Film review: Iti Mrinalini directed by Aparna Sen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iti_Mrinalini

The film begins with Aparna Sen, actress and director, writing her suicide note. She is addressing all the major events in her life as a famous actress and why she has now decided to end her life. There are a handful of pills within her reach which she is going to consume once the she has completed her letter. The night goes on, and she has dismissed the last of the house help and told her that when she comes in the morning, she must not disturb her if she is sleeping. Also, she is not going to take any calls. That understood, Aparna Sen prepares for a suicide that can’t fail. An empty stomach, without a dinner, is a killer, if those pills reach their destination.

The film goes into flash back to tell the audience, why a young Aparna, played by Konkana Sen has arrived at this stage in her midlife. And then the audience is left choice less to decide whether, she was the strong personality she always plays her roles around, or just a woman trying to be ‘different’. She is standing on soft soil, where the social system is concerned.

A young Aparna, now Konkana Sen becomes a famous actress and quite naturally falls in love with the director. They have a child together, but of course, the child is not born in India, but in Canada, where her brother and sister in law are childless and in desperate want to adopt the baby she was going to give birth to. After the birth of the child, Konkana returns to her life as an actress to be duly visited by her daughter, once in a while. As far as giving birth to a child outside marriage, Aparna Sen the director had ensured to play safe, by getting the couple, that is herself and the director married in an obscure temple, for as you might have imagined already, the director was of course a married man.

The film ends with many other losses – Konkana has lost her daughter in a plane crash, just as her daughter had made up her mind to spend a year with her biological parent. The older version of Konkana, that is Aparna herself, loses her man to his wife and son and just as she was about to consume the pills, an old love, from Auroville, calls to say he is coming to her.

A ray of hope makes her change her mind to choose life instead. She throws the pills and takes her dog for a walk. But in a twist of fate becomes a victim of a bullet shot out at a man escaping the police.

The film closes with a clear message – when the moment of death is nigh, nothing can stop it from happening. Second, her death matched the death of her first lover, the hunted and wanted revolutionary, from her college days, who was killed by police firing, in the jungle, as he tried to run from them.

As a film, Iti Mrinalini fails to deliver the punch it could have easily. Ventesh Films, Kolkata, famous for making films that defy social norms, and are only screened in Kolkata and the west, like Chicago, perhaps could not take the chance of a film that might not be well received by aam junta, Bengali bhodrolok, who is willing to arm chair think of breaking the boundaries of social norms, but rarely has the spunk to go ahead with it.

Sen, should have walked away with a stronger theme. If her heroine was bold enough to have a relationship with a married man and bear his child, she ought to have shown more muscle power by bringing up the child herself and not finding a convenient excuse of giving it for adoption albeit only to her brother. Besides, if the child were to have been comfortable with two mothers, a biological one and a real, caring surrogate mother, Sen ought not to have killed her in an air crash, just as she was coming home to her biological mother. This was a cowardly step, because, by doing this Sen, deleted the possibility of a actually placing a debate and discussion before her audience and allowing them, our Bengali bhodrolok to go home relieved – “Jak, bhaloi hoyeche meye ta mara gelo. Ja e bolo, ei tah ki hoy? - Good the girl did not survive. Whatever you may say, can this be an accepted way of life?”

Really, she displayed weakness throughout the film and was a great disappointment for the intellectual elite, who look upon her as someone who can affect change.

Iti Julia Dutta

Cast: 
Aparna Sen
Konkana Sen Sharma
Priyanshu Chatterjee
Srijit Mukherjee
Rajat Kapoor

The English Papers IV - Being single; Being Mum

Try as you might, it is only by imitation that one learns style and presentation.

Jill Cadman and Fiona

I watched Fiona intently, without being offensive and I remember her busy English home may have not had everything in place, because, really she had a lot of stuff in her head to do, as a lady working with the government, but there was always that thing about style she maintained in her day to day life. Indeed, she was soft spoken and met my eyes, when she talked, rather infrequently making sure I was being addressed, but not rudely stared at. Polite and perfect with her diction, her relationship with her daughter, who had just become a mother and lives close by too, reflects the same spirit of respect and non-interference, although she is a great support to her, naturally.

