Say It As It Is

I once heard Manmohan Singh's rhetoric about how 'terrorism is a religion of its own and shouldn't be associated with any mainstream religions'. There is nothing much to this statement. Its one of those run-of-the-mill political ploys politicians whip up every once in a while to pacify one community or the other. But this otherwise fatuous choice of words is, i believe a reflection of what is deemed politically correct, to think or speak in these turbulent times. Or any time for that matter.Ever since the breaking out of the phenomenon of 'terrorism', people in general and Muslims in particular have subconsciously honed the art of conveniently ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the direct connection Islam bears with the rising militancy raging around the globe. I'm perfectly aware that in putting forth this idea I'm treading on very dangerous waters, but to keep on hiding behind mind-numbingly vacuous cliches like 'Islam is a peaceful religion' or even better 'Islam did not spread by the sword' would be not only pointless but more damaging to the present issue, as it avoids looking the problem in the face.
For starters, everybody should start owning up to the fact that to claim that any orthodox religion is a religion of peace is a laughable idea. The conquest of Arabia in the 7th century and the Crusades in the 2nd millennium are enough to dispel any such happy notion. Every religion in its infancy goes through a phase where it's forced to resort to violence when its philosophical moorings are questioned and like any historian worth his salt will tell you, a cavalry is any day a better tool for a proselytizer than, say, a hadith. But my purpose here is not to get into a discourse on the savagery of mainstream religions( though i admit its tempting) but to press on the need for Muslims to do a little introspection.
For instance let's take a hypothetical chain of events concerning you, reader. Imagine you join an elite club when you are in college.Its got its own set of rules and limitations.You are not an active participator but you do notice the club's popularity thriving and it becomes an overnight sensation. Later you witness its growth in other colleges and before you know it, its out of the country and its the new fad all over the globe. so far so good. After a while reports start piling up from all over that many of its new members have been resorting to violence and the evidence is damning. Would you as a member feel some sort of a responsibility or would you scoff of the accusations claiming that your club never encouraged violence.
Whether islamophobia is a real entity or just a myth is a topic for another day but, its not reasonable to club together any legitimate criticism of certain aspects of Islamic jurisprudence or ideology as an 'orientalist mindset'. For instance, i believe that the Old Testament is one of the most acrimonious religious texts ever written in history where we are introduced to a self-admittedly jealous and angry god who wouldn't hesitate to 'punish children for the iniquity of their parents, to the third and fourth generation'. Does that make me an anti semite? Going by the same corollary, any pointing of fingers at the inferior status Islam accords to women, at its concession of slavery till a certain period, and at some of the barbaric elements of sharia should not be seen as evidence of islamophobia, but rather as some long overdue constructive criticism.
Many believe that its too premature to open way to such criticism as it might stoke flames of indignation amongst proponents of a relatively young religion coming to terms with itself. Maybe. But on the other hand, maybe not. What if such reasoning would help people to break free of the clutches of religious literalism and transform into something beautiful. I, for one have always been very skeptical of the 'dumb'ing down trick played out by both Islamic clerics and western critics, which attempts to keep entire populations on a tight leash. Sometimes, saying it as it is hurts, but that's when real thought begins.

My Top Five!

1.Inherit the wind-Based on the famous ‘monkey’ trial which pitted a diminutive high school biology teacher who had the cheek to teach evolution, against the full might of the Christian right, this classic still packs enough wallop to ruffle some feathers today after half a century. Spencer Tracy, loosely modeled on Clarence Darrow, gives one of his finest performances as the agnostic defense lawyer who has zero tolerance for religious humbug. 'In a child’s power to master the multiplication table, there is more sanctity than in all your shouted ‘amens’ and ‘hosannas’'- he thunders at the jury. But it’s us he is really pointing the finger at. Its not just the fiercely evangelical prosecutor that he has to counter, but the whole town itself where people consider 'evolution' to be as much of an anathema as 'nigger loving' or homosexuality. Some scenes, for instance, the one where Tracy puts the prosecutor himself on the stand and grills him, maybe a bit far-fetched but back in 1925, trial procedure was an informal business with frequent scuffles between the lawyers. What makes this movie so important is the lamentable statistics you could hear today about how 44% of Americans still believe that life started 4000 years back, that humans and dinosaurs lived alongside each other( Flintstones anyone?) and how god took a day off on sunday; so on and so forth...In short, watch this movie if you enjoy watching a good trial or the next time you see a white fat woman on tv with a poster that says 'JESUS LOVES YA', protesting against stem cell therapy.

