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After a swinging international Id party at Amina’s I am rested and ready for some Garba and Dandiya.

Starting with Varalakshmi Vratam in Shravan, followed by Krishna Janmashthami, Rakshabandhan, Ganapati Pooja, Ramzaan, Dusshera, Durga Pooja, Navratri, Diwali, the Indian Almanac accords such importance to Gods and Goddesses, Prophets and Messengers, that I pity anyone who has only one festival to celebrate, these months are a fabulous time to be an Indian! All that will end with Christmas of course.Six months of colour and costume, song and dance, food and festivity. What gaiety we Indians are capable of!!

Hence I find it disturbing that some blokes from Bareilly should take offence at Salman Khan’s joyous participation in the Ganesh Festival. The Film Industry, along with the Defence Forces is the last bastion of ‘Secularism’ [ despite all rivalries and camps ]. By virtue of being in the public eye and therefore capable of making a positive impact , it carries unwittingly on its shoulders the highest ideal of the Indian Republic. If this fabric gets torn by unseemly ideas such as ‘us’ and ‘them’, there is no saving the honour of the Country. The ‘Vastra Haran’ will be complete.

Unfortunately [ ? ] for me, my childhood was spent in the pre-outsourced India. [I feel like a vestigial organ in Gurgaon or in Jubilee Hills ] I grew up with a father who was always Santa Claus for Christmas because he looked the part and the president of Gurudwara Committees because he loved Langar!! He fought two wars with Pakistan but I never heard a word against Muslims or Pakistan in our drawing room from him or any of the other Air Force Officer who were his colleagues. On the other hand, they all rued Partition and cried on Independence Day.

So it was kind of fashionable in the 80s for me to go to school with a ‘kada’ and ‘cross’ and drop ‘Inshallah’ at every given opportunity. It was also fashionable to rebel and be angry. If I was visiting Hyderabad for holidays I would be termed ‘Turka’ by relatives because I would refuse to wear a bottu [ bindi ] and leave my hair open. In pre-perestroika Hyderabad: Bare Foreheads, Untied Hair and Salwar Kameezes were sported by Muslims only.
While up North, where I spent the rest of my days rebelling without respite, I would be told “Kya Amma ban kar ghoomti rahti hai” [ Why do you dress like an Amma ? ] Note, not even Behenji, it was Amma !!

It was a traumatic leap from an almost egalitarian society to a ‘civilian’ life where people constantly asked “ Meeru Enti?” [ Who are you ?] meaning “what’s your caste?” once I entered the inner sanctum of rural Andhra Pradesh, but if people are to live in one place for centuries their identity becomes their strongest defence.
These situations are also telling of how closed the perceptions of the ‘other’ were even as late as the 90s.

That is when the Film Industry started to call out to me, for being an alternative arena where these differences did not matter. It was not the glamour nor the lifestyle mind you. [ Frankly, NOTHING can be more glamorous than an Air Force Party in the 80s ] It was my only hope. I could not join the Defence Services, they had not opened it up for women yet so where else could I go ??

Well, much has happened in India and the World after 1995 and in my life that I did not deem it necessary to take a train to Mumbai but I still stand by my view of the Indian Film Industry which I am sure is shared by many of you out there too.

Unfortunately, the Industry, despite being such a wonderful mix of people and races, languages and religions, characterizes most of the ethnic or regional minorities in a skewed manner. This faulty perspective has ultimately landed most heavily on its ability to showcase the ‘normal’ muslim. Let alone Pakistan, with whom we share such a melodramatic history.

The portrayal of Muslims in Hindi Films has been much debated, we all know how it all started with movies being made on the Moghuls then veering towards Muslim Socials which slowly lost ground to Secular 3 named films. From being heroes, Muslim characters were relegated to being loyal sidekicks and then finally adopting a new avatar of terror - and - the - enemy of today .

This form of demonization has been much worse in the Western World and especially in the past few years the Great Divide has worsened. It is imperative that the media fight this stereotyping and what better way than to organize a film contest?

ONE NATION in collaboration with LINK TV [ Television without Borders ] has announced this contest :

http://www.onenationfilmcontest.org/

The “One Nation, Many Voices” competition started taking submissions on Tuesday Oct 4 2007, of films lasting five minutes or less. The winner will be awarded a $20,000 cash prize as well as a debut on Link TV.
The contest aims to bring attention to experiences that show what all Americans have in common and to challenge stereotypes, the event’s promoters said.

“For all of us living in the U.S., there’s certainly more that unites us than separates us,” said Kim Spencer, president of news and culture channel Link TV.
The channel is sponsoring the competition along with One Nation, a collaborative that seeks to use the media to challenge stereotypes of Muslims.
Categories include drama, comedy, documentary, and animation/music.
There are also separate categories for films of one minute or less and videos produced by youth. Entries must be submitted by Nov. 25.
Viewers have until Nov. 30 to vote online to select the finalists, which will then be evaluated by a panel of judges. Marianne Pearl one of the judges is the widow of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered by Islamic extremists while reporting for the Wall Street Journal in Pakistan in 2002.”

