God of Small Things

               Velutha may be the God of Small Things to Rahel, Estha, and Ammu, being there for them in times of need, a best friend, someone to look up to, and even a God. Velutha is a character in The God Of Small Things, he has been through struggles and hardships, even people of Ayemenem spread rumors about him. Rahel, Estha, and Ammu have struggles of their own. Because Velutha is so strong and does not let the weak of the world get to him, he is someone that Rahel, Estha, and Ammu admire and put in a Godly vision. More than once they talk about how Velutha could not touch Ammu “If he touched her he couldn’t talk to her, if he loved her he couldn’t leave, if he spoke he couldn’t listen, if he fought he couldn’t win” (207). This time on page 207, when this is mentioned, Velutha is in Ammu’s dream. He wants to hold her but he can’t because he only has one arm. This is an example of struggle he has throughout the book to be able to satisfy and help their needs. He wants to be there for them as much as he can, but struggles are faced. Veluthia becomes a "God" in the eyes of Ammu, along with Rahel and Estha. He becomes a longing desire, and an escape from the hell they live in. "The God of Loss, The God of Small Things, The God of Goosebumps and Sudden Smiles" (312). Velutha brings smiles to their faces, when they struggle to be happy, and goosebumps to Ammu, because she is so desperately longing for him to hold her. Velutha is in a way a God to them, he makes them happy and he is someone to look over them.

Interesting Fact:The God Of Small things was not officially banned, but it faced controversy and challenges in India. Roy faced an obscenity trial for her depiction of love between a Christian woman and a low caste Hindu servant. The novel included pedophilia and incest, but apparently those issues were not what made the novel "obscene."

 

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a rags to riches story which show an over throw of political powers, and the success of social life. Jamal a young boy who is an orphan from Mumbai lives and breathes for Latika, a beautiful woman who has always been his other half. They grew up in the slums of Mumbai and had nothing but the means of survival to keep them going. When faced up against a political battle, when Jamal is placed on "Who wants to be a Millionaire", they fight a battle one never saw coming. Jamal is arrested for cheating at the game. The political battle fought here, is that the "higher class" does not want to see someone from the slums who is uneducated win their show that proves brains, which are gained through schooling, something Jamal never has had. Jamal tells his story to the police officer of what happened between him, Latika, and his brother Salim. Salim works for Javed who pretty much owns the love of his life Latika. The host of "Who wants to be a Millionaire" will do anything in his power to keep Jamal from winning the show, even if it is telling him the wrong answer in the bathroom, but saying it is the right one. Jamal is not deceived because he is used to deception like the deception of his brother in the early years of his life. Jamal truly used his "slumdog" knowledge of the streets to surprise the whole country of India. He is allowed to play the show when the interrogation is over, and the government finally believes that Jamal has not been cheating, just one lucky kid about to have a fairy tale ending. After winning the game show, he wins over the heart of Latika finally who escaped Javed's with the help of Salim. Salim dies, for his brother. This truly is a fairy tale, which is blockaded in many ways by higher political powers. Rags to riches, Slums to palaces. Jamal and Latika live happily ever after.

Jai Ho means may victory be yours. This song is a great example of exactly what Slumdog Millionaire is about. Whether the victory was winning the game show, or beating the slumdog life and not letting it ruin you, victory was won for Jamal. Victory once again is awarded to Jamal who struggled the whole time to save Latika from the evil Javed. Jai Ho is a perfect way to describe the transition from slumdog to millionaire. This song is an awesome way to end the movie!

Shame

Sufiya Zinobia represents the shame of Pakistan's discrimination of women, through her experiences as a first born child, being a woman. Being from Pakistan, Sufiya knows being born into a family as a first born, and a women, that this is something than brings shame upon her family. Not only was her dad disappointed, but her own mother treated her like she brought shame upon the family. From the beginning of the novel you notice how shameful it is to have daughters. Old Mr. Shakil had three daughters, keeping them locked up away from the world out of shame. They grew up with each other always fantasizing and making up their own languages. On his dying day his eldest daughter asked if they were going to be rich now, he yelled back "whores, the dying man cursed them, don't count on it."(6). This is how low women were really thought of in Pakistan. In Shame "a Pakistani father, murdered his only child, a daughter, because making love to a white boy brought such dishonor upon her family that only her blood could wash away the stain."(117) Being a woman, or daughter in Pakistan is just was Sufiya was to her parents, shame, that same shame that she represents to Pakistan, that of being a woman. It is known from the beginning of the book that the shame that Sufiya possesses will bring about about violence in this story. Sufiya blushes whenever even noticed, because she does not want others to notice her. At one point she almost commits suicide, which is the ultimate shame and violence. McLeod mentions how important women are to nationality, something that Shame does not recognize "we are reminded that women are participants in national, economic, political and military struggles, contrary to many nationalist representations which depict women in a supportive and nurturing relation to men". (139) McLeod goes on to talk about how women supported and were part of the decolonization and resist patriarchy. Pakistan at a time when women meant nothing, needed to realize that women were not their shame, just looking for a way to belong and help along the way.


