Educational Media Reviews Online

My Mother India superbly captures issues of love, hate, marriage, divorce, parenting, separation, violence, and death through biographical sketches gleaned from interviews with the filmmaker’s family in New Delhi, most notably her father, whose Sikh faith intensified late in life, and her Australian mother, who, despite much effort, was never able to convince her own family to accept her new life in India. Interviewed also are her brother, who was sent off to Australia to avoid trouble in school, and sister, who changed her name after moving to Australia. Underlying the tales of strong feeling and bold action, are evocations of the historical/political events that influenced many of the decisions family members made to stay or leave their home. The title is a play on India's most renowned epic of the 1950s, Mother India, in which Bollywood star Nargis plays a heroic earth mother, and also a tribute to the filmmaker’s own mother, who willed herself Indian. The artful strength of the title is also evident in the technical and intellectual rigor of the script, composition, sound, and editing.

Filmmaker Safina Uberoi effectively focuses her interviewing and commentary on the family’s several displacements, and the different reactions each had to them. The upheaval experienced by her grandparents from the partition of India in 1947 exacerbated the challenge of their mixed caste relationship, and the divorce that followed well illustrates their choice of independence and individualism, even as their son to this day bemoans his sad childhood. Uberoi's mother made the choice of leaving Australia and moving to India, and, with great perseverence, adjusted to life there with her husband. Later, when Uberoi’s father struggled with the betrayal of his country during the 1984 Khalistan separatist crackdown against Sikhs by intensifying his identification with the Sikh faith, the mother was in a quandary. The danger of their situation suggested a return to Australia would be sensible, but she demurred, explaining, “It was normal and manageable [to live in India],” and she did not see the point of moving back to Australia to a family who had never visited her in India.

Filmed in natural settings, and keeping each interviewee in well composed close-up, the movie subtly portrays a family united in trying to understand and appreciate the quirks of others. Though the filmmaker's mother fretted about her husband's attempts to religiously indoctrinate their children, Uberoi is overjoyed to find that her mother can "perfectly" plan a proper Sikh wedding. Meaning is clearly conveyed at every turn -- as in the association of a bangle and its sounds with the acceptance of the mother into the Indian household as a new bride, despite the difference in her size or her looks. The carnage of the burning and looting of Punjab (where Uberoi’s family lived before 1984) is subtly indicated by burning photographs of her family, with just the sound of burning. Calendar graphics from the mother’s Ph.D. project are used to illustrate her freer – “western” – attitude toward sexuality, and other commercial graphics are regularly and effectively parlayed in communicating the impact of events. The filmmaker, describing the search for her own Indian-ness, found solace in “sounding” Indian in India (she is too white to “look” Indian) and “looking” Australian when she eventually moved to Australia. The film shows the struggle and importance attributed by a family of mixed marriage to fitting-in and belonging.

In this way, the recurring and most deep theme of the video becomes the conscious creation of individual identity. The exceptional awareness of the filmmaker's parents (both have doctoral degrees) and their ability to articulate this theme in reflecting on their own lives and the lives of their parents is the core of this complex film. The impact of race, class, gender, religion, and history on the personal lives of people has clearly been preoccupying these two erudite and thoughtful individuals for a long time. The lives of the father's parents, a strong and independent grandmother, and a poet turned guru grandfather are detailed around these concepts, as are the struggles of the current generation.

Uberoi uses her personal journey with her family as the means to explore the need for identity in terms of belonging or associating oneself with a particular culture and society. It shows the typical reactions of a society to the unusual, the violence and compromises of assimilation, the uprooting of one’s beliefs and adjustment to new life and society, and yet the normality of mixed marriages within such a context. She ultimately understands her parents’ identity - “My father is Indian and so is my mother.” For all the struggle and displacements they experienced, she says, “even the most terrible wounds can begin to heal.” Her story has keen significance to similar identity struggles experienced by people, especially with the increase in migration and mixed marriages across the world. This film would be a useful addition to support programs or classes in many social science fields, especially, sociology, family and marriage courses, immigration studies, and women’s and gender studies.

At 52 minutes, this film compares favorably to the 10 hour American Love Story, which also addresses the complexity of interracial marriage. It has added appeal for academic settings in that it presents reflections on daily life, rather than scenes from.

Awards
• Rouben Mamoulian Award, Community Relations Commission Award – Dendy Awards, SFF 2002
• Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, 2002
• Script Writing Award – NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, 2002
• Best Long Form Documentary – Australian Teachers of Media Award
• Best Documentary – Real life on Film Festival Award, 2002
• Best Australian Documentary, Australian Film Critics, 2002
• Best Video Production, Melbourne International Film Festival
• Special Jury Award – Hawaii International Film Festival 2002
• Best Pitch – Heidtman AFTRS Award 1998