A bridge across the Palk Strait

The simplicity of the storyline struck a deep chord in Sreekar Prasad when Prasanna Vithanage narrated its sequences to him ahead of his newest cinematic venture. So much so, Sreekar offered to co-produce it besides taking up what the Sri Lankan filmmaker originally wanted him to do: edit the movie, which is on the comeback of a star actress. After all, this wasn’t the first time the two had come together to complete a work on celluloid — their bond had been strong after Sreekar worked with Prasanna in the highly acclaimed Death on a Full Moon Day (1998). This time, it led the birth of Akasa Kusum (Flowers of the Sky).
If Death on a Full Moon Day received critical acclaim after its release a decade ago, the graph only leaped further skywards in the case of Akasa Kusum. The Chennai-Colombo co-production under the banner of Filmfreaks has gone on gain an official entry into the 2010 Oscars.
Veteran Sreekar is delighted, and attributes it all to the merits of the filmmaker. “Prasanna is extremely talented. Having gotten associated with the Akasa Kusum, we next pitched it at the Pusan Promotion Plan (a pre-market initiative where Asian filmmakers are introduced to potential producers and financiers) — and the script got selected.”
Sreekar recalls that the film thus received a good response in the international festival circuit and also in Sri Lanka. So, did he expect an Oscar nomination? Not exactly. “Well, it was a surprise,” Sreekar gushes about the communiqué he
received from the Sri Lankan government about a fortnight ago. “It’s a recognition for the work we did.”
It’s only nine weeks since the film’s commercial release, but Akasa Kusum has been doing the rounds at film festivals from last year. If at Cines del Sur in Grenada, Spain, it won the honour for the best Asian film, it won the special jury mention at the Vesoul Film Festival in France.
Malini Fonseka, who portrays the protagonist Sandhya Rani, has been nominated to the best actress at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards to be held at Gold Coast, Australia, and has won the Silver Peacock at the International Film Festival of India at Goa.
So would film buffs in India get to see Akasa Kusum? “Surely there is an effort to bring the film to India. In fact, the process is already on. Only that it’s too early to give a date as of now.” Sreekar isn’t apprehensive about the prospects of acclaim that a film made in Sri Lanka would receive in India. He places his faith in the universality of the subject of the film.
“Indeed, I’m confident that the Indian audience would relate better with its theme, given that the history and impact of cinema is vast and deeper in our country than in Sri Lanka,” he notes. “True, the characters in the film are fictional, but then the protagonist could be any of your old actresses. Bigger the industry, more are its chances of Sandhya Ranis popping up. As a creative person, an artiste goes through this phase of fame and neglect. Some people take it gracefully, some don’t — and others succumb to the pressures of being in the limelight. This could be anyone’s story in cinema. Not just an actor, but of a director or a technician.”
Akasa Kusum is the story of how a yesteryear actress Sandhya Rani (Malini Fonseka), who lives a life in oblivion after retirement, is brought back to the limelight. That’s when the police come to know about the sexual escapades of a young actress Shalika (Dilhani Ekanayake) in a rented accommodation that belongs to Sandhya Rani. The police smell a rat and skeletons start tumble out. The rest is how Sandhya Rani’s life changes when she hears about a child she had from a relationship in her heyday.
Andhra Pradesh-born Sreekar, with more than 300 films to his credit starting from Simhaswapnam (1983), reveals with a chuckle that he gets nervous before starting any new project, and Akasa Kusum was no exception. “The film was a challenge as the director had to be subtle in telling the story. I had to ensure my editing didn’t overplay the emotions.” So, he kept repetition of visuals to minimum. “We got over this general feature with off-beat films. We just cut at the high point of a scene; and in the process we were able to tell the story in 90 minutes.”
Another special aspect of the film was that the background music is “almost negligible”. “Here the visuals speak for themselves.” For all its trappings of being a “parallel” film, Akasa Kusum is doing well in Sri Lanka, mainly in the urban centres. When it comes to box-office success, the case isn’t different with Sreekar’s latest release. Mammootty-starrer Pazhassiraja, directed by Hariharan, is doing well in Kerala ahead of its worldwide release even as Sreekar has started working on his next ventures: Mani Rathnam’s Raavan and a yet-to-be-named Telugu project.

