My Book and a few other thoughts

Friday, February 24, 2012

River Periyar viewd from Kalady

What is reality? A study

Sajit M.Mathews

What is Reality pertaining Photographs and Paintings?

Reality is a ‘concept’ which can be defined at various levels. A lay man’s definition of reality would be “that which is experienced with senses, as perceived in full consciousness.”

A level deeper, a philosopher could give us an ontological definition of reality. A flower I see can be real as much as a thought I have about that flower. Reality is subjective and objective. Objectively, a flower (in itself) is a reality, irrespective of the names given to it or the qualities attributed to it. Subjectively, a flower can be what I perceive the flower as. The same flower can be perceived and understood as a biological wonder and an aesthetic entity by two/the same observer.

At a level further, we can reflect upon the essence and esse of reality. There is a ‘flowerness’ in the flower which makes it the flower. Change in variety, colour, age, aroma, etc. are qualities added to the basic esse of the flower. We could say that is what a flower is.

Though we are aware of these philosophical facts about reality, we also know that a pragmatic way of looking at life and reality does not need deep thinking like this. Therefore, reality is what is perceived, for most of us.

Thoughts are representations of reality. But what is acutely real for me in thought may not be so real for another person. Thoughts of a person could be interpreted in various ways, as we discussed earlier. Just like thought, visuals (Photographs, Paintings, etc.) are also representations of reality. Only the mode does change. These representations too could be interpreted and understood at various levels.

Photographs

A photograph captures the colours, light and shade of an object/scenery/animal with much technical accuracy. This accuracy can also be manipulated using special lenses, filters and computerized editing. The product of these processes of capturing, editing and reproducing portrays a slice of reality against a context which is almost always alien to the onlooker.

A photograph is as real as the original scene if only the context is already known to the observer. If it is known, a photograph could evoke the same emotions or responses as the original could have done. But the photograph - an extract from the reality - naturally loses continuity in both time and space.

Painting

Now let us consider a painting. A painting is an interpretation of what an artist sees in the world or in her/his mind, using imagination. It could be a real scene, or an imaginary scene or a mixture of both. The advantage of a painting is that the artist could mix colours and tell tales of life which (in a way) is impossible with photography. A painting may not always be understood by untrained eyes. There are codes of colours and light and shade embedded in it. Yet a painting is real as much as a photograph is. A painting can evoke the same responses as the original scene, if the background of the painting is known.

Paintings generally carry themes picked by artists and those themes are evidently manifest in them. A painter could bring in two opposing or contradicting ideas or objects into the same scene, which may be impossible for a photograph. Moreover, as a medium used by human beings from time immemorial, paintings have livelier relationship to us, humans.

When it comes to choosing which is nearer to reality- photograph or painting, I am confused. The reason is, to me, these both appear to be of the same level of reality. A photograph is better than a painting in terms of clarity, complete representation and technical perfection. A painting is better than a photograph in terms of imagination and creativity. Both photographs and paintings in their own way are close to reality. Both in one way or another are away from reality too.

Conclusion

Yet, when a choice is necessary, a photograph could be much more realistic than a painting. Certain aspects of what is seen cannot be taken out of sight in case of photography. Whether photographer wishes or not, these inseparable aspects of visuals stick to the image. Quality reproduction keeps them intact and makes them all the more clear. The shape, size, contrast, etc. are some of such qualities. In that respect, the viewer cannot be completely alienated from a photograph’s reality. Whereas, this alienation is possible in case of a painting.

Therefore, my vote goes to photograph as it has a higher degree of reality represented in it, than a painting.

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A response to Ravi Vasudevan's article: The Exhilaration of Dread: Genre, narrative form and film style in contemporary urban action films

Sajit M. Mathews

Introduction

Film is a powerful medium. Nobody has a debate on that. Films have grown in the last century from being a fantasy and a hobby affair to be one of the largest industries of the world. What was taken for granted in the beginning is today, a field of specialization and research. And this huge cultural product and entertainment industry has to go through so many processes, since a huge sum of money is involved. That apart, the quality of films needs to be scrutinized on a regular basis. This check should be in qualitative terms, whether our films are up to the set standards.

