Love to wear designer perfumes? Be careful, as certain molecules produced in these man-made fragrances act as potential contaminants of the environment, and may also impact our ecosystem in the long run, said a study conducted in the canals of Venice, also known as the city without sewers.
Investigating the canals of Venice, the researchers looked for traces of molecules referred to as "perfumes" in the ingredients of products such as soaps, detergents, shampoos and many other personal hygiene products that we use daily.
The findings showed traces of "scented" molecules, including those more distant from inhabited areas, though concentrations were up to 500 times higher in the inner city canals.
Samples collected during conditions of low tide showed concentrations comparable to those of untreated waste water, the study revealed.
"The study confirms that fragrances are released continuously into the canals of Venice, both during high and low tide and in the historic centre and the lagoon," said Marco Vecchiato, post-doctoral student at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice in Italy.
One of the most frequently found compounds in the waters of the lagoon was benzyl salicylate -- a chemical compound used in cosmetics as a fragrance additive or UV light absorbed and also known to cause dermal irritation.
Thus, venice's existing system of treating wastewater through biological tanks which then flows directly into the canals, seems an insufficient method of lowering the concentration of these molecules, the study said.
However, according to the data, the concentrations seem to be below the threshold for acute toxicity to marine organisms.
"But, we do not know the consequences of prolonged exposure to low doses of these substances," Vecchiato said.
For the study, the scientists repeatedly collected water samples from 22 places between the inner canals in the historic centre of Venice, the island of Burano and at two points in the far-north lagoon, between April and December 2015.
They were looking for the presence of 17 fragrances among the most used and chemically stable, between the thousands available to the cosmetics industry.
The results were published in the journal "Science of the total environment".
When it comes to their wages, McDonald’s workers around the world are not “Loving It” – and they haven’t been shy about expressing their discontent over the past four years.
But this Labor Day, America’s fast food workers can celebrate victories that have improved wages for some of them. And they can applaud a global labor movement of low-wage workers that they helped spark and continue to inspire.
In April, fast food workers led the most global strike in history. It took place in 300 cities, in more than 40 countries in every region of the globe. It was a day of action against what activists called “McJobs” – low-wage, precarious work. And it caught the attention of the world.
From Manhattan to Manila, from Tokyo to Toronto, fast food workers were joined in living wage protests by home health care workers, airport workers, retail workers and millions of others who are fully employed but do not earn enough to make ends meet.
Earlier in the year, 27-year-old Florida McDonald’s worker Bleu Rainer drove from Tampa across the state to protest outside of the Republican debate at the University of Miami.
Chanting, “We work, we sweat. Put $15 in our checks,” he says protesters succeeded in injecting the fight for a living wage into the feisty Republican debate, where billionaire candidate Donald Trump raised eyebrows by insisting that wages in the U.S. are already too high.
When America’s low-wage workers, a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, convened in Richmond, Virginia this August, they vowed to continue fighting and tied their struggle to the larger battle to overcome American racism. They coined the new slogan: Black Work Matters.
As a labor historian, I became interested in the global fast food workers movement, which uses history, popular culture and social media to organize and make its case. Over the last year, I’ve talked to fast food workers in Tampa, New York, Los Angeles, Manila, Philippines and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, among other places.
They are literally hungry for change and they are making change happen.
A global network
Like popular culture, the problems of today’s work world are global. As the slogan goes, “McJobs Cost Us All.” Vast, transnational low-wage employers like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart drive wages down for everyone. With more than half of U.S. workers earning less than US$30,000 a year in 2014, the poverty line for a family of five, it is not a surprise that the Fight for $15 movement has attracted workers of all kinds.
The movement is bigger than just the United States. In Manila, young Filipino activists in the RESPECT Fast Food Worker Alliance staged singing, dancing flash mobs in their nation’s legislature to demand labor protections. And, in Moscow, fast food workers staged protests to highlight the fact that they were not teenagers working for “going out” money but adults trying to support families with inadequate wages.
Where did all this anger come from? In 2015, 52 percent of fast food workers in the U.S. received public assistance to make ends meet. Many had to work two and three jobs. Some commuted to work from homeless shelters. Maia Montcrief from Long Beach, California, told me that she lives in a one-bedroom apartment with six people. She is one of the lucky ones.
Though fast food workers have protested at many global and localized chains, the main focus of their movement has been McDonald’s. With 36,538 restaurants in 119 countries, McDonald’s is the world’s second-largest private employer. Only Wal-Mart employs more.
“Because McDonald’s has employees everywhere,” activist Bleu Rainer told me, “everything they do has a global impact that affects all workers.”
Bleu’s story
Rainer is a 27-year-old McDonald’s worker.
“I’ve worked in the fast food industry in North Carolina and Florida,” Rainer told me, “and in eight years I’ve made no more than eight dollars and five cents an hour.” He said that even when he was offered a promotion to manager, his salary did not increase.
Bleu Rainer.
“I have witnessed the torture of not having enough to afford rent, which led to me sleeping from house to house,” Rainer says. “One time I even had to sleep at bus stops because I was homeless. I have had to rely on food stamps just to get a good meal and when those food stamps run out it’s back to nothing at all. Sometimes I think to myself: I’m working so hard every day. So why am I still hungry? Why am I not making a living wage? Why can’t I feed myself?”
Beginning in 2012, Rainer and a small group of New York City fast food workers kicked off a protest against poverty wages. It was a decidedly 21st-century movement. They used one-day flash strikes instead of long-term actions that hurt workers more than employers. They deployed social media to organize and publicize their actions. And they gleefully subverted expensive corporate slogans – especially the McDonald’s jingle “I’m Lovin' It,” the first worldwide ad campaign for the burger giant, which they paid Justin Timberlake $6 million to sing on TV.
“Poverty Wages: Not Lovin' It” became the slogan of a new movement, and signs with those words soon appeared in as many countries and as many languages as the original version.
When I first met Rainer in Tampa, he was helping to organize a broad coalition of low-wage workers: fast food workers, home health care attendants and adjunct college professors – none of whom made enough money to pay their bills. As we sat together at a table in a West Tampa Cuban diner, the professors made clear that they saw themselves paddling in the same boat as fast food workers and home health care aides. They earned around $8 an hour, worked on short-term contracts and had absolutely no job security. “They try to convince us we’re better, we’re the elect,” said Cole Bellamy, who teaches 12 courses a year. “But that’s the lie they tell us to keep us quiet.”
“We are all fast food workers,” said graduate student Keegan Shephard.
“Or maybe we are all professor adjuncts,” said Rainer.
The successes
Their campaign has been remarkably successful in a short period of time.
This March, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the McDonald’s corporation is a joint employer of those who work in franchise-owned restaurants, a huge victory for fast food activists. Last summer, New York state granted a $15 minimum wage to the state’s 180,000 fast food workers. Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles also passed $15 living wage ordinances. This spring, the state of California, which has a population of nearly 40 million people, passed a phased-in statewide $15 wage. The wages of federal food workers have been raised. Wal-Mart has raised its minimum. McDonald’s offered increases to those who work in restaurants owned outright by the corporation, which pressured franchise owners to do the same.
Four years ago, when the first fast food workers' strikes were held in New York and Chicago, the $15 minimum wage seemed a fantasy. Now it is a reality in many of the largest labor markets in the U.S., and it is fast food workers who launched the tidal wave.
Yet, with all this success, the life of an average fast food worker is still difficult, at best. One reason most fast food workers are so poor is because their wages are so low. But it is also because computers scheduling shifts change workers’ hours at the drop of a hat, making it impossible for parents of young children to plan child care or to know for sure whether they will be able to pay their bills each month. Algorithms, I have learned through numerous interviews, maximize efficiency for the company and cut labor costs whenever possible. Workers believe they are used to intentionally keep workers' hours low enough that they are not covered under state and federal labor laws and can be seen as part-time or temporary workers.
One McDonald’s worker I met in New York City in 2015, who depended on his full-time salary, showed me a paycheck for two weeks’ work that totaled $109.
Contrary to public opinion, most fast food workers are not teenagers on their first job but adults supporting families. The average fast food worker is 29 years old. Over 25 percent are parents. Nearly one in three have college degrees – or are working their way through college.
This is not the first time that restaurant workers have organized. Restaurant unions have, in different eras, been strong in some big cities, especially New York and Las Vegas. But this is the first time that fast food workers have organized, and it is definitely the first time that they have organized in conjunction with a range of other low-wage workers and on a global scale.
Massimo Frattini, a former hotel worker from Milan who is one of the global coordinators for fast food workers’ actions, told me that he was stunned by the worldwide response when the first global strike took place in 2014.
On that day, fast food workers in 230 cities, in 34 countries, on six continents, walked off the job to dramatize their need for a living wage, full-time work and union recognition. The scale of the strike surprised pretty much everyone: the workers, the organizers and definitely McDonald’s.
Workers staged mock trials of a weeping Ronald McDonald for wage theft in the streets of Seoul. They shut down McDonald’s in Brussels and in London’s Trafalgar Square.
“We were not aware of how organized workers were in the fast food sector in the Philippines or Thailand or New Zealand,“ Frattini said. "But the truth is they knew that alone, they were helpless against these massive corporations. But maybe together they could raise the issue on the global stage. And they could provide better services and negotiate better agreements for their members.”
Over the next year, workers from New York, Chicago, and 150 U.S. cities met with workers from Denmark, Argentina, Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines and numerous other countries. The Service Employees International Union in the United States and Frattini’s international union of food, hotel and farm workers, which represents 12 million workers in 120 countries, paid for these meetings.
Workers compared notes on wages and working conditions. Workers from McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken from every continent on Earth began planning strategy for global living wage agreements.
One of the original organizers, Naquasia LeGrand, was just a 22-year-old kid from Brooklyn who was tired of working three jobs. She looked back during the summer of 2016 on what she had helped start in 2012. She said: “We triggered something epic that had never been done.” Indeed they had: a global fast food workers' revolution.
An asteroid soaring between Mars and Jupiter has been named after Freddie Mercury to mark the iconic rock star's 70th birthday.
Regarded as one of the greatest rock singers of all time, Mercury was the lead singer of the 1970s rock group Queen. He died in 1991.
The honour was announced on Sunday in a YouTube video by Brian May, the former Queen guitarist who became an astrophysicist after the band broke up, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The rock, previously called asteroid 17473, shall henceforth be known as "Freddiemercury", the International Astronomical Union said.
"It's like a cinder in space, as many of these asteroids are," said May, who also has an asteroid already named after him.
"You need a pretty decent telescope to see it. It's just a dot of light but it's a very special dot of light, and maybe one day we'll get there," he noted.
Reading a citation from the Astronomical Union celebrating Mercury's musical achievements, May said, "His incredible vocal range and distinctive sound and performance style made him one of the most well-known icons of rock music."
