Sunday, January 27, 2019
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Hurray for self-love: Why us ladies are saying thank you to Swara Bhasker and Ratna Pathak Shah
Hurray for self-love: Why us ladies are saying thank you to Swara Bhasker and Ratna Pathak Shah
Between Swara Bhasker and Ratna Pathak Shah it is clear we have come a long way baby! And by that i mean female masturbation is finally out in the open. I love it. And by that i mean both the fact that it is out in the open and masturbation itself. Per usual the people most upset about this are middle-aged men and apparently their grandmothers.
As a woman self-love, as it were, has always been a difficult subject to talk about because we have been shamed into believing that taking care of a normal desire is a dirty thing that good girls never do. Men on the other hand (no pun intended) have no problem discussing where, when and how often. There is no shame because men are accepted as sexual beings who must spread their seed literally everywhere. Especially outside women’s schools and colleges. Ladies you know exactly what i speak of.
In a country that expects its women to be virgins until they marry i would have thought masturbation would be encouraged. Besides, how is a woman to show her husband what makes her happy if she hasn’t explored the terrain herself? Oh – i forgot – women aren’t supposed to enjoy sex. And thanks to the fact that we have been repressed within an inch of our lives we don’t.
But we shouldn’t be ashamed because, like eating or sleeping, everyone masturbates. Men, women, fat people, skinny people, dogs, cats, bats, single people, married people, young people, old people – yes old people too! Even your grandmother! Right now, granny is home alone, she has just finished knitting you a scarf, or whatever grandmotherly thing she does, and she is wandering around her empty house, wearing her lovely white, cotton sari. White because she’s a widow and right there – she’s a widow, what else is she supposed to do? But if you ask granny, she won’t admit it. Like you and me, her woman mind has been warped to believe it’s a bad thing.
Of course the reason we have to hide all this is because men are afraid that if we do throw off the shawl of shame then perhaps we will discover we don’t need them. And god forbid women figure that out – we may stop having sex with men altogether! And then how are we to have babies, how are we to populate our armies, and how on earth will we have enough conservative jackasses to keep women down?
Monday, March 13, 2017
Urdu - the silver tongue in legalese - TOI
The silver tongue: How Urdu lingers on as the language of law
Malini Nair| TNN | Feb 26, 2017, 10.00 AM IST
Link- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/the-silver-tongue-how-urdu-lingers-on-as-the-language-of-law/articleshow/57350117.cms
Milaard, gawahon ke bayanat se ye saabit hota hai ki Mr Rajesh begunaah hain....Quaid-e-ba-mushaqat...Taazirat-e-Hind dafa teen sau do ke tehat...Mere kaabil dost...Muvakkil...
Urdu legalese has thundered across filmy courts for as long as we can remember. The grimness of tazeerat-e-hind, as milard sent it flying across the courtroom like a hammer backed by the full weight of justice, was a formidable thing even if we didn't know that it meant the Indian Penal Code. Quaid-e ba-mushaqat led to chakki-pissing and stone breaking even if we couldn't break it down to rigorous imprisonment. Ba-izzat bari meant mulzim's mother and heroine sighed in relief and touched their sari to their wet eyes at acquittal. And Dafa 302 meant end of the road for the man in prison stripes.
Bollywood has courted Urdu for decades. In reality too, the legal system has used adaliya zubaan (the language of the courts) for nearly two centuries now. Minus the theatricality, of course.
'Urdu ka Adaalati Lehja', among the most entertaining and enlightening sessions at the recent Jashn-e-Rekhta festival, discussed the many ways the elegant language livens up the grim proceedings of Indian courts. The festival is an annual celebration of Urdu in Indian life and literature.
"Persian was the language of the Mughal court, and Urdu replaced it in the late 19th century. The Adalat System, set up in 1772 by Warren Hastings was a mix of both British and Mughal Courts. In this system, Urdu came to be the language of the lower munsif's courts," says Saif Mahmood, a Supreme Court advocate and an expert on Urdu poetry and literature, who conducted the session. The legal Urdu we know today is largely the gift of novelist (Dipty) Nazeer Ahmed who translated the Indian Penal Code in 1860.
