The Revenant and Heroes

Hugh Glass gobbles up a raw fish; he bites into a piece of still warm raw bison liver and vomits right into it; a grizzly bear rips his flesh, leaving his bones visible; he pulls out the entrails of a dead horse and then snuggles into the carcass to keep himself warm. There are steep falls; animals and men torn to the barest. 

Here are a few random thoughts on The Revenant, in no way a review or even an analysis.

I usually wince when there is any violence, overt or covert. I shut my eyes for a few minutes. While watching The Revenant, I did not. There could be two explanations, both worrying: Either I have become immune to such scenes or the violence in the film is gratuitous, a sort of play-acting between big hunters and hunted with their positions alternating. 

The former reason may be ruled out, for I subsequently noticed that I continue to be squeamish even while watching National Geographic. But I am also not quite ready to dismiss the film’s bludgeoning aggression to gratuitousness simply because of Jim Bridger. 

Bridger and his demons

Jim Bridger and his face. A face registering pain, anger, loyalty, pusillanimity, and guilt. A face held together by wisps of gossamer that seem to have been jaded in the weather to give it a certain ruggedness. A face that can break. A face that deserves to be punched one minute and caressed the very next.

I did not know who the actor was. (Will Poulter, it turns out.) I have the advantage of distance — distance from Hollywood, even as trivia. In fact, it is only after watching the film that I got to know it is loosely based on a real story. Therefore, for all the difficulties a film crew faced, we realise that the reality must have been far worse. Yet, my appreciation of the film increased with this knowledge, for it could then be seen as a tribute to a period of hardship, of struggle, and of man and beast fighting for the same space and becoming like each other. 

Even in the much talked about skirmish with the bear scene, and despite the fact that after a couple of minutes of relentless assault it becomes a pantomime, the questions stand out: Was Glass pushing his animalistic limits or was the bear fighting for her humane space in protecting her cubs? 

The demarcation between man and beast is often blurred, and the moral queries are as much the animal’s as the human’s. Hugh Glass finding shelter in the carcass of a horse has a Pieta-like resonance; it is more familial than his relationship with his son, Hawk. For, the latter comes with the strings of fealty. Glass is concerned about co-traveller and opponent John Fitzgerald [Tom Hardy] killing Hawk, “because he was all I had”. Whereas the horse, belonging to another camp, helps him escape, proving to be useful even in death. 

Hugh Glass carries his son Hawk

Digression: I can imagine how in a Bollywood film, the hero would have named the horse Raja or Shera and the steed would have even shed a tear in the last moments! Perhaps I am replaying all this in my mind without the melodrama, although The Revenant has many moments of melodrama and of stylised pauses.

Leonard DiCaprio said in an interview:

They’re [Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki] very specific about their shots and what they want to achieve, and that — compounded with the fact that we were in an all-natural environment, succumbing to whatever nature gave us — was something that became more of a profoundly intense chapter of our lives than we ever thought it was going to be. It’s epic poetry, an existential journey through nature, and this man finding a will to live against all odds. Yet he changes, nature changes him and I think those elements changed him while we were doing the movie.

Glass’s pursuit of living is more than about survival for exacting revenge. He wants to live to be heroic. Part of the reason may have nothing to do with being left to the elements. It could be Hollywood. I do not keep count of awards. I have not watched enough DiCaprio films to be a fan. Exultations like, “Leo owned the Oscars” do not impress me. But, the first thought that came to my mind as The Revenant opened was indeed, “So Leo owned the Oscars?” 

The Revenant has several layers that will be visible only after the Hollywood star mask is scraped off. I am not an actor or one who even understands the intricacies of the craft. What I do know is that one should see the character, and not the actor, much less the star. 

Some critics have pointed out that Fitzgerald stands against Glass because he is a racist and cannot imagine why a white man would have married a Pawnee woman and then felt so protective about his half-Native son. But, while he does sound racist (explained as his own experience of being partially scalped by one), Fitzgerald is as much a fighter as Glass in the survival sense. He has plans for the future — despite the tortuous journey ahead, he wants to carry a heavy burden of pelts that they worked to get and that would be profitable. He agrees to stay back with a badly wounded and almost dead Glass who he’d prefer dead only because he is promised $300; it will buy him a home. He is the Ordinary Guy who makes an immobile and directionless Glass seem extraordinary. 

Fizgerald and Glass confront each other

Towards the end, when Fitzgerald is finally dying, Glass pushes him upstream to meet his fate. Heroic Glass does not take the responsibility to kill him for killing his son; he leaves it to god,  a lesson we are told he learned from the Native American who had nursed him for a bit, which again shows he has not learned too many lessons himself. His version of god seems to be the Arikara on the other side of the river who are certainly not going to spare Fitzgerald. Makes one wonder about Glass and his moral prism. 

Glass has no motive except to mourn for the fact that he has nothing to live for anymore, instead of finding a reason to live. Even the young Bridger, perhaps the youngest in the team, takes the risk to stay behind with someone who might die any minute. Bridger is a hero because he sees duty as beyond doing a job, and when he does leave Glass, he not only leaves behind his canteen but also an image of a caring person who is not so much saving his own life as preferring to stay away from witnessing one who he admires give up on life.

In the end, does Glass give up? He looks blankly ahead and then straight at the audience. His Native wife* floats in and out of his dreams with aphoristic fervour telling him that in a storm if you look at the branches you will see them bend but the trunk will not. Glass has internalised this, but then so does everyone else who is not yet dead. 

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* Grace Dove who played the role of his wife tweeted: "Not gonna lie... Pretty bummed I didn't get an invite to the #Oscars."

The corpse carriers: Parsi untouchability

A news story on untouchability among the Parsis may seem like an anachronism, but this is how the pallbearers in the community are treated.

They are now protesting, not against the untouchability but their pay scales. These khandias have to work at odd hours, live amongst corpses till they decompose completely, and it takes a long time for there are no birds of prey these days at the Doongerwadi Tower of Silence at Malabar Hill. The solar panels leave the bodies "soggy". As one khandia was quoted as saying, “When we go to drag the body, a hand or a leg comes off."

These men are treated with contempt, as the report conveys so well. They can't live in the Parsi baugs, there is separate drinking water, they need to purify themselves before entering a fire temple, and when they are given money they have to open a pouch so that the donors do not get contaminated.

The contamination bit bothers me, and it is not restricted to Parsis and is rampant in all communities. The pallbearers are carrying and cleaning people who were once loved and lived amongst us. How does this defile them? Is it only considerations of infections that might pass? I think not. If that were the case, then long after they have washed and aired themselves, they would not still be ostracised for being who they are.

