Pamela Rooks
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Pamela Rooks (28 February 1958 – 1 October 2010) was an Indian film director and screenwriter, most known for the film, '' Train to Pakistan'' (1998) set in
Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
and based on
Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh FKC (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write '' Train to Pakistan'' in 1956 ( ...
's
novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...
; it was screened at several international film festivals. Apart from that accomplishment she also made award-winning films like, ''
Miss Beatty's Children ''Miss Beatty's Children'' is a 1992 English-language Indian drama film directed by Pamela Rooks in her directorial debut, with Jenny Seagrove, Faith Brook and Protima Bedi in lead roles. The film set in 1936 in South India, was based on Rook ...
'' (1992) and ''
Dance Like a Man ''Dance Like a Man'' is a 2004 Indian English-language dance drama film directed by Pamela Rooks based on the play of the same name by Mahesh Dattani. The film stars Shobana, Arif Zakaria and Anoushka Shankar in her acting debut. The film won ...
'' (2004) and several documentaries.


Early life

She was born Pamela Juneja in an Army household to Col. A. N. Juneja and Gudi Juneja. She did her schooling in boarding schools in
Nainital Nainital (Kumaoni language, Kumaoni: ''Naintāl''; ) is a town and headquarters of Nainital district of Kumaon division, Uttarakhand, India. It is the judicial capital of Uttarakhand, the Uttarakhand High Court, High Court of the state being ...
and
Shimla Shimla, also known as Simla ( the official name until 1972), is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of British India. After independence, the city ...
, where she became interested in dramatics.''India today'', Volume 24. Thomson Living Media India Ltd., 1999. p. 38 Later, while studying mass communication in Delhi in the 1970s, she was involved with Delhi-based theatre group, Theatre Action Group (TAG), which was founded by theatre director, Barry John and Siddharth Basu,
Roshan Seth Roshan Seth (born 2 April 1942) is a British-Indian actor, writer and theatre director who has worked in the United Kingdom, United States and India. He began his acting career in the early 1960s in the UK, but left acting the following deca ...
, Lilette Dubey, and
Mira Nair Mira Nair (born 15 October 1957) is an Indian-American filmmaker based in New York City. Her production company is Mirabai Films. Among her films are '' Mississippi Masala'', '' The Namesake'', the Golden Lion–winning '' Monsoon Wedding'', ...
amongst others.The drama of Barry John's life
Divya Vasisht,
The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...
, 23 November 2002.


Career

She started her career as a journalist and producer of current affairs programmes on television and it was during this period, for an interview, that she met director Conrad Rooks who had received much acclaim for his film, '' Siddhartha'' (1972). Subsequently they went on to marry.Pamela Rooks
chaosmag.
Later this paved the way for her career as a documentary filmmaker and she made critically acclaimed documentaries, such as ''Chipko: A response to the forest crisis'', ''Girl Child: fighting for survival'', ''Punjab: a human tragedy'' and ''Indian cinema: the winds of change'', before making her first feature film, ''Miss Beatty's Children'' (1992), based on a novel of the same name by her. The film won her the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director at the
National Film Award The National Film Awards are awards for artistic and technical merit given for "Excellence within the Cinema of India, Indian film industry". Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India ...
. Then in 1998 came her much anticipated film based on writer
Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh FKC (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write '' Train to Pakistan'' in 1956 ( ...
's historical novel, '' Train to Pakistan'' (1956), set in the
Partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
in 1947, while previous attempts by other people to turn the novel into film had failed. The film ran into trouble with the Indian Censor Board, but was eventually released after going to a tribunal where only a few audio cuts were made. Having seen playwright
Mahesh Dattani Mahesh Dattani (born 7 August 1958) is an Indian film director, director, actor, playwright and writer. He wrote such plays as ''Final Solutions'', ''Dance Like a Man'', ''Bravely Fought the Queen'', ''On a Muggy Night in Mumbai'', ''Tara: A Pla ...
's play ''Dance Like a Man'', a friend, the late dancer Protima Bedi, who had also worked in his first film, arranged a meeting with Dattani in Bangalore. Rooks subsequently bought the rights to the play and went on co-write the screenplay with him. Her next venture, ''
Dance Like a Man ''Dance Like a Man'' is a 2004 Indian English-language dance drama film directed by Pamela Rooks based on the play of the same name by Mahesh Dattani. The film stars Shobana, Arif Zakaria and Anoushka Shankar in her acting debut. The film won ...
'', was released in 2004. and won a
National Film Award for Best Feature Film in English National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...
for 2003.


Accident and death

In November 2005, she received a serious brain injury when a Maruti Alto lost control and collided with her
Toyota Landcruiser The , also sometimes spelt as LandCruiser, is a series of four-wheel drive vehicles produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. It is Toyota's longest running series of models. , the sales of the Land Cruiser totalled more than 1 ...
at Vasant Kunj in Delhi while she was returning from
Indira Gandhi International Airport Indira Gandhi International Airport is the primary international airport serving New Delhi, the capital of India, and the National Capital Region (NCR). The airport, spread over an area of ,
after a trip to
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
. She was subsequently put in a drug-induced coma and remained in that state for five years. She never recovered from the coma and died of cardiac arrest at her Defence Colony home in the early hours of 1 October 2010 at the age of 52.


Personal life

She was married to director Conrad Rooks and the couple had a son, Ryan, before they divorced in 1985. Later she dated Maharajkumar Shrimant Shivaji Rao Holkar of Indore (Prince Richard Holkar), the son of HH Maharaja Yeshwant Rao II Holkar of
Indore Indore (; ISO 15919, ISO: , ) is the largest and most populous Cities in India, city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The commercial capital of the state, it has been declared as the List of cleanest cities in India, cleanest city of In ...
, whom she had first met in 1998 in her Defence Colony neighbourhood. In the following years they grew close and decided to be life companions. Together Rooks and Holkar brought life back to Richard's ancestral home, Ahilya Fort in
Maheshwar Maheshwar is a town, near Khargone city in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh state, in central India. It is located on State Highway-38 ( Khargone city- Barwaha- Bandheri Highway),13.5 km east of National Highway 3 (Agra-Mumbai highway ...
, and were the directors of Ahilya Hospitality and Travels Private Limited. Holkar was accompanying her during the 2005 car accident. Richard Holkar joined the ''Indian Head Injury Foundation'', founded in February 2007, by Gaj Singh, Maharaja of Jodhpur, whose son Shivraj Singh had received a serious head injury due to an accident on the polo grounds in Jaipur in February 2005.


Filmography


Works

* ''Miss Beatty's children'', Clarion Books, 1989. .


References


Indore genealogy


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rook, Pamela Indian women film directors 1958 births 2010 deaths Indian documentary filmmakers Indian women screenwriters Indian women television producers Indian television producers Film directors from Kolkata 20th-century Indian women artists Women artists from West Bengal Screenwriters from Kolkata Novelists from West Bengal Indian women novelists 20th-century Indian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian people Indian women documentary filmmakers 21st-century Indian women artists Director whose film won the Best Debut Feature Film National Film Award