Dr. Anjali Monteiro is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, pioneering media educator and prolific researcher. She is currently a board member (2022-24) of IAWRT International.
She was a fresh college teacher when she first got interested in using media for community empowerment in the late 1970s. She began working with Chandita Mukherjee, a filmmaker and a founding IAWRT member who recently passed away. It was also through Chandita that Anjali became an IAWRT member in 2014.
“She persuaded me to join as she felt that I could contribute positively to the organisation. I knew many other members, such as Reena Mohan and Bina Paul, as personal friends, so I felt I had entered a warm and welcoming space!” Anjali said.
Anjali’s work on documentary filmmaking, education and research entwined throughout her career.
“In the early 1980s, I joined Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), a premier institute for social work education, and worked on setting up an audio-visual unit there. Without any education or background in media, I found myself heading an audio-visual adult education programme. I learned the hard way, but it was also great fun and a journey of discovery,” Anjali recalled.
The audio-visual unit with two members has grown into a School of Media and Cultural Studies. Anjali worked at TISS from 1983 till she retired in 2020.
The Unit for Media and Communications Anjali set up got into documentary filmmaking in the mid-1980s, when video first became accessible and we have produced a number of award-winning documentaries on themes ranging from prison poets (YCP 1997, 1997) to the experiences of a transgender family (Our Family, 2007) to a series on the syncretic musical traditions of nomadic pastoralists who live on the border of India and Pakistan (The Kachchh Trilogy, 2009-17).
“In most of our work, the impetus has been to question received notions of normality and deviance, of the self and the other and to explore the wisdom of marginalized communities. I have worked on all these films in collaboration with my colleague, and later my life partner K.P. Jayasankar,” shared Anjali.
More about the couple’s work can be found at https://www.monteiro-jayasankar.com/
Another important contribution Anjali made was to set up a two-year Master’s programme in Media and Cultural Studies in 2007. This programme tries to bring together theory and practice in new ways, with a focus on critical theory, documentary film and multi-media journalism.
“We have produced many fine students who have gone on to become documentary filmmakers, journalists, media researchers and teachers,” Anjali said.
Anjali and her partner have written one of the first books on independent documentary film in India, entitled A Fly in the Curry: Independent Documentary Film in India, (Sage, 2016) which is a widely used and cited book. They have also written several papers and also non-academic writing on themes around documentary film and censorship.
Despite her retirement in 2020, Anjali and Jayasankar’s work in media, film and the academe continues. They have been focusing on writing on documentary film, as well as teaching as guest faculty in many media institutions. They also plan to get back to their documentary filmmaking practice, which took a backseat during the pandemic.
Anjali is also on the editorial board of FemAsia, which is a quarterly online feminist magazine with a South Asia focus; she writes and commissions work for it. She has also been on the jury of a number of documentary film festivals, both in India and overseas.
“I have been fortunate to have wonderful colleagues and together we have been able to do interesting work, in media education and documentary film production. However, things have become more difficult over the years in India. At the present juncture, working within the media, whether in media education or production, has become increasingly challenging,” Anjali shared.
She sees the current political scenario and the increasing commercialization of education in her country as drawbacks to access to education and freedom of expression that she has pushed for in her work.
“For a public university, it has become difficult to foster freedom of thought and expression and to preserve the mandate of free access for all, as the imperatives of a profit-driven education begin to impinge on what was earlier a heavily subsidised sector. Overall, the political scenario has created a culture of silence, sycophancy, fear and censorship, which is not conducive to freedom of expression and to a free and independent media. This makes it difficult for new entrants to the media to find safe spaces to work within, that are creatively and intellectually stimulating. Though the overall picture looks grim, there are always spaces of hope and resistance…” she said.
Also despite her retirement, Anjali has taken up another challenge to use her accumulated skills, expertise and knowledge to empower others: this time to serve as IAWRT International board member.
“IAWRT is at a juncture where it needs to seek new avenues for funding in order to sustain its activities, and I look forward to being a part of initiatives in this regard. I am on the Communications, Mentoring and Afghanistan Crisis Committee and I hope to contribute in all these areas, through writing, networking, mentoring and working in collaboration with my fellow board members. I hope to work in many different ways, to the best of my capacity, towards our collective vision of a gender-just media and safe spaces for women media workers across the globe,” Anjali said.
She also served on her local chapter’s board. She was a member of the IAWRT India Board of Trustees from 2016 to 2018 and was actively involved in work for the Asian Women’s Film Festival. During her time on the Board, she organised a series of gender sensitisation workshops for Bachelor’s level media students from relatively underprivileged backgrounds, from colleges in Mumbai.
