bas itna coffee hai

Analysing Netflix’s Dash and Lily

Vidhi — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 13:51:23 +0000

Dash and Lily is all about the whirlwind romance one can feel in New York City during Christmas time, which is so intense and magical that even someone who detests this festival finds joy in it. Based on the bestselling novel Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the show is about two people— Dash and Lily, and how the two connect through a little red notebook.

Considering that there is an abundance of Christmas themed movies and TV shows that already exist in this world, does this Netflix “original” provide any originality and relief in this overfed genre?

Meet the Characters

Dash played by actor Austin Abrams, is a cynical, lonely guy who hates all things Christmas and spends all his time around books. It doesn’t come as a surprise then that the only thing in common between him and Christmas-loving Lily, played by Midori Francis, is their love of books. Lily, who is all positivity and sunshine (practically a Christmas elf hiding in the body of a teen girl), and Dash’s polar opposite, finds herself alone on Christmas (her worst nightmare). After looking at her brother Langston’s blooming relationship she finds herself sadder at the thought of being single. On Langston’s idea, she leaves a red notebook at her favourite bookstore, The Strand, hoping to find a like-minded teen, who happens to be Dash, to pick up. The lonely, angsty teen Dash is of course intrigued by the cover that reads “Do you Dare?” and decides to read it.

Credits: nypost.com

Having completed Lily’s first dare, Dash decides to write to her in the notebook, and thus begins an exchange of dares between the two, introducing each other to their favourite foods and favourite places in the city. They also make a ground rule to only communicate via this red notebook with no use of technology whatsoever.

The rest of the show follows how the two will experience the magic of Christmas in the city, especially Dash who would otherwise hide away from this sort of thing, and happily spend his time watching French films in his Dad’s lavish apartment. They both force each other to get out of their comfort zones. For instance, we see Lily force Dash to do some of the most christmassy things one can imagine like heading into Macy’s amidst the holiday crowd, or waiting for Christmas lights to read the word “believe” which makes an infatuated Dash smile. We also see Dash assuring a shell-bound Lily that she can be herself in a room full of people.

Credits: www.vulture.com

All seems to be going well, and the time for the two to meet in real is close. Their fantasy-filled love story however, does not go as planned.

When the two coincidentally meet at a party, they are both with different people—Dash with his ex girlfriend Sofia who is perfect in every way and wildly intimidating for Lily, and Lily with her middle school bully-and-crush Edgar, who is actually now interested in her.

Credits: www.seventeen.com

Unaware of each other’s identities, they meet as strangers and get along well. This meeting is brought to a sad stop when Dash leaves the party with his ex and spends the night with her at the Morgan Library. Even though nothing happens between the two and Dash decides that he doesn’t want to get back with her, he oversleeps and is unable to drop off the notebook at Lily’s aunt’s place.

Figuring out Dash’s name, and failing to receive the notebook, Lily feels betrayed by him for leaving the party with his ex. She is sad, 17, and drinking with her carol singing group of adults in a bar where she drunk texts Edgar to come and kiss her. Edgar takes her up on this offer and kisses her, only for a heartbroken Dash to witness this. Now they have met each other, and realised that they both had a very unreal idea in their heads about the other person.

When Lily learns that her family is moving to Fiji, her notebook-relationship seems irrelevant and she seems to want to have a fresh start, especially after grandfather expresses how disappointed he is at her recent behaviour. Unsurprisingly, not all hope is lost because Dash realises he is in fact in love with Lily and cannot let her leave the city. He asks his best friend Boomer, who is currently disillusioned by their friendship, to help him find Lily. Boomer quickly forgives Dash because he comes to a Jonas Brothers’s concert for him, which is a very big thing for Dash to have done. Here, we also see a cameo by Nick Jonas who advises Dash to go meet her as himself and not as someone trying to rescue her.

Meanwhile Lily’s family is all packed and on their way to the airport when her brother sends her a photo of the last message Dash has left for Lily, confessing his feelings for her and inviting her to The Strand, where their love story began. Elated Lily leaves her cab with her confused parents behind and rushes to meet Dash.

A Merry Ending

It’s no surprise that in this feel-good show, things ends up well for Dash and Lily who share their first kiss locked in The Strand. We see Lily’s grandfather amending his relationship with his sister, her aunt. We also see Lily hammering some sense into her brother Langston by telling him to not break up with his boyfriend over a short period of being apart. The show doesn’t forget Boomer who we see hanging out with Sofia, holding hands outside a movie theatre. And to top it all off, thanks to her aunt, her grandfather gives her permission to stay in New York, which means she can start this budding new relationship with the guy of her dreams, Dash, in the city they both love.

Credits: tvline.com

Characters’ Analysis

The quirky, expressive Lily who is bullied by her peers and feels like she doesn’t fit in, is rarely shown as the protagonist and usually only as “the best friend” to a pretty main character. What is also interesting is that her character is played by an Asian actress instead of yet another white girl.

While Dash exudes this overwritten white boy who-is-rich-but-couldn’t-care-for-it-because-his-actual-interests-lie-in-books energy, he is still an alternative to jocks getting all the pretty girls. He is a nerd with a decent social circle, never excluded from social events even though he couldn’t care for them, and has a pretty ex-girlfriend even though she speaks for him at parties. He, like most Netflix nerds, is happy hanging out with his only close friend Boomer, who again like most teen shows, has dedicated his life to helping his best friend, the main character, find the love of his life. Throwing in a scene where he and Sofia hold hands feels forced, and also contradicts his views on Sofia.

The Setting

Set in New York (surprise surprise), every scene ensures you didn’t forget that the holidays are its central theme. Even a side character is a personified Christmas element, like Lily’s Uncle Sal in a Santa costume at Macy’s reluctantly helps Dash learn her name.

Significance of the Red Notebook

The show definitely provides an alternative reality to teenage lives by showing two high schoolers choosing to interact by writing in a notebook. The daring exchange between the two for most part of the show is fun to follow, and keeps you waiting for their actual, in-person meeting.

