The Weight of a Memory

1) everyone loves the arrival of 

new things. Like the sun hides

to let the stars appear, the moon

rests in the deep annals of the sky

a lone object. Scarred, colourless

but bright. 

2) winters melted on the palm of the earth, until it started to burn.

flowers sprouted from new born buds

but sooner, it will be a funeral pyre

that will burn petals of life,

everything will turn to dust.

3) stuck on the soles of my shoes

are the moments I counted back,

when I waited upon him, while he never came I stumbled,
evening walks lay stretched on a straight path. 

4) I thrust my pills into my mouth

I need one more to live through the night. It swallows pain, like the last hiccup that I gulped,

I look at the things I don't need

everything that is garishly coloured is a memory. 

A few weeks later I know what happened to me as I discarded the garbage bag

An episode of partial amnesia. that ate my headaches. 

Pramila: Esther Victoria Abraham- The First woman to be crowned Miss India

“My husband asked me to choose between him and the theatre. And I chose the latter. After that he never came to the theatre. Never saw me either. That was it. I was pregnant then. There was no other meeting, no other conversation … that was the end of my family life …”

Esther was born in 1916 in Kolkata to Reuben Abraham, a businessman from Kolkata and Matilda Issac from Karachi. Her family was of the Baghdadi Jewish origins, that traces its routes to the Middle east and who settled primarily around the trade route ports around Indian ocean and the South Chinese sea.

She had three half siblings and six siblings from her parent’s own marriage.

Picture credit: https://www.indiatimes.com/lifestyle/self/a-look-at-miss-indias-over-the-years-278279.html

Education and early life

Esther attended the Calcutta Girls high school but later shifted to St James which was a co-educational institution and had a reasonable fee structure which the family could afford due to its declining means. Esther learned that to be an all-rounder she had to to excel in both studies and sports and become better than the boys.

She was a hockey champion and had won many trophies in sports.

She had a penchant for drawing and on graduating from high school received an arts degree from Cambridge.

On completing her high school degree she went to become a kindergarten teacher at the Talmud Torah Boy’s school. Esther was pretty and the boys in her school would try and find all kinds of excuses to speak to their beautiful teacher. Despite having done a B Ed degree she didn’t want to teach and was drawn to the Hindi cinema.

From Esther to Pramila

Her family had keen interest in music and dance which attracted young Esther to cinema. Her entry into silent movies happened by a sheer stroke of luck.

In those days her first cousin Rose and her younger sister Sophie were a part of the Corinthian theatre.

Meanwhile she got married to a Marwari theatre personality and had a son Maurice Abraham. Her parents convinced her to annul the marriage and they brought up Maurice.

A chance visit to Bombay to visit her cousin Rose Ezra changed the course of her life. Director R S Chowdhari spotted her while she visited Rose who was acting in The Return of the Toofan Mail. The director thought that the tall and glamorous Esther would do greater justice to the role and she was signed after being put through a screen test.

The movie The Return of the Toofan Mail was never completed but this marked the beginning of Esther’s entry into Hindi cinema.

She stayed on in Bombay and started working with Irani’s Imperial company. In 1936, her first movie Bhikaran hit the theaters and her anglicized hindi was accepted and became a rage. After this movie she was given the screen name Pramila by director and producer Baburao Pendherkar.

She went on to act in movies like Ulti Ganga,Burra Nawab Sahib, Bijli,Shahzadi, Jhankar, Our Darling Daughter, Maha Maya among others that often saw her play a vamp and stunt star. She also became the first major woman film producer with 16 major films under her banner Silver Productions. Morarji Desai, the then Prime minister got her arrested for she was suspected to be a spy for as she often travelled to Pakistan. Later it was proved that her constant travels were aimed at promoting her films.

Picture credit:https://www.flickr.com/photos/123622359@N06/14202418876

Filmography

• Return of the Toofan Mail, directed by R.S. Chaudhary (1935)

• Bhikaran, directed by P.K. Atharti (1935)

• Mahamaya, directed by Gunjal (1936)

• Hamari Betiya / Our Darling Daughters, directed by R.S. Chaudhary (1936)

• Saria, directed by Shanti Dave (1936)

• Mere Lai, directed by Gunjal (1937)

• Mother India, directed by Gunjal (1938)

• Bijlee, directed by Balwant Bhatt (1939)

• Hukum Ka Ekka, directed by Shanti Dave (1939)

• Jungle King, directed by Nari Ghadialli (1939)

• Kahan Hai Manzil Ten, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1939)

• Sardar, directed by Dwarka Khosla (1940)

• Kanchan, directed by Leela Chitnis (1941)

