Aparita

The Globe and Mail

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE

It was Diwali night, the Hindu festival of lights, and the temperature had dipped to ungodly lows. Decked in their good silk saris and satin salwar-kameezes, fingering the gold bangles on their wrists, a group of South Asian women swapped stories about their children, venting about their much too Canadian ways.

“Well, I’ve told my son that he can bring any girl to my house. Just don’t bring a BMW,” one woman remarked.

“A BMW?”

“Black. Muslim. White.”

Such stereotypical zingers are common among many South Asian parents, who prefer to have their children marry within their own culture. And, yes, there are rare cases of South Asian parents taking more severe measures against children, usually girls, who dare to defy them on what makes a suitable alliance.

Last week, a jury in New Westminister, B.C., began deliberations after the week-long trial of Rajinder Atwal, who is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his 17-year-old daughter, Amandeep, in July, 2003. The Crown alleges that Amandeep’s relationship with boyfriend Todd McIsaac, now 20, was the cause.

This case isn’t representative of the diverse range of reactions among South Asian parents, but interracial unions in many minority cultures are frowned upon.

“It’s not just South Asians and other races, it’s also about Hindus and Muslims, or Sikhs and Muslims, or Hindus and Christians,” says Soni Dasmohapatra, 29, community development co-ordinator at the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians.

“But it also depends on migration patterns and geographical locations. When I was growing up in Edmonton, there were hardly any South Asians around. It was okay if you dated other people from South Asia, it was better than dating someone white.”

While movies such as Monsoon Wedding and now Bride and Prejudice reflect some of the intergenerational tensions that arise, a more apt analogy for interracial marriages is perhaps provided by the upcoming movie Guess Who.

Starring black comedian Bernie Mac as a curmudgeonly father and white Ashton Kutcher as a potential son-in-law, Guess Who is a loose remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn. Set in the sixties, the film dealt with the delicate situation when a black man and white woman announce their decision to marry to their parents.

Things have changed since, but not a whole lot.

Growing up in Chatham, Ont., Tripta Chandler didn’t have many Indian friends. So when she went to York University in Toronto, where she met Indian boys from suburbs with large Indian populations such as Mississauga and Brampton, she couldn’t relate to them.

“They were traditional Indian men,” says Ms. Chandler, 30, searching for words to describe them. “Mother’s boys. I couldn’t find an Indian man who could deal with what I wanted — working late, not being around to make food.”

Ms. Chandler met her husband Anthony at McGill University, where she studied law. She told her parents about him when they decided to get engaged.

“It was just a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy,” Ms. Chandler says. “I wouldn’t have said anything unless it was serious.”

Although her parents were accepting and have adjusted well, it wasn’t an easy decision. Even now, Ms. Chandler realizes that her parents will have a better understanding with her brother-in-law, who is from India.

You never escape the guilt, of losing out on culture, language, even cooking, which will die with your parents, Ms. Chandler says.

So liberal South Asian women find themselves between a rock and a hard place. “You can marry someone North American and make your parents unhappy. Or you can follow tradition and make yourself unhappy. It’s worse for women, because they’re expected to make the home, build relations with family and in-laws, keep culture.”

The choice of a mate can depend on anything from the kind of neighbourhood you grow up in to maybe rebelling against conservative values, Ms. Dasmohapatra says.

Some second-generation Canadians grow up in ethnic neighbourhoods, others might find themselves a minority. Some decide to choose partners based on shared culture values. Others look outside the box.

“I don’t understand why you have to limit yourself,” Ms. Dasmohapatra says. “It’s stressful, wanting to please everybody. South Asian culture demands respect [from children]. It can feel like carrying the weight of world on your shoulders.”

Then, there’s the hierarchy of racial preference.

“Toronto is 43 per cent visible minority,” Ms. Dasmohapatra says. “Now you have many South Asian youth dating Caribbeans of African descent. The whole world has a big stigma with Africans, and within the South Asian culture, they are so shunned. South Asians dating blacks fight with a triple jeopardy. Besides family and society, there’s also the white man’s view.”

