Tag: humra quraishi

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Cinema@100

The painter who made films

An encounter with MF Husain before he made Meenaxi showed the artist’s love for women and his passion for films.
by Humra Quraishi

I last met MF Husainsaab here in New Delhi, during one of those crucial junctures in his life and times – his art works had been attacked by right-wing goons and he had also been talking about his deep passion for films; filmmaking, to be precise.

hussain When I tried asking him for his reactions to those attacks on his art work, he tried fobbing me off, waving his hands and mumbling impatiently, “Kuchh bhi chalta hai…theek hai…” He didn’t want to comment on the matter or be drawn into further controversy. With that, I changed my questions, and diverted him towards his latest passion – film-making.

With the very mention of films, he relaxed and became quite forthcoming. “Film-making is my passion, and now I plan to make a comedy. (It’s) A lot of work, but anyway, I am not a lazy man. I work day and night. Yes, I work all through…get very little sleep.”

But can a comedy be a success, I asked.

He looked upset. “I’m planning to make a subtle comedy which will be a part of our culture. It’s a misconception, brought about by the media, that our people can’t appreciate comedy. I would say with great confidence that 80 per cent of the people in rural India do know and can appreciate comedy and those different aspects to our culture. Our people can sense and appreciate so much, because of our culture that is part of our very being, of our everyday life and living… It’s the elite living in big cities who are ignorant.”

But aren’t our rural folks more engrossed with their daily battles for survival? With that in the background, can they afford the luxury of watching films, I wondered.

He was annoyed, to say the least. “What sort of questions do you media people ask me these days? Some of you ask me about Madhuri (Dixit)! Now you are asking all this! Talk to me Madhuri_Dixit_with_painter_MF_Hussainabout this latest film I’ve made. No, not a commercial venture for me, my latest film – Meenaxi: A Tale of 3 Cities. It has been my passion to make this film on this subject…I have shot it in three different cities; Prague, Hyderabad and Jaisalmer.

“The story revolves around this woman searching for love and this restless writer…the bond that is forged between them. See this film and you will know what I have tried to portray, that bond between the two souls. No, it isn’t a commercial venture for me, I just made it because I wanted to.”

I cautiously put in a question: “What about the distractions in your life?”

“What distractions? Here I’m working din aur raat, what distractions are you talking about?”

“Now that you are making films, so actresses and other women could attract or distract you…” I said.

“Show me one man who isn’t attracted to women. Let there be one thousand women and I can make each one of them happy! It’s all a matter or rapport.”

What attracts you in a woman, I asked.

meenaxi“I’m attracted to strong women…those independent types and definitely NOT the weak types. I find those weak, crumbling type of women just hopeless. In fact, the women in my paintings are inspired by the Shakti in a woman. I believe that our traditional Indian women carry a special strength. It’s that strength which can be termed magical and it can do wonders,” he said.

I had been studying his latest series of paintings on women; a combination of the Gupta Period and the folk form. He was more than happy to explain the details of his Tribhanga Series. “There’s an emphasis on the head, the shoulders and the hips of the woman. The way an Indian woman walks is so graceful, I love it! If you’ve noticed, the Western woman walks straight, without a sway, and the walk loses its appeal. Even Kalidas had written on the woman’s gait and he had compared it to the graceful walk of an elephant, calling her Gajagamini (she who walks with the languorous grace of an elephant).

“I am also attracted to a woman’s ear lobe, the very turn of her head, the movements of her hand. Actually, once you are in love, then everything about her attracts you…”

Have you been in love, I asked.

“I have admired many and loved several women,” he said at once.

“But doesn’t true love happen just once in a lifetime?” I persisted.

