Archive for the ‘India’ Category
Indian mythology on Ganesh
There are quite a few stories about how Ganesh came to be the Indian god with the body of man and head of elephant. This is a nice youtube cartoon which I use during my college lectures.
Enjoy!
The young face of Bollywood
Posted by Johanna in India, Popular culture on januari 23rd, 2010
Just watched Ranbir Kapoors stunning performance in the Indian Blockbuster from 2009 : “Wake up Sid”. Wake up Sid is comparable to “3 idiots” which I recently reviwed in the sense that the two films have a common message: it is time for independence of Indian youth, Indian youth has the right to choose their own life paths.
The way I see it, Bollywood films often serves as an entry point to societal critque. These two blockbusters of 2009 are contributing to a change of attitudes among the film consuming Middle class. Wake up Sid features Sid, a young coellge graduate (Ranbir Kapoor) whose father expects him to take over the family business once he graduated. A classical scenario among Indian youths. Sid is a fun loving guy, his father’s credit cards pays for Sid’s amount of fun, he spends his time doing all but studying: he likes clubbing, drinking, he drives a nice car, and a servant serves him breakfast in bed every day. But when Sid lets his father down by not engaging in the family business, he is cut off – and left with nothing of he has former taken for granted. Luckily for Sid, he has struck up an acquaintance with Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma), a new girl in the city. She is 8 years senior to Sid, and quite his opposite – Aisha’s goal i life is to attain independence. Therefor she moves to Mumbai as a single 27 year old writer – looking for her dream job in the field of journalism. Once Sid left his parents safe haven, he crashes at Aisha’s place.
Konkona and Ranbir plays their characters brilliantly throughout the film, which in itself is colorful, fresh and uplifting. The only thing I can complain about is the boring boring soundtrack, other than that, this is a likable film! I completely love the ending, puppy love is shown with a warm hug, not a sleazy extended kiss-scene. It is also bold and brilliant to show a love story between a world vise female who take charge of her own life and a younger male who clearly admires his lady-love on several levels. Girl power and independence is the the main concepts of Wake up Sid. It is a film about growing up, waking up, leave college ad gain your own grounds and meanwhile friendship develops into love.
Prof. William L. Smith
On the 19 of December 2009, one of the most eminent Scandinavian Professors of Indology passed away. With one boisterous laughter he introduced me to the beautiful Hindi language. Prof William Smith was an extraordinary teacher, he knew many languages and every day he read several news papers from different regions in India. He was highly respected among scholars in The Nordic region as well as on the indian Subcontinent where he spent a lot of time. His method of teaching was to embed jokes in the reading exercises so we could all have a laugh together. When I think Prof. Smith I hear his laughter and I am honored to have met and known him, leaving behind great works on for example the classical Indian epos Mahabharata. This is a link to William Smith Orbituarty from Sasnet South east Asian Student Network.
Being a Girl in Delhi
My recently started film project is coming to shape! I am at moment working out the themes from my material. The girls are so vivid talkative and spontaneous in the interviews that I am so happy about their contribution in my film! It will be a documentary which portrays how 3 Delhi girls look upon their lives, their future and their position as women in Indian society. At the moment I am am dividing the vast material into 5 thematically different though connected parts.
1) Being a girl In Delhi
2) Life in Delhi
3) Eveteasing
4) Indian parents
5) Indian marriage
Eveteasing is an act commonly defined in Indian media, guidebooks and by my informants as men harassing women in the street or on the public transport. An eveteaser stand close to the woman and ‘accidentally’ touches the woman’s hips, breast, bottom, or even her vagina at times. It is also includes verbally comments of sexual character, staring and comments on girls appearances. To bring more light into the issue of eveteasing, watch the video material from News Chanel Aaj Tak and the Jagori “Safe Delhi” ad on You Tube.
Say it with a Bollywood song
Posted by Johanna in India, Popular culture on januari 2nd, 2010
I just watched Indias christmas Blockbuster 2009: “3 Idiots”. When the script was written by Chetan Bhagat, author of “A night at the call centre”, I was curios. As a Bollywood blockbuster from the film is interestingly enough to a large extent criticizing the competitivness of the the Indian education system. Furthermore it features India’s youth’s problems with the older generations expectations for their future careers.
This is something that the girls I met in Delhi when doing fieldwork also talked about, they stated that there is a hierarchy among the courses of education engineering is at the top of this hierarchy. The parents in the film all hope fort their sons to become engineers, they not only hope they have forced their children to take up this education. The sons own free will is marginalised and this is the sad truth for many youths in India.
Suicide rates among Indian students who fail to live up to the grading criteria is a problem that is brought up in the film. Viewing life as a “race” where winner takes all is the attitude that is nurtured at “The Imperial College of Engineering”, the school which the “three idiots” attends.
In 3 “idiots” Aamir Khan has the leading role. One of Aamir s lines in the film is something like “The grading systems is like a caste system where people are divided and kept separate”. I think it is a really interesting script writing and I highly recommend this film. Not only great story, also some nice songs and great acting by Aamir, Kareena Kapoor and also Boman Irani. The conclusion of the film is that the parents finally agree that what is right for their child is to do whatever the child him or her self want in life. The free choice of the individual is stressed throughout the film and I hope Indian parent or any other parents who think it is their full right to make choices for their grown children to think again.
I have previously argued in my blog that Bollywood Film often comes with societal critique and watch film “3 idiots” and you will see brilliantly put critique.
Desi girls documentary coming up 2010
I have been granted a scholarship to complete my documentary on the Desi Girls who figures in my thesis. The material has been residing in my drawer for almost exactly one year when I, earlier this week, received the letter of scholarship. I will spend the beginning of 2010 working on my documentary and I will share thoughts and ideas regarding it on my blog.
Happy holidays to you. And I am deeply grateful to my early Christmas gift Desi girl documentary will be presented in 2010.
