Indeed, a male chauvinist world!

According to Captain Lakshmi, a society will be independent, only if it has achieved political, economic and social independence. Even after 60 years of political independence, social development, or rather social equality, i.e. equality of all, irrespective of religion, caste, gender, class, color, etc etc is one thing the Indian society is definitely lacking in. 

We live in a country, where the Woman’s Bill is tabled in the parliament, which if passed will ensure 33% of the seats for women in the Lower House of the Parliament. We live in an era where we have reservations for women in Post Graduation courses in some of the country’s best institutes.  We have separate compartments for women in train, separate seats in bus, even separate school buses. In spite of all this, have women achieved equality? Do women need reservation or do they need respect? Are we promoting respect and equality to women through reservation? And lastly, has the society degraded so much that respect for someone needs to be “promoted”?

One incident, which was in the limelight for a while (till the media manages to get TRP ratings for that), was the Park Street rape case in Kolkata. The victim, who was at a pub, was offered lift by a guy, following which she was gang raped at gun point.  Our thoughts are plagiarized in such a way that, whenever we hear of any such news, we start questioning the morality of the victim involved, as the victim is of the “weaker” sex. Questions arise from all corners, as why she was in the pub, why did an “Indian woman” consume alcohol, why did she accept a lift in the first place, and the conclusion “She deserved it” creeps naturally in our mind that we do not even think twice about it.

Forming these conclusions is made easier by the fact that most of the bureaucrats and politicians, whom we look up to, start questioning her morality (in some cases, publicly). There have been several instances where these “educated” officials attribute such cases to “indecent” behavior from the female’s part. For instance, the police officers for the Park Street rape case mocked her and used the fact that she was in the pub to (mis)judge her character. In spite of being raped, a situation in which no one could even imagine the physical and mental trauma associated, she has to suffer mockery and that too from the people responsible to find the culprits!

The Chief Minister of the state in the above case, a female herself, claimed that the case was fabricated to malign the government. How much more insensitive and ignorant can the leader of the state be! The recent story of the girl, who was molested in Guwahati, and many others, are not a bit different. No wonder, rapes are considered so casual, and the culprits walk scot free.

Now, these are the stories that reach the public. What about the countless other cases! We live in a society where females suffer more, after the physical rape. She tries her best by fighting against the sexual advances of the “stronger” counterpart, till she is beaten up, and forced upon. Regardless of this, after the incident, it is she who bears the brunt. And, in spite of her trauma, she will be forced to hush, not to react, and will be without any support or a shoulder to lean on.

We never think twice of our ability to judge anyone, especially females. We want her to follow a certain set of moral rules that we (males/society) created for our own benefits. Regardless of their comfort, we want her to be dressed fully, regardless of her taste, we want her not to consume alcohol, regardless of her career interest, we want her to sit at home and raise our kid, regardless of her love interest, we just want her to get married off to some guy from a “decent” family and the list just goes on. If she tries to break the rules, the whole society including the males and females, unite against her. If she does anything against the stereotyped rules, if she loves a guy, or if she gets raped (as if it is her fault), the cruelty that she has to face varies from isolating and ignoring her to honor killing.

Respect towards women is not something that comes easily, especially in our society. We (males) consider it “mission accomplished” when we touch the privates of a woman when she is in a bus. Why consider a bus, even in the queues inside a temple, where people stand to get “salvation”, this is quite common. Even the minor aspects, like whistling, or singing certain songs when women walk in front of us, have to be stopped. The portrayal of women in the media, movies, and all other entertainment sources should undergo a complete revamp. Her opinions have to be considered in making family decisions, and ultimately, every kid should be brought up in such a family, where women are not considered inferior, or for that matter even separate.

According to Morgan Freeman, the best way to get rid of racism is not to talk about it. Let our kids grow up in a society, where separate rights are not even talked about, a world where women and men are considered different only because of the physical aspects. That is the only way we can establish social equality, gender-wise.

P.S: Ashamedly I admit, I had been one among the overwhelming majority, thinking just like the ones I described above. However, now that my perspectives are changing, so are my thoughts and my approach.

Born naked...

Are we sure that babies are born naked in this world? Like the answer to any stupid question, the response for this also usually ranges from sarcasm to insult.

Ok, no babies are born with clothes, but on a second thought, we come across different ‘categories’ to which a physically and mentally sound baby is born into.

The first and the most obvious one is whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Of course, you need to distinguish the baby as a boy or as a girl. If the baby is a boy, everything appears fine. If a girl, we need to think about when to stop her education, get her married, when to start purchasing gold for her marriage, how to deal with her boyfriends and the list goes on and on and on.