But a qualitative check is not all. There are a million ways in which films influence human lives. Millions of people who throng to cinema halls everyday enter the halls with different purposes. Cinema is not just a medium of entertainment. Cinema has powerful influence on what people think, decide and do. Such consequences make films all the more important. Film can fall into the hands of propagandists and malicious people, who can use to subvert human minds for their purposes. For this reason, there need to be constant analysis of what goes on in cine field.

Off late, we are doing well in looking at the cinema, audience, its present, past and future. We should continue to look so. Ravi Vasudevan’s articles are a ‘looking at’ of academia, at the cinema of our country. They use the methodology of social sciences to analyze films and related issues.

In this paper, I have summarized three of his articles and added my responses to them in the form of reflections and comments.

About Ravi Vasudevan

Ravi Vasudevan is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). He completed his research on the history of Indian nationalism at Jawaharlal Nehru University and subsequently on Indian film melodrama at the University of East Anglia. His present research concerns are the history and theory of film and media experience. He is part of the Sarai programme of CSDS, which he co-directs with Ravi Sundaram. He runs the film and contemporary media transformations component in the Sarai project Publics and Practices in the History of the Present: Old and New Media in Contemporary India. Vasudevan teaches on film and is guest faculty with the Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, and the Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia. In 2004 he coordinated a lecture and film series for the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University.*

Vasudevan is a member of the editorial collective of the Sarai Reader series and the advisory board of the film studies journal Screen. He has edited Making Meaning in Indian Cinema (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000). Vasudevan also undertakes film curations regularly for Sarai. In 2003, he curated the film series ‘Selves Made Strange: Violent and Performative Bodies in the Cities of Indian Cinema’ for the exhibition body.city on contemporary Indian arts at the House of World Cultures, Berlin.*

Vasudevan bases most of his studies on the Bombay film industry, the premier and biggest in India. The article The Exhilaration of Dread is a study of the narrative form and film style of the modern urban action films, emanating from Bombay. It appears to me that the article as a whole is composed in rather loose style. Ideas about city and city life and films come in and out of the article in a random style. In this particular article, Vasudevan talks about audience, duality of audience-entertainment relation, progress and shift of style in narrative techniques, play of city on the psyche of audience and spectator and spaces used in these action films.*

(* : Source: Internet)

Article : The Exhilaration of Dread: Genre, narrative form and film style in contemporary urban action films

Introduction

This article deals with the relationship of audience with the form of film, transformation in narrative structures, new awareness and knowledge these films brought about, relationship between space, politics and realism, and such films. The article is analysed and personal reflections are added.

Audience’s relationship with the Entertainment form

Vasudevan situates this study in the Bombay film industry of 1980s. Audience of those times is seen as having a dual identity relationship with films. While enjoying the film as spectator, they also are injected with anxiety about the life in the city. These action films of 80s provided the audience with ample opportunities to enjoy the pleasures of viewership, provided all kinds of entertainment, songs, sensual satisfaction, etc. But along with these incentives, films also filled the audience with a sense of dread- ‘a gathering sense of anxiety’ according to Vasudevan. This sounds quite realistic as a film is a reflection of real city life. The dangers of city are not visible to everyone. A film could very well spell out such fears. So the audience becomes more and more aware of what goes on around them. This awareness makes them look around with anxiety and they see more than they were seeing earlier. This is what a genre of films over a long period of time could do to a people.

Narrative structures

From the article, we could allude that the earlier narrative techniques used in Indian films were usually based on binary opposites. Examples given are: east/west, country/city, police/criminal, public/private, etc. These binaries bind the form of the film itself to a certain frame. He points at the depressed and dystopian urban subjectivity of Bombay of mid 80s as a reason for this shift. Thus, in the new sensitivity, there were no clear-cut differences between the good and the evil. Good also could be a failure. Legitimate reasons and aspirations also could end up in death and un-fulfilment- as reality is most of the times. In this way, I would say, Indian films began to look at real life in films.

