Friday, December 27, 2013

5 Reasons Why Don Jon is NOT a Chick or Dick Flick




Don Jon (the American spin off to the infamous Italian womanizing character, Don Juan) will give any viewer the false impression of a chick or a dick flick. For firsts, it has Joseph Gordon Lewitt (500 Days of Summer) and Scarlett Johansson (He's Just Not That Into You) on the lead that would make anyone gush about how cute as a button they make for a pair. On the record, 500 Days of Summer was a romantic comedy unlike any other, so folks can surely expect more substance from Lewitt. Secondly, it's a movie about a guy who has an apparent porn addiction that might give the impression of it being a 'guy movie'. While it is hard to say how much is too much for porn, save this character can't go a day without it inspite of an active sex life.

So how come it is neither? Here's why I think this movie makes the right mainstream cut while making an important cultural point.

1. Don Jon doesn't debase porn and leave it at that



I've seen a lot of movies either taking the higher moral ground about pornography or condoning it as, pretty much, a rite of passage that, well...continues on. This movie is critical about it but specifically for how it objectifies women (As the protagonist crosses a checklist of ass, boobs and blowjobs), how it lacks soul and creates unrealistic expectations in our mind. It also gets us a lot closer to the average male mind when Don says, porn is better than sex because of the lack of inhibition that women display apart from just how perfectly sculpted they are.

However, it also pokes fun at girlfriends like Johansson who believe that only sick people watch porn and breaks the myth that regular women don't watch porn. SPOILET ALERT but in one scene, the character of Julianna Moore comes up to Don Jon to share something more aesthetically crafted from her dirty collection, which he takes much offense to.

2. Don Jon is a satire on romantic comedies



Clearly, his character isn't the only who has an addiction or a problem of unrealistic expectation. His girlfriend dopes on movies that show bonny looking couples who fall in love in the most dire or unusual of circumstances, where the guy gives up everything to be with the girl he loves. "Don't you think it's a little one sided?", he asks her and she brushes it off with no inkling that porn and romcoms could be more similar in constructing the 'perfect' caricatures of a man or woman.

3. Don Jon is a serious movie on human connection, not what gets flouted as love.




Thanks to what sells that feeds off and into our fantasies and the apparent heteronormative convention of society, Don Jon challenges safe structures that society accepts on the surface, never once glancing into the real underlying and largely repressed emotions. It's easy to dismiss his inability towards any real connection because of his porn addiction but a closer examination of his family and religious values and practices hints a much stronger influence. A family happy enough for him to bring a tight assed white girl and a church that absolves him of all his sins with x number of 'Hail Mary' prayers with no real question or concern for his actions or feelings will maketh a very mechanical man out of anyone.

4. Don Jon is, most surprisingly, a very feminist movie



A very miniscule minority of men today can offer the male perspective and without a feminist witch hunt agenda, criticize women's behaviour patterns on theories based out of 'Women from Venus'. Feminism doesn't favour one gender over another but aims to equate critcism and reflection for all, including the queer community. Mills and Boons has pretty much been porn for women for ages now and this movie is a very polite wake up call. It tells men that you can be all beefed up and smooth with women and yet never make a real connection while it would take care of your progeny and social status. It tells women to adjust expectations that the ideal man isn't a dog you play fetch with.

5. Joseph Gordon Lewitt



Move over Ryan Gosling fandom and the much-too-conceited James Franco. JGL is no new kid in the block but this bloke is making us weak in the knees and our thinking minds sharper with every instalment of his. It might seem to many like the child artist has finally grown up but much like Leonardo Di Caprio, JGL has always been a mature actor, wise and crafty in the roles he has played. Who else could give this kind of depth to the role of an average jock who cares about 5 things only - his car, gym, family, women and church.

Friday, July 12, 2013

Too ‘Silky’ for your shirt?

This piece was written for a blog when The Dirty Picture (2011) had just released. For reasons unknown, it never got published where it was intended to be. My two cents on the sultry siren, Silk Smitha, even if 2 years too late.

