A bit on gender in cinema... just a bit!

Every intelligent Indian movie goer finds himself/ herself at cross roads once in a while. This is one of mine – gender stereotyping in cinema. True that I could consider all mass media in this respect, but for now, I prefer just commercial movies. The main reason for such a consideration is that movies have a wider outreach than other forms of entertainment.

Here am going to dissect the stereotyping language wise, since I am familiar with Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil films and the stereotyping differs in its modus operandi as we continue across the spectrum. So for the first part, let us consider Malayalam. You would think that a group as enlightened as the Malayalees would actually be averse to stereotyping. Well, it is not the case. Apparently, here, education has nothing to do with the level of hypocrisy. Or rather, I have found that it follows a y=mx+c plot; constantly increasing. In a typical Malayalam movie, there are always sneak peeks at the heroine’s belly button since a proper glance is deemed too vulgar. Sometimes, my blood boils when the extremely masculine hero points at a female character and bellows that he is not going to hurt her because, just because she is a woman, and she should always remember that.  The question that obviously arises is the nature of message that a simple dialogue, the characterization of an individualistic woman as ‘over smart’ or the demarcation of gender territories through the hero conquering the female lead, conveys.  When there is clear importance to the female lead, it often portrays the faithful mother or wife trying to overcome domestic hurdles and revolves around family. At this point, we jump the fence and tip toe to the neighbour.

Tamilians have always celebrated cinema. With genres typical of them, they worship their heroes and heroines. But what a flimsy layer of saree hides in Malayalam is bared through bright colours accentuating the ‘jerk’ of the hips. (Jerk is a term used in roller coaster design. It is the time rate of change of acceleration. I do hope you get my drift.) The actress is revered for not only her acting talent, but for every part of her body. Like Simran’s waist was famous and Rambha’s thighs delicious, each part is further classified, de-personifying the individual and giving rise to abject sexual objectification. The Tamilians need their heroes to be ultra masculine and their female leads ultra feminine. One thing I have noted is the colour discrimination. The fair, slender female has to fall in love with the hero having relatively conspicuous Dravidian features.  Here again, we find the male ‘conquering’ the female. Makes me wonder though, if we haven’t moved past such images through social evolution.  Speaking of social evolution let us dive into the Bollywood pool, shall we?

I find Hindi female leads pretty boring. Whether it be the tall, beautiful, petite figures prancing around in miniskirts or the new variety of characters that the directors try to spin out of the hip-independent-modern woman era. It is as if there is a universal set of certain attributes, which are permuted, combined and selected from within themselves, leaving no space for an extraneous variable. There is a lack of gumption in the brand ambassadors of Indian glamour industry. The machinery keeps getting stuck when it comes to women. There is no novelty in the way that bollywood female characters contribute to the story. But this is not just the crux of a particular language.

Cinema as a medium always caters to the trend of the moment. But what most film makers forget is that they also reinforce strongly the stereotypes existing in the society. It is almost like the butterfly effect. For every small change in the system, ripples are created, which as time moves forward becomes a massive ripple. Now the problem here is that, we cannot simply stop this process. Rather, new set of conditions are to be added to it so that it follows a new path. I strongly believe that every artist should act as a variable. It becomes the moral obligation of the artist as the tool of the director to necessarily malfunction in case there is a dissonance between their belief system and the script’s requisite. They cannot go on embedding this ritualisation of primordial gender conceptualization in the vast populace. Especially in the illiterate or the semi literate people, over whom cinema has a great emotional control. This cycle has to stop somehow. But I do wonder how. However, I look at it, there are no concrete measures. Every small factor negates or adds to another social factor, creating a symphony, which desperately needs to be broken.

Remembering a conversation from Alice in Wonderland,

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?"
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you walk.”

Majority of Indian cinema viewers are like Alice. They have no direction. But, the destination always alters the direction. We should decide what our destination should be.

No more

Am no more dead, my ashes
vaguely scattered in the wind,
carried away in the coldness of
his breath; no more numb.

My lung starts to breathe with
a vigor and purpose hitherto
unknown, nameless; so i run,
surreal in sublime freshness.

The deep gashes, nasty cuts that
profoundly I presented myself,
heal, veins close, wounds seal,
as I cease to suck my blood.

Though death coveted my heart,
inert soul stirs to life slowly yet.
trembling, scared and forlorn, oh!
but born of hope’s fiery womb.
Sown in love’s brutal floods.

On... vernacularising English

The paradox of this age is represented in many forms, one of the prominent ones being language. I opened the newspaper to find that another Indian –American child has won the Spelling Bee, the eighth to do so in eleven years. The father reportedly said that this was because of the emphasis on education. On the other hand, we have a generation of Indians who are accustomed to ‘fucking’, ‘bitching’ and the lot. So let us consider the fucking bitching Indian.  I find this personally disgusting. I was one of them for a brief period of a couple of months some time back. Used such terms a lot. Instead of thinking ‘what are you doing?’ angrily, I began to think, ‘what the fuck are you doing?’.  I thought it was better and more or less benign than swearing in Malayalam. Well, there is also the point that I don’t know how to swear much. Then there came the realization that English or Malayalam, swearing isn’t good just for fun, even though it might be in my mind. There is a level of decency that I have to keep while interacting with others and that shouldn’t include negative incursions from any language.

