This entry is to bring to the attention of the general reading public (or more precisely the very limited number of people who read my blog) the scandalous and sexual nature of old Hindi movie songs. Though heroes and heroines in these old movies almost never kissed, let alone made love, the lyrics of some of the songs they sang in these movies exposes this innocence as mere pretension.
The extremely talented individuals who wrote the lyrics of these songs were of course aware of what they were writing, and used common metaphors of the Hindi/Urdu language for love-making. The pretension to innocence, however, is perpetuated by prudish Middle-class parents and teachers who do not acquaint the urban youth with these turns of phrase. Most of us go to schools where the medium of education is English. We learn Hindi in school, but you honestly can't expect text-books to give you euphemisms for love-making. Our only exposure to Hindi on a large scale is Hindi movies, but our prudish parents and teachers fall short in conveying to us the nuances of Bollywood movie-speak. We are allowed to take movie song lyrics literally, blissfully ignorant of the loaded metaphors therein. Also, most of us are probably too dumb at the age of 14 to understand nuance of any sort.
In the Hindi language, the metaphor of a woman losing an ornament or an item of clothing, for instance, is a euphemism for losing her virginity. Given this simple bit of knowledge, some songs stop sounding so innocent. Take this famous song for instance:
झुमका गिरा रे बरेली के बाज़ार में
झुमका गिरा झुमक गिर
हाइ! हाइ रे!
"My earring fell in the market in Bareli (a town in India)
My earring fell off..
Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
Substitute "I lost my virginity" for "My earring fell" and you'll see what I mean.
Here's another favourite of mine:
इन्हीं लोगों ने ले लीना दुपट्टा मेरा
हमरी न मानो तो सिपहिया से पूछो
जिसने बजरिया में छीना दुपट्टा मेरा
"These are the people who took my shawl/scarf.
If you don't believe me, ask the soldier
Who snatched my shawl/veil in the market-place."
Here, amazingly, we have multiple protagonists in the sexual act, and the soldier is specifically pointed out as having "snatched the veil" of the woman. Odd how these sexual acts seem to occur in the very public realm of the market place...
Other metaphors used for having sex or misc. sexual acts are जीना "to live", and खूबसूरत खता "a beautiful transgression". Heroes of Hindi movies constantly croon to their lady loves, persuading them to "let them live", teasing them that their sensuality may result in the commission of a "beautiful transgression".
I don't mind the use of metaphors or the use of euphemisms. It's what makes poetry so appealing. But most of us who listen to these songs are too ignorant of the fact that they are in fact metaphors for love making. We need to reclaim this knowledge...it can only enhance our appreciation of the sensuality inherent in our movie songs.
Having just had an excessively satisfying brunch of a waffle, toast, eggs and hash browns, I now sit on this lovely autumn day under the shade of a large tree on the green lawns of UNC. And I feel a sense of contentment that's making me warm and fuzzy inside.
One may argue that it is in fact the weather and the tree and the obliging lawn that're making me so gooey today. I would disagree.
I have felt this same sentiment--what I call Post-Croissant Contentment--on rainy days, on hot days, on snowy days and on very non-descript days as well. I remember that wonderful morning when I trudged through several feet of snow to Cornucopia, the corner bakery on Seminary St. in Galesburg. As I sat there buttering and jamming my croissant at 7:00 in the morning, staring out the window at the green awnings and silently falling snow, the aroma of freshly ground coffee and baking cookies heavy in the air, I felt like I was in a Thomas Kinkade painting.
Those smells and tastes of breakfast...butter, jam, coffee, toast, croissants, danish pastries, warm milk, cinnamon and nutmeg, sizzling dosas...these awaken in me sensations of pure joy and contentment and I find my senses flooded with all things beautiful. As I nibble on my buttered toast, I can almost hear the quiet opening measures of Beethoven's pastoral, I am awakened by Grieg's Morning Mood as I sip my cinnamon-y coffee. In the hubub of Bangalore's Upahara Darshini, the masla dosa brings forth visions of sacred flames in ritual altars and strains of a wedding raaga, the smells of an alley that leads to a temple.
I am transported to golden-brown fields of wheat, to cool stone temple floors on hot days, to woods and springs, to warm cosy chairs by fireplaces and to stormy days with rain pattering on the windows.
Breakfast makes life truly beautiful.
While many of my fellow left-wing liberals have great things to say about Hugo Chavez, I am less enthusiastic about him. Most of their excitement seems to come from the lone fact that Chavez is very obviously opposed to US foreign policy in general,and this administration in particular. While I may share this very broad stance of his, the affinity ends there, and it just isn't reason enough for me to hold up the Chavez banner.
