http://pad.madaily2010-09-071.0http://pad.ma/aboutmonthly1.0http://pad.ma/faqmonthly1.0http://pad.ma/termsmonthly1.0http://pad.ma/licensemonthly1.0http://pad.ma/Ve2si74f/info2010-08-02weekly1.0ALF 10th Anniversary - Introduction by Lawrence Lianghttp://pad.ma/Ve2si74f/poster.75.jpgTalk titled : Courage, Craft and Contention: Human Rights and the Judicial Imagination Lawrence, a graduate form National Law School subsequently pursued his Masters degree in Warwick, England on a Chevening Scholarship. His key areas of interest are law, technology and culture, the politics of copyright and he has been working closely with Sarai, New Delhi on a joint research project Intellectual Property and the Knowledge/Culture Commons. A keen follower of the open source movement in software, Lawrence has been working on ways of translating the open source ideas into the cultural domain.Yes1076http://pad.ma/Vgpppp9x/info2010-07-13weekly1.0ALF 10th Anniversary - Vote of Thanks by Maytri Krishnanhttp://pad.ma/Vgpppp9x/poster.75.jpgMaitreyi graduated from ILS Law College, Pune and works with the litigation team at ALF. She is interested in understanding labour conditions, particularly in the unorganized sector and looks to provide legal support to the Domestic Workers Union and Powrakarmika's Union.Yes407http://pad.ma/Vi3jk7nd/info2010-08-02weekly1.0ALF 10th Anniversary Talk: Dr. Upendra Baxihttp://pad.ma/Vi3jk7nd/poster.75.jpgTalk titled : Courage, Craft and Contention: Human Rights and the Judicial Imagination Prof. Upendra Baxi is the Emeritus Professor of Law in Development, University of Warwick. He was the Vice Chancellor of Delhi University (1990-94) and taught at many universities around the world. Prof Baxi is best known for his scholarship on all areas of law as well as his pioneering role in initiating social action litigation in India. Prof. Baxi has combined the role of a human rights activist, legal academic as well as a teacher of law in his prolific career. Yes2663http://pad.ma/Vi80b8zx/info2010-07-13weekly1.0ALF 10th Anniversary Talk: Honb'le Justice A. P. Shahhttp://pad.ma/Vi80b8zx/poster.75.jpgTalk titled : Courage, Craft and Contention: Human Rights and the Judicial Imagination C.J. Shah (as he then was) during his tenure as a judge of the Bombay High Court and Chief Justice of Chennai and Delhi High Court is known for a series of bold rulings which have deepened the meaning of the Constitution as a charter of Rights. C.J. Shah has during his tenure, made many landmark rulings on LGBT rights, slum dwellers rights, the rights of rickshaw pullers, rights of the disabled, freedom of speech and expression and on public accountability. Yes3437http://pad.ma/Vu0vcqhu/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Khirkeeyaan Episode 5 - Doctor ki Salahhttp://pad.ma/Vu0vcqhu/poster.75.jpgKhirkeeyaan is an exploration of an open-circuit tv system as a local area network communication, micro-media generation and feedback device. It employs security apparatus, otherwise used for surveillance and 'secret' use. Television sets and cheap surveillance equipment, coupled with an RF modulator, mics, audio mixer and metres of coax cable were laid out to form collaborative conversation systems for the 'use' of the community-at-large. TV's and electricity, consent and participation were sourced on-site(s) often drawing from a multitude of sources. Khirkeeyaan's seven episodes were generated through seven sets of installations in different neighbourhoods in and around Khirkee Extension, New Delhi over three weeks, during Shaina Anand's associate residency at Khoj studios in April, 2006. For more on the Khirkeeyaan project, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/khirkeeyaan.htm. We met a multi-faceted man. His card said, "Eradicate poverty through health and education". He told us that he was a doctor, a poet, a singer, a painter, an inventor, a social worker…”Ask not what all I am.” He took us to his house, Outside it said OPD/DOCTOR. Dr Saab, piled us with a folder of his achievements. A chandelier that has two colours. Turned one way it emits Red Light, turned the other way, it Glows Green. More importantly, it works on other senses too; Rose Attar gets sprayed in the air when Red, and Khus Attar when Green. He said he was the inventor of the bulb that never dies, Double Filament Light Bulb! We watched a music video he had directed, acted in and edited, starring himself singing a Rafi song. His room had slogans painted in green. He said, “lets do a doctor ki muft salah, free advice from the doctor.” Hot Sunday Post-Lunch Torpor hits Khrikee Extension. Our TVs turn on outside 2 STD booths, one dhabha, all within 200 mts of doctor's house. Doctor's frame is dramatically different from the others. He is sitting where he normally sits to watch TV. His TV too is larger than the others. He’s flanked by two cronies and they all reek of the same attar he wears. (We have been running into doctor and his cronies often enough and can smell them approaching the Mohalla from 25 mts away). This was Khirkeeyaan with a value-addition; akin to traditional community media…get free advice from the good doctor…and in that sense very different from the 4:4 ratio and open window system. We don’t want to say much…but will leave you with some stellar advice from Doctor BUMS/MBBS (Bachelor of Unani Medical Science/ Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery.) Yes5218http://pad.ma/Vulvs042/info2010-04-26weekly1.0Aita - Abou Raed Househttp://pad.ma/Vulvs042/poster.75.jpgYes4169http://pad.ma/Vhlsstt4/info2010-04-23weekly1.0Aita el Cha'b: In The Househttp://pad.ma/Vhlsstt4/poster.75.jpgYes1831http://pad.ma/Vuh7chty/info2010-04-24weekly1.0Shadi Ibrahim on his practice of photographyhttp://pad.ma/Vuh7chty/poster.75.jpgShadi Ibrahim is one of the photographers who runs a studio in Burj al-Shamali camp. In the course of my work in the camp, I interviewed him on his photographic practice and what his images meant in the social life of the camp. The interview generated a set of complicated questions round questions of identity, religion, gender and representation. Through the interview I also had an opportunity to reflect on my own relation to images and the social relations they engender.Yes2322http://pad.ma/Vhqz2pn8/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Samia Mehrez lecture - Image in crisis: The case of 'Hajj Metwalli's Family'http://pad.ma/Vhqz2pn8/poster.75.jpgAbout Samia Mehrez: Samia Mehrez is an Associate Professor of Arabic Literature at the American University in Cairo. She is the author of Egyptian Writers between History and Fiction: Essays on Naguib Mahfouz, Sanallah Ibrahim and Gamal Al-Ghitani (1994). Her articles on Francophone and Modern Arabic Literature have appeared in a number of Arab and international journals. About the lecture: The lecture/paper presents a critical reading of the Egyptian TV series Hajj Metwalli's Family that was shown on a number of Arab local and satellite channels during the month of Ramadan (from November until December 2001). The daily prime-time series rendered, throughout its episodes, a positive representation of a Muslim, self-mad man (Hajj Metwalli) who marries five women (the first whom dies during the early episodes), each providing a step on the Hajj's ladder of economic success and social ascension. No sooner had the series been aired then it generated unprecedented issues and values that it portrayed-whether being on a social, ethical, or artistic level. This lecture/paper will attempt to read the conflicting and conflicted discourses produced by various participants in the debate, including the National Woman's Council in Egypt, Egyptian State Television Authorities, regional press coverage, and popular Arab reactions as a mean to understand the relationship between society and art, authority and creativity, reality and imagination, truth and representation. Lecture till 00:33:22.000 Discussion starting 00:33:22.000 (not transcribed)Yes3495http://pad.ma/Vdx7jv73/info2010-04-23weekly1.0Aita el Cha'b: walking in the streets of the historic corehttp://pad.ma/Vdx7jv73/poster.75.jpgYes599http://pad.ma/Vgdhcue4/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Abbas Baydoun - Culture and Arts: Re: The Actualhttp://pad.ma/Vgdhcue4/poster.75.jpgAbout the lecture: We pass, along with the rest of the world, on to a post-modernity, silently, with no preliminaries and as if divorced from the cultural; a mere development, direct, literal and technical. In these parts modernity carries a load of theoretical and intellectual pronouncements for us. It started as a project for change, albeit unclear. At that time, it seemed that modernity was not a historical process, but rather a value in itself, actually by mere faith, in itself an instigator of social transformation and not their result. Modernity was held as a private myth and a contemporary religion, while the transition to a post-modernity remains on the other hand unfounded in that which precedes it. It is a leap, unconnected to a cultural memory. One can say that the frustration of modernity returns. Yet, the philosophical preliminaries to post-modernity loom as more difficult. For the difficulty lies in finding an intellectual project for post-modernity; in finding a culture of post-modernity that is not simply an array of disconnected domains, techniques, and artistic manifestations which would constitute a situation that is contrary to the principle of post-modernity. About Abbas Baydoun: Abbas Baydoun was born in 1945 in the village of Ch'hour in the region of Tyre, south Lebanon. For a period, he was preoccupied with leftwing political activities, which prevented him from publishing. He was incarcerated and tortured. He wrote and published successively: "Tyre, time in Big Gulps", "Visitors of First Rain" followed by "Hunting Proverbs", and preceded by "Glass Cemeteries" then "Critique of Pain", "Rooms", "This cup's vacuity", "Brothers of our remorse", "To a patient that is hope", "Uttered in the cold". Aside from poetry, he also writes literary and art criticism, and is finalizing a novel to be published by Al Rayess Press. He edits the cultural supplement of the daily Al-Safir in Beirut. His poetry has been translated into English, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek and Catalan. His collection Tyre has been translated into french and was published by Actes Sud. Yes3613http://pad.ma/Vsbonbvz/info2010-05-26weekly1.0House is Black - Khaneh siah asthttp://pad.ma/Vsbonbvz/poster.75.jpgEssays by: Doug Cummings, February 13th, 2005 Filmjourny.org http://filmjourney.weblogger.com/2005/02/13/the-house-is-black/#more-529 “There is no shortage of ugliness in the world. If man closed his eyes to it, there would be even more.” Thus begins the narration in Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black (1962), a landmark short film (roughly 20 minutes) by one of Iran’s most venerated modern poets, a woman killed at the age of 32 in a car accident whose writing still permeates Iranian culture. (Her poem “The Wind Will Carry Us” is prominently featured in Abbas Kiarostami’s 1999 film of the same name.) In the 2001 book Close-Up: Iranian Cinema, Hamid Dabashi cites The House is Black as the beginning of an adventurous decade of Iranian filmmaking that would culminate with Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow in 1969: “[The House is Black] must be considered by far the most significant film of the early 1960s, a film that with its poetic treatment of leprosy anticipated much that was to follow in Iranian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s.” Mohsen Makhmalbaf has called it “the best Iranian film [to have] affected the contemporary Iranian cinema,” and in the liner notes of Facets Video’s new DVD (to be released on February 22), Chris Marker compares the film to Luis BuÒuel’s Las Hurdes. Farrokhzad’s film may be a “poetic treatment of leprosy,” but it’s also a factual and clear-eyed documentary on the daily routines in a leper colony near Tabriz in northern Iran. By confronting the gruesome effects of the disease on people, it gradually strips away the potential for shock and reveals the human souls beneath the physical symptoms, who are busy persevering, playing, learning, living. One of the striking counterpoints to the film’s potentially depressing subject, and perhaps the element that gives it the greatest depth, is Farrokhzad’s narration, spoken in hushed, compassionate tones by the director herself. Its evocative language incorporates Koran quotes and Old Testament psalms and oscillates between thanksgiving for the beauty of creation and lamentations for physical suffering. Farrokhzad’s opening shot is emblematic of her approach–a medium shot of a woman with leprosy with her face partially covered by a veil, the camera slowly and compassionately zooming in to a close-up of her reflection in a mirror. The viewer not only looks at the woman, but shares the woman’s gaze at herself, a mark of the film’s implicit empathy. And Farrokhzad’s command of the medium continues throughout; though The House is Black is the only film she ever directed (other than a minor commercial), it is brilliantly rhythmic, cutting scenes together thematically and pictorially rather than spatially, and using natural sounds (a squeaky wheel, a bouncing ball, a man walking on crutches) to provide the meter for exceptional montage sequences. Her fluid tracking shots through the colony’s school rooms and prayer halls are graceful and observant, and she artfully punctuates them with everyday details–plants in the sun, drying dishes on a window sill, old shoes and bottles resting together. Intercut with Farrokhzad’s narration is a male voice (perhaps the film’s producer) who provides objective facts about leprosy and its treatment; it’s contagious and not hereditary, nor is it incurable. “Leprosy goes with poverty.” And the film equally balances empathy with an emphasis on the scientific care needed to heal people as it compiles images of medical treatments and physical therapy. Running times for the film vary depending on the informational source, but in his informative essay included with the DVD, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum (who helped write the subtitles) cites the official length as 22 minutes and adds, “though it doesn’t appear to be quite complete–one abrupt edit looks like a censor’s cut, and a few stray details visible in some other versions are missing–this is the best version of the film available in North America.” The Facets DVD clocks in at roughly 15 minutes (and includes two Makhmalbaf shorts and a featurette on Farrokhzad), but also appears to have been struck from a PAL source, thus making it about 36 seconds shorter than the film print used. This is undoubtedly a difficult film to watch, but it’s one that is all the more generous and compelling for being exactly that. Addressing her subject directly with a sensitive but unflinching gaze, Farrokhzad breaks through the repugnant aura that has often haunted victims of the disease and affirms their resilience and human beauty. Hamid Dabashi (2007). "Forough Farrokhzad; The House is Black" in Hamid Dabashi, Masters & Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema. Mage Publishers, Washington, DC. pp. 39-70: ISBN 093421185X http://www.amazon.ca/Masters-Masterpieces-Iranian-Cinema-Dabashi/dp/093421185X Film reviews: http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/classic/houseblack.shtml http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0336693/ ----------------------------------------------------------- Yes1318http://pad.ma/Vfrbgdjr/info2010-08-05weekly1.098 weeks research magazinehttp://pad.ma/Vfrbgdjr/poster.75.jpgMirene Arsanios of [http://mirenearsanios.wordpress.com/ 98 weeks] in Beirut is interested in collecting and sharing through their library a collection of Arab magazines and literature. In Pad.ma, she tries to capture the experience of chancing upon an ephemeral scratching of words, thoughts and underlined sentences in the magazine. The faint echo of these words, grocery lists and letters of support from the readers in magazines like Mawakef is found in her video on marginalia. Yes1097http://pad.ma/Vhr9ifb1/info2010-04-23weekly1.0Aita - Municipality Meetinghttp://pad.ma/Vhr9ifb1/poster.75.jpgYes2164http://pad.ma/Vt3ssyix/info2010-05-23weekly1.0Aita el Cha'b: 48 hours in and around the househttp://pad.ma/Vt3ssyix/poster.75.jpgVideo footage from Aita el Cha'b, a town in South Lebanon that was heavily damaged in the 2006 war, has been annotated, transcribed and translated by Nadine, Abir, Mansour, Mariam and many others from the Cinemayat collective. Some of this material is about the time that Nadine and Abir spent in the camp, living and working there and their involvement in local politics and social life. This video is a glimpse into 48 hours in Aita el Cha'b. There is also extensive documentation of several municipality meetings including one on the reconstruction of the historic core [http://pad.ma/Vgorpc3e http://pad.ma/Vgorpc3e]. The vivid and almost distorted images captured on a VHS tape made before 2006, also gives an idea of Aita el Cha’b before the civil war broke out [http://pad.ma/Vi31n1mi http://pad.ma/Vi31n1mi]. Much of this material is currently only available in Arabic, but the Cinemayat group is keen to translate and circulate this material. Yes1980http://pad.ma/Vi31n1mi/info2010-05-23weekly1.0Aita el Cha'b: Old VHS Tapehttp://pad.ma/Vi31n1mi/poster.75.jpgVideo footage from Aita el Cha'b, a town in South Lebanon that was heavily damaged in the 2006 war, has been annotated, transcribed and translated by Nadine, Abir, Mansour, Mariam and many others from the Cinemayat collective. Some of this material is about the time that Nadine and Abir spent in the camp, living and working there and their involvement in local politics and social life. A glimpse of 48 hours in Aita el Cha'b can be found here [http://pad.ma/Vt3ssyix http://pad.ma/Vt3ssyix]. There is also extensive documentation of several municipality meetings including one on the reconstruction of the historic core [http://pad.ma/Vgorpc3e http://pad.ma/Vgorpc3e]. The vivid and almost distorted images captured in this VHS-to-video transfer, of a tape made before 2006, also gives an idea of Aita el Cha’b before the civil war broke out. Much of this material is currently only available in Arabic, but the Cinemayat group is keen to translate and circulate this material. Yes2490http://pad.ma/Vi76jm9r/info2010-04-22weekly1.0bint el haris (fairuz)http://pad.ma/Vi76jm9r/poster.75.jpg ??? ?????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ??????? ???? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?? ??????? ?????? ??????? - ???????? ?? ???? ??????? ????? - ???? ??? ??????? ???? ?? ??????? ??? ??? ????? ???? ??????? ?????????. ???? ??????? – ???? ????? ?????? ??????? – ???? ????? ???? ??????? ???? ?? ???? "??????"? ???????? ????? ???? ? ???? ????? ?? ??? ??? ???????. ?? ??? ??????? ????? ???? ??????? ?? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???? ?????? ?? ??? ???????? ??? ?????? ?? ?????? ?? ??????? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ?????? ?? ??????? ??????? ?????? ??????? ?? ?????? ????? ????? ??? ????? ( ????? ????? ???? ????? "??? ??????") ?????? ????? ????????? ?? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?? ????????... ???? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ?????? ?????? ??????? ??? ??????? ????? ?????? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ?? ??? ?? ??????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ??????? ???????? ???????? ???? ????? ???? ??? ??? ( ????? ????? ????? ???? ) ??? ??? ?????? ??????? ??? ???? ??????? ?? ???????? ??? ????? ????? ??? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????. ??? ??????? ?????? ???? "?????? ????" ???????? ?"??? ??????" ????? ?????? ?"????????" ????? ?????? ... ??????? ???? ???? ?????? ?? ??????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ?? ??? ???????? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ??? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? "??? ??????" ????? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ???????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? "???" ??????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?????????? ????? ??????. ?? ??? "??? ??????" ???? ??????? ???? ??????? ?? ??? ??????? ???? ??????? ?????? ?? ???? ?????? ??????? ????????? ??????? ??? ???? ??????? ????????? ????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ??????? ??????? ???? ????? ?????? ????????? ????????? ??? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ????????? ??????? ?? ??? ??????? ?? ????? ???? ??? ???????? "??? ????" ?"????" ????? ????? ??? ?????? ??????? ?? ????? ????? ???????? ??? ??? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? ?????? ?? ??????, ??? ???? ????? ???? ???????? ????? ?? ??????? ???????? ???? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ??? ???? ?????? ??????? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ???? ??? ????????? ?? ????? ??? ??????? ????? ??????? ?????? ???? ????? ??????? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ??????? ??? ??????? ???????? ???????. ??? ???? ?????? ????????? ???????? ?? ?????? ???? ????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ????????? ???? ???? ??? ?? ????? ??? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? ???????? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ?????? ??????? ?????? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ??? ?????? ?? ???????. ??? ???? Yes6513http://pad.ma/Vi2jpxae/info2010-04-21weekly1.0Siddiqine shabeb illa ainhttp://pad.ma/Vi2jpxae/poster.75.jpgYes1053http://pad.ma/Vg82jtyz/info2010-05-08weekly1.0We Began By Measuring Distance - Archive http://pad.ma/Vg82jtyz/poster.75.jpgRaw archive footage used for video <i>We Began By Measuring Distance</i> by Basma Al Sharif. Source footage comes from personal archive shot mainly in Chicago, Illinois and Ramattan News Agency & Media Services footage Archive including Operation Cast Lead attacks on Gaza in 2008-09. To see <i>We Began By Measuring Distance</i>, see: http://pad.ma/Vu1jb3fm/infoYes3174http://pad.ma/Vu1jb3fm/info2010-05-29weekly1.0We Began By Measuring Distancehttp://pad.ma/Vu1jb3fm/poster.75.jpgby Basma Al Sharif "Long still frames, text, language, and sound are weaved together to unfold the narrative of an anonymous group who fill their time by measuring distance. Innocent measurements become political ones, drawing an examination of how image and sound communicate history, tragedy, and the complication of Palestinian nationalism. <i>We Began By Measuring Distance</i> explores the ultimate disenchantment with facts when the visual fails to communicate the tragic. " Basma Al Sharif is a visual artist based in Beirut, Lebanon, and works with photography, film/video, sound, text and language. Her films stem from an exploration of how we comprehend visual communication at the most instinctual level. Using language as a response to the image, a discrepancy between what is being said and what is being seen wavers in-and-out of dissonance and harmony. At the core is a desire to reveal the unreliability of facts and history by breaking down representational mechanisms and manipulating how they visually communicate. Using fantasy, or the fantastical, as a method for distancing the viewer from politics, her films appeal to the viewer’s subjective desire for harmony in sound, image, and narrative. Yes1141http://pad.ma/Vgd76grd/info2010-04-23weekly1.0Adonis lecture - Beirut today: A veritable city or a mere historical name? http://pad.ma/Vgd76grd/poster.75.jpg"Beirut today: a veritable city or a mere historical name?", The opening event/lecture for The Home Works II: A forum on cultural practices, by Adonis. A Syrian poet and literary critic, Adonis Ali Ahmad Esber was born in Qassabin and studied philosophy at Damascus University and Saint Joseph University in Beirut. He established two groundbreaking literary journals, Shi’r and Mawaqif. Through his views on modernism and his radical vision of Arab culture,Adonis has strongly influenced both his contemporaries and subsequent generations of theorists and thinkers. Bluntly speaking, both Beirut’s despairing history and current conditions dominated by the discourse of a reductive history have obstructed the development of critical public sphere, leaving no milieu for cross social communication or cooperation. With the post-war reconstruction steered by private interests andstate interests maintained by tenacious censorship controls, contemporary Beirut is mostly managed byrigid private, social domains, with no shared culture that could stimulate interactions between its citizens. As one locally based writer argued, a city is not a real city, unless human creativity, the material or immaterial signs of culture, dialogues with the overall space of the city6 — otherwise the city remains a bundle of nondialogical accumulations. FROM "Constructing a Cultural Grammar in a Fragmented City" by Wietske MaasYes3165http://pad.ma/Vt89f4pd/info2010-04-23weekly1.0Nahralbared in rawahttp://pad.ma/Vt89f4pd/poster.75.jpgYes734http://pad.ma/Vgorpc3e/info2010-05-23weekly1.0Aita el Cha'b: Public Meeting on reconstruction of historic corehttp://pad.ma/Vgorpc3e/poster.75.jpgVideo footage from Aita el Cha'b, a town in South Lebanon that was heavily damaged in the 2006 war, has been annotated, transcribed and translated by Nadine, Abir, Mansour, Mariam and many others from the Cinemayat collective. Some of this material is about the time that Nadine and Abir spent in the camp, living and working there and their involvement in local politics and social life. A glimpse of 48 hours in Aita el Cha'b can be found here [http://pad.ma/Vt3ssyix http://pad.ma/Vt3ssyix]. There is also extensive documentation of several municipality meetings including this one on the reconstruction of the historic core. The vivid and almost distorted images captured on a VHS tape made before 2006, also gives an idea of Aita el Cha’b before the civil war broke out [http://pad.ma/Vi31n1mi http://pad.ma/Vi31n1mi]. Much of this material is currently only available in Arabic, but the Cinemayat group is keen to translate and circulate this material. Yes3578http://pad.ma/Vg8imjcd/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Yeshttp://pad.ma/Vg8imjcd/poster.75.jpgA one sided love story in the abandoned Hamra street. Back in 2004 Hamra street was becoming like abandoned walkways after the closure of several cafes, specialy the infamous Modca Cafe. Yes487http://pad.ma/Vfsgvjep/info2010-08-31weekly1.0Smitalay: Geet Gobind by Jhelum Paranjapehttp://pad.ma/Vfsgvjep/poster.75.jpgMahari Award winning Odissi Dancer Jhelum Paranjape in an extended solo performance of Jayadeva's Epic 12th Century Poem, the 'Geet Gobind'. Here, she combines several of the Ashtapadi's as choreographed by her Guruji, Padmavibushan Kelucharan Mahapatra, and weaves them into a 90-minute long recital. This is a live recording of a one-off performance at the Nehru Centre, Worli, in 2005 and is the first of a series of Odissi dance videos that will be entering pad.ma soon. In this particular case, the transcript layer borrows the transliteration and translation and some citations of the Geet Gobind from the book, 'Sacred and profane dimensions of love in Indian traditions, as exemplified in the Gitagovinda of Jayadeva" by Lee Siegel, published by OUP. Then Ketaki Desai, a disciple of Jhelum Paranjape, watches the video along with Jhelum, engaging her in conversation. This is presented here as a kind of running commentary, similar to the 'directors' commentaries that come packaged as bonuses on DVDs. A third layer, by a well known dance critic will be added shortly, along with keywords, unique to the dance form and the repertoire, using Pad.ma's time-based annotation features to explore the possibilities of archiving and writing across this particular performing art form. Yes4552http://pad.ma/Vs6ihsh9/info2010-05-18weekly1.0Khirkeeyaan Episode 7 - A Lane Againhttp://pad.ma/Vs6ihsh9/poster.75.jpgKhirkeeYaan is an exploration of an open-circuit tv system as a local area network communication, micro-media generation and feedback device. It employed security apparatus,otherwise used for surveillance and 'secret' use. Television sets and cheap surveillance equipment, coupled with an RF modulator, mics, audio mixer and metres of coax cable were laid out to form collaborative conversation systems for the 'use' of the community-at-large. TV's and electricity, consent and participation were sourced on-site(s) often drawing from a multitude of sources. Khirkeeyaan's seven episodes were generated through seven sets of installations in different neighbourhoods in and around Khirkee Extension, New Delhi over three weeks, during Shaina Anand's associate residency at Khoj studios in April 2006. For more on Khirkeeyaan project, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/khirkeeyaan.htm After five episodes, we had experimented with scripting part of the space. Anita Dube walked into the parlour in Khirkeeyaan 6 and Tanmoy Sarkar an actor from NSD, was going to appear in the Khoj lane in Khirkeeyaan 7. We start early in the evening, so that alcohol doesn’t become the crutch for violence, verbal abuse or just foolery. DADA Chai (where Jameel works) KT’s hair saloon, Raju’s genrel store and Jha galli, where a lot of migrant, daily wage earners lived. We actually had wanted to revisit Mukhtar’s Bhai and his store, but his shop was shut and he was ill with fever. Tanmoy, in <i>tehmat, banyan and gamcha</i> (‘taken’ by Gambhir from a labourer who roomed in one of his rented quarters) hung around the Chai Stall for the first 20 minutes listening to the conversations. Subtlely he entered frame and after a while, began to speak in Bengali. Immediately, people began speaking back to him. Posing as a labourer looking for work, Tanmoy slowly intervened and tugged at the contentious threads left behind from Khirkeeyaan 2. Over the next two hours the power dynamics slowly shifted away from Baby Uncle's position behind his shop counter to the chaiwalla and to the TV in Jha walli Galli where some workers reside. At about 9pm, the power went off in the lane and Khirkeeyaan exited from the space. For more on episode 7, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/Khirkeeyan/K7.htmYes3502http://pad.ma/Vu15m3r8/info2010-04-29weekly1.0Towards a nuanced picture of human rights - 3http://pad.ma/Vu15m3r8/poster.75.jpgAny analysis of human rights has to be located within the rapid changes being undergone in Indian polity and society today. There is a critical link between the nature and extent of human rights violation and the dramatic transformation being undergone under the aegis of rapid globalisation. While there is a depth and breadth of activism around human rights issues in the country, there is not always an attempt to see the relationships between the different contexts of human rights violations. To produce an analytical overview of the nature of human rights issues and activism as well as the kinds of strategies employed by human rights activists, the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, felt that it might be useful to paint a bigger picture of what is going on in contemporary India. This was attempted at 'Human Rights priorities in contemporary India: Strategic Responses', a consultation held on December 12 and 13, 2009 at Christ College, Bangalore. It was an attempt to arrive at a more nuanced and critical understanding of the state of human rights. On day one, Sumathi, Veena Gowda and B. N. Usha spoke on challenges in articulating gender-based rights. Yes4233http://pad.ma/Vej1dtg1/info2010-04-29weekly1.0Towards a nuanced picture of human rights - 2http://pad.ma/Vej1dtg1/poster.75.jpgAny analysis of human rights has to be located within the rapid changes being undergone in Indian polity and society today. There is a critical link between the nature and extent of human rights violation and the dramatic transformation being undergone under the aegis of rapid globalisation. While there is a depth and breadth of activism around human rights issues in the country, there is not always an attempt to see the relationships between the different contexts of human rights violations. To produce an analytical overview of the nature of human rights issues and activism as well as the kinds of strategies employed by human rights activists, the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, felt that it might be useful to paint a bigger picture of what is going on in contemporary India. This was attempted at 'Human Rights priorities in contemporary India: Strategic Responses', a consultation held on December 12 and 13, 2009 at Christ College, Bangalore. It was an attempt to arrive at a more nuanced and critical understanding of the state of human rights. On day one, Mihir Desai, Navaz Kotwal and Deepu spoke on communalism in India. Yes3813http://pad.ma/Vtor6nzt/info2010-04-29weekly1.0Towards a nuanced picture of human rights - 1 http://pad.ma/Vtor6nzt/poster.75.jpgAny analysis of human rights has to be located within the rapid changes being undergone in Indian polity and society today. There is a critical link between the nature and extent of human rights violation and the dramatic transformation being undergone under the aegis of rapid globalisation. While there is a depth and breadth of activism around human rights issues in the country, there is not always an attempt to see the relationships between the different contexts of human rights violations. To produce an analytical overview of the nature of human rights issues and activism as well as the kinds of strategies employed by human rights activists, the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, felt that it might be useful to paint a bigger picture of what is going on in contemporary India. This was attempted at 'Human Rights priorities in contemporary India: Strategic Responses', a consultation held on December 12 and 13, 2009 at Christ College, Bangalore. It was an attempt to arrive at a more nuanced and critical understanding of the state of human rights. On day one, Prof. Utsa Patanaik, Bela Bhatia and Usha Ramanathan spoke on issues of land and displacement. Yes3500http://pad.ma/Vgpxk1vr/info2010-05-18weekly1.0Khirkeeyaan Episode 3 - One Lanehttp://pad.ma/Vgpxk1vr/poster.75.jpgKhirkeeYaan is an exploration of an open-circuit tv system as a local area network communication, micro-media generation and feedback device. It employed security apparatus,otherwise used for surveillance and 'secret' use. Television sets and cheap surveillance equipment, coupled with an RF modulator, mics, audio mixer and metres of coax cable were laid out to form collaborative conversation systems for the 'use' of the community-at-large. TV's and electricity, consent and participation were sourced on-site(s) often drawing from a multitude of sources. Khirkeeyaan's seven episodes were generated through seven sets of installations in different neighbourhoods in and around Khirkee Extension, New Delhi over three weeks, during Shaina Anand's associate residency at Khoj studios in April, 2006. For more on the Khirkeeyaan project, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/khirkeeyaan.htm. Khirkee Extn. has no sense of community, said Hemant, who manages the residencies at khoj. "Its semblance plays itself out in the evenings, when the streets become extended drawing rooms". Gambhir. He had come to pick me up from the airport, a week ago and was to work with us on this project, ‘about the Khirkee community’. He lived in the lane and is the only local youth who hangs out in the evenings at Khoj and even attends events. His family owns a lot of the land around Khirkee Extn. and even flats in other places in Delhi. I was told that he was a 'techie' and was to intern with me. Our working relationship was cut short very soon, as it appeared that he hated work of any kind, having never done any in his life, as he said he lived off the rent they made. To kill time he’d asked his father to open a little general store for him, but tells us that he soon realized manning a storefront was a lot of work. His shop, now an STD booth, in the Khoj lane, was never open. Moreover, his refusal to come with me on my first walk in Khirkee, (because I was heading right, in the direction of Hauzrani and not left in the direction of Khirkee Village), revealed too many problems and biases, none of which belonged to the project. We had left our cables out after the session with the Nepali Women. In the evening we began to re-lay these cables down the Khoj lane. The patch bay had to be located on the street near DADA S-20, chai shop and cables were stretched to a maximum in order to reach the first and last shops in the lane. Thus, we had Mukhtar bhai, propreitor of Mama Genrel Store, and Sunrise Hair Cutting salon from the Right and Mohan Hair Cutting and Kajal Genrel Store, owned by a character I had been hearing much about, RajuBhai aka BabyUncle, to the left. It had taken us a long time to lay the cables, we were just three in the crew and relaying a cable meant you had to drag and move whole lengths of 100 mts, from one end to the other through the sandy lane. (Would have been easier to roll them up and re-lay them.) It was late when we started, way past nine; the lane had watched the set-ups all day with amusement, now most were drunk, happy, and shop owners were doing rapid last hour business. So 2 general stores, one on either side and 2 hair cutting saloons where most of the menfolk hang out. There are four 'saloons' in the lane. The men were wired and for about 15 minutes the exchange was through loud boyish banter, ‘Chichorapana’. Baby uncle would lead by example and crack jokes that were limited to likening the mic and its cord to the male organ, asking everyone who spoke whether they were speaking from ‘up or down’, and other flat boy jokes with innuendos of the ‘lullee’ (dick). For more on episode 3, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/Khirkeeyan/K3.htmYes4541http://pad.ma/Vdxhwp7l/info2010-05-18weekly1.0Khirkeeyaan Episode 1 - Streetshttp://pad.ma/Vdxhwp7l/poster.75.jpgKhirkeeyaan is an exploration of an open-circuit TV system as a local area network communication, micro-media generation and feedback device. It employs security apparatus, otherwise used for surveillance and 'secret' use. Television sets and cheap surveillance equipment, coupled with an RF modulator, mics, audio mixer and metres of coax cable were laid out to form collaborative conversation systems for the 'use' of the community-at-large. TV's and electricity, consent and participation were sourced on-site(s) often drawing from a multitude of sources. Khirkeeyaan's seven episodes were generated through seven sets of installations in different neighbourhoods in and around Khirkee Extension, New Delhi over three weeks, during Shaina Anand's associate residency at Khoj studios in April, 2006. For more on the Khirkeeyaan project, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/khirkeeyaan.htm A right-left-right and left from Khoj and we find ourselves in a Hauzrani part of Khirkee Extension. We walked up to a large shop at the Top of the T-junction. City Electricals beckoned us, a large and safe place to park our wares while we went back for more. We decided to also host the patch bay at City Electricals. Straight down the T-junction from City was KIM Electricals, a largish shop overlooking a construction site. To the right from City, about 60 metres down the lane, a group of young men readily agreed to host a TV outside their Kabadi shop. The Fourth host was in a zigzag left of City Electricals in Jahapanah lane. A very tiny cul-de-sac Electricals, Zeeshan, flanked by beads and embroidery thread shops. It was coincidence that three of the four hosts were Electrical shops. They didn’t have TV’s in them, but enough extension boxes and power points! In one hour we had the lanes wired. The was an already curious crowd was in front of each shop. The cameras came on. The four screen mirror reflected the actions of kids who were pulling faces, waving at each other and flying toy airplanes into the frame. The first word that leapt through the wires and out of the TV….a loud and flat and all too haunting <i>…..HuuuuaaaZooor!</i> from the famous Himesh Reshamiya song. For more on episode 1, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/Khirkeeyan/K1.htmYes3029http://pad.ma/Vejbv06h/info2010-05-18weekly1.0Khirkeeyaan Episode 2 - Nepal at Homehttp://pad.ma/Vejbv06h/poster.75.jpgKhirkeeYaan is an exploration of an open-circuit tv system as a local area network communication, micro-media generation and feedback device. It employs security apparatus, otherwise used for surveillance and 'secret' use. Television sets and cheap surveillance equipment, coupled with an RF modulator, mics, audio mixer and metres of coax cable were laid out to form collaborative conversation systems for the 'use' of the community-at-large. TV's and electricity, consent and participation were sourced on-site(s) often drawing from a multitude of sources. Khirkeeyaan's seven episodes were generated through seven sets of installations in different neighbourhoods in and around Khirkee Extension, New Delhi over three weeks, during Shaina Anand's associate residency at Khoj studios in April, 2006. For more on the Khirkeeyaan project, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/khirkeeyaan.htm Arun and Ramesh, the caretakers at Khoj, live in a room on the terrace of Khoj with their wives Nirmala and Sunita and Ramesh’s squashable one-year old daughter Durga. Aastha, a young sculptor, who has been working at Khoj on their community art initiative, has been teaching art at the Gyaandeep School in the same lane and was acquainted with some Nepali kids. She got to know that a new immigrant had arrived in Khirkee extn, and was living in the lane opposite. Knowing that Nirmala and Sunita hardly get out of Khoj and mingle with the community, she thought it would be nice to connect four Nepali women together, so that they could talk with each other. Under the pretext of welcoming Yamuna, the new arrival, cables were laid from the top room of Khoj to the lane opposite. For more on episode 2, see http://chitrakarkhana.net/Khirkeeyan/K2.htmYes4468http://pad.ma/Vsrka7zl/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Keynote Address - Akshara K.V.http://pad.ma/Vsrka7zl/poster.75.jpgOrganised fifty years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face-to-face, and to problemetise the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/] Yes2252http://pad.ma/Vej5qcox/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Shaina Anandhttp://pad.ma/Vej5qcox/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. Shaina Anand is a filmmaker and video artist, and co-initiator of CAMP, as well as the PAD.MA video archive. Shaina diagonally cuts through an array of works that deal with both utopias and dystopias of audiences and spectatorship. There is irreverence and interruption, vision but also naivety, determinism but also darkness. Looking back, what can we remember of these questions? Where can we stand today, in contradictory times of capital driven scarcity of digital 'art works' and endless circulation of information and images. What could be a productive distribution? What can be a withdrawal or 'absence'? Excerpts: 1970 | Filz TV|Joseph Beuys. 1969 | TV as a Fireplace | Jan Dibbets. 1972 | Documenta der Leute | Telewissen. 