The pecking order sounds familiar to Irene Toye-Nakamura, 35, and her sister, Suelan Toye, 37, who trace their ancestry to the Chinese province of Taishan. From a young age, their parents tried to match-make them with boys in Chinese dancing, music and language classes.

The first time their mother laid eyes on Ms. Toye-Nakamura’s then-boyfriend, Kenji, she made her distaste clear. Japanese were at the lowest rung of preference among other visible minorities.

“My parents hated Japanese people because Japan had attacked China in the Second World War. In fact, part of the reason my family came to Canada was that Japanese soldiers had burnt down my father’s village,” Ms. Toye-Nakamura says.

The Toye-Nakamuras’s four-year courtship was very difficult. Ms. Toye-Nakamura had to hide her relationship from her parents. “I used to lie to my parents when I went out,” she says. “Kenji would hide behind a tree, and pop his head out when I came out of the door.

“One day, my dad came out and saw Kenji. He chased him down, yelling, ‘I see you.’ It was very embarrassing.”

Her parents came around when they realized that the marriage was inevitable. Still, right before she was married, her parents showed Ms. Toye-Nakamura Second World War videos where Japanese soldiers used Chinese babies for target practice.

“It was like having to choose between family and my partner,” she says. “I was fortunate because they realized they would lose me. I respect my parents, but they can’t impose their choice on me. I have an African-Canadian friend who married a white woman, and his mother hasn’t spoken to him in 10 years.”

Since Ms. Toye-Nakamura had broken the mould, it was easier for her sister to marry her Irish-Canadian husband. While her mother had softened at the prospect of her over-30 daughter getting married, there was a sense of unhappiness.

Having struggled with her identity as a child, Ms. Toye chose attributes such as a sense of humour and mutual understanding instead of culture. There’s a sense of having let her parents down, but it’s also her life to live, she says.

Marriage is the biggest hot-button topic between parents and children of immigrant families, says Usha George, associate dean of the faculty of social work and director of the Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement.

“It’s one of the sacred activities, it’s the most intense relationship,” she says. “It’s not like bringing a friend home after school.”

The opposition can be either explicit or implicit. The more authoritarian parents flatly tell their children that they can’t date someone outside their culture. The rational parents politely suggest that cultural differences aren’t easily wished away.

“There are some parents who just leave it up to their children, but they are rare,” Ms. George says
Sociologically, it’s about comfort zones. Ms. George points out that historically, even in the West, economic status, class and race decided suitable alliances.

It will take a long time for things to change, especially in the case of visible minorities, because interracial marriages challenge core values.

“I hate to say it, but there’s a hierarchy,” Ms. George says. “Social constructions of where you come from are still there. Immigrants who came 25 to 30 years ago changed their names; they don’t become white.

“And first-generation Canadians attribute values to colour, white being the highest. The young people may not follow it, but it’s definitely there among first generations.”

Aparita Bhandari is a Toronto writer.

Facing the folks

If you’re in a mixed-race relationship and your parents openly disapprove, it can be very painful. It can also be difficult if you sense disapproval, but your parents deny it. You want your parents to respect your choices. And it’s hard to open a dialogue with them at the time you probably need them most.

Here’s how to start:

Find support systems.

Is there someone in the family or community who is more open to listening to you than you think your parents are?

Try to have a conversation with mediators perhaps, to understand what you sense as prejudice. Is it a discriminatory attitude or genuine concerns about the monetary or employment status of your potential spouse?

The Globe and Mail

The real Little India is in Malton, where Mississauga becomes a Bombay Bazaar

APARITA BHANDARI

SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

MALTON, ONT. — An Indian soap called Kittie Party plays on a small TV screen in one corner of the “separate ladies’ section” in the inner part of Bharti Beauty Parlour Inc. The business is named after hairstylist Aruna Bassi’s husband, who looks after the other part of this salon that offers “hairstylists for ladies and gents.” Ms. Bassi, her hair tied into a waist-long plait, her mangalsutra (a black-and-gold beaded necklace worn by married Indian women) peeping out of her black beautician’s smock, explains the plot line to her customer as she gets ready to bleach her face.

