The Thin Imaginary Line

!

I had another article half way through and on its way. But something else came up…was on my way to bed and I just thought I’d check the invisible girl’s blog. (Well…rimi…you got your death-wish…you’re probably next on srikar’s list…whether photography is your thing or not.). If any of you have bothered reading her thoughts…congratulations…those who haven’t…step one to this post would be for you to read that post first. (PS - If this is srikar reading…her post has nothing to do with photography…not on any level.)
Coming back…what rimi says makes sense on many a level. I feel that her voice is not alone…it exists elsewhere…suppressed perhaps. The fact that she speaks of the docile Indian woman along the way which reminds me of something else that happens to strike me about my generation. Women of our generation have watched their mothers and other women drowned out by the voices of their male counterparts. Somehow this point burns ever so slowly leaving a scar within their minds. It is something that eventually emerges and it can come with a raw and untamed emotion attached. I congratulate rimi for finding her voice. I would probably be accepted when I say that women’s issues have touched each one of us on some level or the other…however remote. So…going to the extent of calling this is a well-known social evil makes some sense.
I’d like to examine the flip side. In order to do so…there is something I’d like to know…how many of you have encountered eve teasing on a mode of public transportation? How many of you have seen a man thrashed because he supposedly touched this woman? How many of you have joined in? How many of you have tried to stop the violence? I think awareness has been taken to extremes…today a woman is probably anticipating an attack rather than being mentally prepared to deal with one. You become like a cornered animal ready to lash out at anything invading your space either with intent or accidentally. Sometimes the identity of the victim is lost. For every serious offence in the world there are possible 2 or more false alarms…justice is meted out regardless of anyone having witnessed this act or not. The world is no longer a safe place, even more so if you are a woman. I agree with this, but there are times when people take things a little too far.
If you could probably tabulate the statistics, it would be plain to see how many more women, as opposed to men, speak up about their oppression. Why is this so? The answer lies in being able to identify with a person of the same sex…in realizing that someone has endure a nightmare that has haunted you for so many years. It is unfortunate to see educated men and women blowing each other away with their words focusing on such topics. These can often be seen at debates conducted on TV or even within your classrooms. This is a waste of time in my opinion. These women have never themselves experienced anything remotely close to what they are standing for. As for the men, they have no intentions of actually physically harming their counterparts. So I’m wondering who’s permitting the mudslinging? And more importantly…why do we watch these debates? Well…valid points are raised…points are presented in the fancy packaging of the English language which reaches the ears of the empowered elements of our nation and the world. But isn’t the intensity of the voice of the victim lost? Wouldn’t you and I be paying more attention to the scrambled image of a victim telling her tale in a series of subtitles rather than hearing it come from some chick with a fake American accent all dolled up for her first appearance on TV?

Rimi mentioned female infanticide along the way. I for one would be all for switching the sex ratio around. I figure that most straight men reading this would agree as well…we’d just love to be marooned on the Isle of Lesbos for example, just for the sheer amount of eye candy. Rider Haggard’s She suddenly comes to mind…but that doesn’t seem to go exactly to plan somehow. ;-) Well…I feel that if the sex ratio is reversed…the world would be in a state of turmoil. Why you ask? Because the ‘=’ operator is now overrun by the dreaded ‘?’. *What the hell is he talking about?* Ah…yes…the majority of men take words the way they were delivered. ‘Where is the pencil?’ = ‘He wants to know where the pencil is.’ When a woman speaks to another woman the interpretation is very different. ‘Where is the pencil?’ = ‘She’s accusing me of stealing her pencil.’ I think the world has conclusively proved to men that when you do speak to women…anything can and is taken to be a loaded statement. There is a large amount of unnecessary unhappiness emitted from an innocent question such as this. Hang on a second…before you crucify me…I’d definitely support a balance of the sexes. Anything in excess cannot be good…at present the scales are tilted in favour of us…tilted a little too much. Women are justified by creating a ruckus about this issue…they have every right to be.


The male sphere of interest lies largely outside the walls of the house…such at the open fields – whether it be gunning down Bambi or playing some football. A woman is similarly hypnotically drawn to the various soaps that air each night on Star Plus and other channels. Men don’t understand women…and neither do women understand men. ‘What are all these grown men doing running after one stupid ball?’ And yet…we’re not so different. Women love to dance…well the majority do. If you remove the ball from a picture and examine the body movements of a man dribbling a ball and a woman with some fancy footwork…is it that different? I presume most of you have watched Bend it like Beckham…did anyone woman feel that the protagonist was just another idiot running after a ball? I think not. Its simply because she a girl transporting the female icon into a male dominated sphere…and she’s doing great!

Taking another example of a woman surrounded by a male world, this time I shall refer to Top Gear. Jeremy Clarkson and his mum were testing this Peugeot…with his mum doing the driving. Quite obviously the 70yr old lady was quite apprehensive while driving something completely different to her regular Honda Jazz. Here is a woman engulfed in a universally accepted all male domain – test-driving a vehicle.

