On Inhabiting Language

I suddenly bounced upon a song from the film Rockstar, written by lyricist Irshad Kamil - "Jo bhi main"; the lyrics of which can be found here. The reason that got me to write this post is quite strange. In the first place, I am not a fan of loud things - loud expressions, loud aesthetics, etc. Thus, a film like Rockstar was completely outside my aesthetic purview. The songs that the film offered, therefore, were simply out of my radar of consideration. In this avoidance, I also kept away (quite naturally) from the lyrics of the songs, and the meaning behind it.

However, on reading this song and further hearing it, it makes complete sense to me today. [I must admit though that I have seen Rockstar before, and did find it more meaningful than the other films I have watched. But I was never able to connect to it fully, so I rejected it and so its music. I had not gone through the experiences depicted in that particular film and so I was naturally not able to imagine it for myself.]. Coming back, the song simply says:

Jo bhi main
Kehna chahoon
Barbad kare..
Alfaz mere

when translated, they mean:

Whatever things

I want to say, 

Get destroyed

By my own words

Listening to this song particularly now gains a lot more meaning for me, specially having written the earlier post (on not being able to put thoughts into words). In this context, the words of the song merely suggest that language is not sufficient to express all the emotions one goes through. To be more specific, communication through words may not always be effective, and as the lines above suggest, words may sometimes almost destruct the original feeling you did want to convey. In the process of verbalizing, you may actually end up ruining a thought. 

I was browsing through an article in a magazine just some time ago today where I read that the noted German philosopher Martin Heidegger once said: "We inhabit language." Heidegger's deeper philosophical intention was to question whether things (objects that belong to the physical world) came first or language? Since a "thing" doesnot exist without it being "labelled" through words of a language, we are surrounded by more language than things. In this way, we are slaves of the languages, since there probably lies no world outside of that defined by language. To put it simply, a world that can not be articulated through language may never be believed to exist. In this sense, as Heidegger puts it, we live within the world created by our language, and thus inhabit language.

We use language only to negotiate meaning. I will not take the reader through the most important linguists from Sassure to Jacques Derrida who have invested much time in explaining the world of words. But to just point things out simply, the connection between a 'word' and a 'thing' is merely a convention used for communication. For example, the fact that we call a "spoon" as "spoon" has got nothing to do with what the spoon does. That the spoon means "something that it can contain" is the meaning that is conveyed for us, to be able to communicate merely the thingli-ness of the thing called a "spoon". Thus, words merely help us to convey certain essential meanings through which we pursue life, or living. 

Having given this background, I now want to return to the song. It goes ahead:

Kabhi mujhe Lage ki jaise
Sara hi yeh jahan hai jaadu
Jo hai bhi aur Nahi bhi hai yeh
Fiza, Ghata, Hawa, Baharein
Mujhe..Kare..Ishare yeh..

Kaise..Kahoon Kahani main innki

when translated to English:

Sometimes I feel that

This whole world is magical

That is and is not

Weather, Clouds, Wind, Springs

They hint to me

How do I tell their story?

Such thought (expressed in the song) may seem quite simple, and often discarded as philosophical. On a trip to an ashram in Haridwar, I was awe-struck by the beauty of flowers in their gardens. I kept taking numerous pictures of these flowers in my digital camera. I repeatedly kept zooming into their petals, their colours, framing and re-framing them. I wasn't sure what I exactly wanted to take, why wasn't I satisfied? What was I obsessed with about them? What made me keep looking at them, capture them, what about them did I want to take back, hold back? My father simply thought I was trying to take a good picture! I told him: "One just cannot capture their beauty in a photograph!" And perhaps he understood but did not want to get into a philosophical discussion, and so he discarded saying something to the effect: "well would (it) work if you (say) so?"

But perhaps my feelings were quite similar to those expressed in the song. I was merely wondering how can one express how one feels about the beauty of the flower. Or, can the beauty of the flower be really expressed in words or captured in a photograph? We only make ourselves happy by mediating the meaning of what we feel about the flower's beauty by putting the thoughts in word. I am doing it right now while writing it. But in doing so, I am actually affirming what the first few lines of this verse say: destroying what I want to actually convey through my words.

In some ways, this does connect to my earlier post. And I have gotten myself in this difficult, quite ironical position of being in the field of 'theory' where language is my domain. In this regard, I do not know if I am expanding my world or putting it within limits of the language, bounding it myself? 

There are several examples to experience the world beyond language of words. Music is the first and most evident one - in which emotions are communicated through sounds / sound waves. Second is touch - through feeling, intimacy, and contact with another body. I have always believed that having sex must be a very powerful way of communicating - where two bodies communicate without speaking (verbalizing experiences) at all. Gestures, evidently are ways in which messages are passed on without speech. And there are countless modes that go beyond conventional spoken language. The question is how sensitive, how receptive are we to these other modes? 