“That boy is the son of the woman in the pink salwar-kameez,” says Ms. Bassi, 25, pointing to veteran Indian actress Poonam Dhillon’s character. “The woman in the pink is the wife of Kiran Kumar. Everyone thought she was dead, but now she’s come back to life.”

Bharti Beauty Parlour is one of a dozen Indian beauty salons in Malton, a corner of Mississauga at the intersection of Airport and Derry Roads. Malton also boasts Indian grocery and video stores, clothing shops such as Lebas: Fashion of India and jewellery stores such as Nu Ashok Jewellers.

The downtown Toronto neighbourhood of Gerrard Street and Coxwell Avenue is not the only taste of India the Greater Toronto Area has to offer. The real Little India is here in the suburbs, where there is a predominantly South Asian population, plenty of parking, and amenities covering everything from daily household needs to South Asian wedding requirements.

People drive in from Brampton, elsewhere in Mississauga, even Scarborough to stock up on essentials such as wheat flour, turmeric powder and hair oil.

“When you come to Malton, you feel like you’re in Chauda Bazaar, in Ludhiana, Punjab,” says Avatar Uppal, who runs Uppal Video and Travel with his wife. “You feel at home. . . . Malton is a main attraction. Like Gerrard Street was.”

“Before, everyone used to go to Gerrard,” says Hans Raj Sannan, who used to work as a stenographer in Delhi Cloth Mills before he came to Canada in 1990. His son, Ravinder, owns the India Food Market grocery store in Malton. Mr. Sannan says people come to the neighbourhood from long distances on the weekend. “Slowly the stores started opening in Malton. Clothes, jewellery, grocery, food. Now people come here.”

The area is a definite hotbed of activity on weekends. Soundtracks from the latest Bollywood movies or bhangra cassettes play in all the video stores. A steady line of men and women hover at the beauty parlours. Families enjoy a hot cup of tea and a samosa or a piping hot chole-bhature (spicy chick peas and deep fried bread) at the Indian restaurants. Some prefer the Indian-Chinese cuisine, which they refer to as Hakka, offered by restaurants such as Asian Wok and Roll or China Garden.

Uppal Video and Travel carries everything from Bollywood video and audio products to watches, flashlights and even some irons. Mr. Uppal serves his customers in a mixture of Hindi, Punjabi and English. He came to Canada in 1972. A decade later, he bought a house in Malton.

“When I first came to Toronto, I used to live near Queen and Pape,” he says. “There was only one gurudwara [Sikh place of worship] on Pape Avenue. Every Sunday, maybe 60 people came. Now there must be maybe 20 to 25 gurudwaras in Toronto. Nearby here, there are four gurudwaras.”
Open since 1997, the India Food Market grocery store is a relatively new entrant to the Malton store community, which started to grow quickly in 1985.

In the window of the shop, old-fashioned Indian prints stand next to a carrom board (a popular Indian board game). One print depicts Heer and Ranjha, protagonists of the classic Punjabi Romeo and Juliet story. A poster for Mela Teeyan Da, a Punjabi festival in which married women vacation for a few days at their parental homes, is taped on the door.

Inside the store, various essentials of a South Asian home are neatly stacked: incense sticks, camphor squares, Dabur Hajmola (digestive pills), spices, cans of pickles, jars of amle ka murabba (Indian gooseberry preserved in a sugary syrup), papad, dalmot (Indian snacks resembling trail mix), tawa (griddle), chakla-belan (a rolling pin and stand used to make Indian bread), jhadu (an Indian broom), as well as vegetables such as bitter gourd, small eggplants and arbi (colocasia) used in typical South Asian preparations.

There’s never really a quiet day in the neighbourhood, Ms. Bassi says as she gets ready to thread another customer’s eyebrows. She studied to be a beautician in India before she came to Canada five years ago.

“We get people from every community — white, black, Indian, Chinese, Guyanese,” she says. “This is a good location. There is competition, there are many beauty parlours here. But we have our regular clients. They drive from Richmond Hill, Oakville, Burlington.” They come for other things too — like grocery shopping.

