The world of dew—
A world of dew it is indeed,
And yet, and yet...
~Kobayashi Issa
(Trans. Lewis Mackenzie)
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
First rains
Are these the monsoons then? The skies are appropriately overcast, there are distant drumrolls but it is only the first of June! The grey clouds weren't expected here till the fifth. But they came to Kerala a day early and they must've sped indeed to be here this quickly. But the first rains have been slightly blah so far - such a slight drizzle, it took half an hour to even completely wet the ground. But slow and steady's ok - I'm willing to take the good over the interesting.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Still high
You'll be surprised at these frequent posts. But the thing is I'm having an keep-off-facebook week, maybe two weeks if I can keep at it.
I can't knock the service, of course - I'm too social a being not to enjoy it rather too thoroughly, too much of a geek not to relish how easy technology makes so many things. But it drains your time and what would once have been a mail or a post, however short, becomes a status update or a poke. And then there's this privacy thing! bah.
+++++
Still captivated by Pakistan's Coke Studio. I'm obsessing over one song a day and here is song du jour, Ali Zafar's Dastaan-e-ishq.
की दसां, की बात सुनावां इश्क दियां
ki dasaan, ki baat sunawan ishq diyaan…
What shall I tell you? How to narrate this story of love?
राँझा राँझा करदी नि मैं, आपे राँझा होई
राँझा कहो सहेलियों… मैनू हीर ना आखो कोई
ranjha ranjha kardi ni mein, aapay ranjha hoyee
ranjha kaho saheliyon…mainu heer na aakho koyee
Ranjha, Ranjha I cry... and have myself become Ranjha
Call me Ranjha, my friends, let no one call me Heer
The love story of Heer and Ranjha so permeates the Punjab that even sufis then must borrow their names, use them and own them till Heer becomes the lover, Ranjha the beloved.
This video is only a rehearsal and the final take, for some reason, was never done. But see the quality of their discards! I want a waistcoat/robe like the one Zafar is wearing here - how nice to stride about with that streaming behind you.
And oh, Coke Studio's Season Three starts June 4. Five episodes only and they air at 10.30pm IST every other Sunday. I have not managed to persuade my cable service provider to supply even one channel (CS airs on all of them) but there is apparently a ban on Pakistani channels in India and they're jibbing. There is the internet of course but nothing like catching it on TV.
I can't knock the service, of course - I'm too social a being not to enjoy it rather too thoroughly, too much of a geek not to relish how easy technology makes so many things. But it drains your time and what would once have been a mail or a post, however short, becomes a status update or a poke. And then there's this privacy thing! bah.
+++++
Still captivated by Pakistan's Coke Studio. I'm obsessing over one song a day and here is song du jour, Ali Zafar's Dastaan-e-ishq.
की दसां, की बात सुनावां इश्क दियां
ki dasaan, ki baat sunawan ishq diyaan…
What shall I tell you? How to narrate this story of love?
राँझा राँझा करदी नि मैं, आपे राँझा होई
राँझा कहो सहेलियों… मैनू हीर ना आखो कोई
ranjha ranjha kardi ni mein, aapay ranjha hoyee
ranjha kaho saheliyon…mainu heer na aakho koyee
Ranjha, Ranjha I cry... and have myself become Ranjha
Call me Ranjha, my friends, let no one call me Heer
The love story of Heer and Ranjha so permeates the Punjab that even sufis then must borrow their names, use them and own them till Heer becomes the lover, Ranjha the beloved.
This video is only a rehearsal and the final take, for some reason, was never done. But see the quality of their discards! I want a waistcoat/robe like the one Zafar is wearing here - how nice to stride about with that streaming behind you.
And oh, Coke Studio's Season Three starts June 4. Five episodes only and they air at 10.30pm IST every other Sunday. I have not managed to persuade my cable service provider to supply even one channel (CS airs on all of them) but there is apparently a ban on Pakistani channels in India and they're jibbing. There is the internet of course but nothing like catching it on TV.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Through the grill
We've had a couple of bird baths in the garden this summer and happy to say they've been a huge success. It has been murderously hot and wildlife of all sorts seem to appreciate the troughs. Needless to say, we appreciate the view and the constant stream of Discovery Channel outside our windows.
