Posts Tagged ‘Shazia Iqbal’

Dear MAMI – Stop being a bhakt, try being Bebaak instead

Posted: October 22, 2018 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, Indie, Mumbai Film Festival, short film, WTF
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Sounds offensive no? But it’s a fact that you are acting like bhakts and here’s why.

Illogical –
Do you know bhakts are supposed to be illogical? Shazia has rationally pointed out all the holes in your decision here so there isn’t much to say there. But your response? Well, it is stupider than Modi’s logic for climate change. (Look it up here ) We thought you wanted to open a conversation, your response shows you don’t even know where to begin. No communication, no valid reason presented to her. Why? Is it too much to ask you to think critically? If yes, then you are no better than bhakts and all the talk of independent cinema and artists voices is baloney. If no, then think.

Herd mentality –
If you can think you will know you are jumping on a bandwagon without really standing up for anything. Just like bhakts keep shouting ‘hindu khatre mein hain’ at every given opportunity without knowing jackshit about what Hindu means. Or Hindustan for that matter. Just because everyone is high on moral outrage you are high on it too. Sorry, this way your voice and stand becomes more irrelevant than you think. But oh, I forgot you cannot think. For yourselves.

Righteousness –
Are you a film festival or a Khap Panchayat? I smell so much self-congratulatory pride in your actions and statements. Why? Suddenly you have become all righteous and in the weird most way possible. Oxfam is Ok with you, Lars Von Trier is Ok with you but Bebaak is not. Even after all mentions of the co-producer in question have been removed. And yet, his involvement in other projects go unnoticed. Really now? Who made you the Sarpanch of the me too movement? And a patriarchal one that too.

Convenience –
Bhakts have no identity of their own, they derive it from their idols. By taking a stand that is as pointless as it is stupid, you seem to be trying to latch on to the identity of the me too movement because you have none of your own (you can’t have an identity if you can’t think for yourself, btw) Your decision seems to be a strictly PR exercise to keep a good, clean, progressive image in public. A ‘show’ to display you are on the ‘right’ side. That is what patriarchy has done all along. Are you any better? Doesn’t look like to me.

Sense of ownership –
Have you noticed bhakts demanding India be exactly the way they wish to be? Have you noticed that all who don’t fall in line are summarily lynched and removed from the system? Do you really think the me too movement is simply about arbitrarily disconnecting those who don’t agree with you? Not only have you denied Shazia a fair hearing, your responses show you wish to have no conversation about it because you seem to know what you are doing is right. Somehow that is enough and Shazia has no place or say in the matter. Wonderful. I thought only bhakts did that. The me too movement, is not yours alone to decide what to do with it. Just like India does not belong to the bhakts alone.

Entitlement –
The me too movement is a variety of things for all of us, women and men alike, small and big alike. For some it is about speaking up, for some remaining silent, for some taking action, for some backing off. But for all of this to have happened, women and men alike, have taken individual stands. They have made difficult choices. They have lost friends, reputations and careers among other things, to ensure we finally call out hypocrisy and entitlement. Your stand reeks of both to me, hypocrisy and entitlement. Will you call yourself out? Guess, that would be bad for PR. If you won’t you don’t stand in solidarity with the movement because the one thing it has taught us all is where we all are complicit in the system. But you seem to be a system unto yourself and an ill-thought out one at that. Doesn’t it remind of you something called the bhakt behavior?

Any answers to all of the above? If not, try watching Bebaak again, you may still have a copy. May help you develop a brain. And a spine.

Btw, Bebaak means fearless.

Fatema Kagalwala
A very disappointed film fan who also happens to be a feminist.

Shazia Iqbal’s open letter to MAMI board members questioning their integrity

Posted: October 20, 2018 by Amit Sharma in cinema, Mumbai Film Festival, Open Letter
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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King

Dear Board members at MAMI,

My name is Shazia Iqbal. I am the writer-director of a short film titled ‘Bebaak’. Our film was supposed to have its world premiere at the Mumbai Film Festival, this year. It is not going to anymore. The leadership at MAMI decided to drop the film.

Why? That is the answer you owe my team and me.

I was not given an official written statement from the board/committee members as to why my film was dropped. This, inspite of me repeatedly asking for the same:

A few more attempts on Whatsapp went unanswered. But this is what I did get:

I was then told by a member that this decision wasn’t fair to me but it was the final decision of the board. And that it was not meant to be a punishment or judgement.