This is ideal for those wanting to escape into a fantasy. It also drifts away from some of Disney’s sickeningly sweet, Christmas-themed movies that are all things magical. Dash and Lily acknowledges the realities of life, the misunderstandings, and the heartaches one can feel in relationships with real people with real flaws.

The post Analysing Netflix’s Dash and Lily appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.

Paper Review: “Global Care Ethics: Beyond Distribution, Beyond Justice”

Vidhi — Tue, 19 May 2020 12:31:33 +0000

Introduction

The article “Global Care Ethics: Beyond Distribution, Beyond Justice,” published in the Journal of Global Ethics (2013), by Fiona Robinson, sets out to critique theories of distributive justice and the workings of hegemonic masculinities, and replace it with an ethics of care approach which would actually work towards diminishing unequal power relations between individuals and groups. Robinson introduces a new model of thinking about global justice, not in terms of currently existing theories, which assume autonomous and impartial subjects, but in terms of an ethics of care approach that starts with an ontology of the subject as embodied and relational.

Robinson’s article begins with the question of ethics itself and lays out definitions of central concepts of ethics of care and distributive justice. She points out that this ideal theory that talks about ethics as if it came before lived experiences is deeply problematic and should not become an abstracted principle in a systematised manner. She takes care to define terms like theory and justice, by analysing the concept of global justice. Care is at the very core of global justice, and is not the same as distributive justice. She reiterates that distribution of primary goods is not the issue, and by revealing the causes of injustices, for which she provides empirical data, following a bottom-up approach, the issue could perhaps be solved. Thus in the first part, she present a critique of the global distribution by providing empirical accounts of injustices, and draws attention to the fact that justice theories have narrow focus and only concerned about primary goods when there is a whole economy of care that needs to be talked about. She clears her position and makes a shift from ideal theory to embodied subjects in relation with one another.

In the second part of the article she presents empirical data. She discusses the effects of Neoliberalism, which is a myopic idea, on those who do not even have access to it, like working women from poor nations who migrate to the global north in search of work. She also discusses the idea of hegemonic masculinity which leads to care work being ascribed only to women.

In the final section, she talks about all discourses intersecting at an individual, national, and international scale. The same injustice is perpetuated when women in income-rich countries who want to work outside of home, hire women from poorer nations to do care-work in their place, do not care about their well being and relegate that responsibility to the state.

Critique of Hegemonic Masculinity and Neo-liberalist Conceptions of Individuals’ Autonomy

She states that when we think of distributive justice, we only think of it terms of people having unequal access to the same material things and their financial disparities are the cause of the problem. She does not deny that this issue does not exist, but she points out that this is not the root cause of the problem. She then presents an alternative approach, that should be the core approach, which is that people’s lived lives have problems, not because of lack of money, but because their lived relations are not how they ought to be.

She argues that one of the reasons for this is hegemonic masculinity that lets care work fall on women, more specifically on racially identifiable women who due to the stigma attached to their kind of work, continue to be marginalised and underprivileged. This marginalisation has a flip side as well, for example there is a heroic status instituted by the Philippine state to these migrant workers who bring back foreign currency.

Another way in which hegemonic masculinity perpetuates injustice is when poor people who are forced to take care of their sick children lose wages and become poorer still. If men and women were equally responsible for children the they wouldn’t need to outsource domestic help that leaves those women underprivileged. It could be argued why the global north feels the need to help the impoverished global south in the first place, when really it creates more problems than it probably solves. It praises accomplishments that happen in confined spaces but tosses out care and increases global injustices for which solutions exist, solutions that have been employed by countries like Honduras, Vietnam, and Mexico. Moreover, the labour of care itself is undervalued. Since all household work is unpaid work, it is not seen as valuable.

Thus critiquing the idea of distributive justice, Robinson clears her position, which is a very embodied idea of ethics emerging from people’s lived realities, and not ethics as an abstract discipline. Campbell and Shapiro differentiate between ethics as a noun and ethics as an adjective, that is, ethics as an abstract discipline as opposed to the ethical. The ethics-first approach is different from the literature on global justice.

Further, Robinson critiques Rawls’ distributive paradigm since his theory of justice restricts the meaning of social justice to “benefits and burdens.” Rawls focussed on the state while, as previously mentioned, care should be at the core of every idea of society. Care is often dismissed because it is subsumed by the larger liberal distributive paradigm. This is why Robinson takes a completely different starting point: the ontology of subjects / groups rather than abstract top-down model. This means that we need to critically analyse institutions and structures to find out the root cause that gives rise to these injustices. This is also where she brings in a feminist ethics of care that is inherently critical of the analytic, top-down approach and always takes the embodied lived experiences of women into account.

Existing theories of distributive justice are also primarily procedural and neutral, while Robinson is of the view that nothing is neutral. The distributive justice model is a rational model that advocates a theory where people’s vulnerabilities are not to be concealed, and are instead the source of this alternative theoretical paradigm. From this vulnerability emerges ethics of care and shows problems of distributive justice. This of course, goes back to Enlightenment project where the focus was on hiding and concealing vulnerability and only speaking of its extreme — human potential.

Robinson explains that the heart of care ethics is that people do care, it constitutes us, makes us who we are. She is also cognisant of the fact that caring activities and labour are not evenly distributed, that carers are flawed.

The last paragraph of this section which talks about the need for descriptive and empirical analysis, for thinking about actual lived realities, is a summary of the section which clearly underlines her points.

She talks about Simon Caney’s work on global justice that ignores the issues a global political theory should address. Her approach provides a critical lens and a “weak normative basis” for policy making. Her position is that, the moment you become prescriptive, you move away from realities, from the “contingencies and complexities of the ethical.”

A defining feature of global political economy is that care is commodified and is transnational. She states: “The rise of the ‘competition state’ and the opening up of financial markets for foreign investment has led to a dramatically altered environment for work and care.” This means that if cheaper labour is not found, factories will move elsewhere, which will force workers to accept low paying jobs, which in turn would lead to job insecurity and informal work culture. This also means that the social spending of already impoverished families’ conditions will worsen. All these intersecting issues affect the other.