At first the troughs were greeted with some suspicion. But they stayed there doing nothing more drastic than acquiring patinas of moss and being magically refilled. When they had blended into the surroundings, looking as scruffy as everything else, they began to be accepted.
The smallest birds are the most wary and make a huge production of descending bough after bough before they sip very quickly and dart away. This sunbird was actually quite zen in her non-fluttering and allowed me one neat frame.
This is our resident Robin, and quite the only one who actually dives in without any compuction at all. Once he got into the trough briefly and flew to sit on a branch shaking and drying himself. Then clearly thinking that there was no need to be done quite so soon, he breezed down and stepped in again for this rather frolicky bath.
The babblers, when they come, are enormous fun. They don't actually bathe but they like to dip their tails in, chatter incessantly and make a huge communal thing of it. But then everything is a huge communal thing with these fellows.
We have a new litter of cats. This is a new family that's moved in - mother and four kittens, all striped and pointy-eared. They like the bigger trough and very much disconcerted the birds when they first came. We were afraid the birds would reject that one because cats had been sipping from it but realised that they weren't about to be so brahmanical about it - everyone will drink from the same pond... just not at the same time. Anyway, here are two of the kittens enjoying a snooze.
This kitten gave me the most attitude-y looks if only, alas, I had been able to quickly focus on him. But these twigs got in the way and my camera insisted it knew better. However, it has prodded me to finally learn these manual controls, so next time hopefully we'll focus on the cat.
At first the troughs were greeted with some suspicion. But they stayed there doing nothing more drastic than acquiring patinas of moss and being magically refilled. When they had blended into the surroundings, looking as scruffy as everything else, they began to be accepted.
The smallest birds are the most wary and make a huge production of descending bough after bough before they sip very quickly and dart away. This sunbird was actually quite zen in her non-fluttering and allowed me one neat frame.
This is our resident Robin, and quite the only one who actually dives in without any compuction at all. Once he got into the trough briefly and flew to sit on a branch shaking and drying himself. Then clearly thinking that there was no need to be done quite so soon, he breezed down and stepped in again for this rather frolicky bath.
The babblers, when they come, are enormous fun. They don't actually bathe but they like to dip their tails in, chatter incessantly and make a huge communal thing of it. But then everything is a huge communal thing with these fellows.
We have a new litter of cats. This is a new family that's moved in - mother and four kittens, all striped and pointy-eared. They like the bigger trough and very much disconcerted the birds when they first came. We were afraid the birds would reject that one because cats had been sipping from it but realised that they weren't about to be so brahmanical about it - everyone will drink from the same pond... just not at the same time. Anyway, here are two of the kittens enjoying a snooze.
This kitten gave me the most attitude-y looks if only, alas, I had been able to quickly focus on him. But these twigs got in the way and my camera insisted it knew better. However, it has prodded me to finally learn these manual controls, so next time hopefully we'll focus on the cat. 
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Dog Days
The last lingering days of summer are like the final leg of a long journey. Early on, you will have settled into the movement, making yourself as comfortable as possible, knowing there are a ways to go. But with only a little time left, you begin to gather your things, sit up straight and then - be it only an hour longer than you thought it might be - the wait is unbearable.
The Lady Laila was nice to us (Hyderabadis) while she visited but now that she has gone, she leaves us neither here nor there. The breeze blows as though the rains were here but they swirl about stirring and prodding the loos, deposit odd smells in our corner and it's all very unsettling. The light is strong, my migraine-pricked eyes flinch from the glare that bounces off every surface. The leaves outside my window are doing their best to soften the harshness but they don't succeed very well. Each leaf leaves a sharp shadow on the ground. Even curtained panes let in sharp slivers at the edges where the cloth flutters.
A week longer, they say, a week.
The Lady Laila was nice to us (Hyderabadis) while she visited but now that she has gone, she leaves us neither here nor there. The breeze blows as though the rains were here but they swirl about stirring and prodding the loos, deposit odd smells in our corner and it's all very unsettling. The light is strong, my migraine-pricked eyes flinch from the glare that bounces off every surface. The leaves outside my window are doing their best to soften the harshness but they don't succeed very well. Each leaf leaves a sharp shadow on the ground. Even curtained panes let in sharp slivers at the edges where the cloth flutters.
