What Inspires Me!!

The poster talks about the gender sensitivity in a holistic manner. This is in continuation to the post I made on stereotype.

Why only talk about the woman, I believe that the root cause of any discrimination towards woman is because of the conditioning given to the men, more than women. Also, as much as the woman are burdened from these gender stereotypes so are the other genders but no doubt, the most affected in this patriarchial society are either women or the third and other genders.

I believe that there is a need to change the opinions about all the genders by ungendering the genders, as in there has to be an equal platform in terms of earning and taking responsibility for home. Why should only men take that burden, why not women. Why only women have to take the responsibility of taking care of kids? Why not men? and why only women have the right to be emotional or expressive? Why do we tell our men as boys not to cry since childhood? Why can't other genders need validation from other people to live a respectable lives in this society? Why does love for same gender have to pass a legal test? After all, we are all human beings.

For me, my own existence has always been a question if I look at this society or country I live in. Is it being an entrepreneur or a wife or a engineer or manager or a designer? 

Source : https://www.dar-alifta.org/Foreign/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=1750&CategoryID=4

Existence is having my own views and freedom while living along with the co-existence with the society. But do we really exist or matter while living in the society? That’s the question I have always.

I have always wanted to be an individual rather than being a female or a daughter or a mother or a wife or a student only. Living in this country, I have never practiced and realised that independence which I always craved for. Is there a space for my own opinions? Is there a space where I can go and say that I do exist as an individual only and I do not need anyone for myself to exist. But then the other moment I have a thought.  What’s the point of living in a society then? Well, we are shaped by our society and culture of our country and family and communities, right from the beginning. There is high influence on us which comes from our surroundings only. We are dependent on the people around and the systems and the cultures which all together form our society for our existence. We cannot function without the other people for sure. So we do co-exist with the society. That’s why humans are rightly called as ‘Social animals’. My school, college, elders, workplace, community clubs and social gatherings are important for me to live a sound life.

Artist : Axelle Bosler - Tableau Melting Pot - 2018

Individuation process as per Carl Jung is the process of becoming one’s self, gaining individuality, which can mean our own uniqueness which is incomparable and makes me a single, homogeneous being.

The more I realise the self, the more will I be independent and embrace my inner self. My inner self is a combination of diving into my conscious and unconscious mind. So, individuation process is essential for a healthy living personality since it helps in understanding our own psyche.

Psyche is a combination of ‘conscious realm’ & ‘unconscious realm’, where ‘ego’ is a part of former and ‘personal & collective unconscious’ are a part of the latter respectively.

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjgEOLocrus

Personal Unconsciousness consists of ‘the repressed/ suppressed elements from one’s life’, based on individual’s personal experiences of life. The personal conscious includes the individual's spirit as well as his or her spirituality, orientation to the outer world (optimism vs. pessimism, introversion vs. extraversion), beliefs and behaviors. Jung's concept of the personal unconscious includes the thoughts, feelings, memories, experiences, and emotions that are not permitted by the ego are maintained in the unconscious. These may range from experiences to traumatic events or thoughts. For example our dreams, fantasies, or our artistic expressions such as visual art, poetry, or music we create.

Collective Unconscious :  Collective unconscious includes the archetypes and instincts. If I look back at the history of my existence till 16 generations, then there are 65,536 people existed for me to exist today. So, in a way I have inherited collective unconcious from thise 65k people. The fears one inherits from the earliest human ancestors and comes out by default when they encounter a thing or situation similar to that in real life at the moment. The intuition/instincts that something is about to happen are a part of it. For example when we see some wild animals, we are fearful or when we have some kind of intuition or sixth sense of something bad to happen while entering into a situation.

“Archetypes are images and themes which have universal meanings across cultures which may show up in dreams, literature, art or religion.” (Jung, 1947)

Archetypes provide a structure to the parts of our psyche and psyche functions optimally when the parts of psyche are balanced and are not inflated or deflated. Inflated parts are which suffer from over expression. Deflated parts are which under expressed or suppressed. 

