Look deeper...

We always say that things are not always what they seem to be and one should look closer and deeper before making a judgement about anything and anybody. Sometimes, you do get sucked into something that superficially looks genuine and rational. But the core is rotten and you realize this after a while.

One of the ways that right-wing seems to attack feminists/liberals is to pick up some isolated cases and generalize it. They get a few people who are supposedly victims of some injustice and they use them to create enough noise to compel lawmakers and people on the fence to believe that their cases are genuine and that the feminist movement is evil. Interestingly, I see it happening more often than not with the communists. There is a wide-spread belief that communists are anti-development, trouble makers, etc, etc. Why? Pick up any paper on any given day and you will never see anybody discussing the communist's point of view. Moreover, it is likely that you will see cartoons and articles deriding the communists without looking at their messages. Before you start accusing me of being a communist, let me just say that I am not. But I do not think that there are pure evil in the way the media seems to portray them and they do make some relevant points. I am more likely to pick a communist newspaper/magazine because I feel that though there is a definite communist bias in them, they report things in meticulous details and they report things that are generally ignored in the mainstream media, which seems to be obsessed with things urban.

Recently, a bunch of 'activists' spam-posted on my friend, Jaya’s, blog. The first post sounded quite reasonable. (for the uninitiated, the law basically protects women from the harassment they receive from their in-laws regarding dowry. The law makes this offence un-bailable) Well, there is nothing wrong with protesting against unjust usage of the law but the misogynous nature of their views is there for us to view right in this post.

"See growing rate of divorce. Few days back there was news in HT, as per which majority of divorce cases are because women are having extra-marital affairs, why this situation is there, it is because certain women feel with weapon of section 498A on their side, they are much stronger than their husbands and In-Laws. My appeal to President of India, Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers, and Judges is please examine this issue on priority and save Indian culture. Introduce Law, which will protect innocent - both women and men."

Look how quickly they make the connection between divorce and the power given to women by the law. It is connection that is neither substantiated nor correct! And they go to further make the pronouncement that this law is against Indian culture! First, there is no proof that this law really is the cause of divorces nor do they bother to give any. Second, their idea that divorces are against Indian culture and thus, evil would be hilarious if they were joking. For the patriarchy, divorces are dangerous as it challenges their claim to power by giving women the option of getting out of a marriage that are not happy in. One of the reasons why people are forced into marriage early in their life is because of the fact that it takes a long time and education for an average person to be able to get a decent paying job and be independent. So, parents try to get their children, especially daughters, before they are able to "stand on their own legs". Daughters are put under more pressure because they are supposed to live a life that is subordinate to their male counterparts. Most women succumb to this pressure and get married to someone that their parents pick out for them. For people like Satya, this is Indian culture. It is sad to see our culture being derided by such obnoxious people!

People give anecdotal stories of how they have been harassed by their better halves but they are always the victims of some malicious woman whose seems to be worse than the devil, according to them! I am not saying that there wasn't any genuine case of the law being misused. I am not saying that all women are angels but neither are all men innocent. Besides, it is men who hold all the power, both economically and socially. And the dowry system is a real social problem, which these guys never seem to address. To break away from an abusive family, the women needs to be economically and socially empowered but that is sadly not true in the majority of the cases. Most men and their families expect the women to give up their career once they get married and take care of the household. This makes the women economically dependent on her husband. Secondly, a woman who leaves her husband is looked down upon in our society. She might even get turned out of her own parent's home because it is no longer 'her home' and that her husband’s home is 'her home'.

Jaya is pretty sane and she is definitely not interested in encouraging such spammers on her blog. She basically tells them to go look somewhere else because she is not interested in their 'activism'. Sadly, they do not want to leave her alone and there is this barrage of comments on her blog that she is forced to post a series of posts titles, tongue in cheek, 'Save Indian Sanity', spoofing their movement's title -- 'Save Indian Family'. :)

Here's what she has to say –

"I can't say anything other than this that these people are behaving pathetically. Look here - if a law, any law in the world, is being misused by anyone, its wrong. Who would be foolish enough to go against that stand? Okay, here is another law that probably is being misused by some. Its a great idea if one could help people who are unnecessarily being troubled by that. But as Abhaya rightly pointed out, what the heck does that have to do with Indian culture and family and divorce!! I mean, that's just too much. Misusing a law is just that, misusing a law. Has got no cultural connotations please… Then think of how pathetic it is to appeal to IITian sentiment for that; or for that matter to bash Feminism as a whole."

