Women's freedom, not 'pub culture,' is their target…

Around 40 goons of the 'Sri Ram Sene' entered a pub, assaulted people there, dragged women by the hair, molesting them and lifting up their blouses and skirts. They claimed to be righteous defenders of 'Indian morality,' incensed by 'women boozing' and 'pub culture.' Since these scenes came to people's notice through national TV, there was widespread outrage, and after a delay of many days, finally, some of the perpetrators were arrested. The Chief of the Sri Ram Sene PV Muthalik, is yet to be booked for masterminding this assault – though he has been taken into custody on some other charges. The ruling BJP and even the Sangh Parivar (RSS) has tried to distance itself from the Sri Ram Sene.

Today, there are many attempts to turn the story upside down. The perpetrators are being painted as 'rescuers.' The targets of the assault – the women – are being projected as the villains. Their crime? They were spreading 'pub culture,' says CM Yeddyurappa, and 'pub culture', 'boozing' etc are 'against Indian culture.' The Chief Minister is echoing the words of Muthalik, the leader of the outfit that attacked women. The 'seer' of the Udupi Pejawar math has also tacitly encouraged the attack, saying that if women provoke religious sensitivities by visiting pubs, it is natural for "everybody to protest." The State Women's Commission, instead of being concerned over women's rights, has recommended that the pub be closed! Even more shockingly, Nirmala Venkatesh, a representative of the National Women's Commission, has not only recommended closure of the pub; she has said that the Sri Ram Sena member she met in jail said they were 'provoked' by women 'dancing semi nude' – and women, in order to 'protect themselves' ought not to wear such clothes! The Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss from the UPA Central Government, the AP CM YSR Reddy and the Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, both from the Congress, have all spoken against 'pub culture'.

Is pub culture the real issue?

Is the pub incident a sudden one that happened because innocent men were 'provoked' by 'semi nude dancing' and 'boozing'? Have saffron Sangh Parivar outfits never attacked women before? Let us recollect some facts about events in Karnataka:

On December 12, 2008, a college bus, on an official trip from Mangalore to Mysore, was stoned by the Bajrang Dal, an outfit of the sangh Parivar, a sister organization of the BJP that rules the state. Several students were injured. The Bajrang Dal defended the attack, saying that allowing Hindu girls to travel with fellow students, especially boys, who were Muslim or Christian, was 'against Indian culture'. (See The Hindu, Dec 12, 2008)

Between July and September 2008, there were at least ten incidents recorded with the district police – of attacks on young people in Dakshina Kannada district. The Bajrang Dal claimed responsibility for seven of these incidents – which included assaults on a young woman who visited a friend (another young woman) from another community; on a group of friends including a Hindu girl with her Hindu and Muslim male friends at a hotel in Mangalore; a similar group of young friends who were "laughing and talking loudly in a public place"; a young woman with her Muslim fiancé travelling in a bus; a young Hindu man who brought medicines for his Muslim friend who had been suffering from malaria; Muslim school boys carrying school bags of their classmates who were Hindu girls etc… According to the Bajrang Dal, socializing between communities was an "immoral act." The Bajrang Dal head of Dakshina Kannada district, Sudarshan Moodabidri, said "Sometimes it becomes necessary to use force. Fear of such action should deter such misadventures. Girls reform themselves once they are thrashed and humiliated in public, but boys are tougher to control." (See The Hindu, Sep 07, 2008)

So, months before the pub attack, a prominent Sangh Parivar leader of Karnataka was openly defending his outfit's actions of 'thrashing and humiliating (women) in public.'

Mr. Yeddyurappa:

Why were Moodabidri and his goons not arrested?

When women are 'thrashed and humiliated' in pubs, you say you will close down pubs. When girls are thrashed in schools and colleges, it seems you will ban education for women?!

The same Sangh Parivar in BJP-ruled Gujarat raped and massacred thousands of Muslims in 2002. Babu Bajrangi, a Bajrang Dal leader of Gujarat, boasts that he has 'rescued' (abducted) 1000 Hindu women who had married Muslim men, persuading them – no doubt through 'thrashing and humiliation' – to disown their inter-community marriages. Now, the same forces, with help from an obliging BJP government, are trying to turn Karnataka into Gujarat. Can we afford to allow them?