"And he is regarded as one of the greatest rock singers of all time," the citation said.
Mercury, who was born Farrokh Bulsara, died in London in 1991 at age 45 from complications of AIDS.
The asteroid now bearing his name was discovered the same year, May said.
Discovered by the Belgian astronomer Henri Debehogne, the freshly-named asteroid, a 3.5km-wide ball of black rubble on the other side of Mars, swings around the sun at 20 km per second. Its slightly elliptical orbit never comes closer than 350 million kilometres to the Earth, meaning that the heavenly body called Freddiemercury poses no imminent danger to the planet, the Guardian reported.
Tamil cinema loves lecturing to women on how they should behave while happily giving the hero a hall pass for any kind of “moral” corruption. But any mention of misogyny in films raises the hackles of industry insiders who are quick to defend themselves with the excuse of 'freedom of expression'.
That’s why it’s so refreshing to listen to a young and accomplished director like Pa.Ranjith speak on the issue so openly.
Addressing an audience comprising members from All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) in Chennai, Ranjith spoke on gender inequality, the representation of women in films and the need for families to discuss such issues in their homes. The program had been organized to discuss and debate violence against women.
Though Ranjith begins with a familiar strain of argument when discussing women’s rights – talking about woman power in terms of “sacrifice” – he moves on to tackling the problematic representation of women in cinema.
Acknowledging that women are routinely objectified and almost never treated as human beings on an equal footing in films, Ranjith points out that the age bias against heroines is very strong.
Ranjith’s brief but impressive filmography has already demonstrated his intellectual prowess and his willingness to explore uncomfortable politics. In the speech, he goes on to explain how gender, caste and community intersect to create complex prejudices on screen: a woman who is shown to be open about her sexuality is generally derided in the narrative.
Ranjith, who has already established how keenly aware he is of the politics of naming in “Kabali”, observes that such characters are given names like ‘Rita’, a name belonging to a minority community that perhaps justifies their ‘immorality’.
The outspoken woman character, as in the ones who appear in K Balachander films, that the audience is able to accept, is typically from a higher caste and class. Drawing a parallel to folklore like Tenali Raman tales and the Panchatantra where there is no critique of the Varnashrama Dharma system, Ranjith says that in films too, it is the upper caste women who are treated with respect.
He points out that in films that show intercaste marriages, the women are routinely killed off. A woman who is explicit about her sexuality and is shown to be powerful is seen as a villain, Ranjith adds.
Ranjith shares his perspective on how women can be portrayed differently on screen and says that he believes in creating powerful female characters in his stories. He also goes on to address the culture of victim blaming that exists in society, giving the example of the Nirbhaya case.
An insider in the industry speaking about these issues so openly is cause for celebration, given that Tamil cinema routinely validates victim blaming and has had several top heroes ‘advising’ women to cover up.
Like this one:
What can change with people like Pa Ranjith making movies? A lot.
Watch:
That was Rajinikanth in “Padayappa” mouthing some of the problematic ideas that Ranjith has so wonderfully critiqued in his speech. And this is Rajinikanth in “Kabali”:
“Kabali” is the first film in which the Superstar has treated his heroine as an equal partner in a long time. His daughter, in the film, is a short-haired, tattooed, gun-wielding woman whom he does not attempt to tame at any point.
Does this break sexism and misogyny overnight? No. But it is progress when an influential actor like Rajinikanth, who has made his career playing the ‘all-knowing’ superman, steps out of his comfort zone to be part of a script where the female lead isn’t subservient to him. It’s a small yet significant contribution towards building a culture of equality and mutual respect.
Ranjith stresses the importance of dismantling gender stereotypes and inequalities beginning at home and appeals to the audience not to treat their sons and daughters differently. Perhaps because it was a largely female audience he was addressing, he states that it is mothers who can bring about a change in society, whether it is breaking caste, religion or gender prejudice, by talking to their children about social issues openly.
Pa.Ranjith has signed his next film with Rajinikanth and one can’t wait to see what he will do with the Superstar this time around. A question to Ranjith though: why do your heroines continue to be fair-skinned women, whichever strata of society they may belong to? Isn’t that related to caste and class too? May we see the “karuppu power” in your heroines in future?
24-year-old Poojith* woke up one day experiencing pain in his groin. Upon inspection, he found that his testicles had turned blue. Taken aback, he did what many of us from the internet generation would do: he googled why he could be having "blue balls". Results popped up one after the other but what scared him the most was that it could be a symptom of prostate cancer.
Much to his relief, he later found out that the condition was quite common and was caused by... prolonged erections. Not prostate cancer, but just trying to please himself too much. "Of course I freaked out about the cancer thing, but I wasn't going to believe it so easily. Everything leads to cancer on Google," he laughs now.
The paranoia is justified. Type "headache and vomiting" into the search bar and everything from migraine to pregnancy to brain aneurysm show up. Enough to freak anyone out.
But here's where Dr Google can go wrong - not only can it lead you to overplay your symptoms, it can also lead you to downplay them.
Dr Marina Varghese, a gynaecologist from Kochi recalls how a patient who was based abroad, self-medicated with an abortion pill she found online and concluded that the pregnancy had been terminated because she had some bleeding. "But she came to us in the fifth month of her pregnancy with multiple complications," says Dr Varghese.
There are other cases where prolonging that visit to the doctor can have psychological effects too.
22-year-old Robin had trouble falling asleep for almost two months because he thought he had bone cancer - he had a pain in his right shin. Then he happened to see an X-ray posted by a radiologist friend of his, featuring the shin of a person diagnosed with bone cancer with the same spot marked on the shin. "I thought it was a symptom for me too," recounts Robin.
He did not go to the doctor for two months fearing that it would validate his doubts. He also made the mistake of Googling bone cancer and its symptoms. And then when he finally made an appointment a week ago, it turned out to be... a partial slip disk. "Something that could be treated quite easily. But I was so convinced it was bone cancer. My grandmother died of leukemia. So the whole drama would play out in my head as well," he says.
While the anxiety ended for Robin after the doctor told him what it was, for some people, it becomes an obsession. Chennai-based psychiatrist Dr Jayanthini explains that with internet-based self-diagnosis increasing, there are more educated and middle-class people coming with psychological issues like 'somatic symptom disorder' and 'illness anxiety disorder'.
These disorders are differentiated by some technicalities but for the major part, have people believing that they are really sick to the point where they take to 'doctor-shopping' to validate their beliefs.
Dr Jayanthini has even come across people who laminate the prescription meant for a month and use it for years because they are convinced that the medication is keeping them healthy.
The fact that medication is available over the counter these days doesn't help either. She explains that many cluster symptoms like headache and nausea are common and so when people experience them, they may equate it with a disease that someone they know had with the same symptoms. Often people ask the other person about the medication they took and start taking it themselves.
And then there are quacks who make money out of these “patients”. "Quacks validate their doubts, show them a few slides to convince them that something is wrong and then and make lots of money out it," warns Dr Jayanthini.
Everyone from 14-year-old students to 80-year-olds is prone to these things today, says Dr Jayanthini. "And it's difficult to treat them because you cannot tell them they are imagining it. They won't believe you. You convince them first that nothing is wrong with them, then you observe their symptoms and then you break down for them how they got here. Sometimes in the initial stage we have to prescribe anti-depressants and anti-obsessional drugs also," she says.
So what's the way around it? "People are not going to stop turning to the internet to understand their bodies. So the best thing to do is to note your symptoms and cross-check with a doctor. And even that can happen online. But it's of utmost importance that they do so," asserts Dr Varghese.
Suhail* and Priya* have been married for a little more than a year-and-a-half and one of their persisting arguments is about Suhail being too engrossed in his phone or laptop to register what she is saying. “I have accepted now that he’s the sort of person who will get very invested in what he’s doing. I still don’t like it,” she says. Suhail, however, confesses that he’s trying to work on it.
But the advent of technology is only one of the things that makes modern marriage harder. No longer do couples look for just love and companionship but a variety of other things like self-fulfillment too.
Dr Joseph George, a senior couples’ counsellor in Bengaluru with TalkItOver Counselling Services says that with the advent of technology and change in lifestyles (especially in the urban middle-class context), expectations from the partner have increased, but more than that, it’s their nature that has changed.
In both arranged and “self-arranged” marriages, as Dr Joseph calls them, people are increasingly looking to sustain individual freedom post-marriage as well. Women especially are becoming more vocal about their problems with the husband or his family, which the latter may not be used to, he observes.
Priya for instance, says that if there had to be a deal-breaker for her in a relationship, it would have to be a household where the woman is expected to stay in the kitchen all day.
Dr Joseph also points out how emotional attractiveness has also become a priority for people these days. Suhail is a case in point. “The most important thing for me is that my partner should be good at heart,” he believes.
Suhail and Priya dated for six years before getting married last January and say that not much has changed after marriage for them, except becoming financially more mature. And the reason is that their relationship is still rooted in friendship, explains Suhail.
The loss of friendship is one of the main problems married couples face today. Other issues include lack of emotional nurturing (where the couple stop positively affirming and appreciating each other) and sexual incompatibility.
But the three are closely interlinked. “Sometimes if a person feels an emotional distance from his/her partner, they may not be able to perform sexually or vice versa,” explains Dr Joseph. In this context, women are more open to admitting there’s a problem than men, he notes.
However, good communication does not necessarily have to mean talking every day. Ajith* and Yashika* for instance, say they do not see a point in making a fuss about not being able to speak to each other every day.
The couple are in their early thirties and were together for over a year before getting engaged about a week ago. “We don’t make a fuss about not having spoken 2-3 times in a day. When we have time, we will talk. At the end of the day, each of us have our separate lives and our own set of friends, though we often hang out together. We know we’re there for each other,” says Yashika.
Ajith reaffirms this. “I always wanted a partner who would work after marriage and shouldn’t wait on me all day. Maybe it just comes from our upbringing. Both of us are used to our independence,” he says. As for communication, Ajith says that both of them have been in relationships where they have wanted the other person to be around and talk all day. But they now realise that it’s not something worth fussing about.
The marital adjustment only begins after the “honeymoon period”, Dr Joseph says, when unrealistic expectations surface because the couple is not on the same page.
Rakesh* and Shweta*, who have been married for nine years, say they never had a ‘plan’ in place before tying the knot. The few expectations they had from each other were also never set in stone. "And they shouldn't be. You need to be able to adjust and go with the flow," says Shweta.
Over the years, the two settled into their respective roles at home – so much so, that their five-year-old son gets shocked when Shweta steps into the kitchen because he is so used to seeing his father cook.
Shweta says that she never wanted to have kids but about four years into the marriage, changed her mind. "I was never the 'traditional' wife who'd cook and wait on her husband and Rakesh never pressured me either. Then I decided to have a child because he had always wanted one," she says.
