Just a tip, to this heartfelt post about the frustration that women face, in trying to reconcile a career and home. From Deborah, at ‘In a Strange Land’,
Do read.
It’s been a depressing sort of day, with the Mumbai blasts and deaths, and that’s an understatement. All day, my mind has been on the news, and the hysterical media reporting is just making me feel queasy, apart from the immense sadness I feel for the victims, and for our country. When will we or will we ever, find peace?
I went to sleep early last night and woke up to the horror of the Taj burning and hostages at multiple places. Leaving for a guest lecture at a local college, I hoped fervently that the crisis would be resolved by the time I got back. Misplaced hope.
As usual, politicians are busy pointing fingers. I’m glad that the PM has stepped up to say clearly that the perpetrators will be dealt with, regardless of religion. While this shows the scale on which Islamic terrorists are operating, that should be no reason for Hindutva terrorism to be excused. What was that Gandhiji said about an eye for an eye making the whole world blind? While everyone is making brave statements, I can bet that we don’t learn anything from this episode.
This is the free India our leaders fought so hard to secure, and this is the free India which our youngsters are now working so hard to break down.
I’ve now seen two movies by the Coen brothers, No Country for Old Men, and Fargo; while amazed by the amount of random violence, I liked both movies very much for their depiction of an authentic America as opposed to the pipe-dreams that Hollywood mostly prefers. Even when the characters are weird or dark, you still get the sense that they are real. In No Country for Old Men, when the serial killer catches up with the wife of one of his victims and tells her that he has to kill her, “on principle”, it is one seriously deranged, yet normal-looking man. The directors resist the temptation of making him look wacky or evil or abnormal in any way; it is his actions that are evil.
You get the feeling that you’re really following these characters around in their small-town lives; and that’s another thing the Coen brothers do fantastically well - small-town American life that isn’t idealised or idyllic. Besides the realism, I loved Fargo for one more reason - it has one of the best female characters I’ve seen in Hollywood - Marge Gunderson, the chief-of-police at Brainerd, the town where much of the action is located. It is so refreshing to see a woman as a cop, and a damn good one at that.
One of the infuriating things about Hollywood is that women in Police/FBI/Investigator/Scientist kind of roles are usually sidekicks or inefficient or too-emotional or bookish without ‘practical’ know-how. Marge Gunderson knows her stuff and shows it. While she is pregnant, constantly hungry and eating, has an artist husband (again, inversion of roles?), all the family drama is only on the sidelines. Her main role in the movie is as a cop single-mindedly pursuing a murder mystery and nowhere is she shown as making any decisions on account of her gender, nor did the director feel the need to ’sex her up’. The interest in her is not because she is a woman, but because she is an intelligent cop.
Don’t you wish we got to see more women in such roles?
Ardhanarishwara.
“How could they? How could they?” He would ask himself. “How could you?” He asked his parents. He didn’t long for a Rahul or a Rohit. A Sundar or a Murali or a Kartik would have been just fine. But Ardhanarishwara? He dismissed his parents’ tale of having been blessed with a child by the Shiva who went by that name. What, did they imagine themselves to be living in a mythical age?
When he was really young, all it had meant was an unpronounceable name. Everyone just called him Ardha, which wasn’t that bad, even if it did sound incomplete. When he crossed primary school though, and the kids figured out what it meant, he lost all hope of ever living a normal life. “Ey, you, half-and-half”, they would call him, or just Number 9. Even then, things were tolerable until he reached class 8, when an Akhilandeswari had to join their school and wriggle her way into roll-call. That really pushed him to roll number 9. There was no way he could possibly overcome that.
With a name like that, there would be no place for him at the IITs or even at a second-rung engineering college. He finished his boards with an astonishing 55 percent, a record low for the family. A B.A. That was all he could hope for. It was then that he started collecting words. Epiphany. Colloidal. Oppobrium. Catatonic. Prehensile. Three or four syllables - he was very specific about that. No more and no less. He would place each of them on the tip of his tongue, and roll it around. Gently. Words deserved careful handling. When he was finished with one, he would pause for a moment before lapping up the next one.
College ended and he landed at the calling of the new generation - BPO worker and shirker. He was twenty one now, and the sound of his own money was pleasant to the ear. He considered changing his name. If he could, he would have a name like Archangel Correlation or Mellifluous Persiflage, a four-syllabic beauty. It wasn’t possible, of course. One day, his boss called him and announced that they were making it easier for American customers to talk to the agents. And they christened him, Ar-ty.
Yesterday, I managed to visit the Bangalore Book Festival, right on the last day, though it was raining so hard that I feared the canvas roof would come down! I’m very proud of myself for having given myself a budget and managing to stick to it - on previous such occasions, I’ve been known to go berserk and return home with a staggering load of books, some which I would discover later that I didn’t even want. This time, the discounts were good too. So, the haul was as follows:
Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adhichie - this is a novel set in Biafra, a province in Nigeria that tried to break-away and set up an independent Igbo country; both the historical context and the story itself are very good. I’ve read this one before and thought it is a book really worth having on one’s shelf. Price: Rs.225.