“That was an activity that I really enjoyed, as the students, both women and men, came up with creative ideas to explore and question the ways in which gender relations of power impinge on their lives,” Anjali recalled.
Recently, Anjali has been involved in work on the Afghanistan crisis committee as IAWRT International board member and she shared that she has been so moved by the very adverse conditions under which IAWRT members from Afghanistan, some of them refugees, some in hiding, have been trying to survive and to work.
“IAWRT has helped me connect with women working in the media across many geographies. It has helped me understand the challenges under which women work, and to feel that I can contribute to amplify concerns around freedom of work and expression for women media workers,” she said.
She finds this connection and solidarity among women in media to be crucial more than ever.
“As I mentioned earlier, the challenges are sharper than ever before, as right-wing, undemocratic governments are in power, both within my country and elsewhere. In this scenario, with both overt and covert censorship on the horizon, it becomes increasingly difficult and dangerous to speak truth to power. I hope that the solidarities we forge within IAWRT and through other platforms and organisations can help resist these dangers and work towards safety and freedom of expression,” she said.
Retirement from a company or office does not mean a retreat from her life’s devotion. What Anjali started early in her career, she aims to continue.
“I hope to continue being a learner and a team worker, making films and other media materials that share indigenous knowledge, that represent marginalized voices and hopefully inspire others. I hope to continue writing books and articles that are thought-provoking and that make a contribution to knowledge. I hope to share my insights and to learn from young people for as long as I can,” she said.
For young women journalists, Anjali gave these words of advice:
“Be open, compassionate, and always ready to dialogue with others. Allow your creativity to flow without inhibition. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Always stand up for justice and freedom of expression. We live in difficult times, but we must continue trying to push the envelope. Above all, it is important to hope, no matter how dire the situation seems.”
https://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/AM_Crop-scaled.jpg25602200Lady Ann Salemhttp://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/logo.pngLady Ann Salem2023-06-25 16:07:212023-06-26 16:23:01Devotion to media for empowerment
IAWRT Nepal organized an orientation program titled IAWRT: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow on 16th June 2023 at Kalanki, Kathmandu.
Past President Anupa Shrestha, current president Ichchha Gurung and IAWRT International secretary Mandira Raut briefed about the aforementioned topic.
This program was all about targeting the new IAWRT Nepal members and interacting with every member’s responsibility for IAWRT Nepal’s progress and betterment.
Past President Anupa Shrestha briefed about the role and space of women in media and the introduction of the necessity of IAWRT as an organization. IAWRT International Secretary Mandira Raut explained the roles and responsibilities of IAWRT Nepal members. Ichchha Gurung, the current President, highlighted how IAWRT can help the members with the best practice methodology to further our work in the area of freedom of speech and gender equality in the media.
https://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/0616-nepal-orientation-01.png494656Lady Ann Salemhttp://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/logo.pngLady Ann Salem2023-06-25 10:51:002023-07-16 10:56:37IAWRT Nepal holds orientation program
The African Media Convention (AMC) which first took place in Arusha, Tanzania in 2022 is now an annual event celebrated by journalists, civil societies, international partners, and other stakeholders from across Africa. The event is planned to coincide with World Press Freedom Day on May 3rd of every year. This year’s event was held in Lusaka, Zambia, from 11-13 May 2023.
IAWRT Kenya chapter head and international board treasurer Josephine Karani spoke at the event on the safety of women journalists. She expressed concerns about digital safety and security in journalism and especially during the election period.
“Safety of women journalists is a growing concern by the day. Freedom of expression is elusive, the messenger is endangered more than ever before. Every election year exposes journalists to danger from the public, politicians, and the government of the day. The messenger has turned to the hunted.”
Josephine Karani, IAWRT Kenya chapter head and IAWRT International Treasurer
During the three-day discussions, media stakeholders expressed deep concern about continued violations against freedom of the press, access to information, and the safety of journalists, despite thirty (30) years since the UN General Assembly proclaimed May 3rd as World Press Freedom Day and 75 years since the declaration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Recalling the important role of media, the Zambian Minister of Information and Media and Chief Government Spokesperson Hon. Chushi Kasand called on the African media to provide accurate and factual information underlining “this is what will empower you to participate in the affairs of your countries and the continent at large.”
Through its communication policies, strategies and practices, the African Union supports journalists’ rights to seek, receive and impart information. It recognizes that media plays a key role in ensuring full respect of freedom of expression, in promoting the free flow of information and ideas, in assisting people to make informed decisions and in facilitating and strengthening democracy.”
