Category: Enough said

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Enough said

“I am a bosom man. Aren’t you?”

We talk of rape and its punishment, but how about changing our mindsets? And Bollywood can make the first move.
by Humra Quraishi

At this point, it is becoming pointless to write over and over again of Delhi and how ruthless it is with its women and children. It is becoming pointless even to count the numbers of rapes taking place in the country, of the many atrocities committed on prisoners inside jails, of how so many innocent young boys go missing after the police pick them up for interrogation.

But as of now, incidents of rape are getting attention like never before, and from these incidents stem discussions on how rapists should be hanged. I wonder – if we were to hang every rapist, wouldn’t Delhi be known also as the Death Capital (it is already known as the Rape Capital)? Who will hang the army men and cops who rape hapless commoners in conflict zones? Who will pass hanging orders against the bureaucrats and politicians accused of rape?

As with any other transformation, the change in this situation will come with a change in mindset. There needs to be a rethink on what constitutes manliness, what love is, what is consensual sex and why a woman’s ‘no’ does not mean ‘yes’. And the biggest change can come when those in the Government monitoring the content of our television and films get serious and do their jobs.

Are we seriously going to blame a young, impressionable mind if it thinks that Salman Khan can tease his heroine in a public place, dance more with his pelvis than with his arms and legs and finally get the girl smiling again by way of some seriously perverted dialogue, that that is the way to get women to fawn over one? Why does Bollywood keep doing this – of showing a distorted version of manliness, one that supposedly appeals to the heroine, and which must, by extension, appeal to real-life women as well?

When I last interviewed actor and compere Skekhar Suman for an essay I was writing on why there were less kissing scenes but plenty of bosom heavings and pelvic thrusts in Bollywood, I’d asked him if he ever gets attracted to his bosomy female film stars. His   reply – blunt and crass though it was, and also very honest – left me with a quotable quote. He’d said, “What bosomy film stars? Don’t you know most of them stuff socks up there?”

I quoted him in the essay and to all those young boys who sat glued to their TV sets, staring enthralled at huge bosoms on screen. Two of my nephews were effectively put off by the socks anecdote, saying that there was “nothing more to see” on TV.

I also quote from Khushwant Singh’s autobiography, Truth, Love And A Little Malice (Penguin) for an example of how the typical male mind functions in Bollywood. “Being the editor of a popular weekly, I was much sought-after by the film industry. I never was, nor am, much of a film-goer. And the little I’d seen of Hindi movies did not generate any respect for actors, directors, producers and music composers or playback singers.

“Some of my Lahore friends had done well – Balraj Sahni, Uma Kashyap (Kamini Kaushal) and Dev Anand were highly-rated actors; BR Chopra was among the top producers-directors; Chetan Anand had many flops to his credit…My interest in film personalities was quickened by Devyani Chaubal, the younger sister of Nalini, who had worked with me briefly in London. I had read Devyani’s bitchy pieces on the private lives of film stars written in a brand of Hindustan–English (Hinglish) which I enjoyed.

“Devyani took me to Raj Kapoor’s private cinema to see the opening shots of Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram. I took along members of the Sindhi family who lived above me – Sheila, her daughter Jyoti and their maidservant Fatima, all very eager to meet the great actor.

“Zeenat Aman was present. I sat between Raj Kapoor and Zeenat. Devyani was in the row behind with my guests. We saw Zeenat stepping out of a village pond with her wet sari clinging to her body and displaying her shapely bust. ‘I am a bosom man,’ said Raj to me with enthusiasm, ‘aren’t you?’ I agreed that shapely bosoms had their points. ‘What’s your laal paree (red fairy) like?’ he asked. He was referring to Sheila, who was draped in a bright red sari. He assumed she was my mistress.

“‘I have no idea,’ I replied.

“‘Go on, you so-and-so!” he insisted. ‘She looks all right to me. But one can’t really tell what’s inside the blouse, can one?’”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy shemaroo.com, businessofcinema.com)

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Enough said

No nation for poor mothers

A recent report indicates that despite the best healthcare services, mothers from marginalised sections of society receive very little attention.
by Humra Quraishi

Earlier this month, the Population Foundation of India, an NGO working in the field of  heath and population, organised a consultation on Maternal Health on April 3 and 4, 2013  with support from the United Nations Population Fund, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Maternal Health Taskforce of the Harvard School of Public Health.

