American Desi

American Consular Officer: "How do we know you'll come back to India?"
Student: "Sir, my roots are here - my family, my property, my business... I want to study in America, but I will come back and put my education to good use."

I read this conversation from someone'sblog and idea about state of indians living abroad struck me. Thousands of Indian students have given this earnest answer at their visa interview. A significant number never return to their motherland. You have to wonder - why bother to ask? Because the idea of America, to a large extent, is to attract the brightest and the best from around the world. NRI ideally stands for Non Resedential Indians. Practically NRI means- Non Returning Indian or Non Reliable Indian.

When the race for food, clothing and shelter becomes over, then green card migrants try to find a identity for themselves. Next generation faces issues like choosing their sides between Indian family and American culture. Desi Indians may perceive herself as 'American' but the colour of her skin and country of birth still make her/him a 'foreigner who's done well' as far as (a section of) right-wing America is concerned. It is about finding identity in a country that will treat you as alien if you are born there. They become like pendulum bob swinging between Indian family and American social surroundings.

Desi is all about rediscovering your roots. Generally, Desi is turned usually associated with Indians living abroad. Now, a new term is framed for the generation born there: ABCD .

ABCD: American Born Confused Desi ;American Desi is used in short for them. The movie 'American Desi' was really upper view of lifestyle and relation of Desi youths. For cool pass time watch it with open mind and heart....

The Namesake as a novel and movie is one of the original and first attempt to address this issue from American perspective. The settling of a family in alien land for the search of livelihood. Their gradual acceptance of the new land. A bemused incomprehension of their extended family to appreciate their better (different?) way of life. Clinging on to certain customs while leaving others. The alienation of the second generation from the first. The second generation's assimilation into a more modern way of life. Halted communication of the first generation to the second. Three hardly identifiable characters mostly lost in a distant land from their own makes Namesake a passable attempt at winning western audience. And i will not spoil the plot here.

Lets put our attempt to understand about Indians living abroad. We were not much aware of America before 90's as brown skinned natives who didn't elect George Bush and live 3000 miles from Graceland. With the globalization era, the periphery of an average Indian with outside world has increased dramatically. The journey starts with Bollywood.

“Watan se chitthi aayi hain” (sung on screen by Pankaj Udhas) was NRI anthem from film 'Naam' but the movie was mainly targeted to middle east based Indians. Forget Purab aur Pachim, now bollywood can make film like Salaam Namaste, Kal ho na ho, Namaste London, Kabhi khushi kabhi gum and Dostana (list cont...) . But movies like 'Provoked' gives also other face of the reality. They are entirely based on NRI life with fictional Indian value embodiment in them. Now,an overseas market are targeted with Desi junta as potential consumers. Swades was genuine Indian attempt to pull the strings of NRI to their motherland. Sivaji was also on footstep of swades but on a much broad fictional stance. Some are worth mentioning here as they have done Real Life Swades.

Worthy to mention Punjabi NRI who's mixed bhangra rhythms with hip-hop and reggae to create new genres of music altogether. I am mere observer here. Its flight of elites and plight of masses in mine motherland India.

Death of Parallel Cinema

There are now two decades over after the demise of parallel cinema.Literature and Theater are the main sources of parallel cinema in India.The turbulent situation of the 1970's gave birth to the ‘parallel cinema’ movement in India.With the open market policy in film industry and decay in government funding,this movement dies out slowly after economic liberation.Indian Cinema is thriving today thanks to an audience who is hungry for films, however, our works have degraded over the years, and regional cinema and few great filmmakers are marginalized to the film festival or art house circuits.

Regional films constitute of high percentage in parallel cinema. The regional cinema, obviously in majority formed the alternate cinema. Ever since the decline of regional cinema throughout the nation, and the dying out of the parallel movement, the viewers have been feed with repeated image, sound and music.Most of us had used to watch regional films on DD on Sundays. With the advent of cable and dish culture, the regional cinema has suffered huge setback. There is no information either in the print or electronic media about alternate films.Dish Channels do not show off alternate movies even in non prime time.

Today, the films of ' New Wave' are hard to find, and the aesthetics of these filmmakers were never carried forward, meaning, the tradition not only got lost, but never translated or taken further- explored in new avenues. Not only that, the lack of availability of the films of ‘New Wave’ in the market is another important factor which slowly spelled death for the filmmakers and their films. It’s sad, because, even when one wants to rescue these films most negatives are either lost or destroyed or its in hands of people who are not willing to part away with them for reasons unknown.

For,deep view in the subject:

-To each his cinema.
-Wikipedia Link about Parallel Cinema.
-Indian New Wave- a potrait.
-Old vs New Parallel Cinema.
-Parallel or New Cinema in India.
-The demise of parallel cinema.
-Demise Of A Different Kind.
-Parallel Cinema not getting visibility at global festivals.

While other directors other mainstream directors usually try to be time consumer and economical by saving on cuts and indulging into unnecessary zooms and moves of the camera, it feels positive that there existed what we call Indian Parallel cinema, wherein the directors were at least trying to find their style with a sense of aesthetics .

As Andrei Tarkovsky once said, "Cinema can never be a true art form till it’s confined by the constraints of money."

Training & Placement Cell, IT-BHU

After long time a great change has came taken place in TPO website of ITBHU.
http://www.itbhu.ac.in/tpo/index.html
This is really cool stuff from administration after long time of hibernation.