely that of the author and not of Borderless Journal.
As a curator, Ratnottama Sengupta writes about the long trajectory of films by artists, beginning with Husain’s Berlinale winner, down to the intrepid band she screened at the just concluded 30th Kolkata International Film Festival
Gaja Gamini: Painting by MF Hussain Gaja Gamini (An elephant’s walk) Movie by MF Hussain
When Maqbool Fida Husain won the Golden Bear in the 17th edition of the Berlin Film Festival, the year was 1967. I, in my pre-teen years, knew little about painting. But growing up in a family of filmmakers I was already conversant with the art of looking through the camera. So I was disoriented that the film critics of the time were baffled by what had impressed the international jury.
Royalty, tigers, ruins, hawks, school children, anklets, on the river bank – all these images moving only to music, not a word uttered. The jury at Berlinale were astounded by the richness of the artist’s idiom that had breathed life into a Rajasthan that is rich in architecture as it is in painting, in costume as in music.
This dawned on me years later, when I curated the exhibition, 3 Dimensions, forthe All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society in New Delhi. It featured paintings, sculpture and graphic art or drawings by artists from Husain, Satish Gujral, Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh, Jatin Das to Sanjay Bhattacharya, Paresh Maity, Mimi Radhakrishnan, Shadab Hussain, among others.
A unique feature of this exhibition was that all the participating artists had interest in another expression of art. So every evening of that week had seen a Ram Kumar and Mimi read their short stories; a Narendra Pal Singh and Jatin Das read their poems; a Sanjay Bhattacharya render Tagore songs of and a Shruti Gupta Chandra perform Kathak. Ratnabali Kant had staged a Performance Art in the presence of Prime Minister V P Singh who had inaugurated the week-long exhibition by reading his poems. And, on the closing day, I had screened Through a Painter’s Eyes. That’s when it dawned on me: it was the originality of vision captured by the 7-minute short film had won over Berlin as also Melbourne and our very own National Awards too.
Subsequently Husain, who had started out from the tenements of Bombay by painting oversized hoardings of Hindi films on the sleeping tramlines at the dead of night, had at the ripe age of 84 made Gaja Gamini (2000) with stars such as Madhuri Dixit, and Minaxi — A Tale of Three Cities (2004) with Tabu and Naseeruddin Shah. Ironically these films baffled the critics just as much as the earlier short film had. However the dazzling visuals of vibrant figures and colourful structuring of the (non)-narrative had found acceptance in the Marche du Film section of Cannes 2004.
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I have since then tried to fathom what drives artists who are skilled at painting with oil or watercolour, or sculpting wood or stone, metal or clay, or creating graphic images on paper or linoleum, to wield the megaphone. Now, instead of holding the camera or editing the celluloid strips with their hands, they use their mind, their mind’s eyes, their creative imagination.
Some other contemporaries of Husain too had, after attaining glory in the plastic arts, turned to experimenting with the new, ever evolving, ever contemporary art form — cinema. In 1970, Tyeb Mehta, who had briefly worked as an editor, made Koodal, meaning ‘Meeting Ground’ on the Bandra station of Mumbai’s Western Railway. The synthesis of images of humans and animals had won him the Filmfare Critics Award.
Cartoonist Abu — born Attupurathu Mathew Abraham — was a journalist and author who had worked for Punch, Tribune and The Observer in London before returning to work with The Indian Express. He was given a special award by the British Film Institute for the short animation No Ark, clearly a cryptic message deriving from the Biblical tale of Noah’s Ark.
Equally engrossing is the story of Syzygy, also produced by Films Division, and directed by Akbar Padamsee. This 16-minute short, premiered at a UNESCO screening in Paris 1969, had no narrative, no sound, or even colour. It only had lines evoking shapes typically used to refer to the alignment of celestial bodies. Only one man had stayed back till the end of the screening — and he had said to Padamsee, “Most people could not understand your film — it’s a masterpiece.”
Reportedly that man had gone on to become the programming director at Cinematheque Francaise – world’s largest film archive. That’s where Indian filmmaker found Ashim Ahluwalia found a copy of Events in a Cloud Chamber, Padamsee’s second film that was sent for screening at the Delhi Art Expo — never to be returned to the artist. The lost-in-transit film has now been professionally reinterpreted by Ahluwalia.
NB: All these films were supported by filmmaking bodies, and though often baffled, cineastes realised theirs was a new way of seeing the visual expression that goes under the arching umbrella of cinema.
*
This desire to understand, adapt, and get under the skin of a modern medium had driven Tagore, a century ago from today, to paint expressionistic forms and also to film Natir Pujo (1931). And today we find a band of artists from Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala and Baroda making films that bridge disciplines from landscape and abstraction to mimetic movement and drama.
