Feb 14, 2009 - My 26th Valentines Day thus “passed away”, without much noise leaving me yet, young and yellow. I was handsomely idle at home hooked on one of the old Malayalam books... rather a research material identified recently for a film script that I may or may not realize in this wild-weird-warm lifetime. True to my senses, I have clearly no idea whether I would ever be mature enough to live anyway close to the norms and notions of this day of young excitement. But on this occasion I can’t be just mute on a woman who moved me the most till this date. She is “Yesterday”, a simple African village woman who breathes only for the good of her family. I was never been lucky enough to travel to that country side and see this lady who speaks only her mother tongue Zulu. She suffer from AIDs and lives a simple life with her daughter. I was touched more by her simplicity, her understanding of herself, her way of living the day – today - with the dreams of tomorrow and her disinterest for words of praise. When her mine worker husband came back to the village as a skinny soul during the last stages of AIDs, the village threw him away. Yesterday, as a brave woman built a shed away from the village all by herself and took her husband there where he died happily breathing her warmth. I calls her brave and that teacher from the village too.........but not “Yesterday”. The teacher said “Yesterday, you are a strong lady.” And she replied “No I’m not, I had no other choice. Life has to go on.” She taught me the lesson to live life in a simple and natural way without any expectations. She taught me to behave to the situation. Months after the doctor first diagnosed her ailment, AIDS, she continued to live as a strong woman. The White Lady Doctor had to say this “Yesterday, your body is so strong.” She just smiled and pointed her finger to the head and said, “No it’s all here. I’m not prepared to die until my child go to school.” That moment taught me peace of mind. For a moment I felt as if I’m meditating on a mountain inhaling courage and love. Yesterday is strong, stubborn, silent, soulful and straight forward. For the first time I bowed to a woman... God, she was a "REAL WOMAN". Anyways, I have no other way but to get out of this unrealistic world of cinema and live a normal life. I have no other choice but to identify her as just a movie character. Even if I collect so much money for my travel to African sub-continent, I wouldn't be able to fulfill the dream of seeing this woman. Because she lives in my most favorite film, "Yesterday". A few days back my Amma (mom) asked, “Who do you think you are in love with?” Confused was she as I have this weird habit of making contradictory statements to irritate her. It’s fun to fight with Amma for no reason. ;) I didn’t answer, but left her see the film “Yesterday.”

Later I told her, “Amma, I don’t expect any girl to be 100% Yesterday, but I need her to be at least 1% her. I swear I will be 100% Guido (The funny Italian waiter in the film "Life is Beautiful") for her.......till the end of my life.”

I, being a bad filmmaker
Yesterday, while browsing though some of the texts on filmmaking I read a PhD thesis titled “In Search of the Magic Wand for African Cinema” by Chika Anyanwu from the School of Media and Information, Curtin University of Technology. The topic was so interesting that the ‘always dormant’ reader in me got energized and engrossed it. It spoke about the need of filmmakers being natural and original in their creation. According to him a good film should emerge from the cultural background of the filmmaker, stitched on the fine thread of the traditional values of his own land and coloured by his own blood.
The writer expresses his fury as well as agony on the trend of African filmmakers trying to imitate other films industries like Hollywood that has no significance in the day to day life of an African. He has an interesting question for everyone,
“What is the difference between what we call witchcraft and what passes as horror movies from Europe and America? We are quick to defend the blood-sucking vampires in western movies as part of English gothic literature but condemn spirits and ghosts in African films as barbaric. While one is from a western ‘civilised’ nation the other is from a ‘barbaric’ culture.”
He says “According to Kwaw Ansah (1999), what is called witchcraft is religion to Africa.”
I liked this quote on African films
The image of Africa that I see through external filmic representations could be likened to a romantic dinner served to a western voyeur with the following recipe: a bag of political enslavement of African regions with two cans of Hollywood movies, sprinkled with seasoned media sensationalism, which is added to a chunk of humanitarian aid to soften the bones, cooked under heated debates for two centuries, then served on a plate of economic dependency with a bottle of chilled technological backwardness, to be eaten in a moonlit jungle hut.
Chika Anyanwu also attacks the western religious beliefs especially Christianity for degrading the African way of life and their religions as mere superstitions.
We have become an enlightened continent of contradictions. On the one hand we continue to claim victim status after many years of independence in order to avoid responsibility for our inaction, on the other hand we take refuge under Christianity instead of our traditional religion because punishment for our atrocities can be deferred until we get to heaven instead of facing instant justice as meted out by our ancestors and elders.
In 1985 William Akufu, a film distributor with no filmmaking background or experience got some money and friends together and used a VHS camera to make his first feature video, Zainab. The Ghana Film Corporation and the television stations rejected this video film with an interesting question posed to him, what is the meaning of VHS, to which he innocently answered ‘video home system’ and the result was that he should take his movie to his home. His persistence paid off because he arranged to screen the movie at various venues with hired projectors. As fate would have it, the film was well received by the people despite its technical shortcomings. For the first time African people saw their life in their own language. That is the start of purity in African films.
I left my homeland more than half a decade back. I used to read, write and talk in my mother tongue Malayalam than in any other language. Though my stay in other places made me open to different cultures and traditions, I believe that I have lost myself somewhere. Past six or seven years I have not written anything in Malayalam. All the films I have done till date is in English. I have not tried a film in Malayalam for the simple reason that I’m truly scared of hurting the language. I have this feeling that I am not matured enough to approach Malayalam in film. Hardly anyone would have heard me using any bad words in Malayalam, though I am more comfortable doing that in other language. Anytime, my biggest dream is to do films rich in the traditional values of Kerala and her eternal beauty. As of now I’m not prepared for that… Here I am introducing myself as a bad filmmaker to you.
I pity those who are in the mode of imitation of other’s culture, while losing their own culture. I pity those who already lost there identity by adapting another identity. I pity your confused state of being nowhere. I pity your state of searching for gold standing on golden floor. I pity your attitude of hating your own colour. I pity me for calling myself a ‘filmmaker’.