Rakesh has seen many of his friends getting divorced over issues like having kids and finances. One of his friends for instance, married a girl who had a posh lifestyle and liked to take expensive vacations. "For the first two years, he went along with it, but he couldn't do it after that. It took a toll on his pocket," he recalls.
"Unnecessary adjustments can only be made temporarily," argues Shweta.
Dr Joseph explains that many couples come to him complaining about how their partner or their family expects them to be in a certain way. He highlights the importance of being who you are and setting expectations from the very beginning. “Initially, you are putting yourself in the role which your partner wants to see you in,” he explains.
And then there are lifestyle problems which seem insignificant until you start living together. And women are no longer willing to clean up after their husbands quietly. Ajith and Yashika for instance have prepared themselves for arguments because Yashika is very organized and Ajith is not. But apart from that, the couple seems to have no other apprehensions. “Maybe you should ask me these questions a year from now when we start living together,” laughs Ajith.
So how can you have a successful 21st century marriage? Dr Joseph has four pointers. Maintaining a balance between individual needs and those of the relationship, making time to communicate without gadgets, differentiating between responding and reacting, and making an effort to understand why your partner is presenting a problem in a certain way.
“Often there is underlying angst beneath the way a person is reacting and presenting a certain issue. Understand that instead of reacting in a retaliatory manner,” he insists.
India’s first operational GSLV flight using an indigenous cryogenic engine took off from the second launch pad at India’s rocket port at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on Thursday. The rocket on which India was heavily pinning its hopes on, successfully placed the weather satellite INSAT-3DR weighing 2,211 kg in orbit.
This feat also adds another feather to the Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO's cap.
However, delving into ISRO's history, India’s primary space agency was a very humble beginning for the Indian Space program.
Under the founding father of India's space program, the visionary Dr Vikram Sarabhai, The Indian National Committee for Space research was set up in 1962. The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) also had a small beginning at Thumba, a coastal village at Thiruvananthapuram in 1962.
(A picture from Thumba, source VSSC)
Encouraged by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru- an initial team of rocket engineers went to America for 6 months training. In the team, was the young and ambitious scientist- former president APJ Abdul Kalam.
Dr Kalam and Dr Aravamudan work in Thumba in 1964.
On November 21, 1963, the Indian National Committee for Space Research or INCOSPAR launched India's first sounding rocket from the southern tip of the nation, Thumba. On that day, Vikram Sarabhai, shared with his colleagues, the dream of an Indian satellite launch vehicle. Since then, there's been no looking back.
(The Magdelene church in Thumba where the first Indian rocket was assembled and integrated in 1962; Image Source: VSSC)
(Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and Dr. Paine, NASA Administrator, sign a Satellite Agreement in 1964; Image Source: GRIN )
Indira Gandhi, then Indian Prime Minister, dedicated Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launch Station (TERLS) to the United Nations on February 02, 1968.
On August 15, 1969, the Indian Space Research Organisation, or the ISRO, was created; Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh was chosen as the rocket launch station. The space program working on a shoe string budget soon launched India's first indigenous satellite.
On April 19, 1975, Russia's SL-8 put into orbit the Aryabhatta.
Aryabhata, India’s first satellite.
Five years later in 1980 India made its first successful indigenous satellite launch- the Rohini 1B was launched on July 18, 1980, from Sriharikota. While the space program was making rapid strides, in 19884, a 35-year-old Indian Air Force pilot, Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to go in space.
(Rohini Satellite (RS-1) launched by Indian launch vehicle SLV-3 on July 18, 1980; Image Source)
Apple satellite being transported in a bullock cart in 1981
At this time, the ISRO was constructing a satellite launch vehicle that would be able to put useful satellites into polar orbits. The Polar Satellite Launch vehicle or the PSLV made its first successful launch in 1994 and since then the PSLV has become India's workhorse launch vehicle.
PSLV-C26/IRNSS-IC launch in October 1994.
In 2001, India launched the still larger GSLV- Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle- that could put into orbit satellites weighing up to 2.5 tonnes.
GSLV-D1 (launched on April 18, 2001)
Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to Moon, was launched successfully on October 22, 2008. The satellite made more than 3400 orbits around the moon and the mission was concluded when the communication with the spacecraft was lost on August 29, 2009.
PSLV - C11 that put Chandrayaan into orbit
Marking India's first venture into the interplanetary space,the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan was launched on 5 November 2013. It is a space probe orbiting Mars since 24 September 2014.
First image of Mars taken by MOM
Today, the Indian space program has come a long way from the modest sounding rockets. We are a member of the elite club that even does commercial satellite launches, a business worth billions of dollars.
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi aptly put in his speech at the ISRO after a successful Mangalyaan launch, India has made history today. And we all are grateful to our scientists.
Under the founding father of India's space program, the visionary Dr Vikram Sarabhai, The Indian National Committee for Space research was set up in 1962
Chennai-based Srirama Santosh has always loved to draw and has kept a doodle diary for a decade now. “It allows me to express myself,” he says. But in April, the 32-year-old decided to do something bigger with it – he started Doodle Monk, a website where he sells posters, mugs, t-shirts, bookmarks and the like imprinted with funky doodles.
Srirama is just one of the doodle enthusiasts in the country who is turning the doodle – patterns or pictures drawn absent-mindedly or out of boredom – into a mainstream and commercial art form. “Doodle Monk is the amalgamation of the simplicity of the doodle and the happiness that a monk embodies. That’s what I want to bring to people with my artwork,” says Srirama.
Mumbai-based Mohammad Rahil always loved to draw, filling up the last pages of his friends’ notebooks with scribbled art in school. The 27-year-old went on to do an MBA from Pune, surprising his friends with more of his doodle artworks until one night, a month into his job, he decided to do something with his favourite hobby.
Rahil now runs 15-month-old DoodleBawa, a service which provides peronalised doodles on frames, posters, bulbs, t-shirts and posters. He runs DoodleBawa while working as a creative innovation associate at a digital marketing agency and takes personalized orders, about 10-15 a month. But in the months following his exhibition which feature live-doodling sessions, orders jump to 40 in two days.
But in a big breakthrough for him this year, DoodleBawa ran the first live doodle commentary on Twitter for Pune Super Giants for the IPL. Here’s a glimpse of the same:
24-year-old Soumesh Choudhary lives in Kolkata and quit his designing job last year, to draw. “I didn’t care if it was digital or hand-drawn. I just wanted to go with the flow of the pencil,” he says.
Soumesh has undertaken sticker projects for apps like messaging apps like Hike and even sends his artwork to portals like PosterGully (an online poster marketplace) and Paint Collar (a digital marketplace with merchandise created by artists like Soumesh).
Rahil and Soumesh both trace the commercialization and mainstreaming of the doodle to Chumbak, a merchandise store which features colourful and quirky patterns on dresses, bags, household items and so on. However, Rahil thinks that they have become too repetitive now, something he never wants to do.
“People are getting bored of mass-produced commercial patterns. The doodle gives you something personal, something you can relate with,” says Rahil. All his doodles are hand-drawn and attract inspired from the demands of his customers. “They’re drawn randomly, with thought but without a structure and so have a rawness to them. There’s beauty in their imperfection,” he says.
Soumesh on the other hand draws his inspiration from everything from Indian quirks – like bright colours and unique culture. And while getting a steady income can sometimes prove difficult, he says the doodle is here to stay because it always brings out something new. “It allows for each artist to add something new to it because it’s so personal,” he says.
Rahil says that there is always something new for the artist to learn as well. “There is a lot of freedom to play with patterns and randomize. It can have so many meanings so it will always remain relevant,” he says.
But Srirama has a different take, especially when it comes to the younger generations’ affinity to doodle art. “We’re the fast food generation. We like simple stuff, not long and complicated quotes. So minimalistic art with a splash of color works wonders for us,” he says.
Malayalam director Jeethu Joseph has been playing down expectations for "Oozham", warning the audience not to expect another "Drishyam". He was right to do so.
If "Drishyam", a tightly-knit thriller about a man and his family who cover up a murder, was all about the plot, "Oozham" is all about what can happen when the plot goes AWOL. Despite Prithviraj's considerable screen presence, the film suffers because the storyline simply does not match up.
The film begins explosively enough - yes, there's a bomb involved. Prithviraj appears as the smoke clears. And we're introduced to Surya Krishnamoorthy, a man with a tragic past. It turns out that as in "Memories" (Prithviraj's earlier film with Jeethu Joseph), his family has been killed right in front of his eyes. Only, this time around, Surya witnesses it all through a webcam.
Surya, who lives in the US and does "controlled bomb explosions" for a living, makes it his mission to hunt the men down for revenge. It turns out that his father (Balachandra Menon), a government health inspector, had figured out a pharma company's conspiracy to spread disease in the city of Coimbatore where all of them live.
The plot, however, is like a giant slice of Swiss cheese. Full of holes and well, cheesy. For instance, Mr Krishnamoorthy has no evidence whatsoever of the pharma company's activities other than a bunch of newspaper clippings and magazine cut-outs. He consults his adopted son, Aju (Neeraj Madhav), a hacker, on where he can store these online and Aju tells him that he can keep it in his Drafts folder on Gmail of all things! There are many other such instances of absurdity too, with the climax at the end topping it all.
The story plods along in a predictable fashion as Surya's enemies are killed off one after the other in the same fashion. There are no twists, no turns - not even a speed bumper. Jayaprakash plays Wilfred, the evil scientist slash corporate honcho. Though a talented actor, the script lets him down and he struggles to be a menacing villain.
He and his sons are, for some reason, very anglicized people who speak in English almost all the time - perhaps to give company to Prithviraj who has been trolled aplenty for his 'bombastic' English speaking skills on social media. The language wouldn't have stuck out like a sore thumb if the performances had been convincing. As it stands though, it borders on the annoying.
Pasupathy makes an appearance as a Sri Lankan expert on bombs and general thuggery. Once again, a good actor wasted in a poor script. The female lead, Gayathri, played by Divya Pillai, joins Surya in his revenge mission in a lackluster performance.
"Drishyam" is a hard act to follow but the disappointment with "Oozham" is independent of that. This is a bomb that comes defused and sadly, we're nowhere at the edge of our seats.
EnAble India, which works for the empowerment of persons with disabilities, launched the "One Sign Per Day" campaign earlier this month.
Following a simple online-registration process, interested persons will be sent videos of one sign-word a day through email or WhatsApp or both every day. This will continue till September 25 which marks the World Deaf Day.
Since April this year, EnAble India has been running the "Finger Chat" initiative across five cities - Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai and Kochi. It is an inclusive community gathering of people who are interested in learning the Indian Sign Language (ISL).