“But sometimes,” Ms. Bassi says, “they come just to get their eyebrows threaded. I guess they like the work.”

2003 July 05

The Globe and Mail

From tunics to sandals to ankle bracelets, the look this summer is inspired by the subcontinent

By APARITA BHANDARI
Special to The Globe and Mail

NEW YORK — In New York’s hip new lounge K Space, replicas of erotic temple friezes decorate the walls, while chaises and red plush cushions and low, ornate silver tables encourage intimacy. The women tending bar in low-cut tops and sarongs look as if they walked straight out of the 1997 Mira Nair movie Kamasutra: A Tale of Love. But that’s entirely appropriate, since K is inspired by that ancient Indian treatise.

“I wanted to create something that’s indicative of India and the Kama Sutra, interpret it in a modern way,” says K Space partner Vikram Chatwal from Paris, where he is rehearsing for One Dollar Curry. He stars in the movie as a Sikh cabbie turned chef. “I wanted to create a physical and a spiritual ambience of sensuality,” says Chatwal. Presumably the spiritual connection of the love nest is provided by the other two partners, Gotham and Mallika Chopra, children of über-guru Deepak Chopra.

Fittingly, the club sits above Chatwal’s father’s Bombay Palace restaurant on 52nd Street.
With everyone tripping off to lunchtime and post-work yoga sessions, little wonder that all things Indian are the current vogue. It all reaches fever pitch in Toronto this weekend with the crowning of Miss India-Canada 2003 at the International Plaza Hotel. The guest of honour for the event: veteran Bollywood actor Rati Agnihotri, who rose to fame at the age of 16. To date, her glamour quotient extends across six languages with 140-plus films.

From movies and music to the beaded and embroidered fashion on the catwalks, Indian culture is capturing North American attention the way it did in the 1970s, when the Beatles introduced the world to Ravi Shankar and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. And faster than you can grab your Lululemon yoga mat, this new holistic lifestyle can be purchased at a store near you.

The hottest top of the summer is the light cotton tunic, which has taken over the racks everywhere from Gap to the new Mossimo line at Zellers. It comes in solid candy colours, with or without embroidery — with a white version favoured by men.

Indian-inspired accessories range from tooled leather sandals at Pegabo and flip-flops at Aldo, silk scarves at Banana Republic to totes with Hindu deities imprinted on them at accessories shop Stoneridge.

This summer, Michael Kors did haute Indian-look accessories at Celine. In caramel-toned leathers, he offered studded and tooled leather bags: consider it haute fusion fashion for urban fashionistas. To carry into next year, we have this week’s round of men’s wear designers nodding to the trend in Paris and Milan. Gaspard Yurkievich created what Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune called “a homo-erotic Kama Sutra with his four models as an art fest at the Centre Pompidou.”

And chandelier earrings, hot at this year’s Oscars, are perfect for glamming up a summer outfit. Of course, nose rings, toe rings and belly jewels remain plentiful, but ankle bracelets with bells means you can make music wherever you go.

Other Indian-inspired garments include shirts with religious symbols used as motifs. Ryan Seacrest, American Idol host turned celebrity, recently appeared on an episode of American Juniors outfitted in a shirt printed with Om written in Hindi. Look for them in Indian import shops such as Om Mantra on Toronto’s Queen Street West.

But be careful what you are wearing: Earlier this year, American Eagle had to withdraw a line of flip-flops from its stores that featured images of the Hindu elephant-headed deity Ganesh. In the Hindu tradition, shoes are taken off when going to the temple, and the use of the image was the subject of complaints by the group American Hindus Against Defamation.

For his part, Chatwal thinks the Indian culture has become part of a global culture.

“Yoga, Bollywood, spirituality, films like Bend it Like Beckham and Monsoon Wedding, they’ve become a way of life out here,” he says. “It’s great. It’s great that people here are exploring the depth and spiritualism of Indian culture.”

Toronto Star, [04/12/2003]

West’s love affair with the East has such deep roots that it’s hard to tell which is which

Special to the Star

Stretch cotton yoga pants: $55. Henna tattoo on the navel: $15. Silk sari window treatment: $150. Nirvana-in-three-easy-steps: Priceless.