1983 | Der Riese | Michael Klier. and others not in the package. Yes3943http://pad.ma/Vgpvngij/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Rana Dasguptahttp://pad.ma/Vgpvngij/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. Rana Dasgupta is a British novelist based in Delhi. Rana offers a meditation on the "flash". Flashes of light or image occur with some frequency in avant garde film and video art. Does the flash have a history? Can we give meaning to the flash? From lightning to arc lights to nuclear explosions - a speculation. Yes2882http://pad.ma/Vugp2g0t/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Discussion, Day 2http://pad.ma/Vugp2g0t/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai.Yes2301http://pad.ma/Vfxbkt80/info2010-08-07weekly1.0To See Is To Change: Discussion, Day 1http://pad.ma/Vfxbkt80/poster.75.jpgOver two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45. The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. The discussion panelists included Kaushik Bhaumik, Vice President, Osian's - Connoisseurs of Art, Ranjit Hoskote, cultural theorist, poet and curator, and Mriganka Madhukalia, co-founder of Desire Machine collective. Yes3294http://pad.ma/Vgtosa22/info2010-08-07weekly1.0To See Is To Change: Sebastian Lutgerthttp://pad.ma/Vgtosa22/poster.75.jpgOver two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45. The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. Sebastian Lütgert is a writer, programmer and artist who lives in Berlin. Sebastian presented a calendar of "Germany years", passing through punk, the city, and "the other Max Mueller". Yes2537http://pad.ma/Vsmpvqj0/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Nancy Adajaniahttp://pad.ma/Vsmpvqj0/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. Nancy Adajania is a cultural theorist, art critic and curator. Nancy points to the work of Rebecca Horn and Valie Export to speak of the militarization of the body, and the performative insertion of the politicised female body in public space, with Vienna Actionism and the emergent women's movements of the 1960s as twin matrices. She also reflects on Wolf Vostell's deployment of techniques of 'de/collage' in the early 1960s in relation to television, undermining its rhetoric of communicative transparency and diluting its claim to truth-telling authority. She will contextualise Vostell as a Fluxus pioneer and demonstrate his concerns with abstraction, temporality and counter-cultural critique. Screening: 1975 | Berlin, Übungen in neun Stücken | Rebecca Horn| 40:00 1974 | Raumsehen und Raumhören | Valie Export| 05:00 1963 | Sun in your head | Wolf Vostell| 05:00 mins Yes6780http://pad.ma/Vgdb1pmf/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Kabir Mohanty and Devdutt Trivedihttp://pad.ma/Vgdb1pmf/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. Kabir Mohanty is filmmaker and video artist based in Mumbai. Kabir feels that the tremendously evolved film sensibility that we see in India both in terms of viewership and practice is narrowing, getting atrophied, and its renewal is a challenge to again both practitioners and viewers, and so this 40-year history is important to reconsider. He screens a selection of films, including a work by Gary Hill, and one of his own works. Devdutt Trivedi is a cinephile who lectures on classical film theory and works at Osian's. Devdutt traces the development of an aesthetic through video by analyzing its spaces, temporalities and emphases, also in contrast/ regard to film. Devdutt responds to Video 50 by screening another film, Hong Kong. Yes5406http://pad.ma/Vh697kdy/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Mriganka Madhukaliyahttp://pad.ma/Vh697kdy/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. Mriganka Madhukaillya is co-founder of Desire Machine collective (http://www.desiremachinecollective.net), an ensemble of practitioners working predominantly with new media, video and photography. He investigated the construction of history through the use of narrative devices derived from cinema. Reflecting on the medium of video via recording and transportation devices (the camera / the train) allows us a way into German history as well as towards a broader understanding of migration/mobilty, memory and narration. This approach looks at video technology as a time-based medium revealing mnemonic and micro-political processes, in its archives. Mriganka showed the following films: 1955 | Night and Fog } Alain Resnais | (excerpt) 1975 | Numero Deux | Jean-Luc Godard | (excerpt) 1992| Transfer | Angela Melitopolous| 12: 23 2002 | Tehran 1380 | Solmaz Shahbazi, Tirdad Zolghadr| 45:00 2004 | Kurlichtspiele (Reminiszenz, 12. Dezember 1953) | Volker Eichelmann| 06:00Yes3466http://pad.ma/Vi30achg/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Kaushik Bhaumikhttp://pad.ma/Vi30achg/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. Kaushik Bhaumik, Vice President, Osian's - Connoisseurs of Art, spoke about the parallel histories of cinema and video art the relationship of scales that exists between cinema and video art. Cinema was, at the time these artists were making their works, seen as a space for everything-action cinema or epic emotional melodramas and so on. Video, by contrast, was seen as a more intimate space for trying out various things that cinema couldn't. Bhaumik showed the following films: 1969 | Land Art | Gerry Schum (short version)| Excerpts 10 mins 1974 | Tanz für eine Frau | Ulrike Rosenbach| 8 mins 1988 | Der Herzschlag des Anubis | Bettina Gruber, Maria Vedder| 5mins 2000 | Buffalo Billy + Milly | Rosemarie Trockel| 5: 45Yes2980http://pad.ma/Vhqlgjzj/info2010-05-21weekly1.0To See is to Change: Ranjit Hoskote http://pad.ma/Vhqlgjzj/poster.75.jpgA Parallax View of 40 Years of German Video Art. Over two days, ten artists, critics and enthusiasts present a "recuration" of the 40 Years of German Video Art (http://www.40jahrevideokunst.de), a collection being circulated internationally by the Goethe Institut. These respondents brought to the archive their own urgencies and preoccupations, and suggested that this "package" is not a sealed entity, and can be re-read as a history of encounter and entanglement between disciplines, geographies, schools of thought, agents and artforms. A package in this form this suggests a certain stability in the category "German video art". At the same time its circulation opens up the material, and its context of production and thought, its "Germany", to review by diverse and sometimes unsolicited sources. It is our good fortune to be able to promote such activity. Sehen heißt ändern, to see is to change. For more: http://camputer.org/event.php?id=45 The 2-day screening program was held on 14th-15th November, 2008, at Jnanapravaha and Gallery Chemould in Mumbai. On day one, cultural theorist, poet and curator Ranjit Hoskote read against the grain of the account of video art in Germany proposed by this collection. He tried to produce a more amplified sense of the German imagination on both sides of the wall. He noted the telling absence of a vibrant East German underground, including Super8 films. He also explored the problems of reading, especially when seemingly universal resources such as language, image and symbolism carry sharply differing valencies depending on the political contexts in which they are deployed. Hoskote showed the following films: 1986 | As if Memories Could Deceive Me | Marcel Odenbach |17:35 1989 | Körper im Körper | Jörg Herold | 11:40 1983 | Geld | Malaria | 4:00Yes4088http://pad.ma/Vdy5i35p/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Yochai Benkler - Conflicts in Cultural Productionhttp://pad.ma/Vdy5i35p/poster.75.jpgDoes the end of exclusive control over copies spell the death of cultural production? Yochai Benkler thinks not. While the music industry makes money off CDs, musicians supports themselves with performances. He points out that the film studios, on the other hand, take a large part of their revenues from performance and less from media commodities. He outlines how the changing cost structures in film and music production are enabling new stratums of society to create. For more, see http://footage.stealthisfilm.com/video/15 This interview was recorded for <i>Steal This Film II</i>, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/. The project tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. This is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its 'theft', downloading, distribution and screening, and have made the entire film and its footage available for download in HDV format, on their website and on Pirate Bay.Yes632http://pad.ma/Vi20i7ad/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Siva Vaidhyanathan - The Impact of Print on Knowledge and Culturehttp://pad.ma/Vi20i7ad/poster.75.jpgMartin Luther's theses launching the Reformation can be considered the first object of p2p distribution, of spreading beyond their original audience without authorisation. Vaidhyanathan describes how states quickly moved to control information flows through licensing and other methods. Communication technologies change the way in which identity is lived, deterritorialising the subject from their local physical environment, and opening up new visions of the possible. http://footage.stealthisfilm.com/video/12 This interview was recorded for <i>Steal This Film II</i>, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/. The project tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. This is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its 'theft', downloading, distribution and screening, and have made the entire film and its footage available for download in HDV format, on their website and on Pirate Bay. Yes382http://pad.ma/Vg80xyn9/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Robert Darnton - Two Information Systems at War, in 18th Century Francehttp://pad.ma/Vg80xyn9/poster.75.jpgDarnton has spent much of his career investigating the system of information control in eighteenth century France prior to the revolution of 1789. This research brought him to Neuchatel in Switzerland, one of the important centres of printing of the period, where materials forbidden in France were published to be later smuggled into the country and distributed through sophisticated networks. http://footage.stealthisfilm.com/video/13 This interview was recorded for <i>Steal This Film II</i>, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/. The project tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. This is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its 'theft', downloading, distribution and screening, and have made the entire film and its footage available for download in HDV format, on their website and on Pirate Bay.Yes541http://pad.ma/Vugqxk56/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Rick Prelinger - Online Archives, Creativity & Serendipityhttp://pad.ma/Vugqxk56/poster.75.jpgRick Prelinger is the creator and curator of the biggest moving image archive on the internet that offers material which can be reused for commercial purposes. Here he explains why he put the films, which he also sells as stock footage, online and what the results have been. He talks of his offline library without computers, and how that relates to the value of serendipity in the time of the query driven information environment. http://footage.stealthisfilm.com/video/2 This interview was recorded for <i>Steal This Film II</i>, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/. The project tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. This is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its 'theft', downloading, distribution and screening, and have made the entire film and its footage available for download in HDV format, on their website and on Pirate Bay.Yes620http://pad.ma/Veu8tq0l/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Lawrence Liang - Piracy and Productionhttp://pad.ma/Veu8tq0l/poster.75.jpgPiracy is a term used to stigmatise but Liang contextualises the term as an instance in the long history of 'commoning', where people organise themselves outside of hierarchy and property. He identifies the real threat to industry in the chance they may lose control of production as well as reproduction, as users become aware of their own potential. Finally, he underlines how in previous areas prohibited works were surppressed and destroyed, but argues that nowadays these works can survive in the private digital so the past of loss and erosion need not repeat itself. http://footage.stealthisfilm.com/video/14 This interview was recorded for <i>Steal This Film II</i>, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/. The project tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. This is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its 'theft', downloading, distribution and screening, and have made the entire film and its footage available for download in HDV format, on their website and on Pirate Bay.Yes474http://pad.ma/Vtp4u44a/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Howard Rheingold - Innovation and the Commonshttp://pad.ma/Vtp4u44a/poster.75.jpgThe opportunity to produce culture, rather than just consume it, is the result of increased access to powerful computer combines with their networking in a decentralised architecture. Rheingold points out that the potential of technologies has often been realised through their reception by users rather than the manufacturers themselves. Those at the top of the media industry have a basic interest in resisting these changes. Their survival should not be what concerns us, but rather the health of culture, and the potential decentralised collaboration offers for the solution of longstanding problems. http://footage.stealthisfilm.com/video/3 This interview was recorded for <i>Steal This Film II</i>, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/. The project tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. This is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its 'theft', downloading, distribution and screening, and have made the entire film and its footage available for download in HDV format, on their website and on Pirate Bay.Yes549http://pad.ma/Vtko2emr/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Craig Baldwin - Appropriating, Scratching and Decodinghttp://pad.ma/Vtko2emr/poster.75.jpgCraig Baldwin is an appropriationist filmmaker and operator of 'The Other Cinema' in San Francisco's Mission district. His film Sonic Outlaws was the first feature documentary that directly addressed the emerging conflict over copyright in the early 1990s. Here he introduces the logic behind his appropriationist approach, aesthetic, economic and semiotic. His approach challenges proprietary views of cultural objects and he considers the risks in his practice. http://footage.stealthisfilm.com/video/19 This interview was recorded for <i>Steal This Film II</i>, http://www.stealthisfilm.com/Part2/. The project tries to bring new people into the leagues of those now prepared to think 'after intellectual property', and think creatively about the future of distribution, production and creativity. This is a film that has no single author. It makers encourage its 'theft', downloading, distribution and screening, and have made the entire film and its footage available for download in HDV format, on their website and on Pirate Bay.Yes460http://pad.ma/Vdynd4ub/info2010-05-14weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Keynote Address - Sudhanva Deshpandehttp://pad.ma/Vdynd4ub/poster.75.jpgOrganised fifty years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face-to-face, and to problemetise the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/] Yes2244http://pad.ma/Vsb6o18s/info2010-05-08weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Conversation - Sunder Sarukkai & Gopal Guruhttp://pad.ma/Vsb6o18s/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/] Yes1445http://pad.ma/Vezjachv/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Conversation - Sudhanva & Sadanand Menonhttp://pad.ma/Vezjachv/poster.75.jpgOrganised fifty years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face-to-face, and to problemetise the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/] Yes1734http://pad.ma/Vev8ey1o/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Conversation - George Jose & Aijaz Ahmedhttp://pad.ma/Vev8ey1o/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/] Yes2380http://pad.ma/Vezdhuk9/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Conversation - Keval Arora and Shanta Gokhalehttp://pad.ma/Vezdhuk9/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes2653http://pad.ma/Vt8pm1tw/info2010-05-23weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Round Uphttp://pad.ma/Vt8pm1tw/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. The concluding addresses were delivered by G.P. Deshpande and Ram Bapat. They were unscripted performances, mainly improvisatory in nature. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes4171http://pad.ma/Vsnr5k2n/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Last Sessionhttp://pad.ma/Vsnr5k2n/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes588http://pad.ma/Vh5rkiix/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Institutions & Training - Responses & Feedbackhttp://pad.ma/Vh5rkiix/poster.75.jpgThis session sought to explore the complicated terrain of institutions and training. We wanted to look at training institutions, but not simply those. We wanted to look at cultural institutions as a whole -- the akademies, the schools of drama, the private theatre institutions, as well as funding agencies. One often hears the cliché that Indians are not institution-builders, that we cannot sustain institutions over time. How do we look at theatre institutions -- or, more generally, cultural institutions -- which we have in India? State institutions were formed in the aftermath of independence. Was the vision that led to their formation inherently flawed? Did our cultural institutions take forward the best traditions of our independence movement? What have been their successes, measured not in terms of grand showpiece events, but in terms of aiding processes that keep theatre alive and vibrant? And what have been their failures? Are state institutions doomed to failure by virtue of being state institutions? Does the state have any role at all in the realm of culture? If so, what? What about private institutions? Which private institutions have been vibrant and have had an impact on the larger field of theatre practice in their city/region? Are private institutions inherently superior to public institutions? What role have funding agencies played? What kind of institutions do we envisage for tomorrow? Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, and to problemetize the issues that arise therein. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes3858http://pad.ma/Vhqx8yjl/info2010-05-14weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Institutions & Training - Questions & Answershttp://pad.ma/Vhqx8yjl/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes3850http://pad.ma/Vtjyl181/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Aparna Dharwadkar - Questions and Answershttp://pad.ma/Vtjyl181/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes2691http://pad.ma/Vhrav4dv/info2010-05-23weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Story of ITFhttp://pad.ma/Vhrav4dv/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. In this video, Sanjna Kapoor, Sameera Iyengar, Moloyashree Hashmi, Akshara K.V., Sudhanva Deshpande and Praveen K.P. talk about how the India Theatre Forum came about. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/ Yes1254http://pad.ma/Vs5w7grq/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Pathologies - Question & Answer Sessionhttp://pad.ma/Vs5w7grq/poster.75.jpgViolences of various kinds are routinely unleashed around us. Communal violence, caste violence, violence of the rich against the poor, and so on. What are our social pathologies? How do we understand them? How do we counter them? Does our theatre reflect these pathologies? Which sorts of violences and pathologies has our theatre paid attention to, and which not? These questions were meditated on in presentations by Shiv Visvanathan and Makarand Sathe. Responses were offered by Sundar Sarukkai, S. Raghunandana and Moloyashree Hashmi. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/ Yes1297http://pad.ma/Vgoe6otz/info2010-05-23weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: New Realitieshttp://pad.ma/Vgoe6otz/poster.75.jpgWhat gets called 'globalisation' is rapidly changing the world we live in. But what is 'globalisation'? What, in other words, is getting globalised, and what is not? What does ‘creative industries’ mean? What about the fast changing technology of today’s world? What do these processes mean for our theatre? Prabir Purokayastha and Akshara KV made presentations that attended to these questions. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes3008http://pad.ma/Vevehl6i/info2010-05-23weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Pathologies - Response by Sundar Sarukkaihttp://pad.ma/Vevehl6i/poster.75.jpgViolences of various kinds are routinely unleashed around us. Communal violence, caste violence, violence of the rich against the poor, and so on. What are our social pathologies? How do we understand them? How do we counter them? Does our theatre reflect these pathologies? Which sorts of violences and pathologies has our theatre paid attention to, and which not? These questions were meditated on in presentations by Shiv Visvanathan and Makarand Sathe. Responses were offered by Sundar Sarukkai, S. Raghunandana and Moloyashree Hashmi. In this video, we see Sundar Sarukkai's response. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes759http://pad.ma/Ve33zclf/info2010-05-23weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Pathologies - Presentationshttp://pad.ma/Ve33zclf/poster.75.jpgViolences of various kinds are routinely unleashed around us. Communal violence, caste violence, violence of the rich against the poor, and so on. What are our social pathologies? How do we understand them? How do we counter them? Does our theatre reflect these pathologies? Which sorts of violences and pathologies has our theatre paid attention to, and which not? These questions were meditated on in presentations by Shiv Visvanathan and Makarand Sathe. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/ Yes4544http://pad.ma/Ve2gh76v/info2010-05-23weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Pathologies - Response by S. Raghunandanahttp://pad.ma/Ve2gh76v/poster.75.jpgViolences of various kinds are routinely unleashed around us. Communal violence, caste violence, violence of the rich against the poor, and so on. What are our social pathologies? How do we understand them? How do we counter them? Does our theatre reflect these pathologies? Which sorts of violences and pathologies has our theatre paid attention to, and which not? These questions were meditated on in presentations by Shiv Visvanathan and Makarand Sathe. Responses were offered by Sundar Sarukkai, S. Raghunandana and Moloyashree Hashmi. Here we see S. Raghunandana responding to the presentations. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes713http://pad.ma/Vs6jx7bm/info2010-05-23weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Pathologies - Response by Moloyashree Hashmihttp://pad.ma/Vs6jx7bm/poster.75.jpgViolences of various kinds are routinely unleashed around us. Communal violence, caste violence, violence of the rich against the poor, and so on. What are our social pathologies? How do we understand them? How do we counter them? Does our theatre reflect these pathologies? Which sorts of violences and pathologies has our theatre paid attention to, and which not? These questions were meditated on in presentations by Shiv Visvanathan and Makarand Sathe. Responses were offered by Sundar Sarukkai, S. Raghunandana and Moloyashree Hashmi. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes547http://pad.ma/Vg7utd9w/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Inequalities - P.Sainath, Questions & Answershttp://pad.ma/Vg7utd9w/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/ Yes1094http://pad.ma/Vevs49it/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Inequalities - P. Sainathhttp://pad.ma/Vevs49it/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes4532http://pad.ma/Vg9e04nh/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Sushma Deshpandehttp://pad.ma/Vg9e04nh/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes769http://pad.ma/Vs6c3p2r/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Dakshin Bajrangehttp://pad.ma/Vs6c3p2r/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes942http://pad.ma/Vt2x0e2n/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Chandrasan - Interactionhttp://pad.ma/Vt2x0e2n/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes3113http://pad.ma/Vi209117/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Damatic Performance Acthttp://pad.ma/Vi209117/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes2124http://pad.ma/Vhmycvtg/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Experiments - Questions & Answershttp://pad.ma/Vhmycvtg/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes5819http://pad.ma/Vu5mcg6u/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Experiments - Responseshttp://pad.ma/Vu5mcg6u/poster.75.jpgSometimes, we have a strange idea of the 'experimental' -- anything that is serious, amateur, and outside of the commercial framework gets called 'experimental'. But what does 'experiment' mean in theatre? Can we begin to identify markers or landmarks in our theatre which we can genuinely call 'experimental'? Is such an enterprise possible, or even desirable? Do we need laboratories for theatre? What has been the experience of the laboratories that were set up? When does an experiment fructify enough to be shared with an audience? Should experiments be at all shared with an audience? What is a performer's perspective? Does s/he look at her/his work in terms of experimentation? How do new forms come into being? What is, or should be, the role of technology in all this? Do we have too little technology in our theatre -- or too much? What can training institutions do in this area? What should funding agencies do? What kinds of experiments is it useful to support? What is the current state of experimental theatre? Does such a creature really exist? Some of these questions were contemplated in S. Ramanujan's and Sadanand Menon's presentations. For more, see http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/ (Look under Talks / Experiments to read responses to these presentations.) Ekbal Ahmed and Amitesh Grover responded to these presentations. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/ Yes1718http://pad.ma/Vsnplt46/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Experiments - Presentationshttp://pad.ma/Vsnplt46/poster.75.jpgSometimes, we have a strange idea of the 'experimental' -- anything that is serious, amateur, and outside of the commercial framework gets called 'experimental'. But what does 'experiment' mean in theatre? Can we begin to identify markers or landmarks in our theatre which we can genuinely call 'experimental'? Is such an enterprise possible, or even desirable? Do we need laboratories for theatre? What has been the experience of the laboratories that were set up? When does an experiment fructify enough to be shared with an audience? Should experiments be at all shared with an audience? What is a performer's perspective? Does s/he look at her/his work in terms of experimentation? How do new forms come into being? What is, or should be, the role of technology in all this? Do we have too little technology in our theatre -- or too much? What can training institutions do in this area? What should funding agencies do? What kinds of experiments is it useful to support? What is the current state of experimental theatre? Does such a creature really exist? Some of these questions were contemplated in S. Ramanujan's and Sadanand Menon's presentations. For more, see http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/ (Look under Talks / Experiments to read responses to these presentations.) Organised fifty years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, and to problemetise the issues that arise therein.Yes3312http://pad.ma/Vum7ooze/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Fierce Urgency of Now - Aijaz Ahmedhttp://pad.ma/Vum7ooze/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes1940http://pad.ma/Vu07llru/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Exhibition - Samik Bandyopadhyay & Shanta Gokhalehttp://pad.ma/Vu07llru/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes2759http://pad.ma/Ve2s9os3/info2010-04-09weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: ITF Websitehttp://pad.ma/Ve2s9os3/poster.75.jpgOrganised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes1478http://pad.ma/Vsme1x9e/info2010-08-05weekly1.0'Terrorised by Legislation?' - A talk by Vrinda Grover and Saeed Mirzahttp://pad.ma/Vsme1x9e/poster.75.jpgOn January 30, 2009, Insaaniyat organised a talk titled 'Terrorism and Democracy: Resisting the Cultural and Legal Backlash', with lawyer and human rights activist Vrinda Grover and filmmaker Saeed Mirza. It was chaired by Mihir Desai. From the Insaaniyat press release: "Tough laws do not enhance peoples' security. They only strengthen authoritarian tendencies in the State. The aftermath of the November 2009 terror strikes in Mumbai has seen a rapid recourse to draconian legislation. It is based on the presumption of guilt, which is contrary to international law. We are also seeing a concerted drive to impose a de facto ban on performers, literature, music, etc. from Pakistan. What can we do to resist such bigotry and cultural fascism?" [http://chandni.posterous.com/talk-on-terrorism-and-democrac]Yes3974http://pad.ma/Vej5o5qz/info2010-03-29weekly1.0Wharfage: Sharjah Creekhttp://pad.ma/Vej5o5qz/poster.75.jpgWharfage was a CAMP project invited by the 9th Sharjah Biennial, 2009, and was part of the programme 'Past of the Coming Days', curated by Tarek Abou el Fetouh. It was a project on the creek in Sharjah, from where a large number of dhows leave for 'Somalia'. Somalia, a collection of semi-state entities, is therefore a kind of free trade zone. This arrow of trade, in which the ship is not an escape from but an entry into the space of conflict, is our subject. It offers an opportunity to think about how "business" and these commodities are related to global trade and the current economic situation in the UAE. With pirates up ahead and crisis on their tails, this movement of goods and their sailors may trace old trade routes. But it also maps out something new: a contemporary landscape of new and used objects, 'break-in-bulk trade, labour, Asian and African diasporas and giant wooden ships being built in Salaya, Gujarat. The Wharfage project consisted of two parallel pieces: Wharfage, a book containing two years of port records related to Somali trade; and Radio Meena, four evenings of radio transmissions from the port. From March 18-21, 2008, one could tune into Radio Meena on 100.3 FM between 7pm and 10pm, within a radius of about five kilometres from the port. Wharfage was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sharjah Biennial. This video is a documentation of the Sharjah port and the loading and unloading of the wooden boats or dhows.Yes2573http://pad.ma/Vfgk58mu/info2010-03-14weekly1.0Pad.ma 2009: Sadanand Menon (Chandralekha)http://pad.ma/Vfgk58mu/poster.75.jpgPad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive, http://pad.ma) was launched as a public website on February 16, 2009. It opened up to external contributions and invited a number of "users" - independent filmmakers, artists, activists, researchers, students, scholars and enthusiasts - to contribute their material to pad.ma or explore the archive in their own way. As a part of the launch, we had a stimulating day-long event with presentations by various people who have been engaging with pad.ma. A long-time collaborator of the dancer Chandralekha, Sadanand Menon is currently in the process of setting up a publicly accessible archive of her work. He showcased two videos on the dancer Chandralekha. The first was part of a programme made for a cultural show on Doordarshan. This footage, recorded from television, is the only available version of the programme. Sadanand's annotations for the Tanabana programme (the second video) take us through an intimate journey with Chandralekha (http://pad.ma/admin/videos?o=-created&q=Chandralekha). Moments that would otherwise be missed (a dog passing by, Chandra making rangoli), if we were just watching the film, are re-read by Sadanand to create a shared space in which we begin to understand Chandra's philosophy of creativity and the body. Sadanand Menon is a reputed arts editor, teacher of cultural journalism, a widely published photographer, curator, writer and speaker on politics, ecology and the arts. He is Adjunct Faculty at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. For the Pad.ma vidoes on Chandralekha, see http://pad.ma/admin/videos?o=-created&q=Chandralekha http://pad.ma/admin/videos?o=-created&q=Chandralekha For a report on the event, see http://camputer.org/event.php?id=75. Yes2400http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Mahila, the moviehttp://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/poster.75.jpgI started the Politics of Change (PoC) project when I was in India visiting Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org), but it’s about so much more. The main focus of PoC is on communities that take positive change into their own hands. On people who decide to get up and act, who organise themselves spontaneously, from the bottom up, and who form networks to realise that change. As artists, filmmakers, theorists and activists, we have to enrich the public debate around sustainable living, the environment and eco-technology. We have to think about the kind of future in which we want to live and work. What social and economic systems can we envisage beyond the regular ones? Is there anything that we can learn from existing (non-Western) experiments? In my film 'Mahila', I step between different worlds, going from West to East, from urban to rural surroundings. My encounters with the experiences and observations of rural Indian women provoke reflection on the process of empowerment. In an artistic ethnography, we see and hear how the women are using education, technology and politics to redefine their destinies. Tracing my memories, the spectator is taken into questions about storytelling. How are the women fighting to get their stories heard? Can the filmmaker tell other women's stories?Yes1558http://pad.ma/Vhmchrdp/info2010-03-28weekly1.0Motornama Roshanara http://pad.ma/Vhmchrdp/poster.75.jpgA ride through the industrial district around Roshanara Road, New Delhi. We come across various sites and histories of the "industrial age" in the city, and its related narratives of automation, pollution, labour and closure. The tour is on cycle rickshaws, with rickshaw wallahs as narrators and guides. Sites visited include houses in the shadow of the new metro, a hundred year-old ice factory, a car-cover karkhana, a derelict cinema, motor repair and re-boring shops, a printing press transported from Lahore, a famous clock tower, amongst others. Roshanara road was till about 20 years ago the centre of the industrial city of Delhi, with Transport Nagar, the old Grand Trunk road, Sabzi Mandi, the Beej (seed) Market and related infrastructure all crowded around it. Old residents claim that it was not only Asia's largest engine repair market, but also an upper-class hangout with Palace Cinema and restaurants and other markets flourishing. In a series of court-initiated "anti-pollution" drives in 1996 and 2000, Roshanara Road's small and large industries were forced out of spaces they had been occupying since partition. As transport technology also changed, the repair industries could not compete effectively with new imported cars, authorised dealers and so on. In effect, the "motor" of industrial progress was moved out of the city, or moved past this sector in other ways. Cycle rickshaws have survived this history. Not in a sense that they emerged victorious, but in that despite court orders (there is an on-going Delhi High court case on their licensing, (update: the judgement has declared Delhi's rickshaw licencing "ceiling" of 99,000 not legal. More at http://manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1089) Their numbers in the city have grown from about 20,000 in the early 1980's to an estimated 900,000 today. The vast majority of pullers live on the street, or in "informal" situations in front of shuttered shops, in side lanes, etc. Recently, cycle rickshaws have found favour with green groups and the eco lobby, as a "non-polluting" form of transport. This discourse has to also meet considerations of where rickshaw wallahs will live, their health and other needs, etc. Our project then entered this historical and regulatory landscape, and offered members of the public, both locals and visitors, a tour of this landscape of lost Punjabi confidence, old machines, new migrant, hard labour, and local histories. We worked with about 25 rickshaw wallahs who lived in and around the Beej market, Roshanara Road, for over two months. Workshops and meetings were held in the Roshanara Garden and other locations in the area. Roshanara Motornama tour guides: Rajesh, Raju, Lalji, Ajay kumar, Dinesh, Saddam, Ranjit, Rakesh, Tirloki, Durga Prasad, Nankhe, Panna Lal, Ramesh, Ram Bahadur. Vijay Kumar Misra. Akhilesh, Ram Surat, Ram Sajiwan, Ram Sajan, Raj Kumar, Suresh Kumar, Anil Kumar, Dharam Raj, Nihroo. Roshanara Motornama was part of '48 degrees C' held in New Delhi, December 12-21, 2008. Curated by Pooja Sood. Organised by the Goethe Institut, Delhi. A project by Shaina Anand (http://www.chitrakarkhana.net/) and Ashok Sukumaran (http://0ut.in). Yes2932http://pad.ma/Vfgeo8sx/info2010-03-13weekly1.0Pad.ma 2009: Ayisha Abraham - Ram Gopal, the dancer on 8mm found footagehttp://pad.ma/Vfgeo8sx/poster.75.jpgPad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive, http://pad.ma) was launched as a public website on February 16, 2009. It opened up to external contributions and invited a number of "users" - independent filmmakers, artists, activists, researchers, students, scholars and enthusiasts - to contribute their material to pad.ma or explore the archive in their own way. As a part of the launch, we had a stimulating day-long event with presentations by various people who have been engaging with pad.ma. Ayisha Abraham who has made a film, 'Straight 8', using 8 mm found footage, chose to look at rare films made on Ram Gopal, a dancer who became famous in the mid-twentieth century. Using the footage of Ram Gopal that had been shot by an amateur film maker Tom D'Aguiar, perhaps the only existing fragment of moving image of Ram, Ayesha posed questions about the relationship between the materiality of film, the role of archives and the reconstruction of histories through them. http://pad.ma/Vsnjewdj/info Ayisha Abraham is a member of the Bangalore artists collective, BAR1, and works as a visual arts consultant at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. For a report on the event, see http://camputer.org/event.php?id=75.Yes1534http://pad.ma/Vdxnzyqt/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Interview with Lipika Bansalhttp://pad.ma/Vdxnzyqt/poster.75.jpgPolitics of Change is a research project in which artists, theorists and activists reflect on innovative ideas, contributions and solutions which support distributed and grassroots structures. This reflection takes place through a programme of free discussion and dialogue and is documented in a multimedia archive-installation. The focus is on the role of women at the core of these communities. Drawing on a wide range of artistic and theoretical approaches, the aim is to imagine new and sustainable relationships between humans, their environments and (appropriate) technologies. From December 18-20, 2008, we organised a workshop at Okno, an artist-run organisation for media and technology in Brussels (http://okno.be/) to discuss these topics and present some of the case studies to a public. For the Politics of Change project, I did a lot of interviews with rural Indian women at Barefoot college, Tilonia, Rajasthan, as well as with different women from my circle of friends, colleagues and family. This is the story of Lipika Bansal, Researcher in Education and Technology from Amsterdam. Lipika is of Indian origin but was born and raised in Amsterdam. Yes755http://pad.ma/Vi80b7gq/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Interview with Jasna Dimitrovskahttp://pad.ma/Vi80b7gq/poster.75.jpgPolitics of Change is a research project in which artists, theorists and activists reflect on innovative ideas, contributions and solutions which support distributed and grassroots structures. This reflection takes place through a programme of free discussion and dialogue and is documented in a multimedia archive-installation. The focus is on the role of women at the core of these communities. Drawing on a wide range of artistic and theoretical approaches, the aim is to imagine new and sustainable relationships between humans, their environments and (appropriate) technologies. From December 18-20, 2008, we organised a workshop at Okno, an artist-run organisation for media and technology in Brussels (http://okno.be/) to discuss these topics and present some of the case studies to a public. For the Politics of Change project, I did a lot of interviews with rural Indian women at Barefoot college, Tilonia, Rajasthan, as well as with different women from my circle of friends, colleagues and family. This is the story of Jasna Dimitrovska, activist and street artist, from Skopje, Macedonia. Yes567http://pad.ma/Vtpars16/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Questionnaire - Workshop at Okno, Brusselshttp://pad.ma/Vtpars16/poster.75.jpgThe research project ‘Politics of Change’ is a collective work in which artists, working women, activists and ecologists, economists, educators and anthropologists want to initiate collaborative dialogues to research ideas and solutions, which support decentralised structures, diversity and community development. The project involves not only public discussion, but an extensive mapping and documentation of these proposals in an art context. Drawing on a wide range of artistic and theoretical fields, the aim is to imagine new and sustainable relationships between humans, their environments and technologies. As artists, filmmakers, theorists and activists we have to enrich the public debate around sustainable living, the environment and eco-technology. We have to think about the kind of future in which we want to live and work. What social and economic systems can we envisage beyond the regular ones? Is there anything that we can learn from existing (non-western) experiments? I started with the Politics of Change project when I was in India visiting the Barefoot project, but it’s about so much more: the main focus is on communities that take positive change into their own hands. On people who decide to get up and act, who organise themselves spontaneously, from the bottom up, and who form networks to realise that change. The Brussels’ PoC workshop discussed gender and activism in the cultural field, examining the technical tools we use to document what we do and to spread the word. The participants in this open dialogue came from different fields; there were writers, filmmakers, anthropologists, journalists, visual artists, economists and researchers. Yes339http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Questionnaire - Barefoot College, Tiloniahttp://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/poster.75.jpgThe research project ‘Politics of Change’ is a collective work in which artists, working women, activists and ecologists, economists, educators and anthropologists want to initiate collaborative dialogues to research ideas and solutions, which support decentralised structures, diversity and community development. The project involves not only public discussion, but an extensive mapping and documentation of these proposals in an art context. Drawing on a wide range of artistic and theoretical fields, the aim is to imagine new and sustainable relationships between humans, their environments and technologies. As artists, filmmakers, theorists and activists we have to enrich the public debate around sustainable living, the environment and eco-technology. We have to think about the kind of future in which we want to live and work. What social and economic systems can we envisage beyond the regular ones? Is there anything that we can learn from existing (non-western) experiments? I started with the Politics of Change project when I was in India, visiting the Barefoot project, but it’s about so much more: the main focus is on communities that take positive change into their own hands. On people who decide to get up and act, who organise themselves spontaneously, from the bottom up, and who form networks to realise that change. My interest in women solar engineers and the Mahila Samiti groups for women’s empowerment in Rajasthan comes out of a personal involvement that links art, women, empowerment, ecology, technology and social engagement. When I learned about the Barefoot College project (http://www.barefootcollege.org), I was struck by certain similarities between two practices that seem worlds apart at first sight: my own artistic work environment at Okno in Brussels and the practical trainings/workshops at Barefoot College in Rajasthan. Okno is an artist-run organisation for media, art and technology. Its focus lies on collective technological research projects. (http://okno.be/) Current projects use sustainable energies like solar/photovoltaic and wind energy to weave city communities, mesh networks and create public space art projects. Our decentralised DIY workshops are a platform for sharing knowledge to arrive at poignant results. Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, uses a similar structure to train solar engineers. The learning environment is open and decentralised. Knowledge is passed on from the bottom up, using a hands-on approach. The village community selects which women will be sent on a six-month solar engineering training, and every village family contributes a share in the remuneration of the engineers to set up and maintain the village solar system. When I went to Barefoot College for the first time in 2008, I discovered that the solar workshops are only a very small part in a much bigger story concerning the empowerment of the participating women. Diving into the matter, I quickly realised that a documentary film had to become the central issue of my project. This clip and the interviews with the women solar engineers of Barefoot College are from the film, Mahila, which can be seen here: http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/info. Yes339http://pad.ma/Vfc3gjdz/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Magan Kanwarhttp://pad.ma/Vfc3gjdz/poster.75.jpgThis is an interview with Magan Kanwar, one of the first women solar engineers of Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org). Before Magan started the workshops, she was living under the purdah system and never left her house. Now, she runs the solar energy training department at Barefoot College with her collegues Najma Nigam and Leela Devi. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes77http://pad.ma/Vi2ob0ym/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Najma Nigamhttp://pad.ma/Vi2ob0ym/poster.75.jpgNajma Nigam is an illiterate rural women from Rajasthan. She was one of the first participants of Barefoot College's solar workshops, which have been held since the 1980s (http://www.barefootcollege.org). She teaches at the college and passes her knowledge to other rural women from Asia and Africa, who are students in the solar engineering programme. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes126http://pad.ma/Vh5rab85/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Leela Devihttp://pad.ma/Vh5rab85/poster.75.jpgLeela Devi is one of the first rural Rajasthani women to have enrolled in the solar workshops organised by Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org). In fact, she teaches other rural women from Asia and Africa, who are students at the college's solar engineering programme. This interview was done as part of the Politics of Change (PoC) project. For more on PoC, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/info Yes79http://pad.ma/Vugx4i4x/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Sita Baihttp://pad.ma/Vugx4i4x/poster.75.jpgSita Devi is a singer. Together with four other young Rajasthani women, she started the solar cooker section of Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org). Some years ago she decided to start a 6 months training as solar panel engineer, and she continued her education with a focus on solar cookers. Today the women are responsible for the construction of the large parabolic dishes, covered with regular pieces of mirror. They tailor them precisely according to the blueprints of a German Engineer, Wolfgang Scheffler, with whom they still collaborate and improve the reflectors and machinery when needed. They organise their smithy, weld and solder the mechanical parts for the cookers out of recycled bicycle parts. Their apparatus are sold to organisations in India who use them in community kitchens. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes187http://pad.ma/Vg86nupz/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Mangi Devihttp://pad.ma/Vg86nupz/poster.75.jpgMangi Devi is one of the first women employees at Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org). From the beginning, she was responsible for the night schools - an important part of the Barefoot program - which she developed with a strong focus on education for young girls. She collaborated closely with Aruna Roy. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes151http://pad.ma/Vs6i8hmc/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Shamma Jogihttp://pad.ma/Vs6i8hmc/poster.75.jpgShamma Jogi is a young women who decided to fight for a better life. In search of a job and an education, she arrived at Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org). Her husband, a truck driver, agrees with her decision to live on campus. He visits her there on his days off. Shamma raises her young son as a working woman. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes265http://pad.ma/Vfsgxtgb/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Sargu Bhanwarhttp://pad.ma/Vfsgxtgb/poster.75.jpgSargu Bhanwar is mother of five daughters. She is the coordinator for the handicraft section of Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org). She is a very sophisticated lady and in her work, she merges aesthetic insight with every day necessities. She has very specific ideas on (appropriate) technology. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes274http://pad.ma/Vhmgf2ct/info2010-03-15weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers from Africahttp://pad.ma/Vhmgf2ct/poster.75.jpgIn the solar engineers trainings there’s a focus on women. The solar engineer project has demonstrated that bringing electricity to remote villages through solar energy could also be women's responsibility. (Men might easily run off with their new knowledge and start their own business in the city somewhere, whereas the women give it back to the community and first and for all to their family. They invest in a better education for their children.) Most of the solar engineers come from traditional and conservative societies and they have struggled to fight for their identity. That’s why this new confidence in the potential of women is so important. Initially, the women participated in the training to fulfill a basic need: getting a job and improving the financial position of the family. The training was first regarded with suspicion, but as the results became visible, it earned the trust of rural communities. Especially the wider consequences are groundbreaking: the women gain self-respect and have secured a stronger position in the family structures. These rural women have become symbols of a new partnership within the community and are often used as examples to propagate and elevate women’s status. In a second phase the participating women become teachers and pass their knowledge to other (also foreign) women. In this video we see a group of African women (from 8 different countries) following a six month workshop in Rajasthan. For most of them it was the first time that they left their home village and their family to go and live in another country, confronted with another culture. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes151http://pad.ma/Vgdmw9kl/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Rami Devihttp://pad.ma/Vgdmw9kl/poster.75.jpgRami Devi is an activist for women'd empowerment. She is the field coordinator for several women's groups in Rajasthan. She organises monthly meetings on a regional level, and helps village women solve recurrant family and community problems during the weekly village meetings. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes380http://pad.ma/Vsmq068q/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Song for a Solar Cooker http://pad.ma/Vsmq068q/poster.75.jpgEco-feminists want to redefine how societies look at productivity and activity of both women and nature. 'Diverse women for diversity' promotes a global women's campaign on bio-diversity and cultural diversity, echoing women's voices from the local and grassroots level to global fora and international negotiations. In Tilonia, a small village in the Rajasthani desert, a group of illiterate women started a cooperative to build solar cookers. Out of recycled materials, they construct little by little huge parabolic devices that work with the energy of the sun. The use of technologies such as solar energy empowers women to stay 'off the grid', a statement that symbolises their independence from dominant structures. The women work with appropriate technology that is tailor made for their specific community and takes into consideration the environmental, cultural, social and economic characteristics of that community. This technology requires fewer resources and is easier to maintain. It has a lower overall cost and a smaller impact on the environment than high technology, and it prefers labor-intensive solutions over capital-intensive ones. The women workers organise themselves and explore the assets of nature and distributed green power. As working women, they claim their rights in the community and work towards a radical shift in policy and practice.Yes523http://pad.ma/Vhapvqbx/info2010-03-09weekly1.0Theatre Jam: Nagara Chitra - Shivajinagarhttp://pad.ma/Vhapvqbx/poster.75.jpgNagara Chitra literally means city/town pictures. This was an activity organised as part of October Jam, a month-long celebration of the first anniversary of Theatre Jam, a symbolic occupation of public spaces in the city meant to encourage diverse performance-based art exchange and collaboration. Theatre Jam was initiated by Maraa: http://maraa.in/ We sent out an open call to photographers to snapshot two vibrant markets in the city. The chosen markets were Shivajainagar/Russell market and Ulsoor Market, the former being a Muslim dominated market and area, the latter a devout Hindu market and area. Both are really old markets and continue to function as hubs of older commercial activity. There are also signifiers of other kinds of cultures existing in the city. Conversations between visual artists and shopkeepers happened while the former were walking through markets, identifying good frames and shooting them. Once the shooting was done, Maraa spent some money identifying clean pictures, printing them on Matt paper and displaying them. Interestingly, the display took the pictures back to the markets, but not to the same shops where the pictures were taken. If we took a picture of a flower shop, we would then walk to other nearby shops and basically pretend to stop over and inspect the photos. Sooner rather than later, a crowd would gather, including the shopkeeper, who was curious to see familiar faces and familiar environs. There was happiness that "photographers" have chosen their part of town. Or anxiety that some grey/"illegal" activities are being exposed by elite journalists doing exposes. Or suspicions of intra-colonisations in which photographs are weapons that expose this "ugliness" and contrast it with the new beauties of the city like malls, flyovers, tall buildings, etc. There were others who were sure that we were on some foreign-funded project, and some wanted a cut from this mythical project fund! We had great discussions on the city's character, invisible cities living inside Bangalore, visual art, and aesthetics of the city in visual terms. A fantastic experience and hopefully, a valuable documentation of both markets, much ignored in the Bangalore of today.Yes988http://pad.ma/Vdybdrjo/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Theatre Jam: Poetry Night at Ants Cafehttp://pad.ma/Vdybdrjo/poster.75.jpgPoetry night was held as a part of October Jam, a month-long marathon to celebrate the first anniversary of Theatre Jam, a symbolic occupation of public spaces for performance-based art forms. Most of October Jam's activities were held in 'found' public spaces such as parks. A significant number of activities were also held in 'declared' public spaces like Jaaga, Samuha, etc. Interestingly, the poetry night saw the opening up of semi- private spaces to art. The event was held at Ants Cafe, which is on the first floor. Right below the cafe, on the ground floor, is a shop which is affiliated with well known NGO The Ant that works with weavers in Assam.Yes1339http://pad.ma/Vgopz2mj/info2010-03-09weekly1.0Theatre Jam: Storytelling workshop with Pritham Chakravarty - Improvisationshttp://pad.ma/Vgopz2mj/poster.75.jpgTheatre Jam was a public spaces initiative initiated by Maraa (http://maraa.in) in 2009 with the hope of getting urban performers of all kinds to meet in public places to share skills and perform. In our times, when access and skill sharing within the arts is getting limited and commercialised, we felt creativity was also getting compromised. Theatre Jam arose out of one such need - to create a space that would foster collaborations and a spirit that nurtured creativity. We see Theatre Jam as something collaborative, for visual artists, theatre artists, musicians, poets and photographers. Theatre Jam turned a year old in October 2009 and to mark this, we conceptualised diverse activities that comprised a 31-day marathon. Maraa also worked on getting travelling artists and local artists' groups to collaborate, propose or execute activities, and perform at various sites in the city! Our approach was community friendly and inclusive. The larger plan was to create a culture of expression and exchange between artists in the city and make public spaces more culture friendly, thus reclaiming them and initiating dialogue. Pritham Chakravarthy, theatre performer, activist and a professor at the Ramanaidu Film Institute, Hyderabad, participated in Theatre Jam, to do what she does best: storytelling. Pritham also performed in the course of her short stay, both at Jaaga and Cubbon Park. She conducted a story telling workshop which was free and open to the public. In this video, workshop participants do short improvisational performances. Yes1155http://pad.ma/Ve2ag2rr/info2010-03-19weekly1.0Theatre Jam: Storytelling with Pritham Chakravarty - Warming Uphttp://pad.ma/Ve2ag2rr/poster.75.jpgTheatre Jam was a public spaces initiative initiated by Maraa (http://maraa.in) in 2009 with the hope of getting urban performers of all kinds to meet in public places to share skills and perform. In our times, when access and skill sharing within the arts is getting limited and commercialised, we felt creativity was also getting compromised. Theatre Jam arose out of one such need - to create a space that would foster collaborations and a spirit that nurtured creativity. We see Theatre Jam as something collaborative, for visual artists, theatre artists, musicians, poets and photographers. Theatre Jam turned a year old in October 2009 and to mark this, we conceptualised diverse activities that comprised a 31-day marathon. Maraa also worked on getting travelling artists and local artists' groups to collaborate, propose or execute activities, and perform at various sites in the city! Our approach was community friendly and inclusive. The larger plan was to create a culture of expression and exchange between artists in the city and make public spaces more culture friendly, thus reclaiming them and initiating dialogue. Pritham Chakravarthy, theatre performer, activist and a professor at the Ramanaidu Film Institute, Hyderabad, participated in Theatre Jam, to do what she does best: storytelling. Pritham also performed in the course of her short stay, both at Jaaga and Cubbon Park. This video shows her conducting a story telling workshop, which was free and open to the public. She talks, among other things, about the interdependence between the storyteller and the listener. Yes639http://pad.ma/Vtoxdi68/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Pad.ma 2009: Ghar Banao Ghar Bachao (GBGB) Andolanhttp://pad.ma/Vtoxdi68/poster.75.jpgPad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive, http://pad.ma) was launched as a public website on February 16, 2009. It opened up to external contributions and invited a number of "users" - independent filmmakers, artists, activists, researchers, students, scholars and enthusiasts - to contribute their material to pad.ma or explore the archive in their own way. As a part of the launch, we had a stimulating day-long event with presentations by various people who have been engaging with pad.ma. Ghar Bachao, Ghar Banao (GBGB) Andolan is an organisation that has been working on housing rights, particularly against corporate privatisation. The pad.ma presentation was made by Simpreet Singh, a Production Engineer and TISS post-graduate who has been working full-time with the GBGB Andolan since 2005 and Ruchi Kumar, a second-year student of Tata Institute of Social Sciences who is doing her field work with the Andolan. GBGB took existing footage in pad.ma, 'A Day in the Life of Niranjan Hiranandani', and re-read it against information that they have been collecting for a few years (through the use of RTI as well as investigative journalism). The grandiose vision of Hiranandani's construction business is read against the material conditions of housing for the poor, while his statements of corporate responsibility are read against the corrupt practices prevalent in the real estate industry In a playful manner, GBGB fills in certain narratives of images through sharp political satire. http://pad.ma/Vtowua9j/L2kv9 Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan is a social movement of slum dwellers and unorganised sector workers. The Andolan was initiated to challenge the inhuman and unconstitutional demolitions of more than 75,000 houses by the Government of Maharashtra in 2004. The movement, under the leadership of women, adopts non-violence as a value framework. The Andolan is affiliated with NAPM (National Alliance of People's Movements). For a report on the event, see http://camputer.org/event.php?id=75.Yes2213http://pad.ma/Vef75nha/info2010-03-20weekly1.0Pad.ma 2009: Lawrence Liang and Following Discussionhttp://pad.ma/Vef75nha/poster.75.jpgPad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive, http://pad.ma) was launched as a public website on February 16, 2009. It opened up to external contributions and invited a number of "users" - independent filmmakers, artists, activists, researchers, students, scholars and enthusiasts - to contribute their material to pad.ma or explore the archive in their own way. As a part of the launch, we had a stimulating day-long event with presentations by various people who have been engaging with pad.ma. Lawrence Liang, active member of the Alternate Law Forum (http://www.altlawforum.org/) and one of the founders of Pad.ma, made a presentation on the relationship between the image, politics and the distribution of the sensible. Drawing form Jacques Ranciere, Lawrence argued that politics was already aesthetics, in that ideas of the political often draw from sensorial metaphors such as visibility and invisibility, and politics may consist of interruptions/interventions in the distribution of the sensible, which modify the aesthetico-political field. He tried to link this to an understanding of the political which is not dependent on a pre-determined political field, but which is open to redefinition through a reversal of assumptions of social roles. In the case of pad.ma, the blurring of the lines between image makers and image "readers" would constitute such an aesthetic-political interruption. For Liang's contributions to Pad.ma, see: http://pad.ma/?q=lawrence+liang http://alf.pad.ma/browse For a report on the event, see http://camputer.org/event.php?id=75.Yes2441http://pad.ma/Vezexcq9/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Pad.ma 2009: Agaaz (Ek Dozen Pani)http://pad.ma/Vezexcq9/poster.75.jpgPad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive, http://pad.ma) was launched as a public website on February 16, 2009. It opened up to external contributions and invited a number of "users" - independent filmmakers, artists, activists, researchers, students, scholars and enthusiasts - to contribute their material to pad.ma or explore the archive in their own way. As a part of the launch, we had a stimulating day-long event with presentations by various people who have been engaging with pad.ma. The first presentation of the day was made by Aagaz, a voluntary youth group from PremNagar, Meghwadi and Sanjay Nagar bastis of Jogeshwari. The presentation was made by Aagaz members Shaali Shaikh, Durga Gudillu, Ismail Sharif, Hakim Liliyawala and Ajeet Mahale. They spoke about the recent use of video in their work. About 15 hours of footage from their video project 'Ek Dozen Pani' was collaboratively annotated to describe some relationships between infrastructure, water and the city. While infrastructure is hyper visible in most cities in diverse forms, from the rapidly changing built environment to decaying pipes from which water leaks to poorer neighborhoods, the members of Aagaz used the layers of annotation in pad.ma to go deep into their own histories of how infrastructure gets to be made and unmade in urban experience. See: http://pad.ma/find?l=Lj Aagaaz functions as a youth development centre and organises camps on education, health, employment, personal development and projects around local infrastructures such as water and rationing (PDS). It is supported entirely by local contributions. For a report on the event, see http://camputer.org/event.php?id=75.Yes1939http://pad.ma/Veep9xux/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Pad.ma 2009: SanjayKak (Flight over CFL)http://pad.ma/Veep9xux/poster.75.jpgPad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive, http://pad.ma) was launched as a public website on February 16, 2009. It opened up to external contributions and invited a number of "users" - independent filmmakers, artists, activists, researchers, students, scholars and enthusiasts - to contribute their material to pad.ma or explore the archive in their own way. As a part of the launch, we had a stimulating day-long event with presentations by various people who have been engaging with pad.ma. Sanjay Kak, an award-winning documentary filmmaker from New Delhi, was invited by Pad.ma to write over a two-hour long tape of found footage, 'Flight over the CFL'. This film acts as a campaign video of a protest march organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) in February 1992. In what can only be described as an ethnography of a media event, Sanjay Kak's reading of this film opens out for us ways in which we can think the relationship between events, fragmentary material and contested political histories. See: http://pad.ma/Vg92c17o/info Kak's recent film, the feature length Jashn-e-Azadi (How we celebrate freedom, 2007), made extensive use of anonymous archival material from Kashmir. For a report on the event, see http://camputer.org/event.php?id=75.Yes2292http://pad.ma/Vhlmy77z/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Pad.ma 2009: PriyaSen (The Knower of Secrets)http://pad.ma/Vhlmy77z/poster.75.jpgPad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive, http://pad.ma) was launched as a public website on February 16, 2009. It opened up to external contributions and invited a number of "users" - independent filmmakers, artists, activists, researchers, students, scholars and enthusiasts - to contribute their material to pad.ma or explore the archive in their own way. As a part of the launch, we had a stimulating day-long event with presentations by various people who have been engaging with pad.ma. Priya Sen, a film maker from Delhi, revisited a film that she had made six years ago called 'The Knower of Secrets' about Qawwali singers in Hazrat Nizamuddin, on Pad.ma (http://pad.ma/Vu5mgs8w/info). In her annotations, Priya looked at what it would mean to capture the experience of the filmmaker in the making of the film, an experience which is never exhausted by the end product that emerges in the form of the finished film. Her annotation moves between the personal, the affective, the theoretical and the analytical. 'The Knower of Secrets' emerges as a text which opens out to different registers of experience and reflection which were not immediately available at the time of the making, or viewing, the film. Priya Sen mainly works with non-fictional and experimental genres of video, photo, sound and writing. She is currently with Sarai-CSDS, New Delhi, where she works as a researcher-practitioner of experimental media with the Cybermohalla project - a network of media practitioners and writers in working class localities in Delhi - as well as with the Sarai Media Lab. For a report on the event, see http://camputer.org/event.php?id=75.Yes1242http://pad.ma/Vu0c77yg/info2010-03-14weekly1.0Pad.ma and Mozilla @ CAMP, part Ihttp://pad.ma/Vu0c77yg/poster.75.jpgYes3045http://pad.ma/Vum5nqmf/info2010-03-14weekly1.0Pad.ma and Mozilla @ CAMP, part IIhttp://pad.ma/Vum5nqmf/poster.75.jpgYes5921http://pad.ma/Ve2iazfj/info2010-08-02weekly1.0CSCS Culture and Democracy Lecture Series: Ashish Rajadhyakshahttp://pad.ma/Ve2iazfj/poster.75.jpg'Culture and Democracy', a flagship course at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), has served as an exploration of how the connections between culture and democracy may be theorised. An integral part of this course is a guest lecture series by CSCS faculty and visiting scholars, in which they reflect on their own work. In 2007, these lectures were opened to the public and documented on video.The course was anchored by S. V. Srinivas and invited speakers included Ashish Rajadhyaksha, M. Madhava Prasad, Kakarala Sitharamam, Vivek Dhareshwar and S. V. Srinivas. Ashish Rajadhyaksha is Senior Fellow at CSCS (http://www.cscsarchive.org/Members/ashish/cscs_people_view/) His lecture, titled 'Cinematic Governmance', was the first of the series. Rajadhyaksha touches on, among other things, citizenship, the "cinema effect", spectatorship and cultures of viewing. For more on CSCS, see http://www.cscsarchive.org/ Yes8265http://pad.ma/Vfssyn1j/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Theatre Jam: Theatre Workshop in Cubbon Park - Improvisationshttp://pad.ma/Vfssyn1j/poster.75.jpgTheatre Jam was a public spaces initiative initiated by Maraa (http://maraa.in) in 2009 with the hope of getting urban performers of all kinds to meet in public places to share skills and perform. In our times, when access and skill sharing within the arts is getting limited and commercialised, we felt creativity was also getting compromised. Theatre Jam arose out of one such need - to create a space that would foster collaborations and a spirit that nurtured creativity. We see Theatre Jam as something collaborative, for visual artists, theatre artists, musicians, poets and photographers. Theatre Jam turned a year old in October 2009 and to mark this, we conceptualised diverse activities that comprised a 31-day marathon. Maraa also worked on getting travelling artists and local artists' groups to collaborate, propose or execute activities, and perform at various sites in the city! Our approach was community friendly and inclusive. The larger plan was to create a culture of expression and exchange between artists in the city and make public spaces more culture friendly, thus reclaiming them and initiating dialogue. This video documents the improvisations that took place during a theatre workshop led by the students of Department of Performing Arts, Pondicherry University.Yes941http://pad.ma/Vfay3dun/info2010-03-09weekly1.0Theatre Jam: Theatre Workshop in Cubbon Park - Warming Uphttp://pad.ma/Vfay3dun/poster.75.jpgTheatre Jam was a public spaces initiative initiated by Maraa (http://maraa.in) in 2009 with the hope of getting urban performers of all kinds to meet in public places to share skills and perform. In our times, when access and skill sharing within the arts is getting limited and commercialised, we felt creativity was also getting compromised. Theatre Jam arose out of one such need - to create a space that would foster collaborations and a spirit that nurtured creativity. We see Theatre Jam as something collaborative, for visual artists, theatre artists, musicians, poets and photographers. Theatre Jam turned a year old in October 2009 and to mark this, we conceptualised diverse activities that comprised a 31-day marathon. Maraa also worked on getting travelling artists and local artists' groups to collaborate, propose or execute activities, and perform at various sites in the city! Our approach was community friendly and inclusive. The larger plan was to create a culture of expression and exchange between artists in the city and make public spaces more culture friendly, thus reclaiming them and initiating dialogue. This video documents a theatre workshop led by the students of Department of Performing arts, Pondicherry University.Yes760http://pad.ma/Vs7c6mni/info2010-03-29weekly1.0The Neighbour Before the House: In Memory of the Moroccan Quarterhttp://pad.ma/Vs7c6mni/poster.75.jpg“The Neighbour Before the House” is a series of video probes into the landscape of East Jerusalem. This footage, shot with a security camera, takes us beyond the instrumental aspects of surveillance imaging, introducing us to the architecture of a deliberate and accelerated occupation of a city. Inquisitiveness, jest, memory, fear, desire and doubt, pervade this project of watching. Stories float up as Palestinians from different neighbourhoods talk about what can be seen—messianic archeological digs; Israeli settlement activities; takeovers of Palestinian properties; the Old City, the Wall and the West Bank, among other mundane and precious details. For this session in the Old City, the surveillance camera was set up on an edge of a roof that looks directly over what is now known as the Wailing Wall Plaza. This vast open-air expanse, which attracts religious pilgrims and tourists, was, up until the Six Day War, the Maghrebi or the Moroccan Quarter--a densely populated area adjacent to Al Aqsa Mosque, where several thousand people lived in around 125 homes. In his book 'Hollow Land', Eyal Weizman writes about the significance of this act of demolition, when Palestinians were ordered to evacuate, as their homes were flattened to the ground: “On the evening of 10 June, 1967, before the ceasefire was reached and while still under the fog of war, the Israeli military performed the first significant urban transformation in the Occupied Territories, flattening the entire Maghariba (north African) Quarter, which was located immediately in front of the Wailing Wall on the southeastern edge of the Old City. This destruction was undertaken in order to make way for an enormous plaza extending between the Jewish Quarter and the Wailing Wall. This urban transformation, undertaken by the military without explicit government order, demonstrated more than anything else that the military had no intention of retreating from this occupied area.” (Eyal Weizman, 'Hollow Land', Verso, 2007, pp. 37) The narrator for this session, having lived and relived this historical moment and its memory, lives it out again, aloud, into the present-day politics of the place, over the moving image, across what can be seen beyond the Old City wall, and into contentiousness of what is planned for under the ground. At the end of the footage, what chances onto the screen and gets caught on record might be no more than an everyday spectacle of state-sponsored exhibitionism, which serves to point not only to the mundanity of military presence on this religious land, but also, to remind us of our own inhibitions with regards to the profanity of certain technical possibilities. Yes2339http://pad.ma/Vtzzx0dx/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Discussion, Pune Panchayat http://pad.ma/Vtzzx0dx/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. This video documents the discussion that follows the Panch's proceedings, which covers a variety of topics and devotes a considerable amount of time to the question of “choice” in homosexuality. An audience member also poses a question to Ketaki Ranade about the lack of visibility of lesbianism on the social front.Yes590http://pad.ma/Vtkca3ef/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Dr. Vijay Kiran's Verdict, Hyderabad Panchayat http://pad.ma/Vtkca3ef/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this segment, Dr. Vijay Kiran speaks about sex as a basic human need, and asks doctors to end their discrimination towards the queer community. He holds that the queer community needs to educate and sensitise doctors about its needs, in order to avail of better health care.Yes316http://pad.ma/Vg7uimqt/info2010-01-20weekly1.0Dr. Narayana Reddy's Deposition, Chennai Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vg7uimqt/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Dr. Narayana Reddy, an expert testifier at the Chennai Panchayat, shares some of his thoughts on the Panch's proceedings. Speaking in English and Tamil, he also elaborates on some of the problems he sees with the queer rights movement in India, and some ways in which to address them.Yes512http://pad.ma/Ve2akh05/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Lakshmi Narayan's Verdict, Hyderabad Panchayat http://pad.ma/Ve2akh05/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this segment, Lakshmi Narayan, a member of the Hyderabad Panch, says that Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code needs to be modified, and not scrapped.Yes229http://pad.ma/Vfga321y/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Dr. Samuel's Verdict, Hyderabad Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vfga321y/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this segment, Dr. Samuel, a member of the Hyderabad Panch, shares his views on the testimonials heard.Yes716http://pad.ma/Vu0o3vzz/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Jury's Verdict, Pune Panchayat http://pad.ma/Vu0o3vzz/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. The jury at the Pune Panchayat, comprised of Shamala Vanarase, Makrand Sathe, Sandesh Bhandare, Rohini Sahani, and Ashwini Giri. Here, it shares its verdict with the audience. Four of the five jurors share their individual thoughts on the depositions heard.Yes517http://pad.ma/Vt3l6joy/info2010-01-20weekly1.0Vijay Nagaswami's Deposition, Chennai Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vt3l6joy/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Vijay Nagaswami, an expert testifier at the Chennai Panchayat, shares some of his thoughts on the Panch's proceedings. He insists that homophobia can only be conquered through an increased awareness of LGBT people and the issues that they face. To this end, speaking in English and Tamil, he shares some of his ideas for creating a more aware, more tolerant society.Yes317http://pad.ma/Vgu6rhza/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Pramada Menon's Expert Deposition, Delhi Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vgu6rhza/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Pramada Menon, the director of CREA, explores some of the reasons why we, as a society, are intolerant of difference. She goes on to talk about some of the obstacles that the deposers had outlined, asking that individuals take on the challenge of transforming the current social landscape into one that is far more accepting of difference.Yes257http://pad.ma/Vfsbc55r/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Discussion, Delhi Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vfsbc55r/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. The Audience Question and Answer session at the Delhi Panchayat led to interesting discussions on the role played by education and social class in the societal manifestation of homophobia, the history of homophobia and discrimination on the Indian subcontinent, and the steps being taken to increase awareness about queer realities by queer rights activists.Yes1634http://pad.ma/Vumbhyiy/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Ashok Row Kavi's Expert Deposition, Pune Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vumbhyiy/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Ashok Row Kavi, a UNAIDS officer and one of the Expert testifiers at the Pune Panchayat, shares his response to the depositions heard. He holds that the response to homophobia should be three-fold: Educate, Agitate and Reform. He elaborates on each of these three tenets in his speech.Yes338http://pad.ma/Vsbt2nrd/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Gauri Sawant's Deposition, Delhi Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vsbt2nrd/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Gauri Sawant, a deponent at the Delhi Panchayat, shares her personal story of the harassment and trauma she underwent at the hands of close family members when they discovered her non-traditional gender expression. Gauri speaks in detail about the manner in which she finally escaped the torture, and started to live on her own in Mumbai. Gauri, née Ganesh, then worked for Humsafar, an organisation dedicated to fighting for queer rights.Yes494http://pad.ma/Vt8xcksx/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Raju Jadhav's Deposition, Pune Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vt8xcksx/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Raju Jadhav, one of the deposers at the Pune Panchayat, talks about her experiences growing up as a transgender person in rural Maharashtra. Raju, who had a tormented childhood at the hands of her relatives, now belongs to the group Muskaan and has not seen her family for several years.Yes273http://pad.ma/Vdy5qr49/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Sunil Gupta's Verdict, Delhi Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vdy5qr49/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Sunil Gupta, a member of the Delhi Panchayat's jury, responds to the depositions heard. Mr. Gupta talks about the importance of coming out stories, and the ways in which they can be both self-empowering and an integral form of queer activism.Yes232http://pad.ma/Vgp817p1/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Gauri Sawant's Deposition, Pune Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vgp817p1/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Gauri Sawant talks about her experiences growing up transgender, and of the harassment and abuse she faced from her family as a result. She speaks in detail about her father's attempts to 'convert' her, and of her difficulties in escaping such ordeals. Gauri's story is ultimately empowering as she shares her success in living life on her own terms.Yes594http://pad.ma/Ve2gjeug/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Dilfaraz's Deposition, Delhi Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Ve2gjeug/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Dilfaraz, one of the deposers at the Delhi Panchayat, talks about his identity as a sexual minority, and about some of the work he has done as a part of Sangama. He talks specifically about Sangama's crisis intervention work, and the ways in which the police criminalize sexual minorities, and the people who work for their rights. Dilfaraz also talks about some of the challenges he faced in gaining acceptance from his family and relatives. He ends his deposition by emphasizing that sexual minority people do not want any special favours from society; rather, they want to be recognized as citizens in their own right.Yes443http://pad.ma/Ve2a7hmv/info2010-01-19weekly1.0Vinayak's Deposition, Pune Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Ve2a7hmv/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Vinayak, one of the deposers at the Pune Panchayat and a MSM, shares some of his experiences with the Panch and the audience.Yes292http://pad.ma/Vsmptmuu/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Ketaki Ranade's Expert Deposition, Pune Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vsmptmuu/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Ketaki Ranade, a researcher with Bapu Trust and one of the Expert testifiers at the Pune Panchayat, shares her response to the depositions heard. She first takes some time to fully explore the notion of homophobia, before sharing some of the conclusions from her research on homosexuality in India. Ms. Ranade also speaks at length about some of the methods used to convert homosexual people to heterosexuality.Yes677http://pad.ma/Vuhouojm/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Indrani Gupta's Verdict, Delhi Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vuhouojm/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Indrani Gupta, a member of the Delhi Panchayat's jury, responds to the depositions heard. Ms. Gupta, a development economist, stresses the need to explore the links between discrimination, minority status, education, income creation, poverty etc. Ms. Gupta also recommends that queer people not propagate their queer identity as their only identity; she emphasizes the need for them to present themselves as multi-faceted persons.Yes248http://pad.ma/Vtp8rhf7/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Jury's Collective Verdict, Chennai Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vtp8rhf7/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Ms. Miriam Samuel delivers the Chennai Panchayat jury's collective verdict. The verdict compares homosexuality to the issue of left-handedness, predicting that like the latter, public opinion of the former too will improve in the future. The verdict also takes into account the question of blame and culpability, ultimately sharing their judgement with the audience.Yes380http://pad.ma/Vfg4dehj/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Jivi Sethi's Verdict, Delhi Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vfg4dehj/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Jivi Sethi, a member of the Delhi Panchayat's jury, responds to the depositions heard. Mr. Sethi reflects upon the strides that have been made with respect to society's acceptance of queer people, while maintaining that there remains a lot more to be done in terms of queer rights and the queer struggle.Yes143http://pad.ma/Vu0txcde/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Syeda Hameed's Verdict, Delhi Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vu0txcde/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Syeda Hameed, a member of the Planning Commission and of the Delhi Panchayat's jury, responds to the depositions heard. She talks about some of the ways in which the state can be involved in reducing the stigma experienced by sexual minorities. Ms. Hameed also explores some of the ties between Islamic religious and literary tradition, and queer cultureYes334http://pad.ma/Vgpjvqnd/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Pandurang's Deposition, Pune Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vgpjvqnd/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. Pandurang, a Devadasi and a deposer at the Pune Panchayat, talks about some of the harassment that has been meted to him by neighbours, and by the police. He stresses the need for society to respect the needs and rights of transgender persons.Yes245http://pad.ma/Vfrnjhnw/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Reverend's Verdict, Hyderabad Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vfrnjhnw/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. In this segment, a Reverend, who is a member of the Bangalore Panch, shares his views vis-a-vis the testimonials heard.Yes443http://pad.ma/Vev86yfs/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Discussion, Chennai Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vev86yfs/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. This segment covers the discussion that followed the depositions of the three testifiers at the Chennai Panchayat. The discussion covers various topics including but not limited to sex education, transgender employment, the class divide within the queer community, and homophobia.Yes1941http://pad.ma/Vevk0r3x/info2010-01-19weekly1.0Saleem Kidwai's Verdict, Delhi Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vevk0r3x/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Saleem Kidwai, author of “Same Sex Love in India”, and a member of the Delhi Panchayat's jury, responds to the depositions heard. Mr. Kidwai talks specifically in response to another jury member's verdict, arguing that there exists no necessary link between a person's educational level and the difficulty that they might face in coming out.Yes273http://pad.ma/Vezwys4v/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Anita Sumanth's Verdict, Chennai Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vezwys4v/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Anita Sumanth, one of the jury members at the Chennai Panchayat, shares her suggestion that perhaps queer activism should include lobbying for a 'transgender' category on application forms that require information about the applicant's gender.Yes112http://pad.ma/Vu5y4yt7/info2010-03-14weekly1.0Jam Salaya: Stills and Conversationshttp://pad.ma/Vu5y4yt7/poster.75.jpgThis is a montage of photographs and short videos from Nida Ghouse's and Radhamohini Prasad's trip to Jam Salaya, a port town on the Gulf of Kutch, Saurashtra. Sailors from Jam Salaya have been trading in the Arabian Sea for centuries. The prosperity of this town depends on fishing and its relationship to the sea. Today, there are no commodities that leave or enter from these shores, unlike in the past. The main occupation here is dhow building and sailing, and this supports trade primarily between various Gulf states and Somalia. Nida and Radha left for Jam Salaya on the September 6, 2009 to visit sailor friends they had met in Sharjah during the Wharfage project. Wharfage is an on-going CAMP project, which, in 2008, looked closely at the creek in Sharjah, from where a large number of dhows leave for 'Somalia'. Somalia, a collection of semi-state entities, is also a kind of free trade zone, in which these boats ply, passing through the dominant narratives of the Somali seas and piracy. The project offered an opportunity to think about how business and these commodities are related to global trade and the current economic situation in the UAE. This movement of goods and their sailors may trace old trade routes, but it also maps out something new: a contemporary landscape of new and used objects, labour, Asian and African diasporas and giant wooden ships built in Salaya, Gujarat. The Wharfage project consisted of two parallel pieces: Wharfage, a book containing two years of port records related to Somali trade, and Radio Meena, four evenings radio transmissions from the port and was part of the 2009 Sharjah Biennial, where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. (To download the book, go to http://www.camputer.org/event.php?this=wharfage) Here, two audio tracks have been placed over still images. The first is a conversation with the captain of the dhow Shiv Shiv Shambu which had been hijacked by Somali pirates in 2008. The captain's father also jumps in to narrate an encounter he had with Somali traders back in the day. The second interview, which took place at Jam Khambalia (en route to Jam Salaya), suggests that people in this predominantly Hindu town distinguish themselves from the "uneducated Mohammedians" who occupy Salaya, a