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?

Spot the NRI

My formative years were spent outside India, in Bahrain, and now, I've been in Melbourne for close to 5 years.

Ironically, despite my stints abroad, I've always resisted the idea of being seen an NRI (Non-Resident Indian, usually applied to any Indian who lives abroad). When we were in college, being at that stupid age where stereotypes rule, we made lots of fun of NRIs and how they dressed and behaved.

The typical America-returned NRI of the 90s was very easy to spot:

• NRIs wore white sports shoes with everything. Or, at the very least, wore conscipicously-different, usually inappropriate shoes.
  
• They carried a Bisleri bottle (Bisleri was the only bottled water brand in India at that time) and rudely refused to drink the water served at people's homes. If you went to a restaurant, they paid 15 bucks for bottled water!
  
• The men were partial to shorts and t-shirts, the latter with the name of some US state/city/football team. These were tightly belted with a belt bag. Such clothes were worn even to markets and temples.
  
• They bought very expensive souvenirs and Indian garments.
  
• NRIs carried video-cameras or other electronic paraphernalia such as walkmans or, strangely, electric combs (the last were quite the rage during weddings!).
• Any gift they brought back was interesting, whether it was a keychain that called back when you whistled to it or something swankier like a clock radio.
  

Well, in India of 2008, it is no longer easy to spot the NRI. The NRI has changed a fair bit. However, it is the local Indian who has changed more:

• The desire and ability to consume means that the Indians I meet spend a lot of money on clothes and shoes. Sure makes me reflect on my buys from Kmart and Spendless Shoes!
  
• There's no longer any need to ask for bottled water because everyone in middle-class India buys it--in cans and drums.
  
• Shorts seem to have become for Indian men in 2008 what the nightie was for Indian women in the 90s. Like the nightie, it's made a happy transition from being something you wear at home to something you wear outside. I now see people wearing shorts everywhere, from the supermarket to the bazaar. (Thankfully, the belt bag went out with the 90s!)
• Exotic Indian stuff is in with a vengeance. It's not only the foreigners and NRIs who throng the souvenir shops, it's your average Mylapore mami.
• The ubiquity of the cellphone in India has been written about quite a lot and it's not an exaggeration. With the explosion of FM radio stations, it's also quite common to see people wearing headphones of one kind or the other.
  
• "You get everything here now" is what my aunties and uncles say. That doesn't mean I've stopped buying presents for the journey back home, but nowadays I have to be more careful with what I buy. You can't just buy koala keychains anymore because they retail for Rs.30/- at your nearest Archies shop.