“Yes, it’s true, but the same love keeps shifting from person to person, from one woman to another.” Perhaps in response to my bewildered look on hearing this terribly strange, yet practical rationale on love, he burst into poetry:

‘Ek mere muhabbat ka itna sa fasana hai /

Simtai toh dil ashak /

Phailai to zamana hai…’

He was suddenly in the mood to talk further on this subject. “I love the naïve type of woman. She leaves a definite impression. But she should be naïve and yet strong.”hussain qatar nationality

“But isn’t that a strange combination? Naïve and strong?” I said.

“Then have two women!” he joked.

I had to ask him: “You are married, with children and grandchildren. With that in the background, didn’t you face problems falling in love/sustaining a love affair?”

“Nothing matters once you are in love,” he said. “Once a rapport is built, then nothing comes in the way…”

Then he gave me a sidelong glance and mumbled, “Par aap se woh rapport nahin ban pa rahi hai…(I am not able to build a rapport with you).”

“Thank God for that!” I retorted. “I don’t want any rapport with you.” 

Humra Quraishi is a senior journalist based in Gurgaon. She writes on politics, social issues and occasionally, on films. Cinema@100 is a series that celebrates 100 years of Indian cinema.

(Pictures courtesy vakkomsen.blogspot.com, realandfun.blogspot.com, quicktake.wordpress.com, cmaconline.org, starmusiq.com)

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Two Muslims, two stories

One was a liberal academic, the other was a feted Hindi film actor, but their lives were really quite similar.
Humra Quraishiby Humra Quraishi

The passing away of Dr Asghar Ali Engineer recently saddened me, to say the least. Though I had met the scholar and academic several times in New Delhi and also in Sringar, I had met him just once in Mumbai. I was determined to catch up with him in Mumbai, because I have been to that city just once in my life and I wanted to meet him during that visit.

This was in the winter of 2006. From Colaba, I made my way to Dr Engineer’s Santacruz office, and it was lunch time when I got there. We spoke over lunch; his lunch, he said, was home-cooked and prepared by his daughter-in-law, who is a Maharashtrian. It was a simple spread – not the expected kormas or kababs or biryani, but two plain rotis, curd, curry, aloo gobi sabzi and some khichdi.

He spoke frankly of present-day realities. “Today, the government has to prioritise justice and security. I must emphasise that no Muslim group or individual wants to take revenge, even after the Gujarat pogrom. I have been talking to people, and everyone realises and knows that confrontation policies do not work, only healthy co-existence does. I have been going to Gujarat and talking to Muslims. They have been saying that all they want is security, so that they can live in peace. They’re worried about their lives, their livelihood, their children…”

He also said, “Our focus should be on how to clear those myths about Muslims. I’m trying my best to clear these myths by holding asghar ali engineerworkshops for the police, for college and school students. It’s only through dialogue that many misconceptions about Muslims can be cleared.”

I have read some really excellent research he had done on the communal riots. That afternoon, as he detailed and traced the history and potential of communal politics, it became apparent that it had peaked in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid’s razing.

Dr Asghar Ali Engineer always spoke calmly, with all the facts at hand. Probably this was what helped him reach out to so many people.

nargis and sanjay duttWith Sanjay Dutt going to prison, I have been reading this essay by writer Khushwant Singh on Nargis Dutt, Sanjay’s mother. I quote, “Nargis Dutt was introduced to me through the then editor of Femina, Gulshan Ewing. I’d seen her film Mother India, and I had met her when they (the Dutts) were not doing too well, and she had almost retired from films. She told me that two of her children were studying at the Sanawar School, not far from my home in Kasauli, and she asked if she could stay at my Kasauli cottage during the Sanawar Founders’ Week. With that I’d quipped, ‘Only on one condition, and the condition is that I have your permission to tell everyone that Nargis slept in my bed!’

She had a great sense of humour and laughed heartily on hearing this. Years later, when we were both nominated to the Rajya Sabha and given seats next to each other and whenever anyone tried to introduce us, she would say, ‘You don’t have to introduce us. I have slept in his bed.’