What is the point of funeral rites and memorials if we cannot respect those who ensure that the deceased have a dignified last image?

There are always exceptions to the rule, but that only emphasises how entrenched these non-scripture, non-legal rules are and also how social norms and prejudices have a greater say than them. It is appalling that we continue to be trapped in fears of contamination.

Some years ago, there was a demand for some purification ritual because actor Arjun Rampal (who is married to a Parsi) had said he had sneaked into a fire temple — as a kid. I had written Parsi Controversies then.

We do pull up Hindus for their practice of untouchability, and rightly so. But Muslims, Christians, and Parsis are offenders too. Muslims have a higher caste of Syeds, and many sects look down on others — including not having water in the house of one or treating another's rituals with contempt. Even if a religion talks about the differences, should we not move with the times? Ages ago, there were probably reasons of survival of the fittest and assertion of territory to be factored in. Today, social mobility makes these redundant.

The hypocrisy makes things worse when there is talk of dignity of labour in public and scant consideration privately for those performing such tasks. Why is it that a person with a degree doing a menial job is seen as honourable but one 'born' into it not so? These prejudices are not ingrained but learned. And such learning is also about some form of intellectual superiority, and therefore slavery.

If we must shun, then shunning these double-faced consciences should be considered good untouchability. 

Sunday ka Funda

Symbols are not ritualistic. They often have deeper connotations. Ganesh Chaturthi is being celebrated now, but not many would ponder over what the elephant god means. One need not even be a believer to comprehend these symbols that seem more like a manual for ethical living. Rituals and deification, and marketing, alter the very nature of spiritualism and faith.

Spiritualism does not need the crutch of blind belief.

Somebody has filed a FIR against film director Ram Gopal Verma for these tweets:

• “The guy who couldn't save his own head from being cut , how he will save others heads is my question? But Happy Ganpathi day to morons!” • “Can someone explain how someone can cut off a child's head who was just trying to protect his mother's modesty? Am sure devotees know better”.
• “Can someone tell me if today is the day Ganesha was originally born or is it the day his dad cut his head off?”
• “Does Lord Ganesha eat with his hands or his trunk?”
• “I would really love to know from Lord Ganesha's devotees a list of what obstacles he removed in all the years they prayed to him.”
• “Happy Ganesh chaturdhi. .may this day 29th aug bring prosperity and happiness to everybody so that there will be no problems from 30th aug.”
• “I think my films are flopping only becos of my attitude towards Gods. ..I wish I can become a devotee.”

Although some might seem insulting, the general tone is childlike. Children often pose valid, if uncomfortable, queries. All religious fables have one given meaning, and the rest are open to interpretation.

For that, one needs to have an open mind that can read between the lines.

Rumours and Reality - Revisiting Sunanda Pushkar

While the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of former Union minister Shashi Tharoor, appeared to leave several unanswered questions, I am not sure about the latest “twist”.

Dr. Sudhir Gupta, head of forensic sciences at AIIMS, has filed an affidavit in the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) claiming that he was 'pressured' by former Union minister and president of AIIMS, Ghulam Nabi Azad, to act in an 'unprofessional' manner to cover up the matter. 

"(The) applicant could not muster courage of openly placing the facts in black and white as the former president of AIIMS Ghulam Nabi Azad was an immensely powerful politician and the then health minister, and the husband of late Sunanda Pushkar was also a minister and a powerful politician," the affidavit stated.

Why was the job more important to the doctor than ethics? This query is valid now because there are charges of plagiarism and misconduct against him. Is he trying to cover his own tracks by alluding to a cover-up? What exactly does being pressured to act unprofessional really mean? This case was very public; the police were on the trail. Importantly, the forensic findings pointed out injuries, an overdose and drug poisoning. If there was pressure – and it not unlikely – nobody seemed to have keeled under it, at least as far as a medical report goes (although there were contradictory ones).

Before further investigations, the doctor should be interrogated not only about the nature of the pressure, but what he did not reveal in the report that he was forced to cover up. If it is different from what he gave the police, then he should be tried in court and his license taken away until he is cleared. It appears that he wants to be in the political good books and is more concerned about saving his own position.

Now that the case has resurfaced, there are a few points that need to be addressed.

The Congress made a huge mistake by fielding Shashi Tharoor, although he did win the Thiruvananthapuram seat. The point is about probity. He is not an accused, but the death of his wife under public and social media glare, where he himself was involved, sent out a message of arrogance and powerplay.

BJP members suggesting that there has been silence have got it all wrong. The media, in fact, went into overdrive then. The rumour mills were churning out conspiracies and propping up some of the players, however tangential their involvement with the personae. (My earlier post)

There were three main reasons they felt that Sunanda could have been murdered:

1. She had said she would expose the IPL backroom deals.
2. The ISI would want her out of the way because she suggested that Tharoor’s friend was a mole.
3. The relationship between the couple.

Regarding IPL, she essentially indicated that she was made into the scapegoat. Either way, as it was sweat equity it would be difficult to pin down as financial skullduggery.

The ISI angle is ridiculous, and one of the reasons the case did not gather momentum. Tharoor is not a big-ticket minister, so sending a honey trap would not make any sense. Also, a gushing fan as honey trap would be counter-productive. The only notable point here is that the lady was planning to write a book on the Kerala elections. Seriously, there were attempts to get a publisher for a Pakistani to cover elections in an Indian state that has little emotional or real connect with the neighbouring country. The ISI can be accused of many things, but not stupidity.

The third reason is the personal equation between the minister and his wife. Sunanda was quite open about accusing him and just as suddenly expressing positive vibes. But to call him a murderer when they were both image-conscious people is a bit much. If things did go wrong, then they had other ways to resolve the issues. They had been through such phases in life separately before they got married to each other. Her father, brother and son all stood by Tharoor even in their moment of grief. Were they pressured too?

She was certainly in bad shape as her online activity reveals. But she was an independently wealthy woman and not dependent on her husband. She was also a glamorous person with a public profile that did bring its share of snarky comments. She had survived them.

In January, she became a corpse in a five-star hotel room. With injuries. They have not been explained. No amount of poisoning can cause these. Tharoor has said he wants the cops to probe. He should pursue the case, not to absolve himself but because like others he too must be concerned about it.

Until then, the rumours will over-ride justice.

