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.”

The Toronto Star, [05/05/2002]

For Neeru Bajwa and Vikram and Vekeana Dhillon, a quick trip to India was easy.

They’d just ride out to the local Canadian cinema playing Bollywood fare, usually to full houses. They would indulge in a three-hour-plus melodrama replete with songs, dances and over-the-top action sequences. And of course, grab a samosa during the intermission.

But soon this weekend affair with Bollywood turned into a quest that led them from the freezing temperatures of Canada to the monsoons of Mumbai, India.

They wanted to be stars, Indian style.

While a role in Hindi films still eludes them, they did end up starring in a documentary, Bollywood Bound, by first-time director Nisha Pahuja.

The sold-out Toronto premiere at the Bloor Cinema closes the international documentary festival Hot Docs tonight at 6: 30.

For many others like Bajwa and the Dhillons, Bollywood is a formative part of their hyphenated identity. It’s pop enough for their westernized tastes, yet it also speaks to their realities growing up as South Asians.

“I was talking to these girls in Mississauga,” says the 34-year-old Pahuja. “I asked them why they watched Bollywood movies. And they said they could relate to the characters. Because just like Kajol (an Indian film actress), they couldn’t get a phone call from a boy.”

Pahuja relaxes in the Chapters opposite the offices of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), which produced Bollywood Bound, sipping a soy-milk chai. Her silver nose ring matches silvery gray strands peeping through her curly dark hair.

It’s been a hectic few days full of interviews, and she’s apologetic that she only has half an hour to speak before rushing off to another one.

A graduate of English literature, Pahuja wanted to be a writer. Then a friend offered her a research job, which eventually led to the NFB. When she pitched her idea about following Indo-Canadian youth with Bollywood dreams, she got a favourable response.

“It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment I decided on this idea,” says Pahuja. “It had been brewing with me for a while. I’ve had this love for Hindi cinema. But there was also a rejection of anything Indian.”

Pahuja’s family moved to Canada when she was 4. The experience of being an immigrant child - dealing with racism and the lack of positive South Asian images - resulted in a sense of self-loathing and shame.

But in the latter half of the ’90s, with the release of technically and esthetically slick movies such as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and 1942: A Love Story, Pahuja rediscovered her love for Hindi movies.

“I was at Desh Pardesh (a now defunct South Asian diaspora arts festival) five, six years ago,” she says. “And DJ Zahra was playing some Bollywood remixes. Suddenly she played ‘Rang Barse,’ (a famous song from the ’80s movie Silsila starring Rekha and Amitabh Bachchan), and everyone just erupted. They were dancing crazy and doing their best Rekha and Amitabh impersonations.

“I thought, holy mack! There’s so much joy. A celebration, an embracing of brownness. There’s a film in this. Something needs to be done about Bollywood. Then one day a journalist friend told me about her story on Ruby Bhatia, and it just all clicked.”

Bhatia was a former winner of the Toronto-based Miss India-Canada pageant and went on to become a celebrity as a video jockey and a morning-show host on Indian television.

In the early ’90s, Indian television was opening its doors to satellite television. Bhatia was the perfect combination of “east and west” and had that extra spark that made her an overnight star.

For Indo-Canadian kids, Bhatia’s success story has become the great Indian dream. Bajwa, one of the stars of Bollywood Bound, was also a Miss India-Canada contestant in 1999.

“When I saw her picture in the program booklet, I knew this chick was Bollywood bound,” grins Pahuja. “Where the other contestants had more sedate pictures, (Bajwa) had this really glam shot, with her head thrown back. Very Bollywood.”

Locating the Dhillons was just a fluke. When visiting Rishma Malik, another former Miss India-Canada winner who had a brief stint on Indian television, Pahuja came across an Indian magazine article on Vekeana. Pahuja got in touch with the sister-brother team when she reached India.

Speaking over the phone from Mumbai, Vikram says he’s recently formed his own production company called Miracle.

“It a miracle to be here, you know,” he laughs. “My sister Vekeana and I worked as VJs for a year. I got bored with that; it wasn’t my cup of tea. At Miracle we make TV software, music videos, ads, and we’re promoting new talent from Canada. Right now I am promoting (an Indo-Canadian) group from Vancouver called Signia.”

His sister, meanwhile, is writing a book. Now 28, Vikram hopes to direct his first film before he’s 35. He’s heard that Bajwa is in Mumbai too, but he hasn’t been able to locate her.

“If you find her before I do, tell her I’m looking for her,” he says.

For Pahuja, however, Bhatia was the most fascinating character.

“You get this sense that she’s always playing a role,” she says. “She’s very smart and intelligent. She’s also very conflicted and totally enigmatic.

“What’s interesting is that everyone (Bhatia, the Dhillons and Bajwa) has this romanticized view of India. (Bhatia’s) fantasy of India as a holy land is just as romantic as (Bajwa’s) fantasy of finding work in Bollywood or Vekeana’s of coming home.”

Bollywood Bound plays with this notion of illusion and reality by interspersing clips from popular Bollywood films in the midst of its narrative. This juxtaposition also reflects the importance of Bollywood for South Asian children growing up in Canada.

“For people of my generation, everything is a negotiation. We’re not comfortable in our skin,” says Pahuja.

“These films are somehow representative of a community trying to locate itself. There’s a mixture of anger and loss. Anger because you know the films are playing on your emotions to make a buck. But there’s also that call back home.

“Hindi films have somehow made the transition from that world to this world easier.