Sunday ka Funda

"Out with stereotypes, feminism proclaims. But stereotypes are the west's stunning sexual personae, the vehicles of art's assault against nature. The moment there is imagination, there is myth."

— Camille Paglia

"Do not put garbage in our mind." This graffiti on the wall outside Tunis City Hall has been quoted to explain the attitude towards women's dress following the Arab Spring.

As happens with all such studies in a cocoon, it uses a small sample and reaches broad conclusions, that too about what the respondents thought 'might' be appropriate but is not necessarily practised. Worse, it is actually based on the false premise of what constitutes "MidEast countries". Tunisia, Egypt and Pakistan are not in the Middle East.

While the research, and mainstream commentators, assume a superior attitude towards "secularism", they forget that their obsession with what is termed "Muslim dress" is anything but. They are working their way backwards, and become as veiled as the veils they find constricting when their idea of "women's choice" becomes selective.

This is not even the imagination or myth that Paglia speaks about. It is merely a lame excuse to falsely manufacture how free they themselves are.

The above tongue-in-cheek response in the web world to the research chart shows us just how hollow such statistics and stereotypes can be, using mere mode of dress to formulate a point of view. Are you what others wear?

To paraphrase the graffiti, the garbage is in their minds.

© Farzana Versey

Sexism and slang

Sexist jokes are vile and unacceptable. However, I object to a study that uses this yardstick to understand whether women fit in under these circumstances.

A Melbourne Business School report found that companies lack strategy to tackle "low level sexism" despite having policies in place that target "overt" sexual harassment.

The risk factors of sexism, sexual harassment and gender stereotyping were found to be key characteristics of male-dominated work environments, in industries such as natural sciences, engineering, medicine, police forces, military forces, information technology, law firms and financial services.

I find it curious that the entertainment industry is not included. This reveals how even feministic ideas do not pay attention to what they probably consider a ‘lesser’ profession. Do models and movie actresses permit sexism due to the nature of their jobs, which often objectifies them?

This would be hypothetical. With exceptions, what role do women play in the military and police forces? Besides the jokes, they are discriminated against anyway. In other fields, it depends on societal factors. The manner in which women are expected to perform is itself discriminatory, and many of them are partially to blame when they use terms like being better than men or like men, when they try to mimic men with power dressing.

It is the business of organisations to ensure that all their staff are not the recipients of jibes – be they sexist, racial religious, or physical.

The part about such a study that bothers me is it works as a trap and belittles women while seemingly rationalising how to empower them.

“If women feel they do not fit in or are not accepted as equals they are less likely to stay in their role or in the organisation.”

This gives the impression that women are weak and cannot fit in. The onus is put on them, instead of those who use sexist language. A workplace is not a cocoon. These are professional women who have gone to college, used public transport, interacted at small jobs, and with paternalistic family members and patronising well-wishers. They watch films and television; listen to music, read the papers. They are not ignorant about such slang. It is rather insulting to assume that what men say in passing would make them give up their careers. (I might add here that one is not talking about stalkers or dangerous characters out to destroy a woman.)

And if blonde jokes are so offensive, then why do women go and colour their hair light? Are there no successful blondes, or will someone have the gumption to say it is only because gentlemen prefer them? 

By suggesting a “no just joking” policy, the bullying will not stop. Perhaps such studies should try and find out why bosses deny women equal pay and equal opportunities.

Such attempts at bridging the gender gap are merely cosmetic. It is the warts that need to be extricated.

Mona Lisa in the Lion's Den

I always suspected that Mona Lisa was a bit of a wild cat. Something to do with the Cheshire cat smile. Oh, I know, it has been analysed to death – from toothache to the pleasure of labour pains to muscle dystrophy to sucking on a lozenge. Okay, that’s not been explored yet. Anyhow, New York artist Ron Piccirillo is a guy I’d like to go on a safari with. It is so difficult to spot tigers in the wild, and I am quite certain that he will. He can see them. Just like that.

Piccirillo has transformed a yawn moment into something exciting. Leonardo da Vinci’s subject is surrounded by animals, he believes. Most people look at paintings as they are meant to be, but our artist here turned it horizontally and found a leopard, an ape, a buffalo and even a crocodile or snake right near the subject’s right shoulder. I suppose da Vinci maintained an element of delicacy and refrained from painting Mona Lisa horizontally.

I have tried to notice all those animals and it is the lady who seems the most beastly, because she is primal. Those other figures look like mushroom clouds to me.

But let it not be said that Piccirillo has not attempted an indepth analysis. What started as a “Geez, that kinda looks familiar” moment has turned out to possess some history.