© Farzana Versey

Bread and Wine

The Last Supper is not just Resurrection. It seems a challenge to authority, to the haters, to those who kill, and who cannot stand dissent. It is rebirth, not of oneself but of those who stand by you. It is a lesson to face the traitor head-on, but also to keep people guessing about the identity of the one who betrays — in that way, everyone is on their toes.

Jesus was a sharp man. He went through tribulations, yet he also knew he was destined to be much more than one nailed to the Cross. There has been much analysis of the famous eponymous painting of the event by Leonardo da Vinci, including the sort of food displayed. The salt-shaker in repose as bad omen; the plate before Judas being empty; the choice of fish - did Christ get his apostles from among the fishermen?

Bread and wine, of course, mean what has been said:

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)

Would remembrance imply rejuvenation of those who remember? Are they the only chosen ones?

I am not qualified enough to discuss the symbolism in religious terms, or even in detail. Also, I was quite intrigued by this other painting by Jacopo Tintoretto:

It is darker, has more happening, and except for the light near Jesus, the rest is almost mundane. Does it need the routine to show up brilliance or does brilliance put everything and everybody else in the shade?

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. (John 6:53-58)

Was this spiritual barter? Or, is it the submergence of flesh to live in another (off another?)? If the eternal is based on the temporal, then is it really eternal?

PS: It took a Mad takeoff, with cellphones playing an important role, to suggest that, indeed, the temporal is eternal, connecting, staying in 'touch' with others and, therefore oneself.

© Farzana Versey

An unnecessary death

It has been shocking from the word go.

Sunanda Pushkar, wife of minister Shashi Tharoor, was found dead this evening in a Delhi hotel room. It seemed messy the moment I first switched channels yesterday and saw the “twitter catfight” about an affair all over. Today, it has resulted in a death.

All I can say right now is that the media should exercise some restraint. They did not do so a day ago, and they are not doing so now. The 'concern' too is nosey. ‘Friends’ are telling us different versions about her health. Reporters are giving contradictory accounts. It would seem that half of Delhi’s media was onto something. And I hear people are going to politicise this? Lay off.

It is asking for too much, especially since the people involved started this. But catharsis and personal anger, however ill-advised, is one thing. Voyeurism by the rest of the world is another. I read some nonsensical bytes in the newspaper where a TV anchor whose channel ran a big story was asking the two ladies to “stay totally civil in public”.

The social media has been used to settle scores, to slander, and that is worrying. It has resulted in an extreme step, but many of us have had to put up with absolute muck in public spaces that has little to do with our public positions.

Not only is it difficult to judge people’s personal lives, it is intrusive and distressing. 

Ageism as monstrosity

Why is old age fit enough to be a Halloween costume? Heidi Klum chose to dress up as one for the annual party. As Jezebel reported, "She's honestly unrecognizable — look at the fake veins on her legs and hands. She must be wearing fake skin over her skin, like a festive version of Necromancer pants."

These pants are made of human skin. We won't go there now, but Halloween is supposed to commemorate the dead, martyrs and loved ones who have left. What message does this 'costume' convey? To begin with, it does not look like a costume. It is realistic. It makes it appear that the end is near for old age, and the body must be ravaged and sag and wrinkle.

As an international supermodel who has seen a lot of cosmetic intervention around her, Heidi ought to know that this is not how old age always looks. I am not against the fact that this could be the natural consequence, and there is nothing to be squeamish about it. But for Halloween — when everybody wants to do a make-believe? Had she chosen a gothic version, it would have been more than fine. This, however, is eerily reminiscent of the real, and it does not appear to be granted the respect it deserves.

There seems to be a whole attitude towards ageism that props up not just the Botox industry, but more damagingly the thought process. Youth, irrespective of maturity, is seen as the final authority, the mantle-wearers, the shining knights and primped up goddesses.

Had these fake veins been real they'd hurt like hell. Fantasy reduces them to a caricature.

© Farzana Versey

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I had written about how Halloween made me Somebody Else

Terrorism and the Indian Muslim: 'Shahid' as Apologia

Soon after the first shot was fired in the first scene, I felt uncomfortable. Anything to do with the riots of 1993 produces a pit-of-the-stomach reaction. I have no control over it. However, barely a few minutes into the film and my discomfort was transferred to the manner in which Shahid subtly works the mainstream.

The problem with the ordinary man as hero, or someone who does extraordinary things, is that everything else begins to be seen as a prop to bolster his story.

Those who have witnessed the 1993 Bombay riots up-close might be able to comprehend the issues I have with the film, based on the real life story of slain lawyer Shahid Azmi, whose portfolio comprised mostly of cases of wrongly-convicted or imprisoned men on charges of terrorism.

Except for that one torture scene, the dilemmas are portrayed in a touch-and-go manner. Not only does the film consolidate stereotypes, it comes across as an apologist for the government. Throughout there is an assertion of how wonderful the judiciary is. As the end credits roll, it is mentioned that in his seven-year career Shahid procured 17 acquittals.

While this is factually correct, there are numerous cases that go unheard, forget about getting justice.

The details, as shown in the film: A teenager from a lower middle-class family watches the riots of 1993. He is deeply affected and leaves for Kashmir. Here he gets some sort of training in handling arms. He escapes from there after a few months. Is arrested on charges of being a terrorist. In the seven years of imprisonment, he studies. Once out, he pursues a law degree, joins a firm, quits to start his own practice, starts fighting cases of 'suspects' who are rounded up without a shred of evidence.

And then one day he is shot dead in his office. The end is the beginning.

The premise was open to raise pointed questions, even as it maintained a narrative structure. Instead, there is no sense of commitment, except for mouthing of clichés.

It pained me when I watched it, and it pains me now as I write it, because this film is being hailed for taking a risk. Some have even said how wonderful it is that such a film was made at all.

What kind of a society are we that what needs to be stated as a matter of course is considered an achievement? It is infuriating that we have to accept these crumbs. Azmi's life was in some ways remarkable, but the biopic is not.

It works on the formula of good Muslim. Had this not been a "gritty" film, one would be tempted to recall Karan Johar's celluloid families. Shahid and his brothers are shown as too perfect. They are educated, clean-shaven, and the bearded men they associate with speak gently. I know loudmouths who are not militant. And much as education needs to be encouraged, should we assume that those who do not have access to it are all suspect?

Why does Shahid escape after the riots and that too for training in jihad? This is a horrible indictment, and assumes that those who are affected by such scenes will as a natural course choose to become terrorists.

We do not know what he is disillusioned about. It would have been an important message to understand that such jihad is not a panacea. But the director desultorily goes through the motions of showing a few men wearing skull caps, holding rifles, saying "Allah-hu-Akbar", and preparing for some grand plan that might come their way.

