The Holy Cow

Devi in a black dress

2011-10-29T12:20:00.002+05:30

He held up the comic book to show us the cover. It had a slim, attractive woman with flowing dark hair, wearing what he perhaps rightfully described as a ‘Catwoman’ costume- a body-hugging leotard made out of either leather, rubber, vinyl or some combination of these (I can barely recognise fabric if I touch it with my fingers so my inability to make definitive remarks about the material of the afore-mentioned leotard based on a drawing is hardly surprising). The comic book, or graphic novel if you prefer, in question was Devi by Virgin Comics and the speaker proceeded to remark that he didn’t really like devi (Hindu goddess), being depicted in a Catwoman-esque fashion. By contrast, he was a huge fan of Amar Chitra Katha, which dutifully depicts goddesses wearing the kind of apsara-like attire Sridevi wore in songs that invariably involved coloured powder, earthenware and more often than not, Jeetendra. The expressions of the two versions of devi are also remarkably different. The traditional devi looks benign, with flour-white cheeks like Madhubala, a bindi, and a slight smile. The new one by contrast has a much leaner face, more athletic body, no jewellery or adornment and usually has a more intimidating expression. Catwoman-devi makes no attempt to hide her anger where as apsara-devis ride ferocious beasts while retaining their Mona Lisa smiles. All the aggression is projected onto the lion she is sitting on you see.

The speaker’s distaste for the Catwoman-devi got me thinking about whether his opinion was a fleeting manifestation of a more widely held attitude towards women and sexuality in Indian society and culture. Before you accuse me of reading too much into his remark, allow me to add two further points. First, the same speaker had previously made an admittedly sexist comment about how certain comic books were ‘girly’ because of their preference for floral patterns, pinkish hues and whatever else he associated with feminine tastes. By contrast, he felt some other comics were more suitable for ‘boys’ because of their dark colours and depictions of weapons and war. Second, before he came to Devi by Virgin Comics, he had expressed appreciation for the art in new-age Indian comics that had transformed ancient myths and stories like the Mahabharata and Ramayana to make them more relatable to readers today by using imagery similar to Tron, X-Men and such like. This led me to believe that his dislike for the new-age devi stemmed not from a general aversion to new-age animation but from something else entirely. To put it simply, he didn’t seem to mind Ram being depicted as a chiselled, muscular fellow with flowing tresses, black pants, no shirt and no jewellery.

The old devis of Amar Chitra Katha with their soft features, rounded figures and benign expressions represent a quality of nurturance and are more maternal than the lithe-bodied, scowl-faced devi in the black dress who represents a destructive, aggressive force to be reckoned with rather than someone whose lap a child would want to rest its head on.

Aggression and sexuality are inextricably related in the traditional Indian mindset, so any attempt to analyse attitudes to female aggression without looking at attitudes to female sexuality, or vice versa, will be incomplete. Textual tradition in India has for centuries warned against the raging, devouring, all consuming nature of female sexuality which must constantly be kept in check lest it swallows you whole in your sleep. Let us consider a few examples from that oft-quoted encyclopaedia of misogyny- the Laws of Manu.

"It is the nature of women to seduce men in this (world); for that reason the wise are never unguarded in (the company of) females.

For women are able to lead astray in (this) world not only a fool, but even a learned man, and (to make) him a slave of desire and anger."

-----

"Women must particularly be guarded against evil inclinations, however trifling (they may appear); for, if they are not guarded, they will bring sorrow on two families.

…..He who carefully guards his wife, preserves (the purity of) his offspring, virtuous conduct, his family, himself, and his (means of acquiring) merit."

It is easy to see how there is no room for a version of female sexuality that is not simultaneously monstrous and ‘out to get you’. It is in this confined space that sexuality and aggression cannot be accommodated as independent entities and must be clubbed together to squeeze in.

Sudhir Kakar has explored sexuality and the Indian psyche extensively and suggests that the idealisation of women’s maternal roles in society is an effort to guard against the terrorising force of female sexuality. While it is the sort of hypothesis that cannot be verified by empirical methods, it remains a plausible explanation for the dominant attitude towards women. Women must be controlled and as far as possible, kept indoors lest they go on some sort of rampage. Culture and tradition become the tools to oppress, prevent, prohibit.

Why am I talking about idealisation of maternal roles in a post that started by discussing comic books? It is because the relationship that best characterises that between devotees and goddesses is a maternal one. Goddesses are referred to by maternal names such as ‘mata’, they are bowed to and revered, we ask that they watch over us and give us boons when we’ve been good (and sometimes even when we’ve not been all that nice, because let’s face it, a mother’s love is unconditional, no?)

A maternal looking, nurturing manifestation of devi is easier to accept than an aggressive one. Mums should look like mums after all. I know that my grandmother admonished my aunt for still wearing ‘salwar kameez’ after having children (because salwars can reveal the shape of a woman’s legs) and she ‘should wear saris’ because she’s ‘a mother now!’. I have seen a male acquaintance grimace when his mother came to a party dressed in a miniskirt, while his girlfriend’s outfit was not dissimilar. I read about hundreds of ‘traditional’ Indians who expressed shock and horror when Mallaika Arora posed for a magazine cover clad only in a bed sheet, holding her infant son. The same Indians probably had no difficulty ogling at her bikini-clad body in an item number. The crux is that people don’t want the women they fantasise about to look like mothers and don’t want their mothers to look like women they fantasise about.

The problem of course is that respect gradually comes to be reserved for women who conform to culturally-dictated roles- get married as soon as they’re old enough, stay at home, look after families, keep their eyes lowered and their heads covered and never, EVER retaliate when their husbands beat them to a pulp. A good wife (synonymous with a good woman) is one who puts up with rather than puts up a fight. A goddess who is a mother-substitute cannot look like Catwoman because Catwoman is sexy, single and knows how to kick some ass.

The distinction between the desirable and the domesticated manifests itself in other ways. In their book, ‘Half the sky’, Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn observe that forced prostitution is disproportionately high in the most sexually conservative societies, including the Indian subcontinent. According to them, the reason for this is an underlying social contract in which men find satisfaction for their sexual frustration in brothels so that good, upper-middle class women can keep their virtue.

The confused morals and hypocritical attitudes to sexuality in Indian society are hardly secret but they continue to baffle. Take clothing for example. Much thought is given to the attire of women and girls who are sexually assaulted. Public figures have previously made embarrassingly ridiculous remarks about how girls should or should not dress or behave if they don’t ‘want’ to be victimised. Such attitudes- hideously off the mark as they are since women and girls continue to be sexually assaulted the world over regardless of whether they wear skirts, saris, burqas or bikinis- are not surprising in a climate where women must conform to traditional gender roles which often include a sartorial component- to be regarded in high esteem.

Devi, in a holistic sense of the term, represents the feminine aspect of the holy trinity- creator, preserver and destroyer. However, prescribed social norms tend to be in the arena of creation and preservation only. In the dominant socio-cultural paradigm that idealises maternal roles and elevates women to the status of goddesses purely to serve a patriarchal agenda, the destructive force of women has had to fall by the wayside.

It is not hard to see how the divine powers that society and culture bestow on women become the vehicles of oppression. ‘Because you hold the key to the family's honour, who else should be punished for bringing shame upon the family name?’ ‘You can’t leave your husband! After all, it is up to you to keep the family together!’ ‘You're a woman, blessed with huge reservoirs of tolerance and forgiveness… you should understand and forgive.’

No thank you I say! You are highly mistaken sirs and madams! I don't hold the key to anyone's honour but my own, and I'll fight to the death to defend it. I don't have the power to hold families together because I don't live in denial of the simple fact that family's are made of more than one person, each responsible for their actions. Let them shoulder that responsibility- I am done carrying it for them. And I certainly don't have an endless capacity to forgive or understand- it does not extend beyond the boundaries of rationality.

Unless I can claim all aspects- creation, preservation and destruction- of the holy trinity and until I can damn well take as much as I give, I'd much rather be a happy human being than an acquiescing goddess.

I guess the new-age devi, for me, represents a bit of the woman who's done being nice and that's why I think it's a good thing. Also, maybe if more devis dressed like Catwoman- or wore jeans, skirts and dresses for that matter- respect for women in the real world will not be rationed out depending on how they are attired. I don't know what Virgin Comics intended, but the way I see it, closing the gap between the physical appearance of devis and that of women in the real world seems like a good thing.

To be human is to...err...umm…what?

2011-07-26T17:12:00.001+05:30

What characteristics does someone need to possess in order to be regarded a human being? Are there any necessary and sufficient conditions, apart from those that can be discerned with the help of electron microscopes and other equipment, for humanness?

Just for the record, I don’t think there are. I haven’t been able to come up with even one.

I don’t think the matter of how we define 'human' has been given as much consideration as it should have. It’s a pity really, given that we're always throwing the word around in various forms. Human rights, for example. Or an act being ‘inhuman’. What does the latter mean?

Attempts at using psychological characteristics such as empathy to identify human beings fall flat on its face. Take psychopaths for instance. Research suggests that psychopaths lack, among other things, the ability to empathise- to gauge and understand emotions in another person or in themselves. Jon Ronson in his book- The Psychopath Test- explores the idea of psychopathy and is surprised at discovering that psychopathy as a trait is present in people who don't go on to commit heinous crimes or become serial killers. High ranking corporate executives may get high scores on a standardised instrument designed to assess and diagnose psychopathy. Yet we do not incarcerate such persons in prisons or asylums for the criminally insane. The fact is that in the business world it may be a highly prized quality to not be fazed by or affected by other people's emotions. As I write this, Devil Wears Prada is on in the background on television, and Meryl Streep comes to mind easily as an example of what I'm talking about. Context is everything, really.

Alternatively, any skill - such as communication or the use of complex tools- cannot be the defining feature. There are many who for medical reasons cannot perform these tasks. To suggest that they’re not human beings is preposterous. Wikipedia suggests that higher level thought processes such as abstract reasoning and rationality define a ‘person’. (Un)fortunately, I’ve come across many creatures belonging to the human species as defined by biology {‘Animalia’ kingdom, ‘Chordata’ phylum, ‘Mammalia’ class, ‘Primate’ order, ‘Hominidae’ family, ‘Hominini’ tribe and ‘Homo’ genus} who have not (at least in my presence) actually demonstrated the capacity for logic and reason.

Similarly, aptitude and intelligence tests often assess the capacity for abstract reasoning. While there are several diagnostic terms used to indicate a low-score on these dimensions, ‘inhuman’ is not one of them. So you see, the system, flimsy as it was to begin with, breaks down once again.

People who do horrible things to other people are often referred to by names of life forms we regard as lying at the lowest rungs of species classification- rats, fungi, parasites, cockroach and the like. The tendency to describe acts that we find vile as ‘inhuman’, or referring to people whose actions we find despicable with words that refer to species other than human beings, stems from a desire to dissociate ourselves from them- I am a human being and I am not like this person. Ergo, this person cannot be a human being. What this indicates is an effort towards creating homogeneity within the species. The obliteration of difference.

Obliteration of difference lies at the heart of all discriminatory attitudes - racism, homophobia, or Nazi eugenics. The problem is the assumption of a 'natural order of things' or how something ought to be. The moment one assumes a natural order, the unnatural is born. Abnormal, insane, inhuman are negations. Their existence depends on the existence of something that is not them. It doesn’t matter whether the assumed natural order in question is heterosexuality, patriarchy, or caring for fellow beings. What is the difference, really, between someone who thinks a pedophile is an animal and someone who deems the transvestite a beast? The line, if there is one, is very thin indeed.

With the obliteration of difference comes the obliteration of otherness. Psychoanalytic theory would regard this as the fundamental me/not me dilemma. Transition from a symbiotic relationship with the caregiver to an independent sense of self comes with a painful acknowledgement of caregiver as different from oneself. Freudians would regard this as the crux of the oedipal conflict. I'm not a Freudian, at least not completely, but I do buy the idea that to recognise the independent existence of a love-object with whom we would much rather be, and for a while were, fused is not always peachy.

Sorry about the brief psychoanalytic detour without prior notification, but it felt necessary.

The recognition of others as independent beings comes as a shock in infancy and childhood and is apparently not that easy to accept in adulthood either. Trace the course of human history, from the Pharoahs to the Nazis, to the uproar about drawings of Mohammad, or bikinis with images of Lakshmi and Saraswati and you'll agree.

Diversity of race, gender, sexuality, culture, or religion is generally more easily accepted than diversity of actions. The fact is that if you claim to acknowledge- and even appreciate- diversity, you really should accept all forms of it. You can't own the good bits without also owning the ugly. It's kind of a package deal.

Another causal factor that leads many of us to distinguish ourselves from those whose actions we find abominable is a refusal to accept that the human species is as much a rotting mass of depravity as it is a sea of spirituality, goodness and whatnot.

The problem with such a stance is that the species/title/diagnosis that is given to individuals whose actions we find abhorrent then becomes the cause or explanation for their behaviour. Consider the much debated insanity plea. That someone can get away with murder because they were diagnosed with schizophrenia seems preposterous to me. Insanity is an idea that is at best ambiguous and at worst, absurd. Schizophrenia is basically a diagnostic term that applies to a range of symptoms, none of which include the predisposition to commit murder. Consider the fact that illnesses traditionally used most often in the insanity pleas tend to be schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and there is no evidence to indicate that being diagnosed with either necessarily precludes an awareness of actions and/or intentions. My difficulty with the insanity plea is that it is almost impossible to establish with conviction, beyond a reasonable doubt, that someone’s actions were the direct result of a ‘mental illness’. Criminality and insanity are two separate issues serving separate purposes for society.

The treatment of people in mental asylums continues to be largely deplorable in several countries. Sending someone to a high security psychiatric ward instead of jail is not necessarily more merciful. If they are to be imprisoned, it might as well be in a prison. (For a more detailed discussion on similar themes, interested readers are advised to procure Thomas Szasz’s essays on Ideology and Insanity- highly recommended!) Incidentally, Anders Breivik’s lawyer believes that Breivik (the man responsible for the recent attacks in Oslo) is insane, though it is not clear whether he will plead insanity.

Ascribing ‘inhuman’ qualities to an act stands for the sort of determinism that obliterates free will. To determine that someone murdered under the influence of a psychotic or manic episode is akin to saying that the illness caused the crime, and if the illness is treated the crime will not be committed.