Now if look at balancing of the parts of psyche, then there is a need to confront our unconscious to be able to practice individuation process. How do we do so? 

By analysing and recording the dreams of ourselves, we can reach at the level of converting unciouscious into consciousness but that's like a continuous long process. For analysing the dreams, most important is to understand the most important archetypes (as described by Jung). 

The Persona : The persona is like a mask we wear through which we present ourselves to the world. This is the role a person plays, the way he present himself the world which can be different from who we really are. for example : a father, a mother, an actor, an engineer or any tag we carry with us when we are interacting with outside world. Personas are very strong at the following places : Police stations, Hospitals, Court rooms, Schools (Indian context) and even Indian mothers who are sacrificing a lot for their families do carry very strong personas of a mother at times.  

Animus/ Anima :  The “anima/animus” consists of the unconscious feminine side in males and the masculine tendencies in women. Each sex carries the attitudes and behavior of the other by virtue of living together for centuries. The psyche of a woman contains masculine behaviours or tensdencies (the animus archetype), and the psyche of a man contains feminine tendencies (the anima archetype). So it is like a mirror of our opposite biological sex.

The Shadow : Shadow For example : when my father tries to complete his aspirations of becoming an IPS/IAS officer on me as a daughter and asks me to opt for this profession. Or if my mother asks me not to behave in a particular manner, it is their shadow they are imposing on me. So, I can say that Shadow is the part of personality which is suppressed because of the fear of punishment or some other reasons (like fitting in a society). 

The Self : the self is the real me which provides me the sense of uniqueness and unity as an individual. As per Jung, the ultimate goal of every individual is to achieve a state of self-actualisation, which comes with understanding the archetype ‘the self’. 

My Reflections : 

I completely agree with the quote in Carl Jung’s book, ‘Man & his symbols’ : 

“A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one.”

Since childhood, we have been watching or listening to the mythological stories from our elders and in the television shows. But have we ever thought that the perception of the characters in the stories in our minds is totally fed by the society and our elders, rather than our own though process. When I am being asked, I believe that the various versions of Ramayana, Mahabharata and other religious scriptures are merely the stories written by different authors with similar but not same content, but the essence of all is almost same which depicts the idealistic images of the characters present in there. Infact, every character like mother, father, son and daughter-in-law has been stereotyped in a way. I do not give a judgement on the characters or the facts shown here. But definitely there is a great scope of analysing and giving it a thought on how I would take these living in present age. 

Image source : https://detechter.com/reason-why-lord-rama-accepted-mata-sita-only-after-agni-pareeksha/

In my view, the most important thing I have noticed is that these two mythological stories are in a way anti-women and there is so much adharma (violence and disregarding the humanity) is happening taking Dharma as a reason.

In Ramayana, Ram did injustice to Sita by distrusting her and also taking ‘'pareeksha' rather than accepting her and communicating with her clearly. Rather he should have understood how much she would have suffered in the process. Ram was more like a king all his life and not a husband or a human being first. Why do we say that he was ideal husband? He was only concerned about ‘Log Kya Kahenge’, not caring about personal happiness. Women are always the ones who are the weak or vulnerable personalities in such stories.

I have always been listening to the people claiming that Ravana was the evil and culprit always, but was Ram and Laxman not evil when they took lives or dismantled someone's organs on the name of rules and dharma? Was that less than evil? If we look at cultural differences within our own country, Ravana is being worshipped in Southern India and burnt out of hatred in northern India. Isn't it all about the perception?  

We still say that Ram is an ideal husband and son and also a human being. ‘Ram’ being metaphor of ideal man and ‘Sita’ being an idea wife who was just seen. as ideal since she followed instructions and always compromised for the men in her life? Is that fair? 