Again, consider the way Indians use English language. We have quite made it our own, constantly vernacularising it. Though it is in an entirely different way than how the Brits intended with ‘filtering theory’. The other side of the coin is where a section says that English should be English. We cannot deviate from the printed language of Webster’s and Oxford, even though usages like slum dog were shortlisted to be included in them. They feel that in a world where the osmotic balance is tilting in favor of vernacular incursion, the Anglo balance ought to be maintained. In a nation where around a hundred million people use English as their second language, it is a pretty strict restriction to keep, forgetting the evolution of language and ordering it to stay static.

One of the examples of vernacularising English is evident when we ‘pass out’ of college. I used this term once to an English professor and he immediately chastised me. I went home disillusioned as I had always thought that I had good command over this language. But hardly had a week gone by when I saw the exact same term used in the exact same context in a news paper article. That is when I began wondering about language and how we change it through daily use. Every day, like every other aspect of society, language changes. The effect maybe miniscule in the short term, but in the long run, it has the same effect as the literary evolution from Chaucer to Bukowski. It is just the same as vernacular English was once deemed unsuitable to write seriously.

But one point to be added here is that nowadays, changes are taking place rather rapidly than any great writer would have dared imagine. The diasporas of every race are everywhere. As such is the case, it becomes increasingly easy for language to seep through geo-political boundaries. A major contribution is globalization, which achieved its maximal thrust in the recent years and continues to act as the arbitrator for an accelerated transformation.

In India’s case, there is no uniform assimilation of English into its fold. India itself being diverse, the absorption of an alien language is itself in different measures. But what I love most about this integration is that it simplifies the language, breaks down the components to a level where every person can utilize it. What remains is what the pragmatics conveys through a bottom-up process.

We have this quirk here down south. We ‘ify’ it. We ‘nokki-fy’, we ‘thalli-fy’ etc. There are other forms of integration too. For being sentimental, we just use ‘senti’. It is a noun and a verb both. What is the use of millennia of cultural integration if we choose not to enjoy its advantages? The English sure have. What is ‘coir’ if not a variation of ‘kayar’?  Dacoit, jungle, loot etc are just some examples of such incorporation.  The sentinels of language purity seldom attend to the evolution and interpretation of socio cultural processes in which language plays a huge role. It is like the gene pool, only that we are collectively enriching it by throwing in usages and coining new words. Some sink to the depths with disuse while others are fished out, polished and put to work.

Like Samuel Johnson said, ‘Language is the dress of thought’. I sure am glad I don’t wear nineteenth century gowns.

       

Letting go

I am so glad he eats
By himself with no help.
Am glad he understands my words,
In languages two, maybe three.
Happy that my silence comprehended,
Though fleetingly vague.
Relieved his legs cover
Longer distances and farther every year.

His opinions and questions,
Curious and brash, unevenly.
I smile at the sound of toothbrush,
Without my ominous hollering.
Truly astounding that he walks
Home from class; by himself.
And when the clock hastily
Strikes the hour, he knows the cuckoo
Sings play, homework and sleep.
He buys his sweets and counting
The balance, smiles divinely
Pearly teeth and flourishing gaps.

Then why do I often smell him,
Inhaling the last of his innocence?
Why am I at peace when,
At times he pats my bosom,
Comforted in their protection?
Every giggle and laughter
Cherished and revered like never before,
A small sting at times that lullabies
Are no more requisite.

But he still hides his face in my
Chest when he cries.

Dedicated to a friend... No... it is not any of you. So stop wondering.

Some time back, a friend and I had this conversation about homosexuality and how ‘deviant’ it is. It started me thinking. Why is it that an educated person, who has seen much of the world and someone who is respected by many, so myopic when it comes to homosexuality? Why is it that we label people rather than get to know that person as an individual?

I could write very objectively, logically and dispassionately presenting my idea, but I wanted it to be different. That is why I decided to write this. It is hardly mushy, political or philosophical. It is just a life experience.

When I got into college, I was fresh from a culture that was diverse. Having studied in a Kendriya Vidyalaya, I had friends across the social cross section. I grew up in an environment which was alive with different languages, creativity, loving teachers and most importantly-innocence. I loved my school. I still do. So, college was a bit different. Having joined a Women’s College, I thought that there was not much scope for fun like I was used to in school.  (Oh, that prejudice was gone by the time I was a senior.)To make matters worse, there was a  culture shock. Most students in class came from schools in groups. They had their own cliques, conversations, interests. I felt totally left out. So I began to mingle more, in a very superficial way. I was everybody’s acquaintance, but nobody’s friend. I became a front bencher because the gangs had taken up the rear benches. That is where I found a new friend. Let us call her X. So one day, X comes and sits down with me and tells me she couldn’t make it earlier that week because she had an NCC camp. I was alright. In my usual diplomacy, I enjoyed her companionship.