Another negative effect of this is that individuals in income-rich countries that outsource their own care-work, lose the ability to focus attention on others, thus proving that morality is not about actions. Without engaging in care-work, the moral fabric is harmed in some way.

Further, globalisation’s face becomes masculine when all care-work becomes feminised. The public private dichotomy always remains the same because care-work is still understood as feminine, it is only the women who remove themselves from that a masculinised work space.

Lastly, Robinson argues that morality is experienced relationally, which means that we always already care, it is part of our moral being. She writes “the way we think and act morally emerges out of the thick context of our relations and responsibilities for others,” which points to the fact that it is a rich context. She discusses how unjust structures and institutions exist and power operates on intersecting basis.

Robinson, in her conclusion writes “[c]are ethics continues to be widely resisted by the ‘global justice industry,” wherein she seems to use the word “industry” ironically. She also introduces the term “emotional imperialism” for the first time here which may throw the reader off-balance. What she means here is that migration from global south to global north is kind of an imperialism whereby people’s emotion becomes a commodity— emotional labour for which they are not paid extra.

Towards the end, Robinson says that “neoliberalism ignores and de-politicises care” which is now changing with the actual realisation that caring is not a sign of weakness.

She also uses the words “natural features of human social life and emphasizes the moral importance of the values and practices of care in the effort to achieve greater well-being across the globe,” which can be critiqued and may her be replaced with the word “naturalised.”

Conclusion

This paper noted how Robinson critiques the theories of distributive justice and the workings of Neo-liberal and hegemonic masculinities, and replaces it with an ethics of care approach, which is a bottom-up approach, which would help rectify the unequal power relations between groups. This ethics of care approach allows for a more nuanced understanding of rights and duties, by changing the paradigm in which we think about duties. Duties are not about distributive justice (“benefits and burdens”) but about accounting for people’s vulnerabilities and the need for giving and receiving care.

The post Paper Review: “Global Care Ethics: Beyond Distribution, Beyond Justice” appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.

A Guide to Having Acne-free Skin from Someone Who’s Had it for the Last 10 Years

Vidhi — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 19:30:38 +0000

I like to think I have accomplished the art of having acne-free skin. Do I still get acne? Yes, occasionally, because my body hates me. Do I have blemishes reminding me of the horrible time I had active acne for most of my teenage years which led to me socially isolating myself and having no friends? Also yes. But at least now I have learnt to be okay with it (kind of), and my skin is starting to heal. I have been able to clear most of it and I can keep it at bay by applying the products mentioned below.

So sit back and follow these steps to clear acne and maintain acne-free skin.

Disclaimer

Note that this article contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase any of these products I get a small commission, but doing so doesn’t charge you anything extra. Also, note that these are all products I have personally used and benefited from. They have worked on my mostly-oily-combination-skin and target all skin types with blemishes, acne, and acne-related skin issues. However, what may be working for me and my skin-type may not work for you. This is just for you to get started on a skin-care routine, it obviously cannot be a substitute for professional treatments and directions. The products mentioned below range anywhere from INR 150 to 1800. Some of these are homemade recipes so there is something for every budget.

So.

The Regimen + Products Used

1. Wake up and drink about 1-litre water before doing anything else.

This will release toxins from your body, which is usually the reason for acne. Keeping hydrated is the simplest and cheapest solution. Before eating anything add 1 teaspoon of Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) in one glass of water and drink it, or apply diluted ACV on your face as a toner to restore the balance of your skin’s pH.

2. Wash your face with a mild, natural, all organic face wash if your skin is super sensitive.

I like to use Forest Essentials Mashobra Honey, Lemon and Rosewater Face wash. You can also use The Body Shop Tea Tree Face Wash for Blemished Skin. If you have oily skin with frequent breakouts, whiteheads and blackheads, use a scrub designed for blemished skin and cleaning dead skin cells off your face like The Body Shop Tea Tree 3-IN-1 Wash.Scrub.Mask. This is mild enough that it can be used every day and effective enough that it does what it claims. Alternatively, you can make your own face washes using ingredients you can easily find at home– besan/multani mitti, and mix it with milk powder, dried neem, aloe vera or rose powder to make a paste and keep on your face for about 10 minutes before washing it off.

3. Apply any organic, chemical-free face pack that is clay-based to get rid off active acne and breakouts.

For this, you can use Biotique’s Bio Mud Face Pack and Bio Clove Face Pack, and/or The Body Shop Himalayan Charcoal Purifying Glow Mask. While Biotique products are natural, affordable, and effective, you can alternatively make your face pack by following this recipe — multani mitti (100gm); pudina powder (50gm); and powdered cloves (3 tsp).

4. Rid your skin of old scars and blemishes.

For this, you can use Biotique’s Bio Fruit Face Pack, and/or Milk Protein Face Pack. You can of course use other brands that you’re loyal to, as long as you are not putting harsh chemicals in your skin. Always read the labels of the products you are using and make sure they are free of parabens and other harmful chemicals.

5. Tone and moisturise to get supple skin.

Follow it up by applying toner (like Forest Essentials Rose Water, or Kaya Purifying Toner or Biotique’s Honey Water Toner) and moisturiser or natural oils like cold-pressed coconut oil, or bio-oil (which are effectively the same if not better than moisturising). Now you may wonder why we are applying more oil to an already genetically oily face, right? That makes sense, except your body doesn’t know you to be someone with oily skin. If you keep your skin away from moisturisers and oils, it will think it’s dry and hence produce more oil. So slap that cream on yo face.

