Transliteration and a rough translation (with notes) of a beautiful Pakistani song in Punjabi sung by YashalShahid. Her highly sorrowful and powerful voice conveys the grief of desertion by her lover. She has composed the above version herself.
The song is written by Sibtain Khalid who composed its music, and sang this song in March, 2017.
Tere dhoke ne (lyrics)
tere dhoke ne sajnA meiN nu mAr mookAya / meiN mar te gayiAN phir sAh kiyooN ae AyA
jag nu ravAyA, meiN tenu hasAyA / phir vi pale kuchh nayuN AyA
teri yAdAN sahAre meiN jee te lavAN gi / ae zehr judAee dA pee te lavAN gi
ek gham tu see ditA, sau gham Ap pAle / sab kitA see apnA tere hawAle
hoohN rAtAN nu yAdAN dee chhAve beh ke / meiN tasbih karAN terA nAN le ke
thak gaiyAN sAre meiN dukhDe seh ke / Ave gA muD ke gayA si tu keh ke
meri banjar akhyAN vich sAvan lawAyA /te mein hanjwaN di bArish vich piyAr bahAyA
tere dhoke ne sajnA meiN nu mAr mookAya / meiN mar te gayiAN phir sAh kiyooN ae AyA
Your betrayal (translation)
your betrayal has killed me, my love / I’m dead, so why am I still breathing, my love? <1>
I made the world cry but with smiles I graced you / yet, I didn’t gain anything from you <2>
with the aid of your memories, survive I will / the poison of separation too, drink I will
hundreds more I sprouted from the grief you gave / everything of mine, to you I gave <3>
at night, sitting under the shade of memories’ flame / using rosary, I recite your name
all the suffering that befell has exhausted me / you’ll return is what you had told me
my barren eyes are filled with the Saavan you brought / I let my love swept away in the tear-rainfall you brought <4>
your betrayal has killed me, my love / I’m dead, so why am I still breathing, my love?
Notes
<1> Its’ as if the person is saying: “I am a dead woman walking” — not in the sense of a prisoner being taken to be executed — but like a living corpse who has no desires or hopes. A person who is buried alive under the weight of her sweetheart’s treachery.
<2> That is, I fought and stood up against the world who was opposed to our union, to make you feel that you are not alone — you have someone by your side all the time.
<3> The grief of betrayal gave rise to many more sorrows, such as depression, loneliness, taunts and ostracism from the people I went against for you, and so on. Everything that belonged to me, including my existence, I gave it to you.
<4> The word “banjar,” common to several South Asian languages, means “infertile,” “unproductive land,” “barren,” etc. So if the barrenness has been filled with water, that is tears, the betrayed one should be thankful but that is not the case, and it shouldn’t be. I don’t know what the writer had in mind by using the word “banjar” here.
The Monsoon season lasts from June to September in the Indian subcontinent. The second month of rainfall, July 15 to August 15, is called Saavan.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com
Expect an imperfect deal by end of Q2 As Europe runs low on weapons, Ukraine on fighters, the U.S. on patience, and transatlantic unity frays, President Zelenskyy will likely be forced to accept a negotiated settlement with Russia sometime this year that freezes the fighting but stops short of a comprehensive peace agreement. Putin’s losses are also far from sustainable. At its current rate of gain, Russia will control all of Ukraine in about…118 years. So Putin will aim to cut a deal that is favorable to his overall goal to eventually control Kyiv. 2025 was always going to be the year of negotiation, and the endgame is here.
But will it last? The durability of any settlement will depend on: (1) how satisfied President Putin is with Ukrainian and Western concessions (did he get enough of what he wanted?). Both sides need a deal they can defend politically. And (2) the strength of the security promises underwriting it (are they sufficient to deter further aggression and allow Ukraine to rebuild with confidence?). These are in direct tension; the weaker the security promises, the more concessions Ukraine will have to swallow—neutrality, demilitarization, disarmament, territory, etc.—or risk a return to fighting.
Generally, we see 4 possible outcomes, each with parallels to other countries today:
Odds: 15% Best case – “South Korea” President Zelenskyy will get neither NATO membership nor the full restoration of Ukraine’s territory. However, if he can secure an in-country European tripwire force backstopped by an American security promise on assistance and intelligence support, then the 80 percent of Ukraine still under Kyiv’s control will be set on a much more stable, prosperous, and democratic trajectory. The West’s decision to leverage the approximately $300 billion it has frozen in Russian sovereign assets would also get reconstruction in Ukraine off to a good start.
OpenAI scrambles to remove personal ChatGPT conversations from Google results.
Faced with mounting backlash, OpenAI removed a controversial ChatGPT
feature that caused some users to unintentionally allow their
private—and highly personal—chats to appear in search results.
Fast Company exposed the privacy issue on Wednesday, reporting
that thousands of ChatGPT conversations were found in Google search
results and likely only represented a sample of chats “visible to
millions.” While the indexing did not include identifying information
about the ChatGPT users, some of their chats did share personal
details—like highly specific descriptions of interpersonal relationships
with friends and family members—perhaps making it possible to identify
them, Fast Company found.
OpenAI’s chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, explained on X that all users whose chats were exposed opted in to indexing their chats by clicking a box after choosing to share a chat.
Fast Company noted that users often share chats on WhatsApp or select
the option to save a link to visit the chat later. But as Fast Company
explained, users may have been misled into sharing chats due to how the
text was formatted:
“When users clicked ‘Share,’ they were presented with an option to
tick a box labeled ‘Make this chat discoverable.’ Beneath that, in
smaller, lighter text, was a caveat explaining that the chat could then
appear in search engine results.”
IMAGE/ChatGPT Share box via DaneStuckey on X
At first, OpenAI defended the labeling as “sufficiently clear,” Fast Company reported
Thursday. But Stuckey confirmed that “ultimately,” the AI company
decided that the feature “introduced too many opportunities for folks to
accidentally share things they didn’t intend to.” According to Fast
Company, that included chats about their drug use, sex lives, mental
health, and traumatic experiences.
Carissa Veliz, an AI ethicist at the University of Oxford, told Fast
Company she was “shocked” that Google was logging “these extremely
sensitive conversations.”
Guru Dutt: An Unfinished Story by Yasser Usman (Simon & Schuster, 1921)
Pyaasa dared to question a society that dismissed sensitivity and art in favor of money and power. It asked what matters more: art or ambition, integrity or money?