What are the notable features of these films that are mostly made on video? They too have little need for dialogue. Instead, their sight is supported by music of natural sound. If the objects they capture through the lens are arresting forms, vacant spaces can be just as inviting. When they have humans as their protagonists, they are keen to capture body language rather than drama. Colourful palette is not a foregone conclusion – monochromes and black and white can be more poignant. Because? Their visuals are but vehicles for commenting on social reality and for communicating philosophic content.
Legends or veterans, seasoned or sprouting, this intrepid band of adventurers includes Vivan Sundaram, Ranbir Kaleka, Gopi Gajwani, Rameshwar Broota, Bharti Kapadia, Babu Eshwar Prasad, Gigi Scaria, Protul Dash, and Sanjay Roy. They are a continuum of the spirit of experimentation that had driven Husain and Tyeb, Abu Abraham and Akbar Padamsee.
Films by Artists at KIFF*
1 *Disclaimer* 2016/ 9:40 min By *Gigi Scaria* focuses on the sleight of hands by a magician 2 *On the Road* 2021/ 5:7 min By *Babu Eshwar Prasad* is a nostalgic look at road movies that are part documentary, part adventure. 3 *Sabash Beta* 3 min By *Rameshwar Broota* with Vasundhara Tewari applauds the galloping of a fleighty horse. 4 *Leaves Like Hands of Flame* 2010/ 5:34 min By *Veer Munshi* likens the fallen chinar leaves to the autumn in the lives of uprooted Kashmiris. 5 *L for…* 2019/ 13:14 min By *Bharti Kapadia* plays with the sight and - surprisingly - the sound of the alphabet. 6 *Fruits Ripen and Rot* 2022/ 4:21 min By *Sanjay Roy* is a surrealistic look at the divergent responses to food that is central to everyman's existence. 7 *How Far…?* 2023/ 12:37 min By *Ranveer Kaleka* is an elegy, a dirge, mourning the losses wrought to Planet Earth by human destruction such as war. 8 *Burning Angel* 2024/ 4:37 min By *Pratul Dash* is an abstract story of the same destruction. 9 *Turning 2008/ 11 min By Vivan Sundaram is a silent, colourful comment on the waste created by consumerist civilization. 10 *Time* 1974/13 min By *Gopi Gajwani* is a riveting tale of how relative a minute is to one in mourning, one waiting, and for one in love.
*Kolkata International Film Festival
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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Mists in Shillong. Photo Courtesy: Luke Rimmo Lego
There’s something about Shillong that clings to you long after you leave. Perhaps it’s the way the mist rolls down from the hills, soft and heavy, wrapping everything in a cool, damp embrace. Or perhaps it’s the scent of pine that seems to seep into your very bones, mingling with the smell of wet earth and firewood. Well, for me, it’s the scent of the hot-dog cart right across my school gate. Needless to say, Shillong is the kind of place that stays with you, even when you’re miles away, even when the bustling streets of a big city like Delhi try to drown out the echoes of your childhood.
I always find myself thinking about Shillong on quiet afternoons, especially when the weather here in Delhi turns cold, but never quite cold enough to feel like home. Shillong was never just a place; it was a feeling—a mix of crisp mountain air, the distant sound of school bells ringing through the fog, and the soft, rhythmic drizzle of rain that seemed to fall endlessly. It’s funny how places like that can stay with you, like a song stuck in your head or a scent that reminds you of something just out of reach.
I still recall that day vividly — we were in fourth or fifth grade then. She always arrived early outside my school, waiting for her younger brother, who studied at my school too. Her school was right across the street, an all-girls convent nestled among the hills, its blue-tiled roof barely visible through the trees. She used to sit on those giant stone slabs by the gate, her feet barely touching the ground, swinging back and forth as she hummed some tune only she knew. At first, we didn’t speak much—just exchanged glances, maybe a shy smile here or there. But one day, she was the one who broke the silence.
“Do you think the clouds ever touch the ground?” she asked out of nowhere, her voice soft and curious, as though the mist around us might hold the answer.
I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”
“The clouds,” she repeated, pointing up at the sky, where the gray-white mist hung low, almost grazing the tops of the trees. “Do you think they ever come down all the way?”
I laughed, not really knowing how to answer. “I guess they do sometimes. It feels like it, doesn’t it?”
That was all it took. From then on, those quiet afternoons outside the school turned into our own little world. We would sit on the cold, rough slabs, waiting for our parents to come pick us up, talking about everything and nothing. The clouds became our constant companions, always there, floating lazily through the hills, sometimes so close that it felt like we could reach out and touch them. We talked about school, the weird things our teachers said, the dreams we had of growing up and leaving this tiny town behind.
But even then, I think we both knew that Shillong had a way of holding onto you. No matter how far we went, it would always be there, waiting in the mist.
Shillong was unlike any other place. It wasn’t just the scenery, though the hills were beautiful—lush green peaks rolling in every direction, cradling the city in their embrace. It wasn’t just the weather either, though the cool air that always smelled faintly of rain and pine was unforgettable. It was something deeper, something that I cannot just say by words, it’s what wraps around you like the mist that never quite cleared.