I was 8 or 9 years old when I first saw ‘Sadma’ (1983), a Bollywood movie featuring Kamal Hassan, Sridevi and the recently riveted, Silk Smitha, in a role uncommon for those times. Released in the 80’s, I watched this movie in the 90’s on cable television, when it often aired as a matinee show and not necessarily as a ‘late night fiesta’.  Yes, those were the golden days of uncensored television viewing, following the significant privatization of industries and networks in India.  

Silk Smitha in Sadma (1983)

Originally christened Vijaylakshmi, Silk Smitha was once the most sought after actresses in the Tamil Film Industry in South India for portraying little clothes and character in raunchy scenes and vamp roles in the 80’s. By the 90’s, with a declining career and demand, she met with a tragic early demise. Even at a very young age, in the movie mentioned above, she didn’t quite appeal to me stereotypically as a ‘vamp’ on the sole basis of her explicit sexuality but just a woman who had excessively high ‘physical’ needs than most (men & women) displayed and was ‘trapped’ in a situation that did not meet her ideal expectations. She wasn’t out to hurt or offend anyone; she just wanted to complete herself.

The point of this nostalgic narration is that while most of us, including myself, waited in great anticipation for Vidya Balan to portray the personality and sexuality of a woman like Silk, my expectations were a little different, in the impression she had left as a kid. I could sense from the beginning and was right on target about the fact that most people were eager to see how Balan could portray a ‘character less’ (I love this term for its many connotations) woman without some of her own merit, as an A grad actor, taking a blow. I, on the other hand, was more eager to see how closely could Balan emulate the Southern Siren because frankly I haven’t really seen that kind of uninhibited & ‘shameless’ sexuality in too many women since her.

Balan makes many brave attempts in the movie at elucidating Silk’s sensuality whether it was making love to the whip as an extra in a song shooting or to the froth and bubbles in the bathtub. Yet, what was most interestingly shown was how (before stardom struck & she was just a ‘commoner’) she made orgasmic noises to tease the neighboring couple while they were busy at nature’s best business. To Balan’s ‘loud’ meddling, the dutiful wife lying underneath responded, “While I suffer, she enjoys!”

There were two things that struck me: one, the culminating ending in the movie and two, media treatment of Silk Smitha post her departure from the industry and the world more than a decade ago.

Milan Luthra denies the story being based purely and solely on Silk’s life and agrees that the character was a stereotypical portrayal. Through the movie, what we witness is someone who boldly crossed those boundaries of modesty set around women yet could not break them and eventually, got broken by them. Yes, they showed a humanistic side of her but as much exaggerated the dramatics showdowns with the superstar’s wife (whose husband she was sleeping with), a rival sex kitten and a gossip columnist. Her eventual downfall, as a woman who took a stand and stood by it, with the alcohol, nicotine and loneliness was portrayed as if reprimanding her of her actions. It was such a demonstrative lesson of that’s-what-you-get-for-using-your-sexuality-as-a-tool! 

The features and editorials leading up to the previews of the movie and post reviews have been like obituaries written too late. Most of them have sympathized with her as someone who was ‘ahead of her times’ and ended up in the rear end of the hypocritical society that loved to hate her. But I don’t really see us as any different or more progressive as we’d like to so easily believe sometimes.

If it was Marilyn Monroe in the fifties and Silk Smitha in the eighties, we do have our current brigade of Kim Kardashian, Poonam Pandey and Veena Malik of the post 2k generation. I agree the comparison maybe way off but their routes to ‘stardom’ in congruence with the demands and desires of the audience (i.e. us) are much too similar. We do love despising these women for just boldly doing what they do…whatever they do, that is.

Are we a society always dismissive of female sex symbols and sirens? Men flash all the time and make all kinds of ‘dirty pictures’ but they still don’t seem to be reeling in the same spotlight of the moralistic flack.

Will we always keep demonizing our desires, in particular when women mirror reflect them?

To many, Silk promoted skin. To me, she promoted pleasure.

