Why the name ‘Satanic Verses’ offends Muslims- MOHAMMED WAJIHUDDIN ( TOI Aug 20, 2022, 06.40 AM IST)

 Why the name ‘Satanic Verses’ offends Muslims- 

MOHAMMED WAJIHUDDIN  (TOI Aug 20, 2022)

The murderous attack on Salman Rushdie at a literary event in New York recently has initiated fresh debate on the Mumbai-born author’s 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses. The fact that 24-year-old Hadi Matar attacked Rushdie, 75, with an intention to kill shows the book still rankles many Muslims more than 30 years after its publication. Though it is not clear if Iran’s then leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa of death (1989)

against Rushdie influenced Matar, it is important to understand why the book’s very title – leaving aside its many characters resembling revered Muslim figures – disturbs the community.

Story Of The Quran

Quran – the book containing God’s revelations to Prophet Muhammad – was revealed through the archangel Gabriel over 23 years. Muhammad himself didn’t write the verses as he didn’t know how to read and write. According to tradition, his companions memorised the verses as he recited, and wrote them on different materials like cloth, bone fragments and leather. The Quran was compiled into a book during the time of the first caliph, Abu Bakr. Under the third caliph, Uthman, a committee of scribes compiled it in the Qurysh dialect of Arabic for uniformity in recitation. After verification, this became the standard version, and older copies of the text were destroyed to avoid future conflicts.

Origin Of Satanic Verses

The row over the ‘satanic verses’ is not new, nor is Rushdie its originator. Orientalist Sir William Muir (1819-1905) in his book Life of Mahomet (1858) first used the term ‘satanic verses’ on the basis of his readings of some earlier scholars of Islam who had mentioned a certain episode in the life of Muhammad. So, the satanic verses are part of an Islamic memory handed down the centuries by historians, biographers and scholars. Historians such as Ibn Ishaq, Al-Tabari and Ibn Saad, on the basis of a chain of stories that got transmitted to them, mention the alleged episode that continues to be a source of discomfiture for the ummah (community).

Mention Of Goddesses

Lat, Uzza and Manat were revered ancient goddesses of pre-Islamic Arabia. Scholars such as Al-Tabari and Ibn Saad mention that Muhammad, under the inspiration of Satan (chief of devils), added two verses praising Lat, Uzza and Manat, in the course of reciting the Quran. The Qurysh of Mecca, who had not converted to Islam and were at the Kaaba precinct where, as they claimed, Muhammad praised their deities through two verses, saw it as endorsement of their reverence to the deities. According to some accounts, Muhammad fi rst recit

ed this verse: “Have you really considered al-Lat and al-Uzza, and the third one, Manat? (53:19, 20). ” And then he allegedly added the line: “These are beautiful and lofty birds and there is hope of intercession from them. ” The Prophet allegedly won instant admiration from the idolaters since he “praised” their deities. However, according to this narration, archangel Gabriel came to the Prophet the same evening and told him that he had recited something that God never sent and that Satan had whispered these words to him. Subsequently, some ‘admonishing verses’ (17:73-75) were revealed. When Muhammad got very worried, Gabriel brought him a ‘consoling verse’: “Whenever we sent any messenger or prophet before you, and he recitedanything (of our revelation), Satan tampered with it. But God abrogates Satan’s interjections and then he firmly reaffirms his revelations. God is all-knowing and allwise (22:52). ”

Scholars Reject Episode

The ‘satanic verses’, which praise Lat, Uzza and Manat, are neither in the Quran nor in the Hadiths (sayings of Muhammad). Contemporary Muslim scholars vehemently reject the story claiming that the fi nite and infallible Prophet could have done no wrong. “The whole idea of the Prophet praising these deities fl ies in the face of monotheistic Islam. Writers like Al-Tarabi recorded stories which didn’t reach them from primary sources,” says Indo-Islamic scholar and writer Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi.

Islamic scholar Zeenat Shaukat Ali maintains the local Meccan tribes were estranged from Muhammad and they spread the rumour that he praised their deities as part of a reconciliation process when they heard him mention their goddesses. Islamic scholar Farida Khanum is translating an Urdu book of her father, noted Islamic scholar late Maulana Wahiduddin Khan.