A week longer, they say, a week.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Yeh khazanein
Still stuck on Mae ni mai kinnu aakhan. I blogged about it last week, and spent a goodish time listening to various versions on the glorious youtube, the ever-expanding internet. And look what I found! Atif Aslam again with an 8½-min version - a soulful, innovative, just-right fusion version - of the song:
But the find was a small tell-tale string that drew up a treasure. As you'll see, it's a studio recording, and fabulously produced. The recording is superb, the lighting is wonderful, the shots are delicious and if the camera is obsessed with Atif Aslam's slender hands, who can blame it? It didn't seem random. Who had produced this? Was this a music label with a repertoire of sufi fusion? Was this clip made for a music video?
The productions are from Pakistan, from a series of live music recordings from a house called Coke Studio. Produced by Coca Cola and musician Rohail Hyatt, these are not music videos but in fact made for television. I have, of late, been so traumatised by what passes for music on mainstream Indian television, it took me a while to understand that that such music was produced and aired for consumption by mass audiences. Also, immensely gratifying to know it's all up there on youtube in high quality and there is PLENTY of it.
Here's the wiki page for Coke Studio, here is their website and here is the wiki entry for Rohail Hyatt.
Now, I'm not asking for an Indian version - I can't think of an Indian producer who could combine these production values with such a sense of music; I can't think of an Indian channel that would consider such a project worth their effort, or not cheapen pure music with cheerleaders, hooting audiences, large stadium-stages and festoons of pompoms.
But can't the Coke Studio performances be aired here? I was embarassed to discover this late a project that aired first in 2008. Anyway, yay for this world without borders and thanks to Coke Studio for allowing the recordings to stay in the public domain, letting them be accessed.
Before I go, another sampler. Ali Zafar and Tufail Ahmed sing Allah Hu:
But the find was a small tell-tale string that drew up a treasure. As you'll see, it's a studio recording, and fabulously produced. The recording is superb, the lighting is wonderful, the shots are delicious and if the camera is obsessed with Atif Aslam's slender hands, who can blame it? It didn't seem random. Who had produced this? Was this a music label with a repertoire of sufi fusion? Was this clip made for a music video?
The productions are from Pakistan, from a series of live music recordings from a house called Coke Studio. Produced by Coca Cola and musician Rohail Hyatt, these are not music videos but in fact made for television. I have, of late, been so traumatised by what passes for music on mainstream Indian television, it took me a while to understand that that such music was produced and aired for consumption by mass audiences. Also, immensely gratifying to know it's all up there on youtube in high quality and there is PLENTY of it.
Here's the wiki page for Coke Studio, here is their website and here is the wiki entry for Rohail Hyatt.
Now, I'm not asking for an Indian version - I can't think of an Indian producer who could combine these production values with such a sense of music; I can't think of an Indian channel that would consider such a project worth their effort, or not cheapen pure music with cheerleaders, hooting audiences, large stadium-stages and festoons of pompoms.
But can't the Coke Studio performances be aired here? I was embarassed to discover this late a project that aired first in 2008. Anyway, yay for this world without borders and thanks to Coke Studio for allowing the recordings to stay in the public domain, letting them be accessed.
Before I go, another sampler. Ali Zafar and Tufail Ahmed sing Allah Hu:
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Flight path
New haiku on header. I take down Robert Major's wistful poem:
Sometimes I think . . .
you would answer the phone
if I were to call
But the new one is lovely too.
into the sun
where eyes can’t follow
a red tailed hawk
~Edith Bartholomeusz
The presence of a bird, up there... somewhere. But the hawk is free to fly where it chooses, into the sun if it wants to - the watcher can gaze no more, he must look away... let the knowledge of it comfort him, when he can no longer sight it.
Sometimes I think . . .
you would answer the phone
if I were to call
But the new one is lovely too.
into the sun
where eyes can’t follow
a red tailed hawk
~Edith Bartholomeusz
The presence of a bird, up there... somewhere. But the hawk is free to fly where it chooses, into the sun if it wants to - the watcher can gaze no more, he must look away... let the knowledge of it comfort him, when he can no longer sight it.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Dard vichore da haal
I come with another of those mother-songs I spoke of a while ago. Who do I tell, mother, the pain this separation brings? It feels odd sometimes to be experiencing the biggest upheaval of my life and not have my mother to discuss it with. Never is a harsh word.
