Why "India Outside India"?

Since I came to NYC I have been trying to capture for the benefit of my international friends what is ‘India’ or ‘Indianness’. We have discussed various facets of Indian people, culture, ways of meaning making and what it means to live as an Indian. It was also interesting when my international friends shared what they thought being Indian was/must be like for me. I have been capturing visuals that I thought express non-Indians’ perceptions about India and also the expressions/visuals shared by the Indian community in US that must be shaping this perception. After a year of gathering images and talking in my head about it I thought why not put it all down in a blog.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The tale of two Indias

I saw this PBS documentary today. On the website the description is as follows:
'The World Before Her' is a tale of two Indias: In one, a small-town girl competes in the Miss India pageant. In the other, a militant woman leads a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls.

Lot to digest, for example - Choosing two girls from these specific circumstances and not others to contrast, especially since the struggle between tradition and modernity was a thread throughout. The visual of the girl sitting at the beach facing the Mumbai skyline juxtaposed with silhouettes of mountains and temple spires on the left shows this thread of presentation to come. As the documentary progressed, it was very interesting to see assumptions made about what is 'modern' when it comes to women in India. What is considered freeing, enabling and how it is shown as one or the other rather than a complex mix in both the paths these girls chose. 

I want to go back and watch it again to see how certain views, values, visuals were highlighted or played down. 

A lot there to process and comment but before I write a coherent review I just wanted to share the documentary itself. 

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