Derision of feminists is not uncommon. The image of feminists as bra-burning, male-hating, lesbians is now so common that it could quite easily manage to get into the dictionary! So, this response that she gets wasn't really that far off..

"Damn every evil thing in thise world is related to evils of feminism , sowry.
NCW is planning to steal the houses from IITians under the new domestic violence law.
IITian suffer the highest percentage of those trapped false dowry cases.
So are just makies all teh freshies aware of how these laws operate.
Dear IITian
The mere fact that you are not a dowry monger is no excuse for you to avoid jail .
That is the beauty of of our Dowry laws drafted by our misandryst feminists"

For being stubborn and unmoved by their incredibly inane bombardments, she gets bad publicity on their blog (I do not want to link them here but you can find the link on Jaya's post)! She just wants to be left alone and her blog unspammed but she does not get her wish...

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1046

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1048

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1056

"Some people prefer to be adamant with their own view and never has courage to try putting onself into other’s shoe!!"

She doesn't give in to their views and resists their attempts to make her 'understand' and she gets derided for lack of empathy! I wonder whether these people ever empathize with the women who do get harassed by their in-laws for dowry.

Just when you think that it just cannot get more stupid, we see this. I think this is where they realized that their shouting was not having any effect on Jaya and out comes their hatred for what they call "modern supernakh" (shoorpanakha is a character in the Indian epic, Ramayana. She is the cultural stereotype of a bad woman – immoral, head-strong, lying, conniving, lustful, etc, etc).

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1060

scroll further in those comments and you find this self-righteous comment...

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-ii/#comment-1068

"Jaya
You had been exposed , though you try to best to take a msk of Modern Sita , but SIF volenters exposed your real face , you can not hide the coments in your bolg .
This for your reference , let the whole world observe how you are killing our age old parents and pregent sister by doing the legal terrorism in india ."

In fact, it is they who have been exposed! Their lack of rationale and ridiculous perseverance in saying the same things over and over again without trying to understand what the other person is trying to say can be attributed to their mind-numbing stupidity or is it their lack of English skills? One will never know!
When they realize that their shouting is not having any effect on the listener, they come out with their real inner views.

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-iii/#comment-1082

I really do not know which portion of the comment to put here. So, I am going to ask you to follow the link and read the entire thing. If you do, you can see how the person has traced the root of all problems to the education of women! This is classic. The reason why women were never educated was exactly due to the fear that they might rebel against their second-class-citizens status. It is a classic example of how much the patriarchal thinking is ingrained that people resist change and resist things that seek to point out the injustice present in the system. Men are so privileged that they do not realize that they are suppressing women. It may not be willful but the practices of our society that ensure that women so not get equal opportunities and chances do just that and many men do not realize that suppression need not be an individual thing. Just because it is societally accepted practice does not mean that it is right.

"Why a women have to be fed till her death after marriage in India?"

Hmm.. Why is it that it is a woman who is expected to forsake her career, cook the food, clean the shit of the babies that she is expected to produce, work seven days a week and 12 hours a day without pay, and still is expected to be grateful to the man who brings in the food! And why is a woman who refuses to live under these conditions considered evil, immoral and cast out of society leaving her little choice regarding her course of action? And why is a law that seeks to equalize this disparity just a little bit a cause of such heartburn to you?
The misogynism in this person’s post is an inner peek at what these people are really seeking. "Better keep her ignorant, lest she becomes untamable". They are afraid of women. After all, they do make up 50% of the population (well, not quite, thanks to female feticide and infanticide).

