What Adult Movies Have Taught Me !!

I always had this notion that geniuses don’t watch porn but this idea of mine shattered when I observed during my MBA days that many typical intelligent guys were also fond of watching porn while holding books of managerial economics! Equally shocking was the fact for me that well known personalities have depicted sex in all its grotesque form galore and still they are considered indispensable academically and otherwise for their intellectual integrity and sheer talent. Vladimir Nabokov, D.H.Lawrence, Vatsayayan and Marquis de Sade are few of them who come to mind immediately.

In present times, porn has been mainstreamed and credit goes to Suuny Leones and James Deens and actors like them. Majority of people have at least some level of exposure to porn materials in their life time. I have heard how it is distracting and few have even grown addicted wasting their time and cursing those who make and act in such movies. All this cursing has never stopped us to avail this guilty pleasure once in a while. The more conservative a country is, more they consume this forbidden fruit. Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries appear in the list. All religious repressions, it seems, get manifested in devouring as much porn as possible although discreetly and furtively. With time, people have grown tedious to watching same stuff and onus is on such moviemakers to keep renovating and presenting fresh lot on a daily basis. This cannot be possible without the efforts of the actors involved. Every grunts and thrusts counts as they say!

Personal lives of these actors are least explored and kept under wraps under the pseudonyms such as Sunny, Pistol, Stryker and the like. How ironic it sounds that they expose everything and become part of our filthy fantasy but we don’t know them in true sense of knowing someone:  How they joined this profession? What their family thinks about being in this industry or does their family even know! What their take is on companionship? Are they going to get married, are they in relationship or have they ever been in relationship? Do they perform out of pleasure, compulsion or fame or all combined! Do they subscribe to any particular political ideology and economic system (Recall “no bush campaign” by some actresses where they shaved off their pubic hair to register their protest against George W. Bush!)?

Let us accept that actors of these movies get exposed to risky behavior/profession. Unsurprisingly, many have contracted STDs and have met untimely death. Can we see a parallel between their life and those of soldiers! Professionalism has taken a toll on their sexuality but they have met the professional demands nonetheless. Of course perks of porn have made them swing both ways and be at giving and receiving ends in equally graceful manner.

Porn is a gendered commodity. It is a generally accepted belief that it is largely a viewing experience than a reading one. However studies have established that men like watching and women like reading.  It has helped “Fifty Shades of Grey” gain a cult status among women.  Men are from Mars and women are from Venus because among many things, their porn experience differs. Very few males would like to pleasure themselves to the beauty of printed words if they have access to some nasty videos. It seems that decision to turn this erotic novel into a movie has been taken because Men cannot be kept out of the experience of reading it.

Many countries including India have been understandably hypocritical towards this issue. In India, watching or possessing porn material is legal but distribution, publication or production of such material is illegal. Does it not sound a bit irrational? One cannot possess porn until someone produces or distributes. So, it means that one can watch only foreign produced materials distributed by a foreigner. It runs contrary to the ethics of “Make in India” campaign, does it not?

I don’t know how porn has influenced me but I would remain indebted to it for making me know many new terms hitherto unheard of for me like BDSM, sadomasochism, etc. It has played a part in my spiritual awakening and I respect those actors who are literally bending over backwards (and forwards) to cater to our senses! Over the years, they have spread their outreach and captured the imagination of uncommon segments. This explains why James Deen is a heartthrob among teenage girls!    

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Crimes against the Father of Man

Is our world turning into no-go zones for our little ones! If Stories around the world are to be believed, existence is getting tougher for the children. Crime against children is getting grislier with each passing day. Boko Haram has made a business out of kidnapping and forcing them to do all kinds of inconceivable acts. Pakistan hogged headlines for failing to protect its young population from the bloodthirsty Talibans who devastated Peshawar army schools and killed over hundred school children. Many separatist militant groups have been deploying child soldiers against their so called fight of liberation¹. Even staunch supports of their supposed noble causes could not condone such barbarous act. These accounts cannot be ignored as a sordid deed carried out by terrorists and the uncivilized. The civilized world has not been far behind in perpetrating and perpetuating crimes against our future generation on the name of enforcing discipline, maintaining law and order, facilitating development and creating competitiveness.

How many have introspected after watching viral photographs of children subjected to worst kind of training regime to bring glory to China have surfaced. It is all forgotten under the impressive Olympic tally of China at being number two giving tough competition to USA supremacy. Just recently, McDonald’s refused street children to provide access to one of its outlet in India. Many times our children are not given access to this world even; they are killed in the womb itself.

Kenya had perhaps fewer strategies to deal with its problems and hence came up with a unique one when it fired teargas on its own children. And for what! Those poor fellows were protesting against the land grab of their playground. If they can’t play, what they are supposed to do? Perhaps, our civilized world is more pleased to see them, working in the mines, slogging in the hazardous industries or more ubiquitously begging on the streets. They are being subjected to worst kind of treatment, be it being trafficked for sexual gratification or making them carry machine guns for shooting the innocents. At the stage when they should be at school, they are at every odd place except there in classes. If some mange to reach there, they are shot down! When we will realize that our effort to save Malala is not one of saving a single child only, but to save entire humanity?

