I’m happy to share with you that Speak Up now also finds itself on another blog. It is written by Gargi (see above) and can be read here: http://writingtherain.blogspot.com/2008/11/of-speaking-up-it-helps.html. This link will also take you to the page on which the PSA appears.

Subuhi

It would be wonderful if you embedded the youtube link of our psa on your blog. I just request that you run the credit-related information with it. You will find it in the post itself. Please also mention CMCS and Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Do send us a link and we can put it on our blog too.

Warmly,

Subuhi

Subuhi

I found your comparison of Pinjar’s narrative to that of the Ramayana revealing. Somehow, I just hadn’t thought of it in those terms.

It has been some time since I saw the film but I wanted to respond to some of your statements. You say, “Out of a number of female characters in the film, not a single one seems to be interested in educating herself or working and earning for herself.” And this, you point out as a particularly regressive aspect of the film. Do you suppose that if these women had been shown, say, working in the fields, if they had been shown as not being complicit in enforcing patriarchial norms on other women, that the film could somehow have been rescued, at least as far as gender representation is concerned?

Are you/we analysing it from y/our own contemporary standpoints without trying to understand that women at that time in our history, way before the women’s movement of the 70s began, may not have had the kinds of freedoms that we do today? Of course, some women did fight for their rights — to education, to chose their own life partners — much before the Partition. (Pandita Ramabai, for instance.) But were these women exceptions, rarities of sorts?

To expect women to do then what we do today with as much ease, and to use that to gauge whether the film is progressive or not, reflects a bias of the present time, I think.

I found another review on-line by Philip Lutgendor, Professor in the South Asian Studies department at the University of Iowa, which also compares the film to the Ramayana. http://www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/Pinjar.html. He even describes Rashid as Hanuman. “The film thus underscores conventional and malicious stereotypes of Muslims as culturally “backward,” religiously fanatic, temperamentally violent, and sexually predatory… The one exception (that, alas, proves the rule) is the tormented Rashid, who properly suffers for his Ravana-like lust for one “Sita,” and is ultimately redeemed following his Hanuman-like rescue of another and his final tearful embrace by (who else?) a forgiving “Ramchand.” Tellingly, this one (relatively) “good” Muslim character appears through much of the film with bowed head and contrite demeanor—a sight that might gladden the hearts of Hindutva-vadis, but that prevents this ambitious film from delivering the promised sanjivani herb of true inter-communal healing.”

Something to think about.

Subuhi

[Sometimes photographs or for that matter anything may seem to be saying something, but it is naive to assume the content because the 'say' being unilateral carries no meaning unless put in black and white..We always like to hear what we want. Let photos converse with whoever they want...be it caption, reader, uploader, moderator or even other photos in the series.]

I have various kinds of questions to ask you about these pictures but I am most interested in finding out why you chosen to show these children at work. What (if you could like to articulate it) is your intention and what were you trying to say through these photos? What do you think is the relationship between you and your camera, and these kids?

There’s a quote by Amitava Kumar which I think might provide some food for thought:

“Photographs are so often assumed to be unambiguous in their meaning, hence transparent. Because of their assumed transparency, photos should be accompanied by untiring contextualization…the point is to confront the reader with the context that foregrounds the process of making meaning.”

–Amitava Kumar, Passport Photos (Penguin, 2000)

You might not want to do what Kumar suggests but answer me this: Is there a reason why your pictures do not have captions? What do you think should be the relationship between an image and a caption? Does it need one?

And do photographers always need to provide a context for their images through the use of captions?

Hope we can continue the conversation in this space.

Subuhi