The Mystical Unicorn

The irony in an independent, educated young woman asserting her freedom and right to wear what she pleases and sing along and dance to whichever item song she wants, cannot be missed. In this post, I will outline the objectification of women in Bollywood dance numbers as analyzed and discussed by Ms. Deebanjana Pal, at the "Gender in Cinema: Gendering Film Screens" workshop I attended this semester. Ms. Pal presented her talk with the help of 4 clips from Indian movies from different time periods. Using these, she criticized notions about women even as they evolved. She also explored the sexuality of leading ladies in these films, in terms of overtly sexy behavior. The first clip she showed us was Dimple Kapadia's infamous sarong scene in Bobby. Ms Kapadia's striptease there was a demonstration of the constant scrutiny femalekind are subject to: The heroine in that clip is shown to be unaware of being watched. She has no idea about the creepy man in the backgroun...

Some characteristics in potential dating partners are very grey areas - physical appearance, dating history, matching interests, and age, for instance. For the longest time, I firmly held the belief that I should only date someone older than me. I held the view that since boys (in general) are dumber than girls their age, it would be safe to assume that I'd never gain anything out of a relationship with a younger boy. My stance can be debunked on many counts. Firstly, many boys older than me are still dumber than me - case in point: Dumbshit. Also, Anant is both smarter and wiser than me, and he's two years younger than me. Secondly, what if I were to date a girl? Would I want her to be older or younger than me? Thirdly, what if I had never known about his/her age? I'd probably fall for him/her. The personality would (and should) suffice. Lastly, I'd linked age with maturity, which is perhaps a fail approach. There is at least one conscientious, hel...