Shah Hussain's kafi, of course, talks of a different separation. A desperate search. The Master is veiled, he is not easily attained but he is there, elusive, just beyond the reach.
O mother, who do I tell,
the pain this separation brings
माये नी मैं किन्नू आखां,
दर्द विछोरे दा हाल नी
धुआं थुखे मेरे मुर्शिद वाला,
जान फूलाँ ताँ लाल नी
सूलां मार दीवानी कीती,
बिर्हौं पेय साढ़े खयाली
दुखां दी रोटी, सूलाँ दा सालन,
आहें दा बालन बाल नी
जंगल बैले फिरां ढूँडैंदी
अजय न पायो लाल नि
रान्झां रान्झां फिराँ ढूँडैंदी,
रान्झां मेरे नाल नी
कहे हुसैन फकीर निमाणा,
शाह मिले तान थीवन निहाल
maye ni main kinnu aakhaan,
dard vichore da haal ni
O mother, who do I tell,
the pain this separation brings
dhuan thukhay mere murshid wala,
jaan phoulaan taan laal ni
My Master’s fire spits and smoulders
Red hot, everywhere I blow
soolan mar diwani keeti,
birhoun peya saday khayali
Driven mad with spikes,
Pain of separation fills my thoughts
dukhan di roti, soolaan da saalan,
aahen da baalan baal ve
The bread of sadness, the sauce of spikes,
The fire made up of laments and sighs
jungle bailay phiran mai dhoondaindi
ajay na paayo laal ni
I wandered jungles and deserts, searching
But found not the ruby
ranjhan ranjhan phiraan dhoudaindi,
ranjhan mairay nal
I wander seeking ‘Ranjha Ranjha’,
But Ranjha is with me
kahay hussain faqeer nimanaa,
shoh milay taan theevan nihaal
Says Hussain, the poor faqeer,
Meeting the Master would be ecstasy
Here are two versions of the song. The first, a traditional rendition by Hamid Ali Bela:
And this captivating more recent interpretation by Atif Aslam:
Shah Hussain's kafi, of course, talks of a different separation. A desperate search. The Master is veiled, he is not easily attained but he is there, elusive, just beyond the reach.
O mother, who do I tell,
the pain this separation brings
माये नी मैं किन्नू आखां,
दर्द विछोरे दा हाल नी
धुआं थुखे मेरे मुर्शिद वाला,
जान फूलाँ ताँ लाल नी
सूलां मार दीवानी कीती,
बिर्हौं पेय साढ़े खयाली
दुखां दी रोटी, सूलाँ दा सालन,
आहें दा बालन बाल नी
जंगल बैले फिरां ढूँडैंदी
अजय न पायो लाल नि
रान्झां रान्झां फिराँ ढूँडैंदी,
रान्झां मेरे नाल नी
कहे हुसैन फकीर निमाणा,
शाह मिले तान थीवन निहाल
maye ni main kinnu aakhaan,
dard vichore da haal ni
O mother, who do I tell,
the pain this separation brings
dhuan thukhay mere murshid wala,
jaan phoulaan taan laal ni
My Master’s fire spits and smoulders
Red hot, everywhere I blow
soolan mar diwani keeti,
birhoun peya saday khayali
Driven mad with spikes,
Pain of separation fills my thoughts
dukhan di roti, soolaan da saalan,
aahen da baalan baal ve
The bread of sadness, the sauce of spikes,
The fire made up of laments and sighs
jungle bailay phiran mai dhoondaindi
ajay na paayo laal ni
I wandered jungles and deserts, searching
But found not the ruby
ranjhan ranjhan phiraan dhoudaindi,
ranjhan mairay nal
I wander seeking ‘Ranjha Ranjha’,
But Ranjha is with me
kahay hussain faqeer nimanaa,
shoh milay taan theevan nihaal
Says Hussain, the poor faqeer,
Meeting the Master would be ecstasy
Here are two versions of the song. The first, a traditional rendition by Hamid Ali Bela:
And this captivating more recent interpretation by Atif Aslam:
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The hush and shush of ash
Carol Ann Duffy, Britain's poet laureate, writes about the unpronounceable Iceland volcano and (please, I beg, note the pun) its fall-out.