Other Products to Use

After washing your face, you can apply a light gel-based cream if you are not a fan of heavy cream-based moisturisers. You can try-

TBS Seaweed Gel Cream
Aloe Vera Gel
Real, natural aloe vera plant’s gel (get aloe vera plant, cut a small piece, open from centre and apply straight to your face)
Chlorophyll gel
Essential oils like Lavender and Tea tree when mixed with a carrier oil like Almond oil or Coconut oil can reduce blemishes to a great extent

Things to Keep in Mind

Always clean your face in upwards direction
Always, always cleanse your face with a cleanser (different from face wash) at the end of the day irrespective of whether or not you applied makeup. It will rid your skin of impurities that settle in your skin the minute you step out of the house. Do this before you start your face wash regimen. You can use Khadi’s Cucumber and Aloe Vera Cleansing Milk, or cold-pressed coconut oil or almond oil.
Do not vigorously scrub your face with a towel, dab it dry with a cotton towel instead
Make sure you keep a separate cotton towel for your face and throw it in the wash every two days

Other Remedies

1. Eat Clean

I learnt that I had acne, not because I wasn’t washing my face enough (although washing it at least twice a day keeps it clean and less prone to breakouts) but because I wasn’t eating enough healthy meals. I needed to fix what was showing up on my face by fixing what was happening inside – inflammation. Moral: Keep your gut happy to see happier skin.

2. Minimise Dairy

I also saw a difference in my skin when I cut out dairy from the foods I consumed. While milk powder may be good to lighten red and blotchy skin, dairy which is full of hormones can throw off the balance of one’s body’s hormones and trigger acne. Try instead drinking non-dairy substitutes like unsweetened almond milk (Raw Pressery or any other brand of your choice) or coconut milk. Not only do they taste good, they also do not make you feel heavy or bloated like traditional dairy does.

3. Minimise Sugar

Sugar (and not fat and oils, from what I have learnt) is the reason why your skin flares up and becomes more red and painful. You’d be surprised how much sugar we consume without even realising it. Sugar is in almost everything, not just your artificial granulated sugar, but even things that do not need sugar, for example, mayonnaise, cornflakes, ketchup, and sadly also McDonald’s fries. A good way of steering clear of unnecessary sugar is to read the labels of everything you purchase and making sure it does not contain any more than the dietary requirements of sugar. Often artificial sugar is confused with sugar that is naturally found in fruits. We need to stay away from packaged juices, not fruits themselves unless you have been medically directed to do so. That said, too much of sugar in any form cannot be healthy, so consume everything in moderation.

4. Drink plenty of water. Water fixes everything, everybody knows that.

More things to keep in mind

Make sure you don’t hate your skin because the skin can sense it and then it will hate you and break out more

The post A Guide to Having Acne-free Skin from Someone Who’s Had it for the Last 10 Years appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.

“Definitely Male [-centric]”: The Shifting Images of Women in Indian Advertisements

Vidhi — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 21:34:16 +0000

Advertising has seen tremendous changes even over the last decade. Advertisements tend to co-opt whatever is the new cool trend to market their products. For instance ads like the My Choice campaign, #ShareTheLoad, beauty products for dark-skinned women, and so on (discussed later) talk about women’s agency, sharing domestic responsibilities and taking pride in being dark-skinned. But do these symbolise a move away from the binary that either objectifies women or valorises them in familial roles of mother/ wife?

This essay will analyse the portrayal of women’s identity in Indian advertisements, be it product advertisements or social ad-campaigns, without necessarily considering women as a homogenous social group united by its gender identity. There are significant differences and stratification in women and their circumstances and preferences, and in a sense ads must also be seen targeting select groups of women and men.

One can question whether it is advertisements that should even be called out for regressive ideas or be seen as a neutral reflection of existing social prejudices. One can also question whether there can actually be a metric for assessing and labelling an ad as regressive or progressive given the complex messages that every advertisement seems to be sending out and the mixed responses it seems to evoke. For example, beauty creams might have regressive campaigns in valorising white/clear skin, but they also appear paradoxically progressive when they show women working on themselves, taking control of their appearance and advancing their careers, going out there and experiencing adventures, and so on.

Advertisements that objectify women as sex-objects might be clearly objectionable, but others that glorify women as mothers and wives who are central to the maintenance and happiness of the family be it through their careers, their efficiency in domestic work, in taking care of the nutritional needs of family members and the like, might not be dismissed so easily.

Nancy Pilar Perez in her book Roles of Women in Advertising: The Objectification of Women and the Shift to an Empowering Ad Frame (2013) discusses how most advertisements have a tendency to employ means that they believe will help sell their product better, even if that requires them to reinforce certain stereotypes about women. Such advertisements bring into existence the image of an “idealised woman” which is so distant from that of an ordinary woman that they put unfair expectations on women around the world. This idealised woman is tall, thin and has the most perfect features and skin. Her appearance is highly sexualised and eroticised while she continually floods consumers’ minds leaving them feeling inadequate about themselves. Despite this superficial and artificial portrayal of women’s bodies that damages the female psyche, the “sex sells” mentality remains pervasive, and appeals to both men and women steeped in patriarchal ideology.

Perez states three elemental aspects of any sexist advertisement— The Artificial Look, as explained above; Dismemberment wherein the body of a woman is literally separated into pieces that can be ogled at, and Commodification wherein their bodies are objectified to the extent that they become property that can be evaluated.

These issues have led to a number debates where people have argued that irrespective of whether or not the content of these advertisements is unethical, one cannot deny that it has created a more open society which is more comfortable with its sexuality. However, one also cannot deny that there is added pressure arising from the same issues. Sociologists too have taken a stand and criticised the subordinate and subservient depiction of women. Sociologist and writer John Berger in his book Ways of Seeing (1972) says, “…men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object — and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”

The advertisements that came out in the early 2000s were shamelessly misogynistic and remarkably sexist in their content. Some well-known examples of these would be the evergreen Fair and Lovely advertisements where the woman in focus suddenly starts to do well and provide for her family because people are willing to pay more now that she is fair- skinned. Subsequently, the industry started producing ads that not only objectified women to great lengths, but also portrayed them as pushovers and as people who can’t think for themselves. For instance, most deodorant ads would suggest that if you wear this cologne, women around you will fantasise about engaging in an intercourse with you, as seen in ads by Wild Stone and Zatak where Zatak’s tagline was “Zatak her.”

