This weekend, from Friday to Sunday October 19-21st, the Sikh Studies department at Hofstra University will host ’Sikhi(sm), Literature and Film,’ a conference on literary and visual cultures in the Sikh tradition, both in Panjab and the Diaspora.
Paper presentations will be given during five sessions, with presentations ranging from de-categorizing the janamsakhis to the poetry of Puran Singh, discourses on secularism to literary representations of Sikhs, Sikh masculine identity vis-à-vis kesh and the dastaar to Panjabi theater, Museum exhibitions to Sikh identity in film and Bollywood, Hip Hop and rap as expressive forms among Panjabi youth to Gurbani sangeet and female kirtaniya. Presentation topics and bios can be accessed via the Sikh Studies website at Hofstra.
This year the conference will also host two supplementary film screenings and offer a forum to deepen the discourse around the recent Oak Creek Massacre. The films include Safina Uberoi’s ‘Gurdwara: the Guru’s Portal: a door to document Truth’ and Harjant Gill’s ‘Roots of Love,’ while the pieces related to Oak Creek include Dr. Nikhil Pal Singh’s ‘Remainders of White Supremacy,’ and Dr. Balbinder Singh Bhogal’s ‘Oak Creek Killings: The Denial of a culture of oppression’ (which can be read online).
“But, when you have a beard, a mustache, it’s like a mask. You can’t see the person’s face. It’s hidden.”
As disagreeable as the words sounded, my friend’s tone was very gentle and civil. It was almost as if he was asking me the question: why bother?
I was a nine-year-old Sikh boy with a little mustache fuzz and a patka (a Sikh boy’s headcovering), speaking with the clean-shaven teenaged Hindu boy next door whom I befriended on this extended trip to India. I would often play games with his younger brother, but with this older brother, our interaction usually took the form of conversations about our different cultures and religions.
His point about hair left me somewhat at a loss. I remember his facial expression after he made his statement – curiously waiting for a response that I would not have.
Later that evening, I presented this argument to my father. “He said people can’t see our true faces because of the hair on our face.”
My father didn’t take a second to respond. “This is my face”, he said very matter-of-factly, “this is how a man’s face naturally looks.”
Oscar nominated director, Ashvin Kumar today offers a free preview of his film on the twenty year military presence in Kashmir, ‘Inshallah, Kashmir: Living Terror,’ a film that documents the treatment of the Kashmiri people at the hands of half a million Indian military troops. The film reveals through personal stories the experience of torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial executions that have swept the region since 1989.
Here’s a short preview:
I found this new video that Mandeep Sethi released last month beautiful and inspiring. Shot in London, the young San Francisco-based hip hop artist links up with a dhadi jatha for a freestyle session unlike any other.
I’ve always loved the power, poignancy, and rhythm funkyness of dhadi jathas. Sikh and Punjabi public education through music, in a sense. These same characteristics are at the heart of hip hop and draw many of us to it, including talented artists like Mandeep. As Public Enemy’s Chuck D stated years ago, “Rap is CNN for black people.”
A few years ago, a friend of mine gave a compelling presentation about the parallels between hip hop and dhadi at SikhRI’s Sidak program in San Antonio, TX. Mandeep Sethi was not in the room, but clearly he had the same thought. Hope you enjoy it.
My Mamaji, a very well known Punjabi writer in India, has penned loads of best-selling novels, won numerous awards, and has some incredible stories about his experience of being in the Indian Army during the 1980s, but he has never once written about 1984. Nothing. Not even a short-story. He has written stories set during partition, about the Indo-Pak War, about religion, ethics, and many other controversial topics, but confessed that he just didn’t know where to start writing about 1984 because of the emotions it stirred up within him, and all the hidden layers. He claimed that as a fiction writer, it was too difficult to separate the reality enough to let his characters and the story breathe and grow.
As many of you know, I am very slowly working on a novel, which uses 1984 and 9/11 as backdrops and I find that the difficulty in writing about 1984 is that, even after more than twenty-five years, it is still a raw nerve that continues to elicit all sorts of emotions and unresolved issues. Many of my family members still shudder with the mere mention of anything relating to 1984. And although dissimilar in many regards, 9/11 does elicit similar emotions, particular with New Yorkers.
Some people who read my previous post, where I basically go into detail about how awful I thought the writing of Breakaway/Speedy Singhs was, made the assumption that I just don’t like that genre. Quite the contrary. I thoroughly enjoy the “feel good” genre, where everything turns out okie dokie in the end.
