Love Anarchy

Kang Yi stripped down to a thong while a young woman gave him love bites. Performance art is almost always controversial. What was the significance of this one staged on a podium at a Guangzhou auditorium?

He said: 

“It's a critique of the concept of chaotic love. I hope that my art piece will call out to today's youth to seek out the excellent genuine love and feelings of traditional China.”

A young woman, a student, spent an hour and a half bruising him with her lips. His chest, abdomen and arms were soon covered with hickeys. It is pertinent that he chose to stand in a Christ-like pose. If we use this as metaphor, then he sees excessive expression of love as no different from hate, of being nailed to a Cross, all to save his people.

The report states:

He also donned tree roots in his hair to signify time and tied three roasted chickens to the plank across his shoulders that positioned his body into a cross-like shape.

Does Time here denote going back to an age where love was mostly devoid of feeling? The roasted chickens covey death as well as sustenance. It is about survival.

Chicken skinning, cooking, carving are as much part of modern-day culinary tradition as they were in rudimentary form in the early days.

By trying to demonstrate what is wrong about such love, Kang is in fact making it seem desirable. He is the centre of that universe where a woman submits to him. His stoic stance is less of a saint and more of a taker. The master commanding that his needs be ministered to. His hot flesh waiting to be bitten into. And his being tied up frees him from having any commitment.

The woman whose lips too would have tired after 75 minutes of such activity is just a tool for his needs. Had the performance shown her writhing or expressing some emotion, it might have been ‘chaos’. Besides, the nature of physical love is subject to how two consenting adults choose to ‘perform’ it. No one is privy to what the traditionalists did in their bedrooms. Chaotic love is not one-sided, unless it is exploitation.

Emotional love is more often about an individual pitted against another. Two people cannot feel the same for each other with similar intensity and the nature of that love will witness varied shades along the way. This does cause turmoil. Tradition cannot save it. If anything, people have been forced into dismal relationships because tradition left them with no option but to follow the rules of the game as reckoned by their roots. This happens in most societies even today.

Kang is merely a revivalist who is using exhibitionism, much like a man enjoying life in a nudist colony trying to sell clothes to others. 

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Images: Daily Mail

Deos and Deities

Who’d have thought that the government move against deodorant ads would get a saffron person to state:

“I guess these guidelines do not apply when it comes to painting Hindu gods and goddesses in nude and/or erotic positions."

Well, that was what my Inbox had and it is something that keeps coming up in discussions too. 


My reply in full:

Dear X ji:

I do not believe these ads have much of an impact, but am I to assume you have no problems with such ads? Does the Shiv Sena not routinely tear up posters on hoardings that it finds objectionable? What about protests during Valentine’s Day? Most religious groups inflict such morality on people without even taking recourse to the legal process.

The analogy of paintings of Hindu deities naked or in certain positions is not quite the same. These depictions are there in temples and ancient art. Most of contemporary art does not demean the figures. And let us not forget that guidelines or no guidelines the people behind such paintings do bear the brunt. In our country we have a very strong unofficial system of policing. Sadly, it does not come out when the country is in real danger.

I can only guess that your next query or thought would be, ah, and what do Muslims do when there is a cartoon drawn about their Prophet? As a non-practising person with some basic knowledge, I think it has to do with non-idolatory. Islam has no visible images at all; we do not know what the Prophet looks like. So, like most vain people we’d want a more Christ-like or even Santa-like image rather than some skewed Aladdin. It has to do with aesthetics.

Now, you may well ask, what would a mullah whose face is covered with a bush know about aesthetics? And what is aesthetic about shouting slogans and doing other undesirable things?

Claudia and calligraphy

I agree, but in this respect all religious proponents have the same degree of enthusiasm. Recently an Australian swimwear company had images of Goddess Lakshmi; some years ago model Claudia Schiffer walked down the ramp wearing a dress with Islamic calligraphy drawn on the top; pop star Madonna used Sanskrit shlokas in some songs, someone else belts out some exclamatory lines from the Quran; there have been occasions when even Buddhists have been hurt because some wine was called Maya. There have been objections and protests.

The protestors showing what they do not want shown!

