Isis

Interesting. Very interesting.

thus spake Pollyanna @ 8:53 am Footprints: 15

thus spake Pollyanna @ 11:39 am Footprints: 3

VOICES is staging a P. Lankesh play, translated into English by Prakash Belawadi, on Wednesday, the 25th October, at 7.30 pm, in Ravindra Kalashetra. This play is part of Kannada Rangabhoomi Namaskara!, a festival of six plays inEnglish by leading Kannada playwrights.

Directed by Ashish Sen, "Nanna Tangigondu Gandu Kodi" exposes the correlation of power and politics with relationships. Kamala, the daughter of a prominent minister has been set up to marry Ranganna by her family. The play explores the conflict in the lead up to her marriage, that ultimately becomes an issue of property, and of hidden truths that spill out as play unfolds. In trying to forget the past, escape the present and finding solutions for the future, each character struggles through their own versions of truth.

Be there to reminisce P. Lankesh's works. Tickets available at VOICES. Contact Amena: 98801-66386 or Ekta: 98807-55875

Regards

Team VOICES

thus spake Pollyanna @ 6:12 pm Footprints: 8

While doing some research on worldwide persecution of disabled people, I came across this nauseating reality.

The Nazi persecution of persons with disabilities in Germany during the Third Reich was one component of their radical public health policies, aimed at excluding hereditarily "unfit" Germans from the national community. All of this was part of the realization of a biomedical vision, which imagined a racially and genetically pure and productive society, an "Aryan master race", and embraced unthinkable strategies to eliminate those who did not fit within that vision.

The "Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases", proclaimed July 14, 1933, forced the sterilization of all persons who suffered from diseases considered hereditary, such as mental illness (schizophrenia and manic depression), "congenital feeble-mindedness"(retardation), physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism, stating that “countless numbers of inferiors and those suffering from hereditary conditions are reproducing unrestrainedly while their sick and asocial offspring burden the community”. Nazi propaganda in the form of posters, news reels and films portrayed disabled people as "useless eaters" and people who had "lives unworthy of living". The propaganda stressed the high cost of supporting disabled people, and suggested that there was something unhealthy or even unnatural about society paying for this. The ideological justification conceived by medical perpetrators for their destruction was also applied to other categories of "biological enemies", most notably to Jews and homosexuals.

Under a secret plan called the “T4 Programme”, these strategies began with forced sterilization and escalated toward mass murder. The most extreme measure, Final Solution, the Euthanasia Programme, which empowered physicians to exterminate the mentally ill and the handicapped using lethal injections or poison gas, was in itself a rehearsal for Nazi Germany's broader genocidal policies. Meticulous records discovered after the war documented 70,273 deaths by gassing at the six "euthanasia" centres between January 1940 and August 1941. Hitler ordered the suspension of the programme in 1941 after opposition from groups within Germany, including Catholic churchmen. However, killings were restarted the following year in a more secretive way, and continued until the end of World War Two.

It is estimated that a total of 2,75,000 adults and children were murdered because of their disabilities!

Was there no limit to their despotism? How could anyone stoop so low as to wage war on a group of weakened and hapless people, whose only fault is that, due to some freak disease or genetic defect, they are different?

thus spake Pollyanna @ 12:09 pm Footprints: 40

“You think I'm an ignorant "savage" and you've been so many places; I guess it must be so, but still I cannot see if the savage one is me. How can there be so much that you don't know? You don't know.”




With the 1995 movie “Pocahontas”, the artists at Disney once again proved that when it comes to animation, no can hold a candle to them.

The story revolves around a young woman, Pocahontas, the daughter of the Chief of the Powhatan tribe settled in Virginia. Her father wants her to marry a fierce warrior she finds too serious. A dream about a spinning arrow leads Pocahontas to believe it is her destiny to meet another man. She does. A British settler, Captain John Smith, commissioned by the gold hungry Governor Ratcliffe, sets sail with his crew for the New World. The Indians and the Englishmen are instinctively enemies, but when Pocahontas and Smith meet, despite their initial cultural conflicts, they are strangely drawn to each other. As you might expect, they fall in love, but to make their relationship work, the couple must find a way to bridge their two cultures. For Pocahontas, this is made more difficult by her father's express command that she should stay away from the white men, and there are times when she backs out, but this only makes the storyline more engaging.

The movie won two Academy Awards: for Best Original Music and for Best Original Song, "Colors of the Wind".

Unusually for a Disney animated film, Pocahontas is actually loosely based on a true story, and came in for a lot of criticism during its theatrical run due to Disney's stance as historical revisionist. To be fair though, a Disney film is not likely to be the place for historical accuracy, ultimately its aim is to entertain people, especially children, and this film does that brilliantly.

The movie is worth seeing simply for the widely diverse characters and the incredible soundtrack, and while it may not be one of the top ten greatest animated features ever made, it is beautiful to behold, sentimental, and heartwarming.

thus spake Pollyanna @ 5:44 am Footprints: 11

And…..I’m tagged AGAIN!

Only doing this one ought to be fun, if only to prove to a certain someone that there actually are things to do in my dear Bangalore.

So here goes.

5 of my favourite things to do in this city:

• Sitting in a corner of Landmark and reading book after book, without having to buy any of them. (Yes. I’m a nerd. Get over it.)
• People watching at Infinitea, while pigging out on momos and hot lemon tea (yum yum yum).
• Going for concerts and plays at the Chowdiah Memorial Hall, with its absolutely superb acoustics.
• Traipsing through the back streets of Commercial Street, and eating dahi puri covered with saunth.
• Playing Scrabble at the Barista next door to William Penn.

