Hri Institute for Southasian Research and Exchange

Text and Images by: Daljit Ami

Love legends in Punjab have not only been rendered in different art forms but also been invoked to negotiate the contemporary social issues. Painting, poetry, songs, films and folk songs are crucial to understand the importance of love legends in Punjabi society where love legends are an integral part of the folk idiom, and are embedded in the sub-conscious of every Punjabi.

If these narratives are so much part of the popular consciousness, how do we read the fact that the legends all forefront the woman protagonist? It is only in the legend of Mirza-SahibaN that the name of the man precedes. What are the possible interpretations in contemporary reality?

At a workshop conducted by Hri at the women-only BBK DAV College in Amritsar in early November, Mirza frequently figured in the discussion. Here, students shared their experiences about gender discrimination and dual standards of society when it came to the liberty to love or choose a companion of one’s own.

Painters and poets have interpreted love legends as metaphors, motifs and representations of the indomitable female spirit struggling against patriarchal social norms. Poets of all hues have used love legend in one or other context. They have been invoked to celebrate the spirit of Punjab; to express the suppressed desires of women; and even to aspire for social revolution. In cinema, the same love legends have also been interpreted in ways that assert violent masculinity entrenched in patriarchy.

While Mirza was being discussed, we screened clips from two films about this beleaguered lover. These films, “Mirza, An Untold Story” and “Hero Hitler in Love” are loosely based on the legend of doomed lovers. The first was adapted with the Punjabi diaspora in mind. In this film, Mirza is a Canadian policeman who chases the killers of his brother. These men also happen to be SahibaN’s drug smuggling brothers. The film reasserts violent masculinity with strong anti-women under tones. The second film has an interesting background. Initially, the producers had chosen the title “Mirza” but it was already registered. Subsequently, they changed their story a little and named it “Hero Hitler in Love”. The male protagonist, Hitler Singh follows his love Sahiba to Pakistan under the pseudonym, Mirza. In the end he asserts that he is not Mirza who will die in every love story but Hitler who kills all those in his path. Indirectly, the film criticizes Mirza for being pacifist and unashamedly asserts caste, ethnic and gender biases.

The participants were absorbed by the film clips and spontaneously commented on the patriarchal values and violence being asserted through these films. Some participants linked these stereotypes to their own experiences and social norms of contemporary society, which were anti-women: women are unreliable, less wise than males and they are objects of male desire and ownership. A student shared that they were under constant pressure to avoid male company. She narrated an incident when she was supposed to go for a study tour. Meanwhile, her distant cousin’s relationship with her boyfriend got exposed. Immediately, her parents withdrew the permission for study tour lest she develop a liaison with a boy. The control is not very different from the centuries-old control of Sohni.

Present-day Sohnis

From Mirza, the discussion veered towards strong women characters like Sohni. Participants started with constructing the outline of the story, with others filling in details. After the recreation, the participants were asked how how this simple story qualified to be a “legend”. Different interpretations emerged about why the story had endured through the ages: Sohni’s indomitable spirit and conviction about love. When asked which incident in Sohni’s life was the most significant, participants chose to focus on: Sohni and Mahiwal’s first fateful meeting; Sohni visiting Mahiwal when he was grazing buffaloes; Mahiwal visiting her disguised as a yogi; Sohni eating meat brought by Mahiwal from across the Chenab; drowning Sohni and Sohni clinging on to the legendary pitcher which dissolves in the raging water.

To set the stage for the discussion, emotive musical renditions of the legend by Barqat Sidhu and Sajida Begum were screened.  Talking about why the specific occasions were significant, the pitcher was found to be the most important symbol of Sohni’s life. An intense discussion followed, trying to interpret Sohni’s thoughts when she discovered that her pitcher had been replaced by an unbaked one. Students talked about her resolve, the appeal on the other side of the river and patriarchal pressure on her back.

Churning and expression

At this point paintings of different painters over a period of more than a hundred years who had worked on love legends in general and Sohni in particular were shared with the students. Immediately after this when asked about any recent incident involving young couple; within no time they were talking about an incident in Jalandhar a few months earlier where a girl committed suicide after journalists photographed her with her boyfriend. We discussed this incident in detail and students discussed this with anguish. Comparing the girl’s mindset with that of Sohni, the students came up with responses underlining the contemporary relevance of love legends. Some students were of the opinion that contemporary women were being presented through these love legends, as social norms are similar. One girl said, “Sohni had committed suicide…” The students used the blank canvases on the walls and charts to express their ideas of love and the clay pitchers that were installed for the workshop. The resultants were diverse expressions of art forms like illustrations, paintings and poems. Indeed, when love legends are adapted through different art expressions, women in today’s Punjab seem to be negotiating their personal and social spaces through these narratives.

Diary of a disastrous campaign

21 December 2012

By Thomas Bell
A recently unearthed diary brings a fresh perspective to the lesser-known British foray into what we now call Nepal.

The history of the British East India Company was mostly written by the Company itself. It emphasises military victories, such as the late-eighteenth-century campaigns against the Marathas or the Kingdom of Mysore; and it dwells on episodes of heroism and tragedy which serve to expose the perfidy of the natives (the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’). Although they are now seen in a different light, such events still mark the way. There is little space in the story for Captain Kinloch’s invasion of Nepal. Yet, in his failure, Kinloch helped to draw the map of contemporary Southasia no less than his luckier colleagues in the Deccan.

Nepali historians have dwelt on the historic destiny of Prithvi Narayan Shah the Great, who in the mid eighteenth century forged the Gorkhali empire in the hills as a bulwark against the firingis in the plains. His patriotism was so great, he defended Nepali independence before it was invented. These historians record that Kinloch’s expedition was routed by the Gorkhali army at Sindhuli – the first of several occasions when Gorkha courage or nationalism kept the overbearing power to the south at bay. His defeat has been treated as inevitable, and significant mainly in entrenching the Gorkhalis’ abiding suspicion of the British.