As an year passed, though she would disappear for weeks together, she became my closest friend there. She was strong, opinionated, but diplomatic; her NCC training made her extremely resourceful. You could say that where my heart became empathetic but needed a practical helping hand, she was always there. And of course, she was a brilliant actress. I have this passion for theatre, which she shared as well. (Funny, because, now that I remember, my roommate through my grad school was a brilliant actress as well.) In short, she is the only one of college mates that I found worthy of trying to trace after all these years. X was the person who was always full of these little insights that one marvels at. It was around then that my fight with a bunch of my classmates reached the peak. I think it was more of a prestige issue on their part to ‘put me down’ than my idea of silly quarrel. She stood by me then. I thank her for that. I will never forget the way she laughed when those silly girls finally elicited a public reply from me which left them sweating for months to come. I will never forget the way she rushed to me on my birthday, right after a camp and handed me a collection of O Henry’s short stories.

But best of all, I will not forget one particular incident. We were at the Mysore palace as part of a College trip. She kept looking at the roof and finally pointed somewhere and said, ‘That glass tile doesn’t match with the rest.’ You can imagine my confusion. I looked for around ten minutes before I came to ‘that tile’. She was right. One had a different pattern. As I looked at her with awe, she slowly walked away, unaware of my fascination at how observant she was.

Maybe I should have foreseen it. But well, frankly, it is a bit hard to assess sexuality when you are amidst a thousand something women everyday, who wander through the campus, completely and abundantly free, without a care in the world. It is a bit like the female version of modern day Rishyashringan.

So one day, we were talking as usual, walking along the road and I was admiring a guy who was walking in front of us. She suddenly tells me that she isn’t into that kind of guys. So I asked her what kind of guy she was into. Her reply was, ‘None’. That was the first time I had an insight into her sexual orientation. I think my first reaction was, ‘oh my’. The one thing that offended me was not the fact that she was a lesbian, but that she didn’t tell me for nearly two years. Till then, I was ideologically pro-gay. But, here was a closeted human being, in the typical Kerala society, who had become my confidante and emotionally close and I didn’t know the most basic thing about her. It freaked me out. I had never understood properly all the media sensationalism about a lesbian couple living together in Kerala, till then. I had never understood the emotional hurdles, the trust issues till then.  She was waiting for a chance, assessing me, measuring me up to be her confidante all that time. I still feel the anger at times I felt then. Not at her, but at this system that makes an ordinary person not able to express herself. She was beautiful, self assured, funny, intelligent. But she couldn’t live her life her way because of society denying something that has been around ever since modern man began cohabiting the gene pool.

It has been four years since I saw her last. Typical of her, she just disappeared. Trying to contact her was useless. I hope that one day, in a characteristic Houdini act of hers; I turn around to see her smiling at me with those ever warm eyes. This is to you, my friend, who came, saw and conquered.            

Persephone

My days grew dark,
As my mother scurried above
The surface, covered in the ashes
Of my still fading scream.

I hear her calls, cries,
Heartbreaking sobs for mercy,
Yet, I am helpless,
Hanging, eyes open scarce,
From the putrid clutch that
Pushes my fragile breath into
The abyss of anguish.

His face over mine, the grip
Of death; sordid and true,
I struggle with a shudder and
In his vile, mocking laughter,
I drift, lost in soulless oblivion.

My mother calls to me,
Save me, oh mother, here,
Deep in this crevice of lust,
Love, he calls it,
I be, morbid and violated.

This inferno that consumes
Souls of every man that
Ever sinned in the fires
Of evanescent desires,
Scantily scathes mine soul, but,
His touch, the master of
This misty and gloomy abode;
It, my mother, spells my doom.
Save me my mother, rescue me,
I wait, in tears and shackles
Of the Fates, I wait.

On... Political Responsibility

I sit here and wonder what I am doing. More importantly, am I doing it right?  Because at least some of what I am about to write has been plagiarized from someone I knew. And I really do not like to plagiarize.  Ok, let me dive straight in.

Well, till I was around seventeen, I had no idea about anything in politics. I was a typical capitalistic snob who thought that if you give a human face to capitalism, all would be well and good. There would be no need even for such a ‘superannuated’ ideology as communism or socialism. People change, I did. What my ideologies are now is not the matter at hand. Suffice to say I have moved way beyond capitalism ‘with a human face’.

All I had left with me is an intense urge to serve the nation. I say nation and not country, quite purposefully. Nation implies people, not the geographical area that is India. Why? Because I believe this society has been too fair to the likes of me and extremely unfair to the rest. I get to choose and make my own decisions because of where, when and to whom I was born. Isn’t that a right that should be within everyone’s reach? What I have understood till now is that there are others, millions who have this intense urge, just the same as me. It is not fully true what they say about this generation per say. Yes, a large or huge proportion is oblivious of what happens around them and equates the politico economy with last year’s fashion trend or fallen mangoes. It never occurs to them to pick the mangoes before they fall instead of treating them with disdain.