The book carries a chapter on the ‘satanic verses’ episode, where Khan writes that Muhammad never praised the deities. He says the mushraqeen (idolators), who were also present at the meeting in Mecca, added this sentence to the Quranic verses when they heard the names of their deities from Muhammad. “No Muslim school of thought or sect accepts that the Prophet ever committed such a mistake. But the enemies of Islam keep resurrecting it for their ulterior motives,” says All India Ulema Council’s Maulana Mahmood Daryabadi. “Rushdie is one of them. ”

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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/why-the-name-satanic-verses-offends-muslims/articleshow/93669319.cms

Songs of freedom: On the making of ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’ (published in The Hindu 12-08-22)

 A little over three decades ago, I worked at Ogilvy and Mather (O&M) Advertising, Madras, as a film executive. During my time there, I assisted in the making of two iconic films on national integration — Spread the Light of Freedom (also known as the Torch Song or Freedom Run), and Mile Sur. The first film shows famous sports personalities running while carrying a lit torch, passed from hand-to-hand, till it reaches the hands of little children. The visuals shot all over India, were set against a rousing soundtrack which gradually built up to a crescendo, ending with the final notes of our cherished National Anthem

When it was first aired on August 15, 1987 it took the country by storm. Suddenly it was ‘cool’ to be Indian. This was exactly what the then Government led by Rajiv Gandhi was trying to achieve. Tired of the uninspiring films churned out by conventional production companies, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting decided they needed something modern and soul-stirring, and the Torch of Freedom was born.

This film was conceptualised by the brilliant Suresh Mullick who was then Creative Head of O&M, who was partnered by Kailash Surendranath of Far Productions. High on the unprecedented success of the film, Suresh and Kailash put their heads together to create a worthy successor the following year. Once again, they decided to follow the winning formula of a music track culminating with the last notes of our national anthem.

The making of ‘Mile Sur’

But this time, they chose the Indian classical route. The lyrics were a collaborative effort by the late Vinod Sharma and Piyush Pandey; simple and memorable, they would not get lost in translation.

‘Mile sur mera tumhara, toh sur bane hamara

Sur ki nadiya har disha se beheke sagar mein mile

Baadalon ka roop leke barse halke halke’

The soundtrack was recorded first. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was to sing for about two minutes, but went on for 40. Kailash and the sound recordist had the task of cutting that performance down to the required 50 seconds. That final edit was the seed from which the rest of the track grew. It was sent to M Balamuralikrishna, Louis Banks, and PP Vaidyanathan. Louis and Vaidyanathan had to flesh out the rest of the track in the various Indian languages and create the transitions. Kavita Krishnamurthy sang on the guide track, and Lata Mangeshkar sang her part over it later. Kavita’s voice was retained for some actors, and Poornima Shreshtha did some parts too.

I got a call from Suresh Mullick, requesting my help for the Madras leg of the production. I had just 10 days in hand. We managed to bring together KR Vijaya, Revathy, Ramanathan Krishnan, AV Ramanan, cricketer Venkataraghavan, Pratap Pothen and a couple of others. SP Balasubramaniam was away on tour and couldn’t participate. Balamuralikrishna also confirmed his presence. But one person remained elusive.

Enter Kamal Haasan

Kamal Haasan was the most sought-after star at that point of time. Nayakan had swept every award worth having the previous year, and Kamal had won the National award for the title role. Suresh’s every call would end with ‘get Kamal Haasan’.

After tracking Kamal down and meeting him on the sets of Unnaal Mudiyum Thambi, the shoot was fixed at Fisherman’s Cove. Balamuralikrishna’s shot was at sunrise. He was ready for us at 3.30 am! In the afternoon, the remaining stars reported to the location. Kamal was the last to arrive, and politely waited his turn. There was a little unplanned entertainment when he took off his black tee-shirt to try on a white one belonging to Kailash. For the final shot though, he wore his own. That wrapped up the Madras section.

Of beaches and camels

I got to speak to Kailash at length to get tidbits about the rest of the shoot through the length and breadth of India. As with the Torch film, the cinematographer was RM Rao. The first shot was of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, sitting by a waterfall in Khandala. In keeping with the lyrics, many of the sequences — Mallika Sarabhai, Shabana, Tanuja, Waheeda Rehman, Sharmila Tagore, Mario Miranda.. were shot on a beach or riverside. There were also some stunning aerial shots; Suresh Mullick used his connections with the Air Force to hire a helicopter to shoot the Taj Mahal. No drones back then!

There was no script. It would be the sur and geet.. lip-synched by famous personalities in the language of the State they belonged to.

Piyush Pandey (today Chief Creative Officer Worldwide) helped organise the shot of camels by a well in Rajasthan and Vicky Bangera, my counterpart in Mumbai took on the challenge of getting the Hindi film stars on board. Mithun Chakravarthy playfully agreed to come only if Amitabh Bachchan would too. Jeetendra joined them. Shabana Azmi, Hema Malini and the cast members of Tamas were shot at Film City.

Lata Mangeshkar charmed everyone by arriving in a white sari with a green and orange border. In one more nod to the Torch film, the final shot of Mile Sur again featured school children from Ooty. A significant detail: the main crew, musicians, celebrities, everyone participated free of charge. However, the technical assistants, studios, travel and production costs were covered by the I&B Ministry.