Kinloch’s own diary of his disastrous campaign was – until recently – scarcely known to exist, and its publication is provocative and fascinating. It demands that earlier analyses of the invasion be substantially revised. And it invites us to reflect how national destiny, or the fortune of an imperial adventurer, rests on such factors as the antics of an unreliable grain merchant during the interminable monsoon of 1767.

Read more at Himalmag.com

Text and Images by Haroon Khalid 

A group of young janitors, smartly dressed in red uniforms, around the same age as the students at the university stopped for a little while to listen to our guest Safdar Mahi singing Waris Shah’s Heer. Imagine their surprise: a class being conducted on the lawns of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), and Heer being sung out loud, while the professor sat next to the singer. That’s not what one usually associates with college, especially for the working class, who is made to believe that the purpose of education is solely to learn English. I wanted to wave at them and invite them to come and sit with us, to listen to the songs and the discussions following. I thought they would be more familiar with these stories and their themes than the rest of us. But then I didn’t, reluctant to breach that class barrier raised after such painstaking efforts. They stood for a little while and then moved on, joking and patting each other on the back, perhaps talking about the strange sight that they had just witnessed.

Once settled into a song, there was no stopping Safdar Mahi. His volume increased as he hit the high notes characteristic of Punjabi folk songs. He seemed to be his in element. I wondered if anyone had ever sung Punjabi folk sitting on the lawns of LUMS. When I was a student there I had taken part in my share of singing Metallica and Bon Jovi. The only thing that came close to folk was the Sufi rock band Junoon. So common is the sight of young musicians singing and playing on these lawns that most passers-by ignore them. But Safdar Mahi was indeed a unique sight, which is why students stopped for a while to soak it in. His dark blue sweater covered his uniform. In his other life, he is a sub-inspector of customs, stationed at the Lahore International Airport and had come straight from duty on the invitation of his friend, Iqbal Qaiser. At heart Safdar Mahi is a singer who has been performing Punjabi folk songs for the past several years. Reading from his small note book he sang verses of Heer, Mirza-Sahiban, Sassi Punnon, and Sohni-Mahiwal for the class.

“Do you notice a strong sense of association with the geography of the region in all these folk songs,” said Professor Furrukh Khan, whose class, ‘Imagining Lahore’ was the one we were using to conduct our workshop on Hri’s Forbidden Love. Sitting cross-legged on the bench next to Safdar Mahi, he puffed on his cigarette as he engaged in this discussion. Furrukh Khanwas the first person to have made Punjabi culture and folk “cool” in my eyes. I still remember taking a course ‘Introduction to English Literature’ from him, while I was a student here and being struck that he was my first English teacher who spoke English in a Punjabi accent. Where appropriate he would insert phrases of Punjabi; almost revolutionary in formal education in English and how the language is understood in a post-colonial world. “Not only are these songs about love but there is also awareness about their surroundings,” he added. “Pay attention to how Mirza is talking about the tree or Sassi describes the burning sand of the desert. They were environmentalists before environmentalism became a catch-phrase.” “Is there a Jand tree around us right now?” I asked the students. Safdar Mahi had just completed a song in which there is a reference to this particular tree in association with the story of Mirza and Sahiban. “Does anyone know what a Jand tree looks like,” I asked them when we couldn’t find any around us. Nobody did – frankly, I don’t either.

The workshop which included about twenty students began by discussing relevance of folk love stories in our contemporary society. To emphasise the point I gave them a few examples from recent Hindi films. Since the class was focused on Lahore, Furrukh Khan wanted to do something with relevance to the city. This is where Iqbal Qaiser comes in. He has been researching the history of Lahore since more than a decade and has in the process compiled an encyclopedia which is yet to be published. He began by describing Lahore as a cultural city and the importance of a few particular localities in terms of performing arts. Soon he incorporated the topic of folk love legends and the different mediums that they have been performed in over the years. For this particular workshop, since we were focusing on performing arts, I wanted the students to actually see a performance. The plan was for Safdar Mahi to sing a song relevant to one of the folk love legends after which we would discuss the themes and symbolism alluded to in the song. However, once Safdar Mahi took the stage all plans receded to the background as he took us all through an incredible musical journey. The students who were earlier showing signs of distraction were amazed at his voice and pitch control. Even if the lyrics were not immediately absorbed, the inherent rhythm and melody in these songs was enough to capture everyone’s attention.

“Let’s arrange a proper concert for him,” suggested one of the students. “We could have paintings of folk love legends in the background and in between songs we could discuss the significance of these stories like we are doing right now,” elaborated another. “It’s your responsibility to do it then,” concluded Furrukh Khan.

As I packed my bag and prepared to end the session, one of the students asked if we thought that the stories were actually based on real incidents. This ignited a whole series of new discussions. “It doesn’t matter if they are real or not,” said Furrukh Khan. “The point is that they are embedded in our culture. Well I cannot talk about the others but I know that Mirza Sahiban is a real story. This story is said to have taken place in the second half of the 19th century, so during the British era. As a result of them eloping, a feud developed between the Jats and Sials, as Mirza was a Jat and Sahiban a Sial. After this incident in order to prevent any other “Sohni” from being born the Sials started practicing female infanticide which was eventually stopped by the British through legal actions by outlawing the practice. So at least for Mirza-Sahiban we have proof in the history,” explained Iqbal Qaiser. Differing from his interpretation of the feud between the clans, I added my own: “I think instead there was a historical feud between the Sials and the Jatts and in order to explain how that started, this story was created.” But I was in agreement with Furrukh Khan: given the place of these stories in popular culture and daily life in Punjab, it doesn’t really matter if they are actually based on a true incident or not. It is their relevance to the people folk and what they mean to them that is important.

The workshop ended on a high note, with the students thronging to the three of us to ask us questions, discussing various aspects from the workshop that they had failed to discuss earlier. I was glad that the students had gotten excited about the project. Purpose achieved!

