You are more than what you eat!

The Great Indian Kitchen (Malayalam; 2021)

After being denied by many OTT channels, because of the Sabarimala Trials' running narration in the background, it made its presence in an obscure platform, NeeStream in Kerala.

No, this is not a cooking show showcasing the numerous mouth-watering cuisines from the Indian kitchens. Instead, it is an India bashing film to portray the slave-like conditions in which some Indian brides live as 24/7 cook, wife, servant, and gardener. Simultaneously, in this particularly orthodox Hindu household, she is locked away in a small room away from everybody view for a good one week every month. She is considered dirty and should not be allowed to prepare food, as it is regarded as a divine duty to feed the family's males. 

Coming from a family with liberal views on women empowerment (the protagonist was a traditional dancer in a previous life!), she flips one day. She was done with making adjustments to fit in every time. She called it quits and resumes her former life as a Bharat Natyam teacher.

Surprisingly, female gender had been typecast to play second fiddle in a typified patriarchal society. What happened to the likes of Ubhaya Bharati who had been given the honour of judging a philosophical discourse between Adi Shankara and her husband Mandana Mishra circa 700AD.  When her husband was outclassed by Adi Shankara, she debated with the latter.  

The Vedic society gave equal place for women in society. Pāṇini, 400BCE, the Master Sanskrit Grammarian, advocated women to study the Vedas equally with men. In his Mimamsa School of Philosophy, there were women philosophers. Mahabharata tells of polyandry and strong female characters. What gave? Did the meddling of Indian education by the British and Abrahamic religions dismantle an already functional traditional education system?

Many traditional societies view menstruation as unclean body fluid, and many restrictions are attached to it. 

Sinu Joseph, an engineer by qualification and a menstrual educator, has researched much into traditional Indian outlook and tries to give an Ayurvedic scientific explanation to the body during that time of the month.

According to the agama shastras, each temple is designed to energise a specific chakra. By extension, each temple can have a particular impact on the body, and even a different effect on the male and female body. 

This is also used to explain why menstruating women have been barred entry into temples. Traditionally, temples have been looked upon as, not as a place of worship, but as charging pods. Its location concerning magnetic forces of the Earth, its alignment, geometry and placing certain metals within its building makes it an opportune place for sojourners to rejuvenate themselves to meet the challenges of the day. A menstruating body has many internal hormonal circuits to handle, and entering such an institution may have a different impact on the internal milieu. According to the agama shastras, that the author cites several times in her book, each temple is designed to energise a specific chakra. By extension, each temple can have a distinct impact on an individual.  Different restrictions have been placed by other worship houses to a targeted group of the population, i,e, ladies in the reproductive age group and restricted entry into the Sabarimala temple. There are even temples exclusively for women! Men are disallowed here. Talk about a reverse Sabarimala, but nobody talks about it.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Cast in stone or mere sculpturing?

Cast in stone at a local temple for all to see.

At one look, this passage, probably from the scriptures of Manu, must be the most patriarchal statement ever. This marble slab is plastered on the walls of a local Hindu temple. It is proudly placed amongst the many meaningful verses from the Gita. I wonder if anyone takes time to read it, understand its message. If they did, I wonder if they would state their dissatisfaction. Or perhaps request for other more appropriate messages in keeping with the demand of time, space and societal sensitivity! These words may have carried relevance in a different era and in a distinct community milieu. 

One would say that it is cherry-picking if certain parts of the scriptures are blanked out and the ones meeting our agenda are picked up. All words of wisdom should stand the test of time. It should be relevant to the end of times. 

This trend of discussion is nothing new. Even during so-called 'Golden Age of the Islamic civilisation', such discourse apparently took place between the members of the Mu'tazila and Ash'ariyya schools of theology. On the Mu'tazilite end, they argued that the scriptures must only be a guide but the  God-given thinking faculty should prevail above all. Their detractors insisted that the divine inscriptions are beyond perfect. There was no place for human analysis.

I think most of the world problems involving religions are due to a literal translation of the text. No exemption is given to the circumstance it was mentioned. Everyone finds it more comfortable to say their peace, retreat into a cocoon and blame the divine forces if malady should strike. They have no guilt feeling and feel justified even if tragedies are associated with their actions or inactions. The silent God takes the blame.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Changing roles is hard to do!

Parched (Hindi; 2016)

India is said to be a land of contradictions. On one hand, they talk about the might of the feminine power, that the Goddess guarding Earth is Booma Devi, Mother Nature, a matriarchal force. Then they say Shiva is nothing without the power of his better half, that Shiva is nothing without Shakthi and there is no force like the union of Male and Female power, the elixir of life, the essence of life, ShivaShakthi!

Then there is Dussehra which is celebrated as the victory of the good feminine powers over the evil masculine power, the celebrates the killing of demon Mahishasur by Goddess Durga. Dussehra celebration spreads the message of the balance of the world put to order by the positive female energy.

They can talk and write volumes and volumes, in their works of literature, about the greatness of the ladies of the yesteryear and their timeless feat. They donned military garbs to lead kingdoms. They fought for social justice. They wrote great poems in the Purana era and even discussed philosophy. But look at them now, or least in the fringe societies of modern India. They are second class citizens, sometimes persona-non-grata.

The movie highlights the struggles of four female characters in different standings in society. First, there is a lady, Rani, who was widowed young with a marriageable son. Physically abused in her short-lived marriage, she lives as an outcast in her Rajasthan desert village society. Her son, Gulab, is a useless good-for-nothing uneducated loafer who loiters around his worthless pals visiting prostitutes, smoking, getting drunk, heckling others and upholding their rights in a patriarchal society. Gulab's new wife is ridiculed and abused for her cropped hair. Then there is Lajjo, Rani's friend, who is married to an alcoholic and abusive husband, who is ostracised for her inability to bring an heir to the family when all the while the husband knows that he is the one who is firing blanks. The fourth character is Bijli, an exotic dancer who part-times as the village prostitute. Even though she is praised to high heavens and ogled by all men in the village in their stuporous states including the seemingly virtous Elders who claim to upholding morality in the village and youngsters alike, she is shunned by the villagers in civil society.

The multiple award-winning film brings through the journey of the frustrations of the four female characters and their empowerment in a society which scorns literacy amongst the fairer sex. Even though the men are held on the pedestal, their contributions have outlived their usefulness. With the changing of the economic order, the ladies prove their mettle to earn, even more than their male counterpart. This, is a bone of contention amongst members of the male-dominated society.