All About Freedom - 14-8-1999

DELHI SINCE 2013 - 2013

Pages from the Trip to Srinagar 4th January 2011

Its been 2 years since the trip to Srinagar. (the winter following the August 2010 unrest).

Sharing a few pages that i scribbled on the flight and first impressions. 

Sharing them here for only a day or two.

More memories from family, childhood travel to Kashmir:

 

Watching Kashmir through 'Harud'

Watching Kashmir through 'Harud'

Does Harud match up to world cinema standards? Has Harud changed the cinematic fairytale about Kashmir preserved through Bollywood? Does Harud explain the Kashmir "issue"? How much will the DVD of Harud cost?

Do these questions really matter? I don’t think so. 

For me, they are as redundant as "issues and their promoters" for whom film-festival gloss or box-office entertainment value scores over blood spilt in real life.

What matters is a film like Harud got made and got released mainstream. What matters is another season lost in strife has some cinematic record where very few exist. 

As for "Bollywood" - even though I continue to adore Bollywood for 'some' of the gems and escape from reality it creates amidst all the obvious flesh-show, a film like Harud and Bollywood cannot really be spoken of in the same breath.

Rafiq and his friends are not likely to exist in a Bollywood film of this generation without being branded as either terrorists or tourist guides. Where else can their reality of making sense of life within conflict, in the fall of burnt chinar leaves and unannounced gunshots find a home, if not a film like 'Harud'!

The fairytales may have halted but cameras never left Kashmir - news cameras, occasional documentaries have captured shades of the conflict consistently, but the intimacy that cinema provides can’t be replicated by the excess of blood soaked tv, documentary or stock footage, neither can the irony of existing silently at the pace of life right in the midst of loud political drama that dominates life in this conflict zone. 

This duality reflected in the brilliantly etched character of the traffic policeman and of course equally brilliantly portrayed by Reza Naji who wades through the chaos of noisy traffic and himself exists in stoic silence, his seasoned eyes reflecting the age that would have seen the fairytale deteriorating into a blood soaked curfewed zone, perhaps each day, one day at a time.

The presence of the Armed Forces lingers consistently in the backdrop and foreground, and eventually gets surrounded by the collective silence of the Association of Parents of Displaced Persons, they still seek answers, whereabouts of their children who 'disappeared' within the conflict. The questions remain.

In another scene, Rafiq’s boss asks if he knows of any Kashmiri Pandit, Rafiq answers that he doesn’t. Although, the film-maker merely glances over the shoulders of a Pandit family who explain they are not keen to live in today's Kashmir, he doesn't make the circumstances in which they would have left in the first place, part of this story. And yet, it’s clear these too are people who 'disappeared' - from their homes. Those questions too, remain.

I can’t help but feel connected to the film, it takes me back to glimpses of a severed relationship that became my eyes to see life in contemporary kashmir till a few years back, when no such film existed. Now there is Harud.

Thank you Aamir Bashir and team, for preserving glimpses of life from a land, whose people are often conveniently forgotten and where life itself is capable of disappearing silently in the name of ‘conflict’. 

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Jammu Back-lanes

Picture Postcards for those who care about the Back-Lanes of Jammu!

DELHI SINCE 2012 - 2012

Remembering Sept 11, 2001, M17 - Routine interrupted – the world within the common room - 9/11

Remembering  Sept 11, 2001

M17 - Routine interrupted – the world within the common room - 9/11

Back in Melbourne...
Sept ‘01

The newness of the experience was wearing off and routine was taking over, friendship with words had not been struck yet, friendship with people however was growing.

The diary entries were turning drab, monotonous and a space for venting out what was possibly a first brush with ‘homesickness.’ There were lean phases, boring days, slow days, sad days, days of wanting to take the first flight back home, visit for a few hours and fly back asap. to own room and free space!
After writing out one such entry I went off for the much needed walk and followed up only a month later.

