Good cinema by women

Three powerful movies I watched recently were all directed and/or written by women.

Cherien Dabis wrote and directed, 'Amreeka', a movie about a divorced Arab mom from the West Bank who immigrates to the United States with her teenage son and learns she cannot, for a minute, let down her resilience to live a life with dignity.  

*****

'Amu' was written and directed by Shonali Bhose who based the movie on her book by the same name. 

The NYT review says something mild about Shonali Bhose not yet in perfect form because this is her first movie (amidst a positive review), but to hell with all these professional reviewers who supposedly know everything. The storyline was gripping and the lighter themes were adequately explored and exposed while the main troubling one rightly haunts your sleep.
The trailer ends with Brinda Karat's voice telling Amu, "you are strong enough to know the truth." The same goes for us. 

*****

And Wadjda is extra special among these specials. It is directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia.  Waad Mohammed plays the very charming 11-year old who has set her eyes on a bicycle -- something the Saudi society has forbidden girls to covet or ride.  The undercurrents of her mother's life paint a distant picture from the pampered, rich and helpless harem wives' image that seeps the average westernized consciousness.     

*****

Early Birds Sing Me A Tune

Feb 10, 2014.  6:00 A.M.

Just when I wanted to pick a fight
With a God that collects its paycheck
Without ever showing up for work.

"How can you stand by
And watch
A daughter long exiled
A sister permitted to discard emotional ties
A father typically wooden,
But now bending and swaying,
Willing to be plied;
Eager to be used
By a mother conniving,
Spiraling out of control
With truths hidden
And secrets untold?"

-15 degrees C outside,
Over 10 ft of snow on the ground.
And yet the most beautiful bird calls
Exchange
Between a talkative pair
Gracing my front yard.
On and on they go
As if to take turns
To sing
To comfort
To stay near me.
Only me.

Is it true?
Can it be?
That for once
God strives to
Break down my walls,
Penetrate my indifference,
Establish Her presence,
And feel the need
To prove Her existence?

For a minute, I am awed,
I welcome the image,
I ready myself to cautiously open
The floodgates to my heart
One teeny bit.

Until,
Until
Google searches
Set straight my perspectives.
"Winter birds all.
It's still winter,
but the light,
The changing light,
Has a hormonal trigger
That starts the birdsongs",
reminds John Hanson Mitchell.

I remember
To put my faith
In established facts
That rarely let you down.
To put my faith
In the rythmn
Of light and day,
Night and dark,
Spring and seasons all.
 
I smile.
I laugh.
I shake my head.
And go about my day.

But 'tis the morn
Of the day next in line.
6:00 A.M.
Silence.
6:15 A.M.
Only the muffled sounds
Of traffic in the early hours.
6:30 A.M.
The waking smell of coffee
From our kitchen.
Yet no sight nor sound
Of my avian angels.
Where are you, my feathered friends?
Are you out playing God
In another's front yard?


(C) Copyright Malathi Raghavan

My mother's extension

My mother and I,
We grew up together;
We wish to conquer the world together;
We learn to live for one another,
So as to fill the gaps in each other's lives,
Such that the whole of our universe has fewer holes.

My mother is mostly left behind by the swiftly changing outside world,
And so I choose to be the colorful rainbow above her unpaved road.
While she has lived in one city all her life,
I've flown across countries and moved from one city to another.
Since she cautiously diversifies her mainly homemaker life
I recklessly concoct unusual career paths and hope that she too can enjoy the view.

She was relegated to being under-educated,
I make up for it by striving to be over-educated.
For every year of education that she didn't have,
Her value in the marriage market soared.
For every year of education that I do add,
My value in the marriage market drops.
The age at which she wanted to add a missing career slot to her family life,
Is now the same age that I want to add a missing family slot to my career life.