I quote Poonam Mutterja, the executive director of the Population Foundation of India  on the current scenario:  “We all know that maternal mortality has declined significantly over the last decade. InIndia, the figures dropped from 301 per 100,000 births in 2003 to 212 in 2009. Yet, these reductions have not reached the most marginalised and disadvantaged communities and groups in society; tribal communities, schedule castes, and those belonging to the poorest quintile.”

According to the National Family Health Survey 2005-2006, scheduled tribe mothers are least likely to have received any antenatal care or care from a doctor. Moreover, only 23 per cent of mothers in the lowest wealth quintile received antenatal care from a doctor as against 86 per cent of mothers in the highest wealth quintile.

Mutterja continues, “I refer to the case of the 26 maternal deaths that took place at Barwani district hospital in Madhya Pradesh over a period of eight months in 2010. 21 of these 26 women belonged to scheduled tribes. The Population Foundation of India, which is the secretariat for community monitoring conducted an enquiry at the government’s request, and found that each of the 26 maternal deaths was avoidable.”

The Foundation has also released some more findings on maternal health:

– India’s current MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate) levels still remain unacceptably high and by many estimates account for nearly one-quarter of all such deaths worldwide.  Expressed in sheer numbers between 78,000-100,000 women die annually in India as a result of childbirth and pregnancy.

– Moreover, for each woman who dies, another estimated 20 more suffer from infection, injury and disability connected to pregnancy and childbirth.

– Only 50 per cent of women in India receive three or more antenatal check-ups, leaving the other half deprived of adequate care (DLHS-3, 2007-08).  The situation is worse when we look at data by caste/tribe.

– The likelihood of having received any antenatal care and care from a doctor is lowest for scheduled tribe mothers (25 per cent) and highest for mothers who do not belong to a scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, or other backward class.

– Among mothers in households with the lowest wealth quintile, 59 per cent received antenatal care and only 23 per cent received antenatal care from a doctor. By contrast, among mothers in households in the highest wealth quintile, 97 per cent received antenatal care and 86 per cent received antenatal care from doctors.

– In India, the unmet need for contraceptives remains high, it is over 30 per cent in Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, and over 20 per cent in Orissa and Uttarakhand. This unmet need reflects the gap between a woman’s desired fertility and her access to family planning services.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Picture courtesy abcnews.go.com)

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Enough said

One final goodbye…

Humra Quraishi revisits death through an unsaid goodbye to her own little brother Farid, whom she lost in early childhood.

Each time I’m at a graveyard, I’m reminded of what Khushwant Singh has been saying – words to the effect that in his younger days, he made it a point to visit cremation grounds, for they had a certain effect on him. To quote him, “Earlier, I visited cremation grounds; it had a certain cleansing effect on me. Today, close to 99 years of age, I think of death, think of it very often. I think of all my friends gone, and wonder where have they gone?

“My contemporaries here or in Pakistan or in the UK are all dead. I wonder why we don’t discuss death in our homes. After all, death is one of those realities that none can escape – khuda mein shak ho to ho, maut mein nahin koi shak (You may doubt the existence of God, but you can’t doubt the very certainty of death.)” He added, “There’s this particular verse written by Asadullah Khan Ghalib: Rau  mein hai raksh-e-umarkahaan deykheeye thammey?/ Nahin haath baag par hai na pa hai rakaab mein (Age travels at a galloping pace/ who knows where it will stop/ we do not have the reins in our hands/ we do not have our feet in the stirrups).”

And there’s this Persian couplet by Allama Iqbal, which says that when the time comes to depart, a man should go without any bitterness or regret, or carry grievances.

A few years ago, Khushwant penned his own epitaph thus:

“Here lies one who spared neither man nor God /

Waste not your tears on him, he was a sod/

Writing nasty things he regarded as great fun/

Thank the Lord he is dead, this son of a gun.”