17th Oct ‘01


“…after I wrote the last few pages, went outside for a walk(wanted to get away), cried my heart out and went to the common room at 10 or 11 pm, sat down and watched the news and the rest is ‘history'. All of a sudden the news channels flashed a news story which had just reached them – the plane going into the World Trade Centre.

And then slowly and gradually news unfolded in real time and now the world is not the same and then I thought about what I had written in the previous pages and thought how foolish I had been. I mean, I have everything I could possibly want yet I don’t realize how fortunate I am. Well..it’s been a little more than a month since I put that down and I find myself in a similar state of mind again – a state of restlessness.
Maybe this is adolescent fervour reaching me at age 20 but I want to do something worthwhile, the whole clichéd thing about making a difference. The only thing is that my instinctive intentions are to make a spectacle out of the difference which is only rarely possible; people who make a difference are inconspicuous normally.

I didn't record any specific images or reactions to 9/11 in the diary, my mind was only beginning to make sense of the chaos that is the everyday-world today. that time was all hazy. But now, in hindsight, i recall the room, the television and the experience of watching, all so clearly, it must have impacted in some way...almost like a visual memory saved, frozen to be made sense of only much later..

In that common room...watching the wtc collapse in real time on television, tuning in to the american news channels and trying to make sense as the newsmakers themselves were. Was this real? or was this the extension of the 'hollywood myth'. and just when the unfortunate event was regarded done - the second plane surprised the news anchors and....the people watching of course.

In times like these, a crisis unfolding in real time, it is ironical, but the tv watching experience, brings with it a certain sense of unity, togetherness - that day it did.


The world that i wanted to see, was right there around that television, different nationalities, multiple cultures watching the television screen, reacting, unable to react....the world was right there in that common room that day....

the terror 'reminder' routine for 'spirited bombay' - terror tourism outside hospital gates! Life moves on as usual. (pics from July 14th)

Specially for those who sell the 'spirit of mumbai' in the name of your endurance..send them their favourite alcoholic drink like the one advertised over the bus-stand!

Kashmiri roots always found their significant presence in my lifestyle

J&K Monitor - The Project
Written by Smriti Vij
Tuesday, 05 April 2011 00:00

“I traveled as an individual with my own identity and met up with mass media students at the Kashmir University, apart from people in the arts and journalism I wanted to have a conversation with. At the University, when I was introduced as ‘a daughter of the soil’, I felt happiness I had not felt before, something felt complete, I felt I had reached home. I hope now, that my parents will travel with me and that they too would feel, at home”.

MUMBAI: Growing up a ‘dependent’ in the Indian Army, patriotism and feeling of oneness with the nation – India - is inculcated from the very beginning, growing up as an ‘Indian’ without differentiation on the basis of culture, religion or any other identity is the designed way. But being born in a Kashmiri family, with a mother who grew up in the Valley, Kashmiri roots have always found their significant presence in lifestyle, décor, food of course.

However, studying journalism in Delhi University’s Lady Shriram College changed the way I perceived my Kashmiri identity – it challenged the ‘Indian’ identity generated by the Army upbringing by deconstructing it into the other identities that comprised my personality– religion, culture, region – a process opened up for this change to take place but it wasn’t something planned or designed, it happened out of pure chance.

My reason to study journalism was that I was determined to challenge my parents’ discipline and find a way into the arts and this was the only undergraduate media course available in Delhi in a very prestigious college. As it happened, studying journalism around the time when the television media was set to boom was an advantage too.

But such were the events taking place that being a part of the process in college became priority over any other interests in life – artistic or otherwise. LSR arranged an exchange programme with Kinnaird College in Lahore, it was only while I visited Lahore that I got to learn more about our father’s family, my grandfather having studied at Lahore. Additionally, I also got basic training in Conflict management through an organization affiliated to our college, called, Women in Security, conflict management and peace.

