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. 

---

* 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 court of yarns

The other day, I was in court. I needed stamp paper for some official letter. It was a little after 9 am. A busy day had begun. Shops opening shutters, pedestrians walking purposefully towards train stations and bus stands, cars honking. It had the look of rush.

As I was about to enter the court building, it seemed as though life had stopped. I couldn't move. One side of my sandal had given way. I'd have to limp. I chose to pick up the sandal and pull out the dangling sole. Quite nonchalantly I wore it back. That's when I heard a short laugh. A lawyer. I smiled back. 

"Affidavit? I'll do."

"No thanks," I said. 

Suddenly, as if the silence had been broken by a click of the heel, I found about six men in coats offering to notarise and legitimise any form I'd give them.

It was a sad sight. These men (no women were around) had earned a law degree. Yet, they were reduced to hawking their services in the streets. Think of the disparity between the uncertainty of their jobs and the famous lawyers with their well-appointed chambers earning in lakhs for just a one-hour consultation. 

I stood near the lift and asked where I'd get the stamp paper. "After one hour," said a man chewing paan. 

I decided to go up, anyway. 

It was dark on the floor. "Kya?" I turned around. A peon wanted to know what I wanted. "Aadha ghanta baad," he said. It was progress. From one hour my wait had reduced to half. There was a room to the left. I stood at the door. A big-built man in a white bush-shirt smiled. "I am looking for stamp paper. May I wait here until they open the counter?"

He invited me in and motioned towards the chairs near the windows. It was bright, so bright that every speck of dust on the tables was visible. For the next 30 minutes, I watched. 

Plastic chairs were stacked over one another and some staffers sat on them in their stacked state. Umbrellas were opened to dry, even though it wasn't raining. The sweeper began work, and dust flew leaving a temporary cloud of smog. 

There were lockers with names of lawyers. One of them entered. There was a picture of a deity on his locker. He bowed before it. Then he brought out his papers, locked it again, and bowed before the image once more before sitting down to open the files. 

This was repeated by at least two other lawyers while I was there. One of them, after performing his religious duty for the day, did not seem too happy with my presence. I might have intruded into his private space, and although I had tried not to gawk, I'm sure even a sideways glance would have bothered him. 

It was nearing 10 o'clock. I went to the counter. "Five more minutes," said the woman. I went back to my window-view seat. The room had filled up, everybody was working, yet there appeared to be slumber in their air. It reminded me of holiday afternoons of my childhood where everybody was busy reading, knitting, playing cards, or just snoozing.

I realised it was past ten. There was a queue at the counter. This was unfair. Would I have to go and stand in line after having waited this long? No. I was asked to go to the other side. The task completed, I returned to that room and sought out the gentleman, a clerk, who had let me sit there. "Any problem?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Just wanted to say Thank you." 

He shook his head all around and spread both his hands and said, "Work done? Good, good."

I stood near the lift. A board in Marathi read, "Thooku naye." Do not spit. The peon made a fixing lightbulb-like gesture. "Neeche nahin jaata." No lift to descend. 

With sole-less shoes I started on my way down. The staircase walls were peeling, the steps were dirty. As I reached the ground floor, I was shocked. There were commodes and a flush tank. Hay and cardboard were spread around. These must have been the toilets. A woman was sweeping. She kept sweeping into the spot and from it. I waited on the second-last step. She saw me and gestured that I could pass. 

In less than an hour I had experienced without barely any verbal exchange the lives of a few — from their worship to the way they drank their tea, from the dust on their files to the sweat on their faces, from umbrellas drying to eyes squinting at the sun. Lives we pass by everyday without pause for thought. 

And to think that all I needed was a stamp paper that would certify an identity. 

Whatever will be, will be

The star in the new year night by Eugen Bracht

I could not find the right curtains at three stores. If three stores that are known for their nice curtains do not have what I need, are my needs difficult to fulfil? Or are they catering to a template of expectations?

They showed me red, red in its many shades. They showed me brown, brown that covered distances from beige to the darkest wood.

Rust, I said. I wanted rust-coloured curtains. This? And they showed me a pink, faded and jaded. No, I said. Rust. Their faces were question marks. "Rusting is the common term for corrosion of iron and its alloys, such as steel." How could I explain this when it is not what I ever thought about when the colour rust danced before my eyes?

