Random Ramblings

One good habit i picked up when in London was listening to BBC radio. I actually miss it when i'm in Bissamcuttack! BBC7 is currently running the story of Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables - sadly i'll probably only be able to catch the first few episodes. Les Mis is one of my favourite musicals as well. i remember tripti telling me the whole story in great detail years ago, after she watched it in the west end. and then watching it at Palace theatre (esp since shaftsbury ave was just down the road from me!!) i dont think i'll ever forget the revolution of the students or the scenes in the sewers under Paris. or Javerts suicide as he jumps off a bridge into the river Seine, which is another brillliantly stunning scene. Interestingly, I first heard of Victor Hugo when i was ten. we had a lesson in our English textbook at school which was the story of 'The Bishop's Candlesticks'. I guess i was a little disappointed when the story that epitomised Les Mis for me actually took up not more than ONE minute at the beginning of the show and the Bishop was most certainly not the hero! :) well...one lives and learns.Speaking of Bishops, my grandmother's brother is one of that species. and i must admit that he is a real live hero! hes eighty seven years old and travels around the world on his own, preaching, teaching and more. I'd be totally satisfied if I could do about half the things he does at that age!! Does he have silver candle sticks in his house in the linear town that is Kerala? i wonder...
heres a snap of him with his sisters and brother (taken on ammachi's 80th Birthday in Nov 2005)

THINK THINK THINK!

Amma and me started to watch "Father, Son and the Holy war" by Anand Patwardhan. We got through only one cd, but even that was so thought-provoking. the film begins with the Mumbai riots, and delves into the issues of communal hatred and violence. interestingly, this sort of flows into a reflection on how women are treated by religion and religious institutions. how mother goddess, mother nature and other manifestations of the female form which bore life were replaced by male-centred phallic worship, the female being subdued by the male, the husband.
What struck me most, listening to all the examples he used, was how men are unthinkingly and subconciously brainwashed into gendered thinking, and how women UNTHINKINGLY accept and progagate the same. why is that we cant THINK for ourselves? isnt that what some claim makes us 'different' from all other living beings - that great ability to think and reason? sadly none of us seem to use that facility. i wonder what the world would be like if we did?
Do watch the film - it raises lots of issues that are hardly thought about, let alone spoken of or discussed. they need to be spoken about, decried and de-normalised.

To make up for not having blogged since the beginning of the new year, i have exciting news :)
this is spilling the beans actually...so i wont mention names yet, but my best best bestest friend is getting married in june!! Shes a doctor, and hopes to start a masters course in anatomy soon. ive known her pretty much since the day we were born (yes yes, i am still a month and 10 days OLDER!) and we've shared all kinds experiences (mentionable, and some not so mentionable)
So todays blog is just to wish her a TON of love and luck and hugs and all things good :)

ps. i'm back home from Bissamcuttack, Orissa and have been lazing around doing nothing trying to look after a rather nasty peptic ulcer. ammas also home with a bad viral and no voice at all, so i'm pretending to be nurse :)