Whenever a movie involving brown folks comes out, I am always down to check it out, regardless of whether it’s Bollywood, Hollywood, Mollywood, or Lollywood. No, I didn’t just make the last two up (check out this guide to the woods) and am initially hopeful that it will be a good movie or at least get the ball rolling towards someone else making a good movie. Bollywood’s Rocket Singh, for example, was great; Singh is King, on the other hand, was horrible. Bend It Like Beckham was a very cliched concept, but I thought it was a relatively well written simple story with an amusing twist. Breakaway/Speedy Singhs, not quite so much.
So when I heard about the movie I am Singh, which details the lives of Sikhs after 9/11, I was beyond hopeful. Finally, a film that brings the story of Sikhs post 9/11 to the surface. Not quite. And aside from the overly melodramatic plot points and sermonizing speeches, I was still intrigued enough to go watch it. And then I saw one of the superhit songs, complete with topi and pagh switching, and the requisite sari scene on the pretty white girl love interest. Incidentally, I would like to meet a Punjabi munda from the pind who knows how to properly dress a tall white woman in something as complicated as a sari (starting at 0:36). Here it is for all of you to enjoy:
It’s that time of year again!
For those Southern California natives, you (hopefully) know it rolls around once every year. This year, SikhLens is proud to announce its annual Sikh Arts and Film Festival to be held November 18th – 20th, 2011 at the prestigious Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, California. As avid supporters of Sikh Arts, and creativity in general, I am hoping our readers would be especially interested in this event coming up in the next couple of weeks.
The Sikh Arts and Film Festival serves as a central venue for artists to showcase and share Sikh heritage and culturethrough the mediums of film, literature, art, music, social media and fashion. As an often-misidentified minority, this type of forum has proven to be essential for Sikhs to transcend cultural boundaries, generate awareness, and connect with the broader community.
For tickets, scheduling and more information, visit www.sikhlens.com.
For the past few months, I have been inundated with information about the much-hyped Canadian-Bollywood venture, Speedy Singhs, also called Breakaway. As of September 3o, the film is available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and India.
It’s interesting to note that, in the comments to another post on TLH titled “Stick Handling Singhs,” even those who thought the movie sounded corny (it is) would go watch it to “see what’s out there.” I have lost count how many conversations I have abruptly ended that began with, “Dude, have you heard about. . . ” or that mentioned the names of “Russell Peters,” “Rob Lowe,” “Camilla Belle,” or “Akshay Kumar.” The film has been endorsed by everyone from Ludacris to Jus Reign to the king of Punjabi slapstick, Ghuggi Sahib himself.
There are many sports movies that transcend the rules its genre are bound by to provide real insight into their characters, award-winning films like Any Given Sunday or The Fighter. And I can name plenty of Bollywood films that have impressed me over the years with the way they tackled real issues. Similarly, Speedy Singhs/Breakaway takes on heavy issues like school bullying, tradition, and religion, but the film suffers from an identity crisis. It’s a romantic-comedy. It’s a melodrama. It’s a Punjabi comedy skit. It’s action. It’s even Bollywood at times. There were a few funny lines and scenes in the film, but you can find them all in the trailer.
The actors and musicians involved with the project are quite impressive, but the writing just isn’t good enough to keep up with the shifting genres – it’s not worthy of this caliber of actors. Case in point: The not-so-subtle sexual jokes and one liners by Russell Peters are amusing for about five minutes, but they do get tiring when you realize there really is nothing more to his character than that. He might as well have played himself.
It’s like the producers went out of their way to create a project where the actors would be confined by the quality of writing. And while a film about team of underdog turbaned Sikh ice-hockey players who have to battle whitey is just destined to have an audience, the storyline is essentially unoriginal, the writing is mediocre (with occasional spurts of witty dialogue), and it is riddled with clichés throughout. Here are some examples:
While Breakaway/SpeedySinghs seems to be the talk of the town, earlier this week, a friend (pagh salute: download!) pointed this new movie to me. It seems it is still in production and is a labor of love for Sikh-Australian, Rupinder Singh. On the internet there are few details about the movie.
Here is their description:
Visionary film by Rupinder Singh creating an original epic docu-feature based on some prominent events in Sikh history. The film takes the audiences to a thrilling journey where they learn about the difficult time on the Sikh community and about how they still came out victorious in spite of being tested by the time.
Labeled as a “docu-drama” the breath-taking views and professional camera pans seem like a quality production. Although I have some reservations with the period costumes, despite claims on the website for a “special emphasis” [note the contemporary Nihang weaponry and costume and contrast with the historical reconstruction - though it has been alleged to be Afghan - at the London exhibit], I will definitely go out and watch it. In fact, I just made a contribution!
