Law and culture

Most portrayals of law in Hindi films has been showing law as being formal, rigid. It shows how the law bends people's spirits and how "justice" is often not found through the law. Contrast this to some of the movies in Hollywood... A Few Good Men, 12 Angry Men, Erin Brockovich and others where the adversarial system seems to be shown to deliver. Do the difference in these portrayals affect how the people of India and America view the law? How much are these narratives also affected by the new medium of TV debates, also called media trials? Again, it raises the question not only of how much TV debates affect the population, but also how the media affects lawmaking and the judiciary.

Narrative jurisprudence, legal storytelling are apparently becoming important facets of teaching law in the US. In India, not so much. The "false and pernicious" dichotomy that exists between the practice of law and the way movies portray law may not exist in India...but for the opposite reason. Not because of the use of storytelling techniques in courtrooms (which may exist, and need to be analyzed more) but because of the negative portrayals of law in Bollywood.

This is one of the paradoxes that our country faces today - a population that is more and more disillusioned of the law, and yet, increasingly obsessed with using only the law to resolve all conflicts, and finds it difficult to imagine non-conventional, non-legal ways of conflict resolution.

Pour toi information

I half decided zat I veel shift outh of ze blooger und I veel writhe in ze wordpress. zo eef euwyu wantth to zee whatth I writhe eyeuyu cum to ze wordpress...selfsame url buth ath wordpress.com.

at wordpress :) [too subtle for ya?]

                                  

Dance

I've wondered why I love dancing so much. I think I may have received my answer in a book not about dancing at all. Dancing, I think, is perhaps a little like playing the agogo at an umbanda. Dancing is a form of expression....of life, of love, of beauty and freedom....of desire. When you dance, you free your body of inhibitions, letting yourself be moved by the melodies of the universe. But by learning how to dance, by learning the steps of this ancient art, you do more. You control the melodies. When your feet move in rhythm with the tabla, you are moving in rhythm with the harmony of the earth. By controlling your movements while in that spirit of ecstasy, you control the flow of the world. You move the music of nature with your body. When you express desire, desire is created around you and moves with that hasty beat of the tabla, when you sway with passion the flute echoes your love, when you fall in agony, you take the world into the abyss with you. When you dance, you understand...you know that there is something deeper something more powerful than all the humans put together, something more beautiful, and in expressing that beauty you create it. You become a believer. 

I'M SOOOO IN LOVE WITH HER!!!!!

Jill Sobule is fucking beautiful and fuckin awesome!!! 

The modern age ad lingo

I've seen many advertisements in my life, and been warned against quite a few of them. But this one takes the cake.

I watched tearfully as a daughter brings a smile to her mother's face, I smiled at two old friends digging up their little treasure, I was touched by a writer going to thank her old school teacher. That is, until I saw what it was...an advertisement for a hair product. Gosh! You took our revolutionary spirit and marketed it as beer, you took our freedom and gave us sports shoes, you took our villages and sold it to us as coca-cola, you took our forests and made refrigerators of them, you took our mountains and made bottled water, and now you take our feelings, our innermost thoughts and emotions and make beauty products! Will anything be left of me that is my own?

Everything that was

The more I read, the more I feel convinced that in losing the Indian civilization to colonization (not just British, but even before that), we lost something quite wonderful. Everything we know now, almost a 1000 years after the end of many of those great civilizations, we seem to have known then and known much better. It was a civilization that was highly evolved. There was a very well structured language, the teaching of which was spread through many lands to improve communication (much like English, except that the English is complete chaos when compared to the elegant beauty of Sanskrit's grammatical and semantical structure), trade between different countries was of prime importance and in fact, geographical routes were created to help increase trade (thus showing an understanding of 'comparative advantage'), the benefits of division of labour and specialization were realized (hence, the varna system), schooling (both gurukul and other forms of apprenticeship) was mandatory for children and was tailored to ensure the greatest amount of skill-development, literature and arts were cultivated, so was science and technology. Philosophy, medicine, maths, music, astronomy, physics, economics, political science, warcraft, history, among others were separate specialized bodies of systemic study, much like they are today, but I believe, in a much more advanced stage. And then, civilizations that were less evolved, except in military prowess, decided they wanted more land. The rulers, looking at a civilization much more evolved, failed to understand its significance and went about slowly destroying these wonderful innovations and discoveries. Humankind was pushed back by 1000s of years, and had to start over. 