When we describe a pedophile or mass murderer as an animal or a beast because his/her behaviour doesn't fit with our concept of what constitutes a human being, we are in effect suggesting that his/her non-humanness is responsible for his/her having committed the said abhorrent act. And when the act is motivated by anything other than choice- in this case allegedly non-human characteristics- what can we/ society really do with that? If someone's behaviour is caused by an inherent bestiality, then should they be subjected to the laws designed to govern human behaviour? Would you incarcerate a dog for biting off a woman’s arm? Would that be right?

(For the record, I take the position that it would not. It’s not okay to judge an animal by human standards- not least because our standards may be rather low and animals are better than that- whether it’s shooting a tiger that started preying on villagers when forests began shrinking or calling for the death of a killer whale that shook its trainer to death.)

Is it not true that one can be held accountable for one’s actions only if one is seen to be making a choice?

Is the idea that those who commit acts we find repugnant are fundamentally different to us really more palatable than the idea that it is our choices that separate us from them?

It doesn’t please me in the slightest to believe that rapists, murderers, child molesters, wife beaters are inhuman, bestial, degenerates. I’d much rather believe that I have my own reasons for making the choices I make and acting the way I do, and that those reasons are not motivated by my mere belongingness to a certain species classification.

If I pick fleas off a stray dog or buy a starving child some food I’m as human as I would be if I chose not to do these things. Someone who kills a hundred people in cold blood is as human as someone who chooses not to commit such an act.

My actions don't make me human or inhuman.

They merely determine what kind of human being I am.

The Sickness of the State

2011-03-05T02:28:00.002+05:30

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), International Classification of Diseases (ICD) or any other classification system(s) for mental illness ought to consider a category for 'disorders of the State or government' for tyrannical regimes and so-called 'democracies' that oppress and harass people on a frequent basis.

I suspect the presentation will be an amalgamation of narcissistic & obsessive- compulsive personality disorder, delusional disorder, and paranoid disorder NOS (not otherwise specified).

Consider the following clinical features listed in DSM IV TR in relation to the arbitrary and authoritarian censorship practices of the Indian government

Narcissistic personality disorder:

- 'Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)' We all know that the power of the state far exceeds its merit.

- 'Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.' Manifested as the illegitimate exercise of authority.

- 'Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.' Suppresses freedom of speech and expression allegedly to safeguard the interests of the 'nation' where nation = sarkar.

- 'Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes' reflected in the fact that the government assumes the ability and right to decide what is right or wrong for millions of people.

Obsessive compulsive personality disorder:

- 'A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency...', "control" being the operative word.

Delusional disorder

- 'Delusional disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a psychotic mental disorder that is characterized by holding one or more non-bizarre delusions... Non-bizarre delusions are fixed beliefs that are certainly and definitely false, but that could possibly be plausible.

Specifically, to be a "delusion," a belief must be sustained despite what almost everyone else believes, and not be one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture'*

* Such as the general public who may not share the government's belief that certain blogs are offensive, or that FTV corrupts the moral fabric of Indian society.

As for paranoid disorder NOS- consider the following diagnostic criteria specified by ICD-10 for paranoid personality disorder (four out of seven are relevant)

- 'Excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs

- tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights;

- tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude

- preoccupation with unsubstantiated "conspiratorial" explanations of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large'

I rest my case.

Na sahi wasl to hasrat hi sahi

2011-02-07T03:00:00.001+05:30

A few mornings ago I was reading an article about one of those assistance dogs that do such amazing things. After sufficient ooh-ing and wow-ing I remarked that I should become a dog trainer. Seconds later I added that I would be a terrible dog trainer because I wouldn't be able to discipline the dog and would pretty much let it do whatever the hell it wanted. A digression here to inform readers that while friends and even colleagues know that I have the ability to be scarily strict and no-nonsense type, it is limited to members of the human species. With animals I melt like a slab of butter when Jerry soothes his burning bum on it (The fact that I couldn't think of a metaphor better than one involving Tom & Jerry is testimony to my borderline crazy adoration of animals).

So yeah, when I said I wouldn't last three days in a job as a dog trainer, my partner said "You should be a dog spoiler instead"

Friends, nomads and countrymen! The moment comes but rarely in history when you realise what your true calling is. That morning when my beloved told me what I should be, dear lectores, was one such moment.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is such a thing as a dog-spoiler. It got me thinking about additional employment opportunities that haven't yet seen the light of day, but which I would gladly apply for and probably never leave unless forced to do so.

Dog spoiler

Duties could include showing unabashed affection towards the dog, feeding, grooming and playing with it, defending its right to do almost anything, letting it sleep on £5000 mattresses, oh what the heck! letting it sleep on my head if it wants to, talking to it about existence, and receiving gyaan (pearls of wisdom) from it. The only problem is dogs are so easy going and unpretentious that they wouldn't care about many of these services. A cat would, but I don't want to be a cat spoiler. Yes, I like some animals more than others. I like all animals more than humans.

Culturally and intellectually engaged alter-ego of a rich person

A rich man, or woman, wants to keep abreast with the best of literature, poetry and music but doesn't have the time to indulge these cultural pursuits. He/she would pay me to read great books and poetry, attend lectures and talks on a variety of interesting subjects, and listen to beautiful music. I would then take out an hour or two each day to succinctly summarise the plot, philosophy, underlying themes, meanings- both apparent and symbolic, and essence of those books, talks, poems and songs for the benefit of my employer. This combines several of my favourite activities with another- teaching. Hmmm...maybe this could include a travel component also. Since I am making it up as I go along, it shall.

Feedback- giver

Based on comments by recipients and my own gut instinct, I believe I would make a good feedback-er. Good feedback should be useful. Something that the feedback-ee should be able to do something with. Comments like "This was awful" are pointless. So is being too nice. I am not in favour of sugar coated critique. I dislike sugar. Especially when it coats things. Apart from those German mini-doughnut type things, which I could quite easily do with right about now.

Firer

Not guns, though we can come to that later perhaps. I mean the kind person who gets to say "You're fired!". Inspired by cinema, I think companies should outsource firing people. These are tough times, and everyone knows that letting a faithful employee go isn't easy. I would like to be the one who takes that burden of duty off them. Outsource the hatred directed towards the messenger! What a great idea! I will happily take on the part of said messenger. I'm actually surprised this isn't already a bonafide source of income.

Defender of personal autonomy and human rights

In a society afflicted with "fear of offending" I can be hired to tell people off if they interfere with my prospective employer's personal freedom on ridiculous grounds including appeals to religion, class, caste, or the wider social community ("Log kya kahenge"). To tell someone to %$@* off and take their personal opinion with them would feel so much better if it were part of my job description. For two reasons. First, I'd get paid for it. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there would be no dithering or discomfort about meddling in the private affairs of another person. The (somewhat overbearing) presence of my nose and foot in matters concerning a third party would be legitimised by my employment contract.

Before signing anything, I would master some form of deadly combat like Krav Maga to be better equipped to do my job and deal with...ahem....impediments effectively.

Food taster (Vegetarian :-p)

The job title is self explanatory. A dream job list that doesn't involve delicious food is proof that the person making the list is either sadly misinformed about the pleasures of existence, or keeled over in the middle of the exercise, thereby leaving the list incomplete.

Of the above-mentioned, I believe the professional firer, feedback-giver and alter-ego are real possibilities. Do millionaires with no time on their hands read this blog?

One lives in eternal hope, doesn't one?

Elevator etiquette

2010-09-28T01:17:00.002+05:30

There are many circumstances in which one may find oneself pushed against or packed into confined spaces with strangers. Crowded buses, trains, tram et cetera, to name a few. Elevators are mysteriously different. To elucidate, let us consider the example of a crowded Delhi- Gurgaon Haryana roadways bus, or the London underground for that matter (not that the two are alike in any way, other than acute-onset claustrophobia and a burning desire for fresh air and freedom).

People may be sharing breathing space with one another but the sense is one of individual collectivity. The presence of the other may be acknowledged, or if particularly offensive, scorned, but what is not discernible is the effect of person A on person B. Laughter continues, gossip flows freely, serious conversations carry on in murmurs and silence…well…silence remains silent. Entering a train or bus, one would not immediately perceive that one’s presence has, in Lewin’s words, changed the ‘field’ significantly.

By contrast, in elevators, the perception that one has interrupted something by walking in is overwhelming. Even while walking into a quiet elevator, one notices a shift to the left or right, straightening of slumped shoulders, and cessation of any activity involving body to body contact – including self to self contact. Conversations either stop, or if unstoppable, mellow down rapidly to a whisper. Giggling or guffawing of any kind almost always ceases, often with a cough or clearing-of-the-throat to aid the smooth transition from a state of laughter to non-laughter.

Once the tumult caused by arrival of new member onto the scene subsides, there is the awkward and slow ascent or descent. Eye contact with fellow travellers is to be avoided at all cost, and as far as possible restricted either to the dull grey elevator floor, or the flashing numbers above. Talking is a strict no-no (maybe that’s why they have elevator music). There are always exceptions of course, as discussed below.

Scenario I- It is an old apartment complex in India, and the neighbouring aunty or uncle saunter in. ‘Neighbouring’, of course, used rather loosely to imply anyone in the same building (or blocks of buildings) as opposed to neighbours from the same floor. In such cases customary greetings are exchanged, and there is necessarily some talk about one’s studies or career depending on age. Some polite enquiry about one’s family or comment about extreme weather may follow. Strangely, in such cases a lot manages to get said and heard in a short journey of five or six storeys. If you’re particularly lucky, you may get a herd of seventeen children cramming into the elevator with you, intent on pushing all the buttons, thereby giving you the chance to be all grown-up and say ‘tsk tsk’ with a shake of the head while they smile sheepishly and proceed to ignore your protests.

Scenario II- It is England, and no one really talks to anyone unless something is out of the ordinary. Elevator wise, this would mean it being especially crowded, inviting a comment such as –“We’re packed in here a bit like sardines aren’t we”, followed by gentle laughter- or if something goes wrong. Say the lights go out and the elevator comes to an unexpected halt. Then all of a sudden we are all brothers and sisters, fighting for survival, eager for answers, searching for suggestions and a whole lot of “Oh dear, what’ve they gone and done now?” ensues.

Scenario III- It is anywhere in the world, I am in the elevator and someone brings a dog in. Any tentativeness is motivated not by social norms, but by self-preservation, manifested in the form of the question “Is he friendly?”. If the unsuspecting ‘person’ responds in the affirmative, all rules are broken and the only etiquette I am even remotely aware of at this point in time is the golden rule- thou shalt not crush a dog to a pulp out of affection.

Then there is the end of the journey. There are the obvious rules about letting people alight etc. which I don’t find particularly interesting. I don’t know about others, but I feel a sense of relief once I have left the elevator, or if I am left alone for the remainder of the journey. There may not be something I have been dying to do which the presence of others has deterred me from doing, no visible change in my demeanor, but a sense of psychological freedom comes rushing in because now, at least I have the option.

Sometimes I almost feel there must be a perverse pleasure in getting into an empty elevator from one of the middle floors. It’s like a present you weren’t expecting.

Earlier today, I was on the eighth floor, waiting with some colleagues to catch the elevator down, when I was struck by their reluctance to get into the elevator on the left side, because even though the doors opened in front of us, someone else got in first. We waited, and waited, and then finally had to give up being fussy and get in after twelve other people. What is interesting about this whole incident is that it’s not really about being alone in the elevator. It’s not like we would have deliberately pressed the doors shut in someone’s face if we saw them running to catch a ride down. It seems to be more about a prior claim. We went in first, and then let the others in.

Ah yes, the simple pleasures of life.

Sowing seeds of ugly weeds

2010-06-29T10:47:00.004+05:30

You are constantly making exchanges. This for that. Giving up what you want for the need of the hour. Freedom sacrificed for the sake of livelihood. Love gives way to invisible pressures. Heat, dust and colour exchanged for a cool, clean greyness. Life given up for the sake of survival.

The question remains at the back of your mind, refusing to go away despite your efforts to deny its increasingly overbearing presence. There comes a time when facing up to it is inevitable. You grit your teeth and look at the question straight in the eye. You hope that the answer is different from what every instinct in your gut tells you.

Was what I traded in, worth more than what I got?

You wait, vulnerable and exposed, and you are met with nothing but silence.

No answer is forthcoming. Neither affirmation nor reassurance.

It is as you had expected after all.

The question wasn't really a question at all.

Rhetorical questions have a remarkable talent for making a frightening reality more palatable.

I know where to go if I ever need to find myself

2010-06-26T20:35:00.000+05:30

Bad news is I have to go to an obscure fishing village in the Scottish highlands in order to do so.

No, I don't think your baby is cute. Can you get it out of my face now?

2010-06-21T00:51:00.004+05:30

I need a lot of things. I need, for instance, for my cold to go away and never return, I need the teams I support to do well in the world cup, and I could also do with a drink.

To be fair, the world needs a few things as well. Safe drinking water, food and access to health care for many who don't currently have it, less violence towards nature, more intelligence, less idiocy, m

ore animals, less human beings and so on.

This post however isn't about what we need. This is about something that neither I nor the world require, but which exists in abundance- positive discrimination and the unfairly favourable treatment of babies, and those who have them.
I think the world puts up with wayyyy too much in the name of infancy and childhood. More often than not, this involves a violation of others' freedom and convenience. Take public transport for instance. We are often asked to offer our seats to those in need, which includes people with children. This pisses me off. Did I get the woman pregnant? No. Did I force her to have a child? No. She chose to put herself in a more uncomfortable position, travel wise, so she must face the consequences of her actions. Let's get one thing straight. Having a baby is not a disability or an injury. It may be a handicap, but it's a voluntary one. Expecting people to give up their seats for people who are travelling with infants is plain ridiculous. Based on this principle, I may be suffering from high fever and invisible aches and pains, but unless I am carrying a gurgling infant, not to mention all the paraphernalia that goes with it (does a child really need ALL that??) I am unlikely to be offered a place to park myself.

The photo was taken on a train in Paris.

While we're on the subject of tolerating more than necessary for the sake of children and their parents, I think there should be an explicit rule about noise control. People who make noise and upset the decorum of any public space should be kicked out. Someone is always up in arms about how "children are people too".

No, I don't think your baby is cute. When it stares at me I feel murderous rage towards it. Can you get it out of my face now?

