55er: Unlikely Libbers

The Princesses were on strike. The Brothers Grimm tried everything. Promising more happily ever afters, threatening with wicked witches and dragons. Even high-handedly - transforming frogs into beautiful women to provide them competition.

The Princesses just refused to go back to their tales.

They had such unreasonable demands

“We want to be doing the rescuing.”

Feynman on the rational view of the universe

No other words will be necessary.

A good good day

Woke up to read this welcome news that homosexuals are no longer criminals in India. A small step for the law- will go a long way in changing attitudes in society. Baby steps.

Veiled menace......

"Poor Amina" said my roommate as she peeled off her sweat-stained shirt. "I saw her this morning. She was wearing a burqa to work."

I sat up on the bed. "Interesting", I said not wanting to say anything more revealing of my real feelings and yet wanting her to speak on. It was the summer of 2002 and I had just started my summer internship with Gillette and along with a lot of other students from different B-schools was in the MDI Gurgaon hostel. Amina was one of the many stuents, who lived across the hall from me and my room mate.

"I did not think her to be the type". To be sure neither did I. But I had talked to Amina , at least more than my roomie had, so I did not say anything except a "Hmm mmm" and buried myself in Hercule Poirot.

Amina was certainly not the "type". As the days went by I found her very "normal". Very like me, actually. Full of funny stories, quick to make friends, affectionate. I found myself spending more and more time in her room. The black burqa, hanging on a hook on the wall became less of a presence till I found her ironing it one evening.

"You wear it everyday" I ventured, still not sure if I should ignore it altogether.

"Yes" she smiled."It is very convenient really. No one ever gropes me and I always get place to sit even in very crowded buses. I figured, I might as well as prevent sun tans when I go out to work in Delhi this summer. Shocked my mother in Lucknow big time when I asked her for it".

Of course that changed everything. I thinks she still has pictures of me trying it on

This reminded me of that incident. Honestly, I have had very mixed feelings about the burqa. I do think that the diktat women should cover themselves/be modestly dressed and the religions that enforce it are misogynistic to the extreme. I think it sexualizes children to have them understand the difference between "modest" and "immodest" dress early on and force hijabs on little girls. I find it as much child abuse as I find little boys from sikh families wearing patkas or children from Hindu families speak of kids who have parents professing other faiths as "different" or try to label religious observances as "good " or bad"(I do follow Dr Dawkins in not labelling kids by the religion their parents bring them up in). And let us not even talk of circumcision or other culturo-religious practices.

The veil , however confuses me. I find the basic idea of covering up to prevent others from getting tempted, unadulterated nonsense. But there are those who choose to. I might find that choice stupid, or ill-informed or even regressive. But then so do I find Stay at Home Mothers or Beauty Queens. But their right to remain that way, that I completely agree with. Just as I do not prefer their personal opinions about how I should live my life dictate me, I cannot let my tastes dictate their chices , however poor they seem to me.

So I may (not to say I do!) roll my eyes at woman clad in a shuttle cock burqa , shake my head at a young teen in a hijab , or even snigger at a burqini (Disclaimer: I never laugh at others clothes, am always too busy worrying about my own)- but I cannot understand why a democratic nation would want to impose a dress code. That kind of things are done by the absolutely batshit crazy right (so right they are that side of wrong). I like the sentiment of equality and liberty for women. I appreciate the idea of keeping public spaces as free of religious symbolism as possible (in my version of Utopia there is no religion, but in that land, people realize the idiocy of religion by themselves and not through a state rule). If those be the real aims, they are going about it the wrong way. Because a ban on the burqa, far from forcing these "oppressed"( woe betide me if they are "I am so by free choice" types) women to remove their shackles, would force them out of public life. After all patriarchal families that force their women to dress modestly (provided such indeed is the case) would lock them up instead of letting them go about uncovered. There goes freedom out of the window for you. The fact that "these"(this is beginning to read like so classist, or racist, but I cannot use other words) women are in the public eye should help the "liberte, egalite" to seep down in a generation or so. And then there is the secular part of it. Does France really want to make martyrs out of its religious people? After all the religious love screaming martyrdom for imagined slights. A ban on dress takes on "real supression" dimensions. (Imagine if the US outlawed male circumcisions or made Christmas a working day- the latter would ofcourse give Bill O' Reilly an apoleptic fit -btw I NEVER thought I would reference that man on my blog- NEVER say NEVER). And martyrdom has this way of making religion and its observance all the more attractive, no matter how oppressive it is.

And then there is the other thing. A little thing called Islamophobia. The "otherization" of people based on their dress observances and the overarching assumption that "this must be misogyny" seems to be at the root of this. I do hope it is not, I would like to think it is not, but right-leaning governments use patriotism/ respect for values as thinly disguised form of xenophobia. And Europe does have this uneasy history with Islam. I cannot help but wonder what really is provoking this dress code idea.

Religion is a powerful (though inherently useless) meme. Like a disease it spreads by human contact. It perpetuates by discussion, by public discourse, and by paying attention to it. Bans, or overt displays too often have the same impact. The best resistance to the disease probably is exposure, then indifference. It will eventually go away if it is not over emphasized. Attention positive and negative will both make it as powerful- after all ideas travel through minds.

As a final thought, I wonder about the whole religious symbol thing. If no overt religious symbols are to be allowed in public spaces in France, does this mean they are closing ALL the pasta places?

EDITED to ADD: And here is another view. From a non-burqa wearing Muslim female. Makes me think. About how evils like Sati were removed from Indian society, b a blanket ban. But of course, that was from the root at the place where it flourished, not in any foreign country where the practice was alien and probably not carried out.

And yet another piece. Thank you Inferno.

And while I find the "banning of the burqa" in the West very Islamophobic, I will not completely disagree with what she says either. But again, its personal choice, no matter how socially ingrained.