Text: Chintan Girish Modi
Photo credits: Virginia Rodrigues

Abhishek Majumdar’s ‘Afterlife of Birds’ travelled to Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai this December and received a hearty applause. The play, which touched many a local chord, was crafted from interviews of parents of young Muslim boys in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar accused of involvement in terror attacks and testimonies of women who were associated with the movement for a Tamil homeland led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) before they sought asylum in London.

Given our interest in archival work and oral histories, we were interested in learning more about the research process that went into devising this play written and directed by Bangalore-based Majumdar. The research process from 2010 to 2012 was supported by the Robert Bosch Arts Grant, and the play was presented under the aegis of Indian Ensemble, a prolific theatre group in Bangalore that brings together young theatrewallahs and seasoned stalwarts.
Majumdar shares that the initial proposal was about migration of women within the country, from small towns to big cities. “This migration was not by choice. The women had to move because their men were moving. The men automatically found a new world because of their new context of work but the women had to create their own new worlds as they moved with their men. When I came across stories about women in the LTTE, I was struck by the idea that these women were migrating out of their own choice,” he says.

Text by Chintan Girish Modi
Image: flickr / Indianature11

A collection of about 100 hours of video footage which includes stories by the traditional healer who plays the ghagli (an instrument made out of a local gourd), the thalawala, who produces hypnotic music with a string stuck to a plate while reciting stories and folklore: these vibrant narratives are being gathered just a couple of hours out of Mumbai.

At a workshop organised by the Tamarind Tree, an NGO in Dahanu, Maharashtra initiated by group of media and development professionals, and the Centre for Social Studies (Surat, Gujarat) the learnings from LORE, their community-driven oral history project were discussed. Titled ‘Building a Community Archive: Social and Technological Challenges in Collection, Storage and Dissemination’, the workshop was hosted at the Tamarind Tree farm in Sogve Village, Dahanu and brought together professionals from the fields of sociology, filmmaking, archiving, education and open source technology.

The LORE project which began in April 2009, aimed to collect, preserve and present the oral narratives of the Warli and Kokna Adivasis in Dahanu as they see themselves in a contemporary context. By mid-October 2012, the project was at a stage where the core team was engaged in reflective thought processes, which were shared at the workshop.

Warli Painting

What is collected?

In the initial phase of the project, songs, dances, rituals and folklore were recorded, but later the focus was on interviewing people and collecting life stories or narratives around important historical events that have a bearing on the lives of local Adivasi communities. Some of the broad themes that appear in the collected material are the wrath of nature; fear of moneylenders and Parsi landlords; power of divine spirits and contemporary social and political observations.

Satyakam of Centre for Social Studies (CSS), who was present at the conference, brought up the concern that context assumes a centrality in the process of collection. He wanted to know how the project grapples with the question of ‘What to capture, what not to?’ In response, Hemant of Nomad India Network said, “Ours is not a documentary film project. When we have people handling a camera and shooting, filmmakers come and ask, ‘What is the output?’ We are not here to make a film on the Warlis as a theme. We would like to do this as an archival exercise; we don’t do selection. However, if a filmmaker wants to use this material and make a film, we will be happy to share it.”

Added Michelle Chawla, founder and managing trustee at Tamarind Tree, “We want to interview old people of the community and record their life stories. Some important themes have already come, particularly regarding forced labour on rice plantations. These interviews led us to refine our questions. We decided to move from collecting folklore to collecting oral history.”

The thematic areas for the oral history work include agriculture, indebtedness, bondage, exploitation, family accounts, fodder, forests, wood, etc. They have also started working on one event-based historical research—the Warli Revolt of 1945-46 in parents. Michelle said, “We met people whose parents were part of the revolt. Some of them took us to villages where the firing had happened.”

How do they decide whom to interview? The interviewers, trained by Tamarind Tree to be collectors of oral history, make a list of people who hold key positions in the villages, older people, and people who might have stories to share, for example  midwives. At the workshop, it was suggested that the project could begin to access government or district archives to know about key events in Dahanu. People could be identified accordingly and interviewed about these events. The scholars from CSS also suggested that the project needs to perhaps engage the services of a researcher to interview the interviewers after they conduct the interview. This would give further depth to the archive.

Why is it collected?

The “why” of oral history generated an intense discussion. Hemant pointed out that oral historiography has its own methodology. “You cannot shove the camera in front of the respondent’s face. You have to bring it out when there is a comfort level. One of the things in the respondent’s mind is ‘What is the motive? Why does this person want to know about my past?’”

Professor Eddie Rodrigues from the Sociology Department at Mumbai University, who was also present at the workshop said, “Orality is also marked with intent. People remember what they remember with an intent. People who do oral history are people who use memory to uncover the intent. It is a terrifically difficult exercise.”

Vivek, a Professor from Mumbai University another participant pointed out that Tamarind Tree was framing the oral history project as a “Warli project”, and not as a “Dahanu project”, revealing the intent behind the project. Concurring, Michelle said, “Yes, it is meant to be a Warli project. The Parsi history of this area is recorded but no history of the Warli community is recorded from their own perspective. It is mostly oral.”

Probing further into this aspect, Satyakam said that Tamarind Tree is going with the assumption that they will find stories of exploitation and dissent.

Michelle readily agreed.  “There has been discontent and resistance in this area but it has not been documented. Also, let’s bear in mind that a project like this grows organically. Initially, we were collecting only purely from a posterity point of view. We also want to ask the question: Can we break away from the normal ways of collecting information, using technology, and working with people from the community?” This question has been very important to their research process.

Illustrating the raison d’etre of the oral history project, Michelle said, “The project has captured current agricultural processes like “rab” (slash and burn) and is attempting to demystify this technique, since this practice has led to considerable exploitation by the forest department and increasing prejudice by environmentalists, who claim that these practices are destroying the forests. It is here that we hope to gain an understanding of the identity and self-perception of the Warlis and Koknas and how they position themselves both with regard to their natural environment and how they react to the encroachment of their social and physical space by outsiders.”