Source : https://detechter.com/15-ancient-hindu-predictions-that-have-come-true/

In Mahabharata, there are many incidents where the women were taken as an object and are objectified. There is an instance where, Arjun expresses that he is only attracted to the woman physically, now Krishna is the one who he is asking help for attracting the woman. Krishna helps him by suggesting him to keep a meeting and gives him a direction to attract her. Krishna suggested Arjun to put garland on her and he does that.

Woman were taken as a thing which can be bought, sold or possessed and even shared by 5 people. If we look at the ideal situation or treat today's woman like this, will that be accepted?

If we talk about the teacher-student relationship, we first think of ‘Dronacharya’ which means entirety, so ‘drone’ for aerial photography comes from ‘Dronacharya’. 

He sees the aerial view of war from above. He thinks of himself as a almighty Guru of all. He taught some particular skills to one student and not put his knowledge equally in all his students’ share. 

There is another reference we shared about the Shalya The King of Madra

source : https://indianmythologystories.wordpress.com/2017/05/02/untold-story-shalya-the-king-of-madra/

We can say that there is a teaching in this particular instance which is ‘‘Carefully trust someone if you do’’. Here, on the suggestion of Shri Krishna, Shalya demotivated Karna and made him believe that he wont be able to win over pandavas. So it’s like making someone lose by feeding negativity in his mind.

Source : https://detechter.com/15-ancient-hindu-predictions-that-have-come-true/

If we talk about the ‘Chirharan of Draupadi’, who’s fault it was there? Who was the evil character in the whole story? Do u think only the Kauravas were evil? No, the biggest culprits were the 5 husbands of the lady who was being undressed in front of so many people. Those husbands were supposed to respect the dignity of a woman and here she was the only wife of those 5 powerful men who allowed that to happen. The other people in the ‘Sabha’ were enjoying the incident completely as if some show was going on. Does that make pandavas the ideal husbands or ideal human beings even? Should we be on their side and show all the pity to them? I do not think so. 

But in today’s scenario, such stories do not make total sense I believe. 

The writers of these stories the one side of the story i.e. right as per them. What’s the definition of an ideal man or husband and an ideal wife? We all make our own set of rules to be ideal as per our society.  

Book ‘The Medium is the Massage’ : by Marshall McLuhan.

It is a perception of the author on life in the age of electronic media, long before anyone could imagine about it. It displays numerous wonderful insights and observations of the author on the global scenario, how it would be, how we humans might impact the nature, and the impact of the everyday imagery of mass media on the societies and the world, consumer goods, the advertising and the art world.

The best and amazing thing about this book is the fact that it was written in 1967. The author is thinking way ahead of its time. Almost all of whatever he has written in the book is quite relevant in today’s time.

image source : http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_T961o3r1ib8/Sus1t1LhALI/AAAAAAAADCc/nj5XPYFPZew/s1600-h/comparison-covers_3944.jpg

So, the book starts with the very amazing thing I could’t even imagine to read in this book looking at the cover.

“The medium, or process, of our time—electric technology—is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is forcing us to reconsider and reevaluate practically every thought, every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted. Everything is changing—you, your family, your neighborhood, your education, your job, your government, your relation to “the others.”

He talks about the relevance of internet in today’s world and dependency of humankind on the technology, the way he has explained things which have not happened yet at the time he is writing all this is astonishing.

“The wheel is an extension of the foot, the book is an extension of the eye, clothing an extension of the skin, electric circuitry an extension of the central nervous system.” - a quote from page 40 of the book 

In his book, he talks about how everything has become an extension of another thing. The things have changed a lot in recent past in a true sense as he predicted. Here, the author ahead of its time, senses how the information sources have already widely increased to be infinite. The authenticity of information is also affected. There is so much dependency on internet and there is nothing about us which can be hidden and saved from being stolen.

“The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by electric media—movies, Telstar, flight—far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world’s a sage.” - a quote from the book

So, here the author talks about how a child’s character is not built upon the values bestowed by one’s parents, rather by the societal values/ learnings via the widespread mediums of consuming information.