Blank Sex

After five minutes of deep contemplation, I am ready with my book 'What Every Woman Thinks About Apart From Sex'. It will have blank pages to convey that no one knows what a woman is thinking of, even regarding sex. Of course, to make sure that I am taken seriously I will refer to the ‘painstaking research’ that went into the effort.

Will it be a bestseller?

If my luck is as good as Sheridan Simove’s, then yes. The Oxford graduate’s work 'What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex' has raced ahead of Harry Potter and Dan Brown. It is listed at number 744 on Amazon. The 200 blank pager that is supposed to suggest the answer to his thesis is “nothing” is sheer gimmick and one is surprised at the stupidity of the ‘readers’ as well as, I am afraid, the ‘writer’. You might say that a man who has such entrepreneurial skills cannot be stupid. It depends on how we define entrepreneurs and stupidity.

He explains:

“This book is the result of 39 years of painstaking research and practical study into the subject. I left nothing to chance and really threw myself into my work. After many years of hard work I finally realised that men think of absolutely nothing apart from sex. It was a shocking conclusion and I realised that the world needed to be informed of my findings.”

Huh? He is 39, so has he been studying and practising this even while he was burping out baby vomit?

For years different studies have been telling us that men think about sex every two seconds or whatever. What sort of hard work did such discovery involve? Did he speak to men from different cultures and spheres of life? What did he notice when men were performing other tasks – did they get moony-eyed or cast lustful glances or went all the way and got spasmodic? What exactly constitutes ‘thinking’? Did professionals doing their jobs imagine sexual imagery in their work areas – like cardiologists saw a hole in the heart and the mechanical engineer looked for the right lubricating agent?

Students in Britain are happily shelling out £4.69 for the book. It has become a “craze”, but they are taking lecture notes on those blank pages. Any person who feels it is “gratifying to see my book outselling many other academic works whose authors claim to have worked even harder than I to break new ground and further the extent of human knowledge” would pause and question his posture. Not so, Sheridan:

“I never anticipated that my book would be used for students to take their lecture notes in. In a sense they are proving me wrong by filling my book with content. But I wonder how many of them go back to thinking about sex once the lecture is over. I’d be willing to bet that answer is 100%. In fact I would go even further and estimate that 99% are thinking about sex even during the lecture. They probably think using my book as a notepad will help them get laid. And they are of course totally correct in that hypothesis.”

This is the sit-down version of stand-up comic stuff. He is so obsessed with the idea of thinking about sex and his now-popular ratings that he imagines the use of his work as a notebook will help the students to get laid. He has threatened to write a similar book about women, but as of now he knows precious little. Women do not get excited seeing men/boys reading books on sex, especially if they are empty. Women don’t like vacuums or the vacuous.

And guys may think of sex often, but they grow up and find it sexier to hit the ball or the competitor harder. Now if only Sheridan had tied his labour of lust with a nice leather whip then both men and women might have had something to do besides taking notes on calculus.

Harvard Terrorism

A tony university will naturally have its eyes on the swish. Yet, there is something unnerving about a case study at Harvard Business School on the role of the employees at the five-star Taj Hotel during the Mumbai attacks of November 26, 2008.

The multimedia case study ‘Terror at Taj Bombay: Customer-Centric Leadership’ by HBS professor Rohit Deshpande documents “the bravery and resourcefulness shown by employees” during the attack.

The study focuses on why Taj employees stayed at their posts, jeopardizing their personal safety, in order to save the hotel guests. It also tries to study how that level of loyalty and dedication can be replicated elsewhere. A dozen Taj employees died trying to save the lives of the hotel guests, during the attacks. “Even senior managers couldn’t explain the behaviour of the employees,” Deshpande said.

He added, “Even though the employees knew all the exits in the hotel and could have easily fled the hotel building, some stayed back to help the guests. These people instinctively did the right thing. In the process, some of them, gave up their lives to save the guests.”

While there is no dispute over the bravery, has any study been done about the saviours at other places where these attacks took place and where several others occur on an almost daily basis? What about flight attendants who help out passengers when there is an air calamity? What about the guards who are routinely killed trying to save people? Would HBS bother about smaller establishments and countries that are quite ‘under the radar’? And what about the several problems of labour: from fighting for wages to safety measures in the work area to being unceremoniously thrown out to having to run about to claim pension?

I do not wish to sound callous, but in this particular case it was difficult to figure out what exactly was happening. It is a huge hotel and all employees do not know about all exits. Besides, given the nature of the attack – guests taken hostage and much exchange of gunfire – was there any guarantee that using any exit would save them?

