iPeople

Today I met an old person. He was sixty-plus and seemed like a very amicable man. But that was until we started talking about his life. He began rambling about how he was once a respected man with unique talents and how he had degraded to becoming what he was now. Allegedly, his life was in a bad state of affairs. However, I couldn't  see why he would think that, especially since everything seemed almost perfect with him from where I was sitting. He had retired from a respectable position, had earned quite a lot, his children were well to do and well settled and his grandchildren’s faces beamed with happiness in those pictures on his wall. From what I gathered, he had every reason to be happy and proud of himself. But the melancholy on his face was unmistakable. He was not a content man and had a look on his face as though he had lost something. Though he was very polite to me, his tone of voice and mannerisms changed when he addressed his wife. It was like his head turned 30 degrees and he was a different man. All in all; at the end of the day, I was 2 hours late to a meeting with a friend.

The old man reminded me of someone I knew from college. He was a friend of mine who was caught up in a relationship that he couldn’t quite handle. Every time I met this guy he wanted to talk about nothing else but his girlfriend and the quarrels of the day. I even caught him locked in 1000-yard-stares a couple of times. I often wondered why a person would stick to such a relationship. However, this didn’t end till the day we graduated and parted ways. Come to think of it, I don’t remember him by any memory other than those chats that now seem more like marriage counselling sessions. A brief recollection and I realise that there are many such people who have shared my presence for more time than I would have liked. I could also see that they all shared some common traits and eventually I came up with a term for them - the ‘iPeople’.

‘iPeople’ are our fellow humans who are so lost in thought that they usually find it hard to allocate sufficient brain RAM to do day to day things like having a good chat with a friend without boring him/her to death, not missing “Please” and “Thank you” wherever necessary, remembering what people around them like/hate, etc. The easiest give-away is the fact that, more often than not, a conversation you have with them is just about what’s on their mind or what’s going on in their life. I think it’s safe to say that they are not actually at fault, though it might seem like it. In the case of the old man I was talking about earlier; he seemed to have taken the effort to clear enough on his mind to talk to me in an upbeat manner while he didn’t really bother to do the same with his wife. This might because he had taken her for granted or thought she loved him so much that she was okay with it; but I digress. The fact of the matter is that he was so used to being unhappy that even  his face had lost its cordiality for the brief instant he turned to speak to his wife. He then turned back to me and there, the pleasant smile was back. “Why does it have to be this way?” - I had thought to myself later, but instantly envisaged how my face would have looked one millisecond ago when I was asking myself that! I wasn’t jovial-looking, was I? Though it doesn’t mean much since I wasn’t actually talking to someone, it does provide an insight into what ‘iPeople’ go through over longer periods of time. 

Another important detail is that ‘iPeople’ are not usually ‘iPeople’ all the time. It might be a phase and the length of the phase depends entirely on two things. Firstly, the cause and complexity of the thought that seems to posses them and secondly, their capability and experience in handling the likes. It might be very difficult for an ‘iPerson’ to realise s/he has become one since s/he simply does not have the available mind resources to do so. Their brains are overloaded by processes that are “spinning” out of control - as a software engineer would put it. The sad part though is that some people are stuck in the loop forever. Especially when it comes to elderly people, very few are actually satisfied with the life they have lived and this thought preoccupies them all the time. It is in the best interest of all of us to learn to tackle this silent epidemic which is stealing really interesting and fun people from among us. It is not just eating into the time they could be spending living in the moment but also producing boring spouses, boring friends and boring coworkers world over. 

"The woman who sings"

'Incendies' 2010 - movie thoughts

As suggested by my friend, Abhishek Balaji (a walking /lib of all-things-TV, Hollywood and Bollywood; not to mention - an authority on the Marvel Universe), I have taken up the rather unsettling task of writing about the French-Canadian movie ‘Incendies’ (English:'Fires') - directed by Denis Villeneuve. Upfront, I would like to say that this movie is not for the faint hearted. If you are unsure whether you are ‘faint-hearted’ in the first place, watching this movie could help you allay your skepticism. And if you have already watched the movie; oh yeah, you know what I’m talking about! Please be advised: The following text contains *SPOILERS* - such as  plot insights, scene details, etc. but I have tried to hold back on leaking the final punch.

Since the day I bought my awesome new Blu-ray player on an sweet Black Friday deal, I had started borrowing Blu-ray movie discs from the public library every week as a matter of principle. On some weekends, we, the roommates three, would watch one together. One random day; a wayward whim to pick a random movie, and our lives changed forever. 

