Vasundhara Sirnate Profile picture
Jun 18, 2020 15 tweets 4 min read Read on X
So I finally watched #Axone on Netflix. Some quick thoughts from an “inbetweener”. @kaustubhdeka @AruniKashyap

PS: I may not get all of the points right. Happy to engage.
the film is supposed to be humorous but I felt as if the comedy tried to override the overwhelming burden of assimilation placed on the characters. It presents assimilation as a solution to racial discrimination. Unfortunately, there is a trade off between
being true to oneself and assimilating which can often result in a loss of identity. In my mind, no one should have that burden to be “more same than different” from the majority in any country.

The character of Bendang Longkumer is a tragic one. He is someone who has survived
a lynching and it has left him scarred and unable to have normal friendships with anyone outside of his own community. This is clearly a nod to the tragic murder of Nido Taniam in South Delhi in 2014. Had Nido survived, he would have felt trauma similar to the film’s character.
For me it was important that the film showed how acts of hate and violence affect people mentally and emotionally. It’s something I keep talking about - trauma - and I did find it odd that the film created some silence around the subject of trauma.
Trauma can drastically shape our political world views and our sense of belonging to any community. The character of Longkumer is asked how many friends he has outside of his community and told that not all Indians are bad, in one poignant moment in the film.
However, in doing so it removes the questions of justice for hate crime victims and also does not hold mainland Indians accountable for their racism and violence.
In fact, this is the part that troubled me most. Even the friendly young Indian man practices casual racism and objectifies northeast women. I find these quotidian microaggressions as problematic that the film used them as sources of humor for the plot.
I worry that it may have ended up arguing that casual racism/ commentary is somehow acceptable.

However, I did watch every minute and I was glad to see Northeast represented in its own way and through its own words on screen. I loved the music and am going to see
how to get the soundtrack. I also cried a little when Bendang sings a beautiful song with his guitar telling a story.

Many moons ago my roommate in college was a Mizo woman. She had many struggles in life and could sometimes be distant.
But often she would sit by the window in our dorm and sing to herself while I made beaten coffee for us with milk powder.

On watching that scene in the film this memory suddenly emerged. When I had visited her in Mizoram she had told me about the death of her
younger sister in Delhi. An unsolved mystery, now a closed case. But almost certainly a suspicious death. I wrote about it in an imperfect way when I was younger. Went to the grave in my mind. And suddenly the hate crime plot of the film was all too real.
You can watch Axone and enjoy it but also let it open you to the pain of northeast people. I am not an expert on technical aspects of film making, so I can only share what I thought of the script.
One last point. Everyone has a right to cook whatever cuisine they want without being censored for smell. But this struggle to find space to be able to cook something which is an affirmation of one’s identity, really broke my heart.
For a more thorough and critical review you can read this piece by @kaustubhdeka whose interactions have always left me more educated than before. raiot.in/diluted-smells…

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More from @vsirnate

May 4
In the last ten days, two things have occurred that should ideally make all state institutions in India place sexual assault as THE most critical security threat that HALF of all Indian citizens (500 million women) face every single day.
The first is the set of revelations by victims of #PrajwalRevanna who sexually assaulted, harassed, and molested several women and filmed them. He is a sitting member of the Lok Sabha. The number of video clips is over 2900.
The second is a judgment by the Madhya Pradesh High Court, which states, "When rape includes insertion of penis in the mouth, urethra or anus of a woman and if that act is committed with his wife, not below the age of 15 years, then consent of the wife becomes immaterial."
Read 14 tweets
Mar 16
Okay, looks like this is going to be a longish one. Hold on to your hats!

1. The media's job is to ask questions. Hard questions. Annoying questions. Questions that make the powerful want to toss custard at you. That's not being like the opposition. That's what the job is.
The state of the Opposition is not the media's fault. True. Literally no one is saying that. What they do say, and what I have also said in the past, is that opposing voices should be given fair air time. In India they don't. What the opposition does is barely covered.
The media IS a player. You can't have a country with politicians owning news networks or temporarily floating news networks around election time and then say "heh heh.. we aren't playing yo". You're playing. Every time you cultivate a source in a Ministry, you're playing.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 6
Hi David, I am deeply empathetic about what you have reported as your experience in India w.r.t. sexual harassment and sexual assault. Yes you’re quite right in your assessment, it’s what many, many of us have been saying and reporting for many decades.

However,
I must express my discomfort with YOU being the person articulating this.

I’ve gone over your note on Gaza and find it deeply disturbing. There is really no case to be made to colonize anyone, anywhere, anytime. Period.
Part of what makes the Indian women’s movement what it is, is our recognition that the type of oppression that exists for women, especially Dalit women who are doubly disadvantaged, is replicated in other forms and other shapes in different parts of the world.
Read 21 tweets
Feb 7
Okay let’s get to the most controversial part of the #UttarakhandCivilCode. I reserved judgment until I had waded through the whole pdf.

Here’s what I noticed.

👇🏽
The bill mandates live-in relationships to be registered with the Registrar. It then gives the Registrar the power to look further into this relation and summon the partner(s) OR ANY OTHER PERSON to verify this relationship and provide more evidence if needed. Image
Why does the Registrar have this power? Who will they summon? Will the names of other people that can be summoned by the Registrar be provided by the couple in advance? Or can it be anyone? Like an angry parent or mean cousin, or an employer of either partner?
Read 14 tweets
Apr 5, 2023
I’m going to link some tweets below about what the news isn’t showing you in India. A massive #WorkerFarmerRally today. Thousands of agricultural and industrial workers reached Delhi to rally in opposition to the govt’s neoliberal policies that favor corporates.
They began travelling to Delhi two days ago.
thehindu.com/news/national/…
Newsclick says "thousands" of workers and farmers. If you look at NDTV's report it says "hundreds".
newsclick.in/workers-and-fa…
Read 14 tweets
Apr 3, 2023
So this is something I am going to ask people to read. It is a story about Prof. Tamara Kay who has faced harassment for writing about reproductive rights. Her co-author on these pieces is one of my best friends, Prof. Susan Ostermann.

thecut.com/2023/04/tamara…
I’ve seen their work hitting back at the denial of reproductive rights and care for women in the US. Everytime a piece came out Susan would send me a message about it. They’ve written widely and strongly. I had some idea of the harassment they faced.
This piece details it. Religion in an educational institution and the power of the Christian right lobbying about abortion is the core of this situation. All I know is these are brave women. I will always stand by them.
Read 4 tweets

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