Tag: humra quraishi

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Enough said

Lessons on love

Kolkata’s Presidency College is starting a course on love. What could be a better idea in this day and age?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

In the midst of the almost daily barrage of bad news and gloom, comes this good news of an ‘academic’ nature, which has come as a breath of fresh air. Kolkata’s Presidency College is starting a new course…on love.

Yes, I said ‘love’. The subject is to be introduced as a full-fledged one by the College’s Sociology Department, and like English Literature, would be open for all students from different departments, faculties and streams.

Perhaps, for the very first time in this country, love will be discussed in a formal way, just like it used to be centuries ago, when there would be heady discussions on love, romance and emotions, before a frenzied development mode took over and bypassed lay ‘subjects’ like love and everything connected to it.

So we are finally moving backwards, towards the very basics of our existence, for with love, there are bound to be emotions. I’m not sure whether these classes on love will be held under sprawling banyans or neems. And why not? Why not impart all this gyaan out there in the open, amidst the natural environment?

Wherever these classes are conducted – indoors or outdoors – those discussions on love will have a direct impact on the very thought processes of students, and might have long-lasting effects. I have no idea of the teaching format or how the syllabus is going to be shaped for this newly-introduced subject, but in all probability, these classes will help simplify the tangle of confusing notions blamed on love. These discussions would bring about a de-link between love and lust, between want and desire, between fulfillment and release, between innocent spontaneity and stalking, between fall-outs and falling in love!

Today’s youth need these lessons, at least to be able to tell negative emotions apart from positive ones, when several confused boys and girls associated both with real love. Even some loveof our current films reinforce these wrong stereotypes, and which can be dangerous on a vulnerable mind.

And what about the other departments of our other universities and colleges moving ahead with the times and introducing ‘love’ as a subject? When will they discuss it and all that is connected to it, right from the theoretical to the practical to the mystic and even beyond, taking the learner towards the Divine?

Love is important in today’s times. Love is powerful. There’s something so magical about love; it has the power to heal, to protect, to smoothen out troubles, to reach out, to keep illnesses at bay, to help you understand life with all its complexities. When one accepts love in its totality, with the immense pain and turmoil it brings along, it takes one to another level of existence. After all, love brings along a powerful ingredient – emotion.

You can buy sex, but you cannot buy emotions. I’m tempted to quote this line from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memory of My Melancholy Whores, ‘Sex is the consolation one has for not finding enough love.’

Humra Quraishi is a senior journalist based in Gurgaon. She is author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant. 

 (Pictures courtesy www.fanpop.com, funlava.com)

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Cinema@100

Much more than just a streaker

Brash, bold and beautiful Protima Bedi was passionate about dance and never cared what the world thought of her lifestyle.
by Humra  Quraishi

A talented dancer and a woman bold enough to run naked across Juhu beach, Protima Bedi always remained a bit of a mystery to all, despite her open and frank nature. Known more her various link-ups and her torrid marriage to actor Kabir Bedi, the subsequent divorce and the tragic suicide of her son, Siddharth, Protima was a livewire. Her tragic death in 1998, when she was one of 108 people killed in a landslide in UP, sent shock waves across the country. She was 50 when she died.

Much before I could have the chance to actually interview Protima Bedi, I had been seeing her at various events in the capital city.

protima_bedi_There were things about her that never changed with each subsequent sighting: she was never alone, but she would always be accompanied by a male friend, who invariably happened to be from the Who’s Who of the city.  She always wore simple cotton clothes, very often the white cotton two-piece saris with coloured borders, from Kerala. The sari would be draped rather low, exposing her midriff.

There would be a direct emphasis on her breasts through the cholis she wore, which were invariably low-necked, her ample bosom more than making its presence felt. She wouldn’t wear much makeup, preferring to stick to her big bindi and maybe some lipstick on her thick lips. Her pout was her best feature and she used it often – oh yes, she knew people were always ogling her. Her gait was confident, and even in a sari, she would ooze sensuality. There was something very different about her.

I met Protima and spoke to her at length when she was here in Delhi to dance before the newly-constituted Association of British Scholars (ABS). She was collecting funds for her dance school, Nrityagram, that she had set up in Karnataka.

She was ill at ease fielding questions on the then reigning political figure of Karnataka, Ramakrishna Hegde, whose name was linked with hers in those days. On being asked about romantic or sexual links with him, she retorted, “It that was true (that she was having an affair with Hegde), I wouldn’t be begging for money for my dance school. Right now I feel like a beggar, asking for donations of Rs 100 or Rs 10,000. But there’s no giving up. No way.”