• Shahzaadi, directed by J.P. Advani (1941)

• Basant, directed by Amiya Chakrabarty (1942)

• Jhankar, directed by S. Khalil (1942)

• Saheli, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1942)

• Ulti Ganga, directed by K. Dhaiber (1942)

• Bade Nawab Saheb, directed by B.D. Vedi (1944)

• Naseeb, directed by B.D. Vedi (1945)

• Devar, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1946)

• Nehle Pe Dehla, directed by S.M. Yussuf (1946)

• Sal Gira, directed by K.S. Dariani (1946)

• Shalimar, directed by Roop K. Shorey (1946)

• Doosri Shaadi, directed by Ram Dariani (1947)

• Aap Beeti, directed by M. Kumar (1948)

• Beqasoor, directed by K. Amamath (1950)

• Hamari Beti, directed by Shobhna Samarth (1950)

• Dhoon, directed by M. Kumar (1953)

• Majboori / Choti Bahen, directed by Ram Dariani (1954)

• Badal Aur Bijlee, directed by Maurice Abraham (1956)

• Fighting Queen, directed by Nari Ghadiali (1956)

• Jungle King, directed by Masud (1959)

• Bahana, directed by M. Kumar (1960)

• Murad, directed by Nari Ghadiali (1961)

• Thaang, directed by Amol Palekar (2006)

14th February 2016, Aurora hall, Calgary

From the winter window

melting with human heat

in a strange city brimming with nameless life

I watch two people ensconced wearing each other's bodies

 like warm cardigans, twining their fingers like knitting needles

It's the festival of love, as love can be seen

plastered on walls of restaurants,

malls and the community hall in pink

 sealing the deal in sales

 or doled as discounts.

While in this part of my weary world,

 these two speak to a civilization

Torn by bombs, fractured by barbed wires

My lonely eyes capture the postcard greeting they give to the world

On a moonless night lit by silent street lamps.

Sipping slowly from my favourite mug with a happy picture

He gave on one such Valentine's day

I wonder,

Why do photos save moments

that will be forgotten?

As tears trickle down my face

I realize that I now prefer my coffee salted

 as my tongue gets used to the taste of

 wet memories.

Why should you watch Lipstick under my Burkha?

I usually don't make advance bookings for a movie, but this one was tempting. The kick-ass poster might have attracted many like me, a middle finger salutation on a feminine movie poster is hard to resist. 
I saw a few men inside the theatre, some accompanying their wives and girlfriends, others on their own. Curiosity brought them there. Perhaps some were present in the cinema hall, to make fun of a woman director who decided to walk the talk, and show the mirror to patriarchy.

Cast: Ratna Pathak Shah
Konkona Sen Sharma
Ahana Kumra
Plabita Borthakur
Vikrant Massey
Sushant Singh Rajput

Director: Alankrita Shrivastava

Running time: 2 hours 12 minutes


The movie talks about the lives of four women who are neighbours, and living in a small town in India. To rebel is a way of life for them, and these big and small acts of mutiny where they stand up for themselves is the unique selling point in the movie. Each woman is standing at a threshold of life, that is distinctive from the situation of the other woman. For example there is the college goer Rehana who is a die-hard fan of Miley Cyrus and is struggling to shun the burkha that her parents have used to camouflage her body and her dreams that revolve around becoming a singer. Or the mother of three children Shireen, played by Konkona Sen Sharma who has swallowed the atrocities that her dominant and perverted husband unveils on her everyday, without uttering a word. Else, take the example of Leela who is trying to establish a new business with her muslim boyfriend, oblivious of her fiance of her mother who is trying to pay off the debts her father left them with after his death. Then there is buaji the matriarch, who is the co-owner of  an ancient building in the heart of the city and a sweet shop. She feeds her sexual fantasies by indulging in sleazy novels.  
Each character has to put up with a lot to breathe in their sacred space, yet their willingness to listen to the voice of  their soul makes them special.

Spoilers ahead
Scenes where Shireen is raped every night on bed, and at the drop of a hat she is forced to pop a pill to avoid pregnancy to her dominating husband throwing away the condom to have sex with her make you cringe. This is the story of thousands of women in India who silently accept marital rape as their fate.
Buaji's battle to suppress her sexual needs within the pages of sleazy novels makes you rethink about how we have ignored elderly women and their sexual desires and why they are forced to hide behind the mask of traditions and religion, in this case buaji being a regular at the satsangs.
Leela's struggle to keep her hopes of  setting up a business alive to the way she is shown being torn between her fiance and boyfriend is the portrayal of a young women of India trying to shun marriage and putting up a brave front to let their dreams of a career live. 
The young college goer Rehana has very few dialogues but manages to impress with her silent yet powerful expressions particularly the acts where she tries to don western outfits to the reality locking horns with her dreams of pursuing a singing career.

