Incoherent Discussions

Feminism

2006-06-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

http://infamousbrat.blogspot.com/2006/06/feminism.html

Student-Teacher relationship - should there be an exception?

2006-06-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

A 25 year old Spanish teacher was arrested for having sex with her 18 year old student on May 25 in Texas. Now, her arrest is "raising questions about the law" of convicting a teacher who indulges in a sexual relationship with his/her student. In this case, both the 'participants' were/are consenting adults. Should the teacher be convicted? (20 years of imprisonment is the verdict if she is found guilty)

You can read more about this incident here:
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060611131209990005

The law upholders are arguing that the teacher took advantage of a young child. I do agree with them to a certain extent but I also wonder if the two were not in a student-teacher relationship, would their sexual relationship be objected to? I asked a friend, who is now thirty, if he would have dated an 18 year old when he was 25. He said he would have. There were plenty of 25 year olds hitting on me when I was 18. There are plenty of 25 year olds who hit on and/or are dating 18 year olds now. No one seems to have an objection against that since both the parties involved are above the legal age of 18 and are consenting adults. On the other hand, in the case in question, the relationship is objectionable because it involves a teacher and her student. If the two had met 'outside' of school setting, there would have been no problems but now that, unfortunately, they met 'in' a school setting, the accused faces nearly 20 years behind bars if convicted.

I certainly don't commend teachers sleeping with their students but neither do I think that 20 years of imprisonment is acceptable in this particular case. If the student was not an adult, I would not have argued against the arrest or the prospective sentence but TWENTY years just sounds so harsh for this particular scenario. I am sure that even Beccario would disagree with the Texan Law at this point of time. Beccario states that punishment had a preventive, not a retributive, function; punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed; the certainty of punishment, not its severity, would achieve the preventive effect. Considering that, I, personally, believe that the teacher MUST be fired from her job, not allowed to teach again, and be put on probation for a certain period of time if need be ... but 20 years of imprisonment? Sounds ridiculous.

This is more of an ethical issue than it is legal. Should a teacher never develop feelings for his/her student and vice versa? Same applies to other professions as well though. There was a case in rural Canada somewhere a few years ago where a doctor was expelled from the local physicians association for he married one of his ex-patients. It violated the association's terms in regards to medical ethics wherein a physician can't have a sexual relationship with his/her patient. The reason why such relationships are disregarded are to protect patients from being exploited when in a vulnerable state. Similarly, a student-teacher sexual relationship is criminalized to avoid students from being exploited by their teachers. Therefore, I have absolutely no qualms about throwing teachers into jail who prey upon their students ... but should a teacher who slept with an adult student be punished equally as harsh as a teacher who invited a 14 year old boy into her cabin and raped him?

Curious.

Bounded Existence

2006-05-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

Throughout the western civilization – ancient world, medieval world, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment – philosophers/authors have believed that there are boundaries set by nature that a human being must respect in order to attain happiness and better the society on a whole. In the ancient times and the medieval period, these naturally set boundaries were rigid but over time, as there was a shift of importance towards reason during the Reformation and the Enlightenment, these boundaries were pushed and the roles became interchangeable, but not without consequences. The texts – Aristotle’s The Nicomachean Ethics: Book 1, Aquinas’s Summation of the Catholic Faith, Shakespeare’s Othello, and Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – reflect and discuss these boundaries and the consequences associated with them.

The belief in the ancient Greco-Roman period was that the maintenance of a balance between extremities that life presents itself with, and adherence to the boundaries, thus, created, brings happiness to an individual, which benefits the society on a whole. Aristotle, a figure from the Greco Roman period, states in The Nicomachean Ethics: Book 1 that “every art and every inquiry, and in the same way every action and choice, seem to aim at some good” (Cunningham and Reich 118). He mentions that “since there are many actions and arts and sciences, there are also many ends: of medicine, health; of ship building, a ship; of military science, victory; of household management, wealth” (Cunningham and Reich 118). He further states that in order to work towards a certain end, we need to know the end that we desire – “the highest good” – because, then, it would “be more likely to attain what is required” since we have a target to work towards just “like archers who have a mark to shoot at” (Cunningham and Reich 119). Moreover, he claims that politics is the “most authoritative, most eminently a leading art” since it involves balancing between various branches of “arts” – “military science, household management, and rhetoric” – that fall under it (Cunningham and Reich 119). He stresses on the importance of balance in making politics a “leading art” when he states:

This art [politics] determines which of the sciences is to exist in each city and which each person is to learn, and to what extent. Since it uses the rest of the sciences and decrees what one must do and refrain from doing, its end would include those of the others, so that it would be the good for man. Even though the end be the same for an individual and a city, that of the city seems to be greater and more perfect, both to achieve and to preserve. It is worthwhile even for a single individual, but fairer and more divine for a people or a city. (Cunningham and Reich 119)

In other words, if one refrains to limitations within boundaries like the balance within the discipline of politics, knows what to indulge in and what to step back from, it would be to his/her own benefit, and, most importantly, it would benefit the society. Furthermore, Aristotle claims that “politics aims at and what is the highest of all goods of action”: happiness (Cunningham and Reich 119). Happiness, Aristotle says, “is perfect and self sufficient, the end of action” since “we always choose it for itself and never for something else” and “that which taken by itself alone makes a life desirable and lacking in nothing” (Cunningham and Reich 120). According to Aristotle, “the highest good” that man seeks is happiness, and it can be attained through the art of politics (Cunningham and Reich 119). Since politics involves a balancing of various extremes as discussed, it can be deduced that this balance is imperative towards the realization of a happy life: the eternal human goal. Moreover, going by Aristotle’s logic, if a single individual is happy, the whole society is benefited from the process. Therefore, the boundaries set up in order to strike a balance in life to gain happiness and the roles that originate because of those boundaries are finite, and they need to be adhered to if one wants to accomplish the goal of happiness for his/her own self and the society.

However, Aristotle does not overtly speak of the negative consequences of not adhering to limitations set up by the need to maintain a balance between extremities in order to live a happy life. Although it is implied that if a human being chooses to walk away from a life of balance by not staying between the finite boundaries, he/she would not achieve happiness, and, thus, not fulfill life’s goal.

Furthermore, the belief system in medieval period, like the Greco Roman period, also followed the idea that human existence is refrained to a certain set of boundaries. In the medieval period, however, a boundary is set by nature between humans and God instead, and it cannot be transcended by human reason alone. Aquinas, in his text Summation of the Catholic Faith, establishes a boundary between human beings and God by stating that reason or human intellect cannot fully comprehend God. Reason and revelation, according to Aquinas, have to go hand in hand for a human being to realize God. The faith in God resulting from realizing Him makes one happy as per Aquinas just like evasion of extremities did for Aristotle. Therefore, a concrete boundary existed between God and human beings during the medieval period since it was necessary to create a distinction between the two in order to generate human faith in God’s superiority and thereby, bring about happiness to those who accepted God.

In the text Summation of the Catholic Faith, Aquinas bases his logic on the assumption that God exists and attempts to explain that God is superior to human beings by creating a boundary between the two. He creates a hierarchy wherein human beings are at the lowest rung with angels in the middle and God at the topmost level based on “gradation of intellects” (Thompson 72). When comparing the relationship of a human being and an angel to that of a simple person to a philosopher, Aquinas states:

Consider the case of two persons of whom one has a more penetrating grasp of a thing by his intellect than does the other. He who has the superior intellect understands many things that the other cannot grasp at all. Such is the case with a very simple person who cannot at all grasp the subtle speculations of philosophy. But the intellect of an angel surpasses the human intellect much more than the intellect of the greatest philosopher surpasses the intellect of the most uncultivated simple person; for the distance between the best philosopher and a simple person is contained within the limits of the human species, which angelic intellect surpasses. (Thompson 72)

Using the aforementioned example, Aquinas creates an infinite boundary between angels and human beings, which separates them even more than the finite boundary that exists between a simple minded man and an intellectual. The distance thus created reduces human intellect to a minimal in comparison to that of the angels. Further, Aquinas compares angels’ intellect to “divine intellect” and creates a boundary between them too (Thompson 72). He says:

The divine intellect surpasses the angelic intellect much more than the angelic surpasses the human. For the divine intellect is in its capacity equal to its substance, and there ore it understands full what it is, including all its intelligible attributes. (Thompson 72)

By “divine intellect”, Aquinas is referring to the knowledge that God possesses (Thompson 72). He concludes that since even angels cannot comprehend God, human beings, who are far inferior to angels in terms of intellect, have no chance of being able to grasp knowledge of God with solely their reason (Thompson 72).

Further, like Aristotle, Aquinas believes that “no one tends with desire and zeal towards something that is not already known to him” (Thompson 73). “That is why”, says Aquinas, “ it is necessary for the human mind to be called to something higher than the human reason here and now can reach, so that it would thus learn to desire something and with zeal tend towards something that surpasses the whole state of the present life” (Thompson 74). The way that Aquinas suggests for “the human mind to be called to something higher” is through Christianity, which, according to him, “in a unique way promises spiritual and eternal goods and so there are many things proposed to men in it that transcend human sense” (Thompson 74). In other words, Aquinas believes that it’s important for human beings to work towards a higher good that encompasses knowledge of God and the path to do that is by giving oneself to Christianity upon acknowledging the unquestionable boundaries that exist between humans and God; this thought is further expressed by him, when he says:

It is also necessary that such truth be proposed to men for belief so that they may have a truer knowledge of god. For then only do we know god truly when we believe Him to be above everything that it is possible for man to think about Him; for, as we have shown, the divine substance surpasses the natural knowledge of which man is capable. Hence, by the fact that some things about God are proposed to man that surpass his reason, there is strengthened in man the view that God is something above what he can think. (Thompson 74)

The human reason, however, according to Aquinas, can be synthesized with the divine revelation to work towards the goal of God-realization. First step is acknowledging the existing boundaries between humans and God, second step is to give oneself into revelation through Christianity, have faith in the “divine revelation” and “although the human reason cannot grasp fully the truths that are above it, yet, if it somehow holds these truths at least by faith, it acquires great perfection for itself” (Thompson 75). In addition to that, Aquinas puts up a condition that God will only reveal Himself to a human being if He chooses to do so. “In the presence of contrary arguments”, says Aquinas, “our intellect is chained, so that it cannot proceed to the knowledge of the truth. If, therefore, contrary knowledges were implanted in us by God, our intellect would be hindered from knowing truth by this very fact” (Thompson 77). To sum up, Aquinas uses logic based on the assumption that God exists to create a boundary between humans and God in order to lure people towards the Christian faith, which was a predominant factor in the medieval times.

Further, the Reformation was embarked by a time when the status of reason was elevated over revelation. The experimentation of pushing beyond the previously recognized boundaries in order to initiate interchange of roles between the two separated realms began in the Reformation. Shakespeare, in his plays, exploits the roles that human beings tend to play in the society based on the established boundaries between genders, color, race etc. Although he does experiment with exchange of roles by eliminating the boundaries, he is convinced that breaking the boundaries has negative consequences associated with it. In his play Othello, Desdemona breaks boundaries pertaining to both gender and race to marry the man she loved, and in the end, the same man, who she rebelled against her boundaries for, kills her.

In Othello, Desdemona, a white senator’s daughter, rebels against her father, Brabantio, to marry Othello, a black army General in service of the Venetian state. She breaks the boundaries set by her race and color in order to be with the man she loves. When questioned about her decision to marry Othello by her father, she states:

My noble Father,

I do perceive here a divided duty.

To you I am bound for life and education,

My life and education both do learn me

How to respect you, you are the lord of duty,

I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband,

And so much duty as my mother showed

To you, preferring you before her father

So much I challenge that I may profess

Due to the Moor my lord. (Thompson 411)

Moreover, she breaks gender roles as well when she chooses to stay with Othello close to his battlefield rather than staying with her father. She further adheres to breaking gender roles when she considers herself as a companion to Othello rather than merely his wife. When she justifies Othello’s anger to Iago and Emilia, she calls herself an “unhandsome warrior” considering her-self to be Othello’s companion in arms. This was iterated earlier as well when Desdemona opts to be with Othello when he is fighting a battle by stating that her heart has become a soldier just like her husband, and that she would live with her soldier husband wherever he goes. She says:

That I did love the moor to live with him,

My downright violence and storm of fortunes

May trumpet to the word. My heart’s subdued

Even to the very quality of my lord.