If I went to a restaurant and started climbing onto chairs and tables, and staring at other people, I would no doubt be asked or made to leave. I don't quite understand why children and their parents are not subjected to similar punitive measures. The other night on a bus in Edinburgh, there was a man obviously under the spell of psychosis having a rather loud conversation with himself. He wasn't verbally or physically aggressive. He sat in a corner in the back row, and spoke. He got dirty looks from pretty much every other passenger. Why? Because he was being loud. If a baby came into the bus and started screaming however, most people would coo and caah at the creature to make it feel better.

There is a difference between a crazy person and a child, some might say. I agree. The crazy person didn't choose to be crazy. The apparently non-crazy adult chose to have the child and then inflicted the child's childishness upon the rest of us. Which is the more heinous crime? Where is the justice?

What else? Ah yes, airports. People travelling with children are often allowed to go to the head of the queue, board first and disembark first. Frankly speaking, they should be asked to go last because they will take the longest. Have you seen the amount of stuff people with children tend to carry?! Imagine waiting for all that to be scanned and searched! The standard procedure on flights is that people who require assistance are asked to wait till other passengers are on their way. Why should it be any different in case of those travelling with kids? Again, I play the choice card. People with disabilities didn't ask to be put in a position of "requiring assistance". People with babies on the hand.....

Finally, I don't think one should be entitled to any financial assistance if one has kids. You should have considered the economics of it prior to birth. I think it would solve the rather prevalent, at least in UK, problem of teenage pregnancies as well. At least in part. Once that incentive is gone, people without money to look after the kids might be more careful. If you exercise your basic right to reproduce, then you bloody well take on the responsibility that goes with it.

So what am I asking for?

All I am asking is that people who commit a particular act should be the ones to suffer the consequences. Not the rest of us.

A few years ago, I was concerned about a friend's decision to rely on what I thought was an unreliable method of contraception. A common friend of ours was due to be married soon. Failing to convince first friend of the potential dangers of her method, I pointedly told her that she could forget about asking me to hold her child while she wanted to go have dinner at second friend's wedding reception.

I rest my case.

Lattice

2010-06-20T10:41:00.001+05:30

I am a team player, and that looks like two cuddly bears hugging

2010-06-19T00:26:00.003+05:30

On a grey day made worse by a blocked nose and tired body, cancelled appointments come to my rescue.

Cancelled appointments, and something to write about.

********************************************************************

"I taste you and you taste me. I am your taste and you are mine,

but I do not taste your taste of me in your ear. One cannot both be

everything and have everything at once"

-R.D. Laing

The manager thought it would be a good idea to hand-out Belbin's Self Perception Inventory at a team meeting to assess the role we play within a team.

Her: 'Would you like to take one and fill it out?'

Implicit message: Take one and fill it

Me: Oh yeah yeah, sure.

Underlying thought: I couldn't care less about my team role.

A slight detour here to mention that if there is one thing I have mastered, it is the art of concealment. No, I am not referring to the cosmetic concealer (which btw, I still do not know how to use), but rather to the finely tuned skill of letting others see only what I want them to see.

Psychological tests I am particularly good at. I don't even understand why they are used as diagnostic tools. All one needs to be able to deceive is a basic level of intelligence. Okay, I just realised what I said and before you point it out, I hasten to add that it is missing in most people (at least people I seem to hear about). Seriously though, I think the average person would find them fairly easy to crack. But when one has administered them on unsuspecting others, analysed results and made interpretations, it becomes much easier.

Remember the Rorschach inkblot test being administered on Rorschach in Watchmen? Where he is thinking of dead dogs and hanging, rotting, bleeding flesh and answers 'that looks like a pretty butterfly'? That's the kind of stuff I am talking about.

Man, Rorschach is one of the greatest fictional characters ever.

Anyway, I picked up the pen and paper and went through the BSPI in a flash, ticking boxes, scoring them and arriving at my 'team-role description'

It was -

Monitor/Evaluator:

Sober, strategic, and discerning.

Sees all options. Judges accurately.

Lacks drive and ability to inspire others.

Uh huh. I see.

What it doesn't reveal is my sheer hatred for working in groups or as part of a team. Hmm.... I write this while the world cup match is going on and Slovenia have unfortunately drawn 2-2 with USA. I love watching football. But could I ever play it the way it is meant to be played? All this passing? All the uncertainty? All this relying-on-another-to-finish-the-job? My partner will testify to my inability to play a passing game. While playing FIFA '10 on PS3, I flourish and bloom the most when I play a one-man game. I am talking defensive tackle, a long, solitary run across the field, and a goal.

I am an individualist and a perfectionist. I genuinely believe that if I want something done right I am better off doing it myself. My experience working in groups (and this applies to forced, not selected groups) has been utterly disappointing and wholly frustrating. I am intolerant of stupidity, slowness and lack of depth and unfortunately have been dealt with all of these in varying combinations while working in a "group".

Methinks groups bore me a little. I have evidence to back this up. The only time I fell asleep while reading a book was when I had to read an entire book devoted to groups. The poor print quality and dull, mossy green cover didn't help either. I might find an activity by a so-called group interesting, and this might lead people to conclude I am interested in the group itself, but the fact is I would probably be interested in the said activity even if one person were doing it. Gymnastics is a good example. Curious rituals undertaken by people in a religious frenzy yet another.

I don't know what a "group identity" is to be honest. I don't think I have had any first hand experience of it. People have unsuccessfully tried to convince me of my group identity. I have successfully deflected all these attempts.

I think the very idea of a group is a myth. A big fat illusion crafted by the guardians of civilisation and all that sort of rot.

Freud said something about love thy neighbour being a cover-up for the allegedly more sinister and dangerous notion, kill they neighbour.

There is no way to express this other than as a paradox- we, a collective, are all individuals. The only characteristic that unifies us is our individuality. I have expressed my thoughts on the unavoidably solitary nature of our lives, even within the scaffolding of close interpersonal relationships.

Laing wrote that 'our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being'

He called this a potentially tragic paradox. To me, it becomes tragic only when it is accompanied by the hope of it being any other way.

A perfect 180

2010-05-13T02:53:00.004+05:30

20:16 - I stare out the window at a brick building. It isn't very tall. As my eyes trace its length to the the top and stop, I have an instant image of myself falling off it. In poetic, slow motion. I land with a "splat!" on the concrete. There is a splatter of blood as my head hits the hardness with a crunch. I smile. Then I conclude I am fucking crazy.

The predominant feeling is one of despair, and being trapped.

20:50 - I am tucked in bed under a duvet, wearing pajamas, drinking delicious white wine, and watching football while cradling sleepy loveliness in my free arm. Despite the fact that I know there is work to be done once the match is over, the predominant feeling is light, and of things being just right.

These two are parallel universes within which I exist. Usually, I forget the latter while in the former, but am unable to do vice-versa. Maybe when I reach vice-versa, the former will implode.

2010-05-06T02:45:00.001+05:30

Meine Ruh' ist hin

Meine Hertz ist schwer

- Goethe

Pickled shoes

2010-05-02T11:37:00.000+05:30

I ought to throw them away

Maybe some day I will

These (imaginary) shoes I have

Which I shall never fill

What might the obstacle be?

You may wonder, or ask

Oh how do I make you see

The impossibility of the task!

I know they wouldn't comply

And surely they can't resist!

But how do I discard a thing that

Probably doesn't exist?

On why I bought a cap I did not need

2010-05-01T21:41:00.004+05:30

In the summer of 2007, I was in Srinagar contemplating the purchase of a cap. It was one meant for men, and while trying it on I caused the shopkeeper to laugh heartily when I asked my companion if it made me look like Ghulam Nabi Azad.

In pitching the cap to me, he said "Haan haan..namaaz padhne ke liye badhiya rahega"- Yes yes, it will be great for saying namaaz (Muslim prayer).

My companion looked at me in a manner that made it obvious to the shopkeeper that I was no namaaz-sayer.

A second later he added, "Uh..vaise pooja paath mein bhi pehen sakte hain sar dhakne ke liye"- But you could also use it to cover your head during (Hindu) prayers

While it was very perceptive of him to gauge from my companion's expression that I was not the namaaz-saying type, he did make a big leap in assuming that I was a pooja-paath doer.

I did appreciate the flexibility of his sales pitch, and ended up buying the cap.

And now it's official

2010-04-23T23:50:00.003+05:30

Holy Cow: the other day a 72 year old sat in front of me and said

"I am so sick and tired of stupid people"

and I could totally relate to her

Comfort: lol..

u have the wisdom of a 72 year old..!

Holy Cow: ha haI have known that for a long time :-)
PS- I feel, at this juncture, obliged to admit that I have also, on one occasion, related to the phenomenological position of an infant. She was sitting across from me on the Delhi metro, and our eyes met. Me, tired after a day long day of psychopathologising, and her, forced to sit uncomfortably cramped on her mother's lap. Her expression was one of sheer existential angst.
So there you go. Things I can relate to include an infant with an existential crisis, and a frustrated 72-year-old.
Such are the chatte and batte of my thaali*

(*apologies to readers unfamiliar with Hindi proverbs)

A critique of one argument against the niqab

2010-04-23T18:11:00.002+05:30

A BBC article reads - 'The niqab, says leading feminist philosopher Elizabeth Badinter "is totally contrary to the three principles of the French Republic". Those principles - liberty, equality, fraternity - can be seen written or carved on the front of every French town hall. By hiding your face, Mrs Badinter explains as she sips a small black coffee in her elegant apartment in Paris, you breach the principle of equality". She who hides her face is in a position superior to mine," she says. "She sees me but she refuses to reciprocate."'

There was an article in the Times recently that expressed a similar grievance. The author, Alice Thomson, complains about how while watching her offspring playing in Hyde Park with that of a veiled woman, she felt uncomfortable because she couldn't see the other woman's face. This, if the sentiment expressed in the article was anything to go by, caused much tumult in the world of the former. In the absence of non verbal facial cues, she found herself grappling in vacuum in order to understand how the other was responding to her. Was she friend or foe? Was she smiling under the veil or scowling? The title of the article - You are cutting me off as well as you- made me want assume the role of the veiled lady and say, "Okay. So what if I am?"

Both Badinter and Thomson allude to an alleged social inequality and disequilirbrium that emerges when one party is veiled and the other is not. I find this line of argument bizarre. Even if one forgets momentarily that while espousing principles of equality and whatnot, these women are suggesting that others change the way they dress because it causes the subjects some social discomfort, the point they are making seems petty to say the least.

If Badinter has a problem with the lack of reciprocity in the whole she-can-see-me-but-I-can't-see-her predicament, the issue is clearly her own. What startles me if the fact that she is regarded as a champion for women's rights. Feminism involves, among other things, empowerment of women so that they develop a sense of personal agency. Her first solution to this made-up problem however seems to involve changing the other rather than self, thereby turning the locus of control outward. What is her real problem? Is it that she can't see the other? Or that the other can see her? If it's is the latter, rather than asking others to disrobe, she should put in place structures that make her only as visible as she wants to be. If it is the former, then it is not worth wasting time over.

This scenario is a bit like wishing chlorophyll wasn't green. You can either moan about it, move on, or try to change it from green to purple. The last option is not really an option due to its impossibility, which in turn is due to the fact that it is not within your realm of control. Similarly, how someone else dresses is not something you can control. The only option available is to ban women from covering their faces, but mind you, it is definitely not one that can be exercised while hiding behind the equality banner.

The BBC reporter points out the contrast in Badinter's verbal commitment to equality while sitting in her elegant flat sipping tea. The suggestion that equality will be restored if the veiled women drop their veils, so that everyone would be equally visible, reeks of an unquestioned sense of superiority. Her argument assumes that to see and be seen is something desirable, and the social norm that one ought to aspire towards. Would it not be equally equal, if everyone wore a veil? The question of relative superiority or power would not arise, everyone would be equally (in)visible, and this alleged advantage of the veiled that is the cause of much distress would be obliterated. Thomson also moans along similar lines when she calls the burqa "a passive- aggressive statement, a rejection of the community. The person wearing it is signalling that either she or her family wants her to remain apart from society"

So now we're going to have a problem with people exercising their right to remain apart from whoever the hell they want?

The other pertinent question to consider, and one that is an exercise more appropriate for Thomson, is this- What is it that makes the reaction of a stranger mean so much? I personally couldn't care less if I couldn't read the expression of a stranger in a park. The fact that Thomson does speaks volumes about her. Reading her article, especially the title, I wonder if she would be satisfied with uncovered faces that displayed unsociable expressions.

She writes, "From her eyes I couldn’t tell whether she was frowning in disgust at my bare legs or smiling as our children squealed." Firstly, the fact that Thomson's first thought was the possibility of her bare legs being disgusting leads me wonder if she is projecting her own moral anxiety about exposed skin onto someone else. Secondly, even if the burka-ed woman had been visibly disgusted at Thomson's bare legs, something tells me Thomson wouldn't have been content just knowing that.

So what, dear Alice, is your real problem?

The 'cutting off' can't just be a matter of not-knowing what the other is thinking/feeling, since we can't say we are socially connected to someone who openly communicates an unfriendly attitude towards us. The accusation in the title- "You are cutting me off"- seems more like a disguised plea- "I want you to like me"

Art, literature and a little metaphysics

2010-03-31T03:22:00.002+05:30

"The pure present is nothing but the ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future.

Every sensation is already a memory"

- Murakami Haruki

One reason to love...

2010-03-07T12:57:00.002+05:30

.... The Dawn Blog

The fifth point on their comments guide reads

"5. Avoid posting comments in ALL CAPS. Commenters are also encouraged to avoid text contractions like 'u r.'"

I applaud this effort aimed at making murderers of the English language drop their knives and blades, and begin the slow march towards literacy, refinement and redemption.

2010-03-03T00:29:00.002+05:30

Rahi na taaqat-e-guftaar aur agar ho bhi
toh kis ummeed pe kahiye ke aarzoo kya hai

Staring at the shadows

2010-02-28T00:12:00.001+05:30

My "mirroring" other- A book

2010-02-12T22:05:00.001+05:30

"The act is 'simple, determinate, universal' but his self wishes to be complex, indeterminate, and unique. The act is 'what can be said of it' but he must never be what can be said of him. He must remain ungraspable, elusive, transcendent"

That is R.D. Laing commenting on Hegel's notion of action in "The Divided Self".