I think it may not be difficult to attempt doing so. May be one way to connect to the outside world is to deeply connect to your innermost self. To find what lies "within" ourselves is almost impossible. Can we even hear our heart beat for that matter? Or can we listen to the blood running in our veins? To know the nature of the "self" is to automatically train ourselves to sensitize ourselves to the world outside. It is then when one can truly appreciate the fullness of life. Or may be I am romanticizing. It is for someone to understand. The ancient Gurukul system worked thus, in my opinion. But well, as much as I verbalize, I will be killing its meaning. Because:

Jo bhi main
Kehna chahoon
Barbad kare..
Alfaz mere

(I would have enjoyed bringing out an analysis of the composition of this song too. Rahman's music does good justice in my opinion. There are meaningless vowels that the song begins and ends with, making it pure music, no real words that denote anything, thus giving the song its true meaning. The single verse in the song almost covers everything, most importantly brings out the key question, or predicament. I could go on. But, just to say, sometimes, a seemingly insignificant Bollywood song can have deep mysteries hidden inside itself.)

The Clarity of Confusion

Reading books authored by my professors here, or around here is extremely satisfying. Before I begin to even elaborate my thoughts further, I must already acknowledge my insufficiency in my own written expression. The reasons are as latent as they seem obvious. If only English wasn't the universally accepted language of expression of thoughts and transaction of knowledge, I could have been better at this post. My expression is divided between English and Hindi because I think partly in both languages. I write in English, but I don't think in the same language. I thus fear to lay claim on either of the languages because my familiarity with the both of them is equally "weak". I mean to say that I am at equal proximities of comfort (or discomfort) in using English, or Hindi (or my mother tongue). This incapability of being able to think coherently in one language, therefore express as beautifully as the people whom I read (mostly British, or American), whose first language is English (the language in which they think as well as express), shall probably make this post as insufficient. However, I am still going to go ahead and attempt articulating out my thoughts.

I feel almost overjoyed, like anyone else, to read something that has been expressed exactly in the way one's mind perceives a situation. To perceive a situation is necessarily abstract, and to express the reality of situation through the channel of language requires a mental effort of translation of thoughts into words. Translation will almost always be incapable of encapsulating the exact feeling of an idea that you want to convey to an audience. There will only be affinities, or likeness to what your mind actually thinks, with what you express through the medium of words. 

There are two issues I want to introduce with the idea of expression of thought. The first is to be able to articulate a thought in words, while the second is to be able to have a discourse around it. These two processes feed into each other. I am going to quickly contextualize these two claims for my purpose and this post. The context I am talking about is the world I come from - Here the notion of the "world" is to be understood as a space of "meaning" that a human being inhabits. This space of meaning is created by several vectors of people, places and the exposure of the reality opened through them. 

In this sense, my world would be constituted through my 28 years of interactions, exposures and dialogues with people, places and things around me. Now that I have very feebly described my context, I must give away the reasons that compelled me to turn to writing this out. I was in the process of reading a book which contemplates upon a subject that is very close to me not only academically, but also personally. The author is a well known theorist, Susan Sontag, writing broadly on the subject of "perception of images." I was almost struck by the clarity through which she articulates the confusion of interpreting images, and the ethical moral dilemmas of understanding any subject, in her writing. The phrase "clarity of confusion" may seem utterly paradoxical, but that is infact the reason that I chose to write this post. 

Coming largely from a society (world) that privileges clarity over confusion - be it family, school, everyday discussion, etc., the reading of the above text allowed me to believe in legitimizing my confusion. That confusion can be a productive process through which subjects can be explored, was hard to come to terms to in my world. I had to almost navigate my confusion on my own terms - be it academic, personal or professional. "Confusions" in my world were certainly not considered to be a motor force of life. Infact, one was always questioned: "Why are you so confused?" And there lies a double paradox in that question - firstly, that it often discards "confusion" as lack of focus or eventually a product of over-thinking, and secondly it attempts to erase it through bringing "clarity". Infact, "confusion" may be results of sharpening your focus to observe the details through which you confront the unknown, or they may be thought processes through which you may attempt to gain firmer control over a situation.

I began to become more confident with my confusions after my undergraduate thesis work (Cinema for the Blind) was nationally acknowledged. It gave me a chance to assert my confusions, and on bringing them out, I realized that perhaps the whole world was as confused,  they merely didn't want to talk about it. Rather, the whole world wants to evade the thought of "being confused" - since it may not conventionally be an attribute that may help you further your perceived goals in a society driven by social and moral codes of capitalism. (But at the same time, I must admit that unfortunately attuning to these social-moral codings become essential for survival.) 

My choice to enter academia was a choice chiseled through my confusion. It was the academia where I was able to engage with my confusion, although merely with my students. I met very few fellow teachers who embraced "confusion" as a driving part of the school I primarily taught in. This ceased to spur any discourses in the kind of questions I wanted to raise for the discipline of architecture - that relating to issues of images. Thus I come to my second point following on the expression of thought. Having spent four years struggling to discuss the questions of my interest in the field of architecture with anyone, the thoughts have only imploded within myself. Implosions are terrible because they manifest through languages that are sometimes unknown even to the author. In such situations, when important works come out, they almost feel authorless, anonymous. 