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-iv/#comment-1074

" Feminists are Hypochondriac Hypocrites.
Every year women drive 23000 men to suicide and go simply scot free."

http://jayajha.wordpress.com/2006/02/11/save-indian-sanity-iv/#comment-1083

"Root problem
Infact, the problem is our Indian ppl are poisoned by the Feminists organisations dangeroulsy. Whether a male or female, a child doesn't know. They acquire knowledge throgh the society. This society contains most vultures than any other as NGOs. So, continuos spread of hatred towards a man and dowry made these little children prone to poison. Dowry is a social custom in India for centuries. Crime by dowry demand is nothing but greed. we already have laws for cheating, greedy, characterless fellows. why this 498a? and 'mental tension clause' ...nothing but corruption."

'Poisoned by feminists organisations'? Really? I hardly think so. There is so much prejudice against feminism , it is hardly feasible for a person to become a feminist without conviction. It is not something that you do because of peer pressure because, lets face it, there is no peer pressure with regard to feminism. Besides, isn't dowry a social evil? Don't women get abused and killed because their in-laws are not satisfied with the dowry? Dont the woman's family get held for ransom just before the marriage in the wedding hall with threats for more dowry or no marriage? Just because we have laws does not mean that they are effective. If it were, people would not be able to break it with such impunity.

"If they were in USA, by now they would have met their fate. Rascals of the country, devastating the culture of my country."

ROFL! Interestingly, they attribute feminism to the western world and they also expect feminists to be non-existent and brought to 'justice' in the western world. Sometimes, I wonder why they seem to idolize the western world at the same time resisting the change saying it is western and against 'our culture'. Perhaps, it is our culture to be corrupt and being rascals?

"if you notice, population increased highly after sometime, this IPC498a is enacted by legislation. Main reason, marital discord between men and women. women were not capable of earning, but learn about this law by parents for their selfish reasons. Men being not happy with his marrid wife, he is always under 498a threat, wisdom got lost. The men who are in threat are greatly public servants, social ppl, highly educated, scientists in urban areas participating infrastructure design for the country. what happens when these ppl. are not healthy in living? That naturally gets affected on the rural areas. No proper planning, infrastructure got affected, wisdom got lost and the country led to 48% poverty level now(eating one meal in a day)."

Just how flawed is this guy's thinking. He is blaming one law for everything going wrong in this country! It is incredible that men are considered to be good at logic and reasoning! I mean, look at this guy reasoning. Whatever he may be, he definitely is not teaching 'Logic and Reasoning' to some maths graduates somewhere, that's for sure!

"Britishers who directly ruled India are far better than these ppl, who have already poisoned the society."

You know who makes this statement more often than not? RSS. About the congress governments that ruled India for the majority of our independent lifetime. Listening to the same view put forth by this guy made my suspicion that this person is coming from an RSS grooming stronger. Not that it wasn't already evident in their blatant misogynism and anti-feminist tirades but there are some statements that give a very clear view of their background. And this is one of those statements that mark them out. There are several variations of this statement and I have heard them primarily from an RSS source –
"We were better off under british rule. I wish we were never freed."
"These people have ruined my country. Thanks to the britishers that we have atleast this much."

This person's comment really brings out the entire thing. Their's is not a movement that seeks to make amends to an unjust law but to maintain what they call "Indian culture" (or what they perceive to it to be), which is basically the patriarchal world where the women are uneducated, ignorant, and subordinate. Their's is a movement that seeks to wage a bigger war, a war against feminism, against liberty, against radical movement that seeks to eliminate injustice.

I believe that today's radicals would be tomorrow's liberals and today's liberals would be tomorrow's conservatives. Change is the only constant in this world and there is no way the right wing is going to succeed in its anti-change, status quo agenda. It is simply not possible! So, here's to a better world!

---------------------------

PS. Two things.
1. you are not going to get free publicity on this blog. So all posts with links to places like 'harassed husbands' will be deleted.
2. If you have something reasonable to say, say it. Dissent is not unwelcome but posts discussed above are NOT welcome. They will get deleted.

----------------------------

Thirdly, Before you jump up and post something, re-read my post. Try to see exactly what I am criticizing and then, if you have a counter-point, say it.
An example of something that is not a counter-point is arguing that there are cases where the law is misused.
If you still persist in inane comments that give me the impression that you havnt read the post, I will ignore (or delete it if I consider it fall under the above two categories) your comment.

The eighth carnival of...

Feminists..