The plot summary is really just a google away, so I’d rather stick to whats not on there. It is best, though, if you ‘enjoy’ the movie without any prior knowledge whatsoever about it. I give you these following blank lines for you to reconsider that and maybe come back to reading this after . . .

Well, here we are then. 

         

Old woman gets a heart-attack in a public swimming pool in Canada. Nothing very absurd there.. just a random happening. Or is it?. And sooner than you know it, her will needs to be read. Among other particulars, there are three letters. One for her twin kids, one to be handed to their long lost brother and one for their unknown father. The daughter bites and decides to make the journey to the Middle-East where her mother was born, so as to know who her father is and to find her missing brother. Now begin two parallel narratives: that of the mother and that of the daughter. What you see is a metaphor of what usually happens in human life. In everyone’s lives there are high points where there was a lot of action and a lot of memories are made. Usually, we spend the rest our lives reminiscing those moments. Nawal (mother)  and Jeanne (daughter) sort of represent two chapters of the same life. Nawal being the young action-packed part and Jeanne being the reminiscing part (though young and old are interchanged in the actual ages of the characters). 

Nawal has a kid with a secret lover who is killed. The kid is sent away to an orphanage and Nawal goes to school as per a deal made with her mom. Religious unrest across the land causes widespread destruction and terrorism. The kid (who’s story is gathered by Jeanne) is abducted and made into a sniper by the Islamist terrorists. Nawal comes in search of him and finds herself in a bus full of Muslim civilians which is then ambushed by Christian gunmen. This a scene where a viewer could gauge his/her mental capacity to witness extreme violence. The director plays with your emotions as he chooses the most delicate of beings (a little girl) and throws it at the face of danger. Then he toys with you by feeding your hope; making you believe that she is going to survive after all. And BAM; she’s dead! Nawal survives by showing her cross (being christian herself), but witnessing that horror changes something within her. 

Nawal 2.0 is an Islamic assassin who wants to avenge the little girl. Around this time, her sniper-kid is caught and still being young, is ‘reprogrammed’ into a pawn in the Christian camp. Notice the flip-flop of allegiances? Christian Mom goes to the Islamic side and Islamic son moves over to the Christian side. Nawal succeeds in killing the man who was ultimately responsible for the bus ambush (who was higher up in hierarchy). She gets imprisoned where she later gets known as "The woman who sings". Torture of a sexual nature (not “graphic”, thankfully) ensues. She bears twins that are secretly taken care of by one of the prison workers till her eviction. This a very humbling episode since the revelation which Jeanne undergoes is quite mind-numbing for her. All this while, the viewer had been blissfully unaware of the twins’ birth story and like for the characters themselves, it comes as a shock to know that they were born out of prison torture. But, as you will eventually see, this is just a teaser. 

Simon(Jeanne’s twin brother), now joins his sister in her quest. They navigate through terrorist groups to identify where their brother is and who their father is. As we they near the end of their investigation, the final and the most insane juggernaut of a climax hits you in the face. You might even guess it right before the confirmation arrives; and if you did, I’m pretty sure you would have had the same reaction we had while we were watching it. Multiple repetitions of “NO!!!” and “S@$*!!!” is all I can remember now; but the feeling is unforgettable. That feeling when you really really mean to say “F$*@! NO!” but can’t say it because saying the f-word only makes it worse. And so you end up saying “SH%$!!! NO!!” with twice as much emphasis than you possibly would in any other situation. When you deduce it yourself, the closest feeling I can think of is your brand new iPhone slipping off your hand over the edge from atop of a 12 storey building, and when the director reveals it, its like you hear the sound of the phone hitting the pavement. 

The rest is just a reconciliation of you with your senses and the characters with their family history. Then everything starts to make sense: “Why did the old woman get an attack in a public pool?”, “Why was this movie made?”, “Why am I here watching it?”,”Why is my popcorn all over the place?”, etc.

Thanks for reading through!

Half of us

“No economy can prosper when half its population is at home cooking for the other half”. It may not be ‘half’ these days, but we cannot shy away from admitting that it must still be at least half of all Indian women. What exactly is women-‘empowerment’? What is this ‘power’ that needs to be made available to women? And what do women need this power for? It is strange how people who actually care about these things get pepped up with emotions a la righteousness every time they hear the words ‘empowerment’ and ‘women’ in the same sentence. Not that I don’t; I care too. Maybe a bit too much to take the words at face-value. 