It is a real shame that, instead of sharply challenging the communal fascist and anti-woman agenda of the Sangh Parivar and the BJP-ruled states, Congress leaders, as well as the UPA Government, and its institutions like the NCW, are busy blaming 'pub culture' and women's choice of dress and lifestyle. Shame on NCW member Nirmala Venkatesh for echoing the patriarchal commandment that women are 'responsible for their own safety' – i.e, they are guilty even when they themselves are the victims of assaults!

Sanghi Terrorism

The Sene chief Muthalik has been giving speeches openly boasting of the Malegaon blasts and promising more of the same. There are also audio recordings, recovered by the Maharashtra ATS, of a retired Major boasting that the Mecca Masjid blasts too (for which innocent Muslim young men suffered brutal torture) were conducted by "one of us." By now, it is clear that the Malegaon blasts were the tip of the iceberg. The Sanghi terrorists had a gameplan of subverting the Indian constitution and democracy and establishing a 'Hindu Rashtra.' In such a Hindu Rashtra, needless to say, Muslims, Christians and other minorities will face the fate they did in Gujarat and Kandhamal (Orissa). And women can visualize life in such a 'Hindu Rashtra' by seeing the events in Karnataka for the past several months.

Indian women have won their rights and freedoms – to education, to choose partners of their choice; against child marriage; against being burnt for sati; to equality in the workplace – through hard struggle: a struggle they have to fight daily. We will not surrender these rights to the diktats of the Sanghi terrorists, the saffron Taliban! Let us raise our voice loud and clear against the BJP regime in Karnataka and all other self-appointed custodians of 'morality.' Let us say – the only morality we uphold is one which respects women's unfettered freedom, and rights to decide their own education, jobs, sexual preferences and partners, and lifestyle; on which abhors any attempts to poison the relationships between communities.

-AIPWA

Santa Vs God

Daniel Florein at Unreasonable Faith has come up with a superb graphic about the similarities between belief in Santa and belief in God.

The Mists of Avalon

Marion Zimmer Bradley retells the Arthurian legends from the point of view of the women – the much maligned Morgaine, Viviane, Igraine, Gwenhwyfar and Morguase. A feminist perspective which gives the classic characters new depth and dimension. It’s a fantastic and pleasant read, whose flaws don’t make it any less interesting.

The Mists of Avalon politics and intrigue take place at a time when Christianity is taking over the pagan worshipping island-nation of Britain – it shows the legendary rise and fall of Camelot. God vs Goddess, Christianity vs Paganism, Feminine leadership vs masculine leadership, Love vs lust are some of the dominant themes of the book.

Though Bradley explores interesting ideas in 'Avalon,' her writing is disorganized to the extreme. In her efforts to cover everything – King Arthur’s Round Table, Pellinore’s dragon, the Holy Grail, - the book become an enormous tome of almost 900 pages with

Too much mush and too much Christianity is bad and Paganism is good. When we actually see the hard lives Morgaine and Viviane have to lead because of their faith, the harsh decisions that they take – one would prefer the less-taxing Christian God who doesn’t seem to mind having dumb priests in his service.
Gwynhwyfar and Lancelot have to be the most irritating characters ever created. From a vapid, frightened, stupidly-prejudiced girl, Gwynhwyfar grows into a hypocritical, adulterous and seemingly pious, over-religious female.

Gwenhwyfar is shown to deeply fear and hate the Goddess yet she had no compunctions in asking Morgaine for a charm to cure her bareness. And again her constant bullying of King Arthur to turn the country Christian is nothing short of tyrannical. She uses her knowledge of the incestuous (accidental) relationship he has with his sister as a Damocles sword over his head to emotionally blackmail him and get what she wants. Also her own inability to carry a child, she blames on Druid Kevin when she miscarries. Gwenhwyfar is so whiney and whimpey that one wishes Arthur had just shut her up (as he was advised by many of his councilors).
As Queen, she is a guilt-ridden figure who turns to Christianity in her desire to bear a child and begs Arthur to do the same, thus bringing about the fall of Camelot.

Lancelot is another irrriating character. He is never happy with what he has, but is always
lusting after something or the other. There is a also a hint by Bradley that he might be a homosexual, because of his attraction to Arthur and the threesome they once have during the Beltane fires.
The fight between Christianity and paganism is delightful to watch; in particular the arguments and counter-arguments placed. For me these thoughts resemble my own struggle to relate Christianity and the dominant religion of my country-Hinduism.

