LOVE AND LIFE IN THE TIME OF PARANOIA - Nandini Thilak

A man and a woman, approaching middle age are traveling together in a car. They stop at an empty house and go in together, closing the door behind them. I’m sure you’re getting suspicious already but let’s go on. Say it’s nearing midnight, a residential area, and the two individuals are not joined together in ‘holy matrimony’. They spent a fair amount of time inside in this house. Does that make you uncomfortable? Not something you care for particularly?

Chances are your liberal mind is wriggling a bit. Chances are that you think you have a right to be uncomfortable with the above described rendezvous. Because that seems to the immediate reaction of large sections of society, self described young ‘liberals’ included. Most of us rejoiced when the notorious section 377 of the Indian penal code was repealed. But as always realities have changed very little; social attitudes remain, punishing those let off by law and the state. Last week an AMU professor was suspended for having consensual sexual relations with another man; rewarding those sick minds who took pleasure in filming this individual’s private acts secretly to present as evidence of his ‘crime’. The same people who frown at girls and boys chatting in cafes or walking down the street together, nodded in approval. “Sure, he’s done nothing illegal but he’s supposed to be a respectable man, it’s not right…” is the cowardly argument.

What constitutes respectability? Doesn’t excelling in one profession or being a law abiding citizen make one respectable? Aren’t romantic involvements and sexuality in private domain; part of an individual’s personal freedom? What authority does the society have over the private lives of its members? Who constitutes ‘society’?

Lets go back now to where we began. The man and the woman are alone in the house. A crowd of ‘citizens’, concerned over the immorality of it all, surround the house, holding the two individuals hostage. The police are summoned, the media rush to the spot to revel in the ‘sex scandal’. The man and the woman are led out into
jeeps handcuffed as champions cheer and jeer. Two unsuspecting individuals, respectable citizens until that night, are ordered to take a medical test to prove that they did not have sex and hence are innocent of a non-crime. No one asks “so what if they did do it? Is that a crime?”

Writers and intellectuals cower in front of hooligans who criminally invaded the privacy of two people, the ‘educated’ youth jeer at how low and vulgar the older generation has stooped. Lone voices which hinted at
the ridiculousness and gross evil of the situation are beaten down; gheraoed and man handled. Two lives destroyed in the name of social facades of morality.
 

And this happened in ‘modern’ India, not in some remote pocket of Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, but in one of the most advanced states in terms of education, political awareness and standard of living. Situation is no different else where. Personal freedom of all kind is trampled upon in the name of social norms. A couple can be forcible married off by saffron painted goons if found talking by themselves at a public place. And they will do it with the support of many who pretend modesty has been out raged by free expression. The same men who go home and rape their wives and maids are given the authority to abuse and beat up women who dress against ‘Indian culture’ and go out at night, all in the name of enforcing social rules and protecting the fast degrading moral fabric of oursociety.
 

The violation of personal freedom goes beyond issues of sexuality or women’s rights. The attitude that representatives of ‘society’ have the right to censor personal acts of individuals who are part of it, the right to
take offense and punish those who go against pretenses of morality, decency and respectability pervades across all sections of the population.
 

It’s always the crowd against one or two, moral wrongs against rights and freedom, what’s decent and the done thing against what’s not. Sure, being a part of society means following some rules, but at some point the
social being ends and the private individual begins and he/she’s got a right to private life; to free expression and love and vices and ‘immorality’, as long as he/she doesn’t intentionally or other wise harm another being.
Is individual freedom to live life as one chooses in relative peace to be considered secondary to the hypocritical whims of society? Let’s hope not.

LIPSTICK FEMINISM - Deepti Sharma

Blame it on globalization but does a saucy tattoo on the arm of a young Indian woman mean she is standing up for her rights and those of the sisterhood? Yes, say India's New Age feminists, who see the tattoo as proof of rebellion against a society that insists women be demure.
But it is a superficial badge for a superficial ideological struggle, laments Anuradha Marwah, who has written three novels on gender equations."This new movement of pop feminism feeds into liberalism but unfortunately, is, itself contained by it. Just because a group of women feel empowered through tokens of fashion and sex, the world isn't going to change at large".

Even so, Marwah concedes that fashion can empower some women. "It (the new feminism) has given these young women the power to assert themselves. The case of Pooja Chopra, Miss India, 2009, whose father left the family just because a girl was born, highlights the potential of this movement to make things happen. But then, how many such cases you would see?" Old-fashioned feminists such as gender sociologist Mala Kapur Shankardass believes the new feminism isn't feminism at all. "For a movement like feminism to work, things have to be done at a more social and grassroot level. This requires making policies that will help unprivileged women to break the glass ceiling. That is feminism in the real sense," she says. Some say lipstick feminism started in the 1990's when women in the West began to feel empowered by fashion and sex.