Incidentally I find it very funny that people who follow other traditional religions get so up in arms at the burqa being repressive. Sure, it would appear so, if it is a social requirement, not a personal choice, but then so too are the million and one requirements of all paternalistic religions, the taboos, the do's and don'ts regarding women, their dress their inferiority to men, their "uncleanliness". I wonder why it is easy to "accept" those things, repressive as they be, is it because their presence is not that manifest. And lets leave religion aside, isn't the portrayal of women either as sex symbols or goddesses as repressive too? Just wondering why we rarely notice those social conditionings, just the ones that seem to be "oppressing the other"?

WTF1

Ever since Keith Olberman started the WTF segment (even before that, but one looks for legitimacy- like big firms do), I have wanted to incorporate that somehow in the things I read and do a double take on. You know the "Is this REALLY what happened?"Not "What were they thinking?" but things that induce the "Were they thinking?" effect.

I think it is but appropriate that this news should have the honor of being the pioneer post in what will undoubtedly be a long running series.

Let us not even go into the whole "We do not ask for it" deal. We do not, but you know what, no one gives a damn for what we want. Women, let us face it, fair and square, are not human enough to feel that these sort of policies in , irony of ironies, Women's Colleges (maybe those should be called Woemen's Colleges, they do seem intent on making women woe-ful) push women firmly into the thriteenth century- or a more unenlightened time. Let us forget that "They cannot control themselves" is not a very flattering argument for men either. Because in some kind of warped mentality, this idea makes sense to these very respected Principals of these women's colleges. As does "Let us lock up the girls, it is good for them" does to parents, teachers, law makers the country over. After all it is their fault, their dress, their looks, that poor men cannot "control" their unquenchable lust. It is "immodest dress" that makes a man a wild animal on the loose wanting to screw anything and anybody in sight. Poor men. They cannot help it.

However, this is a time of great economic uncertainty. People are losing jobs- and homes often unable to pay their mortgages or bills. Consumer confidence is down. '09 and a year or so after is bound to be bad for everyone. So, it is rather difficult in times like this for women to change their wardrobes, just to continue their education. Something that someone like me, with a wardrobe for four jeans and 13 teeshirts( those were my undergrad clothes), would have to do, spending on salwar kameez's and saris, maybe lehenga's and cholis . Anything but those figure revealing evil bits of clothing like jeans and teeshirts (those evil influences of the corrupt West). But that can cost money. Money that hard working parents are probably saving up for lavish weddings- after all , all good girls need to "Settle down". The other alternative- changing the college is there too, but who is to say it will not get enlightenment in the shape of rules of dress of the same sort. After all high heels do cause moral women to falter in a literal and figurative sense ( the colleges are banning women from wearing, jeans, sleeveless shirts, high heels, "revealing clothes"- I guess anything revealing more than a burka will do- no, but that is what they do in backward countries, not enlightened ones where women are empowered. In women-respecting, empowered sociei=ties like India they just ban them wearing some clothes, to protect them.....) .

I propose something simpler, cheaper too. A plan breathtaking in its simplicity.

Just BLINDFOLD THE MEN.

Easy- it just takes a large handkerchief or bandana or scarf.

Economical- that costs about much less than an entire wardrobe- and bulk buying would certainly make the costs drop.

And Effective- 100% ( not even abstinence gives you that assurance). Because they will not be able to see women, and so will not be incited to lust against them. Simple. No hassle, no new wardrobes, no, "reduce the incidence of" , simply a blanket ban of sorts.

Of course blinding the men would be even more effective, but it would tie up precious resources in the form of doctors, and would work out to be just a little bit detrimental to a workforce. Blindfolding would be just as effective.

Indeed, I propose we could each start a fund to collect the money for the scarves. Lets take up a collection.

Any takers?

No??? I thought not.

EDIT: Come to think of it, Castration would be even more effective( a shoutout to Pragya- thank you for that suggestion). So if the blindfolding fails, lets do that.....

And since there is no point raising a wtf issue without protesting, here is the contact email for one college contact@dayanandgirlspgcollege.org . One could direct some ire there.

I sent this email

"To

The Principal

DGPC College

Kanpur

Dear Madam

I send this letter to you as a concerned woman citizen of India. I recently discovered that your institution instituted a policy banning women students from wearing of jeans and high heels, “to prevent eve teasing” the logic goes. I find it very ironic that an institute that celebrates “enlightened feminism” ( this is from your website http://www.dayanandgirlspgcollege.org/principal.htm) should engage in a classic “Blame the Victim” game. Women do not ever “ask for it”. No matter what they wear or do. Harassment is a crime- with the harasser not the victim being the perpetrator. And an education institution that tries to perpetuate the myth that in the case of sexual harassment it may be the victim’s fault, is not only failing in its duty to its students but to society as a whole. You mention developing “confident women” in your website. It is a noble goal. But restricting women to dress in a particular manner is not going to help them become confident, or even equal. Indian law recognizes women as having the same rights as men. Why, then do you want to abrogate that right and allow anti-social elements the freedom to use their victims as an excuse for the crime. Your policy saddens me as a woman, as an Indian and as a human being. It makes me feel sorry for my sisters who have to follow these almost Talibanical dress codes, to struggle hard just so that they can get an education and become equal contributing citizens of our country. We have long way to go as a nation to achieve perfect equality between the sexes, but policies like your own, only firmly kick us further back in the past. Don’t teach your girls that it is their fault if they are harassed. Don’t give the criminals who harass them free run, don’t let these anti-social elements terrorize our streets. Teach your girls to take a stand, to become the “enlightened feminists” you want them to. I appeal to you as a woman, a citizen and a fellow law abiding human being.

Regards

Alankrita Pandey"

The other colleges are ( still looking for contact emails and things)

Acharya Narendra Deo College,

Sen Balika College

Johari Devi Degree College.