I remember the streets vividly, even now. Narrow and winding, they seemed to have no real direction, just curling their way through the hills, bordered by little shops and homes that clung to the slopes like they were a part of the landscape. Shillong wasn’t loud or hurried. It was the kind of city where the mornings started slowly, with the sound of crows echoing through the fog and the soft clatter of people sweeping their front steps. And in the evenings, the world seemed to settle into itself, as the clouds rolled in, draping everything in a thick, quiet blanket.
The air tasted clean, with a sharp, cold bite that felt refreshing after the endless humidity of summer. You could hear everything in Shillong—the chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves as the wind whispered through the pine trees, the distant clink of cowbells as farmers led their herds down the narrow roads. The town had a rhythm, a steady hum of life that moved at its own pace, never in a rush.
And there was always the mist. It was as much a part of Shillong as the people themselves, thick and ever-present, curling around the hills and streets, softening the edges of everything. It made the town feel like it existed in its own little bubble, a place suspended in time, where the rest of the world seemed far away and unimportant.
Sitting on those slabs, she’d lean back, watching the clouds drift by, her hair frizzing in the damp air. We’d talk about all sorts of things—small things, big things, things that made sense only to us. Sometimes, I’d bring a bag of pinecones I’d collected from the hill behind our house, and we’d throw them into the road, seeing who could roll theirs the farthest down the slope. We made up little games, shared snacks, and every now and then, we’d make pinky promises about things we both knew we could never control.
“Promise me you’ll always remember this, no matter where you go,” she said one evening, holding out her pinky with a serious expression on her face.
I grinned, hooking my pinky around hers. “I promise.”
Then, I left. My family moved to Delhi when I was in the sixth grade, and suddenly, those afternoons on the stone slabs were gone. Delhi was everything Shillong wasn’t—loud, chaotic, hot. The streets were wide and crowded, filled with the constant honking of cars and the clamour of people always in a hurry. The air was thick with dust and petrol, and the clouds, when they appeared, were just smudges of grey against the relentless silver sky.
I missed Shillong terribly. I missed the mist and the cool air, the way the town felt like a hidden secret tucked away in the hills. I missed the slow mornings, the smell of rain-soaked earth, and the way everything seemed softer there, quieter. I missed her too—her laughter, her teasing bets, the way she’d swing her feet just above the ground, like she was waiting for something.
Years passed, and I settled into life in Delhi. But Shillong never really left me. Every now and then, something would remind me of it—a particularly cool breeze, the distant smell of wet leaves, or the sight of a tree-lined street disappearing into fog. And in those moments, I’d find myself back there, sitting on the stone slabs, talking about clouds and pinky promises, as if no time had passed at all.
Then one day, as I sat in Nehru Park—one of the few places in Delhi that felt quiet, even peaceful—I heard a familiar voice.
“I thought you said you’d always remember Shillong.”
I looked up, and there she was. The same grin, the same frizz in her hair from the humidity, the same spark in her eyes that I remembered from all those years ago. For a moment, I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, as if the fog from Shillong had somehow followed her to Delhi, wrapping us both in the memory of that little town in the hills.
“I promised, didn’t I?” I finally managed to say, standing up to meet her.
We laughed, and suddenly, it was like nothing had changed. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking through the park, talking about everything and nothing, just like we used to on those stone slabs. But this time, the air was warm, and the clouds were nowhere to be seen. Still, in some strange way, it felt like we were back in Shillong, as if the mist and the pine trees had followed us, whispering their secrets in the wind.
And as we walked, I realised something—no matter how far you go, some places never really leave you. Shillong was one of those places. It was the smell of pinecones, the feel of cool stone beneath your hands, the sound of laughter carried on the wind. It was the town that lived in the clouds, a place of pinky promises and afternoons spent waiting for something that never came but always felt just within reach.
I never really left Shillong. And neither did she.
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Luke Rimmo Minkeng Lego is a biomedical engineering student passionate about Biomimetics, CRISPR, language preservation, and research. He enjoys leaf collecting, reading, biking, badminton, Tottenham, and debating diverse topics.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Ratnottama Sengupta, introduces the late Vijay Raman and converses with Veena Raman, the widow of this IPS[1] officer, about his book, Did I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different. The memoir was recently launched by Sengupta and brought out posthumously by Rupa Publications.
Vijay Raman (1951-2023)Vijay Raman receiving the President’s Police Medal for Gallantary in 1985Photos provided by Veena Raman
Vijay Raman’s success as a police officer was not merely a personal triumph. The career of this IPS officer traced the changes in the history of India’s security measures. India’s police organisation in 1947 — the Intelligence Bureau, Assam Rifles and CRPF[2] — were legacies from the British Raj. The 1962 Indo-China War led to the creation of the ITBP[3]; the 1965 war with Pakistan formed the BSF[4]. Investments in the Public Sector Undertakings led to the establishment of CISF[5]. Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1985 led to crafting of SPG[6]. The sabotaged crash of Air India’s Kanishka[7] and the Operation Blue Star prompted the formation of NSG[8], and the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai was followed by NIA[9]. Vijay Raman’s life was intertwined with these organisations. He was also responsible for bringing in a number of terrorists and dacoits, including the notorious women dacoit, Phoolan Devi[10] (1963-2001)…He died last year.