Upon his return to Mumbai, he goes home. He is later arrested because they think he is a terrorist. Resigned to a life in prison, a Kashmiri militant befriends him over games of chess. Yes, the good Muslim Shahid is pitted against the bad one who will use him as a pawn. This is borne out later when a good Kashmiri (the film is ridden with such good-bad ideas, although it does so quietly) warns him about Umar and how these guys just want to prove their superiority and lord over others. He also tells Shahid about how justice takes time, but it prevails. The fact that they are all unjustly in jail seems to be lost on him.

The good Kashmiri is friends with Professor Saxena. (You cannot possibly have a Prof. Gilani or Raza, can you?) They encourage Shahid to continue with his studies, and the professor pitches in with some tokenism about Sher Shah Suri.

Seven years later, the family has moved to a better residence. There is no evidence of anyone having dissociated with his family. This is not the story of many people, as Shahid himself suggests. Then why was this family spared? Because they are not 'typical'?

Shahid joins the firm of a Muslim lawyer. The avarice puts him off, and he starts on his own. I would like to emphasise here that all this conveys that for a young Muslim to be taken seriously, not only does he have to be clean-shaven and educated, he also has to be squeaky clean.

Maryam, one of his clients, is possibly a spark in many ways. Shahid falls in love with her and proposes. That is when she asks him, "You know I am a divorcee, don't you?" There you go. A Muslim woman who probably had 'talaq' said to her three times, and is now bringing up her son on her own. They marry quietly. Why?

When he later takes her to meet his mother he brings a burqa, something she has never worn. He requests her to do so just this once. I fail to understand this. His mother is not shown wearing one, and if he has married without consent, then does he need this? What exactly does the director want us to know? That all said and done, a Muslim woman will at some point in her life have to wear a veil?

The scenes in the court are slightly better, but again the judge is seen pulling up the public prosecutor more than the defense. This sounds rather utopian. At one point Shahid loses it and asks, "Are you trying to say I am a terrorist?" That is the one true moment. For the most part, he does not even use the word Muslim. He says "minority". If this is not a copout, then what could possibly be?

He fights the case of Faheem Ansari, arrested following the Mumbai attacks of 2008 because his laptop had some maps. Shahid starts getting threatening calls. There is no explanation. The silence is a tacit understanding of not taking sides.

One night, Shahid is called to his office and shot dead. His colleague appears for Faheem in his place. It takes a Ramalingam to justify the work of a Shahid Azmi. This is what the film tells us. This is what people tell us. This is how stereotypes work. This is how Indian Muslims get branded. Patronised.

Fine. I am glad this film was made. It just shows us how celebrity parallel filmmakers play the formula and consolidate the stance that the state is always right.

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Update

I have been fairly surprised by how the 'populism' of such serious cinema works. To the certified Muslim organisation that has sent this email:

"Go watch SHAHID before it is too late. If you dont have time atleast buy tickets and gift it to some who has. If people are so disinterested, filmmakers wont want to make such brilliant movies again"

I can only say that rather than gifting tickets, acquire the skills and have the gumption to make a movie that tells your story your way, instead of waiting for majoritarian prerogative to speak up for you.

You want to accept magnanimity, and that is the whole darned problem. And you in your elitist hole, there are people who do not need to watch movies to know what they experience.

If on an everyday basis one is taunted as being a jihadi and asked to go to Pakistan, I can only imagine how it is for the people who are rounded up without even the courtesy of a snigger.

I did not need this film to get me thinking. I have done so publicly since 'Bombay', then 'Fizaa' and later the execrable 'Black Friday'. My analysis of the last one is here.

It is no surprise that quite a few 'secular' people, even among Muslims, would want to applaud the film. It is their choice. Just do not expect me to fall for any and every gesture of some 'pathbreaking maverick'. I can turn around and say that I have posed queries that are not in the domain of either popular or even much of offbeat ideas. How does such hat-tipping matter when you are being handed over little bites of predigested bitterness?

What I write is to challenge the reader as much as I am challenged, though not by this film because it plays too safe. But do not tell me that the questions a film/art/book/thinker asks are the final questions and the ones I ought to ask too.

© Farzana Versey

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The performances were uniformly above-average. But I cannot bring myself to see it as just a film. Here is the official trailer; what I have written will not come through here:

Sunday ka Funda

Even before reading a word, this photograph completely shook me up. A woman crying in obvious desperation and a few cops sitting on the same bench, but keeping their distance and going about their job without a glance towards her. What more could express her loneliness and helplessness?

Who is she? I still do not know. The caption in Mumbai Mirror says:

"The mother of Prakash Salunkhe, 14, who was killed by a leopard on his way back from school on Friday, breaks down at the hospital after receiving her son's bloodied body"

Her identity is just that of the mother of a bloodied dead body. I look with discomfort at a cop's bright shoes, and the floor that seems to have congealed remnants.

The fact that it is in the newspaper, front page at that, does mean that in the noise of politics and cult figures the story has been covered. Leopard attacks on children in the Aarey Colony area are not uncommon. It is also not fair to dismiss the reaction of the cops based on what has been captured in a second. They were probably paying attention to her earlier, and could be taking down details about her son.

That is not the issue. It is about us. About how callous we have become to things around. There would be many times when we would be sitting like those cops, not too far, from people suffering. And we would do nothing. And, sadly, at that point in time we would be as helpless as this mother. For, somewhere, without trying to justify the looking away, it is true that we don't do anything because we just can't.

The last accusation?

Now a dying declaration can be recorded by anyone, according to a judgement passed by the Supreme Court in its reversal of a high court verdict.

The case: A dowry death where the woman's in-laws set her ablaze. She suffered 100% burns. Her statement was dismissed because the Madhya Pradesh High Court doubted its veracity.

The counter-argument was that she had suffered abuse in her matrimonial home and there was every reason to believe her. The SC agreed and according to a report, “You need not be a police officer, doctor or a magistrate to record the dying declaration, a statement accusing those responsible for the death of the person making his last possible statement".

The bench further added, "The person who records a dying declaration must be satisfied that the maker is in a fair state of mind and is capable of making such a statement...Moreover, the requirement of a certificate provided by a doctor in respect of such state of the deceased, is not essential in every case."

Besides the ability to gauge the state of mind, what cases will be exempt?

The court has specified that such an allowance will be certainly applicable in burns cases. It is true that it might help a lot of women who continue to go though this torture. But what if the burns are not as severe and she dies due to other complications?