I rummaged through piles. Nothing. I left. With a few things, but not what I had set out for. There are always a few things that act as placebo, but placebos work only if you are looking for an ailment, not a cure.

The rods were empty this morning, like bare branches. I stared at the brass holder glinting in the sunlight. And then I remembered. The old curtains. Cleaned and ironed, lying in some draw. I am not good with putting up curtains, but I was on a stool, craning my neck and trying to find the fixing places. See? I don't even know the terms.

They are up now. Old. Familiar. Yet new. No dust, no stains, no wear and tear. I look at them with new eyes. Isn't that what a fresh start should be about?

* * *

I have skimmed through the newspapers and surfed past channels holding forth on the year that was. It is a necessary ritual, with some lame attempts at humour.

I recall how years ago as an active media person, I too would write a column or do a feature on the new year. There was the roundup, the people who matter, who don't, what was said, what was done. There was much enthusiasm. Today, with the surfeit of minutiae passing for information and insight, all I can find is regurgitation.

This, alas, is unlikely to change because the dispensers of trivia believe their audience can only handle bite-size bits and the latter shrug believing the dispensers can only dish out this much. They live in a happy compromise.

* * *

A lot has happened around the world.

Donald Trump being able to think he will be President of the United States of America is not only about his temerity but the licence a large enough section of Americans has granted him. He exists because there is perhaps a felt need for him.

Then there is Hillary Clinton who said that Trump is ISIS's best recruiter after he said he would not allow Muslims into America. If one was being paranoid, the other seemed to convey that Muslims hurt by such a move would naturally be inclined towards ISIS. This makes Hillary sound worse. Transparent hate is way better to deal with than such covert projection of stereotypes.

In the days following San Bernardino, the top search phrase was "kill Muslims" on Google. It would be interesting to find out who was looking for such details, and what it might reveal.

Muslims continued to make news, much of it because a bunch of them terrorised the world into believing that they represented 1.6 billion people. It couldn't be their marketing skills, for they were killing Muslims too, mainly Muslims. In fact, it is Muslims who are fighting them on the ground.

In India, it was the cow. Some suggested that the cow should be honoured as the Mother of the Nation, and this was in all seriousness. Cow urine was sought to be used as disinfectant in hospitals; it is already an ingredient in the Patanjali range of products by Baba Ramdev, a yoga guru who has the government of India as his patron.

Narendra Modi continued with his magical version of prime ministership by using the flying carpet jet to see what other countries have been upto so that he can tell Indians what he can do to become like them so that they can become like us with Make in India. It's as simple and complicated as that.

He made a 'surprise' visit to Lahore on December 25, which happened to be Nawaz Sharif's, Jinnah's, Vajpayee's and Jesus' birthday. Much was made of it as a move forward towards peace. It is more about showmanship. The people crave for such visits on both sides. Unless they are permitted such "drop in" moments, peace will be a word on paper erased and rewritten many many times according to the whims of the politicians.

* * *

To wind up for now, I am not cynical about the new at all. I welcome it. I only wish that we did not feel the need to kick out the old. Is there any assurance that the new will not be mere varnish?

Last evening, on my way home I stopped at the end of my lane where the fruit vendor's cart stands. I like pineapple, especially if they are sliced and ready to eat. I do not pretend to enjoy hard labour, and don't find it exciting to cut and chop. He had strawberries too. "They are too bright," I told him. "Stobry aisa hi hota hai (strawberries are always like that)," he said. I gave him an angry look, "Do you think I am buying strawberries for the first time?"

He did not look chastised, and for some reason I liked that, that certain defiance in his eyes. He is a young man, maybe just out of his teens. For him strawberry is upward mobility, the shinier the better.

A beggar woman with a baby held at her hips stood there. What does one do? He gave her one piece of the shiny strawberry. I fished out some money and gave it to her.

As I walked towards home, I saw her sitting on the pavement. She beamed and waved at me, lifting her son's hand to do the same. I waved back and reached my gate with a strawberry smile.

A Happy New Year...may you all find a reason to smile.

Hello...hellow

I finally say hello to Hello. Stray wisps had come flying suggesting that I try and follow the trail where music gets drowned in the deluge of drama.

I like drama.

Hello leaves me unmoved. Can you hear me? Yes, I say it leaves me unmoved, and words of loss usually move me immensely. In fact, words move me as much as silences do when both seek to communicate.