“I like the way; you are so respectful of her.” I said.

“Oh yes, I would always be that with her.”

Quite naturally, Jessica, her daughter displays the same respect for her little baby who is only 6 months old.

“I can’t have her picture published, because, she has to permit me to do so. She will have to grow up to decide for herself.” She said, when I asked for a picture of her baby.

In an age of Facebook, where the boundaries between personal and public is dimming out fast, it is important to draw the lines somewhere and not go the whole hog and tell it all to the world.

Again, this is a show of respect, no matter what the age of the human is.

Fiona comes from a line of single mothers. Interestingly, her grandmother, mother, she herself and her daughter are all single mothers. Like my mother, who chose to be a single mother, despite my father being alive, the women in Fiona’s line too, made the same choice. This fact, this points out to one thing for sure – parenthood, is a choice we make ourselves and how we are going to fulfill the role is again a personal choice. This choice undermines social norms to place the individual’s personal choice above all, no matter what the price may be that one must pay for this bold decision.

Fiona makes the breakfast and dinner; a single, working woman would do in urban India too. It is simple, quickly made and does not require time to cook it up and place it on the table. A quick bowl of porridge with a toast, butter as you please, honey and a cuppa, is just right to start the day with. At dinner, time she spends with herself is with a glass(es) of wine and some soft music playing in the background. She reads a lot, both at work and off it and her single room with bath, drawing-cum-dining room and a kitchen flat in London is a haven of books, not so much novels. She is a serious reader from a very intellectually engaging time, the sixties.

On my way back to India, I spent time with her alone for two days when we went to Oxford. Really, Oxford cannot be covered in a day, or a month, or a life time. But the little town can be admired for its rich history. Our guide that day, a lovely lady, who said her brain was melting underneath the heat of the May sun, gave us a list of people who had passed out of different colleges in Oxford. Pity, she forgot Dr Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate, perhaps because his name was a true tongue twister and preferred to talk about names she could remember. I was proud to hear Dr Manmohan Singh’s name but not so happy about her saying that Indira Gandhi, the once Prime Minister of India, passed out of here and Sonia Gandhi her daughter in law, also passed out of here. Indeed, I had raised my hand to rectify the mistake by saying that Indira Gandhi attempted to pass out of here but regrettably did not and her daughter in law we know was studying the English language somewhere here but are not quite sure she succeeded in her Exams, but we are certain that she was a waitress in one of the Cafe here where she met and then married India Gandhi’s son, Rajiv Gandhi. Well, better sense took over and I sheepishly put my hand down, remembering quite clearly what my English Headmistress, Miss Thompson, always told us, when in England, do as the English do - maintain a tight upper lip.

“I will always think of you when I am at Oxford.” She wrote, and I agreed we had a lovely time, walking the streets of Oxford, hopping on and hopping off the Oxford sight-seeing bus, many times over. Yet, the real feel of Oxford is not yet in my blood and perhaps that will only happen when we can both go once again, not like two friends walking its hallowed streets, where many a stalwart walked but as a  family, with Jessica and her pretty baby with us.

When I look back, I think of all the little things Fiona did for me, someone, whom she had met the first time in her life and I feel once again, it is a way, a style of presentation of who she is, that I will always remember her by.

Like all the people I met, who were a part of Jill’s life, I know, Fiona had heard of me a lot and so there was a bonding spun around a common friend, our own dear, dear Jill. But, now, a warm friendship has kindled in our hearts too, separate and yet, strongly, bound by our common love for Jill.

Isn’t it lovely, how love grows? 

 

Book Review: The Temple Is Not My Father by Rasana Atreya

The oldest profession in the world prostitution, takes on a serious side in India, when one reads cases and books on what is called the devadasi system in India, which is rooted in religion. In Rasana Atreya’s new Novelette, The Temple Is Not My Father, the reader encounters the shocking realities of how, the system is both used and abused by bigoted family instruments which can bring up an immense amount of anger towards those, who force women to corners of society, where life is but a bleak existence of no hope.

