v-monologue - dialogue with myslef

excerpts from the prologue to the monologue by the playwright Eve Ensler

.. how women and men have come to expect and accept this brutality as a
part of dialy life. How a slap to a woman's cheek or a man's fist in her face,
is not considered outrageous or extraordinary...

..how do we not value women, hold them sacred, understand that to honor
their beings and bodies is tantamount to honoring life itself...

..violence is the tyrannical mechanism which undoes women and keeps them
powerless and their place. it is not inevitable. we can stop it...

women are the primary resource of this planet. their safety, their
empowerment, their freedom is a guarentee for all our futures...

an awakening appeal indeed.. and the flier to the monologue read

we hope you will leave inspired and empowered to celebrate women and help
fight sexual violence in our community and around the world

listening to the monologue, the dialogue I had with myself...

the point they want to drive has been addressed by many NGOs, many times in many countries, how are these guys different?
their presentation is brilliant
some individuals monologue delivary is captivating
reactions and responces from the audiance is on predictable lines (thanks to my newly acquired theatrical skills),
have they met the objective of making the audience leave inspired?
I think not. More so, it appeared like an A-rated comedy show with few sporadic exceptions or was it an apologue?
a social messege to sell the package or a package to sell the social message??
I think the latter for the following reasons: it has a mix of the rare elements ..

• elements to draw attention
• elements to dramatize
• elements to awaken
• elemetns to appluad
• elements to appeal to the audience of diverse intellectual spectrum

epilogue: I left learned

Stanislavsky's effect

If you are ever into theatre and acting, you would, most certinaly, have heard about Stanislavsky's school of acting. According to this website,

Constantine Stanislavski has been with out doubt the greatest influence on
acting we have known!!

The Stanislavsky century: the Union of Russian Theatre and La SEPT, a three part video, produced by Daniel Renouf and written & directed by Peter Hercombe, retraces the journey of this extraordinary man and his contribution to the russian revolution through theatre and drama. His biography underscores the importance of arts in the society. Theatrical elements when used to convey social thema, often produce effects whose ripples are felt far across and for ever!!!

Besides his brillaiance, of course, to be considered is the time period he was born, the era that is to witness the russian renniassance.

Individual brilliancia in a catalytic social ambience produce irrepeatable marvels of the collective mind!

In the age of information revolution, how shall one apply the theatrical elements to affect a positive change, is what one shall pursue!

end of imagination

end of imagination
Arundhati: an eternal distant imagining star, a clutter in the visionary galaxy
Imagination ends where vision begins!!!

born AGAIN into brothels

if my aging brain could correctly recollect history books in the shool days

i say hyderbad, charminar surrounds my narrow mind...
i say jaipur, pink colors my monochromatic mind...
i say agra, taj mahal dwarfs my ugly mind...
i say culcutta, howdah bridge links my broken mind...

not any more

born into brothels, an academy award winning documentary, codirected by Zana Aunty, is a compelling story untold by the children of brothels.

...unshackled from the brick barriers are the beatiful minds,
...in awe of what they are capable of,
...ashamed of what i am incapable of,


i say kolkata, red light blinds my scattered mind...
born AGAIN into brothels,

AIDing the NBA

the Narmada Bachao Andolan is spearheading the movement aganist the construction of Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) Dam on the the river Narmada. Many reformists, environmentalists, social activists like Baba Amte, Medha Patkar(leading the NBA), Arunddhati Roy etc. have been ferociously appealing to the Govt of India to abandon the project, right away!

read Arundhati Roy's the greater common good and the responses there-in!

I am no literate to comment on the pros and cons, but are we exercising our constitutional rights too much! It is very frustrating to note that every damn developmental project undertaken by the Govt. invaribly invites opposition either from the luminaries who are apolitical or from literate but uneducated others (a.ka. politicians with whom I like to identify myself with)...

even more a startling revelation to me was, Association for India's Development (AID) aiding the NBA! Sure, large dams have problems, does the solution lie in not constructing them at all! what made AID part with NBA, when in fact SSP's major intention, obviously, is development.

