The Brave New World of Goan Writing

Chuffed to bits!   

  

  

Book launch 'Brave New World of Goan Writing' @ GALF (8th Dec, 2018).

https://www.facebook.com/jugneeta.sudan/posts/916201318579205

My literary essay 'Camoes in Goa- Journey of an Epic' won First Runner-up non-fiction award JRLJ, 2018.

Camoes is to Portugal, what Shakespeare is to England.
'They were not of an age, but belonged to all ages"
(adapting Ben Johnson)
Camoes has been eulogized by literary icons through the centuries, but in my essay I took the story to Goa.
(Credit: Landeg White)

Tap to view pics of the launch and the book.
The link for buying the book is given in the site.
Beautiful Christmas n New Year gift for the literary inclined.
And those who wanna own a slice of the precious riparian sliver on the Arabian Coast of India.
Viva Goa!

Some Honest Films

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=17825&date=2017-04-09&pageid=1

 Some Honest Films

You know an honest film when you see one, like I watched ‘Masaan’ at ESG, last week. The viewer identified with the escapism of characters (Deepak and Devi),  the former’s clan entrenched in rituals of a burning ghat and the latter’s tied to a conventions of patriarchy. Also, last weekend at Sunaparanta amphitheatre, a set of 3 films, again can be classified as honest cinema. The classical fare of ‘The Color Purple’ directed by Steven Spielberg, ‘Thelma and Lousie’ by Ridley Scott and ‘Mirch Masala’ by Ketan Mehta.

I first encountered ‘Celie’, the protagonist of ‘The Color Purple’, in my post graduate study. I was shocked. Nothing in my life or reading had prepared me for this encounter. The film is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Alice Walker. I had goose bumps through the reading of this novel. The experience was something like when I first met Scarlet O’Hara of the fame of ‘Gone with the Wind’.  

 Shabnam Minwalla, a journalist with Times of India summed up this interlude very succinctly, in one of her articles written in 2011, celebrating 75 years of ‘Gone with the Wind’. She recounted how she first met Scarlet when she was 13 years old and Scarlet was of course 16. Three decades down the line, she vividly remembered Scarlet’s green muslin gown, matching Moroccan slippers and ever fluttering eyelashes. Not to forget, her 17 inch waist and grand obsession for Ashley. But most of all, she remembered her overwhelming disapproval. For, you see, heroines were not supposed to flirt, scheme and steal their sister’s suitors. They were supposed to be kind, loyal and obedient. Even if they felt such emotion, they were supposed to camouflage real human sentiment under a lot of kind sweet words and beset with guilt, flog and berate themselves continuously. Little heroines of Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene, and Mary Alcott had done just that. Compared to all of them, Scarlet was a heartless vixen. So like Annie Zaidi writes in her book ‘The Good Indian Girl’, we all wanted to be good girls, because being bad girls , the consequences were very harsh.

    

Therefore when I met Celie, nothing had prepared me for her grotesque world of poverty, incest, paedophilia, racism and sexism. Celie had to live with and struggle with all these realities in her life, when she was just 14 years old. Alice Walker coined a new term for black feminism – ‘womanism’. She said that the black women had a different reality to grapple with and all women issues could not be studied under one umbrella of ‘Feminism’

    

 This film was Steven Spielberg’s first attempt at serious cinema. But he, too, came in for flak later for not doing justice to the book’s defence of lesbianism. Roger Ebert called it the best film of the year (1985) and though it was nominated for 11 Oscars, but won none. Truth is very hard to confront and accept. Society, mired in superficiality and hypocrisy, refuses to acknowledge hard facts of life. The black men too opposed the film for the portrayal of violence of black men on black women in their households. The entire gamut of factors makes the film an honest attempt at filmmaking. People also say if Steven Spielberg had not made this film, nobody would have read the book, and the tales of human horror would have gone unacknowledged. Here I am reminded of Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Tell the truth but tell it slant/ Truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind.’

   

  Thelma & Lousie was called the last greatest film about women. The director Ridley Scott has often been given the epithet of a feminist director. He is comfortable with the term –“Lots of people are uncomfortable with strong women, I am not” adding further, “the problem isn’t strong women, we are.” Known for other strong women centric films like G I Jane, Monster and Alien, he went on to direct Thelma & Lousie because he wanted to show a parable about two women, who unaccompanied by their male escorts traverse a territory not designed for them.