The accumulated implosions within my mind find words through the authors I read now, or the people whose classes I take at Yale - all that was unavailable to me back home. Imagine wanting to talk about an issue, yet having neither an appropriate 'language' nor an audience to get a feedback such that  you could develop your thought. I found discourse on my subject here. While attending to such discourses in lectures or books, the implosions manifest like internal tickles. I often unexpectedly smile wildly on agreement to a point a professor  makes in the classes I take, or feel to jump when I come across a reading that resonates with my thoughts - merely because they give legitimacy to my own thoughts hadn't been able to take legitimate expression. This brings more confidence to my confusions, and thus make me more clear with them.

Yet, I am not able to bring these confusions out as beautifully as those described by these wonderful authors. The reasons as I have explained - primarily because perhaps my vocabulary is limited to a sort-of-hybrid thinking (a mix of English-Hindi) that fragments my expression; and the other of not being able to talk about these things with anyone so as to expand, contemplate, think, broaden, bring forth and push the boundaries of thinking.

I was a bit worried today to think that this would be my last semester at Yale - or my last opportunity to closely interact with people who probably think like me - or whom I think like! But wasn't I "thinking" like thus even without them, back home? Wasn't then my thought original? Yes, it was, but only in thought. I could never express my ideas in written or verbally - maybe because of hesitation, because of lack of encouragement, or merely absence of a discursive space or loss of appropriate language tools. People I met here were able to overcome all of the above and transcribe their thoughts into words. I will not be completely wrong in believing that such expression would come more naturally and easily for people here for a host of reasons - for they think in the same language as their expression, for the availability of discursive space, for being in an advanced society that has the time and space to ponder over mind's confusion and therefore have a legitimate practice of contemplation...There are many more, but if I begin to list more, I may almost sound like I am blaming them, or myself for the pros and cons we have respectively. But i also know I am binarizing the two worlds here. It probably isn't a question of 'here' and 'there'!

But these are the worlds we occupy - quite different from each other. Although, what when the mind of one world suddenly begins to feel comfortable in the mind of another? However, we are talking only about the mental spaces of two worlds - we still live the world through our bodies, and what when the body wants to live a world different from that of the mind? I think most of us are split like thus today. I wonder if this split widens once I am back to my world, or shall it unite the mind and body? The answer shall never be easy neither immediate, but now is that a legitimate confusion?

First Experience of a Five Star Hotel

An edited portion from my master's thesis. The account recalls my first experience of a five star hotel environment. The writing acknowledges the assimilation of circulating images, ideas and cultures within the Indian built space. The thesis understands five star hotels as the means as well as product of such intensified circulation in the global world.

--

Five star hotels were always far fetched territories to experience within the city I lived in. As a simple middle class city dweller, I could not afford the luxuries of five star hotels. One of my first experiences of a five star hotel was when my to-be-brother-in-law invited us for a breakfast in one of the hotels he was staying in, while visitng our city for a business meeting. This was Tulip Star (?). Along with my sister, we chanced upon this opportunity of visiting the five star hotel. My interest was not as much in the breakfast, as much as a legitimate excuse to enter the confines of a five star hotel. I was more excited to find out if such spaces were as grand as their entrances. I was curious to find out what these fortress-like buildings contained within them. What existed behind these seemingly large, elusive backgrounds?

Most five star hotels within the city set themselves back from the main street frontages as much as possible. The entrance to them is highly curated, taking a person through trees, bushes and foliage that are framed through extremely large doors that already announce their grandeur. They almost harbour a sense of surprise that we may encounter leading through colonial classical pathways or driveways that take you to a “drop off” point covered generally by a huge canopy. These canopies are essentially as large to take about 5 rows of cars together, where escorts then take you and your vehicle over.

In such a setting, it almost seemed awkward to enter the premises of a five star hotel to merely visit it, since neither did we own a car, not could anyone amongst us drive. (There were no rent-a-car systems in cities either, and borrowing a car from a friend was pointless given our incapability to drive). We simply took an auto rickshaw to visit the place thus, in our best possible attires. Shoes, it seemed, were an important element of the dress code (not flip-flops or sandals, that are typical to the tropics). Naturally then, formal outfits to suit the shoes became obligatory.

Within the hotel, everything was double or even quadruple the size of a typical setting. The staircases hovered within such grand volumes connecting levels containing different activities, and were coupled with escalators. There were water fountains and even plants as large as trees inside the halls. I wondered if they were real or fake. Reading some directions, we arrived at the information counter and spoke to the receptionist to communicate our arrival to our guest, who was also the host. At the reception, we were greeted by a young lady – wearing semi-western clothes. She looked unnaturally fair, and the make up on her face was evident. “Good Morning, How may I help you?” she spoke in English. Although my sister communicated on behalf of us, it was one of the first times that I felt my English medium education would get put to use thus! It secretly pumped my ego.

The receptionist made a call to the room through the intercom, and asked us to wait, pointing us to the lobby. We promptly moved to a family-style seating arrangement with extremely comfortable sofas. Thinking back, these sofas opened up our otherwise contracting bodies – we stretched our arms to rest them on their arm-rests. Although the seating made us face each other, our gazes were distracted – we looked all around us – noticing the height, volume and space of the surroundings. All of us carefully looked at the minute details of furniture, lighting, cushions and the fountains that lay around. Foreign magazines from different countries were placed on the table. The plants were definitely not Indian – orchids, and exotic flowers were carefully placed within containers that adorned the interiors. Seemingly expensive artworks hung on the walls.

