The Maanga

What does homosexuality mean? Or bisexuality? Or, for that matter, any other form that may exist.

I find it insulting to the concept of person-hood that one is defined on the basis of attraction to someone else. I’d like to propose as basis of sexuality one’s own individual erogenous zones. For example, some people who may get aroused upon anal stimulation should just be classified thus. To assume this biology is strictly coupled with another person or worse that person’s gender is unacceptable, in my experience; nor is the presumption of erogenous zone rationing.

I am sure I am not the only or the first or even the millionth person to notice this. However, I have not heard it said or seen it written: MK Stalin’s mother is Dalit. Yet, he never uses his Dalit status on the campaign trail. The total Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes population in Tamil Nadu is between 20-25% of the State’s overall population.

Going even farther back is fascinating and futile. Since 1920, there have been only two Chief Ministers who belonged to a caste that was large in terms of numbers: K Kamaraj and O Panneerselvam. Everyone else has belonged to a caste that was so small demographically; almost always under 5%. The other interesting aspect about that list is, we find where streets in KK Nagar get their names from.

I thought I had a fantastic analysis on Thol Thirumavalavan. I realize, I don’t. However, it’s obvious to anyone who cares to look at the list that fear of domination by an equal is the biggest driver of political equilibrium in the State. The past 40 years since CN Annadurai, who belonged to the reasonably dominant caste of Sengunda Mudaliyar, is especially illuminating: M Karunanidhi, MG Ramachandran, J Jayalalitha. That’s Isai Vellalar, Nair and Iyengar. Put together, their communities probably form less than 1% of Tamil Nadu’s population. In the 70s and 80s when MGR weaved his Dalit+Thevar formula, did MK Stalin not try any Dalit mobilization at all? I am aware that he did nothing of that sort in the 90s when Dalit politics had become mainstream. In that time, the DMK did face an existential threat. Is the code for mainstream acceptance so rigidly anti-anyone from a caste >5% that even an AIADMK dominance was not reason enough for the DMK to play the Dalit card?

I don’t know why I picked a book up after reading the pretentious prick say it was pretentious. But a man who had read to Borges as a teen deserves to be read.

Manguel’s poorly written sanctimonious nonsense though got me wondering: is intelligence, as we comprehend it in the modern context, by definition, an understanding of what is, or can be, and therefore a reduction[1] of some sort? Something related to what Taleb keeps complaining about and never manages to articulate well enough. In achieving the exact opposite of what he intended, Manguel does remind one of recursion and hypocrisy.

[1] - This reduction seems a combination of the two forms of reduction. Which again makes the author’s failure rather poetic.

Not that anyone cares, but I thought I should clarify I had no idea what I was talking about when I’d randomly use ‘Federalism’ as an argument. Please listen to Heather Gerken actually say something non-trivial on the subject.

Knowledge seems so dangerous to the stupidity of my youth.

For someone who grew up on Tamil movies and Hollywood, that the mise-en-scène and the screenplay can be used to not drive something or someone forward is a pleasant surprise in itself. Therefore my judgment of La soledad may be biased by that novelty factor; but I did enjoy it immensely. This may also be a right time to ask critics who judge movies for bad screenplay what they actually mean. Tautness of screenplay, as clearly proven by this and many others like it, is not a yardstick in itself. Though I’d admit, if the point of the movie is tautness then drift in screenplay is a failing.

On the topic of criticism however, one wonders whether the higher standards of intellectual honesty in portraying life do not apply to age. La soledad had two instances of partial or full frontal nudity. On both occasions it was natural and poignant. On a third instance, in a similar situation, the director chose not have a nude scene. The difference being, in the first two instances the women in question were comparatively younger and in the third the woman was about, say, 60 years old.

This possibly subtle and probably blatant objectification in an otherwise wonderful movie is a let down in some sense worse than the formulaic manipulation by Hollywood. On a scale comparable is this,

If he tears apart a villain who besmirches womanhood, stripping off a girl’s dupatta, it’s because it’s his girlfriend who’s at the receiving end. (Of course, after this act of gallantry, she repays him by jiggling about in a bikini top, rendering utterly meaningless her apparent shame upon being deprived of that dupatta. Then again, this display is solely for the hero, on screen, and all of Tamil Nadu off of it.)

There used to be a time when such insensitivity to objectification and sexism sounded funny. I am not sure if I grew up or they became stale or both. I had to just throw the Sunday Express away and pick The Hindu up again.

