Thursday, July 26, 2012

Can we deal with adultery like adults?

The public humiliation of a man and a woman by stripping and beating them publicly in a village in Udaipur district for adultery is not the first incident and neither will it be the last, sadly.

I am not going to join the progressive clichés of "what a barbaric thing to happen in the 21st century" or "barbarism, inhuman treatment of two lovers which prove that we are still a feudal society" and so on.

Adultery indeed is a grave crime. Isn’t it painful and humiliating to find out that someone who you love has been cheating behind your back all this time? Isn’t a deterrent needed, something which can give justice to the aggrieved party, regardless of whether its husband or the wife?

Adultery is dealt in two different ways in India at the moment, as a matrimonial and as a penal law. It is a criminal offence under the penal law, but under matrimonial law it only exceeds till giving the divorce (but it has an impact on the wife’s right to get maintenance/alimony)

But on the other hand, although it is a criminal offence in penal law, only the adulterer stands to be punished and the adulteress goes scot free. In case of matrimonial law, both the spouses can use adultery as a reason to get divorce.

Penal law allows the guilty wife to go unpunished, not even accusing her of being an abettor. It puts the entire blame on the third person, who invades the sanctity of marriage. The adulterer is considered 'an outsider to the matrimonial unit who invades the peace and privacy of the matrimonial unit and poisons the relationship between the two partners constituting the matrimonial unit.'

This is unfair as it makes a laughing stock of the husband and puts all the blame on the other man while vehemently denying that the wife is the part of and equally responsible for the whole scenario. This makes the husband take everything out on the third person and not considering any culpability on the part of his equally guilty wife. This is like if your child gets hit by a table while walking, you ask him/her to hit the table instead of teaching him/her to walk carefully.

 
Till the time such lopsided laws remain, these things will continue unhindered. Justice only prevails when there is equal culpability regardless of things like gender.

Before the bleeding hearts call for my head, I want to make it clear that no way can such a thing as public beating and stripping be allowed to happen in any human society. Its a trauma for life for the victims even if they survive unscathed and puts a very question on our claim as one of the greatest civilizations on earth. What difference remains between our people and the delusionary desert apes who gleefully stone women to death for adultery?

These kind of lynchings are mostly carried with the dictates of caste based panchayats who are linked to their counterparts throughout the state. We can therefore forget about any action to be taken by politicians as it means endangering their caste based vote bank. Policemen in rural areas too largely come from the same kind of mindset. Civil servants from the same caste will do everything in their power to prevent the law from reaching the guilty. Therefore these things will continue because the people who have been elected and deputed to prevent this find their benefit in looking the other way. A few arrests here and there will not change anything.

But the bigger problem, which causes these incidents, is the definition of manhood defined by tribal culture or conservative societies.

The infidelity of the wife is looked upon as a question mark on the manhood of the husband. He is a coward if he lets her escape with anything less than dozens of mutilating scars or a few broken bones. He has to reclaim his honour, to wash his face clean which has been blackened by the accusations of his jaat and biraadari.

Surely, you arent a man enough that your wife has to quench her thirst elsewhere, the honourable jaat/biradari sniggers, thoo hai teri zindagi par (we spit on your very existence). The man who is having the time of his life with your wife is a challenge for the very being of your masculinity. Dont be a namarad by letting this bastard escape.

Yes, the aggrieved husband says, I will teach the bastard and that whore of a woman who happens to be my wife a lesson that noone will ever forget. I will reclaim my izzat. 

Bravo Son!!! All the blessings of the elders are with you!!!!

So what follows as a result are mercifully blurred images of the victims crawling and tottering on the ground, images which make cultured and sensitive people like us spill their morning coffee on the table. How dreadful of these village folk to spoil the taste of our breakfast. Don’t they have better things to do, like organic farming?