But now, a new breed is emerging. The ones who are much more enlightened than the older generations. They have seen the weaknesses of the system and want to rectify it. Now, in this category, we can have usually two types. The ones who join the mainstream parties in the hope that they will get to the top one day and the ones who think radically differently than the mainstream and form their own organizations or prefer to work alternatively, independent of the limelight and the unfortunate celebrity status the ‘united corporate of media’  is burdening the politicos with. Apart from these, there is another whole spectrum of activism.

But the problem that I have found with the aspiring politicians of today is that at least some think the mainstream ought to be cleansed inside out and that too within a day. They believe in a caste less society (hurray!), but they are not willing to grapple with the intricacies of caste. Some believe that women empowerment is different from class struggle or that feudalism has ceased to exist. I agree I may not be the best person to say this, but in most of them I have seen a typical ‘white man’s burden’ attitude. A feeling that the less privileged should be protected and ‘given’ the rights instead of making the opportunities and empowering them to take those chances.  There is another creed that disclaims the whole political system. Intelligent enough to discern the system is not working right, but feeling that every component in the system is wrong and below their kind attention.

Perhaps the most important ones are the self important ones. The persons who believe that ideology doesn’t matter. Or that  collective ideologies often lead to fascistic states. They attribute all the failures that might have happened on the theoretical theses rather than the practical modality. In a world where the greatest capitalistic economies are reverting to market control, we have a section which advocates further disinvestment of PSUs. In a dynamic system where textbook leftism has failed because of the complexities of power and human mind, we have another sect which adores armed revolution and a totalitarian state. It confuses me. I come across people who believe that the oligarchy which is leading our nation into ruins is role model.  What I don’t understand is when will they stop focusing on what they believe on a macro level, go into the depth and the manifold layers of the society and try to understand who an average Indian is?

There was a recent debate I came across where a person stressed the need to de-backgroundise politics. Fine. Hey, let us not stand on the shoulders of the giants. The question is, by diving head long into a system and using a disclaimer towards it, what will be achieved? Why does alternative politics languish in comparison with mainstream? I am sure there are better parties than CPM, which use the left ideals better. But I don’t hear of them on an important platform. Isn’t it the failure of alternative politics (which is usually the most people centric) that its mass reach is low? In 63 years of independent India, isn’t it time for alternative politics to change the strategy to fit the times? I don’t know, I am just asking.  If we can’t appreciate the fact that mainstream politics has kept this nation going for such a long time, aren’t we kind of being blind? Yes, there are flaws. As with everything else. 

And let us, arguendo, consider the other side. Isn’t it high time that mainstream politics shed its celeb attire and became more humane and people centric? This feudo-imperialistic and neo- liberal approach will only drive people closer and closer to the edge.  Never the less, the mass is largely ignorant of the way they are manipulated.  As long as they are given symbols of something they could look up to and believe in, they will continue to be victimized rather than empowered. That is precisely why we have half baked Rahul Gandhi aspirants and people who worship film star turned politicians. Am I ranting too much? Maybe it is time to stop.

I have only one thing to ask of everyone who wants to serve the people of this nation.  De omnibus dubitandum - doubt everything.    

Surreal

Am I to end this in happiness?
Or in sorrow so troubled,
A pinch of hope or a dash
Of unabated love?
Wrap up my life because,
I am curious of its end?
I stand at the door of
The moving train whistling
Its way to destination hope!
Often I stand pondering,
Judging death,
The muted effervescence
Ending this wild rush.
Maddened by this urge,
Trembling at the horror of,
The deep green calms smiling
Beneath the narrow rail bridge.
When the wind gushes past my
Closed eyes and feet lingering
Surreal over the ledge,
I smile anticipating the
Uncertain and mundane joy
Of the obvious,
And yet, I stay.
Am I to end this now?
Would I be happier,
Knowing the choice was mine?
Or should I,
In this tentative matrix
Of livid uncertainties,
Wait for it to end?
Answers I have none,
Except I desire to stay.

To Amma

Alright, I am confused. I could either write about how anti Mother’s Day I am or I could write about Amma. Just because I feel like writing about her. What should I do? Guess I will write about Amma. I have never written about her and it is high time I did.

My mother is what you would call a high powered working woman. She strikes you as this perfect woman, balancing her career and home and in between tries to care about people she loves. But the truth is, she is much more than that. She is much more than an average mother who feeds you or clothes you or scolds you because she was forced to have kids through marriage. This is a woman with so much integrity, such an intact character that sometimes it is hard not to feel awed. Yes, I am in awe of her. If I tell her that, she will immediately make funny noises. If I tell about a friend’s mother who made that friend do something he or she didn’t like, she immediately points towards her leg and says… you should touch my feet.