Susan Orlean has trouble with naming the Great war. But the memorial in Madras refers to each War in that period as an individual war. One would think that is a respectful way to treat those who laid down lives and not call their theaters battles.

What did the Germans gain for giving up Gauss? Ugly hypothetical examples of architecture? Why?

I remember Thomas Muster only for his acknowledgment of Pete Sampras’ backhand pass in the Semifinals of 1997 Australian Open. I can’t remember anything from his victory over Chang in 1995 French Open finals. Strange. This weekend, Berdych is going to win.

Deborah Treisman defines much of the popular discourse on contemporary fiction. She being obsessed with imagery, I imagine most people under 30 are as well. And to prove that point, here is Jonathan Franzen this week. Then, the Cinderella story happened. Paul Harding’s Tinkers deserves all its superlatives. The greatest pleasure of it though was in the effortless shifting of narrative perspective from third person to first person and thus using imagery as a space time capsule — not a tool. Harding says it better,

Dave: The book is full of passages that fixate on senses and surroundings. One that jumps out is your description of the living room where George is dying. We see every item in the room.
Harding: Sort of a catalog. The catalog of the exhibition, sure.

Dave: At those moments, instead of pushing the narrative forward, it’s as if time stops.
Harding: I recognize that at a certain point it becomes a matter of taste, but I often think of my stories as painting or a type of tapestry. It just happens to be the case that when fictional moments present themselves to me, they present themselves as instants.

There is a process of taking the moment and exploding it. You keep penetrating to find the essence. To the extent that the story has dramatic tension, it comes from the tension of the moment: man thinking, or consciousness, as opposed to, as you say, action or plot. It tends toward the lyrical.

As a writer, you just have to be hyperaware of the very predictable pitfalls to avoid so it doesn’t turn into mere indices of details. You have to keep applying pressure, to interrogate the details. So it’s inclusive but not exhaustive, if that makes any sense.

Reading The New Republic deep inside redneck country counts as a reasonable achievement. Deeper yet will be a criticism of their blue eyed boy Adam Kirsch for methods and not means. Reviewing two books on Martin Heidegger, he seems to suggest everyone else is a jerk

For what makes Heidegger’s Nazism a challenge — as opposed to merely a scandal — is the fact that he did not drift into evil, but thought his way into it. And once we acknowledge the powerful attraction of his work, we are morally and intellectually bound to explore what part of that attraction is owed to ideas with a potential for evil. Neither Faye nor Maier-Katkin embarks on that more difficult questioning, which asks us to confront not just Heideg­ger but ourselves.

The sad part is, it may be true.

Sunita Amin’s lec-dem on Dhrupad was typical of such events in Madras. The lecture was mediocre and the demonstration part very good. Followed by random mama asking irrelevant questions on 1920s Jazz criticism. The overall impression on Sunita’s competence is immensely helped by the fact that she is rather hot. This though is about neither.

When answering the said annoying mama, Sunita mentioned she trained in the Guru-Sishya parampara under Ustad Baha ud din Dagar and Ustad Zia Farid ud Din Dagar. Apparently, the prerequisite for this training was that she cut herself off from all outside influences for the 8 years she was in this program. She claims, she did not read or listen to anything except what her traditional school offered. Not music, not musicology and not even criticism.

To those who are aware of this tradition, may be this does not invoke awe or dropped jaws. I am not the aware type and was quite stunned. Who are these people who can claim such mastery over knowledge and more importantly, life? How can anyone agree to this condition however convinced one may be on the mastery of the said master?

All this brings one to that unresolved question: what is the optimal point between rote learning[1] and critical thinking? Does such optimality even exist? And have all the other people resolved this question? They all seem to become parents; they must have.

[1] - I must confess, my anti-colonial prejudice, or post colonial Western hegemony of the liberal media[2], had made me think rote learning was a Victorian invention.

[2] - Such as this.

1. LB Johnson and his White House wanted to significantly roll back Medicare soon after it was passed.
2. Now that the bill has passed through the legislative process, is the philosophical vigor of the liberal argument against filibuster still as robust? After all, someone who wants to repeal this in the future will also need 60 votes in the Senate. Paging Hendrik Hertzberg.
3. Is Senator Evan Byah going to reconsider his decision not run for re-election? After all Washington has done something.
4. Was Justice Stevens waiting for healthcare to pass?