tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51235266532925801472024-03-13T03:20:47.099-07:00Nhaya ParenedManju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.comBlogger166125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-8487765299402362252021-01-29T02:03:00.002-08:002021-01-29T02:03:07.321-08:00TV Serial Review: Call My AgentI felt this is a deviously anti-feminist serial. All the shenanigans that the females at ASK (especially Andrea) pull through are either silly or downright impossible. However, the feat that Elise achieved to bring down ASK is actually believable. She used;<div>- discrimination against females to gain sympathy </div><div>- struggle with motherhood to gain trust</div><div>from Andrea.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you check all the tricks that Andrea played are built on absurdity(so is the case with others in ASK too) whereas all the tricks Elise played were based on the ground realities. In this comedy drama, the villain doesn't employ silliness but tactics based on reality. </div><div><br /></div><div>Andrea's downfall was down to her being a female at the end of the day. And this was exploited by another female. This is basically a stereotype that has endured from time immemorial. </div>Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-5985584687547619382019-12-15T07:34:00.000-08:002019-12-15T07:34:35.393-08:00Sanskritic Casteism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The news of a Muslim professor being barred from teaching Sanskrit at BHU and now the attack on a Dalit professor who supported his colleague brought back the memories(somewhat blurred) of a legend in my family told by my maternal grandmother.<div>
<br />This was the early 20th century. There was a Kannada Brahmin run Sanskrit school in Kasaragod(now part of Kerala). They had a requirement for a Sanskrit teacher. The school was government aided(Madras Presidency) and hence the district collector had some say in the recruitment. One of the applicants was my grandmother’s uncle. </div>
<div>
<br />The collector at that time was a Malayali Muslim(probably a Beary). He forwarded my great-great uncle’s name. He supposed to have commented, “Why would it be always them? There should be one of us too”. Thus this g-g-uncle became a teacher there.</div>
<div>
<br />Once there was Saraswati Pooje in the school. The casteism was still strong in many spheres and religious functions were one of them. One of the students of my g-g-uncle came from a caste which was not allowed to be part of these functions. Now, the Malayali caste system was more complicated than it was in other parts of India. The non-Brahmins treaded Savarna-Avarna lines at different levels(or steps) without clear demarcation.</div>
<div>
<br />The priests ordered that boy to stand outside the class while the pooje was being performed. My g-g-uncle protested it. They didn’t budge. Then he also went out along with the boy saying, “If my student doesn’t have a space in the function then there is no place for me too”.</div>
</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-91804908658664926812019-05-06T04:01:00.001-07:002019-05-06T07:25:01.404-07:00Bear Capture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We, a group of friends, decided to capture a bear. The strategy was discussed and we set out towards the location. The location turned out to be a flowing river. The current was strong. We wondered whether to jump into the river to capture the bear or wait for it to come out. Before we could conclude we saw a head rising above the water. It looked like a bear. We immediately dragged it towards one of the banks. One of us delivered a blow on the ear on one of the sides. I saw the ear getting flattened and sinking to the head. Another one struck the leg on the same side. The leg too was flattened and pressed to the body. We turned the bear and repeated the same thing to the other ear and the leg. The bear fell like a frozen block. I didn’t know whether it was dead or alive.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-58669204714993987612019-04-08T23:31:00.000-07:002019-04-08T23:31:14.384-07:00Burning Moon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My friend and I were walking from one gate to another. It was dark and cloudy and in the sky, an object was on flames. We looked intently and observed a disc behind the flames. It was the moon! The flame was engulfing it and spread across like lotus. We wanted to capture the burning moon. I readied my phone camera. But the moon just moved across and disappeared behind the clouds. The flame vanished.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-81919234251169652522019-04-07T00:37:00.000-07:002019-04-07T00:38:48.008-07:00Hallucination - i<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Two figures came out of the lift. The male in the front was a stranger. The woman behind looked familiar. But I felt she was a stranger too as she could be related to the stranger in front of her. How could I know this unknown couple? I turned my head but felt a glimpse of a smile on the woman's face. We crossed. Then I remembered her husband and then her too. I see her almost every day.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-14493568616788582862018-10-18T03:34:00.000-07:002018-10-18T03:34:53.676-07:00Love, Lust and Marriage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
the unspoken words<br />
if spoken<br />
that graceful feeling<br />
will the kindness ever last?<br />
the silence and touch<br />
if broken<br />
the solo sailing<br />