I appreciate the empathy from Team MAMI but it changes nothing.

These are the questions I want to ask:

Then why was the film dropped? If it doesn’t serve as punishment or judgement?

Did you know the content of the film before dropping it? Or were we part of a surface clean-up?

I understand there are ‘collateral damages’ in a battle but my film is as feminist as this battle we are fighting; and if you’re shutting down a film that starts a conversation against misogyny and patriarchy, then what side of the battle are you on?

What side of the movement do you all belong to?

In any fight, you have to keep in mind the words ‘Justice’ and ‘Punishment’.

Justice: being fair and reasonable, treating people equally.

Punishment: the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offence.

I was told over a phone call that my film ‘Bebaak’ will be dropped from the festival program because one of the producers is Anurag Kashyap.

I was not told, but was supposed to understand, that since he is accused of “being complicit” in a sexual harassment case (one of the partners at Phantom, Vikas Bahl is accused of sexually assaulting a woman), our film has been disqualified.

Let me clarify that Anurag is one of my two producers. The other is Ajay Rai of Jar Pictures. And the film is independently produced by both.

Phantom Films (of which the directly accused, Vikas Bahl was part of) has nothing to do with us. There was no monetary or production involvement with the accused in any capacity.

This is an open legal case and I will say as much there already is in public domain (and also include some of my personal knowledge) that Anurag did all that he could at the time and unfortunately, yet it wasn’t enough to get the woman complete justice because she did not want to make a formal complaint. (Sorry, I don’t use the politically correct but demoralizing word ‘victim’.)

Anurag was a Board Member of your Academy.

He voluntarily stepped down from the Board to keep your reputation ‘clean’. Here is his tweet (where he also denies being complicit):

Here is another tweet where he denies being silent:

Here he mentions his responsibility to the women with whom he works with (I am one of them) and mentions that we have questioned them regarding the case (him and Vikram):

Anurag and Vikram clarified their side of the story, shared their dilemma and apologised.

But apparently none of this mattered.

You chose to believe a one-sided, article written by a so called ‘investigative journalist’ — Ankur Pathak — who kept many details out of the article because it did not suit the narrative of a story he wanted to tell; painting Anurag and Vikram as the wrongdoers, way more than the accused, Vikas Bahl himself!

And instead of standing up for the truth or even looking for it, you would rather go with the lynch mob mentality and a knee jerk reaction than look for a more nuanced solution to the situation.

I am the writer-director of the film. I have a female lead, and more than fifty percent of my main cast and crew are women. We have all become the “collateral damage” of a movement that is meant to empower women. I don’t fully understand law but I understand enough about equality and just treatment. You’re questioning the integrity of two men who are currently defending a woman in court/fighting an accused sexual predator and you’re taking action against them (and my team) based on an article.

Ankur Pathak is NOT the court of law. Isn’t this also a form of harassment?

Anurag and Vikram have apologized for not taking a harder stand, but at no point did they accept being complicit. I have been working with Phantom Films as a Production Designer (since early 2017), and I have never once seen Vikas Bahl, the accused in the company premises or on shoots.

In some personal conversations, Anurag spoke about Vikas and expressed his disgust with the man, said he wanted to take action against the man. I know of Shubhra (his girlfriend) being adamant about the same. He didn’t want his name on Mukkabaaz and later in other films but was bound by the contract. I am a witness to Anurag’s struggle, but since I am an ally, my testimony here doesn’t matter.

After the shoddy Huffpost article was published, Vikram stood amongst all the employees at Phantom Films and asked us to raise any doubts we had about the case. Without any hesitation, I and other women (and men) threw several questions at him regarding the case and each of those questions were answered. Convincingly.

Today he too stands punished. A film produced by him, directed by Atul Mongia has also been removed from your anthology slate. So now any film can be rejected or dropped on the basis of past association, whether the accused is involved or not?

Today Anurag and Vikram are being punished. As is everyone associated with them. Including their films; our films. Meanwhile, Vikas Bahl has slapped a defamation case against them.

Please don’t misconstrue this as personal agenda in support of friends/employers. I am merely stating the facts.

In the meantime, the rest of us have to suffer the wrath against one man. This is where I’m lost. Let’s look at this more objectively.

MAMI is a prestigious film festival. It is run and backed by some of the most powerful people in the industry. My film ‘Bebaak’ is just another short film. What we share in common is that we were both backed by Anurag Kashyap.

