On not fighting the seven signs of ageing

A few art classes ago, we did self-portraits. First, we drew ourselves from memory, then from a mirror. It was quite a revelation, in more ways than one. In some ways, I saw myself in the most honest way--I saw those fine lines of the past few years, saw the laugh line I've had since I was a kid. Noted the little discolourations.

Other people corrected my drawing. You drew your nose too big, they said. What, no, I have a big nose. I'm trying to be honest with myself here, and this is my nose--big. No, they said, look at yourself again, it's not that big, just a little bumpy. Hmm. The lips I drew were very pretty and I was a bit ashamed that I might be drawing what I wanted rather than what I had. I started correcting it and was told to stop and not spoil the drawing. I drew a prominent chin, my family chin, the one they said showed determination. Um, not that prominent a chin, they said. Really?

So it was a great exercise, not just in honesty, but in realising what influences other people have on your self-perception. You have a big nose, they tell you, and you imagine it bigger than it actually is. You have rather small eyes, they say, and you see everyone else's as bigger.

But, in that place of peace that only art can bring me, I felt neutral about everything. About my face, my looks, about what I might look like when I'm older.

The next morning, my vanity returned and I thought about the fact that, in a handful of years, I could look very different. Older. My skin would sag, I'd have noticeable wrinkles. It wasn't a pleasant thought, but it brought memories of my grandmother.

My mother's mother was in her 70s when I got to know her. I was in my early teens. She was hardly your storybook grandmother--she had a reputation for being complicated, feisty and manipulative. But she had mellowed by then and, with me, she was as close to nice as she would ever be. Our relationship lacked love, but we had a mutual understanding and something close to admiration.

My grandmother was not beautiful but there were things about her that were. Her crow's feet were one thing I always wished for. It made her eyes look pretty, as thought they'd been elongated with kohl. I wanted them badly. Most of all, I liked sitting next to her and holding her hands. She had the softest, most-lined palms I'd ever seen--I found the contrast fascinating. And the back of her hand. It was thin-skinned, and her veins stood out, green, fat and rounded. If you pressed down on them, they moved to one side. I remember us both laughing at that. Her face had been rather masculine and long when she was young, but not having known her then, my memory of her face is a lovely one, made softer and more beautiful by her sagging cheeks.

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It took me a long time to realise that all my memories of my grandmother's beauty had to do with her age.

I don't know when my face will start to change but I hope I have the courage to look forward to ageing. I don't want to grow older fighting against myself. I hope I can keep returning to the innocence, the truth of that time with my grandmother, and to the peace of that art class.

I'm no saint (as vain as they come sometimes), so it won't be easy. The only thing I know for sure is that I'll be happy when I get crow's feet.

Means and ends, tasks and symbolism

(Reviving this blog!)

Two ideas have been rattling around in my head.

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The first is about means and ends--the old question of whether the nobility of the end excuses the means to achieve it. For example, should you sacrifice a few for the sake of many, as in a usual hostage situation? Is attacking a country excusable if it is to save another?

The other day, I saw Oprah interview Marion Jones, the disgraced athlete. In the interview, Marion seemed to suggest that she could have won the Sydney Olympic medals even without the drugs. Even if this was a possibility, it is so completely irrelevant. So what if the drug had had zero effect on her? So what if she was, in fact, the best at the time?

So many of our poor traditions are excused by citing the end goal. We want women to be safe and not treated as sexual objects, so we restrict their movements, their dress, their freedom. We want people to be charitable, so we invent religions based on fear.

My take is that the means-do-not-matter attitude stifles thought and creativity. It does not encourage us to think of other ways to do things. It can also be very dangerous because it distracts you from the heart of a problem.
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The second, closely-related idea is that of symbolism. I have ideas I'm passionate about (individual freedom, atheism, feminism) but everyday, I'm confronted with little, harmless tasks, that, on deeper scrutiny, contradict those ideas.

