Vusi Mahlasela in Seattle

Vusi Mahlasela, the legendary South African musician, singer-songwriter, performed at The Triple Door a few weeks ago. Vusi, who was one of the voices for the non-violent struggle against apartheid in South Africa, showed a glimpse of the powerful magic that he has been weaving the last three decades. He is a master on the guitar, and his music is so lovely that one forgets that some of the songs were in unfamiliar South African languages. He also had a very talented band, who seemed somewhat shy with all the attention, which was quite charming.

Vusi's earthy poetry brought to life the beauty of the African continent, beauty that would surely make one breathless - if one were fortunate enough to see it. Predictably, a lot of the songs he performed were rooted in the apartheid-era struggles. But, he did not, by any means, imply that the struggle for justice in the world was a thing of the past. On the contrary, he spent several minutes talking about the poverty and injustice that remains entrenched, particularly in Africa, and he dedicated a lovely song to the bush people of the Kalahari in Botswana, who are now being driven out of the land they have lived on since humans first walked on the earth.

His music and life has been shaped by, among other things, strong women of character. He recounted an incident from his youth, when as black-listed college activists, he and his friends were routinely hounded and harassed by the apartheid-era police. One evening, tiring of her grandson's brushes with the police state, his grandmother asked the young Vusi to sleep inside her house, as she stood guarding the doorstep. When the police arrived, the dauntless woman yelled at them - look, I have a big pot of boiling water here, the first one of you to come near Vusi gets it. And the cops slinked away. Vusi also sang of an unknown pregnant woman who jumped over a barbed-wire fence so her baby could be born in safety.

After over an hour of great beauty, Vusi and the band did their final bows to the audience, who were loath to let them go.

I couldn't help thinking that it seemed a little incongruous and paradoxical that Vusi's audience that evening was an all-white (with only a handful of exceptions), visibly privileged crowd. I wish we could have sponsored a performance of his at a less-privileged and racially diverse neighborhood of the city. Everyone should have a chance to hear his music. In Vusi's own words: "I know that I have something that is like a borrowed fire from God. And I have to use it in a very positive way."

Central Cinema

We visited Central Cinema for the first time earlier this month, when we went for the Aaina film festival. We got there around 6:00pm for the 7:00pm show - way too early. Being early birds, however, meant that we got very easy parking on 21st street, only a few yards down from the cinema.

Central has table seating in the front hall, which is like a regular restaurant with friendly wait staff and a full, interesting menu. The cinema hall, which is like a cosy playhouse, has sofa-style booth seating with built-in tables, and they continue to take orders and serve you while you are watching the movie, so no pushing through hordes at the concession stands. The table reminded me somewhat of my grade school, and I almost expected to have my khaki schoolbag at my elbow. Happily, though, I stirred myself back to the lively Aaina crowd, and the food that the Central lady had just placed on our table!

The Bolivian coffee, served in small French presses, was fresh, aromatic, and full-bodied. The creme brulee was nice, but a bit too rich for our taste. We also had a tasty eggplant sandwich with fresh bread, and a side of crisp and strikingly fresh baby spinach leaves dressed in olive oil. They also serve beer and wine.

Central reminds us of our beloved Madstone Theater. We haven't had coffee like Madstone anywhere, and we watched some of the best movies ever at Madstone (except for Gerry - we are still waiting for our money back from Matt Damon, and comp for the 100 minutes we will never get back) . Madstone's demise left us with a hole in our heart, and we are happy to discover Central in the Seattle area, our new home. A look at their recent screenings gives us good reason to want to make repeated visits in the coming weeks.

A very nice place to have good food and drink, and watch eclectic and thoughtprovoking cinema that is hard to find in, say, Bellevue's Lincoln Square?

Middle East Voyage of Seattle's Own

Aaina's first evening also included a talk by Seattle writer Maliha Masood, who read from her book "Zaatar Days, Henna Nights". Masood is a a writer of Pakistani origin, raised in Seattle. The book is an account of her recent pre-911 travels through the Middle East. The extracts she read were quite well-written, interesting, and full of texture, although at times seeming laden with self-awareness.

One good reason to read the book is the fact that the author, an American and a Muslim of South Asian origin, brings to life the humanity of the people of the Middle East, something of most dire need for us Americans. Responding to an audience question on whether she felt safe at all in the Middle East, Masood said that she felt much safer there than she did during the preceding months in Europe.

Really strange (and rude) that the audience did not applaud at the end of her reading. The author did her best to tide over the awkwardness, but where were the organizers? And, as usual, technology let us down - never saw the promised slides that were to have accompanied the reading.

See Masood's blog.

Talking of the Yoni [2]

[Continued from the previous post in this thread.]

I was a little puzzled by the fact that the performance was in English, despite the play's title. As a South Asian, seeing "Yoni Ki Baat" written on the Aaina flyer naturally led me to believe that the performance would be in Hindi. So when the actors started in English, I could not help feeling just a bit disappointed. I was so pumped up thinking I would see an edgy play about the yoni in Hindi.... Yes, I do speak Hindi.

On the other hand, there are several very compelling reasons for having it in English - a) keeping it accessible to all Seattleites, b) who in the hell came up with this fallacious notion that Hindi is some sort of universal South Asian language, anyway (did you know that Hindi is the native tongue of less than half of India, and we aren't even talking about the rest of the sub-continent, with its rich linguistic diversity)?

The performance was fabulous in English, but it would also be thrilling to have it in a language from the South Asian sub-continent. Contrary to what is often believed, there are examples (despite the sexually repressive culture) of excellent literature in Indian languages that openly deal with sexuality.