Now back to the question of adultery, which in the opinion of yours truly is a crime .Crime because it is deceit, betrayal and the theft of dignity from the life of the the families of both the perpetrators. It is a humiliation for the perpetrator's spouse which lasts a lifetime, which can make him or her lose confidence in fellow human beings. The cases of murders done to avenge or to conceal infidelity are aplenty, even in the jungle of us civilized creatures. 

Matrimonial law in these cases is better as it gives the right to the wronged spouse of whether to continue the relationship or not. But hate as we might, it is a bitter truth that the writ of law does not run as soon as one leaves the cosy urban surroundings and enters places where clan and community rules are placed above everything else, even humane justice. And if one has to change all this, the laws in this regard have to undergo a serious change to inspire confidence in everyone that they will be dealt fairly by law.

And no, it is not about education that will be decisive in preventing these kinds of incidents. It is the change of mindset. As long as we have these ridiculous definitions of manhood, honour and glory amongst us, this will go on. No use crying hoarse about the lack of human rights. You will have to have a society of humans first.

http://theviewspaper.net/can-we-deal-with-adultery-like-adults/

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Kyunki Mard bhi Kabhi Mard thaa or No Man's Land

When was the last time when one saw a man who looked like a man and who had manly qualities  in a TV serial?

Someone with masculine qualities like leadership, agression, protectiveness, assertion, being the man of the house and pure old anger which are deemed as terrorism by the feminists.

Someone who had rugged looks, who wore a man's clothes and not some pansy embroidered stuff, who had traces of facial hair, who didnt have carved eyebrows, bleached skin, manicured hands ? Someone who walked and talked like a man and not some kid terrorized by the neighbourhood bully? Someone who made decisions and made others follow them instead of just cowering behind someone?

Dont stretch your brains. Because manliness became extinct from TV in the 90s itself.

If one needs to find an example of complete feminist conquest, look no further than Indian TV serials. True, in soaps all over the world, male characters are being pushed into the background but in Indian soap operas the conquest of feminism is 100% complete. This dystopia is ruled by women who have a lot of face on their makeup (yup, face on their makeup. This isnt a typo) and who are adorned with enough gold to make Fort Knox cry tears of shame. The combined weight of their attire and jewellery makes them a weightwalker and not just a weightlifter (too bad weightwalking is not an olympic sport). Their hair has more pins than a porcupine has quills and their minds have more plots and plans than CIA, FSB and Mossad put together. 

Women in these serials come in three categories-

The middle aged heavily adorned and bejewelled ones who are macabre and evil beyond imagination. They can make any crimelord look like a novice and are conspiring against everyone from the cradle to the crematorium.Luckily, their criminal empire extends only till their family which can have between sixty to two hundred members. 

The very old ones who are more devout than all bhakti saints put together, who are instant sources of pious platitudes and doyens of tradition.

The third and the most important is the young woman, the protagonist around whom this whole dystopia revolves around and conspires against. She is young, sweet and mature beyond any scope of the puny human mind with sacrifice, selflessness and goodness firmly embedded in her DNA, thanks to the 'sanskaars' given by her spectacled Babuji in a safari suit and  a purdah clad Mummy. She is shy like a mimosa, innocent like a preschooler, virginial like Snow White, a moral educator for anyone who chooses to listen, an adviser for any situation which can range from someones divorce to someone getting married for the third time, a social crusader...
Infact the TV serial need not even specify that she is a fictitious character.

She has two to three siblings. If its a sister, then she will be a prototype in making of her Didi. If its a brother, well then he will be like any other piece of furniture in the house.

The audience of these shows are overwhelmingly housewives and hence the serial makes these masterpieces comprising of utopian and feminist fantasies, all in the name of showing a woman centric programme.

Men as mentioned earlier, are relegated to the background and one hardly notices their presence, throughly effeminate and without any virility in them. They are of the following types:-

The elders of the house,  the old men speaking philosophically and doing anything else.

