Destiny

IHM’s rather provocative post featuring a letter written by a young woman about the lifelong domestic abuse experienced by herself, her mother and her sister kept my mind quite preoccupied this week. My comments on it were considered judgmental and harsh, some said they are rather rude and that I have sugar-coat the,, which is obviously not my style. Some agreed with me. The truth is all the readers invariably just want to the woman to leave the monster and get a life. The difference was they were agonized and I was angry. While I saw what others were trying to say, give her comfort, say something soothing etc., I felt that my comments are useless unless they’re result-oriented. If I meet this girl in real life, I’m not going to criticize her till she’s in tears, obviously. But I still don’t take back my words. I personally know someone who has been abused (not to this level, but still) and who put up with abuse even when she was getting help, so I am just tired of seeing such weak women. So, I can only be outraged at such a situation.

One of the commentors, sioneve wrote how she tried to convince her mother to leave her abusive husband, but her mother never did and how she accepted that as “her mother’s truth”. This reminds me of a short story called Destiny:

Once, a poor man prayed to Lord Shiva asking for lot of money. He would go around the temple continuously for days altogether, praying and praying. And then Goddess Parvati finally asks her husband why won’t he simply grant the poor man the boon. Shiva says nothing and places a large pot of gold right in front of the temple for the man. The poor man however continues to pray to the Lord, going around and around the temple. A confused Parvati asks, “I don’t understand. Why doesn’t the man just take the gold?”. Then Shiva replies, “Because that is his destiny. He is destined to be a poor man. He won’t notice the gold. Even if I fill the premises of the temple with gold, he won’t notice it.

Now, you may think I’m getting annoyingly religious now, contrary to my comments on the post. I could have posted this there, but that would seem philosophical, contradictory (even though it is not really so), annoying and even stupid. But isn’t this really truth? Why do some people stay in abusive relationships? Why do others get out? Some readers defended the young woman’s mother saying that she is too trapped and conditioned by patriarchy. But really it isn’t patriarchy. It is not a social thing. It’s a psychological thing. It is just that some people resign everything to fate and others don’t. Some have a rebellious soul while others don’t. Some people stay in an abusive relationship for life because, like one commenter said, that is her comfort zone. She resents change, basically. She may complain and cry about her present situation, but she still wants to stay in it. This is true in a number situations in the everyday life of so many people. Why do people hate their jobs but still go to work everyday? Why does my grandmother complain about our kaamchor housemaid but still put up with her everyday since 10 years? So, basically it all depends from person to person. People who believe in changing life situations if they’re not happy, will obviously be exasperated with such people.

I also read IHM’s new post today regarding circle of abuse that takes place. Even though I understand all that, I wonder what can a person really do if s/he wants to help someone in an abusive relationship? Just lend a shoulder, that’s all. Which means doing nothing, really. After all, the fact is only the person who is actually in the situation has the ability to do anything about it.

We need Woman’s Lib not Women’s Lib

Writing a post on my take on the entire status of women, the world, gender equality, women’s liberation, women’s empowerment and of course, the almost always hated, sometimes loved and never ignored phenomenon of feminism has been on my mind for sometime. It’s actually ironic when I say the above sentence because the topic of gender equality is not new to me. Neither is feminism new to me. I was a hardcore feminist once and at the age of 17, I began writing a feminist blog. I guess I wrote for a year. No link available because the blog doesn’t exist anymore. I think I did consider myself a feminist until I was in the third year of college and one of my subjects happens to be gender studies. Though I knew right from the beginning that feminism is not a ideology which can defined in a sentence. It’s many things. Plus there is an entire every-feminist-has-her-or-his-own-definition-of-feminism thing. But as I began to study about feminist philosophy and how it began and about certain feminists themselves, my own views evolved. No more,do I wish to call myself as ‘feminist’. And no, I do not shun feminism now. But I have many issues with it.

First of all, I have a basic problem with the term ‘feminism’ itself. The ‘fem’ part of the word itself makes people think that this is a male-bashing ideology when the actual idea, as told by many feminists is that feminism is anti-patriarchy not anti-men. Still, if the basic idea of feminism is gender equality, it should be called as gender equalism or something. Besides, there are certain people who call themselves as feminists but actually are female chauvinists pigs or misandrists or both. There are people who think feminism is the opposite of male chauvinism. There are people who think feminism means to be feminine. I swear I’m not making this up. So, since I have a basic problem with the word itself, it would be illogical if I call myself a feminist. I think an ideology like feminism is supposed to be objective not subjective.

