22

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how could that be.”

The quote is from the movie The Perks of being a Wallflower, and I can relate to it so well right now. I LOVED the movie. Before I watched it, it seemed to be like a regular high school movie, except that it wasn’t. And it has a beautiful soundtrack. I’ve been listening to Heroes by David Bowie since I saw it (‘The Tunnel song’) and my head is swimming with so many thoughts.

I am 22. I’ve always wanted to be 22 since I was a kid. 22 always felt like the most fun age. The ideal age. Not only is 22 my second favourite number, but this is where I always wanted to be! This. Right here. It is like a big cross I had made on the map of my life and I am standing right on top of it. But I realized I had forgotten all about it. I find myself so busy lamenting over my past or worrying about my future that I end up feeling really morbid all the time. I am 22 and I feel like sleeping for a thousand years. I feel like not being aware of the fact that I exist for a while. Till it all gets better. How did it all become so haywire? What happened to my ‘living in the moment’ plan? What happened to all my plans in fact? Wait, did I even have any plans?

Recently one of my most admired teachers randomly walked up to me and said “You’re not alright in life, are you? You’ve lost the twinkle in your eyes. I know something is wrong.” And I was speechless. She had noticed? Is it that apparent? And since then I have been questioning myself. Why? How? I am only 22! I’m still in the phase of my life where I can fix things for myself. I should be able to get over stuff. I need to admit it that I am human, and I am stupid and that I hurt people. And I need to learn from that. I need to grow. I need to accept the fact that I will not get over some people I have lost, and just live with it.

There is a dialogue in the movie “I know we'll all become somebody, we'll all become old photographs and we'll all become somebody's mom and dad. Right now these moments are not stories, this is happening. I'm here.”

It just made me think. It’s okay that some plans didn’t work out. It’s okay that life took a completely unexpected turn. Things happen for a reason. And in the end everything somehow turns okay. Even if right now it feels like life will never ever get any better, come on, it has to. Life still is beautiful, with endless possibilities spread out before you. It is exciting. You don’t know what is going to happen. You don’t know who or where you are going to be. This is really the time to make it all happen. We cannot choose where we came from, but we can choose where we go from here, right?

It’s not too late for anything. I need to find my way. I need to step up to things. Accept my mistakes. Move past them. Maybe life has a different plan. There is another world. A better world, waiting for me. There has to be. And what will I do? I will keep all the memories deep inside me, close to me. I will just embrace life, and walk towards it. That’s my plan, for now.

“The scent of a flower,

The colours of the morning,

Friends to believe in,

Tears soon forgotten,

See how the rain drives away, another day.”

                                                                            --Dusk, by the Genesis

A sleepless night, a running nose and lots of films

(A still from Dziga Vertov's documentary 'Man with a Movie Camera')

It’s been weeks of uncontrollable munching-on-chips every night like a ferret, sipping countless cups of coffee and burning my tongue on it, (#everydamntime) sleeping till my body cannot take it anymore and randomly walking around the campus in a full-on emo fashion. Too dramatic my life has become. And every time I sit at my favourite spots on the campus and look far off into the distance all pensive, I play a Pink Floydish song in my head and imagine I’m this deep, graceful, sensitive protagonist in a movie who is lost and life is teaching her how to actually live. Did ANY of that make sense?

Moving ON. Classes have been very interesting, and inspiring. Doesn’t take much for that inspiration to come crashing to the floor though. I particularly enjoy our Documentary Film Making classes. Which reminds me, I need to buy a camera, and a new laptop. I use a chotu Dell netbook, you see. And even though I love it dearly, it doesn’t suffice for editing and high resolution video playing :/

Anyway, in this post I’d like to talk about some of the movies that were shown to us in the aforementioned Film making classes.