Monday, June 10, 2013

TOI's idea of change is anarchist

The Times of India is (almost without doubt) one of the mightiest news publications in India has a huge marketing budget to promote the same idea to its readers. This, of course, has everything to do with the advertisment revenue that it earns from the four wheel full spread page and inappropriate placements of baby care products or food alongside captivating headlines that read like, "3 in 5 children in India are malnourished". But you know, that's all okay.
The Times of India is all about the latest in news and views of all current topics and burning issues that the youth especially like to be keyed in about. Never mind that the 18-25 age bracket know little about the depth of any issue, they must be given enough fodder everyday that energizes them enough to rant and be outraged about on Twitter and Facebook. Who wants to live in the adage of "old is gold" when it is small townish, slow, bureacratic and stuck in a time warp (as they targeted The Hindu in an ad war series last year that created much unnecessary furore) when you can wake up to The Times of India today.



The latest in their efforts to mobilize the country comes in their advertisement, 'I Lead India 2013 - I Will be the Change' where people suddenly pick up the chairs, couches and beds they were blissfully seated on and carry them while marching forward to build a collective bonfire. I, at first, thought this was an advertisement for Lori but even when they didn't throw ground nuts in the fire, it still didn't convey the message. Was the act of carrying your chair and burning it like having your cake and eating it? No. Or was it symbolism for getting off your behind and taking action rather than talking about it over tea and tweeting?
My problem is that TOI's wake up call comes at an imperfect time. The case studies of social media bringing people out in the streets of Tahrir Square, Jantar Mantar, Wall Street, India Gate are contemporary histories now. This isn't to say that they've been forgotten or that they haven't become user template guides to starting a revolution in your country. But whether it's respect to corruption in the system or rape of our women by the system and society, the revolutionary spark has come and gone.
For India, right now we're at that time of the revolution when follow up on the progress work of resolving the issue is critical. This, in fact, is the most challenging part since the onus to lead, self monitor and institutionalize the change in system against bureacratic resistance is mostly left to individual resilience. This is also the part of the revolution where groupies and social loafers are sieved out of the movement leaving the committed few to build the blocks.
Everyone can join a movement just like anyone can join a mob regardless of knowing what's really on the agenda (You could try speaking to a few of them in Gujarat). Taking to the streets and braving water bombs and tear gas shells is really the peak of the party but the actual hard work comes in the preparation to it and its cleaning up. The loud party, however, is the first critical step in taking everyone's notice to something that was paid little or serious attention to before.
But we've done that in the summer last to last year and just the winter that went by. Now is the time for the empowered individuals and bodies to continue to stand on their ground and sync their efforts towards this change.
The noise has been made TOI. So why are you still asking us to burn chairs?

Sunday, June 2, 2013

A stranger in the mist


The policewoman at the airport security check scans me with her beeper and asks where I was from. I looked surprised at the question given that anyone catching a flight to Imphal goes there because of one reason only – they belong there some way or the other. I, on the other hand, am one unique tourist, foreigner and outsider who doesn’t need an inner line permit.

Boys at dusk near Loktak lake, the largest and perhaps, the most beautiful lake I've ever seen anywhere in India.


It has been 6 years since I was last here, long enough to make me feel guilty about being so distant from my roots. However, as soon as I left the premises of the airport eager to see the changes in the capital city of Manipur, I felt like I hadn’t missed much in the last half decade. Barring billboards featuring a formerly unacknowledged sporting legend, the place hadn’t changed from its local ima (run by women) markets, plentiful kirana shops and the omnipresence of armed security forces posted at different city centers.

I carry the identity of an outsider everywhere I go – whether it is in the capital of the country, which groomed me to the harsh realities of the big bad world of adulthood in 11 years or the IT capital where I moved for greener grasses and a more metropolitan culture. I, often, am asked about either the troubled insurgent political situation of my home state and my stand on AFSPA and Irom Sharmila’s struggle or the souvenir I can bring back for cultural enthrallment and the exotic locales that remain unexploited in the little state, often submerged in the singularly misleading identity of the ‘seven sisters’ or the North East. But what do I really know about my state except for the few towns and villages where different variations of my extended family and tribal community live? Home for me had only thus far been the meaningless charade of meeting relatives who spoke in an alien language and failingly attempted to familiarize me with their way of life each time I visited.