After the Ice, by Steven Mithen: Ever since reading Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, I’ve become really interested in pre-history and the beginning of human societies; coincidentally, I’ve also been looking to read about the Ice ages and their impact on human evolution. This book promises some good information on those lines. Price: Rs. 350
Irandaam Jaamangalin Kadai, by Salma: The festival had a good number of Kannada and Tamizh book stalls as well. This Tamizh novel, by a Tamizh Muslim writer, deals with issues of family, society and Muslim women. It’s been published by Kalachuvadu, a magazine and publishing house that deals with alternative/ progressive literature. Price: Rs. 225
Breaking Barriers, by Parvathi Menon: This is an account of 12 women in India, who were among the pioneers of the Indian feminist movement, and broke social norms and taboos, in a far more conservative time. This has been published by Leftword, a leftist-marxist publishing house. I’m really looking forward to reading it. Price : Rs. 75
The Travels of Ibn Battutah, Edited by Tim Mackintosh Smith: Along with Fa Hien and Huan-Tsang, Ibn Battutah was one of the illustrious travellers we learnt about in school. From an India-centric perspective, certainly, these travellers appeared more interesting than people like Columbus and Marco Polo. This book is an abridged version of Ibn Battutah’s ‘Travels’, his account of his journey over West Asia, India, China and parts of Europe. Price: Rs. 125
One of the interesting things about the festival was the diversity of stalls, from well known names like Oxford University Press and S.Chand to much smaller presses. I got to see quite a few books which most large bookstores don’t stock. Overall, a really well-spent afternoon!
While a dumb movie seems* to suggest that it’s ok to pretend to be gay and get the girl you love based on false premises, reality isn’t quite so entertaining. An article here on the tremendous challenges that lesbians in India face, including forced marriages, forced sex with men, and often, plain dismissal that their desires are valid or even that they exist.
* ’seems’ because I haven’t watched it, but reviews like this one are good enough to put me off Dostana.
Reading this piece by the Indian Homemaker on in-laws and expectations, I was led to thinking on some strange things associated with the phenomenon that is the Indian family. Now, I have really nice parents-in-law (and no, they don’t read this blog, so I’m not saying this to be safe:)), so I don’t have much direct experience of this - but, when a group of married women or even just two get together, it is interesting to see how quickly the topic moves to the in-laws and their (many) shortcomings. A friend of mine has so many issues with her in-laws, she’s named them the outlaws!
Now, this is not to say of course that all fights and problems are due to the older generation only, but perhaps, somewhere, there is a huge disconnect. It’s not even a question of which issues they differ upon; the very fact that many members of the older generation still think that they have a right to dictate what the daughter-in-law should wear, whether she should work, if so, in what kind of a job etc etc is a cause of conflict - increasingly, most people in my age group would not agree that in-laws should be having a say in any of these, regardless of the actual views.
Then, I was also reminded of another strange thing - daughters are often told, when they get married, that they must think of and treat the in-laws as their own parents. First, it’s a bit strange for a 25-26 year old woman to suddenly adopt a new set of parents; it’s not as if affection can be acquired in a moment- it has to build up over time. And, in most cases, it would be honest to admit that it’s not possible to have the same affection as for your own parents. But, the silliest thing about it is, though women are encouraged to think of the in-laws as “parents”, living with even friendly in-laws is rarely as informal as living with your own parents. In most cases where the couple live with parents, the DIL will need to wake up at a *reasonable* time, help around with kitchen chores (even if her husband doesn’t) - and - can’t really object or fight back as easily as she would with her own parents.
I mean, in our Indian context, it’s not as if we don’t argue with parents - often they too try to tell us what we should/shouldn’t wear, when we need to be back home etc - but we’re quite comfortable arguing with them on these; the same informality wouldn’t happen with in-laws. In a sense, you get all the responsibilities but none of the rights of a daughter. Then, it’s time to drop the hypocrisy, no?
Of course, there are also some great MILs whose expectations from the DIL are only that she will read and appreciate her blogging!
The 68th Carnival of Feminists is up at Fourth Wave Feminism. It seems to have a lot of great reads, but if you have time to only pick a few, don’t miss this excellent post on women in writing, ‘Women and Big Ideas’, at This is what a Feminist blogs like.
Last evening, I chanced upon Children of Heaven, playing on TV; vaguely remembering this movie as having won some accolades, I sat down to watch, and am I so glad I did! It has to be one of the sweetest and saddest movies I’ve ever seen. Children of Heaven is an Iranian movie that was nominated to the Oscars (Best Foreign Language film) in 1998, and though the English dubbing could have been better, it still couldn’t take away from the beauty of this movie.
The plot is simple, and revolves around a brother (Ali) and sister (Zohra) from a poor family, who have to share a pair of sneakers in order to go to school, when Ali loses Zohra’s shoes. The longing for new shoes, the maturity of the children, the quiet understanding between then, the occasional squabbling - every little thing was such a treat to watch.
When Zohra complains that she feels ashamed to wear such dirty sneakers, and the two children wash the shoes at the communal pond, they delight in the large, shiny bubbles that the soap suds are good for - it would be hard to find such unadulterated joy in too many movies.
When Zohra loses a shoe in the gutter, and runs along chasing it, her desperation is heart-breaking to watch. Somewhere then, there is a child to whom a pair of shoes can mean so much.
I am not going to reveal the end here except to say that it is not entirely what you’d expect. Children of Heaven, reminded me in some ways, of the Blue Umbrella, another movie about children, but not just for them; cynical and worldy-wise adults are likely to be the ones with the most to take away.
I finally got around to watching ‘Fashion‘ yesterday, and the movie was not as bad as some reviews had led me to believe. I thought there were some good performances and some women with ambition, rarely seen in Hindi cinema. But. What’s with showing every fashion designer as gay and every gay man as lisping, simpering or waving hands around aimlessly? And, while it’s possible that a career like modelling, where top models are often in the public eye, can be stressful, could the director not have shown us atleast one model who was both successful and happy? There seemed to be an autopilot course set - struggle, make it to the top, fight with everyone who loves you, get addicted, fall off your pedestal. To the point, where it got quite predictable. Even when the lead (Priyanka Chopra) makes it at the end, there is a ‘heavy price’ to pay.
After watching Corporate, Page 3 and now Fashion, one is tempted to think that Madhur Bhandarkar doesn’t much like successful women!
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