Easy exotic is up for grabs, from “chai tea” to Bollywood-inspired blockbusters such as Moulin Rouge.

And it has become so enmeshed in everyday life that it’s sometimes hard to recognize what you could call the “exotification” of Western culture.

The idea is that one can buy an essence of India, bottled into yoga kits, henna tubes or Bollywood movies.

But whereas in the past the exotification of the East largely occurred outside mainstream Western culture, the current revival has somehow made its way inside.

“This kind of movement usually starts on the fringes, mainly by the people involved in art, fashion or culture,” says visual artist Shelly Bahl, who divides her time between New York and Toronto.

To illustrate her point, she draws on examples from the U.K., Toronto and New York:
In the U.K., Talvin Singh came out with an album in 1997 called Anokha that uses the Indian drums tabla tradition.

In Toronto, we have Funkasia, a monthly club event where Bollywood tunes play alongside r’n'b hits.
In New York, there’s a Bollywood disco movement going on.

“In the past, this would have been considered alternative. These days, everyone goes for it,” Bahl says.

“Or, in the past, Bollywood used to have a cult-level interest. Now you just turn on the TV or go to a mainstream cinema to watch a Hindi film.”

With the Indian culture’s resurgence in the West, Bahl experienced déjà vu.

“It suddenly hit me last year. I woke up one day and I wasn’t sure what decade I was in,” says the 33-year-old Bahl, whose own work explores the exotification of Indian art. “Fashion magazines had these India-inspired clothes, yoga was big, people were talking about Buddhism. It was a complete hippy culture revival.”

But it’s been a long time since the Beatles jammed with Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar and meditated with Indian yogi Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Today, we take the fallout of that culture shock for granted.

Take yoga.

It’s no longer limited to celebrities. Most physical fitness centres worth their salt offer a few classes ranging from power yoga for the busy Bay Street executive to a gentle version for pregnant women. Specialized yoga centres are all over the city offering different types of yoga and yoga exercise kits can be bought at department stores, your local Chapters and even at some newsstands, alongside yoga books and magazines.

Henna designs, an art form peculiar to eastern and African cultures, has fascinated the West for decades. Maybe it’s because the burgundy-black stain is so ephemeral, maybe it’s the exotic allure, but henna has certainly gone beyond a ritual application at marriage ceremonies.

Several Toronto salons offer henna applications, varying from traditional hand and foot designs to more contemporary armbands or navel tattoos.

Saris and bindis were discovered and discarded by the likes of Madonna, Mary J. Blige and Gwen Stephani a few years ago, but they haven’t gone away. The sari is ubiquitous, appearing not only on people but also as window treatment and wallpaper on home decorating shows.

Bollywood chic invaded the streets of New York and several British department stores last year, following the success of Monsoon Wedding and the Oscar nomination for the Bollywood movie Lagaan.

And just when you thought the Indian look was out, the April issue of Cosmopolitan includes a section on how to wear the shirt inspired by the kurta, the Indian tunic (it should be worn with jeans or slim fitting pants). A similar look was also sported by Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston in recent episodes of Friends.

Even more interesting was the decidedly Eastern influence on urban artist Truth Hurts track “Addictive,” which sampled some lines from a Bollywood soundtrack of yesteryear. The video shows women dancing to hip-hop beats but pairing jeans with a combination of Indian and Middle Eastern outfits and wearing intricate henna designs on their hands.

The West has a long history of looking to the exotic East to serve as muse. And as before, India, too, is cashing in on this trend by packaging its culture and spirituality to attract the West. But why is it happening with such intensity now?

One of the reasons could be Bollywood. India’s mammoth filmmaking industry, churning out close to 1,000 films a year in several Indian languages, has had a worldwide impact. Hollywood constantly influences Bollywood, but recently the roles have been reversed.

Hollywood’s affair with Bollywood was set rolling by Baz Luhrmann’s spectacle Moulin Rouge. Luhrmann made the film, starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGreg, in 2001, inspired by a mixture of the Orpheus myth and the stylized extravagance of Bollywood.