SILVER LINING
Five miles up the hush and shush of ash.
Yet the sky is as clean as a white slate
I could write my childhood there.
Selfish to sit in this garden, listening to the past.
A gentleman bee wooing its flower, a lawnmower.
When the grounded planes mean ruined plans, holidays on hold,
saw absences at weddings, funerals.
Windless commerce.
But Britain’s birds sing in this spring from Inverness to Liverpool,
From Crieff to Cardiff, Oxford, London Town, Land’s End to John O’Groats.
The music, silence summoned, that Shakespeare heard,
and Edward Thomas.
Briefly, us.
SILVER LINING
Five miles up the hush and shush of ash.
Yet the sky is as clean as a white slate
I could write my childhood there.
Selfish to sit in this garden, listening to the past.
A gentleman bee wooing its flower, a lawnmower.
When the grounded planes mean ruined plans, holidays on hold,
saw absences at weddings, funerals.
Windless commerce.
But Britain’s birds sing in this spring from Inverness to Liverpool,
From Crieff to Cardiff, Oxford, London Town, Land’s End to John O’Groats.
The music, silence summoned, that Shakespeare heard,
and Edward Thomas.
Briefly, us.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Saas, bahu aur asar
Media analyst Sevanti Ninan writes a significant piece in The Hindu (4 April 2010) this Sunday. A very interesting article in which she discusses Indian television serials, what comes across as regressive content and the unexpected, unforeseen effect it seems to have had on women exposed to them.
Ninan quotes Prime Time Soap Operas on Indian Television by Shoma Munshi, which in turn partly bases its conclusions on research by Robert Jensen and Emily Oster on the effects of cable television in rural areas of India. Taken together, the argument is that Indian soaps are actually empowering women, that "regression" depends on the point of view. In her piece Ninan wonders at the results and the very convoluted route to empowerment.
The whole story is up here at The Hindu and here on The Hoot.
I responded to the article and the link is here at The Hoot.
And here, for my record, is all of it.
====
A response to 'Is this empowerment?'
I found myself laughing a little over Sevanti Ninan's bewilderment in the piece (Is this empowerment?) reprinted from The Hindu. As someone who bestrides what seems to be a chasm, I am tempted to respond. I am a modern woman - I am intelligent, I have a media degree, I'm a mediaperson (of sorts), I'm feminist (I like to paint in my own shades but the broad umbrella will do). Also I watch serials avidly - it started because I like the TV on and I prefer glittery clothes to the news. But lately, because it fascinates me.
As the writer says, there is a world of difference in perception. The casual disinterested viewer - or more particularly, the casual, contemptuous journalist/activist - is appalled at the goings-on in serials; the regular viewer cannot be persuaded to move her eyes from the screen enough to feed her squalling children. For a very long time now, media-watchers and analysts have berated the average viewer for her tastes, shuddered and averted their eyes from the gaudy colours, the campy vamps and the bizarre plotlines, and tried rather desperately to uplift everyone's frame of mind.
They have not succeeded. The serials have gone on being made and, more importantly, they have gone on been consumed. If Balaji Telefilms is no longer the market leader, it doesn't matter any more. They have handed on the torch of that particular stamp of television - it has grown many more heads.
Why these serials thrive is an interesting question. The easy, lazy answer is that these hordes of nameless women across the country (and in neighbouring Pakistan) are fools. That they don't know any better. That they could be watching... oh, I don't know what but certainly something more educative.
However, I don't think that is true. I think our middle class is peopled with sensitive, intelligent, attentive women capable of nuanced thinking - I have several TV fanatics myself among my family and friends; I even adore a large number of them. In which case, we must go by Holmes: when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. We must consider that women are gaining something from this; that they are not merely swallowing whole every broad stroke of apparent regressiveness; that they are entertained; that they are sifting, sorting and picking nuggets that fit in with their current social constructs - and even moving ahead in desirable directions with whatever subtle manoeuvres are available to them. That in spite of the disastrous-seeming package it comes in, Indian TV serials MUST be doing something right.
