Anant

Thursday, 2 May 2013

Mother India!

Women Power to Empowerment: Fiction and Facts

'And God Created a Woman' !

It was a lovely film with Gina Lolobrigida, the Italian legend, a woman so beautiful, and the beautiful woman that she portrayed amidst a classy, extravagantly staged milieu. That is the imprint I am still carrying from those impressionable childhood in Africa.

Almost around the same time, even as I was entering the romantic adolescence dreaming about the beautiful Ginas, ‘Mother India’ happened!

And the beautiful woman again - Nargis this time!

However, what Nargis portrayed in Mehboob’s classic magnum opus, was a transition, from a demure village belle in love, to a young poverty-stricken widow surrounded by her two dirty looking, grieving children, and finally, to a politically empowered lady. What she assayed was a rural Indian beauty with an unforgettable expression of pain on her mud slapped yet beautiful face, stuck with thick brown streaks of wet, disheveled hair.

What was only a transition, turns to transformation, as Mother India undergoes the drudgery of daily life in a village full of antagonistic elements and a villainous money lender who eyes her lecherously - a classical situation in a society where caste, class and widows are taboos. For a short while that she is happy even as the transformation towards the old aging mother continues subtly, she enjoys life with her two sons and their lovers - until the moneylender invites trouble, and one good son turns a murderer.

And Mother India, the innately powerful rural woman comes alive! On the screen that is!

The old woman as portrayed by a beautifully young Nargis, is by now a bent figure with wrinkles, gray hair and with a couple of teeth missing. Her drooping eyes showing the venom of justice despite her personal social predicament, she picks up a heavy rifle, and shaking with rage, manages to mount it on her drooping shoulders. And then, she takes an unsteady aim at her murderer son with one eye closed, the grey eyebrows twitching with a momentary rage.

The close-up remains unforgettable, the whole range of emotions, quite simply, heart rending - her unseen yet surely broken heart and her visibly angry determination to bring her son to justice and that too, in spite of her very social constraints that he fought to demolish.

The trigger did work and there is one last transition. The innate but benign power of Mother India transforms her to a genuine political leader of the village even as she sees, or so she imagines, the blood of her son, flowing into a canal that she has just inaugurated!

But, that was a celluloid fiction, a visual feast for the masses. What are the facts today in agrarian mother

India

? Transition, transformation, social biases and evils, poverty, isolation, attitudes; the oppression and neglect; decision making, conflict/resolution; the daily drudgery, the innate beauty and the tenacity of the beautiful Indian woman, particularly in a village; the things she can do if only empowered. That for us is the rural Indian woman in a predominantly male bastion that is supposedly proud of its villages with a diverse set of traditions and culture, set amidst our fast degrading natural heritage.

Well! Be it a fact or the fiction, some sensitive, creative souls gave us a beautiful rendering by Gina and the ugly-yet-beautiful Mother India. We are forever grateful to them.

‘And God created a Woman’ – yes. But whosoever created the subject of 'Gender and Equity, it was certainly not Him!!

Wednesday, 3 April 2013

Gender? Now, what's THAT??

Gender Shredder

Let me first make a statement of fact - I love women and admire their God-given gifts including temperament, tolerance, etcetera and etcetera. Quite naturally! After all, it is God who created a woman, right?

And, we men are all sensitive - sometimes too sensitive - to women, physically, emotionally, psychologically. If I sound defensive or, if you feel that something is cooking, you might just be right. Let me assure you that we are not about to witness a battle of sexes and yet, it just might turn out to be a rather sexy, internecine war!

A rather silly question: if H, E is 'He' and S, H, E is 'She', what is G & E ?? Oh, gee! Okay. A hint. We the NGOs in development sector always, always associate the word 'sensitivity' along with G&E, a word used so often that some of us have lost the nerve endings! Got it? Come on, be a man!

Okay. We have the word 'issues' used as often. Aha! Got it. G&E refers to children. Well well! You men are all one-track mind, aren't you!

G and E acronyms for Gender and Equity, silly – a subject of great interest when it comes to sustainable development! If I may further explain to the best of my knowledge, it is all about sexuality and equality. Cute!

It is likely that by now, some of you guys, whims and fancies are getting irritated; worse, you might be as confused as a bisexual. I don't blame you. After all, how do I explain to the common man/woman, the misled villager, the poor tribal and lastly, the sexy urbanite as to how, sexuality has nothing to do with sex, and equality should not be interpreted as anything akin to homosexuality?