Ok, now onto the region. The baby will be born in a particular district of a particular state of a particular country in any one of the seven continents.

Now, the next classification, religion. The baby is born to a Hindu/Christian/Muslim father and a Hindu/Christian/Muslim mother, who also gain their religion just because they were born to similar parents and the hierarchy just keeps on going higher, until you stop counting.

Now, that we have decided the religion, something more interesting comes up – the caste. The baby can be born as a SC, Varma, ST, Dalits, Menon, Ezhava, Nair, Brahmin, Roman Catholic, Latin Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Jacobite, Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim,  Wahhabi Muslim, Sufi Muslim and the list just keeps on growing bigger and bigger. There are again sub classifications for the caste, and I am not going so far!

As if none of this is enough, in many places, especially in India, you even decide the career for them. You want them to be a doctor/engineer/C.A or anything which you deem they will prosper with.

Even before you cut the umbilical cord off from the baby, you have planned out a majority of the kid’s life. You have decided whom all the kid should fear, who all can exploit him/her, who all can be friendly with him/her, which religions he/she should respect, which castes should he/she belong to and subsequently which all castes are different from his/hers. You have a whole list of things which identifies your kid different from other kids. Knowingly or unknowingly, you teach and preach inequality. 

Of course, the baby knows nothing when he/she is born, and it is important that we plan things out. The question lies in the rigidity, or more of flexibility in the above plans, as and when the kid grows up. Are we flexible enough to allow them to choose the religion they like to follow when they grow up? Are we flexible enough to allow an inter-religious/inter-caste/inter-country marriage? Will it be fine for us, if they decide a future for themselves, a future which they feel will be good for them? 

And when you ponder over the reason of rigidity, it all boils down to ‘society’ and ‘culture’. Ultimately, you feel that if your kid chooses to do something different from the “normal” practice, it is not according to what the society deems them to do. Your fear for the society, and respect for culture is more than your love for your kid. And, you just fail to understand that society and culture are nothing else, but human creations which have evolved over time, again and again. You ignore the fact that today’s “normal” practice was not normal long before, and there were changes that made it normal today.

And when we start accepting that only change is permanent, we start thinking differently. That is when we start evolving, start contributing to tomorrow’s society, a place where the future generations might think of the changed rules as another "rigid" set.

“Reasonable” Religion

More often than not, there have been questions asked about religion, if god exist or not, if he exists, what exactly does the invisible supernatural power do, and more importantly, if the religion proposed by him/her is reasonable or not. So, I just thought of writing something which proves how much reasonable religion is. Being an Indian, I see mainly Hindus, Christians and Muslims around me. So, let us ponder a bit about the origins of these religions here, and see how reasonable they are.

Let me start with a disclaimer note here. People who feel offensive need not read this, as the contents are definitely going to be offensive. The below content is my view point (clubbed with some other statements which I got from internet). Some of the facts stated might be wrong, but those are the stories I heard when I grew up.

As most of us know, the story of Christians started with god creating man on the sixth day of the 7-day long process. After a while, he created woman from a part of his body. Reasonable indeed, creation of universe in 7 days, and woman from a part of man’s body. Now, comes the funnier part. These 2 nudists, took dietary advice from a talking snake, had sex, blamed the snake for the sex, leading god to curse the snake, so that it loses it legs (along with its vocabulary skills), explaining why it crawls now, just making the “hiss” sound. Charles Darwin must be stunned to see his theory of evolution travelling on a reverse gear!

Now, coming to the origin of Islam, one of the youngest religions. Some say, Islam took off from Christianity, and for them the above story might suffice. Some others believe that God forgave Adam and Eve, and sent them down from heaven to earth (may be to have more sex). Wow, that makes life interesting right, another place (so called “heaven”), other than earth to have sex! And according to the majority, God existed before Prophet Mohammed did, and prophet was just a literal translator of what the god said. So, god gave this book to the angel Gabriel, who travelled from heaven to earth (in the reverse direction), and gave this to Prophet Mohammed, who just noted down the points in Arabic. Quite reasonable!

Being brought up (not born, but brought up) as a Hindu, I have countless similar “reasonable” stories about Hinduism as well. However, I will focus on some of the important stories. In one scripture, you have this young girl who wanted to have a child at any cost. Imagine who all made this happen! First in the queue was none other than “Sun”. Yeah, what we call today as a star filled with Hydrogen and Helium apparently was not filled with the same gases those days. I hope you noticed it, Mr. Galilieo, Copernicus and Kepler! Now, the next members up in the queue to do the same “stuff” were “death”, “wind” and so on. There are other scriptures in which another god steps on a stone, turning it to a beautiful lady, another one where god disguises, comes to earth as fish, tortoise, a kid who stamps on an emperor to send him deep beneath the earth, and what not! Again, very very reasonable! 