Interestingly, the most lyrical insight into the judicial system of mid-to-late 19th century India, and Urdu's place in it, comes from the incomparable Ghalib, a man Mahmood describes as "a litigious commoner". "Ghalib spent 20 years of his life litigating in every court of the existing judicial system on issues ranging from pension and debt recovery to gambling. His life as a litigant hugely influenced his poetry," says Mahmood. One of Ghalib's best-loved five-verse set (qata) quoted in Mahmood's research paper starts thus: Phir khula hai dar-e-adaalat-e-naaz/Garm bazar-e-faujdari hai (The door of the court of coquetry is open again/There is a bazaar-like briskness about the criminal case).
The distinguished legal scholar and jurist Tahir Mahmood, a panelist at the talk, has written on 'Legal Metaphor in Ghalib's Urdu Poetry'. And among the couplets he lists is the much-loved "Dil mudda'i o deeda bana mudda'a alaih/Nazaare ka muqaddama phir roobakaar hai (Heart is the Plaintiff and eye, the defendant/The case of gazing is being heard again)."
Today, words such as vakalatnama (a document authorizing a lawyer to act on behalf a client) and sarishtedaar (court officer) are used even in courts where Urdu is not otherwise used, like Bombay High Court and Supreme Court. Until the 1970s, Urdu continued to be used in the district and sessions courts of north India, especially UP, Punjab, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir, in the filing of pleadings.
The FIRs and the police roz namcha (daily journal), which can be called into evidence in court, often throws up delightful usage of archaic Urdu. "Khadim PP sahib ko namaz-e-eid-ul-fitr ada karane 10.30am le gaya - Ba-qalam khud" - thus ran a florid entry in a recent roz namcha of a VIP security officer that Mehmood stumbled upon. Simply put: I, the undersigned, escorted my protectee to the namaz today at 10.30am.
Urdu also works as a happy means of intellectual jousting between lawyers and judges. And a superb example came from the recently retired Chief Justice of India TS Thakur, known for his love of Urdu. As a judge of the Delhi High Court, he was once hearing a case for the Delhi Government being pleaded by Najmi Waziri, now a sitting judge of the same court. The case was adjourned for five or six months and the lawyer sought a shorter date. Justice Thakur denied the plea. At 1.15pm as the court broke for lunch and the judge rose from the bench, the lawyer remarked despondently to no one in particular: Kaun jeeta hai teri zulf ke sar hone tak (who is going to live till you deign to decide)? Justice Thakur paused as he stood and said: Pehla misra padho (read the first line). And the lawyer obliged with the opening lines of Ghalib's famous couplet: Aah ko chahiye ek umr asar hone tak (it takes a lifetime for a prayer to find a response). Justice Thakur famously listed the case for the following week.
Justice Syed Mahmood in the late 1890s famously quoted Urdu poetry in his landmark judgements. And even today, Sahir and Faiz lend a human touch to the grimmest of verdicts.
But does Urdu shayari affect the gravitas of rulings? Justice Aftab Alam believes in minimal usage. He recalled using a verse to describe the naive but effective defence of a petitioner in Patna High Court. "But why did you use it? Did it enhance your judgement?" he was asked later by a mentor. "I have since stopped using any shayari in my judgements," he joked.
Justice Thakur used a hilarious couplet to explain how Urdu works to cut the verbal clutter in courts: "Kucha-e-yaar mein agar bheed bhaad ho/Tum bhi koi sher ghusad ghasad do (if your lover's lane is full of rivals, then you too shove in some poetry)."
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Fear of female fantasy- Devdutt Patnaik TOI
Fear of female fantasy: Let’s tell tales celebrating women’s desires, such as where Shakti demands Shiva satisfy her and he does
Fantasy frightens us, especially female fantasy. How do we regulate it? We can control a woman’s body, lock her in the house, cover her face with a veil, but how do we control her mind. For in her mind, she can imagine a better man, a perfect man, which renders the real men in her life inadequate. Her body can be invaded and violated, but can her mind ever be truly domesticated?