You asked me to drop Anurag’s name (because he insisted that ‘Films are bigger than individuals), I agreed. A feminist film getting a platform in the midst of the country’s biggest Me Too wave is a great deal; I revised my DCP, Trailer and Poster and had his name removed. (Poster attached)

Similarly, MAMI was also supported by Anurag as a Board member. He voluntarily stepped down. So now the short film is sans Anurag’s name and MAMI, the big film festival, doesn’t carry his name either. To apply your very fair analogy, if you still decided to drop my short film for my association with Anurag… shouldn’t you also dissolve the board itself for your association with Anurag?

Why don’t YOU take that moral responsibility and shut yourself down for previously being associated with those who YOU believe have been complicit?

Have you also done a check on your other Board members? Made sure they are not in association with any accused? Or not complicit?

Because as I see, there are at least two MAMI Board members who were in the know-how of an actress being harassed during audition by a director (already accused publicly). I was personally told by this actress that your Board members did nothing despite being from a big film family. (You can keep an independent inquiry panel and I will testify and name the board members. I assure you I would not have galls to say this if it wasn’t the truth.)

So does MAMI agree to dissolve its board to stand in solidarity with the movement since their own board members are complicit? Or is this only applicable to filmmakers?

Now let me explain the hypocrisy. These are the films MAMI has dropped:

  1. Satyanshu and Devanshu Singh’s Chintu ka Birthday.

    Producer: AIB (Tanmay Bhat accused of not taking action against accused Utsav Chakravorty, Gursimran Khamba accused by an ex-girlfriend of harassment.)

  2. Rajat Kapoor’s Kadakh. Director himself accused of assaulting a couple of women.
  3. Kanu Behl’s Binnu ka Sapna. Producer: Chintan Ruparel (of Terribly Tiny Tales, accused of harassing multiple women.)
  4. Atul Mongia’s Awake. Producer: Vikramaditya Motwane (partner at Phantom, accused of not taking any action against accused Vikas Bahl).
  5. My film Bebaak. Producer: Anurag Kashyap (partner at Phantom, accused of not taking any action against accused Vikas Bahl).

Each of these films has a different issue, yet every single cast and crew member of the above mentioned films have received the same verdict. Everyone’s film stands cancelled today.

When Hollywood started the Me Too movement and Kevin Spacey was found guilty of assaulting Anthony Rapp, years ago, Netflix replaced him in House of Cards. Only him. Spacey was also replaced in Ridley Scott’s All the money in the world. But the show/film wasn’t cancelled.

Please tell me which Filmmaker/Actor in Hollywood or any other film industry has been punished because they are guilty by association.

But I guess at MAMI, you want to take a very hard stand on this and punish everyone who is in a 100km radius of any accused. This must have required a very strong vetting process, I hoped. But that is not the case.

I am also guessing that the MAMI team aren’t fully aware of these films/incidents mentioned below: (though they are all the over internet and really hard to miss).

  1. Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built. He is directly accused, not a complicit; one of the most powerful filmmakers to be outed during the Me Too movement last year. Singer-Actor Bjork accused him of sexual assault during filming of ‘Dancer in The Dark’.His partner — Peter Aalbæk Jensen — at his company, Zentropa (producers of The house that Jack built) is also accused of sexual misconduct.How does Lars’ film qualify to play?
  2. Beatriz Seigner’s Los Silencios. Anurag is credited as one of the producers on the film. Did you guys know? (Well… I did inform your team.)
    How is one of Anurag’s films still playing at the festival?
  3. Paul Schrader’s First Reform. Harvey Weinstein, a predator of the worst kind has been assaulting women for decades. In response, this is what Paul Schrader had to say in a Facebook post:Is MAMI comfortable playing a film by a maker who is more offended by the recutting of films, than sexual assault on women?Please remind me if any of my producers made such insensitive, vile statements about treating women as secondary to making films.

    Paul Schrader criticised for tone-deaf response to Weinstein allegations

    Hollywood writer-director Paul Schrader has been criticised for claiming he is more offended by film producer Harvey…
    http://www.independent.co.uk

    Also this:

    Paul Schrader’s Rape Comments Aren’t Helping Anyone

    Obviously there have been a lot of horrible takes on the subjects of consent and sexual assault due to the accusations…
    http://www.pajiba.com

  4. Nagraj Manjule’s An Essay of The Rain: The news came last year that Nagraj Manjule, the director of powerful films like Fandry and Sairat was accused by his wife of assaulting her physically, emotionally, verbally and she also gave details of how he kept her locked in the house while the family went to collect National Award for Manjule.But this qualifies at the festival?

