Saturday morning project

True greatness is when your name is like ampere, watt, and fourier – when it’s spelled with a lower case

- Richard Hamming

Sex and food
is better than sex and food
after sex and food !!!
–  The fat one and The artlover

There are a billion funny (not Stephen Fry funny, more zilch dog funny) things that are competing for my brain-space at the moment. Most of them stemming from my week at Biarritz and the subsequent attempts to stay alive on a surf-board in a clearly feisty ocean. Sporting wood in public has never done my ego any good.

I am obsessing over a detail for the last week and a half. Ta daa.. A couple of tamil songs shot in the rain, mid 80s, iRaja of course. One with Nadhia dancing with an umbrella and the other with Revathi in it ( no, not ‘oh ho, megham vanthatho’)  It is not much to go by but random kind stranger on the internet, HELP !!

I was having this conversation with Anya about why nobody outside India has heard of the term ‘naxal’ and why nobody in India would speak of it. But in all fairness, it takes so much time tooting our imaginary horns. Amidst these grand observations aided by some seriously good gin, we dwelt upon the question of how and when the word ‘welfare-state’ was tarred and feathered in our collective conscious. Most of the discussion is lost to me now but I vaguely remember Gladkov’s Cement coming up. Another one for the bookshelf. Anyway, the summer is half-gone and I hope it isn’t still raining in Paris !

If you are a Lady Gaga, U2, blah blah shithead, you wouldn’t get it. Also, if you like  say, The Eels or The Who, you are further up the scale but spare yourself the trouble of reading further and go listen to Freebird for a few more years till you realize it is banal.

Here is the meat, I have this theory about the evolution of a Beatles lover. You start off with the Cute One. Paul is all clean and simple joy. The carefully constructed – brazenness of the Smart One draws you in and seduces you. John becomes an exciting mistress but you keep wanting to go back to the safe comfort of Paul. Like making out in the back-seat of a car and  wishing you had a stable place to put your glass of wine on. This is a common state of limbo most of the self-professed Beatles-fans end up in. The old case of eccentric John vs affable Paul of 1965. Don’t bore me with the details.

Meanwhile, the more discerning ones notice the Funny One and his tales of gardens in the sea and mending socks. You wonder if there is more than what meets the eye. After all Ringo was the one that held them together but somehow you are never really sure.

Then when you are ready, the Silent One appears. You realize it has only been about George. He is the one who has been silently teasing and tantalizing you all along . He is the intricately spun silky web that holds up an entire castle. The journey is complete. Nirvana.

I also have a theory about Pink Floyd. If you don’t find Syd, go fuck you yourself.

Quand on a terminé sa toilette du matin, il faut faire soigneusement la toilette de la planète
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Back home in India, when I started my studies in physics, I drove past a mental health-care institution. During my masters in Jena, there was one enroute my lecture halls. Now, my little shortcut to the labs every morning leads me right through the facilities of yet another psychiatric hospital. Coincidence ?

“The fact is they (Iran) are doing it because they disagree fundamentally with our way of life and they will carry on doing it unless they are met with the requisite determination and, if necessary, force.” – Tony Blair

No, this isn’t from a Southpark episode and this man is the UN peace envoy to the Middle East. And what exactly is your way of life ? Obesity, football hooligans and 16 year olds in pubs? Did the way of life all over the world a couple of centuries back fundamentally differ with your way of life?   The word is self-aggrandizement, oh mighty defender of the free world.

Bugger off you obnoxious little piece of shit.

Eyebrows arched and eyes bright. Three sets of knives and forks are frozen in a contorted yet gracious mid-air ballet. And the fourth one is surprised at the air of incredulity. The moment seems just long enough for me to make mental notes. G is confused and S is a cartoonist’s delight with her exaggerated expressions. With a little imagination, I could see the strands of spaghetti fighting to hear what I would say next before being slushed down V’s throat! The french were about to discover Jallikattu

For once, the odds are stacked against man. No blunt horns, no swords, nobody on horseback with spears, no kegs to hide and not enough time to wear down and weaken your four-legged opponent. Just a series of angry bulls and a bunch of young men.

“Why ? I thought cows were sacred in India.” -  G

Mating rituals, of course. The alpha male seeks a dominant position in the pack and the pick of the nubile female counterparts. So where are we grouped in terms of our animal friends?  All over the spectrum. Ranging from the primal head banging in rams and stags, the strutting peacocks, the fuck-for-everything bonobo monkeys , mosquito-duets  and the wise gentle elephants. Attraction and courtship are indeed defined very strongly by cultural perceptions. A bearded man and a voluptuous woman were a ‘catch’ in several parts of the world  (still are) but as with many other things, we are becoming increasingly homogenized with a predominantly european influence.

Now the larger WHY? All cultures have historically encouraged gender roles through art, literature , songs and importantly – play-toys. Social learning theory suggests that cultural re-wiring has a profound influence on our socio-sexual behaviour. We relentlessly seek to establish new ‘objectifications’ for gender identities; the direction feminist movements have unintentionally taken being a case in point. And the media induced delusions have just hastened the process. Mussolini’s institutional stereotyping of ‘men’ – ghastly; but in principle, it is no different from the recent coinage – ‘meterosexual’. We just don’t have a fascist dictator to hate in this case! Men have come a long way from maleness to manliness to Victorian masculinity to  …. emasculation? In fact, it would be cool to see that happen. A couple of social theories would fall apart.

For a larger perspective on how paradigms shift with time, Focault’s Order of Things is a must read.  I would also suggest Butler ‘s Gender Trouble for more on gender identities  (de Beauvoir is the master when it comes to the women-subjugation theory, but the english translation sucks!) and there is always Freud. Interestingly, Butler goes as far as to claim the concept of binary sex is in itself culturally constructed over time. Let us save that deconstruction for an another Saturday morning !

Some dance, some fight, some build a home and some defecate and propel shit!  And some use facebook.

Good luck wooing your special one.