Memory Lane’s ‘Pash’

(Drafted: 23rd July 2012)

‘Pash’ Khosla  never got herself threaded, or in her words ‘made’. Nor did she ‘destroy’ her body the way women do today.  Her hairlessness is God given.

Pash Khosla

”Does she ever let me say a few words, or complete a sentence?” her daughter in law quibbles from the kitchen, as Pash talks to me. The kitchen is not a place where her daughter in law has been constrained to, but one she feels obliged to function in. And so she unloads her pent up frustrations from there ; about how her mother in law must see, hear and have her say in anything that takes place within the walls of her house.  ”She even instructs me on how I should make my hair”. However, one glance at the venerable lady, with permanent smile lines and bright eyes tucked behind paper thin, crinkly lids and this complaint loses its fire. If it had any at all. Mothers rarely grow out of their ‘instructing’ ways and I bet in Pash’s eyes she was merely fulfilling her duty.

The Other Mrs Khosla (Daughter in Law)

Prakash Sohni is her birth name.

Writing ‘Ram’ in the countless squares of her gridded notebook, she finds solace.  With silver hair flowing from her temples to the nape of her neck, she recites mantras from a timeworn book, through creased lips that inflate and deflate with every word.

Her and her daughter in law are more in sync than they realise. Whenever they have something to say, they express their statements simultaneously. Whoever has the chance of being in their company is subjected to stereo-sound banter. I have often felt their words squeezing into my ears, sparking and melting with one another.

Prakash  wanted to go to the temple yesterday, and she was taken last night. Today she wants to eat chaat, so perhaps she will be treated to some this evening. “She always gets her way and then acts as if we do nothing for her”, her daughter in law mumbles as she sweeps her shopping plans to the side.

Pash needs to look forward to something everyday so that she doesn’t have to dwell on her memories,  good and bad.

She’s the only person I know who has lived in the thick of Delhi’s blood soaked streets during the partition. When I asked her about that period in her life,  her face changed to one tinged with melancholy. At first she refused to relay what she witnessed, “Please child, don’t make me remember.” I retracted, and then she slowly told me about  the bloodied bodies she saw on staircases in the neighbourhood, and her brother ducking on the floor of a Muslim commissioner’s jeep in order to escape from a village outside of Lahore.

He escaped with his two friends and a 14 year old girl who had lost her parents. They were driven to Amritsar and took shelter in the Golden Temple, like many others. Prakash’s brother survived, but was haunted by the image of the young girl whose only words were    ”Mujhe ghar jaana hai” ( I want to go home) which she whispered repeatedly throughout the ordeal. She would take a tiny helping of food and retreat to her spot; a small space close to the roof , until one day she was found dead there and no one could hear her pitiful voice again.

Pash has more than a dozen grandchildren and at the age of 88 (which is a rough estimate since she doesn’t know when she was born) she is ready to pack her bags and catch 20 hour flights to meet them.  I’m glad I got to know such a fiery woman and look forward to meeting her again.

Writers with a Camera, Killing Time

This is a little rant from Nick and I. We spent an entire day trying to get a ‘cast’ together for my short, but it didn’t work out.

Go Goa Gone’s Violent Movie Poster

It isn’t bad enough that people in India have to hear about women facing violence every minute of the day, let’s just make a graphic poster of the back of a woman being burned to a hole, and everyone will like it.
When will Indian producers and firms take social responsibility for their work? Maybe when they develop things called brains.

Newspapers Should Really Never….

…Advertise themselves on social media, especially with horrific jingles.

The recent ploy of Hindustan Times involves a cheesy song about how women should love the girls in them. This is plain weird. Judging the video, the right tag line should be, ‘Hindustan Times Celebrates Women’s Day Provided You’re a Model’. It’s fine that the pictures in the photo montage aren’t only of Indian women, but they’re just all so ramp-ready.
The tune and feel of this song sucks. It sounds like something you’d hear in a cheap, moldy cafe.

Why should men tells us to like the ‘girl’ in us anyway? If we’re women, that should be absolutely fine.

I’m all rage, I tell you.