This year marks the
centenary of Guru Dutt, the legendary filmmaker-actor whose hauntingly
poetic cinema still stirs hearts a century after his birth.
Guru Dutt would have turned 100 on July 9, 2025. Yet he remains vividly alive in our collective memory through films that still resonate deeply. At the heart of his legacy is Pyaasa, his most haunting creation. While writing the book Guru Dutt An Unfinished Story, I discovered that Pyaasa, like much of his work, was deeply personal, drawn from his own rejections, loneliness, and creative yearning.
The making of Pyaasa was not just cinematic history in the
making, it was the story of a man revealing his soul. As the classic
unfolded like a fever dream on screen, Guru Dutt’s own life spiraled
behind the scenes.
Pyaasa was inspired by Guru Dutt’s early days in Bombay as well as the struggles faced by his father. His father’s lifelong ambition was to engage in creative writing but he could only become a clerk. This exasperation he felt manifested itself in a childhood marred with his bitterness, reclusion and constant fights in the house for Guru Dutt and his siblings.
Guru Dutt’s sister, the late artist Lalitha Lajmi had told me, “Yes, Pyaasa’s theme was inspired by my father. Father was very creative and well-read…Guru Dutt inherited my father’s temperament. But it also drew from Guru Dutt’s early struggles in Bombay.” After working as a young choreographer and assistant director at Prabhat Film Company in Pune, 22-year-old Guru Dutt arrived in Bombay in the late 1940s but 1947 turned out to be a year of rejection and humiliating struggle for him. India had just achieved independence but was suffering the bloody aftermath of the Partition. Guru Dutt lived with his family in a small rented flat and was struggling to make ends meet. He had realised how difficult it was for a creative man to survive or to make a place in the cut-throat culture of the film industry. He went door to door of many film producers but couldn’t get work for almost a year. In that frame of mind, he wrote the story about the frustrations and anguish of an artist and called it ‘Kashmakash'(Conflict). The first draft of ‘Kashmakash’ was intensely personal. Guru Dutt poured his disillusionment, disappointment and resentment into the story and promised himself that he’ll bring it on screen.
A decade later, this story would become the blueprint of his most celebrated film Pyaasa.
In the years that followed, Guru Dutt’s fortunes began to shift. By 1956 Guru Dutt had secured his place as a promising filmmaker with four three successes as a director- Baazi (1951), Aar Paar (1954) and Mr & Mrs 55 (1956). Success had brought Guru Dutt the quintessential Bollywood dream: a bungalow in posh Pali Hill, a marriage and children with legendary singer Geeta Roy, and his own production house where he wore the hats of producer, director, and lead actor.
Though he had achieved success riding on the popularity of romcoms and thrillers inspired from Hollywood, in his heart, he yearned to prove himself as a serious filmmaker. Finally, he chose the story he’d long yearned to tell. Pyaasa, which literally means ‘the thirsty’, ignited an unquenchable thirst for creative perfection that would ultimately consume him.
For his most ambitious film yet, Guru Dutt wanted the best actor
around. He wanted the ‘tragedy king’, the top star of the 1950s- Dilip
Kumar. Dilip was known to take his craft extremely seriously and was a
perfectionist to the core. He normally worked in one film at a time to
give it his 100 per cent. This was exactly the kind of dedication Guru
Dutt wanted from his Pyaasa hero.
Guru went to meet Dilip Kumar and narrated the script of Pyaasa to him. Dilip Kumar agreed to do the film in principle and quoted his price of one-and-a-half-lakh rupees. Guru Dutt requested him to consider reducing the price. In reply, he was asked not to worry about the money. Now that Dilip Kumar was to take on the lead role, his loyal film distributors would take care of the finances. This perhaps was the point where Guru Dutt disagreed with him. Guru Dutt clearly told Dilip Kumar that he had a fixed team of distributors too and he had committed Pyaasa to them. At that time Dilip Kumar promised Guru Dutt that he would come for the shooting from the next day.
The following day, all preparations were done for the muhurat shot. The entire unit of Pyaasa was waiting to welcome their star, Dilip Kumar. Hours passed but Kumar didn’t arrive. Guru Dutt’s production controller and confidante Guruswamy said, ‘I myself had gone to fetch Dilip Saab. But he was not to be found at home.’ Guru’s brother, Devi Dutt recalled, ‘He [Dilip Kumar] was to attend the mahurat at Kardar Studio. Also, [producer–director] B.R. Chopra’s office was in the same compound. Dilip Saab went there to meet him. Dilip Saab sat there discussing the script of Chopra Saab’s Naya Daur as the mahurat time (of Pyaasa) slipped by. Guru Dutt sent for him. Dilip Saab said he’d be there in ten minutes.’
But even then Dilip Kumar did not turn up.
Around lunch time, Guru Dutt sent for two bees. By 3 pm he had decided to play the protagonist himself and took the first shot- a close-up shot of a bee thirsty for nectar but a man passing by crushes the innocent life under his foot.
It’s true that had Dilip Kumar turned up on that fateful day, Pyaasa
would have been a very different film. But the way in which Guru Dutt
played the role of Vijay, it is difficult to imagine anyone except him
in that role now. He gave it his everything. Guru Dutt became Vijay, the
heartbroken poet. Guru Dutt had always underestimated himself as an
actor. In all his films where he had played the lead role, he was always
the reluctant second or third choice. But the audacious move by Guru
Dutt to take on the role that Dilip Kumar refused paid off and it became
‘one of Bollywood’s all-time greatest performances’.
With himself in the lead male role, the quest for the female lead started. The casting of the female leads for Pyaasa went through many changes. Initially Madhubala was considered to play the role that finally went to Mala Sinha. Meenu Mumtaz was signed as the streetwalker’s friend while the song ‘Jaane kya tune kahi’ was to be picturised on Kumkum. However, in the final cut, both Meenu Mumtaz and Kumkum were out. A relatively new actress, Waheeda Rehman, was finalized to play the lead role of the prostitute, Gulabo. It was Guru himself who had introduced Waheeda in Hindi films with his last production C.I.D directed by Raj Khosla.