Just wondering

... if people who oppose abortion rights and gay marriage( considering how very often they are usually the same people-very often DOES NOT equal always) do so, not because of very religious reasons, but simply because they have a strong disease of not minding their own business. Because religion is not a selective "love they neighbor" and pro-life would not condone demonizing some while deciding to get rid of others. It comes from a desire to control and dictate others.

This came from:

Dr George Tiller, a late term abortion provider was shot to death in a church this weekend.

And gay marriage rights has become very contentious in public discourse.

The political and the personal

It has been quite a week for thinking. Between Indian Lok Sabha elections, the ever-resurgent abortion debate, the end of the LTTE, crusade-like dispatches for the Iraq war and The Reader. The last is personal- but all too often the lines between the political and personal blur- all too strongly indeed.

 

The Congress won the elections in India. With a pretty hefty majority. Good solid democratic proof of the fact that people shunned extreme left-wing and overt right-wing politics for once, selecting the most stable configuration for a government. A government, which with a mild mannered Manmohan Singh should last another 5 years.

Despite their unfortunate forays into dynastic politics, a not-so-squeaky-clean corruption and development record, they are the best choice for India. Because unfortunately the others are just that much worse. The Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan touting Right is way too wrong- while the Left with strange communist utopia visions are as out of touch. India is a mélange of cultures and ideologies- to reduce it to one particular version of one particular religion is wrong- it does the all-embracing nature of that religio-social tradition a great disservice by reducing it to the caricatured talking points of a few ignorant people. And let’s face it, socialism is not really the way to go- the Socialist state has not really paved the way to development for India. A good market is required(not an ungoverned free market, but one freer than under a State-sponsored yoke).

 

On May 17^th, 2009, Barack Obama, the president of the USA was asked to speak at the Notre Dame commencement ceremony. For the Catholic University to have a president with decidedly pro-choice views as their invited guest, was the cause for several pro-life protests. Personally my views have been “No uterus no opinion, my uterus, my opinion”- as pro-choice as you can make it. But Obama’s words made me think. He talked about finding middle ground and proceeding with ideas that people can agree on, like reducing abortions, making it easier for women, making contraception and adoption easily accessible, reducing child care costs, even while keeping to ones ideologies. He said “we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.” It is not a fight between abortion clinic bombers and people who use abortion as a resort to inadequate contraception. Of course those elements may exist, but they are not the ONLY sides this complex issue has. No one is callous, or unthinking with decisions like these and reducing it to a black or white plan is just irresponsible. It takes moral courage to look at something- hold strong views and then understand that people with opposing views are just as right as one is.

 

Which issue of complexity, I felt as I watched The Reader. I have never before viewed the Nazi camp guards in this light before. I always thought of them in terms of pure evil, consumed with a blood lust to destroy everything. Not as people who could have been as fragile and by another turn of fate on the wrong side. Weak people, unable to stand up to evil orders of a soulless machine, the product of a deranged madman and his supporters. Were they wrong, yes, a million times so. But as people they do deserve, if not sympathy, a thought of what mindless obeying of orders can do. The realization that it does not take too much of a push to cross the line between acceptable and totally unacceptable behavior. And it is just a small thing at worst or best- which can make all that difference.

 

The Rumsfield memos with their over-the-top Biblical imagery to report portions of the Iraq war are very clear signs of what was used to manipulate a God-fearing Christian president. But that president also got manipulated, if not by the crusade-like imagery, by the very basis of the belief that what he was doing was right. Religion is a great force, and can move mountains- or bring down skyscrapers- depending on whether it is used to inspire good or evil. But it does tend to reduce things to a black or white with no room for the several shades of grey. Surely, the leader of the free world knew better than that. Maybe at times, it is better to approach something with doubt, rather than plunge right in and cause immense harm, no matter how righteous it may seem.

 

And today, the newspapers reported that V Prabhakaran has been shot dead. Bringing to an end one of the most bloody conflicts that has ravaged South Asia. Twenty six years of fighting for a Tamil homeland. Now the Emerald Isle can probably heave a sigh of relief and go back to being the beautiful place it is. History, is like memory, one remembers what one wants to. And the rights and wrongs of people over hundreds of years is one such thing. Minorities need to be treated like people. But a cause remains just only as long as there is a difference between the oppressors and the oppressed. Once suicide bombing or child soldiers enter the picture, it becomes terrorism.

 

What did I learn from all this? That things events and people are way too complex from Black and White definitions. That the Golden Rule is the one thing that helps tide over differences and make moral and value judgments. Sorry, Barack Obama, but you got that part of your speech from my professor.

 

A moment

Once upon a winding road

Wreathed with mist

By a lake, waves reaching

And retreating from the shore

As you wandered

Midst cacophony

Buying that yellow umbrella

(For the rains had suddenly come by

Smack through your summer vacation)

Maybe you paused

And took a deep breath

Looking out through the willows

The waves gently lapping

The shore.

A fleeting moment

Of peace caught

And then you returned

To the yellow umbrella or its pink cousin.

And maybe just then

I, walking by

Maybe on an errand

Or just a meandering walk

Through the crowds

(To see why summers drew

Ever more people

To this little town in the middle of nowhere)

Maybe I caught your glance

And followed it

Smiling at the lake

Same peace, same feeling.

Maybe that moment

Held us that instant

In complete understanding.

Did we get to be friends

Ever so much later

Because of that

One moment shared?

 

Shankari mentioned that she had been to Nainital as a tourist. Since I grew up there, it was a "Oh wow, isn't it interesting I did not know you then" and I got thinking that maybe I did see her there and this poem emerged.

 

 

 

Intergallactic Poetry Appreciation

Vogon poetry is not the worst in the Universe. But the Vogons are bad poets. Perhaps the worst ones in the universe. Consider the portion

"dr fllthprtyulipa

Rtthy mnsprksakal"

There is nothing wrong with it.