Instead, AID could have tried to solve the very problems that SPP is likely to cause without being associated with NBA, it could have been a win-win situation...

it brings us back to the ponder on the same point? why do we always fall back on Govt., instead of blaming the Govt. that it is not providing rehabilitation to thousands of masses, the NBA could have started a movement to exactly solve this problem, rather than create another unsolvable problem..

hate

I hate chocoloates but I dont hate those who love them!

dowry: revisted

I always think that we are caught in between catching-up with the west and hanging on to the east. I mean, while moving forward, we abondon some practices without regard to the reasons behind why they were in the first place. My earlier series of blogs focused on caste-system, now I want to focus on Dowry system. My contention has been that while we attemp to re-orient ourselves, we ignore to re-intrepet our beliefs.

All the views presented in this article of mine attempt to look at the problem from a different perspective, the perspective that the existing beliefs are valuable if reinvented and reinterpreted, considering the current socio-econimic conditions into account.

Part of the reason why this has been the case, in my view, is our education system. I am sorry to say this but as it turns out we are taught to belive and not to question what we learnt. It is really difficult to question what was taught in our formative years.

Dowry: What is it?
A customory practice of offering money to the groom by the bride! This has been a wide-spread practice and unsurprisingly, most abused too. It has become a social menace just like the caste-system.

Why it was needed?
The Indian society in general and the Telugus in particular is a patriarchial society (http://www.hvk.org/articles/0403/241.html). Sons inherit the ancestral property (However, according to IPC, heirs should get equal share of the undivided Hindu famliy assets, irrespetive of sex. But who cares about law enforcement. If that were the case, dowry would not exist in the place as it is illegal) and the only way duaghters get their share is when they are married. Daughters are married at youg age compared to sons! It is not uncommon in AP to refer to this property “puttinti varu kanuka”. Also, this was mostly in the form of aearable land or some other non-monetary assests like farms, fields or houses. After the marriage, the bride would almost belong to her in-laws and identifies herself with the in-laws famility than she does with her parents’. Rather, she disaccosiates herself from her parents.

From an emotional point of view: the bride is married to a new family and she needs a bit of security in terms of monetary support. Dowry is just that kind of arrangement. After all, if I go to a new place, let us say, my father would give me 1oRs/- and say, keep it, it would come handy. In a marriage, you are letting your daugher go on a life long journey with some unknown entity. Would you not care to give her some money, then?

From an econimical standpoint: The bride is absorbed into the new fmaily she is wedded to and the dowry becomes their collective property which they could use to run the famliy!

This kind of cultural backdrop necessitates the need for dowry!

Why it has become a social problem?
Human greed is endless. The more you get, the more you want. There are numerous incidents where the brides are killed or harassed just because the dowry is not sufficient. It is not a rare sight to watch marraiges coming to a grinding halt just because the dowry package is not received by the bride at the right time. It has become a synonym to oppression and suppression of women. Infact, domestic violence has increased many fold and the reasons are easily attributed to dowry.

It is abused in atleast the following ways:
1) as a status symbol both from bride's as well as the grooms parents side (maa ammyaiki inta katnam itchi pelli chesam, anta itchi pelli chesam..)
2) market the bride based on his qualificaiton etc.. and demand more dowry and
3) finally, greed for money

Shold dowry be banned?
short answer: YES
long answer: NO (for the following reasons!)

It requires looking at marriage as a partneership wherein both the bride and groom have equal stake. If that additional money only helps them lead their lives better, what is wrong with it? However, it is acceptable only under the following circumstances (satisfied simultaneosuly):
Dowry is:
1) voluntary from the brides side subject to their financial commitments
2) a need and not a luxury
3) bride is unemployed or finantially dependent
In all the other cases, I don’t see why dowry is needed. If that is the case, then marriage is not needed in the first place!

The above conditions are being easily met in the educated middle class, as women are increasingly becoming independent financially. and demestic help is shared by both husbad and wife. Besides that, joint famlies are giving way to independent families.

Defualting condition three automatically voids the other two conditions. Thus the educated middle class see it as useless practice, but I see it as a necessary evil, as I like to call it.

For me, not accepting dowry is not an option, but my responsibilty!

capital punishment:

capital punishment should be considered on a case-by-case basis!

Fundamentally, we live in (and a part) of a system that runs on mutual mistrust!

Just like the term moksha, the term "system" is ever elusive... the term makes comprehension easy, though we can't define it exactly..

in the following paragraph, I define a system as in a control system..

