Apu’s World

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.

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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!

apu Women & Feminism

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.

apu Women & Feminism

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.

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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!

(For a really, fun look at the clothes that went into Fashion, check Amrita’s post, over at Indiequill)

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