Why is the management surprised? Don’t they train their employees about service? In the hospitality industry, more than anywhere else, this is an important component. They have, at best, done a job in the most humane manner possible.

The fact that this study explores the need for a replication of such loyalty and dedication begs the question about how indepth the research has been. Are there no other examples? Have you heard of caretakers of places of worship running away when there are bomb blasts? Have you known of junior employees leaving the premises of big enterprises when they are under any sort of attack? Don’t the guards at banks get killed during a heist?

I find it extremely patronising when the HBS team claims under camouflage of romanticisation:

Another key concept of the study is that in India, “there is a paternalistic equation between an employer and employee that creates kinship”.

This is merely pushing the agenda of the ruling class. The equation is feudalistic in all sectors – of benign master and slave. The kinship is one where the employee swears to do anything beyond the call of duty. It is a gentleman’s unspoken word of honour that only those in the lower hierarchy can keep because they have no choice.

The employer may most certainly look after the interests of the employees, and there may be the annual general body meeting where there is a mention of “we are one big family”. Don’t forget, this includes the shareholders who need to be reassured that the company is doing great and it has a loyal staff. Such loyalty is bought with an unwritten agreement that implies there won’t be any special sops or protection. Compensatory packages are part of the contract. The courage displayed by workers helps build the brand of the master. What loyalty are the employers showing towards their workers?

Why does it have to be a one-way street?

Suck face

I am tired of kissing. First it was kissing as an art, now it is a science. Can people not just be left alone to do with their mouths what they wish to do?

How many of you have ever looked at the Kama Sutra for tips? I doubt it. Every glossy worth its smooth skin has covered this subject and I would in the past get terribly amused. To be honest, wouldn't you rather have a butterfly in your mouth than someone’s tongue fluttering inside in what is clearly a studied exercise?

This, however, is a subject that excites the intellectual. Sheril Kirshenbaum, a scientist at the University of Texas, has written a book The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us. Did George Bush mean that? Anyhow, she has laid bare the whole shebang about how kissing evolved, why people kiss, why some kisses work and others don’t, why people have a phobia of kissing and others don’t, why it is okay in some societies and not so in others. You get the drift.

I understand all these are important aspects of any activity. Do you know the manner in which you clip your toenails can tell you a lot about your past life? You don’t? Neither do I, but I am sure it can be explored. The point is that most of the material is available, and that is how I found out stuff, and it does not even work as relaxed beachside reading. Like, are you aware about something called the ‘hickey kiss’ when all it means is that you get a blue mark that looks like some editing details in galley proofs of newspapers? Oh, ok, it is supposed to be more animalistic, an out-of-control body experience. Then there are all those different areas where a kiss can be administered, and the motives are quite clear. Does anyone need to figure out what a cheek peck and a foot lick really mean?

Way back in the 1930s there was a manual called The Art of Kissing that spoke among other things of the Vacuum Kiss. The man must position himself as he knows and then when his lips are where they should be he must get on to the task of "sucking inward as though you were trying to draw out the innards of an orange".

I have eaten oranges and as far as I know they don’t have innards. Unless someone means to defrock the fruit and then blow into it or rather from it; sounds more like a conch shell thing. Oranges have slices and the sucking of them is messier than empty or vacuum-like.

The part I dislike about the scientific study, though, is that it says you are more likely to remember your first kiss than losing your virginity. Kirshenbaum, in fact, believes that you can remember 90 per cent of the details of that smooch. I beg to differ and I will provide a counter-scientific theory. While the kiss may have some special memory, it could well have been unmemorable.

How many of you have managed to find a prince by kissing a toad? Or have experienced the kiss of the spider woman? As for virginity, it is culture specific and may matter a whole lot in some societies and not so much in others, and there is also the gender factor – men are less likely to be affected by the loss of virginity than are women, although I believe that men will remember it more clearly because it was a boy becoming man thing. Girls become women when they start menstruating and reading Maupassant after throwing off Mills & Boon. Virginity has a lot to do with giving up oneself and I do not mean to the horse you are riding or the energetic aerobics at the gym that may cause the ruptured hymen.

It has a lot to do with oneself for women and for the conquest by men. Therefore, it is unscientific to believe a kiss will be remembered more.

These theories do start a debate. Did you know that the ‘soul kiss’ is called so because the soul passes through the breath of one mouth to the other? I thought that was the job of resuscitation and the soul kiss, which is how the French got famous, although they call it the English kiss (maybe because you end up with a stiff upper lip), was to cure tonsillitis. But then I am not Woodward and Bernstein and know precious little about Deep Throat.