Others, including Teresa Riordan, author of 'Inventing Beauty', insist it is much older, going right back to Victorian corsets and bustles and Marilyn Monroe's breast implants. Riordan wrote that "when successful, the artifice of beauty is a great leveller. It puts the resourceful and the imaginative on an even playing field with the
congenitally beautiful". However old it is, lipstick feminism was a massive break with traditional feminism, which condemned the fashion industry for sexualizing women in order to feed into society's patriarchal mindset.

Media professional Isha Manchanda says Indian lipstick feminists eventually betray the greater cause of gender justice by betraying themselves. "There are young women who are blatantly self-indulgent and feel liberated by going to parties, but at some point in their lives they end up conforming to the social and cultural norms of society. So, that will be temporary liberation. At the end of the day, it's what in the head that counts".
The Indian debate may almost be a re-run of an 11-year-old one in the US, where lipstick feminists hailed Monica Lewinsky's exploits with President Clinton as a powerless woman's way of using her "sexual attractiveness or a personal relationship with a person of greater power to get ahead". At the time, a New York Times columnist said Lewinsky's behaviour was "a time-honoured female tradition to use sexual power as a way to try to improve one's position in the world...."

But the Lewinsky-as-feminist argument drew a fierce response with some American women insisting that "sexual power is a pistol loaded with only one bullet" and it would be better for women to seek "real power" instead. The Indian debate looks set to be equally noisy.

PUNJAB: RECAPITULATING A CONFLICT - Surinderjeet Singh

After the independence from British Empire, the Sikhs being too
insignificant to be party to the decision of partition of the country decided
to side with the secular of the two available options which was India. The
best that the Sikh leaders could muster were vague promises from the INC
top brass including Nehru and Gandhi regarding the safe guarding of their
rights in the new India and their right to self-determination. But when the
new administration in Delhi came to power it did not acknowledge any
such demands by the Sikhs citing that it had too many a people to please
to be found appeasing a minority.
The Sikhs felt too insignificant in such large a nation for their religious or
cultural demands to be met. The split which started with Sikhs, along with
Buddhists and Jains, being clubbed into the Hindu group in the constitution
soon became a fight for a separate identity. The rendering in the constitution
meant that Sikhs were Hindus for all legal purposes. Such signs from
the government and a resurgent Hindu nationalism didn’t help to allay the
fears of common Sikhs who felt that their religion will be absorbed into the
Hindu majority.
The problem which was specific to Sikhs was that any movement initiated
by them automatically took the tenor of religion and seemed as such
secessionist to the largely secular central government under Nehru and
Shastri. So even when new states in India were being carved out based on
linguistic lines, such a movement by Sikhs for a Punjabi state was seen as
separatist. Even to the extent that when a consensus took place in 1961
most of the Punjabi Hindus claimed their mother tongue to be Hindi which
didn’t at all help to bridge the growing gap between the two communities.
What resulted were a series of agitations led by the Akali Leaders to the
parliament, which although were intended peaceful many a times ended
violently with security forces opening fire and Sikhs brandishing their
unsheathed swords. Many a deaths took place, even more arrests. What
was to be a political cause, became a religious one.

Finally after the 1965 Indo-Pak war, when some
of the fears of the central government about the Sikhs
were obviated by the patriotism shown by the Sikh
soldiers, it was Indira Gandhi whose government in 1966
signed the modern Punjab state into existence. Although
the state being not as big as expected, after carving out
Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, it still gave Akal Dal its
first success since the passing of Gurudwara Act under
the British. But while the moment was opportune and
ripe all matters like the distribution of water and the
status of Chandigarh weren’t settled but just postponed.
After the Green revolution, the issue of water became a
dominant one along with demands for a greater
autonomy escalated during time of Emergency. The time
also saw the rise of a certain preacher named Jarnail
Singh Bhindrawale of Damdami Taksal, who used to
count tales of atrocities on Sikhs in his gatherings in
which he would often defy even the Central Government.
The Government both, central and state, did little to
control him and soon his followers were carrying out
executions in the name of justice. Indifference might
have continued to characterize popular attitudes, but
with the government’s indiscriminate punishments for
Sikh militancy, including stopping all Sikhs traveling to
New Delhi for the Asian Games in 1982, sympathies
began to shift.
Meanwhile the central government declined to indulge in
any kind of meaningful discussion with the Akali Dal as
they did not want to be appearing to give in to the
demands of a small group when the cost might be a
serious loss of electoral support in the Hindi-speaking
heartland of northern India. The Akalis tended to respond
in turn by becoming increasingly strident to avoid being
completely side-lined by Bhindranwale, who went on to
fortify the Golden Temple in Amritsar and shifted his base
there.