in the unchartered waters<br />
drowns in the storm<br />
<br />
the unspoken words<br />
if spoken<br />
that invigorating feeling<br />
will the rawness remain pure?<br />
the silence and touch<br />
if broken<br />
the thrill of anticipation<br />
when our blood gushes<br />
douses in the mundane<br />
<br />
the unspoken words<br />
if spoken<br />
that dreaded feeling<br />
will the impasse ever pass?<br />
the silence and touch<br />
if broken<br />
the shared moments<br />
where we faced the odds<br />
comes to nothing</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-49971088042754202212018-09-10T04:04:00.001-07:002018-09-27T22:02:07.181-07:00Movie Review - Prendre le large(Catch the Wind)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This movie envisages a situation where a working class person from a developed country(France) moves to a developing country(Morocco) for work. There are multiple themes running in this movie that I found interesting. The movie is political correctness in its most rational form.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Kitchen</b><br />
Edith (the French working class woman) doesn't get her own lunch box and looks for Cafeteria in her Moroccan factory(which of course doesn't have one). She loves cooking and says it relaxes her. Here cooking has become a leisurely enjoyable activity for even the working class women of developed countries. The routine cooking has been left to the service industry. In a way, even a working class person generates the jobs in a developed world.<br />
<br />
<b>Islam</b><br />
Islamic fundamentalists are viewed as a regressive force. The example of this regressiveness is shown through their charity work. Charity is a means to spread their regressive outlook. So relatable.<br />
<br />
<b>The menfolk</b><br />
An educated Moroccan is helpful and civil to Edith. However, he thrashes a poor boy, who was helping her, thinking that the boy was going to rob her. He even cautions her to be careful with the strangers. The educated Moroccan basically demonstrates the stereotypical class feelings within the country, however, the person who robs her later does come from the country's dark underbelly. Then there was a male who offered her a strawberry picking job at the expense of his own countrywoman. That might show some third world men's unhealthy obsession with the first world women in their preference and treatment.<br />
<br />
<b>The womenfolk</b><br />
The good women are the ones who don't wear burkha, be it Mina, her landlady, or Karima, her best friend in the factory. Mina is a divorcee who lives her life on her own terms. She brings up her son in liberal values as he is cool with her single lifestyle and casual dating. The villain, sort of, Najat, a woman in burkha. Najat, of course, has a backstory. Her fiance had moved to France and instead of sending for her, married the local woman. Now she's bitter about life in general and the foreigner in particular. Here we see the alienation felt by the section of the population where one section enjoys the fruits of liberalism but doesn't carry the remaining along with them. Even though her own culture is suppressive of her free movement, her bitterness is towards the people who are free but don't take the responsibility of freeing others. Further, we see how this bitterness further degenerates into inhumanity. When Edith files a complaint about her incompetence, she takes the revenge not just on Edith but also on hapless Karima.<br />
<br />
<b>The gap</b><br />
After failing to be a working-class woman in Morocco, Edith goes back to France. Her friends in France had cautioned her that her severance package was far better than whatever she gets in Morocco as a salary in redeployment and also about the pitiable working conditions. Both turned out to be true. But she sells her home in France and goes back to Morocco to start a restaurant along with Mina. So, even though she's a working-class woman in France, her social capital is such that she could become a bourgeois in Morocco.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-26077150367743552362018-08-05T23:43:00.000-07:002018-08-05T23:43:33.209-07:00ನಡುಹರೆಯ<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
ಇದ್ದದ್ದರಲ್ಲೇ ನೆಮ್ಮದಿ ಎಂದರೆ ಪ್ರತಿ ಬೆಳಗು ಬದುಕ ಅಸಹನೀಯವಾಗಿ ನೀಳವಾಗಿಸುವುದು<br />
ಮತ್ತೇನಾದರು ತೊಡಗುವ ಎಂದರೆ ಪ್ರತಿ ಇರುಳು ಬದುಕ ಹತಾಶಕರವಾಗಿ ಕುಬ್ಜಗೊಳಿಸುವುದು </div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-2519627473091305542018-04-09T10:32:00.001-07:002018-04-24T04:04:56.440-07:00Nothing happened<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It was lit but maybe it wasn't<br />
fluorescence merged with the night<br />
The mood was ecstatic without the high<br />
and it started but nobody knew why<br />
We two were Thomas Hardy's natives<br />
as we chased them up the hill<br />
Heard them run down and giggle<br />
It was a new dawn in the shades<br />
We were free in the chasing spree<br />
But the light showed the other's face<br />
We saw something we didn't feel<br />
Ashamed we were Tolstoy's characters<br />
for the thought crimes though not real<br />
"Let's stop and sit here"<br />
So we said unto each other<br />
and we stopped and sat forever</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-82873038456280035852018-04-01T10:24:00.000-07:002018-04-01T10:25:40.187-07:00ನಲಿವು <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div>
<div>
ನನ್ನ ನಲಿವು ಗಾತೀಯವಾಗಿ ಏರಿದೆ</div>
<div>
ಮಿತಿಕೆಳಗಿನ ಡ್ರೇಯ್ನ್ ಕರೆಂಟ್ನಂತೆ</div>
</div>
