#India'sDaughter...? But Seriously, you gotta be kidding!

A lot of debate and shouting war is currently going on about Leslee Udlee's India's Daughter. I have watched it and I beg to differ in my own way. I do not care to explain.

Anyway, a lot of hashtags are trending all over the social media. Everybody who is anybody and think they're anointed to have an opinion is spewing forth their two naya paisa (why always cents?!) worth of thoughts on a BBC filmmaker's interview with a rapist.

While on this subject... let me digress a bit. There's a play called DOWN THE ROAD. We did a little teaser of this about three-four year's back at the Allaince Francaise, Chennai. It deals with similar subject. At that time it was just a teaser as part of three little teasers we put up on World Theater Day celebs. This year too, the next line of Masquerade is coming up with it, except with a different intent. Now this play can seriously connect with the issue of India's Daughters and Rapists (!). Keep watching these pages for info on the What Time and Where of the show. It's on 27 March, World Theater Day, in Chennai.

Let's get back on track:

Is it worth the public's precious life's time? (Sounds like bad syntax? Not really. Question of nuance.) Anyway. Why is the government so paranoid about our nation's image, which we lost the moment the rape in question happened? Why in the first place have we, in the name of 'free and fair trail' and a 'criminal justice system' that strives to uphold the concept of the true spirit of democracy, even harbour and put up the rapists in jail? (I really loved what the mob did in Dimapur, just for a moment, though I do not really advocate wild justice) Why do we even need to play up in front of the watching eyes of the world that pretends to protest, but turns a blind eye to Israel, Iran, Syria and the US of A for all the injustices they commit on a daily or even hourly basis, and do not even bat an eyelid to the cribbings of the UN and umpteen amnesties and human rights ngos? Why should we care about what the world really thinks? I sometimes think we do not ever need watchdogs from outside, we have enough mongrels and curs inside, who go by the name of political outfits (should I say misfits?), who all callously work with the single-minded devotion of appealing to the vote banks! And we are at this rate going to have to allocate a national annual budget for maintenance of deathrow convicts and life-sentence rapists under trail. We wasted enough on Afzal Guru, we wasted enough on Kasab, we wasted enough and keep wasting enough on a lot of idiots.

The point is: Is it the rapist's mind we are discussing or is it a deep-rooted sense of malaise which we are acknowledging by trying to wish it away under the proverbial carpet? As Rushdie would call it, 'the lucky star is done a bunk,' so let's sweep it under the carpet!

There was this idiotic-to-no-end debate (exorcism, if you want to call it otherwise) on NDTV the night when parallely Arnab Goswami was crooning his best about the unethical nature of some journos (not him ever, boy!). It featured Aparna Sen (for whom I sometimes have the highest regards). People - young and old - were yodelling their throats away about how since Draupadi's time to Nirbhaya's time our mindset has been sicklied o'er; how the machisimo or masculinity has warped the freedom of women and clothing; how whatnots and whatelsenots are the cornerstone of male chauvinistic bastion!

Poor ignorant me is sitting here rhetorically wondering: so what do we want to do about it? Every time someone comes along kicking muck up, we all get excited about theorising, debating, politicising, moralising, hypothetising, a-lot-more-ising, posturing... to kingdom come.  Like the mothership has opened its hatch and all the Red-jacketed Martians are whisking our thoughts away in a nano-second if we don't keep -ising non-stop. OK. The malaise is deep-rooted, yes. Let's accept it, let's face it. OK. We've accepted it. We've outted ourselves off the closet of chauvinism. Now what? Do we take the Truth and Reconciliation path to purge the guilts of the past? to wash away the chauvinistic sins of days bygone? we just ungarland the albotross off our necks? So we can start tomorrow anew and start thinking rapes won't or don't happen? that people won't have postergirls, however demystified of carnal thoughts? or women would stop dreaming of six pack ad-models and filmy heroes? See. There. Is. The. Rub.

