For Christ’s sake

 

It’s difficult to make up one’s mind about Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. Initially its impact felt like the emotional equivalent of a bludgeoning by a wrecking ball. But in retrospect, the film lost some of its weight, seeming more and more like a hastily written first draft, filled with loose ends and incomplete thoughts. It’s very unlike von Trier, whose films are usually tightly reined in pieces of work. At the same time, Antichrist has an honesty that’s quite appealing.

The film opens with a nameless couple making passionate love. The scene is shot in slow motion and set to a Handel aria that soars as their pleasure intensifies. As they plunder each other, their child falls out of a window. The woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is torn apart by grief. Her husband (Willem Dafoe), who’s also her therapist, attempts to help her cope. They go to a log cabin in a semi-imaginary forest called Eden and it’s here that the woman spirals into insanity. Unfortunately, she takes the film with her.

Before it begins its dramatic descent, Antichrist is an intensely intimate examination of guilt that’s often hard to watch peppered as it is with scenes of violent sex. You feel sympathy for the woman when she’s put through a series of psychoanalytical exercises by her husband who is at times maddeningly rational. But once they’re at the cabin, Antichrist takes a Biblical hairpin.

An academic who has researched historical violence committed against women, Gainsboug’s character becomes convinced that women are evil. She calls nature Satan’s church, women false creatures and later, in an unbearable scene, slices her genitals with a scissor. She also flagellates herself by masturbating violently and having sex that looks cringingly painful. Her guilt over her son’s death combines with a Catholic guilt over her enjoyment of sex. Critics have accused von Trier of misogyny. For the film, he hired a “misogyny consultant” who was required to produce evidence that women are evil, starting from Eve. But the Biblical references are ham-handed. It seems farfetched to conclude that von Trier is a misogynist. Instead Antichrist could be read, as its Nietzschean title suggests, as an indictment of Christianity. But there’s not enough in the film to back the idea. It’s as if von Trier recently read about medieval Christianity and thought it would make a nice hook for his film. (He converted to Catholicism at the age of 30.)

The other evil in Satan’s church is nature. Von Trier channels the horror film as he shows an Eden that is as sinister as it is beautiful. Trees are dark and looming and the cabin rings with the unpleasant thud of acorns falling on it. The woman says she can hear the cry of all things that are going to die. The man sees a deer with a stillborn foetus dangling from its womb and an injured fox which, in an unbelievably ridiculous scene, looks at him and intones: chaos reigns. Actually, the woman’s preoccupation with death is a far more interesting thread than feminine guilt. Sadly it leads nowhere.

In interviews, von Trier has said that the film was his way of dealing with a long drawn bout of depression that had incapacitated him for months. It makes sense as Antichrist really does come across as the outcome of some feverish self-examination. It seems too personal to be another joke by the “giggling prankster of world cinema”. But if it is, then joke is on von Trier. The film ends with a horrifying sequence of gratuitous violence – she screws what looks like a millstone onto his leg in an act of punishment and smashes his genitals with a log. More than saying anything about the pathology of the woman or womanhood, it suggests that von Trier had forgotten to take his meds.

God awful

If you’ve recently crossed Hughes Road on your way north, you might have noticed a billboard advertising Phoenix Mills. It has a couple carrying several shopping bags standing with their arms around each other in a clothing store. Superimposed on their faces are two large smileys. A blurb reads: “Let’s go phoenixing!”

Not on your life. The smileys, which are meant to convey a joie de vivre, do the exact opposite. They’re disconcertingly placed, making the couple seem possessed and their smiles, especially the one on the left, seem almost diabolical. There’s nothing subliminal here. The ad seems to say: shop or we’ll invade your bodies.

The ad reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, in which mythological gods such as Odin, Loki, Anubis, even Kali face competition from modern deities – the internet, media, consumption – and clash in a Gotterdammerung. Gaiman, I’m sure, could imagine the global financial crisis in terms of an epic downfall in which the gods of consumption are sucker punched by their own fates. Their realm, the retail market, is obviously not recovering as well as news reports suggest if they have to reveal themselves in billboards. Phoenix isn’t the only company to advertise. There have recently been a number of ads that show families shopping hysterically at incredible sales. Well, all they make me want to do is leave my money at the altar of fixed deposits.

Photograph by Mahafreed Irani

The walue of education

Last Saturday, Hillary Clinton and Aamir Khan discussed education at St Xavier’s College before students and volunteers of Teach India and Teach for India. The talk was moderated by Arnab Goswami, whose phoniness made him more odious than usual. Clinton said lots of inspirational things about bridging gaps between talent and education etcetera etcetera. After the event, everyone around me gushed about how eloquent she was. Is that surprising? Most of her job involves giving speeches. Of course she’s impressive.

