India | But I Smile Anyway...

Dirty Thoughts #ThursdayThoughts

05 Apr 2018 71 Comments

by Ritu in Family, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, India, Kama Sutra, Sex, Sexuality, Stigma

Just taking a break from my writing frenzy… almost 8,000 words in the last three days!

I’ve been reading parts of the manuscript out loud to my kids, but not all.

You see, there is … Shhhhh!… S.E.X. in it! And a little other hanky-panky of varying degrees of naughtiness!

As I was censoring bits and reading it out, it got me thinking…

Why do the people of the country that produced the Kama Sutra, the country with the second largest population in the world (so someone must enjoy doing it!), and predicted to have the largest by 2050, still have such a stigma about S.E.X.?

Whenever there is a scene on the telly that involves kissing, let alone S.E.X., the ‘telly changer’ is sought, to change the channel, or everyone is suddenly busy rustling papers or having an urgent conversation in another room?

If the latest Bollywood film shows a scantily clad heroine or a couple in a clinch, why is there always going to be people muttering about how they can’t understand how this ‘filth’ can be called entertainment?

Why, are problems of a sexual nature always hidden?

Sexuality, if not the preferred norm, swept under a carpet, never to be acknowledged?

Sure, I don’t want to go into the ins and outs (pun not intended!) of S.E.X. with my kids just yet. I don’t want to glorify it. They are only 10 and 12. But they know what it is. I just don’t want them to hear my descriptions (it’s not that graphic, honestly, but still, reading about naughty stuff to your kids? Sign me up for the Bad Momma Award right now!) just yet. They aren’t afraid to ask questions about sexuality either and I hope that by being open with them, if they were ever worried about ANYTHING, they felt they could come to us? (After all, I am the cool Flossing mum!)

But when something like S.E.X. becomes taboo, isn’t that the time we end up with other issues? It’s the thing that everyone wants to try, but isn’t allowed to, until marriage. And when you put these kinds of restrictions on anything, much like drink and drugs, don’t these same restrictions push certain youngsters to go behind backs and do things anyway? Is this not where you get more teenage binge drinking, rape, and forced S.E.X.?

Sure, there were plenty of sudden coughs and needing to get a drink when the smoochy scenes were on the screen in our house when I was growing up, but we still were able to talk to our parents. My brother, being a boarding school boy, was even more open about things, and as a result, it meant we became a family who didn’t hide things.

When I went to university, I didn’t find excuses to tell my parents when I was out for the night, and when the time came, I told them about my boyfriend, who later became my Hubby Dearest.

Okay, so I’m not going to discuss my bedroom gymnastics with my Pops and Mum, but I know If the need arose, I could. And after all, as my Pops said to my brother many years ago, when he asked if they still, you know, did IT… “We are human you know!”

Yes, they are… but that’s one image I can do without in my mind!

Anyway, here ends my rambling on my thought for the day!

Wisp #writephoto

17 Aug 2017 99 Comments

by Ritu in #WritePhoto, Fiction, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: #WritePhoto, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Independence, India, Pakistan, Partition, sadness, Sue Vincent, Together, Wisp

Sue’s #Writephoto prompt this week:

Sitting cramped in the corner of the train carriage, Meena glimpsed a flash of the blue sky, wisps of cloud dancing across without any cares in the world.
Why?
Why, when the sky was the same, here, and there?
Why, when the clouds moved with such freedom?
People were squashed in the carriage, fear etched on their faces. some were crying. The only laughter came from small children who were unaware of what was happening.
Meena and her family had fled their ancestral home, in the city of Lahore.
It was February, 1947.
Partition.
One of millions of families, displaced when the border was announced, they had hurriedly collected basic belongings, and disappeared in the middle of the night, to catch a train, hoping to reach the other side of the border in one piece.
The stories that had reached them had told of endless bloodshed.
Fights, murder, rape.
The Muslims in the area, once friends, were gathering Hindu and Sikh families and slaughtering them brutally.
And across that shiny new border, the same was happening, but in the opposite way.
There, Muslim families, not unlike hers, were battling a journey in the opposite direction, leaving their homes and lives, trying to reach the apparent safety of Pakistan.
She thought of Amira, her best friend.
They had clung together, in tears at the thought of being separated, having grown up together.
But there was no choice. If she stayed, she would be killed, just like all the other non-Muslims.
The train was moving. They were safe. Stories of gangs boarding trains, and killing whole trainloads of passengers haunted the minds of everyone.
As long as it kept moving, they would be fine.
After a short while, the train slowed, coming to a halt.
Fear spread among the passengers, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
Cries of battle were called, and the train was soon a blood bath. Passengers pulled out by their hair, throats cut. Woman mauled and raped before being left for dead. Small children witnessing atrocities being committed on their families, before being cruelly killed.
Meena’s eyes glazed over for the last time, staring up at the sky.

***

Above her, the clouds still danced, untouched by the events below, so it seemed, but if you looked closely, the pink tinges seemed to reflect the rivers of red flowing beneath…

#writephoto

Sorry for the slightly sombre entry this week.

I am sitting here, watching a series of programmes that aired on BBC1 last night, My Family, Partition and Me: India 1047.

August 15th and 16th, saw Pakistan and India respectively, celebrating 70 years of Independence from British Rule.

But the horrors that the partition which preceded this independence will never be forgotten by those who experienced it.

I have been lucky to have been brought up in an atmosphere of equality, where regardless of race or religion, friendships look at the people first, rather than their background.

My best friend, and soul sister is a Muslim. I am Sikh.

I cannot imagine a life without her, or her family.

I thank God that we are living now, rather than 70 years ago.

Though, with the happenings around the world in recent years, it scares me.