    

If a woman wants to be completely free and unrestrained as men are in our society, there is no place for them in this world. That is why the film is said to a flight that ends in flight(sic) in the Grand Canyon, because the two women find that they have only each other and the whole system is pitted against them. They want to have fun and undertake a road trip – a road trip which turns into a series of crimes. The road is metaphorically harsh, winding and rocky for the women. And metaphorically speaking again, it’s a long, long, long, l o n g. lo o ng, l  oo n g, l  o o n g  road to freedom. The film  hailed 90’s feminism but 26 years down the line, the situation isn’t different. A Sisyphian mountain where a feeling of triumph at the top may delight momentarily, but the boulder is slated to roll down all the way to the bottom again and Sisyphus has to roll it up again – an unceasing activity.

   

‘Mirch Masala’ is Ketan Mehta’s best film so far. An unapologetic feisty woman, tyrannical man, fields of red chilly plant and rustic Gujarat – all come together to create a potent drama. The melodramatic film throws up myriad artistic possibilities which engage the viewer completely. The cinematography is spectacular, with colourful ghagra cholis of women contrasted with the white attire of men topped with colourful turbans. The red chilly on the green plant, glistening, robust, ripe, promising and beautiful stands for passion and lust. Later, the red chilly powder denotes the red colour of revolution, the red of women’s menstrual blood and fiery red of a woman which makes her ‘Kali’ when full of vengeance.

A symbolism of feminism, the film portrays animal imagery versus human intellect. Animal instinct in humans is pitted against their powers of reasoning and intellectualism, but alas, isn’t harnessed much, when humans act enslaved to their basic instincts just like animals. The standoff between Sonbai, the peasant woman and Subedar, the tax collector, opens up a playfield of study in human behaviour. But superimposing every scenario is the frame Panchatantra story ‘The Tiger and the Clever Hare’ – when one day it is the hare’s turn to become the feast of the lion and he decides against it.

   Sonbai, impersonating the hare is self-possessed with a bold countenance, who does not indulge in self-pity. Not for a moment does she think of sacrificing her self-respect for the welfare of her community or village. Very few humans are able to take that kind of a bold stance faced by pressures of family ties and commitments. She has no dilemma or doubt and unfazed, she faces the situation.

  

  The films become a study in human nature of power, self-esteem and hypocricy. These are attempts at honest film making – therefore, they are iconic.  

Souza's Passion Series

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=17983&date=2017-04-16&pageid=1

The Passion of Christ

FN Souza, the prominent artist of the Bombay Progressive Arts Group was born in Saligao, Goa. Brought up in a strict Catholic family, he was exposed to Christian iconography from his childhood. When he moved to Europe in the late 40s, he saw the grand scale of art and sculpture mirroring Christian religious myths. He went on to paint the complete ‘Passion series’ from the ‘Agony of Christ at Gethsemane’ to ‘Christ at Emmaus’. Critically acclaimed ‘Good Friday at Goa’ also forms a part of this series.

Souza was tormented by the crucifixion of Christ and he painted the scene over and over again. Sketches in his MSS bear witness to his passion and torment. Souza once said, “The Roman Catholic Church had a tremendous influence over me, the enormous Crucifix with the impaled image of a Man supposed to be the Son of God, scourged and dripping with matted hair tangled in plaited horns” (F.N. Souza, ‘A Fragment of Autobiography,’ F.N. Souza: Words & Lines)

The paintings which brought him acclaim from international art critics in the 60s are ‘Crucifixion’ and ‘The Deposition’. One of the Crucifixion paintings (1959) was acquired by the Tate Gallery later. He was one of the five painters chosen to represent Britain at the Guggenheim International Award and was hailed by critics by John Berger, as one of the great living painters of the times. Geeta Kapur commented on this, “He has painted many versions of Christ, not all of them so bitterly contemptuous. The famous painting of the 'Deposition’ is not without a tragic content. Characteristically, however, Souza treats even tragedy in his own way, permitting no element of grace to enter the horrifying drama of Christ’s death” (G. Kapur, ‘Francis Newton Souza: Devil in the Flesh,’ Contemporary Indian Artists)