    Exclusive: ‘Sairat’ Director’s Ex-Wife Tells Her Story of Abuse

    Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat not only gifted its director glowing reviews, but also crowned him as the maker of Marathi…
    http://www.thequint.com

  5. OXFAM.There is a GENDER EQUALITY award by Oxfam at MAMI.Is this the same Oxfam that was embroiled in major sexual misconduct since 2010? This is a huge one to skip.

    How Oxfam sexual misconduct scandal unfolded

    Allegations of sexual misconduct by Oxfam workers in 2011 have rocked the aid sector. Here’s how the scandal unfolded…
    news.sky.com

    Few things in the world would be as ironical as naming a gender parity award on a company accused of a major sex scandal.

    Minnie Driver: Oxfam bosses ‘knew what was going on and did nothing’

    Actor and activist who worked with the charity for 20 years stepped down to ‘send a message’ after Haiti sexual…
    http://www.theguardian.com

    26 new cases of sexual harassment and assault at Oxfam, committee hears

    Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam GB, has said that his charity has received 26 new reports of sexual assault and…
    http://www.civilsociety.co.uk

Shouldn’t MAMI step down for getting into partnership with a company that has been informed of several sexual assaults but did nothing? Isn’t this a direct association?
(If this is untrue, I will apologise for it.)

And to end with, I also hope you have put the remaining 200 films screening at MAMI through a strict, vetting process. Because as I see and know of the industry, if every film is to be dropped because a cast or crew member is remotely in any association with an accused… no film will play here. I hope no one at MAMI is naïve to believe otherwise.

I say all of this at the risk of damaging my directorial career that hasn’t even started. I challenge you to dive deep into your conflicted conscience.

Because your own integrity stands questioned now.

My film is about a young woman who defies a religious authority when attacked with blatant misogyny. I was told that if the film is screened, its bigger purpose will be lost. I don’t agree. Keeping a gender equality film away from a social and political change makes no sense. It displays a lack of courage.

I am terribly sorry if I sound angry and hurt and broken. I am all of that.

It takes a lot to make even a short film. Writing, Directing, Designing, Casting, Recces, Auditions, Edit sessions, Subtitles, non stop late night Sound and DI sessions, Production. Managing budgets. Accounts. Constantly losing locations. Even a day before the shoot. Reshoots. Press kits. Catalogues. Trailer. Poster.

I kept shuffling between my short film and five Production design projects, last year. Working at an average of 20 hours a day for months.

It took me a year. One whole year! To make a 20 minutes short.

How much time did you guys take to drop the film?

I decided to make a short film because I couldn’t sell my feature film to any Studio. It had a female lead.

‘Female lead and female director is a risk. Aap lead ko change kar ke male kar do‘, said one of the Studio heads (they makes family entertainers).

‘Love the idea. Why don’t you give the script to us? We’ll develop it with another director.‘
So either the director or the lead had to be male.

But that wasn’t the case for a short.

But we were still making a religiously sensitive film in a deeply religious society. We were thrown from locations — Mosques and Tombs — because even when shoots are allowed in sanctimonious environments, Women aren’t.

While dealing with all the humiliation, I held myself and my team together and decided to put it all in my film. Because that’s what story tellers do. We don’t use our physical might, we use our words.

That struggle, that fight was a nightmare. But expected. This struggle, this fight – unexpected.

I thought of MAMI as female-driven connoisseurs of cinema. But for me now, there is no difference between that studio head who thinks women can’t direct, the men who threw us out from the mosque or the members at MAMI Board. Everyone is only concerned with their farce image.

We are a short film. Film festivals are our only hope. We don’t release in theatres.

We don’t have a chance at 40-crores weekends. All we want is to be seen, for our story to reach people.

Do you think my cast and crew of 80 people and I deserve this? As a feminist group, you have shut down a feminist voice even before it took off. This is so heart breaking for my entire team.

But I will not let this be my embarrassment. It is your embarrassment for treating films and filmmakers like disposable trash.

Do you also understand what does your ‘holier than thou’ decision do to us? You don’t think any festivals, will think twice before picking us up? And I know this letter kills our chance further, but I was not taught to be quiet when wronged.

I am a part of MAMI family. For years! I have written articles and reviews on films screened at MAMI. The day I was told our film was selected by MAMI, will remain special for me. Anurag and I were so happy about it. Home premiere! We can show the film to the people closest to us. Our industry friends, our colleagues, families.
Now we have nothing to tell anyone.