Last month, my cousin Obaid Wajid got crushed under an oil tanker in our ancestral qasba, Aonla in Uttar Pradesh. I have been reflecting and introspecting on this reality – the reality of death. For me, the first connection with death and graveyards was forged when one of my younger brothers, Farid, died as a baby. From that day, I started trying to grasp the deadly reality of that final parting.

For me, visiting graveyards could be one of the ways of lessening my own pain. One of those earliest painful memories which lies tucked tightly in my mind is that of my baby brother Farid’s fragile form wrapped in a white cotton sheet, being taken to the graveyard. He’d died a baby, and though years have passed, even as I write these words, that particular afternoon stands still. I can see it clearly through my moist eyes…it was the mid-1960s, Farid was born in Jhansi. He lived for just a few months. That afternoon, I’d come back from school, but before I could enter the outer verandah, I saw a big crowd gathered on the lawns. After I elbowed my way in, I stood still. My little brother Farid was no longer lying in his cot, but his body was all wrapped in a cotton sheet.

My parents and relatives carried his little body towards the cars for his last rites. The next minute, the house stood vacant. The maid told my dazed younger sisters and me, “Farid baba has gone towards the skies.”

I wanted to run towards the graveyard, but hadn’t a clue on locating it. Our cook sabotaged any such ideas by narrating scary stories of qabristans. My sisters and I sat lost and forlorn. On the one hand we’d kept staring at the sky, certain we could spot our brother. And then we waited desperately for our parents to return.

When they returned, their sobs and cries came afresh, agonising. All I did was gaze at his empty cot, crying that entire night. In the morning, instead of walking down to school, I walked around Jhansi town, trying to locate my baby brother’s grave. I wanted to give him one final hug, kissing his little nose and holding his hand tight in mine…when I finally reached that graveyard, the caretakers were baffled to see me, a young girl of ten, asking to see the grave of her brother. Within minutes they shooed me out, saying that children were not allowed inside the graveyard.

I waited for adulthood to arrive. And I revisited Jhansi. That nagging quest had to be completed. Once again I looked for my brother’s grave, but I drew a blank. The keepers of the place exclaimed, “A child’s kutccha grave! There are hundreds of graves here. More qabristans have come up!”

I gave up, sad and forlorn, for I couldn’t say that I had finally bidden good bye to my little brother Farid.

(Picture courtesy thejakartapost.com. Image is used for representational purpose only)

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Enough said

Rahul for PM?

Humra Quraishi wonders why Rahul Gandhi does not grasp the several opportunities thrown his way at the best of times.

New Delhi is no longer just the rape capital of the country, but it is also the battleground for those desperate to grab much more than the proverbial pound of flesh. New Delhi is where one experiences the rush for unlimited power that comes with the two magic words – Prime Minister.

Of course, Mamata didi proved another again that she has no chance at this post, or indeed advance in Delhi’s political circles. Once again, she played her cards in her usual hysterical fashion, and brought down any aspirations she may have had of making inroads in Delhi. The latest killing in her State’s capital, of student leader Sudipto Gupte, can be seen as the very start of her political downfall. The rule of absolute power does not hold for long, and with this latest incident, Mamata hopefully has seen the light.

And then there’s Narendra Modi, who currently seems to be more interested in giving speeches to a select few in Delhi, than doing something for the semi-parched parts of his State. It seems his hosts double-checked the invite list for his speech venues, which included the movers and shakers in business and several rightwingers, but which curiously did not have a single name from the capital’s ‘outspoken’ lot.

For surely, if any of this group was present, there would have been uncomfortable questions on why his men had Ishrat Jehan and several others killed in fake encounters, why women were raped and killed in his State, and why a great majority of Muslims of Ahmedabad are forced to live in one big cluster in Juhapura, an underdeveloped ghetto.

And therein lies the question: why are we, as a collective lot, being swayed and fooled by our politicians? Why are we wilfully blind to the bigger picture?