Ms Wynne Musabayana, Head of Communications, Information and Communications Directorate, African Union Commission
To address these challenges, participants recommended enhanced collaboration between the African media, African Union Member States, UNESCO, internet intermediaries, and other media development partners, to mitigate the effects of violations against journalists and media workers as well as the viability of the media sector in Africa.
The role of the media within the communication and ICT sector and the growing support from media partners for Agenda 2063 has already been acknowledged by the AU-Specialised Technical Committee on Communication and Information Communications Technology. There is a call to further build the capacity of African media practitioners and the industry at large, in partnership with media development partners and Tech companies.
In her closing remarks, Dr. Rita Bissonauth, Director of UNESCO Liaison to AU and UNECA applauded the Government of Zambia and the organisers for successfully hosting the 2nd AMC.
“The discussions on important issues contributing to enhanced freedoms for the offline and online media in Africa, coupled with the challenges and opportunities identified, will be a reference for our work and future interventions in promoting further an enabling media environment on the African continent.”
Dr. Rita Bissonauth, the Director of UNESCO Liaison to AU and UNECA
The 2nd AMC was largely funded by UNESCO through its Multi donor Programme for freedom of expression and the safety of journalists and its regular programme.
IAWRT has been included in the AMC Steering Committee to be planning and preparing for the annual event, among eight other organisations.
The 3rd AMC will take place in Accra, Ghana in May 2024.
https://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG-20230511-WA0165.jpg8531280Lady Ann Salemhttp://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/logo.pngLady Ann Salem2023-06-23 12:16:532023-06-30 11:31:45IAWRT Kenya joins the African Media Convention for WPFD
From Dr. Michelle Ferrier, President, International Association of Women in Radio and Television
Najiba Ayubi had been a journalist in Afghanistan for more than 20 years. During this time, armed men showed up at her home multiple times, but she continued to work despite the threats. She was managing director of Killid Group, a non-profit media network that includes two of the country’s most popular magazines and eight radio stations. She won the 2013 Courage in Journalism Award by the International Women’s Media Foundation for her work. But when the Taliban came to her door in 2021, she decided to get her whole family to safety, an ordeal that took them from Afghanistan to Germany and then to the United States.
Najiba and her family now reside in California, waiting for the asylum process to move on her case and those of hundreds of other media workers that have fled from Afghanistan since August 2021. The months since the takeover and installation of the de facto regime has seen a continued decline in human rights for women and in particular, women media workers, journalists, broadcasters and others. Journalists, human rights activists, civil society members, minority groups, and women and girls have been marginalized from public life under the Taliban-run administration. Women and girls are prohibited from employment, moving about freely and other actions of free citizens. Recent actions by the Taliban on December 25, 2022 have effectively banned women in Afghanistan from the public sphere — and terminating female education and work rights across the country. Women held parliamentary seats, ministerial and diplomatic posts and senior offices, including as judges and chairs of independent commissions before the Taliban takeover. None remain in these positions today, according to a United Nations Special Rapporteur report on Afghanistan, released yesterday.
As women disappear from the public sphere, Afghan women journalists are vanishing at a rapid pace. Of the total number of women journalists in 2020, only 5% live and work in Kabul since the de facto authorities took back political power, according to our report by the Association of Women in Radio and Television-Kabul (released in October 2022 with support from Internews). The report documents displaced journalists who are in hiding or have fled to Pakistan and other countries, where their safety is still fragile and their livelihoods have been lost.
67.86% of the respondents have lost their jobs since the Taliban takeover in August 2021.
80.52% of the respondents said that Afghan media today is ‘very restricted.’
46.75% respondents said that spokespersons of the authorities do not respond to female journalists.
The Afghanistan press sector has been decimated. Strict restrictions had been imposed on women’s lives and on what the media can cover. Reporting under these conditions has not been easy, but journalists have continued to criticize abuse of power and injustice. Women journalists are hiding in their homes, forbidden to work. Those who manage to escape to neighboring countries find themselves in limbo, unable to work and still under threat from the Taliban. Our members and their families continue to be pursued across borders.
The International Association of Women in Radio and Television is concerned about the arrests and the situation of Afghan journalists in Pakistan, Turkey and in other geographies. Our members are women media workers and journalists, who are uniquely positioned to know and report continued human rights violations. As an international organization, we work across cultures and geographies to support women journalists in telling stories with a gender-focused lens and an intersectional view.
We have received reliable information about the arrest of Afghan journalists by the Pakistani police in Islamabad. This arbitrary detention of journalists and media workers who reside in a country with visas and legal documents is against all international norms and is a violation of international agreements on human rights, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The International Association of Women in Radio and Television asks governments across the globe, international organizations and civil society to provide resources to combat the deterioration of free speech, and to strengthen initiatives for a free press and freedom of expression for women journalists, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. On June 20, World Refugee Day, IAWRT would like to draw attention to the difficult and tenuous situation of Afghan refugees, especially women media workers, and to urge governments to provide a safe living environment for all immigrants, especially journalists, in accordance with international norms.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier is the president of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television and the executive director of the Media Innovation Collaboratory, USA.