With her effortless air of charming sociability she attracts helping hands to her side;
With my contrived air of proud self-sufficiency I drive away annoyingly poking noses.
But sometimes she confides in me that she could do without some meddling folks;
At those times I confide in her that I could do with some more caring souls.
There are days when I watch, wait, and get exasperated at how crowded her life is;
In turn, somedays she watches, waits, and gets her heart broken at how lonely my life is.
And then we cry.
Together we cleanse our knotted souls;
And through the tears, we smile.
Then we remind each other
To be strong,
To be confident,
To believe in our own lives,
To trust in our own fates,
To practice patience while we wait for what's missing in our own different ways.
But alone and separate, we are not;
We each are assured by one another.
The cord, it seems, was never ripped.

As in a circle, we know not
Who begins, who ends;
Who asks, who receives;
Who sows, who reaps.
We merely strive to keep that circle unbroken.
Her dreams, I live;
My dreams, she lives.
We live both our truths and our lies.
Both half-happy, half-sad.

If two happy-halves make one happy,
Where do the two sad halves go?
"Modern math and logic are beyond my comprehension," is all she can offer.
Then I get angry in that special way reserved only for a daughter.
I complain that once again I am left alone with the puzzles and the fears.
Without moving in space, I manage to trample the maternal heart.

Did I say we grew up together?
That we learnt lessons in the presence of one other?
But yes, I meant the lessons of life.
Unlike those that are taught to me inside four walls,
Unlike those that are printed in books,
Unlike those that are strictly formulaic,
The lessons of life, those we are allowed to learn without being separated.
So together, she and I, we are still searching for the answer
That we are sure is still out there, somewhere.

In the meanwhile, there is Mother's Day
To remind me of her selflessness and sacrifice;
To remind me that my mother sustained my life at a time when I most needed her.
At a time when without her there couldn't have been a me,
She did not wake me; she did not leave me alone; she did not send me on my own.
And so I sigh, a dark, heavy, guilty sigh.
Because when I look deep inside me, I know that even now she has not sent me off alone.
She has, in fact, bundled in me all of our ancestors' hopes.
And these as my badge of honor, I am blessed to wear.
Within my heart I am gifted with all their dreams
In loneliness, I gently unwrap them to soar high and fly.
In me she has collected the reservoir of all their tears
That I may, when I thirst, have a fountain to drink from.
In every vein of my body flows their blood;
So, when I hunger I am assured of my nourishment.
And from every pore of my body oozes their sweat.
It is in this way that I wrap myself with their fragrance.

So my mother, in her own wisdom, and love, chose me as her extension.
To carry with me to these far-off lands a part of our ancient self.
Do I spread my wings homeward or plant my roots downward? -- this I know not yet.
But today, I am content to merely think of my mother, who is far away,
And of all her own mothers.

(C) Copyright: Malathi Raghavan 2000

Indulging in Writers’ Woes, One & Two

"Be my cohort in verses," invites a poetic friend
While another reminds "You know, gentle vet stories are in trend."
Both unaware of the extent of my tumultuous soul
That makes me, in my luscious donutty life, see only the gaping hole
Left behind by the unexplainable itches & urges to write
For breakfast, lunch, and at night
When normal folk want to make love
But me, I am agonized by writer's blues, can't explain how.
Morning, evening, every waking, and every sleeping hour
Memories sprout, ideas bloom, like wild, spring flowers
Alas, no paid writer am I
Just a lowly perpetual student, sigh!
The irony:
If I spend half the time I dream and think about writing on my writing
And the other half on my Ph.D. citing
I would be more accomplished
And quite published
But alas, time management I have never grasped
Although its importance, many harped.
But I am digressing,
I intended to mention, to all friends of mine, without much buttressing
That er, um, hrrm, hum, if I may, have one, er, story out!
There I said it come what may
Leaving modesty, humility, all at bay
First-time writer's pride I cannot hide
'Twas the apple that I eyed
And therein lies writers’ woe two.
It comes after you steal time and write, phew!
Of course, it is the big question:
How does a writer share her arted, crafted fiction
With the seemingly busy, uncaring outside world
Without being thought of as shamelessly, self-absorbedly bold?
(But then, Reading as Power, never fails
So therein my altruistic part, I thee hail
To set me free with a sort of bail
From this other of novice writers’ ails.)
Lucky popular writers have their publishing houses
Do their dirty work for them without any grouses.
But no-name ones like me,
We learn to come right out, you see
And blurt out loud,
As above,
“I have a story out! Would you like to read?”
And gentlefolk, God bless their souls, always, even when taken aback, say oh, so graciously, “Of course! Your story, we’d love to read.”
And in those gentle, tender words, this restless writing soul of mine knows
Its moment of peace is in sight.


