Pentimento — in art, the reappearance in an oil painting of original elements of drawing or painting that the artist tried to obliterate by over painting. If the covering pigment becomes transparent, as may happen over the years, the ghostly remains of earlier marks may show through.
‘‘You know Binnie, you never know when she’s acting.’’ This remark made about 46 years ago in school came to me as I watched Brinda Karat in Shonali Bose’s film, Amu. The bitchy remark made by some girl, possibly jealous of her, made me smile today. Binnie’s translucent performance is a pentimento. You really don’t know when she is acting. Officially, now preferring to be known as Brinda Karat, a card-carrying member of the CPIM, she is seen often in the media, leading protest marches and giving speeches. But, as I watched Amu, the original painting of Binnie Das, emerged from beneath the new painting of Brinda Karat.
Memories tend to be eclectic. The first time I saw Binnie was when somebody pointed out the new girl standing in line for dinner. We were 12 years old. We were all in the salwar-kameez uniform and she stood out in a little yellow dress. She had joined in a rather wild Welham Girls School version of kho, which meant getting scratched, hair pulled and clothes ripped. Her belt was suitably torn so she had made a knot of it. Her chin length hair and bangs stuck to her head and face with sweat. Her luminous smile was splashed indiscriminately. She was quick in establishing her credentials.
Binnie rapidly became popular as she became one of our best athletes, was good with the books and easy with making friends. While most of us in this batch were fundamentalists in our religion of insouciance and doctrine of breaking all existing school rules, Binnie was focused. While I thought it was ‘oh-so-hip’ not cool, those days to run for the long jump with a sandwich in my hand, Binnie ran determined to win. In Prep time, while the rest of the class read books out of the curriculum and played games, Binnie would sit on her hands, text-book in front of her, whispering the text and seriously mug. While we ignored our parents’ demands for good grades, Binnie told me she had a sister she adored, who was watching her. She would not let her down. More than anything else, Binnie loved being in all the plays. She put as much passion in that as in everything else.
Our lives, in a strange way, ran parallel. We went on to the same college, where her sister Junie who was leaving Miranda House, spent time ragging me. In the Miss Miranda contest, Binnie was more than anxious to win. Junie had been chosen Miss Miranda in her time. I remember standing on the side of the stage as Binnie trembled waiting for the announcement. Me, in my Welham way, couldn’t have cared less. Binnie was, of course, Miss Miranda.
It was then that Binnie became known for her acting in college plays, with St. Stephen boys including her in most of their productions. After college, we lost touch. I went on to the Harrow School of Arts to study journalistic photography. I heard that Binnie was seriously acting in Delhi theatre productions. I returned to Delhi and heard Binnie was working for Air India in London. There was a rumour that they had created trouble through the union and were all fired. It was the late ’60s and there wasn’t a person I knew who wasn’t getting politicised. Someone saw her in London in a pin-striped suit protesting against the Vietnam War. I vaguely recall meeting her at some point when she told me that she found acting too self-indulgent and was serious about active politics. Her altruistic needs moved her away from the glamour of acting.
The next time I saw her, she was Brinda Karat. I was covering a story for Newstrack video newsmagazine produced by India Today and Brinda was screeching a speech out in shockingly fluent Hindi that made her unrecognisable. Her beliefs made any social contact impossible, since being a journalist I was determinedly apolitical and the lack of freedom in maintaining political correctness grated on me. I don’t think Brinda had any time for those who did not share her beliefs. It saddens me that Brinda said that she had to ask permission from the CPIM to act in this film. Why?
Brinda’s acting talent outshines all the histrionic, obvious art queens of Bollywood by far. The deep beauty of her face reflects the richness of her life and experience. Her political life stemming from a humanitarian motivation lends an allure that does not come out of cosmetic bottles or face-lifts. The decision to participate in Amu was clearly because Shonali Bose is her niece. And in this utterly nepotistic production, we have been gifted a chiselled gem of a film. Shonali’s own life seems to mirror Binnie’s and Brinda’s. She, too, went to Miranda house, got involved in theatre and then in social activism.
The brilliance of Amu’s incandescence is in that although a political film, you watch it in complete unawareness of that fact. Successful against falling into any cliche traps, it communicates the abomination of the ’84 anti-Sikh riots without sentimentality. As you watch a hapless Sikh being dragged off to be scalped, his cries of, ‘‘Mainey ki kitha?’’ What did I do? ring in your recall of Kashmir, Gujarat and the Mandal riots. The innocent die.
In August 1990, when I anchored the Newstrack edition on the Mandal riots, in the conclusion, I said, ‘‘Prime Minister V P Singh has the blood of the students on his hands.’’ Over 200 students had been killed by our own police as they protested. Amu brings into our souls that the blood of the Sikhs is still on our hands. We have not only done nothing, we have voted those ministers who were responsible for the planned killings, into power. The accusing words of the widows in the film have been silenced by our Censor Board. What does that say about us?
But, Amu gives me hope. It has been made 20 years after the riots. Shonali Bose is the daughter of Midnight’s Children. What we Midnight’s Children did not do, this generation is doing. As we lament the future of India and despair looking at the Page 3 obscenities, take hope that there are those in this generation who will work in holding a mirror up to ourselves that forces us to take heed and change. And, Shonali Bose is not alone. Rabbi, in his brilliant new CD album Jugni, holds the mirror up yet again. In the last week, every friend who I have given it to, listens, a hint of tears, breathing shallow so as not to miss a word and goose-bumps. As in Amu, true art that gives a message but doesn’t jar because the medium is so beautiful.
The message this generation is giving: We feel the pain, we expose the suffering and it is because, O India, it is because we love thee.
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