However, combined with

"Rhtt ghlyippnss

Gerpillioustarte heliaster heliaster"

it becomes catastrophic. Indeed so bad that one begins to re-read it to see if it is really as horrible as on the first reading.

 

Normally I do not read poetry. Even the pieces that I criticize. I don't not read it, but hurriedly glance through it. Picking on words and pieces and sort of connecting the ideas. If the picture that emerges seems to make sense, I write out my criticism or words of appreciation. And conserve my "will read in detail and consider every portion" for prose- mostly newspaper articles and newsflashes about the stock market. I invested a lot of Arcaturan Artemii in the NYSE and lost a fortune- but then Arcaturas was destroyed and what would I do with it anyhow.

Back to poetry, you can see how bad poetry can be a drag. It wastes time. Time I can spend more constructively doing other things. Bad poetry forces me to read it- analyze it and get disturbed by it.

Good poetry is easy. Raetians are decent poets. Or as good as poets can be. With three word poems- they hardly waste intellectual space. And are very content with "very nice" as a criticism. Indeed they are content with no comments at all. Creatures of a few but well-chosen words indeed.

Vogons, on the contrary want you to read their poetry. And criticize it. It is usually appalling, so the criticism becomes forced- every other species is forced to go through and for sanity's sake make noises about it. And the noises follow. Like the case quoted above. How can you not be compelled to say that it is all wrong.

"heliaster heliaster" indeed

When actually "fllthprtyulipa

Rtthy" cannot be "heliaster". It needs "beliramna seliarmna" or the entire inteneded meaning is lost. And how does one know intended meaning? Simply because the Vogon poet has expressed it clearly, loudly and several times- in prose at the beginning of, in the middle of and at the end of each and every poem.

They are bad poets. Very bad ones. But they get their audience. Of course one dies in throes of supra-gallactic seizures and stomach cirrhosis (species that have stomachs) but one is an audience- unwilling or otherwise.

Edited to Add: this has been written by an Alien Alter Ego Intellikins Alienofski. A little green creature, this one often writes about things about the universe etc. Should have clarified earlier, but Intellikins has no copyright or copyleft issues.

A Dark Tale- or the Perils of writing Poetry

It was a dark day in early April. Actually it was not so dark. And I am not sure it was in April-early or late- either. But that does not matter. This is a dark tale of soul destroying despair and it needs all the build-up it can get. I wrote down something, something, something Dawn, then a line later rhymed it with Morn. And the beginning of the end had started. The end of sanity, happiness, and a good credit score. But I did not know. How could I? I was busy writing poetry. Rhyming Way with May, Away and Gay(this was in more closeted times).

Parenting is an onerous responsibility. I know it now. But I do not really blame my poor non-rhyming parents. They could have stopped me. They did not. Too much of black coffee, astrophysics and a liking for Faiz does that to you. You miss out on responsibilities to Progeny. Responsibilities to dash the paper and pen away from the little fingers at the first sign of Night being rhymed with Might, before it plunges everyone into black ruin. Spare the iambic pentameter spoil the child.

But those were more innocent times. One had to wend ones weary way through the world unchecked and unencumbered. So I rhymed through school magazines. And did not seem to find much adult guidance regarding the horrors I was unleashing. I guess a large student to teacher ratio denies these simple life lessons to one. As do distractions in the shape of education. But what use is a degree- even a third or fourth one, if it does not reveal to you what an insufferable bore you are- always searching for the right meter.

There were signs. There always are. The neighbors dog howled incessantly every time I tried to write verse- even free verse. But I ignored it- it could be that the howls were not very specific- he did tend to howl at children- big and small, adults, cats, kites, mice, his master, the moon and on every day beginning with a T. But his howl at my poems had a darker more were-wolfish tinge. Of course I did not hear it then. I was too busy looking at sonnet schemas. The tom-cat at home hurled hairballs and chewed up poems- but I paid no attention to the feline. It ran away eventually. Ostensibly to meet other cats. But that was just an excuse. By the time I discovered sestinas, even hamsters were avoiding me. And the one tiger I met in a reserve got himself captured by poachers a little while later.

In my early twenties I discovered haikus and was seized by a dull despair. I had begun to weary of this addiction to verse- bound or free. I plunged myself into work but the lure of the villanelle (among other things) proved too strong. I wrote about emotions and passions and love and the other things that go with it.

Cataclysmic events took place in the world- there were tornados and earthquakes and terror attacks. It was as if the elements were trying to warn me. But I paid no heed. My boss left his job. As did his secretary. "More money "they whispered, but in my heart I knew it was my poems. Sort of chastened I moved to higher education. But the plaque followed. And before I knew it I was trying to massacre the Greek myths in meter.

Then the world financial system collapsed. Bear Sterns fell, then AIG and the big banks needed to beg money to keep them afloat. But it was only when Iceland went bankrupt that I began to realize the extent of my addiction. The next time the urge came on to obfuscate feeling, I desisted. I went for a long walk- then a run and wandered through a couple of Museums of Natural History. I did this for a week. Of course I ended up in Waco and had to take a Greyhound bus back to Arlington, but when I last checked the Dow is climbing again.

 

 

 

 

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty

You cannot know

Momentum and position

At the same time

Though the product of the two

Is less than half the constant of Planck.

This is all about a quantum

Which being a particle is also a wave

Heisenberg the uncertainty postulated

For certain with a Fourier analysis.

 

 

Wisdom

So I hid the remote. I know it was not very noble of me. But I had no choice. Not with NBA season following NFL season. Don’t get me wrong. I have chanted “Let’s Go Mavs” yelled “De-fense” till I was blue in the face - at the American Airlines Center, no less. But I like Jon Stewart. More than King James and when Colbert follows- even Kobe Bryant cannot keep me on basketball. Not even on HD.