‘Telugu films have two-three formats’
With six national awards (yet to get one for a Telugu film), five state awards and several miscellaneous awards, Sreekar Prasad knows his cinema. Is it a reflection of the quality of Tollywood films? “I think, yes,” he says. “For one, Telugu movies are very region-specific. They have probably two or three formats which they switch between; they rarely go beyond that.”
Sreekar maintains they are finding it difficult to break out of the rut. “There is this effort to cater to a particular audience;
so it does not stand a chance at an all-India level. There may be attempts to break this pattern, but are very few and rare.
At one point, Bollywood was like this.”
Obviously, Sreekar speaks his mind — and that from his experience in the industry for more than a quarter century. Over the years, he has made a deliberate attempt to strike a balance between ‘masala’ films and ‘serious’ films. “Initially, I took any project that came my way, but now I am selective. I associate with a film if the story is interesting, and also the director and I need to have similar wavelengths. Only then can I complement the director in the job I undertake.”

Myopia in fighting poaching

That poaching is rampant in India is hardly news and it would be an understatement to say that the menace is on the rise. But a recent news about a one-horned rhinoceros being killed at the Rajiv Gandhi Orang Wildlife Sanctuary, on the northern banks of the Brahmaputra, 140 km from Guwahati, gives pause for thought. Two poachers were killed in a shootout with forest guards on October 19. One of them, Harmuj Ali, had been released from jail just 10 days earlier. He was nabbed last June after killing a 25-year-old female rhino in the same park. The number of rhinos killed so far this year in the park has risen to six, with two dying of ‘natural causes’, against the seven in 2008. For all the awareness camps conducted and hi-tech training provided to the guards, such incidents rob the sheen of the India Rhino Vision-2020 programme, a project aimed at the long-term conservation of rhinos in Assam.It would be a tall order to expect the government to curb the demand for rhino horn, ivory, tiger skin and rare reptiles in the international market, but it could certainly increase the quantum and severity of punishment for poaching. This should be backed by expediting the legal course. Punishment must be quick. Going by the Harmuj Ali experience, four months is small change for the lakhs of rupees a rhino horn fetches in the international market.The case of Harmuj Ali also throws light on the fact that our jails do little to reform a criminal, which is the purpose of these institutions. They serve more as a place for criminals to cool their heels for a while. After they are released they go on the hunt again.Though the government has grander plans for conservation and has tied up with the WWF and International Union for Conservation of Nature, it has failed to address the concerns of the forest guards. Reports say that many of the guards have been working as temporary staff more than two decades. Irregular salaries and non-regularisation of jobs certainly weigh down on the morale of the guards who have threatened suicide if the government fails to recognise their demands.Wildlife protection is a demanding task and the government seems to have realised the importance of it, but it cannot save the remaining endangered animals unless it wins the trust of all parties involved, because the enemy is focused. Greed is, after all, a great motivator.

A distrubing trend of fakes

The report submitted by Metropolitan magistrate S P Tamang on the encounter of four people in Ahmedabad in June 15, 2004 by the Gujarat police would have sure come as a vindication for the Ishrat family who have been pleading the innocence of their daughter Ishrat Jahan. The fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan, Javed Shiekh, Amjad Ali and Abdul Gani by Ahmedabad police commissioner K R Kaushik and DIG D G Vanzara among others, reminds us of the horror that could happen when people who are supposed to protect us take the law in their hands for personal gains such as promotions and goodwill from the political class. The dangers of the anti-terror bill passed by the Modi government, which makes confession made before a police officer admissible in a court, should be viewed in this light.

Names like Sanjit (killed in Manipur last July), Abdul Rehman (’07), Sohrabuddin Sheikh (November ’07), Manorama Devi (July ’04), Sadiq Jamal (January ’03) and Sameer Khan Pathan (October ’02) should not become mere statistical figures in the minds of the public. Such gross human rights violations should be protested, otherwise a Frankenstein of sorts will be created and our indifference towards the issue will have to be blamed. In the light of this it would not be alarming to know that the Gujarat police face allegations of killing 20 people in 11 fake encounters between 2002-’06 - in all cases the ‘terrorists’ had schemed for the life of the state chief minister Narendra Modi.