The possibility of such declarations being questioned increases simply because the person recording them is likely to be close to the victim. The law relies on evidence, and it would be more sensible if the case was dealt with by the police.

On the face of it, this appears to be a move to ease the bureaucratic method of having a doctor or cop at hand. However, it could end up in further legal wrangles.

A person dying is not in a stable mental condition, so the very crux of the provision could be argued. What happens if the woman had a history of depression, quite possibly as a result of the incessant abuse? Would her dying declaration hold? Unlikely.

It may be used against her, whereas an 'authority' figure recording it could have helped. Some things do appear progressive and easy on paper, but their execution is not only never foolproof, it leads to even more problems.

I do not see why a declaration is needed at all. No woman will douse herself with kerosene and light a matchstick.

Imagine the complications where other means are used to kill. Suppose the woman has been strangled to death, or poisoned? The same queries might be posed in other cases, too, irrespective of gender.

It might sound like something from a bad film, but what if together with the dying declaration a helpful relative or friend manages to get other declarations, including property papers or even establishes a relationship closer than the one that exists? And since the 'recorder' is an expert at judging mental balance, and the victim is deemed to be in a state of sound mind, how will the court manage this side-effect?

© Farzana Versey

Foetus and Feminism: What about the other Savitas?

 

Words like “pro-choice” did not even occur to her as they forced an iron rod into her vagina and, together with the blood, remnants of an unborn human being seeped out. She wept a little for the lost child and much more for the scalded part that was essential to her job. Shanno was a sex worker. The brothel owner could not afford her ‘wares’ to be mothers. Shanno had opted for survival on sleaze street. Brothels are secular, so she followed all faiths. No one would justify or hold back her abortion on the basis of religion.

Savita Halappanavar’s death due to negligence at the University Hospital Galway in Ireland has become a global issue largely due to that. A 17-week-old foetus is considered risky for termination of pregnancy. Unfortunately, she was miscarrying and in the state of unbearable pain asked the doctors to abort the baby. The reply they gave her has become a whip-mantra: “This is a Catholic country.”

Is it news that the Catholic Church is against abortion? Savita’s family is justifiably incensed; the denial of her right to terminate the pregnancy is a crime for which they ought to get justice. However, would there be such international outrage had the doctors cited medical reasons for their refusal to abort? Indian politicians who pay scant respect for women’s health and welfare have urged the external affairs minister to intervene and order an enquiry into this case. A report states that 12 women die every day in India due to unsafe termination of pregnancy.

  
Jodie Jacobson wrote in RH Reality Check: 

“Someone's daughter, wife, friend, perhaps sister is now dead. Why? Because a non-viable fetus was more important than her life. Because she was left to suffer for days on end in service of an ideological stance and religion she did not share. Because a wanted pregnancy went horribly wrong, and, because as must now be clear, there are people who don't care about the lives of women.”

If it is an ideological stance, would the lawmakers in Ireland even consider this example based on a religion Savita “did not share”? Some foreign newspapers have carried stories with large pictures of Savita and her family at her wedding, including a dance video of a private function. The motive seems to be to pit one culture against another, or at least to highlight that an ‘outsider’ had to suffer because of these laws. Last month, the first private abortion clinic opened in Belfast amidst protests. Why did it take this long for such a medical service to be available when it is public knowledge that women travel to England for abortion? Do activists believe one case will lead to a re-examination of the country’s archaic laws?

Every religion talks about the value of life. That they do not value the quality of life, are misogynistic, and follow a wholly patriarchal notion should make us wary about using their programmed responses to falsify the reasoning. In fact, most social norms too consider abortion as the last resort. How many women, even among the educated, take an individual decision to abort?

***

Let us digress and expand on the idea of choice.  By applying the argument that a ‘woman’s body is her own’ – an obvious fact – the onus shifts entirely on women. Where abortion or childbirth is concerned, this amounts to being the sole caregiver or guilt-ridden slave of chauvinistic tripe. Just as the Pill did not really empower women but made her accountable for her ‘freedom’, the womb has been desexualised as a pre-birth nanny.

Contemporary feminist literature, especially about sexuality, while apparently busting myths ends up as a Hallmark card celebration of feminine body parts. Take this: “I experienced some of the 'thoughts' of the uterus myself”, from Naomi Wolf’s ‘Vagina: A New Biography’.  Imbuing the sexual organs with emotions demotes physicality as a natural state. The woman becomes an addendum to the part: “Your vagina makes you a goddess. Or rather, ‘The Goddess’.”

A review in The Guardian had taken on Wolf by recounting her description of “a ‘bodyworker’ who attempts, through massage, to re-engage sexually traumatised women and who, Wolf relates in the book with a straight face, once saw an image of the Virgin Mary in a vagina”.

This is a concept that the male module employs effectively to worship women as divine pleasure-givers whose own contentment is essentially to procreate. It appears that female sexuality can only be sanctified as motherhood. It is not easy to discard the psychological baggage, the subliminal conditioning of creating that which is in God’s image. When an Indian intimate cleansing product was advertised as satiating the male, some women activists had raised objections using the convenient hitch of its ‘fairness’ claims. While owning up to the right to pleasure, I had written then that they seemed to look upon it as an individual activity. This too amounts to a quasi-virginal Madonna state.

The supposedly more open western society is also not immune to this. When Demi Moore posed in the buff in an advanced stage of pregnancy for Vanity Fair, she was legitimising pop culture through maternity. Angelina Jolie goes a step further by a public forsaking of the crutch of cohabitation to become the ‘adopted’ mother.

Where choice is concerned, there can be extremes. If widows could use the frozen sperm of the spouse because the couple were seen as “together”, according to Britain’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, 1990, then at the other end a foetus born to a brain-dead woman was kept alive because it had the right to live. Savita might well have been saved had medical assistance opted to do so.  

It is not only Ireland that has to think. We forget that in many parts of the world foetuses are discarded because they are female and infants are thrown in garbage bins because they are viewed as burdens. By some weird logic, this is justified as a choice by a society that has no respect for human dignity and for women.  It is the low self-esteem choice to be chauvinistic.

---

Published in CounterPunch

Many-layered women and memories: Yash Chopra's lamhe

How often have some of us quoted the lines, “Main aur meri tanhai aksar baatein kiya karte hai” (my loneliness and I often talk to each other) and “Kabhi-kabhi mere dil mein khayal aata hai” (sometimes, my heart thinks these thoughts)…they encapsulated the cinema of Yash Chopra and of many of our own lost and found memories.