Recent movies such as New York-based Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, U.K.-based Gurinder Chadha’s Bend It Like Beckham and Toronto’s own Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood Hollywood indicate that movies with more than a hint of Indian masala can get play in mainstream cinemas, even as Bollywood movies run regularly at select South Asian theatres in the GTA.

Then there was The Guru - a Bollywood-inspired Hollywood production that put together Hollywood star-power (Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei) and British-South Asian actors (Jimi Mistry and Emil Marwah). From the makers of Notting Hill and Four Weddings And A Funeral, The Guru is about a young Indian dance teacher Ramu Gupta (Mistry) who comes to America in the hopes of becoming a Hollywood star but ends up becoming an overnight celebrity as “the guru of sex.” He is aided in this transformation by porn star Sharrona (Graham) and ditzy socialite Lexi (Tomei).

The growing South Asian diaspora may be another factor in this revivalism of “India Pop.” People who have ethnic roots in South Asia share in this idea of India as a land of Eastern sensuality and ancient wisdom.

This way, they maintain their cultural distinctness, but are part of mainstream Canadian culture.
India itself is fanning the market. Ritu Birla, associate professor of history at the University of Toronto, points out that the figure of the Indian yogi, a spiritual adviser from the East, is a perfect example. It feeds into the concept of the disillusioned Westerner aching for some Eastern spiritual respite.

Take for example, medical-doctor-turned-lifestyle/spiritual guru Deepak Chopra. Over the past five years or so, Chopra has transformed himself from just another advocate of holistic health and nutrition to an international supersage, with reported earning of more than $22 million.

Chopra’s slick packaging of ancient Indian wisdom in credible Western garb is in vogue in India, too. Models-turned-yoga teachers are opening up yoga schools in Indian cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai. Alternative therapy is huge, with a dedicated following of moneyed Indians.

This is reminiscent of a few years ago, when various members of the Indian elite confessed to having “found Buddhism” at the same time Richard Gere was talking about his lifestyle as a Buddhist.

The East mimicking the West mimicking the East. There is another element of the ridiculous in all this.

“It’s interesting that you are trying to get away from the consumer culture (of the West), and yet you are consuming another culture,” says Bahl.

“Even if your interest in another culture is with the best of intentions, unless you completely understand the history and are conscious of your own participation in the process, there will be an element of appropriation.”

The Toronto Star, [08/16/2002]

Cecil’s Journey part of Filmi festival at Harbourfront

It started out as an intellectual exercise: Go to Sri Lanka to document the current situation, maybe throw in a few family references. But nothing had prepared filmmaker Rohan Fernando for his journey to the country he left when he was 5.

Cecil’s Journey, the story of the 29-year-old Halifax resident’s passage to Sri Lanka, typifies the immigrant experience - of journeys between countries, cultures and even generations.
Fernando’s documentary screens this weekend at Filmi 2002, part of the third annual South Asian film festival being held as a part of Masala! Mehndi! Masti!, a three day South Asian cultural festival that starts tonight at Harbourfront.

Cecil’s Journey is typical of a growing phenomenon, as lower costs of filmmaking lead to many more independent movies being produced by the growing South Asian Diaspora. Their stories include documentation of the immigrant experience, the trials and tribulations of second-generation South Asians caught between two colliding cultures, or even playful shots at Bollywood.

This phenomena is one of the reasons Mohit Rajhans co-founded the first Filmi film festival in 2000.

“We like to call it the Sundance of Bollywood,” jokes 26-year-old Rajhans. “There’s a niche of independent South Asian cinema that’s influenced by both Bollywood and (North American) cinema. It needs to be explored not just for the South Asian market but also for a more mainstream market, so that they can realize just how diverse we are.”

Growing from a one-day event the first year to four days this year, Filmi 2002 has eight countries represented and several directors coming to Toronto.

“We have a Filmi perspective where we show the first and most current work of a filmmaker of international acclaim,” says Rajhans. “This year it’s Mira Nair. And we have something for everyone whether it’s a documentary by Lalita (Krishna) on battling hate crime or a German take on Bollywood. We also have films dealing with journeys, such as Bollywood Bound and Cecil’s Journey.”