So here is my tribute to my mother on this Mother’s Day.

Amma,

I love you so much. You are the only one who sees who I am and for that I am thankful. Many people go through their lives just because thy need to exist. You showed me that every moment, whatever happens to you, you can live, you can find your own purpose and come out of every hardship smiling and being a better person than before. You taught me that age is not about rigidity, but about how you keep your heart young. You taught me that as long as one carries goodness and love inside his/her heart, one cannot be dejected in life.

I am thankful to you for a lot of things. I am thankful to you for not making me wear gold when I didn’t want to. I am thankful to you for dragging me to every extra curricular activity when I was a child and always telling me how I performed, always urging me to do better. I am thankful for making me realize I cannot always win and what matters more is how gracefully you accept that defeat and utilize that defeat as a learning experience. I am thankful to you for not imposing any decision on me ever since I was a child and for giving me the choice to decide between right and wrong.

I love the way you try to tickle me when I hug you. I love the naughty look on your face when you tell a very irritated me that you have a seminar the same day and that you need my help with it. I love it when you pretend to be asleep when I come near you and try to startle me (you always forget that you smile slightly in anticipation and that I can see it).

I will never say that you are a great cook. Let us face it, you aren’t. I don’t mind it though, because your idlis and upma are the best. That’s the truth. I am really glad you never asked me to do something because of my gender. That whatever had to be done, it was shared between him and me. I love you for showing me what empowerment is all about. I am thankful to you for giving me not money, not gold, not diamonds (the pearls, definitely yes), but for giving me choices, freedom and lots and lots of unconditional love. I love you being the kind of mother who likes to be cuddled by her kids, the kind that doesn’t claim respect the ordinary way from her kids. I love you letting me boss you around, listening sulkily when I tell you what an idiot you are for doing something silly, for letting someone exploit you. But also for slapping me whenever I have behaved like an abominable toad (maybe five or six times all these years, I think).

I can never find another person like you. Not because you are my mother. I am proud that you are my mother. I am proud people are drawn to you because you are insightful, empathetic and most of all, beautiful, inside out. I know that if I continue writing, I could write a novel.

I could write entire chapters about your idiocies, your silliness, your embarrassing moments, but no time. If you see me writing this, you will scold me. But when you read this on the blog, you will start laughing. Thank you for giving me life, Amma. I would not want to be born to anyone more perfect. Mad perhaps, a little kinky, my beautiful butterfly, but still perfect for me. You are a big part of my heart.

So let me end with something you told me sometime back… Every mother is a prayer, a light which is lit for her children.

I love you.

Your eldest progeny.

And, keeping aside all my reservations against Mother’s Day, I wish every mother out there a very happy life ahead. May your children bring you happiness.  

On...Kasab and the Maoist spectacle... a shorter musing than it ought to be.

Two things caught my attention last night and I just had to write about them. Yes, I am busy and I shouldn’t be writing now, but I can’t help it.

Ajmal Kasab being sentenced to death was perhaps the most atrocious piece of political statement I have seen in some years. Mumbaikars are relieved, their vengeful appetites being quenched. The majority of the ones I asked said it was the best thing to be done. I doubt. But my doubt is of no concern here. What I want to ponder over are three things.

First capital punishment. What gives law the right to deprive human beings of life? Whatever heinous crime has been committed, a civilized society can hardly have last word when it comes to ending a person’s period in this world. It is of utmost importance that deterrent should not work as a butcher’s knife. Now, you may ask me what good comes out of keeping a person as Kasab alive. It is not what the person has done or who has suffered. I will not say that only god can take a life. But in my view, socially endorsing a legal termination of any man’s life is equivalent of violating nature’s order by murder.

Second of all, what end does it serve? I mean hanging him. Does it in any way have an effect to the hundreds of Mujahideens all prepped up and ready to get into a jihad against Indians right at this moment? Does it eradicate terrorism? Definitely not. What this sentence simply does is to maneuver the Govt from a position of guilt and responsibility to that of legal victors. It is pathetic actually. The lack of proper security machinery, the inadequate training and the lax surveillance all are bygones in the emotional moments which have captured this nation as a whole by a single verdict.

Thirdly, the whole question of terrorism being countered by force is in itself illogical, which we will elaborate further as we go along. But let me just say that terrorism is a byproduct of deprivation. As long as that deprivation persists, nothing is going to change. Now, more attacks will occur as more and more insurgents are being pushed into Pakistan through the Afghan border by the US and NATO forces.  So how is this deterrent (as they call it) effective? Are we going to capture and kill all of them?