From the time the Me Too movement started in the west, I have felt a silent rage and calm within, at the same time. How badly was this needed! And what an artistic way it has come to finally fight the age old patriarchal, dehumanizing idea of treating women as mere sexual objects.

I say artistic because each woman gets a chance to tell her story. Openly. Fearlessly. How powerful is that?

As a survivor of child abuse, several sexual assaults and harassment at workplace, I find it really odd, discomforting, unfair and traumatizing to be at the receiving end of the most powerful feminist moment of our times.

This isn’t justice.

This is irrational, illogical, unjustifiable penance. How is this not harassment?

Sorry MAMI board members, you missed standing by the #MeToo movement by a mile.

I wait for a response.

Sincerely,

Shazia Iqbal (@shazarch)

On Medium

Talvar – The Sword That Killed A Child

Posted: October 3, 2015 by moifightclub in bollywood, cinema, film review, Movie Recco, movie reviews
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It’s known as the Noida Double Murder Case. And it’s easily one of the most talked about murder case in recent history. More so, because it happened in a middle class locality in Noida, a city adjoining to India’s capital.

Shazia Iqbal saw the film Talvar, which is based on the same case, and writes about the big picture that concerns all of us as a society, and as part of the system. And why a filmmaker’s bias is completely fine.

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23rd May 2008.

‘Its starting now. Quick, come here’, my mother loudly screamed as soon as the press conference was about to start.

The Delhi police was making the big announcement of the perpetrators in the Noida double murder case in which the 14 year old Aarushi Talwar and Hemraj, the house help were brutally murdered a week ago. I almost didn’t hear my mother because of the noises ringing in my ears since two days. That morning when I left home for a meeting, the police van and the media outside the building opposite to mine seemed like the crime scene outside the Talwar society.

A day ago, Maria Susairaj, an aspiring actress had confessed to Malad Police that her fiancé, Emile Jerome had killed Neeraj Grover, a TV executive in a fit of rage when Jerome found Grover in Maria’s bed. Susairaj stayed in the building opposite to my house. On the night of May 7th, and the morning after, I had a party in my house and I was awake the whole night. After Susairaj’s confession and the gory details of cutting the body into 200 pieces and dressing up the crime scene, that story played in my head enough number of times to make me believe that I was there in that house that night and it all happened in front of me, and that I was a dumb mute spectator.

Neeraj Grover was close to the industry I worked in and we had common friends. His face haunted me, I hadn’t slept for a minute for over 48 hours. With all the drama that was happening outside the building, I didn’t want to step out. The media called the Neeraj Grover murder case as the face of changing India, the young India where relationships are fragile, infidelity is part of commitment and casual sex is no more a ‘man’ thing.

A week before this, the Noida double murder case made headlines as the murder involved a young teenage girl from an affluent family and an older servant who worked in the house. This did not happen 200 meters away from my house but the media made sure that it was very much part of my life. Everyone was talking about the murder and that press conference seemed like the episode from a popular TV soap in which the whole country freaked out when the main protagonist dies. Aarushi’s murder was presented like a high TRP whodunit thriller. Everyone wanted to know who killed her.

I went to the living room where my parents and sister were waiting for the press conference to start on the TV. IGP Gurdarshan Singh began the conference by calling Aarushi as Shruti.

‘How will he solve the murder, if he doesn’t even know the name of the kid’ my mother mused. And once wasn’t enough – Singh kept calling Aarushi as Shruti throughout the conference.

But that wasn’t the only eyebrow raising behaviour from him and his department. They claimed Rajesh Talwar killed his daughter in order to save his ‘honour’, gave details of Talwar’s extra marital affair, their involvement in wife swapping and the deplorable character assassination of a child who was murdered.

“Rubbish”, my father responded shocked, “They can’t find the killer and are making up these implausible stories. He is her father!” He couldn’t believe what was happening. Fathers don’t kill their children because of their affairs, he said. He was afraid this revelation could make every girl distrust her father. A silent tear rolled as I went back to my room.

None of what the IGP said made any sense. Last night when I watched Meghna Gulzar’s movie Talvar based on the case, I was glad it resonated with what I thought during that press conference. I just wanted to know the parents didn’t kill her. I wanted to know this young new ruthless India of frivolous relationships that people keep bringing up with every sensational murder case, is a farce. But, apparently, that India is very much prevalent and so is the antiquated patriarchal India where a police officer blames the Internet for ruining the cultural fabric of the country and 14 year olds having a boyfriend and ‘Sleep’-overs.