See. The rub is in another closet. For too long, the body itself has been looked at as something to be not talked about except in the concept of muscular men (valour) and lovely ladies (glamour) in public context... or as a reproductive User Interface in the private context of marital coitus in darkened rooms. We do not attach the right importance to body. According to western frame of mind. The truth is, we're trying to apply western liberal notions to a different cultural context without being prepared to absolutely uncompromisingly be bodily. How many of these non-machisimo, non-chauvinistic, liberated, bra-burning, equal-opportunity minded men and women have completely, totally, absolutely exorcised their own sexual devils away? Can anyone ever approach bodies in a complete asexual manner? Has anyone ever done that? Between the white and the black, there are sooo many shades of grey that various minds get excited variously from the white end of purity to the black end of perversity. Every every culture in the world has these men. It is only relative. Who is to spell judgement upon whom? We are all subjective and conveniently so! Where do we begin? What do we want? What can we do? How far are we 'all' willing to go? Who is willing to lead this change all the way through? Where exactly will this end or do we want this to end?

We want to show the body. We want to glamourise, glorify, sensualise and eroticise the body - men's and women's - but we want to keep the badness suppressed? Can we? Could we? Are we sure we're not going to drool at Deepika or Hrithik when they flaunt their bodies? Metaphorically speaking. How is this different? Is it ok for someone to do things in their mind (like in 8mm in the court scene)? Oh... but we're not hurting anyone physically! (I hear you. I agree.) But again, the act is in the mind. In the psyche. In the collective consciousness of the world. Not just India or Brazil or Shanty Town or other (in the developed world's eyes) squalid places. The fact is, every single one of us are (for lack of other better word) 'perverse' in our thoughts. If not, why else do so many millions of copies of Fifty Shades of BDSM being sold? We are all perverse in our thoughts at one time or other. In each other's perspective. We only call ourselves civilised, we're still animals, 'social' or not. And in the jungle, there are herbivores, parasites and predators. So is it in society. So, who is going to bell the cat? What is the bell? What is it a metaphor for? Is it like the Emperor's invisible clothes? Is there anyone out there with a workable answer instead of a lot of cackles of protest? Answer, please!

ANSWER!

Until then, spare your voices. I am, as Kafka Sr. says in Alan Benett's Kafka's Dick, sick to my scrotum. By the way, why do we constantly keep encouraging these Britishers? We still have a strong colonial hangover, don't we? Why blame them barmies? Slumdogs that we are and Billionaires that they are! Pfffft!!

The RIGHT side of SAFFRON and the LEFT side of RED

Everything, it seems, is a question of hysteria, conversion and expediency. Does it naturally follow we are talking India: be it Cricket, Culture, Politics, Religion, Entertainment! The mandate - I thought long and hard - is not in favour of UPA or Congress or against BJP as people are led to think. The mandate is in favour of the ability of any person who is projected as an icon and possessing the ability to sway people's emotion than intellect. Example: Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Mamata Bannerjee... the list is long but not endless, because there are also failed icons and cheats. The example of former being L.K.Advani and the latter being P.Chidambaram. 22 Recounts? They recounted until the counting minds and hands tired and gave up, knowing Chidu's will to retain the constituency is stronger than the will of the others to gain. Power Play is the game of those who are afraid of losing, not hate losing. Look at what happened in the Sivaganga constituency. I am sure there is a scenario that transpired yesterday in Sivaganga that is similar to what happened in Florida in the year Cousin Bush recounted and won. So... 

In the middle of all this, the LEFT finds itself in a mess. Lalu issues a statement obviously repenting the wisdom of non-pre-poll alliance. Expelled speaker Somnath Chatterjee conveniently blaming Prakash Karat. UPA believing that they are more secular than others and hence they won! BJP claiming that there was oil all over the body but not on the mustache enough for dirt to stick on it: "Oh! But look at the seven states where we have done well!" 

