Blank noise

Jasmeen Patheja has started a protest in Bangalore against eve-teasing. All the best, Jasmeen. Long overdue project. Visit her site here: http://blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com (For some reason, the hyperlink button is not working. So, sorry, you'll have to copy and paste the links till then.)


Today's Deccan Herald has a story on her here: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul142005/metrothurs1648422005713.asp

I thought for a long time about my own experiences. How my mom and now my mom-in-law ask me to wear a dupatta on some 'bad' steets, and I tell them that the dress does not matter. It has to be a woman, that's all. I remembered my experiences in crowded buses, the dodging on busy roads, especially the footpath on Brigade Road.

I usually keep staring at the lech until he looks away. In buses, I push them back with all my might, and give them a warning look. Till now, they have taken the hint, and stepped back. But they are there all the time, everywhere. No wonder, we get used to it. Thanks, Jasmeen, for reminding me that eve teasing is not OK.

Hemangini's train journey

Guess I read this pretty late. So, if you havent already read Hemangini's story, read it here: http://hemanginigupta.blogspot.com/2005/06/train-to-chennai.html

Request

Hey

If you want to comment on a fairly old post of mine, please mention the post headline. Else, I'll have to go through all the posts to reply to you.

Do you have a secret?

Do you want to share it? Maybe with someone you don’t know, and who can never know you. Bold enough even for that? Will that help you? Will it make you cry? Will it make you feel better? Maybe this is what you are looking for: Secrets.

Frank Warren runs the site. He invites people to send him their secrets on a post card. I am touched by the site. Excruciatingly beautiful. I went through the site with voyeur-like hunger, wanting to know people’s erotic, guilty, or plain dirty secrets. It made me think if I had a secret of my own to share. I don’t think there is, or I have forgotten (!). Remembered the times when I knelt down to pray, to talk to someone who was not from this world, and how the tears came one by one at first, and then in gushes. Sometimes there were reasons for feeling low. Sometimes, it was just existence.

But when I talked about it, somehow I overcame it. Talking about what pained me seemed to make me bigger than the problem and helped me look beyond it. Not everyone wants to talk, though, nor can every secret/pain be shared. And anyways, no one seems to be interested. Secrets can be a blessing then. This site is for those who cant fathom this world, who feel constrained to kill themselves for want of a loving person who will listen, too.

Thanks Spliff, for linking to this rare site.

Me tagged

Swaroop has tagged me. So here goes:

Total number of books I own: Have lost count. But surely more than 100 spread over three cities.

The last book bought: 'The Kandy-Colored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby' by Tom Wolfe.

The last book I read: Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian

Books I am currently reading: Pather Dabi by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay; Oxford Guide to Plain English by Martin Cutts.

Books that mean a lot to me: Disgrace by J M Coetzee, Mookajjiya Kanasugalu by Shivram Karanth, No Logo by Naomi Klein, Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

And I am tagging Uber, Finny, Mishi, Shyam, and Sudu. Dya hear me?

Borrowed thoughts

A friend's thoughts:

How do women conditioned to a "ruthlessly male chauvinist" society accept and go by male chauvinist values? Women in such societies adhere to, and judge the worth of men by, male chauvinist and vainglorious ideas of 'machismo'--- even though they rightly dismiss such ideas as silly.

I wonder if masochism, supposedly inherent in women, encouraged male chauvinism and sadism. Did (masochistic) mothers knowingly or unknowingly sow the seed of male chauvinism into their male babies, so that they would grow up and create an environment in which women's masochistic urges would find fulfilment?

Before the coming of the Aryans, Greek islands were inhabited by non-Aryan matriarchal/matrilineal tribes. That matriarchy was deeply ingrained among them is evidenced by the clashes portrayed in Greek drama between the Erinys and Apollo; in Greek mythology, between Zeus and Hera, his non-Aryan consort, etc.

Could such an established matriarchal set-up give way before the patriarchal Aryan invaders without some catalyst such as the innate masochism among its women helping the process?Matriarchy has been wiped out from the civilized world (even though matriliny ligers in pockets).