place deemed to be full of 'jhopadpattis' (slums) with a history of gold smuggling. Yes5277http://pad.ma/Vgtkm4q1/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Jam Salaya: Dhow building http://pad.ma/Vgtkm4q1/poster.75.jpgThis video shows the construction of dhows or large wooden boats in Jam Salaya, a port town on the Gulf of Kutch, Saurashtra. Sailors from Jam Salaya have been trading in the Arabian Sea for centuries. The prosperity of this town depends on fishing and its relationship to the sea. Today, there are no commodities that leave or enter from these shores, unlike in the past. The main occupation here is dhow building and sailing, and this supports trade primarily between various Gulf states and Somalia. Nida Ghouse and Radhamohini Prasad left for Jam Salaya on the September 6, 2009 to visit sailor friends they had met in Sharjah during the Wharfage project. Wharfage is an on-going CAMP project, which, in 2008, looked closely at the creek in Sharjah, from where a large number of dhows leave for 'Somalia'. Somalia, a collection of semi-state entities, is also a kind of free trade zone, in which these boats ply, passing through the dominant narratives of the Somali seas and piracy. The project offered an opportunity to think about how business and these commodities are related to global trade and the current economic situation in the UAE. This movement of goods and their sailors may trace old trade routes, but it also maps out something new: a contemporary landscape of new and used objects, labour, Asian and African diasporas and giant wooden ships built in Salaya, Gujarat. The Wharfage project consisted of two parallel pieces: Wharfage, a book containing two years of port records related to Somali trade, and Radio Meena, four evenings radio transmissions from the port. (To download the book, go to http://www.camputer.org/event.php?this=wharfage) This video features three conversations. One with Abudulla, a caretaker of newly constructed dhows, who tells us about the town and his experiences as a young sailor at sea. Another is with Salemama and his friend who explain how dhows are built, maintained and managed. And the last conversation is with Ibrahim, the owner of three dhows, who gives us insight into how the trade with Somalia developed in Salaya. Annotations for the footage are excerpts from Nida's travel diary. Yes6027http://pad.ma/Vsse199j/info2010-03-14weekly1.0Jam Salaya: The Townhttp://pad.ma/Vsse199j/poster.75.jpgJam Salaya, one of the dhow building port towns on the Gulf of Kutch, has been trading in the Arabian Sea for centuries. The prosperity of this town depends on fishing and its relationship to the sea. Today, there are no commodities that leave or enter from these shores, unlike in the past. The main occupation in Jam Salaya is dhow building and sailing and this supports trade primarily between various Gulf states and Somalia. Nida Ghouse and Radhamohini Prasad left for Jam Salaya on the September 6, 2009 to visit sailor friends they had met in Sharjah during the Wharfage project. Wharfage is an on-going CAMP project, which, in 2008, looked closely at the creek in Sharjah, from where a large number of dhows leave for 'Somalia'. Somalia, a collection of semi-state entities, is also a kind of free trade zone, in which these boats ply, passing through the dominant narratives of the Somali seas and piracy. The project offered an opportunity to think about how business and these commodities are related to global trade and the current economic situation in the UAE. This movement of goods and their sailors may trace old trade routes, but it also maps out something new: a contemporary landscape of new and used objects, labour, Asian and African diasporas and giant wooden ships built in Salaya, Gujarat. The Wharfage project consisted of two parallel pieces: Wharfage, a book containing two years of port records related to Somali trade, and Radio Meena, four evenings radio transmissions from the port and was part of the 2009 Sharjah Biennial, where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize. (To download the book, go to http://www.camputer.org/event.php?this=wharfage) The video begins with the ride from Jam Nagar to Jam Khambalia and then, on to Jam Salaya. We see images of the town and dhow construction sites. The annotations that accompany this video footage are excerpts from Nida's travel diary. Due to the nature of their visit, Nida and Radha found themselves having to completely submit to their hosts' desires of showing them around specific areas of the town. These videos, therefore, became a collection of images of places their hosts wanted them to see and know about.Yes1482http://pad.ma/Vg8w5rfp/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Reverend Vasantkumar's Verdict, Bangalore Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vg8w5rfp/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Reverend Vasantkumar, a member of the Bangalore Panch, discusses her verdict vis-a-vis the testimonials heard. Reverend Vasantkumar's verdict takes into account the Church as an institution, and speaks to some of its ideas vis-a-vis minority populations and their rights.Yes410http://pad.ma/Vev2ctlc/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Two questions for Munshri Dharmesh Kumar, Bangalore Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vev2ctlc/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this video, two members of the audience ask questions to Munshri Dharmesh Kumar about his verdict on the testimonials heard. In response, Munishri Dharmesh Kumar says that there should be special government-run facilities for the queer community.Yes304http://pad.ma/Veukf2h5/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Sevak Chandramouli's Verdict, Bangalore Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Veukf2h5/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Sevak Chandramouli, a member of the Bangalore Panch, discusses his verdict vis-a-vis the testimonials heard. Mr. Chandramouli speaks of the various aspects of the Hindu faith, and the ways in which the Hindu tenets can be applied to the question of homosexuality and intersexuality.Yes373http://pad.ma/Vi20fdxr/info2010-01-13weekly1.0Azhar's Verdict, Hyderabad Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vi20fdxr/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Here, Azhar shares his reflections on the deposers' testimonies. He speaks of the need to understand the queer lifestyle as natural; he repudiates the idea that homosexuals and transgender people are 'not natural'. Azhar stresses the need to re-examine social stereotypes about the queer community in order to build a more tolerant society.Yes519http://pad.ma/Vgtkfr0e/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Munishri Dharmesh Kumar's Verdict, Bangalore Panchayathttp://pad.ma/Vgtkfr0e/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this video, Munishri Dharmesh Kumar, a member of the Bangalore Panch, discusses his verdict on the testimonials heard. He first talks about Jainism in brief, before applying Jain teachings to the subject of queer rights and experiences. He concludes by stating his belief that the government should perhaps make special arrangements for the queer community, similar to those already in place for mentally challenged persons.Yes325http://pad.ma/Veizyed5/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Father Francis Guntipally's Response to the Experts, Bangalore Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Veizyed5/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Father Francis Guntipalli, a member of the Bangalore Panch, shares his response to the testimonials of the experts. Father Francis speaks to the history of Christianity, and the religion's relationship with minority identity. He also talks about pedophilia within the Church, and some of the challenges that this has posed to members of the religious community.Yes336http://pad.ma/Vgoltoqg/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers from Bhutan http://pad.ma/Vgoltoqg/poster.75.jpgAt Barefoot College, ordinary men and women -whatever their qualifications- can learn about solar energy. Roles have to be flexible: the teacher can be the learner and the learner can be the teacher. The whole environment is one of creative learning, demystifying technology and unlearning through processes that are natural, non violent and respectful. At present time, 32 Buthanese girls and 6 Mauretanian women follow a 6 months training to become a solar engineer in their home villages. From start on, the decision to step into the solar project is community-based. The home-village (mostly remote villages without electricity) selects and delegates its future women engineers for a 6 months training at Barefoot College in Rajasthan. In a community contract, every village family engages itself to pay its share in the remuneration of the engineers to set up and maintain the village solar system at their return home.The future engineers learn the necessary skills to repair inverters and charge the controllers for the solar units they will look after. Every family of the remote village communities pays a small sum for the equipment and the services of the solar engineers. As such, every member of the community takes his responsability in this ecological project of sustainable energy. In the solar engineer training productivity results from collective work. The learning environment is open and decentralised and knowledge is passed on in a bottom-up and hands-on way. The students are taught by 3 Indian women, pioneers from the solar workshop section. Students and teachers don't speak each other languages. They communicate by sign- and body language, pointing to the colors of their sarees to indicate the colors of the necessary resistors and capacitors for building the electrical circuits. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes251http://pad.ma/Vfwnoohn/info2010-01-13weekly1.0Reverend Nirmala Vasantkumar Responds to the Experts, Bangalore Panchayat, Resising Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vfwnoohn/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Reverend Vasantkumar, a member of the Bangalore Panch, discusses her response to the Experts' testimonials. She talks specifically about the Church, and the length of time it took for women to be recognized as pastors. She ends her short response with an assurance of solidarity towards queer people and the queer movement.Yes112http://pad.ma/Veeupl2a/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Reginald Watt's Expert Testimony, Bangalore Panchayat http://pad.ma/Veeupl2a/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this video, Rex Reginald, an Expert at the Bangalore Panchayat, shares his reactions to the testimonials heard, as well as to the verdicts pronounced by the various religious leaders present. He also sheds light on the recent history of the gay rights movement in India, highlighting the human rights aspects of the movement in particular. Mr. Reginald is clear that the queer community is not asking for special privileges but rather, for inclusion and the right to a life of dignity.Yes538http://pad.ma/Vef2o6zr/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Arvind Narrain's Expert Testimony, Bangalore Panchayat http://pad.ma/Vef2o6zr/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this video, Arvind Narayan, an Expert at the Bangalore Panchayat, shares his reactions to the testimonials heard, as well as to the verdicts pronounced by the various religious leaders present. He also sheds light on the recent history of the gay rights movement in India, highlighting the legal aspects of the movement in particular. Mr. Narayan expounds on the Constitutional right to “Live with Dignity”, and shares the ways in which Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code violates this right.Yes609http://pad.ma/Vhaw4xtn/info2010-05-25weekly1.0Father Francis Guntipally's Verdict, Bangalore Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vhaw4xtn/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Father Francis Gundipalli, a member of the Bangalore Panch, discusses his verdict vis-a-vis the testimonials heard. Father Francis expounds on the history of Christianity as a religion, and its ideology vis-a-vis minority populations.Yes436http://pad.ma/Vef154of/info2010-01-13weekly1.0Saud Akhtar's Verdict, Bangalore Panchayat, Resisting Stigma and Homophobiahttp://pad.ma/Vef154of/poster.75.jpgPeople’s Panchayats on Resisting Stigma and Homophobia; Action Plus - a Coalition for Rights, Education and Care in HIV and AIDS. Saud Akhtar, a member of the Bangalore Panch, discusses his verdict vis-a-vis the testimonials heard. Mr Akhtar speaks as an Indian Muslim, talking about the relationship between Islam and homosexuality. His talk highlights his belief that the queer community must be accepted by society, rather than reviled.Yes174http://pad.ma/Vezf3m13/info2010-03-11weekly1.0Resisting Stigma and Homophobia: Munishri Dharmesh Kumar's Response to the Experts, Bangalore Panchayat http://pad.ma/Vezf3m13/poster.75.jpgAction Plus, a network of 14 organisations working on HIV/AIDS in India, conducted a series of People’s Panchayats in 2009, which sought to understand people's battles against Stigma and Homophobia through the voices of survivors and resistors. The Panchayats sought to address the devaluation of livelihoods and life systems of entire communities of people who practice alternate sexualities, and the erosion of rights or dignity. This series of People’s Panchayats was held in five cities in India. The first one was in Bangalore on January 28, 2009, the second in Hyderabad on February 6, 2009, the third in Chennai on March 21, 2009 and the fourth on April 11, 2009 in Pune. The fifth and final one was held in New Delhi on April 24, 2009. Each of the Panchayats followed a similar structure. The interactive meetings were structured to have affected members from sexual minority communities share their personal experiences of living with stigma and homophobia. These were the deposers. Then the two-member expert panel shared their thoughts and ideas based on their experience in the field. The audience comprising of the general public, NGOs, media, opinion leaders and religious communities made their queries and comments at the end of the deposition. There was a brief audience interaction following which the jury or the panch gave its ‘verdict’. In this video, Munishri Dharmesh Kumar, a member of the Bangalore Panch, shares his response to the testimonials of the experts. He covers several different topics in his response, including his views on sex, self-exploration and Indian culture. In addition, he complicates traditional understandings of transgender persons by addressing both the positive and negative ways in which they are viewed by society.Yes487http://pad.ma/Vgdnde45/info2010-03-12weekly1.0Politics of Change: Women Solar Engineers - Rose Akumu http://pad.ma/Vgdnde45/poster.75.jpgRose Akumu is a rural woman from Uganda, who came to Barefoot College (http://www.barefootcollege.org) for a six-month workshop in solar engineering. It's her first trip away from her African village. After the workshop, she will return home and install solar panels on the rooftops of her village to bring electricity to the families of her community. For more on the Politics of Change project, see http://pad.ma/Vhr9e5q8/info For the finished film 'Mahila', see http://pad.ma/Vdxjnj1f/infoYes268http://pad.ma/Vt8dn5hq/info2009-08-07weekly1.0Pila House - Interview with Abdul Bhai of Delhi Darbar Restauranthttp://pad.ma/Vt8dn5hq/poster.75.jpgThis event is an interview is of Abdul Bhai, who works in a restaurant within the precinct of Pila House. His interview is one of a series of three interviews we conducted with various people to recollect the history of the area from the point of view of people who have either lived or worked there, i.e. in some way belonged to that space and were currently associated with some sort of trade in that area. Pila House a name derived locally from the term Play House, signifies the area adjoining the cluster of cinemas on lower Grant Road to Do Talkies, Kamatipura to Lohar-chawl. It is at the heart of our country’s financial capital a living exposition of an informal economy and couched between some of Bombay’s iconic bazaars it has for ages been an epitomatic public space. Contrary to my earlier perception of being either a rundown or down-market business establishment, Pila house in its varied forms, is an effervescent markets uniquely tailored for the needs of its various consumers. The physicality of space hides more than it reveals but with a little effort one stumbles upon a vast energetic production sector which is feeds into the city’s growing needs. It shifts between the day light hours of tailors, barbers, dentists, photo-studios, household and hardware sales to the neon lit restaurants, and numerous small eateries, cinema halls, pan shops; displaying elements for the script of both a brooding film noir it supports the bustle of a dynamic chain of demand and supply. I approached Pila House with the intension of unearthing a past, and found a vibrant present. Pila House has had a history of live entertainment, long before Bombay, became synonymous with the entertainment industry. A basic necessity for an ever-present mobile, male dominated bastion of merchants, seamen, labourers, Pila House accommodated entertainment of all varieties and forms. It quite easily accommodates a memory of at least two centuries, and has been the witness to some of the most dramatic changes of our times. At a point when the dancers in Bombay’s local bars were being banned – Pila House seemed like the most appropriate space to reexamine the nexus of the city’s many wares.Yes2008http://pad.ma/Vu1bg68y/info2009-08-07weekly1.0Koli Livelihood Practice 5 - Interview with Fisherman Darshanhttp://pad.ma/Vu1bg68y/poster.75.jpgThis event, along with others under the other event titled Koli Livelihood Practices on the same site, in an interview of Darshan Kathin, Kathin. Darshan was born into that tradition and spent his entire life in the village and inherited the trade from his father and continues to support his family with fishing which is his only business. Darshan also turned out to be the protagonist / principal narrator of the film, Notes from a Neighborhood, which I made for my diploma from National Institute of Design. This was my first encounter with some of the issues haunting the fishing business, specifically in Versova, where it has been a family based occupation for several centuries. Within the space of a city where lines are constantly being drawn on communal, moral grounds and issues of class, sexuality, faith relentlessly politicized, our engagement with our immediate neighbourhood drops only to mere necessity and differences get the priority in our discussions. It is said that often the study of others throws more light upon us – but often it is the definition of the other that is faulty. This particular interview with Darshan was one of the very first interviews I ever did. It was therefore a vast learning experience and though I did not end up using any of it for various reasons it is significant for various other ones. While I had befriended Darshan a bit and had been welcomed within his circle of friends and family, looking back I was still not very comfortable with him. That is one of the reasons why often our conversation does not flow very smoothly – as I had not resolved in my mind my own position vis-à-vis some of the things we were talking about. The first major learning that came from this was – when we are first stepping into another world, are we in a position to understand what we are being told? What kind of research of awareness does one require to generate to be able to engage comprehensively with the subject? Often we are given information but while a person like Darshan speaks from a context of his entire life, my association with his world had been comparatively short. At a very simply level most of these questions are resolved in time, the amount of time and the intensity of the engagement determines the clarity one forms. For me, reviewing and annotating this interview was a reality check of sorts in how much more I needed to cue myself to the space and focus my efforts on the specific context I wanted to unravel.Yes2625http://pad.ma/Vdxbw8rm/info2009-08-07weekly1.0Pila House: Interview with Javed Bhai, Caretaker of Dargah in Gulshan Talkieshttp://pad.ma/Vdxbw8rm/poster.75.jpgThis event is an interview is of Javed Bhai, who takes care of the Darga inside Gulshan Talkies, within the precinct of Pila House. His interview is one of a series of three interviews we conducted with various people to recollect the history of the area from the point of view of people who have either lived or worked there, i.e. in some way belonged to that space and were currently associated with some sort of trade in that area. Pila House has played a significant role within the mainstream film industry of Bombay not just as a space for exhibition but also a space for production. Apart from generating popular tales related to Pila House/Kamatipura, from the legendary Rekha in Muqaddar ka Sikandar to Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay to the more recent Dukaan, Pila House, all have contributed in creating the accepted stereotypes, it has also been the home of people like Rehmaan Bhai and his ancestral practice of painted film hoardings. This trade continues to be an active player in the film publicity arena and the form has an evolved visual language which has greatly inspired adaptations in contemporary technology. But both the space and stories it has produced have generously derived from each other in creating the essence of what it is today. The evolution of Pila House has had consistent association with forms of entertainment from the time the graveyards were decommissioned and filled up into an open field to halls for silent films and then talkies. The theatres were made on the spaces left around graves of certain important personalities, and remained in the background till the Parsis, Bohris and Anglo-Indian owners were being replaced by a primarily Islamic migration from various regions. The re-establishment of the graves as sites of a religio-spiritual gathering subsequently incorporates the common tradition of faith (religion), business and entertainment intersecting in our society. And along with the graves a new cohort or myths have populated this arena. Along with the birth and rapid evolution of religious fundamentalism within mainstream politics, waves of migration into and out of the city Pila House has managed to retain a unique space for itself within popular visual culture through a relationship with a constant sizable audience.Yes1207http://pad.ma/Vt42sbu9/info2009-08-07weekly1.0Kashmir - A Meeting with the Bhand Troupe of Akingamhttp://pad.ma/Vt42sbu9/poster.75.jpgTwo interviewers in Akingam, interview a troupe of Bhands. The interview takes place in a sylvan orchard. Sounds of the highway, passing trucks can be heard. There is, throughout the interview, a sense of a deep contained bitterness/sadness at the situation, evident in the somewhat withdrawn faces, and the sometimes elliptical answers of the interviewees. At the same time, theirs is a craft of social commentary, and even in this very extreme situation, they do sometimes make a funny joke about the situation that is not always bitter. The difference of life experience renders the interviewer’s questions (inevitably?) simplistic? The well researched interviewer sometimes seek complete statements of socio political facts he already knows, or tries to understand what he has known, in the light of these personal histories. The interviewer tries to pick up from a lead about the emptied houses of the Pandit Bhands, to lead the talk up to particular facets of that situation- the greater prosperity of the Pandits, for instance, the possible ill treatment of the Muslims. The interviewee points instead towards a sense of shared previous histories, and is silent about anything beyond. A certain circumspection exists in the answers as many questions are seen, in this landscape, as being charged questions. It is a landscape of suppression and many kinds of continuing injustices, many kinds of feeling implicated even, which has affected personal lives. The words of the conversation seem to float on clouds of the same. At the same time, there is a very ready hospitality, and warmth even, like there is no feeling of resentment towards the interviewers, there is even the desire to have that difficult conversation. Everyone is sitting out in the open, in a very gently beautiful setting… it is a setting, we are told, that the people are deprived of freely using now. Their routines have become circumscribed a lot within the walls of their home.Yes1901http://pad.ma/Vsromq8q/info2009-08-07weekly1.0Koli Livelihood Practice 4 - Wedding Ritualshttp://pad.ma/Vsromq8q/poster.75.jpgThis event, along with others under the other event titled Koli Women: Livelihood Practices on the same site, depicts a few ceremonies around a wedding that took place in the village around the time I was shooting my film, A Day’s Job, produced by PSBT for their Gender Unpack Project. But it was part of an ongoing research, started since I started working on Notes from a Neighborhood, a film made for my diploma from National Institute of Design, on local communities and their customs within the complex mesh of a hyper urban space and their representations. Versova village / Vesave – was barely 15 minutes away from where I lived and I passed the fish market on the beach a couple of times on Sunday afternoons before taking the ferry to Mudh Island. Also Saleem Bhatri, a senior from the National Institute of Design had earlier done an architectural dissertation on the area, which provided a basic framework. The first endeavor was to discern the space and understand how it was changing. At first glance the Koliwadas on the west coast – Colaba, Worli, and Versova seemed to be juggling twin devils – the real estate sharks or urban developers of Bombay and the steady flow of the city’s migrant labour. The identity, the old architecture and design of space rapidly dissolving into the proverbial shantytowns of Megacities – converted into multiple usage spaces with living and working quarters. Structures had come up organically to accommodate either an expanding family or simply as storage spaces/workshops for varied businesses without any consolidated plan. The Koliwadas were an exotic space in close vicinity of the film industry always in the look out for some spicy colour. The fishing community has always had vibrant visible codes in terms of their dress, ornaments, food habits and rituals. The women have traditionally been in the forefront of the interface with the community because of their involvement with the trade and thus occupied a space within public imagination. In the 70’s it was also commonly linked with smuggling of goods through the sea route. Iconic films like Deewar actually mention Versova Beach as an exact location, to more recently Hathyaaar, where Sanjay Dutt a pre-Munna-bhai Robin Hood-ish gangster’s den is set in a non-descript Koli village by the sea, a benign backdrop living up to its shady reputation. Fishing has been a family based occupation for several centuries. The drastic increase in pollutants and sewage which are poured into the sea as well widespread trawling by major fishing lines have made livelihood a lot more competitive. The Kolis who speak of a time when one could casually drop a line in the water outside their homes and draw a huge catch have now had to refashion their boats for the deep seas and spend 3 to 4 days at least for a catch to be worth the trip. Fishing requires a substantial amount of man power and current generations who have had suitable education have increasingly chosen city jobs thus making the business increasingly dependant on hired external labour. The flow of migrant labour over time has not only increased their control over the trade but occupied land within the Koli villages.Yes2357http://pad.ma/Vguccyi1/info2009-08-05weekly1.0Habib Tanveer and Naya Theatre in WSF 2004http://pad.ma/Vguccyi1/poster.75.jpgThis performance of Ponga Pandit by Habib Tanvir and the Naya Theatre took place at the World Social Forum in 2004 in Bombay. A collective of artists, calling themselves @Culture had done the organizing of all cultural programs at the WSF, with an aim of getting more involved in a space that seemed to rejuvenate the links between those involved in activist work. The privatizing economy, the relentless development through exploitation of tribal land and communities and the expansion of a global cultural media had taken their toll on the energy of activists combined with the fact that the BJP government at the centre had been involved in rewriting the text books and reinscribing the cultural landscape with a Hindutva focus and a strong penchant for censorship of the alternative arts, including theatre and documentary film. The cultural activities were many but their thrust was similar – that culture is a space where politics is refined and created, not merely illustrated. The effort was to provide space for the many different registers and scales of political art and performance. Hence there were diverse stages – those that involved formal spectacle, those that allowed for small performances, street theatre, music and one amphitheatre, named the Brecht theatre where larger, formal performances were done by professionalized community groups. For instance a group of LGBT performers from the Philippines called Sexy Divas, performed a Broadway show-style work. Habib Tanvir is one of the great crossover artists of a time – his work is well known and well loved by both those involved in alternative politics and culture and those largely familiar with the mainstream. The droll biting fun of these performances which combine a formal muscularity and a strong political heart, Brechtiean ideas and indigenous forms, has made them very popular. It was especially important that he performed Ponga Pandit, a play about caste and religious hypocrisy, as it was a play that the BJP government and RSS identified groups in Chhatishgarh had come down on hard – there had been attacks on performances by Hindutva identified rabble rousing groups threatening performers and audiences alike. The play had once been performed as a point of principle to an empty hall. The film by Sanjay Maharishi and Suhandvan Deshpande – A Day in the Life of Ponga Pandit – follows this experience. This performance however, was not to an empty hall – far from it. There was a stampede at the WSF grounds to get into the theatre. It was an example of how political art is made great by people claiming it for their own, and loving it the way fans of rock musicians do – not just by making the right noises. When the amphitheatre was full, people were angry and demanded to be let in, so the organizers requested Habib Tanvir to do two performances. The only problem was that there was a municipal restriction on loudspeakers after 10 p.m. The second performance then took place without a microphone. Habit Tanvir was already close to 80 at that point. Yet, his voice was the loudest and lustiest in the play, as the footage shows. The woman singing along with him is his daughter Nageen. The performance was shot by student reporters who were producing a twice-daily news bulletin. This material was later used to make an hour length film called Work in Progress: At the WSF 2004 The part of the performance we used in the film was the song – khoon phir khoon hai, katta hai tho beh jaata hai (Blood is blood after all, if you cut, it will flow), a poem by the progressive Urdu poet and film lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, who had also famously written the poetry of social comment in the film Pyaasa, which told the story of an artist’s struggle to write the kind of poetry he wants. It is an extremely beautiful poem, precise in its phrasing, sharp and reflective and it speaks about the cycle of violence and how violence once done, clings to the sleeve of the king, the trouser cuff of the devout and whoever has been part of that violence. Performed in the dark of the amphitheatre, the song seemed to draw the audience inward, create a hush, emphasize that the rousing quality of political comment must be followed by the silence of poetic reflection. Yes3386http://pad.ma/Vi3hyxe2/info2009-08-07weekly1.0Pila House: Interview with Sayeed Bhai, Owner of Gulshan Talkies and Its Restauranthttp://pad.ma/Vi3hyxe2/poster.75.jpgThis event is an interview is of Sayeed Bhai, who continues to run a successful business, both with his theatre as well as the restaurant which runs alongside, within the precinct of Pila House. His interview is one of a series of three interviews we conducted with various people to recollect the history of the area from the point of view of people who have either lived or worked there, i.e. in some way belonged to that space and were currently associated with some sort of trade in that area. Pila House is a living museum of change – while on one hand painted hoarding have given way to digital posters – Pila house is a showcase of some of the film industry’s all time favourite films / actors – with repeat shows. But what becomes significant there is the audience. Who are the ones getting entertained and how? Who the people who keep Pila House alive? A momentous shift from the educated Parsis, Bohris and Anglo-Indians who urged the then British rulers to carve out an entertainment district at the heart of a growing modern city to the daily laborers from UP and Bihar who spend their spend their weekly pittance today. Sayeed bhai’s family had acquired the premises which now include Gulshan Talkies and the adjoining restaurant, he apart from registering the property in a new name had also brought about significant structural changes and today continues to invest and carry on a profitable business. Various histories can be drawn of an area such as Pila House, for instance simply the architecture of the area tales the history of the building of the city. But more than a particular style of building, it how and for what purpose a site is built, and how is subsequently adapts itself to continuing needs, that is interesting. These building then change hands, from a Parsi owner to a Muslim, from an Afghan tenant to a group of young Bihari boys. So in my journeys into the Pila House I have often wondered about the countless cultures that have passed through it. And it is quite literally amidst the bazaars of Bombay, midway between Girgaum Chowpatty and Bombay Central. It is still located within what can be called Mumbai’s prime real estate, and must somewhere possess the commercial viability to survive the wrath of time. Pila house is an intersection both spatially and in time– a crossing, a route you are bound to take at some point, steal a quick glance hoping for a glimpse of those it hides more than it reveals. Pila house is suspended somewhere between a prayer and a secret fantasy – a super-mall of desires.Yes1152http://pad.ma/Vs66iwxz/info2009-08-05weekly1.0Dharavi - Interview with Vinayak Koli, President of Dharavi Koliwadahttp://pad.ma/Vs66iwxz/poster.75.jpgKoliwadas in Mumbai are prominent features, both in terms of landscape and culture. These are fishing villages and the oldest settlements in the region. The Portuguese missionaries converted the Koli people into Christians in 16th century. Koli is a distinct community in terms of features, cultures, traditional occupation and dialect. Especially Koli women can be identified easily even in a crowd. As the land grew into a city and then into a metropolis, urban development and migrant influx have been sweeping the city in phases. With every such phase kolis have got more and more isolated and vulnerable. Dharavi Koliwada is particularly vulnerable as the water body in Dharavi, the creek, got completely dried up few decades ago. Though all other fishing villages in the city and in the surrounding region too have got affected to an extent by the onslaught of development, no other water body has dried up as irreparably as the one in Dharavi. The once prosperous fishing hamlet is now facing extinction. The proposed redevelopment is made to gentrify the entire area. Once situated at the North-West border of the city, Dharavi has now become a prime land in the middle of the city. The dense settlement of low rise houses needs to go in order to extract more commercial value out of the precious land. The scheme proposes rehabilitation of all inhabitants in small tenements in the sky scrapers. The scheme suits some of the inhabitants whose livelihood is not necessarily located within Dharavi and not dependant on use of space. But others whose livelihood depends on the unique social structure and spatial arrangement of the settlement are strongly opposing this process of homogenizing the area. Vinayak Narayan Koli is the president of the Dharavi Koliwada community office he represents the community to the outside. Dharavi koliwada is an independent village that has its own panchayat to look into the community matters, for long they also have leaders from their own community standing for the post of corporators in the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipality Corporation) elections. But all these people and their voices have failed to make an impact on the way the government is treating this sensitive matter which holds one whole community at stake. On the occasions of religious celebrations the hindu right wing party, Shiv Sena donates money to please people, during the times of elections also various steps are taken by these parties like extension of cut-off dates for rehabilitation, increase in the size of the house they will get in return of redevelopment; to expand and maintain their vote bank. But when it comes to actually saving the kolis from extinction the government leaves them to fend for themselves.Yes2359http://pad.ma/Vhmckgmj/info2009-08-07weekly1.0Mumbai Fire Brigade - Riot Enactmenthttp://pad.ma/Vhmckgmj/poster.75.jpgThe video is an enactment of a riot situation- as part of the training programme for a new search and rescue team that would be equipped to deal with street violence. One of the firemen plays a news reporter reporting live from the scene. There is a mock interview of a member of the search and rescue team.  The trainee team members administer first aid to the injured in the background. The drama is enacted like a mad game between a team playing rioters, a team playing policemen, the search and rescue team of the fire department, a doctor and the press. As the drama of violence and aggression proceeds, you sense the playacting turning into a competition between teams as the actors in their roles turn unpredictable and total pandemonium takes over.Yes1011http://pad.ma/Vdxth7a2/info2009-08-05weekly1.0Dharavi Tamil Community: Landlord Chandrasekaran on Redevelopmenthttp://pad.ma/Vdxth7a2/poster.75.jpgDharavi is popularly termed as the largest slum in Asia. Known to be one of the densest and most layered human settlements in the world, the origin of Dharavi can be traced back to early 20th Century, at the height of the industrialization in the region. Dharavi is an area, which was originally located at the northern periphery of Bombay, but with boundaries of this ever-growing city constantly extending on all sides it has come to occupy prime location today. Today, according to official records, Dharavi is marked as an area spread over 223 hectares, where as many as 18,000 people crowd into a single acre. A 1986 survey by the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) counted 530,225 people (106,045 households) living in 80,518 structures. But considering the large number of 'unofficial/illegal' migration influx, the real number of people living in Dharavi is likely to be much more. Home to approximately one million people, Dharavi populace includes diverse language groups, religious communities and economic units. Most of Dharavi's old residents are from interior Maharashtra, Kutch and Kathiawad region in Gujarat and from Kanyakumari, Thirunelveli, Thuthukudi and Nellai districts in Tamil Nadu. Currently, Dharavi is in the eye of a storm as the prime land that it occupies needs to be 'redeveloped' to keep in pace with the economic globalization that is sweeping the city. Bombay, the supposed trade capital of India and India, the media acclaimed neo-Asian tiger of the international market, needs to grab more land and the old fashioned settlement of Dharavi must go in order to facilitate that. Currently the whole settlement - the residents' associations, the govt., the international builders' lobby as well as the civil society in Bombay are engaged in intense debate and complex maneuvering to extract the best possible deal out of this. But the problem is what is best for one economic group can be considered damaging by the others. Following a proposal (valued at Rs. 93 billion -around USD 2.3 billion) by architect Mukesh Mehta, the Govt. has divided Dharavi in five sectors and announced call for tenders to develop each sector from international builders' agencies. The scheme is that profits from the sale of the high-end developments will fund the resettlement of eligible slum dwellers (those who can prove their residence prior to January 1, 1995 which now has been extended to the year 2000) in free 225 sq. ft. (which now has been increased to 269 sq. ft.) flats in multi-story buildings. Developers are also charged with providing some amenities and infrastructural improvements. Though the Govt. declared the names of 19 short listed bidders in January 2008, the whole scheme came under cloud for lack of transparency and absence of proper research. The whole process is stalled at the moment while some organizations are commissioned to conduct some field research on the existing socio-economic structure of Dharavi. Another reason for the 'go slow' policy of the Govt. could be due to impending general election. Most probably the Govt. and specially the ruling party do not want to risk public controversy at this stage. The following is an interview with Dharavi slumlord, Mr. Chandrasekaran – owner of Rs. 100 Crores worth of property in Dharavi. He represents one of the first Tamil families to migrate to Dharavi from Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu in late 19th century. Through the four generation the family has made a fortune and now one of the most wealthy families in the area. Though he has earned his wealth mainly by manipulating various loopholes in the land control laws and regulation he is very critical about ill practices of other people. After earning money now he is very keen on acquiring the class. This makes him the staunchest supporter of the Dharavi redevelopment scheme.Yes3443http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/info2009-12-17weekly1.0MozCamp Mumbai, 2009http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/poster.75.jpg[http://mozcamp.in/mumbai MozCamp Mumbai] was held at National College in Mumbai on July 19th, 2009, to celebrate the launch of Firefox 3.5 and explore some of its new features. This is the video of the entire event. Use the following links to navigate straight to a particular session: Introduction to event: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/0:00:00.000 Arun's video for MCM: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/0:01:32.639 Sanjay and Baishampayan Ghose's session on HTML 5: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/0:20:45.000 Dipen's session on the Geo Location API in Firefox: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/1:02:19.639 Kunal and Raza's session on the Offline API in Firefox: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/1:20:36.479 Krishnakant Mane's session on the Orca screen reader and accessibility in Firefox: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/1:37:12.500 Sanjay's session on pad.ma, Firefogg and <video>: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/1:57:20.000 Aamod's session on promoting Firefox and MozHunt Mumbai: http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/2:11:15.719 Winding up, collecting goodies:) http://pad.ma/Vsmpvstz/2:21:10.839Yes8759http://pad.ma/Vtjypx4m/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Tamil Community: Interview with Agent Sukumaranhttp://pad.ma/Vtjypx4m/poster.75.jpgDharavi is popularly termed as the largest slum in Asia. Known to be one of the densest and most layered human settlements in the world, the origin of Dharavi can be traced back to early 20th Century, at the height of the industrialization in the region. Dharavi is an area, which was originally located at the northern periphery of Bombay, but with boundaries of this ever-growing city constantly extending on all sides it has come to occupy prime location today. Today, according to official records, Dharavi is marked as an area spread over 223 hectares, where as many as 18,000 people crowd into a single acre. A 1986 survey by the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) counted 530,225 people (106,045 households) living in 80,518 structures. But considering the large number of ‘unofficial/illegal’ migration influx, the real number of people living in Dharavi is likely to be much more. Home to approximately one million people, Dharavi populace includes diverse language groups, religious communities and economic units. Most of Dharavi’s old residents are from interior