“…One thing that intrigued me was her (Nargis Dutt’s faith. Was she a Muslim or Hindu or both or nothing? She wore a bindi on her forehead, married a Brahmin, gave her children Hindu names and was often seen at Swami Muktanand’s ashram at Ganeshpuri. Nevertheless, she was buried with Muslim rites in a Muslim graveyard with her husband reciting the fateha. I can’t think of any Indian family which better exemplified the principle of Sarva Dharma Samabhav.”

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.news24online.com, sitagita.com, www.hindu.com)

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Enough said

Two public statements on Modi

As General Elections 2014 approach, the heat seems to be well and truly on the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi.
by Humra Quraishi

I simply marvel at Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash. I admire his courage and his confidence to take on the political might of his home State, Gujarat. This priest runs a human rights centre, ‘Prashant’ in Ahmedabad, and right from 2002, I’ve heard him speak at various meets. Recently, he lashed out at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi once again.

“It is more than just a rotten tooth!” he thundered. As the poll results of the Karnataka Assembly elections trickled in on Wednesday, May 8, the one person who was in the eye of the storm was Narendra Modi. Over the years, the BJP in Karnataka had done everything possible to make certain their defeat: the terrorising of the minorities, the bashing up of youth who didn’t conform to their cultural ‘traditions’; the bringing in of a legislation that was directed at harming minority communities, the support to right-wing Hindu fundamentalism and much more; this was besides the corruption and scams of immense proportion.

However, the BJP party workers were confident that Narendra Modi would campaign in Karnataka, wave his magic wand and cast a spell over the State to ensure that the BJP would come back to power! Modi himself is a seemingly ‘safe’, somewhat frightened campaigner in places such as Karnataka; from his track record, it is obvious that Modi goes to places where he can either win or is confident of fooling the people. In Karnataka, he did become the BJP star campaigner, making forays to three areas -Bangalore, Mangalore andBelgaum. When he did so, he was able to attract crowds and throw barbs at the Congress party and the UPA.

In the rally he addressed in Mangalore, he struck the Hindutva chord and tried to rake up the “cattle slaughter” issue clearly targeting not merely the UPA but also the Muslim minorities. However, all his rhetoric did not pay dividends. The BJP has lost miserably in the places where he campaigned and where he was considered to be the main vote-getter!

Father Prakash (in pic on left) said, “After the election results were out, Modi developed a ‘sudden toothache’ and neither his many spokespersons nor his highly-paid public relations agencies were at hand to give his point of view on the defeat. One does not have to be very intelligent to know that Modi, like a little school boy, easily ‘falls sick’ when the going gets tough.  Even if he did have a toothache, why did his spokespersons not speak up on behalf of him? And how did this “very painful toothache” suddenly disappear when he addressed the Gujarati diaspora in the US through a video conference on Sunday, May 12?

“Yes one can surely, fool some of the people some of the time, but NEVER all of the people all of the time!”

I have just recently returned from an interactive meet with Zakia Jafri and her son Tanveer, apart from several political activists, who have been detailing the horrifying carnage of 2002 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. This meet was held on May 7, after Zakia Jafri filed a Protest Petition before the Magistrate on April 15 “ to get a fair and transparent investigation against a Chief Minister, his Cabinet colleagues, senior administrators, policemen and front men and women of the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal.”

Several politicians also spoke at this meet, and two of them came up with some startling facts. DP Tripathi of the NCP said that way back in the mid-80s, the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Madhav Singh Solanki, had told Tripathi that there are “international forces”   which are working in the State to whip up communal frenzy and strengthen Hindutva brigades. But when probed further on Modi, Tripathi beat a hasty retreat and said he had to go to another function.