While extra judicial killings are not a new phenomenon in India where it has been present in the conflict zones for decades, the fact that it is spreading to other parts should have the authorities and the public concerned. That trigger-happy Dirty Harry(s) are a growing tribe is evident in the alarming rise in the number of ‘encounter’ and custodial deaths reported from almost every part of the country. Closer to home is the recent report from Chennai on the death of A Lakshmanan in a lock-up after being subjected to third-degree interrogation.

The affidavit from the Union ministry of home affairs supporting the claims of the state government that the four people killed on June 15 was terrorists is a tell-tale of the lack of co-ordination between various government agencies concerned with the nation’s security.

Revelations such as the one made by Justice (Retd) C Upendra Singh earlier this month that extra judicial killings are a reality only underline a serious lapse and subsequent cover-up on the part of the police and other officials. It is also unfortunate to note that in almost all ‘encounters’ the ‘terrorists’ belong to the minority community - thereby further paving way for alienation and prejudice laden stereotyping. These disturbing incidents should also pan our attention to the fact that for its effective and professional working, reforms in the police has to happen and it should be purged from external involvement - read political - at all levels.

(Edited version of this post is available at:
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=A+disturbing+trend+of+fakes&artid=/Sl57fU/lpI=&SectionID=RRQemgLywPI=&MainSectionID=RRQemgLywPI=&SectionName=XQcp6iFoWTvPHj2dDBzTNA==)

Veiling the right to education

Educational institutions should focus on improving the quality of education imparted to the lakhs of students, and stop short of moral policing is a point that seems to be repeated very often that the people who have to take note are missing frequently. Two news items that have appeared earlier this week in Bantwal and Uppinangady, both places in Dakshina Kannada, highlight a disquieting trend of increasing religious intolerance and how right wing extremists are blatantly using academia as a means to an end.

Aysha Asmin, a first-year student of Sri Venkataramana Swamy College, Bantwal, was given two options by her principal Seetharamayya --- ‘abide’ by the college rules or quit. That no such rules exist or were mentioned during the time of Aysha’s admission and the college union is managed by a right-wing group is not a mere coincidence. Similar objections raised by the college management at the Government First Grade College, Uppinangady, seem to have died down after Muslim girls have been permitted to wear a head scarf for the ‘time being’.

Religious intolerance has been on the rise and Dakshina Kannada has been its epicentre in South India. The banning of burqas and the graphic visuals of hooligans, backed by Pramod Muthalik’s Sri Ram Sene, beating up boys and girls in Mangalore in January this year, details a disturbing malice that is gaining currency.

The show-cause notice issued by the district deputy commissioner is a move in the right direction and it is expected that the Department of College Education would take punitive action against the college. The state home minister, V Acharya, who has backed the college decision citing ‘discipline’, has overlooked a simple norm that ‘discipline’ and order should not be imposed or attained at the cost of an individual’s freedom as enshrined in our Constitution.

The question to be asked is why is it that the Universities Grant Commission and the ministry of education have not taken cognisance of the issue if there is a ‘rule’ in the prospectus of the government-aided college banning students from wearing a burqa, as claimed by Seetharamayya. As the ban is a clear violation of the fundamental rights, the college should be reprimanded and not just smacked on the knuckle.

The college principal’s statement ridiculing religious freedom and that he was under pressure from certain organisations, coupled with the Mangalore University vice-chancellor K M Kaveriappa’s assurance to Aysha that he would secure an admission in any college of her choice, are confessions in public that the system has bowed to antics of right-wing groups.

That colleges, and universities in some cases, insist on a dress code alibi discipline, is a reflection of the lack of maturity in thought and blinkered vision that is spreading among educational institutions at an alarming rate.