We were soon greeted by our guest and taken to a large breakfast hall. The arrangement was a buffet style organization where one could pick a plate and choose one’s breakfast – certainly quite contrary to what one would have at home – one kind of dish in everyone’s plate; or in a small restaurant – where a couple of items would be ordered and shared. The buffet style made our choices highly individualized. Here, there were choices ranging from various types of milk to breads from different continents. There was butter, cheeses, sprouts, fruits from different continents, along with Indian snacks. In another section, were hybrids: French samosas, American sandwiches, Mexican burgers, Italian idlis, cocktails, and so on...

We had to constantly keep on reading up the names of cuisines and their ingredients to make sure that we weren’t picking up anything non-vegetarian (we being vegetarians). By the end of our rounds, all of us had different things on our plates, nevertheless with some safe choices like bread and butter with mixed-fruit jams! Over the table, we discussed our impressions of each of our dishes, speculating the proportion and mix of ingredients, tastes and textures as well as the way in which they were made. We did multiple rounds of the buffet to experiment with cross-suggestions based on everyone else’s opinions on the various items on the menu. It was almost afternoon by the time we finished our breakfast. “I will have to skip my lunch now” I said. “That’s why it’s called brunch,” my sister informed. I learnt a new word, rather a new concept – that which is in-between breakfast and lunch, morning and afternoon, and perhaps also the East and the West?

--

I was too young then. I believed that one could only enjoy the conveniences of a five star hotel if one is living there. That the hotels within the five stars were open to cater to the public, and anyone with spending potential could access them did not occur to me. However, as I grew up, five star hotels opened themselves up to the public in more ways than above. 

Of Unknown Imagic Realities 4

When I entered the room, I saw my mother was bathing a tiger-head in milk. I was surprised, shocked and tried questioning my mother. The act was almost ritualisitic, as if she was worshipping the tiger. On a closer observation, I realized that it was just the head, there was no body. The Head rested in a steel bowl (like a Shiva lingam which I usually used to worship back home), on which she kept pouring milk. She merely smiled and continued to perform this ritual.
--

We were driving in a car on a very steep hill. It must almost be a slope of 75 degrees and I constantly feared if we would fall back. The ride was really dangerous since it demanded a lot of control and I wondered how the driver managed it. We passed through residential neighbourhoods laid on this slope, and for some reason, my mind wants to believe that we were in Delhi, or the hill was in Delhi. We finally reach up and park  the car besides a temple. I am relieved to get off the car. As I go inside the temple, I see my maternal grandfather (deceased) sitting as the priest to this Shiva temple. He doesnot talk to me, but quietly continues to worship the diety. The temple is small, dark and simple. Things are quiet and there is no dialogue. I look at him, but he perhaps doesnot. I know him, but he doesnot convince me that he knows me. Our relationship was non existent. The setting seemed to draw attention to the act of worship, while my mind kept be distracted with observing everything else.
--

Texas Trip

The post can be found here

and fun stuff here:

And other sounds:

https://soundcloud.com/anuj-daga/banana-pancake

Days of our Lives / Thoughts

Someday you are going to give yourself to somebody who makes those kinds of (lonely) feelings disappear; the way the rest of us just can't do for you.

grandmother to her grandson Will in 'Days of our Lives' on his hard-to-articulate feelings over his life.

--

What do you think would happen if we were all happy at the same time?

--

On Sexism

After reading this post on 'Sexism at Mood Indigo,' I thought I must add my bit too - something that I have discussed with one of my friends here. Luckily she is a girl, and was completely in tandem with the arguments I had. There is no doubt that most of us in India are horribly sexist. To my understanding, 'sexist' would be someone who discriminates on the basis of sex. Historically, men are understood to be sexists.One of the definitions I found is that a sexist is "a man with a chauvinistic belief in the inferiority of women." There is no argument that 'men' are more prone to be sexists, and the article I refer to in the beginning confirms that.

Several personal circumstances that have taken place over the last one year have compelled me to jot this down finally. First and foremost has been my own cross-cultural encounter with the US, which made me realize the probable shades of sexism within my own self. I am not sure if my thoughts too had strands of sexism before coming here. I want to wrestle here that such thoughts are not as much to do with a modern education, but a particular social & cultural upbringing and a social mode of thinking. The Indian society predominantly thinks in terms of gender roles, which not only conflict with the basic ideas of humanism, but can also be extremely condescending to people in general.

I was first faced with such a situation when leading a class on Urbanism at Yale. In this session I happened to discuss with students that there was no reason to think of 'house-wives' as 'non-contributors' to the society at large, and I believed that home makers played an important social role. My comment was seriously misunderstood by some students, thinking of me to be sexist. All I genuinely attempted to question was the capitalistic undertones of the idea of "contribution". I meant to provoke the default condition that makes us read the idea of 'contribution to the society' primarily as 'economic'. (I was thinking in terms of the Foucault-ian reasoning why mad men, crippled, diseased, handicapped people were historically segregated from the society essentially because they could not contribute to the capitalistic production). In my claim that "house-wives were as important for societal balance," I was being misread as "Women must take on positively to domestic roles." However, I had no intention to suggest the latter. Rather, I wanted to assert that "home-making" itself was scientific, methodical and a logical practice that was not recognized, as much as the professional's role.