I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,

And to his honors and his valiant parts

Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.

So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,

A moth of peace, and he go to the war,

And I a heavy interim shall support

By his dear absence. Let me go with him. (Thompson 413-14)

Further in the play, Othello gets manipulated by his ancient, Iago, and accuses Desdemona of cheating on him. In a fit of rage as a result of jealousy, he ends up killing Desdemona. Desdemona’s death is the negative consequence of her having rebelled against the boundaries and restrictions set on her by the society. To sum up, Shakespearean drama reflects the thoughts of Reformation period when human reason was beginning to get more credit than revelation. Shakespeare was not just thinking in terms of God, as in medieval times, anymore. He based his works on the Reformation assumption that there is confusion between the external and the internal world. Shakespeare, like Aristotle and Aquinas, was also caught up in the concept of nature being supreme and acknowledgement of boundaries that originate as a result. However, the main difference between the Reformation period and the ancient times as well as the medieval times was that earlier it was believed that nature could be grasped within finite boundaries but in Reformation, nature became infinite and boundaries became more malleable.

Furthermore, in the Enlightenment era, reason completely prevailed over revelation. Reason answered all problems. Boundaries became completely interchangeable. The most striking difference between the Reformation and the Enlightenment in terms of transcending boundaries was that the latter did not have any negative consequences in relation to breaking boundaries. Writers like Mary Wollstonecraft focused on the importance of overcoming boundaries in order to make progress as a society. Wollstonecraft in her text A vindication of the Rights of Women puts forth her idea that women must break free from the established gender roles in order for the society to be morally correct. She believes that dependency of women on men, which is deeply rooted in the society, is immoral and the only way to upgrade the society’s moral standards is through breaking the boundaries that restrict women’s intellectual freedoms.

In A vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft talks about how a woman is not given the status of a human being in the society. A woman is equated to a child by the men in the society and, thus, made dependent on men. Wollstonecraft discusses the aforementioned men induced dependency when she says:

One cause of this barren blooming [is] a false system of education, gathered from the books written on [women] by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers. (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289)

She advocates the need of women to step out of roles pre-assigned by society and to venture out of their restricted existence through education (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289). She states that “women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, everything else is needless, for at least, twenty years of their lives …” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 290) but “the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289). She believes that education is essential for a woman to be able to build her “character, run her family, raise her children, and not leave the domestic affairs, which she can easily take care of, to the man of the household and, thus, reduce dependency on men. She brings up the point “that [women] spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments; meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty” to which she further poses a question that “can [such women] be expected to govern a family with judgment, or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world?” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 289). Therefore, according to Wollstonecraft, “it is vain to expect virtue from women till they are in some degree independent of men” (Wollstonecraft 1792: 291) and independence can only be achieved by women if they step out of their gender roles and transcend the existing boundaries between men and women.

Wollstonecraft does not acknowledge any negative repercussions of women leaving the roles they are apparently conditioned into according to her. She is extremely optimistic of a positive advancement if the boundaries between genders are broken down. Her ideas incorporate the Enlightenment sentiments in regards to the sureness related to reason. Enlightenment differed from the previous eras mainly in the sense that it was believed during Enlightenment that any naturally created boundary can be overcome using reason as a tool.

In conclusion, as shown by using literary examples from the four eras of western civilization – ancient world, medieval world, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment – it was acknowledged throughout the civilization that there are some boundaries that human beings are bound by. However, there were notable differences between the perceptions of these boundaries during each respective era. In the ancient world, boundaries within extremities of life were supposed to be adhered to in order to maintain a balance in life and, thus, achieve happiness, which was ultimately the purpose of life. Moving on, the medieval world focused on the concrete boundaries between God and human beings, which worked towards bringing people to Christianity by stressing the supremacy of God. Later, in the Reformation period, the same boundaries were viewed as conquerable, as opposed to the previous eras, but it was also believed that if these boundaries are pushed too much, there might be associative negative consequences. Furthermore, during Enlightenment, reason was implemented to completely vanquish the aforementioned boundaries and the result of breaking them down was only viewed with optimism.

Bibliography

Cunningham, L. and Reich, J. (2006) Culture & Values - A survey of the humanities. USA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Thompson, K. (1988) Classics of Western Thought: Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation. Fairfield, USA: Quebecor Printing.

Wollstonecraft, M. (1792) GNST 300 Fall 05/ Winter 06 Reading Package: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. University of Calgary Press.

Analysis of Photographs: The Controversy

2006-02-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

Figure 1: Viet Cong Execution by Eddie Adams (1968)

Figure 2: Sudan Famine Victim by Kevin Carter (1994)

“The word photography, which is derived from the Greek words for light and writing, was first used by Sir John Herschel in 1839: the year the invention of the photographic process was made public” (Camera Canada, 2005). Photography, ever since its invention, has been an important part of the visual culture. One of the interpretive tools used to analyze photographic images is semiology, which is also referred to as ‘the study of signs’ (Rose, 2001: 69). The semiotic approach takes a photographic “image apart” into parts such as iconic, indexical and symbolic signs, and “traces how it works in broader systems of meaning” (Rose, 2001: 69). This is where “interpretive debate among semiologists over the status of signs in photographic images” arises (Rose, 2001: 82). While some semiologists believe that the signs present in every photograph are solely adequate to understand its meaning, others argue against that by stating that there are some points in certain photographs that elude analysis (Rose, 2001: 82). I agree with the latter and believe that there are some things in a photograph that escape the objective, analytical scrutiny and yet, leave an impact on its viewer.

John Tagg and Roland Barthes, respectively, represent the two unique schools of thought pertaining to the analysis of photographs using semiology. John Tagg is an advocate of the view that photographs can be only given meaning by studying them within “certain institutional apparatuses” whereas Roland Barthes, one of the pioneer semiologists, is an exponent of the view that “there are points in some photographs that shock the viewer with their intractable reality” (Rose, 2001: 82, 167). One major difference between the two is that Tagg’s approach towards interpretation of photography is objective and focuses on producing meaning of an image only within the realms of an “institutional framework” (Tagg, 1988: 3), whereas Barthes’ approach is “subtle, poetic, and at home with both imagination and imaginative language” (Price, 1994: 9). Therefore, Tagg is in constant opposition with Barthes in relation to the “intended use of a photograph” (Price, 1994: 10). Barthes believes that photography communicates reality – the truth – without the interposition of any external agencies of power. According to Tagg, on the other hand, the use intended by a photograph through the “power of representation” of visual objects is always suspended in institutions of power, which “cannot be articulated” (Price, 1994: 11). Keeping that in view, Tagg rejects Barthes’ assertion that “from a phenomenological viewpoint, the power of authentication exceeds the power of representation” (Barthes, 1982: 88) in photography when he says that “what exceeds representation, however, cannot, by definition, be articulated” (Tagg, 1988: 4). In addition, Tagg also refutes Barthes’ claim that a photograph is “an emanation of past reality: a magic” (Barthes, 1982: 88) when Tagg states that “the photograph is not a magical ‘emanation’ but a material product of a material apparatus set to work in specific contexts, by specific forces, for more or less defined purposes” (Tagg, 1988: 3). In other words, Tagg believes that the analytical signs present in a photograph are enough for it to convey its meaning completely as opposed to Barthes’ poetic view that some things do evade interpretation by the analytical tools.

Further, two Pulitzer Prize winner photographs from within the past four decades are analyzed using semiology to decide between the ideas outlined by Tagg and Barthes. The first consideration (Figure 1), the 1968 winner photograph - Viet Cong Execution - was taken by Eddie Adams during the Vietnam War. This photograph shows the police chief General Nguyen Ngoc Loan in the process of executing a Vietcong prisoner, Nguyen Van Lem; Lem is yet to be shot at. The three kinds of signs, according to Peirce, that can be applied to undergo a semiotic analysis of this photograph are iconic, indexical and symbolic (Rose, 2001: 78). Iconic signs are characterized by likeness between the ‘signified’ and the ‘signifier’, and “in indexical signs, there is an inherent relationship (physical or causal) between the ‘signified’ and the ‘signifier’” (Rose, 2001: 74). “The signified is a concept or an object” and the signifier refers to “a sound or an image that is attached to a signified” (Rose, 2001: 74); the signified and the signifier combined together compose a ‘sign’. In the Viet Cong Execution photograph, the ‘signifier’ is the gun in the hand of the General pointed at Lem whose face clearly portrays – the ‘signified’ - fear. Therefore, the iconic and indexical signs combined convey the meaning that Lem is about to be executed by the General. Furthermore, symbolic signs have a “clearly arbitrary relation between the signifier and the signified” (Rose, 2001: 78). In this particular case, this photograph is (or could be) symbolic of the Marxist view of powerless suffering at the hands of the powerful. Thus, the Viet Cong photograph can be easily “taken apart” into signs and interpreted through the means of semiology but despite that, there are a couple of things that remain unanswered for me. When I look at the photograph, the facial expression of the man in the military uniform in the extreme left of the photograph catches my attention. He is about to witness an execution and I am unable to deduce from his face whether he is pro or against the execution; I cannot describe his facial expression. Another thing that disturbs me, and that I cannot describe using any one of the discussed ‘signs’ is the fact that Lem is going to die. It is an abstract feeling that I cannot aptly put into words. Therefore, the “analytical language of signs” is not sufficient to describe the impact of this particular photograph (Rose, 2001: 83).

In addition to that, an interesting fact about the Viet Cong photograph is that according to the photographer Eddie Adams, the victim, Lem, had just murdered “a South Vietnamese colonel, his wife and their six children” and therefore, the General’s act of executing Lem was justifiable (Riper, 2000). Eddie Adams later wrote in Time:

The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.
Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People
believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are
only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, ‘What would you do
if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught
the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American
people? (Wikipedia, 2005)

This also supports the view that, sometimes, a part of analysis might be missing in the interpretation of a photograph merely based on its signs.

The second photograph (Figure 2) taken up for consideration is Kevin Carter’s Sudan Famine, the 1994 Pulitzer Prize winner; Kevin committed suicide shortly after taking this picture due to depression. This photograph is of a starving child crouched with head to the ground and a vulture looking over at the child waiting for the inescapable (death of the child). The first glance at this photograph results in an experience of a shock at a mental and an emotional level. The feeling of helplessness is redundant. For interpretation sake, when the photograph is analyzed, it is deduced that the ‘signifiers’ in the photograph are the vulture and the starving child, and the ‘signified’ is inevitable death of the child from starvation. The association of a vulture with death is very strong since it is a globally known fact that all vultures are scavengers and they only prey on the helpless. A weak child who is almost dying as a result of starvation makes an ideal prey for a vulture. The fact that there is nothing a viewer can do to help the child hits the viewer the hardest as well as the fact that this was a reality at one point of time. Another sign that jumps out from the photograph is the topography of the environment that the child and the vulture are in. The grass is burnt out and so is the rest of the vegetation in the back, which is indicative of a famine as well as a lack of civilization around who could save the child from dying. It is a disturbing feeling to know that the photographer behind the camera might be the only person there to help this child (which he did not for safety reasons; journalists are advised not to touch famine victims because they might have transmittable diseases (Riper, 2000)). The signs – the child, the vulture, the topography – all contribute towards a better understanding of the meaning of the photograph but they fail to articulate the resultant emotional and mental disturbance upon viewing this picture. Therefore, this example also backs up Barthes’ postulation that there are certain points in some photographs that are beyond the field of objective meaning.