The second incident is a quagmire. So I will write about it only briefly. Something has been bothering me for a while now. I take up a newspaper and I see huge ads by the Home Ministry about the violence perpetrated by the Maoists and how we must all abstain from violence. Since the most prone to Maoists ideology are tribals and they don’t know how to read and write, it tickles my funny bone. Strange, targeting the middle and upper classes through these messages. And it hits me. It is a statement. The Govt is saying, yes, they are the killers, look at those brick buildings, the lives they have destroyed; you can’t be sympathetic to killers. So ultimately, we end up feeling like the Maoists are evil. Mind it; I am not endorsing violence, rather just circumventing the logic of the mainstream. Most people don’t ask one pertinent question… why should tribals have brick buildings in a forest? Wouldn’t bamboo or something natural be enough?

If you look deeper, two more questions arise. One, how did the Maoist movement get so big?  Two, why has there been a resurgence of Maoist/Naxalite movements even though they are squashed again and again? I told you it is a quagmire. Well, I can only say one thing… ‘development’ vs  habitat. While the Govt is planning big brick schools and telling Vedanta to build cancer hospitals as part of their ‘corporate social responsibility’, they manage to ignore the basic sentiments of the tribals. The middle officers exploit them. The Forest Act constrains them, making the forest no more their own. Here is where the Maoists win. They find a wound which is emotional and survival anxiety based through which they could enter.

So after Dantewada, our Home Minister has been scurrying around like Elmer Fudd after Bugs Bunny. He doesn’t pause to accept the reality that it is him with his arrogant ‘do this right now’ and ‘buck on the table’ lines that prompted this. Blaming improper modus operandi hardly puts him ahead of that fact. However, if you his latest announcement, it takes the entire issue to a whole new level.

The UAPA, 1967 has often been hacked by several State Govts to harass many civil activists. Right from the famous case of Dr Binayak Sen to Avinash Kulkarni, an adivasi activist from Gujarat. Now, threatening NGOs and citizens with a ten year imprisonment term if Maoist ideologies are propagated by them, the Minister has given the nation and its intelligentsia a rude shock. We have been plainly told that we cannot choose what we should believe in but rather believe what has been chosen for us. Where is this nation going? This is ideological extremism in its bud. To be nipped out and stomped on. Not far from now, the corporate media conglomerate will be enticing us with pre-determined political messages, leaving us as zombies incapable of thinking. Well, like it is happening in Britain, BBC reducing its stations to give SKY more air time due to the political and economic pressures it has been put under to comply. It is sickening to think that in a diverse and anarchistically democratic nation like India, this could happen.

Anyway, a little thought has become too much of my time. To sum up, like dear old Abraham Lincoln said and of course distorting the context to fit into the present scenario, ‘Whenever there is a conflict between human rights and property rights, human rights must prevail’. If we remember that, well, it would be much better.       

A Very Short Musing On THE CAT

My brother loves animals. Especially cats. So when a pregnant cat sought refuge at our house, he nurtured it with attention and food. Of course, he wanted to keep the kittens. But that’s not the point. Last night, while he was on a trip, two dogs entered our compound, which has never happened before. I heard them fighting but I was too scared to go out and see what was happening. In the morning however, we found the remains of one kitten. We can very safely assume that the other two were also eaten by the stray dogs. The cat has not eaten its food till now. It either goes around our house calling out to its dead kids or just curls up on the compound wall. I am at a loss here. I am not the most pet loving person there is, but its pain makes me choke.

This brings me to the central issue. Should I feel angry at the dogs? I don’t. I feel I failed to protect the kittens. The dogs were hungry. Until I woke up this morning, I inevitably considered a stray dog hit by a car or a cat poisoned as just part of numbers. It never occurred to me that I should attribute a character to them. If I do attribute a character, the question is; where do we stand? In this universe, in this world, where do we stand? Human beings are at the paramount of the evolutionary peak. No argument there. But, have I been wrong to see evolution only from a human point of view? Here I am not talking about concern for animals or accepting they are part of this earth or anything as such. Frankly, I don’t even know where I am going with this. These words are my thoughts, which I am spewing out without a break. I wonder whether my heart beats in tune with all other hearts in this world. Like Obi Wan Kenobi senses a disturbance in the Force when the planet Naboo is destroyed, are we synchronized in such a way that every small ripple affects the equilibrium of this world so that the system settles into a new state of equilibrium? The dogs were supposed to kill the kittens because they need food. A friend told me that it doesn’t matter if I had acted, since the dogs would’ve killed them anyway. We would never know, would we?

It is kind of heart breaking. The way it cries. I found out today that more than food, it needed comfort. Whenever I spoke to it, or I touched it or my mom stroke it, it would keep quiet. I wonder what it is experiencing. Does it know what pain is? Would it matter if it knew? Is its brain wired to evaluate the sequence of events which led to such a tragic ending? I wonder.

Demise

Today I mourn your demise,
Not another day, a different way.
With a happy sigh of untold relief,
Having met and let go, yet again!
Memories and dreams,
The sweet kisses and warm hands,
Laughter whispered like a tingling,
Chant of air in my ear.
None brings you back to me,
For today I mourn your demise.
The songbird on my lips echoes,
My tranquil soul’s melody.
With a merry note and peaceful high,
A dismissive flick of the past,
I gently mourn your demise.
I never lost you, how could I?
Lose something ever unreal.