I put my foot down this time, telling my mother I was grown up enough to choose how I spend my limited paid leave. She humored my appeal to be treated like an adult and neatly sifted through the pages of Air India in-flight magazine to design an itinerary for my trip. My parents don’t exactly fit like puzzle pieces in their home state anymore despite having grown up here and having links to the community in each town and city that my dad was posted to while serving in the Indian Army. The Army takes you places, exposes you to diversity and development and mainstreams you into the great Indian aspiration of earning a 6 figure salary in a prominent metropolitan with an annual vacation abroad. This while people in Manipur still struggle with power and water supply, unprecedented curfews in the city every alternate week and the looming threat of insurgent terrorism or exploitation at the hands of those pledged to protect them, both the militant groups and the Army.

As I travelled past the old familiar towns and districts, I noticed the many billboards of the Indian Army, many of which boasted of their welfare work for the local communities. Much has been written about the inhuman atrocities committed by armed forces personnel under direct and urgent instructions to weed out militants with unparalleled power and immunity in their line of work. I sat and drank tea at an Assam Rifles base perched atop a hillock at Loktak lake, the largest freshwater lake in the entire North East, that was formerly occupied by militant forces. The hospitable commanding officer, who has extensively been part of many operations in the state, talks about the many areas his dispatch had conquered from the militants. It would have been contentious to ask about the details of these operations in my circumstances as a guest (and him knowing that I work as an online journalist) so I refrained for the better wisdom of knowing he would hardly reveal anything worth a quote.

I’ve always wondered about the diplomatic positions of people who grow up outside of their homes that are declared unfit for peace. I’ve always been somewhat in the grey about the challenges Manipur has faced, especially when AFSPA has been the most notable one in the last decade or so. Vicariously knowing the realities through close cousins and relatives at home, I’ve rarely heard of incidents relating to any harassment by armed forces personnel themselves, however.

On the other hand, an uncle’s car being “borrowed” at gunpoint by militants and people being routinely subjected to extortions when they open up a new shop or built a new house is commonplace, at least in Churachandpur district of Manipur. What I most closely and disturbingly know about is how militants disturbed the peace in my own extended family some years back when my grandfather (who is no more with us) was taken by militants and my uncle was subjected to such torture, that he hasn’t mentally recovered from it till today.

The violation and loss of those who suffered in the hands of the Army must not be dismissed away as collateral damage. But to my mind, AFSPA has been a convenient scapegoat for the Central Government to focus mainstream media’s attention away from the many inconsistencies in the system – whether it is the widespread corruption, project development lags and a dysfunctional tourism to pin point only a few in a list of problems piling up. The presence of AFSPA does make life uncertain in Manipur but its full departure will not restore the state back to its normalcy, forget glory. Not when a rising number of militant groups are all independently asking for a separate state when, much like Maoist groups, are just asking for attention to their problems long tucked away from the nation’s bigger challenges – corruption in T20 and naked mannequins, to name just a few of the gripping ones.

People in Manipur have more than accepted corruption, not just for better standards of life, but the only way to survive. A handful make it to the cream of the Government services (and are lauded to infinity), most others bribe their way into positions at district councils while a few others venture out to work in various sectors ranging from hospitality and BPO to academia, journalism and even entrepreneurship in rising metropolitans. But the degree of resilience is a lot to ask from everyone to either have the resources or assert their identity in mainstream societies. Instead, a place in a militant group aiming at a revolutionary coup, that coercively commands respect among the commoners, becomes all too lucrative a career option for the youth in the absence of a career day at school or college.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll is how Manipur's glaring issues of HIV rates, western idealism and misguided youth is often romanticized. 