“Women-empowerment” in itself essentially leads us to believe that in the current state of things women do not have an agreeable amount of ‘power’ in their capacity. The “em” in empowerment means someone has to provide the means or the power itself, to women. “Women” is an all inclusive term of the female population. Contextually, it could also mean ‘most’ women or ‘many’ women or even ‘some’ women; leaving out a fair amount of inert members of the fairer gender. In India, I believe I can safely presume that the context covers ‘most’ women. So who ‘empowers’ ‘most’ women? Are women, with an agreeable amount of power in their capacity, going to empower  the ones less fortunate? If this is the case, then the context of ‘most’ women being powerless means only a ‘few’ women are powerful enough to aid the former. Notably, if the power deprived  women were going to help themselves/each-other, then the term wouldn’t be “Women-empowerment” but “Women self-empowerment”. So, naturally, this can be ruled out. For ‘few’ to help ‘many’, the few must hold a lot of authority/dynamism. Again, considering the country under discussion, this is clearly not the case. Thus, the only other entity/group that can actually make “Women-empowerment” happen at the moment is men. Lucidly, the words so ironically represent what Indian women go through every single day rendering them burdened and voiceless. They have their dreams, ambitions and aspirations to rise above their predicament and make an independent life for themselves; only to realise later in life that however much they tried, they inevitably end up having to bow down to a male father/brother/husband/father-in-law/boss to make essential things go on in their lives. Knowing this may help us deduce the meaning the word ‘power’ holds. Very much like the meagreness of the Mangalyaan’s (Mars-Orbiter) budget; all it should take to make Indian women feel empowered is merely the ability to independently meet everyday necessities. Not “equality” with men! They might just want condescending men out of the equation. 

 Though it is tough to admit this as a man; we Indian men are still propagators of a patriarchal society in this 21st century. We secretly cherish the power, however stupidly measly it is, we hold that women don’t. We like it when women come to us asking for help. It is an opportunity for us to play the ‘knight in shining armour’ and show them how ‘benevolent’ we are. It is remarkable that this is all it takes to get us power-drunk. Maybe its because of our heavy domestication; pretty much like how we would probably get high on just one hit of neat alcohol. We have grown up watching our mothers spending their mornings in the kitchen spinning like tops to make a good breakfast while our fathers sat in the living room reading the newspaper in a laid-back chair. We know the hierarchy of our family like the back of our hand. We have seen how every movie-heroine/hero’s sister, through  choices of her own, ends up in a precarious circumstance; how she cowers with fear when the villain glares at her; and how the hero always comes to the aid of the damsel in distress, a zillion times. Our fables teach us how women, supposedly, are prone to making bad calls and thus shouldn’t be allowed to call the shots at all. Even proverbs like “Pen budhdhi pin budhdhi” (Translated-jist : A women’s mind is a step behind that of a man’s) openly dismiss women as bad decision makers who are incapable of fending for themselves. Modern Indian men might claim that they are beyond all this; but truth is, it does not wash away so easily. A genderist superiority complex still lurks in the shadows within our minds. Even when we think of Women-empowerment, we picture ourselves giving a hand to a woman in a ditch and pulling her up. The whole point is actually NOT doing that. The point is to leave no ditch unfilled so to avoid them falling into it in the first place. And I believe it our duty as fellow citizens to do so.

But wait, there's a twist! It is not just us men who have been priding our sexist culture, women too grew up witnessing the same things from an impressionable age. Arguably, even the average modern 21st century Indian woman has a latent genderist inferiority complex lurking in her mind. And that simple aspect takes her through looping guilt-trips every single time she takes a decision contrary to the customary. Other women in her circle probably only make things worse. Even to this day, metropolitan mothers chide their daughters for not wearing ‘proper’ clothes. While contemporary friends get generous with their “OMG”’s and “Seriously?”’s on simple things. I can only imagine how it must be like for a woman to have to endure so much friction everyday on every single choice  she makes.  And ever too often, ‘friction’ is an understatement. It must like walking with your feet deep in molten tar; every step taken needs the strength to take a hundred. No wonder the term “Women-empowerment” has caught on among the masses. Maybe many modern women genuinely need a helping hand or strong moral support. They need the power of conviction, regardless of its source; not to meet their bare necessities, but to put power-drunk men and irreversibly messed-up women in their place. Not to mention, getting rid of that splinter of doubt and skepticism in their own minds. 

