Posts that weren't

Posts that weren't

This is a post on thoughts that lost their way and never got converted into blogposts. In the early days of blogging, I was eager to post everyday and kept my antennae up for bloggable ideas and that was a phase when posts rolled out even without many ideas. Over the years, after reading so many good bloggers, a kind of self regulation has developed and I don't rush to post just about every idea that springs in my mind. Sometimes I find other bloggers have developed the idea better and hence no need to repeat the same, sometimes I lose interest in the idea but most often I forget the idea. I would have liked to give the impression that my brilliant ideas have been lost to blog readers because of my forgetfulness and leave it at that but no, Eve had to expose me. She wants to know all these ideas that never got converted into posts. So here are some:

Often, I get ideas for posts from certain interesting comments on some of my posts.
For example Souvik commented on a recent post about the tedium of long marriage ceremonies. He said:
3 hours... & not even a single jhatka song to break the monotony...its worse than a Karan Johar multistarer

I thought of the possibilities if marriages were to be given over to event managers with sponsorships of the various events: kashi yatra sponsored by amity university offering the best options for higher studies
oonjal ceremony sponsored by "Swingers" dealers in best quality traditional oonjals and modern swings
Saptapadi sponsored by some jewellery/ sari shop or better still a foot cream product?

Then there was this comment by Raj on the post on child labour:
I am intrigued by how our collective consciousness suddenly gets raised. 10-15 years back, child labour was accepted, as normal. There was no hue and cry over Sivakasi's child labour. Now, we find it abhorrent, and rightly so.

What are the other practices that we accept as normal today but we will realise as completely wrong, when someone raises the consciousness?

I am sure there are some. Many changes that have taken place in traditional gender role stereotypes are examples of this. Younger woman do not seem to take to the idea of cooking as natural or normal feminine role . And younger men do not seem to expect it either. This is a minor example but I am sure that quite a few other practices will become obsolete when we realise how absurd or wrong they are. I need to give this some thought and do a post. Raj has touched upon the issue here in his post.

I saw the film Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal and came back thinking of our recent obsession with being victims of racism in other countries - how much of it is true and how much of it is just perception and shilpaesque manipulations? Rather than an effort to integrate more with the culture of the country of choice, these experiences seem to be breeding a reverse racism from the immigrant communities towards one another as well as the natural citizens of the country. And how practical it is to expect people from different cultures to understand and accept one another without any value judgements? Who is to make the first move? And is all this possible at all especially in today's context dominated by terrorism on religious, ethnic and ideological grounds?

After a spate of "entertainers" from bollywood and Tamil filmworld, I was wondering about the willingness with which we allow assault on our commonsense and intelligence in the name of entertainment. While sensible entertainers seem to break even , the biggest blockbusters are those that dish out massive amounts of trash amidst expensive settings and spectacular special effects by super heroes . I can understand poorer sections of population being attracted towards these glamorous dreams but what is in these that the educated and informed find so entertaining? And how come they are willing to accept racist, sexist remarks and vulgar double- entendres as entertainment and not be outraged by them?

While on the subject of Indian films I also wanted to do a post on male menopause - you know the kind of symptoms and behaviour displayed by the big Bachchan's roles in films like KANK and Nishabd ?

I visited a friend last week - she is 62 and her husband died last year leaving her with lots of happy memories of their 30 years of life together. She cannot speak three complete sentences without bringing him up - I can see how tough it is for her. The children live abroad. People say that one of the reasons for marrying is to have someone for you in old age. It seems that married or single, we are all ultimately alone in old age. I had so many thoughts on old age and loneliness on the day I returned from her house that I will convert into a post when I have confronted the issues mentally and consolidated them.

I also had an interesting discussion with asha on tolerance being a virtue or a dirty word. her take was:
Mere tolerance is a negative thing - it has such shallow roots and can be destroyed or swayed by any provocation. Its base is so fragile - it is just something we have told ourselves to do to avoid conflict, it is not based on any deep conviction.

When we take the trouble to know and appreciate another religion, to fathom its rich depths, to find out the reasons why they behave differently or have customs we do not approve of, the roots go in deeper.
If we have not done this, perhaps our secularism is based on indifference, and therefore extremely fragile?

My take was that tolerance is not a dirty word because even when we have tried to "understand" differences with another culture, religion, belief and failed in it, we owe it to others to tolerate the differences and live in harmony. For example I do not "understand" homosexuality but I still owe it to someone with such a preference to share any public space with me . This is tolerance because I know he/ she has as much rights as I do. When I can extend this courtesy even when I cannot understand, it is a higher virtue and NOT to be equated with indifference.


I bet there are a few more that I have forgotten. But as you may have seen from the list above, there hasn't been any serious loss to blogsphere. I bet someone else has already written about them and written much better than I could have. (Well, that is your cue to protest and push me to write.)
Lavs, Please take up the tag. I thought you had done the tag on 7 weird things. If you have not, Please take it up too!