Then Sitaram Yechury of the CPI (M) said that when he got the news of the carnage in Gujarat he decided to go to Ahmedabad, and he went there with Raj Babbar, Amar Singh and Shabana Azmi. They were in Ahmedabad on March 1, 2002. He described the atmosphere prevalent in the city. “The Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad was not to be seen the entire day and night, not even in the Police Headquarters. And the same day, that is on March 1, 2002, when I got in touch with the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi and asked him about the mass killings of the Muslims and the uncontrolled rioting, he said, ‘In logon ko sabak sikhana tha, aisa sabak jo woh zindagi bhar yaad rakhenge! (I wanted to teach these people a lesson, a lesson they’d remember all their lives!)

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.religiousindia.org, www.outlookindia.com, ibnlive.in.com)

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Saluting a mother on Mother’s Day

Parveena Ahangar’s son was picked up for ‘questioning’ by Kashmir police in 1990. She’s still waiting for him to return.
by Humra Quraishi

In between several scams being unearthed in this country daily, the more unfortunate among us have already geared up for Mother’s Day. Oh yes, it’s a big day to tell your mother how you feel! No matter how contrived this entire exercise might sound, there are several givers and takers for this day.

This Day brings to mind several unsettling questions. Where are those chiddren who are missing from their homes? Where are our young boys, who were picked up various security agencies for ‘interrogation’, never to return? What is the fate that befell their mothers? What kind of days do these mothers lead?

During my journalistic journeys to various parts of the country, I have met families who have had horrifying stories to recount of how their young children went missing, or were picked up for interrogation and either detained, or who have had time behind bars choke the life out of their fragile forms. There are children missing for these reasons in every part of this land, but the Government still does not seem to care enough to find them.

This is an ongoing reality in the Kashmir Valley – of teenaged boys being picked up for interrogation by various security agencies, never to return. They are declared missing, and their story seemingly ends there.

When I first met Parveena Ahangar (see pic on left and feature image), the Srinagar-based woman who heads APDP (Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons), she told me about her young ‘missing’ son, Javed. Listening to her, I felt emotionally drained, wondering at the extent of the brutality of today’s governance, where the State does not even stop at snatching away our young. It has been an ongoing fight since 1990 for this now middle-aged Kashmiri mother; it was in 1990 that her school-going son was picked up from their home in Srinagar’s Batmaloo locality and taken away for interrogation. Javed never returned and there has been no official news of his whereabouts at all.

“My son, Javed, was picked by security agencies in 1990. Security men came to our home to pick him up, saying they were taking him for interrogation. We pleaded with them, saying he couldn’t have done anything wrong, that he had just passed his matriculation. But they didn’t listen and took him to the interrogation centre at Pari Mahal. We never saw him again,” Parveena recounts.

That incident shattered the life of the entire family. Ahangar’s husband fell ill because of the trauma, and gave up working. He remains in poor health to this day. The other three children in the family were too young to realise the implications of their brother’s disappearance at that point, but the ongoing trauma has left its impact on them, too.

Today, Parveena heads the APDP, the longest ongoing non-violent movement of parents whose children have been taken for interrogation and never come home. Hundreds of families have been ruined by their loss as they try to cope with the trauma, but Ahangar is one of the steely few who will not give up the search. She says, “All these years we have been living in sorrow. I keep very unwell. We have exhausted all our resources trying to locate Javed in the various jails of this country, appealed to every possible government authority, to politicians across party lines…but there have only been disappointments.

I’m not giving up, and I will fight for as long as I’m alive. Ours is a peaceful, non- violent struggle, but the State and these politicians don’t bother. I am determined to carry on with the struggle.”

But not many mothers have her grit. Many have already given up hope. Their words echo in my ears: “To bury your dead son is one thing, but to go travelling from jail to jail and from police station to police station, looking for your son, is another sorrow.”

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, who has authored Everyone Lives in Fear, a report on the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir, said to me in  an earlier interview on the missing young men of the Kashmir Valley, “The family members of those that ‘disappeared’ have been campaigning for years. Parents have died waiting for a lost son to come home. Wives live with the label of a half-widow. These disappearances are a lasting wound inKashmir, and we hope that families will finally have some answers and receive justice.

