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| HOME | NEWS | COMMENTARY | ARVIND LAVAKARE | |||
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January 5, 1999
ELECTIONS '98
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'It's just a film, for god's sake!'
How Readers responded to Arvind Lavakare's recent columns
Date sent: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 11:35:58 -0800
Arvind Lavakare continues to propagate the false argument initiated by Varsha Bhosle a few weeks ago. The argument is this: Simply because Dilip Kumar did not file a case in the Supreme Court when The Satanic Verses was banned in India several years ago, his motives now, when he did protest against the way Fire is being "banned" by thugs and goondas of the Shiv Sena are suspect. The argument smacks of hypocrisy. How would these two worthies react to this argument: Simply because the Shiv Sainiks did not protest against the innumerable scenes of rape in Indian films all these years, they must think that rape is part of Indian culture -- perhaps something that they themselves have indulged in so routinely as to not notice... Or to this argument: By not protesting against the depiction of rape in Indian movies, which is a crime against *women*, their motives are suspect now, since Fire is a movie against the *men* of India -- a challenge not only to the 'masculinity' of males in India, but clearly against the suppression of women practised by men in India. Disgusted by both articles, Ram Poduri
Date sent: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 17:22:39 -0500
This is in response to the dispassionate analysis of Fire by Redneck Arvind from the Republic of Langotland. Your first bullet about lesbianism and the movie: Your concern was very well appreciated. I believe the censor board has given a rating of A for this movie, not G or Kids Only rating. So your concern about adolescents and teenagers doesn't stand. The only people who publicised the whole things is the Langot Brigade. Thanks to them, every horny 14-year-old will be bribing theatre attendants to watch this movie. I know lesbianism is different but I am not sure whether it is not normal or not, so stop using Orwellian techniques in your sentences. The point made by Vimla Devi is also the standard excuse of the Langot Brigade -- there is a double standard. Sure there is a double standard -- but what do you do about it? You don't fight against it in the courts, do you? Rather you ruin the person who you think got away with a light punishment. Doesn't it sound like the Indian crabs in an open glass jar story? Why should it make the Langot Brigade so insecure about women asserting themselves and where do you get this urge to guide them? Who are you to make moral judgments on others? Buzz off. When I make a movie with my money, I make what I fancy, it is as simple as that. Don't tell film-makers what they should do. Nobody is forcing you to watch those movies. All Indian movies go thru the censor board, don't they? "After all, between showing a woman thoroughly happy after a night with a man in bed and showing the actual attainment of her orgasm, there is a vast difference, isn't there?" Really? How do you know? How do others know if they don't see it? Are you assuming there will be a difference? Are you talking about theoretical sex here? Why can't Indians see movies depicting Indians in bed when they see foreign films depicting foreigners do the same? You may find it disgusting but others may find it interesting. Even our prudish censor board has okayed the scene in Fire. If you feel so queasy about it don't watch it. Just walk away. Don't tell me that I cannot watch it. Or, may be, is it because Indians can't kiss? The only sexual scene in an average Indian movie is rape because of constipated policies and Langot Laws. No wonder we have things like eve-teasing in India. It is high-time we make movies in India that depict men and women being sensual and passionate. Fire and religious sentiments -- this is the biggest pile of dung forwarded by Bal T. Radha and Sita are common Indian names. Just because Muslims are childishly sensitive about anything and everything we need not be so. I will show a hundred Indian movies where the hero's sister Sita gets brutally gang-raped by villains. Where was the honour of the Hindu gods then? May be Hindus don't mind when a girl named Sita gets brutally raped? If you don't know, Radha is intimately linked with sexuality. What do you think Krishna was doing with Radha, playing ping-pong? Please don't re-write Krishna Leela for us. We are not contesting with Muslims about who can be more childish, are we? Two wrongs don't make a right. As Ashok Row Kavi rightly pointed out, you Langots are turning India into another Afghanistan and Mullah Bal-T will be the grand leader of that Langot Land. Now what's so wrong in Dilip Kumar protesting against Fire and not against the banning of Rushdie's book? How come none of the Langot Leaders petitioned and fought for removing the ban against Rushdie's book then? At least Dilip Kumar was not threatening people and damaging other's property, was he? Dilip Kumar's action is no better than people protesting against banning the play about Godse. At worst, he is just partisan. Langots are partisan at best. To be honest I did not like the banning of the play on Godse. I read the script and it was so pathetic I wished they really let it be staged and let the world know how pathetic Godse really was. People have the right to protest or not protest against anything whenever they feel like it. Slandering them because he kept quiet at one point shows your immaturity and your inability to argue. If you don't know why people were arguing about the Fire without any concern about poverty malnutrition and illiteracy in India, then the reason is this: Educated Indians don't really believe that they can feed everybody, make everybody literate and wipe out poverty from India -- but they do believe that they can still provide a basic sense of freedom in thoughts, beliefs and in action. That's why there is such a hue and cry about the Langot Brigade's attacks. We got so little and you want to take it from us? Btw, I don't know about the limits of freedom of expression because to me it sounds like an oxymoron. Anything, how bad or how offensive or how distasteful it may be, should be allowed to be expressed in whatever form it may be. Whether it is Rushdie's book or anything else. As an adult, I don't want anybody else deciding what I should read or what I should see. To summarise: 1. If there is double standard vis-a-vis Godse and Fire fight for the Godse play. Don't go and threaten everybody associated with the movie. 