Her dance school had reportedly got a lot of funds from the Department of Culture. When I asked about this, she said, “Of course we got funds from them but we need more. I’m taking our traditional dance to the rural areas, where it belongs. Why should dance be limited to the urban elite in air-conditioned halls? Today we have more than 200 village children coming to learn different forms of our traditional dance and we have 18 residential students, too. It’s a dance village that I’m trying to run.”

I wondered why, with all her high-profile ‘contacts’, she was finding it so difficult to get funding. “Which men? Which contacts? I’m so involved in my dance village that I have no time protimabedito think of anything else. Right from early morning I am so busy with my daily chores. We do all the work ourselves, cleaning, cooking, washing, teaching. I am determined to continue doing what I’m doing. I mean, this struggle. I have to keep this dance school alive. I am a very strong-willed woman and even if I have to starve, I will not give up.”

Starve? For what?

“Obviously for food! What were you implying?” she shot back.

Then she started explaining that traditional dance forms must be taught to women, and that it’s time women of this country were given their due freedom in every sense of the term. “How can I rest in peace when so many injustices are going on? Look at the way our women are being suppressed. Look at the crap going on in the name of culture!”

I pointed out to her the contradiction in her own behavior – talking of culture and rural India and yet willingly dancing for an urban elite forum like the ABS. She hit back, “I’m doing it for funds! For my dancers, my dance village, my passion! I am one of those women who never gives up.”

 (Pictures courtesy bollywood.bhaskar.com, www.triveni.org, forum.santabanta.com)

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Enough said

When divisions benefit the rulers

The carving out of Telangana from Andhra Pradesh could have very real implications for others looking for separate State status.
Humra Quraishiby Humra  Quraishi

Divisions spell doom. A division is like a divorce. There is a break-up, with long lasting implications and offshoots. Divisions aren’t good for anybody.

This week came the news of the new State of Telangana being carved out in the Andhra belt. There is a very real danger of several other States in this country demanding divisions of territory. The list could get longer and be no longer contained to just Maharashtra – who is to stop J&K, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal or Bihar taking the same route?

Divisions suit the politician and the bureaucracy. Not just for purposes of the clichéd ‘the  more, the merrier…’ but more along the lines of governance. A freshly-carved State brings with it the need for more political and bureaucratic heads, justifies the need for planning commissions and departments and ministries. The field becomes wider for several mafias to extract an extra pound of flesh even from the malnourished and the diseased, as the new State grapples with working within new systems. And do not for a minute think that these divisions and bifurcations benefit those in the backward sections of society.

A good example I can cite is that of the State of Uttarakhand. Several years ago, it was carved out from the erstwhile undivided Uttar Pradesh. See for yourself – apart from being blessed with its own natural bounty, on which the State subsists, where is the development? Could it combat nature’s fury, is it able to deal with the ongoing destruction and havoc in the wake of the ghastly floods?

Divisions also brings along distractions of the worst sort. Not to drag you backwards, but I must write of the prominent happenings of this week – we, the hapless masses, could not telangana even adequately react to the teenaged biker being shot dead by the cops in the heart of the capital city, nor could we mourn the sight of a dead human form being pulled by a bull dozer, nor could we find the miracle meal costing just a couple of rupees!

As much as it depresses me, I am beginning to be convinced of the Right Wing parties’s theory that the Congress and the Samjawadi Party are adopting the age-old political strategy of relaying a set of opinions – one to suit the majority, and the other for those ‘others’ in the minority. Soon after the Batla House encounter verdict, those residing in the Jamia Nagar/Okhla/Batla House localities seem convinced that this particular encounter was State-managed; this suspicion is fuelled by the dramatic U-turn that the Congressmen, who were earlier with these people, have not taken in their stand.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.thehindu.com, theviewspaper.net)

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Cinema@100

“I stick out like a sore thumb”

Where is Meenakshi Seshadri today? This old interview with the dancer-actress makes us want to see her on screen again.
by Humra Quraishi

I had met Meenakshi Seshadri in 1990 in New Delhi, when she was here for an Odissi dance performance hosted by the Indian Cultural Society. What I still remember about her was her demeanour – she was poised, a bit self-conscious, and at times, a little nervous.

meenakshi-sheshadriShe was an accomplished dancer, a competent actress, and – not many know of this – a former Miss India (crowned in 1980). Her last Hindi film was the Sunny Deol starrer Ghatak in 1996, but to this day, she is remembered the most for her portrayal of the character Damini in the film by the same name. A couple of years later, she married a banker and settled in Texas, USA.