Lawyers ML Sharma and AP Singh became the face of this primitive regressive patriarchal India after the Brit docu India’s Daughter was released by BBC. It featured a man who believes he would gladly burn his daughter if she has premarital sex – how would he react to a society where girls tell their fathers about their boyfriends? People who believe that honor killing is right, they also assume that the society also harbors such beliefs. And the effort that the government took in banning India’s Daughter is not as half as much as the combined effort of the local police, the assigned CBI team and the courts took to convict the Talwars.

So what happens when such men raised with such regressive values try to understand a culture belonging to the modern upper class allegedly corrupted by the internet? Talvar.

What more can you say about a murder case where every minute detail has been public for 7 years now. Talvar, written by Vishal Bhardwaj and directed by Meghna Gulzar presents us those details and engages us, without any melodrama or manipulation, mildly tilting in the favour of Talwars. Of course some might use the latter point to brand the film as being biased. I’d like them to know that a film is a writer/ filmmaker’s point of view/opinion on what disturbs them long enough to get up and say something. And that’s why Talvar happened. And I am glad it did.

What can this movie talk about about that you haven’t already read in the papers, news, from the police, CBI officers, from your parents, next-door uncles? ‘Human reaction’, for one. In the last 20 minutes of the film, in a round table sequence that is a master class in writing, the CBI officer who acquitted the Talwars says no two humans can have a pre-conceived reaction to an incident, specially a ghastly cold blooded murder of their only child. The side that files the charge sheet against the parents questions their unemotional façade post the murder and during the trial. Nupur Talwar appeared on a TV show and didn’t cry while talking about her daughter’s death. What kind of a mother is she? In a society with history of rudaalis, where being loud is part of our culture, melodrama is not just for the TV sets but an inherent way to express our emotions specially when it comes to matter of death, how can a mother not cry? Everyone questioned. Every logical person went against the Talwars with this one question.

‘She looks numb. Seeing your kid’s dead body can do that’, said my mother. It takes empathy and humanity to realize that. No other human can reason or understand inner doings of another’s mind. So how can human reaction be even discussed as a generic emotional response?

Watching a dark and disturbing story can be difficult but watching a dark and disturbing story based on real people’s lives can be very painful, especially with the way most of us are attached to Aarushi’s case. Bhardwaj, however, with his straight-faced dry wit makes it easier for you to watch Talvar.

That way Talvar is more than a movie. It is an important film, about the sword of justice that claimed not two but four lives. One of the slain was a child accused of being involved with a man thrice her age. The men who publicly assassinated her character are the ones who are responsible for the law and judiciary in this country. This movie needs to be seen. For Aarushi. To open our eyes and discover a system that failed a child. And as the movie says, it’s up to you to decide what the truth is.

– Shazia Iqbal

(To read previous posts by the same author, click here)

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(Disclaimer – One of our editors is closely associated with ‘Talvar’)

The World Before Me

Posted: June 11, 2014 by moifightclub in cinema, Documentary, Indie, Movie Recco, movie reviews, reviews
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The World Before Her, directed by Nisha Pahuja is currently playing in select cinemas across India. Fatema Kagalwala first wrote about it on our blog, where we called it a ‘must-watch’. Here’s another post about the film by Shazia Iqbal:

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“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me”

These are words of Objectivist Ayn Rand who rejected religion and faith and believed in rational reasoning as the way to make sense of life. Her words tore up the frame as the sub text every time the two protagonists (along with other girls) spoke in Nisha Pahuja’s powerful documentary ‘The World Before Her’. The irony is the world they want to capture; a world where they know they can’t be stopped has already caged them with its regressive ideologies and unfortunately they aren’t even aware of it. I watched the film a few days ago and it has been pulling me back for several reasons. Not because the film is full of strange, depressing truths about a divided India, and a women’s identity in the same, more so because it asked the very questions I have been asking of myself for years now. Who else does an atheist woman go to? I love and respect Ayn Rand and women like her who publicly shunned religion because it’s a tad bit more difficult for women to deny God than their counterparts.