Make a contribution, “like” their facebook page, check out their website, or just watch their trailer.
Each year, SikhNet hosts an online youth film festival – to cultivate interest from Sikh filmmakers from around the globe. The online film festival is an excellent way for individuals to dialogue about issues affecting us personally and as a community. One of the films, titled Khalsa Has No Gender, is made by a group of young teen-aged Sikh women living in England and the goal of the film is to address gender [in]equality within our community. The film was striking to me for several reasons. Firstly, that these young women chose to use the medium of film to discuss this very important issue and secondly, that the concept of gender discrimination and inequality is prevalent in the conscience of very young Sikhs – Sikhs who are perhaps even 3rd and 4th generational living in the disapora.
While on one hand it’s disheartening to acknowledge that perhaps change is slower than we have hoped it to be (displayed by the film), there is – on the other hand – reason to be optimistic. In just over a week, scholars and community members from across the globe are gathering in Toronto for the very first Sikh Feminist Conference, “Our Journeys”, hosted by the Sikh Feminist Research Institute (SAFAR).
[Our Journeys is] an opportunity for scholars and community members alike to openly connect, converse and engage in a dialogue and critical thinking about gender related issues that demand to be voiced, and heard, in order to be addressed.
The line up of topics and speakers is remarkable. The keynote speaker, Professor Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh is well known for introducing the term “Sikh feminism” and will share a Panel with Geetanjali Singh Chanda and Mallika Kaur to explore how Sikh feminism is defined, its origins, the present-day reality and how it can be an impetus for social change.
Embracing my new role as a proud Chacha, I recently bought some Sikhi-related children’s books for my niece for her first birthday. I was especially excited about this new book and CD of Sikh nursery rhymes called Ik Chota Bacha. The book/CD is a great way to teach basic Sikh values to kids and help develop their Punjabi skills (all the nursery rhymes are in Punjabi) in a fun way. I played the CD for my niece on the daily when I was visiting for her birthday, and by the end of the week, the whole family was singing along to some of the catchy (and rather cheesy) tunes. (See a full review of the book here.)
My excitement about the release Ik Chota Bacha quickly became muddied with disappointment and frustration once I saw the book’s illustrations. Every single Sikh child and adult depicted in the book looks WHITE. I don’t just mean they’re all fair-skinned on the spectrum of brownness. I mean peachy, rosey-cheeked, white.
Ummm, take the title, however you like….
While we often rely on Maple Leaf Sikh to keep us up to date on the happenings in the land up North (Canada!!), this information is brought to you (and us) by another (pagh salute: JusReign).
While Russell Peters needs no introduction in the diaspora due to his comedic talents, those of us a little bit older remember him from his DJ days during the modern birth of contemporary bhangra music.
Here he comes in an interesting new movie, Breakaway. It seems everyone’s favorite (well, not mine – Bhagwant Mann gets that title) Gurpreet Ghuggi will have a role. Do you think you’ll go watch Breakaway?
Earlier this week I went to a screening of the film Koi Sunta Hai, one of four documentaries produced by the Kabir 
Project, an expansive music and film project directed by Shabnam Virani.
In their own words:
The Kabir project brings together the experiences of a series of ongoing journeys in quest of this 15th century North Indian mystic poet in our contemporary worlds. Started in 2003, these journeys inquire into the spiritual and socio-political resonances of Kabir’s poetry through songs, images and conversations.
We journey through a stunning diversity of social, religious and musical traditions which Kabir inhabits, exploring how his poetry intersects with ideas of cultural identity, secularism, nationalism, religion, death, impermanence, folk and oral knowledge systems.
I first learned about The Kabir Project a couple of years ago when they did a screening several clips from the films in Jackson Heights, Queens and featured a stirring performance by folk musician Prahlad Tipaniya, who is featured in the films. I was deeply moved and inspired by the films’ (and musicians’) explorations of Bhagat Kabir’s bani, and especially by the way the filmmaker and artists highlight the Kabir’s powerful message in the face of of contemporary manifestations of sectarian violence, caste oppression, and religious and national tensions in South Asia.
