An Interview with Deepa Mehta

Dear Rehan,

Do you ever visit North America. If you do, we will be delighted to invite you to Writers Forum.

It is a unique group of writers of South Asian origin. Our most recent guest was Zulfiqar Ghose

(Murder of Aziz Khan), before him Abdullah Hussain, Fahmida Riaz, Saqi Farooqi, Umar Memon, and other prominent writers visited us.

Every writer of prominence for Pakistan including Faiz Sahib has graced our meetings.

Do let us know.

Thanks. Munir

I am not sure what happenned here but what I wanted to say to Rad was that if she is Radhika Nagpal, I would love to see more of her work on chowk. The work that is already here is great.

Rad:

Women at some level will always have better insight in other women`s problems by virtue of the fact that yes, there are similarities between the patterns of repression against women in several societies. However, I think what Naseer was trying to get at, and if you take a look at the Read Replies secction of his interview you will see that I defended the movie ``Earth,`` is the very concept of intimacy that requires physical presence of a person, a creator, in the realm that he or she is venturing to create in or talk about. I think I still agree with Naseer that you need it very much. Don`t consider this as my understanding of accuracy in a work, which again is important but not the ``whole`` of the creation process.

BTW, if this Radhika, do please put some more of your work on chowk. I love your it very much.

That`s interesting. Because I found Deepa Mehtas insight on the pschychology and situation of indian married women particularly insightful - and one could ask Naseeruddin Shah the identical question, whether being a man he thinks he has, or can have, a real insight into women`s issues. I think such claims should evaluated on a specific basis - which film, which author, and which issues.

On the other hand, I find her interview very much defensive and sometimes rude. It is unfortunate that it is not always rewarding to meet the person whose mind produced the piece of art you like. I dread the day I meet Woody Allen in person.

Re:

Rana,

I see your point and believe me when I say this that I identify more with what you are saying than I do with my own statement as far as general cases are concerned. BUT as far as this specific case is concerned where Mehta was replying to Naseer`s claim, it might be different. It is exactly in this context that intimacy with the culture is needed. As far as Gandhi, Jinnah and others are concerned, once again, their roots were in India and specially Gandhi took a great deal of time learning and engaging with India. Deepa Mehta, I don`t think so. Artwork, such as movie making requires much more than that mediocre relationship that I think Mehta has with India. Also, don`t get me wrong here, I like her movies, but not because they are realistic or identifiable but merely appears to be an excercize in truth seeking. Note that I say ``appears.`` Hope you can see my point as I see yours.

Distence lends to objectivity. Most of the time, it is only possible to see the ``whole picture`` by stepping back other wise one has a tendency to miss the graphic for the pixels!

re: afrasiyab

...on similar grounds you could accuse Jinnah, Nehru, Gandhi et al of not being insightful about India. Afterall, they DID get a lot of their views by living and studying in the West ie outside India.

A lot of times when you step out of a SYSTEM and view it, you get a new found objectivity which is blurred while you are part of that SYSTEM.
It is a RELATIVITY problem of sorts. Like travelling on a plane, you feel you are not in motion relative to the plane, but from the ground you can visualize the plane moving and all the passengers in motion as well.
It is like looking within from outside.

I have found this to be true with my own views as well as a number of chowkwallahs who express themselves on this forum.

Your generalization of the issue (living in India to be insightful about it, otherwise opinions being a blend of information and presumptions) is meaningless in this context. That could be true for people living in India as well, and could be false for people living outside.

Mehta said:

``But do you have to live in India to be insightful about India?``

Yes, I believe so. Otherwise opinions are a blend of information and presumptions.