Thank you HSK for reminding me “A simple lesson: problems arise when artist becomes bigger than the art”
Yes, absolutely
words that dissolve the speaker
or colors that overwhelm the artist
films, where the director is merely the gardener
tending to the process, and praying for rain and sunshine
and watching the film grow organically
In the recent art installation David Adjaye and I did for Swarovski
both of us walked in and were astonished and exclaimed
“oh my God !” How did we create this ?
The truth was we did not
somehow our energies
and all the energies involved
collected and created the art work
Our passion is the spice which both catalyzes
and sparks the Universe
beyond that, we wait
and watch it emerge
Delhi descends into savagery : another personal experience
It may be wrong of me to keep posting these stories, but it is important to know that the carnage against Sikhs in Delhi is not something that can be consigned to History. It is something that happened recently and the both victims and criminals are still alive. It also shows (as in Gujarat and in Mumbai after that) how easily we descend into savagery worse than animals, where a human being ceases to be one. Why ? what happens ? Why would a neighbor kill another ? Is it within us to do this ? Within you or me ? This one is from Aimee :
my uncle was the first sikh who was killed in the riots… he owned a huge business of taxi’s and this is the story i heard from his own family that survived… i must have not been 9… my uncle was dragged out from his house to his taxi stand beaten all the way there… while his young daughter ran after him trying to save him… they hanged him in front of her but did not kill him fully and then burned him alive… imagine seeing your own father die in front of you…. she was left to die at the stand… broken arm leg and god knows what else… I heard of her after 1 yr – she lived and joined the radical Sikh movement… then they ask why and how do we save our children from something like that. ? .. she is dead now.. well that is what i know… no one talks about this in our family… but 1984 case are still going on… so many died in name of caste system… we should not repeat the past and learn to heal those who have been hurt…
TED :Getting rid of Shekhar Kapur to break with the past and make the moment a purer adventure
At the TED conference, when I got up to speak – the first thing I did on the podium was tear up the notes I had made over two days on what I would say. I think many thought this to be a dramatic gesture for effect – but it was completely true for me. I think the idea of putting yourself in a state of panic to vanquish the mind, and through that to allow the possibility of words of greater truth to flow through, without judging and analysing those words is an exciting and adventurous way to be.
I did not succeed. Guess why ? Because I had previously agreed to show clips from my films. And standing there on the dias, I realized how little I wanted to speak about them. I had the need to let them flow away. They were impeding the flow of discovery of the truth of the moment now…
and I came off the Dias with a frightening thought – am I losing interest in film, or merely getting rid of an addiction to past successes that have little meaning now ..
I am very passionate about Paani. But I wish the pressure to make Paani was not because of the successes or failure of my past films, but as if I had never made a film before. I would like the adventure to be pure by getting rid of Shekhar Kapur
TED conference
I am at the TED conference, at the huge Infosys campus in Mysore. There are some incredible speakers here and the conference has been of great value. TED needs to be applauded for what it is doing. Every speaker I heard had something to say and life experience, information and wisdom to share. It has been worth every moment of the two days of being here.
One note of dissent though. TED is encouraging the speakers to be evoke the audience into immediate reactivity. 18 minutes of emotion and laughter. While a lot of that time limitation encourages points being driven home in more direct (and often honest) manner, it also encourages a sense of melodrama that could preclude talks that lead to contemplation, more questions than answers, and a struggle with those questions later.
But that is a small voice of dissent in a huge wave of applause for TED
Do we have to slow poison our kids ?
No, for once I am not talking about the effects of global warming and the retreating glaciers. I am talking about something that is far far easier to control if we had the will to it.
With diabetes becoming an epidemic in urban India ( India is the diabetic capital of the world) and more and more kids being prone to the disease, surely it time to check the rampant advertising that comes on TV that tries to drive kids to stop eating fresh foods, but those foods that use chemicals to provoke the taste buds in children – fooling the body into believing those foods are good for them. The overheated and chemically created snacks, chocolate bars, breakfast foods, noodles and chips, ice creams that are made of the same chemicals and fats that detergents are made of, etc are slow poison not only because of the chemicals and fats they contain, but also because of they are replacing natural foods.
Commercials on TV are designed by experts that are very good at driving child psychology. Especially as the child’s mind is the most vulnerable of them all. If smoking and alcohol ads are banned, then surely we should look at ads that encourage eating habits that lead to diseases in children ?