Souza etched Jesus not as a divine figure, but as a human, suffering fear, sadness and anguish writ large on his face. He made the scenes palpable with tragedy and trauma. Taking cues from all-time greats Titian, El Greco and Georges Rouault (first passionate Christian artist of the passion series of 20^th century), he brought his subjectivity to the paintings.  From Rouault, Souza took the thick black line, glass painting technique and tragic human expression. The crying women, distorted morphology of faces of the disciples aggravates the horror in the paintings. The expressionistic color palette and impasto application renders the dark sky menacing and Gothic, foregrounded with the rusty chrome of Christ’s face and earthy ground.

A psychoanalytical approach to his passion series – ‘The Last Supper’, ‘Lament of the Dead’, ‘Death of the Pope’, Christ in the Garden’, ‘Christ Tormented’, ‘Crucifixion’, ‘Good Friday in Goa’ culminating in ‘Christ at Emmaus’ is very absorbing. It throws up elements of childhood repressions and lacunae which formed an important part of his psyche. As Victor Rangel Ribeiro, the nonagenarian writer from Goa (shortly coming out with biography of FN Souza), points out that the strict Catholic ritual and imagery of Christ impaled on a cross, impinged on Souza’s mind as a child and found expression in his paintings later. Ratan Parimoo, the art critic, has compared Souza’s passion series to that of Francis Bacon and Graham Sutherland. The distorted thick black line and crisscrosses making up the contours of human faces express the suffering of man, a coming together of divine and human predicament understood and assimilated by viewers better. They can identify with the tragedy, based on their own experiences in life. ‘Art reflects life, life reflects art’ paradigm brings them closer to Christ’s story. God is no longer distant, divine, and majestic. He is like us. He suffers, His spirit fights with His weak flesh. He goes through torment and battles to rise above His emotions, to meet His destiny.

On the other hand, the paintings also indicate human apathy and cruelty. The analogy with Christ is that the best amongst us, the wisest, the noblest, the purest, the most righteous, we put to death. This practice has been a part of human nature from as far back as antiquity. Plato was tormented by Socrates’ death, and made the latter the prime spokesperson of his writings-- ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Apology’.  Plato was the first to offer view of Socrates as the martyr in the line in which he ends one of his Dialogues, the Phaedo, “And that was the end of our friend- who was, we may say, - all of those of his time whom we have known- the best and wisest, and the most righteous man.”

Carrying the image of Christ to the 16^th century – Pieter Bruegel painted the ‘Road to Cavalry’. The unseen Jesus in the middle of the painting carries a cross to Cavalry for his crucifixion and the red-tunic soldiers personify the Roman guard of Pontius Pilate. Thus, the Passion of Christ is superbly juxtaposed with the passion of Flanders, being crucified by the Spanish king’s army, in Bruegel’s days. The sunny side on left of the painting is balanced by the darkness of press of people to the right who have come to witness the crucifixion on the Golgotha hill. The painting conveys binaries of progress and regression in succeeding ages of the earth and repeated patterns in the story of mankind.

In the modern era, amongst other examples in art, Georges Rouault painted ‘Road to Cavalry’ again.  

And Lech Majewski, in 2011, decided to make the subject matter (Bruegel’s – Road to Cavalry) a visual gaze that extends beyond viewing in an art gallery to a film, ‘The Mill and the Cross’. This creative endeavor by Majewski is an attempt to preserve legacy of art and history for posterity and is a savory sampling of the passion series in contemporary times.

Besides the image of Christ carrying the cross, another marked feature of the film was expressions of people on way to cavalry – unconcerned and hardened against injustice, lest their remorse should invoke soldiers’ ire. They are inured, moving from one horrifying spectacle to another, preserving their own skin, till time indicts them. During Bruegel’s days, myths commanded lives of people and their imprint in the arts was discernible. A craggy high rock surmounted by a colossal windmill (Cosmic Mill) represents the universal law of God. The mill owner views the entire scene non-committally perched on a high platform, as the grinders of his mill crush grain ceaselessly.