</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-13177643946660125292018-03-07T05:25:00.003-08:002018-03-07T05:25:26.984-08:00The invisible mark on the ground<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The kids waiting for the school bus make an orderly line every day. The position corresponds to the order of their arrival to the Bus Point. This time there were two queues. One girl standing on her own. The other three standing in a queue. The lonely girl is in the third standard. In the second queue, the girl in the front is in the fourth standard. The other two, a boy and a girl, are in the third standard, with the girl being the classmate of the lonely girl. The lonely girl takes the bus occasionally and the other three are the regulars.<br />There was an altercation.<br />Lonely Girl: This is cheating. I came here first so you should stand behind me.<br />Front Girl: No, We always stand here. <br />Lonely Girl: But what is the difference? We are standing next to each other.<br />Front Girl: No, this is where we need to stand. <br />Lonely Girl: Is there a mark on the ground?<br />Front Girl: We know where to stand.<br />Boy standing next: Yes, she’s correct. She is always first to come here. And she knows where to stand.<br />Lonely Girl: But where is the mark? I came first and I’m standing right here. What difference will that make?<br />Front Girl: We should always stand in this line.<br />Girl standing last: Yes, she(Lonely Girl) knows nothing about the lines.<br />Lonely Girl(exasperated): But where is the mark? This makes no sense. We can stand here or here or there. What is the problem?<br />Boy standing next: No, we should always stand in the correct line. She (Front Girl) knows where to stand.<br />Girl standing last: Yes, she doesn’t come regularly so doesn’t know the correct line.<br />One of the elders had enough of it. <br />Elder: There is no mark. You can stand anywhere. But whoever comes first has the right to start the line.<br />The boy was bit intimidated and made a movement to stand behind the Lonely Girl but observed that the other two girls didn’t budge from their positions. He too stood in his place. <br />The Lonely Girl emboldened by the force of support positioned herself at the front of the ‘correct line’. None spoke.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-76452375671333139902018-02-21T00:49:00.001-08:002018-08-06T02:32:59.731-07:00Non-English European movies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I visit the USA once a year. I try to watch non-English European movies on board the flight. These are overwhelmingly French and few German. I increasingly observe that the soundtrack part of the movies is mostly in English. I wonder why. Is it because English pop music covers the wide range of our emotions and moments in life that can't be matched by music in any other language?</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-23670018227815916602018-01-31T02:13:00.000-08:002019-01-25T00:20:31.553-08:00Book Review - One Hundred Years of Solitude<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This book is supposedly the one with great literary merit. But all the literary flourish, however, is lost on me. Once upon a time, the inability to grasp the descriptive and flowery language used to frustrate me but now I've made my peace with that. I hope dormant reading of descriptive language doesn't make me miss the overall understanding of the situation.<br />
<br />
After 1984, this is another book that I may not be able to complete. I found some of the passages troubling. One passage reads like author's fantasy about sexual harassment and racism and the other paedophilia.<br />
<br />
The past world was brutal, patriarchal and racist. I do not have a problem with characters showing those behaviours. However, what I find difficult to accept is the victims endorsing it as if that's the way of life. There I can't help but think, it's not the victims but the author who is speaking on their behalf. And he's endorsing such behaviours.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure why Aureliano needed to marry a barely major Remedios. Frankly, I don't find anything in the plot that shows any significance to that relationship. I guess generating shock value just for the sake of it.<br />
<br />
A bigger problem is Arcadio's relationship with the "Gypsy" girl. It reads like an exploitative passage from some pulp fiction. There are two problems with this section. First, the girl accepts his harassment as some kind of courtship. Second, since it's a Roma girl, I believe, that's some kind of stereotype about their lifestyle. When these two things are together I believe that becomes highly racist sexism.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-34581895303283884222018-01-24T03:34:00.001-08:002019-01-25T00:21:48.426-08:00ಯಾಚನೆಯ ದೂರಾನುಭಾವ<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "uictfonttextstylebody"; font-size: 17px;">ಸೀನು ತೆಗೆದು ಹೇಳಿದಳು ಅವಳೆ</span><br />
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
ನೆನೆಯುತಿರುವರು ಆರೋ ಎನ್ನನಿಂದು</div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
ಏನು ಅದು ಗೊಡ್ಡು ಬಿಡು ತರಳೆ</div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
ಎನುತಿರುವೆ ಇಲ್ಲಾ ಆಕ್ಶಿ ಎಂದೆಂದು</div>
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Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-39941213480268383292017-11-07T08:22:00.001-08:002018-05-08T04:06:45.736-07:00Movie Review - Sharapanjaram<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarapancharam">This </a>is an old Malayalam movie directed by Hariharan. This was supposedly loosely inspired by D H Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover. I felt 'loosely' was an understatement as I felt the ideologies espoused were the polar opposite.<br />