2.12 angry men – Sidney Lumet must be out of this world. There is no way anybody could make an entire 2 hour movie about twelve men stuck in one room and still have a rapt audience! Yet that’s exactly what he accomplishes. One of those rarities, that features in best lists both amidst critics and your lay movie buff, this is the best trial movie ever without once featuring the actual trial! Confused? You ought to be. Henry Fonda as the lone dissenting juror countering 11 headstrong men, must do the most difficult thing imaginable, to save a boy’s life hanging in the balance….he has to change their opinion. On a limited time frame at that! And boy, he does it with élan. This movie is at once a depiction of the many faces of human prejudice and more importantly, a scathing critique of the American judicial system.

3.Dalapathi – For the odd Rajnikanth apostate out there or the occasional sceptic who secretly wonders what the big fuss is about, with the ‘palabishekams’ and what not, my suggestion is, go watch this movie and join the rest of us on this side of belief. Probably the most apt rendition of Mahabharata attempted on screen or anywhere else, this is considered by many to be Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus. Rajnikanth’s portrayal of the pathos of being an illegitimate son is pitch perfect and the evolution of his friendship with Mammooty’s character is heart wrenching. As usual Ratnam’s recurring themes of parallel government and alternate justice abound in this film. The famous temple scene with the train chugging in the background should have been neck and neck with the Odessa steps of Potemkin as one of the best scenes of all time. But who said life is fair anyway?

4.Oldboy- If you have a weak stomach, this movie is a definite no-no. but you’d never know what you’d be missing. This Korean masterpiece is as much a treatise on the psychopathology of vengeance as it is an instance of faultless film making. Its also an endurance test for the viewer and even a self-professed liberal will find himself cringing in his seat when the feral climax scene unfolds and you suddenly wish you hadn’t seen this movie. Choi-min-sik plays the half-crazed protagonist who is looking for answers to why he had been kidnapped and incarcerated in a cell for 15 years by someone whose identity itself is not revealed to him. And the answers that he does find in the end are quite probably the most shocking moments of Cinema. The film is also known for its famous 'octopus' scene where the protagonist gorges 3 live ones!( only after making sure the buddhist actor said a prayer for each, before taking the shot). Will smith and Spielberg tried everything possible to remake this movie, but no production house would hear of it. The west, apparently was not ready for this movie yet.

5.Schindler’s list – The metamorphosis of Oscar Schindler (played by the suave Liam Neeson) from greedy opportunist to good samaritan is all the more gripping because it’s based on true events. This movie shot entirely in black and white is Spielberg’s painful tribute to the holocaust. Arriving at Nazi occupied Poland to exploit cheap Jewish labour amidst the ravages of war , Schindler's cynical pragmatism breaks down in the face of the horrors that he witnesses. Bribing his way through the Nazi echelons of power he creates the ‘list’ – Jewish lives to be saved. “And the list”, as Ben Kingsley, playing Schindler's conscience keeper says at one point, “is an absolute good”. Also, with this movie, Spielberg gave to cinema, one of the greatest villains ever in the form of the decadent nazi general Amon Goeth, played by the versatile Ralph Fiennes. I still cant decide what was more riveting; the complex chemistry between Goeth and Schindler or the many subtle moments of kindness between him and Kingsley's character. The climax, though a little overwrought emotionally, is the only way an epic such as this could be culminated. Vintage Spielberg!