* * *
The International Association for Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) is a global organization formed by professional women working in electronic and allied media with a mission to strengthen initiatives towards ensuring that women’s views and values are an integral part of programming and to advance the impact of women in the media. IAWRT is a non-government organization in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). IAWRT has more than 400 members in 55 countries and 14 country chapters across the globe.
https://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/0725-Afghanistan-women-journos.png9241640Secretariathttp://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/logo.pngSecretariat2023-06-20 17:59:212023-06-23 10:30:37Statement Urging Immediate Attention to Afghanistan Media Sector Refugees on International Refugees Day
(Chandita Mukherjee was among the founding members of IAWRT India chapter. She was a documentary filmmaker and served as the executive producer of IAWRT’s documentary “Displacement and Resilience.’ She passed on April 18, 2023, just two days before her 71st birthday.)
A framed greeting card hangs above my bed. It depicts the auspicious feet of Laxmi, tiny at the centre of a large Madhubani flower that resembles the sun. There is a handwritten inscription on the back:
For Smriti, for her first home.
With lots of love, Chandita
January 1986
That first home was my first independent living space in Bombay, a rented flat I shared with three other working women, and just like that my life changed forever! Since I had been assisting Chandita for a couple of years, she not only understood how essential such a space had become for someone like me, who lived in a conservative joint family home filled with everyday conflicts, she enabled it through the regular monthly salary I began to earn as a member of her ‘Comet Project’ team.
Bharat ki Chhap team cross-country bus journeys
Over the next few years, we went on to travel cross-country by bus, filming for Bharat ki Chhap (The Identity of India), a 13-part TV series on the history of science and technology in the Indian subcontinent. There was worldview-forming research and reading and writing, there was the recording of songs and mixing of the final episodes in late-night studios, and not to forget the fights! Yes, of course, we fought (as who could fail to, over years of such intense collaboration and proximity), over everything from creative ideas to tones of voices. And I learned. About filmmaking, history, politics, and, not least, friendship – the many friends I made then are still, nearly four decades later, friends I made for keeps, and Chandita was the fulcrum of this group. Comet was hands-on film school, postgraduate studies in history, and life lessons all rolled into one.
Bharat ki Chhap team reunion in 2020, more than 30 years after filming the TV series
What sort of life lessons? On Chandita’s 69th birthday in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, some of us organised a “Zoom party” for her, in which Niti, a friend working at an art gallery, told Chandita how much she had always admired:
…the quality you have when…in public, you so thoughtfully introduce two people, giving some bits of information about both, in such a manner that both want to know each other. I think that’s a gift…something I wish I can learn from you.
As I replay that recording now, I recall nodding and saying to myself, “Yes! And also how, in social situations, she always has the grace to include people on the fringes of any group and to clue in anyone who came in late, so they don’t feel left out. That inclusivity, based on noticing and on caring – which I have tried to emulate ever since, and realised most people don’t bother to do.”
Chandita didn’t just bring people up to speed on topics under discussion at parties; she famously discovered the occasional outlier, sensed their potential, and nudged them towards fulfilling it. In the words of Freny Maneksha, a well-known senior journalist and author of two books:
If it hadn’t been for Chandita and Feroze I would not have become a journalist. She ferreted me out in the Taj shopping arcade where I used to sell shirts…and enthusiastically told me that Feroze was going to be the magazine editor for ‘The Daily’, a new tabloid…and that I should join him. I had no experience whatsoever but…she breezily brushed away my concerns. I had studied English literature, she said, and hadn’t we displayed our felicity with words back in college days, writing up lyrics, and mad verses!
“We” were a bunch of young women, who had studied in Miranda House in the seventies and become friends. Chandita was clearly the lodestar, bold and beautiful in her cotton sarees, encouraging us to stretch the goalposts….It was through Chandita among others that we began getting acquainted with ideas of leftism, of a more equitable world, of feminism, all the social ferment of the seventies. What was wonderful was that that knowledge was not shared in any didactic way, she had a vibrancy and humour that kept us deeply engaged….Senior to us, at the end of her term Chandita announced that she was going off to FTII in Pune. We were struck with amazement. Women seeking a career back then stuck to studying for the civil services exams…But films? Her parents had refused to fund her but with her poise she took up some modelling assignments and earned enough to pursue her courses….Not for nothing did you choose the words “Comet Media”, Chandita, for your venture. Cannot forget your blazing energy.