I was inspired again this week in watching Koi Sunta Hai, which highlights the Kabir-oriented journey of classical musician Kumar Gandharva. Kumarji, as he is referred to with admiration in the film, was a child prodigy classical Hindustani singer who developed an illness (the film says TB, Wikipedia says lung cancer) as a young man that forced him to not sing a note for five years. In that time of his world being turned upside down and his profession and main form of expression indefinitely at a halt, he began to hear singers from very non-classically trained backgrounds — folk singers, “common” people — singing the poetry of Kabir. This began to change his entire approach to music, spirituality, and life. The below clip from the film explains more about Kabir’s poetry and Kumarji’s relationship to it.
As a continuation of the conversation initiated by Navdeep’s post “Fatting it Up at the Langar Hall,” I want to share this the trailer for Soul Food Junkies, a film-in-progress directed by African American filmmaker and activist Byron Hurt.
The parallels to the challenges we face in the Punjabi community were striking to me as I watched the trailer. Obesity and diabetes are epidemics in the African American community, just as they are in our community, both in Punjab and the diaspora. And there is no doubt of the central role that diet plays for us all.
Conversations about hair are often emotional for Sikhs – and therefore they are conversations which we tend to avoid. For many Sikhs, it is a constant struggle to explain the historical significance of keeping our hair and/or wearing a turban while other Sikhs will argue that simply keeping your hair or wearing a turban by no means makes you a good Sikh. While that may be true, being able to have conversations about hair is an incredibly important and necessary dialogue for us to participate in. Many Sikhs in the diaspora have struggled to maintain their identity, while Sikhs in Panjab are struggling to be western. It’s such an interesting juxtaposition and anybody who has visited Panjab recently will see the dwindling number of Sikh boys choosing to wear turbans. In an effort to explore this issue, a fascinating documentary film - Roots of Love – by award winning filmmaker Harjant Gill is being released this Spring.
Told through the stories of six different men ranging in age from fourteen to eighty-six, Roots of Love documents the changing significance of hair and the turban among Sikhs in India. We see younger Sikh men abandoning their hair and turban to follow the current fashion trends, while the older generation struggles to retain the visible symbols of their religious identity. The choice of cutting one’s hair is one that not only concerns the individual and his family, but an entire community. [link]
I was given the opportunity to watch the entire documentary – I highly recommend the film and was drawn to its excellent cinematography. You can watch the trailer below and after the jump, read my interview with Director, Harjant Gill. Then, think about how hair plays a significant role in your life, if at all?
We have previously written about SikhLens, an art and film festival which brings together Sikh filmmakers, authors, artists and actors. For those of you who support the development of Sikh arts, you will be pleased to know that the second annual Sikh Art and Film Festival (SAFF) will be held from November 19th-21st, 2010 at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, CA. SAFF provides a venue for artists to present their “Sikh-centric” films, art, and music to the broader community with the intent of showcasing their talents and generating increased Sikh awareness.
The Festival begins Friday, November 19th with a red-carpet Opening Night starting at 7:30 pm. A youth-focused cluster will start off the Saturday events. This cluster focuses on films and live book readings intended to incite interest and inspire youth, while teaching about Sikh history. The focus then turns to creative Sikhs in the Visual, Audio and Entertainment Industries. Hear their stories, watch and listen to their craft, and interact with and support Sikhs breaking ground in these unique areas. Also introducing for the first time an interactive segment on “Introduction to Film-making,”to demystify the film-making process. Rounding out the day’s events are a series of short films featuring a wide variety of genres, an eclectic mix of filmmakers, and a unique blend of topics, including special selections from the SikhNet Youth Online Film Festival. Sunday’s events start with an international flavor, with an emphasis on Sikh films and artists from all over the world. The concluding cluster of the festival will touch upon Social Issues within the Sikh Diaspora. This segment is aimed to bring upon a meaningful and insightful look into the surroundings of the Sikh Community today.
I am especially interested in this final cluster which brings together films addressing the social issues that inflict our community. We have spoken many times on this blog about how media and film are critical to dialoguing about important issues.
A new film, by Turbanology filmmaker Jay Singh-Sohal, discusses the presence of Sikhs in the World Wars. Sikhs at War is a free online educational short-film exploring one young person’s journey to discover the invaluable contribution made by his community during the First World War. This documentary has been made specifically with young people in mind. Educators can use the film as a resource to find out more about Sikhs who fought during both World Wars for Great Britain.
From their simple village life in the Panjab regions of modern day India and Pakistan, the Sikhs volunteered in their thousands to fight for Britain. During the Great War their numbers rose from 35,000 at the beginning of 1915 after the crisis in Europe turned into War, to more than 100,000 who were in active service by the time it ended in 1918.