Earlier I used to engage in discussions, becoming rants, on the dangers of letting things go out of hand. For miscellaneous items of clothing, towels and such like. In the hope that I to would learn to be organized. I have since learned the joys of having separate closets- and separate restrooms. And my closet is on an average tidier and better organized- (by about a 1/100, but hey there is a significant p there somewhere….).

Life on the whole has mostly been a breeze. I mean there is a lot to be said about someone willing to type out 100s of references of horrible papers in ASQ and such like for my school work. Also if the same someone has spent more time circling my department, than returning from Dallas (on I-35). Of course this is the same someone with whom I have warred while learning how to drive. Argued, screamed, thrown fits (as much as it is possible while concentrating on Stop Signs and one way streets). But I passed my drivers with an “Excellent job, you had a good teacher”.

But even as my eye becomes softer and I decide to go back and edit some of what I have written so far- make it little softer- talk a little about myself, I hear something on TV about how Ray Allen really helped them Celtics. In the middle of news.

How will I deal with it? Exercise. Yup. Always works And I have two plus years of being together wisdom.
“Exercise Releases endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. And Happy people DO NOT kill their husbands”.

Lugubrious libations

Wine makes me whine
Gin is grim
Rum so glum
Whisky makes tears risky
For unadulterated soul rot
A Vodka martini hits the spot.

The Bard and I

“Here, you will like this” and my father held out a nondescript sort of a book towards me. It had no colored pictures, and rather badly made sketches inside, but it had stories. - With strange sounding characters, and exercises at the back- it was supposed to be a text book for English- though not in my school. “Great Stories in Easy English”, said the cover-it was an abridged adaptation of the adaptation of the Shakespeare’s plays by Charles and Mary Lamb. And so I met the Bard. And fell in love.

“A pound of flesh” I would intone holding up a pencil, trying to look sufficiently cruel, and then would counter with the “Not one drop of blood” as I tried to look sagacious enough as Portia as Dr Balthazar. I grieved with King Lear at his daughter’s perfidy and giggled through The Taming of the Shrew (though now I do not quite enjoy it as much in a feminist light). Hamlet was depressing, Macbeth sad, but gripping, but of course The Tempest had the right tenor of an adventure – high seas, drama, fairies and what have you.

These were just the stories, not the plays- and yet they were so rich- so alive, with such real characters peopling them- the good had their flaws the evil ones their redeeming qualities and there was such a sense of delightful adventure- minus the excessive moralizing that stories seemed to have. I moved on to the Tales by Charles and Mary lamb and discovered the Winter’s Tale, Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure. I thrilled through Othello and realized that maybe soppy love stories were not as much the pits as they seemed. Adolescence had something to do with this realization, but so did the Bard’s “As a rich Jewel on an Ethiop’s ear” (the Charles and Mary lamb adaptation had some quotes from the original). And even though my friends mocked the “women dressing as men and no one noticing”, I did not like that attitude- it was just such a perfect set up if young boys had to play the female roles.

Then in Class 9, I finally got to feel what a real Shakespeare play read like. We had to study Julius Caesar for English Literature. I stumbled on the “being mechanical you ought not walk the streets” reading through my Coles Notes to understand it- but by “all that I live by is with the awl”, I was rekindling my love- not for the plot as much, but the variety, the vividness, the life. And I was old enough to see just how difficult it was to create a Roman marketplace on an Elizabethan stage with very few props. For my board exams I memorized the entire play- even the unimportant scenes with the Exeunts and stage directions. It just sounded so wonderful to speak out aloud with proper expressions. And of course even more wonderful was watching the film, with the Greek-Godly Charlton Heston as Mark Antony.

I discovered among my father’s books that classic spoof “Twisted Tales from Shakespeare”, by Richard Armor and read it, laughing at passages like “only in a Shakespeare play can a young man and a young woman who are in love spend a night alone in the forest without wanting to take advantage of the fact”, but with a feeling of committing sacrilege. “I will read these plays in the original” I wowed, looking at the thick red hard bound collection of plays in the library at home. And I did try , a few, after passing out of school, with a not as interesting as Julius Caesar Twelfth Night for ISC. The comedies were not as lofty as the tragedies, I discovered.

Then life and career stepped in and for a few years Shakespeare had to retreat to a back shelf of memory, retrieved sometimes when I found particular parallels to plots in popular films- or read something. I discovered entire plays online recently with notes- and am now going back (dissertation permitting) to read Macbeth. 

NOTE: April 23 is the Birth and Death Anniversary of the Bard of Avon

April is the cruellest

As March ended

Speeding towards its end

Lassitude of winter hibernation forgotten

April burst in

Spring heralding

Spring bursting at its seams

Spring , loud and getting boisterous

Spring, forcing life

On winter ravaged wastes

Spring , tumbling tendrils

Of growth

Spring, just the forerunner

Of summer heat

Of  baking days

And thirsty nights

Scorching, stamping out life

That Spring in its fecundity created

April is the cruelest

The balminess masks

The heat around the corner.

Probability

You cannot get

Heads and tails together

When you toss a coin

Nor all numbers

In the throw of a dice

(that’s why the house always wins, y’know)

And events can either happen

Or maybe they won’t

The  happening and non-happening

Both cases together a certainty.

Mutual if together, exclusive apart

Two coins ( or dice- hey it’s a subject of chance)

Mutually exclusive( you could use three or four or more)

Certainly calculate the odds of winning

Big at a race or the market

Just not guaranteeing

Whether you surely will.

Photoelectric Effect

A photon decided

A metal plate

To irradiate

An electron robbed

The energy

And escaped

Work function

To functioning work

Nobel Prize committee’ d rave

Light both a particle and a wave

 

Special Theory of Relativity

Where there is a will

There are relatives

A simple explanation

Of frames in relative motion

The former

Easier to understand

E=mc² more than a lifetime to comprehend

Schrödinger's cat

A black cat in a dark room

Radioactive material

Death a half life away

Or maybe not

Half lives are tricky

Equally dead and equally alive

At the same time.

