Bang Bang Galore!
A Filmmaker’s BLOGELLA
Written by Steve Rosenberg
Blog 38 Subject: Woman of Black
Sent: April 30, 2007 10:00:18 PM
Well, it is just before monsoon season and I think now would be a reasonable to time to make my getaway. There are many more things I want to shoot, but I am forced to wait for different scenarios to unfold. Perhaps I should go back to Canada for a while and try to raise some money for the project.
I am lonely at times, but I have daily bouts of unexplained laughter, mostly to myself. I’ve moved to a new apartment in the heart of downtown Bangalore. This apartment has given my spirits a huge boost; at least I have my own shower. Today, I am sitting beside Khalid, an engaging clear skinned Muslim teenager with a two overlapping front teeth in my favourite internet café just off MG Road. Khalid, the social climbing internet cafe manager has big dreams for the future. He wants to move to Australia to be with his older brother. I can see that he spends a good part of his day cyber-chatting. At the moment, he is chatting away on the internet to his three faceless internet girlfriends. One girl code named Imran is truly faceless, but from her tiny photo, you can see she high arching eyebrows and sparkling sapphire eyes. She wears a burkah and from what I can glean from their conversation, she seems to be obsessed with her sister being out of the house.
You see thousands of faceless shapeless women of black walking on the streets of Bangalore. They are a curiosity for me. I yearn to chat with them, but my gender and western sensibilities might be a problem for them. The other night, I found myself inadvertently strolling into the lover’s area in Lalbah Park at sunset. As I stroll further, I notice groupings of a fifty metre high lush bamboo trees creating canopies of private picnic areas. A young Indian man wearing a white sports shirt bearing the insignia of Puma is holding the hands of his Burka clad girlfriend. They retreat behind the bamboo trees and are obscured by the leafy tree cover. Perhaps they are husband and wife, perhaps lovers. Moments later another checkerboard couple emerged from the bushes. I can’t buy that they are married; these are young teenager couples in love. I am fascinated by these shrouded women and want to find out what advantages a Burka may give them.
I am told that Muslims comprise ten percent of the population in India, but that ratio seems considerably higher in Bangalore. In the USA, blacks represent twelve percent of the population and historically, they’ve suffered racial discrimination. I keep looking for parallels of the black experience in the USA to the religious Muslim/Hindu divide here. Whereas slavery and racial discrimination consigned the blacks in the US to centuries of second- class status, the Muslim minority here ruled the Hindu majority here for hundreds of years. I see many Muslim shop owners trading their wares in the market and inquire about the fractious religious divide in this country. A Muslim man in embroidered scull cap selling perfume is dismissive of my question; “There are no problems in the south. We all get along here.”
I imagine religious discrimination exists in Bangalore, but it is subtle and often prejudice comes down to skin tone. Jayram, a fifteen-year old Born Free student, dreams of a light skinned girl, the kind depicted in Bollywood musicals, many of which are Muslim. Many of the Indian movie stars are usually light skinned, tall and have aqualine features that are associated with Muslim regions of the country. In the eyes of Born Free teenagers, the lighter the skin tone, the more desirable.
There are still flash points of hatred between Muslims and Hindus but none that I have encountered in any conversations. Despite the daily ominous headlines of Pakistan’s potential decent into religious fundamentalism, people whom I have met here are seem rather tolerant towards one another. When I ask about the women of black, most Hindus are supportive and unthreatened by the rise of this new burkah trend. They have more pressing issues to think about than who and why women walk through the streets covered in a black sheet. But like the children who work, I wonder how many of woman of black are beholden to family obligation.
