Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Had first read her book 'Infidel' and was very impressed. Then read her autobiography 'Nomad' and was less so.  The production of the movie 'Submission' and the subsequent murder of  the director Theo Van Goh made me want to know her better.

What is amazing about her is her travel from a barely-literate, ultra orthodox muslim woman to a political and religious satirist of international fame. So much so that she was rated oneof Time magazine's 100 most influential people of the world in 2005.

Having grown with very orthodox religious views in Mogadishu/Saudi Arabia and Nigeria - her life takes a turn when she escapes her arranged marriage and illegally immigrates to the Netherlands. There she absorbs and internalizes the Dutch values of freedom of thought, respect for women and religious tolerance in the most simple terms and re-evaluates her stand towards religion in general and Islam in particular.

What is amazing is her decision to take up Political science as a major, graduate from Leiden university and then become a member of the Dutch parliament ..All individual, daring achievements from a woman who's live was completely controlled by others for the first 22 years of her life!

While her fight against FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is admirable and her bravery in questioning most of the restrictive practices that enslaves women in her native culture is admirable - what is not acceptable for me - is her tendency to see everything that is western as right and everything that is native to her as wrong.

Christianity and Islam and (Hinduism for that matter) they all have their hits and misses. Most importantly they only make sense if read in the context of their times and geo-political realities of that time. If taken out of context they all are nothing but rants. So to idolize one religion and demonize another is just not acceptable.

She seems to have a failure similar to Arundhati Roy - a tendency to get hyper, to get carried away, to stereotype that which has hurt you , your society - and try to fight the symptom than examine and eradicate the cause. ( Read 'The algebra of infinite justice' - by Arundhati Roy and you will know what I mean)

Why is her culture, her society 'repressive' - does she think the west had nothing to do with it? Also does she realise that just a century back, the same Christianity that has evolved so much, did treat it's women as property and England did not give voting rights to women until 1918? There was a time when women could be whipped in England legally by their husbands if he judged it right to do so..So yes - her society much like the one that I was born in to is taking some more time to evolve - and with good reason. It is the western attitude of keeping the occupied natives' intelligentsia corrupt and weak that played a large part in keeping these societies primitive.

And I would not blame the western world either. They did what they had to - To survive and to win. So the way to fight this historical baggage is to treat the cause and educate and support. Not moralize and condemn.

I don't see how you can  truly appreciate a foreign culture, if you have not even made the attempt to understand and examine your own!

If a moslem woman chooses to wear a burqua, to condemn and ridicule  it is as vile as forcing a woman to wear it.

'Choice' is what defines freedom not what you or I think is 'Right'. The way forward is to produce avenues for children, the future- to recognize , demand and create those choices. Not demonizing a whole culture that defines who they are.

Catharine the Great - By Robert K Massie

Have been into historical fiction for a while now. Started with the Tudors with a view to understanding the country that is my home now. Read and understood the metamorphosis of England to Great Britain and was hooked. So started reading the histories of other countries as well.

By chance - came to admire two historical figures quiet a lot! Isabella of Castille and Catharine the Great of Russia. Isabella of Castille  had one great failing though. Her pedantic and ruthless commitment to Catholicism as the only true faith. This one weakness not only be-smirched her rule by robbing it off the excellent moorish medical and astronomical knowledge it also played it's part in ruining the life of her grand daughter - Mary I of England. Just a little broad mindedness that accommodated other faiths would have stood them both in good stead and written history differently.

But Catharine the Great of Russia - is a truly phenomenal woman in every way. Brought to Russia from Germany at a mere 15 year old,, her practical outlook  catapults her from a mere consort of the heir to the Empress of  one of the greatest powers of Europe in the 1700's.

Her response for every adversity in her life is measured and practical. According to her memoirs she is influenced by Voltaire's thoughts about God  only much later in life. As I interpret it Voltaire says to her  - There is no God but nature. To worship God is to live your best in the ecosystem that you were born in - adjusting, growing, accommodating, overcoming and surviving- . That is all that is there to it.

But she seems to have the instinct to survive well before that.