The Sikhs formed 20% of the British Indian Army in action despite being only 2% of the population of India. They fought on all fronts in Europe, from Turkey and in Africa to the fields of Flanders. Their bravery is legendary – of the 22 Military Crosses awarded for conspicuous gallantry to Indians during the conflict 14 were rewarded to Sikh soldiers.
But for the thousands that left their homelands to join the fighting many did not return. During both the Great War (1914-18) and World War Two (1939-45) Sikh soldiers killed in action numbered 83,005 with 109,045 more wounded. One again despite being a minority in British India.
Harvest of Grief, a new documentary directed by Anwar Jamal recently premiered in Punjab. The film aims to tackle the rising number of farmer suicides in Punjab.
Harvest of Grief is a 60 minute documentary of farmers’s suicides in the dry district of Sangrur. Suicides are due to indebtedness arising out of high costs of water, mechanized farming, chemical pesticides and fertilizers and low economic returns. The film also takes a comprehensive view of gender, health and environmental destruction which are the consequences of the Green Revolution and globalization. [link]
The movie is sponsored by the Rescue and Revival Mission and predominantly focuses on the impact the suicides have had on women and children. A recent article in the Financial Times also discussed Harvest of Grief and the issue of famer suicides in Punjab. Official statistics say that 132 farmers in Punjab killed themselves in the past five years – attributing the deaths to natural causes or alcohol or drug abuse. However, Inderjit Singh Jaijee, a Chandigarh-based human-rights activist and former state legislator, states that up to 40,000 farmers have taken their lives in the past 20 years. A large discrepancy in the number of farmer suicides exists (perhaps due to a lack of infrastructural support, social stigma etc.) and families are often left destitute, receiving little or no state support.
I look forward to watching the film and hope it creates productive dialogue leading to potential solutions for families impacted and affected by this issue.
Guest blogged by Harbakhsh Grewal
At the start of this year BBC 1, Britain’s premiere tv channel, highlighted the importance of 1984 to the Sikh psyche with a film documenting the personal journey of a British Sikh woman, journalist Sonia Deol. The reaction from many Sikhs has been hostile and vocal. Did the programme insult the faith, demonise its leaders and miss a massive opportunity to set the record straight as some have claimed? And even if it did, does the presenter deserve the vitriolic response resulting in her deleting her facebook page to avoid any more abuse?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the programme, the response to it shows the level of concern still in the community to the tragic and horrific events of 1984. However some of the criticism has been purely personal and deeply unpleasant and does nothing to redress the balance or aid the causes that those who are angry care about.
To discuss the programme in any detail requires much deliberation. And that in a sense is why the programme should be applauded: the issues covered were of such enormity and complexity the programme makers should be congratulated for daring to cover them at all in the first place – and to try and do so within an hour slot is a task of great difficulty.
And the fact that many younger Sikhs, as well as the wider non-Sikh public more generally, have discovered a whole chapter of their own community’s history in some depth and breadth I think shows that the BBC has provided a much needed service.
Those who criticise on specific issues such as the portrayal of Bhindranwale have their own points to make. But they seem at times illogical.
This time, Bollywood actually picked an interesting lens through which to depict life in a Punjabi-Sikh household. An 
upcoming movie, Patiala House, is a look at cross-generation cultural assimilation in Southall.
At heart, says Nikhil, Patiala House is a father-son story. “Like Billy Eliott where the father is a coal miner but the son wants to be a dancer. In my film, Rishi Kapoor feels his dreams as a Sikh immigrant in England are being destroyed by his son. But the son Akshay Kumar has his own dreams to pursue.” [TOI]
How we view our 2 pronged identity of Punjabi-Sikhism, and how each is depicted by outside communities such as Bollywood is often, understandably and rightfully, a controversial issue. But Patiala House seems only superficially concerned, if at all, with the Sikh identity.
The filmmakers met with Sikh elders at the Southhall Gurdwara, where cameras are ordinarily not allowed, to talk about the ideas behind the film. The film partly takes place during Southhall’s 1979 race riots, which many of the elders had lived through.
I normally only watch Bollywood, if ever, to laugh. At the acting, the ridiculous stereotypes, the loony drama.
Though when the bad acting, ridiculous stereotypes, and loony drama are played out by Sikh characters, it’s a little depressing.
A lot of people would probably say that the quality of films coming out of Bollywood is improving. And that might be true if you’re talking about cinematography, but when it comes to depth in a plot, I haven’t seen any signs of improvement. But maybe Bollywood will pleasantly surprise its critics with Rocket Singh?
