Paraded Prodigies

 During my Ph.D. days, I wrote extensively for the "New Indian Express", and later for the "Newstime" of the "Eenadu" group. Though I did get by-lines on the front page, mostly I wrote for the Features' Desk. 

It was thus that I got in to contact with this species called 'child prodigies'. For the "New Indian Express", during the Children's Film Festival, I had to interview this child artist, for instance. It turned out to be quite a coup because the very next day, she was awarded the best actor award.

The girl was a curious combination of a tiny body and a cool, conscious, calculating brain, absolutely adult. She knew what answers to 'provide' how. Why, she had asked for questions in advance! She was perfectly aware of her star status. My desk editor had to pull strings to get her to talk! I was not sure whether her 'interview' performance was a put-on act. Had she already learned the tricks of the trade! She even ignored us in style once the award was announced, though my write-up in a major newspaper sure might have strengthened her candidature! 

I found her mother equally puzzling. She did not seem to mind the objectification of her daughter. Though she, too, did make the correct, the right noises about studies, about accompanying her daughter, about childhood, et al, pretty naked was her lust for the star dust! 

I met another such ambitious mom when I had to cover the sensational news, a three year old who could point out some hundred different car models, of course, as pictures or in the toy versions. I still remember how the kid was getting downright irritated, fidgety, sleepy; may be, because his memory must have been thus paraded very many times! 

One such midget started singing a horrible 'lavani' when he got to know I am a Marathi! Never ever have I been more embarassed. Yes, slightly more tolerable were the scholar types who had aced some science exhibition or some international Olympiad, et al. There was some solid concrete base from within. It was not all parade, unlike the performing 'artists'. 

Yes, it is but natural that a parent is proud of the prodigy. Sure, he/she must be encouraged. Very many opportunities must be made available. Yet, far far more important is protecting the child, the innocence, and ah, yes, the talent. Is not it necessary that the talent grows in a supple way, like a plant? Why make it in to artificial manured and manicured showpiece, competing in the big bad show'biz' arena?!? 

Pratima@ I can never pity enough the pint sized 'stars' of the dance shows on various channels. Sick appears the sexualisation of a tiny body gyrating to the vulgarest moves of the atrocious Bollywood songs. Hopefully they do not know/understand what the horrible moves mean! How different is such ugliness from child abuse? Any wonder, there are weirdos ill-treating kids!?! Some Lolita syndrome! 

Quote of the day:                                                             "The 'Lolita Syndrome' is not a psychological aberration confined to a few perverted men; it is a cultural disease that affects us all, shaping how women are viewed and how girls are taught to view themselves, " asserts Alissa Quart. 

Word of the day: prodigy                                             A prodigy is a child who is unusually good at something.

Chèr Paris, Pauvre Paris!

 You start learning French. You have no doubts whatsoever why. Oh, yes, as a handmaiden to your English Studies! Yet the goalpost slightly shifts because France starts growing on you, and, most of all, it IS Paris that you genuinely like the most. 

The Paris of Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" where the futility of the erstwhile victim becoming the present victimiser came alive, the Paris of Hugo's Notre Dame, the Paris of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code", the Paris you  meet in so very many  literary texts and countless films begins to come alive as your tongue negotiates the half unspoken French spellings.

Why,  as a teacher, technologically you make your 'étudiant(e)s' visit "le quartier Latin" of Beauvoir and Sartre, le Pont Neuf, la Seine, l'Arc de Triomphe, le Louvre, and so on, whenever some tricky point of the feckless French grammar has to be driven home. 

Paris, a city where the past nestles with the present, where over centuries every intellectual seed sprouted, where dry humour is as dominant as the "fraternité, égalité, liberté" spirit, that Paris is burning, and not like the falling London Bridge of the nursery rhymes, but actually burning, getting gutted, getting reduced to heaps of ashes.

Channel after t.v. channel is providing second by minute visuals of the Parisian unrest which, you realize, is an intoxicant more potent than all the Bordeau wines put together, because it is, though sugar-coated as 'student unrest', made of religious n racial rabidity so 'etrangére' to the rational, secular, socialist spirit of Paris, of France. Yes, mourning the sad demise of a city that symbolised very many idea(l)s for very many centuries for the rest of the world is indeed an "auld lang syne" feel! 

Pratima@ Why is literally everywhere on the boil? No Nostradamus is needed to know that the laissez-faire laxitude, convenient to the 'developed' world in the post World War era, created all sorts of migrant ghettoes, acutely unhappy with the adopted countries' policies.                                                                    Add to that explosive heap the oil prices, the oil crises, the weapons industry, the Deep State control freaks, the centuries old Crusades assuming newer forms, and literally the whole world is atop a volcano worse than an endless Etna! Where, oh, when can be found a solution to such crises?!?

Quote of the day:                                                          George Orwell lamented, "To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization." So true the quote rings now, about the 'ruined rues of Paris', and of very many other cities, nay, countries! 

Word of the day: unrest                                                'Unrest' is a situation in which people are angry or not happy, and likely to protest or fight. 