Maharashtra, Kutch and Kathiawad region in Gujarat and from Kanyakumari, Thirunelveli, Thuthukudi and Nellai districts in Tamil Nadu. Currently, Dharavi is in the eye of a storm as the prime land that it occupies needs to be ‘re-developed’ to keep in pace with the economic globalization that is sweeping the city. Following a proposal (valued at Rs. 93 billion -around USD 2.3 billion) by architect Mukesh Mehta, the Govt. has divided Dharavi in five sectors and announced call for tenders to develop each sector from international builders’ agencies. The scheme is that profits from the sale of the high-end developments will fund the resettlement of eligible slum dwellers (those who can prove their residence prior to January 1, 1995 which now has been extended to the year 2000) in free 225 sq. ft. (which now has been increased to 269 sq. ft.) flats in multi-story buildings. The whole process is stalled at the moment while some organizations are commissioned to conduct some field research on the existing socio-economic structure of Dharavi. Another reason for the ‘go slow’ policy of the Govt. could be due to impending general election. Most probably the Govt. and specially the ruling party do not want to risk public controversy at this stage. The following is an interview with a Tamil Resident of Dharavi, Mr. Sukumaran, a man of public life, a consultant, and father of three. Sukumaran is born to a migrant family and brought up in Dharavi. He is candid about his earlier brush with the world of crime and his current profession of negotiation with the power lobbies. He was not easily agreeable to the interview andour crew had to hang around for an entire day before before getting an access to him. He runs a Consultancy called Tension – Free Consultancy from a 5 by 5 feet room adjoining his home in Dharavi. Yes1038http://pad.ma/Vsru3yrm/info2009-07-09weekly1.0Dharavi Koliwada: Indigenous Culture and Village Deity Khambdevhttp://pad.ma/Vsru3yrm/poster.75.jpgKhambdev is the village deity of the dharavi Koliwada. He is not to be found in the long list of generic Hindu god or even in any other indigenous cultures. Every Koli village has their Village deity. Generally this deity is placed at the border of the village. In Dharavi Koliwada the shrine of Khmbdev was in between the village and the creek. It is believed that Khambdev keeps an eye on the entire village from its outskirt and protect it from all evils. The popular practice was to pray at Khambdev before setting out for fishing. It is claimed that till a few decades ago the deity used to get submerged under the creek water during high tide. But currently the shrine has come to be in midland surrounded by buildings and other concrete structure. The city has grown to swallow the empty land around Khambdev and thus has destroyed his aura to a great extent. The frenzied process of urban development has dried the creek. Drying up of the creek has not only indicated the loss of livelihood for the Kolis, but has also posed a severe challenge to their system of belief and culture. The water based community is now forced to function within the mainstream norms of land related property. Traditionally the deity of Khambdev is not supposed to reside under a roof or within four walls. But under the present situation it has become very important for the Koliwada people to assert, both community and individual, rights over the land. So Khambdev gets encircled within boundary walls and rooftop. So now the there is a proper construction around the 18th century deity. The shrine compound also houses a gym (vyamshala) for the local youth. The courtyard of the shrine is maintained to facilitate sports and fests. It has become a community centre in the middle of the settlement. The shrine is administered by the Jamaat, the official association of the Koliwada. Khambdev festival takes place on the full moon day of Chaitra (April-May). On the same day two other important festivals are observed in Dharavi – Hanuman Jayanti and Jyotiba Mahotsav, festival of lower castes Hindus and neo-Buddhists.Yes2541http://pad.ma/Veugfgon/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Koliwada: Public and Political Celebration of Holihttp://pad.ma/Veugfgon/poster.75.jpgThe Holi festival has become the most important social festival in Dharavi Koliwada. In other Koli settlement the festival of Narial Purnima is the most important occasion. During the heavy rain of July-August the fishermen cannot go to the deep sea to fish. Infact the government has put a ban on fishing in the deep sea on those months to avoid casualties. Hence in August-September (Shravan in local calendar) on the full moon day (Purnima) there is a ritual of worshipping the sea god by offering him coconuts (narial). It marks the end of no-fishing season and prays to the sea god to calm down to help to resume fishing. This ritual is entirely livelihood based and no other community or religious group celebrates this festival. But since Dharavi Koliwada has lost their access to water this festival has lost its significance. Instead Holi festival has come to occupy a prime space in their social calendar. It is believed that the Holi festival has reached this height with direct patronage from Shivsena in order to mobilize the community under its fold, much as the same way Tilak started Ganeshotsav to invoke nationalism.Yes568http://pad.ma/Vgoxo9sc/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Koliwada: Syncretic Culture and Converted Christianityhttp://pad.ma/Vgoxo9sc/poster.75.jpgChristianity existed in India from a really long time, almost as long as it has been in European countries, but the most of the conversions from other religions to Christianity happened due to the traders and rulers that came from the foreign countries. By mid 16th century Portuguese pirates had already taken over some ports around the region – Goa, Daman and Diu. In 1534 they defeated the ruler of Mahim Island and Sultan of Gajarath (Gujarat), they found their first colony in Bombay region. They eventually took over all of the seven islands. But they were mostly interested in keeping control over the sea shores and not in regulating or administrating the inner land settlements. Thus Portuguese converted many people around this area to Christians for the benefit of their trades. Later when Britishers came in 17th century they brought in missionaries who converted many more all over India. There are many myths around how people were converted from their original religion, but the underline basis of conversion was the use of force. It is said that Britishers came with sword in one hand and cross in another. Kolis are the original inhabitants of Bombay and they are one of the first communities to have been converted, though even after taking up Christianity, these people have kept their told rituals intact. Apart from attending church prayer, they also take part in all the community festivals and events and their lifestyle is also very similar to other kolis. The most interesting is the Indianised Christian rituals and prayers that the Christians in India follow. Yes753http://pad.ma/Vt8dxx1v/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Leather Industry: Tannery Processing Sequence with Kalubaihttp://pad.ma/Vt8dxx1v/poster.75.jpgThe leather industry in Dharavi is a male bastion. Since the work involves acquiring skin hide, tanning the leather, carrying heavy loads, delivering for import consignment etc. conventionally women workers were not part of this industry. In the villages where it was a community activity, woman might have played an important role. But in this urban set up this industry has remained exclusively male. Kalubai is a rare phenomenon of a woman worker in the leather industry. Kalubai is working in this unit for a long time. From her sense of temporality it is difficult to get the exact date. But what we know is that she has been working in this unit since the time when the current owner, Wahaj Khan, was a wage worker here. This should roughly amount to 30 years. Though an immensely experienced worker she still earns only Rs.3000/- . The concept of perks and bonus in this trade is extremely erratic and governed by feudal norms. Kalubai is capable of doing all jobs in the unit – sweeping, using the machine to iron the rough leather, conditioning process, colouring, stock checking and so on. She often gives proxy for any worker who is absent on any job. But still she is designated as sweeper. Though the leather industry is generally hostile to women workers, Kalubai has survived here for around thirty years. But unlike the male co-workers, she neither climbed up in the work place nor has she shifted out for better fortune. This kind of stagnation is very common for women workers in the urban industries. This is a version of glass ceiling. Her relationship with the younger male co-workers is quite intriguing. She appears to be detached from the work place politics and ever eager to share anybody else’s work load. In that sense she seems to be the trusted lieutenant of the master whose only interest is to facilitate the work to guarantee profit. She never works only within her brief. At the same time she shares an extremely comfortable relationship with her co-workers. The combination of feminine charm, elderly command and unembarrassed commitment to the establishment make her a unique feature. Though she is the most useful and striking personality in the workshop her designation remains that of the lowest category.Yes936http://pad.ma/Vg7whcac/info2009-07-09weekly1.0Dharavi Koliwada: Interview with Koli Women Ihttp://pad.ma/Vg7whcac/poster.75.jpgYamuna and Mani bai are friends and neighbours in Dharavi Koliwada. Koliwadas or villages of Kolis are the first settlements in the region. Before the land was turned into a city and then into a metropolis by joining the islands and then by filling up the sea and the marsh land, there were mainly the fishing hamlets and salt pans along with little patches of civilization. Koli community is one of the worst victims of urban development through the 20th century. Though they were converted into Christianity as early as 17th century by the Portuguese colonial missionaries, they have failed to take advantage of it either by receiving modern education or by acquiring employment or by expanding their economic activities. Despite the religious affinity with the foreign rulers the community maintained their indigenous life style and traditional occupation of fishing. But as the city grew and more contenders came in to the trade on the sea and marine lives, the Kolis and their traditional occupation of fishing have come to the verge of extinction. In Koli practice the men go to the sea for fishing and the women handle the market. As a result the women have emerged as the public face of the community. The community is identified by the spectacular presence of the Koli women in the public place. In their broad body structure, distinct features, heavy jewelry, 9 yard saree, super confident body language and extrovert personality they make a spectacle in fish markets and in the public transports. Since the men work in the sea, far away from the din of the city, the Koli men do not have much of a public presence. As the fishing trade itself has got severely affected by the chemical pollution of the sea, introduction of trawlers of the multi-national companies, by rampant construction activities and also by the intrusion of fish vendors from outside the community; Kolis are forced to get engaged with the happenings in the mainstream. They are asking for reservation in govt. jobs, concession in educational institutions and also joining political outfits that are strategically maneuvering their anxieties into xenophobia. This interview takes place in a comparatively affluent household in Dharavi Koliwada. The house is a sprawling bungalow with all modern gadgets, marble floorings and wooden furniture’s. Such a house could be the source of envy for anybody in Bombay, in terms of living space available. But these kind of spacious houses are not uncommon in Koliwadas. But access to these houses is always through extremely narrow by lanes. Often a long winding labyrinth ends on a wide courtyard of a house. As the area was never planned to accommodate additional construction and urban infrastructure, the condition of the public spaces are abysmal. The once prosperous fishing hamlet is now facing extinction. The proposed redevelopment is made to gentrify the entire area. Once situated at the North-West border of the city, Dharavi has now become a prime land in the middle of the city. The dense settlement of low rise houses needs to go in order to extract more commercial value out of the precious land. The scheme proposes rehabilitation of all inhabitants in small tenements in the sky scrapers. The scheme suits some of the inhabitants whose livelihood is not necessarily located within Dharavi and not dependant on use of space. But others whose livelihood depends on the unique social structure and spatial arrangement of the settlement are strongly opposing this process of homogenizing the area. As oppose to the shanties in other parts of Dharavi, Koliwada comprises of village like independent structures. Though their already endangered livelihood is not likely to be affected anymore by this scheme, the Kolis stand to loose their ancient rights over the land and traditional culture. Yes930http://pad.ma/Vtju6if4/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Papadwali: Domestic Violence and Survivallhttp://pad.ma/Vtju6if4/poster.75.jpgDharavi is a slum popularly termed as the Asia’s biggest slum. Known to be one of the densest and most layered human settlements in the world, the origin of Dharavi can be traced back to mid 20th century, at the height of the industrialization in the region. Dharavi was originally located at the northern periphery of Bombay, but with boundaries of this ever-growing city constantly extending on all sides it has come to occupy prime location today. Today, according to official records, Dharavi is marked as an area spread over 175 hectares, where as many as 18,000 people crowd into a single acre. But considering the large presence of unofficial/illegal migration influx, the real number of people living in Dharavi is likely to be much more. Home to approximately one million people, Dharavi populace includes diverse language groups, religious communities and economic units. Most of the citizens of Dharavi are urban artisans, functioning out of the outer space of their one-storey shanties. This seamlessness in working and living space, over the decades, has resulted in high number of female wage earners. Currently, Dharavi is in the eye of a storm as the prime land that it occupies needs to be ‘redeveloped’ to keep in pace with the economic globalization that is sweeping the city. This interview is of This interview is of Subhadra Sonawane, who from a very young age has been living in Dharavi. Her painful life is an example of survival of a woman in a male dominated world. Subhadra was abandoned by the husband she worked as domestic help and did other menial labour work to survive. Just when her life seemed to be getting better her 20 year old son died and her house got burned. She is all alone in the world and the thought of the future makes her panic. Hers is just one case among many such stories of survival in Dharavi. This interview is part of our Dharavi documentation project. We hope to evolve a comprehensive documentation and dissemination of the spaces and lives of Dharavi residents. Yes1568http://pad.ma/Vu0hwdqp/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Koliwada: Retail Fish Markethttp://pad.ma/Vu0hwdqp/poster.75.jpgKoli is the caste name for the traditional fisher folks in Mumbai. When the land was a cluster of islands in the pre-urban phase, the Koli community was the main inhabitants. The villages of Kolis are called Koliwada. The unique characteristic of the community is that the trading is conducted by the women and the inheritance of that ran by the women’s line. The most coveted property for the Kolis is the designated spot in the fish market. The spots are rented by the family from the municipality and go down from the mother-in-law to the daughter-in-law. On the other hand when a Koli girl gets married to a different location she cannot start vending fish in the market of that location. Often a married Koli woman in Borivali would come to Dharavi to sell fish as that is her birth place. Till the time her mother-in-law in the Borivali market leaves the trade and gives her the space in the market she cannot enter the business there. This century old economic independence and access to public space have made the Koli women a distinct race. The Koli women rein over the cityscape of the city – by their aggressive selling in the market, by their noisy bargains in the docks and the wholesale markets and by their assertive presence in the public transports. But in last couple of decades the fortune of the Kolis are dwindling and so is the status of the Koli women. With the invasion of mechanized trawlers of the multi-national food companies in the sea their traditional method of fishing has got a major beating. The pollution of sea water and the construction frenzy have affected the availability of the catch. The real estate menace is threatening the existence of their villages and the markets. The migrant male vendors have started selling fish at the doorsteps which coupled with the availability of the frozen food stocks resulted in diminishing clientele in the bazaars. There has also been a campaign by the influential militant vegetarian lobby to demolish the stinking fish markets from the centre of the city. Today the Kolis stand for a vulnerable community. Their desperate attempts to enter the mainstream through education and jobs in the public sector too seem unrealistic in the face of current market driven economy and frenzied gentrification of the urban landscape. Taking advantage of the situation the right wing political parties in the region are trying to mobilize them into xenophobic identity politics.Yes1278http://pad.ma/Veej59fr/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Leather Industry: Nagnath Leather Processing Workshophttp://pad.ma/Veej59fr/poster.75.jpgThe leather industry in Dharavi, which is popularly known by the generic name tannery, started around 1950s. Though it was started mainly by the Tamil migrants, later some Maharashtrians and UP migrants too got into the trade. The leather business ceased to be lucrative since the 90s. The reasons behind the decline are many: a) government cracked down on many workshops on account of public health and environmental issues. It was claimed that the tanning activity (making rough leather out of the animal hide) was hazardous to public health. b) Another issue was that the tanning activities was polluting the water in the Dharavi creek and severely affecting the fishing trade of the Koli community. c) It was popularly believed that much under world activities and smuggling was being conducted under the cover of the tanneries. d) Since 1984 many schemes were launched in different phases to develop the land in Dharavi for more gentrified neighbourhood. As a result the land price in Dharavi sky rocketed and many tannery owners found it more profitable to sell the land to the builders. The first three issues made the govt. ban the tanning activities and regulate the trade with more vigilance. The tanning activities then got shifted to Chennai (where a large leather industry has been in existence even before the Dharavi industry started) or small towns in Maharashtra. That obviously has increased the cost of production and has reduced employment opportunity. Even if there is some clandestine tanning activity still taking place in Dharavi, the production of it cannot be voluminous. Still many units survived as the workshops that worked on the later phases of the procedure. After the tanning in the far away places the rough leather would be sent to Dharavi, then it would be treated to make finer leather, coloured iand dried and then exported / sold or stitched into consumers’ goods and exported / sold. So though the situation got worse since the ‘90s a part of the industry was still functioning and even expanding. But in last few years two major issues have developed. The government has launched a scheme to develop the whole of Dharavi simultaneously into high rise colonies. It is proposed that each legal structure in the present Dharavi would be rehabilitated within the skyscrapers. But the economic activities in Dharavi, which are also core livelihood activities, such as pottery, leather works etc. need ground space and open roof tops and cannot be accommodated in the linear multi-storied buildings. Moreover, the area of space that would be allotted to these workshops is much less than the present establishments. In practical terms the scheme means either eviction for these workshops or relocation in far away places. The second development is the collapse of the international economy and sharp decrease in the export order. The situation got aggravated by the introduction of new rule of quality control in consumers’ leather goods. Currently the big market brands, who are the main clients of the industry, are insisting on expensive quality control proof. This has proved to be the proverbial last straw for the people who supply goods to the export market. Under this circumstance we visited the Nagnath leather processing unit in Dharavi.Yes1355http://pad.ma/Vhrfaceg/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Tamil Community: Group Interview with Women in Tamil Chawlhttp://pad.ma/Vhrfaceg/poster.75.jpgThe following footage is of multiple interviews in Tamil, of Tamil residents in Dharavi, mostly mischievous old women, with such playful attitudes and sense of humour that even made our crew nervous. All the families interviewed here have migrated from Thirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu and live here in tiny apartments with their family members across three generations. They are very different from the group of tamils who came to start tanneries in the ‘50s. These people are more like wage workers who come to the city to try their hands on anything. According to Mr. Kanakaraj, a resident of Dharavi, due to the caste atrocities many Tamil working – class and lower- class people migrated to Bombay in the beginning of the 20th century. (For more info see event Dharavi: Redevelopment for a Tamil Working Class Man). Bombay provided these migrants with various opportunities and their own space in Dharavi. But both these issues have been addressed in Tamil Nadu, to an extent, in last couple of decades. But the flow of migration still continues as these families in Tamil chawl have migrated to Bombay in last 20 years.. It could be the hope for plenty in the metropolises or the lack of development initiatives in the villages. Amenities, more than survival, can play an important role in contemporary lives, in terms of choosing the location to reside. For these families, visits to Tamil Nadu are sparse, but they have recreated Tamil Nadu right here in Dharavi. Their children can speak in Hindi, English and Marathi, but also fluent in Tamil. They practice festivals like Pongal, (but inside their homes), watch Tamil television and live on their staple diet of sambhar (a South Indian preparation of vegetable stew). At the same time they love Bombay and consider Dharavi their ‘home’. This can be called an example of multiple citizenship. It is heartening to see how ordinary people can negotiate so many identities simultaneously. This chawl is a Tamil ghetto owned by Laxminaray Sivan, one of the Tamil migrants of the previous generation of Dharavi – his family migrated in the ‘50s. (for more about him please see the file ‘Dharavi Tamil Community: Interview with Slumlord Laxminarayan Sivan). Yes1765http://pad.ma/Vsnpstff/info2009-06-26weekly1.0Dharavi Tamil Community: Ila on Growing up in a Ghettohttp://pad.ma/Vsnpstff/poster.75.jpgIla is a 23 year old 2nd generation Tamil living in Dharavi. Ila’s contagious laughter and happy-go-lucky attitude make this a fun encounter. She speaks freely about her inhibitions, aspirations, values, family, and home. When talking about her parents or friends, she imitates them, animatedly, and helps us to understand her life as a Tamilian in Dharavi, and as a Dharavi resident outside the settlement, in the prejudiced city of Bombay. As the real estate price of Bombay is only comparable to that of Tokyo and New York, a person’s worth in the city is primarily measured by the address he or she lives in. Real estate, construction, property price, evaluation of a neighbourhood etc. are social conversation in Bombay. Even children grow up hearing stories related to real estate. The newly migrants’ dream is to afford a tenement on rent. The rented places are available only for 11 months. In order to avoid any tenancy rights that the tenants may assert in the future, landlords make contract only for 11 months. Hence large numbers of people shift homes every 11 months. As the rent also go up periodically they are automatically pushed more and more to the fringe. Then some of them manage to secure bank loan and purchase a flat of their own. Then the anxiety turns into paying the monthly installments to the bank. Simultaneously some other areas get gentrified displacing the old residents. That too creates another exodus from the centre of the city. While a whole lot of people are constantly pushed towards the fringe (fringe itself shifts to more far flung areas) another set desperately make attempts to come to the centre. In the midst of this heavy traffic of internal movements of people, come in shopping malls and business districts. Bombay forever remains under construction and a honeycomb for the builders lobby. This phenomena plays havoc to the psyche of the people and make them vulnerable to all sorts of political maneuvering and economic exploitation. In the eve of much trumpeted Dharavi redevelopment, we talk to Ila as a representative of the younger generation in the settlement and gather her opinion about growing up in a place which is stigmatized by the rest of the city and the country. Ila has seen much of the dark side of Dharavi in her growing up years. But she chooses to evade those issues and concentrate only on her aspiration. The interview is taken in the tiny residence of her family. Contrary to her appearance and talk her home indicates a status much below that of the middle class. Yes2339http://pad.ma/Vdyp2o41/info2009-07-09weekly1.0Dharavi Koliwada: Interview with Vinayak Ignatious Kolihttp://pad.ma/Vdyp2o41/poster.75.jpgKoliwadas in Mumbai are prominent features, both in terms of landscape and culture. These are fishing villages and the oldest settlements in the region. The Portuguese missionaries converted the Koli people into Christians in 16th century. Koli is a distinct community in terms of features, cultures, traditional occupation and dialect. Especially Koli women can be identified easily even in a crowd. As the land grew into a city and then into a metropolis, urban development and migrant influx have been sweeping the city in phases. With every such phase kolis have got more and more isolated and vulnerable. Dharavi Koliwada is particularly vulnerable as the water body in Dharavi, the creek, got completely dried up few decades ago. Though all other fishing villages in the city and in the surrounding region too have got affected to an extent by the onslaught of development, no other water body has dried up as irreparably as the one in Dharavi. Vinayak Ignatious Koli is regarded as the local historian by the community. His classical Hindu first name (a nomenclature for Lord Ganesha), sacred Christian name as middle name and community name Koli as surname – is a microcosm of the post colonial, indigenous community. His second name must have been kept after the Jesuit priest St. Ignatious Loyola. In his interview Vinayak Ignatious Koli vividly describes the Christian missionaries as some Englishmen who used to lure them with chocolate to school and also used to beat them up for running away from studying. But in his imagination the colonial soldiers, the Queen of England and the missionaries have become one people. He believes that Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria lived in the city and often took a stroll in the vicinity of Dharavi. This popular imagination regarding the kings and queens resembles the narrative style of Indian folk tales. The foreignness of the Queens of England does not make them any less accessible than the rulers from the region. Infact he takes a great pleasure in claiming that his community was the favoured one with the colonial masters than any other community in the land. The claim of affinity with the colonial masters has become part of the memory of good old days of plenty. It is believed that Queen Elizabeth had once given the Koliwadas some sort of certificate of autonomy. Based on that the community hopes to counter the attack of urbanization and keep their traditional control over the land.Yes2751http://pad.ma/Vedvbssn/info2009-07-09weekly1.0Dharavi Koliwada: Interview with Koli Women IIhttp://pad.ma/Vedvbssn/poster.75.jpgYamuna and Mani bai are friends and neighbours in Dharavi Koliwada. Koliwadas or villages of Kolis are the first settlements in the region. Before the land was turned into a city and then into a metropolis by joining the islands and then by filling up the sea and the marsh land, there were mainly the fishing hamlets and salt pans along with little patches of civilization. Koli community is one of the worst victims of urban development through the 20th century. Though they were converted into Christianity as early as 17th century by the Portuguese colonial missionaries, they have failed to take advantage of it either by receiving modern education or by acquiring employment or by expanding their economic activities. Despite the religious affinity with the foreign rulers the community maintained their indigenous life style and traditional occupation of fishing. But as the city grew and more contenders came in to the trade on the sea and marine lives, the Kolis and their traditional occupation of fishing have come to the verge of extinction. In Koli practice the men go to the sea for fishing and the women handle the market. As a result the women have emerged as the public face of the community. The community is identified by the spectacular presence of the Koli women in the public place. In their broad body structure, distinct features, heavy jewelry, 9 yard saree, super confident body language and extrovert personality they make a spectacle in fish markets and in the public transports. Since the men work in the sea, far away from the din of the city, the Koli men do not have much of a public presence. As the fishing trade itself has got severely affected by the chemical pollution of the sea, introduction of trawlers of the multi-national companies, by rampant construction activities and also by the intrusion of fish vendors from outside the community; Kolis are forced to get engaged with the happenings in the mainstream. They are asking for reservations in govt. jobs, concession in educational institutions and also joining political outfits that are strategically maneuvering their anxieties into xenophobia. This interview takes place in a comparatively affluent household in Dharavi Koliwada. The house is a sprawling bungalow with all modern gadgets, marble floorings and wooden furniture’s. Such a house could be the source of envy for anybody in Bombay, in terms of living space available. But these kind of spacious houses are not uncommon in Koliwadas. But access to these houses is always through extremely narrow by lanes. Often a long winding labyrinth ends on a wide courtyard of a house. As the area was never planned to accommodate additional construction and urban infrastructure, the condition of the public spaces are abysmal. The once prosperous fishing hamlet is now facing extinction. The proposed redevelopment is made to gentrify the entire area. Once situated at the North-West border of the city, Dharavi has now become a prime land in the middle of the city. The dense settlement of low rise houses needs to go in order to extract more commercial value out of the precious land. The scheme proposes rehabilitation of all inhabitants in small tenements in the sky scrapers. The scheme suits some of the inhabitants whose livelihood is not necessarily located within Dharavi and not dependant on use of space. But others whose livelihood depends on the unique social structure and spatial arrangement of the settlement are strongly opposing this process of homogenizing the area. As oppose to the shanties in other parts of Dharavi, Koliwada comprises of village like independent structures. Though their already endangered livelihood is not likely to be affected anymore by this scheme, the Kolis stand to loose their ancient rights over the land and traditional culture. Yes2171http://pad.ma/Vsnphism/info2009-07-03weekly1.0Mumbai Fire Brigade: Building Collapses in the Inner Cityhttp://pad.ma/Vsnphism/poster.75.jpgThese are videos of the aftermaths of building collapses and of the rescues of bodies trapped under debris by the fire department. These images of the ruins of buildings confound ideas of permanence, of stability and sheltering that embody homes and buildings; where their elaborate tectonics of shelter are revealed as vulnerable and frightening in their heaviness. The videos contain images of piles of debris, made up of the disintegrated architecture of buildings; the elaborate structures of steel beams, wooden and steel columns and concrete that have collapsed into each other over and around the bodies of their inhabitants. These bodies have to be extricated carefully, sometimes from under heavy masonry and steel or cut out from under the mangled mess of reinforcement and concrete. Each rescue effort is an exercise in the ingenuity of the fire-fighters as crowbars, hydraulic cutters, J.C.B’s, rope have to be deployed in turn to carefully prise the trapped persons out from under the weight of building material. The first video is the aftermath of the collapse of a building in an inner city neighbourhood. The inner city areas of Mumbai developed as the older bazaar and mercantile town outside the fort where the British and Indian elite lived and worked forming a crucial trade link between the hinterlands and the port. The bazaars have transformed through the years, retaining to a large extent the structure of the specialized street bazaars. Reports of building collapses such as this one are frequent as there is a huge proportion of dilapidated building stock within these precincts, a fall-out of the rent control act which resulted in insufficient finances for the structural maintenance of buildings. Structural alterations, lack of maintenance, complex networks of tenancies and ownerships make maintenance of these buildings difficult. However, the frozen rents also make it necessary and possible for all sizes and types of businesses to make place within the nooks and crannies of the building. As a result, although the stability of the physical structure may be suspect; the complex, interlinked networks of tenancies, sub-tenancies under the rent control act keep these crumbling shells alive with diverse economic activities and residential communities. Historically these areas have seen violent cleansing drives by the British, especially post 1803 after the fire when the BIT undertook improvement schemes that led to large-scale demolition and rehabilitation. The heavily critiqued development control regulation act is the latest state initiative to address the dilapidation and rehabilitation of the precincts, which without proper infrastructure augmentation further burdens the dense precincts with more built up area, population, parking water and power requirements. The second video in an unidentified location is of a rescue of a worker caught under the collapsed building, his body covered with dust curled in a gap in the rubble is gently rescued by the huge claw of the monster machine and its attendant firemen.Yes1767http://pad.ma/Vu5ggx71/info2009-06-15weekly1.0Mumbai Fire Brigade: Training Exerciseshttp://pad.ma/Vu5ggx71/poster.75.jpgThese are the videos of the training exercises, parades, felicitation ceremonies that are the events and activities that hold the fire department together and keep its machinery well-oiled in the long intervals between actual emergencies. There are training exercises, designed like competitions and games, which form a critical part of the training; there are demonstrations of new equipment and techniques. There is a lot of play-acting that must be taken very seriously as it becomes the template for what must be done in real emergencies. The parades and felicitations that set up the narratives and images of heroic identity, that the red fire trucks and blue uniforms and helmets have acquired in the city’s civic imagery. The first two videos are of felicitation ceremonies and public demonstrations, and the third video is of a parade.Yes627http://pad.ma/Veuwreng/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Leather Industry: Casual Wage Workershttp://pad.ma/Veuwreng/poster.75.jpgProcessing leather from the animal hide is traditionally a community based occupation. The community who work on the animal slaughtering and extracting the hide is called Chamars. The word is often used as degrading abuse to depict the stigma attached to the job. Mostly the community was not involved in the lucrative part of the leather trade i.e. selling fine leathers or leather goods. But in a metropolis like Bombay such social stigma gets weakened under the pressure of livelihood. It seems the workers who work in the leather industry of Dharavi are not necessarily bound by the traditional community based skill. They are just simple casual labours who are hired and fired seasonally. The work has not only transcended the community binary but has also got non-institutionalised to some extent. Though traditionally a male bastion, slowly women workers are making entry into the trade. As the casual workers are mostly migrants from disperse background and different regions and language groups there is almost no possibility of them emerging as a work force. Hence as far as the situation of the workers is concerned the job condition in the leather industry is similar to the sweatshops. Yes1889http://pad.ma/Vh5gz1q3/info2009-06-15weekly1.0Mumbai Fire Brigade: Accidents Injured Bodieshttp://pad.ma/Vh5gz1q3/poster.75.jpgThese are videos of injured bodies. They contain personal accounts of accidents by victims, and images of injured bodies. The first video is of the aftermath of a gas cylinder explosion in a slum, with an interview of the woman whose house was blown apart by the blast in which a little boy and sleeping man were also hurt. The second video is of the complicated and long efforts of doctors, nurses and firemen to extricate the hand of a man caught in a mutton mincer. This video seen among all the videos of fire, bomb blasts, and accidents illustrates the almost unimaginable range of eventualities that the fire department has to deal with. Yes760http://pad.ma/Vdxbu66m/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Leather Industry: Sweat Shop of Belt Knittinghttp://pad.ma/Vdxbu66m/poster.75.jpgThough initially known for its tannery and leather processing, Dharavi leather industry today is largely a manufacturing unit. Due to the problem of land and environmental issues the flourishing tanneries have closed down since early ‘90s. As the work of leather processing from animal hide got shifted to Chennai, Kanpur and other smaller towns in Maharashtra, the existing workshops in Dharavi are surviving on polishing raw leathers, manufacturing consumers’ goods and exporting to declining export market. A large part of the consumers’ goods manufacturing is accomplished through sweatshops in the neighbourhood. Due to the paucity of space in Dharavi the traders prefer to assign out works in piecemeal than employing people in their own premises. Besides, the piecemeal policy also helps them evading the wage regulation. Interestingly, precisely because of this policy women manage to get some work and earn little money. Otherwise the leather industry is traditionally a male bastion and women have never allowed an entry there. Though in the caste based practice in the villages of animal slaughtering and extracting the hide women must have played a role. But in the urban version of the work in the semi-industrialised structure women were unambiguously kept out. The only way they could enter the scene is to pick up piecemeal assignments and work from homes. The earning is not adequate as a mainstay for livelihood but attractive as a supplement. The women who are doing this work are not from the lowest economic strata in Dharavi. Within the Dharavi structure they are better off. Their social status is not conducive for them to work in the factories and workshops with wage labourers. Hence the sweatshop system, though exploitative in terms of wage return against the investment of labour hours, suits these domestic women better. The decline in the international leather market has affected this sector too. Since they are not location based only way to identify these women is to look for the visual of long leather strips (patta) hanging. It took us a long time to trace this group of women as with the reduced work orders has reduced the visibility of the hanging leather strips. Yes1184http://pad.ma/Vtku2val/info2009-06-15weekly1.0Mumbai Fire Brigade: Cityscapes & the Edge of the Cityhttp://pad.ma/Vtku2val/poster.75.jpgThe landscapes shot vary from dense slum neighbourhoods, to old industrial areas, dump-yards at the edge of the city. Historically, fires, dilapidation, and danger to heath and life have formed the vocabulary of practices that sought to cleanse and reorganize city quarters, and relocate danger to the outside or elsewhere. Most of these landscapes that the videos record seem to somehow evade or to lie outside these imaginations of the safe and clean city, and are always being pushed to its boundaries. These are mostly spaces of informal enterprise and labour, in the dump yards, older industrial neighbourhoods and slums that the mechanisms of civic services and infrastructure are unable to address in their more technocratic imperatives. The first fire takes place in a single storied building in the mill lands area. The video shot from a neighbouring roof, shows a landscape of roofs and trusses, firemen clambering over them to get to the fire, the surrounding landscape of chawls and chimneys rising up through the smoke and scenes from the insides of the homes burnt down with the remnants of everyday lives among the ashes. These areas had begun to developing the late 1800’s when the American civil war virtually stopped all cotton imports into Britain and the demand for cotton from India grew. Industrialists and entrepreneurs set up cotton mills, and built the most rudimentary accommodation for the migrant workers with single room tenements, common sanitation facilities and corridors. These neighbourhoods, with each mill and the surrounding chawls crammed into every inch of available land, became the centre of Mumbai’s economic growth, and a vibrant working class community and culture grew in the streets. Perceived alternatively as slums and congested areas by the British and the middle class, paralysed and weakened by the strike of 1982 and by newer industrial areas in the peripheries, they are now quickly transforming into elite residential enclaves and leisure zones with a gradual displacement of the mill workers communities and livelihoods. The next two clips are of fires in slums. in the slum fires, the spaces within the slum, between densely packed houses, narrow alleys and gaps from where a clear view or understanding of where the danger is located exactly becomes impossible, people flee to the spaces outside, or onto the roofs with their contiguous and overlapping surfaces, which becomes the landscape of grey corrugated sheets that offers views of the fire and the space from where it can be attacked. The first video is of a fire in a slum where the landscape of a naala (creek), densely packed houses and a fire in the centre of the close knit and entangled homes has to be extinguished from the outside and from neighbouring roofs. People pass their belongings and wade through the creek to escape. The second video of a fire in Dharavi, where the entire road and roof fill up with people getting out of the inner streets, to flee the fire, to watch and to help. The last video is of a fire in a rubber dump yard at the edge of the city to the creek. The issue whether the site is authorized or unauthorized remains unclear, and there is a long discussion at the end of the video whether the activity is legal/illegal, although it has existed and operated for many years. Edges such as these, where the land turns to mangrove and creek, are places lying neglected and claimed by people and activities that have to seek space on the fringes away from watchful eyes, also where the things and dirt that are not seen to belong inside the city and yet are part of it are pushed out. Landfills, dump yards, spaces for leisure, and secret or hidden places for lovers all alternately make claims on the edge between city and outside/nature. The landscape in this video is one of HT lines and garbage of wastes generated by the city and of work that is unacknowledged/ hidden.Yes1829http://pad.ma/Vhrgvklb/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Dharavi Leather Industry: Interview with a Tannery Ownerhttp://pad.ma/Vhrgvklb/poster.75.jpgThe present day Dharavi settlement actually stands on vast marsh land. The city of Bombay was originally made of 7 islands on the South and a cluster of Islands called Salsette Islands in the North. In late 19th century the islands were joined and more land was acquired by filling up the sea in order to make a large enough city to facilitate the ports, bazaars and emerging industries. Since mid 20th century more land was created by filling up the marsh land and drying up the creeks, in order to cope with the pressure of migrant inflow and infrastructural requirements. The present settlement of Dharavi stands on the marshland at the cusp of the Mahim Island and the Salsette Islands and on a part of the erstwhile Dharavi creek. The creek was the lifeline for the Kolis, the traditional fisher community and the original inhabitant of the island of Salsette. The creek got affected through various city building activities since late 19th century and has made the original settlers of the Koli community economically vulnerable. The early settlers in the land were the Tamil Muslim migrants who brought in the leather making in the city and the Gujarati artisans who make earthen pots. The Marathi speaking Kolis in Koliwada, the Gujarati speaking Kumbhars (potters) in Kumbharwada and the Tamil speaking tannery owners / workers still make the main population of Dharavi. Only the last few decades have seen settling of migrants from the hinterlands of Maharashtra and also from the northern region of UP and Bihar. Other than working in the tannery and in the pottery industry as wage workers these newer migrants have also started new economic activities such as Zardosi (zari embroidery works), Chikki (a popular sweet snack) making and recycling. But the Tamil settlers in the leather industry have earned an unparallel reputation in the urban lore of Mumbai. Much of Dharavi’s dreaded image in popular imagination comes from the legends about these people. The process of leather making or the tannery business itself is associated with dark rituals and deals. It starts from acquiring animal skin. The skin then go to the tannery for processing. Earlier the hides were processed in tanneries in Dharavi itself which were all situated near the creek. But the wastes from the tanneries spoilt the water of the creeks and affected the fishing business. Since late 70s many of the tanneries (the processing of hide to rough leather) were forced to close down on the pretext of environmental hazard. It is suspected by many urban historians that the campaign to ban hide processing also has something to do with the hegemonic Hindu culture of militant vegetarianism. Ironically while the tanneries were evicted, in 1984 the ONGC opened their oil rigging wells in the area and affected the fishing trade much more substantially. However, currently the hide processing works mostly get done in Kanpur, Chennai and smaller towns in Maharashtra. From those tanneries rough leather comes back to Dharavi. The final processing of ironing the leather, smoothening them, colouring them etc. happen in various workshops in Dharavi and then gets exported. This is the mainstay of contemporary leather industry in Dharavi. The industry with its associated dealing with export import, its dark practice of animal slaughtering and gory activities such as boiling hides apparently make it conducive to various underworld mafia activities. Hence the Tamil dons (many of them graduated from tannery business to real estate) of that time became major inspiration for Bollywood films on underworld in the ’60 and ‘70s. As the popular perception of the gore in Dharavi grew some kind of state intervention became essential. So with the wide roads, the unwieldy area was mapped to some extent and tanneries were banned. In 1950s came the wide Dharavi cross road which has become an artery road for the city. Later in 1984 came a surge of development and more wide roads were built inside the settlements in order to facilitate the movement of the people associated to the new Govt. establishments such as ONGC, Indian Oil etc. which were built in the surrounding marsh land. Then again in 1991 came another phase of urbanization and development under the guise of SRA (slum rehabilitation authority). It cannot be a coincidence that many traditional tanneries which by then were doing only the processing from rough leather to fine leather had to go at that time and eventually release land for multi-storied buildings. This has also coincided with the international noise about the hygienic condition of Dharavi leather. In 2004 the government launched another development body called DRP (Dharavi redevelopment project). This project is to work on an over arching development scheme on Dharavi in oppose to earlier piecemeal approach of segment based development. The scheme promises to rehabilitate all the settlers of the single storied hutments into the proposed skyscrapers and convert the balance land into high profile real estate opportunity. In this context the following interview of a tannery owner was conducted. Yes651http://pad.ma/Vgpjmju0/info2009-06-15weekly1.0Mumbai Fire Brigade: Documentation of Calamitieshttp://pad.ma/Vgpjmju0/poster.75.jpgThese are videos of the sites in the aftermaths of fires, bomb blasts and building collapses. The images are disturbing as they are visitations at the sites of death, of lives, body parts and place reduced to thing and wound. They are also spectacular as images of a city with its dynamics and flows and lives interrupted, disrupted, emptied. It is difficult to describe these images without resorting to the phrases that repeat in the rhetoric of newspaper headlines of tragedy- ruin, collapse, fire and smoke. Disaster flicks and television reports capture every detail that adds to drama, discarded slippers, everyday lives interrupted, these images shot by the fire department with the aim to document only sometimes slip into the these tropes, most often, steering close to the investigative aspects, the details that on analysis will yield the truth of the causes, become evidence. They go slowly recording the burst cylinder, the mangled taxi torn by the car bomb, the rescue teams and techniques. They are still seductively and horrifically spectacular as images of the city in ruin, reduced to rubble, up in flames and seen through smoke in silhouette, as crows circle overhead. The first video .is a video of the aftermath of a bomb blast, on 25th August 2003 at Zaveri Bazaar. This is a crowded inner city area very close to the Mumbadevi temple. Police, onlookers and firemen swarm the site of a bomb blast. You see a mangled taxi, crumpled facades of buildings and a street littered with debris. A politician and senior officials enter the site and the press and onlookers form a knot around them. The video ends with an eyewitness account of the explosion. The second clip is of the retrieval of a corpse/body out of a ruin of a building that has collapsed into a pile of rubble. The video is eerily beautiful with huge mountain of rubble and crows circling overhead, and the firemen’s ladders silhouetted against the smoke. The third clip is shot over two days, the site of a fire in a building and the next day, the burnt ruins after the fire.Yes1224http://pad.ma/Vtku5lw4/info2010-03-22weekly1.0Bar Dancers Case: Citizens’ Enquiry on Police Atrocities(Parallel enquiry into bar dancers case)http://pad.ma/Vtku5lw4/poster.75.jpgAfter the ban on dancing was implemented in the dance bars, many women workers in the bars working as dancers were rendered unemployed. Some of them later joined back as waiters in the bars. Of course, this new work did not pay as well, customers now had close access to them and therefore could harass them. But they still chose to do this work as this was a familiar work setup for them, they knew the bar owners, and also not many employment opportunities are available to them given their education and migrant status. The raids on the bars, even after the implementation of the ban on dancing, suggests that even waiter service work for women is not acceptable by the State. Is it felt by the State that if no women work in these bars at all, these would become not as ‘corrupting’ places? Is it the presence of women in the bars that corrupts men, elicits criminal behaviour? Drinking per se is not prohibited in the licensed bars and pubs of the city and they continue their business as usual. A parallel investigation team comprising of women’s rights and human rights activists and lawyers was put in place to investigate the mass raid that happened on the bars where everyone from women waiters, to other staff including managers and owners along with the customers present were arrested. The investigation team asked the workers about the raid, the police behaviour and the procedures after the raid. Various incidents of police harassment on the women also come up as a major issue in this enquiry. Retd. Hustice H. Suresh, journalist and women’s rights activist Geeta Sheshu, Journalist Dilip d’Souza, women’s rights activist Sujata Ghotaskar and advocate Flavia Agnes were part of citizens’ panel. The depositions before the Committee were made on 27th August, 2005 at Y.W.C.A., Colaba, Bombay and the final report titled, ‘Abuse of Authority’ was released on 11th October, 2005 at the Press Club in Mumbai. The struggle for the human rights of the bar dancers, like many other professions which are related to sexuality, is affected by the issue of visibility. Often the dancers hesitate to openly protest or even press a complaint fearing that they would be exposed to their families and neighbours. The police then take full advantage of their vulnerability. Even in this event a few girls requested anonymity. Respecting their reservations we have taken out their images. Yet we have decided to upload their statements not only to reach their voices to a larger audience, but also to highlight the issue of social invisibility. We are also uploading the images of other dancers. Through this period of collective struggle some girls could successfully rise above the social stigma and its oppression. We thought we would honour that too. We hope all visitors and users of this site will understand the delicate balance and act accordingly.Yes2544http://pad.ma/Vhavu3yn/info2009-02-15weekly1.0Gulabi Interview3http://pad.ma/Vhavu3yn/poster.75.jpgInterview conducted in Tamil and kannada with women members of Gulabi Mahila S.H.G and Kamala Mahila S.H.G comprising of hawkers, domestic workers and daily wage coolies.Yes1525http://pad.ma/Vef0whzp/info2009-02-15weekly1.0Video Letters from Gaza to aizawlhttp://pad.ma/Vef0whzp/poster.75.jpgIn a remote corner on the Indian- Burmese border, in Mizoram state, thousands live a suspended life. Most have left their jobs and schools, some have even left their families. They wait in silence to return to the promised land, Israel. The Mizos believe that they are one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, Bnei Menashe, descendants of Menashe, Joseph‘s son. The waiting unfolds as a religious ceremony, an endless ritual of prayers and a labyrinth of memories. In the midst of these lonely gatherings of the scattered people, their myths, imagination and experiences emerge as a historical fact of singular importance. The people who has migrated from Aizawl to Israel starts sending video letters to aizawl to ones who are waiting for their aliyah or homecoming.Yes939http://pad.ma/Vg7wocjd/info2010-03-20weekly1.0PAD.MA Launch: Presentation on License by Namita A. Malhotrahttp://pad.ma/Vg7wocjd/poster.75.jpgThis presentation dealt with open licenses for content, and in specific with the Pad.ma license. The Pad.ma license was formulated specifically to deal with the needs of putting up video content in the Indian context and also the licenses for annotation of content. The terms and conditions for using Pad.ma can be seen at http://pad.ma/terms Yes1698http://pad.ma/Vt4gf840/info2009-02-15weekly1.0Politics of Representation - Tango Charliehttp://pad.ma/Vt4gf840/poster.75.jpg Tango Charlie is a 2005 Indian film directed by Mani Shankar. A singular viewpoint prevails as “good” versus “evil” discourse, flattening all the different, political movements within the nation state, (such as insurgents, naxalites, Kashmir discord) as the common enemy to be crushed by military intervention. No fleeting reference to the complexities of these problems is even hinted at. The fact that the film shows Bodo militants (who live in Assam) in the state of Manipur reflects how poorly the film was researched. This film is important as it was banned in North East India on the ground that it defames communities living there. The Bodo community in particular had severe objections against the portrayal of their society in a negative light in the film. The film has references to Bodo militancy and refers to a Bodo militant cutting off the ears of a hostage and making a garland out of it for this lover. The militants are shown to severely injure an army soldier and then leave his body as bait, in order to kill anyone who comes to the rescue him. They are made out to be primitives and barbarians. Insensitive towards the multiplicities existing within the larger macrocosm of India’s ethnoscape, the film tries to popularize the idea of nationalism through isolating the struggles and insurgencies of the people. Ignorance of the other assumes an anthropological-ethnographic point of view in the film negotiating the identity and nationality of the ethnic other by reducing him to an unknown enemy. Difference and multiplicity which extends beyond identity towards aspirations for autonomy and self assertion is un-negotiated. The military intervention is appropriated through skillful justification of nationalism through suffering of soldier. Mani Shankar, the director of the film served under the former Indian Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao as his personal media advisor. The history of northeast india is really the history of their military intervention. Assam, one of seven states in India's northeast, has been home to a militant separatist movement since 1979, and unlike the conflicts in either Kashmir or even Punjab, the uprising in Assam has received little media attention both at home and abroad. The only perspective on the Northeast that `mainland' Indians have got — that too sporadically — is New Delhi's project of `India', which the Northeast seems endlessly, inexplicably and violently to resist. Baruah's earlier book, India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (OUP, 2001) offered something new to scholars and policy-makers alike — a Northeastern vision of itself where the region was the focal point rather than a distant borderland to somebody else's idea of `India'. Yes1144http://pad.ma/Vsrqa316/info2010-03-13weekly1.0Chandralekha's Tanabanahttp://pad.ma/Vsrqa316/poster.75.jpgYes888http://pad.ma/Vef8gqp9/info2010-04-05weekly1.0Chandralekha's Lilavati http://pad.ma/Vef8gqp9/poster.75.jpgYes1761http://pad.ma/Vt2z17z9/info2009-05-09weekly1.0Pre-paid Privitisation: D-Day at Dinanath http://pad.ma/Vt2z17z9/poster.75.jpgA public meeting took place at Dinanath Mangeshkar hall in Vile Parle (East) on 13th November,2007. It was called ostensibly to discuss the problems of water supply in Mumbai and pose solutions. One of the proposed 'solutions' was the installation of prepaid meters. The meeting was christened <i>Sujal Mumbai</i> meaning 'good water' for Mumbai and was hosted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in collaboration with Castalia, a French multi-national consultancy. It was attended by BMC officials including Manu Srivastav, Additional Commissioner of the BMC and members of the standing committee which was headed by Ravindra Waiker, Corporator of Ward 68, 23 Community Base Organisations (CBO) and 20 Non – Government Organisations (NGO). The meeting was extensively covered by news agencies. BMC was and still is trying to privatise the water department through the installation of prepaid meters which will be operated by contractors. K-East Ward, which comprises of Andheri (East), Jogeshwari (East) and Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road, was considered as a 'Pilot project'. The project was severely criticised by NGO's and CBO's as it was a blatant action to privatise the water supply. This was the second such meeting in 2007, the previous one was held in Mayor's Hall, Andheri (West) on June 2nd, 2007, only difference being that the focus of the 1st meeting was on K- East ward only while the 2nd outlined a project for all of Mumbai with K-East Ward being a guinea pig. The plan of privatising water at the Mumbai level in a sense backfired as it made a considerable section of the populace aware of the ongoing process. Since the onset of the meeting, it was abundantly clear that the BMC had made up its mind and had taken the decision. The BMC was being ruled by the right wing Shiv Sena party, whose member is Ravindra Waikar. This meeting was also 'coincidently' held in Vile Parle (East) which is a Shiv Sena bastion. What occured in Dinanath Mangeshkar Hall on the 13th of November 2007 - see for yourself. Yes7464http://pad.ma/Vsnvfx49/info2010-03-10weekly1.0Ek Dozen Pani - Adarsh Nagarhttp://pad.ma/Vsnvfx49/poster.75.jpgYes6010http://pad.ma/Vevk5ocr/info2009-02-15weekly1.0Outsiders wanted:Interview with Makiko Kimurahttp://pad.ma/Vevk5ocr/poster.75.jpgThe aim of this paper is to analyse three competing narratives of the cause of the Nellie massacre of 1983: the views of the victims, the attackers and the movement leaders. The well-known Nellie incident took place during the anti-foreigners movement led by the AASU and the AAGSP from 1979 to 1985. The incident was directly triggered by the central governments decision to hold the state legislative assembly election, which invited a boycott by the movement leaders. As a result of the confrontations between the people who supported and opposed the implementation of the election, there were numerous violent incidents among communities during election period in the early part of 1983. The worst incident was the Nellie massacre, in which more than 1000 people were killed in one-day attack. Until now, it has been said that the land deprivation by the Muslim migrants from East Bengal region is the cause of the large-scale killing. The plains tribe called the Tiwas traditionally inhabited in the Nellie area, but after the British occupation they were marginalised. The top leaders of the Assam movement denied their involvement in the massacre, and implicitly suggested that it was initiated by the Tiwas. However, interviews with Muslim migrants and Tiwas in this area reveal that both of them consider the movement and the election as a prime cause of the massacre, and, these groups denied that there are disputes over land between them. It can be said that the interpretations of collective violence (such as a large-scale killing, riot or massacre) are open to various narratives by people who directly or indirectly experience them. And from these various narratives, people choose one interpretation that suits them most, or choose the one that is least harmful to them. Yes350http://pad.ma/Vtox2q9s/info2009-02-15weekly1.0Meter Down: Junaidhttp://pad.ma/Vtox2q9s/poster.75.jpgYes2350http://pad.ma/Veva2w5j/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Unlimited Girls - Interview with Veena Mazumdar, Part 2http://pad.ma/Veva2w5j/poster.75.jpgVeena Mazumdar was born in 1927 and educated at Calcutta, Benaras, and Oxford. She is an Honours Graduate and D.Phil from Oxford University. In her professional career she has been a teacher of Political Science at the Universities of Patna and Berhampur, an Officer in the UGC Secretariat and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla. She was Member Secretary, Committee on the Status of Women in India, and later Director, Programme of Women's Studies, Indian Council of Social Science Research for five years (1975-80). She was Founder-Director of the Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi from 1980 to 1991, and thereafter was Senior Fellow at CWDS and JP Naik National Fellow, ICSSR, for two years. She is one of the pioneers in Women's Studies in India and a leading figure of the women's movement. Since 1996 she has been the Chairperson, Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi. Paromita Vohra interviewed Mazumdar for her film <i>Unlimited Girls</i> (2002), an exploration of engagements with feminism in contemporary urban India. For more, see http://www.parodevi.com/unlimitedgirls/unlimitedgirls.htmlYes2519http://pad.ma/Vevg7nph/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Unlimited Girls - Interview with Urvashi Butalia, Part 1http://pad.ma/Vevg7nph/poster.75.jpgUrvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist and historian. She is the Director and Co-founder of Kali for Women, India's first feminist publishing house. Butalia was born in Ambala, India, in 1952. She earned a B.A. in literature from Miranda House, Delhi University, in 1971, a Master's in literature from Delhi University in 1973, and a Master's in South Asian Studies from the University of London in 1977. She worked as an editor for Zed Publishing and later went on to set up her own publishing house. Her writing has appeared in several newspapers including The Guardian, The Statesman, The Times of India and several magazines including Outlook, the New Internationalist and India Today. Butalia is a consultant for Oxfam India and she holds the position of Reader at the College of Vocational Studies at the University of Delhi. Her main areas of research are partition and oral histories. She has also written on gender, communalism, fundamentalism and media. Paromita Vohra interviewed Butalia for her film <i>Unlimited Girls</i> (2002), an exploration of engagements with feminism in contemporary urban India. For more, see http://www.parodevi.com/unlimitedgirls/unlimitedgirls.html Yes3486http://pad.ma/Vfsioie1/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Unlimited Girls - Interview with Satyarani Chadhahttp://pad.ma/Vfsioie1/poster.75.jpgIn 1979, Kanchanbala, twenty years old and six months pregnant, was burnt to death following harassment for more dowry in her marital home. After her death, Satya Rani Chadha began a long battle for justice. With the support of the parents of more than 25 other dowry death victims, Chadha embarked on 21 years of sustained legal activism and court cases, which led to many landmark judgments and fundamental amendments in the criminal law. In 1987, Shakti Shalini, a Delhi-based organisation that helps and motivates other parents of dowry victims to fight this social menace, was formed jointly by Satyarani Chadna and Shahjehan Aapa. (http://infochangeindia.org/20030205533/Women/Stories-of-change/Justice-for-our-daughters.html) Paromita Vohra interviewed Chadha for her film <i>Unlimited Girls</i> (2002), an exploration of engagements with feminism in contemporary urban India. For more, see http://www.parodevi.com/unlimitedgirls/unlimitedgirls.htmlYes3269http://pad.ma/Vtpeu7ml/info2010-03-20weekly1.0PAD.MA Launch: The Dominant, Residual and Emergent in the Archive by Lawrence Lianghttp://pad.ma/Vtpeu7ml/poster.75.jpgLawrence Liang's paper at the pad.ma is titled: The dominant, residual and emergent in the Imagination of the Archive. Yes1971http://pad.ma/Vs6e8x5j/info2009-02-14weekly1.0 Prof. Madhav Gadgil speaks on Biodiversity and people's knowledge in India.http://pad.ma/Vs6e8x5j/poster.75.jpgThis event is a compilation of two sub-events- 1. An interview with Prof. Madhab Gadgil, an ecologist and ex-director of Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISC, Bangalore. He has a pioneering role in foregrounding the importance of people's view in the formation of India's conservation strategy/policy.He talked about the richness of India's biological resources, reasons of it's erosion, knowledge base of locals about sustainable use and management of their biological resources. 2. Example of a Buddhist traditional religious ethics; protecting a forest in the name of a god/goddesses that plays an important role in conserving forest patches. Through a local's interview the concept of Sacred Groves and strong belief surrounding it get explained. Yes2925http://pad.ma/Vsbsxsmn/info2009-02-13weekly1.0My Mother, Her Gharwali, Her Maalak and His Wife.http://pad.ma/Vsbsxsmn/poster.75.jpgMy Mother, Her Gharwali, Her Maalak and His wife. Conceived by Meena Seshu, Bishakha Datta and Divya Bhatia. Directed by Sushama Deshpande. Leena is a woman in prostitution. Leena is also a woman in love with her rickshaw-driver prince, who is suddenly talking about riding off into the sunset – alone. Unless, of course, Leena helps him buy a spanking new rickshaw by giving him a loan of Rs. 25,000. She waits for her lover, and she waits on her customer. Outside in the lane, the arrival of a goonda (thug) causes a flutter. The cop who chases him away, is also chasing a man who lives in the same galli… ‘My Mother, The Gharwali….’ looks at 24 hours in the lives of the people who live in or pass through the galli (street) in which Leena lives. Hear them speak their own stories, talk their own tales and re-imagine their own realities. Meet the usual suspects – the paanpatti wala, the goonda, the children, the regulars. See them as they are. Get involved in their lives – feel overjoyed, indignant, angry, sad and make merry with them. Just remember, what happens here in these 24 hours, happens in their galli everyday. In March 2004, almost 75 women in prostitution and their teenage sons assembled in Sangli to do a workshop on theatre. None of them had ever acted before. None of them wanted to be performers. All of them wanted to tell their own stories. The four-day workshop introduced them to the basics of performance: acting, voice, sets, costumes, music, lights, action. It gave them a glimpse into the power of theatre. Although they were not ‘performers’, they instinctively understood that theatre could be a vital ally in representing their own realities - from their own perspectives. The women took to theatre like straggling ducks learning to swim…a stroke here, a flap there, keep your head above water and forget your fear of drowning. A group of 25 women and their sons formed a theatre group and started performing in their own communities. They rented costumes from local suppliers, rehearsed scenes on their own and took it all quite seriously. So much so that when a group of local thugs asked them to cut out the ‘goonda’ scene, they refused to perform the play. But it was hard work. How do you learn lines when you don’t know how to read? How do you gather any enthusiasm to rehearse when your colleague is dying of HIV? How do you believe you have a story worth telling when the world keeps telling you you’re worthless? How do you keep on and on swimming against the tide? My Mother, The Gharwali…is born out of this slow journey of struggle, faith, and discovery. For reviews see http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/telling-it-like-it-is/324102/ and http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/mar/wom-dhande.htmYes4073http://pad.ma/Vfsgvjes/info2009-02-14weekly1.0The change of Industrial landscape in Kolkatahttp://pad.ma/Vfsgvjes/poster.75.jpgFive hundred factories and more are closed, sick or shut down in West Bengal as on date. Over six hundred thousand workers have lost their jobs, or have been displaced with no foreseeable future. Apparently, the Leftist government of Bengal wants a “revival” which is largely happening by acquiring agricultural land to set up large-scale industries mostly with the support of both Indian and international private investors. At the same time, especially in Calcutta, operational factories are being sold off to provide premium space for high value real estate “development”. These contradictory development activities in the state raise many important questions about the entire issue of “development” itself. A classic example of such development is the South City Project on Anwar Shaw Road in south Calcutta. Jay Engineering, a large sewing machine and fan manufacturing unit of the Usha Group of Industries operating since the 1950s was closed down, made defunct, and the land handed over to a consortium of five major real estate “magnates” in 2003. Having demolished the factory buildings, the construction of the South City Project - “Eastern India's largest mixed-use real estate development” - comprising three 35-storey towers, one 28-storey tower, a shopping mall, school, multiplex, club etc, started from February 2004. This included the illegal filling up of one of south Calcutta's largest natural water bodies. The workers of Jay Engineering were forced into “voluntary retirement” with little or no compensation From student days, my interest in issues concerning the environment and development has been a motivating factor and I was drawn towards the impact of the South City development. I began to personally document the demolition of the factory sheds and towards the end of 2004 I shot the demolished quarters, the early phases of the construction work, and recorded interviews of some displaced workers. In 1995, in the context of shifting of factory premises from the city of Delhi, The Supreme Court had given a ruling to protect the city from random urban development on the vacated land. According to this ruling, if the plot of land measures more than 5 hectares, 65% of the land has to be given to the Municipal Corporation for planting trees and developing gardens. Only 35% of the land may be used for construction. Joy Engineering Works has flouted this ruling and sold off the entire land to the South City project. The people living in the neigbourhood of the complex have been deprived of open spaces, playgrounds and gardens. Instead, they have got a concrete jungle, pollution and traffic jam. I interviewed Vhaskar Gupta a resident of that locality who has done a court case against the Pollution Control Board. I shot this interview from the top of his roof. I met and interviewed him over two years. Yes2980http://pad.ma/Vu5mgs8w/info2009-02-22weekly1.0The Knower of Secretshttp://pad.ma/Vu5mgs8w/poster.75.jpg"The Knower of Secrets" was my MFA thesis film from Temple University, Philadelphia. I decided to revisit this film, because the film, and the experience of making it had become two very separate things. The way I had shot the film, the process of knowing the people who it is about, and the anxieties and ambiguities that are a part of entering people's lives and leaving it, had no part to play in the construction of the film. Neither did the many stories, anecdotes, wanderings, tangents and moments of connection and disconnects that are so much a part of that journey. I have tried to add a layer of annotation that brings to this film, some of what I wished it had. Much of the above. The annotations consist of journal entries, interview excerpts, anecdotes, poetry, references, and reflecting on some of the ways I had been, six years ago - making a film because I loved the idea of it, but not realizing the profound ways in which it was changing me. That is the experience I tried to recollect, when I decided to add to this film, the layers it was missing. Yes2471http://pad.ma/Vs66pepj/info2009-07-06weekly1.0Koli: The Organised Sector and Livelihoodhttp://pad.ma/Vs66pepj/poster.75.jpgThis interview is of a Koli woman – Devyani Chanur. She lives in Khar Danda, buys fish at the Crawford market or Bhaucha Dhakka jetty and sells at the Kalina market. That makes her daily routine something like this – get up at 4am and travel 25 km to the wholesale market, buy fish and travel again the same distance to the retail market to sell till 12 noon, go home again by traveling in public transport to attend to household chores and have lunch, then back again at the retail market at 6 in the evening and work till 9.30pm. Her daily routine compliments that of the wholesale sellers. We have documented the daily cycle of the fisher women in wholesale market in the events titled ‘Koli Women: Livelihood Practice 1 & 2’ on the same site. Seen and read together these three events will make a complete picture of the work pattern of the Koli women.Yes2072http://pad.ma/Vhm6ljqr/info2010-03-10weekly1.0Ek Dozen Paani - Prem Nagarhttp://pad.ma/Vhm6ljqr/poster.75.jpgWhile driving north on the western express highway, it is easy to pass by Premnagar- a dense settlement of homes and livelihoods that have been delicately woven into its side between the Andheri and Jogeshwari flyovers. Premnagar is a resettlement colony. Its many names- Bandra Plot, Colaba Plot etc are also its biography of settlement of thirty years. It is at once the story of the city of the displaced and the displaced city. Following the violence of eviction, new memories of violence punctuate the area's history. 'A riot happens every ten years', one resident told me. But amidst these cycles of trouble, there is another cycle- far less dramatic, but perhaps more difficult to negotiate in the days that intercede in the time between larger conflagrations that make the news. The daily struggles in Premnagar center around the practices of water collection. Unlike residents of adjacent bastis, those living in Premnagar have to do many things to make sure their daily water continues to flow to their homes- pipes pumps plumbers. When these modern arrangments fail them they turn again to others- borewells, tubewells, middle-men and markets. Life is measured in minutes of water supply. Why so much work for water? In the course of doing research, we heard many reasons from planners, engineers and residents: Because its at a height; because they steal; because no one pays their bills; because the pipes aren't repaired; because there aren't enough pipes; because they dont do their work properly; because we are Muslim. How do we mediate through the world of partial truths? Here, with the members of Aagaz, we pause to sift through these stories. Before we have to return and make sure the water comes home. The footage and annotations are part of the project Ek Dozen Pani, a collaboration between Agaaz, Akanksha, Nikhil Anand and CAMP see: http://camputer.org/event.php?this=paniYes5805http://pad.ma/Vsnjewdj/info2010-03-20weekly1.0The dancer Ram Gopal wants to see himself in colour, 8mm, 1938http://pad.ma/Vsnjewdj/poster.75.jpg Ram Gopal, Indian dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Often considered one of the most important ambassadors for Indian dance around the world in the middle of the last century. He studied kathakali with Kunju Kunrup, Bharata Natyam with Sundaram, kathak with Misra, and Manipuri with Nabakumar. Ram Gopal. was born in 1912, had a Burmese mother and Rajput father, who was a barrister. He was one of many children and his father oppossed to his passion for dance that developed very early in childhood. Instead, he was encouraged to dance by the Yuvraj of the Mysore royal family. His mother adoring of him, supported him as well. In 1948, attracted to living in the West he moves to London permanently. He was gay and would have found life in the cosmopolitan London of the 40's and 50's exciting. He dies in 2003 in an old peoples home in Surrey, at the age of 92. A portion of this footage of Ram Gopal dancing, appeared as a part of the film "Straight 8", made in 2005, by Ayisha Abraham, which is about Tom D'Aguiar's amateur film making. The film is being used in a larger film on Ram Gopal himself. The working title of the film is "You call it Dancing, I call it Rhythm" and includes interviews with some of the dancers who traveled and danced with him.Yes574http://pad.ma/Vulu2h0g/info2010-03-10weekly1.0Interview with McKenzie Warkhttp://pad.ma/Vulu2h0g/poster.75.jpgThese interviews were conducted as a part of the Contested Commons/ Trespassing Publics conference organized by Sarai: CSDS and the Alternative Law Forum in January 2005. McKenzie Warkteaches media studies at the New School University in New York. He has published widely, online and in print, on the subjects of cyber culture, Internet theory and research and digital technologies. Yes487http://pad.ma/Vugvhycd/info2009-02-22weekly1.0Interview with John Frowhttp://pad.ma/Vugvhycd/poster.75.jpgThese interviews were conducted as a part of the Contested Commons/ Trespassing Publics conference organized by Sarai: CSDS and the Alternative Law Forum in January 2005. John Frowis professor of English language and literature at the University of Melbourne. He has taught at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Queensland, and has published widely in the areas of cultural studies and literary history. He is the author of Time and Commodity culture Yes1492http://pad.ma/Vu11bss9/info2010-03-10weekly1.0Interview with Brian Larkin on Piracy and Infrastructurehttp://pad.ma/Vu11bss9/poster.75.jpgThese interviews were conducted as a part of the Contested Commons/ Trespassing Publics conference organized by Sarai: CSDS and the Alternative Law Forum in January 2005. Brian Larkinis assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University. He has published widely on the materiality of media technologies and the relationship between media, urbanisation and globalisation. He is the author of Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure and Urban Culture in Nigeria, 2008. Yes1723http://pad.ma/Vi7mgfoy/info2009-12-12weekly1.0Interview with Peter Jaszi on the Romantic Author in Copyrighthttp://pad.ma/Vi7mgfoy/poster.75.jpgThese interviews were conducted as a part of the Contested Commons/ Trespassing Publics conference organized by Sarai: CSDS and the Alternative Law Forum in January 2005. Peter Jaszi teaches at the Washington College of Law of American University in Washington, DC, where he also directs the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic. He has published widely on copyright history and theory, and is an experienced copyright litigator and specialist in domestic and international copyright law. In this interview Peter Jaszi discusses the history of copyright and literary theory scholarship, as well as examining the persistent figure of the author in Copyright discourse. Yes3429http://pad.ma/Vtjghixy/info2009-02-13weekly1.0Interview with Naveeda Khanhttp://pad.ma/Vtjghixy/poster.75.jpgYes455http://pad.ma/Vsnx82k9/info2009-02-13weekly1.0Interview with Doron Ben Atar on how Intellectual Piracy was central to the Making od Modern Americahttp://pad.ma/Vsnx82k9/poster.75.jpgThese interviews were conducted as a part of the Contested Commons/ Trespassing Publics conference organized by Sarai: CSDS and the Alternative Law Forum in January 2005. Doron Ben-Atar is chair of the history department at Fordham and a member of Fordham’s Middle East Studies and Women’s Studies programs. He is currently working with Professor Richard D. Brown of the University of Connecticut on a study of bestiality in the early republic. Doron Ben-Atar is the author of Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (Yale University Press, 2004). This interview examines the role that intellectual property piracy played in the making of industrial America, and examines it in relation to the contemporary rhetoric of the United States war against piracy Yes1786http://pad.ma/Vulvm6z3/info2009-02-13weekly1.0Interview with Rosemary Coombe on Copyright and Cultural Politicshttp://pad.ma/Vulvm6z3/poster.75.jpgThese interviews were conducted as a part of the Contested Commons/ Trespassing Publics conference organized by Sarai: CSDS and the Alternative Law Forum in January 2005. Rosemary J. Coombe is a Tier One Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Cultural Studies at York University in Toronto, where she teaches in the Communications and Culture Joint PhD/MA Programme, and is cross-appointed to the Osgoode Hall Faculty of Law Graduate Programme, and the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought. Her research focuses on the intersection of anthropology, law, and cultural studies on issues relating to cultural rights and the politics of globalising intellectual property. She has published widely in these areas. She is the author of The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties is a legal ethnography of the ways in which intellectual property law shapes cultural politics in consumer societies. Yes1634http://pad.ma/Vg7wnqfc/info2009-02-22weekly1.0Interview with Hou Hanruhttp://pad.ma/Vg7wnqfc/poster.75.jpgThese interviews were conducted as a part of the Contested Commons/ Trespassing Publics conference organized by Sarai: CSDS and the Alternative Law Forum in January 2005. Hou Hanru is a Paris-based independent art critic and curator. He is widely published in journals on contemporary art, and has curated exhibitions all over the world. His work addresses questions of globalisation and identity, and understanding contemporary art practice as it exists beyond geographical and regional boundaries. Yes1226http://pad.ma/Vg92c17o/info2010-03-20weekly1.0Kashmir: Flight Over the CFLhttp://pad.ma/Vg92c17o/poster.75.jpgThis two hour video compilation constructs an account of a significant incident in the contemporary of Kashmir. As found footage, this is in the tradition of a 'campaign video', with footage of a march intercut with speeches, and the whole thing papered together with popular 'movement' songs of the period. And like many other similiar videos, verifying it's authorship will remain daunting given the various kinds of material it uses. (And assembled by Arshi Video Centre, Muzaffarabad: their watermark runs across the whole two hours). Here is what we know about the event: On Feb 11-12, 1992, several thousand of people attempted to cross the Cease Fire Line (the CFL of the title), from the part of Kashmir held by Pakistan, to the part held by India. Under the banner of the then undivided Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), and the leadership of Amanullah Khan, the march marked a critical juncture in the history of the armed struggle in Kashmir. By February 1992, only two years after the armed militancy had broken out in Kashmir, fissures had begun to appear in the relationship between the pro-independence armed groups and their supporters in Pakistan. This in turn had led to a sharpening of ideological divisions within the movement itself, with serious consequences for the future of the movement, and for the idea of <i>Azadi</i>, independence. The video is therefore witness to a significant historical moment. In the first half of the video, the speeches of Amanullah Khan and his associates make clear the seriousness of the rupture in the relationship between the JKLF and Pakistan, represented in the names of Nawaz Sharif (then Prime Minister), Durrani (head of the Inter Services Intelligence), and Sardar Qayoom (the 'Prime Minister' of Azad Kashmir). And it's only Sardar Qayoom who we actually see, very briefly, speaking to a BBC TV correspondent. The date of the march inherits an older significance too: on Feb 11, 1984, Maqbool Butt, one of the founders of the Kashmir valley based JKLF, was executed in Tihar Jail, New Delhi. Just short of his 46th birthday, his hanging made him not only the preminent <i>Shaheed-e-Kashmir</i> (martyr of Kashmir) but also <i>Baba-e-Quam</i> (father of the people). At the start of the <b>Flight Over the CFL</b> we see literally hundreds of placards with Maqbool Butt's image in Muzaffarabad town... In the last 25 years, Feb 11 has continued as a day of protests in Kashmir. 2009 was no exception: protests wracked downtown Sringar and several other towns. Through the speeches (made mainly in Muzaffarabad town, and en route) the video suggests that the march was mounted despite stiff opposition from the Pakistani authorities. News reports of the day described Pakistani soldiers setting off landslides, dismantling bridges and erecting barricades to stop the attempt. (In this compilation we don't see much of this, except in what we will call the BBC footage. Only flashes are revealed, and then only if you look very carefully...) But the Pakistani army were clearly not trying too hard to hide their attempts to stop the march: the extensive aerial footage of <b>Flight Over the CFL</b> is, after all, shot from a helicopter provided by them... So while the march was clearly not intended to reach its stated goal (crossing the Cease Fire Line), how both sides were hoping–or planning–for it to end will remain a bit of conjecture. From the few reliable contemporary print sources reporting the event we do know that the Indian Army had said that it would shoot any marcher crossing the cease-fire line. The Pakistani Army said it would use force to stop the march–if necessary. And force was used: before the march was abandoned, quite far from the Line of Control, at least 12 people were shot dead by the Azad Kashmir Police. This was 1992. It's difficult not to then think of the <i>Ekta Yatra</i> (Unity March) organised by the Hindu nationalists of the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Murli Manohar Joshi, who had tried just over a year earlier to carry an Indian flag to Srinagar, and raise it on the <i>Ghanta ghar</i>, the Clock Tower in Lal Chowk, sentimental heart of Srinagar. When militants announced that they would target such an attempt, security forces airlifted Joshi's <i>yatris</i>–all fifteen of them–to Srinagar for a symbolic 11 minute flag-raising. Despite blanket security, several rockets were fired at the Clock Tower, and Murli Manohar Joshi narrowly escaped with his life. Interestingly, while the speeches and songs in <b>Flight Over the CFL</b> are all in Urdu, the information about the rupture with Pakistan is given to us through English language voice over, on footage borrowed from <i>Newstrack</i>, the Indian video magazine of the period. This use of comment from the mainstream Indian media marks a rare coincidence of interests, since the general tone in these <i>Newstrack</i> extracts, both of the anchor and in the woman's voice-over, seems to celebrate the appearance of anti-Pakistan sentiment, and the growing 'sense of betrayal' amongst Kashmiris. JKLF cadres interviewed seem to endorse such a reading, which the <i>Newstrack</i> voice over is quick to underline. But in the main, it's difficult not to read <b>Flight Over the CFL</b> without remembering the <i>Muzaffarabad Chalo!