From there, it was a determined curiosity to discover more. I am the youngest member of my father’s family that was displaced from Muzzafarabad after the Pakistani army sponsored tribal raiders’ invasion of undivided Kashmir in 1947 but the details of this story were to reach me only much later. It was around this time, I discovered the losses that were suffered by innocent people during these events, my own grandfather amongst the people who were brutally massacred. Our family, those who survived entered India as displaced people and each of the siblings grew up, a survivor.
My father, the youngest, with much help from his eldest brother who was in the British army then, also entered the army and fought hard to earn survival. My mother’s family witnessed similar events in Poonch before they moved to Srinagar and that is where most of my mother’s family grew up until they left for Jammu.

I had begun studying about these connections in college and even wrote articles about Kashmir, but yet, with all the current news that was flowing in from Kashmir – terrorism, exodus of the Pandits, - it was too much a puzzle to make sense of, especially considering the story of the happy times in Kashmir that our mother had narrated to us while we – three sisters were growing up.

When our mother grew up in Srinagar, studying to be a doctor, life was peaceful and happy – it was about, snow, strawberries and film shoots. This ‘new Kashmir’ in the news was not a place she could easily relate too. College awarded me an exchange scholarship to a university in Melbourne, Australia where I spent a year studying the emerging new media as well as other trends in media communication. It was also a year where I started making an effort to learn to read, so that I could read about stories of Kashmir and it’s place in India.

I chose to return to India, but realized journalism had now become personal for me, not objective as is the requirement of the profession, I realized I needed a personal, internal journey to put into perspective all the new facets I had learnt about around this time, I got a chance to work for the Hindi film industry and hone my skills in storytelling.
It was also the beginning of an independent journey to learn about culture, to find out our Kashmiri roots and try and give expression to it. Once again, at the first batch of scriptwriting at the Film and T.V Institute of India, the film industry was going through a period of change where storytelling and a different kind of film making energy was going to make its presence felt.

Over the years, I continued to try and get closer to understand my place as an individual vis a vis Kashmir, to create a script and story and reach a stage where I was comfortable in traveling to at least Srinagar by myself. Events in Srinagar in 2010 where the forces mercilessly opened fire, seemed to be the final blow. I have been consistently associated with theatre groups since childhood and chose to collaborate with a theatre director in Delhi to create a theatre piece where I expressed what I felt about events in Kashmir.

Early this year, I traveled to Srinagar, alone. We had traveled as a family when our father was still serving in the army in 1987. This time, I traveled as I wished, without the burden of being associated with any newspaper or any media associate, I traveled as an individual with my own identity and met up with mass media students at the Kashmir University, apart from people in the arts and journalism I wanted to have a conversation with.

At the University, when I was introduced as ‘a daughter of the soil’, I felt happiness I had not felt before, something felt complete, I felt I had reached home. I hope now, that my parents will travel with me and that they too would feel, at home.


Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 April 2011 21:52

Bollywood Pics & Videos

Even though I was made a consumer of Bollywood since childhood in Delhi while i myself was being used through remote access and other free show and eventually spent one year at the Film and Television Institute of India and struggled in Bombay for 10 years since age 22 I am neither a part of Indian film or Indian TV because the Indian system never considered me their own and i have not attended any bollywood events so i don't have any more photos of their lives. So, here are just a few and i am thankful to the people who allowed me to make and keep these.

PUNE, BOMBAY YOU WERE THE WORST WITH ME, YOU KILLED MY FACE AND SKIN, GAVE ME NO WORK CREDIT, STOLE MY STUDY AND STRUGGLE AND PAID YOUR OWN SELVES, LEFT ME AS A SINGLE FEMALE ALONE ON THE STREETS, PUBLIC SPACES, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, UNPAID AND ALONE SINCE 2002 TO 2012 WITH NO INVITATION TO ANY EVENT, NO BEGINNING TO ANY PERSONAL OR PROFESSIONAL WORK OTHER THAN THE LOWEST PAID JOB WHICH WAS COPIED AND STOLEN AWAY.