The gatherings, held weekly or on alternate weeks in others, see a mix of volunteers and participants, including people with speech and hearing impairment.
Vishnu Soman, who has been managing both the projects, says that the idea cropped up when they were working on their annual event. “We wanted to prepare our volunteers so that they could communicate properly with persons with hearing and speech impairment. A lot of people later asked us to inform them if we ever did something similar again.”
He says that it is not enough if just those with hearing or speech impairment learn the sign language and that there is a need for society to do the same.
"There are several applications of sign-language. For example, a lot of corporates are now hiring persons with disabilities and learning the sign-language will help them a lot,” he states.
The sessions have also proved helpful for families of persons with disabilities. Like the parents and family members of a three-year-old deaf child who went for the 'Finger Chat' session in Pune recently. They wanted to take a course in sign language but did not know who to approach for it in the city. The co-ordinator put them in touch with EnAble India, which connected them to a person who teaches sign-language over Skpye.
EnAble India/Facebook
Vishnu says that parents mostly want to teach their child speech therapy. “But speech therapy is language specific. If you learn Marathi, you can lip read only Marathi. This problem however does not occur with sign language,” he says.
He also stresses on the need to standardize the Indian Sign Language (ISL), as the American Sign Language (ASL), which is mostly used in India, is based on the culture of America.
Words, he says, can have different connotations in different countries. "Like the word 'respect' can be treated and used in different contexts in India and America. Same for 'temple', the sign for which could be used in America to denote a 'church'. Similarly, when it comes to relationships, we use a variety of words for uncle, aunty, brothers, sisters, cousins, etc."
How quickly can one grasp the sign-language? According to Vishnu, it is a pretty easy language to learn and a person can learn the alphabets in an hour’s time.
Getting a grasp over words and expressions however is likely to take more time.
Close to 200 registrations have been made for “One Sign Per Day” since it was launched on September 1. A few companies have also asked the NGO for the all the videos once the campaign is wrapped up.
At present, they are focusing on words like 'What', 'How', 'When', and 'Where' for the videos.
The NGO could launch another leg of the campaign towards the end of this year to coincide with International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3.
After a series of uninspiring films, director Priyadharshan returns to Malayalam cinema with a delicious cat and mouse thriller starring Mohanlal, Samuthirakani, Vimala Raman, Nedumudi Venu and others.
Mohanlal plays Jayaraman, a blind man who works as a lift operator in an apartment building. He's the go to guy for the people of the building, especially for ex Chief Justice, Krishnamoorthy (Nedumudi Venu), a man who is burdened by his past.
Krishnamoorthy knows that he is being hunted by someone who holds a grudge against him and Jayaraman becomes his confidante.
But soon, Jayaraman is embroiled in a crime that he did not commit and the police are in no mood to buy his story.
Mohanlal excels as the blind Jayaraman whose senses are always on the alert. He plays the role with dignity, without ever allowing the character to turn mawkish, even in the scenes where he's the target of police brutality. The fight sequence in which he employs his training in kalaripayattu is especially stunning even if the sudden show of supermanship is hard to believe.
The hilarious Mamukkoya appears as a confused and confusing security guard, providing release at the right moments. His guileless dialogue delivery and comic timing are impeccable. He belongs to the club of old-time Malayalam comedians who are unmatched in skill. For the same reason, one wishes that Innocent, another actor who rightfully belongs to that club, and who also appears in the film as Mohanlal's relative, had more to do but that's perhaps being too greedy.
Samuthirakani as the unstable Vasudevan is creepy and menacing but the narrative, unfortunately, does not give his role much depth other than a tragic history. In spite of that, he holds his own in his scenes with Mohanlal and that is no mean accomplishment.
Renji Panicker, Anusree, Chemban Vinod Jose, Kalabhavan Shajohn and Aju Varghese provide adequate support. Vimala Raman, as Devayani, is a weak link and the brief romance between her and Jayaraman appears contrived.
While "Oppam" keeps you interested till the end, the plot somewhat loses steam in the second half. The twists become predictable even as the actors encourage you to remain invested in the story. The end of the chase, therefore, isn't as powerful as it could have been.
Comparisons between "Oppam" and "Don't Breathe" are inevitable, seeing as they're both thrillers with blind men who are, at first prey and then turn predator. However, the two films follow completely different story arcs. "Oppam" isn't as lethal as "Don't Breathe" - which is a bit of a relief considering my nerves are still recovering from the tension induced by the latter - but it is nevertheless a well-executed film that is worth a watch.
The report on the conferment of the Chevalier Award by the French government on actor Kamal Haasan has been received with jubilation by the Tamil film industry and the actor has been receiving encomiums from all quarters. Perhaps the most eloquent praise has come from Kamal’s illustrious contemporary, Rajanikanth, who has hailed Kamal as the ‘Nadigar Thilagam’ of the present generation.
Kollywood has so far seen only one Nadigar Thilagam and that was Sivaji Ganesan, a legendary actor, Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner who incidentally was also the first Indian actor to be conferred with the Chevalier Award. Kamal is the second.
While there can be no denying that Kamal Haasan with his formidable acting talent has often been deservingly dubbed as a worthy successor to Sivaji, a quick scan of the thespian’s work in just ten out of the nearly three hundred films that he acted in, during a span of over four decades, reveals that his range has been extraordinary and that inheriting his mantle is by no means an easy proposition.
True, Sivaji has often been accused of a high dose of melodramatic content in a few of his films and critiqued for going overboard with his emotions eschewing subtlety (perhaps a throwback of his theatre days) but his fans always loved every bit and yearned for more. And when it came to dialogue delivery Sivaji has always been a class apart, altering his dialect and tonal impact with ease to suit the characters.
As a long time industry watcher and critic my pick is as follows:
PARASAKTHI (1952)
Ironic as it might seem, this film which marked Sivaji’s debut might have slipped away from him if one of the co-producers, studio owner AV Meyyappan had his way.
AVM was not too impressed with the shots of the rather emaciated, ebony-skinned stage actor whom his directors Krishnan-Panju had penciled in for the hero’s role. But the other co-producer, PA Perumal of National Pictures, put his foot down as he had pinned his faith in the young man to deliver the goods.
Scripted by M Karunanidhi (Kalaignar) later to become the CM of Tamilnadu, ‘Parasakthi’ was a whiplash against the Brahminic hegemony and religious orthodoxy prevalent in those times. Sivaji, then just VC Ganesan (he was later christened ‘Sivaji’ by EV Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar) who was impressed by his acting in the role of Sivaji Maharaj in a play) had the best lines in the film and he delivered a powerhouse performance and AVM, the doubting Thomas, was among the first to congratulate him.
The Sivaji-Karunanidhi combination was to the fore in later films like ‘Manohara’ and ‘Thirumbi Paar’ and it was part of Tamil film folklore that Kalaignar’s fiery dialogues could be delivered by only one actor with aplomb, and that was Sivaji Ganesan. AVM and Sivaji too forged a fruitful partnership and the latter featured in many an AVM film including ‘Uyarndha Manithan’ directed by Krishnan-Panju which was his 150th film.
UTHAMA PUTHIRAN (1958)
This film, directed by T Prakash Rao, was a delightful romp for Sivaji Ganesan who played two diametrically opposite roles of twins, one born to a queen and the other abandoned at childhood. The dual role of a greedy and arrogant successor to the throne and an honest and law-abiding citizen was as different as chalk from cheese. Sivaji was in his elements essaying both the roles with élan. ‘Uthama Puthiran’ also scored high on its music.
VEERAPANDIYA KATTABOMMAN (1959)
This film was a biopic on an 18th century South Indian chieftain who stood up to the might of the East India Company, a forerunner to the British Raj, and paid with his life after putting up an epic struggle.
Directed by BR Panthulu, who was later to direct M G Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa in ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’, this film marked a turning point in Sivaji’s career and won him a Best Actor Award at Afro Asian Film Festival.
The film which was based on a play ‘Kattabomman’ staged by Sivaji Nataka Mandram was the first film to be shot in technicolour and had its premiere in London.
With a handle bar moustache and eyes blazing like charcoals the actor lived the role and to this date every wannabe actor who auditions for a role in Kollywood inevitably belts out a fiery piece of dialogue from the film. One of the titles that Sivaji earned during his career was ‘Simhakuralon’ (one with the roar of a lion). Those who watched the film would vouchsafe that this was an apt sobriquet. Sivaji’s intensely emotional and moving performance was the hallmark of Kattabomman which also had a spectacular run at the box office, and not just when it was released but a good 56 years later in 2015 when its digitalized version hit the theatres.
ANDHA NAAL (1964)
Readers might wonder at the choice of this film which turned out to be a damp squib at the box office. But ‘Andha Naal’, directed by celebrated Veena maestro S Balachander saw Sivaji Ganesan play an antagonist, a traitor who sells his soul to the Japanese by betraying India’s military secrets.
The film had no songs, dances or stunt sequences and Balachander who always had a taste for the macabre and later made horror films like ‘Bommai’ and ‘Nadu Iravil’ extracted a brilliant performance from Sivaji cast as a radio engineer.
The film was a mystery thriller all the way with minimal dialogues and the suspense was maintained till the very end. ‘Andha Naal’ afforded Sivaji plenty of scope to come up with a sober, intense and brooding performance clearly revealing the angst of a tortured soul. In a stunning climax the Judas is killed by his own wife who had scented his betrayal of the nation. She later commits suicide as the curtains come down.
KARNAN (1964)
With the Mahabharat as a backdrop, ‘Karnan’ narrated the story of Kunthi’s estranged son who joined forces with the Kauravas due to his abiding friendship with Duryodhan. ‘Karnan’ boasted of an excellent score by MS Viswanathan who incidentally stormed a bastion that had hitherto been reserved for KV Mahadevan. The smash hit found Sivaji excelling in the emotional sequences and his scenes with the Telugu superstar NT Rama Rao who played Lord Krishna with the required gravitas formed the highlight of the film.
THIRUVILAYADAL (1965)
Sivaji Ganesan, who had begun his political career with the DMK but later veered to the Congress and also drifted from social films to mythologies was promptly dubbed as ‘Tirupathi’ Ganesan by the DMK.
One of the mythologies where he was cast as Lord Siva was titled ‘Thiruvilayadal and the film dealt with several episodes featuring the Lord in various disguises working his wonders and mystifying his disciples.
With excellent support from actors like the ace comedian Nagesh and TS Balaiah, Sivaji brilliantly essayed the role assigned to him, bringing into play the myriad facets of his histrionic prowess. Each scene was crafted with great care and devotion by the director A P Nagarajan whose association with Sivaji proved to be mutually beneficial and the duo came together in several films like ‘Thillana Mohanambal’ ‘Thiruvarutchelvar’ and ‘Arunagirinathat’. Today’s generation had the golden opportunity of watching this film in 2015 when it was digitally restored and like all Sivaji films that were re-screened ‘Thiruvilayadal’ turned out to be a thumping box office success repeating its phenomenal run five decades ago.