Metaphorically, Christ continues to be hanged from antiquity to contemporary times. If suffering and trauma is part of the human story, so is injustice, apathy and cruelty. ‘Good Friday’ is a living reality today, but maybe Resurrection i.e. ‘Easter’ is hope that somewhere beyond truth lives on.  Happy Easter!  

   

Man Womanly and Manly Woman

Why the world needs more 'manly women' and 'womanly men'

https://www.dailyo.in/lifestyle/androgyn-homosexuality-transgender-sexuality-sigmund-freud/story/1/19901.html

Last month John Lewis, the UK retailer crossed a landmark by introducing unisex clothing for its children's retail line. Now people may buy clothes for their children according to their personal choice and need.

Is this a step towards merging of genders, taking human society away from gender discrimination? Although adults, partly motivated by the celebrities, have cross-dressed since the American counterculture revolution of the 1960s, this small step could have noteworthy ramifications. For example, let's talk about psychological androgyny.

Feminist psychologist, Sandra Bem, would most likely have been pleased with this development. Sandra led an egalitarian lifestyle with her husband, sharing equal responsibility for house chores and upbringing of their children. Each pursued their career, earning laurels in their respective fields. She propounded the Gender Schema Theory in 1981 to explain how gender roles were a result of conditioning and social control. Berm's Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), used the term "androgynous" to refer to healthy individuals who exhibited combinations of both masculine and feminine stereotypes.

Be forewarned that psychological androgyny is not to be confused with homosexuality or transgenderism. It is an evolution of behavioural patterns; wherein human beings find a balance between the feminine and masculine traits of their personality. There is no opposition, but on the contrary, a coexistence of yin and yang energies in one's mind.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the greatest living psychologist of our age points out:

"Psychological androgyny is a much wider concept, referring to a person's ability to be at the same time aggressive and nurturing, sensitive and rigid, dominant and submissive, regardless of gender. A psychologically androgynous person in effect doubles his or her repertoire of responses and can interact with the world regarding a much richer and varied spectrum of opportunities. It is not surprising that creative individuals are more likely to have not only the strengths of their gender but those of the other one, too."

The most perfect of human beings in history, Leonardo da Vinci's genius and accomplishment has bewildered humanity. However, Freud's 1910 essay dwelt on his sensitivity, indecisiveness and gentle personality, traits attributed it to the female sex.

It is also intriguing to note that although Virginia Woolf's book-length feminist essay, "A Room of One's Own", begins with the cogent argument on the pathetic condition of women writers in the literary canon, it ends with a case on androgyny. Virginia witnessed a man and a woman meeting at the kerb and getting into a taxi, and seeing thus, a refreshing calm assailed her senses. She writes, "The sight of the two people getting into the taxi and the satisfaction it gave me made me also ask whether there are two sexes in mind corresponding to the two sexes in the body and whether they also require being united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness?

"If one is a man, still the woman part of his brain must affect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her." She turns to Samuel Taylor Coleridge for ratification - "The truth is," the celebrated poet and philosopher wrote in 1832, "a great mind must be androgynous".

Shiva is worshipped as the ultimate man, yet the underlying secret is revealed in the Ardhanishvara form of Shiva.

She adds, "Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilised and uses all its faculties. Perhaps a mind that is purely masculine cannot create, any more than a mind that is purely feminine, I thought. But it would be well to test what one meant by man-womanly, and conversely by woman-manly." After that she emphatically declared that William Shakespeare, Keats and Coleridge were man-womanly.

The patriarchal model of our society has overlooked the symbolism of a "womanly man" and a "manly woman" in the iconography of Indian religion. It has been there all along, a change in perspective and it becomes apparent. Jaggi Vasudev, the mystic and poet, explained the symbolism of the Ardhanishvara thus: Shiva is worshipped as the ultimate man, yet the underlying secret is revealed in the Ardhanishvara form of Shiva. Here he is half man and half woman. Further the metaphors and images of Tamil Bhakti poetry conjure up a precise icon, a concrete image of Shiva:

• My master who rules over Accirupakkamdisplays two forms,
• having taken as half of himself
• the soft girl with waist as small as gathered lightening.