In this conversation, Veena Raman[11] reflects on his life and his memoir, Did I Really Do All This: Memoirs of a Gentleman Cop Who Dared to be Different.
Veena this book is a tribute to a police officer who brought honour to his uniform. Having met Vijay Raman I know how wonderful a person he was – deeply loved by not only his family and friends but also many VIPs he interacted with in his professional life. Is this your way of mourning his sudden demise?
When Vijay passed away we — my son Vikram, daughter-in-law Divya, grandson Shaurya and I — were devastated. The cruel illness was swift and relentless: within months he grew weaker before our eyes, and before we were ready to accept the loss. We had no choice but to face it. While we tried to console each other Vikram said, “Mamma we should be grateful that we had him for all these years. After all, Papa was that proverbial cat with nine lives!”
Really?
Absolutely. And why nine? I can give you 19 instances in our years together when his life was in danger and he miraculously escaped.
I am all ears Veena!
At the very outset, in November 1978, when Vijay was in his first posting as assistant superintendent of police (ASP) in Dabra, Madhya Pradesh, a country-made bomb was flung at his jeep by agitating students in Gwalior. It fell and exploded nearby. Fortunately, no one was harmed.
In 1981, based as he was in the Chambal, notorious for dacoits who stalked the nooks and crannies of the ravines, my illustrious husband had already faced dacoit encounters. The most dramatic of these took place in October, when he led the team that wiped out Paan Singh Tomar who, with his gang, had terrorised the region for years. As he describes in the book, bullets had rained on the encounter team from all sides, caught in the crossfire between the dacoits and the police.
The Pan Singh Tomar gang after a dusk to dawn encounter submits to the police: Photo provided by Veena Raman
He was superintendent of police (SP), Special Branch in Bhopal when the world’s worst industrial disaster took place. On the night of 3 December 1984, more than 40 tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant. At exactly that time Vijay was driving to the railway station. “Why inconvenience the driver to stay up late when I want to receive my parents myself?” he had argued.
Within minutes the gas had created havoc. He was shocked to see hundreds killed and untold hundreds maimed. Somehow he and his parents, so close to the scene of destruction, were spared.
In 1998, as inspector-general of police (IGP) Security, Jammu and Kashmir, while Vijay was in Srinagar, a bomb blast took place on the route during the hour he routinely travelled to office. He was saved that day because his driver had taken an alternative route!
In 2000, as IG-Border Security Force (BSF), Jammu, Vijay was responsible for erecting a much-needed part of the fence between Pakistan and India under highly adverse conditions. Enemy bullets rained down from across the border throughout the operation. That forced him to take some daring and potentially controversial decisions. How very relieved and thankful we were when he came home safe!
Vijay was appointed IG, BSF, Kashmir, in 2003 with the secret mandate to get Ghazi Baba, the mastermind of the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. Along with an informer, he had gone on an undercover exploration of the site where the encounter eventually took place. Most unexpectedly the informer pointed out the man himself! Vijay instinctively tried to open the car door and rush out to apprehend the terrorist. The informer roughly pulled him back and screamed to the driver to step on the accelerator and escape immediately. Later the informer explained that Ghazi Baba never left his lair unless he was strapped with explosives, and an attack would have spelled explosions that would have been the end of everyone in the vicinity.
Did he ever face a situation that he regretted?
One of the most dangerous situations Vijay ever faced in his risk-fraught career was as Special Director General (DG), Anti-Naxal Operations of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). In April of 2010, many of his men were massacred in Dantewada by Naxalites. The loss weighed so heavily on him that his health declined: he neglected his meals and even forgot to take his medicines. He had moved from the headquarters in Chhattisgarh to Kolkata; Vikram and I were in Delhi. We understood the intensity of what he was going through only later, when he suffered a stroke.
Did your angst-ridden years end with his retirement?
Not really. For, four years after he retired, in 2015, Vijay was handpicked to be a member of a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the Vyapam (Vyavasayik Pariksha Mandal[12]) examination scam. This was a challenging assignment because the entrance examination admission and recruitment had been going on since the 1990s and had come to light only in 2013.
Did he do anything that was not challenging? What got him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records?
Vijay came close to death even in the personal adventure he undertook with a friend. Together they circumnavigated the globe in an Indian-made car in the last 39 days of 1992. Don’t forget, that was an era when Indian manufacturing was just coming of age. Though this tremendous feat earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, he was exposed to danger of a different kind. For 39 days, they drove at very high speeds, in different countries, different terrains, and different political climates. Let alone sleep on a bed, many a night they could not even catch 40 winks. And still they had only one accident! Yes, it left him badly injured, but he found the strength to complete the challenge and beat the record.