Secondly, there is one feminist ideology I simply don’t agree with and that is “men and women are be physically different but they are equal.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to imply that men are superior or women are superior. I guess we can generally state that men and women are equal and yes they are! But the fact is equality depends on the power anyone holds. There are certain women who are superior to men and vice versa. It all ultimately depends on the individual and that’s why I say we need woman’s liberation and not women’s liberation. Even though there is need for a mass movement in a completely downtrodden place like a rural village where men are evidently more privileged than women and patriarchy is controlling both men and women, I don’t think we need it in an urban setup because all of us, us women, we have our rights and using them is upto us. Gone are the days of suffragettes when a number of people are needed in order to bring change. I believe in freedom on an individual level. Liberation on an individual level. Also, sometimes feminism disregards the biological differences between men and women or completely try to eradicate it. That’s what radical feminism is about, right? I’m sure as hell not a radical feminist. Amazon feminism is a related ideology too and I’m not an amazon feminist as well. I don’t believe that women need to become clones of men or men without penises in order to be equal to them. We are all, by default, equal. Actually being treated equal is upto our individual selves.

Thirdly, is every feminist living a perfectly feminist life? The last paragraph was full of idealism. This one will be just as realistic. First read Rachel Hills’ article on how every feminist is ultimately a bad feminist. Basically, I don’t want to advocate something I am not going to definitely and completely live up to. There are times when you have to choose whether to be a feminist or not. Like Emily Deschanel says, women feel obliged to compromise. There are a lot of times when women themselves confirm to patriarchal norms unknowingly hence oppressing themselves, thanks to years of social conditioning. I have done it and I wouldn’t be surprised if I do it again any time in the future.

So, I guess that’s about it. For now. As I said before, I have been contemplating writing this for quite sometime and for some reason, Queenie Dhody’s article on Mumbai Mirror today finally triggered me. And all this said, I won’t feel ashamed or offended if someone calls me a feminist. Even though I do kind of hate it because whenever one person declares the other as a feminist, the declaration is pretty synonymous to dismissal. It’s like saying, “Oh, you are feminist and hence whatever you say is crap.” But instead of getting mad, I would simply respond saying that they are mistaken. Maybe, after reading this, some may call me an ‘anti-feminist’. I would say no to that too. My ideals are congruent with basic humanity. I don’t need to label myself for that.  And of course, I cannot give them a lecture on why I am not a feminist. So I have said it here, both in response to all of them and in order to document a part of my opinion (only a part because gender equality is a vast subject and I may have a lot more to say).  I know, I have not written what exactly my ideals are. That may come later.

Movie Review: Tanu Weds Manu

My mind is currently full of question marks.

I would say that this movie is rather meaningless. And the producers and directors have appropriately fooled us by incorporating groovy Punjabi music. Because, neither Tanu or Manu here is in fact, Punjabi.

I’ll tell you the story in brief. Manu from UK comes to Kanpur to see Tanu. He falls in love. I don’t know how this works but it happens only in the case of men. They set their eyes on some girl and they immediately fall in love. You will never ever, in your life, find a woman who fell in love in the first sight itself. Anyway, he OKs the girl and the marriage is planned when Tanu tells him that she doesn’t want to marry him and that she has a boyfriend. Plus, she has tattooed her boyfriend’s surname (which she shows to Manu). So Manu says no the marriage. However, they meet again at Manu’s friend’s marriage. This kind of coincidence happens only in the movies. M and T go out, get acquainted etc. All this is obviously captured in a song. Which is exactly the problem here because the audience has no idea about their chemistry. There is absolutely no character development. They were clearly inspired by Jab We Met, but they didn’t want to make that obvious and hence tried to make the movie different, but nothing really worked. The prominent element in Jab We Met is Geet and Aditya, their contrasting characters and their misadventures together. But there is no such thing here. Instead of getting inspired by the character development of JWM, they are inspired by the clichéd storyline which has been used so many times before: Boy sees Girl, falls in love but Girl has Boyfriend and Boy helps Girl and Boyfriend get married. The movie has wasted Madhavan’s talent. I mean, his role has to be better, even if it was a nerdy, reserved one. They also wasted his cuteness. Kangna Ranaut is gorgeous and you should watch this film if you want to admire her beauty and her super-sexy costumes (which is why I’m giving this movie two stars). Jimmy Shergill is er, vague. Again, waste of talent. Tanu is modelled after Geet but she’s not such a dynamic character like Geet either. In the first half, she comes off as a daredevil young lady who does what she wants and knows what she wants. In the second half, she is completely transformed into a confused and vulnerable young woman who has no idea what to do in life. The plot is loose and random. I have no more words left.

Movie Review: No One Killed Jessica

I finally saw this film. I got mostly positive reviews from everyone. In my opinion, it is very well-made, well-cast with fast-paced direction. It does not drag.