Like the Holocaust and Jewish ethnic cleansing, the Partition tore families and friends apart.

Please, let’s not let this happen again.

A Hundred Hands by Dianne Noble – #Book Review

03 Aug 2017 14 Comments

by Ritu in Reviews, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: A Hundred Hands, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Book Review, Dianne Noble, India, Kolkata

Along with writing, I have been reading as much as I can, and the next book on my Kindle was one I had downloaded a while ago, from a recommendation via a blog interview with the author Dianne Noble. I actually can’t remember who posted the interview, but it was touching enough to make me want to get the book!

Reading

The blurb:

When Polly’s husband is jailed for paedophilia, she flees the village where her grandmother raised her and travels to India where she stays with her friend, Amanda.

Polly is appalled by the poverty, and what her husband had done, and her guilt drives her to help the street children of Kolkata. It’s while working she meets other volunteers, Liam and Finlay. Her days are divided between teaching the children and helping with their health needs. But when Liam’s successor refuses to let Polly continue working, she’s devastated to think the children will feel she’s abandoned them.

After a health scare of her own, she discovers her friend, Amanda, is pregnant. Amanda leaves India to have her child. At this time Polly and Finlay fall in love and work together helping the children. Tragedy strikes when one child is found beaten and another dead. Polly feels history repeating itself when Finlay becomes emotionally attached to a young girl.

Can Polly recover from her broken heart and continue to help the children, or will she give up and return home?

A Hundred Hands by [Noble, Dianne]

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My reviews on Amazon and Goodreads:

What a great book! Dianne Noble has really captured the essence of the sights and smells of the real India. Not the splendour of the Taj Mahal, the high-end hustle and bustle of Mumbai, but the reality of life for many slum dwellers and their children.
I was truly touched, reading the story of Polly, who escaped to India, following the arrest of her husband for paedophilia. It’s an emotional story, showing the changes that helping those who most need it, can change you and your outlook on life. I thoroughly recommend this book.

Cinematic Experiences Bollywood Style!

30 Dec 2015 27 Comments

by Ritu in Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog P, Blogger, Blogging, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dilwale, Experiences, India

We have just spent a lovely evening, my parents and I and my two children, at the cinema, to watch a Bollywood film. I am a firm believer in exposing my children to experiences from their home culture as well as the country they live in.

The movie in question, Dilwale, is a new film, starring two very huge actors from the industry, Shahrukh Khan, and Kajol, a pairing that has seen many successful films made over the years.

December 2015

I always love a good Bollywood film, and after a series of comments with a fellow blogger, Syl, I thought I would share some experiences.

Now going to the cinema here in the Western world is one thing, an evening of popcorn, soft drink, and a good film. The cinematic experience I had in India… on a WHOLE new level!

It has been a good 18 years since I have been to the cinema back home, and I know that, since then, multiplexes, like we have here, have sprung open all over the large cities. Multiscreen cinemas with bars, restaurants, and bowling alleys, all that sort of thing. But I can’t help but think the civilised nature of these modern places dulls the atmosphere that there would be in the old style cinema halls.

If you know anything about Bollywood, you will be aware that to watch one of these films, you need to be prepared for around 3 hours of singing, dancing, drama, comedy, colour, and a whole lotta costume changes! Luckily for me, I love all of that, and when I got a chance to watch a film in the cinemas back home, I was so excited!

Actors are totally hero-worshipped, and it is not uncommon for people to watch the film many times. This means that when you go to see a film, undoubtedly, there will be some who are saying all the dialogues, alongside their hero or heroine of choice, and when the music is on, the crowd can go wild!

We saw films in Delhi and in Chandigarh, in two quite different cinemas. In Chandigarh, it was an old Aerodrome that had been converted into this HUGE cinema, and we watched a film that was a very popular at time choice, Border, which was about the Indo Pakistan border, and about the lives of the military personnel there.

Being in the Punjab, and watching it, there was an extra buzz, and the atmosphere was electric! We were sat in the best, air conditioned seats, above many others, but down in the stalls, you could see the fun happening! When a popular song was on, people were singing, and some even dancing in the aisles! When there were emotional moments, or fight scenes, there were voices calling out, telling the characters who to give what for. In general it was quite a civilised experience. Where there had been queues, people had queued, and there wasn’t a crazy rush to get in.

cinema

The Delhi experience… totally different!

By that I don’t mean it was worse, but we saw things from a different view that time! We arrived at the cinema, 4 women, and there was a huge crowd, waiting to buy tickets. The jostling, pushing and shoving, gave many perverted males a chance to grab handfuls of butt, or try and touch women, and after a few moments of this, my aunt who was with us, went to the security guard, slipped him some money, and got us into the foyer before things officially opened! (It was an easy thing to do there!)

We were unable to secure the best seats, and ended up in the stalls, but not right at the front. This time we went to watch another popular film from that time, Virasat. I loved the music from this film, and to be in the midst of an audience who ate, slept, breathed Bollywood, it was brilliant! If I wanted to sing along, out loud, I wasn’t going to be stared at by anyone, because they were all doing the same thing!

I didn’t get to see this, but I know they can erect huge outdoor cinema screens too, near villages, where there isn’t a cinema, to allow folk from more rural areas to see films!

Cinemagoers watch a Bollywood film inside a tent cinema in Pusegaon in this undated handout realised on February 4, 2010. Cut to a far-flung district in western Maharashtra state, where thousands of farmhands attending a religious festival crowd under giant marquees to watch another movie, on another, similar makeshift screen, a few weeks later. REUTERS/Amit Madheshiya/Handout

Back to today, the film was great, I loved it! But, there was no singing happening, just avid viewing. The seats were much cleaner, the snacks more appetising, but the atmosphere nothing like the cinemas in India!