The new style was basically confusion! This confusion was based on the portrayal of continuity between the binary opposites, shown earlier as belonging to water tight compartments. Vasudevan says, this conveys a sense of the contemporary urban imaginary as a kind of maze. In fact, it is not only a maze, but also a mess. Unstable and dangerous subjectivity governed the anxiety of audience.

New awareness

These city action films made the audience aware that all are vulnerable to the terrors of the city. Fear, terror, unimagined danger, etc are part of the city, and anyone could be into it at any time or the day or night. The displacement of focus from binary opposites to related continuities left the audience without explanations. Consequently, vulnerability became the awareness. Vasudevan says, this has something to do with the way life is imagined in the city. Films have used acts of terror and fright to generate both fear and pity! Parinda is cited as an example. An act of terror invites the fascination of the audience in many ways- the burning of Anna’a wife and son. The psychosis of Anna is attributed to this act. But we don’t know if it is real or fake. However, this psychosis gives him the right to dominate others.

Vasudevan also says that there is always an extra diegetic in films- a force or intelligence that drives the narrative in its ways. It can be director, conventions or its transmutation. Important thing is that, this intelligence appears to assume that the source of terror in the city always slips away, beyond the field of knowledge, into some cavernous other space. This is so real, and is noticeable in our films. The villain is not the real cause of the terror. There is another force or intelligence that designs all these. That force seems to be evading the camera, and the final resolution. It awaits another chance to come back, leaving our apprehensions open ended.

Space in Bollywood

Here, Vasudevan tries to bring symbolic narrative dimensions and narration mechanism in terms of links between key Spaces used often in films. Those spaces familiar to terror and dread are police stations, dark alleys, courts, busy market, den of criminals, etc. These place have gained the representational capacity to speak for themselves now. Why space becomes important for audience? It’s because, no space is a safe space. There is a surveillance mechanism that penetrates through every kind of walls and secrecy. So the basic assumption in such films is that you are being watched everywhere- home, office, market, bus, train, even hide outs. This overarching gaze presupposes the characters’ ability to receive the hints of him/her being watched. No space is a safe space- for characters and audience!

Physical space is redefined and reinterpreted in the narrative as the internal space of the characters, and in turn as that of the audience. Codes available elsewhere are used to generate terror of physical space- resembling interior space. The logical structures of the underworld and the physical (architectural) structures in which the underworld functions are connected to each other by the fashion the latter is filmed. The dark alleys, shadowy rooms, carefully arranged careless halls, atmosphere of dampness, cobwebbed attics, etc. stand for the interior- psychology of those involved in such places. The audience is dragged into such spaces, both physically and mentally. This is terrible.

Vasudevan mentions why the gothic lineage of these structures is significant. These spaces disclose the inner logic of their narrative worlds. He also quotes Mazumdar as arguing that all these are self conscious drawing on of codes generated elsewhere (post-war American genre of film noir). That is, using codes that are historically available for us. Wherever the origin is, such films have changed the texture of our viewing pattern.

Space and Audience

The history of Hindi filmdom is punctuated by formal transformations in the technology and style of international cinema. Global availability of ‘new’ changed things within India. 70s saw a transformation in filmic representation of Bombay, to accommodate the emergence of a character and urban subjectivity: says Vasudevan. Within this ‘new,’ the city remained a stage, rather than becoming a realistically evoked space. The reasons could be our tradition in drama based film making. City space, though considerably expanded within films, still worked as a background for new types of conflict, subjectivity, etc.