But that was my first brush with being slap-tagged as a 'sexist'. I have become more sensitive to discussions since then. Especially in a place like Yale (read" most educated, liberal and elite free thinking confident individuals in the USA), you better not leave any room for the slightest of mis-communication. In the above case, perhaps I was trapped in my own attempt to come out as non-sexist. I was talking through a culture I was raised in, trying to overturn those ideas in another culture that had long bygone those issues. As much as I apologize to the student who reviewed me as 'sexist' in the evaluation, I also thank that person for making me aware of my unintended sexist undertone.

This cross cultural experience has lead to the second serious reading on sexism that exists back home. The subconscious way in which sexism operates in our society can be understood through daily conversations that are exchanged over several interfaces. Recently, emails, sms-es, facebook or messenger services have allowed us to tap into people's mental thought structures. I want to merely make a mention of an ongoing archive that remains a strong proof of the deep-throat sexism that exists within many of us.

My family members began a messenger group over a mobile app to keep connected to people scattered in different places. The group contains individuals young and old, males and females, married and unmarried, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters-in-law - all kinds of relations who have access to this application and are willing to indulge in periodical 'non-sense' as a means of staying in touch. This kind of an interface has brought into communication distant cousins who hardly spoke to each other, different groups (brother-sister; brother-in-law -- sister-in-law; even husband and wife) into unexpected conversations.The group shares several messages, greetings, conversations and birthday / anniversary notifications. The bulk of these messages however contain jokes, quotations and wacky one liners on a range of subjects. Since the group predominantly contains both members of married couples (who otherwise do not talk face to face in a traditional Indian family setup) and those who are soon going to get married, there is a high traffic of gendered jokes. The volume of husband-wife jokes is the highest in the group. I want to take merely one random example from the group for close analysis. (Needless to say that there are hundreds of laments, pictures, jokes, comments that fill up this messenger-group-archive).

////
From "D*******s" group on Whatsapp:

A female married member posts:

"Hritik Roshan and his wife Sussane have decided to separate.
Moral: Even a superhero like Krrish cannot handle a Wife"*

*(Hritik Roshan is a famous actor in the Hindi film industry who plays the character of a super hero in a film "Krrish"; and recently may have decided to split with his real-life wife Sussane for some personal reasons)

A male married member responds in 3 emoticons:
(a thumb - meaning 'best', the three fingers - indicating 'super', and a namashkar sign - perhaps suggesting 'resignation' to the 'wife')

The original female married member:
posts back 3 emoticons of 'laughter with tears in eyes.'

////

In the above example, note that a joke that originally seems to be a male prerogative thought, has been posted by a female. The joke talks about an Indian film actor who plays a 'superhero' in a film called Krissh, and mixes this fictional account with a real-life tragedy of splitting with his real wife. The joke interprets the split-up as a decision of the male (the truth of which is not known), and imposes certain stereotypical ideas about the wife on its readers. In addition, the actor (read 'hero'), playing a superhero against a non-filmy wife polarizes gender equation. A lot can be said about this skewed construction (I have a problem with such jokes anyway, and will leave it since it is in the nature of a joke to skew facts).

What remains striking to me is the decision for a female to post it on the group. To me, this suggests an internalized condition of self-activated-suppression. The wife, who is assumed to be 'powerless' in the joke-content in the first place gets the status of being 'powerful'. Remember that in 'applauding' over the 'joke', the married male respondent doesnot submit to the 'power' of the wife that is caricatured as 'unhandlable', but rather encourages the woman to believe in a fabricated truth - that is her powerlessness. The subsequent comment by the female knowingly or unknowingly rejoices this powerlessness, in the process of enjoying the joke. In simple words, the woman-respondent, who is also a wife, has happily made a joke of herself, and the other male, who also is a husband to another woman, further reinforces this powerless position of the woman.

On a personal front, I despise husband-wife jokes. They are not only existent in these messenger forums, but all over the popular Indian television shows, comedy shows, soaps, social networking websites, etc. To take another quick example, my brother and mother highly recommended me to look at recent episodes of "Comedy Circus", a stand-up comedy show aired on TV channel in India. Out of boredom, and strange "suggested watching" on my list from YouTube, I looked up a trail of them. I was extremely annoyed after watching 3 of these acts - all anchored around husband-wife jokes. I believe that comments and jokes that become abundantly available through such media like stated above, quite quickly and subconsciously become an active part of self-imagination through which gender roles are not only confirmed, but also stereotyped and denigrated. In other words, they trigger a strong undercurrent of sexist thought.

Not only this, today, the imagination of a husband-wife relationship also thus comes with a set of presumed biases. What makes the young, educated, seemingly liberal newly married men to blanket-ly categorize their wives as spendthrift, quacky, bitchy, demanding, irrational, and so on? Note that these values of the 'wife' and 'woman' soon become interchangeable as a part of not only male, but also female imagination. How many men ever sincerely think, or even like to think that their wives may not, in reality, confirm to such stereotypes? What I may seem to be missing is that we are seriously discussing a 'joke' - but what I want to suggest is that in a 'joke' likes some of the most serious preconceptions of a society.