Most of us in the present generation, when we grow old enough, do not believe these stories. However, most of us believe that god exists, and religions are good enough. But just think of what all happened because of the so called religion. Christian crusades, honor killing, human and animal sacrifices,  Spanish colonization of Latin America and slaughtering their tribes and tearing down temples to build churches, attempted annihilation of the Jews by Hitler, the war between Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, suicide bombings, circumcision of little boys, to state a few!

I will conclude with a statement which I saw in internet yesterday. Know “how to think” rather than “what to think”. For the same reason, I am stopping this here abruptly, go ahead and think!

Anoop Menon...

Malayalam movie industry is in such a chaos that except three, Renjith, Blessy and Anoop Menon, every one else takes the audience for granted. The disheartening fact is that not only the movie-makers (directors/script writers), but the actors, and even the lyricists and music directors have the same attitude.

When the trailers of Ranjth's Thirakadha was released, I used to wonder why Ranjith, inspite of so much existing talent in the industry, went with a tele-serial actor as his hero. But, I have to say, from the moment I saw the movie, I started admiring this guy, Anoop Menon, who did almost a flawless performance in the movie.I believe Anoop Menon started his work with Malayalam movie industry long before Thirakadha, he scripted, and acted in a movie with Mohanlal, Pakal Nakshatrangal.

From Thirakadha on, he has played quite a few roles, interestingly, most of them sensible roles. What I like about him is just the fact that he is not ready to under estimate the audience. Many can argue that "Beautiful" or "Cocktail" was inspired from other movies, but again, he did not fail to deliver to the audience even with the so called "copied" movies. He has proven his versatilty by scripting those movies, and playing a good role in it. Additionally, he has turned out to be a great lyricist with the song "Mazhaneer thullikal...". He is one among the very few guys whose dubbing is near perfect in Malayalam, right now.

Many can argue about the new-age heroes of Malayalam movie industry after Mohanlal-Mammotty. For me, from the day I started being sensible, I understood that the essence of a movie lies in its script and not anything else. For the same reason, I used to consider Padmarajan, Bharathan and Lohitadas as real heroes than Mohanlal or Mammotty. They were followed by Srinivasan and Renjith. And I used to wonder who would carry on the baton, and it seems I have found an answer.

I hope he keeps up the good work (both in scripting and acting), and does not fall for any cliches.

Tail of a dog..

Some things get you irritated, and you are reminded of people, who behave like the famous “dog’s tail”.

1-2 months back, I had a chat with one of my school-mate. Haroon, or kochu, he was called, and he was in my class till 10^th. After 12^th, we never even maintained contact, I never knew where he was and I think it was the same with him, unless he employs "the CIA" for keeping track of me. And yet, when I chatted with him, after almost 8 years of meeting him, I was faced with the questions “Why was I not invited for the marriage” and “How the hell did your mom allow for the marriage” , “Was not your mom “too” strict to allow for a love marriage” and lots of other questions. Almost all were negative questions, and, as if he was my best friend, inquiring about my mom’s behavior. And to sum it all, he goes on complaining about him not being invited for my marriage. Grow up dude. At least, wake up.

Another such instance, about a Manchester United fan club. Manchester United was trashed 6-1 by Manchester City, and being a normal “non-fanatic” football fan, I enjoyed the match, and I enjoyed the thrashing. I posted on facebook, about Man U getting trashed. Another classmate of mine, whom I remember coming to my house only during exam time for combined studies (I guess, because, that is when he remembers that I exist), the “back-stabber” Asish C.R, out of nowhere, came and put up a “spirited” fight, to save the club he “owned”.

More than that, what irritated me was another guy, Unnikrishnan, whom I have not even talked much in school, poking and asking me which club I support. And when I replied, I just love the game more than the fanatic (which any human other than him can find normal), he was offended and that kicked off a small “facebook-fight” with my shit on top of his bullshit.

One question which both these guys posted and irritated me quite a lot was about the “number of football matches” I watch. You know what, these guys, whom I chatted after 8 years, have very closely followed me, whatever I do, even the number of times I go to toilet each day, so that they have the accurate count of the number of matches I watch every season. What else can I say to them, other than “grow up or wake up”.

The point is, I was not very “active” during the school days, and I admit, I was more of a so called nerd. But time have changed, 8 years have passed by. How can they, more than my family or my friends know me? Or are they assuming that 8 years is too small, and, because they have not changed from the school days, I might also not have! I feel ashamed of even pitying them.