I won something today...

go to this page and you will know what I did win.
To see why, you will have to see this.
:)

The HC nightmare

For all those from IIT Kanpur, we all remember how frustrating our HC (Health Centre) was. I remember once I went there to get medicines for a fever but instead was given an IV and lots of glucose and bruffen! For four days!
I never felt more sicker than at that time when I was there. I have always had sickness in my life and since my pop is a doc, I knew that there was never any necessity for all that I went through there.
There was a concerted effort by students and faculty to improve the standards of the HC but it never really went anywhere. The indifference of the doctors and the nurses in the HC. People keep getting Bruffen fall all their ailments.
That is why, this story comes not just as a shock but also instigates concern for all those who are dependent on the facilities provided by HC.

Some Feminist Bharatnatyam please...

Recently, I attended an all-night concert organised by SPIC MACAY in IIM-B. The concert featured some really great artistes like Rajan-Sajan Mishra, Ravi Kiran, Ronu Majumdar. I am an atheist and I really cannot enjoy bhajans (devotional songs). So, when Rajan-Sajan Mishra sang a bhajan, I was thinking how ones perception of the world affects the perception of the arts and how arts influence ones perception of the world. For me to have enjoyed the bhajan, I should have been able to relate the emotions conveyed in it and that was simply not possible for me.
I revisited these thoughts when Priyadarshini Govind came on stage for a Bharatanatyam performance. For the uninitiated, Bharatnatyam is a traditional dance form of South India. It started with a Ganapati Vandanam, as usual with Bharatnatyam performances, and she went on to the central pieces of the performances. The first one was about a female dedicating her life to Nataraja, the lord of dance and crying out to him to come and take her away. The wordings of the song literally went like this, "Master, I am your slave..." The song is not just a dedication to a God but also a an submission of a female to a patriarch because the tamil word 'swami' (which means 'master') is also used by a wife to address her husband. As soon I heard these first words of the song, I knew that I could not possibly enjoy the performance. And then I realised that the song was actually being sung by a male accompanist, it just added more salt to injury.
The next piece of the performance was about Yashodhara Kaushalya going through the joys of being a mother to a child Rama (another mythical God of the Hindus). Though there is nothing wrong with motherhood, and the performance of the artist was really good (she seemed genuinely enjoying the travails of raising child), I could not help feeling a little disappointed that the representation of women in the arts is always as a mother or a wife.
The last piece of the performance was about a woman mad at her lover because he does not keep his promises and shuts him out of her house. Seems promising but the representation of this strong woman was marred by casting her as someone concerned with her looks and hair, and the 'promises' turned out to be ornaments. Though this was a more positive image of a woman refusing to take in a liar, it still reinforces the idea that women are more or less concerned with looks, ornaments and material things, and she expects gifts of bangles or ear-rings all the time.

Most of these dances were composed by men a long time ago and the representation of women in Bharatnatyam, where the dancer is dressed quite lavishly with silk and ornaments, is that of a nubile woman whose main characteristics are her feminine allures and 'tendencies'. The representation of women in the perfoming arts is important as they are usually perceived as models of behaviour. Usually, the only positive female character is one who is an obedient wife or a great mother. Thats it! So when a women performs roles outside these 'spheres of competence' in the real world, they are generally chastised (as a group) for the mistakes that they inevitably do, while the same mistakes made by a male are usually ignored or are taken as individual incompetency. To change this perception, it is important to change the opnions of people and a important way of going about this is the representation of women in the arts.

I personally feel that the performing arts should reflect the struggles of the time and a dance form like Bharatnatyam, which is primarily composed of female dancers, is a perfect vehicle for the depiction of women as they are. Cant we have a dance form for the struggles and joy of a woman who excels in this male-dominted world? Is that too much to ask for?

A new low for google..