I am a Muslim woman. My surname makes me a minority in a country that largely has fixed notions of the community I belong to. My gender makes me a minority in a patriarchal society. Also to make things a little more twisted for myself, I questioned and tried to reason with my religion and others, and bracketed myself in another group, the atheists. Minority again. Minority within minority is a task to pull off, I now realize. In a world where humans are so deeply fucked up, it sometime gets lonely to not even have a god but when you see the madness in the ones that have him, you know you are better off not belonging anywhere.

When asked about my faith, my regular responses are ‘I’m not a Muslim.. I’m an Atheist’, ‘Agnostic?’ Or simpler: ‘My parents follow Islam.’

‘So you are a Muslim?’
‘No, I don’t belong’
‘Don’t belong?’
‘Don’t belong to any religion.. I’m fine without knowing the truth about God’s existence.’

Somehow my answers have never been good enough to not raise eyebrows. For years I have been looking for an identity. And I have made my peace with not having one and my questions being unanswered. I don’t look at myself as a Muslim and that’s why I have not felt discriminated against though being called a Pakistani is something most Indian Muslims grow up with and get used to. I am not victimizing Muslims, just that being a minority comes with its own share of pros and cons in every part of the world. We have our own. So every time my surname separated me from the crowd and I was treated differently, I didn’t retaliate because why should I? I am not a Muslim. So I thought.

I think my parents are a rare case because they celebrated the birth of their first daughter, when everyone around was killing the female child. I was born in a small village near Patna. After two sons, they were craving for a daughter. I am not thankful to my parents for not killing me, I take it for granted as my right to live and yet the character I empathized with the most in the film is Prachi Trivedi, the 24 year old instructor at the training camp of Durga Vahini, the women’s wing of VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) because she is grateful to her father for not killing her at birth. That line made me realize how deeply complexed we are as a society.

 

My life is not about a movement, I don’t hate Gandhi and terrorizing people is not my idea of teaching. And yet it was Prachi’s volatile relationship with her father that touched my heart. Prachi is aware that the world that gives her strength to fight the enemies of the Hindu Culture (apparently the Muslims and Christians) is also the world that eventually asks her to follow the norms of marriage and children, something she doesn’t agree with. The ideologies that tell her women are not meant for house chores also tell her she ‘has’ to be tamed by getting married and not fly high and dream of a career. Girls don’t do that. Prachi struggles to balance the two contradicting ideologies, while asserting the right to find her way. Like Prachi, I have had my own daddy issues. My emancipated father raised me and my sister like ‘boys’. He told me very early in life about carving out a place for myself in the world. Marriage was not his idea of making a good life. It’s never been my idea of anything. We never spoke about marriage. But our relationship is volatile and argumentative because of our different belief systems of surviving in a society, where we are lesser in numbers compare to other race. It’s not about me being atheist. Although I have defied God in his presence, he is liberal enough to mostly let me think with my own head. The only one issue I have had with him is he asked his children to be quiet and not rebel because ‘we are minorities’. Under different circumstances, we fought over the same issue, and never reached common ground.

During a Ganapati festival, my mother was just back from a long stint in hospital. The noise mongers were playing loud music at 5 in the morning, and after bearing with it for days in row, I finally decided to call the police. He stopped me. ‘We are Muslims, we can’t complain. You are a girl and people don’t show their bias to women but you’ll know some day’. I argued and was told ‘ladki ho, ladki hi raho’ (You are a girl, behave like one). I struggled to understand if this was the same man who took pride in raising his daughters like sons. And whether I should be a boy and speak up or be a girl and shut up. And what’s stopping me from speaking up is it being a Muslim or being a girl? Or both? I felt suffocated in the hypocrisy of the world my father created for me. I didn’t choose to be a Muslim or a girl. Why do others have the rights that I don’t? Lottery of being born a man? Lottery of being born in a religion that’s bigger in numbers? I didn’t want this world. I wanted to make my own new one that doesn’t chain people in their own thoughts. But largely this is the reason why most anonymous in history have been women.

Somewhere halfway through the film, when you are already exposed to two very different, yet parallel, disturbing worlds, a young teen at the training camp gushes with pride ‘No, I don’t have any Muslim friends and I am proud about it’. After bearing with a few prejudices, this one felt like a sharp knife cut through the heart. I felt stifled. A few drop of tears streamed out. Why did it affect me so much when I don’t consider myself part of the community? When I proudly defy standing by any faith. When I don’t feel the need to group with a bunch of people who have similar ideologies and believe we are superior to the other race. Her words made me realize that even though I have left the religion years ago, it hasn’t left me. And in all probability, it never will.