© Malathi Raghavan, 2000

For all those creating, inventing, re-inventing anything under the sun, including themselves.

I was re-reading Booker prize-winning author Ben Okri's 'Astonishing the Gods' the other day and came across a section that seems appropriate for people brave and curious enough to blaze their own trail and yet human enough to experience moments of short-lived aloneness and apprehensions. The symbolism embedded in his words is as delicate as it is powerful that I feel compelled to share it:

... 

The bridge, completely suspended in the air, held up by nothing that he could see, was a dazzling construct, composed entirely of mist...made of light, of air, of feelings...
'What holds up the bridge?' he asked his guide.
'Only the person crossing it,' came the reply.
'You mean that if I am to cross the bridge I must at the same time hold it up, keep it suspended?'
'Yes.'
'But how can I do both at the same time?'
'If you want to cross over you must. There is no other way.'
...
'But if I am heavy will the bridge bear me?'
'If you can bear yourself, the bridge too can bear you.'
'And I must cross this bridge?'
'Yes, you must cross the bridge.'
'And if I do not cross?'
...
'I assure you, it is better to try to cross that bridge and fail, than not to try at all.'
...
When he did look back,...he found himself at the end of the most magnificent bridge...He thought of it as the bridge of self-discovery...When he looked back, he was astonished to find that the bridge had disappeared...[H]e had somehow managed to walk across emptiness... 

[T]ouched with a magical humility, he realised the nature of the small miracle he had enacted in his life.

-- Excerpted with awe and care from 'Astonishing the Gods' by Ben Okri and published by Little, Brown & Company (1995).

Protest songs

Oh, where have the years flown?
 
I may not have any photographs with me to chronicle my journey, but my life in years just opened up as I unpacked a battered box full of tapes and CDs -- the earliest music tapes from about 30 years ago.  My first set of protest songs -- received as a gift from S for writing my first angry feminist poem (printed under Julie's name on the back cover of a major international women's conference proceedings and lost from my own files now) -- with songs of Donovan Leitch, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Bob Marley, John Lennon...There are a few sad-sounding songs in Spanish too (from Nicaragua? Ecuador?) How I cared for this tape and worried I would lose it or tape over it (yes, the two squares at the bottom are carefully broken to prevent that from happening). 

Then I did not know that 'Universal soldier' was written by Canadian Buffy Sainte-Marie.  Here is Donovan's rendition.

Catch the Wind by Donovan.

Pete Seeger singing 'What did you learn in school today?'

John Lennon singing 'If you had the luck of the Irish.'

Farewell Angelina by Baez. 

Baez at her saddest and best in "Cambodia" brings a flood of tears from such a long time ago for me.
  
If I ever have a chance to go back in time and do a PhD all over again, it will be in figuring out why protest songs move you in such a powerful way.  

Here is a page dedicated to protest songs in Russia.

God

An old favorite of mine is Tori Amos' 'God'.

God sometimes you just don't come through
God sometimes you just don't come through
Do you need a woman to look after you?
God sometimes you just don't come through.

 And a friend commented that she supposes God is a man...

I wanted to respond that Tori's 1994 video for this song was shot inside a Karni Mata temple; that while her dad is a Reverend (United Methodist), she explored pantheistic religions through her paternal grandfather, and by the way, what leads my friend to assume that Tori's God is a patriarch (don't women with power need looking after too?).  

Instead I just offered John Lennon's response.   Nothing as powerful as Lennon's lyrics to herd all of us cats...