My iPhone’s got a headache

It has been almost two years since I bought this sleek thing. I should have been up there, chalking up 12.3 sex partners. Clearly, my iPhone has a problem. It ain’t me, babe.

In what has been described as an unscientific but fun study, it was claimed that iPhone users have more fun than other smart phone users. And it was the women who managed that figure of 12.3. I understand simple figures, preferably full; on a bad day half would do. But what is ‘.3’? Is it one- third of a man? Probably the iPhone manages to attract just this much in the 13th potential target. I am just guessing. Women, unless they are on the phone, usually prefer to put it away in their bags. Depending on the trend and the choice any woman exercises, the level of the bag could be from somewhere near her waist to her hips; if she is using a short-handle one it might skirt her knee, and if it is a clutch then it would brush against her thigh. The third part of the man that gets enamoured would have to be in that range.

Is that a hit? Does not some level of attraction start from the top? Do these phones naturally give out vibes, irrespective of where they are?

Come to think of it, this could be quite serious. When I first went to buy the phone it was raining that September day as I, with much trepidation, entered the service provider’s store. They said it was ‘out of stock’.

“Oh, really? I have already called your head office and they have directed me to this place. Hang on, let me call.” I called someone and told her that I was a loyal client and they had promises to keep.

I think someone liked Robert Frost. They asked me if I could wait, it might take long.

While I waited, not like regular folks on those fake happy-looking red benches, but at the desk of one of the executives, I kept fidgeting with what now seemed like an antique handset. Thoroughly bored, I turned around and found a rather large man watch bemusedly at what must have been my huge handbag.

“You are waiting for an iPhone?” he asked in a heavy American accent from a posh expat mouth.

He told me the story of his iPhone and how the screen had frozen. “You must be a Mac person,” he said.

I had never seen a Mac, let alone used it then. But it seemed that to be an iPhone person you had to be a Mac person; not just a Mac person, but an Apple person, for he went into a detailed discussion about Apple. I kept ‘hmming’ with interest. I can sometimes look quite intelligent, so it helps.

Impatient as I was, I was already being initiated into the sexual rites of possessing an iPhone. He decided to give me a tip. “When you touch the keypad don’t let your thumb hit the key, just touch it above the letter. Gently.”

The guy who brought me the black box did not look like he could be gentle with anything. I asked for the instruction manual. “No, it’s all there.”

“Where?” I asked.

He shook his head. My saviour had gone into some secret dungeon to see if his phone had thawed. I discovered that smart phones don’t need manuals; they need men.

I departed carrying what I thought was just a spiffier version of a cell phone. Little did I know that I had been given one with no sex appeal. All it ever did was dial numbers only because I had touched it at the wrong place; it slipped from my hands, which made it mandatory for me to use a cover. Oh, it’s a dominatrix leather one, make no mistake, with a strap, a button and even a steel ring that could pass off as a handcuff. I guess all this was subliminal.

It was happening without any attempt on my part. A lot more was supposed to happen, and it did not.

So, what is it about the iPhone that the Blackberry and the Android do not have? They are smart; they can connect you to anyone anytime. And I was in fact planning to buy a Blackberry. Did my iPhone realise it was the second choice and therefore decided I did not deserve to be imbued with special magnetism?

If this survey is just a flippant foray into gizmo territory, then think about another one a year ago. It wasn’t even a poll; it was an analysis by Strand Consult who don't think we, the users, are particularly smart:

"When we examine the iPhone users' arguments defending the iPhone, it reminds us of the famous Stockholm Syndrome--a term invented by psychologists after a hostage drama in Stockholm. Here, hostages reacted to the psychological pressure they were experiencing by defending the people that had held them hostage for six days."

I have never defended the iPhone; if anything, it has to make excuses for me. I don’t even use it well enough and I have not upgraded it. So, where is this hostage drama? I like it because it does some things and don’t because it does not. This bunch of consultants has the audacity to declare:

"In reality, the iPhone is surrounded by a multitude of people, media, and companies that are happy to bend the truth to defend the product they have purchased from Apple."

I purchased it from my phone company. It did not matter whether Apple or Pears had produced it. There is no need to bend the truth for no one cares about what I have in my hand as I breathe into the phone while talking to them. I use the camera a lot and it accidentally creates the most amazing pictures. And until I tell anyone, no one will know how just a little shake of its booty can produce art.

If I get something that I like more, I will go for it. I am not into smart phones, really. But I would take one-third of Steve Jobs, if only my iPhone did what it was supposed to do.