life actually

i recently noticed something funny about life. it goes something like this. when you are young you constantly search for reasons to stay alive. there are so many things to look forward to that you want to stay alive. but when you grow older, you start yearning for reasons that would stop you from killing yourself. i know that linguistically speaking it means the same thing, however there is world of difference between these two ideas. i dont know how many of you can really understand what i meant or even if you understood, would agree with me on this. let me try and illustrate a lil bit. when i was very young and in school i used to look forward to meeting up with my friends, to those rare lectures in school that inspired me in some way. i used to look forward to my summer holidays, eating out....i could go on. in short i had a stock of positive reinforcements compelling me to stay alive and live my life.
but that was all to change. gradually as i grew older i realized that i had very few things to look forward to, or another possibility being, i had the exact same things to look forward to but i didnt feel anything about it. my reasons for staying alive suddenly became boring and morbid at the same time. my parents would go mad with grief if i died or that their well being was my responsibility or something like that. the positive reinforcements were slowly getting transformed into decidedly negative ones. in short as mark twain would put it succintly life became work for me!

what price patriotism!

There is something evil about taking sides. Especially when it concerns something as silly as cricket. I had always known this. But it just got worse one night during an India Pakistan match. India ended up winning and you can of course imagine the amount of fuss that a bunch of college kids can pull off when this sort of thing happens. But it is not about our euphoria that I want to talk about. Its something else that I noticed, something I would have missed had it not been done precisely so I could notice. Something subtle, not at all blatant. A group of boys targeted the one muslim boy in the hall(other than me) and booed for Pakistan in the brashest of tones making no mistake about who it was intended for. I was surprised at my own reaction. I laughed. And I relished the hope that someone would ask me why I laughed. Because all these ’cricket patriots’ would have no qualms about searching for greener pastures in Australia or America once they finish college. And for all you know they’d still be cheering from there when India wins. I suppose that’s how one would be expected to be patriotic in this era of murky globalization. Work for the Multi-National Corporations, but make sure your heart stays with the Indian cricket team.

Patriotism taken in the wrong sense can be as much of a germ as religious fanaticism. There is some kind of sinister connection between these two ideas. Indeed the former can be even more dangerous. Let me explain why I think so. A religious fanatic, though itching to convince the rest of the world to adopt his ideology will have a certain amount of hesitation when it comes to voicing these ideas. This is simply because deep down he realizes that people do not take kindly to brainwashing when it comes to their personal beliefs. Ergo ,almost uniformly the expression of a fanatic is through brute force of a clandestine nature rather than a well reasoned verbal argument.
However when it comes to a misguided patriot he is fettered by no such reticence and can be as vociferous as he wants about his concerns as long as it is veiled under some vague notion of national interest. This can be quite a damning issue considering the fact that most of the horrors of the last century were committed in the name of extreme nationalism. Public opinion in this case will be predictably one sided as no sane citizen would want to suffer under the blight of being a traitor. Look at what happened in the US when the crowd was at the prime of its war frenzy. Food outlets were targeted by the mob on account of their serving ‘French’ fries following France’s decision to not dirty their hands in the Iraq fiasco. Hardly mature, wouldn’t you say?
My point is very simple. Any sort of collective ideology has a tendency to always bring out the worst in people. It could be as benign a concept as democracy to fan the flames of intolerance. In an ideal world patriotism would mean furthering a nation’s progress, eliminating slums, encouraging female education and so on. But that we know very well is not the situation. In reality its more about drawing battle lines and enforcing it through hate speeches, some subtle some not so much. Its become a measure of the amount of loathing that you can harvest for your neighboring nation. More about hating some stranger a thousand miles away than about loving someone who lives across your street.
I don’t know if its my inherent cynicism that makes me say this but I have always been of the opinion that patriotism should be more of a utilitarian concept rather than an emotional one. It has definitely got to be something more productive than flag worship. One of my friends was telling me about how tears start coming down his eyes every time he listened to the national anthem and it took all the self control that I could muster not to give him one sound whack on his head. But I didn’t do it. It’s a free country isn’t it?