Reminds me of what a professor said to me three years ago- "I can't quite grasp what you're about. It is almost like even in telling me everything, you are concealing something. The only thing I have ever received from you is the sense that I can never really receive the real you"

Genuinely pleased at the accuracy of his interpretation of the countertransference, I smiled and said, "You're right"

2010-02-10T22:45:00.004+05:30

"If you were a cat, I would feed you GoCat" *

Easily one of the nicest, non-corny things anyone ever said to me.

* What was actually said was "अगर तुम बिल्ली होती तो मैं तुम्हे 'GoCat' खिलाता"

Oh well, doors are beautiful too

2010-01-31T01:46:00.001+05:30

What are you looking at?

2010-01-31T01:34:00.000+05:30

A window is a thing of beauty

2010-01-31T01:30:00.000+05:30

And a beautiful window even more so!

What I like about a window is its ability to let me look out at the world while maintaining a safe distance. Letting the inner meet the outer without a collapse in essential boundaries. Being a part while remaining apart.

2010-01-20T23:22:00.001+05:30

Koi dil ke khel dekhe

Ki mohabbaton ki baazi

Woh kadam kadam pe jeetey

Main kadam kadam pe haara

What is it, really, that you wish to achieve?

2009-12-13T23:31:00.006+05:30

Couple of years ago, I attended a talk in New Delhi on restoration of the Red Fort. While I do not have any particular interest in the architecture of the Red Fort, and I knew the talk was organised and delivered mostly by architects, I was drawn to because the evening was to include a reading by William Dalrymple. I sped to the venue after work and got the best seat in the house.

I didn't have any expectations about how it would go. I thought they would make a case for restoration by relying on romantic metaphors and poetic versions of the history around el Fuerte Rojo. So it's fair to say I was surprised when the architects presented information about the Red Fort using slides with scientific diagrams and such. Blueprints, formulae, and so on. Physics, something I deliberately minimised contact with for majority of my school years, was the last thing I had expected to encounter.

I couldn't at all relate to what they were saying, even though I am wholly in favour of protecting monuments. That's because every ounce of the Red Fort's charm for me lies not in the red bricks or the dimensions of its arches and corridors, but rather in the life associated with it.

By the time they finished, I was craving to hear Dalrymple. He read from The Last Mughal. He read with passion and spiritedness, passages about how Ghalib felt about mangoes and how evenings in Chandni Chowk were steeped the fragrance of ittar, smoke from hookahs, and the intoxication of wine, as Ghalib and Zauq, under a canopy formed by the appreciation of listeners, contested for the position of 'poet of note'. His readings were evocative and powerful enough to ship me off on the sea of imagination to a time when the Red Fort was still alive. Not once did he resort to trigonometry, geometry or other mathematical devices to illustrate the significance of the structure in question.

I was surprised at their having chosen Dalrymple to aid them in their task, since he was alluding to something they hadn't even managed to get a whiff of. They were suggesting the Red Fort should be cared for because of the building's architectural genius. Whereas for Dalrymple, the Red Fort was of importance because it served as a backdrop for the lives that were lived both within and around it.

I find restoration itself to be a ticklish subject. Two questions seem pertinent- restoration for whom, and to what extent? If one wishes future generations to also be able to take pleasure from fragments of the past, it is a noble enough idea. Preservation is aimed at accomplishing just that. Restoration goes many steps further. While I disapprove of defacing monuments and approve of efforts to preserve them as they are, I am uncomfortable with the use of cement and paint to patch up cracks in buildings that have been around for centuries. I was mortified, for example, when I walked into Lodhi Gardens one evening to find that they had done up one of the structures in some ugly pink paint that they had hoped would resemble sandstone. I think cracks add character to old buildings. Every chunk that chips off due to the natural passage of time, adds greater depth to the history of the structure. Efforts aimed at restoration smack of an attempt to deny the passage of time. "Back to the way it was before" is an impossible position. Even if one managed to restore the Red Fort to its exact state at the time of the Mughal empire, the essence of that time would still remain lost. You may recreate a structure exactly as it was, and you may stand back with pride, only to realise that the thing out there is nothing like the thing within.

Loss itself is not a negative. Indeed it is one of the certainties of human existence. I personally regard it as a friend, a constant companion. But rather than resign ourselves to the void it leaves behind, might we look at the value it adds to our lives?

We nostalgically reflect only on that which has been lost. And the very thing being reflected on is changed by the act of reflection, for what is viewed through the lens of memory is not the thing in itself, but a representation of the thing. The picture that Dalrymple presents for example, of people chatting on the steps of the Jama Masjid at dusk, is made richer first by his own imagination of it, and then by the imagination of each reader who reads it. None of these people were actually there, yet each has a unique image of what it must have been like. Should we not just let these multiple imaginations prevail? Should we not let time go by and allow our memories to alter the impressions of the past?

So lovely is the recreation by memory of a lost beloved that I confess to harbouring a wish that I were the one lost. Just so that I too may be the subject of fond remembrance, for a moment or two.

Every time two of my many great loves meet, I skip a heartbeat!

2009-12-11T02:41:00.001+05:30

Keh do in hasraton se kahin aur jaa basen

Itni jagah kahan hai dil-e-daagdaar mein

Song: Lagta nahin hai jee mera

Lyrics: Bahadur Shah Zafar (allegedly)

Singer: Habib Wali Mohammad

Dil khaakh ho gaya yeh kisi ko khabar nahi

Sab yeh samajh rahe hain tamanna nikal gayi

Song: Duniya badal gayi

Lyrics: Shakeel Badayuni

Singers: Shamshad Begum and Talat Mahmood

I love locating, in Urdu/ Hindi poetry, psychoanalytically informed descriptions of a variety of human conditions.

The above mentioned are examples of what Bowlby and others would call "Avoidant Attachments"

Sigh.

Someone asked me few years ago if I "only listened to the world's most sad songs". I said I found more beauty in sad songs.

Isn't it wonderful when the expression of sadness is as lovely as this?

You know you are in England when...

2009-11-29T03:08:00.004+05:30

1. You step on someone else's toes, and both of you end up apologising.

2. You hear people apologising for a lot of things. For example, asking for the bill after a meal at a restaurant ("Sorry, but I could I request the bill please?"), or asking for anything from the person at the till ("Sorry, but could I also have ....."). Sigh! All this unnecessary apologising!

3. You get referred to as "My love", "My darling", "Sweetheart", "My sweet" and other terms of endearment by total strangers. This usually happens if you are female and the stranger in question is male*

4. No. 3 feels strange at first, but you get used to it and may even find it kinda nice.

5. You feel compelled to hold doors open for other people who feel compelled to hold doors open for people after them and so on and so forth so that nobody except the first and last person to walk through the door actually has to pull/push it open. You may, like me, even wonder what the appropriate distance between you and the next person has to be, before this social rule of holding the door open comes into play.

6. People will often ask you if you would like to do something for them (For example, "Would you like to pop your PIN in there for me?") Now there are two things to be mindful of here. Firstly, they are actually not interested in whether you would like to do the thing in question or not, but just want you to do it. Secondly, do not be confused by the "for me" at the end. The only person you're likely to be doing the thing in question for is yourself. When I am at the receiving end of this particular question, I feel like clarifying that I would do it, but solely for my own benefit.

7. Bus stops are named after pubs nearby, rather than the names of the streets they are on. Says a lot about what the real landmarks are.

8. You begin to realise that the word "Cheers" is filled with possibilities, and in the past your usage of the word was rather limited. You probably just said it before sharing a drink (or some sort of other consumable good) with near and dear ones, but now find that it replaces "Thanks", "Bye", "Take care" or other social niceties.

9. The greeting of choice is usually followed by "You alright?". This is something that befuddles me. I usually ask people if they are alright when I suspect that they might not be. Personally, if I had to choose, I prefer the more open ended "How are you?"

10. A bright sunny morning can turn into a grey, wet afternoon, transform into a bright sunny, evening before ending up as a windy, dark night. The eye-rolling can stop. You think you can be in England without commenting on the weather?! The famous English obsession with weather-chat is no myth my friends!

(Note: This list is a work-in-progress and will be updated over time. After all, the learning never stops)

* Edit: I was later informed that the reverse is also true. Whether equally or not remains to be decided.

2009-11-06T11:29:00.005+05:30

She rubbed, scrubbed and scraped until

her palms were red and sore

But the writing on the wall remained

Taunting her more and more

Embarrassed and ashamed she was

About her disfigured core

And pleaded and begged for time to rewind

To the way it was before

Speaking of birthdays...

2009-10-21T04:57:00.003+05:30

Holy Cow: I missed the runts' birthday

forgot

The 'wise' one: Even I forgot

......

Holy Cow: How does one wish babies anyway !

The 'wise' one: You wish the parents

Holy Cow: yeah, I guess the parents have done more work than the kids to ensure another birthday.
Birthdays are silly. As Seinfeld said, the only thing you're celebrating is the fact that you managed to stay alive for the last 364 days.
I paraphrase, of course. What he said was probably funnier.

Kya hai bharosa aashiq dil ka, aur kisi pe yeh aa jaaye....

2009-10-19T01:52:00.001+05:30

Readers of this blog who have found enough shreds of interest by which to hang on to it over the last two or so years that it has been around, may have got the impression that I don't particularly favour the rule of reciprocity in matters of love, kindness, sensitivity and such. All things nice, if you please. My policy is largely one of - I do it because I want to do it, and if you don't want to reciprocate I have absolutely no right to ask you to. I mean, it's the only rational way to be isn't it? We do what we want, the other does what he/she wants and sure it would be nice for the others' wants to be the same as our want but when it isn't so it really is arrogant for us to demand that it be so. No?

The sentiment of 'iloveyouwithallmyheartandsoul' is a very common theme of songs from Hindi films (Though this post is more about songs from the 50s, 60s and 70s, it could very well apply today). Slightly less pervasive is the expression , in varying shapes and sizes, of the sentiment 'howniceitwouldbeifyoucouldlovemetoo'. Next comes the 'iknowyoushallneverloveme' which at times is tied to the preceding sentiment by threads of despair and futility. This third sentiment is in most cases also accompanied by the helpless 'butishallcontinuetoloveandlongforyou'.

Moving, heart wrenchingly beautiful songs of love-filled despair. I am in no way mocking them. No sir. I like to listen to them, love them, and live them. Read the first paragraph and be convinced that I swear by such sentiments!

Be that as it may, there come along certain songs bearing sentiments that are quite the opposite. Unlike the above-mentioned variety that seep naturally into your skin and become a part of your existence, the latter variety of songs brazenly float in through the front door on a magic carpet of melodies and you only realise you let them in after you have spent a good second or two in awe of their presence. Much like guests who annoy us by walking in uninvited but do so bearing wonderful presents to placate us, thereby leaving us doubtful about whether to proceed with our original decision to throw them right out, with these songs, we might be angry with them for upsetting the equilibrium of our unhappybutcontentintheirunhappiness hearts, but find we cannot do anything about it because a part of us is taken in by the novelty of their message and wants to hear more.

For those unable to decipher my very unambiguous description ( :-p ) allow me to clarify what songs and sentiments I mean.

The songs I find refreshing and belonging to the second category as described above don't care for supplication and unrequited love. They mean business. Love is a two way street, and I certainly don't intend to walk up and down it by myself. It is conditional, reciprocal, and at times, yes, vengeful.

I have recently been on a spree of appreciating such songs and so an example comes easily to mind, allowing me to illustrate. (In the following example, I am using the word "I" for the singer and "you" for the one being sung to. I am not trying to wave my fists at the reader. This is for the sake of convenience. One does not like to go on talking like this for a long time about complex matters should the other lose track of what is being said and fails to understand the point, does one?)

Song: Haseen ho tum

Lyrics: Hasrat Jaipuri

Singer: Mohd. Rafi

Film: Badtameez

"Haseen ho tum khuda nahi ho, tumhara sajda nahi karenge

Magar mohabbat mein hukm doge, to haste haste yeh jaan bhi denge"

(You are only human, albeit of the attractive kind, and that isn't enough to warrant me getting down on my knees before you. However, though I will not offer you salutations and adoration unnecessarily, if you were to reciprocate my feelings my dear there would be no limit to what I would be willing to do for your sake)

"Hamari nazron ka shukr kijiye, ki aasmaan par tumhe bithaya

Hamare dil ko duaen dijiye, ki dhadkanon mein tumhe basaya"

(Rather than engaging in self depreciation and suggesting that the you deserve much more than I can offer, I suggest that you ought to be grateful to me for having considered you worthy of my affection. What a healthy, even if slightly pompous, attitude!)

"Bulandiyon se giro ge tum bhi, agar nigahon se hum girenge"

(A subtle threat, that you will have a rather nasty fall from the pedestal on which I placed you, in the event that you judge me unfavourably)

"Hamare jaise agar hain lakhon, tumhare jaise bhi kam nahi hain

Jo khud patthar se phod le sar, woh aur honge woh hum nahi hain"

(If you think there are millions like me, allow me to remind you that you aren't one in a million either. There may be others willing to bring about their own destruction in longing for you, but I am not one of them)

I am aware of course, of how grossly inadequate my explanations in English are but, in the spirit of the song, I am not going to be overly apologetic about it. Anyone who doesn't understand Hindi should be grateful for any attempt by me to make things comprehensible :-)

I like the song because it dares to say things others songs don't, and it is grounded in unwavering self respect, self awareness and self control.

It's a perfectly healthy attitude to have if you ask me (and I know no one really asked me, but this is my blog and if I can't lend it some metaphorical elasticity then there is really no justice in the world! None!!)

All it does is remind you to be critical of your love for the one you love, to remember that you may sometimes, perhaps, in the heat of passion judge someone to be more terrific than they really are, to not feel guilty about your rage, to accept that the other does not care for your pleas, to appreciate that while they have a right to do so, you need not join them and double the blow to your feelings and finally, eventually, move the hell on.

I recommend this song to anyone who has tried to nurse a broken heart and has felt the ache and longing for that which cannot be.

You will either identify with it or you won't.

If you do, it will probably make you feel better about life and yourself.

If you do not, then just find it in yourself to appreciate this sore (but defiant) thumb of songs.

Oh this grey country !

2009-10-15T10:02:00.000+05:30

It is 10:00 AM and all the curtains are open. Yet, I am having to sit under glowing, yellow, artificial light.

¡Qué ridículo!

