Tuesday, April 24, 2007

F******** -- The G Version

Feminism to the most part is a feeling of equality of men and women. In India, as siblings, daughters are given less opportunities, than sons. Equality of education and basic development strips independence off women. There the parents should try to see their male and female kids as equals. This is not true even among the urban populace in Chennai. Equal opportunity includes, right to live, access to education, encouragement to participate in sporty activities, sanitation, involvement in socio-economic decision, and marital decisions.

Currently, I believe this to be a pressing goal for any feministic movement. Men and women should share these ideas. But only these. Some high profile intellectuals try to milk the feminist cow, by making grammatical changes like "female actor" instead of "actress", and other point-making exercises.

In most other cases, the learned woman who is being affected by a male dominated society should and needs to rise by herself. Every woman can take things into her hands in the household and the locality. But this is not true for female children who are completely dependent the parents for all their support.

I have a classic example of a wasted feminist energy. In our floor, there are about 40 employees, and the floor has 3 identical individual restrooms. However, one restroom is marked as "Men", another marked as "Women" and a third just "Restroom". There are two women who work in the floor, and the department has been traditionally dominated by males. I am not sure if reservation of the restroom is the most efficient thing to do.

There is a dangerous repercussion because of this wasted energy in making such silly feministic pickets. People lose focus, and the energy is dissipated. When a subset of people try to force unnecessary logic down everybody else's throat, it becomes a nuisance. Similar to when Bombay changed to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata, and recently Bangalore to Bengalooru.

Women try to drag everything under the sun and call it feminism. I do not think chivalry has anything to do with feminism. In a trice, the conflicting interests becomes farcical. This is what Pratap tried to tell in the previous post. (Btw, his story was some made up. He does not know that many girls ;-) ) Any act related to courtship, is quite complicated to be branded anything (Good or bad, stupid or charming, rude or smart, Condescending or nice)

Societal roles cannot be eliminated. Some people like to fit into the societal roles. Some women like to be house wives. Some women like to cook painstaking special food for their spouse. Some men like to work with machinery, most women would rather spend time shopping. A true implementation of feminism would only make this place an asexual planet.

I know the above sounds brutal and contradicting to most other views, and this version of feminism from my mouth is not without its sense of irony. If only you know all the things that I know.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

My DNA too!

Monday, April 09, 2007

A feeling

What is about these love stories? I understand some, I laugh at some. "Kuch kuch hota hai" was ludicrous. Some stories were romantic, and others I wanted to be in. Really, what exactly defines romance? The girl's idea of romance is what it really is, guys just want to have all romances to end in the bed.

My idea of romance is mix of old and new fashioned. I like Mani-Rathnam styled, rapid fire, ready to die for damsel, dudes. Well I am not 16, so I don't fall in love in a couple of minutes. It takes more than that to make me fall. I also like the old fashioned, singing romantic songs, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes hoping to tell something, types too.

My idea is of romance is mostly driven by movies and fiction novels. Is our idea of a feeling just a reiteration of supporting literature? Are we limited by creativity of fine artists?

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Monday, March 26, 2007

Dial T for Tamil Nadu, Part IV

I watched a number of Tamil movies. Looking for quality, I did not find much, so settled for fun. Tamil movies are of extremely low quality I should say. I am not talking about recent movies, but spanning the past 4 decades, I could not see how systematically poor screenplay, acting, and direction could have made success. Decade after decade of decadence.

I saw a very old Tamil movie called, "Maya Bazaar". It was a Telugu movie first, but I could appreciate how well the script was rewritten in Tamil. A fictional play, set in pre-kurushetra Mahabharata. The characters were not perfect, but they are shown to be what they are. Ranga Rao as Gadothgajan (Bhima's Son) is the most august figure I have ever seen on screen. The young Savithri in one scene acts like Gadothgajan, and wow, the transition was seamless, hilarious (as intended) nevertheless. You must have heard the "Kalyana Samayal Saadham" song. The only song where the laughter sets the rhythm. And the literary effort makes the movie on par with Kamba Ramayanam. Where is that kind of Tamil these days?

