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Noo.....I meant, even tho ur not from India/not living in India, ur showing so much concern over wats happening here in the present scenario.......:DQuote:
Originally Posted by a.ratchasi
NOV: *phew* when I din't find this thread the last time I logged in, I was rather surprised/puzzled!
haha, I got it the first time, dear Lambretta (Do you really want us all to type your id in full?:wink:). When it comes to entertainment such as mainstream movies, we all are affected by it. These are afterall our movies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lambretta
Why? Because the movies, to an extent, are part of our heritage irregardless of our location. :smile2:
Tat makes sense.....:)Quote:
Originally Posted by a.ratchasi
Um....u cud call me Lamby..... :wink:
Much better than being called a lamb! :shock: :roll:
From today’s “The Times of India”:
Aspirations of the Indian woman have changed
…Kushboo must be relieved. But the people she had in a moment of dare spoken up for, women who did not set much store by their virginity and so quickly got rid of it before they tied the knot, must worry.
For the new Indian woman, life before marriage is not as straight or easy to explain as it was for her mother or grandmother. There was not much to do outside home, and, in any case, the world outside was not so alluring, not so beguiling in its promises as it is now. In the movies, Meena Kumari and Asha Parekh by and large wore saris and spoke in self-less rhetoric. They were pretty, coy, demure. Only the vamps, say Helen, Bindu, and, to a lesser extent, Padma Khanna, were empowered to drink, dance and seduce heroes.
The heroines now get to show their skin all they want-body is power-and in the end they don’t have to stop a stray bullet with their bust and so help the movie to a happy ending. Housewifery is not the only career option. Jump-cut to the call centre in your neighbourhood and you will know why. Money is the greatest liberator.
All is indeed flux. But one thing has remained constant- after a fashion. As recently as a decade ago, the average female sex ratio was 945 per 1000 men. It has dropped to 927 now. In Tamil Nadu, where Kushboo spoke the truth and shed tears of shame afterward, the female ratio is above national average, but still not quite healthy; 974. Clearly women in short supply. They are actually in a position to hike their price and call the shots. And one way or the other, that’s happening. The Indian woman, at least her urban counterpart, is getting a face.
You can see the change in advertisements, media, corporate offices, finance sector, hospitality industry and movies. At home as well. Almost all of it is happening with an assertive, even aggressive, vengeance.
Virginity, or the lack of it, then, is only one of the things that the Educated Indian Male may find missing in action. The morning tea, more movingly, is another..The last few years though have taken their toll. The average marriage age for women has gone up from18-22 to 25-27.
Equally interestingly, perhaps, matrimonial ads themselves have undergone a paradigmatic medium change. In the last three years or so, matrimonial ads have been dropping from the print medium to the advantage of Net-based online wedding sites. A good number of the brides on show here have a foreign academic background. It’s hard to accept that after spending around five years in Australia or America, the prospective bride will be the proverbial milk-serving virgin.
Memphis-bred or Mumbai born, the virgin bride is no longer the Indian male’s birthright. As the pro-Kushboo coverage of the controversy showed, the media is all for the new reality. The upwardly mobile, unisex urban reality. But the trouble is, as a class or income analysis of DPI or PKM will show, there is another India, rurally-rooted in mores and of uncertain material means; an India unable to articulate its speech and identity in a massively expropriated media-structure. This is the India of the Silent Majority.
(THE LAST TWO SENTENCES NEED TO BE UNDERLINED IN MY OPINION)
Informative but at the same time depressing! :( Esp. the 2nd & 3rd paras........*sigh*!!
Btw, pardon my ignorance but wat exactly is DPI or PKM?? I assume they hav sumthing to do w/ population?
Sailing in the same boat of ignorance!
From today’s “The Times of India”:
Why are today’s teenagers on a violence trip?
Experts, from psychiatrists to college counselors, say that teenage violence has been increasing over the years. Although brutal youth crimes have occurred before, they must now be seen in the context of “rampant smaller psychopathic behaviour”, says psychiatrist Harish Shetty.
Psychiatrist Rajesh Parekh cites a ‘Time’ magazine article which compared the top ten problems in American schools today to ten years ago, and found only truancy was common. “But ten years ago, truancy was Number 1 on the list, and now it isNo 10. It had been replaced by violence, pregnancy and drugs,” he says. “We can’t, of course, say it would be the same here, but certainly, in my time, bunking class was pretty much the worst you could do.”
While adolescence has always been a potentially explosive cocktail of hormones, uncertain identities and peer pressure, a constellation of factors from media exposure to the breakdown of the family is increasing the frequency and intensity of teenage violence today, say experts. “On the one hand, pressures have increased, on the other, there is a loss of ability to cope with anger and stress,” says Nilima Mehta, chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee.
Mehta feels that the growth of a consumerist, media-driven society has much to do with this phenomenon. “People are becoming used to instant gratification of impulses. Humans are now defined by what they have, not by what they are.” Agrees Anuradha Chavan, head of the Parent Teachers Association United Forum, “Blame the influence of the media and peer pressure which makes material goods and branded products all-important.”
It doesn’t help that current youth icons are largely film stars with fabulous lifestyles.
But psychiatrist Rajesh Parekh also sees some physiological factors at work. He notes that children are growing up much faster physically than they used to –girls attain puberty earlier, boys are taller than their dads were at the same age- a hormonal phenomenon that is sometimes attributed to changed diets and poor environment. “Physical growth is accelerated while emotional growth is not as fast, so physically many teens are like adults yet emotionally still children,” he says.
But poor parenting has also a role to play. The joint family is long gone, and this is increasingly the age of latchkey kids, whose parents often make up for their inability to spend time with their kids by spending money on them.
A survey done by the Parents Teachers Association last year showed that only 30-40% of the respondents actually kept track of their children’s movements.
Parenting is far more challenging today than it ever has been,” says Mehta, adding that there have been many cases where children have even run away on being denied something.
Very interesting article, ma'am!
Agreed ...my cousins children are taller and bigger in size that my cousins were at their age!
And, some parents I know do spoil the kids as mentioned in the para....
Quote:
Originally Posted by pavalamani pragasam
Autobiography of a Sex Worker
Her long, wavy, black hair tied loosely in a knot, 50-year-old Nalini Jameela looks like any other housewife.
But this attractive, largely uneducated mother of two is a best-selling author and prostitute whose outspoken views of sex work as a career choice have stirred a controversy.
Her Oru Lyngikathozhilaliyude Athmakatha (Autobiography of a Sex Worker), has angered both feminists, who say it glorifies sex work, and conservatives, who think prostitutes should keep quiet.
"I have written this book for other sex workers. I wanted to talk about it to remove the stigma," Jameela said
"People think we are bad because we have sex for money. Nobody understands our grief."
Jameela was forced into prostitution 25 years ago when her first husband died, leaving her with a child to support.
Sex work paid more than she was earning as a factory worker. She charges her clients between Rs 500-1,000 per visit. Her first customer was a policeman.
When she came out of the room the next morning, she was beaten up by police on orders of another policeman she had turned down.
"I felt humiliated, but I had no option but to continue." Jameela estimates she has had sex with more than 1,000 men since then — she took some time off after her later marriages — and feels her work is an important social service.
"If there is no sex work, it would lead to a situation comparable to a pressure cooker with its safety valve locked on. The truth is that sex workers are doing a great service," she says in her book in Malayalam.