The common factor in both the examples listed above is that there are some interpretations in some of the photographs that cannot be named (coded) and yet, manage to leave an impression. Roland Barthes coined a term for this ‘impression’: the punctum. He contrasts “the punctum, the point”, to “the studium, or general knowledge available to every viewer” (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). According to Barthes, studium denotes cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph based on evident signs whereas punctum denotes personally touching details of a photograph, which establish a connection with the person or the object in the photograph (Barthes, 1982: 26-7). He further goes on to state that not every photograph has punctum but it does have studium, which he describes as being “of the order of liking, not of loving” since it “mobilizes a half desire, a demi volition” (Barthes, 1982: 27). To further elaborate on studium, he adds:

To recognize the studium is inevitably to encounter the photographer’s
intentions, to enter into harmony with them, to approve or disapprove of them,
but always to understand them, to argue them within myself, for culture (from
which the studium derives) is a contract arrived at between creators and
consumers (Barthes, 1982: 27-8).

Studium, according to Barthes, can be described, is present in every photograph, and is devoid of any pleasure or pain. Punctum, on the other hand, evokes a response from its viewer by “disturbing the studium” and cannot be articulated (Barthes, 1982: 27-8). “The studium is ultimately always coded, the punctum is not” (Barthes, 1982: 51). The details in a photograph that cannot be named (coded) constitute punctum whilst the details that can be named constitute studium. Barthes clarifies this when he analyses a photograph taken by Nadar:

Nadar, in his time (1882), photographed Savorgnan de Brazza between two young
blacks dressed as French sailors; one of the two boys, oddly, has rested his
hand on Brazza’s thigh; this incongruous gesture is bound to arrest my gaze, to
constitute a punctum. And yet it is not one, for I immediately code the
posture, whether I want to or not, as “aberrant” [and, hence, is studium] (for
me, the punctum is the other boy’s crossed arms). What I can name cannot
really prick me. The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance
[punctum]. (Barthes, 1982: 51)

To summarize, the punctum can only exist in a photograph if there is no visible sign in it that can code a certain feeling or an idea that a viewer experiences upon seeing that particular photograph.

Looking back at the photographs discussed earlier in this paper, in Figure 1, since I cannot code the facial expression of the military man on the extreme left in the photograph, I would categorize his facial expression as punctum. Similarly, in Figure 2, the child with his head bowed down disturbs me beyond measure and I cannot name what it is about that posture that (in Barthes’ terms) “pricks” me, hence, the child’s posture serves as a punctum in this photograph.

Furthermore, in his book Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes suggests that there are two versions of punctum; “one is the casual, everyday notion of irrational preference for a particular detail in a photograph” which might be triggered as a result of the viewer’s personal experiences and memories (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). This is evident when Barthes talks about Van der Zee’s Family Portrait (1926):

Reading Van der Zee’s photograph, I thought I had discerned what moved me: the
strapped pumps of the black woman in her Sunday best; but this photograph has
worked within me, and later on I realized that the real punctum was the necklace
she was wearing for (no doubt) it was this same necklace (a slender ribbon of
braided gold) which I had seen worn by someone in my own family, and which, once
she died, remained shut up in a family box of old jewelry. (Barthes, 1982:
53)

The above mentioned quote also supports Barthes’ idea that “sometimes, despite its clarity”, the punctum manifests itself after the photograph is “no longer in front of” the viewer (Barthes, 1982: 53). For example, in the second Pulitzer winner photograph analyzed earlier, Figure 2, the child is wearing silver jewelry – a silver bracelet and a silver necklace – that came to my mind after I put the photograph away. The reason why that specific jewelry stood out to me is because I have seen it on almost all of the children in the Christian missionary shows on TV about children up for adoption in Africa. In addition to that, I was once considering adopting a child from Ghana; therefore, a few of the missionaries had sent me pictures of African children in which majority of them wore the same jewelry as the child in the Sudan Famine picture. Therefore, if Barthes’ idea of realization of real punctum after the photograph is put away is applied, the jewelry worn by the starving child in Figure 2 is the real punctum in this photograph for me.

Further, the second version of punctum, as described by Barthes, is “the sense in which punctum is a wound; in this instance, the photograph evokes something very powerful and unbidden in the viewer” (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). Barthes elaborates on this view when he talks about photographs in relation to the element of time: the “punctum is vividly legible in historical photographs: there is always a defeat of time in them: that is dead and that is going to die” (Barthes, 1982: 96). Here, the punctum creates the connection between the viewers’ personal experiences and death and thus, rendering a photograph divine (Mirzoeff, 1999: 74). Barthes further discusses the importance of death in association with the punctum, especially when he talks about Alexander Gardner’s Portrait of Lewis Payne (1865) and his mother’s photograph from when she was a young girl (which he refers to as the Winter Garden Photograph):

In 1865, young Lewis Payne tried to assassinate Secretary of State W. H.
Seward. Alexander Gardner photographed him in his cell, where he was
waiting to be hanged. The photograph is handsome, as is the boy: that is
the studium. But the punctum is: he is going to die. I read at the
same time: This will be and this has been; I observe with horror an anterior
future of which death is the stake. By giving me the absolute past of the
pose (aorist), the photograph tells me death in the future. What pricks me
is the discovery of his equivalence. In front of the photograph of my
mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die. (Barthes, 1982: 96)

This concept is also reiterated in the viewing of Figures 1 and 2. In figure 1, the studium is that Lem is under the threat of being shot but the punctum is that he is going to die, which is a disturbing thought. Another haunting truth about this photograph is that despite Lem, the other figures present in the photograph – the General, the silent spectator on the side – are also going to die, which supports Barthes’ claim that “whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is a catastrophe” because it speaks of inevitable death (Barthes, 1982: 96). In the same way in Figure 2, the studium is that the starving child is still alive but the punctum is that he/she is going to die. In brief, according to Barthes, some photographs have the ability to create a relationship between its viewer and the reality of death through punctum by generating a forceful effect in the viewer.

Moreover, Barthes also introduces the concept of ‘shock’ in photographic interpretation. Barthes says that shock is quite different from the punctum (Barthes, 1982: 32). “Shock can traumatize but” if there is “no disturbance; the photograph can “shout” not wound” as punctum would require (Barthes, 1982: 41). Upon first glance, both Figure 1 and Figure 2 exemplify the “shock” factor that Barthes talks about. It is only after closer introspection that the studium and the punctum take shape to give meaning to both photographs.

To sum up, the response to the question whether “analytical language of signs is adequate to the task of elucidating the impact of photographs” is that it is not adequate (Rose, 2001: 83). Tagg’s highly objective approach is not very practical when it comes to photographic analysis. It is true that most of the photographs can be comprehended using just the objective tools of analysis but there are instances when some things in a photograph manage to leave an impact on the viewer and are overlooked by an objective analysis such as a semiotic analysis. Therefore, Barthes’ concept of punctum is relevant and key to the interpretation of photographs. There, sometimes, “is a sensitive point in an image which pricks, bruises, disturbs a particular viewer out of their viewing habits”, and cannot be named (coded) according to an objective method of visual interpretation (Rose, 2001: 83).

Bibliography

Books:

Mirzoeff, N. (1999) An Introduction to Visual Culture. London: Routledge.

Rose, G. (2001) Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Barthes, R. (1982) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. United States: Hill and Wang.

Price, M. (1994) The Photograph: A Strange Confined Space. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Tagg, J. (1988) The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.

Online Resources:

Camera Canada. This week in photographic history. Canada’s dot.com for Cameras. 5 Dec. 2005. 5 Dec. 2005.
http://www.cameracanada.com/thisweek.asp

Riper, F. Pulitzer Pictures: Capturing the Moment. Camera Works: Special Features. 29 Dec. 2000. 22 Nov. 2005.
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/imageediting/tp/beginphotoedw.htm

Wikipedia. Eddie Adams (photographer). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 5 Dec. 2005. 5 Dec. 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Adams_(photographer)

On Blogging and Bloggers

2006-02-17T11:18:00.000-08:00

I have often wondered if I blog for my benefit or for others' benefit. Why do I blog? When I first started blogging, my intention was to use it as a vehicle to vent my frustrations and, in the process, recycle those frustrated ideas into products that some might deem 'creative works of art'. (ha!) As clocks ticked away, my addiction to 'venting' kept on steadily rising, and I didn't even realize when it was a habit ... but ... like someone wise once said - all good (or bad) things come to an end - my blogging pace slowed and I didn't post anything for weeks. Now I am back ... rather ... I want to be back ... I wonder why?

I wonder ....
If we (bloggers) blog to make our otherwise mundane lives interesting by sharing them with the world?
or
Do we have lives so interesting that they NEED be shared with the world to lighten it up?

I do wonder ....

Let me know ?

Sleepless Nights

2006-01-31T14:20:00.000-08:00

You’ve turned me into a poet
Creativity flows unsealed
Flutter in the heart
Tingling down the spine
Eyes are tireless
Face bears a radiant glow
Neither have I felt this way
Nor have I written poems before

Every time I am down
You have the right things to say
To soothe me
And build me up again
To encourage me
By letting me be myself
Neither have I experienced it
Nor have I known affection before

It pains my heart
Moistens my eyes
To watch you see me suffer
Through those beady eyes
Always there for me to hug
When I am forlorn
Neither have I needed less
Nor have I asked for more

AH! Figment of imagination
I wish I could dream you into real
For me to love you
For you to pamper me
To hold my hand
Guide me through the dark
Neither have you done that
Nor have I given up hope

My ingenuity mocks me
Intellect doesn’t desist to chide
Wanting to converse with you
I look at you
Lying lifeless in my bed
You are nothing but a toy
Neither will you come to life
Nor would I be heard

Who would tell the world
Story behind the bruises
The pain that goes along
Helplessness that prevails
A struggling childhood
Craving for love
Neither will you share it
Nor would I

a perfect world (my first attempt at poetry)

2006-01-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

wrote it yesterday while sittin in the car waiting for dad ......... heh please be kind.

She lay in the waters
Comfortable, warm
Spilling, splashing
Creating ripples
High tide, low tide
Waves in control
No ships to navigate
No jaws to fear
No dolphins to play
With the lone little mermaid.

Big brown eyes
Long, flowing hair,
a perfect tan:
She is alone.
None to share her sorrows,
None to fight with:
Her banal existence
Hopes for a morning.

Then there was light
The sun shone bright
The mermaid’s spirits soared.
But it was not to be.
Shreiking mother's voice
Broke through the tranquil morn
Time to step out of the tub:
A world was shattered.

The skylight spoke a hoarse whisper
It was dawn.

ps: happy birthday H.B. :)

Do looks matter?

2005-10-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

I came across this blogring a couple of weeks ago, and it (as expected of me) set me off on the track of researching the age old question - do looks really matter? According to New York Times, "being beautiful does pay off " since the "economists have found that men with above-average looks are paid about 5 percent more than those with average appearance, while those who are below average in looks have wages 9 percent below the mean". The mentioned New York Times article, after discussing the research that a professor and his undergraduate student took up in investigating the effect of beauty on teaching evaluations for college professors, concludes that "it appears that the same physical attributes that made Ms. Linda Evangelista a successful model would also contribute to her success as a college professor. At least the students might stay awake in class.".

After going through a bunch of articles on importance of looks on the internet and thinking back to more-than-enough examples from my personal life, I can safely assume that looks DO matter. As Karen Moloney writes:

An astonishing 58 per cent of male chief executives of Fortune 100 US companies are six feet tall or over. But only 14.5 per cent of the population are that tall. ... Could it be that somewhere inside all of us, irrespective of our own ethnic and cultural origins, we prefer tall, good-looking people? It's almost as if we can't shake off our biological inheritance to choose in a mate, someone who would hunt, gather, cook or bear healthy children. Perhaps this bias was transformed into criteria by which we chose chieftains – people who would head the tribe and scare off invaders – and now we use it to choose senior executives.

