Thursday, May 14, 2009

A friend wrote a book!

Finished reading KK’s book today.
Kamini Karlekar or KK, as we fondly called her in school, is now an Independent Human Rights Consultant, working with the UN. In ‘(Un)settled: Notes from a shifting Life’, her maiden writing venture, she recounts her experiences of working in refugee camps in post conflict Sudan and Liberia, conducting interviews to determine eligibility for granting refugee status in the camps in Sudan, and to assist in return and reintegration of returning Liberians as well as continued protection of existing refugees in Liberia.
(Un)settled: Notes from a shifting Life, is just that: notes. Written in an almost conversational style, the book reads like entries from a journal. And thus it is that it is able to traverse a whole range of concerns, and talks of history, culture, politics, as well as her travels, love and personal needs with equal ease.
KK talks not just about the experience of working in the camps, but the whole journey that it involved. From immigration stories, to first impressions of every place that she visited, the book reads as much like a travalogue, as a memoir. She includes brief political histories to put things in context, and comments on all that she sees around her, the camps in the middle of the Sudanese desert, the supermarket in Khartoum, the lack of electricity and running water in the capital of Liberia, that also has a five star coffee shop catering to those who can afford it… there are many contradictions in all that she sees around her, and indeed in her own life, especially when she talks of her regular voluntary breaks, and all that she does on them, as also some of the thoughts, of her favourite places, and restaurants around the world, that keep her going on particularly difficult days. The contrast with her work is stark, but she seems comfortable with it, straddling both worlds with equal ease.
Her writing about her work in the camps is reflective. She doesn’t get into too much detail about the individual stories she must have encountered, concentrating instead on the fractured feelings of what home must mean to the refugees, as opposed to what it means to her. She is constantly reflecting on the questions that bother her, even if she is unable to find satisfactory answers to many. Her perspective seems unique, by virtue of the fact that she is a single woman, and Indian. This lends a sensitivity to her viewpoint, as I imagine, to her work.
Her writings about her voluntary breaks and about finding love, are delightfully travelogue-y. She paints verbal pictures of the places she visits, and the people she meets. These are interspersed with personal concerns such as getting manicures and pedicures, and stocking up on groceries, breathers in her otherwise introspective writing. Her efforts at setting up house in Liberia is a case in point.
‘(Un)settled…’ was for me, an easy read. I could identify with KK and her questions and concerns completely, though the closest I have ever come to being in a situation even vaguely like hers was when I volunteered to work in a Muslim camp in Ahmedabad for a week after the Godhra riots, conducting interviews to assess the displaced people’s claims to damage to property. For that week, I experienced the dichotomy that she lives everyday: a dear friend from Ahmedabad refused to let me stay in the dorm that was assigned to us volunteers, essentially a big empty hall in a college, with mattresses spread out on the floor. He picked up my bag, and off we went to his 11th floor apartment, in a relatively uptown neighbourhood. Thus I spent the next one-week, walking around in the heat and muck of June in the camps during the day, and enjoying wine and homemade Italian dinner and coffee in the evening. It was a contrast that I was unable to make peace with all these years; reading KK’s book has helped me achieve that, finally. Nevertheless, that experience had been an eye opener, and I imagine, in an alternate universe, if I hadn’t chosen filmmaking, I might well have been leading a life such as hers. But then again, my experience was all of a week, and she has been at it for years, in unfavourable weather, in isolated UN stations hours away from civilization, sometimes with unfriendly and uncooperative colleagues, many thousands of miles away from what she calls home. It’s an entirely different ball game, and I can only admire her for choosing the life she has chosen.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

And so it is...

In work, as in life in general, what is sometimes most important, more important than the victories and achievements, awards and money, is the dignity and grace with which we conduct ourselves along the way. Whether we can look at ourselves in the mirror without a sense of guilt or shame, whether indeed we are capable still of any amount of objectivity when it comes to ourselves.
It is this that I realized on a recent project that I was on. Perhaps I had a sense of it already, even if only theoretically, but difficult situations tend to reaffirm our beliefs. Or perhaps test them. And a test it was… one that I barely survived. Certainly would not have without the unfailing support and caring love of the man I was working under, and who I shall forever be indebted to, for everything that he was for me, and continues to be.
I often feel that I have been supremely lucky in finding the people that I have in my life, people who genuinely care about me. But more importantly, good people, with love and compassion in their hearts. The world’s a beautiful place because people like that exist and some of them are gracious enough to take lost souls like me under their wings…