THILLANA MOHANAMBAL (1968)
Another AP Nagarajan film, ‘Thillana Mohanambal’ was based on a story penned by the famous writer Kothamangalam Subbu. This movie, which had a mammoth star-cast featured Sivaji as a celebrated but highly egotistic Nadaswaram Vidwan who falls for the charms of a famous Bharatanatyam dancer.
A little-known fact about Sivaji Ganesan was that he took great pains to prepare himself for his roles, and if audiences found his recitals in the film authentic it was due to his painstaking efforts to pick up the rudiments of playing the Nadaswaram from the Vidwans Sehturaman-Ponnuswamy who provided the background music.
The Sivaji-Padmini duo who formed a very compatible pair in various hit films was the piece de resistance in the film, with Padmini’s Mohanambal turning out to be an apt foil for Sivaji’s Sikkil Shanmugasundaram Pillai.
DEIVA MAGAN (1969)
The first Tamil film that earned the distinction of being India’s official entry to the Oscars for Best Foreign Film, the AC Thirulokchander directed ‘Deiva Magan’ featured Sivaji Ganesan in three roles, that of a father and his two sons. A lawyer father with a scarred face begets two sons, one of whom is born with the same affliction and is left in the lurch by his father. The other is a Lothario who is his father’s pet but goes astray and is finally put back on track by his elder brother. With nary a dull minute ‘Deiva Magan’ expectedly stormed the box office
VIETNAM VEEDU (1970)
Playwright Vietnam Veedu Sundaram, who passed away recently, scripted plays like ‘Vietnam Veedu’ and ‘Gnana Oli’ for Sivaji Ganesan and Major Sundararajan, and when these plays were made into films it was Sivaji who played the lead in both the films.
Long before actors like Amitabh Bachchan began to play their age, Sivaji Ganesan often ventured to sacrifice his macho hero image and don the role of the aging protagonist.
‘Veitnam Veedu’, which again was a triumph for the Sivaji-Padmini duo, found Sivaji essaying the role of a retired man Prestige Padmanabha Iyer who finds his world turn upside down after he hangs up his boots. While there were a number of scenes in this Madhavan-directed film where Sivaji went overboard, the actor did succeed in turning the film into a real tear-jerker. Sundaram’s alliterative prose perfectly rendered by Sivaji with the right intonations was a highlight of the film.
MUDHAL MARIYADHAI (1985)
Avant-garde directors Bharathiraaja and Bhagyaraj, huge fans of Sivaji were keen to work with him in at least one film each and it was Bhagyaraj who succeeded in roping the thespian first in his ‘Dhavani Kanavugal’, which however met with a lukewarm response at the box office.
But it was his mentor Bharathiraaja in whose film ‘Mudhal Mariyadhai’ Sivaji portrayed an obese widower who becomes an object of infatuation for a young village belle, who succeeded in eliciting a marquee performance from the aging actor.
Bharathiraaja recounted how he reeled with embarrassment when Sivaji demanded that he act out each sequence for his benefit, showing his deference to the director and his abilities. His performance in the film netted him a Special Jury National Award, a belated recognition for someone who always stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries.
All those who worked with Sivaji Ganesan through the years would vouch for the high amount of sincerity and devotion that he brought to bear on his profession.
Apart from the meticulous delineation of his roles Sivaji had an impeccable reputation for his adherence to schedules and his punctuality. Apart from the films listed above, there were many others like the Bhimsingh directed ‘Pasamalar’ ‘Pava Manippu’ ‘Bagapirivinai’ and others like ‘Kappalotiya Thamizhan’ ‘Enga Oor Raja’ ‘Rajapart Rangadurai’ ‘Trisoolam’ (triple role)’ and ‘Gauravam’, where Sivaji gave an excellent account of his acting credentials.
Verily the ‘Nadigar Thilagam’ had few peers during his lifetime and the spectacular re-runs of his big hits are a clear indication that the younger generation too have taken a shine to the great actor whose spot at the top of the pantheon of all-time great Tamil actors is, to put it simply, unshakable.
At this year’s Miss America pageant, the first openly lesbian contestant, Erin O'Flaherty, will compete for the crown in Atlantic City. Flaherty’s participation will represent yet another step toward a more inclusive and diverse pageant. She’ll be following other trailblazers like Bess Myerson (the first Jewish titleholder), Vanessa Williams (the first African-American titleholder) and Heather Whitestone (the first deaf titleholder).
For a pageant with a historically narrow definition of beauty, this progress hasn’t come easy.
The most well-known demonstration against the pageant is the 1968 liberation picket, in which hundreds of women protested the pageant’s oppressive ideal of femininity and, so the media myth goes, burned their bras. But few people know that yet another protest took place that day just a few blocks away: the first-ever Miss Black America contest. The rival contest was organized to challenge the racial exclusion of the Miss America pageant, which had never had a black contestant.
When I was a graduate student in history at Duke University, I had set out to research the Sept. 7, 1968, women’s liberation demonstration in Atlantic City. Early on, however, I was struck by the news headlines announcing the new Miss Black America alongside the white Miss America. I was also surprised to learn that women’s liberation protesters objected to not only the sexism of the pageant, but also its racism.
I found that the Miss America pageant was dogged by two protests that day – not one – and each had been influenced by the other.
Crowning Miss Black America
During the 1930s – the pageant’s early years – regulations explicitly stipulated that contestants must be of “the white race.”
But by 1968, the Atlantic City chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was determined to break the beauty queen color line. In a meeting with pageant officials, chapter leaders pushed for integration. The pageant responded with nominal changes: Organizers added black judges and set up a scholarship fund to encourage black contestants. But without any black state finalists in the ranks, it was too late for any to participate in the 1968 national event.
Dismayed that black women would be sidelined for yet another year, an activist named Phillip Savage and an entrepreneur from Philadelphia named J. Morris Anderson teamed up to create their own all-black pageant to take place in Atlantic City during the Miss America pageant.
As Savage told reporters: “We want to be in Atlantic City at the same time the hypocritical Miss America contest is being held. Theirs will be lily white and ours will be black.” The aim of Miss Black America was to celebrate black women as beautiful, in defiance of American cultural norms that upheld whiteness as the standard of beauty.
The pageant protest drew national media attention: “Contest Slated to Select Miss Black America,” read a Los Angeles Times headline; “Negroes Plan Show to Rival Contest for Miss America,” proclaimed The New York Times.
Saundra Williams, the first Miss Black America.Tumblr
On the day of the event, black beauty queens rode in a motorcade down the Atlantic City boardwalk before taking the stage of the Ritz-Carlton hotel for swimsuit, talent and evening gown competitions.
The winner – a college student named Saundra Williams – was dressed in a white gown and tiara, much like any Miss America hopeful. But she also wore her hair in a short natural style, performed an African dance as her talent and defended black women as beautiful to reporters. In newspapers across the country, her portrait appeared prominently alongside the newly crowned Miss America, Judith Ann Ford.
In this parallel beauty contest, the organizers and contestants were making a pointed public criticism of the Miss America pageant’s discriminatory practices. But they were also challenging racist standards of beauty in order to fully afford black women their humanity and belonging in the nation.
In the previous year, women around the country had begun discussing and raising awareness of the sexism ingrained in everyday American life. A loose network of women’s liberation groups soon formed across many cities, and they started planning their first major coordinated protest.
Their target? The Miss America pageant.
Many now hail it as the opening salvo of the second-wave feminist movement in America. Less well known is that they saw the pageant as the nexus of many problems with American society: racism, war, capitalism and even ageism. The organizers had roots in radical leftist causes, including the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements.
Upon descending on Atlantic City, women’s liberation protestors distributed a leaflet that proclaimed “No More Miss America!” In it they denounced the pageant as “Racism with Roses,” a pointed critique of an event that put white women on a pedestal while ignoring African-American, Latina and Native American women.
Thumbing through handwritten organizing notes and watching video footage of the protest, I also discovered how an African-American lawyer and activist named Florynce Kennedy had played a prominent role in the protest. In the 1960s and ‘70s, Kennedy was involved in a number of movements, including black power, consumer protection and sex workers’ rights. She was known for her theatrical style of demonstrating and intersectional politics– and was always eager to draw connections between racist and sexist oppression.
Kennedy’s participation on the boardwalk was no exception. To emphasize how women were enslaved to beauty standards, she chained herself to a giant puppet of Miss America. Another demonstrator conducted the proceedings as a cattle auction, announcing, “Yessiree boys, step right up! How much am I offered for this number one piece of prime American property? She sings in the kitchen, hums at the typewriter, purrs in bed!”
The protests live on today
Thanks to civil rights and feminist activists, 1968 was perhaps the most exciting year in the Miss America pageant’s history. Newspapers and magazines delighted in the drama of the three events and broadcast the activists’ messages to a mass audience.
The Miss Black America contest, despite starting with only 12 contestants, went on to become an annual event in its own right. The women’s liberation protest instantly became a symbol of the movement, even if it was met with derision from conservative commentators.
The following year, the Miss America pageant grappled with the fallout from 1968 by trying to retain wary sponsors and issuing a restraining order against protesters. But the franchise did evolve in response to the civil rights and feminist movements, placing more emphasis on women’s abilities and finally featuring a black contestant in 1970.
The legacy of these protests lives on when Americans are captivated by what Erin O'Flaherty represents: a progressive step toward a more inclusive pageant and, by extension, nation. But O'Flaherty’s chances will undoubtedly hinge on her ability to conform, in many ways, to what remains a heteronormative and Eurocentric ideal of American womanhood and physical beauty.
For this reason, the protestors' goal to dismantle or wholly reshape that ideal resonates today.
Fifty years ago – on Sept. 8, 1966 – TV viewers were transfixed by the appearance on screen of a green-hued, pointy-eared alien called Spock. But beneath the makeup, actor Leonard Nimoy fretted that this would be the end of his promising career.
“How can I play a character without emotion?” he asked his boss, Gene Roddenberry. “I’m going to be on one note throughout the entire series.”
Nimoy thought he looked silly wearing the prosthetics that turned him into a Vulcan, at one point issuing an ultimatum: “It’s me or the ears.”
Nimoy’s misgivings were just one of many problems the writers, producers and cast faced during “Star Trek”’s troubled journey to the screen. Culled from theirrecollections, this is the story of how “Star Trek”’s mission to explore strange new worlds was almost over before it began.
Deciding instead to set the show in the future, Roddenberry drew upon his youthful immersion in science fiction magazines like Astounding Stories. Also important was his experience as a World War II bomber pilot, which caused him to ruminate on human nature: Would we ever outgrow our obsession with violence? And from C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower novels, Roddenberry borrowed the idea of a courageous captain burdened by the duties of command.