I am fond of the tools that google comes out with, though I think that now all of them are upto the mark. Blogger is probably the most ignored google product, in terms of new development.
And google is not without retractors. And more retractors.
Well, there is some merit in their criticisms but they generally are cynical and assume that Google would behave like just another corporate.
In a way, the cynicism regarding corporations, in general, is defended quite convincingly by this documentary. But I must confess that I found the documentary showed fundamentally flawed reasoning and deductions.
Recent decisions of google have further augmented the suspicion that google is not always thinking about ethics and principles. The latest one is the most obvious and one that potentially will bring the most ardent google fan out of the camp.
Well, see for yourselves...
Google goes to china and agrees to the chinese government's condition that it filters out its search results. "Dont do evil"? Well, you are partaking in evil when you agree to censor search results to appease the government and in the process, open yourselves to another billion potential users!
There is something called "corporate responsibility". Actually, it is a myth and Google seems to be just proving that fact.

M$ propoganda?

Read this first.

The article goes ga-ga over TPM and its apparently extraordiary capabilities. But I see a lot of issues with this technology.

(In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn’t even need to ask for your username and password — it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.)

1. Let us say that I own an computer with this TPM chip and my bank website registers this computer's TPM id as my legitimate id for checking. Now, I cant lug my computer everywhere. So, if I want to access my bank account from another PC, I wont be able to because the TPM id is not mine! Sheesh! What a big inconvenience!
And what if you dont have a PC? And use your company PC or your friend's PC for accessing the global internet world?

The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun.

If they do manage to go through with this idea, it would force _every individual_ to have his/her own PC. Sounds like a hardware-manufacturer-association consipracy.

Then if your bank has TPM software, when you log into their Web site, the bank’s site also “reads” the TPM chip in your computer to determine that it’s really you.

2. Hmm... not sure about this but I think this is a major privacy and security issue. But I think the author has got it wrong. I think the TPM id would be sent to the bank site with the http request. So, the TPM would sit on the network card. Nope, I dont think so because network cards are replaceable. Plus, the TPM supposedly checks the softwares installed, the licenses of movie cds, etc, etc. It needs other softwares to cooperate with it. For example, MS office may have to check with the TPM chip to see if it is illegal or not. Or, the TPM chip needs to check the software's license when it is invoked. The latter method means that the TPM chip would be able to check only a pre-defined set of software (read, M$ office, M$ windows). And since the TPM cannot be re-programmed (yeah, you wish!), changes in licencing policies would not be reflected and you would either have to take the TPM chip to the hardware manufacturer to get it re-programmed (doubtful) or get a new chip (which means, re-registering with your bank site) == Major Inconvenience!

A movie, for example, would be able to look at the TPM and know whether it was legally licensed to run on that machine, whether it could be copied or sent to others, or whether it was supposed to self-destruct after three viewings. If you tried to do something with the movie that wasn’t allowed in the license, your computer simply wouldn’t cooperate.

3. this is hilarious. So, if I buy a music cd or a dvd, I cant play it anywhere I want! So, whats the point of buying the cd, which is the epitome of mobile storage! Also, it seems weird that such measures would gel with the consumers.

Users will still control how much of their identity they wish to reveal — in fact, for complex technical reasons, the TPM will actually also make truly anonymous connections possible, if that’s what both ends of the conversation agree on.

4. Yeah! thats great! wait a minute, if all anonymous interactions have to pre-approved, how do you get that approval without revealing your identity? And what is there to stop the TPM from sending its id with all requests? certainly, not the user!

And should a media or software company come up with overly Draconian restrictions on how its movies or music or programs can be used, consumers will go elsewhere.

5. What if the industry gangs up on the consumer? eg, MPAA, RIAA.

6. Quite frankly, I do not like the idea that my online activity could be traced with the TPM id. I am sure data mining companies would pounce on that information and sell it spammers and telemarketeers. Security is a major issue, agreed, but this is such an half-assed, spank-the-user, inconvenient, forced (and numerous other negative adjectives) way of going about this.

But the train has already left the station: by the end of this decade, a TPM will almost certainly be part of your desktop, laptop and even cell phone.

Makes it sound inevitable, doesnt he? But it is unlikely that what he says is true. Because without solving the issues mentioned above, this idea will never be acceptable for the users. If they do, there is always the lawsuits.

CGI Image?

from digg


You decide...