And even if men do think their wives represent in totality what the jokes represent, aren't they aligning to the scripts that have been injected into the society by media? In that case, are they merely putting up to such jokes so that they have something to blabber in social gatherings? Now how constructive is that? I have hardly seen any one who stands up against such stupid stereotypical behaviours that sometimes are far away from reality.

Unfortunately, as much as we escape this fact, our societal mode of thought is deeply influenced by popular thought to an extent that it has become a part of us. We have subconsciously begun to imagine ourselves through popular jocund discourses like comedies, jokes, laments that constantly put down nuanced gendered behaviours and keep strengthening sexism in our thinking.

In my past 18 months in the US, I have not come across even a single joke making fun of a serious relationship like marriage, or even judging someone based on their sex or gendered behaviour. And that doesnot mean that there is not other content for jokes in this society. Humour here in the USA is much more evolved and goes beyond narrow sexist ideas, at large. Atleast around Yale (which I use as the lens for understanding of a modern, advanced society), making judgement on any one's any personal trait is almost offensive. It is commonly agreed that people inherit physical personalities and no one has the right to comment about any one's physical personal traits, as much as their private lives. There have been several instances where I have been sensitized about such things - and I have come to learn a lot about myself, or things like 'sexist' comments that we almost take for granted in our culture.

--
Yes, this is one of those instances where you can rightly say I have overanalyzed.
But sincerely, there is a kernel of truth in there!

Last Edited: 3rd Jan 2014

Fire

Last Spring when I was taking a course called "World Cinema" in the film studies department at Yale, I was told by an old lady, who auditing the class, to watch "Fire" - a film by Deepa Mehta that was banned the screening of which was stopped across theatres in India, but an original copy of which could be secured from the Yale Film Study Center. When I got a chance to attend the screening of this film a few days ago, I made sure not to miss it. "Fire" is a part of the trilogy - by the Deepa Mehta, who as I have heard, originally planned to make a film on each of the five elements that make up our world. Thus we have "Earth", "Water" and "Fire" - without the other two.

To begin with, how do we understand "fire" or the need for fire? What is 'fire' and how do we relate to it? Why is the movie named 'Fire'? If someone wasn't told about the content of the film in advance, what would their conceptions on the idea of 'fire' be? The connections become more contextual and relevant for the film when looked into the discovery of fire. For example, forest fire is the most evident method in which man must have discovered fire. Forest fires are caused due to the rubbing of tree trunks in wild winds, that produce enough friction to burn the trees into flames. Similarly, igniting fire by striking flint stones with each other during the stone age has known to be another way of sparking fire. The rubbing of two bodies, in essence, produces fire, heat, energy - the producer of life, and something that (in the Hindu tradition) ends it too.

Fire, to me, represents this oscillation between life and death. Fire symbolizes the desire for life. Fire is a story of the struggle for desires of the body.

Sita (Nandita Das) and Radha (Shabana Azmi) meet each other after Radha is married to Jatin (Javed Jaffrey). Jatin is a young man in love with another woman of Asian origin, and continues to see her after his marriage. This is not hidden to the family, consisting of an elder brother Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and Jatin's sister-in-law Radha, along with a grandmother who is paralytic, and thus can not speak. The elders in the family force the marriage onto Jatin who wants to be in a 'live-in' relationship with his girlfriend - rather they do not wish to commit to a marriage. The family sees this as a dubious relationship and eventually arrange Jatin to marry Sita. Young Jatin commits the marriage to put an end to the constant nagging from the family.

Jatin & Sita's marriage sees a hard and ruthless consummation with little/no consideration by Jatin for Sita's emotional or physical feelings. With first time into this 'fire,' Sita goes through a painful experience that she is unable to express to anyone. Where on one hand, she is not able to discuss this with her family, on the other hand she is almost on the verge of depression. She misses home, but at the same time, stuck by her relationship vows. This makes her extremely lonely and unsure about how to consolidate her inner feelings.

On the other hand, Ashok has given up his sexual desires for Radha, since she cannot conceive his child. This suggestion comes from a religious pandit he believes in, who convinces Ashok to give up all kinds of physical cravings that would help him to attain spiritual satisfaction. In practicing this, he occasionally asks his wife to lay beside her on several nights, but himself lays motionless practicing control over his own desires. This ritualistic denial of engagement in any sexual activity over the past 13 years has left Radha extremely depressed and alone.

Thus, both Sita and Radha are burning in their unsatisfied desires. They are limited to mere household or work chores like taking care of the paralytic grandmother, or working at the home-run hotel that the family maintains. There is no room for fulfilling the inner physical cravings that both develop. Their frustration keeps growing with no means to end, until one evening, when they are bonded together by their own grief that finds an outlet through a physical encounter between each other. This unexpected, but extremely essential encounter that fulfils their bodily craving ignites a new fire which they explore further.