Michele Barrett in her essay Ideology and Cultural Production of Gender (from her book: Women’s Oppression Today, 1980) discusses how severely limited images of women are presented in a sample of advertisements. Women are projected to be these self-sacrificing, chaste individuals always categorised either in the role of a housewife or a decorative element, “oscillating between the glamorous and efficient hostess and the dutiful, caring mother.” For instance, MTR and Dalda’s ads had housewives and mothers as their target audience. Their marketing strategy was to persuade women into buying their products by assuring their family’s satisfaction if they do so. So much so that Dalda sold their oil with the name “Dalda Husband’s Choice.” Thus what the target audience is comprised of also becomes an important matter of discussion. A kitchen utensil would be sold with the underlying idea of keeping the husband happy while a baby product will be sold to award women with the title of a “good mother.”

Then there were others, fairly recent adverts where the woman in focus was a successful working one refusing her pestering parents to get married, thereby breaking some established patriarchal notions that place high value to marriage and its components. However, the ad takes an opposing stand when it ends on a scenario where she’s suddenly interested in the man suggested by her parents solely because it allows us to guilt-freely purchase the jewellery she is fond of. Barrett talks about how such adverts “that play with the notion of an independent woman are aimed at a market of female purchasers” (Newton,1985).

Other examples reinforcing these notions would be Bajaj Pulsar “definitely male” motorcycles, Micromax Aisha application that is considered to be the ideal woman, Clean and Dry vagina whitening cream and Airtel’s advertisement where the woman who is in a position of power is still the quintessential wife who cooks dinner for her husband after his day at the office.

Certain brands have taken deliberate steps in the recent past to overturn these offensive messages by coming up with ads which have a sarcastic undertone. Examples of these would be the new Havells ads wherein a woman refuses to be tied to her domestic duties, and a man decides to take on his wife’s name in the other. Similarly Vir Das endorsed a new brand of deodorant called “HE” which could have been problematic except that he used an approach that was intertextual — making direct references to other ads which are known to have undermined women’s worth.

Washing powder Ariel came up with an ad called “#ShareTheLoad” which emphasised on sharing household duties with male members of the family. Other examples that can be contrasted with sexist ads are Forest Essentials’ Warrior Princess featuring a powerful woman and Titan Raga watch ad where the woman turns down a proposal to focus on her career.

As opposed to products advertisements like the ones mentioned above, a number of ad campaigns endorsed by popular Bollywood actresses rolled out of the Indian advertising industry, where they believe they created ground-breaking, radical and empowering ads. While these ads upheld what they had set out to achieve, they either represented a very small minority of advantaged section of the society or were straight-up unclear in their message.

For instance, the “My Choice” campaign led by Deepika Padukone in 2015, produced by Vogue focussed on bridging the gender gap by valorising women’s choice. While the campaign managed to empower women to a certain extent, the ambivalent reaction of the audience showed that it was not an unproblematic ad. The ad features some of them most elite and highly privileged women even though it directed at tackling issues about “people like us,” who are not urban upper class professional women. The “My Choice” campaign appeals to groups of women who have very specific liberal values and backfires for women don’t stand for those values.

Overlooking issues like female foeticide, rape, harassment at workplace, domestic violence, intrusive male gaze and the like, the video only seems to talk about bodily images and characteristics exhibited by women. At some point she says “To be a size zero or a size 6, they don’t have a size of my spirit and never will…” This statement is ironic since the “attractive” female body type features in glossy magazines like Vogue itself. Moreover, the many women appearing in the video are models who do in fact adhere to size zero.

Again when she says, “To marry or not to marry, to have sex before marriage, to have sex outside of marriage, to not have sex, my choice…,” women committing adultery just as some men do might not actually be on the feminist agenda, and hence this part of the ad invited criticism. It is possible that men espousing adultery may have invited none or perhaps even more criticism depending on the way one looks at it. And thus, the idea of adultery in the ad complicates what is valued as gender equality.

Then again, one can’t completely disregard their effort since any choice can be empowering because it is an act of agency. Although making choices can lead to making regressive choices, like a lot of women justify wearing heels by stating that it makes them feel powerful. Practices such as getting breast implants and waxing bodily hair are gendered and unequal. Whether this ideal of beauty is embraced as empowering, or denounced as objectifying is a difficult question to answer.

A very similar ad-campaign featuring Madhuri Dixit rolled out recently with the name “Boys Don’t Cry.” The central point of video is that instead of teaching men to bottle up their feelings, we should teach them to be sensitive to women. What the video portrays accurately is that men too are expected to live up to this bizarre notion of masculinity where crying necessarily compromises their identity as men. However instead of furthering this point by discussing how that affects the male psyche, it takes a different turn to another issue altogether, that is, of men generally hurting women and domestic violence. The video seems to suggest that men who are forced to curb their emotions like to hurt women instead. It suggests that repressing their emotions makes men violent towards women.

Although it acknowledges that even well-to-do individuals face domestic violence and not just the lower classes of society, it implies the idea that crying is the exclusive behaviour shown by women. It reinforces the idea that women are the weaker sex by placing the power back in the hands of men, asking them to take this responsibility of not making women cry.

To conclude, one can question the role of men and women in society and how exactly advertisements envision these roles. Regressive ads appeal to male consumers by feeding into their patriarchal beliefs, and to female consumers with the idea that they want to appease men. While conventional ads target male consumers by objectifying women as well as female consumers by objectifying women themselves and upholding their own patriarchal beliefs, new ads are simultaneously invoking “real men” and “rebellious women” in response to conventional ads.

This essay noted the ambivalences in assessing and labelling ads as regressive or progressive and the complex messages that every advertisement seems to be sending out, and the mixed responses it evokes. It observed how even ads such as the “My Choice” campaign and “Boys Don’t Cry” that focussed on empowering women and being sensitive to women respectively, have remained problematic about their idea of equality.