I was invited, as part of a marriage, to a Sumangali Prarthanai. This is a traditional prayer/ritual meant to "honour" certain female ancestors who were sumangalis i.e, they died before their husbands. It is a ritual deeply rooted in Hinduism's poor treatment of widows. And yet, it is masked as some kind of female celebration. There was, of course, no harm in taking part in this ritual. After all, I would not want anyone to lose their wife or husband prematurely. And yet, the symbolism of the ritual disturbed me so much I wiggled out of attending it.

It was later pointed out to me that this is one of those rare South Indian rituals where the women are served a feast and they get to eat before the men. Should I just have rejoiced in that small victory?

My family tells me I've become more radical of late, that I'm protesting too much against small traditions that are ultimately harmless. And yet, I cannot but see the bigger symbols everywhere. And, if I do these small things, I feel like a hypocrite--someone who espouses one philosophy and practises another.

There are areas of life where this feeling is easy to brush off. I read about fair trade and understand it, and yet, being an economical person at heart, I continue to shop at Kmart. I am a rational person who values reason and yet I find myself succumbing to the sheer stupidity of high-heeled shoes.
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And then, a couple of months ago, I read a biography of Rajaji. The otherwise dull book covered his relationship with Gandhi in great detail. It was then that I realised that most of Gandhi's eccentricities--such as his obsessions with hygiene, self-control, spinning, etc--could be put down to his desire to live life with great deliberation.

His great achievement seems to have been mastery of both the big-picture (the end goal, the symbolism of life) and the details (the means, the little harmless tasks). Every step he took was the result of deep thought. And yet, no matter however frivolous it seemed, it was leading to a larger purpose.

It's probably the hardest way of living life. And Gandhi is an extraordinary person just for attempting this.

A change of perspective

I discovered Stuff White People Like a few months ago. I think it's hilarious!

It would be a pretty good guide for Indians who are often a bit amused and puzzled by some Western habits, especially those of the yuppie liberal crowd who are not well-represented in the mainstream movies, serials and books--the ones that hit foreign shores anyway.

The genius of Stuff White People Like is in the dramatic shift in perspective. Western culture has become the default culture of the world, the default reference point. What the blog does is to look at the West like the West looks at other cultures--in a manner relative to itself, in a way that seizes on every difference as "exotic". I'm loving it!

I think that's one reason why none of the clone blogs ( Stuff Desis Like, Stuff Queer People Like, Stuff Asian People Like, etc.) work. Even if they had the lovely sense of humour that SWPL has, they still don't have the irony of that perspective-shift.
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A good example of the West becoming a default reference point is travel literature. Many of the voices in travel literature have been Western because, well, I guess because they have had the money and leisure to travel and write about it. This, of course, is changing now.

I'd like to see some day, travel books written by people of different backgrounds. For example, a friend of R's went to China recently and came back with a description that went like this--traffic, pollution, exotic food and shiny malls. In short, a description that could apply to every other Asian city. Someone from an Asian country would (hopefully) be able to look beyond these and tell us what really makes it special.

The Indian theory of traffic

In India, traffic is like religion.

• You need to have blind faith. You need to trust that when you make a right turn from a small avenue into a large, busy road, that there will be space for you to fit in.
• The red, orange and green signals are the symbols of the faith. In olden times, these colours had meanings, but no one remembers them anymore. However, everyone respects these sacred relics and lets them exist on the roads.
• The traffic policeman is the guru; the vendors and window-cleaners are the priests. The guru shows you the path to salvation; the priests help make this journey comfortable.
• On your road, you will encounter many obstacles. These are meant to test you. Do not despise the unmarked speed bump--it will make you a better driver. That lorry veering towards you is a test. Are you strong enough to drive straight and make him swerve out of the way?
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The age of misinformation

From The Guardian, a wonderful article about health scares.

But despite their repetitive, contradictory and medically tenuous nature, people pay attention to these lists of absurd things that are supposedly bad for you; they even act upon them - randomly banning bra underwiring or broccoli from their lives - while remaining resistant to constant, consistent and proven advice to eat, drink and smoke less and exercise more. Why?

Sometimes, I am led to think that the age we live in is one of not just information, but misinformation.