TOI really knows how to pick the right words

2009-10-15T09:28:00.000+05:30

"SHIMLA: After Vidarbha farm widow Kalawati, it was the turn of Nand Lal, a poor driver, to hog the limelight, thanks to Congress general secretary

secretary Rahul Gandhi who showed interest in his well-being."

-----------

Without elaborating on the specific nature and level(s) of my discomfort with the above-mentioned lines, I think there is something seriously wrong with the socio-political situation of a country where a newspaper article begins with these words.

Palomas

2009-10-12T21:17:00.000+05:30

Location:

Barcelona, Spain

Oh these little gendered boxes into which we must all fit!

2009-09-25T18:11:00.002+05:30

(Started writing this some time in March 2008)

For a long time I have held the opinion that men are also creatures oppressed by society.

What made me realise this again was an incident that occurred involving my car and me. Basically, it wouldn't start. Even though I have been driving for about 6 years now, and know where the hawa-paani goes, I get stuck when something out of the ordinary happens. I was quite close to home, so our driver came and tried to figure stuff out for me, and was soon joined in by other men eager to help. I was feeling quite silly just standing around helplessly in the parking lot.

As a woman, if I don't know much about cars, I know I will not be mocked. I feel quite comfortable asking for help and admitting my limitations. I have to admit, that a woman can play the "bhaiya, dekho gaadi start hi nahi ho rahi" (The "Look, my car wont start" plea) card. They don't expect us to know anyway. So they have mixed feelings of superiority, sympathy and wanting to be the knight in shining armour to save the damsel in distress.

What would have happened if a man had been driving? If stuck, I doubt he would be able to ask for help as easily as I could. He would of course be crumbling under the pressure of the expectation of having to know. He would fear becoming the subject of other men's jokes- "Arre yeh bhi nahi pata? Aur saala gaadi chalata hai!

I felt bad, and I sighed for women and men. Women and men who are members, perpetrators and victims of a society where expectations of one's capability are frequently based on one's gender.

Two days later, someone sent me a ".pps" entitled "Boutros Boutros Ghali's Thoughts on Women"

Some seem poignant enough to be shared here now

"For every strong woman tired of faking weakness, there is a weak man tired of faking strength. For every woman tired of being labeled 'emotional', there is a man who has been denied the right to cry. For every sportswoman whose femininity is questioned, there is a man forced to compete in order to give testimony of his virility. For every woman who has not had access to a dignified salary, there is a man forced to bear the economic responsibility for another human being. For every woman who steps forward towards her freedom, there is a man who rediscovers his road to liberty."

I don't know if BBG really thought these thoughts, but it doesn't matter. At least not for this post.

In a dissertation submitted a few years ago, I volunteered the suggestion that the solution to societal problems pertaining to gender lies in a mythological construct- Ardhinareshwara. A symbol of a God who is half male and half female. In the language of Carl Jung, someone who combines the Anima and Animus in perfect balance. Gender stereotypes that lie at the bottom of nearly all oppressive attitudes and practices against men and women will dissipate if one recognises as one's ideal, the attainment of an inner self that is 'human' rather than 'man' or 'woman'. Isn't that obviously a more wholesome ideal to aspire towards, than shutting off your 'masculine' or 'feminine' side?

I dislike using these terms. I recognise that using gendered terms to signify a certain way of being automatically assumes the very categorisation based on gender that I am trying to place the blame on for many of society's problems. As I discussed at a conference on Carl Jung with my good friend Comfort, I had a problem with his use of the words Anima and Animus to mean the unconscious feminine parts in the male and the unconscious masculine parts in the female respectively. Of course, I understand that Jung used the words he did, and I am using the words that I am, partly for linguistic convenience, and partly in recognition of the fact that society is organised a certain way, and in order to move forward from that way to a better one, one must begin by communicating in the language of the present. I am merely highlighting the gendered nature of our constructions by asking - Who decided that these parts were feminine or masculine? Let it be known that I do resent the fact that certain traits are considered 'masculine' or 'feminine'.

For women, this coming together of so called masculine or feminine traits may involve, among other things, admitting their interest in football (and having a discussion about it where one's views are taken seriously rather than assumed to be the result of a crush on a good-looking footballer!), curiosity to learn how a car works, or greater freedom to follow their chosen career path. For men, it might lead to being able to admit they have no interest in sports or don't know how to fix a broken car engine using their (pardon the metaphor) big, manly tool.

I don't think it is fair that women have the option of staying home and not working after marriage, for example, where the very idea that a man should want to do so is regarded with shock and horror. Most people dislike working, but do it because they have to. Why is it okay for women to relinquish economic responsibility for themselves, but god forbid a man should do the same ? It is sad that one has to work to survive, that much is true. But given that the state of affairs is such, given that everyone must work to survive, why are women excluded more easily from this "everyone" than men are?

Nor do I appreciate the fact that a woman has to know how to cook, while a man can get by on takeaways for years without having to hear "Tsk tsk, you should learn how to cook!", or be received with shock and surprise when they admit they enjoy cooking. Do men not eat or enjoy home cooked meals? Or do women have fragile digestive systems that can't stomach takeaways? As an example I offer myself. I never cooked for the first 24 years of my life. Then I moved to a foreign country and picked up the ladle and pan. Not because of any externally imposed expectations. My actions were motivated wholly by self preservation and interest because a. I am a vegetarian and b. I love Indian food and neither of these two things are available in sufficient amount and/or variety in my new country of residence.

People's decisions about their own and others' lives should be based on what is best for an individual, rather than for a man or woman. Different rules mean different attitudes and assumptions about what a man or woman can do/should do/ should not do/ is good at/ is fit for/ or deserves. And that, in my humble opinion, is something we can all do without, non?

Oh how glorious the day shall be, when we no longer say or hear the words "Be a man!" or "Don't do that, it's not womanly!"

The latter brings to my mind a situation in which this phrase is most often used- adopting a certain posture while seated. Agreed that it may look unattractive when a woman sits slouched in her seat with her legs splayed apart. But believe me, the sight of a man doing the same doesn't really set hearts racing either.

Wanted - An entertaining exercise that stretches the limits of what you thought you could withstand

2009-09-24T02:37:00.001+05:30

Despite the fact that the question of why someone in their right mind would want to showcase Salman Khan's dancing is beyond my limits of comprehension, I have to say that Wanted was bizarre, entertaining and all in all quite hilarious. Not because of subtle humour or clever, witty dialogues but because if you watch an ageing SK gyrate to songs like "Your papa says you love me, mama says you love me, so love me baby love me", falling off your seat clutching your aching stomach while your eyebrows threaten to shoot up over your head in absolute shock is a natural consequence.

My partner in crime and I went to watch it just for the heck of it. We read this review, which ignited enough curiosity in us. Plus, when something is described as being extremely unpleasant, I have an uncontrollable urge to experience it. It can't just be bad though. It has to be extremely so. Ask my friends from my graduation and post graduation days and they will confirm it, for many a bad milkshake/ song/ book etc have been thrust upon them by yours truly with the words "You have to drink/listen to/ read this just to experience how bad it is". Call me crazy but it broadens your life experience and I stand by it.

Wanted was one such experiment, and it was worth it.

While I realise that I cannot do justice to the entire film, let me share with my readers what I considered to be some of the highlights.

The story isn't bad. Which is to say that there is one, and that in itself was a pleasant surprise. Is it far fetched? Of course! But few Hindi films aren't so I am prepared to excuse that.

Salman Khan is physically fit, slimmer than he has been in the last decade, and quite old. You can use as much concealer as you like my friend, but no one can hide those bags under your eyes. You could go shopping and bring back 1 Kgs. of alu-pyaaz in each of them. He can't dance, could never really act and can still give a ventriloquist a run for his money. I don't know how he manages to deliver his dialogues without the slightest parting of the lips!

Ayesha Takia is, well...You know the type of roles Katrina Kaif plays in action packed films starring Akshay Kumar? Where all that is required of her is to be dolled-up and stand around? Furniture type, if you will. Ayesha Takia's role in Wanted is similar, except she ends up being a melodramatic item of furniture. Like a sofa that occasionally displays signs of psychosis. Seriously, while I do not wish to trivialise the conflict that one may be fraught with when one falls in love with a contract killer (you know, the whole should-I-love-you-or-should-I-hate-you and I-can't-decide-if-you're-good-or-bad type of conflict), it has to be said that in case of Ayesha's character it ends up looking more like a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

All credit for this chaos must go to the dialogue/script writer however. There are times in the movie when Salman Khan and Ayesha Takia are interacting, and one wonders if they are even talking about the same thing.

As for her appearance, I have always thought that her facial features are too childlike when compared with the rest of her. The filmmaker probably had a similar idea, as he has made full use of both her innocent expression and her large breasts alternating between references to her "fit body" and tight clothing one the one hand, and a naive young girl in mean, mad Mumbai who has to grapple with lecherous policemen and lovestruck landlords while falling for a scoundrel like Salman on the other.

Speaking of lecherous, I think Mahesh Manjrekar is quite good as the sleazy cop. Some men on screen might make your skin crawl and make you want to kick them in the balls, but that just means they're great actors! I swear there were times in the movie where Mahesh made me cringe.

The camerawork reminded me of Crank combined with Hindi television soap operas. There are freezes, fast forwarded clips, and the dizzying camera angles that are much loved by Indian soap directors where there are repetitive shots in quick succession of the same person turning around, or when they zoom in to a person's face again and again to indicate heightened emotion. This is usually accompanied by some kind of tree-swishing-in-a-violent-storm music.

The song and dance, sigh! Oh the brutal murder of lyrics, rhythm and choreography with one fatal blow! Apparently there was a trailer for this movie which suggests that Salman does everything (killing, stabbing, swearing, loving, eating, drinking etc etc) casually, except dancing. You may regard that as a compliment till you see the music videos. That's when you realise that he takes dancing seriously because indeed, it is what he needs to work on the most. He reminded me of a guy I saw at the IIT Bombay festival a few years ago. That guy came forward in front of a room full of people to sing "Wonderwall". He blew it. C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E-L-Y ! But I applauded him for his courage anyway.

There was one good thing about Salman's dancing however. I am always sympathetic to the extras who never get the credit they deserve (and this is not just in Bollywood. Have you watched the video of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal"? Do the extras not dance as well as MJ himself?!!). Watching the dancing in this movie, one can't help but admire the extras. Salman makes them look terrific!

There ARE a few good dialogues, and I mean four or five. The villains look convincingly villainous, except for an item girl aspiring for the status of "Behen" (which I have to say, doesn't sound nearly as underworld-ly as "Bhai") called Shayana who has very unattractive legs.

All in all, the movie ends up making you laugh because it is so inexplicably bizarre. I enjoyed watching it, more so than Dil Bole Hadippa. Let us now carry out some reflection to try and analyse why this was the case.

Dil Bole Hadippa had the misfortune of combining the issue of women's representation in sports at a regional or national level with the usual romantic elements typical of a Yash Chopra production. It was in a sense like Chak De India minus the good performances, good dialogues, subtlety and seriousness but with the Yashraj attempts at light comedy and romance thrown in. Even if we forget about, among other misrepresentations, Rani's garish clothes (not commonly seen in Amritsar), the movie fails to fulfill either criteria. The Indo-Pak tournament cornily called "Aman Cup" or Shahid and Rani's love story don't really warm the cockles of your heart. Nor does Rani's transformation in the end from a (reasonably convincing!) cute Sikh man to a foundation and eyeshadow covered beauty drive home the point of women trying to make it in the man's world that professional cricket still largely is. It failed in my opinion because it was ambitiously trying to achieve too much.

In contrast, my friends, Wanted doesn't seem to have any such ambitions. In fact, one is compelled to conclude that the movie doesn't have much of a point at all. It just is.

What really cracked me up throughout the film was the image of members of the British Board of Film Certification, and possibly Sir Quentin Thomas (President of the BBFC) having to sit through this film, probably more than once, in order to determine what classification it should get.

One flew over the Cuckoo's nest, but I flew over London's best

2009-09-10T20:27:00.001+05:30

And I spied with my little eye...

...Bridges on the river Thames...

A panorama of a mega-city ....

And two very wide-set eyes...

Psychotherapists are people too

2009-09-06T23:32:00.001+05:30

I want to set the record straight and say a few things in defense of the much misunderstood profession of psychotherapy. Namely, what a psychotherapist is and is not.

What he/she is: A person who is trained to develop a capacity for undying humanness and patience in order to be able to offer a wounded other the chance to pick up the pieces of their fragmented lives within the context of an interpersonal relationship.

What he/she is not: A person who should be expected to put up with utter incompetence and disrespectful behaviour with a smile. They are trained to be patient and understanding with their clients. Not with lying, careless staff members of an organisation who have no regard for another's time. It is unfair and unwise to expect them to have tolerance for all kinds of nonsense, just because they do so with the delicate psychological selves that their clients bring before them.

If that were the case, if psychotherapists really had to take an oath of unconditional patience and understanding, then no psychotherapist would ever participate in socio-political movements to better the state of mankind, to state one example. They would be too busy being a doormat for people to walk all over, you see.

A psychotherapist has as much as of a right as the next person does to be opinionated, or get pissed off and raise their voice against incompetent staff members, government departments, or violations in human rights. Their skill lies in remaining neutral in a certain context about certain things. To illustrate with an example, just because a therapist may vociferously condemn wife beating as an act, does not mean their capacity to offer help to a wife beater, should he seek it, will be adversely affected. In fact, it demonstrates their capacity to differentiate between something that warrants a certain judgement from them and that which does not.

Just because they are meant to be patient people, does not mean they will take every damn thing that is thrown their way lying down.

And while we are on the subject, if a psychotherapist expresses disappointment at your gross incompetence in carrying out your professional duties, don't illustrate your sheer lack of discernment by equating that with disappointments experienced within the context of a therapeutic relationship between a client and his or her therapist.

Therapists and counsellors are trained to be patient with clients because of the special nature of the relationship. It is unlike any other dyad, where one has to be mindful of the many reasons why clients may disappoint the therapist or vice versa. Many of those reasons stem directly from the vulnerabilities for which therapists are there to help.

So please, next time you call a therapists' therapeutic skills to question because they didn't pat you on the back and say "aww baby, it's okay" after you made an error that could very easily have been avoided had you paid a little more attention, think about what I have said.