(The edited version of this can be accessed at http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Intolerance+in+academia&artid=8PA3IZ3a8eQ=&SectionID=RRQemgLywPI=&MainSectionID=RRQemgLywPI=&SectionName=XQcp6iFoWTvPHj2dDBzTNA==)

Teflon Bill takes a call

It is said that history repeats itself and it could not be more true in the case of the United States when former Democratic President Bill Clinton chose to travel more than 6,800 miles to meet America’s bête noire North Korean premier Kim Jong-Il in a meeting that the White House described as ‘solely a private mission’ to give a diplomatic hint to the release of two American journalists who were held, tried and punished in a manner that would pale banana republics elsewhere in the world.

Fifteen years ago, around the same time, Clinton, then president, had sent former president Jimmy Carter to North Korea to speak with the ‘Great Leader’. At both times Pyongyang’s used its nuclear programme as the carrot to lure the US.

The successful mission should be viewed as a personal and political triumph for Bill Clinton. From being increasingly seen as the husband of the secretary of state, though Hillary is yet to make a mark of her own in an Obama Administration full of influential White House aides, to a former president who has a diplomatic panache and international presence that cannot be ignored, Bill Clinton is all set to be in the spotlight if Obama’s press secretary Robert Gates’ statement that the two presidents are to get together ‘sometime soon’ is to be believed.

While the administration is still reeling in the triumph of what Obama described as an ‘extraordinary humanitarian effort’, critics have not taken kindly to the fact that the US has yielded to a rouge regime and in the event legitimised it. It is argued that the trip has portrayed Washington in poor light for kowtowing Jung-Il and would encourage other countries, like Iran, to use arm-twisting tactics in the future to meet their ends. These allegations, however, would not hold water as Clinton, a private man today, has gone in his personal capacity and has not billed the exchequer for the North Korea trip. He has tapped his business contacts and well-wishers of the William J Clinton Foundation. Moreover, the administration was quick to distance itself from the rescue mission with secretary of state Hillary Clinton reiterating that US policies towards North Korea ‘remain the same’.

What was the deal or the compromises made, if any, is not clear yet, but from either point of view it is a win-win settlement. For an ailing Kim Jung-Il, who wants to handover a powerful N-nation to his youngest son Kim Jong Un, the release is a propaganda gimmick and a masterstroke that would silence the voices of dissent in Pyongyang as well as reaffirm the power of his dynasty.

In the coming days it would be interesting to see if there is a shift in the stand either country adopts, or of any developments within North. There are also chances of Obama extending his ‘open hand’ all the way up to the Supreme People’s Assembly.