Godavari, named after a river in India, is the third daughter of parents who have had five daughters, which in itself is ominous, because, only a son is an auspicious addition to a family. She has been sold at seven to the temple by her father, where like many devadasis in India, is wedded to Goddess Yellamma. Frequented by one after another man, on a daily basis, she becomes pregnant and bears a baby girl, Sreeja. Godavari’s mother has shown much resistance to this, but with an adamant husband to manage, she has lost to him. But, she decides not to allow, the plight of her daughter to be repeated with her granddaughter. By willing all her wealth to Godavari, she has raised the wrath of all her children, including her son, who ought to have inherited the wealth of his mother. Shunned by family except a single sister, Krishna, Godavari lives a solitary life with her daughter, in a house inherited from her mother.

Soon, their solitary life is interjected by two delightful girls, Neeraja and Vanaja, who have been sent by their chastity-obsessed parents living in the US to India, to live and study with their grandmother, for fear that the girls now coming of age may give in to poor moral standards existing in the US, and date and mate with boys! A great relief for Sreeja, daughter of Godavari, the little girl begins to know the value of friendship, with the two girls and also learn from them. But their grandmother is not happy at the association and stops the girls from coming. When finally they are able to break loose, it is only to tell Godavari that they would be sent away to boarding school so that they can be kept away from social outcasts like Godavari and little Sreeja. This is a blow to Godavari.

In the mean time, before the two girls leave, an NGO run by Asha garu takes little Sreeja away from her mother, and gives her for adoption, so that Sreeja can have a normal life, ands not as a shunned by society, uneducated daughter of a devadasi. This breaks Godavari’s heart but she survives the pain by focussing on changing her life too. She too joins an NGO and begins to learn computer and is guided into a life of saving children from prostitution. This is how she meets Raji, who is mimed from the torture of being given to prostitution at the age of seven. It takes Godavari three years to make the girl speak even a single sentence.

The book ends with a typical Rasana Atreya sign off – a tremendous twist in the story most readers would never have imagined in their wildest dreams.

Tibor Jones Asia Prize nominee, 2012, Rasana Atreya, is not only a story teller par excellence now. She is a Brand. She writes stories from the heart of India based on social structure that continues to exist despite its urbanization. She is disturbed by this and no reader can put her book down without feeling waves of disturbance themselves. Her writings rise the bile in your belly and make you want to go and change the system and yet, it is true, that perhaps those who stand to protect us, actually are the perpetrators themselves. Whether, it is The Temple is Not My Father, or her book which was nominated for the Tibor Jones Asia Prize, Tell A Thousand Lies, Rasana Atreya, jars you to sit up and think.

And the twists and turns of her stories are at once, a great art in story telling at the same time, very natural to Rasana Atreya as an author and a Brand.

You can read her book, by downloading it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Temple-Not-My-Father-Story-ebook/dp/B00LQE95FU

The English Papers III

www.cookingwithegg.com

Ingredients:

Raw green vegetables, red pumpkin, all sliced and cut to fine pieces, preferably of the same size. Starchy vegetables like potatoes, sweet or otherwise, may be cut and cooked separately.

Method: Place a thick pan on the fire. Add a spoonful of butter or oil. Allow to heat. Add half a teaspoon of cumin seeds into the butter and allow it to fry till it lets out a flavour. Gently pour in the vegetables and turn down the fire to extreme low. Turn the vegetables in the pan upside down for a bit. Add, salt to taste, a little turmeric powder, a spoonful of garam masala and place a lid over the pan and allow the vegetables to cook in their own juices on a slow fire. Do not add water at this stage. Keep an eye on the pan by occasionally turning the vegetables, this way and that. Once, it is partially cooked, put off the gas and allow the vegetables to cook in the steam, inside the pan. The flavours will marry gently and leave a lasting, effect on your palate, long after the meal is over.

When you are ready to eat, add a little coconut milk to the mixture or cream, in your bowl. Or just plain, warm or boiling water, so you have the liquid effect, just in case you like it that way. Or just eat it, without the additions.

This is a no garlic, no onion vegetable curry, delicate on the taste buds and smooth for your stomach. But if you are one of those, who like it a little strong, then, avoid the cumin seeds seasoning in the pan and replace with crushed garlic and finely chopped onions, fried until brown, before you let the vegetables in, into the pan.