Mrs.Clarkson : Am I going fast enough?

Jeremy : Mum, this test track is safe enough, you can go as fast as you want.

Mrs.Clarkson : What if there is traffic coming from the other end? What then?

Jeremy : Its quite simple really…this car comes with every feature imaginable. I suggest you use the steering wheel!

I think you see my point. Incase anyone got the wrong idea…I’m not here to draw lines between the sexes. I’m here to point out that there is this line…and it does exist…because men and women choose to draw it. One of the reasons that the F.R.I.E.N.D.S series was such a success was because it provided a Utopian setting between the sexes. Especially those 6 individuals, none of them were particularly inhibited because of the other’s sexual identity. Being male is possibly influencing me to point the accusatory finger at women for the gap between the sexes. Testosterone would take me to the extent of saying that if that Utopia did exist…women would be the ones bringing it down.

This divide is the first hurdle…all that follows is created by both parties be it religion, colour of skin or politics. The trouble with the system that exists is that it is based on a host of decisions; not making one is also a decision. All decisions are interlinked and lead to chain reactions. Religion was one such decision a long time ago.

Maybe it is time to break down these walls that exist. These walls can begin to crumble within the educated fractions…this is the most conducive environment for this. It is time for all those conservative parents to stop inhibiting their sons and daughters…if they do not mingled with both sexes they shall remain apprehensive for the rest of their lives. Hmm…there also remains the possibility of having this conversation over a cup of Koffee… ‘Mum…Dad…I’m Gay…here is your future son in law – Karan. We love each other very much.*They hold hands* *Mother faints*’

So where does the solution lie? Well…I wouldn’t really know…but I think we need to be a lot more sensitive to the rest of this planet rather than concentrating on the plight of the human race. Something drastic needs to be done to curb the population explosion. This is my problem with the world. It is not enough to curb the number of children one has to one. Why? Because for every family that makes this sacrifice…there is another Shobha De.


"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up." - Pastor Martin Niemoller, 1945


"You are not your job. You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking Khakis. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world." - Tyler Durden(Fight Club)

"We were raised on television to believe that we'd all be millionares, movie gods, rock stars, but we won't. And we're starting to figure that out. And we're very, very pissed off." - Tyler Durden(Fight Club)

"You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else." - Tyler Durden(Fight Club)


Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire (History)

1949 Harry Truman
Doris day
Red China
Johnnie Ray
South Pacific
Walter Winchell
Joe Di Maggio.
1950 Joe McCarthy
Richard Nixon
Studebaker
Television
North Korea
South Korea
Marilyn Monroe.
1951 Rosenbergs
H-Bomb
Sugar Ray
Panmunjom
Brando
The King And I and The Catcher In The Rye.
1952 Eisenhower
Vaccine
England's got a new queen
Marciano
Liberace
Santayana good-bye.
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
No
we didn't light it but we tried to fight it.
1953 Joseph Stalin
Malenkov
Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller
Campanella
Communist Bloc.
1954 Roy Cohn
Juan Peron
Toscanini
Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls
Rock Around The Clock.
1955 Einstein
James Dean
Brooklyn's got a winning team
David Crockett
Peter Pan
Elvis Presley
Disneyland.
1956 Bardot
Budapest
Alabama
Khrushchev
Princess grace
Peyton Place
Trouble in the Suez.
We didn't start the fire
...
1957 Little Rock
Pasternak
Mickey Mantle
Kerouac
Sputnik
Chou En-Lai
Bridge On The River Kwai.
1958 Lebanon
Charles de Gaulle
California baseball
Starkweather
Hoicide
Children of Thalidomide.
1959 Buddy Holly
Ben Hur
Space Monkey
Mafia
Hula Hoops
Castro
Edsel is a no-go.
1960 U 2
Syngman Rhee
Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker
Psycho
Belgians in the Congo.
We didn't start the fire
...
1961 Hemingway
Eichmann
Stranger In A Strange Land
Dylan
Berlin
Bay Of Pigs Invasion.
1962 Lawrence Of Arabia
British Beatlemania
Ole Miss
John Glenn
Liston beats Patterson.
1963 Pope Paul
Malcolm X.
British Politician Sex
J.F.K. blown away
what else do I have to say?
We didn't start the fire
...
64-89 Birth Control
Ho Chi Minh
Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot
Woodstock
Watergate
Punk Rock.
Begin
reagan
Palestine
Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran
Russians in Afghanistan.
Wheel Of Fortune
sally Ride
Heavy Metal
Suicide
Foreign debts
Homeless vets
AIDS
Crack
Bernie Goetz.
Hypodermics on the shores
China's under martial law
Rock and Roller
Cola Wars
I can't take it anymore.
We didn't start the fire
...
We didn't start the fire
...