With tiny Desilu Studios interested in making the show, Roddenberry pitched “Star Trek” to the networks. CBS passed after Roddenberry botched the pitch. But NBC bit and ordered a pilot episode, which was eventually titled “The Cage.”
NBC responds to the pilot
Watching “The Cage” now is a disorientating experience. In the captain’s chair is a sullen man called Pike, played by star Jeff Hunter. There is no sign of future series regulars McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, Checkov. Spock is there, but not quite the inscrutable Spock we would come to know. He shouts and, more than once, breaks into a wide grin.
The opening credits to ‘The Cage,’ ‘Star Trek’’s first pilot episode.
The role of chilly logician and second in command is instead taken by “Number One,” a character played by actress Majel Barrett.
“Number One” wouldn’t make it past this trial run. In tests, some men and a surprisingly large number of women objected to her stridency, which was out of touch with the gender norms of the time. NBC doubted that Barrett could carry such a prominent role (and even thought Roddenberry had cast her because she was his mistress).
“The Cage” – a complicated story about alien mind-control – was an ambitious pilot. When Roddenberry presented it to NBC, the programming executives were blown away. But the sales and marketing department wasn’t convinced. Not enough action, they thought. It would be hard to promote. Pass.
“Star Trek,” it seemed, was dead.
Striking gold with Shatner
Roddenberry pleaded with NBC for another chance. He assured them he could make it action-driven, that it didn’t need to be high concept. A television miracle happened when NBC commissioned that rarest of things: a second pilot.
Roddenberry wanted Jeff Hunter to return as Captain Pike, and arranged to screen “The Cage” for him, reserving Desilu’s projection room for March 25, 1965. But Hunter was a no-show, sending his wife in his stead. “This is not the kind of show Jeff wants to do,” she told Roddenberry. “Jeff Hunter is a movie star.” Pike relinquished command.
The ebullient Canadian actor William Shatner was hired to play the ship’s captain, now named James R. (later James T.) Kirk. For Leonard Nimoy, the casting of Shatner, a stage actor accustomed to playing scenes big and loud, was the key to unlocking Spock.
“Jeff [Hunter] was playing Captain Pike as a very thoughtful, kind of worried, kind of angst-ridden nice guy,” Nimoy later told Shatner, in an interview for Shatner’s book “Star Trek Memories.” “Pike didn’t have the clarity or precision of character against which you could measure yourself.”
Shatner’s clear-cut performance carved out space for Nimoy to shape his saturnine Spock. “For lack of a better metaphor, on a bright sunny day, the shadows get very clear.”
The second pilot, bolstered by the Shatner/Nimoy tandem, was a winner. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was a rollicking story about crew members irradiated in deep space and acquiring godlike powers. NBC liked it and commissioned a full season of “Star Trek.”
Righting the ship after a stormy start
Triumph quickly turned to panic for Roddenberry and for Desilu studios. Roddenberry needed scripts for the series – fast. He solicited stories from veteran TV writers, from sci-fi magazine and novel authors, and even from his office staff. His secretary Dorothy Fontana went on to become perhaps the most celebrated and prolific writer for the show.
But script problems would dog the young series. Veteran TV writers, unused to sci-fi, struggled to work within the universe Roddenberry had created. Sci-fi luminaries had boundless imaginations but little grasp of the practicalities of writing for television. Their scripts often called for casting and staging that would consume the budget for a feature film, let alone a fledgling TV series.
Roddenberry also wasn’t the best at managing the fragile egos of his writers. He took it upon himself to rewrite every script that made it on-screen, and his pages were often slow to arrive on set. Scripting was a constant source of tension and delay.
For Desilu, the elation of getting “Star Trek” picked up was dampened by the financial reality of producing the show. Network policy was to pay a set amount for each episode, calculated at something like 80 percent of the cost of production. For a small outfit like Desilu, deficit-financing both “Star Trek” and their other new show, “Mission Impossible,” required some accounting wizardry. Both were budgeted at US$200,000 per episode, with NBC kicking in $160,000. Any over-budget costs were born by the studio alone.
Tiny Desilu kept its head above water into the second season of “Star Trek” before finally drowning in debt. Studio owner and “I Love Lucy” star Lucille Ball was forced to sell to Paramount. Had she been able to hold on a few months more, she would have seen “Star Trek” picked up in 60 countries. Had she retained the rights long-term, Desilu would have benefited financially from endless reruns of the show’s 79 episodes. Network-friendly deals also ensured it would be many years before the cast would gain financial security from their iconic roles.
With the premiere date rapidly approaching, NBC chose an episode titled “The Man Trap” to be the first to air. It is, in truth, a run-of-the-mill “Star Trek” episode. The network liked that it featured a creature– a shape-shifting, salt-guzzling monster – with which the show’s heroes could do battle.
Although NBC’s marketing team had not initially seen the potential of “Star Trek,” by the time “The Man Trap” aired, they were able to trumpet the show in a glossy, multipage promotional brochure:
“As the Apollo moon shot moves steadily from the drawing board to the launching pad, STAR TREK takes TV viewers beyond our time and solar system to the unexplored interstellar deeps … the STAR TREK storylines will stimulate the imagination without bypassing the intellect. While speculating in a fascinating way about the future, the series also will have much to say that is meaningful to us today.”
A half-century later, we are on the cusp of a new CBS series set in the universe Roddenberry created. (CBS acquired the rights to “Star Trek” some years ago following a complicated series of corporate maneuverings.) Titled “Star Trek: Discovery” and scheduled for release in January 2017, the new series has no doubt had to contend with its own casting controversies, script problems and budget constraints.
The writers of the new show certainly know enough about Trek’s turbulent beginnings to temper expectations: “If you go in with open minds and open hearts, you may be rewarded,” they told a crowd eager for news at the Star Trek: Mission New York convention held over Labor Day weekend. “Whereas if you go with a set of impossible-to-realize expectations, which even you cannot specifically define, then we’re bound to fail.”
The door of Room No.122 is slightly ajar, and a makeup suitcase is wheeled out hastily. Photographers are pacing up and down the lobby, muttering about the confusion over when and where the photoshoot is scheduled to take place. Fresh off the success of Kabali and now awaiting the Indian release of “Parched”, Radhika Apte pauses to take breaks between quick bytes and quicker interviews. Her entourage is tense, but she remains collected, in a light pink and grey cutout dress and wears a reserved smile.
The actor was in Chennai for the launch of the all new Audi 4, the latest from the German car manufacturer.
Radhika Apte at the launch.
In a candid chat with The News Minute, Radhika speaks her mind on Kabali, consent, and being trapped into a typecast. Edited excerpts:
There’s been an interesting relationship with space and consent in your personal and professional life. “Parched” is about women struggling to create their own safe space, and “Phobia” is about the trauma of dealing with a non-consensual, violent episode. The nude scenes in “Parched” recently made headlines. How did you process all of it?
It hasn’t affected me even remotely. Every human being struggles with space and consent. The moment you have a set of rules in society, you have issues with space and consent. Every relationship has its own issues with consent. It’s a constant struggle, and the older you grow you realise that there are more issues that you haven’t yet faced. It’s really about you realizing that you don’t have to want to struggle for freedom.
People objectified you in the nude scenes that leaked from “Parched”
You cannot control gaze… how someone chooses to view your body once it’s out in a public space. Even if you are completely clothed there will be a gaze. I really don’t think a female body should be such a huge issue. Either you respect it, or you don’t. You can’t pretend to respect a body. Clothes and nudity have nothing to do with male gaze. Nothing has changed since the video has been out.
The change was when I chose to do this scene. Because that was a step towards feeling more liberated about my body. You watch a certain thing, you read a certain way, you aspire to be that person who doesn’t have inhibitions. But actually taking that step to be that, to practice what you believe in. Taking that step made me feel happy. That is my journey. What people think is out of my control.
This episode reveals a lot about how we need to normalize viewing the female body.
A female body is not just sexual. But this is a trap men are prone to too, not just women. Most of the men who promote videos like these in their gaze are actually very self-conscious themselves. It’s not about male or female, it’s about body.
Setting aside the fact that working with Rajnikanth was a huge reason to choose the film, what part of Kumudhavalli’s characterization stood out for you?
Kumudhavalli has a very particular set of values. In the film, there are a lot of flashbacks where he draws inspiration from her dialogues in order to become a gangster, or act on his anger or fury in a non-violent way. So she has a set of values, which is very different from what I believe in. And they’re very strong, it comes from a very different point of view. It comes from what she’s experienced in life. That’s what made me think it was a very strong character.
The moment when Kabali sees Kumudhavalli after a long time, the pace of the film suddenly slows. It’s a key moment, emotionally. When she breaks down, that vulnerability in strength is striking.
Yes, I personally feel that any moment of separation from any human being is very painful. It’s always about love, whether it’s your partner or friend or whoever. Sometimes even strangers. It’s very difficult. So reuniting with someone is a feeling that touches me deeply. I remember when I was a child and my grandfather had passed away, there was a poem I was asked to read. I was so young, I didn’t even know what it meant. The poem was about this man who was already dead. “When you come up, I will see you. Oh the rapture of the meeting, oh the joy to see you come.” And I remembered that poem when I read the scene. Pain is that, the separation from a possession. Pa Ranjith had a very specific way of portraying it, and he carried his own emotional attachment with it. So that really came together.
When you took a year off to study dance in London, you’d mentioned that you studied movement analysis. How much has it helped in honing your craft?
You know, it was so interesting when I’d learnt it, because it was fresh in my body and my mind, so it’s been five years since. I feel an urgent need to go back to it. But I was doing a lot of theatre back then. I was so much more aware of my body and the space around it. Movement, organic movement, inorganic movement, dissecting movement – when you see a movement, any movement. Just to walk or stillness, whether it’s a dance piece. You are in awe of certain people when they walk in, when the move. But why? Why are you in awe of that? When you start dissecting that, understanding it, how it came to life, and how it worked. It really excited me. The magnification, the idea of being larger-than-life, reduces to the whole process. Why does a certain walk reflect a certain vibe? Why a movement goes with a certain emotion…
How did you find your footing when you came back to India after the year off?
I felt this urge when I moved back to Mumbai, to pursue acting. That was really it. It just happened organically. When I picked a lot of regional cinema projects – I’ve done Tamil Telugu, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam – it was never a conscious decision (to work in multiple languages). Rahul Bose had seen a play of mine, and offered me Antaheen, Rakthacharithra happened and I was a big Ramu fan (Ram Gopal Varma) in my teens. So that led to Tamil, to working with Prakash Raj. Whatever projects came in, I felt the need to do them. Language was never a barrier.