Strange thing to miss...still...;)

So, I brought a new mobile...a Samsung galaxy ace, thanks to my wife and parents for their continuous nagging, which I believe, is stretched over years.

An android phone, I installed certain games, especially card games which I love. A day in office, when I had no work at all, I started playing the games and suddenly I was reminded of the past where my aunt and cousins would come over to my home and we play.

It would be usually for Onam, Vishu, or may be for some marriages. My dad's sister, Janu Attai (as we call her), and her kids (Sreeram and Ramya) would come over to our place. We all would be anxiously waiting for her arrival from the day she would have announced her trip:) And never will the vacation be complete, if it was not for them. If it was Onam, we did the flower carpet everyday, if it was Vishu, we had loads and loads of crackers. Then there was kallanum policum, hide and seek, and many more... :)

Whatever occasion it was, one thing which was almost a routine was the card games. We used to play kazhutha (Ass/Ace), thuruppu (28 card game), and bluff. It was a lot of fun, especially, when another of my cousin, Vinuanna ( as we call him) joins us. He gets angry very easily and sometimes the sole purpose of playing the game would be to irritate him. Even if the rest of us don't explicitly form a "gang", there was a sort of mutual understanding between us, and Vinuanna would get angry so easily. Even if we played our normal game, he gets bugged, irritated, throws away the cards and walks off. We used to love it so much and got us stomach aches almost everytime, laughing our head off.

And playing the game itself involved lot of preparation. The playground was the car parking area and the cars there had to be parked outside. After that, the pitch needs to be prepared by neatly lying newspapers. Then 1-2 deck of cards has to be brought and shuffled. And then, the game would kick off, and would continue till late evenings. It was a lot and lot of fun, and those days would never come back again.

How much ever the technology advances, there are always things that the technology can never replace. One can have a great phone, work in Singapore, make cash, but none of these makes a life complete. None of the card games in the phone brings the happiness and laughter that the childhood game used to bring in me.
But still, I sincerely thank my phone which made my day , helping me remind the fun I used to have, and establishing that the robot in me has atleast some human feelings left, after all. :)

Johnson maashu...

Malayalam film industry has lost yet another genius and this time none other than the great composer Johnson master. To quite a few, he might be just “another” celebrity guest in Idea Star Singer who plays guitar. But for those who love the soothing music when Malayalam film industry was in its peak in 1980’s and 1990’s, he is their beloved Johnson maashu.

What distinguished Johnson master from other composers, was his ability to adapt completely with the situation of the movie and deliver his composition. His music reached the common man easily as it was melodious, as opposed to the semi classical / classical rendering by Raveendran master, another legend. His earlier compositions consist of very few instruments, and the way music blends with the song and how he manages to sooth the audience is amazing.

He has really been a master of melodies, and I love almost all of them. The songs which come to my mind first whenever I think of Johnson master includes 

Devankanangal (Njaan Gandharvan)
Anuraagini itha (Oru kudakeezhil)
Melle Melle Mugapadam (Minnaminunginu Nurunguvettom)
Mandaracheppundo (Dasaratham)
Neelaraavil (Kudumbasametham)
Aarodum Mindathe (Chinthavishtayaaya Shyamala)
Chaitra Nilavinte (Oraal mathram)
Aakashamaake (Namukku Paarkkan Munthiri Thoppukal)
Devakanyaka Suryathamburu (Ee Puzhayum Kadannu)
Kaneer Poovinte (Kireedam)
Madhuram Jeevamritha (Chenkol)
Kunnimani Cheppu (Ponmuttayidunna Thaaravu)
Mounathinn Idanazhiyil (Malooti)
Oonjalurangi (Kudumbasametham)
Pathimey marenjathenthey (Paavam Paavam Raajakumaran)

His contributions in the semi-classical genre is also worth mentioning and the songs which I immediately think of includes

PaalaPoove (Njaan Gandharvan)
Devi (Njaan Gandharvan)
Ponnil kulichu (Sallapam)
Bhramakamalam (Savidham)
Maunasarovaram (Savidham)
Rajahamsame (Chamayam)
Gopike Nin Viral ( Kaatathe Kilikoodu) (My mom used to sing this to me when I was a kid, and I would sleep only after that )

The variety of music he rendered was quite amazing and it is hard to believe that it was Johnson master himself behind Anuraagini, Ponnil kulichu and Anthikadapurathu (Chamayam). Songs of 3 different genres, different mood and what not!

Your demise has created a huge vacuum which may never be replaced. We will really miss you Johnson master.