But the afternoon’s great embarrassment was Aamir Khan. He was invited because he’s the ambassador for Teach India and Teach for India. Not that he’s done much about it. I hear he was meant to take a class with municipal kids. He confidently said he could teach science, math and language – he didn’t specify which one – and asked for text books five times but didn’t take the class.

On stage he was hilarious. He had that look of studied concentration that has been spoofed so well on TV. And he kept confusing his Vs and Ws. There should be great walue placed on education. I wanna see people wying for teaching jobs. Hillary sitting next to him in a retina-shattering vermillion suit must have thought: I can’t believe sharing the stage with this silly, tiny man and this chubby news anchor who’s pretending to give a shit. Indeed Arnab, at one point with supreme affectation, gushed: I’m so moved by what you’re saying Secretary Clinton. I can see that Aamir is absolutely drawn into the conversation.

Aamir put both his legs and torso into his mouth when he answered a question posed by a member of the audience who said that she was having trouble tutoring slum kids who have almost no knowledge of English. What should she do? Aamir confidently declared that it’s unimportant what language you instruct them in. Just teach children in the language they’re comfortable in. Right. English, the great enabler, is unimportant.

Mind it

It’s well known how seriously the intellectual is taken in West Bengal. It’s only in this state where ‘intellectual’ – the artist, writer, poet, filmmaker – is almost a genus. Just like peasants, rickshawallahs, school teachers, you have intellectuals. It’s a conceit of Bengalis, who consider themselves a highly cerebral people. Amartya Sen, for instance, suggests that the rate of crime in his home state is low because Bengalis like to read. It’s also a quaint, if hilarious, Marxist throwback that seems at odds with a Bengal that’s being put through an accelerated modernisation process. Take Calcutta, which is full of bizarre sights such as Victorian buildings housing KFCs. The communist government has kept Bengal antiquated for so long that any sign of modernity seems hard to digest. As New Rajarhat transforms into a Bengali Gurgaon and Salt Lake acquires more and more glass-fronted offices, the intellectual continues to be referred to by this lofty title. They might not have strong ideological ties with the government like many did in the Soviet Union and in Bengal especially in the sixties and seventies, but they’re still “intellectuals” – henceforth referred to in ironic double quotes.

It’s funny how even newspapers outside Bengal take the appellation for granted. They’ve been in the news quite regularly since the Singur and Nandigram conflicts, when they emerged in large numbers to protest against the CPI (M). In Bengal, a section of prominent “intellectuals” supported the Left, choosing to overlook, as Swapan Dasgupta points out, the regime’s repressive policies. But after Nandigram and Singur, even partisans like Mrinal Sen rallied against the government. They felt the CPI (M) had gone too far in its drive to overhaul Bengal and not I’m sure, as Dasgrupta histrionically suggests, because they were upset that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has the audacity to leapfrog them from the late nineteenth century to the present.

Naturally the government isn’t pleased with the “intellectuals”. In an editorial in The Times of India, DN Ghosh, a former chairman of the State Bank of India, quotes an irate cabinet minister: “Let the artists paint pictures and authors write books. They should not stray into politics. If I were the police commissioner, I would have taken them to the Sagar island in the Bay of Bengal and consigned them to oblivion”.
But in Bengal, it would seem, no political party is complete without a division of “intellectuals”. The Trinamool Congress has Tapas Pal (the babyface actor who has created a template for maudlinness) and Kabir Suman, a singer and self-confessed polygamist and nihilist, who is known as the Bengali Dylan. I’m not certain what Dylan would think of lyrics like “Pagol… shaap ludo khelchhey bidhataar shonge” (The mad…snake plays ludo with god).

The first time I realised just how seriously Bengalis take their reputation was in college. I was strolling around campus on a pleasant evening. Since I was a fresher and prone to being ragged, taking a walk was a dangerous activity. Sure enough, I was accosted by a bunch of boys who happened to be part of the Bengali Literary Society. For them, even ragging was an intellectual activity. Getting me to sing a song or pretend to be a tennis ball as most other seniors had demanded would have been too low brow. Instead I was gruffly asked: “Which Russian authors have you read?” Stunned for a moment, I think I tried not to giggle as I mumbled “Dostoevsky”.