N.B: The French words used in this blog can be easily understood in the context, and everybody knows the nostalgic 'old lang syne' song, right?

Films@ Future

 Japan, they say, is always fifty years ahead of the world. Some proof of this maxim is the futuristic films taking Japan literally by the storm. Yes, I am talking about the 4D Japanese films about which I read recently. 

Branded as 4DX or MX4D (and occasionally expanding into multi-screen formats like ULTRA 4DX), this technique of "showing" the film in cinema halls changes a standard movie into a physical, theme-park-style ride.

How is it managed? Well, the article I read about this sensational phenomenon says that the seats in such cinema halls  are motion-controlled seats. That is to say, hydraulic seats tilt, pitch, roll, sway, and heave to match the movement on the screen, such as a tsunami like huge wave approaching the shore. 

Moreover, the seats in such specialised cinema halls deliver sudden thuds for explosions or punches, while small air jets or leg/back ticklers simulate bugs, whips, or physical brushes.

Environmental effects are managed through auditoriums deploying synchronized water sprays, heavy fog machines, strobes for lightning, wind fans, and scent generators as well.

Major chains like Toho Cinemas, 109 Cinemas, and Cinema Sunshine feature formats like 4DX and ULTRA 4DX (which combines motion seats with a 270-degree panoramic screen), said the article.

Lucky indeed are the Japanese spectators because science n technology are there creatively harnessed to create entertainment that is truly experiential, and tickles all the senses as much as it may provide food for the mind!

Pratima@ i watched a YouTube video       exemplifying this technology. The feel was as visceral as the fear of the spectators who watched the Lumière brothers' early films. When our economy soon outshines the Japanese, hopefully, such unique mode of entertainment would reach us, too. 

Quote of the day:                                                           "Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic," says Arthur C. Clarke. 

Word of the day: futuristic                                        Futuristic means imagining what the future might be like, and hence very modern and unusual in appearance, as if belonging to the future instead of the present. 

Three faces of the same 'issue'

 On the way to and fro the college where I teach is this gynaecological hospital. It is also an artificial insemination center. Mostly, one sees there heavily pregnant expecting mothers and/or a happy family taking home the bundle of joy. Cute sights!

It was hence truly heart rending to hear this soul wrenching wail. Actually, my mobile seemed to ring. So I had to stop in front of the hospital which I generally just pass by. Hence I heard that loud sobbing.

The young woman had either lost her foetus or the AR (artificial reproduction) experiment had failed miserably. She was loudly lamenting her loss, repeating countlessly, 'all is over', oblivious to the fact that her unhappy grieving could be heard over and above the din of the traffic.

Just a few feet down the road are these eateries where flock the hale n happening  college going crowd in abundance available hereabouts. The arrogant aggression of 'I, me, my body, my space' is clearly visible, obviously from their minimally draped bodies. Their public intimacies are an embarassment only for the helpless, hapless passers-by. They could not care less! Surely, as such hussies openly admit, 'if the contraception fails, there is the convenience of an abortion!'

Not even fifteen feet away is a major crossroad  where a beggar woman is literally picking lice from the matted hair of the infant dazed(!) in her lap. Playing around despite, and in the traffic, dashing in to the melee of  screeching brakes and impatient  honks are young bodies, weirdly painted so that better begging can happen! Whose children are these? May be, not her own, possibly victims of the organised child trafficking racket?

Three faces of the same 'issue'! Was I truly moved! Yes, hurt I felt somehow by these glaring discrepancies so typical of the careless, casual, carefree "could care two f****!" bravado, so much in the face, that  it euthnises genuine feelings!

Pratima@ Strict laws prohibit people from easy adoption, while the riff-raff  comfortably steal and misuse babies! Such contradictions is the name of the capitalist game!

Quote of the day:                                                           Says Tim Blake Nelson, "Really, life is full of contradictions. Life is messy." 

Word of the day: wail                                                   A wail is a cry or a  complaint in a loud, high voice, especially because you are truly sad or in acute pain.

Honey, shrunk is the job market.

 Remember the late eighties film titled "Honey, I shrunk the kids"? Well, play with the title a little, and it reflects the current world realities as far as the job market goes. 

Why do I say so? Well, here is this news item doing the rounds of many a newspaper n magazine. It sounds so weird that at first it reads like gossipy stuff. No, though. It is eerily real. 

Okay, meet John Weiss from Utah, America. He completed his graduation from a major university with summa cum laude. His Ph. D. is from Princeton. The area within chemical engineering he chose for his doctoral work is quite niche, too. 

Yet this bright spark has not yet got a full time permanent job. He applied for more than two thousand positions. With nothing more than cursory advice from the alumni network which matters hugely in the American job market, he could land a low paying temporary hour basis  job that just lasted a few weeks. 

Indians have many lessons to learn from this real life instance which surely would not be one of its kind. First and foremost, it is necessary to seriously think if it is worth it to spend almost a million, often through bank education loan, on a foreign degree. 