Zombie

I used to have a dream. A belief in Albion. In the return of the King. What happened to me? Who have I been replaced with? 

In your head, in your head 

zombie zombie zombie 

What's in your head, in your head 

zombie zombie zombie 

सूपरमान नेता

हमारे यहाँ एक नए नेता प्रकट हुए हैं । सूपरमान की तरह हैं इनके कर्तव्य । क्या-क्या नही किया इनहोंने ! अभी दो दिन पहले की ही बात है कि  नेता ने 15000 गुजरती तीर्थयात्रियों को केदारनाथ में हुए बाढ़ से बचाया । जो कार्य हमारी सेना दो सप्ताह में न कर सकी, वह हमारे सूपरमान ने दो दिन में कर दिया । ऐसे महान हैं हमारे अगले प्रधानमंत्री जी । अपने अहमदाबाद से तो इनहोंने भ्रष्टाचार का नामों-निशान हटा दिया । औरगरीबी ? कहाँ की गरीबी भाई? अहमदाबाद गए हो कभी ? वहाँ एक बार जा कर तो देखो, कोई गरीब लोग मिले तो मै अपना नाम बदल डालूं । हमारा गुजरात तो प्रगति का सर्वोत्तम नमूना है । आपने वहाँ के ईमारत नहीं देखे क्या - कितने प्रकार के उद्योग चलते हैं वहां - और सड़कें सब नयी बनी हैं । ऐसा लगे मानो न्यू-यार्क आ पहुँचे । अब अगर आप बोलेंगे कि देखो अहमदाबाद के बाहर कितनी जुग्गी-झोपड़ियां हैं, तो मै आपको क्या बताऊँ ? कुछ लोग ऐसे होते हैं, जो प्रगति नहीं करना चाहते । सरकार उनसे बोले कि तुम अपना घर दे दो, नौकरी छोड़ दो, हम यहाँ तुम्हारे लिए फैक्ट्री बनायेंगे तो उनके पाले ही नही पड़ता । विरोध प्रदर्शन पर निकल जाते हैं । अब आप ही सोचिए ज़रा, ऐसे लोगों के कारण ही तो हमारा देश निष्क्रिय हो रहा है । इसी लिए तो नेता जी ने मुसलमानों को रद्द करने का प्रयत्न किया था । देश की प्रगति के लिए कुछ लोगों को कुर्बानी तो देनी पड़ती है । लेकिन कोई समझता ही नही । सब लोग बस धर्मनिरपेक्षवाद की बातें करते रहतें हैं । 

कुछ विचार

सबसे पहले मै अपनी हिंदी की अशुद्धता के लिए क्षमा मांगना चाहती हूँ । मुझे लिखे कुछ सात साल हो गए ..इस कारण मेरे लेख मे काव्य का अभाव तो ज़रूर होगा, साथ-साथ आपको गलत व्याकरण, अयोग्य शब्दावली और उलटी वर्तनी को भी झेलना पड़ेगा । लेकिन लिखना तो मुझे है ही । अभ आप इसे पढ़े या नही यह आप का निर्णय है । पढेंगे तो मुझे ख़ुशी होगी, मेरी गलतियाँ सुधारेंगे तो मै आपकी धन्य रहूंगी । 

मेरा यह प्रस्ताव इसलिए शुरु हुआ क्यूँकि मै शरद जोशी द्वारा लिखी गयी एक पुस्तक पढ़ रही हूँ - उनकी अप्रकाशित व्यंग्य-लेखों का संकलन । मुझे ध्यान आया की ऐसा समय भी होता था जब मै भी व्यंग्य लिखा करती थी । जोशी जी के समान परिहास-युक्त तो नहीं होती थी मेरी ये रचनाएं पर हर दो मिनट शब्दकोश का उपयोग तो नही करना पढ़ता था । 