Sony DSC

This is a nifty little camera which basically comes with a lot of modes and quite a few features. Of course, the features are too little considering that it is a digital camera. Plus the configurable options of the features that it has is also very limited. So, it ends up being a very good digital camera to start off with.
I use a manual SLR for most of my photography and I usually pride myself in being able to give the right exposure for different lighting conditions but I have always felt that a light meter would enhance my photos. I never knew how much the light meter is important till I did the series of photos of the beer I was drinking (see below). All three photos were taken at the same time and the same lighting conditions but thy have been metered differently. Notice the enormous difference created by subtle changes in the exposure (of course, the focussing has also played a role in these pictures).
It has the ease of a PnS camera with the sophistication of a amateur SLR camera. I love it!
Next step, get myself the DSLR I have eyeing for quite sometime. Wondering how long it will take for me to buy that gizmo impulsively!

beer experiment 3

DSC00061
Originally uploaded by amathad.

beer experiment 2

DSC00062
Originally uploaded by amathad.

beer experiment 1

DSC00063
Originally uploaded by amathad.

Sony DSC

DSC000591
Originally uploaded by amathad.

I kept away from all those little digicams and would pooh-pooh their professed superiority but when I got one this diwali, I gladly took it as a nice way to meter scenes and that was the only way I was going to use it, which is why I took both my cameras to goa for the IFFI trip. But a few minutes with this gizmo and fiddling around with its functions, I came up with this picture.
Though I still feel that this camera was limited in a lot of functionalities, yet it is a powerful tool in the hands of someone who knows the basics of photography.
Well, enjoy this scene...
I will post more in a while.

I am so spaced out right now...

Multitasking is so hard. I never do good when I am swamped with too many requests. It takes me some time for my mind to get focused on something and when it does and then someone disturbs (and someone has been constantly bugging me for the past few days) my state of mind, I have to start again. Well, what I have go to do is what I have go to do. I really want to get out of office right now but I wont be able to until 9 PM :`(
I have come to realise that I abuse my eyes really too much. The non-stop movie watching in goa has had an adverse effect on my eyes. Last week was partcularly hard with my eyes watering and headaches, etc, which made it extremely difficult to concentrate on the task on hand. My nature of work doesnt help matters anyway.
It is better this week but by the end of the day, the headaches return. Plus, the one hour call from 8 pm to 9 pm doesnt help either...

Films Division of India

Thanks to Expiring Frog, I got this link -- Films Division of India.

There is a huge archive of films that can be watched online. They are streaming videos and cannot be downloaded onto your harddisk, unless you use some recorder software.

Right now, I am getting the films that showcase Indian classical music. They are old videos, quality is not so great but they are awesome nonetheless.

Slow posts...

I know the reviews are slow in coming. I think I will have to spend a saturday or sunday to type up all my reviews of movies I saw at IFFI...

[IFFI] [Movie Review] My red colored grey truck

Country: Serbia
Section: Cinema of the world (COW)

It is a black comedy set in 1991, when Yugoslavia started disintegrating. An anti-war movie that brings together two people in a world gone crazy, it does a great job of creating an indelible impression of the craziness of the civil war. "Thats the beauty of civil war. You never know who is on whose side."
The movie is about a colour blind truck enthusiast who cannot stop stealing trucks fro joy rides and cannot get a license due to his colour blindness, and about a pregnant junkie who on finding that she is pregnant decides to go to the beach to chill out. The film starts in true Tarantino style with two set of two gangsters - one set of truck drivers who are transporting guns hidden in their truck and another set of middlemen who are paying the truck drivers to transport the guns - killing each other simultaneously, ie, the truck drivers stab the middlemen and the middlemen stab the truck drivers at the same time. And they all die, leaving the truck, the merc and the money just lying around, forgotten by the dead.
Our hero, who is just being released from jail, decides on another joy ride, which got him in jail in the first place, and steals the truck. Our heroine nearly gets hit by our hero and she blackmails him to take her to the beach. They come from completely different worlds and have completely different lives. She thinks him to a be bosnian peasant and for him, she is as alien as any another woman. As they travel through the war torn country, sharing the experience of truck driving and pot smoking, they grow closer and ....
Screwball comedy has always been popular but this is not just screwball comedy but with a deep, cynical statement about the world around us. For example, there is a scene in the movie where the girl rolls up a joint and convinces the hero to try it with this dialogue, "alcohol, marijuana are the light drugs. Politics, news, war-mongering, communism, democracy, etc are the hard drugs" and I was like, "this guy (the director) knows his shit". I would probably add feminsim to that list of hard drugs but would it be covered under Politics? Well, it is a political movement but it is also a very personal movement and the motto "personal is political" tells us so, doesnt it? I think it means that the personal is political and so, it should be... Shit! this guy seriously knows his shit!
After they smoke up, they dance to some light music, oblivious to the world around them that is under war and burning. "I see great balls of fire, like burning haystacks." Wonderful, wonderful!
The director also puts in touches of irony. for example, she wants to pee and he tells to go behind a bush, to which she retorts," I am not one of your peasant girls. Take me to a loo." But the loo they stop at is so dirty that it would have been far more hygenic and cleaner to have gone behind a bush! The director tries to undermine the notion that civilization has brought better things for human beings when it is really that people think that civilization has brought better things.
I would not call it a revolutionary movie but it is a very good example of how cinema can be used to point out the inanities of the world and critique the privileging of the "civilized" world. If I ever make a movie, it will be something like this one...