NOT all marriages are as delicate and smooth like the vegetable curry the recipe of which is given above. Clearly, if one starts with a lot of raw and rough smelly flavours, the marriage may be indigestible.

“Indian marriages last forever. They are stable and strong. You certainly do not have that many divorces.”

“This is news to me,” I said, a trifle doubtful about the BIG FAT Indian marriages, ‘at least in Kolkata, I know, divorces have become an epidemic!’

The stability of the old, traditional marriages has given way to adventure. Besides, when both partners are economically independent, there is no need to carry on with a long dead marriage, and be adventurous and embrace the new, which promises a volatile, hot and simmering love, flavoured with passion and non-lasting promises.

When I looked at a generation, in England, which is 65 and above, I saw stability and happiness for having stood their ground and stayed in a marriage, no matter what. But when I looked at the generation which is 25 – 30 years younger, I saw people have been more adventurous with their lives and have been able to weather many changes and have taken risks in their lives for which they have no regrets.

I am not sure whether it is the security of living in a country, where, to love and procreate, without having to marry, gives a person, a freedom, dear to the soul, or is it just that marriage is still an important institution, but one does not have to marry to have children.

I am not sure that our society in India will ever change to accommodate the freedom of the soul, to love, without questioning, gender, caste, creed, education, profession and mother’s family line details before we hope to tie the knot.

Looking back, I am reluctant to make a judgement, as to whether, we are moving fast forward, or rewinding backward.

I have a taste for a delicately flavoured Indian curry, which lingers in my taste buds and does not bring up a strong smelling garlic onion burp that can shatter a good night’s sleep.

I think Jill will agree with me totally. We always finished a night’s meal with the Indian curry and packaged ready to eat, steamed fish or chicken, topped with a cuppa and dark chocolate.

Splendid! I say, splendid!

                                       Watch video: What is the Big Fat Indian Wedding, today.

The English Papers II

Suzie with Elise

Suzie is a store house of energy, just like her mother, my friend Jill, about whom you have read in The English Letter I. Suzie is sprightly, tall, very slim and trim and almost a replica of Princess Diana,

She has been totally adventurous and has lived and run businesses in England, Spain and perhaps many other countries.

When the dating agency came across her and her now, going to be her legally wedded husband, Mark, they immediately put the two together, because, they thought Suzie and Mark made such a good pair. Both have been married before and both have children from previous marriages. The delightful, teenagers, are bonded in a family they share with both their parents.

But, Suzie and Mark have Elise, who is now preparing to be married, on the same day as her parents. And I have seen Elise, take to the toilet paper spine and deck it up with a long veil, made of toilet paper. Such an amusing dear!

Of course Mark and Suzie argue about everything, from UKIP, to French Front National and if you enter their home, you will see the symbols one on top of the other, to show, who is in power at home. Let me explain this frequently changes as the argument reaches a hilt and little Elise must come in between and order – “Stop Arguing!”

Mark, who has lived and worked in Australia, once again running a surfing school, is very sporty and he along with Suzie will be bringing in children from Spain, to learn surfing in the sea. Wow!

Mark’s parents are the dear couple who live at Hereford, on your way to The Lakes, on the A30.I loved them both, Mike whom I call an MCP and Ann Eley, are unforgettable to me. Ann is quiet and meditative and very tender and sweet, while Mike never spares a moment to poke a joke like an MCP (Male Chauvinistic Pig, pardon the use of terrible language!) I don't think he means it at all, but it was wonderful to re-visit my youthful days and place my hands on my waist and reprimand - Now, Now Mark, watch your step! But, I can tell you he was a fine gentleman himself and very chivalrous. Like a good old gentleman from the old days, he chaperoned the two lost ladies, which is me and Jill and drove almost 45 minutes to get us to the The Malvern Flower Show! Now that counts, big time!

At The Lakes, squeezed inside the car, my not so slim bottoms, edged to the door, at the back. I said, quite enthusiastically to Suzie, “I think Mark is a lovely man! I wish you both a very happy wedded life.”

Gracious as she is, she said thank you and then whispered, “Mum doesn't like him as much as I do!”

“Oh bugger! She is only jealous!” I laughed. The first of her three children, Suzie means a lot to Jill.