<-> is the equivalence operator

• system <-> governament
• input <-> people/enviromment/collective thought
• output <-> quntifiable varibles like (GDP, turn-over etc) and subjetive/difficult to quntify varibale like trust/ harmony..
• feedback <-> human-rights/judiciary etc

Then,

1. mutual mistrust is observed when the system is unstable!
2. if the sytem gain is zero (absolutely inefficient govt), the feedback has little effect on it
3. feedback could lend the system into an eternal unstable state irrespective of the "state" behaviour

How do we go about?

To reach the steady-state, we have to pass the transient state. It is in this state that we have to instill values, build mutual trust, using all "sama, daana.. etc upaayaalu"... capital punishment is one of the tools. Once it reaches the steady state, the system could sustain if the feedback is proper, like steam engine needs hazzar push to start, but once it starts, it requires relatively little energy to run on the tracks.. and hope that we may no longer need capital punishment..

death is THE punishment, not the method. in my view, it has be as painless as possible, even psychologically!

restricted freedom!

"democracy for the people, by the people" will be at its best when those "people" are responsible citizens...otherwise it stinks and warrants some kind of resitricted freedom!

undisputed followers?

IT knowledge hub is what Bangalore is known as and India, now-a-days is the undisputable leader in IT services and home to many outstanding software professionals.But I dont see any major inventions in IT, forget about manufacturing, coming from Indians. No I am not talking about patents but ideas, like C++ or developing a new langauge, for eg. why are we always someone who follow the bandwagon and not innovators? why?

by the students : for the nation

We need to improve on two things (on a broader scale): technology and sense of nationalism

• Technological advancement could lead to gaining a hold on economy. Improving the economy is the key to success in the 21st century. Technology alone can not bring the desired change.
• Ethics, morals and fair-play are necessary for the nation to
  prosper.

What we see today, is excessive abuse and misuse of the Govt. resources for personal gain. In the current society individually proserity doesnt imply collective proseperity. One's gain is always somebody else's loss, often acheived by unfair means. The result, the nation suffers. Just to give you an example, the Govt. plans to construct major dams and canals. Greedy contractors form agressive lobbies with the support of political bigwigs and underquote. whatmore, local farmers illegally pump water from these canals. The result, the region is deprived of irrigation water, some farmers suffer and another gains, often the mighty. why is that? We fail to think big? We are never taught to think about the what else! Our thinking immediately stops at "my job is done"! This has to change. This thinking has to be imbibed to the students at a very young age and have to make them socially responsible.

Coming back to technologial advancement aspect, we produce thousands of engineering students and yet we have no major break-throughs in engineering and manufacturing. why? because we are not connected. they are umpteen numbers of colleges living in their own worls. the projects are also recycled verions of older ones. The same chaps, who, when venture into their professional life, excell. Then where are we missing the talent. It is in identifying it and encouraing it.I tend to think that all engineering colleges have to be networked. There are many advanced institutes in India which specialize in very diverse fields as Central Leather Research Institure to Indian school of Mines to Indian Statistical Institute. Why can not we work on larger projects involving all the instistutes leveraing the expertize they have.
For example, why can not we build a weather modeing systems. Let the Andhra University be the principal inversigator and adopt a village near by. Develop wireless sensors, communication protocols to gather weather informaiton. Develop methods to analyze these data based on a weather model suitable for our geography. Informa the farmers about an impending cyclone or a storm. Maintain the data for future use. Record the soil poreperties, based on the water table levels and soil properties, suggest a crop and help the farmers. Let the Management Institutes teach the formers on how to market their own products wihtout the middle men.

Further, students reprsent the widest spectrum. They form the bridge between the society and the institutes. They form the necessary feedback. I like to think that, the insti's have to depende less on the Govt and more on the people in this case the families that students represent. Parents beleive their kids the more than anybody else and thats how we can penetrate into the society. Even we can try to address local problem, say, failure of electrical motors in a partuclar region.Also, most importantly reduce duplication and build by leveraing the existing expertize. We need to collectively work for the betterment of the society. Thy requires indegenios developement of many ideas translated into products which could lead to major spin-offs. Dream big. Think big. Achieve big.

Note: the above is just an out-pour of thoughts. I would organize them to make it a connected reading. Sure :)