The Frog Prince-55er

The beautiful princess took the ugly frog to her room and placed him on her pillow. And he turned into a handsome prince.

Her parents readily bought the tale- witch's curse easier to explain than promiscuity.

But she grew unhappier and they soon drifted apart.

She had loved a handsome frog – not an ugly prince.

April is Shakespeare month

Julius Caesar.

PS: All of these are You Tube videos.

Empowering Papads

The Investment dictionary defines an entrepreneur as

"An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and business processes."

Books are written on the concept, business schools teach courses on how to take an idea and make it into something that yields business returns. It is the in-thing to research in( there is an Entreprenurial Orientation scale I am looking at these days). And business lore is made up of stories of success. Michael Dell, Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey. Male, female, white or black, the distinctions do not matter, it is only about the idea.

In this club of movers and shakers is a group of 7 semi-literate women from Bombay (Jaswantiben Jamnadas Popat, Parvatiben Ramdas Thodani, Ujamben Narandas Kundalia, Banuben. N. Tanna, Laguben Amritlar Gokani, Jayaben V. Vithalani and another lady). Women, who , on March 15 1959 began something with Rs 80 borrowed from a social worker(Chaganlal Karamsi Parekh, a member of the Servants of India Society and a social worker). Doing what they knew best- rolling papads. A something which has grown to a $100mn a year business. A cooperative "of the women, by the women for the women" as their website states. An organization that now employees over 40,000 women has 67 branches and 35 divisions, expanding their product line to Khakhra, Appalam, Masala, Vadi, Flour, Bakery Products, Chapatis and even detergent.

An exclusive to women organization. The members of the co-operative the "sisters" are co-owners. Each has veto rights and all decisions are based on consensus. No machinery is used for production and everything is still handmade. Accounts, though, are done using computers. The sense of financial empowerment that these women have gained is actually what has helped drive the enterprise.

This organization has been involved in promoting literacy and computer education for women, promoting the welfare of rural women and even teaming up with the UNICEF and Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity at several occasions.

This is the story of how large scale sustainable businesses can be built by providing an organizational structure to special skills people have and adding on sustainability by making employees co-owners. It is a wonderful insight into how empowering seemingly unskilled workers and utilizing their core expertise goes a long way in laying the strong foundation of a lasting enterprise.

Lijjat Papad.  Of this Doordarshan-nostalgia evoking commercial:

"

The Dustbuster as Liberator

With several million thanks to Pragya for the title.

So the greatest emancipator for women in was the WASHING MACHINE. Of course, it is so, the Vatican says so.
"The washing machine and the emancipation of women: put in the powder, close the lid and relax," said the headline on the article in Osservatore Romano.

 They have also stated that more empowerment came in the form of the automatic dishwasher and other freedoms were won by the toaster oven, electric crock pot, blender, juicer and last but not the least the dryer (they could have but they did not, small mercies I guesss)

Before the wtfs kick in , let us not forget these people inhabit an alternate universe, the Vatican, an exclusive supposedly celibate male dominated club. These are the same people who defended the excommunicaiton of the doctor and mother of a nine year old who had an abortion after being raped by her stepfather. 

Seems it is not only an alternate reality, but a totally different value system they live in.

We Can Do It!

J. Howard Miller's  poster for Westinghouse, entitled We Can Do It! was based on Geraldine Doyle , a 17 year old who was hired as a temporary replacement worker at a factory in Michigan, in 1942. A war effort poster, it represents the women who went to work in factories replacing their men-folk out in the front combatting the enemy.Perhaps no other image has come to capture the Women's rights movement more iconically.  This picture is often called Rosie the Riveter though the name was affixed much later and is not entirely correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter.

 It , of course is sad, that after the War , women went back home because the men they replaced came back from the front, but life for women in he workplace had changed forever.

A fitting image, I think for Women's Day. We need all the strength, steely determination and hope this picture seems to represent. "Yes, we can do it", is a rallying cry not only for women, but for all people who want to improve their lot in life, be it in helping their country win a war or leading in times of peace.

Sita Sings the Blues

This is a lovely lovely film. On a Universal theme of love and loss. By Nina Paley. More details here.

Unanswered Prayers.

I got all my religion from school, friends and cousins- that is whatever I got of it, which by the way things have turned out is not much. Though I did turn out to be very multi-culturally respectful of whatever everyone else believed in. I suppose it was a "They do god, we do math" thing. Or at least it seemed that way.

And yet by the time I was in senior school, I did believe in something. Perhaps not the bearded old gentleman the Bible seemed to be about (pictures on the Sistine Chapel are proof enough), nor even the many limbed deities most festivals seemed to be about. And certainly not a vengeful formless creator who seemed very concerned about how much skin women showed. But something for sure. Vague, kindly understanding, and in general a benign deity who seemed to listen to fervent pleases of "let me do well in this exam". But there were rules. I could do the "let me do well.." routine, unless I had studied hard enough, made good notes, memorized what I needed to, practiced Math. The "let me do well…" was a just-before-the-questions-were-handed filler, in between the drawing margins on the paper and filling up the fountain pens. Anyhow it was churlish to wish for results without putting in effort.

The year I passed out of school was a fairly horrible one. My father had a brain tumor surgery and was diagnosed with lung cancer in the final stages. Now, cancer was not totally alien. My mother's parents had both battled with it and succumbed. The "what will happen now" was a foregone conclusion. Especially since the doctor said "Three months" too. So, when one of my cousins, who had recently found the divine in a multi-national property, expensive cars and jewelry owning Mataji began the she-is-amazing-she will-effect-an-immediate-cure, it was not only ridiculous, it was heartless to the extreme. As were the discussions on "performing the last rites" and other extremely human activities in the following of a supposed divine will.