Spray him!

Ah, isn’t this what women have been looking for - men who know how to cuddle rather than fumble?

It apparently won’t come naturally to these alpha guys, so we need to resort to some assistance. Not only will it make men do the bear hug, but also transform them into tear-jerking, diaper-changing, momma’s little helpers.

I had no idea it was oxytocin that made me such a bundle of agony and occasional joy. It turns out that it is a chemical coursing through the female body and makes women ooze with the milk of human kindness. It has been named, rather disingenuously, the “cuddle chemical”. If you are into more than cuddles, then your hormones are acting a bit frisky and if you do the occasional bitching, then, boy, bile has entered into that embracing zone to embarrass you.

Anyhow, scientists from Cambridge and Germany got hold of two dozen healthy males and gave them nasal sprays with this chemical. Another batch was given placebos. Please note that a lot of things can get triggered through the nose. Now, here is what happened:

Afterwards the men were shown heart-wrenching photos, including a little girl in tears, a child embracing a cat and a man in mourning, and asked them to describe the level of empathy they felt with those in the pictures. Their reactions were compared with those of men who hadn’t received the spray. The oxytocin group showed significantly higher emotional empathy levels than those men who had taken the placebo.

Besides being healthy, what other parameters were checked? Isn’t it possible that some in the chemical group were already more sensitive and those in the placebo group could have been less sensitive anyway? This is such an archetypal sample of healthy as is the idea of empathy. Despite all the oxytocin in my system, I would find a child embracing a cat cute and nothing more. As for the weeping girl, it would depend on what the girl was in tears for – a lost toy, a disaster, a tantrum?

One of the team members said:

“For many women, you could say it would almost be a godsend to make a man more empathetic and more like them. On the other hand, I am not sure they are used to having men that empathetic.”

I do not know of many women who would like men to be like them or want to be like men. Empathy, as I have shown, differs depending on context and one’s individual baggage as well as the environment. Some cultures are less expressive than others; some families ingrain a certain holding back as important aspects of socially acceptable behaviour; some people grow up to discover paths where they fall a few times and they cannot forget those falls.

If the scientists wished to see if men could be like women then, instead of the placebo group, they should have included women in their research. It would give a more real result.

Incidentally, I wonder why there was no discussion about another aspect of the chemical that is “a hormone naturally made in the body and involved in sex, sexual attraction, trust and confidence.”

Did these men feel more sexually tuned in? Did they appear more confident?

Why the need to tout the making of the sensitive male? I can smell some product promos on the way. Where’s my nasal spray? Here, give me a hug...sniffles...

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The image if from a Starbucks ad

All White

I still remember the beggar girl craning her neck as the couple walked down the road, foreign tourists with straw hats, fair with golden hair. There was a girl with them. A girl as dark as the urchin. A girl who looked like an add-on, who did not seem to belong. Both girls were turning to look at each other, their eyes widening. One had her hand clutching at her adoptive mother’s dress; the other’s had been outstretched a while ago hoping for coins to drop in it.

This was at least ten years ago and the eyes of those kids still haunt me. It can be a story of hope for one, but it isn’t always.

It is not surprising that whites choose to adopt non-black children. This is the reality of choice, not the celebrity market that flaunts different colours.

The data was collected over a period of five years from a website by an adoption agency by a team from the California Institute of Technology, the London School of Economics and New York University.

It showed that non-Blacks were seven times more likely to be chosen over Black kids. It is easy to term this racism, but think about ordinary middle-class homes in the suburbs. If the kids look different they would be ostracised. There is likely to be a bias, but the bias is driven by a need to protect the status quo as well as the social dynamics within which such families operate. Would black parents opt for white kids? The question is not even addressed and is all the more revealing.

The elite can go scouting for babies in Africa, Korea, Vietnam, India because they live a different life. Besides, at one level it would appear that they are doing a good deed and get imbued with such legitimacy that is politically correct. Ever wondered why they do not adopt black kids in their country?

Middle class couples who have to furnish all sorts of papers to show they are capable of looking after the child will not have it so easy. Therefore, they want someone like them.

The study also revealed that girls were preferred to boys even by gays and lesbians. I think that despite the need to bond, there is always the feeling that the child is not genetically the same. The inheritance of name and perpetuity seems to rest on the male and perhaps the parents are a bit reluctant to let an outsider have that privilege.

Gay men might just be more comfortable bringing up a girl to avoid any questions about impropriety and lesbians would quite likely think along feministic lines as also avoidance of the male principle in their scheme.