And don't ever, EVER, make the mistake of comparing yourself to one of their clients after behaving in the above-mentioned manner. If you do, don't be startled when they put you in your place in no uncertain terms. You asked for it.

Good advertising

2009-09-04T17:31:00.004+05:30

A Domino's pizza outlet takes advantage of it's proximity to La Sagrada Familia, a church in Barcelona which has been under construction since 1882 and is not expected to be completed till after 2026, to highlight it's main selling points- great pizzas and great timing.

Someone hung an earring on a lamp post

2009-09-04T12:58:00.000+05:30

Location:

Barcelona, Spain

Venice, Italy

2009-09-04T12:47:00.000+05:30

Nausea

2009-08-28T18:44:00.001+05:30

There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.

No, I am not contemplating the nothingness or thing-ness of human existence like dearly beloved Sartre above. I am sharing with you an experience that assailed me as I walked down the street with the man I love, in a city that I am trying to claim as mine. My relationship with it is similar to that of a disgruntled host who offers his home not with delight but with resignation, and an annoying relative who receives the hospitality of the former not out of desire but out of desperation. Actually, my affair with the city lies even lower on the scale of passion, because instead of disgruntlement or annoyance, there is just... is-ness. A shrug here and a shrug there. I am in it and it is around me. The city isn't pleading with me to accept it, nor am I begging to be embraced by it.

Like Sartre, while my feeling of nausea was also brought on suddenly by the appearance before me of a group of five adolescent girls who dressed, talked and walked similarly, that was merely the tipping point. The last straw, if you please, on the back of a camel already burdened by a heap of sameness.

Boredom and anxiety can be quite complementary. I can say that with confidence because I felt both these feelings come together to form the frown in my brow. This similarity of hair & skin colour, indistinguishable voices merging into each other by virtue of saying fairly indistinguishable things filled me with a sense of fatigue and anxiety as it struck me that I was swimming in a sea of homogeneity. Hmmm... fatigue? Fatigue and boredom aren't the same thing. I was bored, fatigued and anxious. Fatigued because I had been splashing about in new waters, and bored because I had momentarily stopped splashing and was just floating in a sea of homogeneity. That's it. I was floating like algae floats on water, asserting it's distinct existence, clutching to the surface for fear of drowning and being consumed by the depths below.

And anxiety? That was because I realised that my refusal to let the city in, metaphorically speaking, was because I would then have to let in all that the city contains. I have nothing against the buildings, the trees, fountains and the streets. I have a problem with those who work in the buildings who are the same as those who sit under the trees who are the same as those who look at the fountains who are the same as those who fill the streets.

I felt stifled by their sameness. Maybe it's because I come from what is known as the 'land of diversity', where walking around in a marketplace for five minutes, you cross paths with people dressed differently, saying distinctly different things, sounding different even if speaking the same language! In contrast I find the present surroundings sickeningly homogeneous. I am not making this up, seriously, but if you give a sentence or paragraph to ten different people to read out loud, the impression I have is it will sound like the same person reading it over and over again. How can so many people sound exactly alike? Similar pitch, rhythm, voice quality..... something about that disturbs me I tell you. Makes me very uneasy, this obliteration of individual uniqueness.

Such were the thoughts I was grappling with. Thoughts, and oddly enough, a viscerally felt sense of asphyxiation.

Many may think I am overreacting. But those who crave individuality and diversity will perhaps understand.

Words spoken by a classmate during my very formative journey through a Masters programme come back to haunt me. He looked at me one afternoon and said "I have worked out the essence of your existence". Curious, and prone to sarcasm, I asked him to share his insights so that I too may learn of my essence. He looked straight at me, smiled his large African smile and said "You thrive in uniqueness"

In light of recent events, I can't help but wonder if he was right.

I guess I will have to drag variety and uniqueness out from the deeper recesses into which they have been pushed, and toss them back into the world out there before I can be surprised and thrive once again.

Till then, maybe I can come up with ideas to amuse myself with this mundaneness.

Oh well! As most people around me would say "Cheers darling!"

B-)

The Religious Tolerance of the Atheist

2009-08-26T18:04:00.002+05:30

Travelling to London one afternoon, the passenger sitting next me momentarily shelved what I had come to regard as British social etiquette, and struck up a conversation with me despite the fact that I was a total stranger. Being non-British myself, I didn't feel offended as if my private space had been invaded so all was well. Though I must admit I found it a bit strange that she seemed to want to chat despite the fact that I had my nose buried in a book. After general chit chat about what I did, where I was from, what I was going to do etc. etc., she happened to mention that she was on a course in theology, attempting to make better sense of her religion. She had converted to Catholicism recently.

During the two hour or so train journey, she and I spent about sixty or so minutes talking about religion and God, among other things such as psychological suffering, human existence, and mental illness.

Let me state at the outset that I am not a religious person. I don't practice any religion, and while I think nearly all organised religions may have something to offer as far as humanism is concerned, I think overall they have led to more division than unity, and more harm than good for humanity.

I made my religious indifference clear to her quite early in our conversation.

We spoke about God and nature, and she told me how as part of her religious journey she had learnt how to witness God in everything around us, especially the natural world. She added that some people were unable to see it that way, and wanted evidence to prove the existence of God. I calmly replied that individuals were all different and both positions were equally valid. It's just a question of the meaning you ascribe to things and events, more often than not it just boils down to the words we use to construct those meanings. Some people are moved by faith, some are not. I also added that it was hard for either to convince the other, because if one knew the language of the other there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. As an example, I pointed out that no matter how hard they tried, they might not be able to convince Richard Dawkins about God's existence all around us. People who need evidence need it before they can believe, and people who speak the language of faith need you to believe before you can see the "evidence".

The question here appears to lie on the atheism/theism vs. agnosticism question. Some may be quite happy to believe without having the knowledge, others may disbelieve in the absence of knowledge. Some others may claim to possess the knowledge, which I have to admit seems an odd position to have, but that's my personal viewpoint.

She then asked me what I thought of Richard Dawkins. She said she often felt he said what he did just for publicity. Now despite my tolerance, I don't like people being misunderstood or misrepresented, so I promptly came to Dawkins' defense and told her I didn't think he did it for publicity and he really does believe in what he writes. Or writes what he believes in. Whichever way you look at it.

We agreed that it was best to try and learn about one's religion academically, to make better sense of it and arrive at your own subjective interpretation of it, rather than blindly following what others have said. I would appreciate any effort by the religious to try and deconstruct their religion. I anticipate it will lead to shifts in their world view.

She came across as someone trying to make sense of the world through the prism of her religion, seeking external validation in the process. Far from trying to convince me of the supremacy of her religious world view, she seemed to be quite unconvinced about it herself. I remained largely non committal, making a case for subjective realities, individual choice and preference, and broadmindedness enough to have an opinion while letting others have their own opinions as well. While she nodded along in agreement, I think my non committal answers did frustrate her a little.

Fellow atheists might feel I let her off too easily. That I should have argued against her beliefs, and metaphorically put-her-in-her-place. I on the other hand feel I did quite alright to make my own position known. Why not defend your position more vociferously, some might ask. Why not try to convince the other that religion is less than ideal? That you are right and they are erring?

I don't feel the need to defend my position. I think I am right, and that suffices for me. I am definitely not aiming to convince anyone of anything. I am convinced of my position, and in discussions and exchanges of ideas with me if another were to start thinking or feeling differently, I would regard that as a natural bi-product of a conversation between open minded individuals rather than a victory for "my side" or my powers of persuasion.

In order to influence others' opinions, two conditions must be met. Firstly, you should have conviction in what you're trying to say and secondly, the other should have enough mental elasticity to accommodate your views. If these two conditions are absent, any conscious effort to try and convince another person will be an exercise in futility. On the other hand, if they are both present, I believe some transfer of ideas will naturally occur by osmosis.

While we're on the subject, I definitely don't think the way to make an impression on another person is by belittling their existing viewpoints. Try telling someone suffering from psychosis that they are wrong in believing that Iran is developing nuclear weapons with the specific aim of destroying them, for example, and watch the metaphorical distance between the two of you increase right before your eyes.

Certain types of beliefs are impervious to arguments aimed at proving them wrong. Knowledge/ignorance can be tackled by logical arguments. But what do you do when someone says "I don't know but I believe...." ? The only way to confront those beliefs is by admitting "I hear what you're saying, but this is what I believe". That's the end of it.

We have heard the words "religious tolerance" often enough. What does it mean though? Does it mean respecting all religions equally? Perhaps not. Your own choice and lifestyle make it abundantly clear that you respect one way of life more than another. That's why you choose to follow it. If I choose to practice XYZ to the exclusion of other religions, it's quite apparent that something about XYZ appeals to me more than other religions.

Atheists, it is fair to say, have little respect for any organised religion. Otherwise they wouldn't be atheists, would they?

What exactly is religious tolerance then?

It is not about respecting or supporting other religions. It is about respecting and supporting an other's freedom to choose to practice any or all of those religions. Remember Voltaire's famous quote on tolerance? No, not the one about which considerable controversy still exists, but the straightforward one from his Essay on Tolerance - "Think for yourself, and let others enjoy the privilege to do so".

I trust, or would like to trust, that atheists do believe in liberal humanism even if they scoff at the world's recognised religions. Liberal humanists, while making their views known, let others arrive at their own conclusions about the nature of things. They are broadminded enough to realise that the world is filled with different individuals, each of whom may live their lives as they choose, even with much pomp and show, and have every right to do so.

Let it be known that I also think it is annoying when someone tries to sell an idea to you despite much head-shaking and protests on your part. Religious types can come on pretty strong, I agree. But many a time it seems to me that any discussion on the subject is perceived as being an attempt to promote one's agenda rather than what it is- a mere exchange of ideas. I wish it weren't so.

Of course, for the times that they do hound you and try to win you over to "their side", maybe the above mentioned will help you ward them off by giving them gyaan (a lesson) in tolerance for individual differences and freedom of choice.

Politely saying "Thanks for the offer, but I'm all set for now" might be a better solution than having an angry war of words.

The Baby Delusion

2009-08-25T17:33:00.003+05:30

Shudder do I at the thought of reproduction

Prospective parents and their debilitating delusion

Believing their children are the miracle of immortality

When gene-perpetuation is, ironically and evidently,

A hopeless repetition of man's inevitable self-destruction

If I were a dog, I would have chased my tail

2009-08-22T22:17:00.001+05:30

Being a woman as opposed to a bored pet dog (I would've said cat, but I can't imagine a cat ever being bored. They just always seem to find stuff to do) I have, in the last three and half hours

- Read a bit of Mrityunjaya

- Done email related things (including deleting my spam messages. It's a compulsive, neurotic thing I must do)

- Read a Spanish newspaper online

- Google-d places of interest

- Stared out the window while contemplating existence (my own and in general)

- Had a headache

- Drunk earl grey tea to soothe myself

- Watched Friends for the hundredth time, and still laughed at the jokes

- Got annoyed by stupid, noisy British youth hanging out outside the house (which led me to reflect on how completely un-relatable I find certain groups of persons)

- Missed things

- Written this post to satisfy a craving for writing something unlikely to lead to introspection or changes in mood

2009-08-21T12:50:00.000+05:30

She wept and wept from morn to night &

Soon shut up, lest she cause a fright

For those who couldn't find words to say

To soothe her when she was less-than-gay

And so it was day after day

Till death- a life of feigned delight

On marriage

2009-08-10T09:51:00.000+05:30

Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built thyself, rectangular in body and soul...

...Not only onward shalt thou propagate thyself, but upward! For that purpose may the garden of marriage help thee!

...Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is more than those who created it.

...The reverence for one another, as those exercising such a will, call I marriage.


...Far from me also be the God who limpeth thither to bless what he hath not matched!

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

The Epidemic of Botched Plastic Surgery

2009-08-03T22:52:00.001+05:30

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/congresswoman_says_botched?utm_source=a-section

Que divertido ! B-)

All citizens are equal * (Conditions Apply)

2009-07-22T15:54:00.000+05:30

(I noticed a draft of this post while labelling other posts. I had started writing it over a year ago. Recent events - involving Continental Airlines, APJ Abdul Kalam, a bunch of fools in the Indian Parliament, and a moronic blog entry on TOI - have prompted me to post it at the present time)

"...we have made many mistakes. But through all these missed opportunities and mistakes we have stoutly defended our freedom, democracy,the rule of law, liberty and equality for all citizens, and our proud civilisation and history"

P.Chidambaram in "Abject Poverty can be Eradicated": India of My Dreams.

Yes. India of your dreams is right. For if one were to actually check each of these with simple examples from daily life and reality, it ought to shock us back out of this grandiose delusion.

To save time and effort, and because the others were not what impelled me to write this post, I am going to leave them aside and focus on just one of these principles we have so "stoutly defended".

Equality for all citizens.

It is utter crap. And if we only look around, there are several examples to show that we are being lied to. To. Our. Faces.

If we were all, from A-Z, equal then I(we) wouldn't have to go the airport, for example, and read a big board that says "All persons are subject to strict security checking procedures except the following....

-The Prime Minister
-The President
-E T and C

I don't think there exists a rational explanation for why they should be exempt. On what grounds are they allowed to pass while others have to be checked and frisked?

I don't have a problem with being checked and frisked, really. The problem is the preferential treatment.

A big deal was made about Kalam being asked to go through a security check just like everyone else. Kalam being the unassuming man that he is, didn't act fussy, and co-operated. But the other ministers of India would have none of this and raised a hue and cry in the Rajya Sabha demanding that the airline apologise. The Minister for Aviation obliged, as did the airline.

Now I can think of two reasons why current MPs would get so flustered by an incident that concerns them not

1. They have fragile egos and their sense of importance and worth is governed by whether they are asked to pass through a metal detector or not. If someone who actually has some strength of character was "treated this way", what chance do they have to convince themselves that they are worth a dime?

2. They clearly want to waste time in the parliament discussing petty things like this (and what language people should talk in!), rather than discussing ways to deal with other problems that the nation is grappling with.

Rather than regarding it as an "insult to the nation" if politicians and former politicians are asked to undergo security checks, I think it will do us all a lot of good if they willingly participated. They are meant to be leaders right? Why don't they lead us through the metal detector as well then! Plus, if they do it, it might knock some sense into non-politicians who think they are VIPs because of how heavy their pockets are.