Personal tragedy did not lead me to any disillusionment with the creator of the universe. I was very much of the "as you sow, so shall you reap" school. It was just unfair to lay the blame on something out there. Even though life had changed rather drastically. I just began to pay a little more attention to what seemed to be divinely ordained or blessed. And the ridiculousness began to strike me. " Our car was in an accident and no one got even a scratch. God saved us. " Yes, but there was an accident in the first place. Or the presumptuousness of "XYZ was saved during the **insert natural or other calamity**, which devastated **insert number** XYZ ascribes it to praying to **insert favorite deity**" . The great divine intervened specially on the behalf of XYZ condemning all the others- that is some favoritism I did not like at all (reminded me of one of my teachers for whom no one could be better than one of her pets)- this was so Human, and so not fair. And the cricket players, or Oscar winners (I do not remember if the Miss Worlds did it too- they may have, they seemed empty headed enough) whose victory was because someone/thing out there was specially arranging things for them, that just seemed plain silly. I also began to wonder about the divine which needed to manifest itself through milk drinking idols (capillary action, it was actually) or appear on bits of toast, chapattis, sliced through tomatoes or brinjals to make itself belief worthy, even as war, hunger, famine, poverty, disease, insurgency seemed to be thriving.

So, I stopped praying. And found that the frequency at which they were going unanswered was the same as it had been earlier.

In the beginning

from wikipedia

A really beautifully poetic reference to the creation of the Universe is in the Nasadiya Sukta of the Rigveda(10:129). Translated by Colebrooke it reads

There was neither non-existence nor existence then,

Neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.

What stirred? Where? In whose protection?

Was there water, bottomlessly deep?

There was neither death nor immortality then,

No distinguishing sign of night nor of day.

That one breathed, windless, by its own impulse.

Other than that there was nothing beyond.

Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning,

With no distinguishing sign, all this was water.

The life force that was covered with emptiness,

That one rose through power of heat.

Desire came upon that one in the beginning,

that was the first seed of mind.

Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom

found the bond of existence in non-existence.

Their cord was extended across.

Was there below? Was there above?

There were seed-placers, there were powers.

There was impulse beneath, giving-forth above.

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?

Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?

The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.

Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has risen -

Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not.

The one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven,

Only he knows or perhaps he does not know.

Poetic, beautiful. And very close to the Big Bang theory, if anything ever was. However,  Still as speculative as can be. And not Science. No matter how close it may get to the real thing.  To be appreciated for its poetry, beauty and profound thought, not to be taken as the absolute truth.

“They are like that only…”

Stereotypes are like statistics. In that they try to summarize and generalize about a large population. Only that they too often do not carry the margin of error, that pesky little level of significance with them. And so they breed universal truths. They are of the general form:

"All ** insert race, gender, minority, special interest group** are **insert qualifier: lazy, happy, poor, dancers, singers, good at math**".

It is a widely accepted idea that these stereotypes do more disservice to said minority, race, gender, special interest group, than good. Because they refuse to address specific cases (Statistics on the other hand has room for errors, margins of error, standard errors, residuals and you name it. Also as a scientific method it is generally more rigorous). Rather stereotypes enable people to air their most repugnant and divisive views in the name of being "universal truths"- after all "Everyone knows that xyz is like abc".

And yet it makes life so easy. It becomes so simple to classify reactions, behaviors attitudes- even assume thoughts for people one does not know about. It just saves the trouble of going through the bother of trying to find out first hand. And makes for excellent scapegoats.

Something that was borne to me over the weekend. They are a newly-wed couple. He is from India. She from Arkansas. And it should have meant the death knell of that, had they merely been dating. But he went ahead and married her- despite stiff opposition (and possibly threats of dying and younger brothers never finding suitable matches , the works of the ocular waterworks). And his family still do not communicate with her.

Yes, I know, boring. Happens all the time. Heck, change a few details, it is the story of my wedded life. Silence replaced by hostility. But the fact that they are from two totally different cultures is where the stereotyping comes in. For both of them are under the impression that her being a American and white Christian is the reason for his families reaction. "I am not Indian and from the same caste" she stated- and he nodded in assent, adding the "what will people say" spiel that he had to listen to even as his family (after their marriage) tried to drive sense into him by advising him to split from her.

"In India, people are so concerned about the opinion of their social circle."

"They( his family) will be ostracized from their society if they accept her".

By this time I was already screaming "Bull crap" silently (they were company after all, and I like them both very much indeed). Because this case has really nothing to do with the great and glorious Indian arranged marriage within caste tradition. It has nothing to do with difficulty in accepting a foreigner either. Nor is it really about social sanction. Even though in cases like this all these are used as excellent excuses. In reality this story and my own and the millions of other stories similar to this are not reflections of the greater social context. They speak of things going horribly wrong in the individual families. Terrible as it sounds, they speak volumes, not of society, not of culture, but of family. Culture and tradition and for other instances even religion are mere excuses.

And what excellent excuses they are. Want to control your grown children's lives? Play the tradition card. Want to express racism? Call it cultural. And wrap it up under "hygiene" (Oh yes I have heard these excuses for segregation from "lower" castes enough times. Want to be misogynistic? Present it under religion sanction. And quote from some rules laid in a written-in-the- bronze-age-or-before in a text in a long dead (or if used, used by few people language) which is so open to interpretation it could be made to mean anything. And it can be used to justify anything.

Or to make as glorious justifications for stupid, downright nasty behavior. Or even attempt to disguise jealousy as a global conspiracy to defame your nation (and agree that "foreign" rewards are just a lot of noise, especially if a homegrown music director gets them for a film made by a director from another country). Because it is just so easy to play so many cards and pretend that it is something else's fault- culture, tradition, religion, and now jingoism disguised as patriotism.