Illustration by Azeema Pardiwala

Chaos theory

The monsoon is perhaps the only time Bombay looks picturesque. Moody skies and delicate curtains of rain turn even a street littered with garbage into a photo op. Imagine what a rainy day can do to the Bandra-Worli sea link. I had the chance to stroll along the sea link on such a day. The clouds were epic, the light, a melancholic slate, the slums of Worli’s fishing village looked like they were right out of a Paul Klee painting. And the bridge, rising forty storeys from the sea bed, stayed with cables like a giant harp, looked the eighth wonder of the world.

Now if only the rain could whitewash what a waste of 1600 crores the sea link seems to be. It’s a no-brainer – without the extension to Nariman Point, there’s going to be a major traffic jam when cars are disgorged at Worli sea face. This, after paying Rs 50 for a one-way ride.

The sea link is in so many ways emblematic of Bombay right now. Huge infrastructure projects are executed without caring about consequences. The construction of the sea link narrowed the Mithi as a result of which the river flooded a part of the city in 2005. But  who cares? Not the conscientiously myopic architects of Bombay. The new airport that’s planned in Navi Mumbai, will erase 115 hectares of mangroves. What does it matter that Bombay can’t afford to lose more green cover, that mangroves are natural flood deterrents?

This year the monsoons were scarily late. Folks were reminded of a time in the 1960s when the government considered evacuating the city because the rains were far behind schedule. At the rate at which we’re going, there won’t be enough trees to usher in rains that prettify the city.

On a less histrionic note: I noticed that the railings that line the sea link look rather cheap, like they would crumple if you boxed them. So much for spending 1600 crores. A colleague, who I suspect is a Bengali supremacist, seemed to agree. She declared, “Kolkata’s Vidyasagar Setu is maach bettaar.”

Tata, roads

The Nano was launched on March 23 at Parsi Gymkhana on Marine Drive. Even though there was little fanfare – I’ve been told that the Indica launch had dancers and lighting effects – it was like being in the hottest party in town. There were people queuing to get in, those inside were happily swilling wine and chowing down delicious ham rolls and terrible veg sushi. The atmosphere was quite convivial and all people could talk about was what a historic achievement the Nano is.

Many of those present, it seemed, were only too willing to overlook the possibility that the Nano will lead to a historic irony. The outrageously cheap car (though it will cost a lakh only to the first one lakh buyers; there’s always a catch), Ratan Tata declared will give millions of rural Indians, who travel with entire families packed onto scooters, a chance to drive in comfort. Ecstatic votaries of the Nano almost make the scheme out to be a corporate social responsibility initiative.

But how long will comfort last when India becomes a colossal traffic jam? I imagine Bombay’s roads will become gridlocks of gaily coloured Nanos. Ratan Tata, sitting in his Mercedes S Class, is bumper to bumper with his petite creations. He ordinarily takes 15 minutes to zip from his home in Colaba to his office at Flora Fountain. After the phenomenal success of the Nano, it takes him an hour. In a moment of insanity brought on by the inertia of Bombay traffic, he echoes Kurtz: “The horror! The horror!”

Nano’s cheerleaders argue that the rest of the country is barely motorised. A few million Nanos aren’t enough to cause traffic jams in the vast swathes of unmotorised countryside. Besides, they continue, the solution to traffic snarls in the city is not reducing the number of cars on the road but enhancing public transport. Nano’s critics are accused of being blinkered bourgeois bigots who can’t stand the idea of class barriers being disrupted by a vehicle of social mobility.

That’s just capitalist apologia for a hugely profit-making enterprise. I don’t care if my dudhwala has a car. But I’m frustrated when I see the number of cars on the road swell, dooming to failure projects like the Bus Rapid Transit System, a scheme that involves a vehicle of far more economical and environmentally sound social mobility.

And then there are those who view the Nano as a godsend in more ways than one. In the March 26 edition of the Hindustan Times, spiritual columnist Satish Sharma ingeniously suggests: “The launch of the new car – Nano – has been greeted with unprecedented enthusiasm. For millions of families with modest means, it would mean the realization of the dream of a more comfortable and private mode of transportation. But it goes beyond that. For, inherent in it is the desire to be in motion. While motion is a physical act, it is also spiritually liberating. Only when we are in motion, do we share the rhythm of the universe more palpably………Hindu scriptures lay special emphasis on vehicles. All gods and goddesses have their vehicles. If it is a mouse for Lord Ganesha, it is a swan for Saraswati, the goddess of learning.” I expect LK Advani and company to trade their gilded chariots with Nanos in the next rath yatra.