One of the interesting notes of Vasudevan is that in such films, the audience is not left in their seats in the cinema, to look figures cast against a background. They are drawn into the film they are to flow amongst objects and figures within the space-rime of the fictive world. This involving cinema drags audience to interact with the form of cinema. The familiar sights on screen and expected responses transport us. Narrative comes to a halt. It becomes spatialised. Later, it takes the audience to engage in a dialogue with the space, and the objects within it. This is because the space in these movies is the urban space, which is integral to the urban dweller. So it is easy for urban audience to get into a discourse with the space.

Climate and space

The climatic condition of the urban space is also important to films. They help to generate moods. The space which is already associated with various moods, when painted with climatic conditions, there emerges another texture which qualifies the space.

Railway station

Railway track and station are extensively used to indicate the proximity of death, terror and danger in everyday life - Existential condition of city life/the urban. The presence of railway in the city is used to create a sense of the everyday vulnerability of the crowded city to the railway accident. As described in the article, the villain could get rid of the key witness in a case against him, by plunging a cigarette into the witness’ hand. The city trains are naturally jam-packed. The victim had to leave his hand in unexpected pain and he falls out and dies- as easy as that. A natural accident is created. Such scenes suggest more than the chances of everyday life- something precarious, something unsaid. Probably, this kind of suggestions have increased the urban anxiety even while enjoying every moment of it.

Railway tracks run parallel to each other, and parallel to urban life. A derailing of either of these parallels could pose danger to each other. This is an aspect of urban life. When camera moves parallel to the track, there is double presence accompanying the audience.

Realism and Reality Effects

Use of realism in the 80s is attributed to the attempts to reduce explanatory force. The phenomenon of place being abstracted into a non-identifiable space of the globalised imagination took place in the early 90s. But in the urban action films, there is a strong orientation to local constructions of the city, mainly because Bombay functions as part of a national imaginary. Realism in such sense is there in the movies. Then comes the reality effects. These are auditory or visual cues which suggest that which is unexplained, that which doesn’t directly link with the characters. These effects enhance the experience of the movie space. This can afford to perceive incidental space, unlike realism procedure.

Another issue discussed here is how social world and terror tend to overlap everyday. Since the movie locates itself in the city which the audience is familiar with, the characters who are in danger are similar to the audience in the cinema. The same audience who sit in the theatre may be unaware of the dangers that are passing just outside or over the theatre. May be in their courtyard, a gang is hiding to attack another gang or even his/her family! Thus, such films problematise the inside/outside world in the city. Here we see how realism is used or adapted to the popular multi-diegetic format of the hindi films, using spaces of multiple narrations, to insert the spectator into the cinematic imagining of the city.

Politics

The article, from the beginning hints about the politics of the city influencing film and the other way around. Character formation and space composition are influenced by the current political scenario. The single hero, wandering in the city of the 70s is replaced in the 80s with a group of youngsters sitting in city corners. This sense of joint political action has gone into films. This is seen as an echo of the worldview of the Shiv Sena in Bombay. The VP Singh government’s attempts to implement the Mandal Commission report and the subsequent uprising are other backgrounds to such political developments in these films. Cinema gains lofty position in giving an overview of political scenario in the city. As we see in the film Satya, the camera is placed above the Deity of Ganesha, to look upon the scene of chaos, where the gangster turned politician is bleeding to death. Here, camera along with the audience is privileged to see what people in the mess cannot see. People are made to witness this terror from another angle altogether. Head on engagement between present/ politics/ screen and audience has been a recurrent subtheme of our films.

The Cycle

Sajit M. Mathews

Blackie was just out of the nest when his girl friend Golda came round and rubbed her beak on his neck. He felt so happy and energized that morning. It seemed an easy opening to the day. Dew and cold wind were taking an early leave that day. ‘Crows are a privileged race. We can see everything around,’ thought Blackie as he looked at Golda’s beautiful eyes.

As horizon made itself visible under the orange red sky, a thousand stories took off their flight into life. Blackie knew he had a long and interesting day ahead. He had to go around hunting for food and stories. Most of those stories used to amuse him very much.