Initially Guru Dutt’s team wasn’t happy with her casting. It was a complex role that required a mature and seasoned actress and Waheeda was just one film old. But Dutt was certain, captivated by the young South Indian’s quiet confidence. The new mentor-protege relationship was already being talked about in the corridors of the film industry.
As Pyaasa took shape, Guru Dutt’s personal life began to unravel. Once a celebrated love story between star singer Geeta Roy and the struggling filmmaker, their relationship changed after Dutt’s success. Though Geeta’s voice graced all his films and contributed to his rise, she often felt overshadowed and underappreciated. Lalitha Lajmi told me, “They were deeply in love. But there was one major conflict in their relationship. Guru had promised that Geeta would continue singing even after their marriage. But now he wanted her to sing only in the films produced by Guru Dutt. He wanted Geeta to take care of the family, the big house they had built. With every successful film Guru achieved fame while Geeta felt that she has been denied her share of fame.” Frequent arguments took their toll, and rumors of Guru Dutt’s closeness with Waheeda Rehman only deepened the rift between him and Geeta.
Guru Dutt initially planned to shoot the red-light area scenes on
location in Calcutta but shifted to a studio due to security concerns.
People close to Guru Dutt have gone on record to say that he did not
believe in shooting a film with a bound script or strict planning of
shooting schedules. He was rather fond of ‘creating’ the film as it took
shape on the sets, making a lot of changes in the script and dialogues.
Pyaasa was no different. Guru Dutt shot the film in random
order and it is said that the raw stock Guru Dutt used for any one film
could have finished three films. He would shoot and shoot and was unsure
about what he really wanted in a particular scene.
Even with himself, for the famous climax sequence in Pyaasa,
he shot one-hundred and four takes! He kept forgetting the dialogues as
it was a very lengthy shot, but he wanted it just right…he would
shout and get bad-tempered when things did not go right. Before Pyaasa, he would scrap only one or two shots of a film, rather than entire sequences. But beginning from Pyaasa,
the scrapping and reshooting had reached worrying new levels. People
close to him noticed this change. Many believed his personal turmoil was
wearing him down, but it was also clear that with his dream project Pyaasa, Guru Dutt was determined to leave no stone unturned in his pursuit of perfection.
Sleep evaded him. The misuse of and dependence on alcohol had begun. At his worst, he started experimenting with sleeping pills. Remembering those days, Lalitha Lajmi told this author, “The kind of serious films he was making had also affected him. His personality had changed. He had become more reclusive…sometimes he used to call me saying he wants to talk about something. But whenever I went to meet him, he never really confided. He was disturbed.”
He was once a telephone operator; then a dance director. Much later, he began making luminous films that remain classics to this day: Pyaasa, Jaal, Kaagaz Ke Phool.
In many cases, the stories were his stories; the tussles, his tussles.
In his centenary year, a tribute to a tortured artist.
Guru Dutt was born in 1925, into a family from Mangalore (now Mangaluru). His father, Shivashanker Padukone, moved cities and jobs frequently, before settling in Calcutta in 1929, where he found work as a clerk. (Incidentally, Dutt’s given name was Vasanth Padukone. His parents changed it after a childhood accident, hoping to accord him better luck.)
After school, Dutt stopped studying in
order to work and help keep the family afloat. At 16, he found a job as a
telephone operator. It was a relative who noticed his love for arts and helped him find a job with Pune-based Prabhat Film Company.
In this picture, Dutt is captured behind
the scenes of his final production ‘Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi’. This
film, a romance drama, was initially shot with him in the lead role; it
would be released two years later, with Dharmendra starring instead.
Dutt died by suicide in 1964.
When Dutt was found in his flat in
Bombay, dead having drunk a glass of water with sleeping pills dissolved
in it, he was only 39. It was his third suicide attempt.
In her book ‘Guru Dutt: A Life in
Cinema’, Nasreen Munni Kabir quotes his brother, filmmaker Atmaram Dutt,
as saying: “He was quite social in his early days…had a very pleasant
nature… Whether it was the success or his filmmaking, he became
increasingly enclosed, more and more cut off.”
In the early years, even his films
weren’t as dark. Dutt directed and starred in romantic comedies such as
Aar Paar (1954; in picture), playing a rakish but charming taxi driver
who finds himself fancied by two women.
In fact, the genre he founded — Bombay noir — was gritty but
not dark. Atmospheric and morally complex, these were films also laced
with humour. They featured smoke-filled clubs and cabarets, heroes who
were rakish rogues, women who were luminously beautiful, and sepia
streets pulsing with crime, romance and intrigue.
Among the pioneering films
in this genre were Mr & Mrs ’55 (1955; in picture), starring Dutt
and Madhubala; and Jaal (1952), starring Dev Anand and Geeta Bali.
…
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), about a successful film director’s self-destructive slide into penury and alcoholism, was so dark and defeatist, it crashed at the box office. Even Waheeda Rehman didn’t believe in it.
In
an interview with Nasreen Munni Kabir, she said: “I thought the film
was too sad…too heavy… I know there are many good moments in Kaagaz Ke
Phool, but as a whole I don’t think it worked.”
Dutt, who set great store by commercial success, lost a little more of himself with this failure. He never directed a film again.
…
A third dark classic, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962, in picture), would complete what is considered Dutt’s trilogy, following Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool, even though the 1962 film, produced by Dutt, was directed by his long-time writer Abrar Alvi.
The haunting story of a late-19th-century Bengali zamindari family’s decline, it features outstanding music by Hemant Kumar and a towering performance by Meena Kumari as the neglected ‘chhoti bahu’ who turns to alcohol in an attempt to win over her indifferent husband (Rehman).
The tragedy of his life, and his end, have marked Guru Dutt’s legacy, but there are lighter moments to remember too. On set, he was famously short-tempered and so compulsive a re-shooter that Alvi called him the “Hamlet of cinema”, after he took 104 takes of the climax scene in Pyaasa. He built a dream team around himself. Waheeda Rehman and Johnny Walker featured in almost all his films. Alvi buffed each screenplay until it shone. Master cinematographer VK Murthy and production head S Guruswamy worked with him for years. As did music composers SD Burman and OP Nayyar. Dutt’s wife Geeta Roy Dutt sang some of the most spectacular songs of her career in his films.
Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam — Guru Dutt’s masterpiece and Meena Kumari’s
tour de force — remains one of Hindi cinema’s most enduring classics,
even after more than half a century of its release, in 1962. Such is the
film’s following that well-known film journalists Dinesh Raheja and
Jitendra Kothari have published Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam: The Original
Screenplay — a slim volume which, as its name suggests, contains the
screenplay of the film in addition to several informative and compelling
essays about it. Also included are interviews of some of the people who
acted in and worked on the film.
Based on a novel by acclaimed
Bengali writer, Bimal Mitra, titled Saheb Bibi Golam, the film centres
on the relationship between Chhoti Bahu (the bibi), Bhoothnath (ghulam)
and her thakur husband (the sahib) and takes place in Calcutta, at the
end of the 19th century. Raheja points out that it was a time when the
“British Raj is in force and the film shows earnest freedom fighters
battling British Tommies in the streets of Calcutta … when buses were
drawn by horses. The film’s protagonist, Bhoothnath, stays in the staff
quarters of an imposing haveli which houses Chhoti Bahu. Sahib Bibi aur
Ghulam’s dominant theme is the slow degeneration of the grand haveli,
which is a metaphor for the old age zamindari finally collapsing under
the weight of British colonialism.”
Raheja points out several
elements that even the most avid fans of the film may have missed. For
instance, there is a definitive emphasis placed on detail with regard to
the haveli lifestyle. For instance, he points towards an “opulent
wedding for [the zamindar’s] cat,” the caste system that is almost
palpable in the film as well as the fact that the haveli’s Bari Bahu is
suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. A sub-plot of the film
revolves around the relationship between Bhoothnath (played by Guru
Dutt) and Jabba (played by Waheeda Rehman). However, the dominant theme
undoubtedly — and firmly — centres on the relationship between the
Ghulam and his Bibi.
This relationship begins when Bhoothnat is
ushered quietly into the haveli in the middle of the night to meet
Chhoti Bahu. Raheja points out that “to establish Bhoothnath’s sense of
awe and wonderment, Choti Bahu is introduced gradually — both Bhoothnath
and the audience first see her dainty, alta adorned feet and her
resplendent silk sari … a close-up of [Choti Bahu’s] luscious painted
lips followed by a shot of her evocative eyes suggests that the director
is emphasising Bhoothnath’s cognition of her physical attributes, and
is signalling the promise of a relationship. Or so one presumes, but the
relationship reveals itself to be far more complex as it unfolds on
screen.”
Director Abrar Alvi and cinematographer V.K. Murthy, who
passed away earlier this year, present Meena Kumari semi-lit or
surrounded by shadows, “this half obscure image adding to her
character’s mystique and layering the meaning of her actions. The
Caravaggioesque shadows also accentuate the atmosphere of neglect, and
evoke a sense of foreboding and claustrophobia.”
Chhoti Bahu asks
Bhoothnath to get some sindoor (he works at the factory that
manufactures it) because she believes that it will help her woo her
husband, who is prone to going to the local kotha at night, rather than
spending it with her. Thus begins the relationship between Chhoti Bahu
and Bhoothnat; the sindoor doesn’t work, after which, in another attempt
to woo her husband, Chhoti Bahu asks Bhoothnat to procure her a bottle
of alcohol and eventually becomes a raging alcoholic in a bid to secure
her husband’s affection. (Incidentally, this was the first time that a
woman was depicted drinking alcohol in a Hindi film.)
The most
interesting aspect of the film remains the ambiguity that envelopes the
relationship between Chhoti Bahu and Bhoothnath. Does the ghulam
physically desire her? Does she see him as more than just a devotee?
This question of course brings to mind that memorable scene during which
Bhoothnath grabs her hand to stop her from drinking more, which causes
her to yell and scream “O maa! Tune mujhko haath lagaya? Parayi stree ko
chua tune? Nikal ja yaha se!”
The obvious interpretation would
be that Chhoti Bahu is so faithful to her husband (who, to make things
even more complicated, it is insinuated may be impotent) that she cannot
stand the thought of another man touching her. However, another equally
potent interpretation is that she realises that she warms to his touch,
causing her to lose control and order him out.
Raheja, in another
article called Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam: An Ode to Platonic Relationships?
writes: “Whether or not there are subliminal desires that lurk in the
crannies of the heart, Chhoti Bahu does not see herself as the vehicle
for her own fulfilment. Bhoothnath walks into her life when her husband
had already made a habit of walking out on her but Chhoti Bahu never
loses self control even when she is drunk. She may have vaulted past a
critical barrier and taken to drinking — but only to please her husband …
If she has other feelings, she has sublimated them in sacrifice.”
The book contains interviews with Waheeda Rehman (who says that Guru Dutt was too old to play Bhoothnath, and admits that she wanted to play Chhoti Bahu’s role initially, among other things, although her relationship with Guru Dutt in real life unfortunately is not touched upon), the late V.K. Murthy who expands on how he used shadows to make Meena Kumari more mysterious and beautiful, as well as Minoo Mumtaz (the courtesan) and production manager Shyam Kapoor, both of whom provide insight to the making of the film and the man who was Guru Dutt.
Karuna and Gouri want to pay a tribute to their grandfather Guru Dutt through their work. They want to making films that “connect with people and have that resonance.”
Ahead of Guru Dutt’s birth centenary on
July 9, his granddaughters Karuna and Gouri, has remembered the
legendary filmmaker and actor, who gave classics, like Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, among others.
Gouri tells PTI they don’t tell people
that they are related to Guru Dutt and later, when people come to know,
they feel happy. Karuna says they would like to pay a tribute to their
grandfather through their work. She feels the best tribute they could
give to him would be by “making films that connect with people and have
that resonance.”
For the uninitiated, Karuna, 40 and
Gouri, 37, are daughters of Guru Dutt’s son Arun. Both were raised in
Pune and later moved to Mumbai, to start their career in filmmaking.
They worked with several filmmakers as assistant directors.
Guru Dutt
died in 1964 at the age 39, while his wife Geeta Dutt passed away in
1972 at the age of 41. Karuna and Gouri never met their grandparents,
but they have heard many stories from their father, uncle Tarun, and
their granduncle Devi Dutt and grandaunt Lalita Lajmi, Guru Dutt’s
brother and sister.
From the stories they heard while growing up, Karuna reveals that Guru Dutt was a disciplinarian, and a very generous person.