If you are unable to go beyond politicians’ babble, I would suggest you watch the film Hotel Rwanda, to see what happens if two communities/tribes are pitted against each other. Civil war breaks out, with all possible crimes committed against all sections of society, cutting across all power structures, ultimately affected all citizens.

Unfortunately, those who have the mettle to take on these politicians are steadfastly refusing to bite the bait. Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who possesses all those attributes to take on Modi, refused even to be Vice President, much before the nomination stage! Also, it’s a complete no-no on the Yadav front – Akhilesh  Yadav seems incapable of running his own State, Uttar Pradesh, where even children are raped and jailed, so making any moves in Delhi’s direction would be furthest from his mind at the moment.

Do you see what this means? It so turns out that the only man who can probably take on   Modi at the moment is Rahul Gandhi. He isn’t much of a speech giver, nor does he cash in on any strong points – his own or his party’s – but he is earnest.

To quote N Ram, from the foreword this veteran journalist has written to the last book on  Rahul Gandhi, Decoding Rahul Gandhi, by Aarthi Ramachandran, “We learn that Rahul  Gandhi is an obsessive organisation man, who believes in applying business management strategies and methods, including the ‘Toyota Way’, to grassroots political organisation. He espouses meritocratic notions of seeking and nurturing talent and opening up opportunity for career advancement in Congress politics.

“While he has not been above playing the dynastic card, he has been candid about how he got to where he is today, declaring himself to be ‘a symptom of this problem’, which he wished to change. He does not seem to be good at building coalitions or dealing with existing or potential allies. He favours going it alone, but unlike, say BSP leader Mayawati, he has no core social constituency. In the heat of campaigning, he has made his share of political gaffes and over-the-top allegations against opponents. He has been an indifferent Parliamentarian, whose sporadic interventions on issues, including corruption, have impressed no one, except the political faithful. His secular credentials are not in question; in fact, he holds no known religious faith and has gone so far as to declare the national flag to be his religion.”

To me, Rahul’s earnestness is his strong point. But he seems to be surrounded by a bunch of advisors that is coming in the way of his connectivity with the people. It isn’t enough to spend an evening or eat a meal at a poor man’s dwelling, there has to be an ongoing, sincere connect daily, which does not seem contrived.

Dear Rahul, why can’t people visit your office and tell you their grievances?

Why can’t you see the right-wing nuts in your own party and have them thrown out?

Why can’t you focus only on communalism and corruption issues, and tackle them first?

Why can’t you use the whistle-blower cops of Gujarat – who had taken on Modi – to your advantage?

When will stop looking like you’re still waiting in the wings, and take centrestage?

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

 (Pictures courtesy adilmohdblog.com, travelindia-guide.com, mid-day.com)

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Enough said

The divorce conundrum

Humra Quraishi writes on two high-profile divorces – one of them is the story of Kamal Amrohi and Meena Kumari.

What a storm has arrived in Kerala…all hell broke loose after minister Ganesh Kumar filed for divorce from his wife of 16 years, Yamini, on grounds of harassment and manhandling. And though marital storms hit most marriages at some point of time, in our country we are seemingly well-trained in perpetuating the myth of happiness even when we’re trapped in loveless, incompatible marriages.

The question remains: why carry on a mismatched marriage and drag it to the point that it blows up all over, or in Ganesh Kumar’s case, all over the State? What is this madness of dragging along a dead marriage, whether at the ministerial level or at own homes?

Today, of course, there are some brave souls who are choosing to part ways once they sense their onw incompatibilities, but most people don’t. This latter class of people chooses to be stifled and stranded in suffocating marriages for the sake of others.

Socially, the very word ‘divorce’ is still a taboo in our society, and the minute you declare your divorced status, you are looked at with different eyes. Even strangers throw weird glances at you, if not come right out and comment on the collapse of your marriage. When I opted for a divorce after trying to drag along a mismatched marriage for 28 long years, I can’t begin to describe how people’s attitude changed towars me. Several of my so-called friends also became fence-sitters, and from their safe perch, they would throw a lot of inquisitive questions at me.

