Well told saga of the 'Gulabi Gang'
Amana Fontella Khan's Pink Revolution is a well told saga of the 'Gulabi Gang' and is a must read before the Madhuri Dikshit starrer flick on the Gang hits the theatres. Excerpts from an interview:
Q. Much has been written about Gulabi gang in terms of news reports, blogs and feature articles. It has been a subject for movies and documentaries as well. When and how did the idea of compiling a book on it strike you?
A: I first heard about the gang in 2010 and their story captured my attention immediately. It is rare that women in disadvantaged communities are portrayed as anything but victims, so the powerful and victorious nature of the gang appealed to me.
Their message, in essence, is that absolutely anyone, despite their poverty, illiteracy and oppression, can find ways to fight back and attain dignity and independence. This is relevant to people of all walks of life who are concerned with political, social struggle.
Q. How difficult or easy it was to convince Sheelu for using her real name in the book?
A: It was not difficult at all. Sheelu has spoken to the local media on numerous occasions about what
happened using her real name. She knows that it is the rapists, not their survivors, who should feel shame and that breaking the veil of silence is central to attaining justice.
Q. What was the biggest challenge you faced in during the two years of this 'project'? Share any challenging experiences?
A. The main challenge I faced was that the gang is very busy and so finding time to conduct interviews was difficult. From around dawn to dusk, there is a flurry of activity around Sampat. People start coming to her house for help first thing in the morning, after which she spends the whole day out and about solving cases.
The last thing I wanted to do was interrupt her schedule with my interviews, so we tended to conduct them early in the morning, when she was relatively free. Then I would often shadow her during the day and steal snatches of her time when she was on the road.
It happened regularly with other gang members that I would travel for hours over battered, pot-holed roads to interview them just to find that they were not there or about to leave home. Much time was lost this way and so reporting on the gang required patience, time and flexibility.
Q. How important do you think it is for an author to gel well with the protagonist?
A. I think that what is most important is for your interview subjects to trust you and be comfortable with opening up to you. It is not necessary to be friends with someone for that to happen, nor does personal compatibility really matter. At the end of the day, if someone has a story to tell they just want to make sure that the person recording it is trustworthy and will not distort their words.
Q. Why did you decide to stay with Sampat and her family. How differently do you think the book would have shaped up had you decided to bank upon the interviews and not exactly stayed in the same atmosphere?
A. I wanted to stay with Sampat in order for her to get to know me and, eventually, trust me. When you let a stranger into your home, you learn about them more quickly than you would in other situations. I also wanted to attain a full picture of Sampat's life and so having access to her domestic world, as well as her children--who are now all adults--was crucial.
Q. Did you face any insecurities while staying there?
A. Yes, that I didn't have a very good singing voice! Sampat's nieces and nephews loved for me to sing for them--everything from 'Happy Birthday' to the latest Justin Bieber songs that they had on their mobiles. Apart from that, which I found rather amusing, I had no insecurities whatsoever. I enjoyed my time with Sampat and her family thoroughly.
Q. Though the title aptly conveys the subject of the book, how did you come up this title and not choose 'gulabi gang' over it?
A. When I first started writing about the gang, few people knew about them in India. This was, after all, before Sampat joined 'Bigg Boss' and the Gulaab Gang film. Therefore, putting their name in the title would not have made much sense.
Q. You have mentioned that you scanned footage of news reports about the gang from Sahara Samay as part of you research. How aptly do you think Indian media covers such issues?
A. The local media in places like Banda cover the gang and the battles they fight very well. Indeed, they understand that the gang could not be successful without their coverage and so are happy to work together with the women. In urban parts of the country, media coverage of the Delhi gang-rape case and subsequent attacks has been instrumental in keeping women's empowerment and rights on the agenda, though much more could be done to highlight crimes against rural women, the lower-castes and the poor.
Q. You have really appreciated the role of your translators in shaping up the book. Did you face any problems with their transcripts while writing them in your own verse?
A. Though I am fortunate enough to have picked up a good knowledge of Hindi while writing the book, I still had to work closely with skilled, professional translators throughout my research period. Of course, there were occasions when I wondered whether some nuances were being lost in translation, and so I often consulted my Indian friends in either Mumbai or Delhi for a second opinion. One of my biggest challenges was that many woman spoke of sexual violence in very euphemistic, vague terms. What might sound like something minor at the outset would often turn out to be a horrific crime, so it was important to be alert and always peeling back the layers of what people were saying.
Q. Giving the kind of popularity the book has gained, what is next in store for your readers?
I would like to continue writing about women's issues in Europe, where I now live. The struggle for women's empowerment is ongoing in all parts of the globe and so I am looking forward to exploring the kind of themes that I did in Pink Sari Revolution in an entirely different setting.
