RIFLE RANGE BOY

Christiane Amanpour: Sex and Love Around the World (Netflix Documentary, Season 1; 2018) This provocative six-episodes presentation discusses matter considered taboo in many of the towns the episodes were centred - Tokyo, Delhi, Beirut, Berlin, Accra and Shanghai. If one were to look at olden civilisations, it seems evident that our ancestors used to quite accepting of sexual practices and its deviations. The Japanese, during the Edo period, boasts of Shunga erotic art. They were a liberal and stable society. All that came to zilch when Commodore Perry landed in Edo Bay and Emperor Meiji banned their erotic drawings.  The Indians had Kamasutra long before the Western world learned to count, but in the New World, it was viewed as yellow literature. The Victorian mindset even deemed donning of saree was obscene. In the 19th century and before, the blouse was not part of the female attire. The saree was used to drape the chest and bosom as well. Legends say that the Tagore la...

That is what the world has come to. There is sadly no 'one-answer-fit-all' response. The people who argue against the grain are smart people with intelligence quotients higher than the general public.  Everyone is concerned only of his own self. There is an inner desire to live life to the fullest; enough of living under the pretence that something sacrosanct needed to be protected. If all this while they had cowed to societal pressures and suppressed their inner needs, it was the time that they let their hair down. They do as they please. Over generations, through trials and error, regulations have been put in the system. Each sex had their gender roles. Each gender had their duties and expectations. It was not a perfect arrangement, but there was a semblance of order. The general public accepted it as necessary to continue our existence.  Nothing does not offend anyone any more. This signage in  an Italian B and B with an 'alien' in a coquettish p...

Danish Girl 2015 I know this movie will not make its way to this coast anytime this lifetime. Artworks using LGBT issues are a sure ‘no-no’ for the censorship board. The beholders of morality have no qualms in sweeping matters of corruption and another overt disservice to humanity, issues related to sexuality and sex would alert their antennas and they would go that two extra miles to ensure these productions do not see the living daylights in this country. This film is an attempt to narrate, with artistic licence, as the story is altered to suit the audience’s appetite, the dilemma that a certain Danish painter went through to fulfil her inner needs. Eddie Redmayne (who acted as Prof Stephen Hawking) gives an effeminate depiction of Einar Wegener, an artist who lived in the 1920s who feels that she is a woman trapped in a man’s body. Discovering this when he posed in a female garb when his wife’s, another painter, model turned up late, fights the urge and seeks medical help who...

Transparent (TV miniseries, Season 1; 2014) Living is easy with eyes closed. When you start analysing your existence in life, the purpose of life and start questioning every shred of existentialism, life becomes too complicated. It make living impossible for you and those around you. When you feel discontented and yearn for the perpetual unattainable pleasures in life without appreciating the joy and magic that is around you, life can be a living hell. This, in essence, is the bane of modern living. We are unsure what we actually want in life. We are forever lamenting that life sucks and things could be better. We reach out beyond borders that are accepted as norm only to realise that that is not we were looking in the first place. This new TV show just completed its first season, released for binge consumption by Amazon. The ten 30-minutes episodes narrate the saga of a dysfunctional family. The father, Mort/Maura, is a respected professor, who decide to come out in the open abo...

Society has determined certain norms and code of conduct for its members to follow. Examples of this would include various transportation rules, theological decrees, social etiquette (like eating with the right hand in the Eastern world) among others. For generations we have been drilled into our psyche that there are two sexes: the male gender and the female counterpart. This union of man and woman is said to be the seed of life and basis of life itself. The Sivaling(am) basically denotes the explosive power of the union of these two sexes. And in the late 20th century the third sex came out of the closet to announce to the world of their desire in the open! This ambiguity actually predates civilization itself as transgenders have been mentioned in Egyptian, Buddhist, Hindu and many more scriptures. In the past they have been suppressing their thoughts so as not tip the balance and not to be stoned to death. Tamil Nadu boasts of 300,000 hijras (as they are called). Even a country craw...