Hope

Is hope really a thing with feathers?

The little bird that sings,

Amidst gales and storms,

Humming strong to the weary warriors?

Emily, my dear Emily,

From all your death and dark,

You beckon the angel of life,

The beacon of mirth and let

The cherubin close around its light.

I adore this little bird,

Over the shadows of sorrow,

It delights in flying high,

High my eyes are set,

Let my home draw nigh.

You guide my will,

And will you let me fall,

Even then, I answer your call,

With a smile and sigh,

For you will always be

Up high in the sky

On... Drinking.

As I sit down to write this, there are various thoughts running through my mind. Specifically where to begin and where to stop.  Let us begin with an incident. I had gone to a get together with some friends. Being the first to arrive, the hostess and I along with her husband went shopping. She kept telling her husband to buy ‘that’ so that another friend’s husband and he could enjoy among themselves. I felt this a bit unusual. I told her outright that it’s wrong to actually encourage drinking.  Her reply had three points. One, if she stopped, he would drink secretly. Two, it is not manners not to drink at a social gathering. And three, this happens everywhere.

So I asked another friend of mine, who is reeling under the feeling that he has become what we call a ‘functional alcoholic’ or in plain terms a drunkard, how this works. He told me that the first drink you take gives you a high you haven’t experienced. You space out the drinks. One drink after another doing no great harm but five years down the lane, you search for that initial high with more alcohol because you just can’t have it with the same quantity. His observation is actually a medical fact, though he expressed it more psychologically. The body grows more resistant to the effects of the intoxicant that in time, it takes you more of the intoxicant to reach the same level of ‘high’.

Let us discuss some of my friend’s points. One, that he would drink secretly. Well, I found this amusing. It had a lot of patriarchy in it. Allow your man to have what he wants in ration. Give him permission and endorse it. If you do so, you have him in your control. Isn’t that what perfect women are supposed to do? What if he wants a drink, I shouldn’t stop him. He would find the atmosphere unpleasant and slowly slip out of my control. This is a lesson most middle class women learn from the society. To be tactful enough to ‘keep your man’.  Two, that it is impolite not to drink at a social gathering. Well, I have grown around men who drink and who don’t drink.  I have seen car accidents to being the only sober one in the party. And I would definitely say that the people who smirk when you say you don’t drink are usually the most ignorant ones. They might consider anyone who doesn’t drink not ‘man enough’. But, it is more ‘man enough’ to say no to something wrongly popular rather than succumb to the requirements of the society. And three, that it happens everywhere. That is precisely why everywhere, irrespective of class, creed or anything, there are anti liquor movements and rehabilitation.

Now, this is where I sadly notice the Kerala Govt’s triumph. Kerala State Beverage Corporation’s turnover for 2009-10 was Rs 5,539 crore, its highest-ever, and a 20% increase over the Rs 4,631 crore that the corporation grossed in 2008-09. This piece of news and the implication was just too great to not ponder on. Kerala has become the drunkard’s haven. Since for the state government, excise and sales tax earnings from liquor form a large portion of its revenue earnings, they are doing everything in their power to make sure that the masses are lined up in front of the shops across the state even before they open. I do suggest they also consider giving mandatory medical, life and children’s insurance coverage to regular customers. Why not also run hospitals, counseling centers for families and funeral services? Hey, let us make it a one stop shop. We can out do Russia in some years if we try. With all those ‘benefits’, people will start pouring in.  

Since we talked about the middle class, let us climb down to the lower classes, where drinking is explicitly, a very large problem. Since a third of Indians exist on a daily hand to mouth basis, it becomes a problem when the ‘head of the family’ spends his income on alcohol. In addition to incapacitating him physically, there is this power need to dominate his wife and his children. Hence, no one should question his authority. A less educated or illiterate drunk doesn’t understand that all this money wasted could go for better nutrition or education of his children and in taking care of his family. In the case of middle to upper class drunks, you could say that there is a denial of reality. But, a farmer or a daily labourer hardly knows the reality apart from the fact that he needs to vent and that he is entitled to do so. If you have noticed, all major anti liquor movements in India have been spear headed by women. Women bear the brunt of it. Middle and upper class women can deny or ‘afford’ to be tranquil about the livers of their husbands getting drowned. But, the poor can’t. They need the money. They can’t be calm about losing a single rupee. This is an angle that even our system doesn’t see at times when it comes to rehabilitation of people in the name of development. You give them some money, and instead of investing, they binge on pleasures. No land no money. Who are stranded?

Prior to concluding, let me just say that the women who encourage or silently endorse their husbands’ drinking are making their children sole losers. They are moulding the next generation in a scenario where such taboos become nonexistent whereas they uphold a lot of rigid societal paranoia which ought to be set free. The men, who drink, in my opinion, are selfish. How selfish you get is another question. If you think that one day, when the time comes, when it begins to threaten everything you have, your life, your health, your family, capacity to love, that you can stop it then, you are wrong. You would have fallen too deep into an abyss that you can’t reach the air from it. There is no ‘limit’ to drinking in our social setting. It will keep pulling you under. Try and reach out for help if you can. Someone might be able to help you.

