DesiPundit

Quashing the criminal proceedings against M.F.Hussain, the Delhi High Court asked people to move from a culture of competitive intolerance to a culture of tolerance. Sandeep has mixed feelings about the judgement and says that the judgement “treads into uncharted territories with little or no understanding of tradition.”

The learned judge completely misses the point. Hussain’s paintings do not merely contain nudity. Thousands of nude paintings are routinely exhibited across the nation, so why do the Hindus feel offended with just Hussain’s paintings? The judgement overlooks this crucial point. I’ve written earlier about the exact cause(s) of the provocative nature of Hussain’s paintings.

Two years when the movie The Da Vinci Code was banned by few states in India, the High Courts of those states came out strongly in support of freedom of expression. This week the Delhi High Court quashed criminal proceedings against noted painter M.F. Hussain and asked people to be tolerant about varied beliefs and interests. Rohit writes

Banning books, movies or paintings under the garb of protecting cultural norms or to avoid giving offense to a section of the population is antithetical to the values of a modern, liberal democracy. Let India move from competitive intolerance to a culture of tolerance. As a first step, the Supreme Court should follow Justice Kaul’s direction and quash all criminal proceedings against Hussain. That one of India’s best known painters has to spend the last few years of his life in exile is a national shame.

Gopal takes his camera down to Magadi Road and brings back an eyeful of the statues in the temple.

Stuart makes his first visit to Dharavi and writes about his experience. I always thought, the Middle class in India referred to the consumer class who shop and window shop at Malls,spends 350 bucks for a movie in a multiplex and drives a Getz or a Swift. He thinks on a different route.

I grew up with the stereotype of two cars in the suburbs and a color TV. This isn’t what middle class means in India, even though they now talk about a middle class approaching 250 million. It isn’t the middle class we know and yet this group is changing everything and on the cusp of India’s change and boom.

While I am all set for my trip to India, I can’t help but think of the rising “mall-culture” in the country. Sameer has mixed feeling about the increasing importance of malls today

It feels jolly good… Everything stacked …is beyond the purchasing power of the lower middle class and the toiling masses, so effectively the poor – and ugly India — is shut out from the air-conditioned limits of the great Indian malling experience. The middle-middle classes come in their droves. Sari-clad housewives carefully stepping onto the escalators. Families of six. Mostly touch and feel. Check the tag and let go. They are happy hopping shops.

Vijay believes that in spite of facing competition from international brands, Indian stores are doing well

Amongst all the malls coming up, and the tenant strategy, I am most impressed with Pantaloons. These stores belong to the Future Group, and they seem to have taken a decision to promote only Indian or House Brands. I find some of their house brands pretty good and well priced compared to the international ones. The others, who are also doing well, are Shoppers’ Stop and Lifestyle. I have seen these stores improve their layouts over the past two years, and introduce new products and variants constantly…

Pradeep answers folks who wonder why women employ cooks. [Hat tip: Silverine]

A working woman is no different from a working man. Eight to ten hours of work in the office leaves her — just as her hubby — with hardly any energy to do work at home. She is just like a man who would prefer to watch TV or just sleep rather than do any work at home.

It’s not that women can’t cook. She is employing a cook, only like a man appointing a driver or a cleaner for the car. It’s not that the man can’t find some time to wash the car himself.

Now, this may seem like a fairy simple and straightforward point to many of you, but it’s worth pointing out since so many people still don’t seem to get it!

If you have been watching various Malayalam cinema award functions and music related reality shows, you would have noticed this trend of not singing much Malayalam songs, but more and more Hindi and Tamil Songs. varnachitram compares this with the trend in other states and wonders why Malayalees are so obsessed with everything except their own culture.

We should not have hatred towards Hindi the way Tamilians do, but watching Amritha and Surya award programs, we do not see fascination, but an obsession. It is not just the award programs: in our reality singing shows there are more other language songs, and in our movies all our heroes now are settled in Pollachi. Some folks spin this as open mindedness of Malayalis, but spinning this obsession as open mindedness is just a cover for our inferiority complex

Sayesha reinterprets the poet Kabir’s dohas, or rather condenses his dohas into snappy one-liners. For all you fans of Kabir, and all those who have never had a chance to read Kabir, this is a must read.

Keson kahan bigadia, je mooned sau baar
Man ko kaahe na moondiye, jaamein vish hai vikaar

Rough translation: What harm have the hair done, that you shave them a hundred times?
Why not shave your mind, which is filled with poisonous thoughts?

Executive summary: Think positive.

Sandhya is impressed by Pakistani director Mehreen Jabar’s debut film, Ramchand Pakistani . The movie is based on a series of newspaper articles about a father and son who were kept in India after an accidental border crossing.

The prison cell is a metaphor for communal relations – in a tiny space, men of different regions and religions are forced to coexist—and, in the process, come to realize what they have in common—a desire for freedom—far outweighs their differences… These characters make for interesting conflicts and challenges to the young Ramchand and shape his development into a young man whose main goal is survival … just like his mother Champa, who is struggling to go on with her life. The movie switches gracefully between the Pakistani village where Champa’s “life must go on” and the Indian prison, showing us the passage of time, the pain, and the helplessness that this small family must confront.

Maami comments on the recent controversies about  clothes worn by actresses at public functions down south. [Hat tip: Adithya]

While the old Dravidian canons proclaim that they stood for women’s empowerment alongside social upliftment, the cultural and gender aspirations were quite opposite. The metaphor went that maatran veedu malligai manakkum (the blossom in the neighbour’s garden smells sweeter). It’s an analogy that hints at the Tamil man’s conquest over the non-Tamil woman, a certain covetousness that he takes as part of his patriarchal privilege. Hence the non-Tamil actress is enjoyed for her fair skin and her uninhibitedness on screen for his voyeuristic enjoyment but also denigrated for indecent exposure.