[Reader-list] My Mother India

[sid luther]

i frankly don’t care whether safina is australian or indian. it seems like a small insignificant detail. what troubles more is why the film was made. what is it that she wanted to communicate? we know of the 84 riots. we know of the gujarat riots. safina claims that what was happening in gujarat and kashmir kept her going back to the edit room
reinforcing her need and commitment to finish her narrative. But her narrative never explores the actual hatred of the 84 riots, the violence that scarred a community. except for scratching the surface and reopening what could be wounds that were healing 'my mother india' fails at most things.  

'my mother india' looks at india with a voyeur camera. the shots of shimla where mr. and mrs. uberoi always disappeared look like romanticised shots looking at a india which has kitsch exotic value. the motif might have changed from the snake charmer and the serpent to the kitsch voluptuous calendars but the romanticism cannot be hidden. 

social violence peppered with personal memory equals to pity seems to be a formula quite a few recent narratives have been adopting.
s

On Tue, 26 Nov 2002 slumbug wrote :
>I watched Safina Uberoi's movie here in Delhi today. An entertaining movie bringing to the fore some important issues. And, as the director seemed to imply, she used her own personal story to talk about issues close to her heart and issues which should matter to us all.
>
>What bugs me is that just because you consider an issue to be important you do not have to find your-self in that issue all the time. Many of the audience seemed to react rather sentimentally  to  the film and saw the past constantly replayed. So, you had sentimental comments from individuals about how exactly Safina has exemplified the pain in their hearts - about migration, about partition, about the '84 anti-Sikh riots.
>
>I do not trivialize their pain, in fact I am in no position to do so, I cannot, having never known suffering of that kind. However, I suggest that such empathy somehow seems to put the discussion of the issues under the carpet. Instead, what we talk about are JPS Uberoi's turning Sikh post - '84 or whether Patricia Uberoi felt embarrassed by parading the family's personal life in public. And, yes, why had Safina decided to take Australian citizenship. I would say, something that does not really matter, nothing to do with the narrative in hand.
>
>For example, one never got down to discuss the patterns of state violence, communal mentalities that seems to be staple to this country and its people, something that was amply clear about the movie. One never got to talk of the brother or the sister whose voices seem rather brutalised to me. And, as somebody did bring it up - the fact that Patricia did tremendous violence to herself to keep the family knitted together was probably one of the most important facets of the movie.
>
>And, lastly, I just do not seem to understand why our very incestuous Delhi intellectuals screw up their eyes, get rather serious and spew all that jargon which is difficult to get by. What a crisp, exciting celluloid adventure, and here we go mystifying it.
>
>Must say that the words of JPS and Dilip Simeon were still very nice ways to round off the evening. As JPS said, maybe the third generation could ask the questions which the earlier one could not. And Dilip said it all when he says Jit Singh Uberoi is Jit Singh Uberoi whether he became Sikh or not.
>
>It is possible that it is important who you are, but it is far more important how you are with others.
>
>Neel
>
>
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