Her words reminded me of how I felt years ago, when Bombay’s lifeline, the trains were attacked on 7/11. I worked as an Asst Art director back then and was shooting in a studio at Filmcity for a feature film. We were working with a couple of stars and anticipated an early pack up that evening. But as soon as the blast news came out of the vanity, the set became a story in itself. Chaos reigned. People panicked and called home. I managed to call home and found everyone safe, except my brother, who none of us could trace. Production decided to lock up the set till the bombings stopped. It went on for 11 minutes but we kept getting news. Mostly post blast rumours. My mother realized that the sixth train that blew up was my brother’s regular ride back home. That was it. I fell on a chair and broke down. A couple of Asst directors gathered around me. Out of nowhere the production manager, a paan chewing middle aged man, shrugged them aside and attacked me in his stringent language ‘kyun ro rahi hai? Tum logon ne toh karaya hai yeh sab’ (why are you crying when you and your people have executed this). I looked at him. The asst director retaliated ‘What the hell! She is a girl…’

He attacked further, ‘the girls carry the bomb inside the veil.. ’ He said that and spat his chewed betel leaf next to me. My friend blabbered something that I didn’t hear. I was numb. I don’t know the chemical composition of a bomb, not even as much as Prachi’s knowledge of an AK-47. But we are both victims here. I have never worn a veil and have fought against people who support and justify women being bound in a veil. I realized that I belong neither to a community that wears the veil nor to the one that’s judges it and labels them a terrorist because of it. I feel that spit on my face every time I recollect this incident. I remembered my father’s words and reasoned his fear of speaking out as a minority.

Ruhi is a Miss India contestant who dreams of winning the crown to make her parents of their product, that’s her. Jo-Ann Endicott in Pina Bausch’s Walzer struts around angrily, frustrated and enraged at a world that tells her how to carry off her body. She chalks out a boundary in different spacial forms her body creates and repeatedly screams ‘I don’t need your help or anybody else’s help, Thank you!! ’ She describes how she is asked to sit with an erect posture, so her legs don’t look fat and ugly. She struggles to keep her thighs together because they fall apart or hold her boobs up with a bra or they hang, sometimes right till the floor. There is rule for every part of the body, the fingers, wrist, elbow, the long neck, the longer hair, the various ways of doing up the hair, which lets the world categorize as classy or trashy. She wants to let her hair down and be herself. She wants to hide herself behind her long hair but they wont let her. Her face, her torso, her spine, her legs, her gait is all exposed for her to be judged. This is the gist of what beauty pageants stand for. Girls in this country have grown up dreaming of the crown from the time Sushmita Sens and Aishwarya Rais won the Miss world crown and made India ‘Proud’. The beauty standards pretty much changed in this country since then and how.

I would love to say fuck your fascist beauty standards if I myself wasn’t falling prey to it every now and then.

It was only a couple of months ago when I went to a skin clinic for a regular acne issue; they asked me to undergo a surgery for a sharper Jawline. A half an hour procedure that would apparently change my life. I was dumbfounded. The doctor told me it would give me confidence to face the world with a new face. Ha! Fortunately I didn’t think anything wrong with the current one. I smiled and walked away. But a lot of women fall prey. The rising numbers of these clinics are a proof of that. Everything is wrong with a world that tells a women a certain body type, certain shapes, particular complexion are what makes an ideal women, empowers them. Botox, skin whiteners, weight control, boob jobs are not going to let me have my place in the world. A director once belittled me when I refused to do a fairness cream TVC. He said if not me, somebody else would take it up. Exactly! I am aware.

Wearing a bikini doesn’t empower women. Neither does holding a gun and being able to pull the trigger. You are not empowered by exposing your bra strap or by being married and raising kids at 18; not by having ideal torso and limbs, not even by internalising the politics of hatred in a religious camp.

If this is power, I don’t want it. I want the opportunity to voice my opinion and be heard respectfully. I do not ask for permission before I speak. It is my right as a human. I do not want a career to escape the world you have made; I want to create my own world. Don’t allot me my space. Give me the freedom to carve my own niche. That would be empowerment. Hope Prachi and Ruhi and thousands like them comprehend this and liberate themselves from the world that is thrown before them.

Thank you- Nisha Pahuja for this hard-hitting story and Anurag Kashyap for supporting it.

(Shazia Iqbal is an Art director, and has worked in Films and Advertising since last eight years. She designed Dum Maaro Dum and many other films. Her script was selected for NFDC’s Director’s Lab.)