A video about Sameena, a female taxi driver in Mumbai was recently published by Worldfocus. Here is the link to the piece.
The video can also be viewed here:

There are several interesting comments on the site which I have decided to copy and paste here to allow the discussion to continue and evolve. And in light of the rulings in France by Nicolas Sarkozy and his Government there is a lot to be said about this Muslim lady and her decisions. Go ahead and give your take!

04/01/2010 :: 02:47:09 PM
Secretary Says:

One day she will learn that wearing a burka is similar to being branded with a large M on her forehead. It took a long time for American slaves in the 1860s after Americas civil war to lose that feeling of being a slave. So will this lady to get rid of the past and step into the world where she can be free. She is very brave to put her face on the world stage since she is going against her fellow Muslims belifs.

04/01/2010 :: 04:53:59 PM
Steve Says:

I am fully aware of oppressive, patriarchal history and culture that led to various head coverings and “hiding away” of women. And before I came into contact with so many women who wear head covering, I probably would have said precisely the same thing as “Secretary” above.

But, while I still believe such coverings are oppressive, I also see that the actual lives and narratives of the women I know who wear them completely contradict the idea that this oppression has been fully successful.

I know proud, stubborn, fully empowered women who– for their own reasons — do not feel it to be a contradiction to wear a head covering. Or, if they do see the contradiction, many of them seem so comfortable and confident in their independent identity, that they simply live with the contradiction.

This does not mean that I am comfortable, either with the contradictions or with the head coverings themselves. I know the history that they represent.

But if and when various cultures evolve past the need to hide and imprison women and cover their faces, it will not simply be the removal of those head coverings that will lead to full liberation as human beings.

I’m afraid that internal struggle is not so easily and directly related to external garb.

04/01/2010 :: 08:58:14 PM
David Jamadar Says:

Change are slow but inevitable. As time passes either we adapt or get left behind. I never like to see women wearing that covering is hides their true beauty. And when you can see really see things. I think that women soon would realize that the world is moving on. These small clips about independent women makes me feel proud.

04/02/2010 :: 11:02:10 PM
Azizah Says:

Lovely, I love this, women getting employed, owning business and taking economic independence. Cheers to the future!

When India was attacked on 26th November 2008, news anchors and journalists started calling it ‘India’s 9/11.’ This film examines this terminology and the links between 9/11, 26/11 in Mumbai, Iraq, Afghanistan and Modern terror. The conversations between taxi drivers and their passengers in Mumbai taxis delve into these larger issues. A tragic terrorist attack, a lapse in security, the loss of the top Anti Terrorist Squad officials who were investigating the so called ‘Hindu terrorist’ attacks in Malegao lead the people to voice their notions of larger conspiracy theories at a time when the Mainstream media mentions none of this. These are not authoritative voices but perspectives like yours and mine on the events which affect and shape our lives. They are short takes, 140 characters long tweets in taxis, between real people riding in a taxi, in a city that experienced extreme violence, terror and loss.

The current poll on The Taxi Takes has a majority of 50% who say it should not be termed India’s 9/11 and 34% in favor of the Mumbai attacks being termed ‘India’s 9/11. However there are also a small 8 % who are not sure which hence makes this a rather balanced undecided poll.

Watch the film and cast your vote. But more importantly I urge you to listen to the common voices on the streets of the Mumbai Metropolis and gather a sense of where the Mumbai terrorist attack of might figure in the larger scheme of current happenings in the world. Please give your take and comments below.

I wanted to spread the word about a great film screening today where I will be talking about my own experience of using Web 2.0 strategies for The Taxi Takes on Terror. I will be presenting along with Daniel Bowman-Simon of the People’s Garden project, and Sam Gregory from the human rights group Witness.

10 Tactics for Turning Information Into Action is a film by the Tactical Technology Collective that includes stories from activists around the world who have successfully used digital technologies to change the world. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion. The New York premiere is with their partners, Grassroots Camp.
In addition the Tactical Tech Collective is giving away incredible Toolkits.

When: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 7:00 PM
Where: The Tank Space for Performing and Visual Arts – 45th St. and 9th Ave. New York City
Tickets are $5.00 in advance: http://www.brownpapertickets. com/event/ 96989

The film includes the famous Pink Chadi campaign and post 26/11 Mumbai twitter tactics in India.

It’s beyond ironic to think that President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace prize. This, just as he makes the largest blunder in the history of wars and orders more troops to catapult an ongoing escalation into another decade of suffering. It has been the aggressive policies post 9/11 that have sharpened the dagger of Islamist terrorism in the World. The Iraqis, the Afghanis have already acted like a forest that is being burnt down in search of a target – sometimes a man named Bin Laden and at other times fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction. To send more troops into Afghanistan at a time when America is still struggling under economic debt is creating more enemies. In fact this time, I think Obama is creating enemies out of his own American citizens who once believed in ‘change’ and now plead for health reform and more jobs rather than America’s 6th war since the end of WW II.

Artists, writers, news anchors, journalists, filmmakers, poets, trapeze artists and anyone else with a voice and body need to have their say and speak out. The cartoon above was published on Little Alex in Wonderland along with the eloquent and incredible Noam Chomsky‘s ‘take’ on ‘War, Peace and Obama’s Nobel.’ Michael Moore, the famous, talented attention grabbing documentary filmmaker wrote a letter to his president. Huffington Post carries this Open letter to President Obama.

Read it and go have a conversation with your Pakistani cab driver in New York. He’ll probably tell you he’s not planning on taking a trip back home this X’mas. Obama’s choices are creating an inferno of problems in Pakistan and the Indian sub continent. And with this surge, it’s only going to get worse I predict. Unfortunately no ‘Change’ for the better.