The movie is certainly mostly adapted from the real-life incident but there are some deviations. The Jessica in the movie is much younger, only about 20 while the real Jessica Lal was well into her 30s when she died. And I don’t know if the real Sabrina Lal wore clothes that make her look like she’s got cancer which is what Vidya Balan does in the entire film. The trials go on for years together and all this while, she seems to be in the same shirt. And every once in a while, you find the accused’s mom saying, “Kuch bhi ho, meri manu ko kuch hona nahi chahiye, haan.” That’s hilarious, actually, more than ironic.

Myra who plays Jessica is very brave. The character itself is bold. Out of the two, Sabrina is the timid sister. Rani also does a brilliant job though the bitchy reporter who loves to be called a bitch is kind of a cliché, don’t you think? I also loved Rajesh Sharma who plays to police officer. The interrogation scene and the scene in which he questions all the 300 witnesses are my favourites. Four stars.

Typepad outage

It’s been almost a week now I guess and I still cannot access Typepad blogs, be it on the “typepad” or “blogs” sub-domain or an independent domain. It is sort of weird because before this problem occurred, there was a “blogspot” outage. I could access my Blogger dashboard, write posts and everything but not see my blog page. However this happened only with blogs under the “blogspot” sub-domain and not independent domains. This issue was resolved after people all over India complained. Now, immediately the Typepad outage follows. I have mailed the Six Apart folks and I have got no reply. This sucks bad.

Why Facebook is Also Lame

The “Orkut is so lame” era has ended now, so don’t think you are cool when you say that you are on Facebook. Because, it’s SO not. Here are some reasons why Facebook is lame and breeds lameness:

1. Creating and liking innumerable pages for various phrases about love, life and people. It is not hep, my dears; it makes you predictable and you are no different from others. You are NOT unique.

2. Straight people who think it’s cool to be in a relationship with your best friend of the same sex. I see mostly girls engaging in this kind of nonsense. Ladies, I can just sense your desperation to fill in names in your relationship status. At least, ask a male friend for the favour?

3. There are some even more weird people who link to their closest friends in the “Parents” and “Siblings” section. Again, not awesome.

4. Lame friends who ask you to add their own desperate friends and you give in, because you don’t want to be rude. But when you have to stay invisible on Facebook chat just because of those selected friends of friends who are unfortunately your friends now, you regret your Miss Goody Two Shoes behaviour.

5. Tagging friends in graphic images is mostly lame, guys. Admit it.

6. You are convinced that Facebook is stupid when you find your feed filled with so-called smart-ass thoughts of your friends and your requests page filled with Farmville requests.

7. And no ladies, that cute guy in your college who is friends with ten of your friends is not going to send you a friend request in this life (even if you put up your sexiest pic), so stop being an idiot and send him a request yourself.

8. Most people who have manifested themselves on Facebook don’t seem to have got over the Orkut fever. People still upload pictures of celebrities (taken from tacky websites with their urls water-marked), teddy bears, big initials in a stupid font, Barbie dolls etc. Even high-schoolers don’t do that these days.

9. No, Facebook is not going to tell you whether your boyfriend/girlfriend has a “lying nature” unless you are already aware of it.

10. Disturbing pictures. I’m sure there is one specific creep in your contact list who likes digging out pictures of fugly shit (gore, paranormal stuff, mangled bodies etc). Not only does s/he satisfies her/his own sick fetishes but also makes it public by uploading those pics and tagging everybody including you.

11. Posting irrelevant comments. On basically anything; be it photos or status updates. Somebody says “hi” in comment thread related to spaceships or something and then eventually, some other folks come up with their “heya”s and “howz u”s. It’s embarrassing.

12. The purpose of really being on FB for most of us is never really served. People who you actually want to be in touch with don’t really come online.

13. There is no point writing a note and then tagging people in it. Nobody really reads it.

What else do you think is annoying about Facebook? Let me know through the comments.

Movie Review: Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey

I know, it’s pretty late. Is this even running in the theatres anymore? I have no idea.

Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey is not a good film. It’s not a bad film either. It’s rather boring, slow and um, uninspired? Yes, that’s correct. The problem with the film is everything seems to be half-baked -

Cast: Mediocre
Dialogues: Mediocre
Screenplay: Not up to the mark
Music: Very mediocre
Performance: Juvenile (which includes practically everyone. Bachchan Jr. gave an acceptable performance and that’s about it.)

So, on the whole. This is not how a historical drama should be. There has to be passion, some brilliant scenes with great dialogues and acting. I won’t say disappointing, because it’s not like I expected something great. Anyway, two stars.