कुछ एक साल पहले भ्रष्टाचार की काफी बातें हो रही थीं । मुझे जोशी जी की यह टिप्पणी उचित लगी - "अहमदाबाद से उठी भ्रष्टाचार-विरोधी हवा में आज यदी मै सत्ता की राजनीति से अधिक गहराई खोजूं तो मुझ-सा मूर्ख दूसरा न होगा । एक नारा उठा, सत्ता मिल गयी । दूसरा उठा, सत्ता चली गयी । "

WHY CAN'T I WRITE IN HINDI????????????

This blogger stupid thing won't let me turn on transliteration GAHHHHHH!!!!

More about writing

I can't help that I have to keep talking about writing. It's something I enjoy doing a lot. And I know I'd good at it, if I could just get the hang of having my sentences flow together. Get those perfect sentences more often than I do.

Does this happen to you where you have a part of a sentence and it sounds good and then it just goes downhill from there. Like part of my sentence goes, "a human-rights rhetoric runs through" but that's all I've got. The rest is all normal stuff. I have others like that - "....have questioned the black and white logic of the abortion debates...", "...hey deftly weave in the added complexity...". Not all great of course, but in a different league from what comes before and after (which I don't have the temerity to present here).

My other problem is when I want to use a particular word in a place cuz I think it'd sound great, but the word doesn't mean what it should mean in that context. but it sounds perfect. Shakespeare never had that problem. He'd use the word anyway. Even if such a word didn't even exist! But unfortunately, humble souls like myself are constrained by the limits of this soulless society, and have to not only use words that exist but also use words to mean what they actually mean and not what we want them to mean.

My new reading list

I saw glow worms yesterday. But they turned into water droplets reflected in the street light. I haven't seen glowworms in a long time. I'm not sure how to spell the word - is it glow worm with a space between the two words, or is it hyphenated as in glow-worm, or is it written as one word glowworm, or perhaps with a single 'w' being used as both the "oh" for glow and "uva" for worm. I could find out, but that would ruin the mystery. The mystery of how to pronounce a word. How sad my life has become! To have gone from solving murders in my head to solving the mysteries of words of little importance.

I have a new reading list. Not just the one I got from my book club (yes I have one and I'm damned if I'm judged for it!) but one from my dad. So, now I'm reading, or rather trying to read, books with titles like, "Methodology and Techniques of Social Research" and "Statistics in Psychology and Education". It's not all bad. For instance, I now know that what is required for the advancement of science is a continuing interplay between its logical frontiers (rationalism) and its experimental frontiers (empiricism). How exciting!

At some point in the future, I think I'll write about cities. I always write about cities. When I was at the Delhi Airport this time though, I had this beautiful piece written in my head, all about cities and their souls. And it was beautiful, although I say so myself. But when I got around to putting pen to paper, I lost it all. Every perfectly formed sentence just vanished. I told you I have this problem. I sometimes wish I had a pensieve.

Writing

For the past few months I see fully formed sentences in my head on something that I want to write about. I never really end up writing them though. I wonder why that is. My urge to write is decreasing. When I do write, I'm no longer satisfied with how I sound. What is my voice? I don't know myself. My writing is not beautiful or poetic. Neither is it humorous nor dark and disturbed. Or even matter-of-fact. If I ever wrote a book, I wonder what the critics would say about my writing style. Sometimes I do well. I write well. I write these sentences that sound perfect. But they get lost in the numerous un-perfect sentences so that I'm the only one noticing them. I wonder if it'll fix itself if I write more..or will I just be writing a lot more of mediocre stuff?

The trials of an Ayurveda patient part 2

So, where had I stopped yesterday? Oh yes! The long and painful dump I took. To continue.