Fernando’s journey - the name Cecil in the title of the documentary refers to the name he was given when people couldn’t pronounce Rohan - started off as a casual chat with producer Peter d’Entremont about going back to Sri Lanka for inspiration for his paintings.

“Peter thought it would be an interesting story to document,” says Fernando. “We got some interest going and managed to get some development funds. A producer asked me whether I was going to visit my family. I said no. She said I should. I said maybe, in between shoots.”

Growing up in Canada, Fernando didn’t have much perspective in the country of his birth. He’d had a need to suppress “that part of (his) identity” that made him different. His family never talked about the war in Sri Lanka because of the pain associated with the topic. The research for his documentary, into the recent violent history of his homeland, left him “blown away.”

Although he wanted to deal with these issues, it was the sensual shock that hit him when he arrived in Sri Lanka.

“It was literally like going back in time,” says Fernando. “The smells, the tastes, the colours, everything took me back to my childhood. Although I was trying to hold on to the documentary sense, I just wanted to belong to this place. But I was also frustrated because I was like an outsider there as well. I was being questioned as to why I had come back.”

The hour-long debut documentary eventually became a personal journey, informed by family stories, snippets about the war and picturesque montages. The labour of love - the production aspect came together only last year with assistance by the National Film Board - has allowed Fernando to answer some questions about his identity.

“This journey leaves me in a very different place,” he says. “It’s turned my life around and allowed me to accept a lot of things - my cultural heritage, the colour of my skin.”

Toronto Star, [06/21/2002]

Subculture hopes Saturday festival will spark rejuvenation

Goth culture, with its fascination for the “other side,” often flirts with the idea of immortality.

Yet Toronto’s Goth community is facing a slow death as older members of this subculture trade in their leather corsets and PVC pants for jobs, marriage, mortgages and kids.

In order to bring in fresh blood, metaphorically speaking of course, three members of Toronto’s Goth community decided to put together reJUVenator, a two-part festival running tomorrow at the Kathedral and the Reverb, both on Queen St. W.

While most of the daytime activities are all ages, including Kid’s Spooky Corner, where face-painting and activity books will be available for the young ones, and a writer’s corner and a fashion show, the Goth Gala at night, featuring 12 DJs and three live bands, will be restricted to those above 16 years of age after midnight.

“The Goth community has been going somewhat downhill in Toronto and other cities,” says Dem, short for Dementia, one of the three Goths behind the event. “So we thought of reJUVEnator. We wanted to have something where the younger people meet the older people and just get involved.”

Dem, who wouldn’t give her last name, runs one of Toronto’s popular Goth websites, www.toronto-goth.com.

Co-chair Sinn, a transgender Goth who wouldn’t give his last name, drew inspiration from the Pride Day festivities for a day to celebrate Goth culture.

“Once Goth clubs such as the Sanctuary and the Anarchist’s Cocktail shut down, things were getting a bit slow,” he laughs. “Some of the older members are settling down - not selling out so much, but they’re just toning things down a little. And the Goth community is pretty individualistic. So we thought we would just bring people out of their little corner and celebrate an event as a community.”

Goth culture has often been described as a sub-classification of punk culture, which later evolved into its own subculture.

Goths are thought to commonly dress in black clothing, wear pale makeup and sport body piercings. A fascination with Medieval, Victorian and Edwardian history and a strong tendency for depression are other supposed Goth characteristics.

However, different people have different definitions of what’s Goth, says Sinn.

“The whole idea behind being a Goth is that you’re unique,” he says. “You can’t pigeonhole Goths, which is why Goths are some of the most creative people around.”

Both Dem and Sinn call themselves older Goths, giving their ages as around 30.

“We are pretty vain, you know,” laughs Sinn. “Some of our elders are as old as 60, while the underagers could be anywhere from 16 to 17.”

But while Sinn adopted the Goth lifestyle only three years ago, Dem has been around this scene since she was in high school.