But in the last few years, I’m seeing many people ending their marriages. In my own clan, there have been eight divorces and many more are announcing the end of their marriages. It is tough to announce it, and then face the world while you soldier on alone, on a rather rough path. If only Ganesh Kumar and Yamini (in pic on right) had done exactly this, then things would probably not have taken such an ugly turn, with everyone commenting and throwing in their two cents’ worth of knowledge on the subject.

The Meena Kumari story

However, I still say that divorce should be one’s very last option, and it should come into play if there’s complete incompatibility and a complete breakdown of the relationship. Even as I write, I am reminded of the unhappily-married film star Meena Kumari. She died on March 31, 1972, so the last weekend was her 41st death anniversary.

I’d once interviewed her stepdaughter, Kamal Amrohi’s daughter Rukhsar-e-Zehra. I quote her from that interview, from what she and her mother went through when they’d heard that Kamal sahib was re-marrying, and marrying Meena Kumari, at that. Zehra said, “No doubt he was a romantic. Much before his crush on Meena Kumari, he was involved with Madhubala. They were about to get married, but one sentence from her – ‘Kamal sahib, leave your wife and kids and I will give them four lakh rupees – finished it all.

“And my father, whom I’d called baba jaani, had told Madhubala that he does not buy or sell relationships, and severed all ties with her…Later, during the shooting of Mahal, my mother fell ill. Her already-strained nerves could take it no longer, and I recall how baba jaani told us to go to Amroha for a change. It was while we were in Amroha that magazines carried details of his wedding to Meena Kumari.

“I also remember how the children of the locality used to whisper if I was the daughter of Meena Kumari and Kamal Amrohi. But somehow, I was never upset, because the way my mother explained it all to me didn’t make it appear like he’d done anything wrong. My mother adored him and would say with immense pride, ‘Main Kamal sahib ki begum hoon.’ People wondered how she could tolerate a ‘co-wife’, but all those talks didn’t really bother her, and that was why we children never felt bitterness towards him, nor were we affected by his second marriage.

“My mother had realised that hers was an ill-matched marriage and it took place only on the grounds that the elders wanted these two cousins to marry. She had the rare nerve to calmly break the news of baba jaani’s remarriage to me. All she said was, ‘Don’t worry.  Now you will have another ammi, chhoti ammi, to look after you.’ With such an introduction, how could I be angry with either my father or Meena Kumari?”

I’d asked her about what had gone wrong with Kamal Amrohi and Meena Kumari’s marriage. She began by telling me how comfortable she was with the late actor. “When I was 13, I went to live with chhoti ammi and baba jaani and she wasn’t the stereotypical stepmother. Initially, I wasn’t very comfortable with her, but she would tell me, ‘Jo kuch chahiye mujhe batlao, jaise tum abba jaan se kehti ho (If you need anything, let me know the same way you would let your father know).’

She would leave for her shoots early after instructing the servants that I had to be looked after properly. On her return, if she wasn’t tired, we would sit and play carrom or just talk. Though her spoken English was rather poor, she had picked up a few words to speak with me. She respected my father’s sentiments of never encouraging me to join films. I grew rather fond of her as time went by. For, besides caring for me and my two brothers, (who initially stayed with her and were later sent to hostel) whenever my mother visited  Bombay, Meena would treat her with respect and would tell her, ‘Apa jaan, yeh ghar aap ka hai (Dear sister, this is your home).’

“I never saw any clash between her and my mother. On the contrary, if my mother stitched ghararas, it would always be six – two for me, two for herself and two for chhoti ammi…’

But a discord between the husband and wife did exist. Zehra told me, “The first time a major fight took place between the two was over the abortion issue. Baba had gone out, and without his knowledge, she’d decided to abort the baby. Months after that, she went in for a second abortion. There was a severe showdown this time, too. My father was very keen on having children with her, but she wasn’t keen on it. The deterioration in their relationship started with that. Then she took to the bottle and started having flings.

“As far as I can remember, she started taking brandy as a cure for insomnia, but knowing that my father disliked any sort of alcohol, she’d have it kept in Dettol bottles and sip it on the sly in the toilet. As to why she left the home, I don’t know the finer details. That day, on returning from school, I learnt from the servants that she’d left. My father went out to try and get her back (she had gone to actor Mehmood’s house), but she was determined never to return.