</i> (On to Muzaffarabad!) march of August 2008 which marked the culmination of the tumultous protests of the summer of 2008 in the Kashmir valley. <i>Khichi huee hai, dil pay mere, khooni surkh lakeer... Tuhi batade, kab tootegi paon ki zanjeer– Ai mere Kashmir!</i> Drawn across my heart, that murderous red line... You tell me when will my feet be unshackled–O! my Kashmir! The tremendous sentiment aroused by imagining the end of that Line of Control, animates much of <b>Flight Over the CFL</b>, as it did <i>Muzaffarabad Chalo!</i> last year. As a piece of archival video, accidentally and providentially offered to us for a reading, <b>Flight Over the CFL</b> is rich resource. It unearths meanings, illuminates it, complicates it, and allows us to return to video the power of witness.Yes7319http://pad.ma/Vfgqaqy4/info2009-02-15weekly1.0Homecoming :Bnei Menashe of Mizoramhttp://pad.ma/Vfgqaqy4/poster.75.jpgIn a remote corner on the Indian- Burmese border, in Mizoram state, thousands live a suspended life. Most have left their jobs and schools, some have even left their families. They wait in silence to return to the promised land, Israel. The Mizos believe that they are one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, Bnei Menashe, descendants of Menashe, Joseph‘s son. The waiting unfolds as a religious ceremony, an endless ritual of prayers and a labyrinth of memories. In the midst of these lonely gatherings of the scattered people, their myths, imagination and experiences emerge as a historical fact of singular importance. Rivka or Rebecca has come to Aizwal in Mizoram for her father-in- law’s funeral. She has now to get a tourist visa and an inner line permit (required by all non-Mizos) to enter the state. Yes465http://pad.ma/Vt3r4ups/info2010-05-14weekly1.0Unlimited Girls - Interview with Veena Mazumdar, Part 1http://pad.ma/Vt3r4ups/poster.75.jpgVeena Mazumdar was born in 1927 and educated at Calcutta, Benaras, and Oxford. She is an Honours Graduate and D.Phil from Oxford University. In her professional career she has been a teacher of Political Science at the Universities of Patna and Berhampur, an Officer in the UGC Secretariat and a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla. She was Member Secretary, Committee on the Status of Women in India, and later Director, Programme of Women's Studies, Indian Council of Social Science Research for five years (1975-80). She was Founder-Director of the Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi from 1980 to 1991, and thereafter was Senior Fellow at CWDS and JP Naik National Fellow, ICSSR, for two years. She is one of the pioneers in Women's Studies in India and a leading figure of the women's movement. Since 1996 she has been the Chairperson, Centre for Women's Development Studies, New Delhi. Paromita Vohra interviewed Mazumdar for her film <i>Unlimited Girls</i> (2002), an exploration of engagements with feminism in contemporary urban India. For more, see http://www.parodevi.com/unlimitedgirls/unlimitedgirls.htmlYes4072http://pad.ma/Vh59651p/info2009-02-13weekly1.0A Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkokhttp://pad.ma/Vh59651p/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the costs of human life? Event Keywords: Press Conference on Thai Drug Policy, FTA, AIDS VACCINE, Vaccine trials.Yes3550http://pad.ma/Vevq43jb/info2009-02-13weekly1.0A Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkokhttp://pad.ma/Vevq43jb/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes2382http://pad.ma/Vs6jwkzg/info2009-02-11weekly1.0Interview with Dr. Sabina Voogd-Netherlands Foreign Ministryhttp://pad.ma/Vs6jwkzg/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes1470http://pad.ma/Vfrj47bs/info2009-02-13weekly1.0A Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkokhttp://pad.ma/Vfrj47bs/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes1712http://pad.ma/Vultmvaz/info2009-02-13weekly1.0A Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkokhttp://pad.ma/Vultmvaz/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes2475http://pad.ma/Vezwwjx6/info2009-02-15weekly1.0Gay pride march, Bangalore -2008http://pad.ma/Vezwwjx6/poster.75.jpgThe gay pride march that was held in Bangalore on June 29th, 2008. Sexual minority groups and their supporters marched from National College grounds in Basavanagudi to town hall. There was much joy, spirit and cheerful crowds carrying placards, coloured flags, repeating slogans in sunny t-shirts while celebrating their sexuality.Yes657http://pad.ma/Vharopbj/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Many People Many Desires - Interview with Mahesh Dattanihttp://pad.ma/Vharopbj/poster.75.jpgFootage from the film Many People, Many DesiresYes1779http://pad.ma/Vt8vkd50/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Many people, Many desires: Interview with Vivek Diwanhttp://pad.ma/Vt8vkd50/poster.75.jpgYes1584http://pad.ma/Vhalld9u/info2009-02-09weekly1.0Interview with Cori Tigges (Part 2).http://pad.ma/Vhalld9u/poster.75.jpgYes1200http://pad.ma/Vugjj52h/info2009-02-13weekly1.0A Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkokhttp://pad.ma/Vugjj52h/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the costs of human life?Yes1191http://pad.ma/Vsbas2p9/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Many people, Many desireshttp://pad.ma/Vsbas2p9/poster.75.jpgYes3226http://pad.ma/Vedx0jjp/info2010-08-02weekly1.0CSCS Culture and Democracy Lecture Series: M. Madhava Prasadhttp://pad.ma/Vedx0jjp/poster.75.jpg'Culture and Democracy', a flagship course at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), has served as an exploration of how the connections between culture and democracy may be theorised. An integral part of this course is a guest lecture series by CSCS faculty and visiting scholars, in which they reflect on their own work. In 2007, these lectures were opened to the public and documented on video.The course was anchored by S. V. Srinivas and invited speakers included Ashish Rajadhyaksha, M. Madhava Prasad, Kakarala Sitharamam, Vivek Dhareshwar and S. V. Srinivas. M. Madhava Prasad teaches at the Department of Cultural Studies, School of Inter-Disciplinary Studies, English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU). He is also one of the founding members of CSCS and taught there for some years. In his lecture, 'Enthusiasm and Indian Politics: Problems in the Analysis of Aural Culture', which was second in the series, Prasad delves into this most recent work on South Indian cinema stars and, in particular, fan devotion, voice in Indian cinema and sovereignty. For more on CSCS, see http://www.cscsarchive.org/ For more on EFLU, see http://www.efluniversity.ac.in/ Yes7702http://pad.ma/Vsnfi28c/info2010-06-01weekly1.0Mumbai Attacks: Bombay First Conference @ The Trident - Tape 6http://pad.ma/Vsnfi28c/poster.75.jpgTwo months after the terrible attacks on our city, a gathering of businessmen, security experts, and politicos meet at the same hotel where gunmen had created havoc. In the quickly renovated chambers of the Regal Room in The Trident, a 6 hour session takes place where much is discussed - terrorism, surveillance, National ID Cards, higher spending on security and tighter centralization of information gathering networks. The Panel of Experts included the deputy mayor of London, a member of the US 9/11 Commission, a US Dept. of Homeland Security advisor, the head of Security for Deutsche Bank Asia Pacific, a former member of NATO Security, and several counter-terrorism experts. From India, it brought together politicians, a former NSG commando, faces from corporate India, and from the media - Gerson DaCunha and Burkha Dutt. The audience included prominent Indian businessmen, heads of security companies, a member of the Shin Bet, and people from 'concerned civil society'. Such meetings are usually held in five-star hotels behind close doors with members of the public not having a chance to interact with or interrogate arguments made. We see putting this footage in pad.ma as a way to open up arguments and trajectories, moving away from a totalizing discourse around 'terrorism'... annotations are welcome because slowing down the pace of the discourse and examining it in detail and critically might be our only answer to the media juggernaut.Yes2776http://pad.ma/Vs6oba6d/info2010-06-01weekly1.0Mumbai Attacks: Bombay First Conference @ The Trident - Tape 5http://pad.ma/Vs6oba6d/poster.75.jpgTwo months after the terrible attacks on our city, a gathering of businessmen, security experts, and politicos meet at the same hotel where gunmen had created havoc. In the quickly renovated chambers of the Regal Room in The Trident, a 6 hour session takes place where much is discussed - terrorism, surveillance, National ID Cards, higher spending on security and tighter centralization of information gathering networks. The Panel of Experts included the deputy mayor of London, a member of the US 9/11 Commission, a US Dept. of Homeland Security advisor, the head of Security for Deutsche Bank Asia Pacific, a former member of NATO Security, and several counter-terrorism experts. From India, it brought together politicians, a former NSG commando, faces from corporate India, and from the media - Gerson DaCunha and Burkha Dutt. The audience included prominent Indian businessmen, heads of security companies, a member of the Shin Bet, and people from 'concerned civil society'. Such meetings are usually held in five-star hotels behind close doors with members of the public not having a chance to interact with or interrogate arguments made. We see putting this footage in pad.ma as a way to open up arguments and trajectories, moving away from a totalizing discourse around 'terrorism'... annotations are welcome because slowing down the pace of the discourse and examining it in detail and critically might be our only answer to the media juggernaut.Yes3609http://pad.ma/Vfrd4fln/info2010-06-01weekly1.0Mumbai Attacks: Bombay First Conference @ The Trident - Tape 4http://pad.ma/Vfrd4fln/poster.75.jpgTwo months after the terrible attacks on our city, a gathering of businessmen, security experts, and politicos meet at the same hotel where gunmen had created havoc. In the quickly renovated chambers of the Regal Room in The Trident, a 6 hour session takes place where much is discussed - terrorism, surveillance, National ID Cards, higher spending on security and tighter centralization of information gathering networks. The Panel of Experts included the deputy mayor of London, a member of the US 9/11 Commission, a US Dept. of Homeland Security advisor, the head of Security for Deutsche Bank Asia Pacific, a former member of NATO Security, and several counter-terrorism experts. From India, it brought together politicians, a former NSG commando, faces from corporate India, and from the media - Gerson DaCunha and Burkha Dutt. The audience included prominent Indian businessmen, heads of security companies, a member of the Shin Bet, and people from 'concerned civil society'. Such meetings are usually held in five-star hotels behind close doors with members of the public not having a chance to interact with or interrogate arguments made. We see putting this footage in pad.ma as a way to open up arguments and trajectories, moving away from a totalizing discourse around 'terrorism'... annotations are welcome because slowing down the pace of the discourse and examining it in detail and critically might be our only answer to the media juggernaut.Yes3091http://pad.ma/Vgucrbhf/info2010-03-20weekly1.0PAD.MA Launch: Introduction by CAMPhttp://pad.ma/Vgucrbhf/poster.75.jpgThe pad.ma website was launched in February 2008 at an event at Jnanapravaha, Mumbai, which was attended by about 100 people. Ashok S and Shaina A do a quick introduction of the group of pad.ma initiators, using video clips and list posts as a few "archival" fragments from the beginnings of a collaboration. Yes988http://pad.ma/Vezp85hj/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Interview with Justice Srikrishna: The Constitution and the Secularhttp://pad.ma/Vezp85hj/poster.75.jpgInterview of Justice Srikrishna, who headed the famous Srikrishna commission that enquired into the anti Muslim communal riots of 1992-93 in Bombay. As part of chronicling the contemporary Bombay this interview was taken fifteen years after the riots took place. Meanwhile the report got published and hailed as a legendary document to uphold the spirit of the Indian democracy. Unfortunately the government is yet to act upon the report and punish the Hindu bigots. When the commissioned was formed by the government in 1993, Justice Srikrishna, the head of the commission became the centre of controversy. The civil society who had lost all faith in the political will of the government to uphold the rights of the minority publicly expressed their distrust about the commission. Justice Srikrihna’s public display of his faith in Hindu religion also made some people suspicious about his credibility to enquire into the large scale violence perpetuated by the Hindu bigots. Ironically, the Hindu right wing forces such as BJP and Shivsena too opposed his candidature on the ground that he was not a ‘son of the soil’. Through various ups and downs the commissioned worked for 5 years and brought out an extensive report underlining the menace of communal violence and state inertia. For more detail see Shrikrishna Commission Report – www.hvk.org/specialrepo/skc/skcch1.html. Interviewer Flavia Agnes and Madhusree Dutta. Shot by Rrivu Laha. Yes2651http://pad.ma/Vu0c53s8/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Saathi fight (clip)http://pad.ma/Vu0c53s8/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Saathi (1991) directed by Mahesh Bhatt starring Aditya Pancholi and Mohsin Khan. Saathi is the ultimate buddy film about an intense relationship between two brothers. The film utilizes a familiar Bollywood/Hindi cinema trope of two brothers who choose different paths - one a gangster, the other a law abiding citizen. Though brothers, the intensity of their love for each other is picturised and dramatized through songs and intense arguments (as in this scene) much like lovers are portrayed in Hindi cinema. Aditya Pancholi also was considered a gay icon during the early 90s, especially because of a revealing and scandalous cover for a film magazine. See also the picturisation of the song 'Yaarana' from Saathi, available on Pad.ma at http://pad.ma/Vi2vopip/info This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes165http://pad.ma/Vt8ju26j/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Main Khiladi Tu Anari (clip)http://pad.ma/Vt8ju26j/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Main Khiladi, Tu Anari (1994) directed by Sameer Malkan, starring Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan. The queer possibilities of this film were pointed out by Shohini Ghosh. Akshay Kumar also enjoys a certain popularity as a gay icon. This film typically fits into a buddy genre in Bollywood, most exaggerated in Mahesh Bhatt's film Saathi, and later played upon as a format in Karan Johar's films though those typically involve a romantic triangle rather than a crime or suspense genre. For more details on this film and on Akshay Kumar as a gay icon, see the article by Thomas Waugh - 'Queer Bollywood, or "I'm the player, you're the naive one": Patterns of sexual subversion in recent Indian popular cinema', Keyframes - Popular Cinema and Cultural Studies Tinkcom, Matthew; Villarejo, Amy Eds. http://media.opencultures.net/queer/data/indian/mkta-waugh.pdf This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes198http://pad.ma/Vi7goib9/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Clip from Celluloid Closethttp://pad.ma/Vi7goib9/poster.75.jpgThis is a clip from the film Celluloid Closet, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman. More information about the film at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112651/ This clip is an interview of noted film scholar Richard Dyer, who talks about how stereotypes about gay people, especially men, were already in place in early cinema. Even as far back as the Chaplin movies, the deployment of stereotypes of figures such as the pansy or the effeminate gay man were evident in cinema. The purpose of this clip is to see how what Dyer says, relates to Indian cinema and the stereotypes used there. It is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes76http://pad.ma/Vh5xje37/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Laawaris (clip)http://pad.ma/Vh5xje37/poster.75.jpgA clip from the famous song Jiski bhibhi (whose wife..) from Laawaris (1981) directed by Prakash Mehra, starring Amitabh Bacchan, Amjad Khan, Zeenat Aman among others. This is one of the more famous drag sequences in Hindi cinema. Most heroes have at several points in their career done a drag performance in a film, usually to get away from a villain or some other kind of subterfuge exercise. Somehow the drag performance is then accepted without question within the largely heterosexual narrative of the film, often establishing the virility and masculinity of the hero rather than detracting from it. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes100http://pad.ma/Vgody2uw/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Choli ke peeche kya haihttp://pad.ma/Vgody2uw/poster.75.jpgCholi ke peeche kya hai is a clip from the film Khalnayak (1993), directed by Subhash Ghai and starring Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit. The queer element in this clip was pointed out by Shohini Ghosh in her article 'Queer Pleasures for Queer People: film, television and sexuality in India'. The dance in this song was choreographed by Saroj Khan, and was attacked for its vulgarity both in court and in the media. What was however not overtly said ever, was that the song has two women singing to each other sexually, which allows for queer readings. The other version of the same song in the movie culminates in a violent assault on the woman, but this version did not get condemned. Shohini Ghosh in her article points out that two women playing courtesans (Ila Arun and Neena Gupta) sing suggestively to each other and about the female body, using motifs of covering and uncovering. A segment of the song includes these lyrics: What should the boy be like/ What should the girl be like? The answering refrain is The boy should be like you/ The girl should be like me The article in which Ghosh talks about the discourse of vulgarity and sexuality in this song, can be found online as part of the Queering Bollywood database (created by Alternative Law Forum). The link is http://media.opencultures.net/queer/data/indian/queer_pleasures-ghosh.pdf The article ends by saying that queer desires and spectatorship practices indeed raise this question, except in new and exciting ways: Choli ke peechey kya hai? Is it a man, woman, an intersexed person, hijra or a kothi? Queering Bollywood is an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/ Yes75http://pad.ma/Vhlh43yh/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Sholay (clip)http://pad.ma/Vhlh43yh/poster.75.jpgA clip from Sholay (1975) directed by Ramesh Sippy starring Amitabh Bacchan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Jaya Bacchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan and others. Sholay is one of the box office record breaking films of Hindi cinema. As pointed out by Shohini Ghosh, it is in these films that are seemingly mainstream, that queer desires often find a resonance (as in Hum aapke hain kaun). Sholay revolves around the friendship of two men with each other -Jai and Veeru, the women they romance and the revenge drama they enact against the evil henchman Gabbar. Jai and Veeru's friendship is the heart of the film, and here what are usually romantic devices in Hindi cinema- songs, arguments, declarations of underlying love - are often enacted between the two men as well. In this scene, Jai and Veeru are singing a famous song to each other which is a celebration of their friendship. An intriguing part of this scene is when they toss a coin to decide which among them will pursue the girl, and the coin lands on its side (neither heads nor tails). Another song in which again Amitabh Bacchan is the object of affection for a man, is Yaari (Love/friendship) from Zanjeer. As Raja Rao puts in, in his article "Memories Pierce the heart ; Homoeroticism, Bollywood-Style" (Essays On Cinema and Television (Editors - Gayatri; Rao; Wadia; Raman; Arnold; Vasudevan; McLean; Bielby)) -- "..this is where the paradox lies: two men who believe they represent the masculinity principle to the utmost degree find they cannot live without each other; they are happy only when they are together." Raja Rao's article also draws a valuable link of the "buddy film" genre (to dubiously implant that category from Hollywood to Bollywood) to spectator practices in movie theatres, especially in relation to Bacchan films. He says .."The bond that Amitabh Bacchan formed with other male actors on the screen, complemented the presence of an all-male audience that had gathered to watch him, engendered a sort of homoeroticism in the dark of the movie hall. ..... Take a look at the audience as the movie is showing (as I have frequently done), and you are likely to find young men all over each other, clasping hands, putting arms around shoulders and waists, even a leg on a leg. Few of these men might be consciously gay. Nor would they exhibit such behaviour if it were their wives or girlfriends sitting next to them: that would be too black-and-white." You can read this article online at .. http://media.opencultures.net/queer/data/indian/homoeroticism-rao.pdf You can also see another clip from Sholay - Conversation of Jai with Mausi - also available on Pad.ma at http://pad.ma/Vu54hkwf/info This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes149http://pad.ma/Vu54hkwf/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Sholay (clip)http://pad.ma/Vu54hkwf/poster.75.jpgA clip from Sholay (1975) directed by Ramesh Sippy starring Amitabh Bacchan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Jaya Bacchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan and others. Sholay is one of the box office record breaking films of Hindi cinema. As pointed out by Shohini Ghosh, it is in these films that are seemingly mainstream, that often queer desires often find a resonance (as in Hum aapke hain kaun). Sholay revolves around the friendship of two men with each other -Jai and Veeru, the women they romance and the revenge drama they enact against the evil henchman Gabbar. Jai and Veeru's friendship is the heart of the film, and here what are usually romantic devices in Hindi cinema- songs, arguments, declarations of underlying love - are often enacted between the two men as well. In this scene Jai is allegedly setting up a marriage for Veeru with Basanti, by talking to her Mausi. However as is obvious all he does is ruin his chances of marriage. You can also see the picturisation of the song 'Yeh dosti' from Sholay, available on Pad.ma at http://pad.ma/Vhlh43yh/info This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes161http://pad.ma/Vdx7o0vf/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Didi tera dewar deewanahttp://pad.ma/Vdx7o0vf/poster.75.jpgDidi tera dewar deewana is a clip from the film Hum aapke hain kaun (1994), directed by Subhash Ghai, starring Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit. The film was the biggest family film of the year. However within its conventional narrative is a queer moment that is deeply coded. In this clip from the most popular song, a woman dresses up as a man to flirt with the female protaganist and to simulate sex with her under a sheet. The song translates as - Sister, your brother in law is crazy. The article in which Shohini Ghosh analyses the queer possibilities of this moment can be found online at http://media.opencultures.net/queer/data/indian/queer_pleasures-ghosh.pdf Gayatri Gopinath also examines this moment in her book and article on queer cinema in India, 'Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas'. Shohini Ghosh in her article 'Queer pleasures for queer people: Film, television and sexuality in India', points out that the song is transgressive at many levels including gesturing towards the eroticism inherent in relations between a man and wife's sister or a woman and husband's brother. But it also allows for an erotic interaction between two women, like in other films Mere Mehboob (1963), Yeh aag kab bhujegi (1991) and Kamasutra (1997). This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/ Yes58http://pad.ma/Vh6gp1t2/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Silsila (clip)http://pad.ma/Vh6gp1t2/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Silsila (1981) directed by Yash Chopra, starring Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bacchan, Jaya Bahaduri, Rekha. The story of this film is about extramarital affairs and bears a close resemblance to real life events. What is intriguing in this scene between the two brothers bathing together, is the acknowledgement of homosexual acts. The reference to bending down to pick up the soap and thus exposing yourself to penetration from behind, is a familiar gimmick and joke in hostels and has been used in prison scenes in movies as well. The physicality in this scene between the two brothers also is marked. Even contemporary films like My brother Nikhil (2005) do not show any scenes of love making, nudity or implied nudity, as is easily shown in this film. Though various films have shown male nudity (Rahul Bose in English, August and Split Wide Open among others), only one has shown male nudity in relation to homosexuality - Dattani's Mango Souffle. These films usually have fallen within the alternative or rather non-mainstream bracket of films. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes68http://pad.ma/Vtpanfmm/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Sadak (clip)http://pad.ma/Vtpanfmm/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Sadak (1991) directed by Mahesh Bhatt starring Sanjay Dutt, Pooja Bhatt, Sadashiv Amrapurkar. This film has one of the most negative portrayals of a hijra in Indian cinema, as a criminal who traffics young girls into prostitution. Maharani's character is undeniably evil and also obviously camp. Usually hijras in Hindi cinema are portrayed either as laughable or comedic characters or only appear in the picturisation of songs, either around weddings or just as colourful characters that dot the cityscape. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes50http://pad.ma/Vt3f5crh/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Naam (clip)http://pad.ma/Vt3f5crh/poster.75.jpgA clip from Naam (1986) directed by Mahesh Bhatt, starring Sanjay Dutt, Kumar Gaurav. This film revolves around an oft-used trope in Bollywood of two brothers - one who is wayward and the other responsible. The song is about their closeness and affection for each other. The inclusion of this clip in the Queering Bollywood database is often criticised on the grounds that they are brothers, and their overt physical affection cannot be read as queer. Queering Bollywood is an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/ Yes73http://pad.ma/Vfrth59b/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Kuch Na Kaho (clip)http://pad.ma/Vfrth59b/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Kuch na Kaho (2003) starring Abhishek Bacchan, Aishwarya Rai and Satish Shah, directed by Rohan Sippy. Such scenes that use the homosexual or homosexuality as a comic reference are common in Bollywood films, though the nature of such a reference has changed from targeting an effeminate side character, to implicating the heroes of the film as in Kal Ho Na Ho, also released in the same year as this film. This scene though can be read as homophobic or definitely not friendly to homosexual behaviour. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes173http://pad.ma/Vef6utsv/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Main Khiladi Tu Anari (clip) - Conversationhttp://pad.ma/Vef6utsv/poster.75.jpgA clip from Main Khiladi tu Anari (I'm the player, you're the naive one) (1994), directed by Sameer Malkan starring Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan. The film is a crime and suspense film that revolves around the close relationship that develops between the two male protaganists. For further details on the plot see: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110438/ This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/ Yes118http://pad.ma/Vi2vopip/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Saathi song (clip)http://pad.ma/Vi2vopip/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Saathi (1991) directed by Mahesh Bhatt starring Aditya Pancholi and Mohsin Khan. Saathi is the ultimate buddy film about an intense relationship between two brothers. The film utilizes a familiar Bollywood/Hindi cinema trope of two brothers who choose different paths - one a gangster, the other a law abiding citizen. Though brothers, the intensity of their love for each other is picturised and dramatized through songs (as in this love song about yaarana or love) and intense arguments much like lovers are portrayed in Hindi cinema. Aditya Pancholi also was considered a gay icon during the early 90s, especially because of a revealing and scandalous cover for a film magazine. The motorcycle sequence here could also be a reference to the intense friendship portrayed in Sholay, picturised for the song 'Yeh dosti'. Again the dramatization and picturization of song sequences for friendships between men, whether yaarana or dosti, are what lend a queer element to these scenes. See also a dramatic fight between the Amar (Mohsin Khan) and Suraj (Aditya Pancholi), also available on Pad.ma at http://pad.ma/Vu0c53s8/info This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes182http://pad.ma/Vs6k0wur/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Mera Naam Joker (clip)http://pad.ma/Vs6k0wur/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Mera Naam Joker (1970) directed by Raj Kapoor, starring Raj Kapoor, Padmini, Manoj Kumar, Simi Garewal among others, including a young Rishi Kapoor. This film was Raj Kapoor's dream project. One of the roles involves a woman having to masquerade as a boy in the circus, and it is played by Padmini. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/ Yes47http://pad.ma/Vdxjebsi/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Clip from Celluloid Closethttp://pad.ma/Vdxjebsi/poster.75.jpgCelluloid Closet (1995) is a documentary film on representations of gays and lesbians and other alternative sexuality minorities in Hollywood mainstream cinema. It is directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman. More information available at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112651/ This clip looks at a moment in early Hollywood which allowed a space for androgynous and sexual women to exist on screen, even if only briefly. It is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/ Yes97http://pad.ma/Vi20hloe/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Clip from Kamasutrahttp://pad.ma/Vi20hloe/poster.75.jpgClip from Kamasutra - A tale of love (1996), directed by Mira Nair, starring Indira Varma, Sarita Choudhary, Naveen Andrews, Rekha. Here the two women, Maya and Tara talk about making love to each other. Though ostensibly as a ruse to get the man back, there is also a gesture towards sensual and erotic pleasure between women. A similar scene is played out in Utsav (1984) which is directed by Girish Karnad. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes105http://pad.ma/Vfgs2ar5/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Razia Sultan (clip)http://pad.ma/Vfgs2ar5/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Razia Sultan (1983) directed by Kamal Amrohi. The scene in this film that is often read through a queer lens is unfortunately not available on most DVD versions of the film. This clip is of a suitor pursuing Razia Sultan, and shows the intimate friendship between two women. During a song sequence in the film, Razia is on a boat with a woman, bemoaning that her lover is too far away. The implied queer erotics of this scene are because the two women deliciously dissapear behind a large white feather. The song is Khwab banke koi aaega. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes108http://pad.ma/Vhqn86wv/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Paisa vasool (clip)http://pad.ma/Vhqn86wv/poster.75.jpgA clip from Paisa Vasool (2004) directed by Srinivas Bashyam, starring Manisha Koirala and Sushmita Sen. Very few films in Indian cinema deal with friendships and relationships between women. This makes Paisa Vasool almost a unique experiment as it uses the format of a buddy/comedy film, but has two female protaganists. Though the film can't necesarily be read as queer or lesbian (inspite of the aggressive masculine role of Sen and femme in need of rescue played by Koirala) it is an account of a close friendship between two women who live together, fight with each other and eventually triumph over the villains. The film has been written by Anurag Kashyap. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes72http://pad.ma/Veuqidim/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Utsav (clip)http://pad.ma/Veuqidim/poster.75.jpgA clip from the film Utsav (1984), directed by Girish Karnad, starring Rekha, Shekhar Kapur, Anuradha Patel. This scene has Vasantsena (Rekha) dressing up Aditi (Anuradha Patel) so that she can please her husband. Aditi knows that Vasantsena is her husband's lover and goes to her place to confront her. But they end up talking and becoming friendly. In the course of this Vasantsena offers to teach Aditi how to entrance and keep her husband. A loving scene of dressing up Aditi, changing her clothes and making her wear jewelry like Vasantsena. Before they exchange their clothes and adornments is a delicious gap, in which much queer speculation has happened about what the two women did. It is a peculiar friendship that the two women strike up with each other, since they are allegedly rivals for the affections of one man, but seem to make him irrelevant once they have found each other. Within the strictly traditional framework of this film, this moment is deliciously coded for queer erotics. An image from this scene is the cover of Gayatri Gopinath's book on queer diapsoras relation to Indian popular culture ( Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures (Perverse Modernities) by Gayatri Gopinath, Judith Halberstam, and Lisa Lowe). It also is on the cover of the Queering Bollywood database circulated by Alternative Law Forum. Gopinath in her essay on queer desire, remarks that feminist analysis of the film Utsav, critiqued this scene, as this kind of female bonding between the mistress and the wife, seemingly allows the man to move without guilt between his glamorous mistress and nurturing wife. However, this according to Gopinath, misses " the more nuanced eroticism between the two women that a queer diasporic reading makes apparent." Though Gopinath's analysis seems to be rooted in the experience of queer diasporas, much of her work seems relevant to Indian audiences as well. The other films she examines are Hum aapke hain kaun (for the gender reversal scene) and Subbah. Subbah directly refers to same sex eroticism between women, in the context of a women reformatory and even uses the word 'lesbian' to talk about certain relations and women. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/Yes107http://pad.ma/Vhr3dqlo/info2010-03-17weekly1.0Mumbai Matinee (clip)http://pad.ma/Vhr3dqlo/poster.75.jpgA clip from Mumbai Matinee (2003) directed by Anant Balani, starring Rahul Bose and Perizaad Zoraiban. In this clip, Debu (Rahul Bose) is walking near a park. A man walks up to him and starts flirting with him, obviously taking him to be a gay man. This is one of the few instances in which an overtly gay character is portrayed and the scene takes place near a public park - a commonly known cruising space for men seeking to have sex with men. This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see http://media.opencultures.net/queer/ Yes41http://pad.ma/Vgoed8xs/info2010-03-10weekly1.0Ek Dozen Paani - Sanjay Nagarhttp://pad.ma/Vgoed8xs/poster.75.jpgAs in many cities, in Mumbai we barely witness the passage of water from rain to sea via lakes, watersheds, pipes, pumps, pots, human and animal bodies, drains and sewers. However, residents in the slums of Jogeshwari, particularly in areas such as Sanjay Nagar where this footage was shot, find themselves without the former and trapped with the latter. As part of an investigation into the social life of water in these areas, <i>Pani Sare Dhaga Ma</i> (Water is In All the Clouds) was a collaborative project between youth of two community organizations- Aakansha Sewa Sangh and Agaaz, with CAMP and led by the researcher Nikhil Anand. Working together since march 2008, they take us though questions of citizenship and distribution by looking at how residents form relationships with water and its infrastructures: including official water supplies, alternative plumbing, ground water, tanker politics, and so on.Yes4845http://pad.ma/Vdyhaiiq/info2010-06-01weekly1.0Mumbai Attacks: Bombay First Conference @ The Trident - Tape 3http://pad.ma/Vdyhaiiq/poster.75.jpgTwo months after the terrible attacks on our city, a gathering of businessmen, security experts, and politicos meet at the same hotel where gunmen had created havoc. In the quickly renovated chambers of the Regal Room in The Trident, a 6 hour session takes place where much is discussed - terrorism, surveillance, National ID Cards, higher spending on security and tighter centralization of information gathering networks. The Panel of Experts included the deputy mayor of London, a member of the US 9/11 Commission, a US Dept. of Homeland Security advisor, the head of Security for Deutsche Bank Asia Pacific, a former member of NATO Security, and several counter-terrorism experts. From India, it brought together politicians, a former NSG commando, faces from corporate India, and from the media - Gerson DaCunha and Burkha Dutt. The audience included prominent Indian businessmen, heads of security companies, a member of the Shin Bet, and people from 'concerned civil society'. Such meetings are usually held in five-star hotels behind close doors with members of the public not having a chance to interact with or interrogate arguments made. We see putting this footage in pad.ma as a way to open up arguments and trajectories, moving away from a totalizing discourse around 'terrorism'... annotations are welcome because slowing down the pace of the discourse and examining it in detail and critically might be our only answer to the media juggernaut.Yes3123http://pad.ma/Vt3at28r/info2010-06-01weekly1.0Mumbai Attacks: Bombay First Conference @ The Trident - Tape 2http://pad.ma/Vt3at28r/poster.75.jpgPanel of Experts from U.K. and U.S.A. for the Conference on LESSONS FROM 9/11 AND 7/7 FOR A SAFER MUMBAI 16th January, 2009 Two months after the terrible attacks on our city, a gathering of businessmen, security experts, and politicos meet at the same hotel where gunmen had created havoc. In the quickly renovated chambers of the Regal Room in The Trident, a 6 hour session takes place where much is discussed - terrorism, surveillance, National ID Cards, higher spending on security and tighter centralization of information gathering networks. The Panel of Experts included the deputy mayor of London, a member of the US 9/11 Commission, a US Dept. of Homeland Security advisor, the head of Security for Deutsche Bank Asia Pacific, a former member of NATO Security, and several counter-terrorism experts. From India, it brought together politicians, a former NSG commando, faces from corporate India, and from the media - Gerson DaCunha and Burkha Dutt. The audience included prominent Indian businessmen, heads of security companies, a member of the Shin Bet, and people from 'concerned civil society'. Such meetings are usually held in five-star hotels behind close doors with members of the public not having a chance to interact with or interrogate arguments made. We see putting this footage in pad.ma as a way to open up arguments and trajectories, moving away from a totalizing discourse around 'terrorism'... annotations are welcome because slowing down the pace and examining this phenomenon in detail and critically might be our only answer to the media juggernaut.Yes3473http://pad.ma/Vsmvhbof/info2010-06-01weekly1.0Mumbai Attacks: Bombay First Conference @ The Trident - Tape 1http://pad.ma/Vsmvhbof/poster.75.jpgTwo months after the terrible attacks on our city, a gathering of businessmen, security experts, and politicos meet at the same hotel where gunmen had created havoc. In the quickly renovated chambers of the Regal Room in The Trident, a 6 hour session takes place where much is discussed - terrorism, surveillance, National ID Cards, higher spending on security and tighter centralization of information gathering networks. The Panel of Experts included the deputy mayor of London, a member of the US 9/11 Commission, a US Dept. of Homeland Security advisor, the head of Security for Deutsche Bank Asia Pacific, a former member of NATO Security, and several counter-terrorism experts. From India, it brought together politicians, a former NSG commando, faces from corporate India, and from the media - Gerson DaCunha and Burkha Dutt. The audience included prominent Indian businessmen, heads of security companies, a member of the Shin Bet, and people from 'concerned civil society'. Such meetings are usually held in five-star hotels behind close doors with members of the public not having a chance to interact with or interrogate arguments made. We see putting this footage in pad.ma as a way to open up arguments and trajectories, moving away from a totalizing discourse around 'terrorism'... annotations are welcome because slowing down the pace and examining this phenomenon in detail and critically might be our only answer to the media juggernaut.Yes3745http://pad.ma/Vss6bacn/info2010-03-20weekly1.0Pad.ma Launch: The Left, the Right and the Rights by Sebastian Luetgerthttp://pad.ma/Vss6bacn/poster.75.jpgSebastian Lütgert introduces Pad.maYes2567http://pad.ma/Vhm0d1p5/info2009-12-27weekly1.0Interview with Ron Merchant, UK Patent Office, Ellen t’Hoen, MSF.http://pad.ma/Vhm0d1p5/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the costs of human life?Yes2329http://pad.ma/Vu608igf/info2009-02-09weekly1.0Human Question: Interview with Rainer Schilling, DAH, Berlinhttp://pad.ma/Vu608igf/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the costs of human life?Yes3171http://pad.ma/Vgoxuohw/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Interview with Paisan, Activist, Thai Drug Users Forum.http://pad.ma/Vgoxuohw/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes3377http://pad.ma/Vh5fk2l6/info2009-02-13weekly1.0A Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkokhttp://pad.ma/Vh5fk2l6/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes3658http://pad.ma/Vsnpfajd/info2009-02-14weekly1.0Ek Dozen Paani - Pipeshttp://pad.ma/Vsnpfajd/poster.75.jpgAs in many cities, in Mumbai we barely witness the passage of water from rain to sea via lakes, watersheds, pipes, pumps, pots, human and animal bodies, drains and sewers. Even as these hidden passages describe a unique social, chemical and political structure, a map of ourselves in the modern world. More than many of us, residents in the slums of Jogeshwari spend time waiting and hurrying around this substance, its leaks and sources. As part of an investigation into the social life of water in these areas, <i>Pani Sare Dhaga Ma</i> (Water is In All the Clouds) is a collaborative project between youth of two community organizations- Aakansha Sewa Sangh and Agaaz, with CAMP and led by the researcher Nikhil Anand. Working together since march 2008, we have been thinking through questions of "citizenship" and distribution by looking at how residents form relationships with water and its infrastructures: including official water supply, alternative plumbing, ground water, tanker politics, and so on. This clip focuses on the passage of water in pipes, the state of the Indian water supply, and the ever mounting need for change if we are to remedy this situation.Yes1156http://pad.ma/Vev457a7/info2009-02-01weekly1.0Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok - 2http://pad.ma/Vev457a7/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes1995http://pad.ma/Vss0itpf/info2009-02-01weekly1.0Interview with Dr. James Love, CPTech, Geneva.http://pad.ma/Vss0itpf/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the costs of human life?Yes2609http://pad.ma/Vdyn8tzv/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Interview with Karl Lemmen, DAH, Berlinhttp://pad.ma/Vdyn8tzv/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes539http://pad.ma/Vg8il2tj/info2009-02-13weekly1.0A Human Question: 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok - 1http://pad.ma/Vg8il2tj/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human life?Yes3696http://pad.ma/Ve2u7r56/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Interview with Rainer Schilling, DAH, Berlinhttp://pad.ma/Ve2u7r56/poster.75.jpgTracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the costs of human life?Yes2972http://pad.ma/Vhmatjr9/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Mapping Localeshttp://pad.ma/Vhmatjr9/poster.75.jpgThis session asked the following questions: How do we make sense of the bewildering variety that Indian theatre displays? Where does theatre happen? Or, more critically, where does theatre matter? In what kinds of locales, in other words, does theatre making, and theatre going, become a need, a habit? What are the dynamics of different kinds of theatre in India? What role has amateur theatre played? What is the state of the commercial theatres? Do we have any professional theatre outside of the commercial? If not, why not? This session, apart from looking at the macro situation, also hopes to look at theatre in particular settings. One of these is theatre in Manipur. What is the context of Manipuri theatre? How have locational and political marginalities shaped this theatre? What has sustained this theatre? What problems does it face today? Where does it go in the future? Presentations were made by Samik Bandhopadhyay and Shanta Gokhale, and responses offered by Koushik Sen, Sanjay Upadhyay and Channakeshava. