Alia Syed: Eating Grass Film Screening

Eating Grass is the first part of a surreal trilogy detailing aspects of domestic life in a city whose most exclusive locality is called ‘Defence’. The title is a reference to a quote made by President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan who, in response to India exploding a nuclear device in the early 1970s, promised the Pakistani people that they too would have their own nuclear weapon at all costs even if it meant ‘eating grass’. There are five separate stories that will form a cohesive whole, each story relating to a different time of the day allocated for Muslim prayer. The emphasis of the piece will be on how women’s freedom and the ‘defence’ of their honour is continually manipulated by the generals and moulvis in the name of Islam.