The mention of bulb in the book depicts that the “content” of any medium is another medium which is existing like a bulb can be the content for an advertisement otherwise it is not of use. The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph.

“When this circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?” - another interesting quote from page 20 of the book 

What does this say? Doesn’s this talk about the mechanisation of processes and works where the human hands and mind is going to be inactive or of less use by the introduction of the technology and algorithms. Can you imagine someone writing like this in 1967?

Source : https://abstractcathedral.com/2016/04/quote-marshall-mcluhan-on-the-future-of-politics/

Quote: Marshall McLuhan on the Future of Politics 

“The successor to politics will be propaganda, not in the sense of a message or ideology, but the impact of the whole technology of the times. So politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favour of his image, because the image will be so much more powerful than he could ever be.” -Marshall McLuhan in 1972 inteview

The book also talks about the politics and propaganda. From politics to written word, nothing is untouched in the book. There is a mention of Socrates talking about the dislike of written word by Socrates. According to Socrates, the discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners because they will not use their memories rather will trust the external written character. Humans will believe that they know everything but actually the it would be other way. 

Interecting fact : The book’s title was mistakenly put as ‘Massage’. Rightly guessed by me, it was actually a spelling mistake which was accepted later as it is in the title as the author found it interesting mistake.

A Photoalbum by Takashi Yasumura 

My Reflection :

Ingredients of my favourite dish : Rajma Chaawal 

So many ingredients only for my recipe.

kidney beans

onion

ginger

coriander powder

powdered black pepper

olive oil

tomato

turmeric powder

lemon

rice

garlic

green chilli

cumin powder

salt

garam masala powder

cardamom

ghee

image source : https://unsplash.com/photos/Q-5eUQwEqm0

What do you feel looking at this picture of a dish? Is it creating an urge to eat?Is it positive or negative feeling? Do you think food is a beautiful thing and is a reason for happiness and not negative? But there are people who shatter this belief. There is so much politics based on food in this world. If we look at how ‘not eating beef’ has become a political propaganda rather than being only a belief/ value system, it is really shameful for us. As cow is considered to be holy animal and is worshipped in India, the sentiments of people are connected to the same. But like other things, the food has also been made a reason for politics and the conflicts between the people, specially of different castes. There are riots which are caused by the false information being spread over internet regarding the consumption of beef in India. Specially, many people have outraged the issues between the Hindus and Muslims in past. This is something which is worrisome for the country. Religion based propagandas using beliefs on food causes so many killings, which has to be stopped. Beef is not only food though, there are many incidents wherein the value systems being used to create unnecessary conflicts in the society. We, as a country, really need to go beyond the propagandas, rather respect the beliefs of people rather than making use of those to destroy other people. Food which is the basic need of a human being is meant to make us happy and healthy, and at least food should not be made a reason for the hatred.

This is an amazingly curated seamless experience created by Simon Gerbaud (Auxerre, France, 1976), a visual artist who lives and works in Mexico since 2005. The construction and deconstruction of the daily life objects ((a shoe, a laptop, a chair, a fridge, an animal skull etc.) shows how much it goes into making of an object like laptop, hair dryer etc. It’s not only about the materials and non-living things, it is also about the manpower i.e. the no. of people who might be employed in making of one single object which we buy in minutes. The hard work and efforts which go into making of one thing which we consume without thinking all of it are worth looking at. This is of utmost importance that we recognise and appreciate the amount of money and efforts which are put into the daily life objects we use. In a way, it also gives the message that we must appreciate and acknowledge what all we have and should value everything we own. I realise that there is a sense in appreciating each and every task which is needed to produce a piece of use fo us. Even the ground level workers who are working towards completion of the process matter a lot. There is an importance of each and every step and person involved in the process.

This is a work of communication by the artist Yuval Hameiri, Israel.