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes5328http://pad.ma/Ve2sb4ib/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Institutions and Traininghttp://pad.ma/Ve2sb4ib/poster.75.jpgThis session sought to explore the complicated terrain of institutions and training. We wanted to look at training institutions, but not simply those. We wanted to look at cultural institutions as a whole -- the akademies, the schools of drama, the private theatre institutions, as well as funding agencies. One often hears the cliché that Indians are not institution-builders, that we cannot sustain institutions over time. How do we look at theatre institutions -- or, more generally, cultural institutions -- which we have in India? State institutions were formed in the aftermath of independence. Was the vision that led to their formation inherently flawed? Did our cultural institutions take forward the best traditions of our independence movement? What have been their successes, measured not in terms of grand showpiece events, but in terms of aiding processes that keep theatre alive and vibrant? And what have been their failures? Are state institutions doomed to failure by virtue of being state institutions? Does the state have any role at all in the realm of culture? If so, what? What about private institutions? Which private institutions have been vibrant and have had an impact on the larger field of theatre practice in their city/region? Are private institutions inherently superior to public institutions? What role have funding agencies played? What kind of institutions do we envisage for tomorrow? Presentations were made by Sanjna Kapoor and Shyamala Vanarase and responses offered by Anmol Vellani and Samik Bandhopadhyay. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, and to problemetize the issues that arise therein. http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/Yes6050http://pad.ma/Vgp1vp4v/info2010-05-19weekly1.0ITF Not The Drama Seminar: Assertionshttp://pad.ma/Vgp1vp4v/poster.75.jpgAll around us, in our society, in our politics, we are witness to new assertions -- along lines of identity, community, language, ethnicity, gender, etc. In a word, these new assertions -- which may not even be very new, actually -- get articulated on the axis of culture. How do we make sense of these assertions? What are their histories? Has our theatre reflected these assertions? Rather, which assertions has our theatre reflected, and which not? What is identity politics? What does it mean for our theatre? Is it the case that our theatre, mainstream urban theatre at any rate, continues to be mainly an upper caste, male domain? These were some of the questions that this session tried to address. Presentations were made by Gopal Guru and Pralayan, and responses offered by Devi, Dakxin Bajarange, Sushama Deshpande and Chandradasan. Organised 50 years after the original Drama Seminar in 1957, the Not the Drama Seminar (NTDS) brought together theatre practitioners from all across the country to convene at Ninasam, Heggodu in March 2008. This seminar meditated on the nature of theatre in India today, on how we got to where we are. The attempt was to understand 'Indian Theatre' in all its multiplicity and diversity, bringing these several faces of Indian theatre face to face, and problemetize the issues that arise therein. These ideas were exchanged through a series of presentations and discussions over five days, and each day ended with a performance. [http://theatreforum.in/itf/meeting/1/]Yes6019http://pad.ma/Vsbb5fm1/info2009-01-30weekly1.0Meter-Down with Sebastian Fernandeshttp://pad.ma/Vsbb5fm1/poster.75.jpgconversation with sebastian fernandes, a bombay taxi driver, after the attacks on bombay, about this and his life and dreams See: [http://meterdown.wordpress.com Meter Down Blog]Yes2341http://pad.ma/Vdyncelo/info2009-01-25weekly1.0Interview with Cori Tigges (Part 3).http://pad.ma/Vdyncelo/poster.75.jpgYes3572http://pad.ma/Vfaxuv9z/info2009-01-24weekly1.0Interview with Cori Tigges (Part 1).http://pad.ma/Vfaxuv9z/poster.75.jpgYes3589http://pad.ma/Vi2psgbq/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Human Question: Interview with Pablo Fernandez.http://pad.ma/Vi2psgbq/poster.75.jpgInterview with Pablo Fernandez - Rushes from the documentary "Human Question"Yes3600http://pad.ma/Veve7dbq/info2009-02-10weekly1.0Human Question: Interview with Elizabeth.http://pad.ma/Veve7dbq/poster.75.jpgInterview with Elizabeth from Kenya about her HIV infection. Part of Rushes from the documentary "Human Question"Yes1957http://pad.ma/Vgovrn3m/info2009-02-07weekly1.0Mapping Cold Warshttp://pad.ma/Vgovrn3m/poster.75.jpgVarious Women's NGO's and activist groups including members from Forum Against Opression of Women, Akshara, Awaaz e Niswaan, Womens Centre, Strisangam, etc gather together in front of a map of the world. The group exercise, done during a 'retreat' in Khandala had them mapping out the countries that witnessed military action during the cold war years. Predictably selective in its litany of nations and places, this mapping exercise finds companions with other footage from Tellavision Mumbai. It highlights the old left's problem of being 'selective' about understanding geo-politics and in their acknowledging of state-sponsored terror and violence. Still it is an energetic exercise and the women seem to be having a good time locating places on the map. This footage was given to the Tellavision Mumbai project by Tejal Shah who attended the retreat. Yes1140http://pad.ma/Ve2ib5lk/info2009-01-26weekly1.0PEACE: Public Meeting at Masalewala Hall in Dongrihttp://pad.ma/Ve2ib5lk/poster.75.jpg"Peace With the excuse of eradicating world terrorism, subtle American terrorism is strengthening. The entire world is now plunged in the shadows of yet another unwanted world war. What kind of role should India play in world politics? What kind of effect will it have on India? The change in the attitude towards the Muslims will have what kind of impact on the society. We are organising public meeting on above topic on 16th October 2001. Looking forward for your participation. Venue : Masalewala Hall, 74, H. A. Walji Marg, 2nd floor, above Development Credit Bank, Dongri, Mumbai 400009 Timing : 6.00pm To 9.00pm Chairperson : Just. R. A. Jahangirdar Speakers : Sajid Rashid (Editor; Mahanagar) Ram Punyani (Prof. From IIT) Advocate Mihir Desai (Hon director ICHRL) For more information contact Chetna on 3716690 Chetna Birje Praful Shinde Hasina Khan Shakeel Ahmed (ICHRL) India Center for Human Rights and Law (Sampark) (AEN) Awaaz e Niswaan (NBA) Nirbhay Bano Andolan" <i>This is the invitation for the talk dug up from an internet cache of the now defunct SACW list (south asian citizens watch). Shaina Anand attended the meeting and documented the entire public address and the 'debate' that followed. It makes for an interesting reading, summarising various viewpoints of our 'left'.</i>Yes6348http://pad.ma/Vgu0oa06/info2009-02-06weekly1.0Harbour Line and Mumbai Shantata Samitihttp://pad.ma/Vgu0oa06/poster.75.jpgA train ride from Bandra to Masjid Bundar on the Harbour line. The sun is setting and the city's Central Line passes through the trading spine of the island city. Godaams and warehouses with shipping containers dot the skyline. The train halts at Masjid Bundar. We are now in the office of ICHRL (India Centre for Human Rights and Law.) Some members from the Dongri Mohalla Comittee are meeting to have a discussion. Later at night, Nikhil Anand and Shaina Anand have a long candid conversation with some members from the Mumbai Shantata Samiti, a Mohalla level Peace Committee operating in the Muslim-dominated area around Mohamammed Ali Road, Dongri. Yes3962http://pad.ma/Vs6ca9fx/info2009-01-11weekly1.0Protest at Marine Drivehttp://pad.ma/Vs6ca9fx/poster.75.jpgA street play and protest march against the US invasion of Iraq. The play, performed by volunteers from Prerna Sangathan, An independent youth group from Jogeshwari began at the NCPA end of Marine Drive. The march culminated at Chowpatty beach after sunset. Yes1755http://pad.ma/Vharlybn/info2009-01-19weekly1.0Friendship: Zinda Laash, Representation of Sex Workers in Bollywood.http://pad.ma/Vharlybn/poster.75.jpgFriendship between women in prostitution and other women is a strict no-no in society as envisaged by Bollywood cinema. It is interesting to note that these two clips are from two completely different films. Devdas is a commercial film, an adaptation of a novel, a remake of an earlier version and also a period film. Aastha on the other hand, can be categorized as middle or art house cinema. Yet, we can see that the bias against women in prostitution mingling with so called domestic women is highlighted in both. However, in Devdas there is an attempt on the part of the prostitute to negate her solo identity as a courtesan, and this is also supported by the other lead heroine, the domesticated housewife.Yes197http://pad.ma/Vi807jid/info2010-07-23weekly1.0Narendra Modi on Big Fighthttp://pad.ma/Vi807jid/poster.75.jpgNarendra Modi, the current chief minister of Gujarat, the late Dr Rafiq Zakaria, an Indian politician and Islamic scholar, and Mr G. Parthasarthy, the former High Commissioner to Pakistan, debate on NDTV's "Big Fight," hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai, on whether Islam is the new driving force of global terrorism today. John Elliot, Special Correspondent, Forbes, and Siddharth Vardharajan, Strategic Affairs Editor, The Hindu, are co-hosts. The debate took place shortly after the September 11 attacks.Yes1652http://pad.ma/Vfrow61g/info2010-07-21weekly1.0Boycott on TVhttp://pad.ma/Vfrow61g/poster.75.jpgMr Shahabuddin Shaikh, Islamic Chamber of Commerce, being interviewed by Rajiv K Bajaj on the show 'The Good, Bad and Ugly' on the channel 'In Mumbai' along with Mr. Sarfaraz Arzu, editor of the Urdu daily 'The Hindustan', and Dr. Yusuf Matcheswala, consulting psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Grant Medical College, Mumbai. The interview deals with the motives for the boycott for Coke and Pepsi, along with other American and British goods, and its effects. The boycott started in Mumbai in the wake of 9/11 and was called forth by the Indian Hotel Association.Yes2083http://pad.ma/Vdydf4qx/info2009-02-06weekly1.0Discussion at Shalimar Cafehttp://pad.ma/Vdydf4qx/poster.75.jpgThis discussion follows the boycott of Coke and Pepsi called out by the Indian Hotels Association in response to the attack on Afghanistan by America . During the course of the discussion it is revealed that a number of other American products have been boycotted along with Coke and Pepsi. The discussion points to America being unreasonable with its attack on Afghanistan as a result of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. The conversation covers a wide range of topics, moving from a justification of the Taliban's restriction on the freedom of movement for women, to the banning of education for girls (with a reference to the statement given by Safir Syed Rahnatullah Hashimi at a university in California on 10th March 2001), to a pro-Taliban stance with regard to the Taliban's ban on the cultivation of opium, and on to liberals and fundamentalists with respect to India's own freedom, Islamic law in Arab and Muslim nations, and ending with the manipulation of the news by the American media.Yes3180http://pad.ma/Vhm0l00d/info2008-12-04weekly1.0Mannerisms; Zinda Laash: Representation of Sex Workers in Bollywood.http://pad.ma/Vhm0l00d/poster.75.jpgIn Bollywood, the underlying assumption is that women in prostitution are different from other women. Hence, this difference must be brought out acutely in terms of cinematic representation. Prostitutes must therefore dress in a manner that is un-sophisticated, they must smoke and use foul language. This is probably an attempt to show them as products of their surroundings, and milieu. Though there have been exceptions, most contemporary representations of prostitutes take this route. What follows commonly in the plot of the films then (Mausam, Chori Chori Chupke Chupke) is an attempt to 'normalize' the prostitute. She is asked to change her way of dressing, refine her tongue and generally mellow down from the colourful selves- the audience is then introduced to a non-woman/un-woman who has to be initiated into society by a kind patron.Yes250http://pad.ma/Vdxnp85b/info2008-12-04weekly1.0Impuritites: Zinda Laash, Representation of Sex Workers in Bollywood.http://pad.ma/Vdxnp85b/poster.75.jpgIn this vast selection of clips, it becomes clear that women in prostitution are definitely portrayed as outside society, being different from other women and even in some cases not recognized as women. Prostitution then almost becomes another gender among women. All sections of society are shown to be ashamed and disgusted with them, mothers, brothers, shop keepers, social workers, domestic helpers - everything associated with the sex worker is a huge taboo. On the one hand these representations enforce what is already known and accepted in everyday language and society about women in prostitution, on the other hand the object is in most cases to make the audience sympathize with the lead heroine, in this case a sex worker. Though this process of sympathy can be stretched to various levels of patronizing and an overwhelming desire to domesticate the non-woman to make her into a woman, it is important to bear in mind the power of popular cinema in shaping one's consciousness about issues such as sex workers. Most stereotypes about them - their mannerisms, speech, clothing, brothels - all come from the regular reinforcing of these norms by Bollywood cinema. In some ways, they may have even helped in sensitizing the audience towards women in prostitution, as cinema ensures that the audience is aware that these women live outside the purview of society. Though there may be varying degrees of truth to the way they are showed shunned by their own families, deceived into their profession, treated brutally by the police, stigmatized by all - it does perhaps help in creating certain bonds of awareness and sensitivity about these issues and the audience. Another interesting phenomena may be the weaving of the star subtext into characters. Most leading actresses of their time have played sex workers (Kareena Kapoor, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Rekha, Sharmila Tagore, Meena Kumari, Madhuri Dixit, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee, Tabu)- the popularity and adulation that these actresses gained from the audience may often interact with the way the characters played by them on screen are perceived.Yes1844http://pad.ma/Vt8fde84/info2009-01-30weekly1.0Hell: Zinda Laash, Representation of Sex Workers in Bollywood.http://pad.ma/Vt8fde84/poster.75.jpgThe phase 'Zinda Laash' (living corpse) was immortalized in Pakeezah, and since then it has been the most common form of expressing the sex worker's angst in Bollywood cinema: they are living corpses who live in hell. It perhaps also signifies a way of dividing the body and the soul, a way of suggesting that despite the body being a commercial object or living corpse, the soul remains untouched. Such allegories are common in most films that show women in prostitution, it is both a way of evoking self pity as well as the audience's sympathy towards the prostitute with a heart of gold. The clip from Pakeezah, exemplifies both these positions.Yes259http://pad.ma/Vumjev8w/info2009-02-07weekly1.0Police: Zinda Laash, Representation of Sex Workers in Bollywood.http://pad.ma/Vumjev8w/poster.75.jpgGiven the legal ambiguity of prostitution in India, it is not surprising that the police attitude towards sex workers is derogatory and hugely moralistic. The treatment of sex workers is extremely harsh and insensitive. However, this ensures that the sympathy of the viewers are firmly with the sex workers, as the police and law is often shown to be corrupt and abusing their power.Yes211http://pad.ma/Vdxht2sy/info2009-02-08weekly1.0Marriage and Love; Zinda Laash: Representation of Sex Workers in Bollywood.http://pad.ma/Vdxht2sy/poster.75.jpgMarriage between a woman in prostitution and the lead hero of the film is not entirely unknown in Bollywood cinema. However, its depiction is rather problematic, as marriage is always seen as a solution or an escape to a better, more respectable life. Since women in prostitution are rarely ever shown to enter the profession by choice, and they are always coerced or deceived into it, marriage is presented as the sole avenue of escape. This sort of an association is so stigma ridden that the hero and the prostitute have to overcome almost impossible circumstances, as seen in Sadak and Pakeezah. Also, though prostitutes in Hindi film aspire for marriage, they always see it as a romanticized ideal and wallow in self pity about how they can never enter 'respectable' society. However, constant reiteration of this also creates a certain sympathy or maybe in some cases identification between the plight of the prostitute and the viewer. Bollywood cinema does therefore succeed in highlighting the marginalization of prostitutes by society. In two of the most recent films (Laaga Chunari Main Daag, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom) there seems to be a complete rejection of the earlier tragedies that must ultimately meet the prostitute.Yes652http://pad.ma/Veekr5hy/info2009-01-29weekly1.0Clients: Zinda Laash, Representation of Sex Workers in Bollywood.http://pad.ma/Veekr5hy/poster.75.jpgClients in Bollywood films representing women in prostitution are often both caricatures (Market) or leading men of the film (Baaghi, Sadak), who go on to fall in love with a prostitute. What is interesting here, is a reversal of sexual politics. Usually in a hero-heroine scenario of the commercial Bollywood film, it is the hero who makes the first move and has the upper hand in the entire process of romance. Here, the women are obviously more experienced sexually; they are outspoken, make lewd jokes, and use a more impersonal way of addressing and talking. What is also observed is exhibition of the women, as they are all made to stand in a line as soon as the clients come and choice of sexual partner still lies with the male. A notable exception is Amar Prem, where the interaction is between a sex worker and her maalak (lover), and it is here that we see shades of jealousy, possession and violence.Yes602http://pad.ma/Vh6gtajl/info2009-02-08weekly1.0Gharwalis and Pimps: Zinda Laash, representations of sex workers in Bollywoodhttp://pad.ma/Vh6gtajl/poster.75.jpgBollywood has indeed traversed an entire range of characterizations when it comes to depictions of gharwalis and pimps, as it has in the depiction of sex workers themselves. The clips here show some of that diversity. One can see a difference between the older films like Amar Prem and the newer films like Julie and Chameli. There is a divide on rural (Market) and urban (Chameli, Julie) characterizations.Two interesting cases are Sadak where the pimp is transgender and Umrao Jaan, where the brothel madam is not really a gharwali or a pimp, but definitely a more refined Urdu speaking, classical character - as the film itself is a historical. Mandi can be classified as art or middle cinema. This collection of clips shows that women in prostitution have been a popular concern with film makers across all Bollywood genres (commercial, art house, historical, B-grade). One common thread is definitely that in most of these films the women are shown entering prostitution through deceit, with the gharwalis (whether good or evil) in compliance with the deception. Julie is a notable exception where she enters the profession as a personal choice.With the exception of Sadak and Chameli, all female patrons of the brothels are referred too as Aunty and the brothel itself is often seen as a place where helpless women live together to serve the economic interests of the matriarch. Mostly, these gharwalis are also not entirely black or white characters, they are seen as both kind and manipulative in their dealings with the sex workers. In contrast most of the women entering prostitution as portrayed as innocent, creating a duality of the good/bad woman in the representations of the sex worker and the gharwali. Except in Mandi, there has been little effort to see these brothels as independent economic units, run on matriarchal codes, where the birth of a girl is more welcome than that of a boy.Yes679http://pad.ma/Vfc3nh5d/info2009-02-06weekly1.0CCTV Social: Day I Session II. 2pmhttp://pad.ma/Vfc3nh5d/poster.75.jpgFor CCTV Social, artist Shaina Anand collaborated with Manchester Metropolitan University and Arndale Shopping Centre to open working CCTV environments to a general audience. People normally 'enclosed' by these networks came into the control rooms to view, observe and monitor this condition, endemic in the UK. About thirty people signed up for one-hour sessions in the MMU security center to engage with the CCTV operators and monitor surveillance procedures. These sessions became somewhat like a diagnostic clinic, where we discussed symptoms, anxieties and inoculations about our 'public health', under surveillance. These therapy sessions seemed to work both ways, for the participants as well as the security officers. This is footage of Sarah and Gwen's interaction with Joe a surveillance officer at Manchester metropolitan University. The footage offers some interesting insights about profiling, paranoia and the assumed neutrality of electronic surveillance. We see Joe relentlessly 'following' a certain man throughout the footage. His reason for doing it was that the man in question was not 'nice'. We also find out that Sarah had also been a victim of street crime , her account of the incident and the way the authorities dealt with it brings up issues of the actual 'effectiveness' of CCTV, the myth of security and police response time to crime. This is footage also includes footage of Mathew and Rachel's conversation with Joe and Steve. They talk about the legalities involved in the use of 'dummy' CCTV cameras. They also discuss the emergence of a new trend in electronic surveillance: Talking CCTV. Joe defends the 'interestingness' of CCTV footage when Mathew suggests that he would probably 'doze off' with boredom if he had a similar job.Yes1017http://pad.ma/Vuh763bj/info2009-01-30weekly1.0Now Talking TV: Cable wars, local content and service providers. Suroor TVhttp://pad.ma/Vuh763bj/poster.75.jpgA candid conversation with Kashif Haq and D. H. Lokesh. Kashif is a young entrepreneur who had tried to run an Urdu language channel out of his family house in Cox town. A discussion of Suroor TV's twists and trials in going on air, its popularity amongst the large Urdu and Deccani speaking population of Shivaji Nagar, and its ultimate removal from the air waves by MSOs (Multi-Service Operators) after about six months, formed the basis of a no-holds-barred talk show on local media politics and monopolies. In it, Lokesh also makes reference to the issues faced by small cable operators because of MSO monopolies and rampant suppression tactics. The conversation concludes on a note of hope for Suroor, as Kashif talks about making it a satellite channel by the use of DTH technology.Yes2818http://pad.ma/Vgok2z1f/info2009-02-09weekly1.0Human Question: Interview with Stefan Etegan, consumer rights activist.http://pad.ma/Vgok2z1f/poster.75.jpgYes134http://pad.ma/Vh6f3prp/info2009-01-26weekly1.0Human Question: Interview with Stefan Etegan, Consumer Activist.http://pad.ma/Vh6f3prp/poster.75.jpgYes1188http://pad.ma/Vdxzq6tl/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Kashmir: Interview with Pather Artist Ghulam Ali Majboorhttp://pad.ma/Vdxzq6tl/poster.75.jpgKashmir, the conflict torn land at the border between Pakistan and India have been at the centre of various power wars between states, between peoples, between religious fundamentalists and between conflicting representations. The main casualty of this decades old wars is the syncretic culture of Kashmir. For the rest of India, and most probably for the rest of Pakistan too, the people of Kashmir is only to be seen and then imagined through various and contradictory representations. In order to counter this we have tried to create a small reservoir of non-hegemonic images from Kashmir in our digital media archive Godaam. Unedited footage from documentary films, published and unpublished photos from newspaper offices, images from the local photo studios, works of contemporary artists, people's private memoirs and image collections etc are part of the collection. This event is part of that collection. The interview is of an artist of Bhand Pather, the celebrated and one of the oldest folk theatre forms in the subcontinent. "Understanding why the survival of Kashmir's folk theatre is imperative requires an engagement with its history. Performers of the Bhand Pather, who are often also custodians of classical Sufiana music, date the origins of their traditions to the 8th century AD. From this time to the 15th century AD, Kashmir saw a dramatic development of its performing arts traditions. "Each village had a stage of its own where dramatic performances were held". These traditions were consolidated and expanded with the coming of Muslim rule in 1339. In fact, the courts attracted musicians and dancers from as far as Kabul, Lahore, Delhi, Samarkand, Tashkent and Persia. Bhand Pather emerged from the high traditions of these courts, but took a unique course. Each Pather typically had two layers of narrative meaning. The first was expressly secular, using farce and satire to assault the powerful. Typically, the character of the peasant would be pitted against the feudal elite. In the Dard Pather, for example, the peasant characters contrive to seduce the wives of the oppressive ruler, who is drunk on liquor. Each performance would have explicit contemporary significance, with Maskare (clowns) irreverently exposing the pretensions of policemen and patwaris; priests and politicians. One performance of the Haanz Pather contained references to politicians who built roads that led only to each others homes. The Maskare in a rendition of the Dard Pather, might joke about a village mullah who tries to loot pilgrims wishing to go to Mecca by building a fake Kaaba in his backyard. At a larger level, the Pathers dealt with mystical themes: the relationship between individuals and their Pirs, and between human beings and god. Each Pather begins with a prayer for the well being of the community and its crops, and village tradition has it that divine blessings asked for by a Bhand are never refused. "Rich families from as far away as Lahore, Delhi, Rawalpindi and Kabul used to invite us to perform at weddings during the winter", recalls Ghulam Hassan Bhagat, "and in the summer, villagers used to give us a share of the crop for performing at fairs, and on holy days at Sufi Ziarats and Dargahs". Before India,s Independence, Bhand theatres had managed to make a living from cash patronage from the court elite, and support from the rural community. After independence, this network of patronage vanished. "People who received land through Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah's reforms", he says, "began to think of us as beggars". "They were in search of social respectability, and some of the more coarse kinds of humour which had entered Bhand Pather during the period of Dogra rule led many to disassociate themselves from what they thought was a vulgar form". Akingam's small Bhagat community illustrates the crisis in the traditions of Kashmiri folk theatre. Like other communities of Bhands, the Akingam Bhagats are desperately poor. Unlike other social groupings in Kashmir, they did not benefit from post - Independence land reform, and historically depended for their survival on patronage for their art. Low in the caste hierarchy of rural Kashmir, most young people in the community have been forced into no - future jobs like peddling pots and pans to make up for the death of income from performing. "People look down on us", says Ghulam Rasool Bhagat, one of the leading figures in Akingam's famous Bhagat Theatre, and son of one of Bhand Pather's best known exponents, Mohammad Subhan Bhagat (see event titles 'Bhand Pather Artists Subhan Bhagat and Mahjoor Bhagat' in this site). "Younger people are very conscious of the fact that others will not give their daughters to us in marriage because we are performers, and more and more look to government jobs in the cities as a way to escape from their roots". Folk theatre survived these new times, but only just. Minimal state support came in the early 1950s. in the form of a monthly grant of Rs. 50 (1$) per person, which was revised to Rs. 200 (4$) a decade later. The Jammu and Kashmir Cultural Academy continues to give annual grants of Rs. 9,500 (200$) for musical instruments and costumes". Pankaj RishikumarYes2063http://pad.ma/Vt393ifb/info2009-06-12weekly1.0Bar Dancers Case: Talk Show in Hindihttp://pad.ma/Vt393ifb/poster.75.jpgThis is a Hindi talk show "Humlog" on NDTV on the controversy of proposed ban on the dance bar in Mumbai. This footage was given to Majlis by a member of the bar owners' association. Obviously it was shot off the TV screen on a handycam. Hence the image and audio quality is not very sharp and at many places the audio is lost. Still we think it is an important document as the programme was in Hindi and included politicians of the ruling Congress party and the right wing opposition party Shivsena. Though in other events in PADMA we have elaborately presentated the voices of the bar dancers and their movement, this event covers the agenda of the ruling party and their associates. Mumbai is one of those cities where dance bars have been thriving and have met no open or big opposition till 2004. To the commoners' eyes, they are invisible, yet they are starkly a part of the Mumbai folklore. Dancing to the beat of popular Hindi numbers and entertaining a male audience of a diverse age group, these girls and women earn their livelihood. Dancing at beer bars started in Maharashtra in the '70s. They were recognizable by the heavy door at the entrance and by the uniformed bouncers. In order to increase the revenue from alcohol sale the govt. kept issuing licenses for the dance bars and over the three decades these bars sprouted all over the state and specially in Bombay. In 2005 the Govt. proposed a bill to ban dancing at the bars on the pretext of public morality. But by then around 75,000 women were employed in the unorganized sector of bar dancing. Most of these women were migrants from the other parts of the state, country and the subcontinent. The bars though have been part of the cityscape for a long time, always maintained a low profile in terms of social visibility. It seems invisibility was a kind of shield for them. So, the silent existence of these bars was thrown into turmoil when a ban was proposed. It got implemented on August 15, 2005, ironically (or maybe not) on India's Independence Day. But this programme was made soon after the Govt. proposed a bill to ban the bars. Hence in this programme the panel is still discussing the legal, moral and constitutional validity of such a proposal. The Govt. proposal sparked a huge public debate on the issues of morality, sexuality and livelihood. The home minister in the state govt. R R Patil took it as a mission and persuaded it till the end. The civil society got vertically divided on the issue. While all the right wing outfits supported the ban, some old school women's organizations too were vocal against bar dancing based on the argument of commodifying women's body. Some feminist groups and other social movements campaigned against the ban foregrounding issues of right to livelihood, validity of sex based works and against moral policing. As the campaign progressed other issues and agenda - such as migration and regional chauvinism; nexus between police, politician and crime world; hypocrisy of public morality; interpretation of women's rights and dignity etc. became part of the debate. In some sense the issue mirrored the contradictions of contemporary urban life. Eventually the ban was passed in the assembly with hundred percent support - the centreist ruling parties Congress and NCP, the chauvinist parties BJP and Shivsena, the left parties CPI and CPM and the socialists parties - all unconditionally supported the ban. The cross section of the political parties who are fundamentally against each other, came together in unison on the issue of sexual morality. The main speakers: Madhukar Sarpotdar, MP and leader of Shivsena (he was proved guilty of rioting and carrying illegal fire arms during '92-'93 riots in Bombay even by the partisan Mumbai police and judiciary); Javed Akhtar, Lyricist and script writer in Bombay film industry; Mr. Kulkarni, Cngress leader; M N Singh, former police commissioner; Vidya Chauhan, a member of NCP party (she has spearheaded many cleansing operation in the city, a former socialist activist she is a morality fanatic); Manjit Singh, President of Bar Owners' Association (later he was persecuted, harassed and jailed many times by the state as the Home Minister R R Patil took it as a vendetta to teach him a lesson for challenging the moral authority of the state), Bar dancers. The Anchor Pankaj Pachori is very impressive with his clarity of thought and skill of persuation.Yes2218http://pad.ma/Vhrf7jbu/info2009-06-15weekly1.0Neighbourhood Video Project: Freelance Beauticianhttp://pad.ma/Vhrf7jbu/poster.75.jpgThis is part of Majlis' neighbourhood and video literacy project. Under this project a niche group from a neighbourhood is given training in video literacy. After the initial project they are given technical assistance (camera, editing and sound facilities and personnel) to shoot their own surroundings. At the end of the project they become auteur of a film made on their own lives. This project was conducted with the neo-adult girls from the Muslim settlements in Jogeswari. The workshop was conducted under a local initiative titled Darakht-e- Ilm (tree of knowledge). This initiative started by former journalist Firoze Ashraf, is structured on the principle of earner-learner, where older girls are involved with teaching the younger students and in the process are supported and persuaded to complete graduation and encouraged into skill development. The older girls who are mainly graduate students participated in the workshop. Though the video was shot in the location of their neighbourhood the training took place in Majlis office, far away from their homes. The exercise of traveling to a cosmopolitan area for training in something like video making was by itself an emancipating process for them. By the end of the two weeks workshop the girls were divided into two groups to shoot two different narratives on their lives. One group chose the subject of women run beauty parlours in the vicinity as role models for economic independence. The other group covered various livelihood choices available to them in order to emancipate other girls. The project then was named 'Yahan se Wahan tak' (From here to there) as a measure of their consistent yet small progress. At the end of it the two films were screened in the neighbourhood in front of the local people and some invited guests. When the credit with the girls' names as directors rolled the all encompassing ecstasy was overwhelming. Another aim of the video literacy project is to initiate non-hegemonic image productions produced by the protagonists themselves. Towards this end the project is planned as a part of the Godaam digital media archive. Other than this we have also conducted similar projects with the youngsters of the closed textile mills area (Rojgar hakk samiti) and the inhabitants of the fisherfolks village in Versova. Footage initiated by those projects are also available in PAD.MA. Following is an interview with Ruksana Khan, a small time beautician in the area. One of the groups wanted to portray women with independent economic status in their film. After much deliberation they decided on the profession of beautician. Though their conservative society is fundamentally against women working outside the house, over the years the profession of beautician has got accepted as a women's vocation. The wide spread culture of beauty treatment and cosmetic industry must have permeated into the conservative fort. Besides, women's earning has become an absolute necessity for some families. So working exclusively as beautician for women has somewhat become an accepted norm and not considered as a serious threat to the prevailing patriarchy. But still a section of the society considers hair as a symbol of carnal desire and thus hair cutting remains a serious taboo.Yes1023http://pad.ma/Vhavpudr/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Koli: The Jains, the Bhaiyas and the Livelihoodhttp://pad.ma/Vhavpudr/poster.75.jpgKolis are the fisherfolks of Bombay, the original inhabitants of the islands that constituted the city. The community has largely kept to their original vocation of fishing. The women in Koli community are very distinct and visible even in the contemporary cityscape. Traditional Koli women with their large body structure, draped in traditional 9-yard sarees and antic jewelry are confident, professional women. The work distribution in the Koli community is like this: men are incharge of fishing which include ferrying to the deep sea, making fishing nets and looking after the boats. Women handle the entire marketing network - preserving the fish, selling in wholesale market, purchasing in wholesale market and selling in the retail market, handling issues of licenses and permits etc. The license and permit to sell fish in the market are considered family property and goes down along the women's line - mother-in-law to daughter-in-law to grand daughter-in-law. The Koli community claims that there are 800 fish markets in the city. Though we are not sure of the number, it is undisputable that the fish markets are a symbol of culinary culture of the coastal city. They are most patronized by the Marathi community. The repertoire between the fisher women and the male customers is a major social interaction which goes far beyond simple shopping. But oflate the demography of the city has changed radically, as has the cityscape. With the rise of the service industry and consumers' market, the prime areas in the city are getting invaded by the upper class Gujarati Hindu and Jain communities who are fanatic vegetarian. Elphinston and neighbouring Lower Parel are some such areas. There was once the mighty textile industry situated in this area. But the industry died slowly since '80s. Since late '90s the industrial land is being leased out for luxurious apartments and service industries. As a result the upper class people are moving into their skyscrapers situated next to a lower middle class settlement or a fish market. As the gentrification of the area gets accomplished the old fashioned living quarters and their neighbourhood fish markets become the bone of contention. The vegetarian gentry find the smell of the fish objectionable and exert influence to evict the markets. Elphinston fish market is one such controversial one. Though the political parties such as Shivsena and Maharashtra mahanirvan sena, who pride themselves as a champion of Marathi supremacy in Mumbai, have deliberately kept quiet on this issue. The obvious reason is the muscle and money power of the rich Gujarati community. Instead the chauvinist parties distracted the anger of the Koli community towards the Bhaiyas, the migrant wage workers who got into vending fish door-to-door. Bhaiya is generic term to indicate all Hindi speaking male migrants. Some of them got into a trade of buying fish from the wholesale market and sell them as door-to-door vendors. This practice has, to some extent, affected the retail business as some customers preferred to get delivery at home than visiting the market. Moreover, the fish in the market work out to be little more expensive than what is offered by the vendors. The Koli women pay for their license, permit and infrastructure whereas the Bhaiya vendors sell directly to the customers. This is a classical case of a conflict of interest between the organised sectors and unorganized wagers. But due to political maneuvering the Koli community is up in terms against the Bhaiyas and fail to rise against the mighty vegetarian gentries.Yes633http://pad.ma/Vfrz16gd/info2009-06-13weekly1.0Interview with Saeed Akhtar Mirza: Crisis of Ideology 2http://pad.ma/Vfrz16gd/poster.75.jpgThis interview is part of Majlis' attempt to document the some of the voices of the people in Bombay whose visions and works have stood apart due to their integrity and creative thinking. Saeed Akhtar Mirza is known to the world as a distinguished filmmaker. His films Alberto Pinto ko Gussa Kyun Ata Hai (Why Alberto Pinto get angry), Arvind Desai ka Ajeeb Dastan (Strange Saga of Arvind Desai) in the late '70s laid the foundation stone for the new wave cinema in India. Later he made several other films and television programme depicting a completely different reality of the city of Bombay, than shown in the popular culture of Bollywood. Salim Langde pe Mat Ro (Don't cry over Salim, the lame), Mohan Joshi Hazir ho (Mohan Joshi, appear in the court), Naseem are his feature films in the genre of city cinema. In those three films Saeed unveiled the layers of criminality, real estate menace and the functioning of the identity politics in the city of Bombay. Much before Bombay crimes became a media commodity Saeed ventured to make those films. Yet he has always been considered as the 'alternative' filmmaker, a term which is used with a kind of patronizing respect. He had also directed several television programme and documentaries. Whatever he did his Marxist conviction was the mainstay of his form and text. As Bombay cinema entered into the international market in the name of Bollywood, by killing all other conventions of cinema in India and in the neighbouring countries, filmmakers like Saeed Mirza became obsolete. Many of his colleagues and comrades have tried to keep floating by adopting to the hegemonic convention of Bollywood, butSaeed refused to do that. It could be interpreted as an instance of uncompromising conviction or, in the worst term as an inability to cope with time. This interview was conducted mainly around a television programme 'Tryst with the people of India', directed by Saeed. The programme was produced by the Govt. of India as part of the celebration of 50 years of India's independence. For this programme Saeed and his crew traveled the entire length and breadth of the country to know what the 50 years of democracy meant for the ordinary citizens. Saeed has donated the entire footage of the programme to Godaam, the footage archive ran by Majlis. A part of that collection in also available on PADMA site. The title 'Tryst with the people of India' is a take on the famous speech by the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, on the eve of independence. The speech is known as 'Tryst with destiny'. As the first generation in the independent India, people like Saeed have witnessed the euphoria of a new nation and the subsequent collapse of the democratic principles. In the era of aggressive global market it has become an urgent task to document the thinking of Saeed Akhtar Mirza. It is interesting that at this stage Saeed proclaims that he has lost faith in cinema as a social interventionist. In his opinion the post colonial literature can be far more dynamic. He has himself got engaged with writing. His first book titled 'Ammi: a letter to a democratic mother' has just been published by Westland Books. This title too has a resonance