But in the end these gross generalizations, do not serve to help anyone. They keep the real reason- and hence even the cure – for bad behavior, screaming mobs away even while opening up futile dialog that obfuscates rather than tries to address issues. A malady which pervades social, political, cultural, familial and even global discourse. It is so easy to wear blinkers when looking at things. Most specially things that impact us. It is so easy to ascribe external causes to things that bother us. Specially unsavory things that throw families and near and dear ones in bad light. But it does not help the problem any. It only helps perpetuate a stereotype which complicates ideas worse- drawing ever further from issues that may really matter.

 EDITED TO ADD: 

And here is just what I was talkig about in stereotypes- Called "Indian Americans: The New Model Minority" it just reiterates every gneralization- what if they are good ones. And th commens at the end show how deeply people like to drink the KoolAid.

They cannot stop my education

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/02/22/world/asia/1194838044017/class-dismissed-in-swat-valley.html

I saw this video on the New York Times this morning. 

It is heart rending how she says "They cannot stop my education" in the end.

Which makes me wonder why people allow such nonsense to take place. Groups that close down schools, that try to impose their ways on a peace loving humanity-all in the name of some strangely twiste dinterpretation of religion.And why does their leaderwhip take it seriously? 

isn't it true that any fanatics first begin by trying to control women and abrogating their rights. Then other people are targetted. And yet religious extremism grows. Seems that no one really learns.

Pink Panties in a twist.

When the Huffington Post joins in  reporting this with a headline on their front page, you know it is an idea that has arrived. And what a good idea it is.

Spread some Valentine love and make a protest at the extreme moral policing carried out. Send pink panties to the idiotic Ram Sene to make a point. From the consortium of pub-going, loose and forward women. 

Like the proest by the Burmese women against the junta. Panties are a piece of underwear. Pink ones decidedly feminine. And sending underwear to anyone is a protest.

 I find myself a little surprised at the tone of the  "these are directed to a Western audience",pieces of dissent. I read about us needing  a dialog to talk about this on Roop's blog. For the latter, I don't think one can have a dialog on something like moral policing. Moral police are bullies. Humiliation- as public as possible is what they need. Because talk they will not.

For the former pieces, I wonder, about the whole Western/modern- real India divide. Is the underlying idea that real Indian women neither go to pubs, nor wear panties, nor protest the same way? Or do they have other issues. Because in this "panties protest" I only  see a taking on the patriarchy- something which impacts every section of society. 

I agree that through Facebook and other networking sites, this campaign has become exponentially viral, and has got a lot of media coverage. But indeed, is the idea behind it elite? Or have the elite stopped being Indian citizens? Or are the elite and their eliteness only Indian as long as it is an "India shining" idea (where the development of Indian industry and the growth of IT are touted as India with great potential- you know the whole hue and cry about "poor India" being a Western stereotype- "look up any critque of Slumdog Millionaire)? It was the same kind of attitude I saw when people protested the Mumbai 26/11 atttacks. South Mumbai, their detractors screamed, no one is paying atttention to VT. And as the furore died away, no one- not  even the non-elite Indians- thought it important to talk about Assam and the bomb blasts there. 

To an extent we do come across a bias in the media(hey they are only human). They do report what their average reader, viewer wants to hear (but that is how the market works- you sell what you make profits on). And yes the media could probably do better being more fair and balanced and reporting everything they can. Which, also they do- as best as they can. But, I do not always find reader interest in the sections of "general" news. A case in point, the Times of India's online edition. I  find a report on crimes against women in the paper every single day- usually on the front page. Rarely have I found a comment on it. But an inane remark made by the moral policeman is a headliner. Is it really the media?Only?

But this was not my point. In my opinion, those who distinguish between "real" India and " elite" non-India( oh yes, I have heard Nisha Susan called a Non Indian Resident - on rediff- but such sagacity is to be expected there!) are themselves guilty of trying to obfuscate the very idea the protest is about.

 No one is for being "loose" or "pubgoing" or (help us here) "forward" ( though really, it is better than being a goon trying to get the ancient Indian morals back). The very name of the consortium is a cheeky look at the negative branding these terms receive. No one, not the consortium at least, want underage minors to drink. I suppose like all loose, pubgoing women- of which I am a proud member, they too started their inebriation experiments at very responsible ages. And like me, I bet they too are very responsible serious members of society. No, the idea is to ridicule the policing. Yes, it is a rather "Western" way to do so. But then the humble "aloo" is also  a very Western import- as are coffee and tea. There are no entirely indigenous, true to the native soil ways to speak out against things. Human beings, you know, are pretty similar- despite holding different passports. And moral policing is wrong whether it be in deepest Kandahar, Sirsa, or in Mangalore. And there is no room for debate. A group of free people where bashed up, by  a group of thugs. That is room for judgment not of debate(imagine if it were a bank that were robbed, would the Honorable Minister be talking about "taking the law in their hands"? Maybe under the very pro-India BJP, the law of the land has changed to make all alcohol illegal- and women drinking it even more so?). 

I remember a statement someone made about how the 9/11 attacks were good because they opened the eyes of America to terrorism. In my opinion, that was insensitive- saying a lot more about the speaker than about the politics. The "elite blame" of this incident has similar connotations. Because the women who protest the pub attacks are the English speaking,  pub going minority, it does not make them any less Indian nor the attack any more "acceptable". 

The pink chaddis protest serves as a means to open the dialog about how badly women are treated in India- that even the elite- with their money, and connections, can be bullied just because of their sex. I hope the Pink panties are kept as a handy tool to speak out against all kinds of injustice against women in India- be it a dress code , foeticide or an abrogation of choice. I sincerely hope this is the first step in a journey to a more feminist discourse. 

My Boys