<br />
As English isn't my first language, I find D H Lawrence's novels are an assault on my limited vocabulary and regular understanding of sentence structure. His writing style reminds me one of Kannada's foremost writers, Kuvempu. Kuvempu came from a caste which, though dominant, wasn't allowed to learn Sanskrit. Now, in olden days Sanskrit was the language of learning and it made all the difference. As a protest against such discrimination, he inundated many of his Kannada works with Sanskrit words. I wonder whether the working class background of D H Lawrence forced him to showcase his command over the language. Or whether it was a challenge to the critics to measure up to his intellectualism, considering the fact that his books would have been considered pornography and thus low.<br />
<br />
In Lady Chatterley's Lover, the main female character part of the upper class, lusts after and loves a man from the working class. The plot is loosely similar upto this point. Then the characters start diverging. While in Lady Chatterley's Lover, the working class hero is a good man, in Sharapanjaram, he's evil. As I already mentioned about D H Lawrence's working-class background, I was interested in knowing that Malayalam movie director's background. I couldn't find the caste of the director <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hariharan_(director)">Hariharan</a>. However, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayattoor_Ramakrishnan">Malayattoor Ramakrishnan</a>, the script writer, comes from a privileged caste. So, we have a working-class writer writing the original story about a working class person and questioning the class differences and trying to prove that true differences lie in our attitude or in our feelings that have nothing to do with the class they belong to. Love is a classless feeling in the original story. And then we have a privileged caste person writing a script which basically reinforced the stereotype that working-class men are brutes and who don't understand love at all. The mistake of the upper-class woman in falling in love and marrying a working-class man had to be corrected by eliminating the working class man.<br />
<br />
Also, D H Lawrence's working class man is much more complex. In fact, he could move between the upper class and working class worlds with ease. Even though the relationship was built on the compatibility of love and lust between upper and working class persons, the author made sure that working-class man was intellectually equal to the upper-class woman. I think this is important as the feudal upper-class men of that era in fact married woman only based on their class and not on educational or intellectual compatibility (as education was optional for women in general). So, D H Lawrence's working-class man basically mocked at the existing class system which only considered birth and had no place for compatibility of love and lust and also intellectualism.<br />
<br />
It would be unfair to expect such a high-level thinking in the Malayalam movie, however, one can only say that it was basically anti-Lady Chatterley's Lover.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-61303698732242320172017-09-28T08:54:00.001-07:002017-09-28T08:54:57.329-07:00Thinking about thinking - notes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In one of my previous <a href="http://vadiarillam.blogspot.in/2012/10/thinking-about-thinking.html">posts</a> I wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">Once I moved to professional life, my usage of English went up. And nowadays I think only in English and it's not just technical information. I find it interesting to observe that where the common lingo would have been Kannada when conversing face-to-face, the imaginary talks are conducted in English.</span></blockquote>
I was reading a NewYorker <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-transformative-experience-of-writing-for-sense8">article</a> by a Bosnian born English writer. There he writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Back in my early years in the U.S., at the time when my English was in transition from tourist to survival mode, <b>I’d catch myself dreaming in English, and noticing, in my dream, that the people who shouldn’t be talking in English were doing so. Even more bizarrely, I would recollect English conversations with my family or friends, which would certainly have taken place in our native language.</b> I interpreted those dreams and memories as my subconscious mind welcoming this non-native language. If I hadn’t absorbed the new language in that way, I wouldn’t have been able to write any of the books I’ve written in English, or to have lived a full life in this language.</blockquote>
<br />
It looks like our transitions are similar. But I'd be deceiving myself, if I think, our mastery over English is similar. </div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-7159835054621137732017-09-10T10:50:00.000-07:002018-05-08T03:51:00.930-07:00Yoga without Mind Control<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
[After one of the rape cases involving a godman in India]<br />
"You know what, all these Babas do Yoga, so their sex drive is very high. Hence most of them indulge in such sexual activities."<br />
"Aren't these basically rape?"<br />
"Not really. It's generally consensual sex. But things go wrong when these women are not properly compensated."<br />