But in your roles, a significant amount of them initially involved playing a village belle. How did you reconcile yourself with idea of being typecast?
You can’t worry about being typecast because you will definitely get typecast. It will happen whether you like it or not. So it’s just about how you want to break it. I just try not to choose similar parts. Because we do have very similar parts in the film industry. We complain about other genres – Why is she doing three horror films? But most of the films are rom-coms today! So it’s about how you break the typecast conundrum. It’s not just about breaking it for someone’s perception (about me) to change, it’s also for myself. It’s really funny. If you’re good, and your film is successful, you only get such parts. I just don’t find any logic in that.
The legend of Troy is one of the oldest stories ever told, but reached a new audience through Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 Hollywood epic Troy. The film is a loose adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek poem the Iliad, and it covers the main events of the Trojan War. It is a story brimming with heroic warriors – Achilles, Hector, Patroclus – men who outperform all others on the battlefield. Their reward for this prowess is eternal glory – the term used by Homer is kleos.
But not all are deserving of this kind of everlasting fame. Near the beginning of the tale, the Trojan prince Paris falls in love with the Spartan queen Helen, who is married to King Menelaus. The couple steal away to Troy, where they are cautiously welcomed by Troy’s ruler, Priam. As the plot unfolds, Helen remains an elusive presence at Troy, as the different Greek kingdoms come to demand her return to Menelaus. The outcome of her adulterous relationship with Paris hardly needs to be repeated here: a ten-year war and the annihilation of the city of Troy.
The question of Helen’s involvement in such a significant conflict clearly poses difficult questions – and has done ever since the age of Homer. In the Iliad, the cause of the war is ambiguous. Homer offers listeners (the poem would have been performed orally) no easy explanation as to why the Greeks were willing to participate in such a lengthy conflict. While Helen repeatedly acknowledges her role in igniting the conflict, other characters, such as Priam, refuse to blame her. The Greek gods – who are accused of staging this great conflict – and the Trojan prince Paris are also held responsible.
In later Greek history, many authors responded in different ways to the question of Helen’s role in the war. In some parts of Greece, she was revered as a goddess. Indeed, the early stories are extremely vague but the poet Stesichorus, who lived around 600BC, purportedly slandered Helen – and was struck blind after doing so. The story goes that he recovered his sight after he denied that Helen ever went to Troy. Instead, he rather colourfully suggested that it was a “phantom” of Helen that eloped there.
Around 150 years later, the so-called “father of history”, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, also highlighted the strange role played by Helen in the war. He quoted an ostensibly Persian informant to underscore the flimsiness of the Greeks’ claim, suggesting it was unusual at the time for great powers to opt for the nuclear option over the loss of a woman. According to this source:
The people of Asia made no matter of the seizure of their women. The Greeks, however, for the sake of [Helen], recruited a great army, then came to Asia, and destroyed the power of Priam.
Helen through the ages
Beyond antiquity, many have continued to struggle with the enigmatic Helen. She reappears, for example, on the Elizabethan stage, famously labelled as “the face that launch’d a thousand ships” in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (1604). And in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (c.1602), she is imagined as an insipid dunderhead, thoroughly responsible for the loss of Greek lives. Indeed, the Greek commander Diomedes states: “For every scruple / of her contaminated carrion weight, / A Troyan hath been slain”.
As these cases illustrate, Helen’s unenviable status as an instigator of war colours many later receptions of Homer’s story. Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s 1863 painting Helen of Troy is another striking example. In many ways, the painting focuses on the image of Helen as an impossibly beautiful mortal. Her hair is golden, and she is draped in elaborately decorated apparel.
Upon closer inspection, however, viewers will see that Helen has a purpled left cheek. Is this perhaps an indication of an abusive relationship with her new Trojan “husband” Paris? Is Rossetti suggesting that Paris struck his new bride, stealing her away by force?
Helen is also depicted, however, before a blazing city, while pointing to a locket that depicts a flaming torch. She appears to be saying that it is she who is responsible for this conflagration. Indeed, inscribed damningly on the reverse of the painting is a verse taken from Aeschylus' Greek tragedy Agamemnon, another of the Greek leaders at Troy. The line runs: “Helen of Troy, ἑλέναυς, ἑλανδρος, ἑλέπτολις.” That is, “Helen of Troy, destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities.”
An innocent Helen?
It is worth bearing in mind that Helen is not always envisioned as a guilty, destructive force. Take, for instance, Derek Walcott’s Caribbean Helen in his 1990 poem Omeros. Walcott’s tale of migration is a radical rereading of Homer’s text, offering a fresh perspective on this iconic female figure. No longer is Helen cast as a figure of blame; “she was not a cause or a cloud, only a name / for a local wonder”.
The majority of responses to Helen since the Iliad nonetheless have centred on the issue of her culpability. As the film Troy shows, Trojan War narratives still tend to pivot on Helen and her tempestuous romance with Paris. This, of course, fits into a much wider historical picture, in which women and their bodies have been used as a trope through which to explore issues such as warfare, violence and temptation – in some ways, she is another Eve, a temptress who led the great men of the day astray and set the Near East on fire.
There have been echoes of this throughout time, from medieval witches being blamed – and burned – for corrupting society to the recent debate over the burkini ban in France. Indeed, the latter is just another telling case of society continuing to regulate women’s bodies, and crude stereotypes about oppressed women.
In succumbing to the narrative of Helen and her role in the bloodshed, we also miss the opportunity to explore more fruitful lines of inquiry. For Helen’s story is one that should lead us to question why it is that women have so often been made scapegoats in times of warfare, crisis and great political change. Only then might we break free from the question of whether or not Helen was to blame for the Trojan War – and start asking what role the men who carried the swords and spears played.
Many parts of the Deccan are peppered with gneissic granite rocks that are hundreds of millions of years old, attracting geologists from all over the world. In the town of Bhongir, at a distance of about 50kms from Hyderabad, is a huge granite batholith comparable in size to the famous World Heritage Site of Uluru in Australia.
Batholiths are massive igneous rocks that are formed when molten magma cools and solidifies, and often run kilometers deep into the earth. The one in Bhongir is shaped almost like a smooth egg, soars more than 500 feet above its surroundings, has perilous drops on all sides, and commands never-ending views of the region.
It is no surprise therefore, that a location as strategic as this has a small fort perched on top of it.
It is widely believed that the Chalukya ruler Tribhuvanamalla Vikramaditya built a simple fort here way back in the early 12th century, giving the town the name Tribhuvanagiri, which eventually became Bhuvanagiri, and finally Bhongir. The fort is also said to have been held by the Kakatiya rulers for a while.
In the middle of the 14th century, it was captured by Aladdin Hassan Bahman Shah, the first ruler of the Bahmani Sultanate which then had its capital in Gulbarga. When the Bahmani Sultanate splintered into the five Deccan Sultanates, Bhongir became a part of the Qutb Shahi Sultanate of Golconda.
A governor was stationed in the fort, and individuals who tried to usurp the Qutb Shahi throne were often imprisoned in it. Most of the present structures here date back to the Bahmani and Qutb Shahi period, and display characteristics of the architectural style favored during the era. It is rumoured that there was once a secret tunnel that went all the way from the Bhongir fort to Golconda.
The naturally impregnable fort, once surrounded by a moat for added defence, has an assortment of ruined structures all along the way to the top. The giant rock has a natural cleft which separates the fort into lower and upper regions, and the cleft is lined with many small ponds.
A beautiful dilapidated pavilion stands at the summit of the hillock, resembling the Bala Hisar Baradari, the highest structure in the Golconda Fort in Hyderabad.
At the base of the fort is a statue of Sardar Sarvai Papanna, a chieftain who is believed to have defended the fort against the rulers of Golconda for a while, but eventually lost his life. The climb to the top takes about an hour, and is most enjoyable on cooler days.
For the most part, there are steps hewn into the rock, and in the steeper stretches, there are railings to hold on to. It would be a good idea to wear shoes with a good grip, and carry drinking water along. The nearly vertical walls of the hillock are ideal for adventure sports, and Bhongir has a rock climbing school offering a variety of courses in bouldering, rock climbing and rappelling.
As forts go, the Bhongir Fort is not particularly spectacular, especially in comparison with its much grander counterparts in Golconda or Bidar. However, the beautiful drive, the geological significance of the Bhongir batholith, the exciting trek and the breathtaking views of the countryside from the top make it a wonderful day trip from Hyderabad.
All photographs by Madhumita Gopalan
Madhumita Gopalan is a photographer, blogger and history enthusiast who loves photo-documenting travel, culture and architecture. She blogs at www.madhugopalan.com
The phone rings. A young woman rushes to answer the impatient landline. She answers and says, “We just met.”
“I know, but I wanted to say thank you,” says the voice on the other end…
“Has it only been a few months? I feel like I have known you for much longer,” the voice breathes.
Both women feel something for each other, for certain. But they’re a little shy. (To find out what happens next, you’ll have to wait for the next episode.)
Notice the lack of drama? That’s precisely what Roopa Rao, the writer and director of ‘The Other Love Story’ sets out to do, and achieves in her web-series “The Other Love Story”. Aadya and Aanchal, two college girls who live on the same lane, become friends and more. “I just picked a love story and it happened to be two girls,” Roopa said in an earlier interview.
An alumnus of Asian Academy of Film and Television, Roopa wrote the story a decade ago. “But nothing happens before its time. Stories have life of their own and they choose people to be out in the world, this story chose me and also the time and team,” she told TNM via email.
A self-declared Yash Raj films fan, Roopa wanted to set the story in 1990’s Bengaluru, and re-create a “simple, uncomplicated time where Bollywood romance" ruled her life.
“I wanted to bring all that I missed in the film. Love letters, land line phones, random meetings in the bus stop and many more. It is like a tribute to our teenage years,” Roopa says. She also chose the era because then, there was no way for the girls to know something like this happens elsewhere. “They feel what they feel and they act on it without a choice because of the force with which love hits them. I just wanted to explore this space,” Roopa says.
Image: Roopa Rao
When Roopa decided to take the project forward, no one was willing to produce the film. “Some producers would ask us if it was porn and how many sex scenes it had,” Roopa told Ila Anaya of The Ladies Finger. A producer who said yes backed out later because his family found out and did not approve of the subject. Finally, Roopa turned to crowd-funding.
Finding actors to play the parts wasn’t easy either. But Roopa’s prayers were answered when she posted about the requirement on social media.
Bengaluru women Spoorthi and Shweta play the characters of Aadya and Aanchal respectively. While Aanchal is the younger and more vocal one, Aanchal is more reserved with who she speaks, for how long and why. For 27-year-old extrovert Shweta, relating to the character was a challenge. But more than that, Shweta and 30-year-old Spoorthi’s biggest hurdle was to step out of their heterosexual orientation to convince viewers that Aadya and Aanchal were really in love.