I just heard Rory Stewart on Channel Thirteen talk about his views on if the US is doing the right thing by increasing troops in Afghanistan. Mr. Stewart is currently the Ryan Family Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and the Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. As a former British soldier he walked across Afghanistan in 2002 getting to know the Afghan people, understanding its culture and studying the country. He writes about his experiences in his book, The Places in Between
He eloquently spoke about how he believes that the US goal of creating a Nation State in Afghanistan with the indirect goal of added US security from the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits was impractical.

He goes on to add that it might take several decades for Afghanistan to have basic education, infrastructure, a judicial and military system etc. institutions that Pakistan has. However in my mind, this does not necessarily imply security against terrorism.

Unlike Mr. Stewart I am not an authority on such issues, but I do firmly believe that Pakistan’s current political instability and situation should be of greater concern to the US than Afghanistan. A new documentary called RethinkAfghanistan is currently online to be viewed. I’m personally not in favor of another war, this time Obama’s war!

An excerpt from Rory Stewart’s Irresistible Illusion :

“Furthermore, there are no self-evident connections between the key objectives of counter-terrorism, development, democracy/ state-building and counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for state-building. You could create a stable legitimate state without winning a counter-insurgency campaign (India, which is far more stable and legitimate than Afghanistan, is still fighting several long counter-insurgency campaigns from Assam to Kashmir). You could win a counter-insurgency campaign without creating a stable state (if such a state also required the rule of law and a legitimate domestic economy). Nor is there any necessary connection between state-formation and terrorism. Our confusions are well illustrated by the debates about whether Iraq was a rogue state harbouring terrorists (as Bush claimed) or an authoritarian state which excluded terrorists (as was in fact the case).

It is impossible for Britain and its allies to build an Afghan state. They have no clear picture of this promised ‘state’, and such a thing could come only from an Afghan national movement, not as a gift from foreigners. Is a centralised state, in any case, an appropriate model for a mountainous country, with strong traditions of local self-government and autonomy, significant ethnic differences, but strong shared moral values? And even were stronger central institutions to emerge, would they assist Western national security objectives? Afghanistan is starting from a very low base: 30 years of investment might allow its army, police, civil service and economy to approach the levels of Pakistan. But Osama bin Laden is still in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. He chooses to be there precisely because Pakistan can be more assertive in its state sovereignty than Afghanistan and restricts US operations. From a narrow (and harsh) US national security perspective, a poor failed state could be easier to handle than a more developed one: Yemen is less threatening than Iran, Somalia than Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan than Pakistan.”

One of the notions I wanted to explore in the taxi dialogues was perceptions about Muslims. It’s a tough one to deal with and can come across as being ill informed. However I wanted to give the chance for this topic to surface. There is a shot of a young Hindu driver, Ram Singh asking an old Muslim passenger with a white beard this question. He asks, rather apologetically but also with a hint of curiosity, “If you don’t mind my asking, why does it seem that all terrorists are Muslims?” In fact any taxi drivers removed symbols of their faith after the 1992 – 93 communal riots in Bombay.

So the taxi drivers and passengers both had some prolific comments to make. But they didn’t look at the media or cinema and how it creates images. Post 26/11 there has been enough media bashing in India and Bollywood isn’t critiqued enough by the masses anyways. However Bollywood’s grand daddy Hollywood has surely come under the radar.

Yesterday I came across this gallery about Muslim celebrities in Hollywood. There are some fine men and women featured. But there seems to be an underlying current that their work is or should be directly connected to their faith. I think it may or may not be. In the case of ‘Allah Made me Funny’, it’s perfect to use humor to break down stereotypes and perceptions. The moment you laugh or don’t laugh about something, you either realize your beliefs on something or change your take on it by the simple act of laughing.

I also came across a great event at The Asian Pacific American Institute at NYU. It will be held today, the 25th of September between 6 and 8 pm at Tisch. Dr. Jack Shaheen is having a screening of his documentary, ‘Guilty Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11′ followed by a Q and A of his work.
Go to http://www.apa.nyu.edu/ to RSVP. It’s open to the public.

And please keep commenting on the blog itself and not on Facebook

It’s nice to come to a foreign land and find that the taxi drivers speak your language! It’s a good feeling and as a documentary filmmaker I jumped to the chance of doing something with this observation. In 2007 I went out on the streets of Manhattan and interviewed Indian and Pakistani taxi drivers about what they felt about New York, how they came here, 9/11, the War in Iraq and the War on Terror.

I started my prowl with the camera at the famous ‘Punjabi Deli’ on Houston streets where you’ll always see a bunch of taxis parked. This is a huge omen of how good a place is. Similar to when you look into a restaurant or cafe and can judge how good it is by the volume of people dining or waiting outside. ‘Punjabi Deli’ has affordable food and it’s home cooked Indian food. My uncle in Jersey has been known to drive down, pick me up, take me out to a fancy bar for a drink and then head to Punjabi Delhi for food he describes as ‘dil khush kar deta hai’, literally translated to mean ‘makes my heart happy.’

So I’m rambling away from the taxi drivers and point. Eventually I made a short film titled, ‘Street Smarts’ which focuses on racial profiling post 9/11 and my short got selected to the Sikh International Film Festival.
I’m heading out to the venue now and hope some of you can make it. Take a taxi to Asia Society and tell the driver about the film. Who knows maybe he’s in it. Once when I got in a cab and spoke to the driver about my project, he’d seen my taxi film on youtube! Keeping my fingers crossed for some synchronicity in the city this week:)