Saffron art

These are hard times for the salaried employee or those who are in “service” as my grandmum says. Jobs are being axed as the economic shitstorm shows no sign of letting up. Poor investment bankers have had to defer plans of buying a third car, a fifth Armani suit. Things are bad even for those who are not in banking. We’re all thrashing and flailing in the toilet bowl that is the economy. But there is one sector that’s upbeat, that’s positively booming: Hindu fundamentalism. There has never been a better time to be a Hindu activist. Just look at the job opportunities. There are the warhorses: RSS, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, VHP, ABVP, Hindu Jagran Manch, MNS (even though they don’t have an explicit Hindu agenda, they deserve to be on the list for their linguistic chauvinism). Then there are new bodies like the Shri Ram Sene and Abhinav Bharat. These are spirited outfits fuelled by young firepower. Take the guys at Abhinav Bharat. They wanted to create not just a Hindu Rashtra, but a consortium of Hindu and Buddhist countries under the banner of Hindu and Oriental Nations Union. What vision for bunch of people who had never been heard of before. When they were arrested and jailed for their courage, it felt like the freedom struggle all over again.

These groups are no longer rag-tag mobs of uneducated youth helmed by a single, charismatic leader. Their ranks are educated – they have army men, computer engineers, Vedic scholars. To get hired for a good position, therefore, one must be educated and full of initiative. So here’s a brief model resume every aspiring Hindu activist can draw inspiration from.

 

 

 

Babanrao Mahadik

Date of birth: May 28, 1980

 

X Apartments, Savarkar Road, Tilakwadi, Belgaum, Karnataka.

Tel: (831) 4209777

 

Education: Tilakwadi High School (Marathi medium)

Gogte College of Commerce: B Com, M Com

 

 

Interests: Reading (I have read Mein Kampf 13 times and am an ardent fan of MS Golwalkar and KB Hedgewar); writing (I have written the first draft of No Country for Mild Men: Towards a Robust Hindu Nation); exercise (I am proficient in malkhamb); travelling (I have toured most of the temple towns in Bharat. As an avowed bhramachari, I have no family to tie me down. And so I have no qualms about working where my party sends me).

 

Work experience:

 

Volunteered with the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti to campaign for Belgaum joining Maharashtra. (1998)

 

Worked with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad to set up shakhas throughout Belgaum. Was commended for my talent for doing calisthenics. (1999)

 

Joined the Shiv Sena in Mumbai as a party worker. I have fulfilled, among others, the following assignments: led a charge of sainiks to deface English shop signs, disrupted Railway Recruitment Board exams to protest those from outside Maharashtra joining, disrupted a cricket pitch in Mohali to protest Pakistan from playing in Bharat. (2000-2005)

 

Joined Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. As a member of the MNS, I have participated in attacking Uttar Bharatiya taxi drivers, forcing shops to bear Marathi signs, threatening owners of shops with names of Pakistani cities (for example Punjab Chandu Halwai Karachiwala) with action if they didn’t change the titles and so on. (2005-2009)

 

Currently consolidating the brand new Shri Ram Sene in Belgaum. I am spearheading a new initiative that is a reaction to the perverted Pink Chaddi Campaign started by the Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women. When we received all that pink underwear, we were shocked by how vulgar they were. Such undergarments are an affront to Bharatiya sanskruti. But then we realised that there is no tradition of women’s underwear in Bharat at all! It is a piece of clothing imported from the West. Our grandmothers never wore underwear. Why should our women wear them? And so our new campaign exhorts women to discard their underwear, burn their chaddis. We are calling it Chaddi Hatao!

 

Delicious irony

I take back what I said about Indians not having a sense of irony in my second post. How could we not? It’s in our meltwater, in our rivers and lakes and seas. It’s up for sale, if this label on a bottle of Himalayan is to be believed:

 

I look back on life

it’s funny how things turn out.

You, the creator of beeping sirens

and honking cars, yearn for the

solitude of the mountains.

You, a connoisseur of fast food,

now gaze at water that took

years to gather natural minerals

as it trickled its way down

from the Himalayas to within

your reach. And I, some of the purest water in the world,

stand here, trapped in a bottle.

Come, enjoy the irony.

Kali ghodi

I’ve been fulfilling the often tedious task of covering the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival for the past two weeks. In the process I’ve had to listen to some pretty lousy poetry. Now mediocre poetry is, for me, a shade better than watching bad drama – I’ve successfully avoided the unbearably sincere street theatre Mujeeb Khan has been unleashing at KGAF – and a shade worse than bad cinema. Fortunately for me the poetry was so rotten it was entertaining.