When I first started wondering about this topic and was truly convinced that looks did not matter to me, I had a conversation with E (obviously) who asked me a question that I didn't have an answer to (as usual). He asked, "Roop, have you ever - before the invent of internet -, by choice, been friends with people who weren't good looking?" I was stumped before I, as impulse would have it, blurted - "YEAH I HAVE" - because the truth is that I haven't. All my friends from grade school and high school have been good looking - the popular crowd, if I might say - and it wasn't that I made an effort to only befriend the good looking ones, it just happened that way. Today, I can claim that I do have a few friends who I would not consider good looking and yet we are the best of friends nevertheless. A scary truth behind that statement is that I met all of them online at first. If I would've met them in person at first, I don't know if I would've been friends with them today. A scary revelation indeed - scary because it exposes my shallowness; I am subconsciously as shallow as anyone who'd want to marry Mallika Sherawat.

Based on the assumption that looks matter, Dove has succeeded in a big way with its Campaign for Real Beauty. A few of my sister's teenage friends now only buy Dove products - thanks to the Campaign and its efforts towards raising self-esteem in women all across the world - an innovational advertising trick, I must say. To give Dove credit, they did capitalize on a truth that is a part of everyone's life. Everytime I manage to sit down and watch TV, I consciously try to spot someone on TV that I would, without a thought, classify as "ugly". It never happens except when it comes to negative characters, which are at times played by (in my terms) "ugly" actors. If the media, that is so much a part of our lives these days (especially of the younger generation), glorifies the seemingly flawless Aishwarya Rai only for being the world's most beautiful woman, the drop in self esteem in people of all ages across the globe is bound to happen, which corporates like Dove are undoubtedly bound to exploit.

It's like a Catch 22 - a no win situation - where I don't want to be shallow and don't want looks to matter to me but I can't help being shallow and looks do matter to me. At this juncture, I am relatively at a loss for words {how'd that happen? :p}. Importance of looks cannot be undermined; it is a well established fact as a result of many researches all over the world. My personal experiences also reverberate the same sentiments. There is not much I can possibly think of doing except either giving in to my shallow side and letting Dove take me for a ride OR continuing to fight my shallow side in hopes of emerging victorious one day. If I choose the latter, eventually, victory might just happen. I might just end up married to a stereotypical nerd who I would've walked by without a care in Grade 9.

power, wisdom, freedom?

2005-10-21T12:24:00.001-07:00

Tickled funny by gawker's and many other such bloggers' take on George Bush and his leadership skills, I did my own research only to discover that foolish people are NEEDED in a position of power to maintain social harmony. Here it goes ----

I recently read two classical texts: Plato's The Apology and Sophocles' play Oedipus the King. Both texts explore the relationship of power with wisdom and with personal freedom. Socrates, the narrator in Plato's The Apology, claims that men in positions of power are less wise than the men not in these positions; this argument is portrayed to be true by the lead character, Oedipus, in Sophocles' play Oedipus the King. Further, Socrates states in The Apology that the men not in positions of power enjoy personal freedom as opposed to the men in positions of power whereas Sophocles’ character of Oedipus does not enjoy personal freedom even upon his loss of power as a king.

Socrates, in The Apology, says that when he was made aware of Delphi's prophecy that there was no one wiser than him, he went around questioning men who had the reputation of being wise in order to prove the oracle wrong (Cunningham and Reich 112-13). From his research, Socrates realized that he "was better off just as he was" and that the men "who were in greatest repute were just about the most lacking, while others in less repute were better off in respect to wisdom" (Cunningham and Reich 113). Men in greatest repute that Socrates questioned were the men in positions of power in the fields of politics, literature, and craftsmanship (Cunningham and Reich 113). The reason that these men were not wise, as deduced by Socrates, was because they thought that they were wise but, in fact, they weren't because only an unwise person would think of himself as wise (Cunningham and Reich 113). Therefore, according to Socrates, wisdom prevails only where there is a desire to learn, and the acknowledgement of lack of wisdom exists. In support of this argument - after having spoken to a man of repute, a politician, who was reputably wise - Socrates says:

Well, I am wiser than this man. Probably neither of us knows anything noble; but
he thinks he knows, whereas he doesn’t, while I neither know nor think I know.
So I seem to have this slight advantage over him, that I don’t think I know what
I don’t know. (Cunningham and Reich 113)

If an individual is not open minded - not open to new ideas - and is arrogant, his learning curve stops and his desire to ask questions to seek consciousness diminishes. The masses empower such an individual to be their leader and put him in a position of power because the latter (due to his overconfidence in his wisdom) does not make an effort to discern truth from fallacy. A leader like that tends to appear more credible in the eyes of the people he rules since he is always so sure of himself, regarding the decisions he makes, that he doesn't feel the need to question the validity of his acts. Hence, only an individual who does not question facts and reality, is arrogant, and therefore, not wise in Socrates' opinion, can be in a position of power because the masses choose to be ruled by such a leader.

Sophocles resonates the same sentiments through the character of Oedipus in his play Oedipus the King where Oedipus who is in a position of power – of a king - is etched out as an individual who believes himself to be "world renowned and glorious" (Cunningham and Reich 100), which reflects his arrogance and in turn, lack of wisdom. His lack of open-mindedness - in other words, lack of wisdom - is further illustrated when Teiresias tries to convince Oedipus that he is the one who murdered Laius (Cunningham and Reich 102-3). Oedipus rejects the idea altogether without investigating it by blaming his brother-in-law, Creon, for setting him up through Teiresias (Cunningham and Reich 103-5). Oedipus is certain of Creon’s guilt even before Creon has a chance to explain himself; this is evident when Creon says to Oedipus, “Do you know what you do? Hear answer to your charges on the other side. Judge only what you know.” and Oedipus replies, “Your speech is clever, but I learn it ill since I have found you harsh and grievous toward me” (Cunningham and Reich 104). Throughout their conversation, Oedipus is not willing to accept Creon’s point of view because he thinks he knows better and doesn’t feel the need to reconsider his judgment (Cunningham and Reich 104-5). Oedipus would, therefore, be considered unwise, according to Socrates, since he is arrogant and is unwilling to question the validity of his judgments. Socrates’ view that only an unwise person would think of himself as wise (Cunningham and Reich 113) is further depicted in the play where Creon says to Oedipus, “You seem not wise to me” and Oedipus replies, “I am for me” (Cunningham and Reich 105), which is instrumental in highlighting Oedipus’ lack of wisdom when he is in power as a king. Oedipus’ decline in power, however, begins when he gathers the courage to start questioning the truth about his identity despite the external pressures to not do so. For example, when Jocasta “beseeches” him to not “investigate his identity if he cared for his own life”, he denies her request by asking her to “take courage” and that he “will hear of nothing but finding out the truth” (Cunningham and Reich 108). Oedipus, at this juncture, makes a conscious effort to find the truth, which means that he is being wise. Ironically, this marks a turning point in his life as a king because, soon after he starts the questioning process, he realizes that he “married the woman he should not have married” and “killed the man whom he should not have killed”, and, as a result, he loses his position of power as a king (Cunningham and Reich 109). Therefore, as long as Oedipus doesn’t question his judgments, doesn’t question the truth about his identity, and is arrogant, he remains in the position of power but as soon as he starts questioning – in other words, being wise – he loses his position of power and he is no longer a king, which is in agreement with Socrates’ argument.

Furthermore, despite their agreement on the relationship between power and wisdom, Socrates and Sophocles do not completely agree on the relationship between power and personal freedom. According to Socrates, “he who fights effectively for what is just, if he wants to save his life for even a brief time, must remain a private citizen and not engage in public life” (Cunningham and Reich 114). In other words, if any individual, who is in a position of power and is in the public eye due to his position, goes against the public consensus to fight for what he believes to be true is bound to lose his life at the hands of the masses. Therefore, due to the risk of loss of life, an individual in a position of power is forced to shed his individuality and live his life as his subjects would like him to. Consequently, he does not enjoy the personal freedom that an individual who does not have to live on other people’s terms does, since being in power means that the individual in power is not free to fight for what he believes is just in the fear of losing his life (Cunningham and Reich 114). However, an individual who is not in power is free to live by his beliefs without having to risk the loss of his life (Cunningham and Reich 114). Socrates also says that if he “had tried to engage in politics, he should have perished long ago without benefiting” his audience or himself (Cunningham and Reich 114), which strengthens his claim that power cannot coexist with personal freedom and whoever in power tries to go against that rule is bound to be put to death by the subjects he rules. To sum up, power does cause the loss of personal freedom because an individual in power has to constantly please the people he rules to remain in power, and therefore, in the process, he loses his individuality - his personal freedom to think for himself and to live his life the way he wants to. In contrast, if he does not lose his personal freedom and does not impose upon himself what his subjects want him to, he is doomed to lose his life for having “opposed the crowd” (Cunningham and Reich 114).

Sophocles does agree with Socrates that a man in power does not have any personal freedom but Sophocles argues that personal freedom is not really worth it without having the power to exercise and enjoy it. Oedipus, the lead character in Oedipus the King, is a man in a position of power since he is a king and he does live for the subjects he rules, which is evident when he says:

O piteous children, I am not ignorant of what you come desiring. Well I know you
are all sick and in your sickness none there is among you as sick as I, for your
pain comes to one man alone, to him and to none other, but my soul groans for
the state, for myself and for you. (Cunningham and Reich 100)

Oedipus says this when his subjects come to him with the problem of plague that has infested their city and is the cause of deaths, sorrow, and destruction. Oedipus takes it upon himself, as a ruler, to take care of the problem by “sending away his brother-in-law, Creon, to Apollo’s Pythian halls to find what Oedipus might do or say to save the state” (Cunningham and Reich 100). After Creon announces the oracle he brought from the god, Oedipus immediately sets into action to find the man who murdered Laius and banish him to rid the city of the plague as suggested in the oracle that Creon brought (Cunningham and Reich 100-1). Oedipus, therefore, takes measures to rid the city of the plague to please his subjects and, in turn, fulfill his ultimate goal – retention of his throne by saving his life - which is obvious when he states:

Not for the sake of some distant friends, But for myself I will disperse this
filth. Whoever it was who killed that man, With the same hand may wish to do
vengeance on me. And so assisting Laius I aid myself. (Cunningham and Reich 101)

Thus, when in power, Oedipus is worried about losing his life and consequently, power; therefore, he takes the actions that his subjects that he rules expect him to take so that he can save his life and remain in power. This coincides with Socrates’ deduction that a ruler has to live according to his subjects in order to save his life as well as maintain his position of power. On the contrary, even when Oedipus finds out the truth regarding his identity, loses his position of power and is not in the public eye, he still cannot enjoy his newly gained personal freedom because he is not in control of his life anymore. Oedipus, at this point, is willing to lose his life without the fear of losing power and does not even need to please anyone else to survive; hence, according to Socrates, he must be free but the play suggests that Oedipus certainly does not enjoy being free. It is evident in his conversation with Creon towards the end of the play when Oedipus asks Creon to “send him outside the land” and Creon replies “You ask what the god will do” (Cunningham and Reich 112). The judgment of Oedipus’ life is now in the hands of Creon, the man in power. To summarize, when Oedipus is in power, he doesn’t have the personal freedom to do as he pleases since he has to live like his subjects want him to, and when Oedipus is not in power, he might have the personal freedom to live the way he wants to but he is unable to exercise or enjoy it because he no longer has the power to decide the course of his life.

In conclusion, both Socrates and Sophocles agree that only the individuals who are arrogant and are not open to new ideas due to lack of wisdom thrive in positions of power because the masses that empower them choose to be ruled by these leaders since the latter always seem sure of what they are doing. The texts - The Apology and Oedipus the King – vouch for Socrates’ and Sophocles’ agreement on this issue. On the other hand, Socrates and Sophocles do agree that a position in power means loss of personal freedom but they disagree upon the value of freedom in the absence of power. The personal freedom to think and live as one desires, without the fear of death, in the absence of power is valuable according to Socrates as opposed to Sophocles, who does not consider it as valuable since it cannot be exercised and enjoyed in the absence of power. Again, The Apology and Oedipus the King clearly portray these views of Socrates and Sophocles through Socrates’ narration and the character of Oedipus respectively.

Bibliography

Cunningham, L. and Reich, J. (2006) Culture & Values - A survey of the humanities. USA: Thomson Wadsworth

Dayumn! That's a research paper haha .... no plagiarism, kids :p!

the elusive girl power (?)