As someone said ‘Responsible Drinking? Now that's an Oxymoron.’.  

   

On... miscarriages and misidentities... just a rant. better dont read.

For the first time in a long time, I am going to rant. If my objectivity wanes, forgive me and just keep on reading.

Sun, rain, curving sky

Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone

Star shine, moon glow

You're all that I can call my own.

Isn’t it true? Of all the things that I possess, can I actually call anything my own? Produced by so many who are hardly compensated for their effort, what is mine? Of all the things in me, what is mine? Is my womb mine? Wasn’t it bartered to that guy who promised me food and a roof, cloths and safety?

Fall gently, snowflakes

Cover me with white

Cold icy kisses and

Let me rest tonight.

So, yes, I am bothering you with questions. I am so tired for working for him. He who is the master of my soul apparently. I am told I must satisfy him, for he will protect me against those lustful eyes that wander on my body when I venture out. Maybe I shouldn’t venture out. Maybe I should stay here, inside these walls. I am comfortable. I can bring up my children like this. I do agree sometimes I want to smell the fresh roses of sunshine or the alluring bouquet of morning dews splattered on the new spider web. But I am not allowed to. My body aches from losing my child last week. But I don’t have time to pause. Time for me is more than a luxury. I tell my husband it pains. He says we must do it till we have a child. An empty home is no home, he says. My in – laws tell me I am no good if I don’t reproduce. Am I no good? Maybe I should have been just a womb and not I.

Storm, blow me from here

With your fiercest wind

Let me float across the sky

'Til I can rest again.

I long for freedom. But I don’t know from what. There is this feeling of perpetual fear. There is no truth in this home. Only contracts. Contracts of private property, status, reputation and conformity. I am supposed to love this falsehood. I am supposed to believe in love when the man who is supposed to love me wants only my womb, not caring for how my heart beats for him or how it is torn every time I lose a baby. Isn’t he supposed to protect me? Aren’t they supposed to treat me as their daughter? Isn’t that what the contract says?

Shine on me, sunshine

Rain on me, rain

Fall softly, dewdrops

And cool my brow again.

What do they mean by empowerment? I have a job. I earn. Isn’t that enough? They tell me I have to be more, that I have to be I, that I have to be free of every chain that binds me. But I am not chained. If I weren’t I, why am I using the word ‘I’ so much? Doesn’t that make me aware? Maybe that’s not the awareness they talk about. They tell me I shouldn’t bring up my kids to such ‘chauvinism’. What is chauvinism? As far as I see, everything has a place in this society. Maybe that place isn’t absolute or the ultimate right. Maybe I have an existence away from my reproductive system. Maybe I do have a say in those choices. Does that mean I can stop bleeding just because I am asked to? But, now that I think about it, I am ordered, not asked. Nobody bothers what happens to me in reality. I am just a machine. When did I become a tool? Everybody has a use for me, except myself.

I've got the children to tend

The clothes to mend

The floor to mop

The food to shop

Then the chicken to fry

The baby to dry

I got company to feed

The garden to weed

I've got shirts to press

The tots to dress

The can to be cut

I gotta clean up this hut

Then see about the sick

And the cotton to pick.

What am I? Who am I? I don’t understand. I don’t understand why I have to be all this that I don’t want to be. Why can’t I just be me? My choices. My life. Me.

Now, let us go to the epi-ranting part. The verses are from Woman Work by Maya Angelou. No, I didn’t write them. What I have done is to take a bottom- top approach. The last stanza here is actually the first. Don’t ask me why I chose this poem. It just came to mind. The question naturally arises though as to the provocation behind this extremely unusual rant of mine. I have always tried to keep objectivity when it comes to writing. But, yes, I lost it today and I am not sure you understand my incoherently concrete work. Coming to the provocation part, it was when one of my close friends had her third miscarriage and is admitted to the hospital. Three strikes in almost 18 months. There are medical reasons why they had to hurry. But there is no vaguely moral justice in this atrocity of pushing a woman so hard to have a child that she bleeds and bleeds and takes all sorts of hormonal treatments, just to survive in this highly unfair world. Medically there is a mandatory 3 month refractory period (crude of me, i know), before the couple can even try. And this society makes sure they don’t have the luxury. If the man doesn’t impregnate the woman, he is not virile. If she cannot conceive, she should be replaced. Why is the womb the only thing that matters now? It’s beyond propagation of species. Look around, there are not even viruses that exceed our population. We have come all these millennia for what? To not embrace civilization even in its most basic form? This pantomime is the murkiest one the world will ever come across.

Like Evita Peron said famously ‘I am my own woman’, we all need to think ‘whose’ we are.