Their grandaunt told that he was very fond of sweets. She also reveals Devi Dutt telling them that after pack up, Guru Dutt would bring sweets for his crew to celebrate the work of the day.
Gouri also reveals Guru Dutt’s love for
animals and they have got the same passion from their granddad. She adds
Dutt had a lot of animals.
Gouri and Karuna are skeptical about documenting Guru Dutt’s life through a biopic or a book.
“I don’t know if I’d be able to be objective about it because at the end of the day, he is my grandfather. To make a good biopic on somebody, you do need objectivity to be able to talk about a person’s life as a whole. I would love to help, be a part of that process, but not personally make it.
“In terms of books, there’s so much written about him. We never met him personally, I don’t know what new we would be able to bring or say about him, even if it has to come from his grandchildren’s perspective,” Karuna says.
Iconic
Indian director and actor Guru Dutt was just 39 years old when he died
in 1964 but he left behind a cinematic legacy that continues to resonate
decades later.
Born on 9 July 1925 in
the southern state of Karnataka, next week marks his birth centenary.
But the man behind the camera, his emotional turmoil and mental health
struggles remain largely unexplored.
Warning: This article contains details some readers may find distressing.
The maker of classic Hindi films such as Pyaasa and Kaagaz Ke Phool – film school staples for their timeless themes – Dutt forged a deeply personal, introspective style of filmmaking that was novel in the post-independence era.
His complex characters often reflected his personal struggles; his plots touched upon universal motifs, inviting the audience to confront uncomfortable realities through hauntingly beautiful cinema.
Dutt’s beginnings were humble and his childhood was marked by financial hardship and a turbulent family life. After his family shifted to Bengal in eastern India for work, a young Dutt became deeply inspired by the region’s culture and it would shape his cinematic vision later in life.
He
dropped his surname – Padukone – after entering the Bombay film
industry in the 1940s. He made his debut not as a director but as a
choreographer, and also worked as a telephone operator to make ends
meet. The turbulence and uncertainty of the decade – India’s
independence struggle had intensified – impacted the aspiring
filmmaker’s prospects.
It was during
this phase that he penned Kashmakash, a story rooted in artistic
frustration and social disillusionment, ideas that would later shape his
cinematic masterpiece Pyaasa.
Dutt’s
friendship with fellow struggler Dev Anand – who soon rose to fame as
an actor – helped him get the chance to direct his first film in 1951.
The noir thriller, Baazi, propelled him into the spotlight.
He soon found love with celebrated singer Geeta Roy, and by many accounts, these early years were his happiest.
After
Dutt launched his own film company, he scored back-to-back hits with
romantic comedies Aar-Paar and Mr & Mrs 55, both featuring him in
lead roles. But yearning for artistic depth, he set out to make what
would become his defining film – Pyaasa.
The
hard-hitting, haunting film explored an artist’s struggle in a
materialistic world and decades later, it would go on to be the only
Hindi film in Time magazine’s list of the 20th Century’s 100 greatest
movies.
Dutt’s late younger sister,
Lalitha Lajmi, who collaborated with me when I wrote his biography, said
that Pyaasa was her brother’s “dream project” and that “he wanted it to
be perfect”.
As a director, Dutt was fond of ‘creating’ the film as it took shape on the sets, making a lot of changes in the script and dialogues and experimenting with camera techniques. While he was known for scrapping and reshooting scenes, this reached worrying levels during Pyaasa – for instance, he shot 104 takes of the now famous climax sequence.
He would shout and get bad-tempered when things did not go right, Lajmi said.
“Sleep
evaded him. The misuse of and dependence on alcohol had begun. At his
worst, he started experimenting with sleeping pills, mixing them in his
whiskey. Guru Dutt gave his all to make Pyaasa – his sleep, his dreams,
and his memories,” she said.
In 1956, as his dream project neared completion, 31-year-old Dutt attempted suicide.
“When
the news came, we rushed to Pali Hill [where he lived],” Lajmi said. “I
knew he was in turmoil. He often called me, saying we need to talk but
wouldn’t say a word when I got there,” she added.
But following his discharge from hospital, no professional support was sought by the family.
Mental
health was a “socially stigmatised” topic at the time, and with big
money riding on Pyaasa, Lajmi said that the family tried to move on,
without fully confronting the reasons behind her brother’s internal
struggles.
Released in 1957, Pyaasa
was a critical and commercial triumph that catapulted Dutt to stardom.
But the filmmaker often expressed a sense of emptiness despite his
success.
Pyaasa’s chief
cinematographer VK Murthy recalled Dutt saying, “I wanted to be a
director, an actor, make good films – I have achieved it all. I have
money, I have everything, yet I have nothing.”
There was also a strange paradox between Dutt’s films and his personal life.
His films often portrayed strong, independent women but off screen, as Lajmi recalled, he expected his wife to embrace more traditional roles and wanted her to sing only in films produced by his company.
Dutt, regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema, would have been 100 on July 9
They have grown up on stories of their grandfather, the fabled Guru
Dutt, carry his name with pride and say the best tribute to him would be
to work on films that connect with people.
Karuna and Gouri, daughters of Guru Dutt’s son Arun, are both in the film industry and have worked with several filmmakers as assistant directors. As grandchildren of the legendary Guru Dutt and Geeta Dutt, one an actor-filmmaker and the other a singer, the sisters say they don’t introduce themselves when they start a project.
“… We’re not like, ‘Oh, you know who I
am’… in the end they’re like, ‘What? You did not tell us this’, and
the reaction is happy and big,” Gouri, 37, told PTI.
As the cinema world celebrates the 100th anniversary of the filmmaker who gave Indian cinema a string of classics, including “Pyaasa”, “Kaagaz Ke Phool” and “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam”, the sisters discuss his enduring legacy.
“I feel the best tribute we could give to him would be by making films that connect with people and have that resonance. We would like to pay a tribute to him through our work,” added Karuna, 40.
They have, of course, never met either
grandparent. Guru Dutt died in 1964 when he was just 39. Geeta Dutt died
in 1972 at the age of 41. But they have heard many stories from their
father, uncle Tarun. And also from granduncle Devi Dutt and grandaunt
Lalita Lajmi, Guru Dutt’s brother and sister.