I will not pick on T. Rajendar's limericks like "Vaada en machi, vazhakkai bajji!", but something that people normally consider as the norm, like Vivek's humor. Somebody please inform T. Rajendar that there are many forms of Edhugai and MOnai. If you did not know, Vivek's is out of ideas and copies from equally lame Hindi movies. Even the bestest tamil writer's vocabulary is appalling. I think Bharthiyar is to blame. In order to sell his Swadheshamitran, he bribed the masses with a reduced day-to-day vocabulary in literature. Kannadasan was no good. His only advantage was being born in celluloid age.

In all this drought, I saw "Imsai Arasan, 23rd Pulikesi". The humor was new and refreshing. Excellent Tamil. I loved it. If you had missed the originality, probably you were not looking for quality. Again, a fictional South Indian sittrarasan's (King of a small kingdom) fight against the British.

There are reasons for cribbing. The language carries the burden of spreading the culture too. The Tamil diaspora, bringing back the goods of the international trades, infuses a sense of stupidity in the traditional values. Competence during bachelorhood is proven among the peers by having the most attractive boyfriend or girlfriend in college. This is blatant in the movie "Anbe Aaruiyire". In this movie Surya basically lives with a girl friend, a non-committed live-in relationship. His mention of Nixon's disgraced exit from the White house, is implying his knowledge in Western's history and thus a "learned" image.

This is not the case. In Tam land, we have something called "karpu", which the we folks pride ourselves. "Karpu" is not exactly virginity as most people believe. It is a feeling of faithfulness, of righteousness, of purity, of innocence. Karpu is self respect, to respect one own body and mind. It has no exact English translation. I am not a politician and so I do not need to be politically correct or even try to made the truth palatable. In Chennai, people do not live together before marriage. Yes, we do fall in love before we marry. A lot. But live-in relationships are not common. People might be interested in live-in relationships, but it is not the norm as this movie shows.

I am not judging the youngsters, but a knowledge of the Tamil literature, history and culture would not hurt either. Shaivite devotion is one of the most important part of Tamil literature. Stories from the 63 Nayanmars, given here. You don't have to be Hindu to appreciate the Shaivite devotion and Tamil literature.

To end this article, I would like to quote Vairamuthu in Aalavandhan. A short poem that was almost which gave me an unearthly vibe:
Pennai nambi pirakkum boedhe thoppull kodigal arupadumae
Mannai nambum maaperum maramum seerum puyalil verarumay
Unnai nambum uruppugal kooda orupozhudunnai kaividumae
Ithil pennai mattum nambum nambagam pina naal varayil kaivarumo?

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Friday, January 05, 2007

Hello there!

This being my first post in this blog, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Aarti and I am a friend of Pratap ( unfortunately! ) Even though this is my first post, Pratap has been generously borrowing stuff from me to put up in this blog, and I thought, why not join this blog - atleast then the stories will have the proper ending!

Before you judge me, it was Pratap's brilliant idea to scare the girl Ramya, in what he calls a prank and use my name for this purpose. Heavens would cry if all of sins committed in name were to be told !

Looking at how obnoxiously boyish this blog has become, I am surprised the blog has so many female readers. I take it upon myself to change the outlook of this blog and make it a tad girl friendly :) Wish me luck, guys!

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Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Welcome the co-author -- Aarti

Hi,

Readers of this blog, please welcome the new co-author "Aarti". She is a friend of mine, who's name I have used many times without prior approval for many of my devious acts. Unlike me, she is lot more coherent and comes with a much better vocabulary, being a girl and all, I should say that is amazing! Since I was using many of her creations, she demanded to be immediately officiated into the blog.

And before you ask me, no she is not my girl friend (yuck ... yuck), or my wife, or my sister or my mother or aunt or any female relative. Nevertheless, she is a female (she just slapped my head from behind as I was writing this...) Apparently she wants to be called "The Girl". Yeah, whatever... the girl will join you soon.

Pratap

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Monday, October 16, 2006

Anatomy of a bad prank

I am not sure if this can be made public.

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