One could judge the biases harshly but individuals in general choose what is non-threatening and they think mirrors them.

A Little Birdie Told me

That albatross round your neck is a loyal dog, but adultery rules in the avian kingdom. Bird-watching has got a fresh connotation in an upcoming book The Bird Detective by Bridget Stutchbury.

This might not have ruffled my human feathers at all for the simple reason that the concept of institutionalising relationships is the trait of homosapiens and the world of fauna is fairly liberal, if we see this as one aspect of liberalism, and not tied down by any moralistic constraints. It is true that birds too try their best to attract the opposite sex; they too cohabit like good people of religion for mainly procreative purposes, although their faith rises when the heat in their bodies does; they like building nests, laying eggs, taking care of their young. But we also don’t expect them to be steadfast since no one is going to sit in judgment and shame them.

Therefore, I do not understand the purpose behind such a book venture and, more importantly, the findings. Take this one example:

The book shows male Acadian flycatchers fertilizing females far away from their home nests, and female blue headed vireos premeditating divorce by checking out new mates before they abandon their young.

The main discovery is that so many birds do divorce for what humans would describe as selfish reasons, Stutchbury said, noting that females may seek out males that are more colourful and better singers, or look to step up in the world and move to areas that are safer and have more food.

How can the word divorce be used here? Abandonment, yes. Multiple partners, fine. Glad eye, okay. Selfishness, true. How do birds divorce? Does the erring partner make it clear that s/he is quitting the home-nest? Is there an understanding about territory? Who gets custody of the children? Now, in this respect there are anyway fairly clear ideas regarding who does what that Discovery Channel tells us.

From the little bit that one has read, it seems the females are really on top. Some choose the rakes; others the security. And they plan their moves.

99 per cent of the flamingoes have broken marriages and the wandering albatross merely wanders and returns to the spouse.

I don’t think I will be able to look at any of the birds in the same manner. I know there is a crow that keeps staring at me while I write. He perches himself on the cable wire outside my window and looks. I blush sometimes, but all along I thought he was being a moral support. Or that parrot that occasionally sits on the kitchen window sill? Does she want a bite or does she want me to help her out of a sticky situation? There is a kite that appears rarely. Now I know why. Fidelity is not on the cards. As for the pigeon, I can hear him moaning and groaning and I get irritable or listen quietly depending on my frame of mind. Now I wonder whether he was in desperate need of counselling.

And for those whose cuisine includes fowl, have we ever thought that the bird must have been suicidal anyway after Monsieur Cock gave Madame Hen the documents to undo their ‘I do’?

I am warming up to the author’s effort. I think it should qualify as chick lit!

Memory

I remember best when I am in a state of turmoil. Then why are scientists saying that stronger and more lasting memories are likely to be formed when a person is in repose and the memory-related neurons in the brain do a little tango with certain brain waves?

I differ here, even if it goes against all scientific logic. Synchronisation requires harmony and often the management of material. Now suppose you recall every little detail of a turbulent experience, how do you sort it out? If it is sorted out, then it ceases to be a memory. Or turbulent. It loses its character and transforms into a linear ‘wave’ in the mind.

What perhaps a relaxed mind can do is memorise. Memorisation is not about memories. Memories are intangible and nostalgia makes you ache for the jerky ride.

Memories are apples bitten into that have left teeth marks; they are ripped open gift packages where the satin is frayed; they are stains that won’t go away and scars that don't fade; they are losses that you don’t count because you could not count on them when they were gains; they are moments that left with the wind and dust that settled in its trail.

Scientists may optimise the state of the brain and believe that relaxation brings about new information and improves memory. But all new information will be memory.

Will they be able to ask us to relax and remember the times we wish to forget?

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Memory – Barbra Streisand

Am I not sexy enough for you?

I thought these long sessions, foreplay with words, the urgency to do something, shed inhibitions and garbs, the languorous moments with the seen and the unseen, as sentences were caressed and teased worked.

Not anymore. Blogging is passé. Emails are...oh, no...



A new study has found that brief is in. People want quickies.

Danah Boyd, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said, “Remember when ‘You’ve got mail!’ used to produce a moment of enthusiasm and not dread? (Now) people focus on using them for what they’re good for and turning to other channels for more exciting things.”

What is more exciting about tweets? Or leaving messages on walls at Facebook or other social networking sites? Is communication about just leaving behind a toe-print and not a trail? Yet, it is these sites that have ‘followers’. What are they following?

