Culture Police
(Cartoon http://www.hindu.com/2007/02/12/stories/2007021299991000.htm; The Hindu; Monday, Feb 12, 2007)
No two track titles. No complex language. No overlapping spaces. No underlying, parallel stories Just a plain, simple narrative (ok I am lying).
Language and space to live a narrative are granted by the powerful and by the powerless to each other. At the same time, they are restricted as well. This restriction, has its own hand in shaping lived realities. Most forms of restrictions are privileged and exist within a knowledge/power construct. The Culture Police, the specimen under the microscope currently, are a famous example of this. The species that exists in India, especially attracts a special amount of curiosity, for it is indeed a curious being.
Come Valentine's Day and the Culture Police take it to be an annual commemoration of their acts of violence in safeguarding 'Indian Culture'. It is not 'Indian', you see, to be in love and to express it. The 'official' police (I am beginning to get tired of the number of arms of repressive state mechanisms that are present) are a very helpful cousin. Given the sanction of the state, they are even more dangerous - Operation Manju, if you please. (Read more about it here - http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=60300newsid=60300)
They decide what kind of film you can watch. Parzania, for example, is supposedly dangerous. Yes of course it is! It describes through the story of a young boy, who goes missing in mayhem of the machetes, the mindlessness of the violence that embellish the 'causes' the Culture Police stand for. Yes, it is dangerous - imagine the number of young people who would see through the vulgar violence and not want to be part of it! Lesser recruits to wear khaki shorts. (Oh how Indian that attire is, is it not?) Water was another victim. It is indeed very appropriate and very Indian for widows to be discriminated against. But try and describe her life and you are not Indian.
Widowhood is a tricky subject. It is an interesting study in the play of the social on the psychological. Let me quickly illustrate (I know I am digressing). If the woman accepts and subjects herself to demeaning, restrictive situations, she must indeed be a veritable goddess. Ask Ekta Kapoor! The good widow will turn masochistic, plunge into white, cry, not even attempt to piece her life back together. She is after all, the good Indian widow. Then all of humanity will conspire to be charitable enough to throw back to her 'pieces' of normalcy, of her life. Simply put, one needs to give up power in order to attain a moralistic high ground. Take it a step further and an entire school of philosophy looms above the dirt (and I have digressed enough. It shall be tackled later).
So who are these women and men who are part of the Culture Police Brigade? Sword wielding, khaki shorts and orange saree wearing maniacs? No my love. (Think Ideological State Apparatus).
The Culture Police are those lovely ladies, who sit down to cups of filter coffee after their 'bhajan' sessions to discuss how much music they know, how many lines of a archaic book they can rattle off (and are thus, oh, so religious!), how many temples they have visited, what would happen next in their favourite soap, why so-and-so's daughter should not have got divorced, why someone is immoral because of the way she dresses.....
The Culture Police are those nice gentlemen, who sit in lovely offices with views, drive big cars, drink scotch, flirt with young girls in their office and discuss over dinner, how easy those girls were, how a dutiful wife should fast for her husband's long life, how they plan to launch their next project (and secretly think of all the rituals and sacrifices that need to be offered to make it complete), draw up dress codes: Indian - Formal (Men in trousers and shirts, women in salwar kameez or sarees).
Language and space to live a narrative are granted by the powerful and by the powerless to each other. At the same time, they are restricted as well. This restriction, has its own hand in shaping lived realities. Most forms of restrictions are privileged and exist within a knowledge/power construct. The Culture Police, the specimen under the microscope currently, are a famous example of this. The species that exists in India, especially attracts a special amount of curiosity, for it is indeed a curious being.
Come Valentine's Day and the Culture Police take it to be an annual commemoration of their acts of violence in safeguarding 'Indian Culture'. It is not 'Indian', you see, to be in love and to express it. The 'official' police (I am beginning to get tired of the number of arms of repressive state mechanisms that are present) are a very helpful cousin. Given the sanction of the state, they are even more dangerous - Operation Manju, if you please. (Read more about it here - http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=60300newsid=60300)
They decide what kind of film you can watch. Parzania, for example, is supposedly dangerous. Yes of course it is! It describes through the story of a young boy, who goes missing in mayhem of the machetes, the mindlessness of the violence that embellish the 'causes' the Culture Police stand for. Yes, it is dangerous - imagine the number of young people who would see through the vulgar violence and not want to be part of it! Lesser recruits to wear khaki shorts. (Oh how Indian that attire is, is it not?) Water was another victim. It is indeed very appropriate and very Indian for widows to be discriminated against. But try and describe her life and you are not Indian.
Widowhood is a tricky subject. It is an interesting study in the play of the social on the psychological. Let me quickly illustrate (I know I am digressing). If the woman accepts and subjects herself to demeaning, restrictive situations, she must indeed be a veritable goddess. Ask Ekta Kapoor! The good widow will turn masochistic, plunge into white, cry, not even attempt to piece her life back together. She is after all, the good Indian widow. Then all of humanity will conspire to be charitable enough to throw back to her 'pieces' of normalcy, of her life. Simply put, one needs to give up power in order to attain a moralistic high ground. Take it a step further and an entire school of philosophy looms above the dirt (and I have digressed enough. It shall be tackled later).
So who are these women and men who are part of the Culture Police Brigade? Sword wielding, khaki shorts and orange saree wearing maniacs? No my love. (Think Ideological State Apparatus).
The Culture Police are those lovely ladies, who sit down to cups of filter coffee after their 'bhajan' sessions to discuss how much music they know, how many lines of a archaic book they can rattle off (and are thus, oh, so religious!), how many temples they have visited, what would happen next in their favourite soap, why so-and-so's daughter should not have got divorced, why someone is immoral because of the way she dresses.....
The Culture Police are those nice gentlemen, who sit in lovely offices with views, drive big cars, drink scotch, flirt with young girls in their office and discuss over dinner, how easy those girls were, how a dutiful wife should fast for her husband's long life, how they plan to launch their next project (and secretly think of all the rituals and sacrifices that need to be offered to make it complete), draw up dress codes: Indian - Formal (Men in trousers and shirts, women in salwar kameez or sarees).
The Culture Police are those young, convent educated girls who are too prudish to talk about sex; those engineer-MBAs who will drink till alcohol floods their veins but will not judge a girl who smokes to be a slut. Those good boys who will sleep with you (and not satisfy you) but marry a virgin.
As Calvin (of the Calvin and Hobbes duo) would say, "The monsters under the bed are drooling!"
posted by PerfectlyImperfect at 6:31 PM
1 Comments:
i can only smile at the sarcastic way you've captured the truth! :)
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