In a compiled video of messages for what would have been Chandita’s 71st birthday, old friend Anjali Monteiro, filmmaker and retired professor, author of books on documentary cinema, and current member of IAWRT’s International Board, recounts:
It’s actually been 46 years…When we first met I was this shy and timid “Ms Angelica”, as you would call me! Being with you and doing things with you I think has transformed me so much, I became much more adventurous, much more able to deal with new people and new situations – and I think what I am today, I owe a lot to you.
Chaandita and Anjali in their 20sChandita with husbanf Feroze and Anjali with husband Jayasankar
Neela Bhagwat, renowned Hindustani classical vocalist, feminist activist and author, echoes Anjali as she refers to the slide shows on menstruation and women’s health on which she worked with Chandita and Anjali in the early eighties:
I must tell you…how much you have done for me to develop into a woman with [the] confidence…to struggle and fight for [one’s] ideas and rights. When the three of us worked together…it gave me that identity…I became a different person.
CK Muraleedharan, cinematographer of several successful Bollywood films, adds:
…I think I never got a chance to tell you this: my first big project was with you, and you influenced me a lot in forming my work ethics, and equality in [the] workplace, and my political viewpoint about cinema…thanks a lot for being there for me in my formative years.
And Surabhi Sharma, filmmaker and film teacher, recalls:
You’ve always been there for my first screening, both Feroze and you – even at a time where I didn’t think you knew me at all, but just an email from a fresh graduate from FTII was enough…over screenings and festivals and IAWRT and meetings and FTII strikes, one got to now you more…and came to depend on you…thank you for your presence in our lives.
When Reena Mohan, filmmaker, editor and mutual friend, sent out a call for these video greetings, I knew Chandita was already sinking. We all hoped we were wrong but, as it happened, she left us two days before her birthday.
Chandita’s housewarming gift to me, that framed Madhubani, was followed over the years by innumerable other gifts. My home contains many cherished objects I received from her over the decades: ranging from a dozen hand-painted ceramic bowls from Kashmir (this was to compensate me for having missed the Kashmir location shoots for Bharat ki Chhap as I was unwell) to a circular cane-and-wood dining table with four chairs (my first dining table! for what is now my third home) – a set she claimed was just taking up space in a corner of the immense sea-facing flat where she lived with her husband Feroze, and which she made forever and indelibly her own with her plants and her contemporary art and traditional craft collections – and all those unforgettable parties with amazing food! – even as she never failed to honour the memory of Feroze’s grandmother whom she had loved deeply, and from whom they had inherited their home. And the day I came out to her as a queer woman, she was so overjoyed for me that she pulled open a huge cabinet drawer in which were stored the artisanal treasures she never failed to acquire on her travels, and asked me to pick a present, any present! How can I describe what I felt? So affirmed, held, special, moved (it’s another matter that I chose a pair of sandals with vaguely rainbow straps, which I never managed to wear because they were some two sizes too large, but it was still one of the best presents I’ve ever received).
What was behind that deep drawerful of presents, the works of Vivan Sundaram and Sudhir Patwardhan and Nalini Malani on her walls, and those rows upon rows of brass and copper lotas? Chandita had lived abroad, on and off, till she was 16, and after returning to India for good and completing her formal studies, she immersed herself in the nuances and histories and processes of Indian crafts and textiles and art and culture and food. Everything interested her, deeply, seriously, joyously. No wonder she was a polymath – speaking of a painter’s characteristic brush strokes with the same easy familiarity with which she expounded on the use of a certain spice in a specific cuisine, or bewailed the commercial mass production of her beloved Bastar bell metal art on which she had made a documentary towards the start of her filmmaking career.
Of the spirit that made her such a traveller of so many realms, we get an early glimpse from Betsy Wollheim, who remembers Chandita as her “dear, dear high school friend”:
…her wonderful mischief-loving soul, her intelligence and informed world view helped me get through some of the toughest years of my life.
We used to go to Christmas midnight mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral (a Jew and a Hindu) because it was different and exciting for us. One year we came out at 1:45 am (high mass) and it had snowed. There were no cars anywhere. Without even speaking, we both ran down the middle of a deserted, snow covered Fifth Avenue with joyous abandon.
I cried when she went back to India in 1968, but happily, we did live to see one another twice more…
And Dorit Kehr says:
Chandita and I were close friends in High School and she was an expansive influence in my life, introducing me to Living Theater and much else. We lost touch for many years and reconnected in 2009. I visited her in India and was fortunate to have her as my guide, teaching me history and providing an insider’s view.