2. It is high-time that Indian movies show intimacy as it is. Sensuality need not be indirect like "running around the tree", or perverted into "rape scenes". If you have a problem with that don't watch the movies that show them. Nobody is forcing you. 3. Don't create new Hindu taboos and traditions like Radha is not associated with sensuality and using Hindu gods names in movies offend Hindu sentiments. Get real. 4. Don't force movie-makers, or for that matter anybody, to do your will. 5. You are not a dispassionate analyst. You are a Langot, may be you don't know it yet. I will answer your question now: What is shame? Shame is something you should feel now, having written such propaganda material in the name of being dispassionate. Shame is something the Indian government should feel for not willing to let people listen to Godse's argument even after 50 years of Independence. Shame is something the Langot Brigade in India should feel for not coming to terms with sexuality despite having babies like bunnies. Shame is something Rediff should feel, having published a piece of garbage like this in the name of journalism. Hasta la vista Nagaraj
Date sent: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 23:27:19 EST
It smacks of hypocrisy, uses specious arguments like the name of the women being Sita and Radha to malign the film. If the censor board cleared Fire, there should be no one -- not even nonsense writing journalists like Arvind -- who can call for banning the film. One more thing: Just because The Satanic Verses was banned, it doesn't mean that Fire should be banned too. Arvind should take a basic course in logic so that he can understand that 2 wrongs DO NOT make a right.
Date sent: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 16:25:02 -0800
I don't understand what all the hue and cry is about. It's just a film for god's sake! Arvind had raised the question about a "limit on the artistic freedom of expression". In a democracy, how can you claim that there has to be a limit on your freedom? Where do you draw the line? What is offensive to you might not be offensive to me and vice versa. How can one person or persons decide for the rest of the country? Next thing you know, people will be forcing their wives to wear purdah, saying it's "obscene" for a woman to show her face in public. We seem to be going backwards in time here. As for your question "who decides for the teenagers/adolescents...?" It's up to the parents. If the parents are stupid enough to let their 10-year-old watch an adult-rated movie on television, it's their problem. The government can only help them by regulating that such movies can be shown on television only late at night, when you expect most children to have gone to bed. You seem to be saying that women should not be allowed to assert themselves. What do you mean by "...women are already tending to assert themselves..."? Again, it's not a film-maker's responsibility to "change" or "educate" society. They are creative people and their job is just to express their ideas and opinions. I think film-makers are judged on a different scale than other creative people because their medium is more glamorous. In a country where thousands of schools don't have *regular* teachers, it's quite ridiculous of you to expect film-makers to start teaching our citizens. According to me, the *last* thing a film-maker should do is preach. I am not going to a movie-theatre to be spoken down to! I want the movie I watch to be entertaining at the least and thought-provoking at best. What makes you think lesbianism is "abnormal" sex? A few centuries ago, homosexuality was the "normal" way of having sex in Greece. Don't we consider Greece to be culturally advanced? I don't think anything is cast in stone as THE way of doing things. What's natural today could very well change in a few 100 years. Why can't we just let minorities be? Why do we have the insane urge to tell other people what to do, what to read, what to watch? Chandra
Date sent: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 21:20:44 -0800
This must be one of the strangest pieces I have read in a long time. If I understood Mr Lavakare's article, he seems to be in favour of the Indian media and social organisations focusing their attention on illiteracy and other 'shames' that plague our society, rather than raising a voice against throttling the freedom of expression (and don't tell me an extra-constitutional authority has the right to decide what entails freedom of expression). Fair enough! But by what inverted logic does he stop from advocating the same line of action for the hooligans who started the tamasha in the first place? Secondly, why on earth should it be the role of NGOs to raise 'a voice' against illiteracy? If that would indeed get the attention of our politicians NGOs didn't even have to exist in the first place! And what more proof do you need of the fact that the people who are so worked up against showing Fire share a commonality of purpose with the individual who argues against mass education because it seems to him just a trick of spreading Christianity! Face it Mr Lavakare, what sells as a vote-plank is not illiteracy but the 'evils of westernisation'. Furthermore, arguments like "lesbianism is abnormal" (essentially a value judgement; Indian arranged marriages are an abnormality not just to my 'Western' friends but to the Chinese and Japanese too!) or that choosing a name like Sita is meant to hurt religious sentiments (why doesn't it occur to Mr Lavakare that the film-maker might be saying that it is perfectly possible to have such an 'abnormal' relationship and still remain as pure in heart and soul as Sita?) or for instance, saying that Fire should not be shown to our 'illiterate and impressionable' women because they shall turn into lesbians, are simply ill-conceived and ridiculous. If I have to buy Mr Lavakare's arguments and the Shiv Sena's or VHP's antics, the choice in front of Indian women does seem to be quite tough: (i) either stay illiterate and turn into lesbians simply by seeing a film, or (ii) get educated and convert to Christianity! On balance though, I think it will be a fine day for Indian women if they decide to turn into lesbians en masse... The resulting empowerment and (severe?) scarcity of heterosexual women may well correct for some of India's embarrassing gender imbalances (which, if I am not mistaken, is how the story in the film evolves in the first place)!!
