Anthropologist from Mars

If you are an anthropologist from Mars (yes, I am quite deluded about the reach of this blog) and you want to understand how Indian society has evolved in terms of mindsets, just watch the most popular movies of the decade.

Parents of friends have pointed to the different iconic movies. For example the madhubala song "jab pyaar kiya to darna kya" encouraged people to be brave about being in love. The tamil movie "kalyana parisu" in the late 60s was the first one where the heroine marries someone else after an unrequited love affair with the hero. Until then any female who was in love but didnt get to marry the hero usually died or became a nun. But as movies started showing that its alright for women to move on, I assume society started accepting it too. 

It works both ways- Movie makers put reasonably fresh societal opinions which will get accepted by the masses but they also strongly prompt a change in mindset. Especially influential heroes have the power to make a whole bunch of poeple change from being backward assholes to progressive members of society. Some of them use this power wisely- Aamir for example has made movies about generally not-talked about stuff like depression, dyslexia - all of which helps people become more accepting towards the off-beat characters of society. 

However the supposedly popular heroes SRK, Salman and in Tamil heroes like Vijay and Rajinikanth always seek to pander to already existing mindsets regardless of how retro they are, SRK has no respect for women and treats him as nothing more than objects, I am not going to get my blood to boiling point by talking about Salman. Our regional movies are no different- they are worse. There is no Rajini movie where the heroine isnt a saree-clad generally patient homely sweet submissive girl. Sathmeekam, as he himself charmingly calls it. Women in top positions in company can be nothing but arrogant ruthless monsters wearing Western clothes. They are not the ones to fall in love with-they are the ones who need to be put in their place ( Which is usually in the kitchen, in a saree). 

Vijay movies are quite the same. If he heroine wears Western clothes, it means he has the right to stalk her relentlessly, give her lecture about how precious her feminityand  virginity is and in general behave as if she is his property- therefore can choose to do with her whatever he pleases, yet, doesnt do it because he is the epitome of chivalry. There is no indication of the fact that anyone in the movie knows that the heroine is a separate human being with her rights and while our tamil culture upholding hero might not agree with her lifestyle, he has no right to impose his beliefs on her. The heroine dutifully falls for him after his relentless stalking culminates in him saving her from villians and promptly exchanges her knee-showing western clothes for waist-showing sarees and half-sarees.

I am not denying that its infinitely easier to do this. To pick the sweet homely Diana Penty over the party-hard independent Deepika. But when you are put in a position of infinite power, the power to shape the way an entire state thinks. when you can have the satisfaction of realising that you have brought society forward by just an inch, what sort of idiot would choose to maintain the status quo?

I wish our movie makers werent so lazy. 

Yes, thats me asking someone not to be lazy. Huh, OK. I will leave.  

May you live in interesting times. So interesting that you become speechless.

The worst case of a writers block is when it afflicts one who wasnt a writer in the first place.

Just a while back I was able to construct meaningful sentences, string enough of them together into a paragraph and patch a couple of those together on to a blog post. It didnt invoke great tears of joy from those reading it, but thankfully it didnt inspire disgusting bouts of vomitting either.

Into this uneventful world, entered the villian- diguised in the form of a trip.

It was all fun and games- the trip high, the not thinking of the life ( or the very apparent lack of one) back home, new people, new places and all sorts of things I had not experienced before. And I came back thinking that the trip has been fodder for a great number of  posts.

How wrong I turned out to be.

Instead of churning out post after post , I got into a state of restlessness and thoughtlessness.  As if my brain had built a wall which didnt allow thoughts to cross over into that place where they get converted to sentences. Even if I struggled and gathered a bunch of haphazard thoughts, they immediately dispersed as if a gale had blown over them and I was left empty headed.

I stayed in this half-awake state for quite a while- coming up with titles or topics to write about without being able grasp the contents which,  I was certain, were lurking in some corner of my brain. This was spilling over into my reading as well. I was inclining toward short  hollow articles over difficult books, my attention span shrunk to the levels of today's 7 year olds on a special diet of ipad and cartoons. And that is why blog post is what it is.

But this is not the way its supposed to go.

Especially because in my fantasy which at some point I hope to real-ise, I make money by writing. I dont belong to any place, I dont own any possessions, I travel to wherever I feel like and write for a living. Of course I use the words money and writing loosely- to mean anything from 20$, and anything from an essay for aspiring undergrads to the content for the website of a company selling spare-parts.

If this one trip has numbed my brain, I can only assume that lifelong travel is going to cripple my writing hand.

The best laid plans of men, I tell you..

Patriotism is the new religion

Don’t get me wrong based on the title. ( Only after reading the post are you allowed to throw stones at me and call me anti-national) . I am as patriotic as the next person. Which is to say that I dislike Pakistan during cricket matches, discuss politics fervently during election time and pay my taxes. I like my country and want to be here for the rest of my life, but that’s hardly patriotism- its more a matter of convenience.  But I am fundamentally apatriotic when it comes to it- I am not emotionally attached to the idea of countries and laying your life for them.

Sure, I agree it is a matter of convenience that blocks of land are governed by distinct bodies. And I am not naïve enough to think that a Micronesian tribal village is the same as an Italian village. But for people to kill people of neighbouring countries for the sake of land seems so beyond me, despite the fact that both are soldiers fighting for their own country.  We are all in our designated countries purely by chance. History could have dictated it any other way. Rajasthan and Gujarat could have been a part of Pakistan, South india could have been a different country along with Srilanka- the possibilities are endless. And we would have been loyal to those countries then. Therefore, it seems stupid to me to sacrifice your life to safeguard the idea or a concept or a group you are a part of , purely by chance.  Sounds familiar?

Religion, while not exactly the same,  has many similar features. You are part of a group your parents are a part of  probably, you believe in its ideals and visions and you are ready to kill someone who is opposed to this view. And that’s what I hate about religion and patriotism- That we are so brazen about killing someone and make them heroes for doing so.  Killing is generally unacceptable in regular society- you are a murderer , but in a different context , you are made a hero- Why? So what if the person killed is a Pakistani?  He is not evil, he has a family back home and he is as much a loving father and son as you probably are. Just because he made the mistake of being born in Pakistan ( which would have been your country had things been slightly different) you are OK with him being dead? But you are not OK with killing someone from Rajasthan, are you?

I am in no way trivializing those people who are sacrificing their lives so I can sit comfortably in my home writing this post. I am merely sad that they have to. I soo wish they had the luxury of sitting at home thinking of useless stuff. Sad that people have to put themselves at risk because two governing bodies cant figure out how to co-exist. That they still behave like tribal clans- killing and looting in order to survive. We are way past that stage now, aren’t we?  We are not putting soldiers between states in an attempt to protect our states from the neighbours ( Karnataka would do it, given a chance, though :D )  Why cant we have that kind of maturity amongst countries?

I am not saying that we all merge into one big blob and be ruled by some world ruler. We can still continue economic discussions and trade discussions and still try and do whats best for your country. But this needless killing can stop? No? 

PS: I understand fully well that at this point its impossible to stop military exercise. It would mean that the other country has to come to the same conclusion. This is a post in an ideal world. I am allowed to fantasise about that, arent I?