Many societies have colluded with religion to wreak havoc on the life of the innocents. They are made goddess at an age where they don’t know what this goddess is all about ². Good sense has to prevail to ensure that they are given at least the status of a human being. Only exhorting one particular religious community to produce four/ten children³ each family does not suffice. Are these self proclaimed religious leaders (they have become elected leaders as well many a times) will ensure that all those children produced on their sage advice gets basic amenities like education, food and shelter. Therefore, it comes as a pleasant surprise when Pope proclaims that Catholics don't have to breed "like rabbits" and should instead practice "responsible parenting."

                                               

Though, it is not a totally bleak scenario; many praiseworthy steps have been taken to improve the condition of the children like stringent regulatory legislation and creation of support mechanism. It is high time, we act on those laws which we have drafted so meticulously but failed to enforce. We have to go beyond symbolism of awarding Nobels to our young victims and child crusaders. It is time to take punitive action against those who use children as a political, economic and religious instrument to serve their own sinister ends.  Let us bring our babies out of the rat race and make them see from their own eyes, not our eyes.

References:

1.       http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/childsoldiers.pdf

2.       http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1533196/Goddess-status-may-violate-girls-rights-says-court.html

3.       http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Every-Hindu-woman-must-produce-at-least-4-kids-Sakshi-Maharaj/articleshow/45782862.cms

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Sleazy Seven Star Lives

Getting a chance to stay in a five-star hotel is not one of my most memorable moments but comes handy while I try to make a feeble attempt at understanding life of people who checks in quite so frequently in a seven-star hotel. Here, everything is within your arm’s reach, just stretch your hand and get it or sometimes you don’t have to stretch even, just push a button and people will bring it themselves. It feels as if every arrangement has been made here keeping in view of the requirements of an invalid. However, more often than not, invalids are out of bounds until they have their pockets full. Things in these extra starry hotels are lustrous to the extent of appearing more a decorative item than those of utility, be it glitter of crockery or twinkling of the commode. I had a tough time deciding whether I should take a shit or not, lest I would be accused of sacrilege. But rest assured, affairs at these places are often far from being sacrosanct. One never knows in which elevator lurks a molester who never gets tired of pontificating over feminism and ways of creating utopia. One cannot guess that someone has died or (have been murdered!) in the adjoining room just few hours back. Or worse, a bollywood hero has beaten a senior citizen black and blue in one of the restaurant of these fancy hotels. Such Incidents are not few and far between but the influence and money of the concerned makes them so.

Slums are notorious for their trigger happy depraved life style but may be because slums are so open that they cannot hide everything in their underbelly. Behind grand closed doors of these hotels, machinations are hatched and scheming are executed. No doubt, they are our modern palaces with old day intrigues and plotting. Now we understand what they mean if they advertise in those glossy magazines- “feel like a king in our hospitality” and “tryst with royalty”.

I won’t agree with those old age movie depicting poverty as virtue and rich people as evil incarnated. However, recently it can be observed that trend has changed and prosperity has replaced poverty as a sign of virtue which is equally misleading. Popular culture has shown the life of the ultra rich in a way that we often start aspiring to be like them never realizing the flip side of such lives. After all, they are also human beings with same mortal frailties. Putting them on high pedestal puts unjustified pressure on them to project a larger than life persona.

Our society is in dire need of a role model. Role models who are not assessed by their net worth and fashion sense but by their contribution to the efforts of holding up our time tested ideals. Ideals for which our ancestors did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives.  Ideals which enriches our life in ways that material wealth cannot ever do. Ideals which inspire us to shun the luxuries of starry hotels and keep us contented with bare minimum amenities.

I want to envisage a time - however much impossible a dream it may seem- when one checks in a seven star hotel not because he can afford it but because he is so incapacitated that he really deserves that much assistance and assurance irrespective of his wealth and influence. 