Date sent: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 10:47:01 -0500
Good to see that somebody is trying to look at both sides of the coin. However, I beg to differ on some issues. What does it mean "a film should come along showing a perverse direction in which women's life should move." SHOULD MOVE? Don't you think it should be could move? Out of depictions like this come debates. Yes, some women are likely to be confused. Hopefully, they will ask or be told about the movie and what happens in it is not our classical definition of a sexual act. I also don't like the idea of lesbian sex being termed unnatural or wrong. Since when did we get on the moral high road? Who are we to decide what is natural and what is not? Is driving on the left side natural? Stirring the pot clockwise? With the left hand? Bathing in the evening rather than in the morning? Where do you draw the line? If something is not the norm, then society will ensure the "unnatural" intruders a natural death. Some changes are here to stay (without changes there is no progress)! If people feel lesbianism is not right then tell people to watch the movie to see what is not right. Tell them procreation is only viable through a "natural" act. Pure pleasure is forbidden. Educate the ones you care about regarding what you think is right. Give everyone a choice. Give everyone a chance to be an individual not a prototype. Billy
Date sent: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 14:55:25 -0800
The original English version of Deepa Mehta's Fire, screened in the US last September, had the names of the two women as Radha and Sita, much to my surprise!
Date sent: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 14:34:28 +0530
It is excellent and unbiased. Karuna Kumar
Date sent: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 13:30:16 -0000
Yes, the country does need to focus on development -- education, healthcare, potable water and sanitation. But how is that related to the freedom of expression? The brouhaha on this issue is totally out of proportion. Whatever the film portrays, no one is being forced to see it. It seems the author is worried about the impression it will create in the minds of "impressionable and uneducated young girls." But why? How is someone's sexual preference harming you -- apart from cases of violence like rape, child abuse, etc, which have laws to deal with them? Why is it so terrible to let these adolescents watch a movie which addresses lesbianism, but okay to let them watch rape and domestic violence against women in mainstream cinema? And why should only "normal" things be shown in movies? If you don't like "abnormal" things, don't watch them. In any case, I thought Fire had an A rating from the censor board, so teenagers and adolescents wouldn't be able to see this film in the theatres. However, I do agree that one cannot selectively ban things -- in fact the government has no business banning stuff. The only things that must be banned are acts that incite violence, like religious mobs, and more commonly, the calls of hatred that issue forth from places of worship. Please leave freedom of expression out of the hands of vote-bank conscious politicians. Ruchira Raghav
Date sent: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 10:36:02 +0530
A decent article aimed at pointing out the shortfalls in American policy towards Kashmir and India's nuclear testing. However, one needs to understand that the people of THE USA are not interested in policing the world, and that the recent attacks on Iraq have been received very half-heartedly by the majority of the Americans. Shrikant
Date sent: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 10:36:02 +0530
The column states that: "...it is high time that India loudly make the world understand, once and for all, that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir is and shall be an integral part of the Union of India. The Americans at least will quickly grasp all the nuances when told that Kashmir's accession to India in 1947 was akin to and as valid as that of the State of Texas to the USA from March 1845." It is questionable as to how much the general public in America knows of their own history, even more questionable is the amount of time they are willing to take off from the "World Series" and "Rose Bowls" to ponder on such stuff, and, most of all, it is questionable whether public opinion actually shape any of the US foreign policy -- unless they reach Vietnam proportions. In light of this, very few Americans are likely to know of the background and facts about the accession of the State of Texas to the Union, and talk about it. And instead of dismissing the headliner to a mere sentence, how about letting us Indians know of the accession of Texas in all its gory details? Tapan Basu
Date sent: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 10:49:07 +0300
"How many billion dollars the US taxpayer will have to shell out for this exercise?" Are you sure the US taxpayer is maintaining the US army? For me and many of us in the Gulf, the governments in Gulf countries maintain the US army. Jagandas
Date sent: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 14:23:59 -0500
I rather expected to find more information on the accession that makes Kashmir an integral part of India. There was a mention about Texas's ascension to the United States, but again there was no information on that either.
Date sent: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 09:11:45 -0600
It may be true that Texas was annexed by the US in 1845 as pointed by the author. But Mr Lavakare must realise that Texans do not want to get out of the US like the people in Kashmir. If they want to they have the right to plebiscite and form an independent state outside the US. Whatever the Constitution might say, ultimately it is the people that matter. India should let the Kashmiris decide if they want to be part of India or not. The comparison with Texas is lame. Ravi |
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