Who collects and how?

Initially, only Vinit and Michelle shot the footage but the team later expanded. Since LORE aims to be a community-driven digital archive, Tamarind Tree encourages the community to be actively involved in the process of oral history collection, and not only in its consumption. With a small grant from the Ratan Tata Trust, they were able to recruit a small team of Adivasi youth and train them in using a digital camera for filming interviews. These field workers were sent out into the Adivasi talukas of Dahanu to collect stories, myths, legends, rituals, beliefs and practices of the Warlis and Koknas.

Vanita, one of these young researchers present at the workshop, said, “We got to learn a lot by being part of the oral history project. It feels good to be involved in a project that will help the new generation learn about the past of their community.” Another researcher, Anil, added, “When we go out to interview people, we speak to them in their own language. This helps them open up to us. If somebody else had gone, they might have been a bit scared, perhaps reluctant to talk.”

Swati Das, a filmmaker who participated in the workshop, said, “The camera is a powerful tool. You may not edit but the person speaking may edit out before sharing. They know that since it is being recorded on camera, it will reach other people. If you go without a camera or a notebook, they might come out with more.”

Vinit who initially began recording the interviews with Michelle added, “I would like to share an example of one person who initially did not allow us to shoot him on camera. We put the camera aside and just began talking to him. He was from another village. He did not know us, and building trust took some time. Later he realised that we were genuine people, so he allowed us.”

Vinit clarified that they recorded most of the interviews either in the house of the person being interviewed or on the Tamarind Tree farm. He said, “When we go equipped with too much equipment, they are a bit hesitant/reluctant to talk. A lot of our recordings have been done at night when it is quiet around the house.”

Text and Images by: Haroon Khalid

Everyone present could name the four most famous folk love legends celebrated in Punjab: Heer-Ranjha, Sassi-Punno, Mirza-Sahiban and Sohni-Mahiwal, but none of them knew the story. It seems that the colonial policy of cutting off the educated from their roots through a policy of education is reporting success even in a post-colonial state. This was the situation at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), considered to be one of the best universities in the country. I was there to conduct a workshop on Hri’s project, ‘Forbidden Love’. My former professor, Sadaf Ahmad, an anthropologist, was kind enough to allow me to use her last class for the course, Gender and Power, to conduct the workshop. And here I was, sitting on the rostrum, in front of about forty undergraduate students. Being a pro-feminist course I was not surprised that the majority of the students were young women, with only three boys forming the minority group. A few years ago I was one of them: the odd boy who enrolled in the course and today I was conducting the class. But this moment of elation was soon followed by acute disappointment at the education system as a whole.

Re-instating Punjabi

Haroon Khalid conducting the workshop

At the beginning of the school years, a child learns to read Homer’s Iliad and abridged versions of Shakespeare’s plays. Students soon imbibe that the language being spoken around them, Punjabi, is the tongue of the servants and therefore not suitable for ‘to-be-enlightened’ souls like them. Knowledge, they are made to believe, can only be transmitted through English, which originated from a small island thousands of miles away. Like religious dogma which argues that society only started functioning after the introduction of the “true religion” and everything before that should be shunned as ignorance of the worst sort; so bad that it can only be defined by the Arabic word jahillay whose English rendition ‘ignorance’ simply doesn’t do justice to the ignominy that such ignorance carries.

The students of these English-medium schools, who later join English-medium universities like LUMS are also made to believe that all knowledge which is not transmitted in ‘holy’ English and knowledge that existed before the medium of instruction became English is also to be shunned. Searching those blank expressions I waited, patiently and desperately for any sign of hope, of recognition. “Has anyone ever seen a movie based on any one of these love legends?” I asked. The blinking eyes talked back, in voices that I could understand but did not want to believe.

“How many of you here have seen Rock Star?” A few hands were raised. Some others followed, lazily, wondering what the connection between Punjabi folk and Rock Star was. I quoted an article that my colleague and friend, Chintan Modi, had sent my way a few months ago, which carried an interview with Imitaz Ali, director of the film, in which he agreed that his script bore a remarkable resemblance to the story of Heer-Ranjha. I then followed up this example with a more recent movie, Jab tak hai jaan, and its song which uses Heer and Sahiban as symbols of rebellion and love. For the students the references worked, and recognition dawned. The folk stories reconfigured in their heads feeding of these two trendy examples and unconsciously from the repository of the knowledge transmitted by their ancestors, would have been familiar with these love legends. Using these two movies I rushed through the plots of Mirza-Sahiban and Heer-Ranjha.

Divine love?

Viewing clips depicting the love legends

One of the definitions of modernity is understood to be a break from tradition. From this perspective, tradition therefore becomes a barrier that shackles one’s progress. Products of the ‘modern’ education system struggle to define tradition in any other way, given their rupture from tradition. It becomes a vague concept personified by their grandparents and something they fall back onto during religious festivals or other solemn events like marriage and death. This void then has the potential to be exploited by different interest groups, in the name of religion, tradition and culture. A few days ago when my sister was getting married, a ‘religious’ woman was called before the event to say a few prayers. Having thrown out all the men and boys, she spent the next hour explaining to my sister why it was a sin to marry a partner of one’s choice citing examples from ‘traditions’.

I wanted these students to understand what tradition really means, which is why they were shocked when I first explained how these folk love legends and particularly Heer-Ranjha had assumed metaphysical dimensions. So here is an example from the traditions where love between two individuals is not only acceptable but celebrated, so much so that the act of love becomes sacred. I told them how the shrine of Heer-Ranjha in Jang is still a pilgrimage site for young lovers. Anyone who has ever enjoyed the recitation of Waris Shah’s Heer has taken part in the celebration of love and choices. This shrine, I told them, still attracts people in Jang, a city which is now headquarters of a militant Islamic organisation vowing to take us back to our “Islamic roots”.

