Urban Peacock: About Us > Press > Locus of Asian American Artists hosts Beyond Bollywood

SAN FRANCISCO, California - In the past years, in the eyes of the world, India was the exotic land of snake-charmers, flying carpets, maharajahs and elephants. Today, modern India is perhaps primarily known for its perennially busy film industry, which is the largest in the world - the glittering, glitzy, often garish tinsel town of Mumbai that is Bollywood.

On July 2, LOCUS, the all-volunteer organization of Asian American artists, hosted an event, Beyond Bollywood. Beyond Bollywood was a meetng ground of artists from South Asia, showcasing poetry, film and contemporary thought. Beyond Bollywood served to bring home the fact that as overwhelming an art form Bollywood may be, it is not the only thing India has to offer to the world. The event gave its small but enthusiastic audience (both Indians and Americans) plenty of food for thought.

Bay Area poet Dharini Abeysekera
with award-winning author Debjani Chatterjee

For an artist and his fertile mind, there is never a dearth of inspiration. Most of Sri Lanka-born Dharini Abeysekara's poetry is about the horrors of war. Her short, intense pieces with their disturbing imagery (floating bodies, mass graves, splattering blood) bring to life the senslessness of war.

Ravi Chandra, a psychiatry resident at UCSF, read out his 35th Sutra, a reaction to this world of troubled people who live lives of quiet desperation, bordering on insanity. He speaks of hope and desire to 'Have long arms and hands Strong enough to restrain a whole world That promises each morning to kill it's children'.

Another of Chandra's poems is inspired by something as mundane as rice. For many Indians, rice is a staple food, looked forward to at meal times. Slam poem, titled simply 'Rice', raised quite a few laughs among the audience. The arresting opening line, 'My Mom swears by rice' sets the tone for the rest of the poem, as Chandra recounts the deep reverence his parent has for rice.

'For her, rice is holier than Bibles or Bhagwat Gita'.

'My mom didn't raise me, she riced me'. The concluding stanza of 'Rice' does a turn around and the slightly comic rice-obsessed mother's everyday act of preparing the grain for her family is one of love and compassion.

'Even more divine than rice or oats is mother herself. One night, I dreamed of her picking grains in a paddy, Meticulously carving them with one word - Love - thousands of times, Just to make one meal '.

UK based Debjani Chatterjee, and award-winning writer presented her translation of a well known Bangladeshi poem, 'Bidrohee', Jumbo Haiku Proverbs (If you belittle the elephant, prepare for Jumbo to squash you'), 'Home', a poem inspired by a picture of an African family watching their shanty burn down before they return to their homeland.

In one of her poems, Chatterjee gently mocks the melodramatic, fantastical world of Bollywood. 'On the summit of the Qutub Minar, Her dupatta flows down like a trophy Caught by the hero smoking Chaminar cigarettes on the ground. And her lips mime a love ditty.'

Event curator and poet Pireeni Sundaralingam, artist / filmmaker Kavita Bali,
and award winning writer Debjani Chatterjee

If Bollywood is far removed from reality, the short films screened at LOCUS were anything but. Founder and creator of UrbanPeacock.com, Kavita Bali 's 'Distant Souls' is a surrealistic journey through the mind of a young woman as she meets her boyfriend at a NYC cafe. The film is poetry in motion, exposing the two worlds the young woman is caught between - that of her waiting - to - be - released womanhood and the culture from which she hails.

'To Serve One's Country', also by Bali, is an intense, moving portrayal of the emotional pain and emptiness war brings.

Writer, filmmaker and educator Kirthi Nath's 'The To-Do List Confession' is a unique exploration of the complex, multilayered self.

'Gold, Greed and Genocide' - this was the hardhitting political documentary film by radio presenter and writer Pratap Chatterjee. 'Gold, Greed and Genocide' highlights a tragedy that seems have gone unnoticed by histroy - the horrifying effects of the Californian Gold Rush on Native Americans.

Emceed by event curator Pireeni Sundaralingam, herself an acclaimed writer and poet, 'Beyond Bollywood' featured artists of sensitivity and refinement, qualities that may not attribute to Bollywood. One cannot help but wonder (and hope) that if artists such as these decided to write and direct for Mumbai's tinsel town, they would save Bollywood from itself and the world would surely get some world class cinema.

Photo courtesy: UrbanPeacock.com

Published by SiliconValleyGuru magazine (July 13, 2003 Vol. 1 Issue 10)

" Beyond Bollywood' featured artists of sensitivity and refinement."

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SiliconValleyGuru Magazine, July 13, 2003

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