The other day, I got a call on my cellphone. It was being charged at the time. No sooner had I taken the call, than my sister gesticulated to me wildly, asking me to cut the call. Apparently, someone had been telling her that, if you took a call on a cellphone while it was connected to an electrical outlet, you'd get electrocuted. An email forward her husband had received talked of many such incidents. I felt as though I was going back in time, to the years when electricity was first introduced. Of course, this "fact" turned out to be false.

Similarly, myths about using microwaves are widespread in India. "Even my doctor recommended that I not use a microwave for the childrens' food.", said a friend. I told her that her doctor was not speaking as a doctor, but as a lay person who believed unfounded rumours. What can you do when even people of science behave so irresponsibly?

The other great scourge of our times is the shift towards alternative medicine, again on grounds that it is more natural and has less side-effects. While some herbal medicines may have benefits, you cannot escape the fact that it is only general, science-based medicine that is thoroughly tested and proven.

To take just one example, I was once advised by an ayurvedic doctor to use breast-milk to treat a mysterious eye inflammation. The suggestion seemed ridiculous to my mother and me, even though, we did, at that time, have a slight belief in Ayurvedic medicine. Had I followed her advice, I would have surely contracted an infection.

Just because a medicine has existed for thousands of years does not automatically mean that it is effective. In actual fact, old systems of medicine are poor contenders precisely because they are old--they have not kept pace with changes in diseases or with advances in our understanding of the body. Students of biology would be shocked by the pseudoscience that, say, homeopathy (the worst of these offenders) is based on.

Why are so many people so gullible and so accepting? The Guardian article provides some clues:

Ben Goldacre, who, as well as being a doctor, writes this newspaper's Bad Science column, says the lure of the health scare story for the media lies in that fact that during the "golden age of medicine, miracle cures and sinister hidden scares really were being discovered". Now, "we move ahead by small incremental understandings of large numbers of modest risk factors, but journalists haven't found a way to write about that, so every fractional research finding has to be crowbarred into the 'miracle-cure-hidden-scare' template."

Also:

Kieran McCafferty, a renal doctor working in central London, says that people want a scapegoat. "They don't want to exercise, because they're lazy, but they want to say, 'But I stopped using deodorant!', which is like giving up chewing gum for Lent."

Staying in their place

We have known Kuppamma and her family for many years. She and her husband worked at my dad's company guest house. When her husband died, my dad helped her stay on there as a cook (a contract she might've lost otherwise) and she has always remembered that. She also works at my sister's house as a maid and cook.

Kuppamma's story itself is interesting and shows how, in India, the poor have a fairly liberal lifestyle (eerily like the rich) . Kupamma is Hindu and s three children by her first husband, whom she split up with. Her second husband (the one who worked in the guesthouse) was a Christian and he sent off the children to grow up in a Christian "home". After this husband died, Kuppamma has brought her children back and reverted to her Hindu ways. However, the Christian influence there was quite strong, so one of her children, Sita has decided that she will stay a Christian. She even has a Christian name--Stella. Sita/Stella goes to church on Sundays and refuses to have anything to do with Hindu rituals.

Over the years, Kuppamma has become quite independent. She has a rental house, she owns a moped.

Kuppamma and her two daughters--Rekha and Sita/Stella--visited my parents last week. Rekha is married and wanted to show us her new baby. Sita, who is quite the star of the family, has just joined a Tamizh B.Com course at the Open University-- she's the first in the extended family to study up to high school. She also sings in the church choir, does embroidery and writes poetry. Anyway, Sita was coming along to show us her course syllabus and to thank my dad for some money he'd given towards her enrollment fees.

In some ways, Kuppamma is more than just a maid to us. When she comes, she brings a batch of her homemade sweets. She has attended most of our family functions and my parents have attended Rekha's wedding. When she and her family visited last week, it was not very different from a relative's visit. My mother gave them tea and snacks. Rekha said she'd prefer coffee, so my mother made coffee. The baby was passed around and cuddled. We all looked at Sita's B.Com syllabus and gave her advice on her career.

This seemed, on one level, a perfect picture of classless interaction.

And yet....