Celebrated photographer Pablo Bartholomew gives us his version (along with a glorious and already widely shared photograph) of the teenager from New York newly arrived in Delhi:
In my mid-teens, I was part of a street play, nearly ready to hit the road, when in walks Chandita Mukherjee…This lovely-looking lass with a glowing face and broad smile…Rumours were that her father was in the Foreign Service and was back on a home posting, so here she was….Feroze Chandra was a prefect in our school…So I remember him too…a tall, lanky, good-looking lad with wavy middle-parted hair…. and I distinctly remember Feroze’s eyes popping out at seeing Chandita. So he swooned, and she swept him off his feet…Cut to this photograph taken in my late teens;Chandita was studying at the Film and Television Institute (FTII). We rendezvoused in the canteen with Ketan Mehta. It seemed they were up to some mischief, and Chandita very expressively and enthusiastically egging him to induct me into their scheme of things.
Who knows quite how and when that young woman who was often “up to some mischief” grew into a mentor figure for younger practitioners, one of whom recalls that “she was someone whom two generations of young filmmakers worked with at some point in their lives.” Filmmaker Reema Borah shares an email that she, as a newbie film school graduate, received on 30/12/2005:
Dear Reema I was wondering what you plan to do after the Institute. I need someone to work with me. It is difficult for me to give a job description in a nutshell. We will have to meet and play it by ear. I liked your film on Arun Kolhatkar and so I thought we may hit it off. Do you plan to visit Mumbai at any time? Do let me know. Best wishes for the New Year! Chandita
And Pooja Das Sarkar recounts:
…I was a fresh graduate from TISS…who wanted to work with her idols, especially women who made films….I had a short stint in 2009 at Chandita’s storehouse of wonders — her NGO Comet Media Foundation…She represented everything dear to me – documentary, education, media for advocacy, media for development, science education, children’s media, workshops for training….[The] office on Lamington Road [had] a spacious library with books on sociology, science, feminism and all kinds of material on the development sector….Chandita was tall and intimidating, but also she would break into her exuberant smile and welcome people warmly….she would share her ideas and knowledge openly and encourage us to experiment, be radical, and not be “pen-pushers”!…there was no slacking around her….[her] impact remains on all of us who were touched by her sheer force of intellect and joy at sharing and disseminating knowledge. She inspires me to live my life according to the principles that matter to me….Chandita, your work will live on in film…Your courage, spirit and erudition will always lead us — women in cinema.
Pooja remembers last meeting Chandita at a screening of theatre practitioner Anamika Haksar’s acclaimed first film, ‘Ghode ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon’, and here’s Anamika speaking of Chandita:
My sister’s friend, who helped me too….Brought up my son on her bookshop of Indian publications and toys. She came…for my play ‘Uchakka’, supported me thru ‘Ghode ko Jalebi…’, came for my first talk in Mumbai.
While Chandita encouraged her juniors and supported her peers, she didn’t hold back from pointed albeit constructive criticism. That a “scolding” from her could be appreciated, retrospectively, as an act of mentoring, speaks to the wisdom of both scolder and scoldee. Filmmaker, writer and curator Paromita Vohra recalls:
I was young, overwhelmed by the city and the idea of work and nervous about saying no, so I flaked massively on getting back to her. The second time I met Chandita, she gave me a scolding. I was assisting another filmmaker and ran into her while we were shooting a peace concert in a maidan…She told me in forthright terms — not mean, but definitely firm — that what I had done was wrong. I was suitably ashamed. Yet I recognised, even in my foolish and shameful young way, that this scolding meant she was taking me seriously; telling me to take myself seriously, to be professional, dependable and to excel if I wanted to make something of myself in this world I’d entered. It was a strict, impersonal gesture of apnapan(kinship); an expansive act of mentorship. In the 30 years that followed, until her death last week, I ran into Chandita everywhere — at film screenings, at art shows, at political protests, at book readings and talks. That continuous presence had a profound meaning: it signified belief and confidence in a world she had chosen to be part of and had also helped to build….We did not always agree and sometimes complained about each other to our colleagues. So what?…Community is built by witnessing something together, by being able to recognise the meaning of what someone does, not simply their success or their pleasantness….Chandita’s commitment to media, education and social change was deep. Her smile was big. Her saris were beautiful….Her scoldings had been many and may we count them among her achievements as acts of idealistic love and feminist comradeship.
Filmmaker Miriam Chandy Menacherry echoes Paromita’s thoughts about community-building:
Right now when the Indian documentary is being hailed internationally I look at your work, your generation and your legacy and salute the way you carved the path with your comrades, each fiercely independent women, yet able to come together with a common sense of purpose to build community. It is on your shoulders that we documentary filmmakers especially women have climbed higher. I am happy that I got a few stolen moments between screenings with you in the last IAWRT festival just before the pandemic… bright-eyed, fiercely critical, generously kind and always with that smile.