One such story was taking off in John’s house too. Yes, Blackie could see John’s house from his nest. That little house is painted peach-puff. How cute a house it is! Golda came near him and asked, “what are you looking at?” Blackie said, “Ah! Look at you; you are interested in having a look at John. Let us go and see.” Golda was interested and enthused. She liked human kids. Once she has even fed a child with what she gathered! Both of them flew to John’s house.

John is a little kid. He’s only 8 years old. Of course he is a cute child. His smile has powers to take you off your feet and throw you into the sweetest of smiles. “Hush, you can see him. Come, look at that window”, said Blackie.

The morning wind was blowing strong through the window into the house. The window curtain flutters in a jolly rhythm. We can see glimpses of John’s bed. He has covered himself with a blanket. “Oh... What is that sound? An alarm?” asked Golda. “Yes. That’s an alarm. See, John is sticking his hand out of the blanket and switching the alarm off. Haha, he must be terribly sleepy,” observed Blackie, smiling. John switched the alarm off, turned around and slept again.

Golda often wondered why human beings were so addicted to sleep. Every day, he gets up at the first ray of red on the sky, because he knows he needs to do so. These human beings! But John is a little kid. He can do so, thought Golda.

As they kept looking, they saw light coming on in his room. His mother came into the room calling him to get up. He didn’t seem to pay heed to that. Look at that! She pulled his blanket away. “Now he has to get up. Like us, he too has to go work,” said Blackie. Mother pulled him up and made him sit up on the bed. John’s face looked very sleepy. He pulled his hands up and wiped his eyes and face in an unsuccessful effort to throw his sleep away. Yet he yawned and yawned, trying to wake up! Golda was quite amused.

It was then, that he suddenly pulled out something from under his pillow. He looked at it carefully, and sleep seemed to be instantly away from him. It was a little toy cycle. Sitting with that toy in hand, he looked up to see the wall. There was a big poster of a cycle on the wall. He looked at it. There was a mysterious smile on his face when he did so. He got up from his bed, put the toy cycle on the cupboard along with other toys and went to the toilet.

Golda thought about what human life meant after all. They are so mechanic and calculative. What fun do they have? Always doing the same things in a boring way. Why can’t they follow their instincts and be happy like crows? She was awakened from her thoughts by the slamming of a door. John is out of his bath, wrapping himself in a towel. He got ready wearing his school uniform. This is the only thing Golda liked about human kids. They all look alike when at school.

Blackie and Golda had to change their positions to get a vision of John when he came out of his room into the dining room. His mother was there preparing something for him to eat. That was something both Blackie and Golda did not like. They ate dry bread with some colour pasted on that! ‘That would be the last resort for us,’ said Golda.

Mother was serving him with sandwiches. John was not so happy and energetic today. He went around with gloomy face as if something grave went wrong. His mother urged him to eat well, but he was not so happy to do so. Mother noticed this. She too had a mysterious smile on her face. He got up from his table without finishing what was given. So mother had to force him to drink some milk. Golda told Blackie that they would love their children in the same manner. Blackie smiled at her.

Now John was ready to leave home with his bag stuffed with books. Mother added to the weight, by giving him his lunch. Blackie and Golda flew to a tree to get better view of John getting out of home. He gloomily waved to his mother, who rushed in soon after he left. Humans- they always hurry, reflected Blackie.

John was walking on the way, head down- still gloomy about something. He often felt something in his pocket. Golda felt curious about what was in his pocket. So next time he took it out, she took a close flight and discovered that it was the same toy cycle he took out from under his pillow. “So that’s what he is gloomy about” thought Golda. She has seen many kids becoming extremely happy and excited about riding those two wheeled vehicles which they called cycles. It looked quite funny, but kids liked it very much.

Near the street coffee shop, John saw a cycle parked on the road side and was much attracted to it. He went near it and was admiring it. He closed his eyes as if he is dreaming of something. Just then, his friends passed that way on cycles, shouting at him to hurry to school. John looked at his watch and rushed to school.