The Catholic church and its long history of clerical sexual abuse

This is not the first time that a priest has misused his powers and indulged in an act that priesthood forbids. A long and notorious history of catholic priests involved in sex crimes tells us that the preachy church has a rotten history of burying dirty secrets allowing systemic gender violence to mushroom in its backyard.

The latest incident that has rocked the church and its faithful followers is the repeated rape of a minor girl by the vicar of a local church at Kottiyoor in Kannur district,Kerala. He was the manager of the school in which the girl attended classes until February 6th, a day before she gave birth to baby boy.

What is bizarre is a system that had tried to cover up the crime until the Kerala police conducted intensive searches and arrested the accused priest and seven others including five nuns and the doctor of the church run hospital where the girl gave birth to the child, were on the run.  There were picked up on February 7th and booked under non-bailable sections. The police should be applauded for being swift and efficient but what breaks the heart of faithful Christians like me is that the onus of the sexual crime is being put on the minor child. The church conveniently retorted to victim blaming rather than accepting the need to clean up the rot in the system.

According to News Minute's report on an editorial written by Sunday Shalom, a Christian weekly, the rape could have been averted by the girl if she wanted to. The weekly said "Here, the girl is above the age of 15. Let me tell you this, as I consider you like my daughter, you are also at fault. Before the Lord, it is you who will have to answer first. Daughter why did you forget who a priest is? He has a human body and has temptations. He may have forgotten his position for a few seconds, my child who has taken the Holy Communion, why didn't you stop or correct him?"

Examining the sexism in Indian politics

As the poll trumpets blew during the assembly elections in the five states of Goa, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur,  we saw many sexist politicians come out of their hiding holes. I was rattled by an insensitive comment by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vinay Katiyar who said that Priyanka Gandhi was not as beautiful as she was projected to be and that there were prettier women leaders in BJP like Smriti Irani who could pull crowds and give better speeches.

This was not the first time that an Indian politician had passed sexist regressive remarks about a woman politician. I cannot help but wonder: How long it will be before a woman politician is given importance and her potential as a politician not measured by her looks?

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati has also been a popular target from politicians. Once, BJP spokesperson Shaina NC made a jibe on her, saying that she didn't know if the BSP leader was a "he" or "she" – attacking Mayawati's gender identity based on outdated and regressive stereotypes of what constitutes "womanliness", which Mayawati might not conform to. Mayawati doesn't wear saris or salwar kameez in feminine colours  and the way she wears her hair has made her a victim of comments like these that question her appearance.

On another occasion BJP leader Dayashankar Singh said that Mayawati is worse than a prostitute who gives a seat to the person who pays the highest amount for it. His comments toward the Dalit woman leader were not only sexist but also casteist. A metaphor comparing a woman to a sex worker is every sexist's glorifying moment of machismo – disrespecting not only the woman in question but also the dignity of sex workers. Patriarchy feeds on the notion that a sex worker is the lowliest among the low in the society, since they have sex with tens and hundreds of men to earn their bread and butter. Patriarchy is the school of thought that restricts a woman's sexual agency, and in this case it has been difficult for leaders like Dayashankar Singh to come to terms with the fact that sex work is like any other profession and there is nothing condemnable about it. The same man lashed out at Mayawati again a few months later where he likened her to a dog and called her a coward. He said that "Mayawati is like a dog that chases speeding cars on roads, but steps back as and when the vehicle stops." He later took back his statement, saying that he meant that "she called us dogs."

Dress codes and the stigma attached to it

An important lesson girls growing up in India are taught is to pull down the length of our skirts to lengthen them, for the fear and stigma attached to what we wear and how it can be provocative and attract the male gaze can make us appear scandalous and of questionable morals. 
I remember the carefree days as a young girl in India, when skirts and shorts hanging inside our closets didn't invite criticism from people. But, as our bodies started growing in size, covering it up became a necessity. 
My mother was never bothered about what I wear and did it in any way feed the sexual gaze of young boys or men. My favourite dress from childhood was a mini skirt resting below my thighs with white polka dots and golden buttons. The white shirt with ruffles and laces was the perfect match for this black skirt. Till this day, I vividly remember the colour and feel of the skirt and the top, and the memories it gave me. Another favourite piece of garment from my childhood was a yellow dress with huge flower motifs that made me look like a garden. It did grab a few eyeballs and people fed on unhealthy doses of patriarchy told me to not show off my hands, legs, shoulders or chest because girls from decent families should never show skin.