I think the oft-quoted bit from the Bhagwad Gita can be applied across the board:


Karmani ave adhikars te
ma phalesu kadachana
ma karmaphal hetur bhoo
ma sangostu akramani

“Thou hast power only to act not over the result thereof. Act thou therefore without prospect of the result and without succcumbing to inaction.”

Everyone acts the way they deem fit for fear of inaction.

Regards,
~F

PS: Sorry about the long rant but traditionally the majority has appeased the minority so I assume some indulgence! (Please take this in the right light spirit.)

- Note ends -

I did not copy the pictures in the email, though.My views on the deo ads have already been expressed here

Playboy and the Muslim Vote

Recently, there were reports of former cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin being used by the Congress to garner Muslim votes. An email asked: “I wonder how the secularists will react if a political party follows an aggressive strategy to get Hindu votes.”

I have a counter-question: How will the Hindutvawadis react if a Hindu girl posed in the nude for Playboy? They have often created a ruckus about Valentine’s Day or certain clothing. My question is based on the news item about a Turkish Muslim girl posing in the buff for German Playboy. Her parents are angry. Many parents would be. She says she wanted to be free. I wonder from what. She is an actress, and does not live in a strict environment. Yet, this is being seen as a protest against stringent Muslim laws.

So, I’d like to know how many good Hindu girls won’t face similar flak.

As regards the secularist question and Hindu votes, what was the whole Ram Janmabhoomi movement about? Can there be anything more aggressive than this? Are there no caste faction political considerations? Even the secular political parties employ such methods. The “Muslim vote bank” has just become a convenient ploy to hide the other ploys. Muslims are not in a majority, so there will be many more Hindu voters anyway.

And Hindutva groups do try and portray their Muslim agenda, including Narendra Modi. They keep their token Mussalman members and they too attempt the Muslim at Ganesh puja and Hindu at Iftaar stunts.

If there is a real problem with secularism, then will these people have the courage to ask Muslims not to vote for them? Just as you don't have to look at Playboy.

Raiments and the Church

Adam and Eve - Rubens

The Church of England got into a bit of a tangle when its website spoke flatteringly about nudity in the Spirit of Living section on its website.

Under a section headed ‘New Age’, the item said airbrushed models created “an unhealthy, unnatural model of perfection”. In contrast, it continued, “naturism is a liberating lifestyle and belief which encourages self-respect, respect for others and for the environment, and embodies freedom and a unique sense of communion with nature. Christian naturists see this as God’s design for living. It is purposefully non-erotic and non-sexual and engenders a wholesome appreciation of self and others.”

There is much going for Naturism as non-erotica. Adam and Eve were not born clothed, but even though there was no one around they chose to wear fig leaves. What prevented them from being 'liberated'?

How does this particular Church authority assume that people will not be judged for their imperfections or there will not be an attempt to seek perfection? How much of religious iconography has dared to create imperfect imagery – in art or otherwise?

The body is being taken over by faith quite openly although it always has do0ne so under cover in every religion. There are so many strictures. This is, therefore, surprising. It could become a means of proselytising where those who would feel awkward or ashamed might shed their clothes because it has been ordained by god.

It has obviously got a lot of flak and the photograph of the back of a naked man has been removed from the site. Why the back? Is it not evidence of shame? Or is it about going away from set ideas?

The cathedral did not fail to mention, “Otherwise we encourage prurience and those with impure motives.”

Prurience and liberation do not go together and motives cannot be gauged in bodies.

I am NOT Anna Hazare

Punk activism

I don’t know about all those commitment wallas but I did what I have never done before. I switched on the TV still in my satin nightgown. Yes, I am so common, no? I did it because I wanted to feel the heat and humidity seep from my pores into other areas of my being.

Last night I surfed channels and left a man swallowing swords to watch the ‘Anna dekh tera munda bigda jaaye’ show and we the people were informed that “Brashtachar ki haar aur Bharat jeet gaya.” (Corruption has been defeated and India has won). It was like a match with Brashtacahar’s 11 against India’s 100 or rather hazaar Hazares all looking like they had greased palms with oily pakoras, or was it lavender-scented sanitisers?

Now I can breathe, I thought. I don’t have to bribe the traffic cop with a sweet smile. Trust me, I have not ever given a paisa to a single one. I can walk with my head held high and quote saint Aamir Khan who is more like god because he is omnipresent. “Like the country has supported the Indian cricket team in their struggle to win the World Cup, I hope and pray that your struggle, which is infinitely more important and affects each and every one of us, will get an even greater support,” he wrote in a letter to Hazare. Of course, that letter, like the scriptures, made it to the media and the public.