“He (Guru Dutt) was a disciplinarian. Both
the children (Arun and Tarun) were quite mischievous growing up. We also
hear that he was very generous as a person,” Karuna said.
“Lalita ji used to tell us that he was very
fond of sweets. I remember, Devi uncle once told us that after pack up,
he would bring sweets for his crew to celebrate the work of the day. So
these are these little things, the stories we’ve grown up with,” she
said.
Gouri added that she admires the legacy of
compassion that Guru Dutt instilled in the family, particularly their
love for animals.
“His love for animals got passed down to us
as well. Like, from our father and then to us, because he also loved
animals. He had a lot of animals,” she said.
The two sisters, both aspiring filmmakers, have reservations about chronicling Guru Dutt’s life through a biopic or a book.
“I don’t know if I’d be able to be objective about it because at the end of the day, he is my grandfather. To make a good biopic on somebody, you do need objectivity to be able to talk about a person’s life as a whole. I would love to help, be a part of that process, but not personally make it.
“In terms of books, there’s so much written about him. We never met him personally, I don’t know what new we would be able to bring or say about him, even if it has to come from his grandchildren’s perspective,” Karuna said.
They said they didn’t know how much their legendary grandfather meant to people until they started engaging with the film community where he is a much revered figure.
“It’s heartening to see how well loved he is
even today, and how many people are speaking about him and wanting to
celebrate his birth and his contribution to cinema. As his family, it’s a
matter of pride because there are so many artists who are so easily
forgotten; it’s joyous to see how he’s being celebrated,” Karuna said.
“I feel like that is the legacy he has left behind… that even after so many years, his writing, his direction, his voice as a director is still relatable and has still found a place in people’s hearts,” she said.
Hundred years is a long time but it’s amazing that people remember his body of work as if it was 10 years ago, said Gouri.
The sisters, who were raised in Pune and
later moved to Mumbai, recalled the impact Guru Dutt had on the
filmmakers they have worked with.
Karuna, who has served as an AD on Anurag
Kashyap’s films “Ugly”, “That Girl in Yellow Boots”, and “Gangs of
Wasseypur”, said he was working on a screenplay for a biopic on her
grandfather.
Kashyap visited her home in Pune to research
Dutt’s life, went through family photographs and letters for a biopic
that was to be directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.
“On one of the days of the shoot, I remember
him telling me how daunting he had found the task of trying to capture
my grandfather’s life in a screenplay. For him, it also came from a
moment of being such an ardent fan. ‘How do you do justice’? He had
found the process quite difficult,” Karuna said.
Gouri, who has worked as an AD on films like
“Victoria and Abdul”, “Tenet”, and “Girls Will Be Girls”, said she
often hides her connection with Guru Dutt and finds it amusing when
people discover it later.
“People who know him have a lot of
curiosity, and they are like, ‘How was he like? What was his life? What
do you know?’,” Gouri said.
Her favourite Guru Dutt movie is “Kaagaz Ke Phool”.
Karuna’s two personal favourites are “Pyaasa” and “Mr and Mrs 55”.
“‘Pyaasa’ because I feel as somebody in the creative field, you do understand that sense of disillusionment, you kind of connect to that from that perspective, which I feel like for a lot of filmmakers and writers, that’s the feeling for them as well. And ‘Mr and Mrs. 55’, I feel, because it’s a very rare opportunity to see a very lighthearted side of him, which most people don’t discuss very often. I feel like that is why that is one of my personal favourites.” Gouri said it is heartwarming to hear praise for her grandfather from those she works with.
“Last year, I worked with Sudhir Mishra sir, and he’s a huge, huge fan. He said his filmmaking affected by my grandfather’s films. It’s a lot of admiration. Everybody wants to share their side, their connection, how they connected to his work and how that has affected their work, be it a director or an actor or a musician or anyone.”
“The reason for these military operations was, and
still is, to tell the Israeli occupation that we defy it and are willing
to resist and go anywhere to express our defiance.”
Imprisonment is one of the most violent and oppressive
tools used by the zionist entity for dominating and oppressing
Palestinian people. Over the seventy-seven-plus years of colonial
occupation and apartheid, the zionist settler state has imprisoned
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in an attempt to humiliate,
dehumanize, subdue, and annihilate the population, but also to undermine
resistance. Since Operation Al Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, imprisonment has increased exponentially: there are currently 10,800 Palestinian political prisoners in zionist prisons; these numbers include 450 children and 49 women. And the zionist sadistictorture regime of prisoners continue with impunity.
But where there is repression, there is always resistance.
Fatima Bernawi was one of these Palestinians who dared to resist. An
Afro-Palestinian born in 1939 and a victim of the 1948 al-Nakba,
Bernawi understood clearly the unfair and inhuman treatment meted out
to her people when her family was forced to become refugees in Jordan.
Living under a dehumanizing occupation brought her into consciousness,
especially as a Black Palestinian woman. Bernawi’s father, originally
from Nigeria (her mother was Palestinian-Jordanian), participated in the
1936-1939 Palestinian revolution against the British colonizers, and in
defense of Palestine during the al-Nakba. In the 1960s, she
joined the Arab Nationalist Movement and was one of the early members of
the Fateh Palestinian national liberation movement. In fact, she had a
major role in establishing guerilla cells of the Fateh movement in the
occupied territories.
Barnawi is considered the “the first prisoner of the
contemporary Palestinian revolution.” She was the highest ranking female
in the Fateh militia and the first woman to be arrested and imprisoned
by zionist military forces after planting explosives in a theater that
was to show a film celebrating the 1967 war. Though the explosives were
discovered before they detonated, Bernawi, her sister Ishan, and
another member of Fateh were arrested. While the others were later
released, Bernawi was sentenced to life imprisonment. Bernawi spent more
than ten years in prison for her activism “against the nascent
occupation and displacement in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the
Gaza Strip,” which began in June 1967. In the Ramle zionist prison,
where Palestinian women resisters were sent, she suffered degradation
and humiliation; but she and the other prisoners fiercely fought against
their treatment.
Berwani was released in 1977 after much international
pressure and due to her deteriorating health. She was deported, but
returned to Palestine in the early 1990s, becoming the head of the
women’s wing of the Palestinian Police. Berwani passed away in Cairo,
Egypt, in 2022 at the age of 83. She remains a powerful symbol both of
Palestinian women and Palestinians of African descent in the resistance
against white supremacist settler colonial occupation.