2005-10-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

I'll start this post with Gurdas Mann's song Kudiye from his album Heer:

Kudiye kismat kudiye tainu enna pyaar diyaan
apne hisse di duniya main taithon vaar diyaan
(Daughter/Girl, I want to give you so much love
that I'd sacrifice my share of world for you)

The song weaves the melancholy of the life of a girl, presumably in an average punjabi household, with utmost sensitivity; it is no wonder that Gurdas Mann was awarded for Best Lyrics for this song on ETC Channel Punjabi and ALFA TV Punjabi, on March 6, 2005. The first time I heard the song Kudiye, I remember having tears in my eyes, primarily because I could relate to every word Mann sang. I listened to the song again today after a gap of a few months; an unsettling realization that the song still manages to stir up my soul and send a shiver down my spine left me shaken up for a while. The reason I listened to it today was that I read an article in the newspaper today regarding the problems affecting the young brides in Punjab and, consequently, I had to give Mann a listen to help me come in terms with what I read in the paper.

In an indian state like Punjab where female infanticide and sex-selective abortion were already popular trends, the article I read today stated that lately the abandoned bride phenomenon is on a rise as well. Abandoned bride phenomenon refers to the trend where a Non Resident Indian male from a first world country like Canada goes to India, gets married to a woman from there, stays with her for a month or two, comes back to Canada and sends his wife divorce papers sooner or later instead of a sponsorship. Most of these marriages of convenience include a hefty payment of dowry by the bride's family which the groom's family obviously digests to never acknowledge again. Calgary Herald in collaboration with Vancouver Province is publishing a front page five-part report titled "Abandoned Brides: Canada's shame, India's sorrow" (running through October 16 to October 20) on the miserable state of abandoned wives in the state of Punjab in India at the hands of their Canadian husbands.

Vancouver Province states, "Across India, an estimated 30,000 young women (15,000 in Punjab alone) live to regret marriages that have left them alone, miserable and consumed with shame. They married Indian men living overseas in affluent countries -- including many from Canada -- known as Non-Resident Indians. But, their expectations of a happy life in a new country were quickly dashed" when their husbands came back to their respective affluent countries and abandoned them. A majority of these abandoned wives come from financially weak families who gave all their wealth away in dowry in hopes of sending their daughters to the promised land of riches. It's not just that only the women get abandoned, men get abandoned by NRI women as well (though at a much smaller scale) but the social stigma attached to an abandoned husband is almost non-existent whereas an abandoned wife is treated as a 'used property' not to be 'reused'.

Social stigma is the most feared concept in a punjabi household. When discussing the topic of 'female infanticide' at home, the elders in my family often say, "Well, parents don't really have a choice at times. First of all, it takes a lot of money to marry their daughters. Secondly, taking care of a daughter is far difficult than taking care of a son because a daughter has higher chances of being a cause of social-stigma/shame to the family than the son". The same sentiments are resonated in one of the stories listed in Vancouver Province's story on abandoned brides. A mother of one such unfortunate bride says, "I wish that my daughter was not born", and her daughter starts crying upon hearing that - probably more so at her own misfortune rather than her mother's comment.

Basically, a patriarchal society infested with the unfortunate evil of dowry can't help but think of its daughters as a burden that has to be taken off when they come of age. Raising a daughter appears somewhat equivalent to raising livestock in such a society, barring one difference - livestock is sold for a profit whereas a daughter is sold at a loss. In addition to that, the social stigmas come into play in deciding the life of a girl. A girl who has lived all her life with her parents, hasn't ever spoken to the boys in her neighborhood or school, can cook, is respectful of elders, listens well, is a better candidate to be sold off in the marriage market at a lesser loss than a socially unacceptable girl who unfortunately realized somewhere down the road that boys don't have cooties. The latter is a cause of shame for the family because they might face problems getting her, the stupid societal outcaste, married to a decent boy who won't demand much money. Every argument and source of every tension with daughters in punjabi families seem to stem from the issue of marriage. "If you don't learn to cook, Sweety, you are not going to find a decent boy to get married to". "If you don't study, Pinky, you are not going to find a decent boy to get married to". "If you go clubbing, Preeti, you are not going to find a decent boy to get married to".

I, being one of the Sweeties, Pinkies and Preeties, personally have first hand experience in being fed and nurtured towards achieving the honored position of 'most suitable for marriage'. What strikes me rather odd is that my parents and family couldn't possibly be any happier if I were to tell them that I will choose the career they want me to, get married to a boy of their choice, make babies with him and live the rest of my life taking care of my husband and kids as well as living with the career my parents chose for me. Since I don't accept that, I am a rebel. I am a borderline outcaste. When I whine, they try to knock sense into me by telling me that they don't discriminate between a boy and a girl; true they don't in the sense that they feed me and my brother the same, both of us have the same financial freedoms as well BUT my brother really doesn't need to refrain completely from socializing like I have to. To get better suitors, I have to have a clean record (whatever that means) to match up to the marriage market standards whereas if my brother has money to back him up, he can find him a pretty wife anywhere - that's all that matters, rite? A pretty wife. Oh wait, she has to be better than rest of the suitors in terms of her educational qualifications, social skills, "character", family background - financial and social standing, and of course, has to have a clean record.

Can you really blame parents for getting their daughters killed before and after birth in this mayhem of a society?

Singers like Gurdas Mann can only try to make a difference by propagating a pro-daughter message through their music; it is us who have to implement their message and the message that our conscience conveys to us every now and then into our lives in an attempt at providing a gleam of hope for the many unfortunates who need hope more than we do. The horrifying figures of female to male ratios need be reversed as soon as possible. Currently, the sex ratio is 800 females to 1000 males in Punjab which doesn't even come close to World Health Organization's prescribed minimum of 950 females to 1000 males ratio.

Nature thrives on balance and by exploiting nature, we are in turn exploiting ourselves. An example of exploiting nature and getting exploited in return would be the drastically lowered water tables in Punjab as this report suggests. Similarly, an imbalance in the natural female to male ratio can only result in a social catastrophe. An increase in sex-related crimes, violence against women, polyandry, rapes, child marriages, violence in general, is bound to happen. We need to create awareness about issues as such and social stigmas need be addressed with rationale and logic. Everyone is busy making their lives miserable in the name of societal customs that were originally established to make lives easier for those who lived by them. Times have changed now, cars have replaced horses - it's high time that we change with time too and alter the centuries old societal customs to suit the needs of today. As long as a society does not come to terms with the fact that a woman can also be 'reused' like a man can be, Gurdas Mann can sing as many songs as he may, the value of a girl child is always going to be undermined, the sex ratio will keep increasing and so would the chances of an imperative social breakdown.

Shit Happens

2005-10-21T12:23:00.002-07:00

Shit happens

You think it won't happen again

It happens again

You hope it won't happen again

It happens again

You pray it won't happen again

It happens again

You accept it will happen again

It might happen again

. . .

On Marriage

2005-10-21T12:23:00.001-07:00

Inspired by Archana's blog entry, I had to write something on marriage too. I just had to; couldn't not write. Here goes ...

I had never given marriage as much thought as I have in the past couple of months. Marriage was alien to me until recently when it dawned upon me that my family really does expect me to start thinking seriously about finding myself someone to spend the rest of my life with. "Marriage?", I had screamed in my not so musical voice thinking that I hadn't heard my father clearly the first time. As 'not' expected, "Yes" was his monosyllabilic response. His reason, I found out a day later, being that if I start groom-hunting now, I'd perhaps have someone in 2-3 years from now. Groom hunting? Where do I start? What do I look for? What do I want? Marriage? Arranged or love? All such questions lead to the ultimate question that haunts one and all - what is the purpose of my life? "For now, marriage", my parents would say. Two years down the road, "children", my in-laws might expect. Few years later, "raising my children", I would claim.

To further my doubts regarding marriage, I ran into a revered individual (we'll call him B) who conveniently defined marriage as a societal obligation. B's admission to the fact that he wouldn't really have been interested in me if I weren't from a jatt family further disillusioned me. Here I am today wondering if I had been living in some sort of delusional world all my life? Is the nonsense that Bollywood has been feeding me all along literally nonsense? If the so called electronic generation (B being an example) still adheres to what I believe my grandparents should've left back in early 1900s, I unfortunately see no escape route for the to-be dowry victims; marriage, especially arranged, is still a business proposition. It is conducted between two agreeing parties after a complete analysis of either side's financial assets and social connections. "What's wrong with it", B would argue, "if the woman I love has to live up to the limitations set by societal norms in regards of marriage?" To that, I can only shake my head and not respond because I'd rather not waste my breath in arguing against something rooted so innately in ignorance and narrow mindedness.

On second thought, I shall argue it because if I don't, I wouldn't have anything to write for the rest of this post heh. For starters, I simply have a problem knowing that my heritage is one of the reasons I was bestowed with the title of 'object of affection' by the one I love. The fact that a potential jatt 'groom' wouldn't talk to me if I was from a khatri family as opposed to a jatt family disgusts me endlessly. Maybe the reason for that is because I have forced myself to think rationally all my life. The way I see it, back in the old days in India, when arranged marriage was the only trend due to reasons I won't go into details with as of now, parents chose to marry their daughters into the same caste as theirs because if a girl who grew up in a farming family (jatt family), it would be much easier for her to adapt to a farming family as opposed to her going into a carpenter's family. Similarly, financial assets were looked into as well because every parent wants his or her daughter to get the same luxuries or better at her in-laws' home as she got in her paternal home. My question now is, how does the logic of a pseudo farm girl marrying a pseudo farm boy hold strong today when both partners can be equally equipped financially regardless of their financial and social background? I am yet to meet a so called 'jatt' man here who has any plans of going back to India and farm for the rest of his life. Yes, they call themselves jatts and when asked, they wouldn't know anything about their heritage or what being a jatt actually stands for. I know my brother doesn't and he doesn't feel the need to find out either but he would only marry a girl from a jatt family, my mommy claims. Once again, I can only shake my head and wonder.

Let's leave boys alone for a minute here and talk about me. I belong to a jatt family who used to farm in my great-grandfather's age. We still have some land in my paternal village that we haven't been to in 20 years. On the other hand, my maternal family did farm until my mom's father passed away in 1994. Yes, I've been lucky to have been to my maternal village almost every year until my grandpa passed away. I have been to the fields with him, spent time trying to understand what farming was all about but does that really equip me fully to be classified as a farmer (jatt)? I certainly don't think so. If you were to ask me what is beneficial for me to grow in our family fields in India today, I have no answer. My grandpa would have had an answer. He was a farmer; I am not. My grandma would have an answer too. She is a farmer's daughter and wife; I am not. My mom would too. She is a farmer's daughter; I am not. Therefore, I need not marry a pseudo farmer just for the sake of maintaining my non-existent farmer genes. I'd rather be loved for what I am than what societal tags make me out to be. I'd rather marry someone not because my family's social standing lives up to marital limitations set by societal norms but because I don't live up to the so called limitations and yet, he still wants to marry me. I hope that suffices for a valid response to B's argument.

Having said that, it doesn't mean that I'd settle for a bum who doesn't have the caliber of earning a penny. Hypocritical, you say. Well no, it is not hypocritical of me to make a claim like that because it's only obvious that I would only be attracted to and fall in love with someone who has the potential to hold my interest and he most definitely will not be a bum (or so I hope) heh. I don't care if his ancestors were kings or warriors or priests or masons or slaves as long as he treats me well and I can do the same for him. It's a mutual understanding of love and respect between two minds and souls that matter the most in a marital union. If the married ones write that off as idealism, it's about time they consider a divorce and remarriage.