So here I am, with Adele on my stomach. My breathing synchronised with her whispers and whimpers. I am lying down in bed. A Sunday afternoon in December feeling the late winter upon me.

I like the sound of hello, any hello. It is the beginning, even of the end.

Why does this Hello not work, then? Why is this Hello like the stretching of elastic, and not the thread that links? Why does it seem that the mundane is overwrought with the weight of ennui — to say that I've tried, I've tried, I've tried...

Running out of time? Hello! We do not know how much time is there to be able to measure its running out.

What does "hello from the outside" mean when it is the heart that breaks or is broken? There is no outside then. Not even when we break our own heart. It happens. Can you hear me? No? That's the outside. When you can't hear the sound of another's self-destruction.

"Did you ever make it out of that town where nothing ever happened..."

Is she hoping he has or delighting that he hasn't? Is it that nothing ever happened or something never did? Does another's stillness bother us when we are escaping from the noise or when we remember noises fondly?

Hello...could have been a deep sigh. Instead, it is a phone connection with too much static. Or, is she speaking from a phone that's dead, crying to herself about herself?

Is the hello just a question mark hanging in the air?

The wheelchair man

"It's so hot," he said, wiping his face.

I had found a place two seats away from him directly opposite the doctor's cabin. Heat was an icebreaker. 

"Yes," I said, fanning myself with a hand even though the aircondioning was on at full blast. 

"You are waiting for the doctor?" he asked. 

I smiled, "I guess so."

"My legs were crushed under the train," he said. 

I was taken aback. There was a walking stick near him, and I noticed a wheelchair. How does one commiserate with a stranger, a stranger whose condition you have not even paid much attention to? 

He brought out an album and showed me photographs of himself. "I was a big shot once. I was a regular on TV. My name is R."

The name and his face did not register, but I don't watch everything. 

"The accident taught me a lot about life and people." I don't know why he was telling me all this, and it was only five minutes since I was here.  He continued, "My wife ditched me because of what happened to my legs, because I was in coma. I've seen the worst." 

How does one respond verbally 

"Are you Christian?" he asked.

"No," and uncharacteristically I responded with, "Are you?"

"No. I am Maharashtrian. Hindu...You?" 

He was waiting for my reply. Just then, the receptionist called out to me. 

As I got up, I heard him say, "So, you are Muslim."

And I realised that perhaps we are all supposed to carry invisible crutches.  

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

Time flies, we say, as another dawn, another dusk arrive and leave. There is birth. And rebirth. Yes, rebirth. The soil is fertile. It creates.

Then, there are needs, wishes, desires. Each one takes away something from us even before it has given us anything. Indeed:

"Hazaaaron khwaahishein aisi ke har khwaahish pe dum nikle..."

Drops of life

“It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.”
― Nicholas Sparks

There's no water. The overhead tanks were being repaired. By the end of the day even the lone bucketful was depleted and only a couple of jugs could be filled. The jugs became a symbol of all that a daily routine, and life, represents. I became suddenly aware of even drops being wasted.

Strangely, I also became conscious of sweat. In this humidity there can be embarrassing perspiration. However, I'd let the beads of sweat remain on skin; it's as though they were replacing water.

Bath was a towel dipped in water to clean up, followed by lots of wet wipes. If you can't have bread...; the awareness of being elite comes soft-footed. It comes as bottled water and as images that make you cringe, even if momentarily, about the many who walk miles to get just one bucket, about those who have to pull and tug into wells, who have to wait before water taps in a queue, who collect water near rivers where flotsam coats the liquid, who bathe in any collected pool of muddy water, who sometimes die because their thirst was unquenched.

These are images for us. For them, it is life.

Sunday ka Funda

"Most days it feels as if the world is whirling around me and I am standing still. In slow motion, I watch the colors blur; people and faces all become a massive wash."
- Sarah Kay

When I posted the sidebar image, I also found another one by Henri Matisse called Still Life with Dance. I was immediately struck, not so much by the painting as by the title. Dance is movement and fluidity; still life is, well, still. How and why did they come together.

I have been looking at it frequently, and the more I look the more I find the dance to be still and the still objects to appear moving. The flowers  seem to almost quiver, and the fruits glisten with new dew.