"Shiva is in harmony with that what constitutes him - male and female. Therefore he is ecstatic," expounds Vasudev. If the inner masculine and feminine meet, you are in a perpetual state of ecstasy. If you only do it on the outside, it doesn't truly last. A cross-pollination has to take place within the psyche of the human being.

Adrienne Rich in her poem, Diving into the Wreck, writes -

• This is the place.
• And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
• streams black, the merman in his armored body.
• We circle silently
• about the wreck
• we dive into the hold.
• I am she: I am he

In popular culture "Ziggy Stardust" was the androgynous alter ego of David Bowie. Michael Jackson, Elton John, Prince and now Madonna, Anne Lennox, Michael Stipe are a celebration of androgyny and sexual ambiguity.

Where gender was still understood as a binary, Bowie spoke for the team: "Society for the prevention of cruelty to long-haired men". He wanted to wear his hair long without being indicted for it. Through his songs and performance, he sold the idea that androgyny was cool. His revolutionary assertive personal style subverted labels prevailing in human identity across stereotypes. Emphasising it, Lady Gaga told Ellen DeGeneres, she wants her fans to know "It's OK" to be a "freak". And behind these 20th century androgyne idols stands the ghost of the 19th century extraordinaire - Luisa Casati.

When a society allows people to express their psychological make-ups across gender boundaries and stereotypes, the outcome can only be more creativity.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote, "If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude."

Classical Drama Festival Goa

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=17801&date=2017-04-02&pageid=1

 Classical Drama Festival

Imagine ‘Bhagvadjjukiyam’ the old Sanskrit literary text set to contemporary theatre with Bharatnatyam and classical music. Further imbue it with folk art and you have a sampling of the theatre fare staged at Kala Academy last week.   

 The Classical Drama Festival was a potpourri of four plays from ancient Sanskrit theatre of India. National School of Drama in collaboration with Kala Academy brought together theatre repertories in different parts of India to stage their plays in Goa. Rendered in three languages, it was a colorful spectrum. Plays sourced from great Sanskrit playwrights, Bhasa, Kalidasa and Bodhayan were ingeniously staged by contemporary directors like Ratan Thiyam, KN Panikkar, SM Kulshreshtha and Waman Kendre with support from their skilled cast and crew.  

‘Urubhangam’ and ‘Mohe Piya’  were plays written by Mahakavi Bhasa (approx 2^nd century BC to 2^nd century CE), whereas ‘Shakuntalam’ and  ‘Bhagvadjjukiyam’ were penned by Kalidasa and Bodhyan (between 3^rd to 7^th century CE). These playwrights wrote prolifically. Besides drawing from the two Indian epics, they mirrored the socio-political and religious thoughts of the people of their times. Subverting and bringing minor voices to the fore was another accomplishment of these writers.

Sanskrit theatre which flourished from the first century CE onwards employed female characters in feminine roles. Now this fact is indeed very unique and surprising considering the role of women in theatre and cinema post Mughal/British period in India. Another interesting fact, the plays always ended on a happy note or a resolution of issues inspiring hope. Comedy in all its hues – puns, satire, irony, dead pan humour - was frequently used to portray gravitas in human condition. Aristotelian tragedy had no place in Sanskrit theatre (except plays by Bhasa), unlike the Shakespearean drama. It was unorthodox for an Indian Sanskrit drama to end on a sad note.

The elements of the play were mapped on ‘Natya Shastra’, a treatise on performing arts written by the sage Bharata Muni. The Hindu Sanskrit text encyclopaedia states that, “The Nāṭya Śāstra is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts, one which has influenced dance, music and literary traditions in India. It is also notable for its aesthetic "Rasa" theory, which asserts that entertainment is a desired effect of performance arts but not the primary goal, and that the primary goal is to transport the individual in the audience into another parallel reality, full of wonder, where he experiences the essence of his own consciousness, and reflects on spiritual and moral questions.”