I’m 20: This is a film that was made in 1967 (20 years after India gained Independence) by SNS Sastry. This film contains questions that were asked to people born in 1947, hence, all 20-year-old boys and girls about what they think of India and their hopes, dreams, expectations and predictions about the future. What I absolutely loved about the film was how some of the people who talk in the film were so bright, intellectual; while some of them were nonchalant, or indifferent, and some just plain goofy. Some of them were conservative and shy, while some of them confidently spoke about what they felt. One surprising thing about it is that some of the things said in the movie about India hold true even today; which just proves how much our country still lags behind when it comes to certain aspects.

Amir Khan: This film, made in 1970 by SNS Sastry again, is what you may refer to as a portrait documentary on one of the most influential singers in Indian classical music- Ustad Amir Khan. The film is shot beautifully, depicting the singer, his wife and their son in their simple, private moments. The interviewees are not shown talking, their voices are heard while the candid videos reveal the simplistic lifestyle and the complexities of Amir Khan’s life. I loved the way there is an ethereal, poetic feel to the entire movie, where the singer’s music and couplets are sprinkled in generous amounts throughout. As our guest teacher, Mukul Kishore says, “Sastry does the most outrageous things in his movies and makes you feel there was no other way to do it.”

Night and Fog: Made in 1955, directed by Alain Resnais, Night and Fog is a French film which reveals the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. It shows the abandoned grounds of Auschwitz and Majdanek and has used a lot of real footage of the camps. All of us, including our teacher was in tears after watching this one. We were so speechless we actually had to take a ten-minute break before we could get down to discussing it. It is extremely graphic and disturbing, and the language used to describe the brutality of man is beautiful and impactful. This one should be seen, no matter who, where or how you are.

Something like a War: Made in 1991, this film is about India’s family planning program from the point of view of the women. Through the movie, the film maker Deepa Dhanraj, has exposed the problems, corruption and the cynicism against the methods used to sterilize women all over India. Yet another example of the oppression of women.

An Indian Day: Directed by S.Sukhdev in 1968, this film tries to depict every aspect of India, and succeeds in doing so too. The film maker travelled all over the country and shot India in the most beautiful, ethereal and raw manner, and then mischievously edited it and put everything together so as to expose the various contradictions and conundrums that make up our country what it is. It is a treat to the eyes, and should be seen for the beautiful shots, its randomness and satirical nature.

Mirror of Holland: Shot in 1950 by Bert Haanstra, is a documentary film about the Netherlands. The entire movie is made up of shots that are reflections inside water! How amazing is that? The camera moves over the water as it goes from the countryside to the city, rippling and moving with the music. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. Crazy, yet beautiful.

Meat: Made in 1967, it shows how goats are caught, made to walk in a line, killed; and then gutted, slaughtered and turned into food for people like us. If there was ever a time when I was thankful I am a vegetarian, it was when I saw this movie. It is almost inhuman how these animals are treated and killed, and the poor things do not know they are going to die till the very last moment. It gave me the chills. And sorry to disappoint my non-vegetarian friends again, no, I don’t think I can turn non-veg.

Explorer: Pramod Pati shot this film in 1968 for Films Division. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this film and realized that the Government was open to such experimental films in those times. This film uses no dialogues or voice overs; just bizarre shots of people, cultural artifacts  religious idols, ‘Om’ symbols, extreme close-ups of ecstatic teenagers, amidst other random things. All of this accompanied by sounds of cymbals, ghunghroos, etc. There are associations between modernity and culture, between religion and spirituality, between the urban India and the traditional India. The images whizz by you so swiftly they hardly give you any time to register it in your head, but the overall impact of the film is intense. Watch this film for the seemingly sheer absurdity, which actually has a deeper significance.

These are but a few examples of the many films we watched in class. It amazes me how powerful a camera can be, and the potential it has to touch people, move them, make them think, make them change. Now that we have to make a documentary ourselves as part of our course, I'm looking forward to start thinking, shooting and producing something that I will be able to call my own piece of work. It will not be easy, but I’m hoping it will be worth it.

Mind over matter

You know what?