The incessant meddling of the United States in matters that do not concern them for an invariably self-aggrandizing purpose riles me to no end. However, I defend my indignation by attempting nuanced, reflective and well-though out critical discourse, as much as it is within my capacity. And I make sure that any point I make against any country's government, its foreign policy or its leaders is not a blind indictment, but a considered critique.
And this is exactly where Chavez and I part ways. There is no complexity in his stance, no nuance in his statements. His worldview seems to reflect a notion that American politics and its current administration is inherently evil, hence the references to Bush as the devil. Taking recourse to the discourse of evil does not solve any problems, nor does it clearly define these very urgent and pressing issues of global importance. He also seems to be of the firm belief that his enemy's enemy is his friend. Thus, the extremely poor human-rights record of the Iranian government notwithstanding and regardless of the truly reprehensible statements that Pres. Ahmedinejad is in the habit of making, Chavez chooses to make displays of friendship and heartfelt camaraderie towards Iran and its figurehead leader.
Chavez takes all the intelligence out of the Left, and it embarrasses me to be assigned the same political labels as he.
The recent uproar over Pope Benedict's statements is troubling. Having read the speech, I acknowledge that he really put his foot in his mouth. He didn't do his homework for one: he makes a few factual errors egarding Islam. Second, he quotes an obscure medieval work that frankly is only marginally relevant to the content of his speech: so he could well have made his point without taking a rather ill-disguised swipe at Islam.
All that aside, however, his speech hardly warrants the sort of response that we have seen over the past week. Quoting an over-zealous medieval king, however ill-advised and imprudent this may have been, does not warrant the burning of churches and the murdering of a nun in Somalia. It is indeed ironic that these folks are protesting the implication that Islam is inherently violent with violence. Surely there is a better way to make your point.
This of course begs the question: Where have all the moderates gone? Over the past week or so, while I have heard many spokespersons for political and religious think tanks and scholars of religion and the Middle East condemn the Papal choice of quotes, I have yet to hear the unequivocal voice of moderate Islam calling for an end to the egregiously disproportionate response from the Muslim world.
There are moderates out there. But unfortunately, we barely ever hear from them. Amidst the calls for death to Pope and Christians, the withdrawal of diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and bigoted rhetoric that equals that of our now oft-referenced medieval friend, Manuel II, I see no group of moderate Muslims protesting vociferously for reasonable and open dialogue. There may be a feeble article here, a humble press-release there. But isn't it time that moderates, in all religions, claimed what is rightly theirs: a bigger stake in the political, theological and ethical discourse of our time? Isn't it time that moderates shake off their cloak of complacency and address the pressing and critical issues of our times with some sense of urgency and seriousness?
My summer in India was exhausting...emotionally exhausting. As a person who comes from a Hindu (mostly nationalist) family, most of the things I hear about Muslims is derogatory and pejorative. And as a person who is doing research about minortiy sects in Islam, and is working closely with Muslim, it is hard to shut up about it. But after having corrected, or clarified or refuted the statements of many of my relatives, I think, to them I had taken on the role of a champion of Islam, a defender fo the Faith. But truly, all I was trying to defend was a more complex view of the world. Encountering such ignorance, and to be honest, distrust and distaste, towards Islam and Muslims, was frustrating and infuriating. It had always been around, but only now, since my entry into the world of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of religion, has the sheer scale and intensity of it become clear to me. It's almost as if, to my family, I have become the messenger, the embassador from the court of Islam, if you will. And it is to me that their defense of their distrust and distaste is to be now addressed. They point at temple walls defaced by marrauding "Muslim invaders" from the north and say, "Try defending that!" But it is not the actions of some faceless loot-seeker, and defacer of magnificant works of art that I seek to defend. All I negate is the notion that the only reason those temples were defaced was because the invaders were Muslim; that somehow within that act, there is no politics, no economics, no history, no temporally situated context. And I found myself saying this over and over again...and just as my insistence was undaunted, so was their insistance that the presumed crassness of the other's religion was all that was to blame. I came away from it all drained of the emotional smugness I used to feel when I wa swith family, a complacency that I prized so much.
If I am avoid such emotional fatigue, I may have to pick my battles. But by doing that, by restrainign myself, I risk my sanity.
Having created my first blog, I finally feel that I belong in the 21st century. If, in addition, I had my own little air-car and a house-keeping robot called Rosy, I'd feel more firmly entrenched.
I'd like to use this blog to post my musings on life, the universe and everything, and hope that in the process I can add some complexity to the often over-simplified worldviews that we encounter everyday.
Or, I could use it to subject unfortunate readers to my self-depricatory style of writing.
