Aparita

The Globe and Mail

Funkasia Fridays created a following - and a community

Special to The Globe and Mail

It wasn’t Madison Square Garden. It wasn’t Marilyn Monroe. And she most certainly wasn’t singing to President John F. Kennedy. It was, instead, South Asian drag diva KIKI Karachi impersonating Ms. Monroe, pouting through the breathy Happy Birthday, Mr. President number.

The occasion was DJ Zahra’s 30th birthday bash last week. But it was also a brilliant farewell to Funkasia Friday.

Hosted by DJ Zahra for five years, Funkasia was a dance party that brought as many as 800 Torontonians to the Yonge and Church neighbourhood’s Fly nightclub on the first Friday of each month.

It was a campy, queer and groovy tribute to Bollywood by DJ Zahra, a.k.a. Zahra Dhanani, an immigration and refugee lawyer by day, music-spinner by night. It was a place to dance to everything from Indian film music and bhangra beats to Caribbean rhythms and R & B. For Seema Mehra, her sister-in-law, Maria Vamvalis, and Roshni Sharma-Fleming, Funkasia was a place to go to listen to South Asian music and have fun.

Funkasia regulars for more than a year, the trio brought along Meenakshi Sharma to the last Funkasia Friday, which is ending because DJ Zahra felt it was time to move on. Ms. Sharma, who is from Amritsar, India, was swept off her feet by the end of the night. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

It’s a completely different experience than what you get at most clubs, Ms. Vamvalis said. “I’ve always had a strong fascination with South Asia,” the 29-year-old said. “I used to see it on TV, and everything about it just moved me.”

“It’s also about going back to your roots,” Ms. Sharma-Fleming said. “Remembering where you come from. I married outside of South Asian culture. It’s really important for me to maintain what my parents taught me. Stuff like this makes me really proud of my culture, especially when it’s going mainstream.”
The gay-friendly atmosphere of Funkasia had Deep Khosla hooked for close to four years.

“It’s not just a gay space, but a gay-friendly space,” said Mr. Khosla, 47. “It’s not just about South Asians, which helped me step outside my ghetto. And to have that combined with my Indian roots, it was just wonderful.

“In fact, I was talking to two non-South Asians. And they regard this as definitive of Toronto.”
DJ Zahra came to Canada with her family in 1976 and moved to Toronto in 1987. In university, she discovered she was gay and initially had a hard time coming out to her family. But eventually, love from her family and friends kept her going, and she wanted Funkasia to serve the same function for others.

Looking around, DJ Zahra said it’s people such as sari queen diva Tanya who make Funkasia what it is. “Tanya is a transgender, living loud and proud among the South Asian community,” she said. “This is what Funkasia’s about.”

“I had no idea you could be gay and Indian,” said Kamal, 26, who declined to give his last name. “Funkasia helped my true self come out. All the friends I have today, who really matter, are people I met at my first Funkasia.”

Although saddened by the loss of Funkasia Fridays, everyone was looking forward to the now annual Funkasia celebrations at Pride parade and the Masala! Mehndi! Masti! festival at Harbourfront. “I’m looking forward to whatever she’s planned next,” Mr. Khosla said.

“I want to have a Funkasia party at the SkyDome,” DJ Zahra said. “Just invite everyone to come join the fun and feel the love, Zahra-style.”

Directed by NAGESH KUKUNOOR
Starring Nasseerudin Shah, Jackie Shroff, Juhi Chawla, Gulshan Grover

It’s an almost perfect film. But then it had to fall into the trap of being too many things at the same time.

Not Bollywood, definitely not Hollywood, something of an art-house film, but not quite, Teen Deewarein’s genre hovers as precariously as the lives of the three prisoners the movie follows.
Director Nagesh Kukunoor’s latest offering is a little different, as his characters from his last film Bollywood Calling would say.

Teen Deewarein was the closing film of the three day South Asian film festival Filmi, which took place from August 8-10, in association with Masala! Mehndi! Masti! and the Harbourfront Centre. This was the fourth year for Filmi, which was founded by Mohit Rajhans to showcase South Asian-centric movies.

The movie takes us into the cells of three prisoners who are facing death penalty. They are lawyer Jaggu (Jackie Shroff, who’s also known as Jaggu dada in real life), accountant Nagya (Nagesh Kukunoor) and petty thief Ishaan (Naseeruddin Shah). The three are inmates of a progressive jail maintained by warden Mohan (Gulshan Grover). Enter documentary maker Chandrika (Juhi Chawla), who has her own agenda in filming the three prisoners as they count their days until they are executed.

Each prisoner has his own take on life, as death fast approaches.
For Jaggu it’s retribution for the blood on his hands. For Nagya, it’s an injustice that will be rectified. “Satyamev Jayate (In truth lies victory),” he keeps on repeating. And Ishaan believes in finding the patli gali (back alley) for any messy situation.

Through the Chandrika’s interviews, we get to see the three characters unfold, as their stories are coaxed out of them.
Jaggu turns out to be something of a poet, whose musings set the tone of the film as it progresses. He’s the realist, who waits for the inevitable, spending his remaining time cooking delicious food for the inmates. Nagya is the simple man, who tries to keep his faith in honesty, even as his faith slowly starts to unravel. And although Ishaan is the carefree charmer, some incidents suggest a much more complicated man.

Kukunoor has used some cool directorial tricks to keep your attention on this mostly character-oriented film.

His alternate use of black-and-white and colour footage is particularly striking. That the up, close and personal interviews, and the flashbacks, happen in black-and-white brings to mind some of India’s finest directors such as Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt. The starkness lent by the black-and-white frames make those scenes at once more intimate and intense.

Kukunoor has also used a fairly compelling script. Even if the story meanders a little, to raise issues such as corruption in the system at the hands of top government officials, jail inmates abusing each other and a wife trapped in a physically and mentally torturous relationship, it’s reined in by the characters.

This is also one of the other strengths of the movie. There are great opportunities for the actors to explore their characters.

Chawla, for example, does so much more than the usual giggly, girly-girl role we’ve now come to expect from her. She convincingly portrays the role of a woman caught between several conflicts including dealing with an ass-hole of a husband and a fulfilling career. Similarly, veteran actors Shroff and Shah shine in their roles. Especially Shah, who so effortlessly conveys the many facets of Ishaan, from the self-serving to the self-deploring.

Even Kukunoor himself does a stellar job. It’s so refreshing to see Kukunoor play his role of Nagya as a Hyderabadi. Until now we’ve mostly seen Hyderabadis caricatured by Bollywood actors such as Mehmood, Govinda and even Raveena Tandon. It’s quite brilliant to see Kukunoor claim his Hyderabadi ancestry and give it authenticity.

But, then there’s the end of the movie.

In true Bollywood fashion, we find that all the puzzling facts of the movie suddenly make sense as serendipity comes into play. And even though everything is ostensibly resolved within the last 10-15 minutes of the movie, there are still so many things that either just don’t make sense, or are left plain unresolved.

It might have been better, perhaps, had the movie stuck to the original semi-art-house genre, where things are not necessarily always explained. Then again, who’s to say that an attempt to tie all the loose ends, as warranted by commercial films, is a bad thing?

So, go watch this genre-defying film. It’s definitely worth your money. And, by supporting directors such as Kukunoor, who are slowly but surely coming on their own, we might just be able to get some true gems in the next couple of years.