Coming back to the drama festival at Kala - ‘Urubhangam’ directed by Ratan Thiyam, was the first play in the series. Thiyam is one of the best directors in contemporary theatre and the expectations were high. He brings to the forefront Manipuri theatre  comprising of classical Manipuri dance, Thang Ta the martial art form, and Wari Leeba narrative style of recitation.  Exponent of ‘Theatre of the Roots’,  his path-breaking work adapts classical theatre to contemporary times, evoking a commentary on existential dilemma. Once a person watches a Ratan Thiyam play, he is completely sold out on Thiyam’s artistry, spectacle and intellect – and asks for more.   

The insurgencies of Manipur deeply inform Thiyam’s work.  The inter-ethnic strife between the two tribes, Nagas and Kukis, has caused chronic violence in the state, ever since it started escalating in early nineties. Against this backdrop, ‘Urubhangam’ depicts Daryodhana as a repentant human being. The villainy in this legendary character is subverted to expose human qualities. The play portrays his fight with Bhima, in which the latter takes advantage of Daryodhana’s weak position and smashes his thighs beyond repair. The repentant Daryodhana contemplates on meaninglessness of war and his relationship to his parents and his family.

Late KN Panikkar did not disappoint with the staging of ‘Shakuntalam’ either.  The play was presented by Sopanam Institute of Performing Arts & Research.  Panicker’s, engaging ‘rangapadam’  - stage directions still being followed, made the audience easily forget the language barrier if it existed for some. Shakuntala signifies ‘prakriti’ – nature in its purity and Dushayant the king, the exploiter and plunderer, who forgets his karma. Kalidasa’s symbolism to conserve and preserve nature triumphs in the end with the king acknowledging his folly.

 ‘Bhagvadjjukiyam’ directed by SM Kulshreshtha, the only director present at the performance was indeed a treat. The audience gave it a standing ovation for its classical music, Bharatnatyam and the equally skilled acting and dance performance of its cast. Yamraj (Amrit Sinha), won accolades for his graceful mudras. The pompous yogi and his mischevious disciple got the sequence rolling. They exchanged an invigorating dialogue on the duality of soul and body. Their interactions with the courtesan were comical and revealing. Finally the ‘parakeya parvesha’ resulted in hilarity when the courtesan speaks the language of the yogi and the yogi behaves like a courtesan. The play displayed utter mockery of Buddhist monks, their beliefs and relation to the courtesan.

'Mohe Piya’, a reworked title of the Sanskrit play ‘Madhayam Vyayoga’ directed by Waman Kendre, formed the closing play of the festival. The central character of Hidimba, a marginal voice in the Mahabharata, illuminates the fact that ancient Sanskrit writers were subverting the main plot-line of the epic and shining a torch on fringe voices. That Hidimba is portrayed as a courageous, thinking woman who takes exception to her husband (Bheema) staking his claim to her son after years of separation and negligence, is another surprise in the plotline.

Live musical score would have livened the acts even more. A couple of them were very loud, the musical score jarred the ears of the audience. The battle scenes could have been concise to improve the effect of the plays.

Overall a great change from the Indian English drama spectacle, a classical odyssey which drew you in with its ethnic appeal. 

Mad Woman in the Attic

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/NewsDetail.aspx?storyid=17115&date=2017-03-12&pageid=1

Women and the Macabre!

Celebrating ‘International Women’s Day’ last week, I deliberated on the portrayal of women in art and literature since Victorian Era to contemporary times.  What has remained constant is that women are portrayed as decorative, hysterical, neurotic beings, often adept at representing the macabre and the uncanny.  They continue to be shrews, sirens and femme fatales, too.

Gyorgy Ligeti’s ‘Mysteries of the Macabre’ (2015), is a crowd pleaser.  Barbara Hannigan, the Canadian soprano, pulls off a spectacular, hysterical, absurdist performance representing the macabre, along with conducting the orchestra. Admittedly, it’s a high point for Barbara, who turns a conductor and makes her mark in an all-male bastion. But the contestation here is why only women are chosen to depict the macabre and uncanny?

As legend has it, Tarantella dance form from south Italy has been performed in ritualistic practices by possessed neurotic women. Sociologist Ernesto de Martino explains tarantismo as a “social disease”.   They found that the phenomenon largely affected women. Women who had been abused, forced to marry men they didn’t love, or who found themselves at the margins of society in other ways. De Martino, and later researchers like Luigi Chiriatti, argued that tarantism was an expression of this marginality: “a way for these women to manifest their social suffering, have that suffering recognized, and relocate themselves within a community, rather than outside of it.”

