THE BIG BOOBY TRAP!

we watch in wonder ( is that it?) at the growing fame and popularity of our very own 'jat' version of pamela anderson ...mallika sherawat!...whether we like it or not miss sherawat has got exactly what she wanted ... everyone talking about her !.. from the farmer chewing 'ganna' in his small plot of land in karnal, to college- going folk , to corporate bigwigs and even femenists!.. ...yes so thats what this post is about .. a few weeks back in one of our sessions in the feminism course i take , we ended up having a rather interesting discussion on mallika sherawat ...

the bunch of were divided on the issue ...actually not equally divided there were just two of us who were .. well whats the word for it .... not-to happy with miss sherawat.. the rest however seemed damned kicked about her! now i am not some damned prude ( 'hint' to smone!!) .. nor am i your right wing , saffron clothed ,hoarse voiced, protector of indian culture !!....my argument simply is that i think that its a little sad that in an attempt for a woman to be 'modern', 'liberated' and to lay claim to her own sexuality she must do so by way of objectifing herself....

..... the idea that several of my friends brought out was that mallika in the time and age of hypocrites wasnt one .. so you didnt hear her making statements that she kissed 17 times coz the 'scene demanded it' .. she did it for plain pure titillation ...and that if she felt like wearing clothes that revealed her 'assets'.. ( i use this for lack of a better word.. my vocabulary is weak i must admit!) it was her decision, and it reflected how even a girl from harayana could have modern ideals!...

okie first off .. kudos to mallika for being blunt . really i appreciate that.. much more than any of this hypocritical crap you have to put up with otherwise. but i have major problems with the rest of the argument ....is it then suggesting that i would be 'modern' if i roam around in a bikini even if i spend the rest of the day lapping up ekta kapoor's retrograde crap on television?!...can i lay claim to my sexuality only if i wear spagetti tops or low necks or mini skirts that reveal my finely shaped legs?!

once again this is not to suggest that i have anything against people who choose to wear these clothes .. my problem is if this is viewed as the only means of reclaiming your own life , of asserting yourself , your identity and as part of that your sexuality then we are all deluding ourselves.. how would you then explain arundhati roy ,brinda karat and the likes ? my own feminism prof .. possibly the most liberated person i have ever met in my life is never very 'modern' in her dressing.

its the ideas and your thinking that matters .. what you wear may or may not be an expression of that

....mallika sherawat in her movies ( i havent seen any .. relying on 2nd hand info here!) has apparently done nothing remotely modern ( in the true sense of the word) . she may dress so, but lets see her do something or say something that is not the rhetoric of some sexist script writer! what saddens me is that she has reduced herself on and off screen to nothing more than an object of lust and fancy. she chose her own route to success(?)....and that was her decision .. its just that i think i would have liked it much better if she could remain sexually liberated without having to bog herself down by these labels of 'sex object' that actually fit the bill... is it then any wonder that she is never ever taken seriously....

SMALL STUFF ..... THAT MAKE UP THE GOOD LIFE!

there are those small, seemingly unimportant moments in life that go a long way in making up the good life, that hit you maybe a day or weeks later and make you smile ...sometimes its what happens thats important , at times the person you are with ...
i just had a whole bunch of them over the past few days!

early morning coffee in the foyer.. sitting on the bench.. basking in 9am sunshine .. the type that creeps up your back slowly ..spreading over like a hug!...and the conversation that goes with it ... choking with laughter over yesterdays seinfeld episode or just random talks over why economics is dry to some( me!) and not to others...

lit class .. the best thing that ever happened to me .. ever since i moved ..Shef.. on the top of the platform ...with her crinkly smile that makes her eyes disappear under folds of skin.. Shef in her read-aloud voice... emoting so well that she actually makes you laugh aloud ...Shef with her ...'Plath was screwed in the head!'....

goofing around in planet M outlets with friends ... listening to a single track over and over and over...... again! closing your eyes to escape ... letting the music fill you .. the rhythm reach right upto your toes .. and let that tingling take over and there you go... tap- tap .. on 'ding-a-ding-a-ding!'...........checking out prices of Cd collections that you know you will never be able to afford for another 5 years! ... silently cursing the damned fool who bought of that nirvana collection .. that you believed was earmarked for you!
....doing marlon brado imitations ..( muffled voice , hand on cheek ..et al)... in hindi!!!

..long bus rides at night that are not tiresome becoz they are spent explaining to your bro why socialism is still important and why ayn rand sucks! (although u still havent read her..!)

... and more coffee and conversation ...
aaah!....the good life!


ps- note to the only two readers of this blog i knw! .... its 1 am im too damn tired to run a spell check ... so if there are more spelling errors .. do what you did last time .. and whisper them in my ear during class! :)

its been a great day!.. two classes early morning .. both centred around discussions on censorship and im glad to report a lot of people were against it .. ladies and gentleman we have a winner- ' a thinking generation ' !!..... im happy!

ps- also having a great hair day! :D

WE DONT NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL!

we are in the eye of a storm...'the enemy' as she is now known in some circles has managed to swing the courts verdict in her favour and the result is that you and i are now condemned to sit and watch televison meant for kids .. so if you thought the televison was an idiot box .. it just got stupider!.....as if we didnt have enough moral policing to begin with , here's dash of some more! the trouble with all this is that it just undermines people and their intelligence even more, what this new ruling basically says is that you are old enough to elect a government of your choice, even get married if you want but sorry you just not old enough to decide what you can watch on TV!

.....everyone is aware about the sex boom on television and yes maybe it isnt so great for young kids to be exposed to it all the time... but to think that such a ruling is the solution to all problems is to be naive. if anything, it will probably just lead to a boom in the pron film industry!
censorship is defenitely not the way out here ... and it never has been .. if anything it only stamps all over the creativity of a director. a simpler and far more intelligent decision would be to have a rating system instead ... and as far as sex on televison is concerned , maybe they could showcase movies or serials with sexually explicit content late at nights and ultimately leave it to parents to decide what or what not their child can watch!... does that actually sound so crazy .. it sure seems to be working in other countries!

what probably hurts most is that 'the litigant' is a professor from xaviers, that was up until sometime back a fairly liberal college...some ex-students wrote articles in national papers protesting this ruling especially on the grounds that xaviers was once the place of free love , drugs and rock and roll ...but such ideas just help the lady's case dont they....the reason a majority of people in college are angered by this ruling however is that xaviers in a large way embodies and encourages free thought, liberal thinking .....sadly however things have now started detiriorating.. it began with the dress codes, now this .. and we dont know where its going to end!

brilliant. just plain pure pristine brilliance! we had the most enlightening and liberating discussion in our feminism class today. These are the moments when i 'know' why i moved out of DU...why i had to !