Prereq: IMAX imagination

“Why are you holding those eggs up in your hand?” I asked my friend while we were riding my scooter back from the store.“I am holding six lives in my hand, much like a revolver. Need to be careful“, he smiled. I was pleasantly surprised. Some tiny spark of an epiphany had shown up after a long time. 

Imagine what holding a loaded gun in your palm would feel like. Most 9mm handguns that are full size would hold between 15 to 17 rounds. All it takes to take a life is one. 17 lives; right there on your palm. Chill down the spine. Latch on your attention to that fleeting feeling and as it dissipates, you might end up in a strange place. A place where you can juxtapose a physical object with the meanings and emotions your brain attaches to it. It is magical to stay there and gaze at the awesomeness that the brain is. How can so many threads of ethical, emotional, logical and moral values be connected to the image of a tool built to do just one simple thing (spit out an iron pellet at incredible speed)? Maybe, in an alternate universe, we could be using it to make extra holes in our belts, for all you know. 

Let’s juggle things a bit and try something different. Place each of your palms on each temple of a person who is comfortable with you doing so (!). What is between your hands now is essentially another you. A complete universe of thoughts, emotions, memories, ideas, knowledge, intelligence etc.; right there between your palms. When you let your brain lose on that thought you’ll probably get a bigger chill down your nerves than you would have expected. These nut-shell human experiences, as I would like to call them, make things that we know into things that we deeply understand. And when you understand something, it is not just a file in your knowledge bank but a spontaneous contributor in your default, everyday thought process. 

If it was up to me to make a new religion, I would make a list of small such rituals that would keep people in touch with the important things of life. Wait, is that why we bend and touch our elders’ feet as a custom here in India?….. (pondering intensifies)

That's it.. I'm calling BS!

The RJ continued, "'Where is the party?' madhiri 'Where is the Vinayaga chathurthi?' nu kondadeerupeenga nu nenaikaren.." ( Translated-jist:"I guess you must have made a party out of Vinayaka Chathurthi - a festival for a specific God in India"). Not much of an epiphany, but this was the tipping point and I just had to vent out all the accumulated frustration on the fake-fun everyone is supposed to be having out here in Chennai.I see remarkably edited Youtube videos telling me Chennai is 'Happy'. I hear radio-jockeys yapping away as if this is the most happening city there is. Facebook postings of music-videos in the name of Madras. Newspaper adverts ballyhooing the 'celebration' of what's "#Chancey-illa" (Trans-jist: Nowhere else but here) about Chennai. Well, here's a fact my select-few, overly-excited fellow city dwellers; some of us read beyond the first page of the newspaper.  And by saying "I've had the most fun ever in Chennai!", I quote no-one, myself included.

Chennai is home to the most bovine of all of humankind. No matter how many daylight injustices happen; no matter how many rights are violated; how un-livable conditions get; how much verbal abuse is dished out, day in and day out life just goes on. We are a society that has lost the sense of the word 'fun'. I recall a conversation I had with a friend and her boyfriend once back in Jersey. They had signed up for a dance class and were asking me to join them. He said, "You can learn how to dance at weddings, it'll be fun!". By reflex I let slip the fact that we don't dance at our weddings around here in South India. The both of them refused to believe me and concluded that I was bluffing to avoid going with them. We Chennai-ites know too well what would happen if we were to dance at an authentic Madrasi wedding. For one, you'd be branded a lunatic and shunned by every respectable member of your family for eternity. A proper wedding down here is a quick marriage ceremony followed by gift-giving and ending in a sumptuous feast. Period."But tamil movies have people dancing around all the time", you may argue. Let me put it this way, we generally associate dancing to movie-heroes and, more recently, reality-TV game shows; but not to anything in the 'real world'. To be a little dramatic, I haven't even once seen the most celebrated 'Saavu koothu' (Trans-jist: A dance supposedly performed by drunkards in front of a corpse while on its way to the crematorium) all these years of my life in Chennai.

Getting back to 'happy-fun-exciting' things, let's not kid ourselves people. Just a silent walk through the heart of the city at rush-hour can give you a whiff of the true picture. You will not spot so far as a tiny smirk on those busy faces. Chennai is hard-working. It's back is bent. Burden is writ large across its wrinkled forehead. A burden that it carries steadily ahead in the face of irresponsible administration not too unheard-of in India. Our average fun-thirsty youth neither has venues (except the movies) nor the social approval to go out and experience something in the equivalent sense of the word 'party'.


P.S: To all those folks doling out 'fun-fun' BS on a daily basis, PLEASE keep it real.