Indira Gandhi would go on to use armed forces to
kill him and his aides inside the Golden Temple. A controversial
Army Operation from its commencement, the
Army attacked the Golden Temple in the presence of
thousands of devotees who were there on the occasion of
the martyrdom of the very Guru who built the place, Guru
Arjan Dev. The operation, which began in the wee hours
of June 6, 1984, was like a dagger through the heart for
Sikhs everywhere. Thousands railed against the Indian
State, the army, and all those who were connected in any
way with the operation. A large number of Sikh soldiers,
enraged by rumours that the Golden Temple had been
damaged deserted the armed forces. Author Khushwant
Singh famously returned his Padma Bhushan award in
protest. Captain Amarinder Singh, the ex-chief minister
of Punjab, resigned from the Congress party. Four
months and three weeks later, Indira Gandhi paid the
ultimate price for ordering Operation Bluestar

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CRIME CAPERS FROM INDIAN TELEVISION - Meenakshi Pandey

 

The timeline of Indian television can be divided distinctly

into two periods, before Ekta Kapoor and after Ekta Kapoor. Prior
to the deluge of the daily K-serials, all produced by Ekta Kapoor,
there was some variety in terms of genres. Following the success
of the K-serials, all others joined the bandwagon in making family
soaps. Crime investigation is one such genre, which has all but
disappeared from the telly. This is a little strange considering the
fact that detective shows tend to have a very dedicated fan
following.
When Pankaj Kapur donned the hat of Karamchand, the carrot
nibbling detective, in 1985, he was the first on the scene. He
along with his assistant Kitty, played by Sushmita Mukherjee,
helped the local police solve cases. But perhaps the best offering
in the genre so far was made in 1993, when Bengali novelist
Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s creation was adapted for television
in a series called ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’ about a sleuth by the same
name, played by Rajit Kapur. Byomkesh Bakshi was helped by his
friend Ajit in solving cases. Byomkesh Bakshi is often hailed as the
desi Sherlock Holmes. The series was quite impeccable in terms
of acting and detailing. ‘Tehkikaat’ was another popular series
where actors Vijay Anand and Saurabh Shukla played the crime
solving duo of Sam and Gopi. Anita Kanwar as the clumsy and
disheveled Inspector KC in the series ’Saboot’ has been the only
woman crime investigator on Indian television. But now, ‘C.I.D’,
the longest running crime investigation series is probably the only
one left in the genre which is still on air. The character of ACP
Pradyuman, played by actor Shivaji Satam, has an entire generation
of fans who have grown up watching his overacting and hilariously
bizarre crime investigation methods.
The prime reason for the disappearance of crime capers
from television is that the quality of such shows has dipped
greatly leading to a lack of interest of the T.V watching masses.
The present crop of shows compromise greatly quality in terms of
both the content and its execution. Infact, the very popular show
C.I.D owes its fan following to the fact that the viewers see it as
comedy show and not a detective show. Good detective series
have an inherent interactive pull about them.

Watching it requires you to apply your mind in following the sequence
of events, putting pieces together, trying to pick up clues and solve the
case before the sleuth, which is why most people may not like to watch
it. They would rather settle for something sappy which doesn’t tax their
brains. This makes the followers of crime investigation shows a very
niche audience. And since the powers that be of the telly world, are only
interested in making money by serving to the taste of the lowest
common denominator, the popular belief is that the howdunits may
have had their heydays in the past with little possibility of them making
a comeback. But there are others who do not believe that crime investigation
as a genre is dead. Adapting popular crime fiction for the television
can work very well. Pulp fiction has often been proved to adapt
beautifully to the electronic medium. Works of crime fiction authors like
Ibn-e-Safi or Surinder Mohan Pathak whose writings enjoyed a cult
following amongst their readers can be serialized so the present
generation can get a taste of the popular vernacular fiction of the yore.

SMITTEN BY MASCOTS - Apurva Kumar

2009 was a remarkable year for the two greatest

democracies on the planet - India and The United States of

America. The year when both nations went for the most competitive

polls the world had ever witnessed, with fierce campaigns

exploiting the media and swaying popular sentiments

by the minute. In the beginning, 2009 was a year with bleak

prospects for both US and India. The Great Economic Recession

which could trace its epicentre to the reckless and unsustainable

lending practices resulting from the deregulation and

securitization of real estate mortgages in the US, when

millions plunged into massive unemployment, left the people

uncertain and panic-stricken. India was shaken by the

horrendous terror attacks in Mumbai.

We watched with bated breath, till the election results were

announced. Citizens longed for leaders who would deliver the

biggest democracies from the instability of the time. But

little known is this fact that the outcomes of two elections

were determined by two mascots.