Photographer George Freston poses as a passenger on the London Underground, reading D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover on the day the book went on general sale. IMAGE/ Getty
How the ban on D. H. Lawrence’s book Lady Chatterley’s Lover was reversed.
In 1960, D. H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover was charged with being obscene under British law. The book had originally been published privately in 1928 and then in France in 1929. There had been no legal publication in the UK until the 1959 Obscene Publications Act, which made literary merit a defense against charges of obscenity, emboldened Penguin to issue an inexpensive, unexpurgated paperback.
Literature scholar Christopher Hilliard notes that the new law’s backers were surprised by the action the Crown took in challenging Penguin. The Crown fell back on the century-long informal precedent of “variable obscenity,” which held that obscene books should be kept out of the hands of children, women, and the working classes, who were all susceptible to works likely to “deprave or corrupt.” Upper-middle-class male readers, on the other hand, could generally be trusted with suspect books. It was precisely Penguin’s paperback—cheap and mass-produced—that was the trouble.
“Material the authorities would ban if it was produced for a mass
audience did not necessarily warrant prohibition if it was directed
toward a privileged readership in whose judgement the courts could have
more faith,” Hilliard writes.
But it was now 1960. The prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, who had
represented the British at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, asked the
jury, “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or servants to
read?” In response, members of the jury broke out in laughter. Three of
the jurors were women. The jury pool also included a cross-section of
workers, including teachers, dockworkers, drivers, and salesmen. It was
unlikely that any of them employed live-in domestic servants.
Pakistani security officials inspect the scene of a blast at a railway station in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan province, Pakistan, 09 November 2024 IMAGE/EPA-EFE/Fayyaz Ahmed
A new Israeli-linked initiative exposes how liberation movements are being co-opted for colonial aims.
As Israel loudly beat the drums of war one day before its unprovoked
surprise attack on Iran, a small but significant piece of news slipped
by almost unnoticed: The announcement of a new research project on the
website of a Washington, DC think tank. On June 12, the Middle East
Media Research Institute (MEMRI) announced the launch of the Balochistan
Studies Project (BSP). Significantly, in addition to mentioning
Balochistan’s abundance of natural resources “such as oil, gas, uranium,
copper, coal, rare earth elements and the two deep seaports of Gwadar
and Chabahar”, MEMRI’s statement justifies the project’s necessity by
identifying the region as “the perfect outpost to counter and keep under
control Iran, its nuclear ambitions, and its dangerous relations with
Pakistan, which may provide Tehran with tactical nukes”.
MEMRI is well known for its selective translation of snippets of Arabic, Persian and Turkish-language media, screenshots from which often end up being shared as memes on social media platforms. Originally founded in 1998, the think tank has consistently peddled a pro-Israel agenda, with its founder, Colonel Yigal Carmon, having served in the Israeli Military Intelligence Corps for more than 20 years. Additionally, MEMRI has been involved “unofficially” in intelligence gathering for the Israeli state since at least 2012.
Given this context, MEMRI’s creation of the BSP can be seen as an indication of an Israeli attempt to co-opt the Baloch national struggle against both Iran and Pakistan for Israel’s geopolitical objectives. Given the strategic advantages that a successful co-optation of the Baloch cause would grant Israel, and the potential ramifications it would bear upon the resistance of stateless peoples within the region, including Palestinians as well as the Baloch, themselves, there is a need to examine the limitations of geopolitical thinking within national liberation movements.
MEMRI’s
announcement of the BSP is riddled with logical inconsistencies and
misinformation regarding the reality of exploitation and resistance in
Balochistan. For example, centring the fact that the states of both Iran
and Pakistan are currently fighting counterinsurgency campaigns in
Balochistan, MEMRI’s website calls for “the international community” to
“understand that Balochistan is a natural ally of the West” – ignoring
the fact that Western companies such as Barrick Gold and BHP Billiton
have played key roles in enabling colonial resource extraction and
ecological destruction in the region.
Another example relates to
the personnel involved in the project. One article on the BSP on MEMRI’s
website welcomes a “renowned Baloch writer, scholar, and political
scientist” called Mir Yar Baloch, whose X account “has been defined as
one of the most influential in the Subcontinent”, as a “special
adviser”. In May of this year, Baloch made headlines for unilaterally
declaring the independence of Balochistan in a series of posts on X,
where he also announced to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that
India had “the backing of 60 million Baloch patriots” after it launched
Operation Sindoor against Pakistan.
More than for his grand
proclamations, Mir Yar Baloch is interesting for the amount of mystery
that surrounds him, given his supposed status as an important and
influential Baloch intellectual. Despite being profiled by a variety of
news outlets – notably all Indian – none have deviated from
regurgitating a biography for him as limited as that published in the
MEMRI article. Significantly, however, more well-known Baloch activists
have been quick to distance themselves from him. Niaz Baloch of the
Baloch National Movement, for example, posted on X
that there exists no consensus for a declaration of independence among
Baloch leaders. Crucially, he also listed four “fake accounts”,
including that of Mir Yar Baloch, that he stated “should be reported and
unfollowed immediately”. Baloch activists therefore speculate that Mir
Yar Baloch is a fake persona created by a state with interests in the
region to support its objectives.
Balochistan is a region that
spans the border between Iran and Pakistan, where both states are
engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns that often spur tensions between
them. Each has accused the other of fostering instability by sheltering
militant groups across the frontier. Crucially, many Baloch people on
both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border view themselves as marginalised
and systematically oppressed by the states that govern them.
Baldwin’s assessment is shared by many others, such as Noam Chomsky, who discussed in his book (The Fateful Triangle,
1999 edition) Israel’s role as a “strategic asset.” (p. 69, 70, 103,
137) However, others, such as Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone
countered that assessment in a 2024 article, “The Myth of Israel as ‘US Aircraft Carrier’ in Middle East.” They write:
But the crucial evidence, totally missing from their
analysis, is the slightest example of Israel actually serving American
interests in the region.
If no examples are given, it’s simply because there are none. Israel
has never fired a shot on behalf of the United States or brought a drop
of oil under U.S. control.
We can start with a common sense argument: If the U.S. is interested
in Middle East oil, why would it support a country that is hated (for
whatever reasons) by all the populations of the oil producing countries?