Struggles of cricketers and of the ordinary Indian are similar?

Before the start of the fast

Anyway, he must have broken his fast by now and I am laying a bet with my fellow common citizens whether it will be orange juice, mosambi or neembu-paani or plain contaminated tap water from India’s various cities.

I have been called a cynic, a killjoy for not enjoying this hearty meal of activism. This stuff really tires me out. I have already posted about it and reiterate that we must not wear blindfolds for anything. When Sonia Gandhi said, “The issues he has raised are of grave public concern. There could be no two views on combating graft in public life. I believe that the laws in these matters must be effective and deliver the desired results”, did anyone in that crowd of concerned citizens utter the magic word 'Quattrocchi'? Anyone willing to stand up and be counted?

How can the report therefore talk of a “peace deal between Anna Hazare and the government”? Is there a war? Is Hazare the sole spokesperson? Look at his “middle path”: “Ministers will give the panel more weight, it will make the government more receptive to agreeing to the draft the committee draws up.”

Sure. A panel that wanted to call the bluff of ministers needs those ministers to add more weight.

Of such fluff are dreams made. Am glad that at 10.30 AM I am still in my satin nightgown and know the true metaphorical value of such dreams. Raat gayi, baat gayi: Here today, gone at dawn.

- - -

The Russians do it differently.

Pro-Kremlin activists have posed in lingerie for an erotic calendar with an antigraft message and the slogan “sex against corruption”, youth movement Nashi (Ours) said.

Women students decided to participate by dropping clothes and coming up with slogans like, “I won't marry a corrupt official”, “Brown envelopes are only for letters, “I will teach you to live without bribes”.

Given the nature of their positions (hmm) many will be willing to learn. Besides, if the women are ready to do what they have done for the calendar and make a decent income, the corrupt officials might just decide to lie back and enjoy.

Honestly, no one can completely end corruption. But we can just normally try not to bribe. Though, aren’t all these – fasting, sloganeering and titillating – forms of bribery?

There's no cricket in my soup

Forget the hype about extra local trains, offices working half a day. And let us please try to forget some itsy-bitsy model who wants to strip if we win the World Cup. She says, “I’m a cricket fanatic and I’m a diehard supporter of my nation. India needs a lot of support and this is my way of supporting the team…and I’m doing this to excite our boys to play better.”

What a fruitcake. If she wants to do her bit, she can just get atop a table and gyrate at some of those lounge bars where other ‘fanatics’ are watching the game. They are more likely to get excited. It is insulting to India, Indians and our cricket team that some female who is “confident” of her body can have the temerity to announce that Indians will perform better just thinking of her stripping. I wonder what her exposure has been. These guys have seen many women doing much more, as sportspersons are accustomed to special attention. They'd be more excited if their captain threw off his shirt, as Saurav Ganguly had done some years ago.

Captain Courageous: Ganguly rose to the occasion

Since this model has posed for the Kingfisher calendar, perhaps she should try her stunts at Vijay Mallya’s IPL team innings, whenever that happens, as one of the pom-pom girls.

I also wish people realised that today’s game is not the final. Catching bits on TV has not excited me enough, despite the fennel and cheese crackers. The run-up in newspapers has been asking actors and Page 3 types about their favourite teams. The answer is pretty standard: “I luuuveee India.” And one more thing. I wish people knew that most Sidhuisms (what former cricketer and now commentator says) are quotations. They aren’t original, except that he mauls them. But then, more people know Sidhu than they know Shelley.

And I am tired of watching ‘celebrities’ I don’t know. And just for your information, the street below my building is buzzing; not everyone is cooped up inside.

File photo: Dawood Ibrahim and actor Anil Kapoor
Who wants to be a millionaire?

One more thing. The person who is not there is probably all there. How I miss those scenes from the Sharjah matches where the cameras would zoom into don Dawood Ibrahim in the company of Bollywood stars. Later, even those caught hugging him, denied it. Body doubles? Some said they were forced to be there. Possible. Although, rather surprisingly, he did not seem interested in Pakistani celebrities. Anyway, our stars have moved on. But has he?