The husbands, who are pitiably pussy whipped and henpecked, mere tools for the manipulations of the wily mother and sinister wife.

The only manly looking men in the serials, and hence the villians, chauvinists, having amorous designs on the heroine and the other nubile women. He has to be outwitted by the heroine with the help of her robotic husband. Same goes for the evil mother in law or grand aunt or the envious woman next door.

In trying to create a woman centric story, all these serials do is degrade the woman further and make a caricature out of her. As for the men, it gives the word misoandry a whole new dimension.


Can we even expect to see a hint of reality in these horrid creations?

Why does a family have to look like a brigade dressed ornately? And why do they have to always be never less than twenty or fifty in number?

Why cant anyone dress in normal everyday clothes? Whats the point of the women wearing heavy jewellery in early morning or the men wearing sherwanis or suits during dinnertime?

Why does the house have to resemble a museum or a palace? How many joint families does one really find in urban area? Even while showing a middle class family, the house is as big as the eye can see.


Why cant they actually show men going to work? How can they not show a man earning his living but being at home whenever you see ? Why do they have to hang around their wives all the time, adding value to the already unbearble stupidity?

Why must a widow dress in a satiny white saree? Which century are these people living in? Isnt this a slap on the face of the reformers who spent all their lives for their upliftment?

Whats with this obsession with extra marital affairs and illegitimate children?

Why must there not be a definite script beforehand instead of writing it on the sets? Two years of any of these soaps makes one feel that they have been running since Henry Ford invented the automobile.

Why must the whole universe revolve around the fight between the mom in law and daughter in law? Are there absolutely no more domestic issues to talk of?

And why do half of the women have to shown as some kind of hideous characters full of hatred and envy who can think nothing but conspire and plot the others downfall? Isnt this a mutilation of women in general?

But the most important, being a woman centric programme doesnt mean that men be shown something as dead as furniture or as miniscule as mites. Will it hurt these people to show men who can head the family instead of just speaking flowery dialogues and being a pansy ? Why cant they be something whom their children, wives and parents look at with love and pride instead of  merely some kind of a tailing device which follows the wife wherever she goes?

If this is the general idea of how people want to be entertained then something is wrong with the audience as well and not just the makers. A society is also known by how it likes to amuse and entertain itself. And judging by that, we have built a very lousy identity.


 
 

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Beyond Pele, Maradona or the World Cup.

Somehow football, or the beautiful game as the Brazilians call it or soccer as the Americans call it, never found a fan following in India (except in West Bengal, Goa and Kerala) as it has in the rest of the world, even among the working class. Why it is so is one of biggest mysteries in the world, considering that this sport can pay rewards that can exceed cricket or tennis by a long way and that the lower middle class and working class from which all players have sprung from is plentiful in this part of the world as well.
There is a shocking degree of disinterest about the sport here. The popular media here only covers The World Cup and The Euro Cup. Thats the only time when the sport gets wide coverage here. Therefore the only players who gain recognition here are the ones who play and shine in these two tournaments.

Hence whenever the question of who was the greatest comes up, people dont look beyond Pele or Maradona.
But as anyone who follows football will tell you, international matches (match between national teams ) are hardly five to ten percent of the football matches that are played during a given year, or lesser than that. The rest is club football, which being professional is much more tougher and challenging. The toughest football tournament is not the World Cup or the Euro, but the UEFA Champions League where 32 of the best club teams in Europe battle it out from September to May every year since the tournament began in 1956.

