Film, fact, and fantasy
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study hosted a reunion of sorts last week, with India the connecting thread that wove through longtime friendships, feature films, fact, fiction, and magical fantasy. “I know this is complicated, but it’s so amazing,” said Radcliffe Dean Lizabeth Cohen in her opening remarks. “We have in our presence today three remarkable women who are united by a friendship and a shared passion to communicate the complexity of life, particularly for women in south Asia.” On campus to deliver the Rama S. Mehta lecture, the filmmaker Deepa Mehta (no relation), whose work captures life’s beauty and brutality in equal measure, acknowledged another guest in the crowd. The friend was author Bapsi Sidhwa, a former Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute fellow. (The Bunting was precursor to the Radcliffe Institute.) Sidhwa’s celebrated novel “Cracking India” inspired Mehta’s 1998 film “Earth,” which tells of the nation’s violent 1947 partition. Martha Chen, lecturer in...