Kupamma and her daughters only sat on the ground. My parents did not ask them to sit on the chairs; they did not attempt to do so either.

After they had eaten, the two girls and Kuppamma busied themselves in the kitchen. Kuppamma cooked something for dinner. This was quite a normal scene to me, since she's a great cook and she works at my sisters'. What disturbed me was the fact that the two girls also sat down to wash and put away the dishes. Rekha has worked on and off as a maid, so perhaps it was alright. I wondered how Sita, who seems rightly proud of herself, felt about it.

There was something very natural about the way they moved, in the space of a few hours, from being our guests to doing work for us, chattering and gossipping with us all the while.

It was this natural-ness that disturbed me. That they thought it was important to stay in their place. That it was natural for my parents to not challenge their notions. That, on both sides, there was no awareness that there was any problem...

Movie review: Mozhi

Spending the last few weeks in Madras has meant that I've more than made up for all the Tamil movies I've missed over the years. Of course, you can catch every Indian movie while in Melbourne by buying a dodgy DVD from your friendly neighbourhood Indian shop. But then, I'm the kind who waits for movies to come to me rather than running after them. (The only exception I make is for the movies that run at The Astor, more about which later)

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I'd heard a lot about Mozhi over the years . It always seemed to me, even before watching it, that it was one of those films meant to convince the average movie-goer that he too was capable of watching a serious, not-clearly-commercial movie. Quite like how the The Da Vinci Code works--I think it's been a success because it sells itself as the clever, iconoclastic book for the pulp fiction reader who has so far been content with less. My convictions were strengthened when I watched the movie. Time-pass movie, probably. Path-breaking or intellectual, only in contrast to say, something like Chandramukhi.

Story-wise
Mozhi's theme is the conflict between the worlds of music (hero Prithviraj's world) and what we hearing - would think of as silence (heroine Jyothika's world). Prithviraj and his friend (Prakash Raj) are musicians, Jyothika and her friend Swarnamalya work in a school for deaf children. Prithviraj is by turn intrigued and captivated by Jyothika, while she seems to consider him as just another friend. The movie goes through the cycle of their love affair: friendship, wooing, rejection, showdown and happily-ever-after. Predictably, their friends also fall in love-- in what must be one of Prakash Raj's most unconvincing acting sequences. Really. He's such a normal, fun guy in the movie that it's quite a shock when, out of the blue, he looks at Swarnamalya one day and literally hears bells ring and lights go on. Yikes.

The part of the movie that I really liked focusses on life in the apartment block where the two guys and Jyothika live. It reminded me of Anjali, where the apartment is more than just background. There's quite a bit of time devoted to the many people and relationships there. There is the obnoxious and hostile landlord, a smitten girl, and so on. One particularly charming friendship is the one that springs up between Prithviraj and an elderly man given to delusions . It's been a while since people with mental-illness were depicted so thoughtfully on the Indian screen.*

Review-wise
Mozhi is interesting in parts. For the first time, we see a character whose disability is only one part of their personality. I really liked that Jyothika's character is headstrong, opinionated, pig-headed and selfish. :) So far from the usual aiyyo-pavaam characterisations of the disabled. There are, however, many flaws in the characterisation. Towards the end of the movie, we see Jyothika reject Prithviraj because she is troubled by the idea of having a child like herself. Why would someone so feisty and with it delve into such self-pity? Jyothika's poor acting skills (what I call her 5-expression menu!) only worsen this flawed protrayal.

As for the other actors (Prithviraj, Prakash Raj and Swarnamalya), their characters appear bland and the movie largely fails because of this blandness. Prithviraj is as poor an actor as Jyothika. Prakash Raj is a wonderful actor and Swarnamalya has a certain natural ability but there's only so much they can do for Mozhi.

In a bid to create a friendly vibe and make a clean film, the creators have gone a bit overboard and produced a rambling, unexciting ode to pleasantness.
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* This is such an unusual occurence that I could even excuse that last scene of this relationship when Prithviraj shouts the truth at his elderly friend and brings him to his senses. Has anyone in Tamil cinema ever had a psychiatrist review the screenplay?