Naturally, then, I'd say the same about all that happens in life too. The moving and the static can interchange at any time.

Sunday ka Funda

Sometimes, soundtracks make you cry. Sometimes, simple words do. Sometimes, your thoughts find mirror images. From one of my favourite movies.

Yu Shu Lien: The Green Destiny Sword. You're giving it to Sir Te.
Li Mu Bai: I am. He has always been our greatest protector.
Yu Shu Lien: I don't understand. How can you part with it? It's been with you a long time.
Li Mu Bai: Too many men have died at its edge. It may look pure..., but only because blood washes so easily from its blade.

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.

Euphony

Music is in footsteps eager to reach you, the bell ring, the sound of whispers in ear, of knuckles unknuckling lazily, the swish of clothes, of laughter, and the name being called out. Again and again.

Music is windows rattling, wind knocking, thunder, rain, the splashing in pools of muddy water, the gurgle of drains, of gumboots plodding, the towel drying wet hair.

Music is opera, the gut-wrenching cry of unspeakable sadness, of stories that never die about people who always do.

Music is the church choir, stiff collars scraping necks, throats belting out hymns in sync, the uniformity of consent, of community, of togetherness.

Music is the huge temple bell rung just once to announce arrival and once more to depart, an offering to an idol created by the cadence of hands.

Music is the azaan, the call of the muezzin, especially at dusk, intoned like the sun cooling off, like air trapped in the hollow of cheeks that breaks free and escapes into the sky.

Music is the symphony of an orchestra where hands seem to quiver. Of the soloist at a pop concert who has to match voice with attitude, timbre.

Music is the turning of the pages of a book, of scratching out words with a pen, of sketching on rice paper, of the fan blowing into face, of lips puckering to blow away the strands of hair.

Music is distant traffic at night, of the phone on silent and a call with a name so familiar you divert it to voice mail so that you can listen to the sigh.

--

© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

I wish cheeks were also waterproof. Maybe eyes too? This ad for Bandaid says it all, and yet as I see the tears skirt the wound-covering, I cannot help but think about how they act as a dam to any signs of weeping, even sorrow. It is as though the tears are just taking a turn into another lane...

Life is like that.

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

Sunday ka Funda

"Screw it, I’ll just be a porn star.”

What started as a joke became real. This is about Lauren, a student, desperately trying to finance her tuition fees, who landed a job as an adult film actress. And how it was not as bad as it is made out to be; in fact, how it empowered her to do with her body only what she wished, not what was forced upon her by lovers, spouses, exploiters.

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.

Sartre was born today...was? is?

I said I was an Existentialist without quite knowing what it meant. Between the crevices of poetry and philosophy, my life was worming its way. I hid my growing teenage form behind big books – shy, afraid, unsure. Among those saviours was Jean-Paul Sartre.

I admit the initial fascination was for the great love story. Simone de Beauvoir seemed to be the perfect foil. It excited me to know that people could have open relationships. Later, I realised that such freedom does not prevent the tumult, the feeling of being tied down, of role-playing.

What Sartre gave me was intangible. An acceptance of nothingness. Confidence about angst.

But, was it just so pat?

“Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.”

I recently told someone, “What pain is pain if it does not stay alive?” This is not self-destructive. The mind that keeps one agonising is what keeps one awake.

There are many views about Sartre, some accusing him of not being true to his own ideas. I prefer seeing it as ideas overtaking. He was not quite perfect, and would probably find the thought of perfection reprehensible. I am not providing a detailed essay on his works. I confess that at some point I outgrew them. He is indeed the pop star of philosophy – to my mind a strange mix of Woody Allen, T.S.Eliot and a brooding Marlon Brando.

I don’t want to go into a detailed discussion on Existentialism. I would have to agonise over it, for I am dealing with ennui. Sartre would comprehend this!

There is another quote I’d like to examine:

“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”

This is so complete. If I were to deconstruct it, then he has captured the very essence of existence. Survivalists may not wish to even go there. The moment we think of life as an open-and-shut case with death as the destination, then we are rather obvious pragmatists. And fatalists, too. The eternal does not exist in real terms, therefore one has to imagine it. Life cannot be defined, but it has meaning and value only if we know that it is a continuum.

And he said it best:

“That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.”

Illusions. Eternal.

© 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?

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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.

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Published in CounterPunch