She is hated by her mom - she learns to accept that but focus instead on her own intellectual and physical well being. She is made the Grand Duchess of Russia - an orthodox Christian country against her own Lutheran faith - she chooses to accept it and convert and learn the language of Russia - recognizing her need to survive and grow in this new country. She is married to Peter - an overgrown, insecure tantrum throwing child who fights his future - she chooses to try and guide him to prepare to be an emperor than fight her fate and his.

When the time comes, her husband plans to discard her and ill treats her - she lets her popularity place her in the throne of Russia in a coup d'etat that against her wishes ends up killing her husband. And once an empress - she sets out to do the best for her country. Be it inviting the best artists of her age and building an eclectic art collection for Russia, establishing an architectural landscape and a knowledge base of books that places Russia firmly in the higher echelons of the intelligentsia, or publishing the 'Nakaz' a political and constitutional commentary that was way ahead of her time - this woman never stopped trying to better herself and hence her country.

What impresses me most is the she balances passion and practicality. She never allows her passion to undermine her authority/mortality as an empress.

When the whole world saw torture as an acceptable form of questioning, she  sees the absurdity of it and bans it; When serfdom/slavery  was an accepted way of life she challenges it - but is also wise enough to sense that the time is not right and back out graciously. But it is these seeds of thought that allow her great grandson Alexander II to abolish serfdom completely through his Emancipation Reform of 1861.

Robert K Massie chronicles her history out of memoirs and other historical documents interspersed with his own comments. But the books was extremely interesting and captivating - more than highly fictionalized history of the ilk of Philippa Greggory or Jean plaidy.

A wonderful read.

Kadal and Raavanan

As with a lot of people, I was an ardent Maniratnam fan. But after 'Ravannan' and 'Kadal' - unlike others - am even more so. As a director he seems to be evolving by leaps and bounds in the past few years and especially so, with the last 2 movies. ( Even I who loved Raavanan could not stand 'Raavan' - the hindi version though..the lead actor was THAT bad..). The layered themes seem to explore the grey areas in human emotions - that mid path between good and bad - that 'normal' path that most  of us fall into while judging everybody including ourselves errantly to be one or the other.

Raavan - hero does the perceived ultimate sin in an evolved culture ' piranmanai nokkal'..but I always had a bee in my bonnet vis-a-vis such rules. To admire, even love thy neighbour's wife in itself cannot be wrong. But to act on it, to not recognise it as trespassing on two other lives is. All the more so if it is non-consensual. I never could admire the 'ultimate goodness' or the perfect good. What is the big deal about somebody who has never tested the boundaries of the rules he has grown with, A man who has not confronted the worst of himself is a maN as good as having never truly lived..

I have in me more admiration and love for a person who has tested the edges, understood his weaknesses and learnt to master them. A man who loves without boundaries but then has the maturity to channel his love where it can cause the most good. A man who has grown through the emotional evolution process - making mistakes, learning from them, having a realistic expectation of himself and hence of others.

Retrospectively, though I did not realise it then, the reason I married my K was not because of the man he was but the husband and partner  I saw that he could be. The one thing that struck me was that - no matter who - he was willing to listen and give an honest chance - even for his worst detractors there was no judgement just  a cool acceptance.

Today, together we have grown so much. Learning from each others diametrically opposite views, surprising each other with thoughts which we did not expect to hear from the other, finding books and movies and people and thoughts that we had never encountered before and interpreting it together and in the process learning much more than we would have on our own.

On the other hand, there were so many individuals who evoked my admiration when I was young with some evolved views, but now I realise that while I have grown and moved on to more layers, they seem stuck exactly where they were. Amazing, how an open mind can sit physically in a single place but grow exponentially whereas even a partially closed mind may travel the world but be stuck in it's prejudices, stereotypes and hence a life-rut.

Anyways, Kadal - the one take way for me was this. If only the relatively minor infraction was forgiven or atleast given a proportionate punishment, a potential God's man would not have become the devil's  instrument that he had. 'Sam' in his self-righteousness saw only the devil in 'Bergmans' and it took the young 'Thomas' to bring out the human, natural , evolved good in both.

A man is never to be judged by what he is but by what he could be. If this were true, the world would be a much better place.

Mani - I agree.