The reason why the World Cup was conceived in 1930 was to have a tournament involving national teams to be prestigeous enough for the top players to participate. Same with Europan cup which was started in 1960.
I would first like to make clear that I'm by no way belittling Pele or Maradona or international football. But before calling them the greatest footballers, one needs to take a few things into account.
These two were strikers.
A striker has the possession of the ball for not more than 5-6 minutes from the entire 90 plus minutes of the match. How well a striker plays or whether he scores or not is determined by the midfield. It is the midfielder who has the bulk of possession of the ball, it is him who decides the pace of the match. Defenders are seldom superstars because people forget that stopping/saving goals is as spectacular and important as scoring goals, sometimes even requiring more skill than scoring, risky as well as  it is replete with the challenge of getting booked.
No need to explain how thankless a goalkeeper's role is. Thats why the likes of Kahn, Shilton, Yashin, Casillas, Buffon will never get half the spotlight of their 10 counterparts in the team.
So the game is much more about who scores a goal or who gets to be the one that scores it.
Defenders like Franz Beckenbauer, Carles Puyol, Paolo Maldini and Lillian Thuram (just to quote four examples) are worth their weight in precious stones. The way they stop the goals is at times much more pleasurable to watch than the goals being scored. Their tally of goals is hardly into double figures. So are they not to be called great just because they arent the goalscorers?
And what about the soul of football, the midfielders like Zidane, Rivaldo, Charlton, Giggs, Cryuff, Di Stefano and Messi? (the last three being able to play the roles of forwards as well) ?
The number of goals scored by them is not eye boggling, but their role is the deciding factor.
The reason why Pele is termed as the greatest footballer is given as he scored the most goals till date, 1200. Maradona because of the spectacular Argentina triumph of the 1986 World Cup mainly.
Pele can be termed as the best striker in international football where he scored 77 goals in a hundred odd matches he played and played a great part in Brazil winning the 1958 and 1970 World cups.
But he played all his career in the Brazilian League with Santos FC. The Brazilian League has a lot of flamboyance at the cost of substance and high scoring matches are the norm, with four or five goals being scored in a game being commonplace. It was therefore easy to see how Pele and another Brazilian great Romario who played for Vasco da Gama FC got to a thousand goals. Maradona by that comparison played in much tougher conditions, for FC Barcelona and then for Napoli, even though he played the bulk of his career for Boca Juniors.
The conditions in European leagues are not so liberal for high scoring. The conditions in EPL, Primera Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga to name the top four are very tough and there is hardly any open space for a goal to be squeezed in. 3-2, 2-2 are the normal scorelines (or in case of Serie A, 1-0 ). Hence the arguably greatest players to never paly the World Cup Alfredo di Stefano (who according to many is the best ever) and the tragic George Best playing in Spain and England respectively stand out. Their total tally of goals is not even half of Pele, but the conditions in which they scored them were and remain much more testing.
The best players always look forward to playing in Europe and not in any Latin American or Asian League. Any Argentine would look forward to play in Barcelona instead of Boca Juniors or any Brazilian in AC Milan instead of Fluminese . Thats where the biggest money and the best quality is.
Thats where the contemporary players like Messi, Rivaldo,Raul, Zidane,Maldini etc stand out as they have played their entire careers in much more testing conditions than any league in Latin America. Its unfair that they be put below the past greats just because somehow the present cant be romanticized or glorified.
Messi has joined the all time greats by playing Barcelona where he effortlessly skips between midfield and forward positions. Maradona had a miserable two years in the same team.The name of the great Gerd Muller who was the mainstay of the attack of Bayern Munich through all the 1970s and was instrumental in the then West Germany winning the World Cup in 1974 is not even mentioned in the same breath. Neither are Johann Cruff and Alfredo di Stefano, "total footballers" who could play in any position. Strange.
When deciding greatness, all aspects of the game have to be taken into account. Its unfair to ignore club football over international football and vice versa. The media of country like India conveniently ignored club football till the end of the 1990s and never mentioned players who were never able to play the world cup, e.g., players like Ryan Giggs or George Best, because Wales and Northern Ireland couldnt produce ten other worthy players to play alongside them.
So in simple words, its not just the ones who score goals that are great, but also the ones who create them or stop them. As Zidane once said "This is a team game. Individual glory here is worth nothing. You pass the ball to the next guy 99 out of 100 times".