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Chasing Charlie Hebdo Dream

Exploring god in small things is nothing new but it sounds ridiculous if one reverses it, that is, if we start noticing smaller details in a bigger, nastier and ghastly events. The atrocious attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine was one such event. When whole world was condemning the nonsensical bloodshed, I was taking pride in the fact that I could figure out what “je sui Charlie Hebdo” meant literally. I was also smirking at the wrong pronunciation of the magazine title by our desi reporters. It made me sad to notice such petty things and missing out on larger picture. I tended to indulge in self-condemnation and self-loathing but then it struck me that have not such attacks become part of our damned daily life? Every day, newspapers shout from their headlines and social media do so from trending hashtags. A strange kind of inertia has engulfed us. We don’t know how to react back. I appreciate those who still keep faith in symbolism and sometimes protest in person too. Because many of us don’t display even that symbolic solidarity and worse, we can’t blame ourselves squarely. How can one keep registering one’s protest in any way possible if something becomes everyday affair? How long we have to keep mourning? Just few days back, Peshawar massacre, and then Syria attacks, Boko Haram continuing relentlessly, ISIS is hell bent on turning whole world in god knows what kind of state, and then this magazine attack. And then in between our own India-Pakistan border skirmishes, Naxalite fighting,  family and societal woes! Can one complain if we have turned a bit cold and grown a thicker skin? “Nothing affects us” is an understatement. But does it not make us wonder sometimes what affects those perpetrators of worst crimes of humanity to commit such crimes and what their source of inspiration is! Does not same sense of ennui also prevail upon them? Does not same quest of small happiness engage them? Does not the same mode of entertainment keep them entertained as it does us? My theory of explanation would be that these fellows fall in two categories. One who are struggling with everyday survival issues and are lured by the indoctrinators with the promises of food and salvation both at same time. Second category has everything to the extent that he gets fed up with that and desires a larger sense of existence and survival. These fellows are co-opted on the promises of Maslowian self actualization and a larger purpose worth fighting and dying for. Maybe it is too much of a simplification of an issue troubling whole humanity but it does give some relief that we can see some pattern in these acts of terrorism and if we do so, it can lead to some kind of solution.

Solutions that do not rest upon the superiority of one civilization over another as it has become usually the case. Why those misguided youth can be reformed by feeding only the ideals of western civilization and not the inherent goodness of their own faith? Solution lies in restoring faith in mainstream universal principles of equality, freedom, and democracy without any racial, gender and class discrimination. A solution that makes those ill-advised people believe that someone sane also listens  to them, empathizes  and tries to address their problems. Lets also create a conducive environment so that our modern age produce its own Qurans, Gitas and Bibles to seek guidance from! Sincere efforts ought to be taken to contemporize our ancient sacred texts so that they do not remain ossified and a thing of manipulation in the hands of fake saints. First step would be removing their prefix of “sacred” and giving freedom and access to everyone to have their own liberal interpretation and decide utility based on their requirements.

In the meanwhile, my quest of happiness ends when one of our pretty sisters makes gobi ka kheer (cauliflower pudding) and one of our friends brings ticket of PK for me. 

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Delusions of a Diseased Mind

Lying on a diseased bed  and thinking about time –past and present, an essay comes to mind. In that piece of writing, writer is also ill and wonders how everyone is enjoying the spring season except him. Illness has crippled many and economists have calculated how it hampers productivity. For an adult, single and employed individual who

is staying away from his family, it can affect on multiple levels.

When I was young, illness was such a luxury and rarity that we waited to fall sick eagerly. Falling sick brought a much needed respite from school and scolding. Attention and affection was showered upon us on the expense of other siblings. Mother used to stroke my hair and rubbed oil all over body while I daydreamt about going to field and play with my little friends. Not playing was the only unpleasant aspect of being ill. And of course popping those bitter pills and tasteless biscuits and bland food. At that time, I wondered why these biscuits tasted so bad whom I loved eating otherwise. As soon as I grew up, father got harsher it seemed. He blamed on my eating wrong and staying awake too late for my illness. Mother was still the same and gave me her usual dose of affection and concoction.

Employed life brings money, independence, sense of responsibility, discipline and few sick leaves. There are two kinds of people in this world. One who exhausts his sick leaves and one who does not.  I belong to the latter category.  It is strange how everyone jeers at you when they come to know that you have fallen sick. Hardly anyone believes. They think you are only feigning to get a day or two off from work which you don’t like anyways. They call you not to know your well being but enquire about the whereabouts of files but sometimes they do ask about your health in passing. In the meanwhile, my mother somehow comes to know about my bad health and grows restless and its gets reflected in her calls after every ten minutes! 

Being single has many advantages (we are free to choose shirts and shocks we like) and some remarkable disadvantages like it is difficult to trace those shocks we like or any for that matter. On a somber note, living a single life means one doesn’t have someone to count upon when he needs it badly as when you are ill and need a caring hand and reassuring talks. In this digital era, we take recourse to facebooks and twitters and the likes. Friends posting their honey moon snaps and updates about joining new offices pose strange question before me. Do they not fall sick while taking those tiring seven pheras and learning nitty-gritty of new job! Rarely do people update about feeling sick and if they do, it is metaphorical sickness and not literal one. Often they feel sick over larger things of life – pasta in red sauce and coriander leaves sprinkled over pizza, how tacky, feeling sick! No doubt bad food is largely responsible for our bad health. Living alone forces us to eat outside and makes us prone to getting an infection. And perhaps that is how I got one. I cannot determine which lorrywalah food made me sick. I doubt on that fancy cuisine from the five star restaurant where I go once in a blue moon. I chose not to spit it out lest my friends will come to know my not-so-sophisticated upbringing.

And now when I lie on bed reflecting upon my sick state, I try to find out what is troubling me most – my sickness or indifference of my near and dear ones or over-concern of my mother and few rare fellows like her! 

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