Believers of each religion seek to influence both Arthur and Uther – but ultimately Christianity ascends the throne.
The Isle of Avalon is painted in bright, seraphic, rose-tinted colours. The Isle is the centre for druids and priestess, inititated into the worship of the Goddess and one of the last abodes in Britain still untouched by Roman occupation or Christianity. The island surrounds itself in a mystical era – the mists and fogs protect this haven from the once-borns or those lacking in physic powers.
Morgaine is shown as a powerful, independent woman, who is learned, skilled in all the feminine arts, healing, folklore and magic. In her independence of thought and action, she earns a bad name for herself among the more patriarchal Chrisitians. Even Gwynhwyfar is shown to resent the freedom and liberties which Morgaine, the high priestess and sister of Arthur takes. Morgaine's life is dedicated to the Goddess and she despair when she the Old Religion losing favour among nobles and commfolk for Christianity. She is human, sincere, spiritual, divine and is supposed to be beautiful. She is admired by many for her beauty. But she herself has an inferiority complex when she compares her dark skin with Gwenhyfar’s pink and white complexion. She also how illogical love is. Though she frankly detests Lancelot’s views and actions, she still can’t help loving him.

What is also hinted in the book, is the deep, abiding love Morgaine and Arthur have for each other that borders on the sexual– though they turn bitter enemies at one point of time. While the druids see nothing wrong this relationship, the Christian religion calls it incest and it is one of the extreme taboos. Another point in illustration of how the two religions are at opposite ends. In one religion, the geneology is traced through the man, in the other the logic is one can be certain of only who the mother is, so trace it through the woman.

All the characters grow with the novel – their views change, their attitudes become mellower or harsher – in fact they are all too human with their strengths and frailities.
Viviane is the archetypical statesman; quite Machiavellian the way she tries to use her noble relatives in her power play. Her self-righteousness and her sense of she knows whats best is a little hard to swallow, but her deep abiding loyalty to the old faith is to be appreciate. Unlike Morgaine, who has doubts and flounders in her commitment to the Goddess, the Lady of the Lake is shown to served her Goddess throughout her life.
Vivianne is the one who tricks Morgaine (the next Lady of the Lake) into sleeping with her brother Arthur. When questioned about it by an angry Morgaine, she dismisses her by saying that the fate of Britain was more important than her feelings. King Arthur himself is fostered on the advice of Vivianne. She wants to secure Arthur loyalty to the Goddess and makes him take an oath on the Excalibur.
Even the pious Igraine has a past – that is scandalous from the Christian persepective, but quite unexceptionable as far as the Old Religion is concerned. Her boldness and courage in the first few chapter as she loves Urther despite being married to Gorlois is commendable. But her latter lack of enthusiasm for life and retirement to a convent is not convincing.

While pagan religions are more tolerant of other Gods, Christianity and its supreme arrogance in one-faith God is shown as narrow-minded. The author also exposes how Christianity systematically tried to suppress women, their role in the Church, their relegation to housework and the pre-occupation with chastity.

History
You can’t read Mists of Avalon if you a history buff or want historical accuracy.

If you can

One of my favourite poems that I keep repeating to hopefully keep me level-headed in office:



If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

Shopping in T.Nagar

I don’t know why men who are quite capable of pushing a punctured bike 15 km across Indian roads, are incapable of shopping for more than an hour in T.Nagar.
But the mistake of taking my untried husband to T.Nagar was all mine. I should have taken my more ‘experienced’ mama and athai. But I couldn’t very well do that when we stuck in the middle of a crowd intent on going in a direction that my hapless husband didn’t want to follow.
The trouble started at home.

Me: I want to go shopping.
Jeeva: What do you want to buy?
Me (annoyed): What have I been talking for the past half-an-hour?
Jeeva: (Looks blank. Reigning silence. He hazards a guess…) U wanted to buy a dog…?
Me: No. I wanted u to come shopping with me.
Jeeva: But why do you want me. I thought you wanted to go shopping? (He always talks in circles, when he doesn’t want to do something)
Me: (I change tactics) Are you going to change your clothes or not?
Jeeva: Why what’s wrong with them?
Me: (nearing tears) I don’t want to be seen in that horrid shirt with you. So you had better change it and wear a kurta.
Jeeva: But you don’t have to force yourself to see me in that shirt. You can go without me can’t you (hopefully..)