Historical records show witchcraft and sorcery linked to women, many of whom were tried and burnt at the stake.  Sidonia von Bork, die Klosterhexe, was written in 1847–1848 by Wilhelm Meinhold, which recounted the trial of a Pomerian woman accused of witchcraft.  ‘Sidonia the Sorceress’, an English translation of this novel, was published in 1849 by Oscar Wilde's mother, Jane Wilde. Scholars and feminists pursued the original question of whether or not the witch hunt was a deliberate woman hunt (1980). Most historians began to rethink the question

while still acknowledging the importance of including gender in the analysis of witch hunts. Their studies reports the following – “For three centuries in Europe, where the witch persecutions began, vast numbers of women were destroyed by the ruthless campaigns of the witch hunters; of the few hundred thousand people executed for witchcraft, 85% were women. Women were accused of practicing witchcraft due primarily to religious, medical, economic, and sexual reasons. Examined closely, the witch persecutions of both Europe and New England show a hidden agenda dedicated to the total suppression of female power, revealed by the overwhelming percentages of women who became the victims of a phenomenon that could only be called a holocaust.”

‘Mad woman in the attic’ (also a scholarly book by Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar) is a trope often used in literature. A book discussion series yields names of five novels from the 18^th century to recent times, mirroring portrayal of women as unstable, hysterical and mad, therefore best locked-up in the attic. ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’, ‘Yellow Wallpaper’, ‘Sula’ and ‘Surfacing’ – are writings by authors which illustrate the pernicious effects of control, repression, confinement and fear on the human psyche. Since a woman is physically delicate and a victim of cultural prejudices, she is more susceptible to such hells. The resulting psychological repercussions then get perpetuated to her progeny (daughters).

Last but not the least is woman as a fancy decorative piece in a house, stage, film or an advertisement. That she is nothing beyond a pretty face and a sexual body bring her the labels of enchantress, seductress, sorcerer and a siren. Women themselves have internalized this paradigm, and carry beauty as a cross all their lives. They forget that they are human beings first with every faculty of the supreme human species.

The journey of a woman can begin when she fights with the internal gender prejudices she harbours within, which she has inherited from collective consciousness of millennia. She has to object, scorn and reject every move of the patriarchal world to subdue, ridicule or dismiss her. Along with aggression and non-cooperation movement, she has to invest in women power.

Sisterhood is the scapegoat of patriarchy and misogyny. Women have spited and been enemies of each other for far too long. They need to reinvest this energy and retrieve their powers by safeguarding bonds with sisters - mothers, mother-in-laws, daughters, daughter-in- laws, girlfriends, aunts, nieces, sister-in-laws. Weave a quilt of strength, love and harmony!  

Well- behaved women do not make history

http://epaper.navhindtimes.in/mainpage.aspx?pdate=2017-03-05

Well- behaved women do not make history

‘Alice in Wonderland’ directed by Tim Burton did not bag laurels just for the colorful portrayal of the Mad Hatter, but a complete reworking of the character of ALICE. A well mannered, soft spoken, delicate darling Alice, made it to the gumption list of the maverick heroines. She takes on the evil queen in a fight and refuses to marry the prince. Manjula Padmnabhan’s ‘Unprincess’ is a maverick girl who takes on her own battles and knows her mind.

Heroines of the yesteryears were about sacrifice, eternal love and duty. They were not supposed to flirt, throw a tantrum to acquire their heart’s desire or eye their friend’s suitor. Even if such human feelings surfaced in them they were to camouflage their true spirit under a garb of politeness and sweetness. No doubt women were always scheming and plotting – cause they could never be forthright and open about themselves and their desires. They were certainly not supposed to be assertive, and let the whole world know whom they loved and be selfish and ruthless in pursuit of their goals in life.