Now for the finals at Wankhede, we all know how much money has been spent on the special lights and how Mukesh Ambani has bought three VIP boxes.

I don’t know how much things have changed, besides the cosmetic ones. But sometime in the mid-90s, I watched my first and only live cricket match at the same stadium and even the posh set was excited about Jeetendra in all white, including his shoes.

Let me reproduce a snapshot of those memories, kind of strip mentally:

Ms. Gucci arrived, flashing her gold trophy – a thick Cartier bracelet. Loud ‘whoas’ and ‘shiiiiit mans’ rent the air. But we could not feel the air. We were seated in the member’s enclosure, the one sealed with glass on three sides/

The talk among our august group, and I am sure of those in the private little cubicles flanking us, was about office, the party in the evening or the latest gossip about the other Ms. Gucci and Mr. Hugo Boss. Yet, when the umpire flailed his hands about indicating a boundary, these cats would meow a little prayer and figurines and taweezes would appear from nowhere to make life easier for Indians.

I had stepped outside for a feel of the real action and there was more lust here than that room with a view could ever manage. Our ‘boys’ were the toy boys and totems not because they were necessarily better than whoever they were playing against, but because every bead of sweat, open mouth and heartbeat was paying obeisance to them.

Today, the masses have been sidelined and it is all about the who’s who and what they are wearing.

Incidentally, I am dressed in green! But it isn’t that kind of green; it is the green of sage.

- - -

Update:

- India won by 29 runs. Great. But how does it become "creating history"?

- Pakistani captain Shahid Afridi apologised to his country for losing. If he has to do that then they and not his team are a bunch of losers.

- Two cutouts were in the audience. Wait. They were the two leaders Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani.

- Heard several commentators say we need to win the finals and the cup for Tendulkar. Anyone heard of India?

Bare-ly at home

Do I have the right to walk around naked in my own house? Yes? No? Does someone who happens to see me in this state of undress have a right to file a case against me? Erick Williamson, a resident of Virginia, has been convicted because he was packing up some belongings in the buff in what is his house.

The cops, prosecutors and two witnesses are behind what I believe is a bizarre move.

Witness One: School librarian Joyce Giuliani was driving past his home when she heard some loud singing and turned to look. She saw Williamson standing naked directly behind a large picture window.

Witness Two: Yvette Dean was walking her 7-year-old son to school along a trail that runs by Williamson’s home. She heard a loud rattle, looked to her left and saw him standing naked, full frontal, in a side doorway. “He gave me eye contact,” she said, but otherwise made no gestures toward her or her son.

Both these observations happened within a matter of hours. It shows that this could be a one-off incident. That is besides the point, anyhow. The accusation is that he was not merely naked but was drawing attention to himself.

Imagine that a man is all dressed up in a tuxedo and he decides to hum a tune or make some other sounds in his own home; he could drop a glass or move a chair or even bang his head against a wall. Would these women who turned to look be offended? Technically, he is by their conjecture drawing attention to himself. What is the difference?

His naked body.

He rightly thinks this is an issue of personal freedom. Making eye contact with someone who is looking at you is not a crime. One might ask how a woman who is driving past notice the full nudity. Was she giving him the eye? He made no indecent gestures. Her son saw a man naked in his house. It is a natural state. He was not performing any act that might cause emotional damage to the child.

As Williamson said, “I think that being tried and found guilty of something like this is outrageous. I feel like I’m living in a fishbowl.”

The women say they saw more of him than they cared. There are several instances in everyday life where we see a lot more than we want. Switch on the telly and you have gross images of violence and stupidity. Walk down the street and you will find garbage heaps. You may hear pressure cooker whistle sounds and the smell of overpowering food at the neighbour’s. You could hear people quarrelling, things being smashed, songs being sung, and even some moans and groans if their walls are thin and the lovers next-door loud. Some of these one may complain about because they infringe on one’s space.

But if you are passing what is someone else’s private space and they are doing what they are doing without in anyway disturbing you, then tough luck if you find it offensive.

The two women even testified that they were not aroused! That’s good. At least they are upholding certain values of not letting their hormones overtake as they whoosh past in a car or walk their child to school.

Meanwhile, it might help if they did not get so turned on by sounds of someone singing or rattling.