After 15 more minutes of he says, she says, I get him fitted out in a decent enough dress and we walk down to the railway station.
Jeeva: Ok. I’ll go and buy the tickets.
Me: Why?
Jeeva: We have to buy the tickets. No? (Very patiently as if I’m am cockroach with below average intelligence)
Me: But why do you want to buy tickets. Tickets – as in a plural noun, when you bought me a season ticket for three months.
Jeeva: Oh. Yes. Yes. Yes. Season ticket. Right. Right. Right. (grinning sheepishly) I’ll get a ticket for myself then.

Train arrives….
Jeeva: Did you lock the house?
Me: Yeah.
Jeeva: Are you sure?
Me: Yeah (but then I have my doubts)
Jeeva: You have the key with you.
Me: YES!
We board the train. But then I hurry through my shopping to get back home and check if I’ve really locked. After a year and a half of living with him, I have now started wondering if his doubts of my ability to lock closed doors stems from a desire to shorten the shopping expedition.
Anyway the next time I’m planning to catch him unawares and take him for a six-hour shopping spree in T.Nagar. Wish me luck

TOI’s arrival in Chennai

If you’re a working journalist, whose ambit is Chennai, the first mission of your life should be getting a placement in the Times of India. The TOI, which has been promising to come for many years, has finally got bored with the hype of arriving and decided to get the irksome job of getting to Chennai done and over with.

So landed TOI HR personnel, machines, baggage and all…..And no they did’nt advertise. Advertised recruitment drives are for measly papers with a circulation of less than 1 lakh (by the way this should not be construed as any hit at the New Indian Express, Chennai). For the TOI, advertising is more elite – only word of mouth. Or maybe the word of mouth stuff is a discrete cost cutting measure.

Anyway, the average TOI Chennai aspirant had to try his luck at the great, grand TOI. And applying for a company in the conservative circles of Chennai is not as easy as you think. First thing one has to get leave for the interview. And for that one has to be good at inventing stuff. “My grandmother is sick. She’s on her deathbed.” “Im suffering from writer’s block, tennis elbow, hepatitis, or even better mental depression…” are just a few excuses to give to the boss.

But for all you know when the boss is scolding you for taking too much leave, he/she might actually be thinking; “Will I get the job in TOI? What If I don’t? I’ll have to explain why a whole lot of people stampeded out of my office. And what if I meet this guy in the TOI office during the interview? Or even worse this loser gets the job and I don’t?”
So the boss decided to leave you in the lurch and not give you leave in the greater interests of his own career in TOI. Then you’ll have to squeeze in the interview between the hours you were supposed to have been in office.

The TOI guys are going to be here for three days. But its going to be three days of hell for the average TOI aspirant.
TOI aspirant to another reporter in the same beat: “Machan, I have some urgent work. I heard you’re attending the same press conference. Can you tell me what happened later?”
Another reporter: “Machan. I wanted to ask the same thing. My wife is not feeling well. So can you tell what happened there…”
(Deep silence. Mutual suspicion)
Both TOI aspirants hang up.
End result: All dignitaries will have to face empty chairs for the next three days in press conferences, business lunches and all the other events for which people want journalists to grace the attention.
And those who don’t want to be part of the TOI herd are dismissed as people who have to a) take up permanent residenship in Kilpauk IMH b) neurotic c) have enough money – damn the filthy rich and the cover-taking journalists or d) people who want to apply to TOI later after they get their annual hikes and increments in their current office.

(I suddenly realised I've used more than 14 TOIs in the post. Just hows the overall TOI fixation doesn't it?)

ACE CINEMATOGRAPHER Manikandan (A story that did'nt see daylight)

With Om Shanti Om, running to packed houses within a week of its release; cameraman V.Manikandan's star seems to be definitely on the rise in both Bollywood and Kollywood. A cinematographer, who's delivered a string of hits like Anniyan, Kuch Naa Kaho and Main Hoon Na, he has won greater prominence after his recent tryst with Farah and Shah Rukh.

On what made Om Shanti Om click, his one word answer is Shah Rukh. He goes on to describe Farah and Shah Rukh as the dream team to work with. Surprisingly, Shah Rukh's star presence in no way intimidated him, he says, adding that king Khan was the most unassuming and accommodating person he had to work with.