He has been called the King of Romance, and perhaps rightly so, but I’d not limit him to that. There are two ways of seeing a movie – the way in which it is projected and the emotional chord that touches us. I do like the sight of large expanses of tulips and love expressed in song right in the middle of these flowers, but it is in the tight close-ups, the speaking eyes, the quivering lips, the short lines and longer monologues that we may find something more to relate to.

Yash Chopra was most certainly not making candyfloss, and I am not saying so because he is no more. I cannot think of a single weak woman in any of his directorial ventures. Even in Deewaar, made famous also by that one line “Mere paas ma hai” in the conflict between the two brothers, between good and evil, it is so obvious that the mother figure had nurtured the good. The son was not making the choice; she had made him capable enough to have her close to him. And in the death scene, when the bad son lies in her lap, he does not need any god. His retribution is complete.

It also quite blatantly showed a non-traditional woman, despite smoking and living with the man, as someone in control of her life. There did not appear to be any judgement passed on her, nor did it look like the guy was doing her a favour and making a good woman of her.

In Kabhi Kabhi too there was the ‘other’ man/woman. Imagine a situation where a woman on her wedding night sings a song based on the poetry of the man she was in love with. Here was readymade material for a tear-jerker. Instead, she chooses to move on and build a beautiful and happy life. The man, now the other, also happens to be the other to his own wife, who when taunted with her past (and a daughter from that relationship), chooses to confront him about his double standards and makes ready to leave rather than live with the hypocrisy.

In Trishool, the ‘encounter’ scene between father and abandoned son relied on just one truly cutting sentence, when the younger man tells the older one, “Aap mere najaaiz baap ho" (You are my illegitimate father).

Yash Chopra did deal with 'irregular' relationships within the ambit of mainstream cinema. That is why it was difficult to hail him for these qualities and instead many chose to stick to the romantic genre, which can actually mean so many things.

Take Daag. Much of the film was relegated to the indoors, in the dark. A man with two wives, reuniting with his old love and having to stealthily convey it, “Mere dil mein aaj kya hai, tu kahe tau main bataa doon, teri zulf phir sawaroon, teri maang phir sajaa doon…mujhe devta banaakar teri chaahaton ne pooja, mera pyaar keh raha hai main tujhe khuda bana doon”. Trapped in circumstances, all he can do is ask her if she will permit him to express his feelings. The stream of worship-godliness is woven into this narrative.

With Lamhe, he broke so many shackles. A girl falls in love with the man who was in love with her mother. Of course, she does not know it, and her mother did not know about his feelings either, since she was in love with someone else who she married.  Here too, the young woman is strong-willed, expressive and even when she discovers the truth, she makes him realise that he loved an idea, a thought. Those moments – lamhe – were lost.

I find it strange that this is seen as the Elektra Complex (in fact, it is mistakenly referred to as the Oedipal Complex). Freud is a good way to study anything, but the girl grows up without even seeing the man, who is her guardian. She is also in love with an idea, expressed with birthday gifts that she leaves unopened. It is that heartbeat of meeting him when she is old enough and sees a man, a male, who she first had a vague idea about and who became real enough to fantasise about.

Yash Chopra’s last film as director was Veer Zaara. It is perhaps one of the finest ‘messages’ in terms of communalism, Indo-Pak relationship, prisoners (real and caged by love), and nostalgia. However, he did not stop at the pining. He gave it a fitting ending. Yes, I did wonder why the Pakistani woman came to India and lived her life as she would if she had married him. The answer lies in every moment he spends in chains behind the prison walls, incarcerated without trial, aware that he was protecting her honour. This sounded old world, to an extent even regressive. How important is such honour? But this was early years after Partition; it had to do with families, reputations. It had to do with love that had to be silenced.

Greying, but still running about and active, she does not regret the life she chose. She built a new life, without any monument, without fanfare. We know of it only towards the end when he is free, aided by a strong and empathetic woman lawyer. We know if it when he holds up one of her anklets from those many years ago, not as shiny anymore, that he had kept as remembrance.

 “Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon

Pal do pal meri kahaani hai

Pal do pal meri hasti hai

Pal do pal meri jawaani hai.”

Sahir Ludhianvi conveyed this best in the Kabhi Kabhi song - My poetry, my life, my identity, my youth are but for a moment or two…only those who create lasting impressions understand the value of such evanescence. 

PS: I have not named the characters deliberately, for as I implied in the beginning it could be you, it could be me.  

Sunday ka Funda

"Every time when I look in the mirror

All these lines on my face getting clearer

The past is gone

It went by, like dusk to dawn

Isn't that the way

Everybody's got the dues in life to pay...'

Dream on



- - -
The original is by Aerosmith

A CounterPuncher Forever...

 
“Alexander Cockburn no more” would sound like a terrible headline. The reality of it is as biting as his prose. To think that I just got to know about his death early today shook me up a little more. I crumble easily and almost did. The ‘almost’ worked because every word of his obit on Christopher Hitchens still haunts. To many it was either blasphemous or an excoriating take on a man on a self-indulgent pulpit. I saw it as Alex’s honesty towards his ideas. The subject’s demise would not alter that.

I have gone through a few memorial pieces in respected mainstream publications. "Radical", "iconoclast" are the running themes. It is true he took no prisoners. It is true, and I say this from my experience, that he welcomed whatever skirted the beaten path. One day, about five years ago, when I came in from miles away and got accepted, he and Jeffrey St. Clair made me realise that CounterPunchers was a community.

There are several reasons to respect him for his hard-hitting work, but he was also aware of limits in certain areas. He did not carry one article I sent. He owed me no explanation, but he did. It was about sensitivities. I was surprised, even shocked. The good thing is it was not to coddle up to some commercial enterprise.

There was another piece he carried – an account by his nephew about his battle with schizophrenia. It appeared in the weekend edition and in his diary Alex introduced it. This, to me, is as honest as taking on the system and speaking of truths that are sought to be hidden away.

While he was open to different thoughts, he was human enough to have his own biases. How could we not expect it of one with such strong opinions?

He called his readers a “communicative lot”, forwarded emails that complained to him about publishing me, but expressed genuine happiness when some pieces “got around”. The people who have corresponded with me have been from varied fields based on the different subjects I wrote on – from scientists to academics, from fanatics to the faithful to atheists, from purists to adventurers, from the prurient to sexual libertarians (and, yes, some who wooed). They do not need an open forum.