We laughed and she added, “But they get along well together, if I am not there!”

There! I said to myself. Mothers are always fond of their son-in-laws, behind the daughter’s back!

That is cheating, isn't it?

But Mark is a darling and both he and Suzie are very busy people. I can say that for sure, the British are very hard working people and their day may start at 7 am and end not before 10 pm. That is a lot! 

After the little gossip, she turned to me and said, “So how are you and Kanchi?”

It was a defining moment in my life and I knew that Suzie would always have a special place in my heart, just because, she touched a very intimate part of my life – my life with my partner, whom she called by her pet name. 

I am absolutely in awe with Suzie's courage and conviction in herself, the man she loved devotedly and the way they have both made space for all their children, his and hers, to bond and stay together.

It really is an amazing quality, I most admire.

A very international family, Suzie with kids:

And here is the very adventurous couple, Mark and Suzie

The English Papers I

In the right spirit

The English Papers I

On 28^th April, an address I had been writing to in England came alive. It was an address, way out in Cornwall, at the Southern tip of England, where a lady I met in 1989 at the Osho Commune, Pune, lived. She and I had become friends instantly, while she was visiting India, both of us having common friends through whom we met. It is hard to bring back all the little things – and the big things we did for each other, during her stay in India. It is also impossible to describe the bonding we have between the two of us.

“I was probably the Maharaja of Kanker, married to an outrageous English lady, from the far west…” I had said once, ‘although you look much better in your own country than you look in mine!’

She had fallen into deep depression, there upon. India is so dear to her!

Jill Cadman and I are family. Over the seas and the air, the lands that part us, essentially we are deeply tied together as if we are sisters. The years between us, have never allowed the spirit that binds us, to come in between.

A little anxiety prone these days, she had waited long at the Heathrow Airport to pick me up, but was thrown in a fuzzy state of mind when she did not see me emerge even after half an hour had passed. I had walk out of the green channel, having nothing to declare, but got lost among the conveyer belts causing a delay in walking out of the airport. By the time we met, our nerves were a wreck but the sight of each other threw us both into each other’s arms and there we were off on the Underground, chatting away, as if there had not been a full ten years between us, when we had not met at all. We changed over to a bus, at some point and then, once again, we chatted and laughed so much, we missed our stop and had to walk back quite a distance, to arrive at Fiona’s where we were to spend two nights before we left for Cornwall. I had touched London in its raw at around 10 pm, that night of April, 25, 2014.

Jill’s life in Cornwall, is a busy one. Between her home, her children and her grandchildren, not to forget her friends, she has a hectic day, running around everywhere in her two-seater SMART Mercedes Benz. And in between she spends huge amount of time in what she calls her lifeline, her beautiful garden. 

Every one living in the countryside has a garden and this surely is the beauty of living where she does. As you enter, the garden smiles at you and the occasional guard at the garden, the lovely orange cat may throw herself over at your feet for a little scratch on the tummy.  

Our day ran like this: I woke at 5 am, did my meditation and had my coffee. Then I stared at nothing out of her window for long hours, till she woke, had a shower and a cuppa. By then, it was time for her daughter Suzie to call. A long conversation ensued, ending in a laugh and then a glutten free breakfast was on its way. I lay the table, while she prepared the protein rich breakfast, after which we set off sight seeing and meeting friends on the way. Sometimes we shopped at Tescos.

And on Wednesdays, we did something very special – we baby sat Elise, her youngest grand child.

I am so grateful for this time with Elise, who cried a little bit on her father’s shoulders, when she first met me, but soon overcame her shyness sharing with me games and stories we read together. Just four, delicate and pretty, she is now preparing to join in at the wedding of her parents, this September! 

“She too is getting married!” Suzie quipped, while I swallowed a laugh, well nigh a burst.

Indeed, three generations of women, one I had already met in India and followed to her country, the other two, the delightful little Elise, and her mother. I am so happy I went, because if I had not, I would not have met Suzie, about whom you will read in the soon to be published, The English Papers II.  

Some pictures from Windermere, Lake District

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+JuliaDutta/albums/6014055339534497329

Some pictures from Jill’s garden

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos?pid=6009295846412850434&oid=118112130944380341626