“My father really loved her. Several years later, when I asked him if he still loved her, he said, ‘Yes.’”

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is the author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Pictures courtesy ndtv.com, divorcedwomenonline.com, nowrunning.com, bollyspice.com)

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Enough said

Rich past, uncertain present

Delhi hosted cultural events capturing the essence of bygone times, which only served to remind us of sharp, present-day realities.
by Humra Quraishi

Delhi recently played host to a series of exhibitions on the life and works of Amir Khusrau. Then there was a three-day seminar on Dara Shukoh, the eldest son and heir apparent of Shah Jahan. There was also an exhibition on the art of Calligraphy. Sadly, I could make it to only one of these three events.

I attended the Amir Khusrau exhibition at the National Archives. Let me just say it was splendid. It captured the genius of Amir Khusrau, his poetry, his thoughts, and his philosophy. Credit ought to be given to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and also to the curator, Shakeel Hossein, who, I’m told, came all the way from Boston to set up the exhibition.

I couldn’t attend the three-day meet on Dara Shukoh, organised by Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind), but going by the list of speakers – Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Professor Irfan Habib and several well-known historians and critics – it must have been a wonderful, full-fledged seminar. Dara Shukoh has always fascinated me a lot; so much so that I find  my visits to the Kashmir Valley incomplete if I don’t go and visit the unique school of Sufism, Kas-I-Mah, which he had set up. Its ruins lie close to the Chashm-e-Shahi Springs in Srinagar. It is the first-of-its-kind in the whole of Asia and Central Asia, and the school, now in a dilapidated state, was built near the Chashm-e-Shahi springs at the suggestion of his spiritual teacher, Akhund Mullah Mohammad Shah, who came from Badakhshan, in Afghanistan.

The more I read on him, the more I begin to feel that if only he’d lived, he could have changed the entire complexion of this land. In fact, one of the rather fascinating books on Dara Shukoh is penned by Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson and former bureaucrat-turned-Governor and now full-time writer. Soon after his book, Dara Shukoh: A Play was released, I‘d asked him why he’d written a book on this bygone Mughal prince. He’d said, “It was his story which was, in fact, history. Where do you find failure trouncing success, defeat making victory counterfeit, as in the life of Shahjahan’s eldest-born?”

Meanwhile, the exhibition on the Art of Calligraphy by the Siasat Group (and set up at the Jamia Millia Islamia’s MF Hussain Art Gallery) drew large crowds. I feel that calligraphy ought to be revived in a  big way, as it is one of those art forms that hasn’t received its due recognition in the country.

But all these events that helped me delve into our rich past has only forced me to ponder over our present and the future – what can we take away from the present?

Nothing. For today, we are busy chasing even those militants who are begging forgiveness and want to give up a life of violence for a second chance. Today, we are calling every bearded person a terrorist.

This week, on World Water Day, UNICEF released these grim findings: ‘Globally, an estimated 2,000 children under the age of five die every day from diarrhoeal diseases and of these, some 1,800 deaths are linked to water, sanitation and hygiene. Almost 90 per cent of child deaths from diarrhoeal diseases are directly linked to contaminated water, lack of sanitation, or inadequate hygiene. Despite a burgeoning global population, these deaths have come down significantly over the last decade, from 1.2 million per year in 2000 to about 760,000 a year in 2011.

UNICEF child mortality data show that about half of under-five deaths occur in only five countries: India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Pakistan and China. Two countries – India (24 per cent) and Nigeria (11 per cent) – together account for more than a third of all under-five deaths. These same countries also have significant populations without improved water and sanitation.’

The report also states that, ‘The figures for sanitation are even bleaker. Those without improved sanitation in these countries are: India 814 million; China 477 million; Nigeria 109 million; Pakistan 91 million; and DRC 50 million. Improvements in water and sanitation would greatly contribute to a reduction in child mortality in these counties.’

This is the present we are grappling with.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon. She is author of Kashmir: The Untold Story and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

(Picture courtesy bbc.co.uk)

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