That is the reason CP is not a journal. It is a movement. I differ with those who talk about it being non-mainstream. This is what the mainstream should be like. I’ve written for a whole range of publications and websites, and know the difference.

“Please ask your web team to fix it,” I had said in one of my emails about a broken link.

“Le ‘Web Team’, c'est Jeffrey. There's just the two of us. Best A,” was the reply.

So shall it always be…the two of them. And a bunch of writers and readers bound by questioning minds.

- - -

I do not know what world I occupy to be so unaware. Here is Jeffrey's piece:  Farewell, Alex, my friend

Bahut shukriya

I knew Joy Mukherjee only for this song. Or chose to. This defined him for me - a romantic, and not flashy. In fact, he was a mediocre actor. It was the 'averageness' that endeared him. Like many actors of his generation, it was the songs that made him a hero - the balladeer, the serenader. The music conveyed the emotions.

khushi to bahut hai, magar ye bhi gham hai

ke ye saath apna kadam do kadam hai

magar ye musafir dua maangtaa hai

khuda aap se kisi din milaae

bahut shukriya, badi meherbani

meri zindagi mein huzoor aap aaye

(The happiness is tinged with sorrow

For we measure togetherness with every step we take

But this traveller prays

That god wills we meet again

Thank you for coming into my life)

The steps have halted. He left this world today

Movie: Ek Musafir Ek Hasina

Singer(s): Mohammad Rafi, Asha Bhonsle

Music Director: O P Nayyar

Lyricist: S H Bihari

Actors/Actresses: Joy Mukherjee, Sadhana

Year: 1962

Sunday ka Funda

It's the same story. Struggle. Fame. Coping. Despondency. Falling. Rising. Falling. Slowly. Fast. Living. Fast. Slowing. Dying. Dead. Whitney Houston. No More.

Can't understand why, why, must a woman be so many things? Why must she sing "I'm Everywoman"?

I can cast a spell

Of secrets you can tell

Mix a special brew

Put fire inside of you

Anytime you feel danger or fear

Instantly I will appear,cause

I´m every woman...

Oxygen to fire: Kolkata

The most telling picture of Friday’s fire in a Kolkata hospital is not burnt bodies, patients being rescued with rope ladders, relatives crying. It is this: Hospital staff dragging an oxygen cylinder. This looks like a scene from some isolated township not a big city, and most certainly not a private hospital.

89 people died when a fire broke out in the basement of the Advanced Medicare & Research Institute (AMRI) hospital in Dhakuria. Most of the patients were in the intensive care units. I cannot even imagine those who are too ill and fragile in a position to even save themselves. Did they try pulling out the drips, the pipes, the wires linking them to machines when the smoke reached them and there was panic? Or were they asleep, rather sedated, at 1.30 am and died strapped to their beds?

There were some who pressed their faces on the windows and seemed to shout for help. Combustible material was placed in the basement. The fire brigade took time to arrive, ambulances took time to arrive…it was the nearby slumdwellers who rushed to assist in the rescue operations, but the guard refused to open the gate.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived later in the morning, holding a mike and a megaphone leading the way, to assure people, to convince them. I do not wish to be cynical here. She was there at the other hospital where the injured were shifted and stayed there until late evening, apparently without food. Not many people in her position would do so. While I do not like the idea of politicians and their entourage disrupting real work, there are times when such gestures help assuage those who are suffering loss. I only hope that this is not a political angle.

In some ways it has become one. The government holds 1.99 per cent stake in the hospital. What about the 98.01 per cent that is privately-owned?

I also do not understand why they are now talking about the slums as a hindrance to the movement of rescue vehicles. They arrived late. It was those living in the slums who were physically present, and for years ambulances have been reaching the hospital.

It is good that six people have been arrested, but it needs more. Many of our hospitals, and not just government ones, are run in the most careless manner. Doctors go on strike, nurses go on strike, machines do not function, and cleanliness is not top priority, however many bottles of sanitiser liquids you see. Only some months ago a woman was singed and her newborn died because instead of antiseptic acid was used to clean them up. In another instance, stray dogs were roaming near the canteen and ICU areas of a municipal hospital. I have seen such dogs even in the premises of a private hospital.

What is the use then of thick glass panes that even firemen cannot break easily, as happened at AMRI?

Dil abhi bhara nahin: Dev Anand

Evergreen, evergreen…how many times has one heard and read the word to describe Dev Anand. When he died last night at the age of 88, still brimming with ideas, this would only make the evergreen tag squeeze in more adamantly.

No one noticed that his hair looked awkward, his skin sagged, his scarves and jackets sought to cover rather than make a statement as they had done earlier, and his lips quivered when he spoke. He had grown old, but was holding on to a shaky pillar to build foundations that would not last. His later films lacked panache, they flopped. He said it did not matter and would go on to his next project.

Did it really not matter? This was a man who was completely a people’s person – from his stylised acting to his flashy clothes, he wanted to be noticed and accepted. But he too fell for the evergreen image that was built around him.

A few months ago on a talk show he spoke about how even today there are girls who would be quite willing to get close to him. He was not gloating, and it is entirely possible that aspiring starlets would want to use him as a stepping stone. Yet, it was a sad moment. Sad to watch him regurgitate a fantasy, even if it was real.

His reality was often a fantasy. Some have called it optimism.

I first watched one of his old films on our building terrace. There was a projector and a bedsheet served as the screen. The movie was Hum Dono. We got two Dev Anands. Imagine seeing these delicious black and white images from what seemed a distant past under a starlit sky. Already a film junkie, these moments became part of my non-formal education. It helped when the family would recount their first exposure to the particular film. Or how my mother on her first English film outing, a Gregory Peck movie, was so angry that the Hollywood star was “copying hamara Dev Anand”. The fact that it was quite the opposite did not make a difference to her.

That Dev Anand overdid it was an intrinsic aspect of his persona. He hammed, but delightfully. He made you believe that he was like this. And you know what? He probably was. His body was perpetually leaning towards some unknown person or a far-away place. His neck performed acrobatics. He was like a tableau – every part of him, every expression, a stand-alone performance put together on one stage: himself.

As an actor, he would perhaps qualify as the first real urbane urban character of post-Partition India. He even pronounced his name in a posh manner: Dev-er-nun. He took to Bombay and portrayed it in such an uninhibited manner. Think of Taxi Driver where even the streets looked chic in the dark. He was a man who loved beauty. I would not call him an aesthete; his idea of pulchritude was of polish and varnish. Not quite superficial, but most certainly overt. He did show criminal characters and even portrayed them, but they were charmers. He showed poverty, but no real dirt. This was not his scene.

