Are you a ‘Western’ woman?

Say what now? Me with my Indian passport and brown skin - you think I’m Western? Well, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, politicians have unearthed till-now-undiscovered depths of idiocy within themselves, and one suspects that those depths may be bottomless indeed. First, Maharashtra (then) Deputy CM RR Patil shot off his mouth about a small incident. Then, Kerala CM Achuthanandan managed to get his hoof-in-his-mouth.

One Congress break-away group, and one Communist down; should the Right be far behind? Not to be outdone, BJP Vice-President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi compared women showing solidarity with the Mumbai victims and protesting against government inefficiency, to terrorists in J&K. He didn’t miss the chance to comment on the (pernicious) effects of Paschami Sabhyata (a.k.a Western Culture) which is what drove these women to wear lipstick and jeans, and oh how dare they, come out of the house they belonged, to the street where they have no place.

Read Reema’s piece on the whole absurd affair, where she questions:

“Mr.Naqvi, kindly clarify first what exactly is the western culture aspect in the protests? Is it the candle lighting or the makeup of women protesters or the act of protest itself?”

Tags: indian culture, western culture

Sab Kaam Mummy Kyon Karti Hai?

Have y’all been seeing the new Moov ad and been as intrigued by it as I am? No? Ok, first go have a look here, and then you can read what I have to say.

For those who can’t follow Hindi, this is how it goes. Young boy sees mother struggling to cope with a heavy load of groceries and rushes to help her. Father sees this and runs down the stairs - focus on why his child is doing such heavy work. Then, son asks, “Papa, sab kaam Mummy kyon karti hai?” (Papa, why does Mummy do all the work?)

I found it interesting that finally, there is a brand that chooses to focus on something real in women’s lives - that housework can be drudgery and housework can be tiring. That it’s not all about women overjoyed to be serving the best parathas to their family or rejoicing at having saved the two rupees on that washing powder or superwoman holding up career and home like Hanuman carrying the Sanjeevini. And, it’s also interesting that this view is presented through the eyes of the kid, who sees it for what it really is, Mummy sab kaam kyon karti hai?

Now, camera flashes to the faces of two other women who’ve been shown before - one drying clothes and another serving tea. I wasn’t clear what this is meant to be; neighbours eavesdropping on the conversation? Other women in the family who are actually the ones being (subtly) chided for not helping in? If it is the first, then it’s a nuclear family, and it is really Papa who is not pulling his weight. If the second, well, then that’s an easy way to let the men off, isn’t it, and put the blame back where it belongs, on other lazy women.

In any case, the ad doesn’t dwell on it. So, we have caring husband bringing out the Moov and a voiceover tell us that it’s good to use Moov, lest, Aap ka dard apnon ka dard na ban jaaye. (So that your pain doesn’t become a pain for your loved ones).

It was too good to last of course. Homemaker couldn’t possibly use Moov to make herself feel alright; there has to be a ‘family’ pay-off in it. I wonder if the ad could have still been as effective and more women-friendly if they had atleast shown the husband picking up a bag at the end rather than the woman using Moov so that she can be a martyr to housework again? I think society is changing and the days when women would gasp at the husband doing household chores is gone, well, going slowly. Perhaps marketers actually don’t see this change, or just want to keep it to the most conservative level and play safe.

(In other news, the fiery tamilpunkster is back after a long break. And read Mrinal Pande’s column in the Mint earlier this week, Women still unhappy both in India and Bharat, where she talks about the challenges that working women, especially those from poor families face.)

Tags: indian advertising, indian society, indian women, Moov ad

The Randomness of Life

A month or so ago, my father told me that his opthalmologist had diagnosed in one eye, the beginnings of a cataract formation. “Cataract?” I said, “but that’s only for old people, isn’t it?” My dad was quite amused. “How young do you think I am?” He asked me, pointing out that he had turned 63 this year.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this came as a bit of a shock to me. I knew of course how old he was. But, my dad, old. Somehow that didn’t gel. It just didn’t seem right. In my mind, my dad is still the same person who came back from a tour and hid behind the door to give us a surprise when we came back from school. In class three.

In a sense, sixty-three isn’t that old these days. Many people in their sixties, including my dad, lead pretty active lives. Yet, acknowledging that my dad is growing old, would also mean admitting the fact of my own ageing. Some months ago, when I turned thirty, I felt it passing by me lightly. Now I wonder if I’m guilty of some ostrich-like behaviour.

Because, the truth is, that the people I love, and me, are not going to be here forever. I don’t know if it is the terror and trauma of the Mumbai attacks that is suddenly leading me to think in directions where my mind usually doesn’t wander. In some sense, it feels sacrilegious to write, or even think about death.  I started writing this post, two days ago, but left it hanging as a draft. Don’t say it, don’t call its name. Inspite of being resolutely opposed to superstition, I felt somewhat guilty.

And yet, the one thing that the attacks have shown is that death isn’t all that far away. When the people we know grow old and pass away, we have some time to prepare ourselves. For those who are religious, there is the consolation of meeting again in an afterlife. But, sometimes, there isn’t that time, that luxury of preparation. The impulse to eat out at a fancy restaurent. The decision to have that meeting today instead of tomorrow. What a difference these made to those who landed up on the intersection of death’s coordinates.

More than a year ago, I read Joan Didion’s ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’, a book that she wrote in an attempt to come to terms with the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, also a writer. It is a profoundly moving work on the nature of grief and what it means for someone to not ‘be around’. Didion recalls the first words that she was able to write after her husband’s death.

Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. The question of self-pity.

For the survivors, that’s what it is. Life as you know it ends. Even those of us not directly affected, cannot but help feel atleast a little changed.

*  Though this blog rarely gets into very personal territory, I felt compelled to put down these words, as a way of making some sense of the ambiguity and vague sense of depression that I’ve been feeling.

Re-Imagining Work

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’,

The fact is, I have been able to find no solution to the problem of ensuring that my children are cared for, and loved, and parented, and nurturing my own career, and me.

Do read.

Mumbai Madness

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.

My Vote for Kick-ass Female Cop

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?

Tags: coen brothers, fargo, marge gunderson, Media-Movies-Ads

Ardhanarishwara

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.

Tags: Original Fiction

Book Haul

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!

Tags: bangalore book festival, books

Being lesbian in India

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.

Tags: homosexuality in india, indian women, lesbian in India

In-laws, Outlaws and Expectations

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!

Tags: expectations, feminist, in-laws, Indian family, indian women, marriage