The much talked about 31-star studded title track Deewangi was one of the most difficult scenes to shoot. What started out as a six-heroine starrer ended up as a mega dance sequence. " Once word got around that Farah was shooting an item number with so and so, everyone got interested and wanted to jump onto the bandwagon. We had celebrities coming at all odd hours for the shoot. Preity Zinta turned up at around midnight once. We sometimes had to shoot with only two stars on the set," he says.

Having had the distinction of turning even slightly angular beauties like Shilpa Shetty and Sushmita Sen into drop-dead, gorgeous sirens on screen, he says that there is no such thing as having a naturally photogenic face. "Of course, I have heard that people like Shobana don't need make-up to look beautiful. But all the girls I have worked with have had to have make-up, special lighting and tuck-ins for me to do justice to their beautiful selves," says Manikandan.
Though a veteran in the field, he says even he felt thrilled when Dharmendra, Jitendra came to the sets. He says it was a little tricky making the stars of by-gone years look as glamorous as their younger counterparts. "We had to make Subhash Ghai wear a high-neck shirt and loads of make-up to cover his double chin."


"The film was colossal and grandiose in terms of everything – glamour, style, money, etc. And Farah wanted it that way," he reminisces.In terms of editing, recapturing the 1970s retro look in the film was far from easy.

"While we could easily copy the styles and costumes of those days, when it came to lighting we had a problem. We had long discussions on whether it would be better to stick to the absurdities of the era or make compromises. In the end, I used soft lighting and all the best that technology had to offer as the harsh lighting of the 70s would not have matched the aesthetic sensibilities of today's audience," says Manikandan. We also had to remove huge 50-storyed skyscrapers from Mumbai's landscape during editing to be more authentic, he adds.

A film institute student, who had to come up the hard way, it took four backbreaking years in the Tamil film industry before he got his break as a cameraman in Atharmam. "It was a low-budget film, in which every take counted. The luxury of doing a Shankar's film, with great-looking sets and as many as takes as needed for that one perfect shot, came much later. But working for films like Atharmam was good training," says Manikandan.
One of the few artists, who has made a successful transition from the Tamil film industry to the Hindi one, he feels that we have a lot to learn from North Indians in terms of professionalism and discipline on the sets. "Here, sometimes we have just one toilet for a 250-crew set, while in Mumbai, everyone had their own suite, complete with attached bathrooms on the sets."

"Also Tamil films never get completed as per schedule. For instance in Anniyan, the shooting was erratic; things got delayed and I did not have any dates to complete the film in the end. So cinematographer Ravi Verma had to take over from where I left," he says.

Describing himself as an ad filmmaker (he has about 500 ad films to his credit as on date) who makes brief forays into filmdom to make his presence felt, he feels that filmmaking is a taxing art unlike ad production. "Even now I had to turn down a Hollywood film, produced by Warner Bros, because I desperately needed a break after Om Shanti Om," says Manikandan.

Manning cameras might be exciting, but sometimes it could get a little too exciting for safety, according to this ace cameraman. While shooting the fire sequence for Shah Rukh's blockbuster, a cylinder had burst barely a few yards from where Manikandan was standing. While he escaped, two other technicians on the set were injured.

And while daredevil stunts like shooting from a copter, while being suspended on ropes, might sound exciting; it is the reverse in reality, he says. While shooting for the famous " Oh Sukumari" song for Anniyan in Amsterdam, Manikandan had to spend nearly six hours being frozen to death while being suspended in mid-air from a copter. "Shanker wanted purple-coloured tulips for the song, so we had to shift from one location to another. And the whole time, there I was hanging dangerously in mid-air, cursing my fate and watching my assistant puke," quips Manikandan.

He also has the honour of being the first cameraman to shoot time-slice frames in India after the technique gained fame with the release of Matrix. He managed to successfully bring about this extremely complicated shot, using as many as 120 cameras, surrounding the actors from 360 degrees, in the films Main Hoon Na and Boyz. "It all comes down to the timing. Movie making is just a series of still shots. And time-slicing makes maximum use of it by freezing one object of the scene and capturing the others in motion," explains Manikandan.

For someone who has always come up with new innovations in technique and treatment with every new movie, he says that he does not have any distinctive cinematographic style. "I adopt styles, based on the script in hand. I try to make the camera movements in sync with the general theme of the movie," he says.
Justifying the huge sums of money spent on just one song sequence in Indian cinema, he says that people no longer want to see lovers dancing around trees in botanical gardens. "They want to see new things every time. And with directors like Shankar or Mani Ratnam they have to prove themselves all over again with every new film."