As director he took greater control, and he stuck to his urban concerns. Again, he did not delve too deeply, although Hare Rama Hare Krishna is indeed a landmark film. When he played the Professor Higgins part in Man Pasand, it did seem like reality for once. He had created quite a few female actors – Zeenat Aman and Tina Munim being the most prominent.

Again, in recent interviews he talked about how upset he was when Zeenat Aman chose Raj Kapoor. For him it was not about a role, but some sort of betrayal. His affair with Suraiya is a fascinating example of how he would go against type when he wanted something. It is said that she would sneak out and they would meet quietly, away from the prying eyes of her conservative mother. The man who one would imagine shrugging such inconveniences off – “Har fikr ko dhuein mein udaata chalaa gaya” (I smoked away all worries) – seemed to understand the delicacy of such shackles, as in his beloved singing “Chhod do aanchal zamaana kya kahega” (Let go off me, what will people think?), but not without a riposte: “Inn adaaon ka zamaana bhi hai deewana, deewaana kya kahega” (this world too is crazy about just such tantalising excuses, so what’s a crazy man to do).

It was clear that he was a romantic, but pragmatically so. Not one of the Alps types, he wooed women through the haze of cigarette smoke or a curl of his lower lip. The music in his films was essential, not merely to take the story forward but to help us stop and look at what else he could do. It was in the song sequences that he shone best and was a natural at.

There are several, but I want to stay with these two.

The romance:



and

The optimistic angst:

Teri duniya mein jeene se, tau behetar hai ke mar jaayein
Wohi aansoon, wohi aahein, wohi gham hai, kidhar jaayein

(It is better to die than live in this world
With the same tears, the same sighs, the same sorrows trailing where does one go)

Just watch him. Does it look like he would want to give up? He is addressing god, but his demeanour is challenging. And the child’s musical interlude – innocence? Hope?

Post Script: I cannot end without mentioning that sometime towards the end of 2000 I got a hand-written note from him saying that he enjoyed my columns. I wanted to cry because those were days of my tears. I could not meet him, but the words of one of his songs from Hum Dono, the first film of his that I had seen under a starlit sky on a bedsheet screen, echoed how I felt.

Kabhi khud pe, kabhi haalat pe rona aaya

Baat nikli tau har eik baat pe rona aaya

(I sometimes weep over myself and sometimes over what’s happening to me

And when I speak about such sorrows, I weep for those sorrows too)

Authors and Mummies

Forget a chair named after you at a tony university. Several dead bodies can soon claim to have been at your place if you have the honour to win the online poll for the best crime writer. Ten authors have signed up for the ‘Million for a Morgue’ campaign. Those who get the most votes will have a morgue named after them. Dundee's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) in Scotland needs £2m; it has contributed half the amount. The rest will come from the vote, where each voter chips in £1. This is to facilitate a special embalming facility for research.

I assume the writers have decided to participate out of a genuine need for academic excellence in the field of such scientific endeavour. One of them has probably done it out of gratitude. Val McDermid often tapped Prof. Sue Black of the Centre for her own research. As she recalls:

"I remember asking her what a body would look like once it had been in a peat bog for 200 years. There was a moment's silence on the phone and then she said: 'A leather bag with a face on'. And that was perfect because that gave me an image I could put in my book."

We can take this further and have restaurants, stadia, bats and balls, strip clubs, even a specific love-making position named after authors. I can’t wait.

It raises the question about what could motivate readers to vote. Would it be like any popular poll where you choose your favourite crime writer? Or, since the purpose is not a secret, will the person contributing the money be interested in the Centre’s plans and therefore keep this in mind and choose an author whose work is the most macabre and deadly?

What if after winning the author has second thoughts about the naming? Would that not amount to letting down the readers who voted? Do writers crave fame and not mind such an honour? But, are not death and murder the territories they stalk in their literary endeavour?

However, it might be a good idea if the morgue is named after a character from a thriller. Better still, it could just be called ‘Crime Writers’ Mummies’.

Tears dry on their own...

She died before she died. I was not much acquainted with Amy Winehouse’s work, but as happens with most of pop culture, I knew more about her than I wanted to – her big hair, her life larger than the moments that count. 27 is no age to die but it was probably not the age to live the way she did. Artifically.

Yet, what is so artifical about self-destruction? That’s what they said. Drugs, drinks, rehab. More than any of these it is the pressure to be out there, a voyeur watching your own antics with greater urgency than anybody else.

Just a couple of days earlier I read about the book that Britney Spears’ bodyguard wrote. He mentioned her unhygienic habits – she did not bathe for days, did not brush her teeth, did not use deo. He is a slimeball, but if any of this is true, it is a bit amazing that she did not care enough about herself for one in the job of projecting looks. Isn't this a form of self-destruction, too? He said she wanted him to join her in bed. Was it momentary desperation? Powerplay? Or just a young woman who wanted a warm body close to her, the body of a man who would detail her smells and sounds – her loud farts and loud laughs.

The problem is the business of being a rock star happens too soon. They are made to grow up, pump themselves with adrenalin and do the things that will not be acceptable. They are supposed to kick everyone in the ass.

Years ago, I sat on a park bench in Seattle. I did not understand the look of sadness that overcame faces of people who passed by as though it were a funeral. It was where Kurt Cobain used to visit; it had become a memorial. His death was replayed everyday. Elvis’s is. Jackson’s is.

Now Amy Winehouse will die again. And again. As she did when she lived. For she was meant to. And I am amazed that although these people are performers, they are not singing superficial stuff. They are snorting on sorrow as much as substances. The lyrics, even if they are macabre, tell of a truth we may not wish to accept. Our denial is their exposure.

Have we never at any point in our lives wanted to say something like:

I feel so small discovering you knew

How much more torture would you have put me through?

you probably saw me laughing at all your jokes

or how I did not mind when you stole all my smokes

You sent me flying – Amy Winehouse:

- - -

After I wrote this, I realised that 92 people have died in the blasts in Norway. So, why did I pen a piece on a person I know little about whereas I am aware of the consequences of terrorism and have analysed the motives so often from so many different angles? Such destruction is immense, and I do know that.

I think the death of a person in the public eye becomes personalised. There is something one can relate to, despite the 'distance' - geographical and in the details. For me, there is another reality. I had planned to post something that I have procrastinated about. Something has held me back. It lies curled up inside, a part of me that does not want to be a part of me and yet won't leave.

The words had formed and then someone else's words took over even as the voice has been stilled.

I procrastinate again.