When I met her in 1990, she had sat flanked by two women. She referred to both of them as her gurus. “One is my mother, who taught me Bharatnatyam, and the other is my Kathak guru,” she had said, introducing them to me.

Throughout that interview, whatever the nature of the query, she would try and bring the conversation back to dance. She said things like, “For me, Odissi is synonymous with the Indian woman,” and spoken of her ambitious dance project, “It might sound too ambitious, but I would love to combine all four dance forms – Bharatnatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi and Odissi. I have been told that it’s not possible for an individual to perform all the four styles together, but I want to prove that it’s possible.” She continued, “Also, I want to be the master of dance and choreography and acting and music. I am sharing all this openly because I believe that if you put down your goals and share them, they become concrete plans.”

Excerpts from the interview:

If you plan to do all this with various dance forms, then wouldn’t you have quit films and acting?
I can’t leave acting at this stage. I have done a lot of running around trees and now I have started getting serious roles. Also, films have never really come in the way of my dance.

How can a dedicated artiste, who talks of pure classical dance forms, concentrate in the commercial filmi setup?

I know the film industry is very, very commercial. I also know that pure classical dance forms cannot survive in the film world, because films are a khichdi of various things reaching out to a big audience. But my dance is not affected by films. For me, my dance and my films are two totally separate spheres.

 

A mother’s role, in connection with an upcoming actress daughter, is in the news for being controversial. Your mother is also constantly with you?

I feel a mother plays a very constructive and an important role. My mother is my friend, my guru and she handles everything for me.

Doesn’t her constant presence hamper your privacy? Meenakshi Sheshadri

If you have a weakness, only then you crib (about privacy)!

So it means you have no weakness?
I don’t know my weakness.

Surely you have one or not more weaknesses?

Actually, some friends do tell me my weaknesses.

What are they?

If I’m smart, I wouldn’t tell them to you. And I am smart, so I wouldn’t talk about them but try and improve on them.

When we watch films of the past and compare them to today’s films, don’t you feel that our present-day actresses cut a sorry figure?

Not really. Today we have good talent, but we lack good writers and good directors.

What is your opinion on the rising levels of rivalries, jealousies, cut-throat completion amongst film stars?

In showbiz, you can’t be very normal.

What about you?

In all this, I stick out like a sore thumb because I am different.

Meenakshi Sheshadri opened her dream dance school in 2008, in Dallas, where she lives with her husband Harish Mysore and her two children. 

(Pictures courtesy www.merepix.com, www.pinkvilla.com, www.listal.com)

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Cinema@100

When Partition broke up his life

Nida Fazli, Urdu poet and lyricist, speaks on why he made Bombay his home despite his family moving to Pakistan.
by Humra Quraishi

When I’m feeling utterly hopeless about life, I say these lines by poet Nida Fazli to myself –
‘Just keep on living /
Just keep on living like this /
Say nothing /

When you get up in the morning /
Take a head count of the family /
Slouch in the chair and read the paper /

There was a famine there /
And a war raged somewhere else /
Be thankful that you are safe/

Switch on the radio and listen to the new pop songs /
When you leave the house /
Paste a smile on your face/

Pack handshakes in your hands /
Keep a few meaningless phrases on your lips /
Be passed through different hands like a coin/

Say nothing /
A white -collar /
Social respect /

A few drinks everyday/
What else do you need /
Just keep on like this /
Say nothing …’

Nida Fazli And as I say these lines to myself, I recollect the two occasions I had the chance to meet the legendary poet and film lyricist in New Delhi. I had long conversations with him about his poetic journey to how he started writing lyrics for Hindi films.

I had had no idea that his journey had begun on a rather tragic note.

Around the time of the Partition of India and Pakistan, he had been engaged to be married. The Partition played havoc with this plan, when his own family and that of his fiancee migrated to the newly-carved country, Pakistan. “I did not move from Hindustan,” Nida told me. “I did not want to. So I was left back all alone.” He confessed to facing very trying times after this, having to brave several testing incidents for a long time. He moved to Bombay for work in 1964, and after an initial period of struggle, his talents as a poet began to be noticed in the film industry. His big break, however, came when filmmaker Kamal Amrohi hired him to finish the songs on his much-delayed magnum opus, Pakeezah. Fazli was brought in as a replacement for Jaan Nisar Akhtar, who had died before finishing two songs.

