Bangalore Mass Molestation: Because of Western or Indian Values?

Tutorial for Indian Men: Why you should respect women

This is now a book on Amazon:

https://amzn.to/2yq8ITi

I was born into a middle class family in a southern state of India. What I remember of my childhood is the love I received from my grandmother, sister & mother growing up. I used to run to them with joy and hug them around their legs. I only received love, care & attention from them.

Then I grew up.

The India I saw around me was unrecognizable. Kids singing vulgar songs about female genitals, college boys watching girls from their college change their dress behind the stage, during a fashion show…

Indian men just see women as objects of physical desire. They see body parts, not a person. 

Bollywood feeds the worst instincts of this culture.

As actress Rekha once mentioned during an award function — most people forget they were born to mothers too…

This is dedicated to all the women who have only given me love during the time I knew them. You deserve to be treated better.

To the Indian men, all I will say is, let us first recognize what is wrong with us and how we got here. Then, we’ll figure out how to fix this misogynistic culture.

Looking back at Rang De Basanti

I watched Rang De Basanti again today and my mind was full of thoughts. It is sad that today probably nobody remembers the impact the movie had. And there have been many movements since which have fizzled out over time (or so it seems to me).

I got thinking about the anti-corruption campaign and how it was doomed from the beginning. People were angry about corruption in India, but I think they went about the wrong way to fix the right problem.

Corruption is a word. It cannot be resolved by sitting on a dharma in Delhi and trying to force the parliament to create fascist like laws.

The reality is that since independence we have not really become a free country.

The younger generation does not really understand what the freedom fighters meant when they said that the British left, but Indians took their place.

That is what I realized when I saw the movie today, and I also realized that the real solution to India's problems is something completely different.

This anti-corruption movement should have focused on something very different than anti-corruption which actually made sense.

The biggest problem in India is that the entire structure of Government is still using a system which was designed to enslave and control the populace. Until this structure is dismantled and rebuilt, we have no hope.

What needs to happen is at the very beginning is to have more decentralization so that local governments are given more importance. Then we need the police system completely revamped so that the highest police official is a local elected official. Whether it be a village, town, city or state, if the highest police authority is a local elected official, it will become a lot more difficult to rule in a "top down" manner as is happening today.

No matter what we do and how we change the laws until we change the basic structure, things will not take a turn for the better. IAS should go out. Probably even the armed forces must be restructured so that there is not much difference between a jawan and an officer.

India is probably the only democratic country in the world where the different government systems like police and army have a class divide between lower and upper ranks and there is no way to get promoted from below all the way to the top. This is not democratic.

There is a massive surge of people going outside the country causing a brain drain because they don't want to live in this corruption ridden environment anymore. They want to escape. They are not leaving to make more money - they are leaving because they are tired of the corrupt system which makes every day a living hell for the normal indian person. 

Unity is our only strength

I went through an extremely stressful period of time recently and thought there was no hope. Darkness had completely taken over our life and we thought there was nobody we could go to. Turned out that our enemy was taking advantage of the fact that we were not together and trying to bring us down. So, we forgot all our differences, previous fights, mis-understandings and came together. 

And we found a solution.

Even when there is no hope and evil has totally taken over, when it tries to completely overwhelm good, just before the last ray of hope is snuffed out a strong power comes out and knocks it out to restore the balance.

To do that, you have to give up pride and be humble. Make friends, forget petty past fights, get over the differences.

I saw that happen today. I am awed.

When I was a kid at school I remember writing these lines

I was quite young, and it strikes me that even that long ago, I wrote down these modified lines from Tagore after seeing things around me:

Where the mind is fully fearful and the head is held low
Where knowledge is bound in chains
Where the world has been totally broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of falsehood
Where tired souls stretch their arms towards degeneration
Where the clear stream of reason has totally lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led backwards by seniors
Into ever claustrophobic thought and action
Into that hell of chains, God, why does my life lead me?

It is quite sad that at such a young age, even at such a better school that others had access to, a child could think this way.

Is this what the world has come to?

Raanjhanaa Review

I read a review of the movie somewhere and I don't agree with it. Hence I thought I would write some thoughts on this.

Firstly I think the movie was ok, and the director can choose to potray the story in whatever manner he feels. I don't think that just because it has some regressive parts, the entire film must be derided. It was a watcheable movie and the hero did die in the end - so I don't agree that he "won" and the movie is against women totally.

About the story itself. It did have flaws. But it was not deeply flawed. Dhanush did not seem like a stalker, because stalkers are usually scary and women don't smile at them, or hug them and kiss them when they slash their hands. I do agree that it was wrong to show Dhanush feeling very happy when this happens because it was made to look like it was justified to slash your hands and the girl would hug/ kiss you. That was wrong I think because firstly, this would not happen and secondly it lets people think they can do the same and the result will be positive.

Sonams character is not built properly. It is difficult to believe that this was such a traumatic incident and when she returns after several years she does not recognize Dhanush at all. And even when she does she is all friendly with him.

Dhanush saying that Abhay is a hindu is shown as if he did a really bad thing. But was it really? - was not the girl taking advantage of him? - if she was totally of right character and she always wanted him to be just a friend, why can't she tell Dhanush right in the beginning that Abhay is a hindu but he will act like a muslim to get married? - and when Dhanush finds this out, his reaction is kind of justified I think.

It does not make sense a smart guy like Abhay would come to Banaras acting as if he is a muslim. That is a weak point in the story.

I agree that the girls character totally uses Dhanush to get things done and dumps him, and expects him to behave like everything is ok and they are just friends. This happens a lot in India. I think this is realistic. And her character is more flawed and also discriminates based on color and region I think. Yes she is educated but just because she is does not mean that Dhanush's character is dirt. Some dialogues bear this out.

Abhay's character dies because of the girls stupidity in thinking she can hoodwink everybody.

I do agree that in the second half, even though she is exasperated, Dhanush still sticks around. This can drive anyone crazy especially when they loved someone else, and he is slowly taking his place, when they just want to be left alone. So, in the end she kills him off and confesses.

The "stalker" does die in the end, and she is left alone to grieve by herself. So I am not sure what exactly makes the movie bad or regressive in the end. Somethings don't make sense, a few things are regressive - but I think the movie is realistic and people are flawed - showing the flaws in the movie is not wrong - but showing wrong behavior as right is not correct.

I think the director should have retained the Tanu and Manu music director for this movie as well. He just sold out by using ARR whose music just seems to become more and more western everyday and right now is just boring and old.

The movie can be watched once. But it is tiring at times, and it shows too many things in a single movie.