These questions emerge as we hear of censor boards denying certificates to films celebrating female fantasy, and of policemen and politicians physically attacking women, against all norms of civilised conduct, arguing that surely if women want to ‘fantasise’ about being equal to men, surely they can handle a punch or two.
One way of regulating fantasy has been by propagating stories where women who pursue their desires are viewed as dangerous, hence need to be restrained for social good. For example, in Japanese mythology, the first man and woman are called Izanagi and Izanami.
When the woman invites the man to bed, the children born of the union turn out to be the demons, but when the man invites the woman to bed, the children born are the gods.
In Abrahamic mythology, we learn how before Eve there was another woman in Eden called Lilith. She refuses to be subservient to Adam, and rejects the missionary position prescribed by the patriarchs. So she is cast out, and she becomes the mother of demons, of the succubi and incubi, who seduce men and women into sexual activity, and thereby pollute the soul. When even Eve defies God, and eats the Forbidden Fruit, submitting to the possibilities offered by the Devil, she is punished and made answerable to Adam for all eternity.
All of womankind is redeemed by Mary, who quietly accepts the news that even though she is not married, and has never been with a man, she is pregnant with Jesus Christ. She will be the Virgin Mother of the son sent by God to save all sinners.
In Hindu mythology, we hear the story of Renuka, who is beheaded on her husband Rishi Jamadagni’s orders because of harbouring an adulterous thought for but a moment on seeing a beautiful man bathing in the river as she was fetching water. How does he gain knowledge of her fantasy? Because he notices she has lost her ‘sati’ powers.
Sati is a mythic term referring to women who are so chaste that they obtain magical powers such as the ability to withstand the heat of fire. In the case of Renuka, she had the ability to collect water from unbaked pots made from clay from the riverbank. She loses this ability as soon as she desires the handsome man, and so is punished brutally by her husband.
That being said, Hinduism is rather ambiguous in its view of female sexuality; seeking control over it while acknowledging simultaneously that it cannot be controlled. And so the head of Renuka, separated from her body, is an object of worship in many parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka. It is taken around in processions, attached to the rim of a pot or a wicker basket, a reminder of female fantasy, and sexuality.
Renuka is viewed not as the fallen woman but as the mother-goddess, beyond the control of patriarchal society. She is simultaneously the chaste domesticated farm as well as the wild unchaste forest, unrestrained by the rules of the farmer, the patriarch. Of course, when her tale is retold today, Renuka’s desires are whitewashed, and focus is given to the restoration of her status as sati, pure and chaste.
Cultural tales, repeated over generations, fix themselves in our soul and become real. We start assuming they reveal an objective truth of the universe, rather than the subjective truth of a culture.
Through stories we try to defy nature, and deny imagination. We are told repeatedly that women should be desirable, but they cannot desire. Women who desire are punished, like Surpanakha, whose nose is cut, and Ahalya who is turned into stone. We are told that Ahalya was ‘innocent’, duped by Indra who took the form of her husband.
We are not allowed to consider alternate narratives that maybe, just maybe, she recognised and wanted the virile skygod, bored of her stiff intellectual old husband.
In modern retellings, despite all talk of feminism, we shy away from describing erotic fantasies of Draupadi: does she compare and contrast the lovemaking styles of her five husbands? We avoid giving too much importance to apsaras who are great seductresses but lack all maternal instincts, like Menaka who leaves Shakuntala on the forest floor, after vanquishing Vishwamitra’s celibate will. We want goddesses to be virginal and chaste. We fear the yoginis who encircle and entrap young nath-yogis with their charms; we declare them insatiable witches.
Hindu mythology is unique in that it exists in a paradigm where nothing is perfect or permanent. All things change. And there is always a story suitable for every age. Time to reject our colonial puritanical past and dig out ancient tales where Shakti approaches Shiva and demands he satisfy her, and he – ironically known as Kamantaka, the killer of desire – dutifully complies.
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