Here, the artist uses the non-living objects very effectively to recreate the lost memory of his mother’s last day. The way he uses the storytelling to create narrative is commendable. It truly depicts that irrespective of the tools we use, the effective communication clearly depends on the storytelling. Tools have a little role to play in it.

But there is another perspective to it. If we look at the other side of It, there is a  He brings the objects to life to create an emotion. Also, he reverses and deletes and rewrites the clip of a video camera. So, suppose someone looks at it 18-20 years from now, would they be able to understand and decode the story here? I think ghe/she would face an issue in the same.

Why?

Have you ever wondered what is the difference between Roti, Chapati & Phulka? The three words we often use interchangeably.

Well, believe me I have asked many people, most people do not know about the same. Still since Indian mothers are the ones who are supposedly right on the topic of food and cooking, I asked my mother about the difference and her point of views was that : 

All are made from same flour but the ways they are cooked is a bit different. As per my mother, the difference is : 

1. Phulka : is cooked on the pan only by revolving it with hands or using a cloth. It is highly cooked and does’t have black marks on it which appear because of direct flame.  

2. Roti : Roti is cooked directly on flame after it is cooked initially on the pan on low flame for a minute or so. 

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yzxwqjIZFI&app=desktop

3. Chapati is almost same as phulka but it is thinner than Roti. It is also prepared for being cooked by patting it with hands, which means ‘chapati’ in Hindi. So my interpretation with the name, it is not made always with the rolling pin, rather made flat with hands.

source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlmDvsGOU94

Isn’t this an alien word? Still it is ‘Nothing New’, which is the literal meaning of the word.

Origin:

Mid 17th century via Latin from Greek palimpsēstos, from palin ‘again’ + psēstos ‘rubbed smooth’.

So, as per the dictionary meanings found on the web : 

It means : (Noun)

1. “Something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.”

2. “ something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface” [Source :https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palimpsest]

3. A manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing.

THE ARCHIMEDES PALIMPSEST

Source : http://archimedespalimpsest.org/about/conservation.php

When we look at it literally, it is more concerned with the written documents or manuscripts. But is that it? 

If we start analysing it, everything and anything around us is a Palimpsest as everything comes from another idea and is modified for going with the changing trends or cultures, through innovation and additions to the earlier versions of one thing or culture or thought or for that matter place/ structure. 

So, can we think of few examples of Palimpsest from our daily life? Let’s start naming those : 

a. Traditions followed changing with time, since family history remains same and traditions and cultures keep on changing those old ones. 

b. Changing cultures with time.

c. Wall posters put over older posters for advertising on buildings of houses or commercial buildings at some places.

Source : www.pinterest.com

d. Regular updates on the mobile applications.

e. Some part of architectural building being renovated like heritage buildings.

f. Plastic Surgery

g. Planting a new plant in an old pot.

h. All new technological inventions 

i. New phones and devices being launched in the market quite often. 

So, aren’t these enough examples to say that :

“Everything is a Palimpsest” since “Change is the only Constant in the world.”

An exericise for my readers... Help me finding out one thing which is not a Palimpsest...Think!!!

A beautiful depiction of Palimpsest through Art : 

Palimpsest 2/7 by Danny Dunning

source :  https://oenogallery.com/artists/dale-dunning/art/palimpsest-27

About the Work

Masala dani : The Spice Box

Contents : 1-6 (Clockwise)  7 (Center)

Salt (Namak)

Dry Mango Powder (Amchoor/ Khatai)

Coriander Powder (Sookha Dhaniya)

Red Chilli Powder (Lal Mirchi)

Turmeric Powder (Haldi)