I was delighted to learn from this article that even so far back as 2001-2003 - the very initial years of the saas-bahu sub-genre - the serials had such a positive impact. It also bears out my own persistent feeling that there is a great deal of difference between what appears to be the message and what is actually absorbed - because there is no other way to explain why they fascinate this huge mass of audience, why they have continually done so this entire decade.
Is it merely that these serials engage in women's concerns? Kitchen politics, in the broad scheme of things, may be insignificant. But perhaps to the woman trapped in it, it helps to have someone examine her situation? TV serials, after all, are not primarily for the outgoing modern woman with various exciting options for her evening's entertainment. They are watched (we assume) by women who have just finished their household chores; the woman who comes, at the end of the day, to her place in front of the television, where the rest of family resignedly relinquishes the remote. Even that, to my mind, is no small victory. It is understood across Indian households now that primetime television is the woman's right - in spite of scoffing malefolk in the background, she is entitled to watch her serials; moreover it is understood, by and large, that she is not to be disturbed as she does it.
Coming now in particular to Pratigya, which Ninan quotes. I'm not arguing for a minute that the plotline isn't utterly shocking, or that there is something right about marrying a harasser. But to see the “power of women”, or the charm of “Pratigya character”, the devil is in the details.
It is a piquant situation. There are two families that are contrasted here: Pratigya's refined, educated family with its genteel manners, and Krishna's rowdy, coarse, wealthy but unlettered folk, as ready with their fists as they are with abuses. Pratigya, for Krishna, is the aspiratonal goal. He wants her, he has got her. Now he needs her approval, he needs to measure up to her and is doing everything possible to please her, to be worthy of her. Through her eyes he now sees his family. A household in which his mother is kicked and punched the minute she steps out of line, where the older bahu is slapped down fairly regularly. I imagine it would curl quite a few stomachs (it did mine) to hear the maid servant inform her mistress with coy triumph that the bahu has already been ‘worshipped' for the day - she means the daily beating, of course. It is appalling. But as a study of how women buy into and participate in the suppression of their own kind, it shows a mirror.
I understand the writer's horror at Krishna's popularity. The context, however, is that he comes of such stock. He has a brother against whom he is measured - the brother (Shakti) is completely a product of his background, while Krishna questions it. Shakti buys into the male hegemony; Krishna is willing to see other sources of power. Krishna is ordered, pressured, mocked into abandoning his support of his wife on the grounds that such devotion makes him very unmanly - he has (so far) resisted attempts with commendable firmness.
Krishna's own (very crude) sister is now married into Pratigya's mild family - their unkindness is of a rather different kind. They sniff at her, they ignore her, they will have no truck with her - curiously, for someone used to being hurled abuses at and pushed around, she still finds their reception of her unbearably hostile. Her abrasive manner only thinly masks her hurt at the rejection. The families are deadlocked in a rather interesting situation, for each has a daughter hostage in the enemy camp.
The social milieu in Pratigya and recent developments in the show throw up a few note-worthy points:
I've been rather long winded about this - but the point, I suppose, is that these serials do occasionally shine the light on what exists; and that depiction doesn't always amount to ratification. Unfortunately, there has been a rather dismissive attitude to popular culture - as if low-brow material must necessarily lack sensibility. To draw a small lesson from Bollywood, not all the cinema and literary work before it managed to make homosexuality as acceptable to middle-class India as Dostana (2008) did. The movie took the idea, wrapped it up affectionately and placed it before the masses, who, to their credit, considered it and accepted it. It was a gentle transaction.
The stories streaming into our drawing rooms may not preach in an ‘acceptable' way. It is possible that they just show, allowing for people see themselves, recognise themselves and wherever possible, identify with this or the other character? They do this to the accompaniment of high melodrama. The saas-bahu genre is now heavily stylised, with its own vocabulary, make-up (what are the bindis and hair-dos but equivalents of the white hat/black hat or Kathakali costumes for positive and negative stereotypes), and a distinct style of editing involving many white flashes.
In spite of the presentation, merely the fact that television serials deal with a long line of female protagonists is encouraging. The female life is being rather thoroughly examined - the child bride, the new bride, the wife, the mistress, the mother, the businesswoman, the ruler, the matriarch. Not even Bollywood has paid us that compliment.