“But how can love, such a trivial act, be divine? It’s absurd,” said one of the students, the complexity of the interpretation forming and un-forming in the shape of lines on her forehead. “I know,” I agreed. “It is the most common thing and happens almost arbitrarily.” I was thinking of my own great-great grandfather, Ghasita Ram, who at the age of twelve had chosen be a renegade from his own religion and adopted Islam. The reason apparently was a girl he wanted to marry but couldn’t because of religious differences; forbidden love. I imagine what would have happened had he not converted; my ancestors would have probably been massacred during Partition or they would have crossed over safely and today would have been Indians. I would have been an Indian, my present self’s national and arch-enemy as described in our national newspapers. And it all goes back to that first time that a pubescent Ghasita Ram laid eyes on a young damsel who happened to be outside at that same moment that Ghasita was. A few minutes here or there and I would have been hundreds of kilometers elsewhere. So random; truly metaphysical. “But why not?” argued another girl. “Why can’t it be metaphysical? Your love for your beloved can represent your love for god.” “But then you cannot fall in love with someone you haven’t talked to or haven’t seen,” argued the girl. You should have said that to Ghasita Ram, I wondered. “In the case of god…..well in that case……mm…” she trailed off. If you can love god without ever seeing him than why can’t you love another human being on first sight, I thought. But like everyone else I too was afraid to say it. This is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, here; love for god is fed to one’s mind from the start. No other love can equal it. Even a mother’s love is seventy times less than the divine, says one of the religious quotes. The Hindi film song, “Tujh mein rab dikhta hai” from Shahrukh Khan’s Rab ne bana di Jodi, is blasphemy here, as no human being can personify god. The majority of students agreed that love between two humans can be raised to metaphysical dimensions.

 

Introspection and revelations

During the workshop I also understood for the first time a frequently used statement by teachers – one learns during teaching. I asked the students to list categories that would be considered forbidden love for their grandparents, parents and to them. So someone could write religion, which means that for them love outside of their religion would be forbidden. Comparing forbidden love across three generations I wanted to see how things had changed over the years.

As the students actively took part in the exercise, discussing and comparing with each other I wondered what would denote forbidden love be for me? A whole range of categories presented themselves. I was as shocked as one of the girls sitting in the front row when a student noted down religious sect as one of the factors. I have always thought of myself as a liberal person. Espousing to humanitarian and egalitarian values I had never imagined that socio-economic class would figure so strongly in my scheme of things. I would never fall in love with someone who is not educated, one of the standards of the economic class that I belong to. To add to my own disappointment, I was ending up defining education as obtaining a formal certification about which I had serious reservations.

Participants at the workshop

What I didn’t understand at that moment was what I really meant by love. Deconstructing the word I now realise that it is important to define what love means before trying to identify what is forbidden in it. However for the course of the workshop our own delineated definitions of love; whatever they were, seemed to work just fine.
“There could have been no other way to end this session,” announced Sadaf at the end of the workshop: “Asking the students to love freely.” The purpose had been achieved, and if actually implemented, would be nothing less than revolutionary. Students thronged to her excitedly discussing their observations and giving their feedback. The next day I received an email from Sadaf thanking me for coming over and also telling me that I had inspired her to design a course around love, ‘studying it cross culturally and using it as a medium to get into conversations about a range of topics, from social stratification and colonialism to kinship and economics’, as she put it. And now hopefully one might soon expect an anthropology course designed around the concept of love in LUMS, inspired by Hri’s research into ‘Forbidden Love’.

 

Text by: Haroon Khalid
Image Courtesy: YRF

Source:

http://www.bollymeaning.com/2012/10/heer-lyrics-translation-meaning-jab-tak.html

In 1935, at a time when the Lahore film industry and Bombay industry were not separated by two separate nations of India and Pakistan and there was mobility between actors, musicians, themes, etc. between the two industries, a movie made in Lahore called Swarg ki Sidhi, revolutionalised film music. This was the first time that an music composer dared to depart from the standardised tradition of using classical music in movies and experimented with popular folk songs. The movie did exceptionally well primarily due to its music. And hence a new standard was adopted, in which folk became the most prominent theme. The audience couldn’t resist the charm of their own music (which is essentially what folk is) being played out to them. The practice prevails even today.

Bollywood’s latest mega-project starring Shahrukh Khan and Katrina Kaif, Jab Tak Jaan, also uses elements from folk music which first won the hearts of the people as far back as 1935. The song, Heer translated above once again taps on these icon. The use of the song also needs to seen in reference to the man behind the project; Yash Chopra. A Punjabi, Chopra belonged to that generation of film-makers, Indians and Pakistani, who were born prior to the birth of their countries. Their understandings of India-Pakistan and such folk stories goes beyond the narrow interpretation of nationalism and national culture that haunts most of the film-makers born after 1947. Through the use of this song Chopra travels to his roots in Lahore, which is neither Indian nor Pakistan.s of love and loss, Heer-Ranjha and Mirza-Sahiban, highlighting the resilience of the folk; despite opposition from cultural colonialism (during the British era), Partition, and Hindization of the Bollywood. Since the formation of the Indian cinema, Urdu has played a significant role in the movies, used frequently along with Hindi. However in the past years, this tradition has seen a decline primarily because of the nationalistic sentiment creeping into the industry and Urdu because of its association with the Muslims doesn’t fit that jingoistic parameter.

At first, the comparison between Heer and Sahiban seems rather odd. Heer was known for her feministic point of view, who challenged the patriarchy of the society through several actions. The song however makes her sound weak; not a preferred choice of character for someone who falls in love. Sahiban, on the other hand, extolled as the ideal beloved in this song, also has a failed love story (similar to Heer’s). She and her lover also die at the end of the story leaving her story far from perfect.