Rushdie talks about the strange things women were not allowed to do in this video. He discusses how women were not allowed to dress Westernized underneath their burkas. If a woman was wearing a skirt her thighs would rub against each other making sexual friction and this heat would be shown through their eyes. He talks about how ludacris this is. He also talks about incest and what is okay and what is not okay. Things you are not able to control is not incest. They even went so far as to say if your aunt lived upstairs and floor broke and the aunt ended up in ones bed, that no man could restrain them self.

Cracking India

Blog Paragraph # 2

Feeling like one belongs to a nation is the most important aspect of nationality, In Bapsi Sidwa's Cracking India, Lenny notices everyone's feelings change among her friends, when the going gets tough. Cracking India discusses a time in India when everyone was clinging to a nationality, whether it was Hindu, Muslim, or Sikhism. Lenny notices differences through out this book that separates the different religions. From hair, to the young Muslim girls being allowed to wear make-up, everyone notices each others differences at this time to cling to religion, without anything else to cling to. Throughout the book Lenny's Ayah is a popular character at the Queen's Park. This is a place where everyone comes and wants to impress Ayah, from the ice-candy man, to  Masseur. Ayah ends up becoming fond of Masseur. Later in Cracking India Ayah's friends all flee Lahore and leave her there alone, and Masseur passes away. At this point, feelings are such a strong part of belonging and Lenny feels for Ayah " And Masseur's death has left in her the great empty ache I know sometimes when the muscles of my stomach retract around hungry spaces within me.... but I know there is an added dimension to her loss I cannot comprehend. I know at least that my lover lives somewhere in the distant and possible future: I have hope"(p.188).  Lenny begins to feel for Ayah because she means the world to Lenny, this feeling is also like the feeling of of belonging in a nationality. It is just that "a feeling". McLeod talks about how feeling is just part of why we have a nationality "These feelings of community are the emotive foundation for the organisation, administration and membership of the 'state', the political apparatus which enforces the social order of the nation"(p. 82). Everyone wants to feel like they belong, Lenny wants to Ayah to feel like she belongs, and also wants to someday find someone to share her life with. The feeling of belonging is the feeling of nationality and in Cracking India Lenny struggles to find where she belongs, wanting everyone to be the same.
This Muslim girl with make up on reminds me of the ones that Lenny would see walking around the park.This novel is completely about womens issues. Lenny being a young girl with polio and her Ayah who she eventually tried to cover for because she is of different religion but ends up hurting her by mistake. To the right is a picture of Ice Candy Man. This is the name they gave the book in India. They called in Cracking India in the United States.

The Overland Mail

In Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Overland Mail", the vast jungle becomes an everyday obstacle for some as job to get mail across to the overland. The significance of the landscape is crucial to understanding the poem. The poem starts as dark is beginning to take over the night. The runner starts his journey off in the dark of the night starting at the railway. McLeod states "In the first stanza there is created the sense that the landscape which lies ahead is not going to be hospitable. It is referred to bluntly as a 'jungle', and the poet warns of 'robbers' and 'tigers' that must 'make way' for the mail to be delivered in the 'Name of the Empress of India', Britain's Queen Victoria"(71). India is portrayed as this land that contains many obstacles that must be crossed just to deliver mail from the homeland to the hills. These messages cross obstacles of safety. The landscape threatens the runner with water problems which could destroy roads. The landscape of the nature is represented as danger. The Empress of India symbolizes the dangers like the 'tiger'. The vast, and empty landscape leaves only the runner and the robber."This is a depopulated landscape. The only figures who feature are those significant to the British in the Indian hills and who either maintain or threaten the smooth running of their postal service. In presenting this part of India as a wilderness of obstacles, an ominous, anonymous jungle, Kipling virtually empties it of indigenous Indians. This depiction of the landscape is clearly mediated by the limited perception of the British and shapes a particular and selective envisioning of space"(72). Next it talks about how India is out of control until the reach of the calm of the British . This all symbolized the colonization of India during colonialism. McCleod also talks about the landscape of the poem moving higher and higher  which he wants to argue as a metaphor for the conquest of India by the British. This metaphor of the landscape just shapes India into a fight between the hills of homeland and the settled British. The landscape may be an obstacle, but this is nothing the people of India have not before come to face.

"Said argues that Orientalism can be found in current Western depictions of "Arab" cultures. The depictions of "the Arab" as irrational, menacing, untrustworthy, anti-Western, dishonest, and--perhaps most importantly--prototypical, are ideas into which Orientalist scholarship has evolved. These notions are trusted as foundations for both ideologies and policies developed by the Occident. Said writes: "The hold these instruments have on the mind is increased by the institutions built around them. For every Orientalist, quite literally, there is a support system of staggering power, considering the ephemerality of the myths that Orientalism propagates."-http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html



There is so much discussion of the sexuality of women in orientalism. They are sexualized by men and men are also somewhat feminine.

In this picture this woman is being sexualized along with the women next to her. The men behind and beside them are enjoying the show and as well seem to be dressed a little bit feminine.