TV soaps with bizarre, regressive storylines pay scant respect to notions of women's empowerment. Yet, they seem wildly popular and, according to some studies, empowering too. Are these script writers more in touch with reality than literal-minded activists and journalists?she asks.
Ninan quotes Prime Time Soap Operas on Indian Television by Shoma Munshi, which in turn partly bases its conclusions on research by Robert Jensen and Emily Oster on the effects of cable television in rural areas of India. Taken together, the argument is that Indian soaps are actually empowering women, that "regression" depends on the point of view. In her piece Ninan wonders at the results and the very convoluted route to empowerment.
The whole story is up here at The Hindu and here on The Hoot.
I responded to the article and the link is here at The Hoot.
And here, for my record, is all of it.
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A response to 'Is this empowerment?'
I found myself laughing a little over Sevanti Ninan's bewilderment in the piece (Is this empowerment?) reprinted from The Hindu. As someone who bestrides what seems to be a chasm, I am tempted to respond. I am a modern woman - I am intelligent, I have a media degree, I'm a mediaperson (of sorts), I'm feminist (I like to paint in my own shades but the broad umbrella will do). Also I watch serials avidly - it started because I like the TV on and I prefer glittery clothes to the news. But lately, because it fascinates me.
As the writer says, there is a world of difference in perception. The casual disinterested viewer - or more particularly, the casual, contemptuous journalist/activist - is appalled at the goings-on in serials; the regular viewer cannot be persuaded to move her eyes from the screen enough to feed her squalling children. For a very long time now, media-watchers and analysts have berated the average viewer for her tastes, shuddered and averted their eyes from the gaudy colours, the campy vamps and the bizarre plotlines, and tried rather desperately to uplift everyone's frame of mind.
They have not succeeded. The serials have gone on being made and, more importantly, they have gone on been consumed. If Balaji Telefilms is no longer the market leader, it doesn't matter any more. They have handed on the torch of that particular stamp of television - it has grown many more heads.
Why these serials thrive is an interesting question. The easy, lazy answer is that these hordes of nameless women across the country (and in neighbouring Pakistan) are fools. That they don't know any better. That they could be watching... oh, I don't know what but certainly something more educative.
However, I don't think that is true. I think our middle class is peopled with sensitive, intelligent, attentive women capable of nuanced thinking - I have several TV fanatics myself among my family and friends; I even adore a large number of them. In which case, we must go by Holmes: when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. We must consider that women are gaining something from this; that they are not merely swallowing whole every broad stroke of apparent regressiveness; that they are entertained; that they are sifting, sorting and picking nuggets that fit in with their current social constructs - and even moving ahead in desirable directions with whatever subtle manoeuvres are available to them. That in spite of the disastrous-seeming package it comes in, Indian TV serials MUST be doing something right.
I was delighted to learn from this article that even so far back as 2001-2003 - the very initial years of the saas-bahu sub-genre - the serials had such a positive impact. It also bears out my own persistent feeling that there is a great deal of difference between what appears to be the message and what is actually absorbed - because there is no other way to explain why they fascinate this huge mass of audience, why they have continually done so this entire decade.
Is it merely that these serials engage in women's concerns? Kitchen politics, in the broad scheme of things, may be insignificant. But perhaps to the woman trapped in it, it helps to have someone examine her situation? TV serials, after all, are not primarily for the outgoing modern woman with various exciting options for her evening's entertainment. They are watched (we assume) by women who have just finished their household chores; the woman who comes, at the end of the day, to her place in front of the television, where the rest of family resignedly relinquishes the remote. Even that, to my mind, is no small victory. It is understood across Indian households now that primetime television is the woman's right - in spite of scoffing malefolk in the background, she is entitled to watch her serials; moreover it is understood, by and large, that she is not to be disturbed as she does it.
Coming now in particular to Pratigya, which Ninan quotes. I'm not arguing for a minute that the plotline isn't utterly shocking, or that there is something right about marrying a harasser. But to see the “power of women”, or the charm of “Pratigya character”, the devil is in the details.