Doesn’t every policeman court danger — even death — in the course of duty? What made him stand apart from other men with stripes?
True, every policeman faces bullets in the course of duty. And Vijay, throughout his career, was inviting them, to see what they could do to him. His faith in the divine, in his own destiny, made him fearless. How very fortunate we were that, time and again, they were deflected.
Another thing that made him stand out was his sheer artlessness. In a field of work steeped in the dregs of humanity, he stood unwavering by the principles of human rights and democracy. Again, fortunately, he came out unscathed, retaining faith in humanity all through life.
This dream run surely merited documenting. And Vijay had a flair for writing. So why did he not pick up the pen until the last hours of his life?
It was indeed a dream run. And that was precisely why I urged Vijay for years to write a book. Yes, many people have achievements, but his narrative was different. Winning without challenges is victory, but winning after overcoming challenges is history!
I remember that, when you visited us in Pune in 2019, you had said that the range and scope of what he had done, deserved to be recorded. I myself maintained that the consistently straightforward way in which he had done it, had to be recorded for posterity. But whenever this was suggested Vijay would say, “Who would be interested in such a book!”
None of us agreed with him. We read books by many other police officers which made it clear that Vijay’s experiences were unique. While the others excelled in certain areas of policing, Vijay’s was a whole range of spectacular achievement!
He may be the only police officer in the country who has dealt with all the aspects of policing — and been successful at each. He was at the forefront of dealing with the changing nature of crime in the country and also at the epicentre of varied policing challenges.
Doesn’t he write about how his actions led to change in tackling crime and criminals?
Yes, his successes invariably led to major changes in the law-n-order situation in the region. In Bhind, removing the Paan Singh[13] gang led to the surrender of a large number of dacoits who previously considered themselves invincible. This list includes the most notorious Malkan Singh[14] and the celebrated Phoolan Devi.
Surprise visitor Dacoit Malkhan Singh (right) with Vijay Raman Photo provided by Veena Raman
Similarly, when Vijay initiated the Indo-Pak border fencing, it was a major deterrent because most of the infiltration was from Jammu and there was a marked decline once the fence came up. Ghazi Baba too was seen as invincible, so the encounter destroyed a formidable opponent and also sent a clear message to enemies across the border.
Vijay’s success was not merely personal triumph. His career as an IPS officer traces the changes in the history of India’s security measures, right?
Indeed, his life and career were intertwined with an entire spectrum of events that enhanced the security of Indians. But let me point out that his daily life also contained an extraordinary range of experiences. He grew up in a village in Kerala, and later lived in villages among the most primitive of peoples in other Indian states. But he also lived in the cities, a privileged urban Indian. He had travelled in bullock carts on rutted roads and often walked 30 km in the course of an ordinary day through ravines. And he had also jetted across the world with the prime ministers he protected.
Vijay exemplified the essential truth of India being one, from Kashmir to Kerala!
Without a spec of doubt Vijay was that quintessential Indian who was intimately connected in different ways to the length and breadth of India. He grew up in Kerala, the deepest south, and spent some of the most significant years of his career in Jammu and Kashmir, the farthest north. His higher education took place in Gujarat; when he retired, we came to live in Pune.
The western part of India was his beloved home as an impressionable youngster, and then again in his final years. There were formative experiences in the east when, as a probationer in the Police Academy, he was taken to explore and understand India’s verdant Northeast. And he was in Calcutta for induction training at the ordnance factory, and later during his stint as Special Director General, Anti-Naxal Operations of the CRPF.
With these influences of north, south, east and west, it was only fitting that Vijay should be allotted the Madhya Pradesh cadre, at the very heart of India.
And he met his darling wife – then a hockey champion – in Nagpur! How did you meet? And how did you sustain your enchantment when the miles kept you in different corners of the land?
Vijay was an excellent writer. Of late I’ve been reading his letters to me over the years, from before we were married as well as during the tenures of separation induced by our work and careers. I can only marvel at his intellectual ability. Even at a very young age, he articulated his thoughts and feelings beautifully, and the letters reflect his tendency to introspect often, and be constantly self-critical.
I see a proud wife sitting before me.
I have always been extremely proud to be the wife of such an exceptional human being. But Vijay disliked being praised. At the peak of achievement, when his heroic deeds were earning him medals and he was surrounded by people singing his praises to the sky, when he was achieving success after success, he tried to ignore it all. Specifically he would tell me, “Please Veena, you don’t praise me. It’s all right that so many people are praising me. But if you start doing it, it’ll go to my head.”
Stupidly, I took him at his word. Of course, I boasted to others that the outstanding police officer was also the best husband, and the best father, ever. Even in the 1970s, when so few women had careers, he supported my ambitions. He knew he was marrying a woman who had her own dreams, who wanted to see the world. And yes, he knew that I had not learnt to cook!