See Part 1 of this post.

Talking of the Yoni

The highlight of Aaina's first evening was a stage performance entitled"Yoni Ki Baat", a South Asian rendition of the famed "Vagina Monologues", created by Eve Ensler, the objective of which has been to exhort women to shed self and societally imposed inihibitive notions about their own sexuality, and to speak out against sexual and gender-based violence. For those of you to whom the monologues are news (are you kidding me, guy?!), read about Eve Ensler, and the monologues. "Yoni" means "vagina" in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, and in Hindi. "Yoni Ki Baat" means "Talks of the" Yoni in Hindi.

The actors, all women of South Asian heritage and none of them professional performers, gave an intensely provocative and electric presentation to a completely sold-out cinema hall. And the actors could not have asked for a more supportive crowd. In response to Farah Nousheen's (Tasveer's co-founder and one of the Yoni actors) very endearing appeal to the audience to "please send some love our way, we are all doing this for the first time", everyone responded with animation, and cheered and applauded all through the performance. And the post-play discussion revealed the depths to which everyone, especially the men, was stirred.

The writing, which was pivotal, was great. Some of it was from the original, some from the South Asian sisters, and two or three self-written by the actors. It was edgy, irreverent, humorous, searing, and tragic. The story of the woman in a stark and loveless marriage, with the nightly sex as romantic as a surgical procedure, was very sensitively and poignantly performed by Farah. The piece entitled "Egosexual", with its "me and my vagina living it up", was deliciously droll. The piece recollected the momentous discovery by a young Indian woman that the Shiv Ling portrays the inside view of the male organ in the female, and that the ancient South Asians worshipped this symbol as the eternal source of life in the universe. And the humorous essay juxtaposed the yucky experience of being rubbed against by sweaty, horny jerks in the DTC buses with this moment of discovery of sensual and cosmic beauty.

Uma Rao presented a mesmeric self-written piece centered around her intimate and powerful relationship with her mother. Being fortunate enough to have strong emotional and intellectual bonds with my own mother, Uma's piece touched me to the point of tears. The performance was a winning combination of beautiful writing, and a bold yet soft and sensitive presentation. Gita Mehrotra performed another self-written piece, "For all of Us". In my opinion, she has the makings of a sensitive writer. Her piece was an extremely moving account of different women, ranging from her own grandmother who was widowed early to South Asian lesbians known only via newspaper clippings. It talked about the heartbreaking realization that South Asian lesbian histories (like the histories of so many oppressed groups in the world) are virtually non-existent, lost forever. The beauty of the essay was in the seamless collecting together of the sadness across generations and across sexual orientations, and an understanding that women share a collective past, present, and future.

Above all, the performances were honest and courageous. I cannot imagine too many women (let alone Eastern women) having the spunk to do it. So, my gratitude to all who made the performance possible.

Also check out Uprising Radio's Sonali Kolhatkar's interview of the South Asian Sisters.

See part 2 of this post.

Aaina - South Asian Women's Films

This past Friday (March 16, 2007), we went to the Aaina Film Festival at the lovely Central Cinema. Aaina is an annual Seattle film festival, a forum for the creativity of the women of South Asian origin. Aaina (which means 'mirror' or 'looking glass' in Urdu and Hindi) is a joint presentation of Tasveer, a group dedicated to bringing South Asian cinema to the Northwest, and Chaya, which is a grassroots organization aimed at fighting domestic violence in South Asian households in the area.

Aaina had various film and stage offerings over three days. As per their flyer (we could only attend the first evening), one of the films screened was "Mukhtar Mai - The Struggle for Freedom", a documentary featuring the woman who was brutally gang-raped in a Pakistani village, and who has since emerged as a very strong and dedicated voice for the empowerment of women in the region. Another fascinating entry they had planned was "ManjuBen Truckdriver", about the sole woman truck driver in India, with a post-film discussion led by Trikone.

The festival (at least Friday evening) was well-attended by Seattleites and Eastsiders, of South Asian origin and otherwise. Hopefully, blog readers who checked out the festival on Saturday and Sunday will post comments to let us know how it went.

July 4th 2006

By the 4th of July, we had been here a couple of weeks. And just getting to know the place. We had, of course, visited Pike Place market, and it had already become our ritualistic Saturday haunt. We had temporary housing in Kirkland.

Our usual feelings on July 4th can best be described, depending on how energetic we feel on the day, as either completely indifferent and "couldn't care less", or something that provokes a bevy of philosophical questions - about the concept of a (ANY) nation state, and the acts that were committed in different parts of the world to make ordinary people believe in an artificial notion of allegiance and shared destinies, while really getting pushed into a homogenized and controlled version of their real communities and culture.

Not surprisingly, we were unsure about what to do that weekend. We finally decided to take in the atmosphere, since this was our first fourth of July here. So we headed to the Kirkland Marina, where there was going to be a parade. The only really interesting performance was by the Seahawks band, which was pretty good. The rest of the program was lacklustre. The sidewalks were filled with mostly very affluent-looking women of all ethnicities, wearing huge diamond rings and thick gold bands, clothing from the GAP, and pushing strollers with babies who were equally expensively outfitted, and who clutched tiny American flags in their fists.

In the evening, as we looked out the large windows of our apartment, we realized suddenly that we had a virtually undisturbed, though distant, view of the Kirkland Marina, Washington lake and the other side, Seattle city. Unbelievable! We were able to see the entire fireworks display on both the Eastside and in Seattle. And it was spectacular. That was unadulterated joy.