I took a quick look and found that this is just a way to make an asinine comment and then scoot off. Substance is lacking. I can understand celebrities doing that; I can understand if it is used to direct people to something of import elsewhere that they themselves have contributed to. But this is just one more element of fan culture where anyone with an account can claim to have fans. It also ends up as a means to make visible that you have said something about someone, even if it is a one-liner, to seem important.

There could be a few who may be able to convey something, but even they know it is only an appetiser.

Another distressing aspect is that the study focused on the young. It assumes that sexiness is connected in some ways with youth, and that stops at 30. This is only encouraging an attitude that will push the idea and target youngsters who will become commercial puppets. Will they stop and listen? Will they want to explore ideas? Sharing only means files, vids, plans for da party and latest pix. (Incidentally, if all this is getting fast-paced and short, then why the need for larger electronic memories?)

Commercial enterprises are quick to catch on to trends and they will be thrown the bait of cosmetics, clothes, and culture as a quick fix. It will, I am afraid, also result in ‘moving on’ even in careers and relationships.

How does any of this become sexy?

Language as we know it and experiment with cannot become a harridan only because of some punks who don’t even use their fingers well, that is why they trip so often and miss the vowels to save space. It is like missing a moment and talking about the eternal. The eternal flush that skims over and never enters the pores to tickle the flesh of a thought that rises to meet a paragraph created for it.

Murder, She Said?

I do not recall reading any book on rape, murder and serial killers specifically because of the subjects. I am, therefore, a bit surprised to find a study that states women fear becoming victims of crime so they turn to true crime books in an effort to learn strategies and techniques to prevent being murdered.

Reported in the inaugural issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science (Sage), Amanda Vicary and R Chris Fraley go on to say that by understanding why an individual decides to kill, a woman can learn the warning signs to watch for in a jealous lover or stranger. By learning escape tips women learn survival strategies they can use if actually kidnapped or held captive. It is possible that reading these books may actually increase the very fear that drives women toward them in the first place.

Unless these books are specifically of the ‘How To’ variety, this sort of assertion, and even the flipside of it, is quite disingenuous. We may imbibe by reading and characters do settle in our psyche if they are potent. But these rarely apply to how we conduct our lives. There may be people we meet who seem like someone we have read about; it is often the intriguing qualities that stay with us. I don’t think when we see an orphan we think of Oliver Twist or everytime we find a thief we go, “Ah, Fagin”. I have chosen a simple example to show just how simplistic such studies can be.

There may be books on rape that a woman reads about but she will not be prepared for it. Have they talked to rape victims? Did they see the signals? If not, does it mean they don’t read the right books?

About being drawn to such “gory” stuff, there appears to be an element of negativity attached to it, as though this is not quite a woman’s thing to do. Even more appalling is the assertion, “But we do know that women, compared to men, have a heightened fear of crime despite the fact that they are less likely to become a victim.”

Less likely according to what yardstick? On what basis is this heightened fear measured? This is not a competition of who is victimised more and on what basis. The fact is that crimes are committed and both women and men are killed, maimed and psychologically and physically abused.

It appears we are a bunch of crime-fearing females. Imagine a woman enters a bookstore wearing a long jacket, all covered up, riffles through the pages of some romance novels and then stealthily her feet take her towards the gore. She sees knives, blood, and bodies on the cover and thinks, hey, this just might save me as she reads the back jacket. At home, she lounges on the sofa – after bolting all the doors and windows – and then gets drawn into the thriller. Instead of just reading it and perhaps getting a little spooked out, she makes mental notes of what to look for and what to avoid.

And then the bell rings and the child she has given birth to stands there with muddied clothes and she lets out a scream, “Help!”

The study reveals that women learn to be very very careful because women don’t understand something called mystery.

Oh, duh. Give me a break or I’ll bite.

Fishy Men

Imagine you are sitting with a man at a restaurant and taking a nibble of something that he feels is not right and ticks you off, what would you do?

Now replicate this social setting in marine life. Labroides dimidiatus don’t take nonsense from their female companions/compatriots. They whack the poor female fish if they as much as eye some parasite or salivate over mucus underwater.

Live Science conducted a study at the Zoological Society of London regarding this “three-party dilemma” – man, woman and target using an underwater plate to represent the client fish:

The plate contained both fish flakes and prawns, with the latter being the much preferred cuisine.The researchers took away the plate if any of the fish ate a prawn. They saw that the male cleaner fish—even in this unfamiliar lab setting—would punish, or chase away, the female fish if the females ate a prawn. Once the females had been chastised, they were less likely to gulp down prawns.

