With an Indian father who collects kitsch calendars, an Australian mother who hangs her knickers out to dry in front of horrified Indian neighbours, a grandfather who was a self-styled Guru and a man-hating grandmother, it is no wonder that Safina Uberoi made a film about her family
With an Indian father who collects kitsch calendars, an Australian mother who hangs her knickers out to dry in front of horrified Indian neighbours, a grandfather who was a self-styled Guru and a man-hating grandmother, it is no wonder that Safina Uberoi made a film about her family.
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| Safina Uberoi with her grandmother in My Mother India |
What begins as a quirky and humorous documentary about an eccentric, multicultural upbringing unfolds into a complex commentary on the social, political and religious events of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 that changed the destinies of the family.
Uberoi begins her documentary with a funny story about the "scandalous" manner in which her Australian mother hung her underwear on the clothesline in middle class New Delhi ufffd giving local gossips every reason to brand her as one of those "licentious western women who showed their legs and divorced their husbands".
After we've met her non-licentious mother Patricia and Sikh father Jit, Uberoi comments that as a child she "hated the fair skin their union gave me". Years later, her opinion is radically different; the pale skin has helped young Safina blend into Australian society and she is thankful.
Her exuberant tone and the lively reminiscences of her parents easily hook us into a story that becomes much more than a quirky family chronicle. The theme of motherhood is expanded to encompass Jit Uberoi's recollections of the mass slayings of Sikhs and Hindus in his former hometown of Lahore during the 1947 partition. His memories serve as a powerful premonition of his own family's precarious existence during anti-Sikh violence following the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984.
My Mother India will be telecast today on Documentary 24X7 on the channel NDTV 24X7 at 1 pm
