My journey, my Islam

FAMILIAR with the self absorbed muddles of several NRI attempts at film making, I was not prepared for the ruthless honesty and the gripping forcefulness of Kay Rasool's "My Journey, My Islam" (56 min) at the Mumbai International Film Festival of documentary, animation and short films (MIFF 2000). Nor did I expect the antagonism in the questions and comments during the press meet which followed. "You ran away from India!" was the refrain which the maker countered by saying, "No, I came back with my film."

As obvious from the title, the film is a personal quest for finding one's own space and identity as a woman belonging to a particular creed, striving to emerge from the mists into light. What surprises you is the no nonsense mode adopted for the purpose, travelling through three continents (Asia,Europe, Australia) and four countries (India, Pakistan, England, Australia). There is irony here, as also paradox and ambiguity, which tease us into cogitation.

The journey begins with Kay alias Kausar, with husband and daughter Zara, at an open air celebration of Eid in Sydney, Australia. Doubts lurk beneath the festive glow. "Unlike most of the people here who wave their Islam like a flag, why do I hide my religion and try to be anonymous? Don't I share their faith?"

A cow sticks its face into the camera and we are in India. Kay's parents who taught at Aligarh University had wanted their daughters to be free and self reliant. Watching her mother teach the rites of prayer to little Zara, Kay recalls her words of long ago, "Faith is like a cushion behind you."

The mother's descriptions of her marriage and life in Aligarh establish her piety based on a liberal idealism which believed that people of differing creeds could co-exist in peace and friendship. Education was the key, as also tolerance and compassion. Hers is a religion of love, of equality between man and man - more importantly - between man and woman. Kausar herself roamed the marketplace, bare-headed, bindi on forehead, and with a Hindu classmate, still her best friend.

Cut to Bal Thackeray's demogoguery. The film doesn't need the Babri Masjid to capture the pulse of 1993. "My family left for London. I returned to Australia", and changed her nationality. "India didn't seem to be the place where we could belong."

In Sydney, Kausar is amazed to discover that for many young, educated Muslim women, the headscarf (hijab) has become an assertion of feminist identity. "The male cannot view us as an object but as a person," they tell her. "Of course, vanity and arrogance have to go. And French perfume." The hijab becomes a concrete symbol of collective strength - in the home, office and sports field. It checks sexual harassment and gives empowerment. (Some of these nouveau acolytes have mothers who do not wear the hijab, presumably because they still see it as a form of female subjugation). Kay is troubled as she tries on the scarf at a shop but discards it. But can she call herself a Muslim without following all the conventions?

Kay does wear the hijab briefly in her husband's home near Lahore, Pakistan. "Lower your eyes when you talk to men," her mother-in-law instructs her, as she tells the servants to avoid locking eyes with their employers. Even the car windows are curtained. "Otherwise the poor people of the lower classes will stare at us in envy," she explains to her grand daughter. To the old matron, the purdah is the symbol of status, wealth and security. Patriarchy confirms her domination of the household, particularly of the younger women in it. Sisters-in-law reveal ambivalences as they discuss their sequestration in the home and community.

Kay is more disturbed by the notion of female inferiority institutionalised by martial law. Was the isolation of women decreed by the Koran? ("Wasn't the Prophet's wife Khadija a businesswoman?") Or did dictatorship find it expedient to perpetuate a chauvinistic, patriarchal, feudal system? At a women's shelter in Lahore where inmates await legal reparations, Kay again muses about the travesties of the law which interpret the Koran selectively, often to the disadvantage of women. ("Is this the protection Islam promised?") The women's movement in Pakistan does find voices in protest theatre but not easily or freely.

Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to head an Islamic State, explains why she chose to wear the veil upon entering the political arena. "I come from a family which blanketed its women from head to foot. My father broke that centuries old rule." Despite education in the West and progressive ideals, Benazir had to cover her head in order to make the women feel she was one of them, as also to reduce the threat men felt at a woman's aspiring for what was traditionally a man's job.

In London, an encounter with family members throws up other qualms. Office going women do break religious customs in working with men associates. A sister betrays confusion and guilt when she says she will start wearing the veil sometime, though not just yet. Kay returns with more questions than answers, but gives her daughter the chance to get acclimatised to her creed by letting her attend a Muslim school in intermittent spells. After all, she will have to make her own journey someday to find her place in the world. "Unlike me, will she want to be a practising Muslim?"

The well-structured film stands out for its courage. Here the visual speaks as clearly as the word, often suggesting unexpected contradictions in what we hear. The self-probe (a soul search really), does not turn self-indulgent. The metaphor of the veil gains multiple meanings without shrillness or sloganeering. As the sequences move smoothly across space and time, the characters come alive with a rare spontaneity, and express conflicting points of view. The film maker does not impose her own perspective to intrude or manipulate. She gives her interviewees the freedom to be themselves, which is what she wants for herself, in life and in art.

* * *

The search continues

Excerpts from the interview with Kay Rasool:

WHY did you make this film?

After my marriage, I lived in Pakistan for two years. That is when I began to have serious questions about how Islam is applied in Muslim countries to support patriarchy. Nations like Pakistan and Afghanistan have had incredibly male dominated societies from ancient times. They interpreted Islam and the Shariat law to suit their needs. And unlike the secular model adopted in India, they opted for dictatorship, which continued the suppression of women and the backward classes.

Islamic law is not codified. So it is difficult for it to work as a legal system for the State. It can be misinterpreted or selectively applied at will. Lack of education adds to the muddles. Can such a system offer freedom for creativity, or indeed for the individual human spirit?

Seeing the veil as a symbol of suppression, why did you still wear it in your husband's home?

Because not wearing it would have discredited me at once. Whereas now, I have gradually found acceptance inspite of being different. I did work even in Pakistan, in television and training workshops. I did not allow myself to become an object of patriarchy. There is such a thing as struggling within the system, you know.

Your journey does not seem to have resolved your confusions. What has it brought you?

The events of 1993 made me question whether I had a place in mainstream India. True, I have not found a place within mainstream Islam either, because I cannot come to terms completely with its demands. But my film made me realise that for me, preserving my individual identity is more important than finding a collective identity, despite the security it offers. I would rather stay with the conflicting influences than find a place in a convention-bound ideology which curtails my freedom.

My film is not just a critique of conventions but an attempt to transcend them. For me, faith is not the diktats of the State or society. It is the communion of the individual soul evolving in a spiritual way through meditation. Islam offers that freedom. My search continues.

GOWRI RAMNARAYAN

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