Barack Obama was the mascot of hope not only for US but

also for the world. Back home, Kalavati - the Vidarbha widow

whose sorry plight moved Rahul Gandhi to such an extent

that he mentioned her in his reply during the no confidence

motion passed against the Indo - US nuke deal, changed the

fate of this country. The blueprints of Obama’s victory were

drafted two years before 2009.The two Davids - David Axelrod

and David Plouffe were the campaign managers of

Obama. They made sure that the image of this Illinois Senator

should be entrenched into the minds of the people, as

their saviour during that grim period. And guess what! Barack

Obama was the most viewed political icon on YouTube. His

name became a synonym for hope as he was on every social

networking site, be it Facebook or Orkut. His debates and

rallies captured a major media attention. In short it was in the

boardrooms of these two brilliant campaigners, that Obama’s

victory was scripted.

Talking about India, it was Kalavati who was the mascot of

helplessness of Vidarbha farmers who were committing

suicides every 16 hours .It was the sorry state of this woman

who lives with her 7 daughters and a son that resonated in

the famous speech by Rahul Gandhi.

The term mascot has a very strange origin. At the turn of the

century a French composer named Edmond Audran (1842-

1901) wrote a series of operettas, the most famous being La

Mascotte. This was a light hearted story of a virgin farm girl

who brought good luck to whoever employed her. The English

translation was called ‘Mascot’ and it could be anything – a

person, an animal or a fictitious character, provided it brings

good luck for that company.

Mascots are used as communication channels between the

consumer and the product. It is the mascot that enters your

living room to inform you which brand of cornflakes is the

healthiest and the tastiest or which airline you should trust to

ensure a safe and comfortable journey across the skies.

 

The success stories of Indian mascots date back to

1946 when Air India’s Bobby Kooka along with JWT’s Umesh

Rao created our own hospitable Maharaja. The Maharaja was

a suave, moustachioed man , donning red imperial robes, a

striped turban and pointed shoes. Maharaja became the face

of the public sector aviation giant for many years until Air

India and Indian Airlines were merged and our cherubic

Maharaja faded into oblivion.

How can I forget to mention the little dusky ,plumpy girl in a

white frock with cherry red polka dots and a ribbon, who was

recently listed in The Guinness Book of World Records for the

longest running ad campaign of the world. In 1967, even

Sylvester da Cunha would never have imagined in his wildest

dreams that his creation would make such an impact on the

psyche of Indian mothers in the years to come .His "utterly

butterly Amul" girl had replaced the Polson butter girl to

make her way into every Indian kitchen .Every Friday the

Amul girl with her innocent smile could be seen flaunting her

favourite butter in her hands on the billboards which were

deliberately placed at strategic locations.

Emulating the Amul example, Asian Paints came up with

Gattu designed by RK Laxman, The Little Boy with a paint

brush in one hand and a bucket of paint in the other sent this

message to Indian customers that it is only Asian Paints

which can help them preserve their home sweet homes.

No one can deny that 1970s and 80s were the golden period

for Indian ad fraternity. Lalitaji became a household name

when she urged every Indian woman to trust only Surf with

“Surf ki kharidari me hi samajhdari hai”. This confident

homemaker created by Alyque Padamsee went on to

become a household advisor of all mummies and chachis.

The Bunny of Lijjat Pappad , was a puppet designed by the

famous ventriloquist Ramdas Padhye. Shri Mahila Griha

Udyog promoted this adorable mascot , which easily secured

a place in every child's heart.

 

Not all mascots were gentle, cute and adorable. Creative

minds have also spawned stygian mascots whose devilish

looks helped many brands regain their lost market share.

The green tailed horned Onida devil took the onus of carrying

forward the Rs.1500 crore company Mirc. Electronics brand

Onida on his strong shoulders.

One of the most resplendent mascots was the black & white

“Common Man” of Times of India. Designed by RK Laxman in

1951 this man, in his simplicity, exhibited the follies and

frailties of a common man.TOI may have changed its format

and features but the Common Man is more than a mascot

today , turning out to be a powerful meme etched into every

Indian’s mind.

The list is incomplete if I don’t mention the cool guy Fido

Dido of 7up, the egg shaped Zoo Zoos of Vodafone and the

Hutch Pug , the impressive muscleman of MRF who extolls

longevity and durability of MRF tyres, Ronald McDonalds

who, with his orange coloured hair is always ready to serve

scrumptious burgers, smiling Colonel Sanders who assures

you of the lip smacking KFC chicken delights.

From Chintamoney of ICICI to the Cherry Charlie of Cherry

Blossom, mascots control your choice, and in effect the

market.