TV Serial Review: Call My Agent

I 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;

- discrimination against females to gain sympathy 

- struggle with motherhood to gain trust

from Andrea.

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. 

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. 

Sanskritic Casteism

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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”.

Bear Capture

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.

Burning Moon

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.

Hallucination - i

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.

Love, Lust and Marriage

the unspoken words
if spoken
that graceful feeling
will the kindness ever last?
the silence and touch
if broken
the solo sailing
in the unchartered waters
drowns in the storm

the unspoken words
if spoken
that invigorating feeling
will the rawness remain pure?
the silence and touch
if broken
the thrill of anticipation
when our blood gushes
douses in the mundane

the unspoken words
if spoken
that dreaded feeling
will the impasse ever pass?
the silence and touch
if broken
the shared moments
where we faced the odds
comes to nothing

Movie Review - Prendre le large(Catch the Wind)

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.


Kitchen
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.

Islam
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.

The menfolk
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.

The womenfolk
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.

The gap
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.