I'm sure any of you who read this have been crying with sympathy at all that they put me through. Well, you may wipe your tears now. For this is where the good part starts. After I felt like I had shat out all my internal organs, I slowly and tiredly took a long hot-water bath. I come out of the bathroom, and hey presto! my pain is GONE. VAMOOSH. Whereas I was almost limping while I walked until then, I nearly ran out of the room. Not only that, I felt at least 6 kilos lighter. I figure that's what astronauts feel like when they go to the moon. Lame joke. Point is, it felt awesome..completely and utterly like I had a new body. 

Of course, Ayurveda not being magic, the pain came back a few hours later. But everyday that I went through the torturous treatment, the pain took a little longer to materialize and was a little less in degree, until my 8th and final day when I could no longer feel any pain, in my back or leg. No pain, numbness or electric shocks. For six months after that, I didn't get a single attack! It went so well in fact, that the graduate student who was interning under my doctor, decided to make me her "case study". I found that I had a new-found respect for Ayurveda, and a greater willingness to put my body through hell to get it better. 

A year after the first set of treatment, I went for my second round. Just about 2 weeks ago. It was less successful this time, but the pain did come down a fair bit. Like I said, Ayurveda isn't magic, but it definitely is a darned good medical treatment. 

Having had two good treatments, I feel like an Ayurveda pro. The doctors know me by name without looking at the file, the technicians know my favourite colour of underwear, and I am on hi-hello basis with pretty much the entire Ayurveda department at the hospital. So I went in for the kill. Of myself of course. A 10 day weight reduction programme, which is what I'm in the middle of right now. I'll give you details of this later, but suffice it to say that after all they put me through in the other treatment, and everything I have to look forward to in this one, drinking oil on an empty stomach seems benign.  

The trials of an Ayurveda patient part 1

One of my friends suggested that I write about Ayurvedic treatments that I'm undergoing because a) ayurveda is a unique form of medicine that people don't know much about b) others will see that ayurveda actually works, c) it's interesting, and most importantly, d) it'll shut me up!

It all began two years ago. On the day of Lodhi, the first time that we were celebrating it in college. A bonfire was lit, peanuts were thrown into the fire and there was much dancing and rejoicing. Too much maybe. Perhaps it was a primal attraction to fire or perhaps just too much alcohol, but I decided that I've gotta take someone up on my shoulders. The only volunteer for this activity was a friend of mine, a tiny thing weighing all of 55 kilograms. So up she goes on my shoulder, me holding her legs tight and she clutching on to my hair with all she's got. After initial hiccups though, we managed to do a little gig and dance around a fair bit, to the bewilderment and frenzy of others. Of course, unbeknownst to me, all this while there were little things going click in my back. Four months later, after cycling with a punctured tyre for half a kilometer, I knew the most agonizing pain that I've ever known. My left leg alternated between going completely numb, shooting electric shocks through my body or just throbbing with unbearable pain. An MRI revealed a disc bulge, which was "treated" with painkillers, nerve-strengthening pills and directions to exercise. A year later, having lived through constant attacks of pain, my dad decided to go traditional on me. And thus began 8 of the most uncomfortable days of my life.

All I was told was to appear in the procedure room on empty stomach, with a packet of milk (other medicines with unpronounceable names had already been handed over). Weight checked, BP measured, I was taken into the room to change into my gown. For the first half hour, all I had to do was lie on my front, while they poured hot hot oil on my back where the pain was in a dam like thingummy to ensure that the oil stayed focused on the spot. This procedure, called Katibasti is quite wonderful and I promptly fell asleep. I was just thinking that maybe my dad had the right idea after all when I was abruptly woken up and told that it was time for my basti. Not knowing then what basti was, and being blissfully ignorant as well drawing on the similarity of names, I figured it was another procedure involving oil. Well, it did involve oil alright. But not the way that I imagined it would. I was told to lie on my side while they gave me an enema. Now, I don't know if any of you have gotten an enema before, but trust me when I say that comfortable is not what it is. They put a tube into my ass and poured god-knows-what in, but I know there was milk, and for a long time after, I couldn't drink a drop of milk. They said I should hold my 'urges' for 4 minutes. At the end of 30 seconds, I told them that if they didn't let go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW there'd be some serious cleaning up to do. That Wednesday morning, I took the longest dump I ever have. As wave after wave of pain hit my stomach, I felt my organs would dissolve and pass through. I sat in the loo for half an hour that day clutching at my tummy and cussing.