The sum total of inability to convert the figures to form government is higher in ineptitude than the parts that constitute a whole new political dharma, dear Jaitley. It seems more than anyone else, the Fourth Estate, especially the TV News channels seem more bent on using the fall of BJP and the LEFT to their TRP best by vilifying the former and mourning the latter as though they finally moved Lenin from Dzherzinsky Square to the inner precincts of some seedy museum. Axes continue to fall through the press on figure heads who deem themselves culpably responsible for the fall of their bastions. In this context, I think, Mr. Advani must be either the most qualified drama person or the most naive politician. He says he wants to quit. He reminds me of the Soccer team managers who are either axed or take moral responsibility and quit because their side lost. Is he so naive to believe that he could have made the party's march to Parliament happen were others not to be there? He did realise years back that he was not as charismatic as Atal-ji. Barely had he said he wants to own moral responsibiity and quit, the idiomatic lip-service that he should not quit rose inside the party; but in just over three hours it died at the same speed it rose with and now they are already clamouring among themselves, WHO NEXT - You or me? 

The trouble with all those who are magnetic enough but not charismatic is that they lack that extra moderation. Atal-ji never did anything that was politically flamboyant. Manmohan never has either. Sonia doesn't too. The ability of a leader in India to retain the mass hysteria to their side, today, comprises of a certain quality to be in the middle and yet not get emotional. In some cases the lack of emotions or intelligence can also be helpful, which leads us to the burial of Left. 

More than anything else that happened in Elections 2009, it is not the so-called end of Advani that will be remembered, but people's faith in democracy and the eradication of superstitious belief that socialism can exist in India in the garb of communism.

Communism calls itself a rational and social way out of religious beliefs that generate superstitions and lack of thinking as well as gives rise to capitalistic inequality. Accepted, the commies have their right to whatever they want to think. After all, we believe in Freedom of Speech and Thought. Have people forgotten the old axiom that anything that is an "ism" is not very different from religion! They also seem to have not taken notice of the fact that since the liberalisation era India has been inexorably catapulting and inevitably spiralling downwards towards the nadir of a free market economy that would lead its Dow Jones and Hang Seng listings ultimately towards its own little share in the global meltdown of economy when it would happen. We may today say proudly that India was not as affected as other and developed nations. The lesser the share the less the damage, but... it did, didn't it not? 

We do live among a generation that believes in everything being material and everything is there to be questioned. More suicides and more harassments and more ills than positives. The other day I had an argument with someone about how there are more unhappy people in the current generation than ever. He said that statistically there are more happy people. It also statistically means that the population has increased several fold over a period faster than rabbits fornicate and profligate and populate! When the number of happy people increase, the number of unhappy people also increase by that same logic that where there are more people being born there are also more people dying, if you go by number theory; and where number theory comes into play, capitalism sooner than latter overhauls any other belief because it becomes the Right of the Might and not the Might of the Righteous. 

This is where Communism and Communist parties got it wrong. They thought that they had the UPA by its proverbial balls during their last reign. The Left blackmailed UPA with its one-point agenda of "NO to Nuke Deal" if it is from US! The UPA strongly proved them wrong. 

It looked, from the LEFT angle, only for a while. After all, the elections were round the corner and there's enough sluice gates that could be damaged across the country. Then again, the LEFT has not delivered to the people what the capitalists have not either. I strongly think the one single favour the Indian voters did to themselves in this election is that they threw the Left; but are they finally and totally out or just bloody and broken, not yet battered and defeated? The coming days would prove that. 

One thing is certain: Life is not that bad on the RIGHT SIDE OF SAFFRON as they still are the only other national party and they do have the best single majority this side of Congress and hence shall continue their seat-warming on the bridesmaid side. They have been the best Opposition party in the history of our 60 plus year old democracy and we need them in the opposition. If they are good enough to do positive developmental contribution economically and politically in their respective areas, there is no reason why they cannot have a better cheer next time around. Their statement that they are willing to be a constructive opposition seems earnest for the moment... unlike THE LEFT SIDE OF RED who are already sliming their heads together as to how they can dismantle their Third Front and go Back to associating themselves with a secular governement in the face of a fundamental opposition. To give a little twist to the Giorgio Moroder song of the distant past in what could become an NDA post-poll song of woe, "YOU ARE LEFT, SHE's RIGHT, I AM WRONG".