I don't think CA should have apologised. This reminds me of an incident at Bukhara, New Delhi where I overheard two foreigners request the waiter to make their kebabs less spicy. The waiter promptly told them that kebabs were spicy by nature, and would not be changed. I like the whole take-what-you-get-or-fuck-off attitude. If CA has certain security procedures to follow, it shouldn't have to apologise for them.

The guy on the TOI blog said the Kalam incident was like asking Hillary Clinton to go through a security check when she visits India. I don't think there is anything wrong with that either. It's a security check for god's sake! One should question their intentions when they vehemently oppose it, just because it causes one to wonder what they have to hide.

The last line of an article in TOI made me really angry- "There have been instances where Indian VIPs have been treated shabbily at foreign airports."

If going through security checks is "shabby treatment" then isn't it shameful and worrying that the GOI (meant to be by, of and for the people) is okay with every other citizen of India being subjected to it?

Another example, and I am sure everyone who has been through this experience will agree, is the fact that whenever a "VIP" passes by a certain area, or is about to, they have all these cops stopping regular traffic. It is the most absurd and revolting thing! To be in a car, waiting for some man/woman to drive past, and cooperate while you are effectively being told that he/she is more important than you are.

I mean, if the proud pricks have to be somewhere in such a hurry, and if they are so bloody important, they ought to have the brains enough to leave their homes a little sooner keeping in mind the time of day and traffic flow like the rest of us do.

Even if you leave aside the fact that it is absolutely shameful to pledge allegiance to principles of equality, liberty and justice for all and clearly give priority to some citizens over the others, it is a violation of democratic principles. Why should I wait for the other guy to pass? Because they tell me to. And because they will either shoot me or throw me in prison for trying to get onto a road that's supposedly meant for everyone and that the government maintains by fleecing people of their hard earned money.

It violates this alleged equality by adding a " * " and a small print.

* except for some, who are special.

THE LOVER MOURNS THE LOSS OF LOVE

2009-07-18T01:56:00.001+05:30

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,

I had a beautiful friend

And dreamed that the old despair

Would end in love in the end:

She looked in my heart one day

And saw your image was there;

She has gone weeping away

- Yeats

Hum jaante hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin, dil ko behelaane ke liye yeh khayal accha hai

2009-07-16T22:33:00.005+05:30

(Snippets of an old conversation with someone)

hmm...old age can be weird. I don't mind it as long as all my sense organs are working fine, I can still walk/ run around, and other body parts don't give up. Basically, age doesn't matter as long as qualitty of life doesn't deteriorate.

I am very amused by this talk about "wanting to be dead"

I mean death is so amazing as a thing! It's the one thing you can't really talk about 'wanting' in seriousness without sounding stupid. Because wanting something always connotes desiring something because you anticipate a good result. i.e. you want something because of how it will make you feel once your desire is satiated.

With death, that's impossible. You can want it all you like, but when you get it, you won't be around to experience the fulfillment of the want. So till the time you are capable of feeling and thought, you are left wanting. and when one isn't capable of feeling and thought, how does anything matter anyway?

death is not the end of suffering. If you suffer in life, and are seeking escape in death, its pretty hopeless. Because you will suffer till you are alive. and when you die, it doesn't matter if there is suffering or not because you wont be alive to suffer its presence or enjoy its absence.

.....

Having said that, I talk about wanting to die all the time! :-) but that's more for the sake of drama. And finding expression of an extreme kind for what is otherwise inexpressible.

I think my attitude to death is one of indifference. Not wanting or not-wanting.

................

To escape pain for what? Why do we want to escape pain? Because absence of pain is desirable. Otherwise there is no point wanting it. But with death even that wont be there. Except for others to discuss at an intellectual level. Or for us to discuss it now, at an intellectual level.
Not for the one who has died. For him, as long as he "was" he was suffering. When he "was" no more, well, the verb "to be" can't be applied in any form

.............

For whom is it over? You talk about something unpleasant being "over" for someone, only if they have experienced its absence. Otherwise you wouldn't know it is over right? And how is that possible after death? Except for the alive ones to talk about and discuss?

There is no 'you' after you die.. except in the minds of others you have left behind.
And yes, the idea of death as the end of suffering offers us solace when we are alive. But actually, its a delusion.

.............

But no matter when you die, the pain remains till you do. Even to say "extra pain" and "extra suffering", one has to go way beyond the here and now and it is still a very distanced perspective on the matter.
For instance, lets say I have died. This question of "would have suffered more if she were alive" is something others will discuss after I am gone.
also, "if he hadn't died, he would still be suffering", again this doesn't mean much to the person who dies. If I think that "if I die, I will no longer suffer" makes no sense at all. There will be no "I" after I die who "will no longer suffer"

It is as if a pigeon is trapped in a cage, and one day the cage is opened and it has its first shot at freedom. What I am trying to say vis a vis death is the equivalent of the pigeon's neck snapping just when it is reaching the open door.

............

yes... it sounds like quite a plan in theory. That's what I am saying. It's great comfort for the alive ones to talk about it like this. But in actuality, and if one doesn't believe in life after death and what not, then death is the end of you. Not of the suffering. And no, it doesn't suffice to say if you are not there, then there is no suffering.

Your saying "if they continued to exist, they would continue to suffer" still doesn't help the dead man. Again, you may not say it that way, but the desire for something positive (in this case the avoidance of continued suffering) is implied in the cessation of something negative.

It's not an enemy you can outsmart or defeat.

Imagine it like this. Let's say there's an ostrich who buries its face in the sand to escape a predator. When its face is buried, it can't breathe, see, hear, or feel. It is closed to experience of any kind. In order to experience again, it has to come out, and when it does, the predator is still there.

As I understand it now, your argument is that when it can't experience anything, it can't experience the predator either. But what I am saying is that the second part of this statement is incorrect. For to say "it cannot experience" implies an "it"'s existence. But that is not the case. You can say "it isn't". But once you establish that, any other or further negation is not possible. For when something isn't, the possibility of other verbs being negated ceases to exist

.................

For me to hold the idea that death brings an end to their suffering is a functional one to have. But it doesnt help the one on the other side.

For example, I was glad when Arundhati (an injured and suffering elephant) succumbed to her pain and died. For it gave me mental peace to think that her pain had come to and end. But really, thats a belief I have in order to comfort myself.

For till the time she could feel, she felt pain. So when she died, it was not like she was relieved from her pain. There was no "she" left.

................

The only thing I am suggesting is that however adaptive and great this idea of death as an escape is, it is a purely theoretical one and it can never be anything else. Experientially, it is impossible.

Suffering is a constant companion, a sangdil saathi.

Amsterdamgang!

2009-07-11T04:32:00.001+05:30

Sinister signs

2009-07-10T00:15:00.004+05:30

The badey kathin se woh raaste

Badi purkhatar thi woh manzilen

Tera saath jinko naseeb tha

Woh hi dasht-e-gham se guzar gaye

Jahan main jaati hoon wahin chale aate ho, chori chori mere dil mein samaate ho!

2009-06-29T17:29:00.006+05:30

Kite flirting with the sun

Location: Kovalam, India

2009-06-11T21:10:00.001+05:30

Holy Cow wants to go for a ride

Psychosis of a "crazier" kind

2009-05-15T22:29:00.004+05:30

“I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking this question,” she said. “And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, ‘Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for Me and you need to share with all these people...you need to witness to them’.”

Carrie Prejean in a radio interview on her opposing same sex marriages.

More here

What I don't fully understand is, how come these people get invited to talk shows and such, while people who think aliens are using their bodies to wage war against insects have to languish in mental asylums?

That which never ceases to amaze

2009-05-07T16:06:00.001+05:30

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8023295.stm

Nasha hai sab pe, magar rang nashe ka hai judaa

2009-05-04T02:59:00.003+05:30

Late one evening, I set out in search of fresh air and freedom when the last hue of daylight was turning into a very deep dark blue. This new city I must now make mine offered a variety of sights and sounds. Much too lively compared to what I am used to on a Sunday evening.

Looking to remain an innocent bystander (or walker) I was broken out of my reverie when a couple in their thirties approached me to ask a question. I remove my earphones, and they ask "Do you know where ***** is?" I must have appeared confused, as the woman found it necessary to explain further "It's a nightclub". "No idea at all, sorry" I reply and carry on.

What was stranger than the fact that they thought a bespectacled young woman wearing way too many clothes in comparison with the norm of the evening, listening to music and carrying a large non stylish bag would know where a nightclub is located, was the realisation that two outsiders were asking me where anything was in this town.

The usual throngs of minimally clothed women braving the cold for the sake of a few appreciative (also read "leering") glances (or free drinks) were to be seen everywhere. One in particular drew some wolf whistles. Viewed from behind, she appeared to be wearing nothing but a skirt. It was actually a dress crafted so imaginatively as if someone had stitched it together using her contours as guidelines. I was walking close to her and instinctively stepped aside, as if distancing myself further from that openly masculine appreciation of her physical form, thinking it best to let praise directed towards her be unblemished by my comparatively non-sexy appearance.

Kishore Kumar sings into my ears...

Kisi pe husn ka ghuroor jawani ka nasha...

A couple share an embrace and a kiss at a tram station. A young man playfully picks his girlfriend in his arms and threatens to throw her into a pool of water. She squeals with delight disguised as protest.

Kisi ke dil pe mohabbat ki rawani ka nasha...

As I walk on past a man struggling to walk straight, I run into a group of girls. One of them, obviously very drunk, shouts to me in a voice made shriller by alcohol "Hi-yaaa". I give her a wry alright-then-you-got-that-out-of-your-system smile and carry on.

Kahin suroor hai khushiyon ka, kahin gham ka nasha...

Even as my mind is bemused and filled with all this drunken revelry, there are more sober encounters ahead of me.

Like families and couples having intimate meals at quiet restaurants.

I enter a store and catch sight of a young south Asian man. Boy, rather, who looks perplexed as he contemplates two different types of ready made salads and eventually chooses one (appearing to do so more out of a realisation that he must hurry up, than a preference for it). I feel a strange sadness as I see him, cannot understand it and admonish myself for feeling that way.

An elderly couple hold hands as they cross a traffic light. They stick out like sore thumbs amidst all the youthful intoxicated laughter and chatter. I see a young woman carrying a suitcase, probably returning from the train station and find in her the closest resemblance to myself. She too has a determined stride, wears glasses and is covered from head to toe.

I want to keep walking, taking in all this diversity of experience and life. At the thought of being alone in this crowd I smile and feel an elated calmness.

I nod my head as if agreeing with Kishore Kumar.

Nashe mein kaun nahi hai, mujhe batao zara?

Nasha hai sab pe, magar rang nashe ka hai judaa.

Padharo mhare des

2009-05-01T21:22:00.005+05:30

"Kesariya Balam... Padharo Mhare Des" is a beautiful, lilting melody that immediately conjures up the image of a lone traveller traversing the sand dunes of a vast desert in Rajasthan, of a woman in bright clothing and eye catching jewellery waiting expectantly for her lover to return, of palaces, princes and proud moustaches of turbaned Rajasthani men smoking a hookah in the hot afternoon sun while drinking strong, sweet tea.

For me, that is.

The song itself, while it is described as a traditional Rajasthani welcome song, is for me more a song of longing. A plea that is sent out across the sands, carried by the dust in the hope that it shall land on the ears of the one being waited for. The melody is slow and seems deliberately prolonged, as if mimicking the lament of a lone bird, hoping that it will pull at the heart strings of the beloved 'other' who feels so painfully far away.

I had the glorious fortune of listening to a street performer play this melody at the entrance of the Jaisalmer fort. He played it on Sarangi and it was a moment of loveliness.

I wish I could recreate that experience in memory but it is partly lost to me.

Now, I find solace in listening to the song while looking out of the window, in a foreign land.

(Go here for Rajasthani performers and here for a rendition by Mehdi Hassan)

Faith Fighters- Join the movement !

2009-04-30T18:42:00.005+05:30

The state of the world today, with all its terrorism and sickening displays of religious intolerance, demands that all of humankind stops, takes notice and wonders what the hell to do about it.

Well, some have found a potentially workable solution to at least some of the problems of religious violence.

A fantastic game called "Faith Fighter"

Recently discovered by my beloved and me, it basically involves a one on one (man vs. man, man vs. god, or man vs. alien depending on who you are pitted against at any given moment) street fight where one kicks the other's ass (And vital organs if either one is a good enough fighter!)

Invented by Molleindustria as a video game, it has recently been the subject of much outcry* etc. by los fanaticos religiosos. Clearly, they haven't been able to see the potential this fun game has to solve some of the greatest issues facing humanity today!

This is how it goes

You choose who you want to play as. The choices are among the following

- GOD (Who is shown as a rather short and squat- though muscular- man with a white beard)

- JESUS (Son of the above mentioned, shown as a lean and lanky fellow whose favourite defensive stance seems to resemble a "Namaste")

- BUDDHA (Who is blue, wears a saffron robe and looks a bit like Ram from Indian Nritya Natikas- dance dramas)

- MUHAMMAD- (Who is again a lean and lanky man, wearing a green kurta, with a knife slung low on his waist)

- GANESHA (Beloved elephant headed god, shown - obviously- as an elephant. Albeit a rather angry looking one)

- BUDAI (A fat and jovial figure, wearing nothing but a loin-cloth. One of his slick moves involves falling asleep)

- XENU (An alien, who is hardly fun to fight because his- like Mashrafe Mortaza's- favourite shot seems to be "playing defense")

Then you are meant to fight each of the other figures one after the other, each contest lasting three rounds.

Interested drones can play here - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/421199

I personally really like street fighting type games (Mortal Kombat was a favourite). There is something about the rawness of being able to punch your enemy in the face, kick them in the shin and beat the crap out of them to emerge the winner. Of course, I already know it gives vent to my latent aggression so any reader coming to that conclusion should know that that would not qualify as a deep and insightful interpretation.

Which is why I really like this game! But its advantages for mankind at large go very much beyond that.

Imagine if people were to use this as a means to resolve religious differences. Using simulation to re create and experience difficult emotions and deal with them is a therapeutic technique. Why not apply the same to the problem of religion?

The whole my-god-kicks-your-god's-ass question is so easy to resolve- in just three rounds of let's-settle-this-once-and-for-all-by-taking-it-outside good old fashioned street fight.

Of course, some might say that people might resolve to street fights as a way to shut the other up vis a vis the above question anyway. So how is this game any better? Well, let me tell you how.