For all her pioneering contributions, and the many awards and felicitations that came her way, one of Chandita’s most disarming qualities was how she never seemed to consider herself particularly deserving of compliments. When people recalled some personal act of kindness by her, she looked bemused, as if wondering how else we were supposed to behave towards one another. Feminist academic and activist Vibhuti Patel remembers her as:
…a helpful, self-effacing and highly refined comrade….On 6-3-2009, SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai had collaborated with Vacha Charitable Trust to commemorate 8th March…where short films made by girls from VACHA, who were trained by Chandita, were screened. We felicitated Chandita who was not prepared for so many nice things being told about her by so many of us!! She blushed.
We at Vacha Trust salute Com. Chandita Mukherjee for her commitment to Development Media for Equity and Social Justice.
While Chandita could wax eloquent about cinema, or impress you with her knowledge of things ranging from saree weaves to elliptical orbits to watermelon rind pickle (“When I was a child in Poland…” begins one of her WhatsApp messages on a group where some of us exchanged recipes during the pandemic, and she goes on to detail the method of making that long-ago pickle, not forgetting to stress the importance of sterilised hands and bottles, and describing the eventual taste and texture), she could also point to someone walking on the pavement near her home and regale you with their life story – in scenes complete with dialogue! Your protests of “But how can you know s/he said that? You weren’t there!” made no difference. What she didn’t know, she invented, a documentarist playing the fiction card with élan.
Filmmaker and cinematographer Avijit Mukul Kishore, who worked with her in 2012 on a film on the teaching of Mathematics, recalls the fun they had on location:
Chandita was a great storyteller, full of anecdotes and good-natured gossip! Nothing oils film crew conversations better!
Arindam Ghatak, who spent some time in Chandita’s office editing films for her as well as for others, has vivid memories:
…she was encouraging and firm and warm all at the same time though her fierce nature sometimes made me a little edgy but then simultaneously, she was also so open-hearted and passionate that [it] made you drop unnecessary defences…
Storyteller, fierce, open-hearted: all true. Make no mistake, Chandita could also be exasperating! I worked with her from time to time on different projects, till as recently as five years ago, and she was so adamant things be done a certain way, whether it was how you named a Word document or how you made columns on an Excel sheet, I would get intensely irritated. She was always apprehensive that someone was going to ignore the golden rules of standardisation, because that kind of shoddiness, which she encountered at every turn, upset her terribly. I had to remind her many times that I now freelanced as a text editor and that for me a certain kind of standardisation was next to the godliness to which neither of us actually subscribed. I told her I yelled at students who gave me scripts with tenses, cases and colons all mixed up, but I wish now I had also told her (perhaps I did) that I had pretty much learned the value of basic stylistic consistency from her, all those Comet years ago. And that maybe we had both absorbed this particular lesson from the Harappan bricks and weights and measures that we made such a song and dance about in Episode 3 of ‘Bharat ki Chhap’!
Chandita was closely associated with the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, and did a number of workshops with students there. Arun Gupta, former Head of Film and Video Communication, shares a video link of a session she took there, which archives her charm and persona for posterity:
A true woman of substance, she was my super senior from FTII, and also responsible for getting me the teaching job at NID, for which I will remain permanently indebted. I was a great contemporary fan of her seminal history of Indian science TV series on Doordarshan called ‘Bharat Ki Chhap’ (originally telecast in 1989). Later, in 2014, I organised a talk by her at NID on the trials and triumphs of the making of ‘Bharat Ki Chhap’.
You can watch the entire half-hour video recording of that (FVC PLUS with CHANDITA MUKHERJEE) here:
Always open to new ideas, Chandita moved out of the pedagogy sphere to co-curate two editions of the travelling festival VAICA (Video Art by Indian Contemporary Artists) with visual artist Bharati Kapadia and architect Anuj Daga, in 2021 and ’22. Bharati Kapadia says of the experience:
Her dynamism and generosity were exceptional…[it] was a many-layered experience for me.
And Anuj Daga writes:
When Chandita proposed the cover for the second edition of VAICA – the gripping visual from Tallur LN’s phenomenal film ‘Interference’ – I knew how well she understood the moving image and her ability to immerse herself…into its discourse. Much like the slow motion of the unsettling dust in Tallur’s work, Chandita could slow herself down and pick the details, weaving a cloud of meaning through the specs of the screen.