I admired many other things about him. His commitment to perfection no matter how inconsequential the task. His commitment to service, to justice, to humanity. His love for reading. His wry sense of humour. His care for his parents and members of both our families. The deep respect he drew from whosoever knew him well — his family, his colleagues, his subordinates, his superiors, and even many criminals he came in contact with in the course of his duties.
But because he stopped me from praising him, I could never convey to him in words how much I admired him. It was only when he grew weaker that we worked fast and furious to get down on paper all that he was telling us. And as we approached the final pages of this book he said to me, with some surprise and wonder, “Veena, did I really do all this?”
So this book is Vijay’s story in his words. When he became too weak to speak, and when we lost him, my memories continued to pour in and I took the liberty to fill a few gaps.
May his legacy live on!
Vijay Raman at work with a kidnap victim. Photo provided by Veena Raman
The A B C of Vijay Raman
Adventure: Awarded citation in Guinness Book of World Records and Limca Book of Records for his around the world tour in an Indian Contessa car in 39 days 7 hrs 55 minutes Brains: Gold Medals in Law Courage: Presidents Police Medal for Gallantry
Experience: Over 34 years of rich experience in General Administration, Policing, handled PM Security, CM Security, anti-dacoity operation in Chambal, anti- terrorist operations in Jammu & Kashmir , anti-Naxalite operation, Investigated Vyapam Scam.
Awards • Presidents Police Medal for Gallantry. • Presidents Police Medal for Distinguished Service • Presidents Police Medal for Meritorious Service. • Gold medals in Law
[10]Phoolan Devi (1963-2001) was married at the age of eleven and sexually assaulted before she became a dacoit. She was jailed for eleven years and then joined politics till she was assassinated.
[11] Veena Raman retired as General Manager Marketing, Madhya Pradesh Tourism, after serving for 29 years. After retirement, she joined two NGO organisations, University Women’s Association Pune and Pune Women’s Council working towards empowerment of women. She was part of the national hockey team of India in 1975.
[12] Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board
[13]Paan Singh Tomar (1932-1981) was an Indian athlete and soldier who became a dacoit due to family feud.
[14]Malkan Singh (born 1943) is a former dacoit who has turned to politics
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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Title: Safdar Hashmi: Towards Theatre for a Democracy
Author: Anjum Katyal
Publisher: Orient Blackswan
How do you write a biography of a man who was yet to reach the full expression of his multifaceted talents? How do you document his contribution to social action? Do you say that the tragedy of such a premature death is not only that he died young, but that his life was cut short while his talents were still quivering on the cusp of flowering, struggling for full self-expression? As witnesses to this shocking and traumatic event, we can call it a critical event; a moment in time which is still out of it. It is a moment of reckoning which forces us to revisit our assumptions about theatre as entertainment, a Brechtian moment which alienates us from our previous experience and which forces on us “a new and shocking revelation/revaluation of all we have been.”
In a kind of tragic irony, Safdar Hashmi’s[1]story became front page news when he was brutally attacked by some goons who were trying to stop the Jana Natya Manch actors from enacting a street play in Sahibad, one of Delhi’s industrial suburbs, on the 2nd of January, 1989. At that time, he was barely 35 years old.
Born into a close-knit family in 1954, the youngest of four siblings, Safdar Hashmi grew up in Delhi and Aligarh. His first few years of initial schooling were Aligarh and then he moved to Delhi, where he graduated from St Stephens. While the family had to struggle financially, they had plenty of opportunities to be involved in the vibrant cultural scene of Delhi in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Safdar Hashmi: Towards Theatre for a Democracy by Anjum Katyal, a writer, editor and translator, with a forward by the eminent actor Naseeruddin Shah, details the journey of Hashmi, his total dedication to and involvement with theatre. In his forward, Shah writes that Hashmi was an actor who was unconcerened with personal fame or celebritydom. He was a theatre activist who saw theatre as a means of social action and an instrument of change; he was so dedicated to his work that he was “willing to die for it”.
The book houses his early years, his stint in Kashmir, where he proved to be a catalyst in college and university theatre and drew students into it. He worked for the newly instituted television industry in Kashmir, which helped him earn some much needed money to sustain his passionate love for his own work with street theatre .
The slim volume is a veritable treasure trove of anecdotes about theatre from one of its scholars and connoisseurs and the narrative of Safdar’s journey is interspersed with rich dollops of theatre history. Katyal tell us stories of theatre giants like Badal Sircar, Utpal Dutt, Vinod Nagpal and M.K.Raina, thespians whose life stories and work were closely entwined with the history of theatre in India.
To quote the author, “[T]here is little reliable scholarship on the history of theater in India and on Safdar Hashmi’s contribution to Indian theatre.” Katyal’s book on Hashmi addresses both the issues, covering a substantial chunk of post-independence theatre and specifically the 1960s and seventies. Thus, we get to hear about the contributions of Utpal Dutt and Badal Sircar, doyennes and trail blazers of people’s theatre. Katyal examines the larger socio-political environment against which activist theatre evolved within the country. Drawing from different folk traditions , this adumbrated the vision that was truly democratic in its scope and reach and which moved out of proscenium theatre to reach trade unions and factory workers, the streets, factories and the marketplace.