Apparently, this is not altruistic because by saving the client, the male ensures that he gets good grub for himself. As a bonus he is covered with the halo of being protector and patriarch.

The docile female just flaps her fins and goes hungry aiming to be marine life’s Kate Moss. I should think it has its benefits if the larger fish avoid skeletal food and these females are saved. It could soon prove to be a woman’s world down there.

My name is Schezuan Khan!

Now when you see a Chinese face, think of your great-great-great-ad nauseum grandparents. The hakka noodles could well be Indian.

This is revealed by a study ‘Mapping Human Genetic History in Asia’ which concurs that the human population originally came from Africa. It disproves something based on fossil data. It seems like a nice thing to do given that we have people willing to play fossils.

A hundred thousand years ago the humans in Africa figured out they had to look around a bit. They were focussed on this country, like the world’s eyes are on India stuff going on now. I can imagine them saying that they were moving because of the fertile soil, the amazing culture, the opportunities, and the natural beauty. The canny ones might have even thought this was reincarnation the moment they spotted some thick foliage just like back home.

Then, due to some genetic jugglery they began to show differences. Probably the umbilical cord was being cut off by twisting and turning. They started pronouncing R as L and used sticks to eat. In one of the first uprisings that possibly took place in unrecorded history, they decided to leave. They had to walk for days in the sun, which perhaps lends them the marked features of rather small eyes slanted to avoid the glare. All races have some distinguishing physical aspects. Such as Indians nodding their heads by tilting them towards left shoulder and then the right one at a 30 degree angle to convey yes, no, whatever.

To return to the early departing population, they settled in what came to be East Asian countries. What I cannot figure out from this study is how these nations were already there as prêt-a-porter countries. Were they called China, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines? Why did the first group go to Thailand? Was the place tough on them and is that why they mastered the art of massage? Does the thriving business in Bangkok having anything to do with the lessons from the Kama Sutra they imbibed? And why did the second lot move to Malaysia? Are today’s Pakistanis following Malaysian Islam rather than the Saudi one they are accused of?

Why do Singaporeans have strict penal charges against spitting on the roads? Are they trying to get rid of their Indian roots of spitting any and everywhere? Is the Japanese penchant for making small things and being minimalist a dissenting response to the ostentation of Indian ethos?

These are not questions that engage the 90 scientists who took a sample of 1,928 unrelated individuals from 73 populations in 10 countries. They are more concerned about how this research “is also significant for understanding migratory pattern of human history and furthering the research in medicine. It has great potential for collaboration with these countries in finding treatment to many diseases like flu, AIDS and other pandemics”.

So, if you have a bit of fever and are coughing madly, don’t just gulp down that sweet syrup and suck on lozenges. Think of how the Japs would do it. I assume the fact that they bow on any given occasion is a halfway touching of the feet gesture by the majority population of India; it also probably derives from how they coped with clearing their lungs. You know, bend a little and the kho-kho-kho subsides.

All your ailments will now be seen in the light of how they are faring. If you are about to faint, then make sure to ask them to pass some smelling ajinomoto, please.

- - -

An Indian has been chosen as one of the top ten foreign heroes in the past 100 years for contribution to China. This report came in before the research was made public.

Dr Dwarkanath Kotnis treated Chinese soldiers during the Sino-Japanese war of 1938. Mao Zedong was mighty impressed and when the doctor died, he said, “The army has lost a helping hand, the nation a friend. Let’s always bear in mind his internationalist spirit.”

How internationalist China is we all know, especially during those days, but he probably felt some tug of a common heritage. I think these researchers must be right.


Incidentally, Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani was a film based on the life story of the doc. I am not sure how much of it was true, but in the celluloid version he cured the plague, was captured by the Japanese, fell in love with a Chinese girl and died, because of the plague not the girl. V Shantaram enacted the title role and Jayshree played the Chinese girl. All same-same, no?

Chith Dole - Dr Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani

Hear, Hear!

You are, it seems, what you listen to. Here are a BBC study results:

MUSICAL STYLES VERSUS PERSONALITY TRAITS

BLUES

High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease

JAZZ

High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease

CLASSICAL MUSIC

High self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease

RAP

High self-esteem, outgoing

OPERA

High self-esteem, creative, gentle

COUNTRY AND WESTERN

Hardworking, outgoing

REGGAE

High self-esteem, creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease

DANCE

Creative, outgoing, not gentle

INDIE

Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle

BOLLYWOOD

Creative, outgoing

ROCK/HEAVY METAL

Low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease

CHART POP

High self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease

SOUL

High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease

Source: Heriot-Watt University