Jeera (Cumin Seeds)

youtube.com/watch?v=vk4Yg1s0WSk : Source

The above is a music video from a bollywood movie named ‘Rakshak’ released in 1996. The movie has a name which is positive. But ironically, throughout the video sadly objectifies woman in an erotic manner. The lyrics of the video in a way generating stereotypes about the girls who belong to cities. The presence of those guys at the back wearing helmets is quite annoying and scary at the same time. Those guys give a negative feeling to me and makes me remind . There are so many incidents where almost all the men are touching the woman in the video, in a way portraying that the city girl is fine with any random guy touching her which is not true. The video simply denies the concept of mutual consent I feel. This video for sure might have encouraged many people to have attitude of disrespect for the woman and treat them just like a thing to achieve irrespective of her choice. An evidence of the same comes from the ‘not guilty’ judgement passed (2015) by an Australian Court when the lawyer, Greg Brans claimed his client to have ‘normal behaviour’ as an Indian man since they are influenced by Bollywood where the male leads get the women by continuously chasing them.

Hi.. I want to talk about the gender stereotypes today, spefically male vs. female today. Everytime I think about this topic, I realise that there is so much that I could get but I did not because of my gender (a female). Being a girl in Indian society is tough (I know people will say now things have changed and society has become progressive and….. But I strongly disagree!!). It blows my mind, when it comes to living with all those expectations of being a ‘acchiii ladki’, a marriage material and a “gharelu ladki” from a ‘sophisticated family’. Men like the outgoing girls for dates but a very simple living and a ‘gharelu ladki’ to marry who can take care of their parents. The question is, “Have they taken care of their parents ever?”

On that note, why do girls have to leave their parents’ house after wedding? Why can’t they stay and boys leave the house or may be there is an option of living together? Infact, why is marriage of a woman like a need for society more than the woman herself? Why can’t she decide in most of the cases, the right age for her to get married or infact whether to get married at all?

Most of all, I really don’t understand what’s the relationship ‘alcohol’ and ‘smoking’ hold with gender?

Anyways, lets talk about inheritance, 90% of the time only boys can take over the business of the father, why? Even if they fail the business terribly, they are the ones who are automatically part of it and girls have to ask for it (question is not if they get it eventually).

Why do girls have to behave or sit or talk in an appropriate manner? Why can’t they be themselves?

But there is another angle to it where we talk about the pressures on minds of male members of society. like where guys are having the pressure of earning and taking care of the family financially. 

How they are supposed to be emotionally strong and considered weak when -they are being expressive. But do they need to hide their feelings always?

Why can’t they cry in front of people openly? Like guys are told in childhood that ‘Boys don't cry’. ‘Boys are strong.’ Just like females, there is a pressure on males as well. These gender stereotypes need to broken. These can only be broken when understood and taken attention to. 

Artwork by : Pragya Mittal (2020)

Some noteworthy projects I got to see recently on the subject of discussion are:

a. First one by a communication designer named Ms. Roshni Rajkumar wherein she talked visually about her views on the topic by the use of photographs. It helped me to get the courage to let out my thoughts on the blog and share it with others. 

b. From the Archives : by Prachi Gupta, Communication Designer

The author in her project does the topology study of the way the matrimonial photographs are taken in India today and how they were taken earlier. For that, she goes to different cities of India & gets her pictures clicked in  matrimonial  studio in each city. Later she compares the photographs with some old matrimonial pictures of woman (which had sourced from somewhere).The project is truly an evidence of the fact that not much has changed actually in terms of perspective towards the woman who are to be chosen by the grooms for wedding. Girls still need to be perfect physically and above the expectations of the guy and his family for being ‘CHOSEN’ as a life partner even if she is a successful woman who is earning more than a man. 

The advertisement by Honda to promote its car ‘Accord’ is a part of the campaign ‘Power of Dreams’. 

The ad is a brilliant example of precision where in every part of the machine interacts with each other and the combination of events eventually make the machine work. Thein every small action which triggers the next.

The typology here is the customers who are looking for a family car, which just works! Also, as per my understanding, they have also positioned the product with an assurance to the potential consumers about a great experience about each and every small interaction they have with the car and it will work no matter what.