"Well, that's not what I read. Nevertheless, as a baba you shouldn't indulge in these activities. No?"<br />
"Well, they do Yoga and because of that they can't control."<br />
"But isn't Yoga all about control. Mind control, body control, emotion control, breathing control etc..."<br />
"Yes, true, but they get too many opportunities."<br />
"But that's the definition of control. You control your senses in the face of temptations."<br />
"Ha, ha...when you have opportunities..."<br />
"That really shows, Yoga is good for improving your libido but not so much for mind control."<br />
"ah..."<br />
"I think it makes sense. If you read the history of Yoga, it was considered heretic in olden day India. But today a smoke screen of spiritualism and mind control was created to hide its true motivation."<br />
"hmmm..."<br />
"No wonder it became popular with publicly sex doing White people."<br />
" "<br />
"I think evolutionarily Yoga makes sense as it improves your sex drive. However, there should be a caution that people who don't have mind control shouldn't practice it. Especially, the babas."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-10748411652511516302017-09-04T23:04:00.000-07:002017-09-04T23:12:27.535-07:00Clothes Make the Woman - ii<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In my previous <a href="http://vadiarillam.blogspot.in/2011/12/clothes-make-woman.html">post</a>, I opined that feminine clothes are sexist and masculine clothes are gender neutral. It appears the gender neutral trend in clothing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/04/joy-unisex-gender-neutral-clothing-john-lewis">agrees </a>with that assessment. </div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-29763841689165247432016-12-26T02:22:00.001-08:002016-12-26T02:24:13.222-08:00TV Serial Review : Sci Fi series<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I suppose the basic premises of all Sci Fi series are:<br />
1. The scientific and technological advancements of the future do not help human beings to transcend their petty primitive instincts and behaviours.<br />
<br />
2. Even when you basically possess a magic wand with all the scientific and technological development, it's far easier to correct the past than correct the dystopian present.<br />
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Is our imagination just the sum of our experiences?</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-62437701419902723552016-08-23T01:37:00.000-07:002016-08-23T09:27:18.146-07:00Movie Review: Blue Valentine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The core of the movie is derived from the studies that observed women like macho men while ovulating and caring men otherwise. Even though it's about a couple, the main and the only protagonist is a woman, Cindy, struggling in a dilemma posed by nature and nurture (patriarchy).<br />
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Only Cindy has all round personality in the movie and all others, the husband, the father, the doctor and the ex-lover have one-dimensional personalities perfected in feudal ethos. In fact, her husband is a caricature of non-feudal.<br />
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The husband doesn't defy any stereotypes of a feudal man. He doesn't have an identity of his own. He's just non-feudal. He has only love because feudal man has been characterized by only lust. He adopts a macho man's child and brings her up as his own but cannot convince his wife to have a child of his own. During intercourse, he shows inverted power relations instead of mutual and thus equal action. He doesn't have any ambitions. He takes the hit but doesn't attack. He is simple. However, his developing drunkenness when love appears to evaporate, gives us a clue he is not new age man but the one always existed among us as an anti-thesis of feudal men giving some kind of validity to them. Most likely he emerges as the cliched 'gentle giant' of the working class.<br />
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Cindy on the other hand is a far more complex character. She had the potential to become part of the middle class had she become a doctor but ended up in the working class by becoming a nurse. The main reason being her acceptance of a feudal man's sperm. We have no indication of either religious or ethical considerations there. In fact, the unplanned pregnancy could be the result of a rape too if we go by certain definitions. So, she was held back by patriarchy. However, she isn't a feudal woman but feudal woman in transition. She did break-up with her feudal boyfriend. We sense her individualism waking up when she was aghast that the doctor liked her for her body and not for the abilities. However, at the same time she can't accept her husband's lack of ambition and refusal to hit back. Her advice to him, 'be a man'. It's in these words we are left with the confusion what it is to be a man or a woman liberating ourselves from feudal ethos.<br />
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We don't get any answers in Cindy's circle for that question. Her father, ex-lover and the doctor are representatives of feudal men. Even though, she ends up being a working class woman, her individual class is middle class but there are no middle class men around her who could be defined as non-feudal.<br />
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Ultimately, the movie tries to explore what is to be a man or a woman in post-feudal societies. However, drawback of the movie is it's only a woman who is struggling to define herself but men have defined themselves as they have always been in feudal societies.<br />