I wonder how many parents would allow their kids to eat a packet of chemically laden snacks, if the the packet said in clear bold letters ” This food could lead to chemical imbalances in your child that could lead to diabetes”
Delhi descends into savagery : a personal experience
Hi Shekhar,
I was in West Delhi at that time and was around 6years old. Although I was very young at that time, I can almost clearly remember everything that happened.
I was suffering from chicken pox and my little brother was only 4 years old. My dad had an accident earlier and had a plastered leg. My mom was the only person who was taking care of my dad in bed, myself and my little brother. My little brother wore patka and we also had a ‘Khanda’ outside our house. My mom didn’t know what to do and just hung a sheet outside to cover it. She could hear the crowd going to each street one by one and doing the killings and loots. She could see our local Gurdwara on fire from the roof. Since my dad was always in the front room…she moved him to the back of the house along with us, without thinking that once they are in the house, we can easily be found at the back too.
I remember vaguely seeing her rushing up on the roof to see what was going on and to come and try to take care of us. The loud noises could be hear and she could see smoke and fire around us in different streets.
It was lucky for us that once the mob got to our street they decided to go to the other streets first which had more Sikh houses and leave our street for last, as we only had a couple of houses where Sikhs lived. As they went further up, there was a family where one of their relative, who was visiting from US, had a pistol. And as he fired in the air the mob ran away. Due to that one person, my family was left unharmed. I do not know who that was, but wherever he is, I would like to take this opportunity to thank him from the bottom of my heart.
Lot of lives changed after that incident! I went back to school and found my friends crying all the time as there families were killed, and the horror stories I heard and the people I saw, when I visited my doctor, will stay with me forever!
Just thought I would share my experience on this day!
My prayers are with all those families that suffered losses during the riots in 1984.
P.S. I would also like to add that one thing I noticed after the riots was that all the Sikhs who suffered during the riots, lost there business there families, have come out to be even more successful and have been flourishing even more. Which shows that history repeats once again…every time an attack has been made on Sikhs they have come out of it even more stronger and flourishing!
Rimple
Delhi descends into savagery
2nd November 1984
I am editing my film. My assistant keenly looking over my shoulder. Gentle boy, who was shy and spoke so softly. Sensitive and very diligent and caring. Another assistant walks in. Whispers in the boy’s ears, and the boy looks a little startled and walks out. Unusual, as he would have normally asked for permission to go, or at least excuse himself. 20 minutes later I walk out to get some fresh air. The editing room was in Pali Hill in what used to be Nasir Hussain’s bungalow. Raj was sitting on a parapet with a completely blank look on his face. The other assistant staring at me helplessly.
Raj has been told that most of his extended family had just died. Killed in the riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Not just killed, the women dragged out and forced to watch the men folk being burned alive, and then the women and children slaughtered. Raj just sat there. Non comprehending. There was no words of solace or comfort you could give. As my other assistant described the events, I just sat their disbelieving,
For how does a city descend into savagery ? A city I was brought up in – my own Sikh friends hiding with their families in safe houses to save themselves from the mad slaughter frenzy that was spreading so fast through the city. And the police and the government stood by either helplessly or completely complicit in the gruesome killing. I have to keep reminding myself this was 1984 – not a moment in bygone history.
So as we remember 25 years since Indira Gandhi – we must remember the aftermath and ask – how is it that civilization reveals such an ugly side so quickly ? Are we basically savages living behind a veneer of controlled social behavior ? Is this not the same savagery that we descended into in Gujarat ?
I read today the following account by a very respected journalist called Rahul Bedi and the memories flooded back. Please brace yourself before reading it, and if any of you have memories of that event, please write in. It’s important we remember …..
in Hong Kong with Kaveri
Hilary Clinton accuses Pakistan Army of supporting Taliban, but where’s Bin Laden ?
Pratima asked : Shekhar, What are your thoughts on the Pak-bashing that Hillary Clinton did today?.
Imagine a war that has continued for 9 years, with 20,000 foreign troops, that has killed tens of thousands of people, many of them innocent men women and children, and plunged two countries into chaos that will take years to come out of – all in search of one man called Bin Laden that nobody mentions any more !!