We would have heavily frowned upon such heroines and we did exactly that down the ages. Madame Bovary, Hester Prynne, and Scarlet o’ Hara were read with censure rather than admiration and sympathy. But now the tables have turned and when we read Scarlet O ‘ Hara we see her as a brave woman who survives the civil war with hard work and a has no nonsense attitude about herself. We view her more realistically and admit that the reason Rhett Butler is attracted to her in the first place is because of her forthright attitude and outspokenness.

‘Well behaved women do not make history’ said Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Creations of writing and imagination, literature has created legendary heroines who in retrospect rank high on the list of FIESTY HEROINES. Who are these heroines who compete for a place in the elite list? They don’t need to wrestle with stalkers, or kick sick men in their asses,  they just need to be smart, confident, gutsy, vivacious, articulate and very clear to know their minds and make unhindered choices; female protagonists, whom we have read and who have stepped out of print and become our close companions and confidantes.

Shakespeare’s Cleopatra has been objectified, declared a temptress a “whore”, an enchantress who made Antony “the noble ruin of her magic.” This threat has much to do with Cleopatra’s beauty and expressive sexuality.  Cleopatra is self-involved, a narcissist. The dichotomy of a manipulative seductress versus an able leader will always stay with her image as 19^th century artists painted her with the asp applied to her breast rather than the arm where it bit her – clearly indicating the fact that she was more an object of desire than a strong woman   ; nevertheless, her charisma, strength, and indomitable will makes her one of Shakespeare’s strongest, most awe-inspiring female characters.

Hester Prynne in ‘The Scarlet Letter’ wears the scarlet letter on her bosom with gumption and lives with her daughter in the same place that ostracized her. She also never breathes out the name of the father of her child. Shamed and alienated from the rest of the community, Hester becomes contemplative. She speculates on human nature, social control, and larger moral questions. Hester’s tribulations also lead her to be stoic and a freethinker.

Elizabeth Bennet is never intimidated in ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Jane Austen thought her ‘as delightful a character as ever appeared in print’; a woman who is delightful for reasons other than those of beauty alone. She is characterized by wit, independence and a courageous ability to admit her mistakes. She wants to be seen as a rational and autonomous human being in the same way as men are. She tells Mr Collin as much.

Jo March, the rebel and tomboy of ‘Little Women,’ beseechingly asks her mother why she cannot be content to sew, cook and look after babies like her sisters. The restlessness and adventurous spirit drives her to travel and finally she falls in love with her writing and the professor. Her struggle to blend family life and responsibilities with a creative profession could be a precursor to the choices women make today.

Catherine’s wildness in ‘Wuthering Heights’ is the rejection of her gender identity as defined by a bourgeois society. The heliographic on the walls of her room at Wuthering Heights is the symbolic remnant of her struggle – Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff and then again Catherine Linton. Her practicality makes her choose to be a lady over her wild passion for Heathcliff, which is her real self. Catherine is a women’s anguished voice which revolts; a haunting presence, always to remind of that which is denied to her – of what she actually wanted to be.

In Anna Karenina the theme is one of adultery, a romance which shakes the foundation of a society steeped in hypocrisy. Anna is unforgettable for her refusal to observe the proprieties exacted in such a liaison  - remember she adamantly argues with Vronsky and goes and attends the opera in her regal attire.

If we were to shift the narrative from fictional to real life women who live in our societies and create such colossal feminine characters then Maya Angelo, Alice Walker, Anita Desai would take the lead. Anita Desai is unique in portraying a wide gamut of Indian women in her novels. What really struck me was that in one of her interviews, she candidly admitted that she loved her writing passion and would yearn for time to herself away from her responsibilities of family life and children – to return to her first love – WRITING ; very akin to Virginia Woolf’s – a room of one’s own.

With translations Indian regional literature has become mainstream now. I have recently encountered bold real life heroines in the images of Karaikkal Ammaiyar ( Tamil mystic saint), Andal, Akka Mahadevi (Kannada Literature), and Muddupalani (Telugu poetess). Mahashewta Devi, Kamala Das are bold examples of women who have left larger than life size images for posterity.  

If you are attracted to some people and characters, it is an indication of the fact that you harbor some of their characteristics and aspire to be even more like them. Well, if that holds true and you admire these maverick heroines, you could make history too! Happy International Women’s Day!