Can two ordinary men or women engaging in a street fight in the dark alleys of Ghaziabad, Mangalore, Moradabad or any other place in the world use special effects to make themselves invisible (Muhammad), or freeze the enemy into a block of ice (Xenu)? Hah! Didn't think so!

The sound effects, animation etc go a long way to make the entire fight appear comical and pointless. Plus, by using Faith Fighter, you realise that ultimately, your god or your religion is only as strong or as weak as you are.

So everyone can enjoy the game, win a couple of rounds, and go back to the ideal goal of introspection and evolving into a better person.

Better yet, try playing as a religious figure different from the one you would normally identify with. It is like learning an important lesson- That your individual skills and abilities (and other personal traits) account for more of who you are, than your alleged religious identity. Because believe me, we've (beloved and I) tried playing as each and every one of the characters, and ended up winners. Yeah, it feels great :-P

Who knows, you might even give into the urge of swearing** at your opponent, even while playing as your perceived enemy in real life.

Go on then. Give it a shot.

*I hate protests against any form of creative expression or genius. Be it writing, drawing, or inventing video games! The inventors like it, the players like it, what the hell is everyone else's problem anyway?

What happened to the good values of "I may not agree with your opinion but I shall defend to my death your right to have it?"

** I cannot tell a lie. Swearing while playing games is great fun. Sigh, what does this say about me!? Sob sob. Oh well, at least I am good at Faith Fighter :-P

Oh Kindred Spirit !

2009-04-29T20:39:00.001+05:30

"While portraying dogs as humans may bring you satisfaction, consider that this satisfaction is, in actuality, rooted in extreme egoism, borne out of a deeper and more extreme insecurity: To see a lesser creature acting and speaking as you speak is at once validating and entertaining, for along with the silly laugh comes the calming reassurance that no other mammal on Earth can possesses advanced thought. You laugh because your place in the world remains unthreatened"

More here: http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/stop_anthropomorphizing_me

"Remembering, repeating and working through"

2009-04-22T18:45:00.003+05:30

hamari jaan pe bhaari tha gham ka afsana

suni na baat kisi ne to mar gaye chup chaap

ragon mein zehr ke nishtar utar gaye chup chaap
ham ahl e dard jahan se guzar gaye chup chaap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYWIUEUgcUU

2009-04-21T14:57:00.003+05:30

One umbrella

The person more in love

Gets wet.

- Keisanjin

La libertad de la naturaleza

2009-04-09T17:13:00.004+05:30

Chaman mein chhedti hai kis mazey se ghuncha e gul ko

Magar mauj e saba ki paak da nahin jaati

- Hazrat Shah Niyaz

(The morning breeze playfully teases the flowers in the garden

Yet itself remains pristine, it's intentions never questioned )

Kaosu

2009-04-01T21:26:00.002+05:30

A man who keep surpassing himself in the ability to say the most dangerous and obnoxious things

2009-04-01T18:27:00.007+05:30

From here

'How could Indira Gandhi's grandson pose a danger to the country, the Sena chief asked. "If what he said poses danger to the country then arrest 80 crore Hindus under NSA," he added.'

Question: What is worse, more damaging and more anger arousing than Varun Gandhi's recent views and "alleged" remarks that got him booked under the NSA?

Answer: A crazed old fascist hoping to speak on behalf of 80 crore Hindus of this country, and suggesting that they might endorse those (or similar) views.

I don't know what it is about people assuming the right to represent and speak on behalf of others. It just pisses me off. Whether it is Manmohan Singh telling George Bush that the people of India love him, or whether it is Thackeray going off on his grotesque religious tangents again.

Plant Talk : Ways of dealing with a cruel world (Part 3) - Look happy and do a little dance*

2009-03-31T20:11:00.006+05:30

(Parts 1 and 2 of these plant-ly pearls of wisdom)

* Warning: May be construed as "Denial" in some circles, but ignore them.

Plant Talk : Ways of dealing with a cruel world (Part 2) - Droop till you turn upside down

2009-03-31T20:08:00.002+05:30

(Part 1 here)

Plant Talk : Ways of dealing with a cruel world (Part 1) - Make faces/ Scowl

2009-03-31T20:04:00.002+05:30

Animal Talk: Ways of dealing with a cruel world (Part 3) - The Angry Stare

2009-03-31T17:30:00.004+05:30

(Parts 1 and 2)

Animal Talk: Ways of dealing with a cruel world (Part 2) - The Perfect Shrug

2009-03-31T17:26:00.003+05:30

(For part one go here)

Animal Talk: Ways of dealing with a cruel world (Part 1)

2009-03-31T17:20:00.004+05:30

Ganga at Varanasi

2009-01-25T20:21:00.000+05:30

Insomnia is a whore (with poetry)

2009-01-14T03:00:00.000+05:30

3 AM again in the dawning darkness
She turns to her bed time companion- sleeplessness

Silently she asks "When will you leave?"
And what assails her is a line by Dickinson, E.
“It might be lonelier without the loneliness”

Which of these would you rather be?

2008-12-24T04:45:00.001+05:30

On a dark winter morning at 3 AM
Customarily roused from sleep
Wide awake while another slept in peace
I was, its fair to say, surprised to see
That all the restless beating of my heart
Said there was a poem inside of me

"I looked at the mirror
She looked right back at me
And just as I was about to start
She beat me to it and asked like the wind carefree
'The thing loved or the loving thing-
Which one of these would you rather be?'"

One for solace

2008-12-14T20:02:00.002+05:30

(P.S. Holy Cow would like to add that the photo above was taken by Rattlesnake- a cousin from distant lands- when the two of them were spending a rainy afternoon on Rajpath. This fact was of course brought to her attention by the said cousin, who recognised the photo as one he took. Holy Cow had just assumed she had taken it, given her liking for mainas and such, and bit her tongue a little when truth was revealed :-p )

More despair at our species

2008-11-12T22:26:00.004+05:30

The world recently lost a one eyed, three legged dog named Gus to cancer. The little creature had been given the title of the "Ugliest Dog in the World" by the most confusing and mind numbingly weird species on earth- Human Beings.

He beat several other canines to win the title apparently. I mean, let's just take a look at what we're saying here and admonish ourselves. A dog competed against other dogs for the title of the world's ugliest dog.

Admit it. You haven't heard anything sillier. You and I both know that he didn't wake up one day, look in a mirror, conclude he had a fairly good chance and saunter off to sign up for the pageant.

It's a shame indeed that beauty has come to be associated in the human world by one's physical appearance.* But when we apply our own questionable standards to poor creatures of the animal kingdom, and judge them by the same, it really leaves me grasping in vacuum for something to say.

I don't know what drives human beings to act this way towards animals. Dressing them in people's clothes, making them participate in ugliness contests, getting them married to each other...

Camus once said that man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Is that why we can't stand the fact that there are wonderful creatures who are quite at peace with being what they are?

Is it envy that drives people to humanise animals?

I like to think so. It's much more a reflection of reality than the alternative that comes to my mind...

Pity.

*Reminds me of a poem I read recently. Allow me to share.

A young spring-tender girl

combed her joyous hair

'You are very ugly' said the mirror

But,on her lips hung

a smile of dove-secret loveliness,

for only that morning

had not the blind boy said,

"You are beautiful"?

-- Spike Milligan

2008-11-04T06:12:00.002+05:30

Dawn breaks with sounds of running water and birds chirping,

as if all geared up

to get started on a new day.

Everywhere but here,

there seem to be signs of life finding a way.

This world of dew

2008-11-03T22:17:00.004+05:30

This world of dew
is only a world of dew
- and yet

.....

A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle

(Issa)

Multiple entendres

2008-10-27T14:16:00.007+05:30

They escaped with their lives

managed to get married

They can, at last, change their clothes.

- Yosa Buson

Of poetry, love and keeping the fantasy alive

2008-10-26T19:10:00.004+05:30

There are two songs with some similar lines. Both songs are beautiful and can be easily related to by anyone who has loved or lost, or both.

The songs I speak of are Mujhse Pehli Si Mohabbat Mere Mehboob Na Maang by Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein Khayal Aata Hai by Sahir Ludhianvi.

The first song has the line

“Tu jo mil jaaye toh taqdeer nigun ho jaaye
Yun na tha maine faqat chaha tha yun ho jaaye”

(Were I to have you, my destiny would not matter.
This was not the way it was, but only how I desired it to be)

The second, by Sahir Ludhianvi, ends with

Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai
Ki jaise tu mujhe chahegi umr bhar yun hi
Uthegi meri taraf pyaar ki nazar yun hi
Main jaanta hoon ki tu ghair hai magar yun hi

(Once in a while, a fleeting thought settles upon my mind
That you will want me forever
And your eyes will always find me through the lenses of love
I know you are not mine, but nonetheless
Once in a while…)

I think both songs are brilliant and I am a fan both of both the poets, and relate to both songs equally. But as far as these two parts of these songs are concerned, I favour the second more than the first.

Let me tell you why.

One starts with a fantasy and then crashes it against the wall of reality. The other recognizes the constraints of reality but is belligerent enough to reiterate the fantasy that exists nonetheless, and almost enjoys it.

Playing, in children and in adults through imagination and fantasy, is an integral part of the experience of an unburdened sense of existing. A child who cannot play, adults who cannot dream or be spontaneous have lost parts of themselves that allow them to be free without being afraid.

The capacity to be surprised also shuts down when one has had to abandon fantasy and playing too soon to the demands of harsh reality. Being surprised means not knowing and not being in control, which creates a vulnerability that causes anxiety. The titles of both songs are significant if one thinks of them in light of the above. One says it can no longer be the way it used to once in a while, while the other wonders and allows itself to be carried with that wonder.

Sahir’s lyrics have two qualities of good psychotherapy (I refer to the psychoanalytic or depth psychological approaches). It has the capacity to surprise, for when I heard the song for the first time I was caught by surprise both at the point where he dips into the level of reality after giving a glimpse of what the mind has fantasized, as well as when he rises again from reality back to fantasy with the very last ‘I know…. But..”. A second quality it has is of giving something to keep the listener going, by not putting an end to his fantasy-ing and imagination. To go on being. What philosophers and others have called Eros.

Keeping the fantasy alive is important for one to feel “alive” in the true sense of being. Life is not about going towards something. It is about the here and now. The chase is more important than the capture. The capture brings about an end to the game. What do you do then?

The entire meaning of a wide range of emotions and their whole worth comes from your experience of them. Love, for instance. The maximum you can derive out of that emotion is to be in love, to feel it from the depths of your being. Not to feel it towards a certain object alone but rather to experience it within yourself. Being with the one you love is an advantage, but doesn’t, or shouldn’t change your experience of it in any way, because it became a complete emotion the moment you began to feel it.

It need not “have” the other in order to attain a greater or more evolved state.

Love is an experience inside your own being that leads you to find things outside of you to give it an outlet or an organized form. You may like someone or admire them because of their qualities, but you love them only if you have opened yourself up to feeling love in general in the first place.

But the beautiful thing is, the moment you are able to do this you feel like you have reached the pinnacle of what is pleasurable and makes life worth living.

Poets in their wonderful double entendres and their prose have captured the essence of life and love like no one else has.

Ghalib, (insert “Sigh” here) once wrote

“Tere vaade par jiye hum
to yeh jaan jhoot jaana
ki khushi se mar na jaate
agar aitbaar hota ? "

(To say that I live because of your promise to me

Would make this life of mine a lie.

For would I not have died of sheer joy

Had I trusted it to be sincere?)

Apart from the surface level meaning of the inability to trust the love of a beloved, I think what he is also trying to get at is the essence – the juissance- of life which is in the journey between wanting and having. We live in a valley of desire and longing, and to attain all that we want would be equivalent to ceasing to live.

Like delaying an orgasm indefinitely

So that the heightened arousal, which in itself is pleasing, doesn’t come to an immediate end.

Maine poocha chand se

2008-10-24T23:12:00.005+05:30

A strangely lovely thing about Srinagar was that the moon always seemed larger there. I don't know why or how. Every night while going for a stroll I would look up, shake my head and ask whoever I was walking next to- How is it that the moon is so much brighter and bigger here than in Delhi?

The only answers I ever got involved either an amused laughter at my question, or a shy smile.

On second thought, maybe that was enough of an answer after all.

2008-10-23T22:17:00.004+05:30

"When you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible"

(Said a funny man to an annoying yet endearing-in-some-way woman in a feature film I happened to watch today)

There is a reason why I labelled this "Psychoanalysis" as well

2008-10-23T22:12:00.003+05:30

Tune deewana banaaya toh main deewana bana

Ab mujhe hosh ki duniya mein tamaasha na bana*

You drove me to insanity and I became insane

Now don't make me a poor joke in the world of the sane

* Hazrat Shah Niyaz

(Translation by Muzaffar Ali)

In Kashmir, this too happens once in a while

2008-10-22T22:49:00.003+05:30

The golden sun, feeling just a little dry
Rolled down the mountain,
And slid into the cool water of the lake
Watched by a lone bird in flight
That bemusedly drew circles in sky

Multi-isms of my motherland

2008-10-19T13:40:00.008+05:30

"India also has philosophical and aesthetic traditions that are truly majestic in their scope and depth. These range from Vedanta's unifying existentialism to Ghalib's playful symbolism, from Bhagavad Gita's enlightened pragmatism to Gandhi's unflinching pacifism, from Khajuraho's informed hedonism to Kathakali's narrative corporealism, from Buddha's contemplative realism to Tagore's spiritual lyricism, from Nanak's divine eclecticism to Nehru's sophesticated secularism, and from Kabir's poetic mysticism to Rushdie's sardonic surrealism"

- Dr. Salman Akhtar,

Gifted writer and poet, exceptional orator.

Also, a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist.

in 'Freud Along the Ganges- Psychoanalytic Reflections on the People and Culture of India'

Ease

2008-10-18T12:28:00.002+05:30

TQ: You are god sent
Holy Cow: we all are my dear
TQ: or whoever you would like to have been sent by
Holy Cow: equally god sent or non god sent, whichever way you look at it
TQ: :) Thank you would be less controversial ..
Holy Cow: Indeed. And you are welcome :-)

It's nice to be able to set things straight with friends this way.

A question

2008-10-09T21:33:00.001+05:30

Did you exchange
A walk-on part in a war
For a lead role
In a cage?