However, entrepreneurship is such a wonderful gift. You see, they always create a need first. Then, they will make you feel the need and, call it a 'felt need'! The guys and gals will then tell you that they have this thing that satisfies your felt need! It is you who are sold, not the product! We were always thirsty, weren't we, and always drank water. But nowadays, we are made to feel thirsty because someone told us so and keeps on reminding us. And so, when we feel thirsty, we should now drink anything but refreshingly yours insipid water!

The subject of Gender and Equity is one such product manufactured by God-alone-knows who! We are certain that God created the woman and all along, everything was just fine, for heaven's sake. Suddenly, a fumbling-for-funding dude created the subject of 'Gender and Equity', never heard of by our forefathers (and mothers, sorry!).

For me the male, supposedly 'expert' in environment and development sector, life has never been the same thereafter.

God, why did you create at all!?

PS:

I had entered this phase of my career in 1991 at age 40 when I first heard the word 'Gender' used by a high-profile lady consultant giving a seminar on the subject. What I noticed was that the lady, obviously from high-end economy, had actually lost her femininity associated with Indian women. She walked, talked and generally acted like a man. It sounded so incongruous - the man-nny talking about rural, underprivileged women and their problems with men folk. So specialised she had become in verbal bashing of men, that she herself had become, not only biased against men in general, but even looking like one.

I was angry, confused at that time and then in 2001, I wrote this little piece that had remained in my archives.

Monday, 4 March 2013

Leisure Trip to South-East Asia

Unabashedly yours...Singapore!

Did I read somewhere that the world economy is in shambles, that there is Eurozone crisis, that the economy in USA is in trouble, that the fuel crisis is leading towards conservation, that high inflation is causing home budgets to crash? Who says all that rubbish? At least to this wide-eyed tourist roaming around in these 700 odd square kilometres of an island-country called Singapore, life is hunky dory like in my good old days!

About the only thing Singaporeans care about is drinking water. It is for all wasteful Indians to know that after all, drinking water has a cost, and it cannot be treated simply as nature’s gift - and therefore free. Indian tourists, please note.

That apart, in between the wide, clean roads and islands of green (some natural and some artificial) are thick, very tall islands of concrete; the lighting effects at night are beautiful. However, if you are an educated tourist, a silly question arises: why waste so much energy? Pat came the answer: we make double the money that goes towards energy costs or for that matter, the costs of fancy high-rises. Ok, fine, says me glumly. The huge luxury car models that zoom around give a whirring effect in the head; there are good answers to that whir-whir in your head. Everything expensive, including the currency or profligacy in spending has perfectly logical answers!

So is Singapore the ultimate in urban utopia? No, said the Chinese guide, adding that she will tell us about the flip side of the visual beauty that is Singapore. She never told me, despite a polite reminder. Why, she could not answer me regarding the source of Singapore ‘river’ that is just 3 km long - and whether it is a sweet water river or having sea water mixed!

Let me stop raising stupid questions and be a normal wide-eyed tourist! I will rest this case and have a look at this city-state about which late Mukesh crooned, in an old Hindi film of same namesake – ‘yeh sheher bada albela, khubsoorat hasino ka mela...’

'Songs of the Sea’ at Sentosa Island

This 30-minute show is simply mind-blowing. They have smartly used the idea of musical fountains by scaling it up to one on a beach using sea water. To top it all, the huts on poles serve as beautiful background as technology goes in top gear to create one, happy blend of music, songs and laser-on-spray sea creatures also participating. Like Singapore, Sentosa island, and this show in particular, makes you ‘feel’ happy; you forget the sad aspects of your life – even if temporarily so.

Imbiah Nature Trail, Sentosa

Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur, Genting and Penang (Malaysia)

Thanks to our charming guide, we now know how a Chinese boy of 14 left his home town in search of job about 50 years back, squeezing himself into a dirty crowd on board a small ship and landed in what was then Malaya. He started with small jobs, developed vision, became a business tycoon, thought of giving Malaya its only Casino, 40 km away from Kuala Lumpur, envisioned and built Genting and went on to become a proud owner of all Star cruise ships. Amazing legend! What I did’nt know is that Chinese are some of the greatest, and sometimes compulsive gamblers in the world.

I fell in love with Penang straightaway! It gave me nostalgia of my chidhood days in Dar-es-Salaam, East Africa. It smells of the colonialism by the British who have left behind some lovely architecture so typical of those days. In fact, Penang is a UN designated World Heritage city. There is the sea breeze and sea-ish smells. It was here that we boarded Star Libra for a fantastic 4-day cruise to Phuket and Krabi in Thailand.

PUTRJAYA