I'M REAAAALLLLY FAT!!!!

Sarees and the Veiled Rebecca

I went to the Salarjung Museum in Hyderabad recently. A place worth visiting - both Hyderabad and the Museum. The artifact that really caught my eye (and that of many others, including of course the prince Salarjung whose collection the museum is) was 'The Veiled Rebecca' by Benzoni, who is nothing short of genius, a sentiment you will understand when you see this -

copyright belongs to someone else cuz I follow rules

You see that veil covering her face, and in fact her whole body if you look at that other photo. That...is...done...in...MARBLE. The whole statue, the pleats of the skirt, the folds of the veil, the delicate see-throughness of it, the slender figure, all of it is done in marble. Which, if you think about it, is amazingly incredibly awesome!! And I won't explain why because if I have to explain that, then you might as well tie two 100 kilo rocks on your leg and jump into the pacific and try to swim to the surface cuz that's how long it'll take you to understand aesthetics. 

I thought of saris. This should be a separate post maybe. But I thought of it immediately and all of it is about women. I think a sari is the most wonderful and elegant piece of dressing ever. First of all, it's just a cloth. A long long cloth, but nevertheless, it's not stitched into a particular design or anything. And yet, what wonders can be done with it! No other piece of clothing covers so much, yet reveals so much. A sari is a tease. It clings to the female body, so that the curves are heightened but covered....it covers almost the entire body, but tantalising leaves open the mid-riff...a low cut blouse will show off the back...and a little strategic flick, and the pallu that covers the breasts over the blouse can flip off, revealing the cleavage for a tiny second before it is covered up again. 

books books everywhere, not one to read

I have to buy myself some books to read. I'm stuck with Edgar Allan Poe's 'Tales of Mystery and Imagination'. Now, while it's a great book and all, Poe can be a tiring read. I sent all of my other books home. I need to find something light and fun to read now while I laze about and wallow in filth. 

Americans are so weird about yoga n stuff

What's with Americans and all this weird 'yoga' stuff man?! "Homeopathic remedy for grief"?! You kiddin me. Why do they gotta go all weird on us. Ayurveda n yoga are perfectly normal things. So is meditation. And also, most people who do yoga, I mean really do yoga and not just say things like 'Om Sweet Om' don't really wear funny jewellery and talk about strange sounding stuff all the time. And Ayurveda is actually a proper medical practice. My Ayurvedic doctor doesn't wear peacock hairs or anything. He wears a suit n works in a freakin hospital man! Really you guys, i.e. Americans, get a life and stop getting fooled by all the fake junk that fake yogis from India try to sell you. Please tell me at least some of you have the sense to tell the difference!!! 

thoughts

So I just realized that I haven't written anything in a while. Mostly, I think it's because I'm all depressed n shit see, cuz I don't have a job n all that, and if you keep writing depressing stuff on your blog, you're just gonna get everyone depressed. I don't have any happy things to write, but I'm not unhappy.

Booze can do wonderful things for you. I wish gambling was legal in India. I'd just make a hell of a lot of money playing poker or something. That would be damn fun! But of course that isn't gonna happen.

I wonder what people write about in blogs. I mean, take me, for instance. I don't really know what I'm writing about, if I'm writing about anything at all. I wanna be a dancer. 

silly dilemmas

Once in a while I get really paranoid about internet privacy and decide not to write on my blog. But I had such a good time yesterday that I really wanna write about it. But I have that thing holding me back you know. That, "I don't want my life on the net", thing that I have. Ugh! Sucks to be me sometimes. 

so i don't fall asleep

Here's something interesting. Maybe. I don't know. I'm writing this cuz I'm sleeping. Most HR people in companies are female, except the HR directors who are male.