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Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-58842042315418331622016-08-04T03:14:00.001-07:002016-08-04T03:14:07.125-07:00TV Serial Review: The Red Tent<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The series portrays retreats to secluded tents during menstruation as some kind of personal space for females where they have gala time. It seems the author, Anita Diamant, had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Tent">no idea</a> of such practice in ancient Israel and based it on practices in pre-modern societies.<br />
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If she had done some research on West and South Asian societies then she would have observed that;<br />
- such seclusion, either in a separate hut or in a separate room, wasn't a choice for females<br />
- females during that period were considered impure<br />
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So she basically romanticized a barbaric practice. It's unknown whether this practice was started before the rise of patriarchy when families were centered around women. But whatever its origins the practice was ritualized and made compulsory among both tribes and non-tribes in these regions in patriarchal religions. She is not much different from right-wing nutcases who defend it as resting period for females or hygienic practice implemented by males. </div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-84735359006186035032016-06-21T01:22:00.002-07:002016-06-21T01:22:46.924-07:00Movie Review: The Rum Diary<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is one of the mediocre Johnny Depp movies. I suppose his core self is Jack Sparrow and in all other movies he acts diluted versions of it. Anyway, my point of interest is the romance between hero and villain's girlfriend.<br />
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I suppose this idea is a fallout of traditional patriarchal society. The feudal bad guys lusted after women of good guys in real life. Now in the movies everything has to be the other way when it is good versus evil. Here the women of bad guys have to fall in love with good guys. It's a poetic justice in celluloid. Similar idea could be found in Braveheart. Love versus lust. Reel versus real. I suppose cringe-worthy and completely misguided idea of justice.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-86307258526364959232016-03-15T09:14:00.000-07:002016-03-15T10:28:04.605-07:00Trigger Warning: Law against Marital Rape<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I thought this dirty <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mensdenofficial/posts/1504646859755950">joke</a> (I guess gorilla meant male gorilla) should be read by our <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/jdWYjEBWesSGEPl7aDgMbJ/Maneka-Gandhi-tells-us-marital-rape-isnt-rape-after-all.html">union minister</a> who thinks there shouldn't be a law against marital rape. We need that legislation as male Indians and male gorillas aren't the same.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-80560592829196005562015-12-30T03:57:00.002-08:002015-12-30T03:57:55.563-08:00Movie Review : some adult comedy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The other day, I was travelling by bus from Hyderabad to Mangaluru. To my utter surprise, they played an adult comedy movie during the journey. I wasn't sure whether they were allowed to show movie with 'A'(Adults only) certificate in public places. I would think it should be restricted because of its sexist and patriarchal nature (penis pride). But I don't think I've good examples to distinguish between a sex comedy and a sexist comedy.<br />
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Many of the scenes in the movie appeared to have lifted from similar sexist comedies from Hollywood. But there were few differences between those Hollywood films and this Hindi film.<br />
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- No subtlety. This is really an embarrassing feature about most of the Hindi movies. Those vulgar dialogues were cringe worthy.<br />
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- When there was supposedly a slapstick humour, we had to endure a running commentary of the proceedings (common feature I guess. On TV, a children's animated comedy, Oggy and the Cockroaches, comes with over the top dialogues in India instead of original visual comedy). That visual comedy was clearly lifted from a Hollywood movie but creativity was spent on increasing the absurdity levels and quantity.<br />
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- Repeated double entendre. It was quite exasperating to watch them trying to milk a word with double meaning, that too borrowed from English, so many times .<br />
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Am I repeating the common grouse or snobbishly expecting class in sex comedies?</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5123526653292580147.post-52865340492891464572015-09-13T06:00:00.001-07:002016-07-26T03:04:44.068-07:00Russians are coming<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The daily readership of this blog is 0-5. However, some days I find 20-30 visits from Russia. It makes me little nervous.</div>
Manju Edangamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00474338169829802934noreply@blogger.com0