As for the questions regarding marriage that I posed in the first paragraph, answers are a lot more clearer now having written everything that I did. Life certainly isn't complete without marriage, without having a companion in your life who you can trust blindly, bare your soul to, and talk to when you need it the most. Marriage should be a catalyst, not a hindrance, in seeking the answers to the ultimate query regarding the purpose of life. Marriage should provide you with someone you can always fall back on for support and encouragement when faced with failures, and criticism when straying from your chosen path. As for the question - arranged or love - if the method and process used to solve a problem is correct, the solution to a problem is always correct; ask any mathematician. (In philosophical terms, if parameters are all correct, logic will never be flawed ... nah I dunno ... E, correct me!!!!!) As long as you are clear in your head about the reasons you are getting married for and try not to overlook them during trying times, marriage is bound to be successful (or so my aunt says) but make sure (aunt adds) that your reasons are acceptable to your conscience before you jump into the marital fire (did she say fire?).

Tough huh?! Well, good luck. Who said investigating the purpose of life would be easy?

Why do I write?

2005-10-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

I write to not exist

I write to live

I write to give shape to my thoughts

I write to question the truths that are being fed to me by my parents, family, friends, society

Also, I'd be a fool if I say I don't write for public acknowledgement and acceptance at some level

I have been writing since I could barely spell. My first attempt at poetry was when I was in Grade 1. I remember writing an 8 lined poem on 'world peace'. I used to write on scrap pieces of paper back then and threw them out once I was done writing. Trend continued into my junior high school years when I quit penning down my thoughts afraid that someone might read them and think I am nuts. I started talking to myself in a mirror instead which I would do when I thought no one was around. I would go on random babbling sessions for several minutes at a time. My mother caught me fully engrossed in a verbal discourse with myself a couple of times and looked at me like I had just stepped out of a UFO. Gradually, I figured I shouldn't bother my mother with my dimwittedness and smarten up by not pursuing self-talk. I still needed an outlet for my pent up thoughts though. So I took up journal writing; I'd sit down to write my thoughts from the day every night and then I had to worry about hiding my journal at a safe place. It was traumatic especially when I wasn't home and my journal was; I was always paranoid that someone might find it and rebuke me for wasting time on writing nonsense. So I gave up on journal writing by throwing the journal out as well. Then came God's gift of internet into my life. Microsoft Word and hotmail were my new saviours. I'd write up mini articles and email them to myself. One day, I decided to cancel that specific email account as well - so I lost everything I wrote once again. It didn't matter though. I didn't write to preserve my thoughts anyway. I wrote to vent (as I still do today). Time went on and I took up chatting as an outlet for my thoughts, and perhaps energy. Years have gone by since and today is when I realize how badly I need to write to survive. I'd upset Karl Marx when I say that writing is a basic need for me - a fact that I failed to realize all my life. My parents' anger with me for wasting my time writing whilst I could be learning to cook is certainly not beyond my comprehension anymore. If I couldn't personally realize the importance of writing in my life, I can't expect anyone else to do the same for me.

So I write. It helps me stress my mind to think critically, helps me question the purpose of my existence, makes me investigate the validity of the truths that I am being told to accept, and above all, helps me channel my energy towards creativity, which otherwise is certainly not my forte. Whoever in my family knows that I have a blog agree with my mom when she (lovingly) calls me a raving lunatic who has nothing better to do. If constantly questioning the 'obvious truths' is lunacy, then I am a lunatic. If going against the majority to extract more pleasure from life is lunacy, then I am a lunatic. I have a poster of Einstein in my room with the caption: great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds. If I were to make a claim like that of Einstein today, I'd be a lunatic but Einstein being Einstein is not a lunatic. Perhaps he was considered a lunatic in his day and age. Perhaps he was a lunatic. What is lunacy? That is a whole new can of worms that we shall open at a later time.

In addition to the abstract, idealistic nonsense, I write to relieve myself of ideas/thoughts that'd otherwise drive me literally insane if I didn't get rid of them. My mother's prophecy would actually come true in the real medical sense if I didn't write (and dance). Though most of you will agree, her prophecy has already half come true. heh A few more years and I'd willingly accompany her to a psychiatarist who'd question me on my priorities and I'd stare at her blankly in return. Just like I am staring at the monitor rite now as I type. My fingers are typing, my heart is dictating, my mind's in pain as usual, and my eyes are blank - lost and confused as always.

So I write.

Mysteries of Love exposed

2005-10-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

"I love you", typed someone to me once upon a time in a drunken state. "What is love?", I remember asking. Response was (I can never forget) - "Love is getting home drunk at 2 AM in the morning, tripping over wires to find my laptop, and somehow managing to turn it on just so I can talk to you." Of course, that love didn't quite last too long. Nah, we don't even talk anymore. Now I look back at it and write it off assuming that it wasn't even love to begin with. It was something that we forcefully assumed to be love. We've often heard that mind is a powerful tool but experience says that heart wins the battle of power over mind hands and feet down. The stories that our heart creates for us to live, the fantasies it concocts, the dreams it shows us can not even be dare matched by Bollywood melodramas. The love saga that I mentioned two sentences earlier is also one example of many games heart tends to play with us throughout our lives. In my instance, funny thing is that my heart still makes me feel the same for him as I did years ago; the love and respect I had for him at that time - I still have it but it has remorphed itself into a different kind of love altogether - it keeps growing older every year. What is love anyway? What are its characteristics? How many different types of love are there?

"Love is a blanket word", my dear friend G says. Love is love - it could be maternal love, paternal love, friendly love, brotherly love, sisterly love - love is indeed a blanket word. All my life, I've been petrified to say the phrase "I love you" to anyone I don't share DNA with. I remember the time when I mocked my cousin's wedding song (N'sync's This I promise you) calling it too lovey dovey. It was five years ago. I sit here, wronged again. Love might not be all that bad, I think today. Going by the cliches that we are fed every now and then, life certainly doesn't seem worth living if I weren't in love with anyone. Life would lack a purpose if I didn't have anyone in my life who I'd want to give my time to, unconditionally. Ah 'unconditionally' - the concept where idealism dies a tragic death. How many of us can claim that we have loved unconditionally? I know I haven't. The way I see it is that if we feel that we love someone 'apparently' unconditionally, we are badly mistaken. You would agree that there can't be love more unconditional than that of parents for their children. Even in parents-children relationship, parents subconsciously expect love/respect from their children in return of nurturing and care that they impart as a part of their duty towards their children. If world's most esteemed love relationship can't be devoid of conditions, I don't believe there is any other relationship that can be. Even the love relationship with God is conditional. We do it for our own selfish reasons. We, the religious ones, feel at peace with ourselves and the folks around us if we meditate in the name of God every now and then. Similarly, in romantic relationships, we love to be loved back. If we are not loved back and still constantly keep loving the other person, we do it because it makes us happy to see our loved one happy; conditional again. :) There is no such thing as 'unconditional love'. Love is just love. Give and be ready to get hurt if it is not reciprocated. Talk about coincidence - someone just signed in on my MSN with the screen name: "You never lose by loving. You lose by holding back". Having said that, WHAT is LOVE?! Abhi just asked me on MSN if I've ever been in love before. Have I? I don't know. The question 'what is love?' still remains. Am I even capable of Love because E tells me that people like me are not capable of loving or knowing what love really is. When asked for a reason, he said that I shouldn't question him.

"We're all strong souls and then we FALL in love", says Abhi. Heck, it is a lot better than my statement that love is for the weak minded - I haven't been in love yet; the day I am, I'll be a believer. After all this contemplation, I feel queasy. Here I was thinking that love is this fabulous emotion at the beginning of this post and now I am not even sure what love is. Go figure.

Thoughts recollected. Love, to me, is when I don't have to pretend, lie about anything or let guilt engulf my convictions towards the one I love. Love, to me, is that even if he goes and gets plastic surgery done tomorrow, I'd still accept him as he is. That does go with Abhi's analogy of acceptance. Love could be acceptance - acceptance of what I see and live with. Acceptance of the fact that no one besides the one I love can make me happy like he can. Acceptance that my life revolves around him and I'd want to stop breathing if he weren't around. Acceptance in turn translates to contentment. Once we are content with what we have, we are in love. BINGO! Now the question arises, how do we attain contentment? Again, when we don't have to pretend, or to lie or feel guilty about any of our actions, rest assured contentment has been attained. To sum it up, make sure you surround yourself with people who you don't have to lie to in order to hide your flaws and as a result, not carry the burden of a guilt ridden conscience. That would make you content with yourself, content with your surroundings, catalyze acceptance of folks that give you your space and let you be yourself, and finally, with patience and in time, you'll decide on one (hopefully one) of the accepted folks around you to sex up 'forever'. Eternal happiness in the form of love being the aim of the struggle we call Life.

Comments from my other blog on this topic ...

Evolution of Perception

2005-10-21T12:21:00.001-07:00

Have you ever reached that realization point in your life where everything that had made perfect sense up until then loses all its meaning instantaneously? Has it ever occured to you that you might deserve better than whatever you've been dreaming of acquiring all your life? Has your definition of "best" evolved with time? It has for me, I realized today. What I thought was 'best' for me a year ago or a month ago for that matter certainly does not coincide with my requirements of 'best' today. It is a dangerous realization though, I have to admit, because if I keep it in consideration, I'd never be able to settle for anything in hopes of getting something better in the future. Human nature, you say? Never content ...

well perhaps.

Where do you draw the line and settle? How can contentment go hand in hand with passion of ambition? How do you know when to draw the line especially in relationships? I know I've always had troubles with it. If I thought A is good for me, B would come along and I'd start seeing A's cons. Similarily, I'd start witnessing B's cons when C'd come along. It has been a never ending process. Those close to me know the trend quite well. :p No surprize I've maintained the 'singledom' as long as I have. heh My singlehood is really not a consequence of me smelling bad as you would've thought. I do shower however infrequent its occurence might be. Ah I digress.

I believe that I write to conduct self therapy sessions as I am today. The predicament of a certain something being the 'best' for me just for now or forever is sort of draining on my energy resources lately. I do feel that it is a 'forever' type of thing but my past experiences advise me strongly against believing what I feel NOW. Confused? So am I. The only logical explanation I can come up with to clear my own confusion is that there is a difference between 'thinking' that something is best for you because of so and so reasons AND 'feeling' that something is best for you because it makes you inherently happy. When it is former, then be assured that 'best' is yet to come and if it is latter, chances of it being the actual 'best' are brighter than my table lamp's nasty glow.

hmmmm thoughts still muddled ......... process is called 'growing up'. I am caught up in it.

Until next time,

R - the immature adult

Passion for Truth

2005-10-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

Upon discussing Socrates in class today, Prof emphasized on the importance of passion for truth especially when one is in an educational institution such as the university. What is this truth that we are supposed to be passionate about? Does this truth in question pertain just to us individually or the society on a whole? Does the definition of truth not vary person to person? Does it not vary based on time and place as well? Keeping that in mind, is a “true” definition of “truth” even possible? To repeat my question, what is the truth that we should be passionate about?

If I were to tell you that it’s 3:10 PM when it is 3:10 PM, I would be telling you the truth but if I told you that it's 3:10 PM a minute later when the time actually is 3:11 PM, it would be a lie. Similarly, if I were to claim that it’s day time considering my association of day with sunlight, I would be telling the truth but it certainly won’t be the truth for someone in Asia at the same time. To be a little more specific, religiously and spiritually inclined consider God to be the ultimate truth. According to them, everything besides God is materialistic and destructible whilst God is indestructible – water can’t drown God, fire can’t burn God, knife can’t cut God – God is eternally true. Scientists believe everything that can be proved with evidence to support it to be true. A child of 2 years takes everything his parents say to be true. Truth varies to the extent that it can also vary between two family members who’ve lived together for majority of their lives. Adapting to reality concocted by the society is my dad’s truth whilst dreaming and realizing those dreams is my truth. Considering that truth varies even within a fraction of a second, what truth do we accept to be the ultimate truth? It might be the ultimate truth for us but it won’t be for someone else. If it is not anyone else’s truth, what evidence do we have that it is the ultimate truth?

Let’s say, we do manage to convince ourselves that our truth is the final and the only truth and others are merely ignorant for not being able to see through. What’s next? Convincing other people of our truth? Or be passionate about living our truth to make the world a better place to live?

Ah I am confused.

To be continued ...