Next, job crunch is a world scale reality unfortunately. Hence it is better not to allow your  simmering anger against the system to boil over so much that it steams off as anarchy. Such a scenario would complicate  matters further, both for the individual, and the larger whole, that is, the society, and the country.

The AI, moreover, it is necessary to accept, is no finance fed bubble. This Revolution 5.0, or whatever, changes its shape faster than chimera, and has already enveloped most all fields absolutely. Best hence it is to befriend it, and follow it up regularly through online courses, youtube videos, weekend workshops, and what have you. 

Now one has to be a lifetime student who, moreover, trims n shapes professional growth constantly. It looks as if the days of landing up a job at twenty-two and retiring at sixty are over. Within a life time, one might have to negotiate the professional profile time and again as gig economy, in brief, seems to be the order of the day.

The utmost acquisition now hence is a resilient mindset. One has to learn to be optimistic, take rejections in stride, and be cheerful n balanced. The best support system here would obviously be a friendship with self, and being wrapped in that cocoon called caring family. Times might be tough. It is no truism, however, that the tough get going when the going gets tough! 

Pratima@ Creative hobbies like music, painting, gardening, being pet friendly may help. Time also to return to pranayam and mudra/meditation instead of pumping protein after a tiring gym session.

Quote of the day:                                                         "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that, within me, there lay an invincible summer." I love this quote by Albert Camus. 

Word of the day: gig economy                                     The gig economy is a labour market characterized by short-term, flexible, and project-based jobs where independent contractors and freelancers perform on-demand tasks rather than working standard full-time jobs. It is heavily driven by digital platforms and apps that match service providers with the needy, and can be heavy n harsh on the employee. 

Happy Dasara!

 What does Dasara mean now? Let us continue the icon(ograh)ic discussion which we began yesterday. Dasara refers to two iconic events in our epics, Shri Rama returning to Ayodhya and the end of Pandavas' exile and a year of living incognito. 

How do we interpret these episodes in times today? For sure, the truth does prevail in the end! Yes, virtue wins over vice finally. Neither the egotism of either the Duryodhana or Ravana variety succeeds. 

Which are the other significations of Dasara? Grace under stress? Hence the golden feel (reflected by the yellow/ochre flowers) at the beginning and the end of the horizon stretched like a bow? Do the iconic shami leaves suggest ever youthfulness in thoughts, ideas, concepts and actions? 

Which liminalities to cross now that there is so much unrest everywhere, around and in us? Within us, should it be a cross over from 'my' space to 'our' space(s) so that our own horizons widen? Around us, it has to be avoiding wilful misunderstandings of the other(s) with intended confrontations, right? 

Remember, both Shri Rama and Shri Krishna allowed a long rope to the foe to avoid a face-off? I suppose, all must imitate such magnanimity instead of lusting after power with a 'my way or high way' attitude. 

May the festival bring brilliances of all sorts in all our lives! Happy Dasara!

Pratima@ Let the good, the right(eous), the genuine prevail, n forever!

Ideal Iconography

 Well, to state a rather obvious truth, 'seen in a new light, the old appears a-new.' Yes, perception changes cognition. Just a little tilt this or that side, or a look upside down, and with the changed perspective, emerges a     re-vision, right?

An epiphanic example of such a re-look for me is my re-think of the beasts often associated with the Devi. Let me see if I can make some sense thereof, an exercise thousand times much better than wearing a particular colour on a particular day as defined by consumerism.

Indeed, my attempt is more honest on a subtler level than going from one pandal to yet another one in search of Falguni Pathak or her screechier versions. Well, I could even go a step ahead and assert that such an analysis is more adrenaline inducing than mere temple- and/or bhajan-mandali- hopping! 

Which beasts are associated with the Devi in the traditional iconography? The most noteworthy one is the bull, of course. Sure, he is thus an extension of her consort's, Lord Shiva's, 'Nandi. '

In a more symbolic way, if the Devi is the mother principle, then this beast of burden, from time immemorial the symbol of the menial, hard work, has to be the best companion for the feminine principle with whom, agree most all thinkers from most all  -isms, began the agrarian settlements. 

The lion, another major of the Devi's animal companions, is the symbol of regality, grandeur, bravery and uniqueness. I saw birds such as the swan and the eagle as well as the Devi's vehicle. If the swan stands for purity, for grace, for gentle perfection, the eagle symbolises her power and her perspicacity. 

In one of the pictograms, I saw the Kali Mata riding an ass! I think such a depiction shows the Divine revealing the power to control the asinine in the human heart as well as in the society.  In brief, iconographically, too, the more you explore, the better possibilities open up! 

Pratima@ Such interpretations are like the childhood simple but fascination contraption, the kaleidoscope! A slight shift, and emerges a new de-sign!

Quote of the day:                                                          Says Peter Pearson:"Iconography, good iconography, strives to convey invisible reality in a visible form."

Word of the day: iconography                                 Iconography is the science or study of visual symbols, images, and themes in art and culture, as well as the system of symbols used to convey specific meanings.