He was late to class. Golda couldn’t control her laughter when John responded to attendance call from the door. If Blackie hadn’t rebuked her, she would have made hell of a noise near John’s class room. In the class too, John wasn’t a happy and naughty kid like others.

Golda admired the rows and coloums of kids wearing uniforms. She wished to have kids like that- all in same attire. She would feed all of them one by one in rows and columns along with Blackie. Golda went deep into imagination.

She was suddenly awakened by the bell of the school, along with the hustle of children rushing out of their classes. It was the end of the class. Everyone rushed out of class, except John. He took his time to gather his things and to pack his bag. He went alone out of the class room and walked gloomily to home. How sad, thought Blackie. He wanted to console him, but he knew John won’t appreciate a crow’s consolation!

While John was walking to the gate, Blackie and Golda had to go to the school ground to hunt for a few morsels to fill their stomachs. From the morning, John was keeping them busy, so that they never found time to eat anything. Gathering a few mouthfuls, they rushed to follow John. He was walking through the same way he came. It was a sad sight to see such a cute child walking head down, sad and gloomy.

He reached the coffee shop. He could see people coming out of the coffee shop talking and happily walking. He stopped to look at that. Blackie and Golda sat on top of a tree and were watching him. Out of the blue, someone came from behind and picked John up. Blackie was alarmed. But Golda told him to cool down, “it’s his mother.” Blackie let out a sigh of relief. Last week he had seen another child like John being taken away like this. It was a horrific incident. They took that child and mutilated it in a dark room outside the city. The child was screaming in pain. He hated human beings for that. He didn’t even share that incident with Golda, as she won’t be able to bear such a story.

“Look Blackie, they are going into the coffee shop” said Golda. Blackie saw that both John and his mother were inside the shop, sitting on a table facing each other. Mother was asking something to John. But John wasn’t in a happy mood to answer her. It would be difficult for any mother to see her child like that, thought Golda.

Mother ordered coffees for both of them. They were having coffee. All of a sudden, the mother got up and led John outside the shop, blindfolding him. Blackie and Golda got curious to see what is going to happen now. Mother led him to the courtyard of the shop, led him to a corner and opened his blindfold. John opened his eyes to see a cycle- all decorated and shining. He couldn’t understand what the meaning was. He looked back at his mother. She smiled and gave a nod. John went near the cycle and was amazed to see a tag hanging on it with these words on it, “for my little sweet heart, John.”

John couldn’t control his joy. His eyes were full. He turned to his mother and embraced her in joy. Both were so happy to be in each other’s arms. Golda pecked on Blackie’s face and said, “Blackie, I love this moment.” Blackie’s eyes were filled. He kissed her beak and said, “Golda, that’s love. What flows from their eyes- that’s love.” They looked at the mother and John for a few moments and flew into the sky.

Gold looked down to see the John and his mother still in the embrace. She felt so happy. Blackie felt that the day was so fruitful that they could witness such a sweet story. They flew up into the sky, carrying the love John and his mother shared outside the coffee shop. As they flew up, they could see the setting sun drawing beautiful patterns in the sky. Blue and orange and red. Blackie looked at Golda in love. She winked her eyes, feeling her little ones inside her. They added to the palette drawn by the sun on the sky, as they flew high into the sky.

-----THE END-----

A Critical Analysis of Arogyasri Health Insurance Scheme - A Project of Andhra Pradesh State Government

A Critical Analysis of Arogyasri Health Insurance Scheme

(A Project of Andhra Pradesh Government in India)

This study is published as a chapter in the book titled "Health and the Media:Essays on the Effects of Mass Communication."

Click to Buy

The details are:

Title: Health and the Media: Essays on the Effects of Mass Communication
Publisher: McFarland (26 May 2016)Place: Jefferson, North CarolinaEditors: Valentina Marinescu and Bianca MituPrint Length: 260 pages