“It’s just something I felt comfortable with,” she says. “There are so many aspects that I liked. The beauty of the dark side, the music and the literature and the club scene.”

Goth clubs are an integral component of the lifestyle and played an important role in the history of Toronto’s Goth culture, Dem explains.

“Some people would say that the Goth culture grew out of England’s punk culture in the late ’70s,” she says. “In Toronto, I would say the Goth culture started in the ’80s - that’s when you had many clubs.

None of them are around now. One of the classics was Sanctuary Vampire Sex Bar (located at 732 Queen St. W.), which everyone knew about. There were a variety of events that would happen … seven days a week.”

While new Goth clubs have opened since, Dem says it’s not quite the same thing.

Fulfilling his promise to build another club, Sanctuary’s owner, Andrew “Lance” Lee, is now running The Vatikan. Another Goth club called Savage Garden recently celebrated its eighth anniversary, making it the longest running Goth club around.

Heather Leson, a corporate Goth - i.e. Goths who works in corporate firms - calls it the evolution of the Goth community.

“There have been a number of club closures since the Sanctuary but many other clubs are still around and they are full,” the 31-year-old Leson says.

“There’s no death of the community. It’s just changing, it’s evolving. There are so many different genres of Goth music, for example. There’s industrial music, cyber Goth, ethereal music, traditional Goth and EBM - electric body movement music. It’s very diverse.”

Toronto Star, [10/26/2001]

Film tackles community’s taboo subject

“We realized how our parents are silently struggling with this complete change in their plans for us, which is why we called it the Rewriting The Script,” says Leela Acharya.

The Toronto filmmaker is referring to a controversial documentary she’s directed entitled Rewriting The Script: A Love Letter To Our Families that explores homosexuality in the South Asian community.

The 45-minute film, which cost a modest $20,000 to produce, is a series of interviews with six gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered South Asians and their families.

With homsexuality a taboo subject for South Asians, funding quickly became a problem when the nine-member Desi Queer Video Collective, a group of teachers, journalists, community activists and educators embarked on their project.

“There is a lot of money in the South Asian community but they could not get over their homophobia to help us,” explains Acharya.

“We could not approach arts funding (organizations) because that’s for individuals. Community-based funding required us to be a charitable or a non-profit organization. We ended up affiliating with CTYS (Central Toronto Youth Services), which had not done a lot of anti-racism work but approached and supported us.”

The filmmakers also faced criticism from the likes of Toronto city councillors Doug Holyday and Rob Ford.

“Spending $5,000 on this video is disgusting . . .” said Ford, a sentiment echoed by Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente. In a column last July, Wente dismissed funding for a project she felt concerned only a tiny sub-segment of Toronto.

Undeterred, Acharya is pleased with the finished product.

“We were lucky to have Shyam Selvadurai (author of Funny Boy) and his extended family members speak candidly about their experience of handling issues of sexuality after Shyam came out to them. The others are regular South Asian people from various religious, ethnic and income groups.”

Despite the history of South Asian homosexuality, many parents cannot deal with the idea of a homosexual child. Others, more supportive, feel isolated in the face of the peer pressure of keeping up with the “Mehtas” and their MBA son with a car and a house in the suburbs. Their children, on the other hand, need the support and strong connection from their family of origin.

“Mainstream organizations like PFLAG (Parents of Lesbians and Gays) are very white and very middle class,” notes Acharya, who grew up in Edmonton and moved to Toronto 10 years ago.

“South Asian-specific organizations do not have programs to deal with homophobia. Our main aim is to strengthen our families of origin, so that they can watch the video and see that they are not alone.

“We tried to focus on the parents because, in a way, they are coming out too. Their biggest fear is that they are going to be thrown out of the South Asian community.”

In the film’s interviews, some subjects talk about their religious dilemma in seeking spiritual solace to escape racism but being unable to admit their homosexuality.

They also discuss their tendency to underestimate their parents and the fear of the moment of coming out because they risk the loss of their family.

For their part, parents talk about strategies they’ve developed to deal with the situation.
Acharya hopes to get the video out to South Asian families. She also wants to see it distributed to public schools, libraries and community organizations.