Sita and Radha have finally found companionship, more importantly, themselves. They have found a new happiness, and a way to come out of their depressed (and repressed) lives. They start enjoying their work, without relying on their husbands who are busy celebrating their alternately chosen sexual journeys. The growing attraction between Sita and Radha is noticed by the house servant, who is himself taking advantage of the quiet situation at home, in watching borrowed pornography from Jatin's video parlour, in front of the mute paralytic grandmother. The house servant attempts to blackmail Radha when he is caught while watching obscene films at home by her.

Sita and Radha want to get rid of him to erase any future conflicts or evidences about their relationship, but eventually the Ashok witnesses the fire between the two one evening.

Sita and Radha go in a state of contemplation and raise very important questions that lie at the crux of the film. Radha offers Sita with enough support and courage to get her out of her unsatisfying heterosexual relationship so that they can live together. Eventually, Radha finds a way to escape and pursue a new life with Sita.

The film brings up important questions about sexuality and gender through multiple motifs that are layered over this basic story structure. The narrative of Ramayana that runs throughout the film in which cross-dressed tamasha players recite quotes from the epic are the most compelling. This ancient story telling form where men cross-dress as women not only convey a historical fact, but also a message that strengthens the issues of 'gender' and 'identity' that the film raises. This is evident in the role-playing of Sita in the film, who finds interest in dressing up in a man's attire - which makes her feel liberated and free.

Secondly, the conscious play on 'Sita' - enacted by Radha who is the central, feminine character of the film, as well as the victimized Sita of Ramayana make a compelling comparison. The agni-pariksha that the Sita in Ramayana is made to pass through becomes the motif of two important metaphors for the film. Firstly, it questions the unfair claims of Lord Rama (the assumed-ly righteous, male) in asking Sita to prove her innocence and truth after her return from the evil Ravana's captivity in Lanka. It attempts to debase the authority of the male, or the forever privileged patriarchy. Secondly, it also portrays the fire of desire Radha (a caricature of Ramayan's Sita) struggles through in the film. These metaphors are united through the scene where Radha is shown to escape from the house in the burning saree by the last scene, eventually uniting with Sita.

Thus the film brings about the multiple themes that justify its title. It paints a picture of the several shades of sexual desires that play out in different ways. In each, it questions our notions of moralities, ethics and ideas about relationships. It brings us close to understand queerness. It is a film that provokes people, yet in an absolutely non-obscene way. The film doesnot portray any profanity, except one scene, which seemed to have been quite aesthetically shot - to mean that it doesnot objectify the female body.

It is almost unfortunate that the film fell into controversial pangs to be available to us to watch in our own country. Fire is an intelligent film - it talks about a subject worth considering seriously.

Knowing the World

These days I remain split between whether I should write (my experiences here on my blog) or whether I must read (articles to enrich my understanding of the world at large). For some time, I was wondering if I had run out of things to write about? However, it's not that I don't have any thing to write, rather I tend to think if the same time was invested in reading (for example the world news, books, novels, academic texts, etc.), would my view of the world be different? It ofcourse will be. But do I want to affect my view of the world through these mediations? This is a hard one to resolve.

I took two courses this semester - one on media theory and the other on globalization space - both taught by important theorists within their domain (Francesco Casetti and Keller Easterling, respectively). Through the Theory of Media course, I have come to understand further how media is 'scripting' our lives. In simpler terms, we start imagining the world in terms of media, in forms of media. Thus the medium becomes the message! Too simplistically put here, but I will not dwell on this idea here, rather go back to my questions I raised before!

The other one "globalization space" got me introduced to so much that is happening around me. There is so much happening around the world that would probably interest me. If I was a traveler, I would go mad absorbing all the information that was coming in front of my eyes and into my brain. But the unfamiliarity to all of it is what made be a bit nervous about myself. Today, as all the students taking the course (who came from different parts of the world and studying different disciplines at Yale) presented their observations in the form of a Pecha Kucha presentation, I found it a bit difficult to understand, rather contextualize much of the information that was displayed. They spoke about concerns from their own homelands - all related to globalization. It was hard for me to absorb the material. Not that I could not have grasped, but it was hard to put them in the already formed large categories in my head. For a moment, I wondered if this must be attributed to my lack of general knowledge about the world.

To talk in my favour to some extent, I do look the format as a hurdle. The content presented in 15 slides scrolling each for 15 seconds with a densely packed background commentary is hard to digest in the duration of 3 minutes. I wonder if it was the as difficult for others in the audience. For that matter, I can not understand any thing that I do not spend sufficient time with. I am anyway not so good at small talk, and I can not talk about things merely on their surface. I have a compulsive habit of either getting to the root of the discussion, or just leaving it there, untouched.

Thus my experience of this Pecha Kucha for the class was a mixed one. I would have loved to know more about a lot of the presentation contents, but now, I remain at the risk of forgetting all of them since I could not penetrate them further beyond the screen shots that lasted for 15 seconds! Such unrest made me dig into the Times of India online immediately after I came back to my desk after the session. I looked up headlines on Mumbai Mirror, Rediff and so on to perhaps try and make myself upto date with my own hometown, or country. Ironically, no news fascinated me. this was largely because I could not place them in their own histories (which is also supposed to be mine), and secondly because I could not relate them to my own personal history, of how they affect me!