The mind is a vile, corrosive, self-destructive time bomb just waiting to lead you head-on to your doom. It fills your head with despicable thoughts, it makes you stay awake all night thinking of all the abysmal things you have done and are doing in life, in compels you to lie in a foetal position all day watching mindless, borderline funny sitcoms huddled up inside your blanket like a cat, and it makes you gulp down cups of coffee hoping it might put some energy into your system.

 You know what else it does?

It secretes all the wrong hormones at all the wrong times; it makes you stare at a million open tabs on your screen without making you do any sort of work; it makes you want to cry out loud for the sheer impossibility of the situation it has put you into; it makes you feel like the days are long, but secretly the evil thing makes the time seem to move faster than ever. Why we had to be the ‘superior’ species with more intelligence than all the other animals, I fail to understand. I would rather be frolicking about naked in a jungle hunting for food, scratching my head, infested with termites and fleas with predators lurking around me than be in this situation. Or you know what? Maybe we are not as intelligent as we think we are. Seriously, is any one of us completely happy in this concrete, swarming, claustrophobic, noisy, blood-thirsty, stinking world we have created around us? A quote by Douglas Adams comes to mind at this juncture:

“On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

Let’s get back to the vicious little thing the mind is.

It makes you write down pretentious text-book words like ‘juncture’ that you had learnt in high school; it makes you over-analyze things so much that you end up taking the wrong decisions; it makes your very survival on this planet seem almost impossible; it makes you want to scream, and say horrible things to people, and screw your life over. It makes you cry. Oh my dear GOD how it makes you cry.

Rock, paper, scissors. If only it was that simple. If only there was a Backspace button. If only people had a better control over the devil that resides inside their skulls. It also plays tricks on you. As a friend put it, it makes you feel “confused, angry, dejected, randomly optimistic and happy, then suddenly completely blah and fucked in the head a few minutes later”. It makes you go back in time and repeat scenarios differently over and over in your head till you feel you’d go insane. It has the potential to make every situation, every face, every song seem hollow. It is the one that makes you write such optimistic blog posts at 6:45 in the morning when your sleep-deprived body screams for some sleep.

And then it has the nerve to slyly sneak up on your shoulder and whisper “You got what you wanted. Are you happy now?”

Out of the shadows, into the light

I can vividly recall the thin pair of dry lips and the set of orangish tobacco-stained teeth peeping from behind as he used to grin at me. Raju was my middle-aged driving instructor when I was eighteen, and I remember how excited as I was on the first day of class when I sat behind the steering wheel of a grey Maruti 800. I never did notice the first few signs. When he brushed his hands against me, and touched me as he helped me with the gears. Too excited I was, to learn how to drive. To be free.

It happened on a tricky bend on a road when I was looking behind while putting the reverse gear. I felt his hand grabbing my left breast. At that time, I just froze. Too shocked to move. It was a deserted area and I felt utterly helpless. Then he unabashedly squeezed my thigh as he told me what a fast learner I was. I jerked away, I screamed at him, and all he did was smirk back at me. I fought back tears of fury as I drove back home and locked myself in my room. The revulsion was so extreme and so sinister that I pictured myself stabbing his gut with a knife again and again. I felt disgusted, and I felt like a coward, the weaker sex who is suppressed and who chose to do nothing. The anger continued to froth, and bubble and boil until it erupted and I wept my heart out.

Even though this was only one of the many incidents I had to face apart from being followed, stalked, sneered at, touched, groped, and hear disgusting remarks, I never had the courage to do anything about it. This is the fist time I am talking about it in public, and it is because Jyoti's incident has given me the guts to do it. When I thought about what I felt that day in my room as hot tears streamed down my face, I couldn’t even imagine what the women who get raped, abused, beaten, molested, tortured, burned, belted, hammered, stripped, bludgeoned feel. I have been trying to write about Jyoti’s death for quite some time now, but there is just so much inside me that I never quite managed to put it into coherent sentences. But I shall at least try.