In the movie Katrina, the lead actress, sings this song to her father on his birthday. Her father is a successful businessman based in London, but belongs to Punjab. Overwhelmed by the use of Punjabi words by his English speaking daughter, he cries and embraces her. The father shares his Punjabi roots with Yash Chopra, the director of the film. During the course of learning this song, Katrina also realizes that she is not really in love with her fiancé but rather her music teacher, played by Shahrukh. Soon after the song, she leaves her fiancé for her true love. The song when first introduced in the movie has no relevance to the story of the film. But as the song plays it shapes the story of the movie. The song takes on a life of its own transforming Katrina and her love story. At the end of the song, it is clear to the viewer that Katrina would leave her fiancé for her Mirza.

Both Heer and Sahiban challenge very different social boundaries in their respective stories. For Heer, true love is sublime, even superior to the institution of marriage, which is why she chooses to elope with Ranjha when they reunite after a gap of sometime, even though she is married to someone else by then. Sahiban however doesn’t want to get married at all. Being forced to do so, she elopes with her lover before she is married. Katrina doesn’t want to go through what Heer did. She would rather run away while she can, like Sahiban did, which is why she says:
‘Don’t call me Heer, o friends, I’ve become Sahibaan, I hope he comes on a horse and take me away,
I wish some Mirza comes for me and takes me away’.

Text by Sarita Manu
Images courtesy: Sarita Manu and Zakaria Zainal

Our Gurkhas the exhibition in Kathmandu

Our Gurkhas is an anthology of portraits and anecdotes of the retired Singapore Gurkhas as they reminisce about life in the Lion City — from the 50s till today. The exhibition travelled to Kathmandu, Pokhara and Dharan earlier this month. At the Kathmandu exhibition, I found Zakaria Zainal, the young photographer from Singapore, engaged in an animated conversation with a few women. I could not help but notice that the older woman in the group spoke impeccable English, while the younger one did not. After waiting long for my turn to speak to Zainal, I mentioned this to him. He added, “I was fascinated at how good her English is. When I did this project, I felt that I wish I had known Nepali language, my interviews would have been richer.” He added that the older woman grew up in Singapore, learning and speaking more English than her younger sister who grew up in Nepal.

The Gurkha units, famous for their loyalty, bravery and valour, are well known regiments in the British and Indian armies.  Following the independence of India, a Gurkhas contingent was formed in Singapore in 1949, with the ex-British Army Gurkhas. Very little is known about these Gurkhas, men from Nepal, who serve in the Gurkha Contingent of the Singapore Police Force. Established in 1949, the legacy of the Gurkha Contingent goes beyond the independence of Singapore. In the year preceding Singapore’s independence, the Gurkhas played a very important role in what was known as the 1964 ‘racial riots’, a significant chapter in Singapore’s history. The Gurkha were seen as an impartial force that would not side with the Malay or Chinese ethnic groups who were involved in the riots. Zainal feels that this incident left a permanent mark on official policies. As a community, the Gurkha and their families lead their own lives in a segregated neighbourhood, and deliberately so, – because they are wanted as an impartial force even today, in case of tension between the main ethnic groups. This quarter is the Mount Vernon Camp, a neighbourhood that houses the training and residential facilities for the Gurkha contingent.

The literature on Gurkha and the number of articles written on them are few, given their more than 60 years of history in Singapore.  ‘There is an overwhelming sense of aura alongside a vacuum of information about this community,’ says Zainal. ‘And how we fill up that vacuum is by amusing ourselves with tales of how they can jump off a high wall, rip someone’s head off with their bare hands,’ he adds. Zainal wanted to challenge this, knowing that the Gurkha were regular people like other Singaporeans. He was wondering how to get others to know more about them. Zainal says, ‘I wanted this to resonate with other Singaporeans – that the Gurkha are just like them. I believe photography is a process of commemoration and I photograph to remember. I am very worried that if I don’t photograph these people, they will be forgotten forever.’ Zainal took time to conceptualise this – an anthology of portraits and short stories, which serve as an important visual archive of a visibly invisible community. The stories accompanying the portraits are much understated and this was intentional as Zainal wants people to say, ‘Is that it? I want to know more’.

Book Cover (left) , Photographer Zakaria Zainal (right)

Talking about his experience of connecting with the community through these three exhibitions, Zainal says, ‘In this photographic exhibition, sometimes, the main draw was not the photographs but the community itself — as they took this opportunity to bond and reminisce their shared experiences in a country vastly different from theirs. And this connection ranged from old retired Gurkhas from the 1950s and 1950s mingling with just retired Gurkhas from the 2000s, the wives and children too from various generations. At the same time, they also invited the Nepali public and gave them a glimpse of what life was like during their time of service — not through photographs, but the stories that they told. I am humbled by the overwhelming support shown by the retired Singapore Gurkhas and their immediate community — as well as the Nepali public in attending and giving support and feedback to this photographic project and exhibition.’

Corporal Nar Bahadur Gurung, 73, 1953 – 1973 (4518). Retired Singapore Gurkha Nar Bahadur Gurung holds a framed photograph of himself when he first arrived in Singapore as a young recruit in 1953.

Zainal also wants to do another project of archiving old photos from inside the Mount Vernon Camp. He strongly feels that in putting too many words alongside the pictures, the message often gets lost. One can do things like this (the exhibition), where the community gathers, fuelling a sense of ownership. Through his photographs, Zainal has brought forth many old memories and also archived them in a way. Zainal humbly maintains that he knows nothing about the quality of photographs, but he believes very strongly in creating work that is accessible to all. He wrote down their stories in his little notebook, and took pictures. First it was only a few and then Zainal realised over time that nearly all Gurkha have really large frames of photographs from their time in Singapore. They say that they are proud of their time in Singapore, and want to frame the pictures. ‘The beauty is – the more I look at it, I realise that these photographs are also a tension between space and time. The Gurkha are younger, in their photographs of Singapore, and now they are old and in Nepal – it creates a visual tension. It is something I could not look at – at first, but I kept looking at it and I discovered something new every time – this perplexes me till today’, adds Zainal.