Bricmont and Johnstone attribute the unstinting US support of Israel
as being influenced by money injected into the US political arena by the
Jewish lobby, in particular AIPAC.
The question of which side leads in determining US support for Israel
is debatable. What is indisputable is that the US and Israel are in
lockstep despite all the violations of international law by Israel (US
is a serial violator of international law, as well), despite several
massacres carried out by Israel, and despite the mightily ramped up
genocide being perpetrated by Israeli Jews against Palestinians
currently.
Genocide and the understanding of what unleashes the bloodshirtiest of human actions is the subject of Hamid Dabashi’s After Savagery,
scheduled for release by Haymarket Books on 30 September — while the
savagery is ongoing. The urgency for a worldwide response calls for
informing those unaware or those insouciant to the Jewish Israeli
genocide that is being perpetrated on Palestine (It is not just a
genocide in Gaza, as a 1 July 2025 Al Jazeera headline makes clear: “Israel has killed 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7, 2023.”). After Savagery, however, is not just about the genocide in Gaza, it is about why some humans commit genocide. So After Savagery
is also about “before savagery.” What are the conditions that lead to
savagery today. And most importantly, how genocide can be prevented from
happening.
Dabashi quotes many sources to attest to the genocide that is happening now in Palestine.
“What we are seeing in Gaza is a repeat of Auschwitz,”
says the Burmese genocide expert and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Maung
Zarni. “This is a collective white imperialist man’s genocide,” he
further explains. (154-155)
Asked to describe what he witnessed in Gaza, Dr.
Perlmutter replied, “All of the disasters I’ve seen, combined—forty
mission trips, thirty years, Ground Zero, earthquakes, all of that
combined—doesn’t equal the level of carnage that I saw against civilians
in just my first week in Gaza.” And the civilian casualties, he said,
are almost exclusively children. “I’ve never seen that before,” he said.
“I’ve seen more incinerated children than I’ve ever seen in my entire
life, combined. I’ve seen more shredded children in just the first week …
missing body parts, being crushed by buildings, the greatest majority,
or bomb explosions, the next greatest majority. We’ve taken shrapnel as
big as my thumb out of eight-year-olds. And then there’s sniper bullets.
I have children that were shot twice.” (103-104)
“Yes, it is genocide,” has affirmed Amos Goldberg, a
professor of Holocaust history at the department of Jewish history and
contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: “It is so
difficult and painful to admit it, but despite all that, and despite all
our efforts to think otherwise, after six months of brutal war we can
no longer avoid this conclusion.” (142)
Dabashi traces the roots of Zionism to a longstanding
settler-European colonialism. And the author lays bare the insidiousness
of Zionism and how this racism impacted Palestinians:
Today, the birth of Palestine as a “question” rather than
a nation-state marks precisely the birth of Palestine as a
constellation of refugee camps. The land was stolen from Palestinians,
the state stealing the land was a European settler colony garrison state
that rules over Palestinians with cruelty, the rules for the
inscription of life were dictated to Palestinians in draconian terms,
and the camps as the fourth inseparable element are precisely where
generations of Palestinians are born and raised, before being killed by
the Israeli military. (127-128)
Part of this racism towards Muslims, of which the majority of Palestinians are, is the use of the term “Muselmann[1].” Writes Dabashi, “This is perhaps a mini encyclopedia of European ignorance, Islamophobia and antisemitism all wrapped up in an attempt to unpack the word ‘Muselmann,’ but in fact loading it with more racist dimensions.” (120) And the new Muselmann, is the Palestinian, “the Untestifiable, the human animal, as Israeli warlords have said.” (xxvi)
Alex Haley co-wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X but Haley left out some profound elements of Malcolm’s political thought
In June 1963, Malcolm X and Alex Haley began working on the book that
would define both their lives. The arrangement was simple. Malcolm
usually arrived at Haley’s New York apartment at nine in the evening,
exhausted after a day’s work. The two men then talked late into the
night, discussing politics, religion and race over an endless stream of
cheap coffee. The next morning, a bleary-eyed Haley would adapt his
notes into a rough manuscript, trying to recreate Malcolm’s distinctive
voice. This draft would eventually become The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) – a landmark of American literature and one of the best-selling biographies of all time.
This success gave the Autobiography a lasting cultural
impact. Malcolm’s words have inspired protests and political campaigns
across the world, and been incorporated into music and artworks from New
York to Nairobi. In recent years, however, historians have begun to
criticise his ghostwriter’s influence over the text. Haley claimed to be
a ‘dispassionate chronicler’ but, they point out, he exaggerated parts
of Malcolm’s life and ignored others. As Malcolm’s career began to move
in unexpected directions, Haley even turned to plagiarism and invention
to fill gaps in the narrative. The result is a memoir that is neither
entirely Malcolm’s, nor entirely Haley’s, a testament to their difficult
relationship and the complicated circumstances of the book’s creation.
The Autobiography emerged from one of the most dramatic moments of the civil rights struggle. In June 1963,
as Malcolm and Haley sat down in New York, Congress was debating the
first draft of the Civil Rights Act – a historic piece of legislation
that promised to end segregation and outlaw racial discrimination.
Activists and campaigners across the country were busy preparing for the
March on Washington, an unprecedented rally in support of civil and
economic rights. White supremacists, in response, escalated their own
campaigns of intimidation and violence. In Alabama, the state’s governor
George Wallace protested in front of a state university in an attempt
to prevent Black students from attending the first day of classes. In
Mississippi, the civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered at his
home by a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Leading scholar Abdulla Moaswes joins Ramzy Baroud to trace the shared tactics of colonial control from Gaza to Srinagar.
In the latest episode of the
FloodGate podcast, Palestinian journalist and author Ramzy Baroud speaks
with leading scholar Abdulla Moaswes to explore the deepening ties
between India and Israel, and how those alliances impact the lived
realities of people in occupied Kashmir and Palestine.
The discussion delves into the
historical and political parallels between the two struggles, exposing
how frameworks of settler colonialism, surveillance, and militarized
control are being replicated and shared between the two states.
Moaswes also traces the evolution of
the India–Israel alliance, including arms trade, ideological
convergence, and shared counterinsurgency tactics.
This timely conversation challenges dominant narratives and highlights the global architecture of repression and resistance.