As journalism students, we were following the case very closely and the morning when I received the news of her death, I spent the entire day reading articles about her to an extent when I simply could not read any further. Her death affected me. Her death affected all of us. The level of human monstrosity compelled everyone to come out on the streets and scream with fury and frustration. Till two days back, we did not even know her name. What we do know, is that she was assaulted so brutally that she lost her intestines. And after 13 days of unthinkable, agonizing pain, her life. Who is to be blamed? The girl, whose only offence was to go out for a movie with a friend? Or the perpetrators who had the nerve to commit the heinous crime? Is it our judiciary system? Our leaders? Our government?

A recent article I read echoed my thoughts completely when the writer wrote that the thing with rape is that it is not about sex at all. It is about power. When a man sees a woman in a short skirt walking with her friends and laughing, it’s not that he gets uncontrollably aroused and pounces on her. The guy pounces on her when he sees her independence and boldness as a threat to his place in the society. ‘How dare she? I’ll put her in her place.’ If rape was all about wearing revealing clothes and venturing out late at night, and being an Indian and not a Bhartiya naagrik, as RSS chief Mohan Bhagvat claims, then how do you explain 70-year-olds and 2-year-olds getting raped in their own houses by their own family members? Rapes, assaults, domestic violence all occur because men feel inherently greater than women. It doesn't matter if the girl is attractive or plain or young or old. They want to do it to make her feel terrified, while they enjoy their sadistic 'masculinity'. It is a way of exercising their control and asserting their superiority over women, just because they happen to have a penis. Bravo.

We may seem to be a country where we worship goddesses and place women on pedestals. In fact, even our country is our ‘maa.’ But let’s face it, the suppression and objectification of women runs rampant since ancient times. It is in our films—where a Shakti Kapoor or a Ranjit raped any woman available and it was shown in full disclosure, while a consensual love-making scene was always showed by a pair of embracing flowers. It is in our songs—where a shameless Honey Singh explicitly states his desire to rape women, and people dance to his music. It is in our everyday profane swear words, which we throw at each other mindlessly. It is in the videos played on our TV sets day by day, which seem to get impossibly vulgar one after the other, of scantily-clad and heavily silicone-filled women gyrating on the most obscene lyrics anyone can even conceive of producing. It runs in the subtle and sometimes outrageous sexist comments that men throw at women; it is when Aasaram Bapu says that Jyoti should have called the rapists her ‘brothers’ and asked for mercy; it is when Mamata Banerjee says that rapes occur due to the increasing interaction between girls and boys; it is when a husband asks her wife to not wear a sleeveless blouse or travel alone; it is when a girl is frowned upon if she has more male friends than female; it is when a woman is winked or whistled or leered at. It runs deep in the system, in the mindset, in the blood; and to find a solution to this deep-seated problem is going to be extremely difficult. I do not know the solution, but I do hope there are people who will come up with it. Meanwhile, we will all do our bit to fight the menace.

Be proud of your body. It is YOUR body. Love it, use it, flaunt it. We shall not succumb to how the chauvinistic men want us to be. It is time to break free. Do not ignore the sexist comments. Kick the next guy who ‘eve-teases’ you a swift kick between the legs. Have male friends. Go out with them. A lot. Have nice, feminist boyfriends who respect your individuality. Take part in protests and answer back to those old aunties who say ‘aaj kal ki ladkiyaan haath se nikal gayi hain.’ Give a piece of your mind to anyone who tells you that a woman’s place in our ‘social system’ is to be a housewife and let the husband take care of her. Scream. SCREAM YOUR LUNGS OUT. Why should we take it? This should have been done way, way back, but at least the people are waking up now. I know Jyoti's life is too big a price to pay to shake the people up out of their complacent stupor, but at least there is some change taking place. Is it the awakening of a whole new India? A safer, better place for women to live in, where they can wear shorts and walk alone out of a pub without being molested or teased or attacked? Or is it all going to die out and women will continue to be mutilated because it is too late to change the monster our country has turned into? 

I sincerely hope it is the first one. It is time we witnessed a revolution. It is time we live in a country where we know that travelling in a bus will not lead us to our own destruction. It is time we step into the light.