Tooba Syed, feminist researcher, trainer, writer, organiser, and teacher, works on issues of gender, violence, rights of the marginalised, housing, and feminist education in Pakistan. Tooba’s been going for marches since she was 17, and in this interview, she traces her journey of starting out as a model, to discovering feminism, to working with the Left movement in Pakistan.
Among the many gifts that the classroom throws in my face, one that I am equally envious and enamored by is the beehive of female friendships all around me.
In this new episode of Bolti Kahaniyan, Dipta Bhog narrates ‘Hekdi’, a story by writer Vijaydan Detha. This story is taken from the Hindi translation of his anthology ‘Batan Ri Phulwadi’ published by Rajasthani Granthagar.
Harjant Gill, a documentary filmmaker and scholar who has made multiple documentaries on Indian masculinity(ies), says, “One of the challenging things about talking about masculinity is that you engage men in this conversation and they don’t really know where to go with it, or like, how to even interrogate it…
Work on gender in the development and social sector has traditionally engaged with women and girls. It was only in the mid-90s that some NGOs started working with men and boys on issues of gender. One of the first entry points for this was population control and reproductive health where they were encouraged to use condoms and to accompany their pregnant wives to healthcare centres.
It is often said that a film should either entertain, engage, or educate (not in the same order though). And in our country, one obsessed with cinema, we expect a film to entertain us and make everything larger than life and extraordinary.
One evening, last year, I finally coaxed my mother to sit down and take pause from constantly running around the house. I had been following her around for days to have this conversation. Sometimes, she silently smiled, and at other times, she eluded me. But that evening, she let her guard down.
“A library is not about buying shelves and putting in books. Anyone can do that! It’s about how one can put their heart and soul into it. You have to invest dil se.”
What does it take to make your own short film? Lights, camera, action—you might say, and a lot of passion. When young learners from Nirantar Trust’s Tarang centre watched a YouTube short, they got excited and said, “We also want to make a film!” A few months later, they made their first short, holding a mobile camera for the first time.
I want to tell this story in two parts. In one, the expectation of meritocracy oppresses everyone; in the other, even access to academic oppression is denied.