I shall never stop coming across things I’ll want to share with her, films and articles, plays and art shows and foods, and I’ll never again enjoy the privilege of her responses and insights. And what if the Harappan script is deciphered in our lifetimes? What if Indian fascism is finally laid low, maybe even in 2024? My litany of what-ifs is sure to be endless; I’ll end instead with poetic tributes from two other friends.
from Gita Chadha, teacher of Sociology and Feminist Science Studies (STS is Science and Technology Studies):
…that face, so beautiful
The voice so measured, so kind
The laughter, hesitant at times full-throated at others
Chandita Mukherjee
Of Bharat ki Chhap, a classic for STS people, something I still watch with wonder and recommend with conviction
Of Comet Media, the place to go to, for toys and books…
And from Ajay Noronha, who worked with her as a cinematographer:
…the many worlds n lives she touched
With such exuberance and generosity
…
We fought, we disagreed, I sulked
But she always came back
With another promising adventure
Never with enough budget
But always with that large heart n big bindi
And a jhola full of food
…
May her spirit continue to shower us with abundance!
Thank you Chandita, for making our worlds better.
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https://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_20230616_125038-e1687166058416.jpg8991080Lady Ann Salemhttp://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/logo.pngLady Ann Salem2023-06-18 11:27:572023-06-26 15:19:09Chandita (from public tributes and personal reminiscences)
Three members of IAWRT Kenya were recognized at the Annual Journalism Excellence Awards (AJEA) 2023. Lourdes Walusala won Gender Reporting at Best Production in radio. Ruth Keah won Podcast of the Year. Mercy Tyra won awards in the radio and digital formats.
Pamela Sittoni received the Lifetime Achievement Award. She has been one of IAWRT Kenya’s mentors and regular speaker to our mentees on editorial matters.
One of IAWRT Kenya’s mentees in the last cohort, Hiback Mohammed, won for her report ‘ICT & Innovation reporting’ in the television category.
The AJEA is Kenya’s prestigious journalism awards, given since 2012 for print, broadcast, and now digital journalism, handed out by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK). The MCK is a statutory and self-regulatory body established through the Media Council Act 2013 to regulate and enhance the journalism profession and protect media freedom in Kenya.
The MCK said AJEA has consistently demonstrated its commitment to shining light on critical issues that shape Kenyan society and the media landscape. Through the Awards, the media has helped inform and trigger debates, nurture dialogue, and advance understanding of the defining challenges of current times.
Read below IAWRT Kenya’s interview with AJEA winner Mercy Tyra:
Q: Congratulations on your recognition at the AJEA 2023 for your outstanding contributions to journalism! How does it feel?
A: It is an honor. I am grateful to God and to all those who trusted me with their stories
Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in journalism, and how will this award influence your work?
A: My grandmother (May her soul rest in peace) was the inspiration behind my career. Being the teacher that she was, She would come with pied crow magazines and would tell me to imitate the late Catherine Kasavuli reading the news. Slowly by slowly, I gained courage and started a journalism club in my high school where I would be sent to drama festivals and games to compile results and report during assembly. My mother (a high school principal) held my hand and gave me an opportunity to choose any college of my choice that I thought I would get the best journalism skills at that time. I did, and the rest is history. I intend to use this award as a motivation to the upcoming journalists by training them on how to pitch award-winning stories.
Q: Could you tell us about the story that earned you this award? What was the inspiration behind it?
A: The title was, ”How livestock insurance saved a soul” – This Feature story educates the public on the importance of Livestock insurance especially to farmers from arid and semi-arid areas where climate change is a major challenge. Wangwe, a livestock farmer is among those who could not survive the shock of losing his 4 expectant cows had he not insured at least one. Due to the loss he had incurred, he was compensated by an insurance company and was able to bounce back to his feet.
The inspiration behind this story was the fact that most farmers do not know that they can ensure their livestock and get compensated in case of any loss hence leading to depression. The desire to educate this group of people was a major inspiration.
Another inspiration was the fact that my mother is a high school business teacher. I wanted to prove the fact that all her efforts in ensuring that I got it right in business reporting did not go in vain. I dedicate this business category award to her.
Q: What challenges did you face while doing the story?
A: Language barrier and harsh climate conditions
Q: What unique challenges do you think to affect women journalists from achieving their best? Fear of the unknown
A: Lack of opportunities and support from their media houses
Q: What advice do you have for aspiring journalists who are looking to excel in the field? Integrity, discipline, and hard work is key to climbing the ladder.
https://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/0612-ajea-2023.png6301200Lady Ann Salemhttp://iawrt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/logo.pngLady Ann Salem2023-06-12 00:15:182023-06-13 11:32:58IAWRT Kenya members win in AJEA 2023
