warming up to mush

The early nineties saw the country’s entry into the new liberalised age, the entry of Valentine’s day into the nation’s vocabulary and my entry into teenage. The concomitant entrance of the first two was not a coincidence, though my foray into teenage was. As Valentine’s day became more popular, my ire against it grew at the nauseating celebration of patriarchal romantic love, stigmatisation of singlehood and the unbridled commercialism to which it was put to use. In those years nothing could be so irritating as red roses, red heart balloons and chocolate wrapped in glossy red paper on that day. And I do dig chocolates, balloons and roses. This continued till I started teaching and interacting with students for whom the day meant so much. The meaning seemed to have changed subtly, though it retains all its consumerism and patriarchy, since my time. Or is it because I was dealing with a different set of students than my classmates in school and college.

A recent piece in Indian Express pointed out that understanding the Mangalore pub attack on women required an examination of class. It cannot be done purely in terms of gender. This is a valid point but we need to ask what is in this moment that the ‘liberated woman’s body’ has become such a target for the right wing. After all there have always been ‘modern’ Indian women who drink, smoke, frequent bars/casinos/discs, dance with abandon and wear revealing clothes. Every self-respecting hindi film till the late 1980s had the vamp character who was the embodiment of the fallen woman; never mind she was the only woman having so much fun. The liberated woman has become a threat at the same time when the vamp has been rendered obsolete in the hindi film with the heroine taking over her role. As long as the liberated woman was a vamp and her life safely distant from the aspirations of the ‘normal’ ‘respectable’ women she raised no fury among the protectors of culture. But it is precisely the smudging of the boundary lines between the vamp and the girl-next-door that has raised their heckles. She and her life is dangerously close to ‘ours’. She is definitely a product of class, but a product of the mobility and affluence of middle class and the spread of middle class aspirations to the smaller towns and mofussil areas of the country, some part of which is a result of liberalisation.

But that is just one part of the picture. If we look at our films again, the language of love changed in the decade since the inauguration of economic reforms. From the long duree where love -especially inter-caste, inter-community, inter class- inspired rebellion and unconditionally justified defiance of the family/community our films moved on to define socially sanctioned and permissible love. My students, when asked about their preference for love or arranged marriage, come up with ‘love-cum-arranged’ as the first preference. Our films and our middle class now endorse this seemingly oxymoronic category which effectively sees inter-community and inter-caste marriages as violative of community honour, parental affection and Indian culture. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Hritik Roshan pleads with the Patriarch (Amitabh Bachchan) to forgive Shah Rukh Khan but admits that ‘Unhone galti ki hai, Unhone pyar kiya’. A far cry from the proud defiance of ‘pyar kiya toh darna kya’ and its innumerable variations.

But love as defiance flourishes among the young, but not our metropolitan upper middle class elite, but rather in the small towns, suburbs and the edges of urban India. For this generation of youth, the promises of liberalised India overlap with hope for a liberal India. They are ready to risk life and futures for love. Many do not manage to convert their romances into choice marriages. Many are posthumously labelled victims of ‘honour killings’. For them Valentine’s day is special. They may not relate to the language of the Pink Chaddi campaign but do concur with its content. They dot campuses, parks and shopping arenas holding hands with cards, roses and balloons. Many see this day and this time of their lives as the only opportunity they have to give vent to their desires and can later remember with fondness. I find my fully formulated critique of Valentine’s day still valid but unable to capture the import of these happy giggling faces. So I wish them back, and give them a day off.

end of history

CPI(M) says Tibet is China’s internal matter, so no comments. Well so from now on we should not comment on

1. Racism, so no judgment on apartheid in South Africa please
2. Islamophobia, since its worst and everyday manifestations (as with racism) is on citizens and legal residents.
3. Colonialism as well, since before the colony became a state, it was part of another state, and hence its internal matter.
4. Torture, inhuman and draconian laws, human rights violations, anywhere. Including Palestine, its Israel’s ‘internal matter’. There is no Palestinian state and cannot be, as it will be against Israel’s sovereignty.

I could go on….and so could you. The point however is, do you want to go down this path?

the house baker didnt build

That would be my house, for one. I mean I can not hope that the house I can afford one day will be designed by Laurie Baker as he passed away on april first.

I first read about Baker when I was 13 or 14 in one of the supplements of times of India and in an article written by cartoonist Abu Abraham if I remember correctly. This article was called- the house baker built- or something like that. its with me still, somewhere among my newspaper cuttings, it was probably the earliest of the collection, a practice which was then pleasure but now is a professional requirement. The writer spoke about his home which Laurie Baker had designed. At one point he says how a room had been so designed as to avoid cutting down a jackfruit tree, and the area around the tree was further made into a small sitting space in the open. He also mentioned that Baker had once designed a house on top of a hill facing the sea. I think it was that line which decided it for me. I had always wanted that exact same kind of location for a house of my own. And had figured that it would mean somewhere along the coastline of India, and preferably the western coast. Years later the Himalayas caught my fascination and became the preferred location for the dream house (though I still moaned about not having the sea side). Ya ya, this is a great deal of wishful thinking but whats wrong with that? But whatever be the spatial location of my dream, I always hoped it would be made on the principles of architecture that Baker’s life and work represented.

You would think all this sounds pretentious, but i dont think Baker would have minded. For Baker was a Gandhian, it seems he considered his chance meeting with Gandhi as the one which changed his life. He is one more instance of the exciting possibilities within Gandhi's thought. He specialised in low cost housing which was simple, functional as well as aesthetic . Most importantly it used locally available material, and avoided as much as possible cement and steel. His buildings blended into the surroundings, and were sensitive to local ecology. He wouldn’t chop trees, remove rocks or flatten a slope but incorporate them all into the structure. I just read that he described his own house as a blanket draped over a hillock. Wow. I have never been in a Baker home, I have only seen pictures. But I do think that a great deal of traditional architecture does make immense sense in terms of weather and ecology.

Baker died on April 1^st. Perhaps it is a way of alerting us to the joke that we have made of our homes and built spaces in the race to become the country with the most malls, the most ugly and energy guzzling buildings.

Season's greetings

Recipes on plum cakes in special interviews with chefs, christmas special desserts in restaurants, red and white santa caps and christmas tree decorations on sale, santa clauses too in local markets ... everything is red, green and white! It may be an indicator of western imperialism, the impact of American television shows all running new and old episodes of 'the christmas spirit' but the way Indians, a majority of them non-Christians, have taken to Christmas and made it their own seems to hold out a hope. Hope of harmony, of cross cultural celebration, of festive spirit transcending religious barriers.

But something prevents me from making any such inferences. For the past few years Diwali and Id have been falling around the same time- a gap of a day or two between them making for one long holiday. The markets were buzzing, everything was gay and glittery. I sent out greetings on behalf of my family to all on our email list wishing them for both festivals. I know it was naive on my part but i didn't anticipate the reactions. Some were simply astounded that I clubbed the festivals together. Some were angry that i had tarnished my grandparents' name by making them wish on Id. One relative, living in the gulf, replied saying it made sense to wish him as he was in a 'muslim country' but why subject others to it. Most of them noticed and had something to say, either immediately or through the whispering network that characterise family communications. none of them ever cringe when wished 'a merry christmas' or reply similarly to greetings on the 'season of giving'.

so as for composite culture, we arent there yet. Meanwhile, I will return to polish off the plum cake.