Validation and Comments Policy

I don't have a comments policy on my blog. For a very long time, my friends debated my decision to keep comment moderation. I heeded their advice and now I don't moderate comment publishing. However, I do moderate the comments once they are published. Which means if its anonymous AND abusive, it will be deleted. If it doesn't add to the discussion--either by a viewpoint or a counter viewpoint-it will be deleted.
I will illustrate my position with this anecdote.
When Oprah Winfrey was asked why she never featured Ku Klux Klan or the Satanic Churches on her show, this is what she had to say : " By calling them on my show, I will give them validation. I will give them the validation of being on my show. I do not want to air anything that gets people to think about something clearly shouldn't exist in the first place."

I want to achieve something similar with my blog. I don't want to encourage comments that degrade people who comment on a post or people who want to find flaw for some reason. I agree that I rant. But the counter argument to the rant is not another rant, rather a logical argument. If you feel the rant is useless, don't comment. As is the case with all rants, they subside. You learn to live with something or shut something out.

Secondly, a blog is a privilege for readers. A comment/recommendation is a privilege for me. You read because I let you read. You have the choice to not read/comment. Exercise your privileges. I will exercise mine.

A country's Tag Cloud

I was watching this well researched documentary about Japan. They were discussing the technological prowess of the nation and how everything in Japan is well-timed. The train timetables, flight changes and events are so well-timed that being late to an event is a sign of irresponsibility.
I was comparing that to the Indian context, where being late is a given. People are late even on the first day of their job! We have famously expanded the abbreviation IST( Indian Standard Time) to mean Indian Stretchable Time. Its a convenience and a cultural perk that we dont want to lose. We may crib about the lack of infrastructure and how reaching/doing work late is affecting our eventual processes. But we never think how much of our personal time it wastes.
For example, the Japanese citizen doesn't have to worry about trains being late or about buses being stuck in traffic due to road digging. Because he trusts the infrastructure blindly, he is able to make decisions and decide meeting times with conviction.
Contrast that with an Indian situation--example a wedding. If the wedding card says the wedding begins at 7 and ends at 11, most people will give themselves a one hour buffer and come late. Or reach early, by leaving their other social commitments early. We always have the traffic, train timings and the infrastructure excuse approach on our minds. Which is why we are never able to focus on issues important to us.(There are some of us who do take pains to observe punctuality. That we happen to leave home two hours early to reach a place in time is an infrastructure or a distance gap.)
Japan may be going through an economic crisis, but the people over their never have to worry about being beaten up for seeing a movie!
Our politics has a tag cloud of castes, religion, language, creed and crime. Which is why we may make technological advancements, but they are dependent on a quota or a long queue or an archaic law.

The more I read about governments, the more I feel they are about their tag cloud. What your politicians are constantly talking about is where your country is headed.
And if the youth is talking a different language than the politician, how do you bridge the communication gap?

Trend : Bollywood-ization

A news channel conducted its annual awards function, by commemorating Indian of the Year in different fields. The usual award list saw the inclusion of 'Twitter Indian of the Year', Actor, Musician,Superstar etc. of the Year awards being given out to Bollywood celebrities. One would assume that a news channel would hand out  journalism, stories or even headline of the year awards. In fact apart from a chat with the Home Minister about the rising Naxal problem, most of the awards were about Bollywood.
It is increasingly obvious that Bollywood is playing a major role in the lives of Indians and Indian trends. News Channels have Bollywood production houses as investors. Sports teams are bought by Bollywood. Politics require Bollywood celebrities for vote garnering. The silver screen has a strong Bollywood presence. No fashion event is complete without a Bollywood showstopper. Even our own sense of justice and freedom is defined by Bollywood. In the recent MNiK controversy, we took it upon ourselves to fight the 'internal enemy' by watching the movie. We discovered our sense of justice and fundamental rights when in fact the dispute was between the star and a politician. We were just collateral damage(well almost!).
In a recent discussion with a friend, we talked about how phrases from Bollywood have begun to show up in status updates, dialogues, greeting cards. Take the ubiquitious 'Aal Izz Well' or the 'My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist'. Its very obvious that the trend-setters and the sources of idea implementation will come from Bollywood.
I dont know if its a dangerous precedent or not. Should we be afraid that a largely spineless industry has the power to influence decisions? That creativity for the sake of profit has a share in our basic infrastructure? I like the idea that a creative industry takes charge of the way trends are thrust upon society. In its own subliminal way, Bollywood is changing not just the fashion sense, but our perception of education at times (recent examples being 'Wake up Sid'). We may not be gobblers of information, especially if it comes from a fluff movie, but a lot of individuals are.
It is important to realize the influential value of this behemoth. Both from a directorial/production house perspective and from an audience perspective.

P.Sainath offers his opinion on a similar issue.

That piece of filth called 'Kites' trailer and stereotypes

I just saw the hopeless trailer for the movie Kites.


No I will not link you to it. If you go to see MNiK, you will get to see it. Else, its somewhere on Youtube. 


There is a scene where Barbara Mori's character asks Hrithik's character for the Hindi translation of a particular sentence. In classic Indian-male-wearing-smartie pants style, the smug Hrithik gives the wrong translation to Barbara's character.


I know it seems frivolous and many of you may have done something similar with your female friends. Especially if you think if they dont know the gist of a particular topic. Age old example : when guys give out wrong information to girls in matters of technology ( to those girls, please utilize Google. It has answers to life's many many questions ok ? ). To me the very act of giving out wrong information to test a person, or to take sadistic pleasure in their confusion is disrespectful.


Basically, Indian directors think that foreign women are sluts, stupid or make bad mothers. And invariably, the Indian guy will come back to his 'sanskriti'. After acquiring the green card of course.