It is a piquant situation. There are two families that are contrasted here: Pratigya's refined, educated family with its genteel manners, and Krishna's rowdy, coarse, wealthy but unlettered folk, as ready with their fists as they are with abuses. Pratigya, for Krishna, is the aspiratonal goal. He wants her, he has got her. Now he needs her approval, he needs to measure up to her and is doing everything possible to please her, to be worthy of her. Through her eyes he now sees his family. A household in which his mother is kicked and punched the minute she steps out of line, where the older bahu is slapped down fairly regularly. I imagine it would curl quite a few stomachs (it did mine) to hear the maid servant inform her mistress with coy triumph that the bahu has already been ‘worshipped' for the day - she means the daily beating, of course. It is appalling. But as a study of how women buy into and participate in the suppression of their own kind, it shows a mirror.
I understand the writer's horror at Krishna's popularity. The context, however, is that he comes of such stock. He has a brother against whom he is measured - the brother (Shakti) is completely a product of his background, while Krishna questions it. Shakti buys into the male hegemony; Krishna is willing to see other sources of power. Krishna is ordered, pressured, mocked into abandoning his support of his wife on the grounds that such devotion makes him very unmanly - he has (so far) resisted attempts with commendable firmness.
Krishna's own (very crude) sister is now married into Pratigya's mild family - their unkindness is of a rather different kind. They sniff at her, they ignore her, they will have no truck with her - curiously, for someone used to being hurled abuses at and pushed around, she still finds their reception of her unbearably hostile. Her abrasive manner only thinly masks her hurt at the rejection. The families are deadlocked in a rather interesting situation, for each has a daughter hostage in the enemy camp.
The social milieu in Pratigya and recent developments in the show throw up a few note-worthy points:
- Neither family wants to continue to stay in the situation it finds itself in. Most of the characters would rather retrieve their girl and break relations (the situation is being held in place by Krishna, who still desperately wants a good marriage with Pratigya and hopes to bring her around.) Marriage, apparently, is no longer a lifelong commitment. Interestingly, neither family makes any concerned noises at all about their daughter's future, should such a break happen. It makes a contrast from even a decade ago when we were told repeatedly that once a woman's ‘doli' had entered a portal, only her ‘arthi' could leave it.
- The Thakur family, in spite of its violent habits, does not actually have the stereotyped silent, suppressed women. They talk back, they argue, they fight. When they are abused, they exhibit no very great weakness - if it is an indignity, they do not permit it to touch them deeply. They brush it off, get up again and contrive to have their voices heard.
- Only last week, Pratigya refused to have her name changed in her sasural; refused to have her identity taken away and be demeaned by having another name foisted on her.
- Krishna's mother hates her daughter in law Pratigya because her son backs her to the hilt. It is a hate born of deep envy. It brings home to her the inadequacies of her own life, a glimpse what she might have had, viz., a husband who respects her.
- Pratigya's father has now managed to negotiate for his daughter an environment that contains books. The Thakur family is feeling backfooted because they cannot read, while their bahu can.
I've been rather long winded about this - but the point, I suppose, is that these serials do occasionally shine the light on what exists; and that depiction doesn't always amount to ratification. Unfortunately, there has been a rather dismissive attitude to popular culture - as if low-brow material must necessarily lack sensibility. To draw a small lesson from Bollywood, not all the cinema and literary work before it managed to make homosexuality as acceptable to middle-class India as Dostana (2008) did. The movie took the idea, wrapped it up affectionately and placed it before the masses, who, to their credit, considered it and accepted it. It was a gentle transaction.
The stories streaming into our drawing rooms may not preach in an ‘acceptable' way. It is possible that they just show, allowing for people see themselves, recognise themselves and wherever possible, identify with this or the other character? They do this to the accompaniment of high melodrama. The saas-bahu genre is now heavily stylised, with its own vocabulary, make-up (what are the bindis and hair-dos but equivalents of the white hat/black hat or Kathakali costumes for positive and negative stereotypes), and a distinct style of editing involving many white flashes.
In spite of the presentation, merely the fact that television serials deal with a long line of female protagonists is encouraging. The female life is being rather thoroughly examined - the child bride, the new bride, the wife, the mistress, the mother, the businesswoman, the ruler, the matriarch. Not even Bollywood has paid us that compliment.
Friday, April 02, 2010
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