But Bombay brought the much-needed calm in his life. So how did he get from Uttar Pradesh to Bombay? “I was okay with moving to Bombay and I have always felt absolutely at home there,” he explaind. I found out, during the course of our conversation, that we came from the same qasba in UP, and as talk veered to our ancestral homes and the lives we used to live,

I was struck by how comfortable he was not speaking about films and the glitzy world of cinema, which had obviously not had enough of him yet – this year he was conferred the Padma nida fazli Shri by the Indian Government – despite him retaining his poet’s identity and not getting it mixed up with that of a film lyricist’s.

After a long chat, it was time to say khuda hafiz. But I still had one unanswered question. After his failed attempt at marriage, when his fiancee moved to another country, how did he settle in his personal life?

“Well, I found a companion in Bombay,” he smiled. “I married her and I have settled in this city for ever.”

“It is said that in Mumbai these days, even the big names in Bollywood who are Muslims are finding it difficult to buy or rent an apartment. Did you face any such situation?” I asked.

“No, I haven’t,” he said at once. “But this could be because my partner is a non-Muslim.”

 

Watch the ghazal ‘Hoshwalon ko khabar kya’ from Sarfarosh, penned by Nida Fazli:

 

(Pictures courtesy mishrasurya.blogspot.com, www.greaterkashmir.com)

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Enough said

The capital bites the dust

Which development are we talking about, when the capital city cannot withstand an hour’s rain without turning into a cesspool?
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

This Saturday was a nightmare, with rains not taking a break. I’d dared to step out in the rains without realising that I’d be caught in a disaster. If commuting from Gurgaon to New Delhi wasn’t horrible enough, the scene in the capital city was shocking. Three South Delhi roads – connecting Hauz Khas with the Asiad Games Village and Green Park, also those leading to Malviya Nagar and Saket – were not visible in their long-winded glory; they resembled nullahs overflowing with garbage.

Autorickshaws were stuck in those waters, together with the danger of live wires. The only option was to stand on the roadside, with or without an umbrella and shoes, and await developments. Hundreds were stranded all over Delhi, which is not geared to combat even an hour’s rain! The days will get longer (or seem to) as the rainy season continues. Even a mild shower is enough to cause horrifying traffic snarls here, in the capital city of India.

When I am stranded in the rain, I introspect on the complete mess Delhi is in, and what third class living conditions you can find here. This is a story that plays on loop, season after season. In the dark winter months, it’s the fog that stands in the way, in the long summer, it’s the heat that kills. But these are quirks of nature, not to be helped by man. What can be helped, however, is the heap of disasters we see every monsoon.

The dreaded dengue makes an entry every year, and kills several. Live wires abound on busy roads, becoming potential death traps. Then there are the nullahs that overflow constantly. No, let’s not blame the rain gods and let’s not host a fashionable climatic change conference. We’ve always had a monsoon season, but it wasn’t treacherous like this, it was all fun and frolic and romance. After all, poets of this land have penned volumes of romantic verse on the rains.

Don’t even think of going out for a meeting in this rain, for you are sure to reach the destination, that is if you reach at all, drenched to the bone, your make-up running in rivers all over your face, your clothes reduced to see-through rags, shoes or sandals almost gone, umbrella not holding out. You might even land up at your meet with chest pain or blood pressure, your blood sugar levels on the rise. No wonder there are so many nursing homes and private medical centres mushrooming all over the place! Our living conditions make their presence inevitable.

The State dare not talk of development in the run-up to the elections. What development does it speak of, when the average citizen cannot even commute when the weather changes? When every season drags along disasters, when your health infrastructure is third class and only the rich can afford private medical care? The rest of us have to queue up at those Government hospitals, which are as good as butcherkhanas.

delhi rainCan’t we see the crux of these disasters? It’s blatant corruption that is responsible. Even the naïve can understand that these roads full of pot holes are sinking and falling apart are made of bogus material. The only remedy is that our ministers and their babus should be made to take a walk on these roads. Every single day that it rains, they should be made to stand at crossings and lanes. They should be made to walk to their workplace. May be then they would see what their power and money prevents them from seeing – how those who elected them face life when the seasons change.

Humra Quraishi is a senior journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy www.thehindu.com, indiatoday.intoday.in)

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