Wtmewry, Duh Goddess, Lalbadshah and Malaveeka, you are now tagged.

thus spake Pollyanna @ 5:18 am Footprints: 18

"You see, Pige, when you’re footloose and collar free, you take nothing but the best."









Disney's 1955 cartoon, "Lady and the Tramp", is not only one of Disney's most engaging films, it's also one of their most exquisitely done. The movie proves as endearing today as the first time it appeared so many years ago.

The moviemakers preface the film with a remark from nineteenth-century American humorist Josh Billings: "In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money can not buy.….to wit - the wag of a dog's tale."

Lady is a beautiful, pampered, little brown-and-white purebred cocker spaniel raised from a puppy by an upper middle class American couple, Jim Dear and Darling. Lady's best friends are the neighbourhood dogs, a Scottish terrier named Jock and old bloodhound named Trusty. Everything goes swimmingly for the Lady and the family, until Jim Dear and Darling have a baby, and Lady starts feeling left out.

Things get even worse a few months later when Jim Dear and Darling head off on a trip, and the not so friendly Aunt Sarah arrives to babysit. She’s not a dog person, and she’s brought along Lady’s archenemies – her fiendish cats, Si and Am. Naturally, trouble ensues, and after being muzzled and banished to the doghouse outside, Lady runs away. She’s on her own in the scary city, until she meets Tramp, a dog from the other side of the tracks. He’s a streetwise mutt with none of Lady’s style, but a heart of gold. Soon, a romance blooms between the two dogs, which leads to many romantic scenes, including the scene where they share an Italian dinner and connect through a single strand of spaghetti, which has been copied in so many other movies after it.

On the whole, "Lady and the Tramp" is one of Disney's most appealing and enduring animated films, told with a creative dog's eye view of the world.

"So it is to all dogs.....be they ladies or tramps that this picture is dedicated"

thus spake Pollyanna @ 8:18 pm Footprints: 10

The debate on the Right to Death has been renewed with the filing of a Public Interest Litigation petition by Nikhil Soni against the controversial custom of Santhara, the ancient Jain ritual of voluntary non-violent abnegation of one's physical body by giving up food and water. Mr. Soni sought legal intervention to ban the practice and make it illegal as in the case of suicide.

Under Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, an attempt to commit suicide is punishable with a minimum sentence of a year’s imprisonment. The validity of Section 309 has often been challenged in courts of law. Our Constitution sanctions the Right to Life. Article 21 states a person cannot be denied right to life "except in accordance with procedures defined by law". The question remains as to whether the right to die is inherent in the right to life. Suicide is an unnatural termination of life, and therefore incompatible and inconsistent with the concept of a right to die.

Supporters of the practice are at pains to explain how the concept of Santhara is different from suicide. In contrast to suicide, which is viewed as a violent self-killing, and as emotional and hasty, Santhara is the non-violent self-termination of living "when all purposes of life have been served or the body becomes unable to serve any purpose'', and is a rite that takes place in public and is sanctioned amidst religious sermons. It is not to be adopted in the hope of acquiring either fame, a position in society, divine status or to get rid of physical pains. Also, unlike suicide, Santhara is reversible. A person undergoing Santhara is free to take food and return to normal life at any stage.

The Right to Life includes the right to live with human dignity, and guarantees the existence of such a right up to the end of natural life. This also includes the right to a dignified life up to the point of death, including a dignified procedure of death. Many of those who embrace Santhara are either terminally ill or geriatric, and Santhara is just a refined, courageous and peaceful way of confronting imminent death and of embracing it through resolve and penance, before they are faced either by excruciating pain, loss of faculties, or complete dependence on their relatives.

I know choosing death over life is abhorrent to people in most cultures, but can a custom like Santhara that is essentially a merciful emancipation from what could be a terrible death be clubbed under suicide?

thus spake Pollyanna @ 9:52 pm Footprints: 20

‘That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. “My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child.” I stopped.’

The 1998 Newberry Honor Book, “Ella Enchanted” by Gail Carson Levine is the engaging story of a girl named Ella of Frell, who at birth receives a fateful gift of obedience from the fairy Lucinda. Ella has to obey an order, any order, be it to hop on one foot all day, or even to chop off her own head, a fact her scheming stepmother, Dame Olga, and her dimwitted and unattractive stepsisters, Hattie and Olive, make ample use of at every opportunity.

But Ella grows up with a mind of her own, and a great sense of humour. She is determined to find the fairy who bestowed this gift on her, to beg her to take it back. The action moves from Ella’s home, where she is treated like a slave by the trio each time her father is away on business, to the fashionable finishing school from where she runs away to avert having to end her friendship with Areida, her closest friend, at the behest of the jealous Hattie, across a land peopled with ogres, giants, elves and other exotic creatures. On her way to a giant's farm where rumour has it Luncinda is staying, she is attacked by ogres. She helps her childhood friend, Prince Charmont of Frell, pacify the ogres, and continues on her quest, leaving the prince in love with her.

But her quest for Lucinda is unsuccessful. She is doomed to return home to misery and servitude. She loves Prince Charmont too, but cannot marry him, because she knows that her gift, or perhaps it should be termed a curse, of obedience could put Char and the whole realm of Frell in danger. How Ella breaks the curse by her own strength of will, and saves not only herself, but also Prince Char, comprises the rest of this delightful book.

“Ella Enchanted” is Gail Levine's first book written for children, although she has published many other books. Although the plot was inspired by Cinderella, with all the original story’s trappings, the characters are more realistic, Ella certainly isn’t a goody two shoes like Cinderella, and the plot is definitely more enthralling than the original story. The book has romance, fantasy, and adventure in the right measures. If you like fantasy and love stories, this is the perfect book for you.

thus spake Pollyanna @ 1:28 pm Footprints: 8