Bibliography

Barrett, Michele. 1980. “Ideology and Cultural Production of Gender.” Women’s Oppression Today. Verso Press.

Berger, John.1972. Ways of Seeing. Penguin Press.
“Deepika Padukone – “My Choice” Directed By Homi Adajania – VOGUE Empower,” YouTube video, 2:34, posted by “VOGUE India,” March 28, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtPv7IEhWRA&t=60s

Newton, Judith, and Deborah Rosenfelt. 1985. Feminist Criticism and Social Change (RLE Feminist Theory): Sex, class and race in literature and culture. Routledge.
Perez, Nancy Pilar. 2013. Roles of Women in Advertising: The Objectification of Women and the Shift to an Empowering Ad Frame. Report, University of Texas.

Fallacies

Vidhi — Wed, 30 May 2018 21:22:33 +0000

I wish I could just string up some words

and they would make perfect sense

But little do they know,

they come after fallacies

Some fallacies here others there

I cut and paste

from memory of dictionary

I found no syntax and it was far from

punctuation

With little grammar between words and phrases

I found some formation

Verbs and nouns

popped up here others there

Conjunction though, was rare

A stable format could not be found

I swear I looked everywhere

There was only so much words could do

New meanings grew

Little they knew,

Fallacies were meant to be untrue

The post Fallacies appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.

Types of Travellers Found in the Delhi Metro Women’s Coach

Vidhi — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 02:06:10 +0000

It’s a pity that Delhi is such a fun cosmopolitan city but public transport is so inconvenient at times. If you find roads to be heavily flooded with cars at every hour of the day, the metro isn’t any better. Because we are just that populated, I kid you not. If you happen to be an average college-going or working human bean who’s never had the luxury of being driven around by a guy that your family pays for, you’re forced to travel with pretty much everybody else in Delhi, at the same time, often to the same location because there’s just that many of us, (seriously the odds get higher everyday). And travelling with the rest of the world might suck to the highest degree but it’s also the best way to entertain yourself.

You would have seen these people for sure.

1. There’s always a woman with the biggest phone screen that lets everybody in that coach follow her Whatsapp conversation with “my love <3” about whether he’s had breakfast yet. She’ll continue to stare into her phone with the biggest smile and cheeks so red even Snow White’s poisoned apple would get a complex.

2. You may have had a tough time at work and might’ve thanked your stars for getting a seat in the metro (mark that glorious day on your calendar), but an aunty coming from Rajouri market with shopping bags as big herself would forcefully fit herself next to you by saying “adjust ho jao, beta”, if she spots so much as tinge of silver colour of that seat. This is the same aunty who is the first one to push her way in with her chubby elbows and diamond cutting bangles when the door opens. No, you can’t wish the door closes on her fat belly the next time she does that.

3. A huge group of giggling girls is a sight so common and dangerous you finally get why it was hard for Harry and Ron to ask a girl out to the Fire Yule Ball. They stand together like a set of skittles, completely oblivious to their surroundings which explains their synchronised high pitched voices that give you full insight into how one of their’s crush is chasing this other girl. We hate this other girl.

4. Delhi upholds its image of an unsafe city by making sure no girl travels the train without becoming aware of her own presence through the eyes of perverted uncles whose justification for staring would be “dekh hi toh rahe hain.” They can be easily spotted by way of their constant piercing gaze and their flirting tactics that involve humming to the tune of an old odd love song.

5. The women’s coach has its own set of judgemental human beans who often make you question your choice of clothing. You could be dressed to your personal best and a random woman with filed nails would still make you feel shit about your top or your shoes or anything that can be found at fault.

6. Metros always have just enough space for you to stand if you cut off both your arms and donate your luggage. But that doesn’t stop people who boarded the train when it was relatively empty to sit on the floor, because they take first-come-first-serve a little too seriously.

7. Delhiites have no sense of self-consciousness because their selfie game is so strong even the most crowded coaches can’t stop them from getting that perfect angle. The number of women who have solo selfies as their phone wallpapers makes you wonder whether narcissism is taught as a separate subject in schools.

8. Making your way past couples becomes a task when they stick to each other like conjoined twins who will die before they lose each other’s hands. Their raging hormones take over their nervousness and make everybody around them feel second-hand awkwardness.

9. The metro is pretty much the best thing that happened to this city and as punctual as you might want to be by riding the metro, you’d still find yourself getting late because the person in front of you has too many texts to respond to. Just when you start considering tryouts for Olympics when you’re three inches away from the door that’s about to close, Satan decides to board this very train before you alight. You can feel almost feel this door shut on your face perhaps making you lose that nose you are so proud of.

10. When little kids aren’t having the time of their life around metro poles, poles are used by people as an extra spine to support their flailing body parts because suddenly balancing your own body is too strenuous. You’d always find these people leaning on to poles like they’re their own personal IV drips, detaching from which just might lead to their deaths.

The post Types of Travellers Found in the Delhi Metro Women’s Coach appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.

Family Gatherings in India

Vidhi — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 07:10:13 +0000

Indian families know how to stick together and they would go to lengths to make sure nobody dare accuse them of being anti-social. They’re social from level 1: which would be talking to people outside their houses for hours in night suits, to level max: travelling 700 kms to some hill station with their entire families stuffed in a van. This Christmas is another excuse for meeting in large numbers even though most of us don’t even celebrate it or know what exactly the festival is. These gatherings almost always pan out in the same manner. Here’s a list of every Indian family gathering ever.

1. Aunties you don’t recall ever meeting saying “arre kitni badi ho gayi! Itni si thi jab last time dekha tha.” Now this “last time” could be the day you were born (which would make sense because since then you’ve grown five and a half feet tall, graduated, had three different relationships, been on eight trips, met more than a gazillion people and had seven mental breakdowns), or last year at some wedding when you’re certain you looked pretty much how you look now.