Moonwalking all our lives

As I had some writing to meet a deadline, I went to bed at around 3.30 am on Friday June 26. By then news channels were breaking the news that Michael Jackson was rushed to a UCLA hospital. I didn’t think much of it for two reasons. One MJ has been having a hard time keeping himself fit, especially for the concerts lined up in London. The second was that the media frenzy for everything has been so overdone that ‘breaking news’ is no more breaking enough.
I dozed off with the television on. I woke up around seven (IST) and got to know the bad news. I managed to break my spectacles by sleeping over them. I felt strange. Not because my specks were broken but because it was not the first time I was sleeping over them. The sinister omen was right. After putting together my specks I gazed at the TV and Anderson Cooper broke the news. ‘King of Pop Michael Jackson passes away’ (1958- 2009). I surfed other channels and all were ‘breaking’ the news. An Indian news channel had even sniffed a conspiracy angle to it by then.
For someone who missed the Beatlemania, Elvis and many more, MJ was what filled the gaps in aspiration. MJ was a child star (by the early 80s he had attained cult status), was coloured and had a charming innocence that prompted every parent to wish their child was a MJ.
Growing up in the Arab world, in Kuwait among other places, it would seem strange to say that in the concoction of friends I had, Michael Jackson was a rage. Yes from dishdasha flaunting Arabs to Spaniards who popularised the Berumda shorts breakdancing was the coolest thing to do – on Friday evenings, after football matches and even near souks. Moonwalking was a good way of connecting with the local boys. Though we could not figure out a word they said, and for them what we said, the only common thread we had was music and in the 80s music was Michael Jackson. MJ pushed us to moonwalk near the subways, sneak to school with our walkmans playing Thriller blasting our eardrums. Adding to this, girls liked MJ; they like boys who either played MJ, looked like him or who could dance like him. Where Stevie Wonder, Phil Collins, Bobby McFerrin and George Michael failed, Bad worked.
MJ raised a phenomenal craze for black jackets and white gloves. I always made it a point to wear white socks and pointed toe shoes. How could I forget the black shades. Finding a pair for kids was hard and we resorted to the big ones that rested on our cheekbones. But who was complaining. With our shades, shoes and jacket we were also MJ!
My first MJ video, as far as I recollect, was a collection that had video songs of Thriller, Bad, Dirty Diana and many more. A Pakistani friend who had cousins in the US managed to get hold of an assortment of MJ video songs and Moonwalker. All friends huddled up in Jude’s house. Those days we didn’t have compact discs and VHS’ was the best. As Jude pushed the VHS in (it always took an awful lot of time to start) all of us were staring at the dictionary-type VHS cover. We played, replayed and replayed the songs forever. Music, dance and style were never the same again. All of us friends hugged Jude. Never did I feel so much love for a Pakistani.
Being on the healthy side, as a kid there were people always taunting me to reduce the flab. If at all I felt the need to trim down it was because I wanted to shake my leg like the King of Pop. There was also another reason for aspiring to follow MJ. My brother, five years elder to me, was a lookalike of MJ. His lean built, coloured complexion, big sparkling white eyes and natural curls helped him earn the status of a neighbourhood MJ. To top this he was a singer and knew that he could pull a moonwalk with equal grace (something that I still can’t do).
Maybe it was this deep bounding that later down the years I found it hard to believe his fall from grace. During all the scandals and innumerable eccentricities there was always a voice in me saying that he was paying the price for being popular. I kept telling myself and the world that sneered at him: ‘Wait, he’s gonna come out clean and put to rest all these scandals. His next album is gonna make history’.
The whole world was looking forward to the concerts in July. I hope he is remembered for the music he gave and not his personal life; that he would be shown justice denied to him while he was alive.
Michael Joe Jackson went away before he could sing his last song and receive his last standing ovation.
MJ - thank you for the culture, thank you for the revolution and thank you for the music. Thank you Michael Jackson.

Reforms at the cost of education

Union human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, probably is all pepped about warming a Cabinet seat and wants to have an impressive progress report at the end of 100 days while Manmohan Singh examines it. Heeding the suggestions from ‘a group of experts’ the minister has proposed for a unified system of evaluation for the Board examinations. The minister might have been referring to the Yashpal report titled The Committee to Advice on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education which was submitted to the government in March earlier this year. The Left has seen red over Sibal’s remarks and it is not without reason. While the report has taken objection to the unaccounted growth of private educational institutions and deemed universities and suggested a halt in further allotment of such institutions until proper guidelines are set, its suggestion for private sector involvement in primary education is a step if not taken cautiously would lead to irreversible damage.

It is a fact that the present system of evaluation with focus on two board exams, one in tenth and the other in twelfth standard, is a burden on students for the shear amount of pressure it exerts on them, not to mention the family.

The tremendous pressure, an alibi used by naysayers criticising the education pattern, is not a product of the system, but our creation. It is the taunting and torture primarily from parents, teachers and peer groups, and secondarily from the society and media that push students to extremes.
A unified system of evaluation is not the answer to rectify the existing malice in a system that has been applauded by many developed countries. Ask any child who has had part of his/her education in India before moving to the US, UK or Australia, and they would sing paeans of the system back home.

The proposal for a grading system is a road that leads to nowhere. An example for this could be Kerala which has only recently shifted to it. This year the state has recorded a phenomenal pass percentage of 91.2 or for every 100 students who gave the exam, only nine failed. Even is we were to momentarily blink at this ‘great feat’ and attribute no political undercurrent to the ‘achievement’, do we have the required higher education infrastructure to meet the demand? And in cases where they are present, does it meet the required criterion?

It is a fact that primary and secondary education is on a strong footing when compared to the quality, and availability, of higher education in India. It is only good sense to disturb the strong foot once the other is firmly placed. Change, on the other hand, is always welcome, unless it is for the sake of it.