“Disappearances are among the most heinous of human rights violations because families are left without answers, caught between hope and despair. I have met numerous families that are still waiting for news of their loved ones. Some keep hoping for a magical reunion. Others say that they want at least to be able to weep at the grave of their lost one.”

Noted academic Uma Chakravarti, who formed a support group for APDP in Delhi, had told me during an earlier interview, “We need a judicial commission to probe J&K disappearances. No one wants to address the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the immunity it gives to the security forces, and that rapes, custodial killings and forced disappearances that will continue unless there is legal redress for violations of people’s rights. The easiest thing seems to be to not react or to pick up an item for a little while and then drop it.  The Government keeps talking about dialogue and confidence-building measures but has done little in terms of action.

The first thing it should do is to set up an independent judicial commission into disappearances so that the average Kashmiri and the individual families that have been pursuing the cases of the disappeared can have a sense of closure. This has been done in Sri Lanka to investigate the large number of disappearances in the 1980s. It will be the first step in pursuing State accountability. It will have a tremendous impact in Kashmir. It will demonstrate the Government’s commitment to a rule of law.”

(Pictures courtesy inshallahkashmir.com, githahariharan.com, freepresskashmir.com)

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No nation for poor mothers

A recent report indicates that despite the best healthcare services, mothers from marginalised sections of society receive very little attention.
by Humra Quraishi

Earlier this month, the Population Foundation of India, an NGO working in the field of  heath and population, organised a consultation on Maternal Health on April 3 and 4, 2013  with support from the United Nations Population Fund, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Maternal Health Taskforce of the Harvard School of Public Health.

I quote Poonam Mutterja, the executive director of the Population Foundation of India  on the current scenario:  “We all know that maternal mortality has declined significantly over the last decade. InIndia, the figures dropped from 301 per 100,000 births in 2003 to 212 in 2009. Yet, these reductions have not reached the most marginalised and disadvantaged communities and groups in society; tribal communities, schedule castes, and those belonging to the poorest quintile.”

According to the National Family Health Survey 2005-2006, scheduled tribe mothers are least likely to have received any antenatal care or care from a doctor. Moreover, only 23 per cent of mothers in the lowest wealth quintile received antenatal care from a doctor as against 86 per cent of mothers in the highest wealth quintile.

Mutterja continues, “I refer to the case of the 26 maternal deaths that took place at Barwani district hospital in Madhya Pradesh over a period of eight months in 2010. 21 of these 26 women belonged to scheduled tribes. The Population Foundation of India, which is the secretariat for community monitoring conducted an enquiry at the government’s request, and found that each of the 26 maternal deaths was avoidable.”

The Foundation has also released some more findings on maternal health:

– India’s current MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate) levels still remain unacceptably high and by many estimates account for nearly one-quarter of all such deaths worldwide.  Expressed in sheer numbers between 78,000-100,000 women die annually in India as a result of childbirth and pregnancy.

– Moreover, for each woman who dies, another estimated 20 more suffer from infection, injury and disability connected to pregnancy and childbirth.

– Only 50 per cent of women in India receive three or more antenatal check-ups, leaving the other half deprived of adequate care (DLHS-3, 2007-08).  The situation is worse when we look at data by caste/tribe.

– The likelihood of having received any antenatal care and care from a doctor is lowest for scheduled tribe mothers (25 per cent) and highest for mothers who do not belong to a scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, or other backward class.

– Among mothers in households with the lowest wealth quintile, 59 per cent received antenatal care and only 23 per cent received antenatal care from a doctor. By contrast, among mothers in households in the highest wealth quintile, 97 per cent received antenatal care and 86 per cent received antenatal care from doctors.

– In India, the unmet need for contraceptives remains high, it is over 30 per cent in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, and over 20 per cent in Orissa and Uttarakhand. This unmet need reflects the gap between a woman’s desired fertility and her access to family planning services.

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.