Blast(s) from the past

2005-10-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Zindagi tez .. bohut tez chali ho jaise (life moved too fast, it seems)

Whilst reading my psychology text, it struck me that I’ve lost so many friends in my life. I can’t say about anyone else but I personally have met a plenty of people in my life (lucky me), made friends with them, and somehow, on the way, we lost touch and now I am not aware about their whereabouts. It includes a bunch of people around whom my life used to revolve during various phases of my life. My day didn’t start without having a chat with them. My day didn’t go by at all if I didn’t hear from them at least once. My day didn’t end without wishing them good night. We had fun times together, life went on, they went their way due to whatever circumstances and I went on mine (or the lack of). Now, when I look back, I miss them. Life would be like a bouquet of flowers – assortment of sorts – if I had all of those friends back in my life but I have to admit with a sigh and a heavy heart that it’s not possible. Things have to carry on as they are. I will have to meet newer people, make newer friends, who might leave me eventually as well. Nothing is permanent.

Saints, religious scriptures, prophets have long emphasized on the fact that whatever you see around yourself with naked eye is all destructible and hence, we shouldn’t attach ourselves to the extent that it’s difficult to detach. But we are human, aren’t we? We have a tendency to attach ourselves to things/people we love and therefore, undergo heartaches upon detachment which, we should know, was bound to happen. Try as we may, attachment occurs, hurt occurs, tears flow, but life’s pace doesn’t change – it continues to go on. What we are left in the wake of such ‘life experiences’ are memories. Memories - we end up attaching ourselves to again. The good times spent with the ones lost in the turmoil of life somewhere - the good memories - that stick around to haunt you at worst times possible. Jagjit Singh and boy bands, thus, get an audience.

S got married, got a job, got busy and I was busy with my life – don’t even know where she is now. There was a time when I spent my days talking to her, when the only purpose of my life was to tell her about everything that went on in my head, when I wanted to protect her from all the evils in the world and thought she’d do the same for me as well … forever. Forever is a tricky word indeed. One of the ‘easier said than done’ concepts. How many times and how frequently have we seen young teen lovers express the ‘forever love’ to each other in high school? How long does it usually last? Certainly not forever. Even I have some birthday cards that I got from friends I vaguely remember. They are signed off with “forever friends, xyz”. Forever Friends? I can’t even recall when we were friends or how some of these forever friends of mine looked like. So is life, I am told. People move on and should learn to move on to the best of their abilities. Leave the past behind, concentrate on present with a vision of the future in mind. But I am who I am because of my past, am I not? How can I forget who I am? How can I forget what made me who I am? How can I forget my past?

I want everyone who gave love to me, who I gave love to, who I spent time with, who I spent my energy on, my money on (at times) to build a substantial relationship BACK into my life. It’s payback time. My efforts put in to build relationships with them need be awarded. “Tamanna phir machal jaaye agar tum milne aa jaao (desire will be awakened again if you come to meet me)”, croons Jagjit Singh and I listen. Logical reasoning holds no value at this moment. Emotions have blinded all thought processes. The nights I spent talking to P regarding her relationship (that probably doesn’t even exist anymore) issues were pointless? Maybe they were because I don’t even know where P is anymore. No email. No phone. No address. No contacts whatsoever. Why not? No clue either. Just … got … lost … somewhere.

This leads to my question for today – “why do we put all our resources into some relationships, platonic and otherwise, that might not have a life longer than that of a housefly?” My dad advises me against them. Exactly because of the reasons I mentioned in the last four paragraphs. I expect the world famous “I told you so” to be shouted in my left ear if my father ends up reading my babble in today’s post. Left because I’ll cover my right ear with my right hand since I am right handed and impulse is to lift right hand to cover right ear if I want to cover one ear. I can’t cover both ears when father is talking to me; the one ear that can be covered would be my right one, therefore, shouting shall be done into the left one. That aside, back to the point, why why why? Why do we keep making new friends and letting some of the old ones go? Well, maybe because we are conditioned to live in the present and it is human nature to be hopeful. If you fall a few times while learning to pedal, it doesn’t mean that you stop learning to ride a bicycle (unless you are my mother or sister). Need I say more?

Conclusion being - let’s live on by keeping the past in mind, living in the present by not repeating mistakes in the past, and envisioning the future to keep hope and passion in life alive (fingers crossed). As for past memories, bitter and sweet, they’re like treasures deserving of being saved in a gold treasure chest, which should be opened time and again – not to be regretful but to remind us that we are human – full of emotion, love, and attachment for the ones we love. Detachment is an ongoing struggle; those who do attain it are saints whilst I still am not.

A link to Archana's blog entry on past/lost relationships as well. :)

Love - Bitter/Sweet?

2005-10-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

Love, a topic I am trying to explore for a few days now – perhaps initiated by the unwelcome arrival of the popular Indian channel ATN to our house late August, thanks to my brother’s interest in cricket. Instead of him being glued to the idiot box, it was me who watched more than my fair share of hindi dramas/movies to last me another 8 years – that’s how long ago it was when I saw my last hindi drama. The bold theme of every movie that bollywood churns, as you must be well aware, is love between (non-incest) lovers of opposite sex. The bolly-love, as I like to call it, is always strong enough to resist all misunderstandings, fights, troubles, unfortunate circumstances; it is the “do or die” type of love – enough to make a silly romantic like me go dizzy in the head.

Talking about being a ‘romantic’, many of my friends would disagree with me when I call myself a silly romantic but to be honest, even I, the evil pessimist, have managed, at times, to imagine hopping across the peaks of snow laden mountains hand in hand with a still-unknown lucky bleep skipping happily to romantic tunes. Yep, those are the repercussions of watching too many hindi movies. You become delusional, or do you? Is it just a fantasy to love someone so much that you would move Taj Mahal to Calgary if she wanted you to? Or is it in fact possible? I’ve had a few claim their love for me but I am yet to see the “I’ll do anything for you” materialize from majority – maybe I don’t give a chance to those who might just do anything for me because I am afraid of committing or maybe, going by who I did give a chance to, it is true that the ‘bolly-love’ in discussion is nothing but a delusion.

That reminds me of another thing that my general studies professor mentioned in class today – What is the ultimate reality? We had a heated debate in class. Some said it is God, some said everyone’s point of view is reality, or everyone’s definition of reality is reality. At the end, we reached the conclusion that reality is conflicting viewpoints which meet at a breakpoint that can only be created through discourse between sources of differing viewpoints. Abstract, huh? But if we look at it closely, when a clash happens, we have a tendency to render the other person with a different point of view as either stupid or crazy or evil in some cases – we tend to do that when there is no evidence of substantial discourse between us and the other individual. Example, Hitler would be branded ‘evil’ by pretty much every Jew – why? Well, because if a Jew tried to have a discourse with Hitler, what would happen? The jew would be shot dead by Hitler before the poor jew could even utter a word. No discourse. Hence, the title of evilness is bestowed upon Hitler. Interesting twist or what?

Coming back to the issue of ‘love’, yes, of course, I want to selflessly love someone one day - someone who doesn’t even share DNA with me. I want to be able to keep his happiness prime no matter what I do. I want to be reminded of him every time I inhale and exhale. I want life to, appear as if it has stopped if he isn’t around just like the Tere Naam song goes: “tere bina na mumkin hai zindagi ka guzara sanam” (Living is impossible without you).

Idealism does carry you a long way until harsh reality of life hits you rite in the face and your plane fuelled by idealistic romantic movies crashes leaving you impaired. Talking from personal experience, recently, I was all for love – like I mentioned – thanks to ATN, until a couple of days ago when a certain revered individual (let’s call him X) told another revered individual-lette (let’s call her Y) that he couldn’t commit to her because his parents might not be happy with his association with her in the long run. That is cool by me but what is not cool is the fact that X has been trying to convince Y for the past 5 years that he is madly in love with her and now when it’s time to make some serious decisions, he has blue balls and he’s tripping. Pardon my French but what fuckin love was he claiming all these years? His argument is that he has to keep his parents happy by making the ultimate sacrifice of his love for Y. Pardon my French again, BULL and SHIT! That’s certainly not what my hindi movies told me reality was :(. In my cinematic world, X has to ditch his family and elope with Y whilst his parents will come to terms with his decision eventually. Am I asking for too much? That aside, why profess love to someone if you can’t live up to it? Maybe my definition of love is REALLY altered, maybe I AM brain-washed (thx sanjay leela bhansali) but if I believe that if someone tells you that he is madly in love with you for 5 years consistently - he might actually mean it, am I nuts? Exactly the reason Y believed that X was in love with her which apparently he still claims to be true BUT he can’t go through with it because his parents are against it. Where is the director Aditya Chopra when you need him for a DDLJ remake?

Situations, circumstances, experiences turn a tender heart (like me), a romantic by birth, into a bitter, viciously cynical realist. Should I really be discriminated against for being a realist? Sorry, Bollywood, I failed you :(. You tried your best, I just couldn’t swallow the sweet pill with water or apple juice or even Clamato with a tinge of Tabasco – I tried.

Signing off

Still

…...Bitter

………....Sweet

Passage of Time

2005-10-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

I think back to the time in India when I was allowed by parents to go to school by myself on a bicycle, I was in Grade 6 then - 11 years old. The excitement of being independent to a degree was far too intoxicating than a shot of tequila after a couple of beers. I remember one time when I was late for school and I decided to cut a bus off - a bus that I figured was stopping at the stop like it should which it didn't. Once I realized that the bus was too close behind me, I was petrified and my right foot slipped off the pedal. Before I knew, I was on the road - my right knee scraped red, my right thumb blue and swollen in pain, my eyes - the usual white and brown - with crystal clear tears, and my school uniform covered in dirt - mostly the right side for I fell on the right side. The bus behind me, thankfully, screeched to a halt. People of all shapes and sizes walked towards me to assist me up. Seeing their concern, I got up half-crying, half-smiling, and decided to pedal to school before I got too late. Out of all the people there, I clearly remember an old lady who came up to me, brushed the dirt off my skirt and kissed me on my forehead. Smiling, I finally did pedal to school where I successfully managed to bail out of a geography test that morning, thanks to my injured thumb.

As I grew older, my bicycle was upgraded from a lowly Atlas to the Hero Generation X - black with an orange streak. I had the most happening bicycle in my friend circle. My trips to and back from school started getting more interesting with the arrival of the new bike. I used to go to school with my best friend - me on my Gen X and her on her lightweight Avon (if I remember correctly). I remember us wearing designer hats to protect ourselves from the angry sun during the summer afternoons when we rode back home from school. It was quite a trend around that time. Nike hats were more popular than the black and white Addidas one I had. I tried to wait it out for the trend to sway into my favor but it didn't happen. Time had arrived when I needed to go shopping for a Nike hat, which I did, and got myself a black hat with a green hood, and of course, the bold white Nike symbol in the front. "Just do it" was the catch phrase of the time and I was now officially a part of the time. No matter how good 'the' hat in question might have been to my adoloscent self esteem, it did little to protect my pretty face from the harsh loo that'd hit me like I was its only enemy. Loo, gusts of hot air, made sure that it give its best to burn me alive if I wasn't wearing a burka or riding in a fully air conditioned car. That reminds me of my cousin who is six years older than me. She was in college at that time and she is what you would typically call extremely fair in India. I remember her going to college all wrapped up in her dupatta around her face, with sunglasses to cover her eyes, gloves on her hands, a full sleeved shirt with full legged pants, flying on her Bajaj Chetak. It was a hilarious sight indeed but I guess it was a necessity for her to preserve her family legacy of unbelievably bleached skin. It was an honor to be fair. Considering all the presented evidence, I have reached the conclusion that I shall blame the heat in the islamic nations for the invention of burka, not the fundamentalists.