I believe the American Policy in the region suffers from a clear lack of goals. How would they be able to declare victory, when they don’t really know what they want ? I have already argued that the Islamic form of democracy is not something the West understands or is willing to accept, while the western form of democracy will never succeed in Afghanistan.
So Hilary Clinton’s frustration is showing. She effectively got as close to saying that the Pakistan Army secretly supports the Taliban as a visiting senior politician of the US can say within Pakistan. She said that is ‘not possible that the Pakistan’s Govt does not know where the Taliban hide outs and centres in Pakistan are”.
Partly of course there is a growing frustration within President Obama’s administration over their inability to control the Taliban either in Pakistan or in Afghanistan. And in the meantime billions of dollar worth of military aid is pouring into Pakistan from the US, and they are not even sure how much of that is actually landing up in Taliban hands. And as more US troops die in the region, Obama has to show tangible results if he to send more troops. Not only that, each day of terrorist activity pushes Pakistan to the brink of economic collapse, and the closer the terrorist organizations are to their goal of throwing a nuclear state into complete chaos, and take power. That is the scenario that the US fears, and the whole world should fear.
What the US must understand that the borders between Pakistan, Baluchistan and Afghanistan were created by the Colonial powers and are very porous. The lines created left families and cultures divided, but who have never really accepted or respected these borders. That is true about Iraq and Israel and Palestine and the Gaza strip too. Borders created by the colonists are the last but probably most devastating legacy of their colonization. And in this area community, family and tribal bonds are very strong. So many of the officers and soldiers in the Pakistan Army have family, community and friends across the border, and probably feel a greater affinity to them than many of their own army. So the Taliban is bound to have strong sympathizers and support in the Pakistan Army and the rugged tribal areas at the border. A support that grows everyday as American troops and government encourage the Pakistan Army to launch an offensive against their own kith and kin. Just as would happen to the Latino troops of Mexican origin in the US army if the US went to war on the borders with Mexico.
Somehow everyone has forgotten that the American troops went into Afghanistan and then into the the border areas of Pakistan in search of Bin Laden. No one talks about him anymore and the scope of the war seems to has just widened with no definite goal in mind. It’s becoming more and more indefinite, with consequences that are more and more dangerous to us.
200 more Dead in Terror carnage in Pakistan
And so we believed that President Obama would change the world. And so we believed that somehow the Messiah had arrived that would heal the wounds of the world. Yet with every step, more innocent women, children and men, civilians from all walks of life are dying wherever American troops are present. Pakistan is now embroiled in a terrorist insurgency from which there seems to be no way out. And while America Politicians debate and argue about what to do, more people die everyday.
I am not saying that President Obama does not mean well. But I think like all people in the US, there is little understanding of other cultures. It is not enough to be open and empathetic to other cultures. It is really really important to understand it by not assuming that your own systems and governments, or even your own system of Democracy is not the only relevant system in the world. Islamic democracy is not the same as Western democracy. It never will be.
And you cannot wipe out the Al Queda or the Taliban by military force. You may be able to contain it, but as Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan is proving again and again, it cannot be wiped out and the continuing policy of using western troops on Islamic soil provides the most fertile ground for recruitment of young people into terrorist organizations.
Neither Al Quaida nor the Taliban is a single organization. It as an idea that brings people together in amorphous ways that are created and and destroyed but are immediately created again. How do you destroy an idea ? By striking at the root cause that partly lies in the disposessed of the world. Those without hope. The world cannot continue to survive with such huge disparity with as one part of the world continues to get fat and the other starves.
I had said previously on this blog that Pakistan is going to be Obama’s Vietnam if we are not careful. The US must learn to follow a policy that is comprehensive and long term. They cannot create and arm a huge disparate force called the Taliban to fight the Russians, corrupt the Pakistan Army by sending them huge amounts of cash and arms to supply to the Taliban, and then suddenly pull the plug and assume that everything be normal ? Centuries of power play between the Western powers in Afghanistan has ensured that the country has not been able to evolve into a common culture with a comprehensive and central system of government. It remains a tribal culture that has always been difficult to contain.
And as the world’s super powers decide what to do and look at their options, hundreds of innocents die because of their indecision or their meddling. Sure, their have been no terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11. The war has merely moved to other places where the US has sent their troops. So hundreds of people from others cultures die.
Oh well, they are not American lives, are they ?