2. Little kids whom you are not sure if are your cousins or your nephews and nieces. This confusion doesn’t last long because their parents make you talk to them and introduce you by saying “ye dekho, ye aapke bhaiya hain, chalo hello bolo?” and you stand there just as clueless as that kid wondering whether you should make the first move and say ‘hello’. You’re forced to shake the toddler’s germy hand and strike a conversation because you can feel his/her mother looking at you expectantly, patiently waiting for you to play with her kid.

3. Out of the blue these clearly introverted kids are then asked to recite a poem in front of literally every blood relative, or dance because they moved about once in their house last week. When they don’t budge because they can feel a lifetime of stagefright ahead, they’re asked “accha clapping kar do…yay!”

4. Misogynistic uncles who think women only like to gossip over the phone, spend “the breadwinner’s money” on jewellery and enjoy cleaning and cooking, would introduce their wives to each other and expect them to stay in a group while they get together to get drunk in a corner.

5. Relatives who ask you about your career plans for the nth time, who have no idea about your discipline and make the most generic statements to make you feel better about being anything but a doctor, engineer and lawyer. For instance, when you tell them you’re doing philosophy they say “haan philosophy ke bache toh bohut thoughtful hote hain.”

6. All the parents who stay up till 4 in the morning playing taash (cards) laugh more loudly than what their jokes deserve.

7. Cousins who outrank you in every field, the reason why you’ll never be good enough for your parents because “sharma ji ki ladki ke toh 98% aaya.” Only in this case you’re both Sharmas and you’re the Sharma who is a disgrace to all Sharmas, which is worse.

8. Recipes of that particular dinner being shared around the room after the cook has been sufficiently praised by everybody.

9. Families who consider themselves better than the rest, judge and try to ridicule everybody left, right and centre because they think life is just like the soap operas they watch on a daily basis.

10. That hour when everybody decides it’s high time they left but someone yells “ek cup chai pi kar jana” and they all stay back for another hour…or day. When they finally do get up and hug goodbyes, it’s another long process of kids pretending to refrain from accepting money from elders as their parents look on with embarrassment when the kids eventually give in.

The post Family Gatherings in India appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.

Things That Happen During Exam-Time

Vidhi — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 21:14:23 +0000

It is that time of the year again when anything that contains any sort of caffeine can be found in your home. Or to be precise, in your room, on your table or your bed (because lol who even studies on a study table?) Yes, the horror that is the exams. This is the same time when falling down the stairs and breaking your legs seems more tempting than actually sitting down to study. You may not be able to walk again for a while, but hey, at least now you have a legit reason to skip exams. And if you’re anything like me, then feel guilty about that too and overthink to unhealthy extremes about how you still have one semester’s exams pending. If this rings a bell then this should be your cue to approaching a psychiatrist.

Alternately, you can continue reading and feel worse about yourself.

.
.
.

You chose unwisely.

1. A week before your first exam, reality kicks in and your brain starts panicking. But this doesn’t stop your real brain (yep, the one that is eagerly waiting for your TV shows to return because…priorities) to still spend all the available time sleeping in. Your bed mysteriously starts preparing your body for hibernation and your fifteen minute naps convert to eighteen hours of deep sleep paralysis.

2. And if that isn’t enough, you spend all of your waking time arranging books and fancy stationery with irrelevant props to click pretentious Instagram-worthy pictures because would it really be exam-time if there wasn’t any unnecessary insta-activity?

3. When that adequately freaks your friends out who frantically text you saying “bro, how much are you studying?”, you come clean and immerse yourself into a long (and redundant) conversation cribbing and complaining about just how much you’re supposed to study, only to realise later that you could’ve easily just studied instead of whining.

4. Nonetheless, knowing all your friends are equally screwed gives you unmatched satisfaction. You may fail but so will they. You know you’re in this together. *Cue high school musical “we’re all in this together” song*

5. When you do decide to get out of those layers of blankets which are thicker than the topsoil, you find the imprint of your butt on your bed because the last time you got up was back in 1832.

6. Healthy exam-time diet is a myth to you because exams become an excuse for binge-eating of the worst kind. You are what you eat starts making sense when you’ve eaten so many chips you find yourself becoming a potato.

7. Furniture beetles start their own families and welcome new generations before you even finish reading that paragraph.

8. You suddenly become the most religious person to walk this earth. God may not be able to grant you your wishes but your mom certainly is over the moon when she spots you praying. You also happen to make the most insane and unrealistic wishes where you swear you will donate all your pocket money to every holy place built.

9. Insanity really takes its course when you start fantasising about winging your paper super well and coming home to give your family the good news and being met with garlands and sweets.

10. We all know how things turn out though. *Sleeping with the book that’s been open since the printing press was founded. All bodily systems slow down while you feel your brain deteriorating.*

Now you happen to look at the time and realise how you wasted another day reading this shit while sitting on what you were expected to do. Just let that sink in.

The post Things That Happen During Exam-Time appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.

Heraclitus’s Theory of Opposites

Vidhi — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 18:30:54 +0000

B48: the bow’s name: life; its work, death

B80: One must know that war is universal, justice strife, and everything happens by Strife and necessity.

Heraclitus, famously called the ‘riddler’ and ‘the obscure’ lived in 500 BC. His surviving fragments prove to be difficult to understand because, as his nickname suggests, they are highly obscure and puzzling. They’ve been described more as poetic utterances rather than pronouncements that can be analysed into arguments. His fragments are known to be paradoxical and open to interpretation which is undoubtedly his personal style of writing. Here, his writing style is appropriate since the content itself is abstract. Thus, as mentioned in Ancient Greek Philosophy by Vijay Tankha, one can draw a parallel between his paradoxical language and a paradoxical world.

His fragments use metaphors to point to a variety of topics that can be loosely tied together to explain the worldly processes. He developed sets of opposites and the idea that things are in a state of flux.