Utpal Dutt, the intrepid screen and theatre actor recalled that they were “infected by the real IPTA[2]’s concern for the people’s political struggle” and he professed, “the exhilaration of direct political action…changed me completely”. These actors also offered valuable insights into the nature of the street theatre, including its capacity for consciousness raising and revolutionary action. Many of the street plays with their specific critiques “gathered the dispersed rage (of the people); it rallied angry men into an angry mass.”
Apart from socio-economic issues like price rise and labour exploitation, street theatre also focused on political issues like the Emergency and the Naxalite movement. In terms of experiments with form, in 1972 Badal Sircar and his group, Satabdi[3], introduced their Third Theatre; pieces evolved through intensive workshops. The physical and even “graphic body language, the ensemble approach in which all actors formed a close part of the whole with interchangeable ‘roles’, the simple uniform-like costumes, and the strategic props were all taken straight from the news or the actors’ lives, in many cases. The narrative was often non-linear, like a collage of facts , ideas and images”.
Non-proscenium theatre, which could be performed in intimate spaces or outdoors for larger audiences, inspired groups in other parts of the country to evolve performances, which were experimental and non-formal, combining disparate styles. The Third Theatre enabled practitioners the flexibility to practise their art even if they had no access to funds or sponsors. However, state-sponsored violence and the imposition of the Emergency in 1975 clamped down on street and activist theatre in India.
From IPTA to the plays of Utpal Dutt and Badal Sircar, the book gives a dialogic account of history of theatre, both for the specialist and non-specialist alike. Safdar Hashmi himself has written quite extensively on the history of street theatre, stating that “street theatre as it is known today can trace its direct lineage no further than the years immediately after the Russian Revolution of 1917.” It was a basically a militant, political theatre of protest. As Katyal traces the history of street theatre, she writes, “The history of street theatre in India is usually traced back to the 1940s and to the IPTA. However, the attempt to use theatre in public spaces to communicate a political message to the common people began as early as the 1930s, when the SFI[4] started using it to spread the message of class struggle among the masses.”
JANAM or the Jana (People’s) Natya (Dramatics ) Manch (Stage)was founded by Safdar Hashmi in 1973. He poured himself into developing plays like Machine, From the Village to the City and Killers, which demonstrated the group’s commitment to workers’ rights and issues. The group also took up women’s causes to raise consciousness in a society which had normalised violence against women. Their play, Aurat (Woman), met with unprecedented success and had 2500 shows. Their theatre also dealt with sectarian or communal violence.
In her book, Katyal ultimately locates the significance of Safdar Hashmi’s and the Jana Natya Manch’s work in its strengthening of democracy and democratic processes. Tragically and ironically, he paid a high price for it.
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[1]Safdar Hashmi (1954-1989) was one of the most major proponents of street theatre in India.
Dr Meenakshi Malhotra is Associate Professor of English Literature at Hansraj College, University of Delhi, and has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in several universities. She has edited two books on Women and Lifewriting, Representing the Self and Claiming the I, in addition to numerous published articles on gender, literature and feminist theory. Her most recent publication is The Gendered Body: Negotiation, Resistance, Struggle.
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Rajorshi Patranabis shares the philosophy and lore of Wiccans
What, if I say that 68% of the universe is dark? Well, this is not my statement. This is a scientifically proven fact. What is there inside the darkness? Sceptics will say, let science find it out. The spirituals will say there’s mysticism. A Wiccan will say there’s mystical magic. Magic, as in common parlance is entertainment, in Wiccan philosophy, it’s the basis of existence. Magic can be best explained as something that’s occurs yet cannot be fathomed.
The term, Wicca, came was popularised by Gerald Gardiner with his books. Many said, it was misogynistic. To be fair to him, 1925 was not as open as it is today, as far as societal norms were concerned. It is more accepted today. I, a practicing Wiccan, follow a way that is more open, more aligned to nature, supernature and the supernatural. What I follow was introduced into India by Ma’am Ipsita Roy Chakraverti.
While this movement may well be termed as historically the first ever feminist movement, the pagan practices involved are more than a thousand years old. Ritualistic worshipping of nature is seamlessly integrated into Wiccan practices. The ancient knowledges that had trickled down through generations are put together in the modern Wiccan practices. Wicca is a philosophy, and I detest calling it a religion. Here, we don’t believe, we seek. We use the knowledge to try and to unfathom mysteries that lie within the dark spheres of nature. Albeit, a miniscule bit, but we do delve into that 68% of darkness, once in a while.