 

Text:  Sarita Manu
Images Courtesy: Law & Society Trust, Colombo

In their relentless pursuit of a mono ethnic Tamil state in Northern Sri Lanka, the LTTE, in October 1990, evicted close to 70,000 Muslims in the North. At a notice of just two hours, this community was ordered to leave everything behind, and forced to start afresh in camps. It was only when the war ended in 2009 that these families were able to begin returning to their homes in the North.

In Jaffna

An abandoned building, Jaffna

The Law & Society Trust (LST), a not for profit organization engaged in human rights documentation, legal research and advocacy based in Colombo, began to work on a memory project with these families. The Northern Muslims Project is a project of the LST together with three northern Muslim partner organizations where they set up a Citizens’ Commission to investigate this expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE. The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and Asia Foundation also assisted the project during its various stages.

The Citizens’ Commission consisting of eminent people from all walks of life went to the community over the last one year, listening to people’s stories. These narratives were collected in the form of oral recordings and photographs. The final report was based on the evidence presented in front of the commission and there was very little photographic evidence as few people had pictures about their life pre-eviction. A team was then entrusted with the task of going to these people, family by family, with portable scanners and scanning all available pictures. Old, beautiful photographs of weddings, young children and family portraits emerged. With the release of the final Report, “The Quest for Redemption: The Story of the Northern Muslims”, recommendations were made to the government on restitution and how justice could be provided by the State to these people. This had a very strong impact in raising the visibility of these families, both within their own community and at a larger national level. ‘Each of these families had a story but nobody wanted to listen to them. The entire process had such a redemptive force and the very act of documenting their loss was cathartic for these people,’ says Mala Liyanage, Executive Director of LST.

War and Disappearance

LST intends to do a similar project with victims of the lesser known ‘terror’ (Bheeshanaya)in southern Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. Ordinary people were victimised by the government as well as the insurgents: many were killed and several disappeared. Liyanage adds, ‘More than three decades have passed since, and sometimes people are forced to live side by side with those responsible for the death of their loved ones. These people have had no opportunity to tell their stories.’

From the hearing at Mannar, The Northern Muslims Project

Thousands of people have gone missing during the conflict in the southern Sri Lanka and the Civil War. Nearly 30 years have passed since and families still wait for news on the missing. Liyanage wishes to do a documentary, ‘missing’, on all those who have disappeared. ‘Several of these missing have disappeared involuntarily: arbitrarily arrested or placed in detention. Some in the government probably know what happened to these people,’ says Liyanage. The documentary will be based entirely on the memories of the families of the missing; families waiting endlessly for the loved ones to come back. Children wait for their fathers; mothers wait for their children; wives wait for their husbands and they never stop waiting. This wait is very difficult as there is no way of knowing whether the ones they await are dead or alive: if alive, whether they are in prison or if they are dead, cremated or buried. The families go in search from prison to prison, detention centre to detention centre in the hope of finding some information or finding someone who can tell them what they desperately want to know.

The documentary will focus not only on Tamils from northern Sri Lanka but also on the victims of the insurgency in the south. It is difficult to talk about the suffering of Tamils in the north, without looking at the people who suffered in the south, says Liyanage. The ‘missing’ will cover all of these people. Liyanage comments that this project will be extremely difficult to execute, as it is very complicated to arrive at an exact number of the missing. The official records of such disappearances are arbitrary: they may be recorded as prisoners, or simple as ‘missing’ or even as dead. This is also closely tied with the issue of accountability on part of the government and hence one may never get an official number, feels Liyanage. She wants to have this film only for local consumption, especially for the Sinhala people in the south. Reports tend to be read only by students, lawyers and such but she wishes to reach out to more people through a film. She says, ‘People are unaware of the things that happen around them. All issues that will support reconciliation need to be made known, and this won’t happen as long as the Sinhala people remain uninformed of the issues and suffering of the Tamils.’

Continuing on the theme of the need to educate and inform, she proceeded to introduce me to the invaluable, meticulously preserved records of human rights and policy issues in the island over the past two decades.

Legal Treasure Trove

The LST publishes Sri Lanka: State of Human Rights, which is an annual survey of human rights, drawing contributors from across the human rights community and a monthly magazine, LST review. This monthly, has been in publication for nearly 25 years and is an advocacy tool for parliamentarians, judiciary and activists. A valuable record of significant issues over the last two decades, it is also a medium through which some sensitive issues have been brought out in the open for discussion. Since the LST review has been published for several years it serves as LST’s “business card” especially in the regional advocacy of human rights that Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam was very interested in. Dr. Neelan, who founded the LST, was one of the pioneers, advocating for national human rights Commission in Sri Lanka.

A file photo of Dr. Neelan T

The archives house some of the documents, letters and papers which he used to express his thoughts before his assassination in 1999. His work related to utilising the law for social change, his pioneering work in public interest litigation and papers from various public discussions he organised in constitution making is also present in the collection, though not organised. On the rare occasion that someone wants to access these documents, they are brought out.

With more than 8500 volumes of books and journals, including a rare collection of legal literature, the Information & Documentation Centre at LST is particularly rich in historical material related to the Sri Lankan legal system. The library room itself is small and cramped due to lack of funds for its expansion but the collection is well-maintained. The lack of digital copies of this marvellous collection has restricted its reach, feels Liyanage. In the future, LST hopes to raise funds for the expansion of the library as well as digitisation of their collection in an extensive database, making it accessible to a wider audience. Even as they are working towards digitisation, the constraint will remain in physically scanning all books and making digital copies, due to lack of training in digitisation and shortage of staff. Some existing staff members have a keen interest in research and documentation and the trust can benefit strongly with the in-house training of such staff.

Through the work in human rights documentation, and memory projects including oral documentation, LST has been able to stitch together stories and pieces of Sri Lankan history that would have been lost otherwise; thus aiding the struggles for human rights.

BY: HAROON KHALID

We enter a hall, replete with a rich collection of posters, gramophone records and other archival material. The owner of the house, Tahir Yazdani asks us to wait and disappears into an adjacent room. Returning with a small bottle of etar, a traditional Arabic perfume, he dabs a little on our wrists. “This is a traditional way of welcoming guests,” he adds. “This organic perfume has the same smell but would react differently to different skins and give a different smell altogether,” he continued.