Theory of Opposites

According to Aristotle, “all things that come into existence in the course of nature are either opposites themselves or compounded of opposites.” Heraclitus deals with the tension of opposites and gives instances of opposition. He generalises the nature of opposition and includes elements with correlated powers, natural processes and abstract terms like justice. As stated in Ancient Greek Philosophy, the fact of opposition is generalised by him into a principle but he doesn’t articulate this principle himself.

To further his Doctrine of Opposites, we will take into account other prominent philosophers’ take on the same and note the disparities between their ideas. For instance, Aristotle understood pairs of opposites like waking/sleeping, birth/death and good/bad, most opposed within the same genus, one of which lacks the other positive term. Milesians on the other hand focused on elements which seem to be naturally opposed, as explained through the above mentioned examples.

Plato too believed that opposites exclude each other, which means if one is present the other must necessarily be absent. However, an important point here is that opposed predicates can characterise the same subject successively if not simultaneously. This can be explained with the help of fragment B67 that states, “God: day night winter summer war peace satiety hunger. It is altered, just as when (fire?) mixed with incense is named according to the flavour of each.”

This just points to the fact that opposites aren’t always opposed to each other in the sense that they are mutually exclusive. Sometime ‘opposites’ prove to be part of the same process and become contraries by way of occurring at different points of time. So from B67 we can conclude that incense differs from fire in terms of its smell and smoke giving quality, but is part of the same genus. This similarity of opposites of the same subject constitutes the paradoxical part of Heraclitus’ philosophy.

Further, there is a claim that opposites are identical. This can be explained using B60, “road above and below one and same”. Here, Heraclitus suggests that the road up and down is the same but is described differently depending on the perspective of the observer. The opposites become identical in the sense that they’re different aspects of the same thing. Up and down are opposite but not entirely because it is the same road one is travelling.

Significance of Harmony

Now as mentioned before, Aristotle gives a systematic analysis of the concept of opposition, which eventually led him to believe that Heraclitus violated the principle of non-contradiction. Plato uses Harmony and quotes B51 that states “they do not apprehend how being at variance it agrees with itself: a reversed harmony as of bow and lyre”, and takes sides with Heraclitus. He defines harmony as consonance, agreement and rhythm produced by fast and slow which was at variance initially but later came to agree. W. K. C. Guthrie in his book A History of Greek Philosophy talks about how Heraclitus makes use of Harmony in music to speak of a concord being in discord, factors which are in discord when they are composed but subsequently in concord. If we look at the example of the bow and lyre, the bow appears to be a static object but in actuality there is a continuous effort being put which will become evident if the string is not strong enough or is allowed to perish. A similar state operates in a tuned lyre. A smooth functioning of both the instruments is therefore dependent on this balance of forces which is therefore ‘good’. This bow and lyre symbolise the whole cosmos which without this struggle would disintegrate (B48- the bow’s name: life; its work, death). We will return to this point.

Despite several arguments, Aristotle sticks to his ideology and asserts that contraries cannot belong to the same thing at the same time and continues to accuse Heraclitus for violating the law of non-contradiction. Heraclitus rebuts this by putting forth the same theory of opposites even as contradictories, may transform from one to another or replace each other. In fragment of B49a “into the same rivers we step and do not step; we are and we are not.” Here, re-reading would take away the claim of violation of this principle. Aristotle’s further analyses of the same states that if the opposites of the same subject exist in same respect then it defeats the purpose of questioning and renders all statements true.

We can summarise the above arguments using B88 that says, “the same in (us) living and dead and/ both the waking and the sleeping and young and old, for these turning around are those, and those again turning around these”, Vijay Tankha, in his book goes on to explain that static and stable condition “conceals a dynamic condition and what is changing reveals order and harmony, where one condition passes into its opposite and then perhaps back again.”

Coming back to war serving as a metaphor for the opposition inherent in things, war is the universal creative and ruling force. The significance of this term can be explained by using bow and lyre again. It goes beyond the understanding that tension between different parts contributes to the functioning of the whole to include, that their functions are also opposed. Bow stands for war while lyre stands for peace. In addition to this, opposites come together at the level of phenomena and are held together by harmony that is hidden to the ordinary observer. Here we may use the fragment B80 that states “one must know that war is universal, justice strife, and everything happens by Strife and necessity”, because opposition is perpetuated to natural processes along with manufactured objects. Such opposition is mandatory for the proper functioning of both animate and inanimate objects on one hand, and whole that is constituted of them on the other. The “war and Strife” of the fragment provide the metaphor that captures this dynamic opposition.

To conclude the above stated ideas, we link them to the cosmos in which there is high need for things to be in opposition for only when the warring sides reach a state of continual tension do we find harmony.

Doctrine of Flux

Closely related to the identity of opposites, specifically from B88, is the doctrine of continuous change or the doctrine of Flux. One of his most famous sayings is “you cannot step into the same river twice”, which is easy enough to gather since water isn’t constant. Another fragment B12 states, “everything is moving like a river, nothing stays still”, and other fragments B91 and B49a (above) connect rivers with change. With the help of these fragments we arrive at the statement “all things are always changing”. Further translated as “on those who step into the same rivers, different and then different waters flow”. If we were to instead put emphasis on the human element, it would translate as “on those same persons who step…”. Following this we can claim that both rivers and persons are subject to the same process, continuous change.

B12 is a statement of coincidence of opposites but also specifies rivers as same. Though the statement is paradoxical, it isn’t necessarily false. A body of water (river) consists of changing waters and if it ceases to flow, it would just be a dry streambed. Thus, river becomes a constant existence that changes what it contains. Coming back to “all things are always changing”, we can positively conclude that some things stay the same by changing. Persons too then, can be understood in the same way, as living and continuing by virtue of constant metabolism, according to Aristotle. Based on this Heraclitus believes in flux, paradoxically a necessary condition of constancy, similar to the tension operating behind the bow and lyre.

The post Heraclitus’s Theory of Opposites appeared first on bas itna coffee hai.