From shamanism to voodoo, from the ancient Egyptian ways of healing to the 64 yoginis, this school covers every way by which the human soul and body can be healed. They say the basic apothecary of life is to align oneself to the directions given by nature. Manifestation of the female power of nature (shakti) forms the essence of this philosophy. The mind, the body and the soul form the complete sphere of the universe. Wicca believes that nothing is inanimate and that everything has a consciousness draped in a veil of conscience.
Everything that’s around us has been derived from this planet, and if this planet is living, Mother Earth is living, then, everything that comes out of it is also living. As the Law of Conservation of Energy says, the total energy is constant, it can neither be created, nor be destroyed. Hence, the body might change, the forms change but the energy remains. Energy is eternal. The metamorphic energy inside a human body that has derived its form mostly from the magnetic or the electric energies of this planet is called the soul. The soul thinks and decides with the mind and the body giving them a presence. A purified soul is the spirit and when this spirit raises itself to survive in unison with the nature, we call that person spiritual.
Chakraverti says every strong woman is a witch. The word ‘witch’ comes from the old English word ‘wik’, which means wise. A female spirit is more nuanced, stubborn, flexible and erudite. A witch is that wise woman who takes on her challenges head on. A witch or a wizard work on the same footing of aligning mankind to the deluges of nature to heal the spirit, the mind, which in turn takes care of the body. Historically, a Wiccan considers Joan of Arc, Robin Hood, Noor Jehan as witches / wizards. Witches were killed at a point due to patriarchal fears of powerful women. These women had been portrayed as negative women in many of the kindergarten folklores.
The Greek goddess, Diana, was worshiped by Wiccan by Budapest Wiccans. Did she metamorphose to Dayaan[1], when she travelled east? Dayaans were to be feared, to be killed if possible. We have come a long way, no doubt, but sporadic news of such killings are still rampant.
There are also certain myths about witches, one being, flying on the broom. The broom is symbolic of cleanliness — cleaning a society of the cobwebs of false beliefs and weak minds. Broom becomes synonymous with power. Flight is of the spirit. A potent spirit reaches places in such time that the body can never think of. There are innumerable examples of saints and sages being spotted at two or more places at the same time. Advanced Wicca philosophy is inclusive of the powers of Hatyoga and Tantra.
Wiccans are the worshippers of the mother Goddess Isis of Egypt. She’s the moon Goddess and the wife of Lord Osiris, the lord of the dark world. She’s the quintessential witch, the Goddess of magic, the Goddess of strength. Indian Wiccans are influenced by forms of Shakti known as Kamala and the Bhubaneswari. The most ancient traces of worship of the raw female power of nature can be found in Kali. Wiccans are also influenced by the Tibetan Tara and the concept of Dakini (the divine witch).
The basic Wiccan principle of worship is through sound vibrations. Chants take the centre stage. Chants of Buddhism are also regularly practiced as are those of Vodun faith with drumbeats. Healing is practiced with chants, as was a common practice in ancient Egypt. The sound of the singing bowl is potent in helping heal.
They have tools that help focus energies of the Earth. Some sound like falling rain. Then there are stones, as in a crystal, a rose quartz, an obsidian, the lapiz lazuli and so on. But the most important tool is the Athame. This is a blunt long knife that is charged and is used to tap the powers of the nature.
One of the oft asked questions is do Wiccans delve into the ‘other dimension’? Physicists have claimed for long, the existence of a celestial plane. Scientists have even said, that, there is a time difference between the celestial and the terrestrial plane. Dreams are said to be in the celestial plane, and hence, time moves differently in dreams. But in effect all humans would have had a brush with the two worlds through dreams. Wiccans believe the veil between the two worlds becomes very thin in autumn. Thus we have All Soul’s Day, Halloween, Bhoot Chaturdashi (holy night of the ghosts) all around the same time, in the autumn of the Northern hemisphere.
I would like to share a few supernatural experiences that I have had myself. These are all first-hand experiences, and I share them with no intention to influence the readers.
A psychic expedition at the Rabindra Sarovar Lake in Kolkata at around 9.30 am on a November morning revealed a figure in my camera. The lake was the psychiatric hospital for the American Soldiers during the 2nd world war. The spirit communicated with us and what could generally be fathomed was, ‘ 1942, Michael James, Death nail through my heart’.
Another time, I rode in an e-rickshaw with someone who had crossed over 20 years before. The driver was very much in congruence with my story when he said, he takes a ride every other evening. This place is a traditionally haunted village in East Midnapore district of West Bengal, India. And yet again, at one of the famous 5-star hotels in Delhi, I could feel someone removing the sacred thread[2] from my body.
I can go on and on. But when it’s Wicca, it’s the strength of Isis that needs to be manifested for healing. And as a true Wiccan, I take leave with, Tebua Netr Anset (You’re the Isis, we know).
[2] A thread worn by Brahmins after they go through an initiation ceremony in their teens.
Rajorshi Patranabisis a poet, critic, reviewer and translator. A Wiccan by philosophy and belief, he is a food consultant by profession with 10 books of poetry and 4 books of translation.
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