Initially, they tried to imagine their husbands in the other but Roopa wouldn’t have it. “Roopa wanted us to feel the love and the characters within ourselves before acting it out,” says Shweta. And so, with theatre exercises and intensive work on the actors, the team shot continuously for about 20 days, 10-18 hours a day.
“We filmed all the other scenes first before coming to the intimate scene. Even then it took us 2-3 days to film it,” says Spoorthi.
She decided not film explicit scenes. “What people do in their bedroom is their business, why should it even become a discussion topic? I never understood this. I understand the political relevance but love has no rules or government. We need to let people be,” she says.
While ‘The Other Love Story’ may be path-breaking in many ways, Roopa never meant to make big statements with it. “If people can watch it for what it is and have a smile on their face, that’s good enough. If the story engages them, that’s brilliant and if it does act as a trigger for some kind of transformation, then it is fantastic,” she says.
The first three episodes of the 12-part season one are out on YouTube. Watch them here. The first episode, released on August 27, has had been viewed nearly 40,000 times. The next two episodes were released on Friday.
Although there has been no study conducted in the Indian populace, the prevalence of sexual dysfunctions seems to be quite high. It is estimated that at least as many as one in four to five of us is likely to have had a sexual dysfunction in the previous year, as noticed in large population studies elsewhere in the world.
But it isn’t surprising that there is no data because there is a huge stigma surrounding the discussion of sex itself. Most people suffering from sexual dysfunctions see it as a sign of weakness and shame and are discouraged by family and society’s stigma to seek help.
When it comes to sexual dysfunctions, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation easily come to mind but there are 4 main types of dysfunctions that both men and women can suffer from. The causes can be multifactorial, falling broadly into issues related to the body, mind, medications and relationships.
Let’s first look at those which affect the male body. We will address female sexual dysfunctions in our next article.
Male sexual dysfunctions are divided into four broad categories: Inhibited desire; Erectile dysfunction also known as ED; Difficulty with ejaculation and Painful sex.
One common requirement that problems be seen as a dysfunction is that the they should be persistent or recurrent (not a one-off occurrence). It should lead to the person experiencing distress and interpersonal strain affecting the quality of sexual life.
Inhibited sexual desire
Inhibited desire includes the lack or loss of either having spontaneous sexual thoughts or the desire to initiate or respond to sexual activity.
Being overweight can also impact desire, both for physical and psychological reasons.
Getting help for inhibited desire includes seeing a relationship therapist or a sexologist. Treatment may include individual or couple therapy. Unearthing the root of the problem, which could be any one of the above reasons, may take some time following which a suitable treatment can be prescribed.
Erectile Dysfunction
Also known as impotence, erectile dysfunction as the name suggests is when a man is unable to achieve an erect penis on sexual arousal. Sometimes an erection may not be achieved due to fatigue, stress or too much alcohol. This is not unusual and erectile dysfunction is diagnosed only when it is frequent or persistent.
It is important to remember that a one-off incident can cause an unnecessary stress about achieving an erection resulting from shame around lack of performance or feeling like one’s manhood has been attacked. It is important to know that one-off incidents are normal and not let it lead to an actual problem. Anecdotally, in clinics, specialists come across young men who are worried, and are convinced about being impotent after just two or three episodes.
A diagnosis must be sought through a sexologist or a relationship therapist. It has been observed that those with a gradual onset of ED are likely to have a physiological root for the problem. Post diagnosis, treatment may include oral medication, intra urethral pellets, vacuum devices or an injection therapy. Lifestyle changes and couples-therapy may also be suggested.
Difficulty with ejaculation
There are three problems that fall under difficulty with ejaculation: Rapid ejaculation (coming too soon), Delayed ejaculation (taking too long to come) and Anejaculation (not being able to come at all). Anejaculation is very rare physical problem where some men can experience the feeling of an orgasm but lack of ejaculation.
Rapid ejaculation (pre-mature ejaculation)
While the definition of rapid is subjective, rapid ejaculation can refer to feeling like being unable to control the ejaculation and finding that is happens sooner than expected, maybe even before penetration. Most experts in the field consider ejaculation happening under two minutes of penetration all or most of the times as rapid ejaculation. It is common among younger men mostly because of psychological reasons like higher performance anxiety. It could also result from a learnt behaviour when men compulsively masturbate and learn to ejaculate quickly. It may also be due to lack of sexual experience. In some cases, it acts as a precursor to erectile dysfunction.
This condition can sometimes result from physical conditions such as thyroid gland dysfunction and problems with the prostate gland. The treatment involves helping both the individual and the couple develop a better understanding about the issue and to steer away from focussing on intercourse as being the ‘real sex’. Men with this problem are taught about controlling ejaculation through a series of graded activity called ‘stop-start technique’. In addition, there are medical treatments at a local penis level (local anaesthetic agents) and tablets that delay ejaculation. These should be taken under the supervision of a specialist. Medicines used for treating erectile problems are of not much benefit in rapid ejaculation.
Delayed Ejaculation and Anorgasmia
Delayed ejaculation is when a man takes longer than expected to achieve climax. If climax fails to occur, it is known as anorgasmia. In some men, these dysfunctions can find their root in a neurological disease or the side effect of medication like anti-depressants especially if it is a new problem. But mostly it can develop due to psychological reasons or a struggling relationship. It could be due to poor arousal from sexual boredom or insufficient stimulation by the partner (maybe due to lack of communication). It could also be the result of subconsciously feeling guilty about sexual pleasure or anxiety of a possible pregnancy and fatherhood.
Psychosexual therapy is used to discover the root of delayed ejaculation. It also enables the man to explore his sexual needs and likes and incorporate them into his sexual activity. Medications have a limited role in this condition and should be used after consulting a specialist.
Painful sex
Painful sex or dyspareunia is when a man experiences feelings of pain during an erection, penetration, ejaculation or after the sexual activity (which is when blood flows away from the area). It may be felt in the glans (tip of the penis), the shaft, the scrotum or the anus. There are multiple reasons for the pain.
While painful ejaculation is rare, it is generally associated with the inflammation of the urethra, prostate gland or the seminal vesicles. It may also be due to the obstruction of the ejaculatory duct.
Sometimes, the reason can be psychological; due to fear, anxiety or guilt around sex, a history of sexual abuse or a strict religious upbringing. In this case, sex therapy is prescribed.
A sexual dysfunction is a minor problem in the large scheme of things. The bigger problem is the stigma surrounding it that prevents many men from seeking help. So while sex therapy, medication and surgery can easily fix the above, the real problem that needs fixing is our outlook towards sex.
This is a part of the Sexual Health series bought to you by The News Minute in association with Happy Relationships. Happy Relationships is an enterprise that works in the field of sexual health and relationship wellness.
When buildings collapse killing hundreds – or thousands – of people, it’s a tragedy. It’s also an important engineering problem. The 1995 collapse of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center towers in 2001 spawned many vows to never let anything like those events happen again. For structural engineers like me, that meant figuring out what happened, and doing extensive research on how to improve buildings’ ability to withstand a terrorist attack.
The attack on the Murrah building taught us that a building could experience what is called “progressive collapse,” even if only a few columns are damaged. The building was nine stories tall, made of reinforced concrete. The explosion in a cargo truck in front of the building on April 19, 1995, weakened key parts of the building but did not level the whole structure.
Only a few columns failed because of the explosion, but as they collapsed, the undamaged columns were left trying to hold up the building on their own. Not all of them were able to handle the additional load; about half of the building collapsed. Though a large portion of the building remained standing, 268 people died in the areas directly affected by the bomb, and in those nearby areas that could no longer support themselves. (A month after the attack, the rest of the building was intentionally demolished; the site is now a memorial to the victims.)
Until those attacks, most buildings had been built with defenses against total collapse, but progressive collapse was poorly understood, and rarely seen. Since 2001, we now understand progressive collapse is a key threat. And we’ve identified two major ways to reduce its likelihood of happening and its severity if it does: improving structural design to better resist explosions and strengthening construction materials themselves.
Borrowing from earthquake protection
Research has found ways to keep columns and beams strong even when they are stressed and bent. This property is called ductility, and higher ductility could reduce the chance of progressive collapse. It’s a common concern when building in earthquake-prone areas.
In fact, for years building codes from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Concrete Institute have required structural supports to be designed with high enough ductility to withstand a major earthquake so rare its probability of happening is once every 2,000 years. These requirements should prevent collapse when a massive earthquake happens. But it’s not enough to just adopt those codes and expect they will also reduce or prevent damage from terrorist attacks: Underground earthquakes affect buildings very differently from how nearby explosions do.
Another key element structural engineers must consider is redundancy: how to design and build multiple reinforcements for key beams and columns so the loss of, say, an exterior column due to an explosion won’t lead to total collapse of the entire structure. Few standards exist for redundancy to improve blast resistance, but the National Institute for Building Sciences does have some design guidelines.
Making concrete stronger
The materials that buildings are made of also matter. The steel columns in the World Trade Center towers lost strength rapidly when the fire reached 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Concrete heated to that temperature, though, doesn’t undergo significant physical or chemical changes; it maintains most of its mechanical properties. In other words, concrete is virtually fireproof.
The new One World Trade Center building takes advantage of this. At its core are massive three-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls that run the full height of the building. In addition to containing large amounts of specially designed reinforcing bars, these walls are made of high-strength concrete.
An explosion generates very high pressure – how much depends on how big the blast itself is, and how close it is to the structure. That leads to intense stress in the concrete, which can be crushed if it is not strong enough.
At left, standard reinforced concrete; at right, ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete, under similar severe earthquake loadings.Shih-Ho Chao, CC BY-ND
High-strength steel fibers like this are mixed into concrete to make it even stronger and tougher.Shih-Ho Chao, CC BY-ND
While traditional reinforced concrete involves embedding a framework of steel bars inside a concrete structural element, recent years have brought further advancement. To enhance concrete’s toughness and blast resistance, high-strength needle-like steel microfibers are mixed into the concrete. Millions of these bond with the concrete and prevent the spreading of any cracks that occur because of an explosion or other extreme force.
This mix of steel and concrete is superstrong and very ductile. Research has shown that this material, called ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete, is extremely resistant to blast damage. As a result, we can expect future designers and builders to use this material to further harden their buildings against attack. It’s just one way we are contributing to the efforts to prevent these sorts of tragedies from happening in the future.
Does this break sexism and misogyny overnight? No. But it is progress when an influential actor like Rajinikanth, who has made his career playing the ‘all-knowing’ superman, steps out of his comfort zone to be part of a script where the female lead isn’t subservient to him. It’s a small yet significant contribution towards building a culture of equality and mutual respect.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