[IFFI] [Movie Review] Warm Spring

Country: China


Section: Competition

The first movie that I saw at the IFFI immediately after I received my delegate pass was Warm Spring, a film made by a first time female director. This is a simple story about a waif who is found starved and unconscious by a villager. It is rural china and like all rural places, money is tight and nobody wants to adopt an extra mouth that would need to be fed. Some comment that they would have done it if the child had been a male. Yup, thats right, the male child is privileged in China too. If you did not know about this, then you might know know that women in china used to bind their feet to from childhood to make it smaller (the chinese apparently had a fetish for small feet). Anyway, the child is eventually adopted by this old man who is kind hearted and very near the age that qualifies as old geezer. But he is Zen personified and that makes him the most blandest character in the film. Dont get me wrong, I like the character but I also see it as a sure fire way to ensure zero character development.
The old man has a son with a barren woman who sees the little girl as an insult to her barrenness and tries to get rid of her a couple of times but she is unable to do it. The kid is a sweetheart, who is as kind hearted and innocent as children ought to be. She is also mature far beyond her age, perhaps going by the philosophy that children who face hardships mature faster. She does a lot of housework, helps everyone, is nice and polite, etc, etc. She also has a great zeal to learn and learns to read and write on the sly.
The rest of story is about how she manages to win everybody's heart and how she becomes the first kid from that village to go to college.
It is a great feel-good movie with a strong feminist undercurrent. The wife of the old man's son is stronger than her husband and one time manages to push him and pour water on him when he tries to get her to obey his order. She and another woman in the village, both suffer from insomnia for very different reasons. The former cannot sleep because she dreams of a beautiful baby boy and the latter cannot sleep because she has three naughty boys. Also, a girl becoming the first one from the village to get so highly educated and coming back to teach in the rural village makes the point that girl childs are not only for making babies and taking care of the family but they can better boys in terms of education and achievement in the world.
The cinematography is very good, though the camera work seemed to be a little on the amateurish side. In many landscape scenes, the cameraman does not obey the 1/3^rd rule, and that makes the scene lose quite a lot of its potent. A case in point is the final scene which starts out with the outline of the mountains right in the center of the frame and as the scene progresses, it comes down to the bottom third line. In the foreground, the grown up girl and a bunch of kids are running with a kite in hand that trails behind them. As the outline of the maountains comes down, there is a dramatic increase in the impact of the scene. I know you should not be bound by rules too much but in general, the 1/3rd rule is very powerful and it should only be broken when you are making some statement.

Street Harassment in Bangalore

A close friend of mine raised a pertinent question - "do you know if there's anything being done about eve-teasing in Bangalore?"
And I had to confess that I did not know anything of that sort being done but it did make me do a little googling and I came across this ---

Black Noise Project

This is a blog by a woman who is constantly working to create awareness about street harassment in bangalore!

This post that basically is a comment by some person exemplifies the Indian attitude towards eve-teasing. For more details, read the blog.

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Update -- This post and its comments are really frightening...