(Picture courtesy abcnews.go.com)

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One final goodbye…

Humra Quraishi revisits death through an unsaid goodbye to her own little brother Farid, whom she lost in early childhood.

Each time I’m at a graveyard, I’m reminded of what Khushwant Singh has been saying – words to the effect that in his younger days, he made it a point to visit cremation grounds, for they had a certain effect on him. To quote him, “Earlier, I visited cremation grounds; it had a certain cleansing effect on me. Today, close to 99 years of age, I think of death, think of it very often. I think of all my friends gone, and wonder where have they gone?

“My contemporaries here or in Pakistan or in the UK are all dead. I wonder why we don’t discuss death in our homes. After all, death is one of those realities that none can escape – khuda mein shak ho to ho, maut mein nahin koi shak (You may doubt the existence of God, but you can’t doubt the very certainty of death.)” He added, “There’s this particular verse written by Asadullah Khan Ghalib: Rau  mein hai raksh-e-umarkahaan deykheeye thammey?/ Nahin haath baag par hai na pa hai rakaab mein (Age travels at a galloping pace/ who knows where it will stop/ we do not have the reins in our hands/ we do not have our feet in the stirrups).”

And there’s this Persian couplet by Allama Iqbal, which says that when the time comes to depart, a man should go without any bitterness or regret, or carry grievances.

A few years ago, Khushwant penned his own epitaph thus:

“Here lies one who spared neither man nor God /

Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod/

Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun/

Thank the Lord he is dead, this son of a gun.”

Last month, my cousin Obaid Wajid got crushed under an oil tanker in our ancestral qasba, Aonla in Uttar Pradesh. I have been reflecting and introspecting on this reality – the reality of death. For me, the first connection with death and graveyards was forged when one of my younger brothers, Farid, died as a baby. From that day, I started trying to grasp the deadly reality of that final parting.

For me, visiting graveyards could be one of the ways of lessening my own pain. One of those earliest painful memories which lies tucked tightly in my mind is that of my baby brother Farid’s fragile form wrapped in a white cotton sheet, being taken to the graveyard. He’d died a baby, and though years have passed, even as I write these words, that particular afternoon stands still. I can see it clearly through my moist eyes…it was the mid-1960s, Farid was born in Jhansi. He lived for just a few months. That afternoon, I’d come back from school, but before I could enter the outer verandah, I saw a big crowd gathered on the lawns. After I elbowed my way in, I stood still. My little brother Farid was no longer lying in his cot, but his body was all wrapped in a cotton sheet.

My parents and relatives carried his little body towards the cars for his last rites. The next minute, the house stood vacant. The maid told my dazed younger sisters and me, “Farid baba has gone towards the skies.”

I wanted to run towards the graveyard, but hadn’t a clue on locating it. Our cook sabotaged any such ideas by narrating scary stories of qabristans. My sisters and I sat lost and forlorn. On the one hand we’d kept staring at the sky, certain we could spot our brother. And then we waited desperately for our parents to return.

When they returned, their sobs and cries came afresh, agonising. All I did was gaze at his empty cot, crying that entire night. In the morning, instead of walking down to school, I walked around Jhansi town, trying to locate my baby brother’s grave. I wanted to give him one final hug, kissing his little nose and holding his hand tight in mine…when I finally reached that graveyard, the caretakers were baffled to see me, a young girl of ten, asking to see the grave of her brother. Within minutes they shooed me out, saying that children were not allowed inside the graveyard.

I waited for adulthood to arrive. And I revisited Jhansi. That nagging quest had to be completed. Once again I looked for my brother’s grave, but I drew a blank. The keepers of the place exclaimed, “A child’s kutccha grave! There are hundreds of graves here. More qabristans have come up!”

I gave up, sad and forlorn, for I couldn’t say that I had finally bidden good bye to my little brother Farid.

(Picture courtesy thejakartapost.com. Image is used for representational purpose only)

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