I am certain they do intersect in some way. It was evident when  I clicked by the small converter within the online newspaper website: "Find out how much is 100 rupees in US dollars today?" I was captivated, and  got pulled into it instantly, at once realizing the importance of world economic dynamics and the way it affected my own journey. But I still can not fathom the amount of information existing in the world. Some people are extremely good at accumulating a gist of everything around themselves. I wonder if they are living scripted lives (imbricated by the media!)? Many people are well traveled, many of them are well read, many are further informed by the media they have consumed. I seem to be lacking on all fronts, yet trying to find my confidence in my own limited view of the world!

How relevant is it then, to know the world? Or how do we make it relevant? Or rather, do we try to make everything relevant to us once we have consumed it, only because we have consumed it? It is human nature to force connections into whatever is there in our heads. We connect all dots, like we make constellations out of starts that are so distant from each other in the void of the sky! We connect everything, such that it becomes meaningful to us. Meaning thus, is constructed out of relationships to other things happening around us. In other words, meaning is merely a relative act of understanding. Yet, meaning is so important to exist. But can meaning be self-referential? Can the orientation of meaning be inside-out rather than outside-in? To word it simply, does the world become what we make of it, or do we become what the world wants us to be?

I know these are hard questions. We construct our lives within the dialectic of this 'inside' and 'outside'. But this is an interesting contradiction between the two courses I took this semester, rather I must say courses through which I look at life. Media and the global - as much as they split each other, they also bind. As much as they set apart, they bring the places close.

Probably this will be a lifelong struggle. I can never make up my mind about "how much one should know?" Aren't the definitions of "intelligence", "wise", "smart" - in other words, all socially acceptable, morally positive codes of behaviour scripted within that question? Sometimes I feel more knowledge makes us dumb, since it makes us behave in a more and more scripted behaviour. Scripted behaviour, to understand simply, is a behaviour that is not natural to you or your bodily existence - it is something that the world wants you to behave like!

I think the American short answer to this question would be: "F*** the world!"

Let's accept it for the time being.

Second Birthday in Yale

At 12 am, they sneaked into the main door of my building - I don't know how? They all tried to fool me saying that Mitalee, who was at my home some time ago, stole the key to my apartment - something I fell for initially, but later just didnot make sense - it was lying exactly where it was supposed to be (and also I dropped Mitalee to the shuttle that came to pick her up, after which I couldn't have entered my house back without keys in my hand!). However, they left the answer lingering. Banging, clanging my door at night, Shashi, Anwar, Mitalee, Mansi and Keerthi surprised me on my birthday!

"Dhokla kahaan hai?" everyone squeaked immediately! I had invited them earlier that day since I had made dhoklas that turned out to be awesome - Mitalee had her share of it! Mansi escaped out in the end saying she had too much work to complete. Others hadn't replied. Clearly they were planning to surprise. So as soon as they arrived, I had to rush into the kitchen to make the dhoklas for them - 12.15 am at night! While i prepared for them, they prepared for me...Tiramitsu that they had got! While I mixed and prepared my makeshift "contraption" for steaming the dhoklas in the pan, they were ready with the candles dotting a smiley on the sweet they had got!

While the dhoklas steamed for 15 minutes, I celebrated my birthday! With one tiramitsu over my face, Mansi saved one out of the remaining 4 (before others finished it) for me! The dhoklas were almost ready until I washed my face off the cream...Mansi gave the lovely sponge a cut over which I poured the sugared tadka! And eventually it was ready to eat. I relished the tiramitsu as much as they liked the dhokla! Then I slept!

The day was bright and happy. Sun was out in the clear sky and it wasn't freezing to death. The air had a resonance which kept me lifted!

My phone was undergoing a cathartic experience. Messages simultaneously from Facebook, Gmail, Skype, Whatsapp and phone-calls were jamming my phone time and again. I think every possible application was busy delivering me birthday wishes. I restarted my phone multiple times to relieve it of its diarrhoea. I wonder how much microwave that the device purged, made way into my body yesterday!

In the evening, my program mate Brent gave me a lovely little drawing for my birthday - something that I had asked him for long time ago. It was a post-it-size sketch of the Rudolph Hall - beautifully rendered. Later that evening, I decided to craft a wood-project in the workshop - a phone stand for resting my phone over video calls. The project didnot turn out as I expected it to be, and I gave up too soon, since I had a session to attend (the PhD Dialogue, seminar series). The Dialogues were too intellectual, and I merely enjoyed the illustrations and debates that went on in the room.

Later that evening I went to attend a concert in which my friend Reena's composition (who is pursuing her PhD at the Yale school of Music) was going to take place. I thoroughly enjoyed her composition. I came home and prepared some quick food. Decided to go to bed early after the late night surprise the earlier day.

This morning, as I reached my studio, two things happened: I received an autographed catalogue from Barry Bergdoll (former chief curator, MOMA, Architecture & Design Dept), something I had left at MoMA for him to sign. Secondly, Brent had corrected the wood work of my project and kept a nicely chiseled phone-stand on my table. It look perfect!

And thus, everything around the birthday seemed perfect. The pleasant weather continues meanwhile.

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Thank you all for making this day special!

And meanwhile - I still wonder how these people got into my house :P