Looking back

‘Mile Sur’ was first aired on Doordarshan on August 15 1988. We were elated by the response to the Torch film, but euphoric at the reaction to Mile Sur. I was immensely fortunate to have got a chance to work on both. 34 years later, it is still played on some channel or the other every Republic Day or Independence Day.

Today, I write this to honour some of those who have passed on - Suresh Mullick, PP Vaidyanathan, Pratap Pothen, and Vicky Bangera among others. The film’s three main singers, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Balamuralikrishna, and Lata Mangeshkar are longer with us, but their voices will live on for years to come 

(Geeta John - the writer- runs an interior design practice in Bengaluru and dabbles in film styling, writing and playback singing)

https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/making-of-mile-sur-75-years-of-independence/article65753319.ece

फ़िराक़ पर दैनिक जागरण 3/3/20

NOW I KNOW BETTER- Does love diminish when you love more people? Are prayers wasted when they are for others?

NOW I KNOW BETTER - OZONE- TIMESLIFE
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/O-zone/now-i-know-better/

Does love diminish when you love more people? Are prayers wasted when they are for others? Is there a limit to the amount of work you can do?

I used to think that love gets diminished when you start loving more people – that we have only a limited amount of the emotion, which we should be very careful in dispensing. I would worry about divided loyalties and being fair to all those you love. Often, I wondered about women who had multiple children and how little love each child must be getting!

Now I know better. I know for sure that love expands to include more. The more you love, the bigger your heart’s capacity for the emotion becomes. That was a very interesting lesson learnt. The greatest epiphany was when I had my second child. Worried about being equally loving and caring to my second offspring, I soon realized that love just flows endlessly from some infinite source that we are unaware of till we tap it.

I was reminded of my childhood doubts while watching ‘Anne with an E’ when Miss Stacy tells her besotted student Anne, “Love is not quantifiable and therefore not finite. If you love another, it has no impact on your love for the first… But love is not indestructible… If love is not cherished and nurtured, it can indeed be lost.”

How true! Love does not hang around indefinitely waiting for nourishment. Love needs to know that it is cherished, welcomed and appreciated. Love demands love, and in the absence of appreciation, dwindles, shrivels and may even fade away, becoming a distant memory. Loving others and being loved back gives us an unparalleled sense of well-being and a rare confidence. We all cherish those who love us because of how they make us feel. If love demands love, it begets love in equal measure too.

***
I used to think that there must be a limit to the number of prayers that get answered. I would worry that praying for another would use up my own quota, and would marvel at those who said, ‘I will pray for you,’ secretly deciding that they would never do so! I knew the thought seemed deformed and somewhat unnatural seeing that praying and spirituality are all about the oneness of the Universe and the free flow of love and prayers. And yet, I worried…

Now I know better. The more you pray the more you are blessed. And when you pray selflessly for others, you are blessed many times over. It is a Christian duty to pray for one another; Muslims love each other and pray for the love of Allah. Hindu prayers require sincerity and purity of thought and intention, and a prayer that is selfless and meant for the welfare of the world and others is even better. Priests pray to the Gods on behalf of devotees. In our scriptures, even Hindu Gods pray to each other for the welfare of the world and people.
***
I used to think that there is a limit to the amount of work you can do. That work is dependent on the number of hours in the day and the amount of energy you have. I would worry when too many things piled up and, in that anxiety, end up not able to achieve half that I would have done with a cool mind.

Now I know better. The amount of work that can be achieved is all a matter of organization and being able to distance yourself from the little tasks in order to gear yourself towards the ones that require immediate attention. Multi-tasking for me is taking on several tasks, but focusing on them one at a time. It is about being able to train and delegate, about trusting and allowing others to grow too… And then you can take on as much work as you like, and stretch time beyond limit.

There is no limit to the amount of love, prayer, forgiveness and work that you can achieve in life. Life and experience teach us to let go a little in order to gain a lot, become selfless in order to gain something for your own self. What you let go with good intention and sincerity, comes back to bless you several times over. And that is true liberation of the soul….

Children making friends with AI - Alexa,

'आओ सुनाएं तुम्हें कहानी' - दैनिक जागरण The importance of story telling,

Funny signs on Churches

The take on sexist advertisements by British authorities

How British are now suffering from partitions woes as they made asians and africans suffer

The last moments of Gandhiji's assassination chronicled - published in 'Young World' - children's paper of Hindu

Hurray for self-love: Why us ladies are saying thank you to Swara Bhasker and Ratna Pathak Shah

June 19, 2018, 2:00 AM IST Radhika Vaz in Read it and weep | Edit Page, India, TOI

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?

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)."

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

February 27, 2017, 2:00 AM IST Devdutt Pattanaik in TOI Edit Page | Edit Page, India | TOI  LINK- http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-edit-page/fear-of-female-fantasy/ 

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.