Situated in the heart of Gulberg, long considered the elite locality of Lahore, Yazdani’s house is an interesting combination of the old and the new. The exterior walls are colourful, in tune with traditional methods, and stand in contrast to the more modern but sombre surroundings. Inside, a wooden balcony collected from the historical city Bhera in Punjab has been used to make the portal which leads into the living part of the house, which is a modern construction. Next to the lawn is the workshop, where carpenters and artisans work on other old wooden doors, abandoned by their original owners. These workshops renovate them, ready for use again. “Bhera [an ancient city about 200 km from Lahore] was known for its wood work,” says Yadzani. Even if one takes a walk around the city today, one would notice several old wooden balconies and doors, intricately carved and designed slowly passing over to oblivion. “If you go to the Lahore Museum, the first item that appears is a door from Bhera,” says Yazdani.

The ground floor of Yazdani’s house is entirely taken over by his collection. “Well, I am archiving actively since the past 18 years, but professionally I would say about seven years ago. I began with terracotta figures,” he says. A glass showcase contains his collection of terracotta figurines and objects, some of them from the Indus valley civilization dating back to the 4th Century BCE. Next to them is another collection more recent items of glass, porcelain pottery, pipes, matchboxes, etc from the 19th and early 20th century. On the wall facing the showcase there is a collection of pre-partition photographs of Zoroastrian and European families from Lahore. Underneath them hang traditional clothes from far-flung areas of the country. “Another aim is to preserve the living culture of indigenous people. These are the communities from Cholistan, Kalash, Kashmir and Balochistan. We commission them to make traditional dresses, baskets and carpets, which we then sell in the markets of Lahore. The profit is used for the uplift of the communities,” says Yadzani. As he says this I notice a handmade Persian carpet placed on the floor, underneath our chairs.

A handcrafted Brass, Coal fired Hammam

“Some years ago a few of us enrolled in the PhD program of Conservation at the National College of Arts (NCA),” he says. “However they didn’t tell us at that point that they didn’t even have enough faculty within the college to teach. And now we are stuck; having completed a few courses but not being able to complete the degree as the Higher Education Commission (HEC) would not allow NCA to give us the degrees. The battle is going on,” he says. While still studying for the program Yazdani’s thesis was focused on Sustainable Heritage through tourism. Even though he was never able to work on it academically, he was able to collaborate with a local businessman to put into action what he was planning to do for his doctoral thesis. Together they set up Andaaz Restaurant, situated in the heart of Taxali gate, part of the ancient walled city of Lahore. At night the restaurant has a splendid view of the bulb-like white domes of the Badshahi Mosque, constructed by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. Behind it is the historical market of courtesans and dancers, the Heera Mandi.

The restaurant is decorated with several items from Yazdani’s archive. The ground floor houses a collection of old Pakistani film posters, furniture, a gramophone, a type writer and antique furniture. Along the staircase that leads to the rooftop restaurant, there are several jars placed behind showcases, old rupees from the earlier years of the country, a calligraphy collection, miniatures and paintings. Yazdani also established ‘The Lahore Heritage Club’ to work towards the conservation, preservation, and management of the rich cultural heritage of Lahore and Pakistan.

Yazdani buries himself in a huge trunk, carefully picking out books and slowly placing them on the ground. Most of them are in a bad condition; rusty brown, a few pages or covers missing. “This is my collection of historical books. Some of these books are 400 years old. These are books in Sanskrit, Persian, handwritten manuscripts in Arabic and Punjabi as well. I have a lot of literature on Guru Granth Sahib, the holy Sikh book,” he adds. “Some foreign conservatives go into a shock when they look at the way I preserve these books. You shouldn’t touch them with bare hands they warn me. I laugh. I tell them that we were preserving books even when there were no modern techniques. I combine the traditional and modern methods of preservation. I use neem leaf, which when dried is an insecticide. I occasionally take the books out into the sun, which is important,” he explains.

“One day is not enough to show all of my collections,” he says. He once again disappears into the room from where he had brought the etar and emerges with a box. “This is my collection of coins,” he says. Neatly compartmentalised, this is a collection of coins from antiquity up to the present day. “You can find coins from the time of Shahjahan in here and also from the early days of Pakistan,” he explains.

Tahir Yazdani’s ‘The Lahore Heritage Club’ also has a presence on Facebook, using the immense potential of social networking. “It is futile for archivists to work in isolation,” he says. “Look at this gramophone,” he points to a gramophone placed behind his chair. “It is useless without the needle on its tip. Without that it would not be able to play any of the records and all my records would go to waste. Now the problem is that there are no companies who make the needle anymore, which is why I am working on making a network of archivists and interested people. I contacted a person in England, who used to work for a company responsible for the production of these needles. I assured him that I would buy all his needles after which he agreed to make them for me. In this way we were able to put to use our gramophones and records. Similarly I have a network of archivists and collectors in Pakistan and also Southasia and the world over. We talk over the phone regularly and discuss our collections and ways to increase coordination,” he explains.

A Film Magazine from Lahore and Mumbai

Across this room is his small theatre, where he hosts his private screenings of old movies, also part of his collection. “Once in a while I call all my friends and we watch a movie,” he jokes. There is an old projector, placed in the centre of the room, whereas a roll is technically placed around it, by the operator. The movie being played is Baiju Bawra, a blockbuster from the year 1952. “We find a lot of these movies from scavengers, sold to them by different film studios and embassies,” he says.

Yazdani understands the importance of digitizing his archive, which is why since the past few years, he and his team are working on digitizing his material. “We have covered a lot of manuscripts but there is still so much to do.”

As I prepare to leave another guest comes to see Yazdani, asking him if the door he was promised by the evening is ready. It turns out that after renovating the doors Yazdani sells those to rich clients which help him fund his projects. This client is buying a door for his new restaurant.