I wonder if this wasn't because a matriarchal set-up never did satisfy the woman's innate masochism. And so, may be the woman helped to create an anti-woman ethos---so that she might derive a masochistic satisfaction from railing at the lack of consideration, the cruelty, and the injustice of the patriarchal society she quietly helped to create!

This is a new view to me. But I had always pondered how the present societal order came to be. I am still thinking about of this.

What do you say?

Powerless against PowerPoint

More than anything else in this world, right now I miss my computer the most. And yes, I cant believe that it’s me who said this just now. The thoughts just wont come out on paper as they do on a comp. There’s something magical that happens when you see your words on screen. Oh yes, you can see it on paper, too. But, (aaaaaaaaaargh), didn’t work for me.

Lately, I have been subjected to a downpour of PowerPoint presentations, any my brain has declared total hartal. It simply refuses to acknowledge any information that is presented through PowerPoint. It automatically switches off when the presentation begins. Why, why in the name of God was PowerPoint invented, when a simple whiteboard and marker would do? Why, oh why?!!

Please, all those who have anything to say about PowerPoint, please say it. It might just soothe your soul. Who knows, we might just form a PowerPoint-battered club. Of course, management geeks can and will defend it. Lazy bums, and unimaginative brains!!

For the last month, I have been living in Bombay, and it has been pretty decent. Moolah doesn’t really matter. You can have fun anyways. Because, if nothing else, you can look at the sea, see the sun off into the bay, stretch your comp-strained eyes over the horizon, and suddenly you are not thinking any more. Sunsets do that to me. They have an amazing way of dissolving your thoughts.

I can watch the sea day after day and never be tired. Without the sea, Bombay is any other city. And the local trains, of course!

'Public pissing', 'women pissing', 'Debonair', 'why women cheat', are the hot search terms that are bringing people to my blog. ROTFL

Things going on in my head

1. What is computerized abortion?
2. How many trees’ names do you know?
3. And have you seen that there are so many greens, and so many leaf shapes?
4. Whose duty is it to carry the condoms at all times, the man or the woman’s?
5. Bring 20 human beings randomly together, and you have the most entertaining movie script ready. And, as a friend said, either it can be an out-and-out comedy, or a murder mystery.
6. Yes, it’s good to be back on blogger. I am now fully married and all. No tips to those who run away from the knot. Any earlier advice regretted and taken back ;)
7. What do I want in life? To do something that I have studied for, and dreamed of? Or pursue an idiotic ‘career’ for the sake of the moolah? Prioritise sex, money, love and you’ll probably give Buddha a run for his gyan.

Taa-dee-dee-dum
My thoughts are random.

From the Soul Mountain

Gao Xingjian is one of the most melodious authors I have read. And sensual, let me add. It's a different kind of stream of conscious narrative. It's not a back and forth in time or space. But it’s a switch between three-four projections of the self. I found this excerpt on the net, but this is not one of my favourites:


The rich, the famous, and the nothing in particular all hurry back because they are getting old. After all, who doesn't love the home of their ancestors? They don't intend to stay, so they walk around looking relaxed, talking and laughing loudly, and effusing fondness and affection for the place. When friends meet they don't just give a nod or a handshake in the meaningless ritual of city people, but rather they shout the person's name or thump him on the back. Hugging is also common, but not for women. By the cement trough where the buses are washed, two young women hold hands as they chat. The women here have lovely voices and you can't help taking a second look.

Maybe. Just maybe

It’s been a long time. So many strands run through the head. Survival of the fittest, and then you see them here.

Have you ever thought that it can be so easy to lose yourself in the daily routine? I mean, you weren’t born for this mad rush between home and office, were you? Larger question: what were you born for? Still larger question: were you at all born for anything? Now I can think of a hundred corny lines, but let's just leave them alone for now.

Unless you stop for a moment and take stock, you wont even know that with each contraceptive pill you have taken for years, and will continue to take for some time, coz you just don’t have the space for your baby, with each ‘I will do it someday,’ kind of sighs, with each deadline reached in office, with each little happy thing postponed for later, you have lost the joy forever.

The dreams that you set out with as a teenager seem like some other person’s to you now. But in the corner of your heart you still own them. Gives nice stuff to think about and smile when you have the time to. Everything’s just beginning. Maybe you will still see your baby someday.