If there were Razzies for poetry, Shomshuklla Das, poet, singer and playwright of such gems as Flawless and Tonight I Can Write, would win top honours. (Check out her blog for some unique observations on seagulls.) She read out some grade A verse in the garden of the David Sassoon Library in an accent right out of Manektala. The quotes are not accurate – I might even have made some stuff up – but you get the gist.

 

I watch the sunrise from my garden

I enjoy

I watch the squirrels eat the nuts I throw them

I enjoy

 

I have no clue what this one is about.

 

My son, he tells me he is going out for dinner with his friends

My husband messages me – he is having dinner with colleagues

My dog laughs. She loves me, he says.

My favourite painting of Lord Jagannath watches me.

 

Then again…

 

I watch the rich laughing

I watch the rich rolling, rolling in their money

Like Alibaba.

What a joke

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After watching Slumdog Millionaire, I didn’t expect it to win the number of awards it did. But I did expect some slumdweller in some part of the country to object to the title of the film. I wasn’t disappointed.  On January 26, Patna’s euphonically named Jhuggi Jhonpdi Sanyuka Sangharsh Samiti protested being labelled slumdogs. The group’s secretary Tapeshwar Vishwakarma filed a petition accusing Anil Kapoor, AR Rahman and other Indians involved of insulting slumdwellers. In Bombay, social activist Nicholas Almeida filed a petition protesting the movie title and a bunch of people also held a demonstration outside Anil Kapoor’s office with banners proclaiming: “I am not a slumdog. I am the future of India.”

The incident has buttressed my suspicion that Indians have a primitive sense of humour, especially ironic humour. We can’t laugh at ourselves; we’re a country of stuffed shirts. One joke at our expense and we’re ready to file PILs. (Though a friend paused me in my tracks when he said that Danny Boyle’s hip appellation was lost in translation for the Biharis. But that’s no reason to go rampaging through a cinema hall. Besides everyone knows the film has the optimism of a life coach.) It’s a frustrating trait as it gags one’s freedom of expression. Even though it produces some fantastic daily comedy. Like the The Salon and Beauty Parlours Association objecting to the title of Shah Rukh Khan’s film Billu Barber because they feel the word barber has become a pejorative. (Since when?) Keen to avoid a lawsuit, SRK has partially deferred to their wishes and shortened his alliterative title to the more abrupt Billu.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that we’re an excessively religious people? We take gods more seriously than they take themselves. (Which is why many translations of Hindu texts are bowdlerized versions minus many deliciously prurient details.) The rules, rituals, the fear of bad karma – how can one crack a joke with so many restrictions? Just look at our homegrown humour, which is right out of the Stone Age with its mimicry and slapstick. The next time you watch a Hindi comedy show on TV, (I recommend FIR, pictured above)  notice the number of times laughs are prompted with actors swatting each other. If you poke serious fun at someone other than a politician, especially if he’s a revered actor, you’re done for. The other day, a friend, S, told me how a magazine he wrote for was forced to shut down when Amitabh Bachchan took offence to a satirical piece S had written about him. He’s a man whose energies are consumed in a wielding a laxman rekha of soothsayers, gemstones, blessings acquired after walking barefoot to Siddhivinayak from his home in Juhu to stave off the evil eye. He cannot be expected to laugh at himself.

Religious fervour also seems to coincide with a useless nationalism. Very often ultra-nationalist figures are also relgious zealots. Poor Sachin Tendulkar was attacked when he innocently cut a tri-coloured cake. Sania Mirza, who should be scolded for playing bad tennis and wearing Ed Hardy T-shirts, was targeted by folk who took offence to a picture of her sitting with her feet up next to a mini Indian flag. Even St Narayana Murthy wasn’t spared when he chose to play an instrumental version of the national anthem during APJ Abul Kalam’s visit to Infosys’s Mysore office because, oddly enough, he thought the song would make foreigners present uncomfortable. And few years ago, I and some friends were loudly reprimanded by Dolly Thakore of all people, for not standing up as the national anthem was played before a screening of Amu. Your name is Dolly for fuck’s sake.

On the other hand, look at the humour produced in countries like Britain and France, where the influence of religion has diminished over generations. Imagine having an Indian Monty Python. Pratibha Naithani would gleefully flood the courts with petitions accusing the show of indecency. The Shri Ram Sene would descend on Bombay to indulge in vandalism. Not to be outdone, the MNS and Shiv Sena would compete at stoning the offices of the TV channel. Or perhaps, in a happy turn of events, the three groups would turn on each other in their zeal to be the most morally upright. As Asif Khan repeatedly exclaimed in Karan Arjun: whadda a joke!