Visiting Memory Lane’s Coolest Randoms

A few years ago I went to Kota. Honestly, it feels like this particular thing happened an hour ago- because this policeman (hopefully a real one) was just too bad ass to forget. Subtitles will be put up soon- basically he came all the way from Delhi to look for a guy . The name mentioned is ‘Tinku’ (macho huh?), who was connected with some Gurdwara, and that’s all he gave us to juggle and scrounge with.

It’s been a while, I would love to say that I hope the cop found the man- but I know the reality; the man wouldn’t have been found yet, and the cop probably had some shady issue on the side.

The Week of Firsts

I worked on a ‘Film Roman’ last week – a film made of still images, and it was pretty interesting. I do think it’s easier than making a full fledged film with movement and dialogue- in terms of editing all that, it does seem a little daunting. But, let’s see. It’s the era of jumping into the deep end, me thinks.

So here’s my Film Roman- I don’t know why, but the Youtube version is super low quality. I hope it doesn’t cause severe squinting. If it does, then oh well it shall be hilarious.

It’s Best to Walk Away and Hide

So there’s nothing on t.v- no funny shows that are hitting the right bone. Sure, some ”good” ones are winning it big time at the Golden Globes, but since you’re smart you know those awards were bought (ohoo!). If you don’t have an epiphany that makes you realise how crap television is getting, do not- I repeat DO NOT get with a group of people and think you can re-create SNL from the 90′s. It will not work. It well end badly. You may be reduced to tears.

Alright. So today my friends decided to get an improv group going. A person like me who’s only funny in the weirdest of places thought it would be a breeze being a wit-stirrer on cue…obviously not. We were rustier than a tiny screw-nail found underneath the structure of a paan ki dukaan.The only funny part of it all, is that one of us thinks we can ace it in front of a live audience. He is deluded. He will never read my blog, thank God. But he is what he is. A nut for arranging spots for us on the weekend. Am I being pessimistic? Maybe. I don’t know I just wished we had more than 2 hours of having a go at this stuff.

What is the solution to this shame-inducing situation? A walk down a lonely old alley, of course. It does the trick, I swear. You feel invisible and everything is so mellow around you- it makes you think that you’re not such a dead goose, really. Old alleys are also small, and ease you into that lovely familiar feeling of being swaddled as a baby. Swaddled.

I need to draw.

Self Made and Self Gifted

Handmade notebooks made at home. No kidding and not for sale…unless people really like them and want them. I shall consider it.

My Body, My Choices

Finally a video that says it all. A female’s body is her own, she will do with it what she likes. If you have an issue, get a life.

Does OUTLOOK even look at their Mag?

 

I was cursed with terrible publishing-ethics while reading the new OUTLOOK edition :

This is dedicated to the horrific incident that strangulated people’s imagination of what limits  public aggression could possible reach . Although, thanks to some really ”intelligent and sensitive leaders” in our country, the identity of the victim/ the warrior/ the emblem of the attacked Indian  woman, has been not exposed- but told to us in all honesty, as any mature people of stature would. 

The articles were strong , head on with facts and photographs of Delhi Youth, out there, being beaten, protesting, staring down the barrel with their quotes underlined- it was all going really tastefully until…..

 

Yup. Whatever had to happen, did. On the left, there is the tail-end of an article about how women are seen in society, as objects and that nobody in power has really had to say anything about the situation of how women are treated on a daily basis, or even how the law deals with them.

 

This segment on the left side of the spread, says in the most simplest detail possible that women suffer because of the way they’ve been perceived in the light of sexual-objectification and are deemed easy/wanting sex, although they shouldn’t- whilst simultaneously they shouldn’t refuse sex either. 

But look on the next page. 

 

I believe the editor thought it was fit to put this ad in, and in turn the ad-director thought it was apt to advertise toilet bowls with the use of a ‘sexy’ model striking a suggestive pose. The tag line is really great too ‘designs to desire’- because all girls are designed to be desired, just like bowls to shit in. 

So OUTLOOK, you bloody failed. Your intentions are fake and you do not deserve to even publish anything about the female gender.