AFSPA is yet another shame of an excuse by the Government to justify its lack of concern for a region that largely comes under the scheduled tribes and castes. Yet it isn’t the cause of all things wrong in the society and system today in Manipur. If anything that must be blamed, it is the Government that cares more towards maintaining its status quo authority through more than a decade than delivering any of its promises for systemic improvements. When you don’t have the necessities of water and electricity and are neglected and treated like a stranger in your own land, you will feel like shooting somebody…anybody!  

Maybe we need to start questioning the ‘divide and rule’ governance of the various sects and tribes that has been costing the people of Manipur since the ethnic conflicts in the 90’s aside from the collateral damage conducted by external forces.


A torrential hailstorm, that occurred a month back, wiped out houses and uprooted trees in many districts of the state. The losses people suffered and the status of Government compensation is not the kind of news that would interest mainstream media or Abhay Deol.  Why? Because Manipur's problems would become akin to any other state, like Bihar, when it is Indian media’s very own Congo war. 

Manipur trends only because of AFSPA because its real problems are not news worthy or social media virality. 


Disclaimer: This is an overdue post of my homecoming in Manipur (April 2013) and must warn that my analysis of the socio-political situation is still pretty much from the perspective of a native outsider looking in. 

Friday, April 5, 2013

Alien Nation


As I grow older, I’m becoming more like my father – cynical, asocial and wiser than for her own good.

This wisdom that I speak of comes in identifying the boundaries that divide us; that makes us who we are but also disassociates us, and often with an air of being better off, from each other. This, of course, is a normal part of growing up, or now as I would call it, growing old.

This natural stage of development manifests itself in more complex (read, troubled) ways through socially constructed notions of hierarchy. When you’re a minority in every crucial aspect of your identity, this is like a day-to-day challenge (read, nightmare). Surely, the ones with the wind in their hair would say that this is ultimately all in the head and if you perceived life more affably, the karmic process would favour you without fail. Except that I didn’t see differences, and in many key ways I still don’t see them as interferences, until I was shown in manners I least expected and when I was clearly not asking for them.

In my idealistic notion, I believe I represent all things diversity– in the way I speak, those I speak for, the way I dress, the TV shows I watch, the music I listen to, the friends I keep or the ones I only choose to have an occasional drink with. Yet, to most people and from their respective contexts, I’m strange / queer / exotic / different – an alien. I’m either exotic courtesy my race or place of origin; strange because I don’t conform to some (rather) fixed notions of beauty; queer because of my appetite for sexual innuendos or the number of people that I incidentally know are gay; and different for all these and other inexplicable reasons.

While a lot of people have liked me more or found these very qualities endearing, I’ve more often been (and will continue to be) derided, insulted, trivialized and (attempted to be) silenced for this very heavy baggage that I carry about. And before anyone could assume this has anything to do with people less educated, less read or any less savvy about the ongoings of the world – everyone ultimately is limited to a context and a certain environment including me. Only that I’ve always been very conscious of the limitations of my worldview yet perpetually made attempts to go beyond and only been successful to a significant extent when the effort has been just as mutual.
Unfortunate and also surprising that in many cases, it wasn’t. While I’ve never tried to offend anyone in particular, I realized a lot of what I say and write might be, in the sense that it disturbs some set views, perhaps, even occasionally attempts to invalidate contexts that came as given realities to you. Agreeing to disagree with each other and tolerating difference of opinions are much deeper in color than what may appear on the canvas. Surely, our opinion will be sound with where we come from but often don’t we let it get too convenient as well? Aren’t you scared of the latter over riding your worldview despite the feign bliss that it promises?

In my lifetime, I’ve had to deal with some very uncomfortable realities and a lot because I chose to deal with them as they came than repress or whisk it away for the fear of losing stability. Each one pushed me a little bit more out of the fairytale view that most mainstreamers grow up with and successively as a result, I became different /queer/ strange/exotic – an alien.

In a world where increasingly diversity is becoming a part of pop culture and queer is cool, don’t let up on asking even the most basic questions for your satisfaction or challenging notions that haven’t fully seeped into your thick membrane even if that is a part of the mainstream that you eat, drink and breathe.