Why bra-panties are not bombs- TOI

Why bra-panties are not bombs

Malini Nair| TNN | Feb 5, 2017, 10.00 AM IST 

Link- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/why-bra-panties-are-not-bombs/articleshow/56975342.cms

A college play was at the centre of a controversy recently for using the two words that denote women's underwear. Sunday Times looks at our long tradition of squeamishness

Halfway through 36 Chowringhee Lane, Aparna Sen's classic work, there was a fleeting but memorable scene: the ageing and lonely Violet Stoneham (Jennifer Kendall) has offered the use of her drawing room to a young poet who is looking for some intimacy with his girlfriend. As she readies to leave home for work, Violet asks to be excused, quickly goes to the clothesline and pulls off her bra and panty and shoves it into a laundry bag.

We had laughed in the darkened hall then; it was a greying, granny bra and panty and Violet was too old to play coy, but we understood. Some strong social code that we absorbed from our mothers, grandmother and aunts was deeply chiselled deep into our sensibility - women's underclothes cannot be publicly visible or talked about, certainly not in mixed company.

Remember Lucille Ball once asking her daughter: "Where is my B-R-A?" looking pointedly at her son who tells her poker-faced: "It is hanging on the L-I-N-E mom."

Decades down the line, the squeamishness appears to be still in place. The panel judging a university theatre festival hosted by Delhi government's Sahitya Kala Parishad reportedly threw out a play produced by Kamala Nehru College for using the words bra and panty along with "other cuss words". And this at a time when the world is celebrating Beyonce's already-iconic baby bump photo in burgundy bra and ruffled panties (mismatched, please note).

The sarkari decision, which smacked of the whole "haw, hai" attitude to any mention of women's underthings, was rolled back after widespread condemnation. As the spirited response from the girls pointed out, if you said banian and chaddi instead you wouldn't be asked to wash out your mouth with soap.

Spunky theatre actor Mallika Taneja, who is a product of college dramatics, has gone beyond saying bra and panty on stage — she actually appears on stage stripped down to her underwear in her scathingly funny 10-minute act, Thoda Dhyan Se, and proceeds to swaddle herself in a suffocating shroud of clothes to "stay safe" on streets. The play is a resounding hit especially in women's colleges where it is always greeted with howls of laughter and support.

"I find it embarrassing that the judges are embarrassed. We put a panty on the stage for our play on incest more than a decade ago when I was in college, for heaven's sake. University theatre is a place for bold experiments that challenge all kinds of stereotypes. This is just another episode in the increasing clampdown that all arts are facing," she says.\

It is clear where the horror of having the two words thrown at you comes from. There are some unwritten, accepted social conventions around all things intimately feminine. But to start with the bra and panty. First, they can't be openly hung on an open clothesline, you have to shroud them with a towel. Because who knows what kind of idea they could give people about you by implying unmentionable body parts?

If you carried your washing, you picked the farthest, darkest corner to hang your underthings. If there were men around you left them damp in the bathroom till the coast was clear. Considerate men would look away. None of these shifty rigours applied to the janghia, langot that could wave breezily in the sun.

Recall too the cringe-worthy experience of shopping in the callow Libertina years before the word lingerie came to be widely used, before women in uniforms sold you multinational stuff at malls and before online shopping made bra shopping a breeze. Usually it was some benign uncleji who sold undergarments in the generic "Ladies Fashion Shop" alongside bindi, bangles and safety pins. Some would have a woman assistant, others would do the deed themselves. "Size?" he would ask matter-of-factly, half the eye looking you in the face and the other half gliding down to assess for himself. And you grabbed whatever you got and ran for your life to get over the embarrassment of it all.

It is not just the small clothes that make us squirm. There are other things that are firmly marked Ladies Only - these are all too femininely mysterious and icky for common consumption.

One of the funniest scenes in the 50s classic Chalti ka Naam Gaadi involved Anoop Kumar, painfully shy of women, picking up Madhubala's lipstick by mistake, leaping up in horror as realises what it is and screaming 'Kartooooos!' The ordinary sanitary napkin is one such kartoos for the general population.

As Twinkle Khanna pointed out in her Sunday Times column , sanitary pads are treated like radioactive isotopes at shops, to be packaged first in newspapers and then handed out in a black plastic bag in case anyone saw it and figured that you bled once every month. The other "kartoos" is all mention of blood in periods - recall the online spoofs last year on the clean blue "blood" in all sanitary napkin ads? Then there is vagina, lactation...the list is a long one.

Responding to the masculine revulsion that greeted the graphic ads for her company's period panties, US entrepreneur Miki Agarwal had this to say: "We were talking about what happens to half the world's population here." Indeed, half the world's population uses, washes and changes you-know-what and you-know-what every day. Get used to it.