Example  : a very regressive movie called Aa Ab Laut Chalen, in which Rajesh Khanna abandons his wife, marries a foreigner,buys bangla gaadi and then realises that she is wortheless. Meanwhile, his wife and son struggle to create an existence for themselves while he is enjoying the luxury life in US. But hello! An Indian woman's heart is soft and soppy.So white sari wearing Maushumi Chatterjee accepts him after two decades of abandonment.
Again, a way of keeping the woman in a state of confusion and disrespecting both the foreigner and the Indian by abandoning one or the other. 


This bit about taking women for a ride and taking advantage of ignorance is a deep seated problem. The general problem with male class is that they test if the girl has the requisite knowledge and then go on to explain something seemingly complex. If you feel that the person in front of you will not get the relevance of the topic, make it simpler. Dont test it and then present the wrong information! 

I can vouch for this because there have been times when I have silenced men on decidedly 'guy' topics. Dear men,it is a sad way to seem humorous and make a very bad first impression. Especially if that impression ends with ' Just Kidding Yaar!' (someday, a big rant on 'yaar' will be published. I can feel it.)

Which is why this scene of treating a foreigner in a stupid manner is not required. Even if it was included for comic relief, I dont see the joke in it. Its a common way, Indian directors treat Westerners in their movies. Some respondents have come up with ' They treated us badly before Independence' arguments!! Indian directors  have a problem with African Americans too. That class is reserved for sleeping with leading ladies( Fashion) or for being very very obese and poor (MNiK and one obese lady who sings a line in Yuvraaj). The end result being that these stereotypes affect us on a subconscious level. 
I dont have stats or research to prove this, but the classic effect of a foreign woman on an Indian male is that of 'use and throw'.All of them are not in a relationship for the long-term and divorces are normal. (Its a completely different story that Indian men are largely divorcable. That, a woman stays on for kids or society is subject for a another post.) It may well explain the reason why there are so many rape cases involving a Westerner!




Another problem is the way we make Western characters behave in our movies. We always have the European girl ( who,btw, is always a double D) being seduced by the Indian guy. The Westerner will never say no to a one night stand. Neither will the guy. His engaging in the act is also forgivable. Heck, even Kylie Minogue was reduced to a prop in a largely godforsaken Bhangra number! 
The female Indian character, however, will wear the skimpiest outfits, but will be well aware of that mystical thing called 'sanskriti' (the definition of which is highly debatable)


To me its unclear if the issue is of age-old male chauvinism or of treatment of Western women. Its a blurry subset of the larger issue I guess, but needs to be tackled right away.


Update : This is an excellent post by a_traveller: Wild Wild West. Love the quote by a lady called Daniela.

Of Dan Brown,Gilbert and Shoddy Writing

The precursor : A lot of people find Dan Brown and Elizabeth Gilbert's writing to be shoddy. I am guilty of committing the same crime. However, if a contradictory and sometimes obscure thought is 'out there', such overwhelming success is welcome.

Salman Rushdie gave this piece of advice to Irshad Manji over the flak she received for her book : 'Your work is out there. It will create magic for some and it will stir a hornet's nest. As a writer you must know that you cant control your work when its published. After that your thoughts and your work take a life of its own.'

I have always believed in letting a thought fly free in the world. Letting a feeling or an opinion be played with the larger masses.

Jessica Crispin wrote this article in defense of Elizabeth Gilbert's books. My favourite lines :

"Like a lot of people who care about books and writing and sentence structure, I was initially horrified at the success at Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Then I realized what it meant: 80 million people read a book about the removal of femininity from the Catholic Church, about how Jesus liked women and prostitutes and screw-ups and freaks, about how the Bible was edited by men in power, about how Jesus' divinity was not universally accepted. They read the book, and now it's in their brains, like a vaccination against patriarchal monotheism, even if they don't do anything with the information. Even if the people who read Elizabeth Gilbert's books now only toss them away and grumble ''How dare she?,'' Gilbert's sincerity about figuring out a new way to be in the world are now out there. It won't rid the world of its Lori Gottliebs, the fearmongers and the scolds, but the books can create little antibodies in the culture, boosting our immune system against them. "

Its a simple case of different thoughts being allowed to mingle in this idiosyncratic world of ours. We may not agree on specifics but the larger picture is reassuring.

Quickies

'The magician was the king of gore. Those body separation tricks were always done with twins. And hours of brainwashing '

'Sigh. Teenage times. A note with a missing alphabet . Friend into fiend. And the cliques were formed'

'She opened the refrigerator and saw the giraffe head. She smiled. She always knew that riddle was false. She had proved it wrong.'

'88 steps to the temple. A crutch and a patient lover. One push. End of responsibility. Beginning of the large life.'

'Depression. Option to end life: rope,poison,terrace. Happiness. Option taken: Murder'

'White. Wedding Night. Note on Side table: Thanks for the dowry. Dont try to find me.'

Lifeless Blue

Sometimes I miss the bus, thinking

I hold that bite and stare

When typing, I stop

To watch my fingers waver

A letter and its words

remain close to my heart

Life's favor

normalcy doesnt start

Places are etched

Meaningless moment

A joke, an oft-repeated line

dark corners and familiar scents

Some concrete where hands were held

a song that describes 'you'

The palette

is lifeless blue...

Lessons from Coco

"Every comedian dreams of hosting the Tonight Show and—for seven months—I got to do it. I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second [of it] ... All I ask is one thing, and I'm asking this particularly of young people that watch: Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism, for the record it's my least favorite quality. It doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

—Conan O'Brien, on his departure from The Tonight Show, January 22nd, 2010