I already have a plot in mind if I enter, did not have to look far.

On Varalakshmi Vratam day this August , while I was busy preparing for the Pooja, I realized I had no flowers at home.
So I call my friend.
She says not to worry. Her garden has a lot of Marigolds.She will get them for me.
So I am praying, she comes home all decked up in a sari and of course brings me my Marigolds too.
Which I offer to the Goddess, I chant, I sing, she participates.
I have to cook Naivedyam [ Prashad ] , I am busy welcoming other women , I need help.
My friend offers to help, she makes the Prashad while I finish my prayers, I am so glad she is around.
Then she says, “Kavita namaz ka waqt ho gaya hai, I’ll be right back”

Of course I made it up to Amina by bunking the Durga Pooja Celebrations here in DC for her Id party. She made sure I had enough vegetarian dishes to feast on.

Needless to say Amina is from Pakistan.

RESOURCES

Zarqa Nawaz, a Muslim, thinks she can break new ground. Through her production company FUNdamentalist Films (motto: putting the fun back in fundamentalism),
She has made films which counter North American apprehension over all things Islamic with wit and warmth.

Short films

• BBQ Muslims (1995) - two Muslim brothers are accused of terrorism after their barbecue explodes in their backyard
• Death Threat (1998) - a young Muslim novelist claims to have received a death threat in order to get her book published
• Random Check (2005) - a young man, late for his wedding, turns to the media after being arrested at the airport as the result of racial profiling
• Fred’s Burqa (2005) - a stolen burqa leads to mistaken identity, a career change and true love

Screenplays

• Real Terrorists Don’t Bellydance (2003) - a struggling actor inadvertently takes a role as a stereotypical Muslim terrorist, to his fiancée’s chagrin

Feature-length films

• Me and the Mosque (2005) - documentary about the role of women in Islam, both throughout history and in contemporary Canada, told from a personal perspective.[2]

Television series (writer)

• Little Mosque on the Prairie (2007 – present) - comedy about relations between Muslims and non-Muslims

Islam in the movies
From the Christian Science Monitor by Stephen Humphries

MY SON THE FANATIC
Director: Udayan Prasad

ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES
Director: Kevin Reynolds

THE 13TH WARRIOR
Director: John McTiernan

MALCOLM X
Director: Spike Lee

THE SUITORS
Director: Ghasem Ebrahimian

THE MESSAGE
Director: Moustapha Akkad

LION OF THE DESERT
Director: Moustapha Akkad

DESTINY
Director: Youssef Chahine
Cinematic Journeys Through The Muslim World

To find movies that focus on Islamic issues and Muslim culture, sometimes independent films and the film festival circuit are the only way.
The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival included these films for screening all over the US.

1.The Road to Guantánamo
Michael Winterbottom, Mat Whitecross, UK

2.Iraq in Fragments
James Longley, USA

3.Winter in Baghdad
Javier Corcuera, Spain

4.Shadya
Roy Westler, Israel

5.Men on the Edge–Fishermen’s Diary
Avner Faingulernt and Macabit Abramzon, Israel

6.They Call Me Muslim
Diana Ferrero, U.S./Italy

7.Smiling in a War Zone
Simone Aaberg Kaern and Magnus Bejmar, Denmark/Sweden/Germany/Finland

Excerpts from ‘The Secret Of Islamic Film-Makers’
By Tariq Ali [ April 2005, The Guardian ]

“It is as difficult to define or classify Islamic cinema as it would be a Christian, Jewish or Buddhist one. The language of cinema has always been universal. Interpretations vary.

The Lumière brothers first exhibited moving pictures in Paris in 1896. A year later there was a private showing at the Yildiz palace in Istanbul. The viewers consisted of the Ottoman Sultan/Caliph - the temporal and spiritual leader of Sunni Islam - and a few selected courtiers.
In 1898 the Ottoman public was let in on the secret and there was a screening in the beer hall in Galatasaray Square. During the next decade cinema halls sprouted like wild mushrooms, and audiences in Istanbul and Smyrna flocked to see everything. Cultural repression began soon after the first world war in 1919: Ahmet Fehim’s films were considered politically provocative and censored by the British occupying authorities.

With the birth of post-Ottoman Turkey, the new industry found a staunch supporter in Latifa Usakligil, the feminist wife of Kemal Ataturk (the marriage lasted two years, from 1923-25). Where Istanbul led, Cairo followed. And Bombay was not far behind. Muslim stars dominated the formative years of Bollywood

different in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, where only last year the censors passed Arisan . The film’s plot revolves around an architect’s eventual coming out as a gay man. The censors passed a movie depicting male homosexuality and featuring a gay kiss, without exciting a backlash from local clerics. Likewise in Tajikistan, where Djamshed Usmonov’s latest film, Angel on the Right , depicts sexual, social and political frustrations (affairs, drunkenness, corruption) without any problems. The style of his films, strongly influenced by Soviet film schools, reflects the strengths of that tradition………….”

This site gives a list of movies on the basis of their religious content thus making it easier to study how each religious group has been portrayed by Hollywood

http://www.adherents.com/movies/