Bill, Bigelow & Backpack

Symbolism and allegory is indeed a potent tool to add layers, colours and texture to issues and discussions. It can be fantastically bang-on or damningly misleading and lot depends on the intelligence of both the formulator and interpreter of the idea. No my friends, this is not my learning from the hugely successful Dan Brown genre, though it indeed was involved in the genesis. Instead, what I am referring to here is much closer to real and “de-crypted” life. A three pronged rambling – read on …

The first two observations are linked at their source, but fan out thereafter. The first and most important, at least for me as an Indian, is the 108^th Constitutional Amendment, better known as the Women’s Reservation Bill. After millennia of prejudice, amidst shameful hooliganism and against ruling anarchy, the Indian woman has made a small but joyous step towards hope. Before you lash out at me with your sabres, let me clarify that “small” here is a downright relative expression. The acceptance (though still very provisional, for Lok Sabha MPs would still surely use every rule in the book to save their seats which are set to go to women if the Bill is passed) of a formidable right to decision making in the world’s largest democracy still plagued by patriarchal and feudal bias is in itself a gigantic and unprecedented step forward for women. It’s indeed tempting to tend towards symbolism considering the fact that the present ruling party, the opposition, the Lok Sabha and the Indian state all have women in pivotal positions presently. Sorry to sound like a cynic, but the acid test would really be if and after the 108 comes into force. How the empowered woman community wields and uses its power is where the real essence of the issue lies. When you look at the fact that a party like Trinamool Congress, led by a woman, did not think it was correct to evict MPs who belittled the office of the Rajya Sabha speaker, you’d start to see what I’m trying to say. Politics today, at least in India, is starkly discordant with public welfare and farsighted policy making and has instead turned into a combined game of monopoly, trapeze and poker. On the road, in the fields and at home, the Indian woman is still fighting for identity, equity and dignity. I sincerely hope that the 33% does not get sucked into the black hole of materialistic and virtue-less politics but uses the power to really make a difference in the life of the Indian women and set her free. The government lost out the symbolically fantastic opportunity of getting the bill passed on International Women’s day, let’s hope the Indian state doesn’t take the symbolism too seriously.

Now, it’s time for the red carpet. The famed “Battle of the Ex-es” at this year’s Oscars ended in the Oscar for the best Director going to a woman for the first time in Oscar history. The Dan Brown-esque media again linked this with the International Women’s day. First things first, “The Hurt Locker” is indeed a raw and scathing look into the horror, rigour and monotony of pointless and protracted war. A columnist has remarked that the “sweaty, sour and defeatedly masculine tang seeping out of every frame” in the movie could only have been captured so shrewdly by a woman. Something about such remarks rings a bell somewhere in me. Why is the woman – angle looked at with such scrutiny in such situations? Around the world, with all the talk of progressive humanity, gender-bias still is a menacingly strong undercurrent. To me, underlining the fact that a female director deserves extra credit for making it the Oscar winning list, and similar such statements, have roots in a deep-seated patriarchal conviction. I definitely need more minds to develop this line of thought.

Finally, a musing on something entirely different. As a part of the process of watching the Oscar nominated movies, I came across George Clooney’s “Up in the air”. I thought the film has used a very different technique to look at the importance of social security in human life, which is refreshing. Riding on the concept of a backpack, used as a symbol of the materialistic and social commitments that ride on the shoulders of a human, the film very subtly underlines the beauty, importance and criticality of not cocooning yourself from the world in a bid to stay away from responsibilities and commitments. It was a nice breezy movie, and without any over-the-moon dialogues or situations, drove home a point effectively. I wonder why Bollywood doesn’t get “inspired” by this genre ….