As I grew even older, my Generation X started collecting dust in our garage whilst I started taking my lion king err Kinetic Honda - black with an orange streak that I specifically got painted on - out for a spin. We couldn't take my lion to school because of parking problems but we, me and my best friend, used to go cruising on it almost every evening. One such evening, I decided to go off-road and enjoy the unpaved reality of India. My best friend, Karen, was sitting on the pillion behind me, her legs one way since she was wearing a skirt. I'm driving along, merrily chatting with Kar, that I realized that Kar hadn't answered me in a while. I jokingly asked her if she was still awake. No answer. I stopped and looked behind me. No signs of Kar. She had vanished into thin air which seemed impossible considering her size. Heavy on the hips, vertically challeged, low center of gravity - nah, she couldn't have evaporated. I turned around and retraced my track. Five minutes down the bumpy road, I spotted her visibly annoyed. If we weren't that far from our homes as we were, there was no reason for me to stop and get hammered by her. I had to stop and so I did. Restraining my laughter, I asked, "How the heck did you manage to do this?". She answered in a voice full of anger while pointing towards a pothole, "I SLID OFF THE SCOOTER WHEN U BUMPED INTO THAT POTHOLE". To that, I burst out laughing at the risk of being labelled 'evil'. I had tried but couldn't restrain being thoroughly amused. "Why didn't you yell at me to stop?" I questioned suppressing laughter again. "I DID but you were too busy talking to yourself, you knucklehead", was the fiery response. I laughed some more till I almost ran out of breath, got off the scooter, gave her a hug and let her drive us home.

Time went by, I grew older, almost 14, and I upgraded to the Vespa two-wheeler which did not manage to take my darling lion's place. Hence, I downgraded myself to Kinetic again out of love and respect for our good memories together. I was officially in love. Status didn't matter to me anymore. Only true love did. We had made it through thick and thin together. We were joined at the hip - me and my lion king. I was so attached to it that when I got into an accident once, I cried not because I was hurt but because my lion king got scraped up. I had got into a fight with my friend and decided to take it out on the road by speeding. Road reciprocated and threw me and my baby flying off a speed bump. My mother cried too. I still have some scars from the incident; they remind me of my baby, my darling, my lion, that someone – I wouldn’t know who – eventually bought from my grandparents when I moved to Canada with my parents.

And I grew older.

Seriously? Violence? Abuse?

2005-10-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

I'm going to talk about an issue which is very close to my heart ... abuse ... primarily physical abuse ... I remember seeing an ad on TV about child phys abuse ... a mom beats up a kid, you could hear her beating him in the background while the camera is focussed on a sad looking little brown teddy bear in the shades of a closet ... at the end the ad said, only if teddies could talk ... hmm it sure touched a chord with me cuz i could relate to it ... there have unfortunately been many a times where life has brought me to junctions where i've prayed and hoped that teddies did talk. personal experience says it never happens.

All of us are aware that physical abuse does happen ... not in one society, but in all. No matter what the reason might be ... poverty, drug abuse or just plain resistance to change ... it does happen. All of us know and accept that. We try not to talk about it cuz what's the point of talking about something so ugly if we can't bring about any reforms? Well, there IS a point talking about it. To create awareness. It should be talked about at all social functions, at all family gatherings, bars, clubs, homes .. everywhere. It should be denounced, our kids should be taught against it, perpetrators (u wont even know who) need to hear from various sources that what they are doing is WRONG. maybe after hitting the hammer on the nail a few times, nail might go into the plank. there is hope if not certainty.

Most of the victims in any case scenario of physical abuse is either a woman or a child. Most of the times the perpetrators are not even aware of the after-effects of the abuse on the victims ... they are not aware of the life-altering effects that are taking place within the victim besides the bruising that might go away in a few days ... they are not aware that they are emotionally, spiritually mauling their 'loved ones' who they hit to correct out of love and care at times ... what is it? it's ignorance. Lack of knowledge of better means to deal with problems. For parents those who hit their children, they shouldnt even be having children in the first place ... they are still kids themselves. They should learn to curb their anger and start rationalizing their thoughts in a postive way before reacting. For spouses who hit each other, what example are you setting for your kids really? Should you even be together?

I understand that it's tough for women to leave an abusive relationship ... for children to leave their abusive parents ... that's exactly why abuse prevails in the first place because the perpetrators KNOW that they can get away with it ... but we NEED to create awareness that no they CANNOT get away with it. Women don't have to stay in those relationship out of societal obligations or any other sort of dependency (example: financial) on their husband ... true it's hard ... seems almost impossible ... but it can be done! With AWARENESS and support from society, we can make a little progress towards helping many such innocents out of a life of constant degradation. We need to realize how wrong physical abuse is and we NEED to express that every now and then, every chance we get, get the word out ... let everyone be aware that it's WRONG to hit anyone! Message will drive home eventually.

Many pennies combined make a dollar. All of us gotta try, do a little on our parts - whatever it is that we might do, and trust me, end result definitely will be positive if not phenomenal.

God Bless

Stupidity revisited

2005-10-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not stupid, you are stupid - a dialogue I picked up from a conversation between a father and his 15 yr old son at the dinner table; the initiator of the dialogue was the father. It sent me on a rollercoaster of thoughts as usual. Who is in fact the stupid one out of the two? The son who barely knows what 'maturity' is or the father who apparently is still not mature enough to render a child stupid. Then again, maturity is, as is stupidity, only an abstract term. There are no substantial parameters that can be used to set up a definition for 'maturity' in its truest sense. We have no means to claim that so-and-so is mature because he/she does this and that; it is quite possible that he/she has some other qualities that we might render as immature. At the end, it boils down to the ever so infamous 'theory of perception' that I strongly feel the need to publish a book on one day.

My personal perception of the aforementioned dialogue favors the child aka the son and is against the adult aka the father. Being a good parent does not only refer to providing for the basic needs of a child that two consenting adults brought into this world. It involves building a human being in all senses from scratch. A child, when born, is a clean slate. Whatever experiences he/she goes through as he/she grows up is instrumental in shaping his/her character, personality, and in some cases, vocation as well. The parents' job is to be a positive influence in their child's life, an endless reeserve of unconditional love and support for their child so that he/she doesn't have to go outside in search of other sources of love. It's a necessity on parents' behalf to create a channel of communication with their child based on values such as trust, compromise, understanding and honesty to prevent their child from going astray. Logic is pretty simple - if we know that the foundation of our house is crumbling, the pillars would give way anytime soon, we would definitely move out and look for a better, stable house to move in. Similarily, when a child does not find his/her pillars of strengths at home, he/she goes in search of a better home. Since every child in such a situation hits zero self-esteem point at some time or other, he/she may end up making drastically adverse decisions such as serious involvement in drugs and alchohol. Considering all that, if you were to ask me if the father was correct in calling his son stupid, I disagree. Let's assume, the father put his son down in front of other people, the son suffered a huge blow to his self esteem due to lack of maturity perhaps, he gets agressive with his father and in general as well, he rebels to recapture dignity he apparently lost to his father's insults, and ta-da, he is off to la la land, never to come back. Who is to blame for a life lost?

This instance also ties in with another field that holds major interest for me - self fulfilling prophecy. Scientists and philosophers have long believed and strongly support the 'self fulfilling prophecy' with evidence from various experiments conducted all over the world. As the name indicates, self fulfilling prophecy emphasizes on positive reinforcement as a tool in building successful relationships and most obviously, good parenting. For example, if you constantly rebuke your child for being lazy and worthless, that's what you are going to get in return from your child - a lazy and a relatively worthless fella. It has been proved time and again to be true. On the other hand, if you make sure you appreciate your children when they do something good, the frequency of them doing something good increases significantly. I have witnessed parents first hand who ignore the 'something good' completely as if it didn't exist and constantly focus on the 'something bad'; when questioned, their response is, "Well, whatever good she's doing, that's good already. We don't need to work on that; we need to work on what she's doing wrong.", which I find highly entertaining. They singlehandedly manage to refute what the world's Pavlovs put years of research in. It could be a lack of knowledge on the parents' part but, from where I see it, it's majorly a lack of maturity in them to be not able to listen to a different point of view and attempt to compromise at some level. If you are unable to compromise with your child when needed, you should not expect your child to compromise with you at any point either. He/she might live the life you want him/her to in order to keep you happy - it's a human need to please the ones we hold near and dear but, sooner than later, the world built around your child's fake persona, false hopes, false dreams, lies and dishonesty crumbles, and it's usually too late by that point in time. Not only would you have lost respect in your child's eyes, but also, you would have lost your child.

We've all often heard - 'Behind every successful man, there is a strong woman' - which brings me to my next point that behind every successful man/woman, there is a strong set of parents/family. Man is a social animal; we need to socialize, build strong networks amongst our community to build confidence in ourselves and accomplish anything we set our goals at. In order to socialize and be able to build that network, we need a strong family support where we know we can fall back on without being judged too harshly for the mistakes we would probably make in the course of our life. Getting back on topic, if a child wastes most of her energy on making sure that her parents won't punish her for the mistakes she might make in the run of life, there is not much of a chance of productivity to the fullest of her potential. Maybe I am just using this platform to vent my unused energy or maybe I am genuinely interested in creating awareness about issues that I hold close to my heart. Whatever I say is based on my personal experiences; I wouldn't be happier if my experiences could possibly change someone's life for better and perhaps, in the long run, assist in putting 'child welfare centers' out of business. Awareness need be created about issues like the one I raised in this piece of writing - issues that are deemed not so important; children of today are the saviors of tomorrow - we need to realize that and work collectively as a society to build a strong foundation for our children using love, care and understanding. Creating a life is pleasurable, seeing the life you created be a strong, successful human being is gratifying.

An apple a day keeps the DOCTOR AWAY!

2005-10-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

Call me judgmental or biased but every time I come across an East Indian doctor, I have this undeniable urge to call him/her Reverend XYZ instead of the ‘politically correct’ Dr. XYZ for their incredible sacrifice to the cause of eligible bachelorhood and esteemed societal status. Bestowing reverence upon those who got onto the sacred path of medicine by choice seems rather unfair but there is a valid reason for it – they were brain washed (maybe? perhaps? slightest chance?). We (a selective breed, mind you) are practically raised to be doctors and perhaps in some cases, engineers or lawyers. I do not have much of a memory of playing with toy cars or barbies for that matter (could be an early onset of Alzheimer’s perhaps), but I do clearly remember playing with a stethoscope and fake needles which, I have reasons to believe, were presented to me even before the gynaecologist could separate me from my mother. I sometimes wonder if there would have been any wars in the world today in the name of WMDs had Einstein been born in an east Indian family.

A large population and a shortage of available resources in India bags the much deserved credit for the constant pressure on children there to strive to be the best (a physician). If you are unwilling to compromise your integrity, or you don’t have a godfather in politics or the much talked about Bollywood, your best bet is a career as a physician to afford a decently extravagant lifestyle for yourself and your family. In addition to that, a doctorate in human anatomy quantifies your intelligence and makes you most lucrative for DNA replication purposes. What more can a parent ask for? A physician son/daughter with a physician spouse in a country supposedly downtrodden with poverty – ah snap out of it – it’s only a figurative scenario. Every year, many attempt to achieve what million others are striving for – few pass, most fail – some get back up and some never manage to get back up again. A few of those who never manage to get back up again could’ve been influential musicians, artists, inventors but being in the time consuming rat race towards physician-hood, they never had a chance to discover their potential. You be the judge – blame who you might for the waste of talent and creativity in a nation that can easily be classified as the world’s largest growing manpower. Blame lack of resources, population pressure, competition, corruption, or perhaps blame the undying hope in parents for a better lifestyle than their own for their children or just guiltlessly blame my useless ability to hallucinate and exaggerate.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no personal vendetta against doctors (ya rite) but I do feel the need to put my foot down when parents try to live their dreams through their children which, majority of the time - in east indian society - is becoming a doctor. I am yet to meet a proud new parent who hasn’t failed to tell me of the future they’ve decided for their child. My aunt, who has two sons, declared to me after the birth of her second son that her first born would be a doctor while the second one can be an engineer if he likes. There is nothing wrong with having dreams but us, as a society, need to start opening up to the changing world and let our new generation decide what’s best for them. They need the freedom to decide what they want to live with rather than us imposing our dreams and aspirations on them. They need positive criticism, encouragement and most important of all, mental and emotional support for all the decisions they make to be healthy successful adults.