Podcasts 

Avtar Brah

This conversation with Avtar focuses on her work in Southall. We talked about the film Aaj Kaal (translated as yesterday, today and tomorrow), made in 1990, by Avtar, Jasbir Panesar and Vipin Kumar in collaboration with Punjabi elders. It is a mesmerizing account of the sensuality of diasporic lives and of home-making. The film in Punjabi (with English subtitles) includes poetry, song, dance and footage from the life of a day centre, including trips to the seaside and interviews between the elders. Nirmal Puwar has given a new lease of life to the film, commemorating Avtar's work and the passing of this generation of migrants.

Avtar's 1996 book 'Cartographies of Diaspora' was a lifeline for me when I was doing my PhD. What I loved about this interview was Avtar's reflections and memories when looking back at her work. Her thoughts about the spiritual currents in Scent of Memory - that as Avtar put it 'connected my life history with Jean's' - made me think about the essay and Avtar's work in a very different way.

1. For people who are not familiar with the film Aaj Kaal, can you describe what it is about?

2. How did you come to be involved in the making of the film?

3. What were you trying to do in Scent of Memory? 

4. What was happening in the entanglement between Jean's story and yours?  

Avtar Brah is Professor Emeritus at Birkbeck College (London). She has always been involved in community and feminist activism. Her books include Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities and Hybridity and Its Discontents: Politics, Science, Culture (edited with Annie Coombes).

I asked Avtar about a little known film 'Aaj Kaal' that she helped to make in 1990, on South Asian elders in Southhall.

We also talked about her Feminist Review article 'Scent of Memory' published in 1999. It was the basis of a Special Issue to commemorate the 100th issue in April 2012.